PHOTOS: Spanish Love Songs – New Century Hall, Manchester – 23/10/2025

For the last couple of weeks, the Common Thread Tour has been travelling around Europe to deliver one of the most unbelievable days out that a modern punk fan could experience. Let’s just pluck out some names—Hot Water Music; Comeback Kid; Defeater; Modern Life Is War; Joyce Manor; The Hotelier; basically, if you’re into alt-punk or emotional hardcore, this is the bill for you. Sadly, it’s only five dates, and although two of them are in the UK, you’re out of luck if London or Leeds are too out-of-the-way.

Thankfully, a few of the names have splintered off for shows of their own, notable among them being Spanish Love Songs as not only one of Common Thread’s bill-toppers, but as the shining light of alt-punk in the 2020s. They’ve been quieter recently, though that’s no cause for alarm, not when both Brave Faces, Everyone and No Joy are still out-and-out scene triumphs and there’s a new EP coming next month that’ll likely be more of the same. It’s a stacked little lineup they’ve brought with them here, too—Canadian punk wreckers The Dirty Nil, fresh off their own great album this year; deeply underrated emo winners Kali Masi; and a now-solo, acoustic incarnation of Sincere Engineer. As they all arrive in Manchester, Will Robinson headed to New Century Hall to check it out.

Sincere Engineer

Kali Masi

The Dirty Nil

Spanish Love Songs

Photos by Will Robinson (Instagram)