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Loud and proudly Welsh: Adwaith worth the wait
- Matt Davies
- 10 hours ago
- 8 min read
MATT DAVIES is dazzled by the sun and a wealth of talent at Chester's Loud and Local '25
Carmarthen-based trio Adwaith (Welsh for ‘reaction’) have been wowing the festival circuit all summer with their hypnotic post-punk pop/rock.
I’ve had their mesmerising, eclectic, pulsating 23-track Welsh language masterpiece Solas on constant rotation since reading a review in the March 2025 edition of Electronic Sound magazine. I was lucky enough to catch their brilliant, but all-too-short, set at the Bearded Theory Festival in May.
So, imagine my delight when it was announced they were top of the bill at Chester’s ‘Loud and Local’ all-dayer on August Bank Holiday weekend at Alexander’s Live in Rufus Court, 50 yards down the road from where I work off Northgate Street.
An enlightened masterpiece
Celebrating their tenth year as a band, Hollie Singer (guitar and vocals), Gwenllian Anthony (bass guitar, keys and vocals) and Heledd Owen (drums and backing vocals) have already won the Welsh Music Prize twice with their first two albums – Melyn and Bato Mato - and who would bet against them winning it a third time in October with the 23-track Solas (Welsh for ‘enlightenment’) - my album of the decade so far. It’s full of ridiculously infectious melodies, gorgeous harmonies, and a plethora of musical styles and rhythms, including West African and Turkish influences.
One review describes Solas as “Adwaith’s OK Computer, their Hounds of Love”. Apart from the Beatles White Album I’m struggling to think of any other LP containing that many songs (running time 76 minutes) with a complete absence of sag or filler. Various write-ups cite their inspirations as The Cure, Björk, Cocteau Twins, Breeders, Can, Neu!, Velvet Underground, 1990s Welsh indie rock and French musician and composer Lizzy Mercier Descloux. Their 'My Life in 10 Songs' in Joyzine magazine reveals the assimilation of a giddying range of favourites, including The Smiths, The Who, Britney Spears, Gwenno, Kendrick Lamarr, Stone Roses and Aphex Twin.
At Loud and Local, Adwaith play to an enthusiastic crowd. It’s probably a smaller set-up than the ones they’ve been used to playing recently, such as the Green Man Festival. But there’s no sense of going through the motions – they play with the same gusto as if they were headlining Glastonbury. Hollie’s laid back, gorgeously nuanced vocal delivery and stunningly varied guitar effects complement Gwenllian’s growling bass guitar-playing, frenzied head-shaking, foot-stomping persona. Heledd’s masterful drumming holds it all together - intense concentration pounding out fluent and varied rhythms.
They launch their set with the opening two tracks from Solas – the blistering synth-rock ‘Planed’, which (as on the album) segues into the tribal bass guitar-led funk of ‘MWY’ overlaid with luscious vocal harmonies. Then it’s just one banger after another, from the mellow ‘Teimlo’ to the irresistible pop-rock of ‘Miliwyn’ and ‘Peldyr-X’. On the latter, Hollie swaps lead for bass guitar and hands vocal duties to Gwenllian, who struts, tongue-in-cheek, to and fro across the stage like a pumped-up prima donna, and then joins us punters off-stage for further dance antics.
Spellbinding Welsh wonders
And this, for me, is what makes Adwaith such a class act. They’ve mastered merging musical professionalism with a relaxed, unflustered engaging rapport with the audience. For instance, for the ludicrously catchy ‘Coeden Anniben’, they happily respond to the clamour for a young chap to join them on stage to showcase the air guitar and dance move skills he’d been honing for much of the day in front of each act.
Adwaith’s principled commitment to singing in their native Welsh is also to be lauded. It is a tribute to the quality of the songs that I mouth some of the words (or sounds that I hear) with little knowledge of the language. I also have my suspicions that if Adwaith sung in English, they would have a much more prominent profile and sold tons more records, so Anglophilic is the music industry. So, extra credit due for their uncompromising stance.
Loud and Local '25: top marks for organisation
Loud and Local was blessed with great weather, a good-humoured crowd of all ages and fantastic organisation – 20 acts spread across the smaller Courtyard Stage and the main Garden Stage, with staggered times so that theoretically you could watch every act from 12 noon to 12 midnight. I didn’t quite have the stamina for that, but I caught half the performances, and as a seasoned gig frequenter and occasional bass guitar performer, was curious (and a little anxious) to see how they dealt with so many change-overs involving line-checks (sound checks on stage just before performing) with the range of instrumentation and genres on offer. It only takes a dodgy cable, a late or stroppy performer, or an act not sticking to their time, and the ensuing domino effect causes chaos. Thankfully, the very sensible 30-minutes on 30-minutes break worked without any obvious hitches.
Chroma
Alt-rock bilingual trio Chroma from Pontypridd banged out a bevy of feminist-themed punk-style tunes, fronted by singer Katie Hall’s uncompromising vocals. Influenced by bands such as the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and The Gossip, their lyrics touch on trans rights, violence against women and mental health. They have supported Foo Fighters in Manchester and their 2023 debut album Ask for Angela – named after the safety campaign of the same name – has been met with critical acclaim.
Campfire Social
Wrexham-based six-piece Campfire Social (or “evolving 12 legged gang of friends” according to their bio), brought a gang of fans to help fill the front-of stage dance area, entertaining us with quirky 90s-inspired indie (think Belle and Sebastian meets Fleetwood Mac). They showcased songs from their 2024 LP They Sound The Same Underwater and brand new single ‘Clarity’ with an energy and warmth worthy of their name.
The Lotts
Warrington’s The Lotts – classic set-up of four young(ish) blokes on guitars and drums – blasted out a wonderful cacophony of garage rock reminiscent of The Hives and The Stooges with a hint of Buzzcocks and The Strokes. They’ve been championed by 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq and have the tunes and enough attitude (“more drinks on stage please”!) to go onto even greater things. Their latest single – ‘Stop and Think It Over’ – has that classic late-seventies power pop vibe.
Screaming Devil Pleasure Beach
I also caught the nattily purple-suited Screaming Devil Pleasure Beach from Chester, a solo set from what I presume is one member of a bigger band (?) whose growled-out lyrical delivery, clearly influenced by US psychedelic rock, contrasted with his cheerful, audience-friendly persona.
Tealeaf
Likely to have travelled the furthest and stretching the meaning of ‘loud and local’ to the nth degree, Tealeaf, from Falmouth and Penryn (Cornwall), stole our hearts, minds (and possibly optimism) with, in their own words “traditional gloomy choons for the end times”. The string quartet (two cellos, a guitar and mandolin) transported us back to “peasant times” with their atmospheric, gentle folksiness. I may have misheard, but was there a song about Jesus leading a load of children into a Scottish lake?!
Ruby Joyce
Ruby Joyce, a talented young woman with a promising musical future and an awesome backing band, captivated us with some haunting, sometime melancholic - but never maudlin – dreampop / jazz rock. Standing at the mic for the first couple of songs, she spent the rest of the set behind the piano, delivering candid lyrics about body insecurity and mental health. Inspired by Cocteau Twins, The Sundays and The Smiths (no relation to their former drummer….), we’ll be seeing a lot of Ruby in the coming months, especially when her EP, recorded last year, eventually gets released.
Medusa Luna
Medusa Luna were also impressive. Fronted by Amy Antrobus whose powerful, soulful, sometimes tremolo vocals worked perfectly with the folk-rock Americana vibe, with echoes of REM, Throwing Muses and Dire Straits.
Clara Day
I did also manage to catch half of Clara Day’s very early afternoon (12.30pm) solo acoustic guitar set on the Courtyard Stage. The local musician did a fantastic job of delivering her haunting horror-inspired “dreamy hypnotic melodies”, including ‘The Harvest’ inspired by watching The Wicker Man (1973) film too many times. She dealt very professionally with the trickle of folk unavoidably walking across her field of vision to enter the pub whilst also tuning her guitar between songs. Her bio states “for fans of Vashti Bunyan, Mazzy Star, Donovan and Fairport Convention”. I would also add early 80s minimalist indie band Young Marble Giants, whose singer Alison Statton has a similar vocal delivery.
"More gigs with sausage dogs!"
Having settled nicely into the Garden Stage area I had little cause to return to the Courtyard stage alas, especially after being looked after by two lovely people - Emma and David - as their temporary gig buddy, and whose dogs Brooklyn, Mia and Leon provided remarkably consistent back-rubbing and ball-throwing entertainment for much of the crowd all afternoon. “There should be more gigs with sausage dogs” announced a member of Campfire Social halfway through their set, a point on which we all (ped)igreed.
Respect also to the toddler sporting an Oasis Be Here Now top whose parents bravely allowed him to advertise that very difficult and underwhelming third album. He, along with the event’s own air-guitaring ‘Bez’ provided immense entertainment in between acts.
Classy playlist
Talking of which, for me, the sign of festival organisers with impressive taste is often the quality of their between-act playlist, and this was exemplary. Any musical backdrop that includes Cocteau Twins, LCD Soundsystem, Wedding Present, Belle and Sebastian and other bands of that ilk, and I'm going nowhere!
A bit of nit-picking:
1) The quality of the acts was consistently excellent, so I don’t envy the schedulers. It did mean that earlier performances were playing to modest numbers with audience engagement swelling only as Campfire Social’s fan base moved in. Fewer bands with a later start or concessions for earlier entry may be a solution?
2) I was informed that Loud and Local, which has been running successfully for several years, used to cost around a fiver (apologies if I have got that wrong), and that the £13 ticket price (£17 on the door) may have put some potential punters off. Thirteen quid for 20 acts – THAT’S 65p PER ACT (!), or the price of not much more than a couple of drinks. Concessions needed for unemployed, low-waged of course, but Adwaith were worth the ticket price alone.
These niggles aside, the event was a massive success, helped by the friendly bar staff, the superb sound system, the wonderful weather and the very mixed age range of punters – from under eight to 80 (so I didn’t feel too old). Bring on Loud and Local 2026!
Note:
Apologies to Dogtooth and all the other bands I missed - nine hours on the go and a 84-mile roundtrip drive meant I had to leave after Adwaith. Please add thoughts and links to the other bands in the comments section below and feel free to point out any factual inaccuracies.
Reviewed by MATT DAVIES, Senior Lecturer in English Language at the University of Chester (UK), and one half of Salford-based post-punk electro duo Factory Acts.
All photographs courtesy of Matt Davies