Doomed Confessionary: Gregg Neville & George Kal (Reliquia)
Photo by Dylan Maggs
Reliquia is a UK-based quintet that plays music as equally inspired by post-punk, goth and darkwave as it is by gothic, black and doom metal. Founded in 2023 in Manchester, England, Reliquia fuses goth rock and gothic doom metal with songwriting inspired by the likes of The Sisters Of Mercy, Fields Of The Nephilim and The Mission but peppered with influences from heavy gothic doom bands such as Katatonia, Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and more.
Founded by frontman and US-transplant Gregg Neville (formerly of post-punkers Push Button Press and US dreampop veterans Golden Gardens) and lead guitarist Tobias Gray (currently of Manchester industrial death metal powerhouse The Machinist), the band eventually finalised its lineup with addition of Tobias’s Machinist bandmate George Kal on guitars, Andy Lindley on bass and Karim Nashar on drums.
Reliquia’s songs cover topics such as angst, occultism, sociological alienation and emotional turmoil. Since first hitting the Manchester scene in 2023, Reliquia has had the opportunity to share the stage with UK goth rock legends Sex Gang Children, Darkest Era, Hexvessel & many more.
Can you say a few words about your band?
Gregg: Hey! We’re Reliquia, a band from Manchester, UK. We play a mixture of goth rock, gothic metal, doom and atmospheric black metal.
What was the biggest challenge for the band?
Gregg: Like many start-up bands, just getting the opportunity to be on a stage was our biggest hurdle recently. We’ve been lucky enough to live in a city with a solid metal scene, though, so since then we’ve found a great deal of promoters and other bands who have been extremely enthusiastic about us.
What can you be most proud of so far?
Gregg: I’ve been immensely proud of the responses we’ve been getting since we first started releasing material, especially our single »Shallow« and then with the follow-ups, where we have gotten to demonstrate some of the heavier and more musically diverse elements of our sound.
What was your biggest regret?
Gregg: We’ve run into a few situations where we’ve had to turn down shows. It’s always been perfectly normal reasons (responsibilities, families, etc) but always breaks my heart to have to do it.
What was the best concert/tour so far and why?
Gregg: I think for me, my favourite concert we’ve played was either with Darkest Era and Gospelheim back in 2023, or the one we played recently with Hexvessel, Iress and In Crooked Wonderment. Both shows had a really amazing energy in the crowd.
What was the biggest surprise on the music scene for you?
Gregg: Getting recognised by people I don’t know at shows! I’m pretty quiet and tend to keep to myself, but it blows me away to get the opportunity to talk to people about my music.
What is currently in your heavy musical rotation?
Gregg: The new Tribulation and Cemetary Skies albums are fantastic. I’m still regularly spinning Wayfarer’s »American Gothic« from last year. The debut album by High Parasite is absolutely fantastic as well.
Outside of heavy music, Bloody/Bath’s debut album »In An Empty Space I’m Screaming« absolutely blew me away, with a really doomy punk rock take on the goth rock sound.
What was the best advice you’ve ever been given as a musician?
Gregg: Most good actionable advice in the music sphere is gonna be boring technical stuff, so I’ll say: if you use backing tracks/synths, render your audio down to wav or 24-bit mp3 and learn how to roll cables properly.
What are your guilty pleasures?
Gregg: Sour candy and overpriced coffee. (Not at the same time.)
Can you say something more about current music scene in Manchester?
Gregg: Manchester is in an interesting place right now. While a lot of the story around Manchester’s music scene feels very focused on nostalgia, we’re starting to see a lot of incredibly exciting new bands, musicians and musical movements starting here. Heavy music is definitely having a really exciting moment of resurgence here, and we seem to be seeing something of a renaissance of dark post-punk and experimental electronic music as well.
Where can we see you live this year (concerts/tours)?
Gregg: We’re not playing any further gigs in 2024, but we have an amazing show coming up on the 15th of February 2025 at The Fenton in Leeds, playing with Countless Skies, As The Sun Falls and Opia.
What are your plans for the future as a band?
Gregg: We’re recording our next collection of singles right now at No Studio in Manchester with Joe Clayton of Pijn producing and engineering. It’s been amazing working with him.
Do you have any special plans for New Year’s Eve?
Gregg: I quit drinking this year, so I’ll probably be going hard on Diet Coke and yelling abuse at my tv. This is different from my previous process of going hard on Prosecco and yelling abuse at my tv.
How can people best support your band?
George: Best to do is to come to our future gigs and see us perform live. Let us know where you’d like to see us in 2025. Of course, we want people to listen to our music and share it with others, and being an underground self-managed band, please support us by buying our merch. And in this time and era, knowing how things work nowadays, we want people to follow us on social media (unfortunately that’s the way to be visible today).
Gregg: I think George is exactly right, especially with sharing the music. The best music recommendation algorithm is your friends, so if we do a thing that you think your friends would like, send them our music or drag them to a gig. Social media is always difficult, because the workload of ~content creation~ is always a huge juggling act, but it’s definitely the easiest way to stay in touch with what we do. We’re pretty active on most of the major sites.
Do you have any message for your listeners?
George: Stay tuned for what’s coming next! We’ve got plenty of great stuff coming your way in 2025. And don’t forget, support heavy music, support the underground music scene!
Gregg: Keep an eye on our socials. We have a new single dropping in December with mixing and mastering by Phil Petrocelli (Jesu, Great Falls) and we’ll be posting there when it goes up.
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well