Written By Tom Wilke
“A Cold Day in BNE 2025 was a brutal celebration of Brisbane’s underground metal scene, turning The Triffid into a warzone of hardcore punk and death metal chaos.” By any metric, the third installment of A Cold Day In BNE was a triumph of extreme underground music. Raw power framed within The Triffid’s old WWII hangar aesthetic, making for a brutal perfect pairing of sound and setting.
From the word go, fans were herded inside from the dampness into a subterranean, bunker like stage room where the air pulsed with tension and expectation.
Brisbane might have been soaked in rain on July 26, but inside, the storm was sonic. A Cold Day was a warzone of punk, hardcore, and death metal carnage.
“When I got there around 8 PM, the venue was already packed despite the weather.” I scribbled into my phone between sets. “Luckily, it’s indoors though honestly, it feels like a bunker. My friend Lindon told me this stage used to be an old Army hangar during World War II, which is sick. Same place I saw Cattle Decapitation once, so I knew it was gonna sound amazing.”
The Bands That Left Scars
The night kicked off with an unexpected gut punch. “The first band I saw blew me away.” Threshold, fronted by a powerhouse named Tenaya. She pushed her voice to its limits despite vocal issues, wielding hardcore energy like a weapon. She was an absolute beast.”That set the tone: unrelenting heaviness.
When Extortion tore into “Maniac” from their album Degenerate, a pit started with some bodies colliding. Within seconds, one fearless mosher faceplanted hard. A brutal slam that instantly became pit folklore (and yes, I caught it on video for posterity). She got up grinning, proving once again that in Brisbane, pain is just another badge of honor in the underground.
Putrescent Seepage, the most frenetic, brutal death metal you could cram into a stage. “No one even moshed. Everyone just stood there, dumbstruck by how heavy it was. The most gurgliest vocals I’ve ever heard.”
Histamine snapped the room into chaos with “fast paced hardcore punk, pure unadulterated punk aggression.”
Algor Mortis sank deep, the riffs felt submerged beneath geological pressure, with punishing death metal so heavy the pit nearly collapsed inward. Cecilia Keane sounded like the dude from Abominable Putridity, Angel Ochoa. Just insane, deep guttural growls
Gutless promised a “quick but painful death” and delivered: ferocious technical death metal with razor-growls and riffs sharp enough to slice through steel.
Shackles (SHACKLΣS) brought grinding death energy, putting paid to any doubt they belonged on a stage with Disentomb and others they’d long revered.
Disentomb? Forget it. “They were insanely good. Frontman Jawd James… intimidating as hell the way he performs. The whole set felt like getting hit by a freight train.”
When Ingested pulled out (still no clue why), Extortion stepped in as headliner. “I wasn’t familiar with them before, but live? Holy shit. So much fun. Extremely punk influenced riffs, total chaos. I checked their Spotify later and didn’t love the recordings as much but live, they were fantastic.”
The Scene & The Madness
I love the chaos of a festival that’s small but savage. No fake gloss, no big brand polish, just raw community and sound. People were headbanging like their spines had hinges. There was a guy in a shirt that said CUM METAL? Legend.
By the end of the night, it wasn’t about the rain outside, it was about the storm inside. The riffs, the blast beats, the collective catharsis of a crowd losing their minds in a room that used to house warplanes. History never sounded this loud.
Final Thoughts
If you were standing there, drenched in sweat and blasted into sensory disarray, you already know. This wasn’t just another day. It was a cold day etched into memory. Each band brought something lethal, whether it was razor precision (Gutless), brutal groove (Putrescent Seepage), or hardcore intensity (Extortion). Not a note wasted. Not a crowd unmoved.
A Cold Day in BNE isn’t just a gig, it’s a manifesto. A brutal, beautiful platform for bands that deserve it, for fans who live for it. I left soaked in sweat, ears ringing, brain rewired. And I’d do it all again tomorrow.
Tom Wilke is a music journalist, casual rhythm guitarist and Metal Lair ambassador based in Brisbane, Australia. He was once a member of the ‘All Things Metal’ inner circle, a once great metal journalism group that was slain by Zuck, eater of worlds, and rose from the ashes to become Metal Lair.
Tom’s been involved in the Brisbane metal scene since 2012 doing occasional roadie work, helping friends with song writing and getting rowdy in the moshpit. After taking a break from music to focus on other things, Tom joined the Metal Lair team in 2023 and now you can find him interviewing bands for us on zoom, writing reviews for gigs and festivals, networking and doing a little photography on the side.
Tom’s top 5 bands:
Cattle Decapitation
Gojira
Revocation
Skeletonwitch
The Acacia Strain
