The Fall and the Rise: The Murder Capital’s unrelenting ascent at New Century Hall, Manchester
- Paul Evans
- Apr 21
- 4 min read
New Century Hall, Manchester, 18th April 2025.
WORDS AND IMAGES PAUL EVANS
It’s a crisp April evening in Manchester and The Murder Capital are about to deliver a performance at New Century Hall that is nothing short of transformative. The Dublin quintet, known for their intense post-punk soundscapes and emotionally charged performances, are about to captivate the audience with a setlist that traverses their discography. With live shows renowned for their brooding atmosphere, unrelenting tension and frontman James McGovern’s magnetic stage presence, often performing like a man teetering on the edge of collapse what else could we expect?
The 1,200-capacity room with its glistening retro ceiling panels and intimate sightlines, is crammed with a sea of black bodies ready to be undone, reassembled and spiritually exorcised by one of the most commanding live bands of the moment. A low rumble of synth swells into the venue like a pressure system rolling in from the Irish Sea. Then, as if summoned by a phantom conductor, the band erupt into The Fall, a brooding new centrepiece. Its icy precision and slow-burning menace set the tone for the night. McGovern stands centre-stage, tall and imposing, his voice already trembling with controlled fury as he snarls the lyrics. There’s something theatrical about McGovern’s stage presence, like an unholy hybrid of Ian Curtis, Nick Cave and a spectral preacher, but it never feels contrived, he’s just a natural frontman.
With More Is Less the band twist the throttle. The clattering angularity of guitar lines lock in with surgically controlled drums, while the bass provides that deep, slinking throb that could rearrange your stomach lining. McGovern prowls the stage snarling the words as the crowd arms raised jump along. Death of a Giant arrives like a ghost whispering through an abandoned cathedral. The lyrics, a reckoning and the inability to reclaim lost time, has James singing like the weight of the song might snap him in two. The orange stage lights are dimmed to near black, as he delivers each line like a eulogy and dropping into the photo pit to shake hands with the crowd.
The Stars Will Leave Their Stage shimmers into life, built on skeletal synths and an echoing guitar motif that shimmers like distant headlights. It is a welcome slow burning change in tempo and beautifully juxtaposed by A Distant Life, one of the night’s most emotionally devastating moments. The band allow the tension to build in near silence. It is fragile. delicate, with McGovern head tilted to the ceiling, eyes closed in near-spiritual surrender. It’s a stunning song and stunning performance. And then comes Heart in the Hole, a song that juxtaposes raw lyrical grief with a deceptively danceable rhythm section. There are moments where the crowd, began to lose themselves completely as the song builds to its climax. Arms go up, bodies move. The band respond in kind, clearly feeding off the kinetic energy and a new kind of communion is forming, less mournful, more ecstatic.
If there was ever any doubt that The Murder Capital could still tap into the kinetic fury that marked their debut album “When I Have Fears”, Feeling Fades obliterates it. The pit explodes. The opening riff slices through the crowd like a buzzsaw. McGovern leans into the front rows, sweat flying from his brow, as he barks the refrain. It is primal and unrelenting, but melodic and a powerful journey. A reminder of the band’s roots and a warning that they haven’t dulled with time. They’ve evolved, yes, but they haven’t softened.
This twin movement of Slowdance I and Slowdance II has become a defining sequence in their live shows and tonight it reaches a new level of poignancy. Slowdance I is built on tension, minimal drum work, ringing chords and those aching silences. McGovern barely sings the first verse, choosing instead to speak it into the microphone like a confession. With Slowdance II everything expands. Drumming becomes tribal, the guitar weeps and the synths bloom into full melancholic glory. The entire band moves in sync, all playing as one organism. Both songs are cinematic in scope and painfully human in delivery. Wow.
Trailing a Wing is spectral, delicate and poetic, a song about the wounds we carry, it floats above the crowd like a drifting ghost. Ethel, one of their most tender and melancholic pieces, is a paean to youth, loss and the bittersweet beauty of memory. You can hear a pin drop, but it’s Words Lost Meaning that feels like the heart of the night. A new song that reflects on the slow erosion of truth. It’s performed with restraint and haunted precision. James whispers the chorus like a man afraid of what he might hear if he sings it too loud.
As the final notes ring out from Love of Country and the band walk off stage for the last time, New Century Hall stands transformed. What sets The Murder Capital apart from their post-punk contemporaries is their capacity for dynamic contrast. Where some bands favour constant aggression, The Murder Capital embrace stillness and silence as powerfully as noise. The Murder Capital are more than a band. They are a necessity. A mirror held up to the times, a voice for the disillusioned, a bandage for the bruised and tonight in Manchester, they’ve reminded us all that even in the most suffocating darkness, there’s still poetry. There’s still hope and above all, there’s still noise.
SETLIST
1/ The Fall
2/ More Is Less
3/ Death of a Giant
4/ The Stars Will Leave Their Stage
5/ A Distant Life
6/ That Feeling
7/ Heart in the Hole
8/ Feeling Fades
9/ Slowdance I
10/ Slowdance II
11/ Swallow
12/ Crying
13/ For Everything
14/ Can't Pretend to Know
15/ Moonshot
16/ Don't Cling to Life
Encore:
17/ Trailing a Wing
18/ Ethel
19/ Words Lost Meaning
20/ Love of Country
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