Review: Massive Wagons – Live At The Great Hall
Earache Records (March 27th, 2026)
Reviewer – Jason Hopper
Back around ten years ago, I was listening to Live and Loud on Platinum Rock Radio when I came across two absolute banger tracks: ‘Nails’ and ‘Fee Fi Fo Fum’ by the band Massive Wagons. I bought their latest album at the time and became an instant fan. Unfortunately, there’s little chance I will be able to check out this UK based band live unless I’ve willing to shell out thousands to fly to Europe. As a result, I jumped at the chance to review Massive Wagons new album ‘Live At The Great Hall’ to get a feel for what I’ve been missing.
The album opens with the tremendous force of ‘Back to the Stack’. Halfway through the song, I knew a great live album awaited me by the clarity of the recording and the involvement of the audience. The best live recordings involve the audience screaming the background vocals in an echo roar that makes you feel you’re right there rocking out with them.
The one song I was hoping to hear live, prior to getting the album to review, was ‘Nails’, a song that’s been on my workout playlist for years. Sure enough, it closes the album…because of course it does. This aggressive barnstormer just tears the roof off. I love what they did with the arrangement of the track for a live setting. They space parts out a bit, adding around 90 seconds to the track to get the crowd pumped. The band attacking with the background vocals in the chorus adds a new element that wasn’t present in the layered vocal studio version. Fan fuckin’ tastic.
I love how “live” this live album feels. Let’s be honest, most live albums are either not live at all or have been tinkered with in the studio to add crowd cheers and fix errors. With this release, you can hear the tiny little mistakes that tend to happen in live settings. An example is the beginning of ‘Pressure’. Right before the first verse, you can hear one of the guitars drop out then come back in, as if it was temporarily unplugged. Sounds embarrassing, but it’s not. It’s real. The same goes for lead singer Barry Mills breathing heavy and struggling to get through all the lyrics in ‘Nails’. I appreciated that they did not try and fix that in the studio.
There are a lot of great tracks here, with a bunch being my favorites from the band, such as ‘Tokyo’, ‘In It Together’, and ‘A.S.S.H.O.L.E’. One issue that I cannot fault the band for is crowd engagement. Many live albums have this, and the experience is great when you see the band live but does not translate all that well in recordings.
For example, ‘A.S.S.H.O.L.E’ is normally 3:37 minutes long. On this album, the track is nearly six minutes long. That extra two minutes or so involves Barry dividing up the crowd and getting them to chant the title. A couple tracks have extensions like that, but that’s what you would normally expect from live albums.
However, I have to deduct one point for doing the one thing that ruins live albums for me…the dreaded fade out. A couple of tracks are strung together, then it fades. For the life of me, I can’t understand why this decision was made. They recorded two shows at Lancaster’s Great Hall. Even if it was the best songs from both nights, it’s easy to carry crowd noise in the studio to string songs together. The fade takes me out of the live element.
The best compliment that I can give this album is that it makes me strongly consider spending money to fly overseas to check them out. The band is firing on all cylinders. The crowd sounds like they are worked up into a frenzy from the energy emitted from the stage. Some live albums don’t properly convey the experience of seeing the band, but I can close my eyes and nearly picture being there, and envious that I never got to experience the show myself. With that said, I’m thankful I have the next best thing with this album, one I will revisit regularly.
Tracklisting:
- Back To The Stack
- Pressure
- Tokyo
- A.S.S.H.O.L.E
- Missing On TV
- Please Stay Calm
- Fun While It Lasted
- The Good Die Young
- House of Noise
- Bangin’ In Your Stereo
- In It Together
- Nails
