Bathing Suits are bringing deranged noise-punk to the dancefloor

It’s a lazy autumn afternoon, and NME are squeezed outside the front of Manchester venue Gorilla, smoking rollies with Bathing Suits. Tonight, they’ll open for Man/Woman/Chainsaw, but traffic means the band are late for the interview, and now, our location is slightly compromised. Locals wielding loudspeakers whizz past on bikes, buses honk, and passersby audibly grimace at the fugs of cigarette smoke. The soundscape is so fucked that everyone has to take turns with the recorder to be heard, which gives the whole conversation the vibe of a team-building exercise. The disorder is fitting: submitting to noise is what Bathing Suits are all about. Since forming in Leeds in 2024, the fast-rising four-piece have harrowed venues and DIY spaces across the country with their singular brand of industrial freak pop, which, the band tell NME with a trace of contempt, often gets pigeonholed as “Idles if they were brat” or “Gilla Band if they looked good”. “They don’t look bad!” frontwoman Freyja Blevins laughs, the sun catching her blonde hair. Guitarist Alex Mulholland quips back: “We once got asked what the words post-industrial trance mean to us, and I’m still trying to figure that one out.”...