Live Review : Lost Society + Awake Again @ Star & Garter, Manchester on March 10th 2026

Samy Elbanna used to be a very angry man. Lost Society started life in their native Finland as a fairly straightforward thrash metal band who enjoyed a party but here we are some 16 years later crammed into the tiny room at the Star & Garter to see how they have evolved and grown. The thrash roots remain, the vocals are often strident and indicative of a still barely repressed fury but the lyrics are much more thoughtful and introspective. Even their sound has matured, adding in metalcore and groove to the mix to result in a heady atmosphere for a Tuesday night.

Openers Awake Again are fellow Finns, and have come to us in a flurry of alt-metal bounciness and melody. Unfortunately they also have a set of backing tracks that totally overpower the sound. It’s a small room, the acoustics aren’t necessarily the best to start with and despite the band’s best efforts you can barely hear them actually playing or singing. This is a shame, as they have a lot of energy and seem to be enjoying themselves hugely.

Singer Matti also has an impressive vocal range – he can growl or scream both at will and seemingly randomly, passing through some decent clean notes on his way to either extreme. They get to throw in a bit of a techno groove here and there and when I can actually hear some guitar it sounds pretty good. The bass player has an impressive dreadlocked pony-tail that he can helicopter very convincingly but I couldn’t make the bass sound out in the mix at all sadly. The beat was good, and the floor nodded along happily to it until right at the end when everyone freaked out to the song ‘Parasite’ that was obviously something of a favourite. I would like to see them again in a different setting as there seemed to be decent potential but it was just so hard to unpick it!

Tonight I am trying to work out what is going on with Lost Society’s outfits as they take to the stage. Samy is resplendent in black, leather jacket open to the waist to show off his tattoos, chains rattling as he moves about. The other 3 seem to be wearing white wipe-clean pvc overalls, or possibly hospital scrubs. It’s hard to tell if they are meant to perhaps be Samy’s medical team (the men in white coats keeping him under control) or under some kind of restraint themselves. I bet that PVC is pretty sweaty by the end of the night though! Anyhow, doubtful sartorial choices aside we are here tonight as part of a 3-date UK visit to celebrate the release of their most recent album “Hell Is A State of Mind”. Six of tonight’s 16-song setlist are lifted from it, but at the same time none of the previous releases are forgotten and we get flashbacks from their whole career alongside the most recent stuff.

Set opener ‘Afterlife’ is from the new album, and gives us a glimpse of what’s to come. It’s hard and fast, and Samy snarls and spits the lyrics at the same time as he draws the crowd closer to the stage. It’s a cacophony of aggression and power, tempered by just a touch of melody to lull us into a sense of security that may or may not be false. They continue with a couple of songs about blood, and the fury is barely contained. Indeed by ‘Blood On Your Hands’ the whole band grimaces with the effort of holding up the heaviness.

We are immediately thrown off-balance again with the between-song banter though. Samy can be moody and miserable but tonight we get his lighter side – he’s chirpy and happy and seems delighted to be sharing his space with us. Lost Society too are fans of a backing track, but in their case it underpins the sound rather than overwhelming it, and the sparkly riffing and growly bass make themselves heard right to the back of the room.

The songs come at us fast & uncompromising, and the crowd is small but enthusiastic. They punch the air and  headbang along as Samy exhorts us to imagine that we have reinvented Tuesdays to be the new Saturday. Of course it’s not all lightness, there are times when Samy sings his pain and you feel the emotion drip from every syllable that leaves his lips and every riff that is wrung from his guitar, The drums are a bit loud, but then again they do take up at least half the stage and Tazzy hits them hard – at one point Samy jokes about putting him behind plexiglass and to be honest on a stage this size that wouldn’t be a bad idea. Again, they manage not to overpower everything else but it’s a close shave on occasion! They continue to rage through the set, showing no mercy but then also just occasionally dropping the aggression in favour of a little pathos. For the most part though there is no compromise, no mercy. This band is out for blood tonight and the crowd is a willing sacrifice. There’s some very tasty dual guitar stuff where both Samy and his pvc-clad sidekick Arttu do that Scandi upright guitar thing – I blame Yngwie! It’s absolutely blistering, and by the time they get to the most recent single  ‘Dead People Scare Me’ off the new album they are crossing into electro-pop territory and some of the lyrics nudge close to street poetry or even rap. It's catchy in a punchy kind of way, crossing the genres like a Ghostbusters stream but somehow never losing their own sound.

A solo from Samy starts ‘I Am The Antidote’ and even his fingers sound angry now. This is a hark back to their more Metallica-alike roots, but with a whiff of disco that you can almost dance to. We get a woah-oh singalong going during ‘Time to Riot’ - it's a bouncer and everyone jumps along as commanded. It’s still fast and we are all still smiling; Samy even says the atmosphere is calming but I suspect his tongue was firmly in his cheek at the time.  

They skate towards power ballad territory with a song about missing home. ‘Is This What You Wanted’ drips with pain and anguish and lays Samy’s soul bare for all to see. That tender moment soon passes though, and we get back to the loud, the thrash, the metalcore that spans the decade and a half of the band’s existence. Back to 2013 with ‘KILL! (Those Who Oppose Us)’ and it’s another aggrieved and aggressive mosh with hints of both Motorhead & Metallica. It’s fast, faster, fastest and poor Tazzy on the drums must be absolutely knackered as he never misses a beat.

 We’re into the final strait now and Samy thanks us & tells us how much he loves the UK. They launch into ‘No Absolution’ and we jump and air guitar to our hearts content. This is the end of the main set but this stage is tiny and there’s nowhere for them to go so it’s straight into the new album title track ‘Hell is a State of Mind. It’s packed with time changes and more emotion, and, goes from emo to thrash in a heartbeat. It’s a nodalong with synchro headbanging on stage until we hit the next time change. Last song ‘Awake’ is another soul-baring rompalong which gets a great reaction. This is a band who have headlined festivals yet still made time to come and play for us on a tiny stage in a tiny room, and in either situation they manage to keep the crowd interested and engaged from start to finish. It seems that Samy is right and Tuesday is indeed the new Saturday!

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Lost Society + Awake Again