The Wind-up Birds | Divorce Finance | Imaginary Husband
Grindhouse, Leeds
30th May 2026
Andy Brown heads to Grindhouse to see Leeds’ finest post punks – The Wind-up Birds – launch their latest album.
The Wind-up Birds are preparing to release their first album in six years. As anyone familiar with Leeds’ indie/ post punk legends will tell you, this is indeed cause for celebration. Tonight the band are marking the occasion by playing The Ghosts at the Show in its entirety.
Upon arrival, we’re greeted by a bustling crowd, stifling heat (we are in the midst of a heatwave) and a loud, groaning wall of feedback. Fortunately, this hellish scene simply heralds the arrival of the noise-loving, Leeds-based band Imaginary Husband. While footage of a sweaty Steve Pemberton plays on the screen behind them, the band launch headfirst into a set replete with growling vocals and tightly wound, gritted-teeth guitars. Everything sounds raw and satisfyingly cathartic. Who needs a holiday in Benidorm when you’ve got this?
The band ploughs through a few technical difficulties with a set of belligerent, punk-indebted indie. “He’s got a small guitar; he’s got a comically small guitar” snarls the singer in what turns out to be a factual description of the guitarist’s ad hoc replacement. Amongst the dancing and faulty jacks, the band gladly embrace the chaos and deliver an admirably ragged set of thrills ‘n’ spills. Plus, songs like It’s The Little Things feel as epic as they are indignant. “I did it all for you!” the singer screams. Well, thank you very much.
Divorce Finance are mere moments into their first song and already sound like a gang of manic, sanity-starved pirates having a knees-up. It’s loud, strange and superbly sleazy stuff. It’s dark yet danceable too, with the front row even managing to form an impromptu chorus line. How have I not heard them before? As if to highlight the darker tone, the projections behind the band are now showing the rather gruelling 1985 Soviet war film Come and See. Blimey. We’re a long way from Benidorm.
We’re lured in by bouncy, country-esque basslines and kept entranced by the lurching, leering vocal stylings of Mr. Discipline. The songs are rife with disgust and amusement, with one including a cast of social screwballs, sexy cowboys and – ahem – frisky vampires. Quite the party. Monsieur Discipline asks if there are any Dylan fans in the house, before pointing into the room and declaring, “You’re going to hate this song.” In the background, the kid in the film starts to cry. Divorce Finance sure know how to make a first impression.
“You know when people say they’ve pulled out all the stops…” explains The Wind-up Birds vocalist Paul ‘Kroyd’ Ackroyd, “Well we haven’t done that, but we’ve pulled out one stop… we brought a ghost.” The inflatable ghost that adorns the front of the album is affixed to the mic stand as the singer – lyric sheet in hand – leads us through the atmospheric, spoken-word opener. A minute later they floor us with the exhilarating A Punch to the Stomach. The good news? The songs sound amazing. Classic Birds. The bad news? They haven’t brought any inflatable ghosts for the rest of us.
“Like all ghost stories, it needs a sexy clergyman” Kroyd tells us as he introduces tonight’s additional WUB member, Ian Mitchell. Usually found producing dreamgaze brilliance with Forming (alongside the Birds’ bassist Ben Dawson), Mitchell adds – in keeping with that lesser-known ecclesiastic tradition – some percussion, backing vocals and an extra layer of guitar, giving the new material a bit of extra sonic heft. The whole band sound tight and fiercely focused, and it’s still a joy to watch them in full flight.
Recent single, When the Screen Lights Up Your Face, sounds even better live while the surprisingly groovesome Death Dancers could very well be the band’s Barbarism Begins at Home. Seeing the Birds live is always a visceral experience, yet the lyrics remain crucial. Pointing at the scattered sheets at his feet, the WUB wordsmith acknowledges that the sheer amount of words is “absolutely crackers.” The album portion of the show finishes with the intense and utterly captivating Left Fallow.
Kroyd thanks us for “tolerating all that” before the band bursts into a handful of old favourites. The Night Soil sounds as wonderfully agitated as always while Slow Reader elicits a little dancing from the front row. “Ben wrote this riff when he was 4… as a child prodigy,” jokes Kroyd before the irresistibly propulsive Round Here kicks in. And yes, that bassline is incredible. They see us off with a riotous and defiant Long Term Sick, and I’m as hooked now as I was when I first heard them. What a band.
Add to this, Kroyd’s facts about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and some footage from German expressionist classic, Metropolis… and you can consider the new album well and truly launched.
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You can find The Wind-up Birds on Instagram, Facebook and Bandcamp.
Imaginary Husband and Divorce Finance are on Instagram.
All photos by Jim Mumby | You can find him on Facebook and Instagram.
All words by Andy Brown. You can visit his author profile and read more of his reviews for Louder Than War HERE.
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