Thundermother, Cobra Spell and Vulvarine live at the Garage London 2025 – review and photos by Dawn Osborne

In one of their first few shows Thundermother from Sweden came to the Garage in London for a fun night with Cobra Spell and Vulvarine! It’s rare to have a night where almost all the musicians are women and almost all the audience were men, no prizes for guessing why.

Vulvarine opened. With black and white stripy trousers and a song called ‘Rock Bottom’ (although this did not appear to be the actual UFO cover) they have their influences clearly in old school metal.

 

Being from Austria the singer sounds quite like Doro, although looks a little more like Lisa Dominique. Her name is Suzi Q…ahem I think I’ve heard that somewhere before? Thankfully she sings really well and can be heard clearly over the band. She uses the tambourine and hand held percussion a lot as if they are props, but while she is still very young, she otherwise comes across very effortlessly on stage and has the confidence to go out into the audience with her radio mike. I have never seen them before, but would definitely come to see them again.

The guitars are a bit Iron Maiden-esque, although slower. If there’s a criticism I don’t really remember any significant guitar solos. Although I know solos are out of fashion for this generation, I would have expected to see more given the heritage to which this band tip their hat. It’s a pretty short set though, so maybe they opted for less solos more songs. Look forward to seeing them again!

Cobra Spell are not short on the guitar firepower and they have the only male musician of the night who looks like and dresses like Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap complete with massive moustache and leather bondage straps.

With singer Kristina Vega lots of high screams are the order of the day!

Sonia Anubis (ex Burning Witches) is lead guitarist and contributes some fine solos with her high cut g-string body suit bringing to mind Madame X. At one point she does a high cameo role on vocals that reminded me of The Sweet.

Hale Naptha on drums with a distinctive flash of red in her hair opens things up with lots of posing with sticks for the crowd and toggers. Together with a new gothic queen looking  bassist she provided a good foundation.

It was an energetic set and the band were good to watch visually. Again it’s a short set, seven songs and it goes by quickly.

Thundermother are back and showcasing in their set material from the new album in which they are justifiably confident. Soon as they start playing I notice the heavy Bonham style drumming from new drummer Joan Massing. New singer Linnea Vikstrom Egg is super confident and in control on stage with a great voice of her own, which is a relief given how good Guernica was on vocals.

Majsan Lindberg is back on bass and clearly has been able to slot in really easily, taking up her old slot again in the band.

Guitarist and the leader of the band Filippa Nässil has not long had a baby and it was cute to see a baby grow with the band logo on sale in merch. She needs no intro and continues to deliver excellent solos.

It is also great to see the self written songs from the new album go down so well. I agree with Filippa that each song is a single and their material has matured from strength to strength, for example  ‘Bright Eyes’ which illustrated another feature which is particularly strong: the live harmonies on stage contributing to the accessibility and melodic nature of the songs. Live this song came across as a very Doro-esque anthem and the audience sang along with gusto. Before ‘Take The Power’ Linnea announced to the crowd that they would recognise it before she got straight down onto the barrier to commune with the crowd.

‘Dead Or Alive’ (sounding a bit D-A-D to start) went down very well with the crowd. Linnea delivered some very high falsetto vocals done incredibly well.

‘I Left My Licence In The Future’, another super catchy one, despite its intricate not so obvious melody, is also a crowd pleaser and the audience sang along with all the ‘Whoa-Whoa-Ohs.’

Next up Linnea and Filippa (referencing the fact that they are both now real mothers in Thundermother) sang a kind of lullaby. They started ‘Sleep’ off as an acoustic track before the rest of the band joined in to rock out.

A long drum solo is always a gamble these days, but Joan delivered it with conviction and style and had people whooping at the end rather than going to the bar. ‘Whatever’ and ‘Shoot to Kill’ was time for some coordinated headbanging and headstock swinging.

 

Then as a bit of surprise Linnea popped up for a cover of Lizzy’s ‘Don’t Believe a Word’ right at the back. She danced and posed for the crowd high on the bar and brought back a 2 pint glass full of golden beer which she brandished like a World Cup trophy.

Filippa delivered a solo with lovely mature tone and they finished the main set with ‘Thunderous’.

Coming back after the encore it’s ‘Hellevator’. Linnea stuck out her tongue and Masjan delivered a high kick above her head before doing an Angus style hop across the stage. Filippa concentrated on doing a solo with real groove. Linnea jumped from side to side like Michael Monroe for the start of new one ‘Can’t Put Out The Fire’ and given that ‘Speaking Of The Devil’ (another new one) is heavier and less melodic, lifted it with her excellent voice.

Finishing with ‘Driving With Style’ Linnea and Masjan took to the floor and guitars were all lifted high into the air. Masjan gets so excited (when all members take a bow at the end) that she spits beer like a fountain all over the stage, luckily missing the audience. It’s great to see that, after the rather unhappy ending for the last line up, the new line up seem to have a genuine sense of camaraderie.

I still didn’t get to hear ‘You Can’t Handle Me’ live which I would dearly love to, and I heard someone else say that they would have liked to hear more songs from ‘Black and Gold’. On the upside the new songs were the highlight of the evening which is a huge plus point for the new album. Since this line up toured with the Scorpions it’s not surprising to see that they are professional, tight and can deliver. They are still proving a point, and tonight shows they don’t need to anymore. Maybe when things settle down a bit we can hear more stuff from the Guernica era, in the meantime they are delivering a great fun show. In addition the deliberate choice of three girl bands for a ‘Goddess Of The Road’ tour is a confident empowering move. An enjoyable evening and a great start to the gig season which goes a bit quiet in the UK in January. Recommended!

Dawn Osborne