Leeds got much more than it bargained for when mathcore band Chaos Reigns rolled through on night four of five on their tour with Dead Harts. The somewhat sleepy Library student pub, located beneath The Lending Room venue, had no idea what was going on above. Chaos Reigns was nothing short of maniacal for a Sunday night. For those less familiar with the act, the energy of a Chaos Reigns set is constantly turned to the max. It shows no sign of slowing down any time vocalist Jason Heightman is in view, and even sometimes when he isn’t. He warns the crowd of their in-your-face energy, and despite it being a constant feature of their set, it takes some getting used to for Leeds as they do it throughout the show.
Their set consisted mostly of songs from their EP Sweet Violence, kicking off with “Fight/Flight”. The song is reminiscent of the styles shown in Protest the Hero, yet Chaos Reigns switches it up with Jason Heightman’s metalcore vocals vs hardcore riffs that push people more to hardcore dancing than pits. The very literal in-your-face lyrics as Jason and crew square up to the crowd are on show in two and three, “Sins of Success” and “False Gods”. Chaos Reigns is more than just a loud band with complex riffs and ‘breakdown-heavy’ hardcore. Everything is cleverly thought out. This is apparent in tracks “Snakes & Branches” and “Violent Delights”, which only prove why the Sweet Violence EP has turned heads across the UK hardcore scene. “Violent Delights” hits hard. Live, you could really feel Jason’s emotional eruption in the track. It was viciously alive, with Dave Morris’s (drums) snare ear-splitting in a way like someone was punching you in the ear.
“Swan” was a song coded in themes of mental health but still hard-hitting, where Jason was not afraid to get up on a crowd member’s shoulders and invite the room to circle pit around them. The chaos continued in “The Lotus King”, which dragged us back into the volatile space in the middle. So much so that guitarist Joe Griffin, who was on crutches at the time, didn’t let that stop him from joining in with the crowd’s antics. They closed with “Graveyard Shift”, considered one of their most memorable and iconic songs. I was even introduced to it when I’d first heard of the band. It’s a song that feels like sprinting through the fog of war toward something that might not be there. It was the perfect ending, and when the lights came up, it felt like coming out the other side of that fog.From a photographer’s perspective, hardcore scenes can be a challenge. Chaos Reigns set flitted between deep reds and strobes. It was certainly worth the risk for near misses from the endless windmills that are simply the norm at Chaos Reigns shows to be able to capture this energy. If you’re new to Chaos Reigns, they’re ones to watch. Having had a successful 2025 by making appearances at Hellfest and support slots for the likes of Blood Command, we can only expect more chaos to reign in 2026.
Setlist
- Fight / Flight
- Sins of Success
- False Gods
- Snakes & Branches
- Violent Delights
- Swan
- The Lotus King
- Graveyard Shift
