Live Review: Ward XVI (Id3ntity) with Pulverise and Them Bloody Kids at Cart & Horses, London (26/10/2025)

Ward XVI brought their Id3ntity tour to London on a busy Sunday night at The Cart & Horses — the legendary birthplace of Iron Maiden — delivering a show that perfectly captured everything this new era of Id3ntity represents. Known for their theatrical metal horror and ambitious storytelling, Ward XVI transformed the intimate venue into a playground for escaped inmates, with fans eager to experience the Id3ntity material live for the first time. Joined by support from Them Bloody Kids and Pulverise, it was a night built to celebrate creativity, character and unique metal performances.

Them Bloody Kids opened the night with a ton of energy and a clear desire to get the room moving. Some early sound issues buried the vocals a little at the start, but thankfully it was resolved quickly. It wasn’t even that much of an issue really as the drums and riffs were hittign hard enough that I still found myself really enjoying what I was hearing. The crowd was still growing at this point, but the band put the effort in regardless and that is always commendable. It shouldn’t matter if you are playing to 10 or 1000 people – just deliver your performance to the best of your ability and enjoy yourself and that is what Them Bloody Kids appeared to be doing.

This was my first time seeing them live after missing their Bloodstock 2025 performance, despite them clearly deserving that slot by winning London’s Metal 2 The Masses. They definitely have me engaged and won over though now.

With only 30 minutes to work with, the set felt tight but flew by. My only real issue was that they maybe relied a little too heavily on covers. Their versions of Sugar (System of a Down) and Killing in the Name Of (Rage Against The Machine) went down well enough, but I’d have preferred another original track in place of one of them, especially when their own material was my favourite part of the performance. Still, they did a really good job warming things up, and I’m interested to see where they go next.

Pulverise followed with a set packed full of bouncy riffs and grooves that you can’t help but move to. Musically, they’ve got some seriously catchy hooks, and there were plenty of moments built for head-bobbing and jumping around.

Vocally, things didn’t always land quite as strongly for me. The rap-metal style itself isn’t a problem. Anyone who knows me knows I like my rap, mainly horrorcore, but it’s still rap. I just felt that here the delivery sometimes lacked impact. What didn’t lack impact though was the band’s immense positivity and on-stage energy. That made up for a lot. They looked like they were genuinely having a blast, and that enthusiasm spread into the crowd and into me. Enough so that I even found myself awkwardly stepping towards other fans in a “as slow as possible Wall Of Death”. That was fun.

Songs like Sulk and Liquorice Allsortz showed their strengths musically too, and the longer the set went on, the more I found myself warming to them and their style of metal. Overall, there was plenty to like in Pulverise’s performance, and with the energy and honesty they bring, you really do want to see them succeed.

To the main act though and Ward XVI. I’ve caught Ward XVI plenty of times over the years, and they never disappoint. They’re a band who put extraordinary effort into every detail of their shows. It’s not just a gig — it’s a full theatrical production wrapped around a metal performance, and they always push themselves to deliver something bigger and stranger than before.

With their new album Id3ntity out in the world, this tour brings fresh songs, props and routines, as the asylum walls come down and the inmates run wild. Even on the compact stage at The Cart & Horses, they somehow fit a cage, shackles, axes, saws, multiple costume changes, on-stage mutilations, a cardboard train and a rather unpleasant mask that felt straight out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No matter how many times you see them, there’s always something new and outrageous to take in.

Of course, the show wouldn’t work if the music didn’t. Fortunately, Id3ntity is an excellent album, and the new tracks sound huge live. Blood Is The New Black and At The Window were personal highlights, two songs I’ve already had on repeat at home a lot. Macabaret brought a ton of personality to the set, and the finale We Are Legion sits now as one of the most fitting and unifying closers any band could ask for. Vocally, they sounded great with Psychoberrie sounding phenomenal and the harsh vocals from Rico Rameres delivering an impressive level of power, especially in that insane death metal like section in Blood Is The New Black.

The one unavoidable compromise on this tour happened part way through when drummer Bam Bam sadly had to step away due to health issues. Naturally, everyone at GBHBL wishes him a speedy and stress-free recovery. From a live perspective, tracked drums meant the impact wasn’t quite the same, but given the circumstances, Ward XVI deserve enormous credit for regrouping and powering on. It can’t have been easy, and yet they delivered a fully committed performance all the same.

By the time they took to the stage, the crowd had filled out nicely, but honestly, a performance of this calibre deserves a complete sell-out. Metal fans are always calling for creativity and risk-taking — here’s a band doing exactly that, night after night. They deserve support. For our part, we had an absolute blast, spent way too much money on merch and went home feeling absolutely buzzing with adrenaline. That feeling you only get from gigs like this, where you feel lighter and released from your own shackles for a couple hours thanks to the creativity and talent of the bands that travelled here to entertain us. That was another excellent Ward XVI performance!

There are still a few dates left on the tour, so grab your tickets from here and go experience a band who put absolutely everything into giving their audience a night they won’t forget.