Hmltd

HMLTD is a London art punk band whose live shows and forthcoming third album, Fangs, reshape goth through electronic dance music. This concert is staged at Village Underground.

HMLTD is an art punk band formed in London in 2015 and fronted by lead vocalist Henry Spychalski. The line-up also includes guitarist Duc Peterman, bassist Nico Mohnblatt, drummer Achilleas Sarantaris and keyboardist Seth Evans. Following the 2023 rock opera The Worm, the band's third album, Fangs, returns to their experimental roots and recasts goth through post-internet electronic and dance music, with heavy sub-bass, rave-style synths and a dragging, funereal beat.

The band takes its cue from Richard Wagner's idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total artwork, and builds elaborate imagined worlds around its music. Its live performances bring together set design, costume, actors and performance artists, inviting audiences to take part and blurring the line between spectator and performer. For a 2022 show at Heaven, the band constructed a fictional totalitarian state called The Order inside the venue, giving every attendee an alternative identity and a game in which the crowd tried to bring the regime down.

Village Underground is a London venue whose programme centres mainly on concerts, with a particular focus on electronic music. Spychalski has argued that imagining other worlds exposes the contingency of our own, and the band's staging applies that idea directly to its concerts.