Gig Review: Grenades., Museum of Backward Hats and Code Break - The Salty Dog Northwich - Saturday 28 June 2025

Words: Richie Yates Photos: Richie Yates/Adrian Wharton/Al Blundell/Keith Chilvers

Code Break are on form, the drums suitably pounding, brutal but melodic bass lines with crafted intelligent guitars slicing on the top, all this fronted by a mad man who’s powerful voice hit all the right notes and keeps it all together. They run through a tight set efficiently and yet still have that manic edge of will it explode in our faces danger that the best bands emanate from the stage. There’s something beyond their hooklines here, you feel watching them that a larger stage would suit them well.

This reviewer plays in Museum of Backward Hats and Last Stop rules still won’t let me write an ace review of the band…

Grenades tell us they’ve been going for about 20 years but it seems only lately that their post punk Stooges imbued attack has been gigging with any regularity. We saw them at Percys in Whitchurch a few weeks back and it was a suitably semi unhinged performance then and now. They have dynamics and there’s a feel of 1980s post punk about their sound mixed with the already mentioned Stooges groove (specifically a Ron Asheton groove). Loose yet tight, ear catching and sometimes gloriously sonically impenetrable.