LIVE REVIEW + PHOTOS: ALT BLK ERA – Rough Trade, Liverpool – 27/01/2025

At the very end of tonight’s appearance, ALT BLK ERA’s de facto leader Nyrobi Beckett-Messam reveals that the duo’s just-released debut Rave Immortal is currently at number 22 in the UK charts. That’s a legitimately surprising stat—ALT BLK ERA are still very new and very inexperienced, and yet they’ve somehow struck this much of a chord. The room above Rough Trade could just as easily serve as a microcosm to that, hardly heaving with bodies but those here are evidently passionate. And it’s unequivocally a good thing to see how ALT BLK ERA’s evolution and improvement has inspired that.

Even so, this current run is very much a prelude for the real thing. A few in-store dates in celebration of their album’s release already carries the notion of an intimate, pared-back affair. Nottingham and Kingston have full-band shows (respectively a hometown appearance and the music industry’s always-fun southern bias, presumably), whereas here, it’s an acoustic set of four songs. It’s not much, sure—even with the Q&A lodged in the centre, the cumulative time onstage is less than an hour—but hey, it’s an interesting novelty, if for no other reason than witnessing an act one would imagine is completely unequipped for an acoustic performance doing just that. A good sonic juxtaposing is at least within ALT BLK ERA’s playbook. On Rave Immortal, they underwent almost an wholesale reinvention towards a drum ‘n’ bass / rave-rock aesthetic, away from earlier work that could charitably be classified as ‘baby Nova Twins’.

The setup they have here is, naturally, very different again. On the elevated stage, the two sit on directors chairs, their guitarist on one side and their box-hitter / tambourine-shaker on the other. It’s about as barebones as something like this gets, though it isn’t without it’s charm. Not at all, in fact, given how much subtle recontextualisations of Come On Outside and Hunt You Down do, both now in the form of low-hanging, grungy lilts. The pair themselves have really pleasant vocal timbres, eased back and far less brash than on record, with a nice selection of complementary timbres between them. You could argue the percussive thumps are a bit too loud on My Drummer’s Girlfriend, if you simply must nitpick, but this doesn’t feel like the place for that. The intimate, communal energy within the room will gloss over ‘shortcomings’ like that.

Because, honestly, it’s arguable that the music is just a peripheral element of the night anyway. It’s certainly treated as such when the Q&A is a substantive block of time to bisect these four songs. Even outside of that, the brighter source of the night is hearing ALT BLK ERA talk in a frank setting, even giving context on their album’s themes that mightn’t be immediately apparent upon listening. Nyrobi’s chronic fatigue syndrome is centrepiece of discussion, where she touches on how it’s affected her life, and the notion of invisible disabilities within the music industry and the support systems she has around her.

And you know what? It really does a lot to help grow the image of who ALT BLK ERA are. When they first started, they held this limp, one-note approach to genre-blending and transgression; now, there’s simply more here. There’s a clearer illustration of the solar and lunar personalities that previously felt like window-dressing—Nyrobi is the more talkative, outgoing one, dressed in white to reflect that; her sister Chaya is obviously younger and a lot quieter in ways visualised by her black attire. It’s hardly soul-wrenching depth, but there’s still time to grow into it. Besides, the excitability at where they are and what they’re doing isn’t something that’s all too restrainable in their position. Even outside of the snippets of levity—the first question asked is how their Wheatus collaboration came about—ALT BLK ERA just seem elated to be here. It’s that communal energy again, the ongoing source of what makes this such a good little time.

After all, you aren’t coming to something like this for a flawless display of ALT BLK ERA’s music. You come to be endeared towards a new act on the up, and who’ll proceed that way for the entirety of the year ahead and beyond. On those terms, then, they do a great job.

Words by Luke Nuttall

Photos by Sarah Grace (Instagram)