At first listen, Gender Reveal Atomic Bomb and Bikini Beach sounded surprisingly similar. Both bands draw from a raw, direct kind of rock energy, with punk as an important foundation, heavy guitars and very little interest in musical politeness. Yet their performances at Down The Hill gradually revealed just how differently they develop those seemingly similar ingredients.

The setting itself helped underline that contrast. Gender Reveal Atomic Bomb, or GRAB, opened the festival at 12:20 on the Wooden Stage, while Bikini Beach appeared later on the Field Stage. Two different stages, two bands that initially seemed closely related, but ultimately revealed very distinct identities.

Gender Reveal Atomic Bomb

Opening a festival at 12:20 is rarely an enviable task. The gates have barely opened, people are still finding their way around the site and the first beers have only just been poured. Yet the young band from Leuven needed remarkably little time to wake Down The Hill from its early-afternoon slumber.

GRAB describe their music as prog-punk, a combination that almost sounds contradictory on paper. On the Wooden Stage, however, it quickly began to make sense. The foundation is unmistakably punk: short songs, sharp riffs, plenty of energy and an overwhelming urge to move forward. Beneath that immediate surface, though, is a band clearly eager to explore beyond those boundaries.

Generation Atomic Bomb and Abducted by Aliens showed the band’s rawer and more direct side, while Killed by Death allowed more room for the musical twists hiding beneath that punk exterior. Party Animals brought a more playful energy, while Girls to the Front clearly connected with the band’s riot-grrrl roots and socially engaged attitude.

But GRAB are not a band you should merely hear. You need to see them as well.

This was an intensely physical performance. The musicians seemed to throw themselves into the music, constantly interacting with one another. The bassist in particular appeared at times to obey his own laws of physics: hair flying, legs kicking and his entire body constantly in motion, without sacrificing the force of his playing.

The vocalist was equally unwilling to accept the conventional boundaries of a stage. At one point, microphone still in hand, she climbed into the wooden and metal structure at the side of the Wooden Stage. More than simply providing a great photographic moment, it became an almost perfect visual summary of this band: for GRAB, boundaries appear to exist primarily to find out how far they can be crossed.

And it worked. For such an early slot, a surprisingly engaged crowd had already gathered. People were dancing, arms went into the air and the band received a response you would hardly take for granted from the first act of the day. GRAB weren’t simply filling the opening slot; they were actually starting the festival.

The clearest bridge towards the progressive world came with Who Is the Alien? At more than six minutes, it is a far more ambitious composition than their compact punk songs. Different passages, changes of pace and heavier sections follow one another, and this is where the term prog-punk truly starts to make sense. Rather than approaching punk from a progressive-rock perspective, GRAB seem to be travelling in the opposite direction: starting with punk and then discovering just how far they can stretch it.

The handwritten setlist also contained several songs that appear to be new or, for now, unreleased, including None for All, No One, Braindead and Renegade Radio. It suggests a young band already looking beyond the material currently available and continuing to develop at considerable speed.

GRAB played at 12:20 in the afternoon as if it were 12:20 at night. By the time they left the Wooden Stage, Down The Hill no longer felt like a festival waiting to begin.

Bikini Beach

A few hours later, Bikini Beach created a curious sense of recognition on the Field Stage. The first impression wasn’t actually that far removed from GRAB: once again there were raw guitars, punk-like directness and a band clearly placing energy above unnecessary musical decoration.

But as the performance progressed, the differences became increasingly apparent.

Where GRAB break open their punk foundations with unexpected structures and progressive ideas, Bikini Beach head towards a dirtier, more repetitive and hypnotic blend of garage rock and post-punk. Their music doesn’t constantly need to change direction. Quite the opposite: riffs are allowed to dig in, rhythms keep pushing forward and repetition becomes a source of power in itself.

This also created a very different kind of tension. With GRAB, the excitement came largely from their youthful explosiveness and the feeling that the music might suddenly jump somewhere unexpected. Bikini Beach built their impact by allowing a groove or riff to work its way deeper and deeper under your skin. Less restless perhaps, but certainly no less intense.

The difference was equally apparent on stage. GRAB seemed constantly on the verge of bursting out of their surroundings; Bikini Beach projected the confidence of a band that understands that sometimes a good riff doesn’t need to go anywhere at all. Just let it run, turn up the volume and allow the audience to disappear into it.

That approach made Bikini Beach particularly effective within the broader context of Down The Hill. Their music touched on punk and garage, but also on psychedelic repetition and the heavier side of alternative rock. Ultimately, the distance between Bikini Beach and some of the more psychedelically oriented bands on the bill proved much smaller than the label garage punk might suggest.

Two sides of the same energy

Looking back, it was fascinating to place both performances alongside one another. My immediate reaction was that GRAB and Bikini Beach sounded remarkably similar. And that wasn’t such a strange impression: both use punk energy, distorted guitars and physical directness as basic ingredients.

But hearing them on the same festival day made the differences more interesting than the similarities.

GRAB use punk as a springboard. Their music wants to move forward, change direction, surprise and ultimately escape the limitations of its own genre. Bikini Beach use that same elemental force more as a foundation: riffs, groove and repetition are explored and intensified until they take on an almost hypnotic quality.

Even the two stages seemed, in retrospect, strangely symbolic of that difference. GRAB occupied the more intimate and organic-looking Wooden Stage, where the musicians almost literally became entangled with the stage structure itself. Bikini Beach played the more open Field Stage, where their sound could spread more freely across the festival grounds.

Two bands that initially sounded like close relatives, yet on closer inspection took a similar punk attitude in two different directions. GRAB search for an escape route towards prog and experimentation; Bikini Beach head towards garage, groove and psychedelic repetition.

And perhaps that is exactly why both belonged at Down The Hill. After all, this is a festival where genres seem less important than the willingness to stretch them.

Special thanks to Ela Williamson for her help and input in putting this review together.