6 bands you need to see at Reality Unfolds Festival 2025
The London Hardcore bonanza is back once again for a weekend of violence in the Big Smoke. Here's everyone you need to pull up for
London’s New Cross Inn is a legendary venue in the city’s history at large after hosting timeless and iconic acts over the years, but Hardcore fans know that it’s the violent subsect of music that does the venue proud, with legendary shows coming out of its ears and being a firm favourite in the city’s scene. It’s just as well, then, that Hardcore’s greatest upcoming talents should descend on the venue for Reality Unfolds 2025, a three-day bender of violence and silly walks.
The festival has put together a monster of a lineup that even tops its last instalment featuring the likes of Pupil Slicer and Fuming Mouth, bringing heroes over from overseas and spotlighting some of the very best that UKHC has to offer. Here are the bands that you can’t miss this weekend.
Ringworm
The festival’s highest-reaching headliner to date, Ringworm make their return to the Big Smoke for the first time since 2009 when they headline the Saturday of Reality Unfolds. The gnarly Metallic Hardcore troupe made a loud step onto the scene with 1996’s The Promise, delivering on an old-school moodiness that has carried all the way to their latest offering, 2023’s Seeing Though Fire. Ringworm’s sound is truly vicious, and their whole discography has consistently delivered punishment in the form of heaving drums and menacing chugs. If you’d missed out on showing off your seriously deadly moves in the pit until Saturday’s headliner rolls around, Ringworm will no doubt give you your chance.
Perp Walk
Truthfully, I could have talked for hours about Bristol’s finest Hardcore bands on this bill, with the brilliant queercore mob Uncertainty making an appearance too, but Perp Walk has proved time and time again that festival appearances are light work, especially after the band’s triumphant set at Outbreak Festival 2024 and a not-so-secret appearance at Bristol’s Hardcore Half-Dayer. The band’s melody-first and layered guitar work turns stompy riffs into rich tapestries, creating cacophonous wails that speak to the Hardcore fan in search of total sonic anarchy. Silly walkers, this one’s for you.
Vicarage
Vicarage offers a moody density and doom-and-gloom aesthetic that would be next to impossible for any other band of their size, but with absolute dedication and songwriting that steers them into a uniquely thumping grimness, they’ve managed to set themselves apart in a big way. Slotting into the Friday lineup perfectly, the band put on an immaculate, tight and precise show, as locked down in its breakdowns as it is in its reverb-drenched reprises. The sound that Vicarage has forged is genuinely oppressive, infinitely infectious, and nigh-on unmissable.
Impunity
Impunity has had a massive year, ripping all over the world and representing Northern Unrest everywhere. Playing shows with Fleshwater and tearing up Outbreak Festival 2024 (and 2025), the band are clean-cut, precise and vicious. There’s a little of everything you need out of Hardcore in Impunity, delivered with swagger and a great sense of humour (because who else is writing beatdown covers of the Inspector Gadget theme?). It’s bouncy, it’s brutal, and you won’t get out of their set without kicking someone’s head in or shaking some ass. This delivery of atmoshsphere is going to be lethal.
Long Goodbye
In just one four-track EP, Long Goodbye has established itself as a force to be reckoned with as The Coming Strife’s premium export. The viciousness of their writing is delivered with immense bite, and their appearance on the Friday of the festival is no accident, representing shrill chaos with their screamo compatriots. IF their written track record is anything to go by, their set will be one of the most vicious of the weekend. Prepare for chaos.
Shooting Daggers
Altopsy favourites Shooting Daggers make an appearance on the Sunday of Reality Unfolds, bringing their surfy, excitable Hardcore Punk to the New Cross Inn. After some brilliant sets at Burn It Down Festival and on the road with Spaced, the band have cemented themselves as the band to bring back the fun after an awful lot of violence. Upbeat, danceable and infected with incredible excitement, Shooting Daggers are set to tear through tracks from Altopsy Dissected alumni album Love and Rage at breakneck speed. Enjoy Shooting Daggers’ set while you can, because it’ll be over before you’ll be ready for it to be.
Reality Unfolds comes to New Cross Inn in London in January, from the 17th to the 19th. Follow the festival on Instagram here