Alien Chicks - Live at MOTH CLUB

Alien Chicks are one of those bands that stick with you. Whether that’s because you heard Steve Buscemi once and have been entirely unable to get it out of your head since, or because you saw them live and couldn’t quite believe what you were seeing - both in front of you and all around you. Either way, it’s undeniable that Alien Chicks put on an unforgettable live performance, and they proved just how true this is at their recent Moth Club set.

The show was, to put it (extremely) lightly, raucous. It was loud, proud, and charmingly eccentric. The band came close to blowing the sparkly, gold roof off the venue multiple times, as a result of just how thunderous they were. 

Throughout the show, the band took us and the rest of the audience on a journey through a seemingly endless array of different musical stylings - you couldn’t have guessed their next move if you tried. From punk to rock and even to jazz - with the addition of an excellent saxophonist - the group kept us in anticipation throughout, for sure. None of this felt out of place, either. Despite all of the different elements the band incorporated, the show felt incredibly cohesive. This is presumably because the trio appear to be such a tight unit. Just from watching them, it’s apparent that the three of them are finely in tune with one another - able to visualise what another member might do, and with an on-point capacity to respond in turn, almost without having to think about it. This, in our opinion, is the mark of an excellent band in the making - well on their way to becoming one of the biggest (and most interesting) names in London’s music scene.

Alien Chicks, without a doubt, have a mass of utterly devoted fans. A lot of hardcore gigs that descend into chaos usually have a sequence of events - feeling the band, feeling the room, letting opening tracks get a hold of you. A steady kind of grind. At this gig though, even before the band had played the first notee of their first track, the centre crowd were already poised in a way that was almost telepathically perfect for what was to come. There were countless people crowd-surfing at any given time, moshing, and screaming along to the set - a loud audience fit for a loud band. Plus, midway through the show, the band’s colleagues - who were, unexpectedly, science teachers - showed up, much to the delight of both the band and the audience.

One of the highlights of the show included their performance of While My Landlord Sleeps, which the band released back in 2022. This track, and their performance of it, truly captured the essence of the modern punk scene - it’s aggressive and angry and rebellious, and we think it’s one of the songs that perfectly sums up the band as a whole. Hearing it in person truly adds to the experience, and if you get the chance to see Alien Chicks live, you’ll see what we mean. 

At the end of the show, the band left the stage by crowd-surfing out of the room, almost catching their heads in the mass of wires around the stage lights, while undeniably revelling in it all. It felt like one of those moments where you have the extreme luck to witness people who are truly in their element - and this, we think, is what Alien Chicks’ shows are all about.

Alien Chicks put out an EP - Indulging the Mobs - earlier this month. We’d highly recommend it to anyone new to the band, as it’s one of their most cohesive and fully-realised works to date. Our stand-out track from the EP is Qwerty, which they played at their Moth Club show - a track which is a masterclass in the heavy, punk sound, and was only improved when played live in a sweaty club in East London.

One thing’s for sure, and that’s that Alien Chicks are certainly a band to watch out for now and in the future. It’s clear they’re doing something way more exciting than just simply ‘indulging the mobs’.

Photos by Sarah Pruim // @sarahpruim.jpg