SOLID PLEASURE + DEATH DRIVE – DALTONS, BRIGHTON 9.12.25
As far as I can recall, I first stumbled across part-time goth and full-time music lover Yemi Sawyerr on 28th April last year at the Green Door Store as part of the Sonic Crush trio, when they were supporting Los Angeles based outfit Patriarchy. I concluded my review of Sonic Crush that evening by stating “Sonic Crush gave a good account of themselves and hopefully they will be back in Brighton in the not too distant future”. Yemi (they/them) was taking care of vocals, bass and laptop duties and the other two members of the band were Jay (they/them) on drums, and Lucy Milani (she/her) on guitar and synth.
Since that evening, Yemi has been busy within the music industry and by day works in Event Production for London based label ‘Jazz re:freshed’, and now is also the host of Tenebris Radio which “is your fix of New-Wave, Post-Punk, Acid, House, EBM and whatever else goes grunge in the night”. You can check out the latest shows HERE and our previous review of Sonic Crush HERE.
Not only has Yemi been busy, but so has fellow bandmate Lucy Milani who is now one-half of Brighton based outfit Solid Pleasure, the other fifty percent being Neave Merrick who takes care of the vocals. And it’s this duo who are the headline act this evening at Daltons which is located a stone’s throw from Brighton Pier, under the zipwire, and this event has been put together by Yemi under the Tenebris banner. More on them shortly….
The support slot for tonight has been snapped up by Death Drive who are a London based duo comprising Brazilian born Danny Sanchez on synths, drum machines and FX, and French born Carine Fierobe on vocals. This is their debut Brighton performance! They are heavily inspired by the relentless pace of industrial EBM and the production and ambience of modern darkwave, as well as synthpop, post punk and neo noir. Think of artists like Boy Harsher, SDH, Depeche Mode and Debby Friday and you’ll be in the right parish.
We are in Death Drive’s company for 29 minutes, from 8:25pm until 8:54pm, and during that time we are rewarded with seven self-penned numbers. They take to the stage with hoods up and immediately have an air of mystery about them. Danny is to our left and busies himself on an Elektron Digitakt Sequencer & Sampler unit, another electronic unit, and what appears to be something akin to an iPad, and Carine is to our right and is on vocal duties, and has the initial image of something akin to Gazelle Twin, as we can’t immediately see her face.
Danny starts with a droning beat as if to call the stragglers from outside into the venue. The electronic beat then kicks in for the yet to be released ‘Calm Down’ and immediately the punters are locked in the zone. After this tune, Carine says “Thank you. Thank you for being here. We are Death Drive!” and they immediately launched into their June 2025 single, ‘Volcano’. During this I am pleasantly reminded of the distinctive French vocals of hard CORPS singer Regine Fetet (RIP), who were like Kraftwerk with French female vocals. They toured as support to The Cure and Depeche Mode back in the day and were pretty epic! But I’m bound to say that, on account that I used to produce their official fanzine.
Carine came and had a dance in the crowd during their third tune, this being their ‘Adrift Haze’ single which came out in March this year. This is more of a melodic tune than the previous couple of numbers and it has the feel of synthpop meets Bomb The Bass. Another single follows, with the arrival of ‘Love Me’ which dropped back in June 2024 and was given the remix treatment in October last year. It begins with a striking spoken word sample that states “Come on, read my future for me” and the reply is “You haven’t got any!”. It’s a striking beginning and is culled from the 1958 film ‘Touch Of Evil’ where a drunken Captain Hank Quinlan, played by Orson Welles, requests this of Marlene Dietrich’s character, Tanya. The track is a gritty bangin’ number which was narrowly the standout track of the set.
Although Carine would no doubt disagree with me as she states that the next song, the current single ‘Don’t Hide’ is her favourite release so far. This too has a booming beat and very much falls within EBM territory. They close the performance with a couple of unreleased tunes. The first of these being ‘C9’ which has a more aggressive Nine Inch Nail feel to it, it’s a durrrty tune! They sign off with ‘13’ which is laden with sharp electronic bleeps and booming electronic beats. It’s a great way to end and in all honesty, I really wanted them to immediately play the whole set over again! Death Drive are now very much on my radar and I pray that they make a swift return to the Sussex seaside!
Death Drive:
Danny Sanchez – synths, drum machines, FX
Carine Fierobe – vocals
Death Drive setlist:
‘Calm Down’ (unreleased)
‘Volcano’ (a 2025 single)
‘Adrift Haze’ (a 2025 single)
‘Love Me’ (a 2024 single)
‘Don’t Hide’ (a 2025 single)
‘C9’ (unreleased)
‘13’ (unreleased)
And so now the baton passes across to Solid Pleasure who have posted the following on their social media: “Neave Merrick and Lucy Milani are two synth freaks who bonded over mutual obsessions – Italo disco at 3am, synth-pop gloss, acid house sweat, no wave abrasion, Lynchian dream-logic, and Giallo’s blood-red glamour. Their sound is what happens when all those worlds collide: neon romance, industrial pulse, and cinematic dread fused into something sleek, beautiful, and undeniably theirs”.
This is my debut encounter with the duo, although we have recently reviewed their second ever live performance and tonight they are utilizing the same equipment as on our previous encounter, which then was listed as “Neave on vocals had a Roland Ju-06A Sound Module and a voice effect unit of some sort that I could not quite see. Whilst Lucy had quite the range of tech, a Roland Touch Bass TB-3, a Behringer MODEL D Authentic Analog Synthesizer, a Roland TR-8 – Rhythm Performer along with an Apple Laptop”.
We are in their company until 9:51pm and we are rewarded with eight tracks, although earlier in the day there was a plan to perform another track mid-set, this being ‘Analog Mod (Instrumental)’ but I guess there wasn’t time for this or they had a change of heart. They commenced with ‘Blue Monday’, yes that one! It was a very brave choice, as how can you improve on New Order’s perfect original? Lucy was busy creating the beat, whilst Neave was working on his reverb drenched vocals. It was an interesting take with echoed vocals instead of full lines of vocals.
Selection two is their brand new single, which is titled ‘New York’ and it began with “Walking along that Brooklyn bridge; I really felt like Quentin Crisp..” which immediately made me recall Quentin Crisp’s ‘The Naked Civil Servant’ film from 1975, which was all the talk of the playground for days and weeks to come. It also reminded me of Sting’s homage “Oh, I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien; I’m an Englishman in New York”. This track is littered with bleepy synthpop beats and there’s more reverb drenched vocals on offer. This is followed by the yet to be released ‘What You See In Me Is A Mystery’ which surprisingly featured a melodic vocal delivery from Neave which fell within The Associates Billy Mackenzie’s (RIP) remit. The song also benefits from a retro 1980’s beat. After this Neave addresses the punters, but I haven’t got a clue what he’s saying as the Roland Ju-06A Sound Module was still echoing. It might have been wise to have had a second ‘clean’ mic without the effects unit.
Their September 2025 ‘Lux Interior’ single was up next and was for yours truly the equal best track of the set. The vocals reminded me of Benny Benassi’s ‘Satisfaction’ and the electronics certainly would have fitted nicely within Stevo Pearce’s ‘Some Bizarre Album’ compilation record, which legendary featured some of the earliest material by Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Blancmange, B-Movie and The The, to name just a handful. The tune also reminded me of the recent material by TR/ST. Speaking of which, I was talking to my friends about TR/ST this evening prior to the bands coming on stage, and astonishingly within seconds Yemi dropped a TR/ST track as the next selection on the decks! We were quite some distance away so I could not have been heard. A case of great minds thinking alike, one could argue!
Moving on…and it was time for Solid Pleasure to perform their October 2025 single, this being ‘Born To Be Mild’ which has a bleepy acid house style beat. Neave decided to get up close and personal with the punters during this number. The unreleased ‘Bury Your Head’ came next and once again Neave had a little wander. The penultimate offering was the unreleased ‘Insufferable’ which on reflection was very narrowly even better than ‘Lux Interior’ and thus track of the set. This fell very nicely into sounding like the sister of Depeche Mode’s ‘Photographic’, which actually appeared on the aforementioned ‘Some Bizarre Album’. Some of the vocal lines again reminded me of Billy Mackenzie.
Neave then announced that the next song is their last one and a tune which he wished that he had written, this was ‘Sweet And Tender Hooligan’ which originally came out as the B-side of ‘Sheila Take A Bow’ by The Smiths. Suffice to say, that this version was miles away from the original, and was nearer to the New York electronic pioneers Suicide and anything else. With one last foray into the crowd and they were done, our night had come to a close. It had been an interesting and mainly enjoyable set, but hopefully next time around there will be less special effects on the vocals!
Solid Pleasure are next playing live in Brighton with Francis Pig and U Men on 18th December at the Green Door Store, with doors opening at 7pm, and guess what….Christmas has come early as it’s a free entry concert, so get yourself along to support the fab bands and great grassroots music venue. You can listen to thor music by clicking these links: Francis Pig, U Men and Solid Pleasure.
Solid Pleasure:
Neave Merrick – vocals
Lucy Milani – synths
Solid Pleasure setlist:
‘Blue Monday’ (New Order cover)
‘New York’ (a 2025 single)
‘What You See In Me Is A Mystery’ (unreleased)
‘Lux Interior’ (a 2025 single)
‘Born To Be Mild’ (a 2025 single)
‘Bury Your Head’ (unreleased)
‘Insufferable’ (unreleased)
‘Sweet And Tender Hooligan’ (The Smiths cover)
