PRECISION, PASSION AND PACE: MODERN RUIN AT KING TUTS

LIVE REVIEW | MODERN RUIN w/ Zebra Lane & Surface Detail | King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow | 12th July 2026 by Bryden Churchmichael

The night before this, I was at O2 Academy Glasgow watching Breaking Benjamin play to a sold-out room. Benjamin Burnley has a fear of flying, which means he almost never tours outside North America. Every show he plays is a choice made against something. The crowd knew that. You could feel it in how they sang.

Twenty-four hours later, I’m walking into King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut through the bar. There’s a puggy right in front of you when you come in, a slot machine just sitting there, and then you go up the stairs and into the venue. I’d been at O2 Academy the night before with the same friend, met up with Glasgow pals, two big nights back to back. By the time Modern Ruin took the stage at 9:30 pm, I was running on fumes and didn’t care at all.

Two completely different ends of the metal spectrum. American veterans who’ve earned the right to stay home, and a Scottish five-piece who haven’t earned the right to slow down yet and aren’t interested in doing so anyway. Young, Scottish, almost certainly balancing the band against jobs and complicated lives. Every show they play is a choice made against something, too, just different things. What connects the two nights is that both rooms felt like places people needed to be.

Surface Detail and Zebra Lane opened. I’ll be honest, I was still finding my feet when they played; two big nights back-to-back will do that. But Surface Detail stuck with me. Visually distinct, the kind of band you clock immediately. They played ‘The Pack and the Treachery’ that night, their brand new single, released the same day as the show. That’s a move. Zebra Lane brought a grungy swagger alongside them, and by the time Modern Ruin took the stage, the room was ready.

What followed is what woke me up.

Modern Ruin are a dark alternative rock five-piece from Scotland, formed late 2024, and they play with a confidence that bands twice their age often haven’t found yet. One released single to their name. You would not have known it. The performance wasn’t amateur. It was five people who knew exactly what they were building and were already building it at pace.

The setlist was printed and ready. Ten songs, their own logo across the top, song transitions noted in the margins. ‘Hollow‘, tuning. ‘Swan Dive‘, tuning. For a band this new, that kind of preparation matters. You don’t print a setlist and annotate it unless you’re thinking carefully about the craft of the show, not just the performance.

Modern Ruin (Bryden Churchmichael/Northern Exposure)

The sound is heavy where it needs to be and slow where it doesn’t, with Jasmin McGurran at the centre of it all. Roughly halfway through the set, around 21:59, she looked out at the room and said: “this next one’s for any gamblers in the room.” The delivery was completely dry, completely confident. It got a laugh, and then the song came in, and the laugh didn’t matter anymore. That’s the range. She can do both things in the same breath, and neither one undercuts the other.

What struck me most about them was the chemistry. Each member has their own aesthetic, their own presence, and yet on stage it collapses into something unified. There’s a reason for that. Each member plays into a separate character. War, death, pollution, famine, revelation, all exist within what they describe as their own post-apocalyptic world. Once you know that, it reframes everything. The smiles bouncing between them mid-song aren’t casual. They’re five people who know exactly what they’re building together.

There’s something honest about that. Most performers are playing a character, whether they name it or not. Modern Ruin just decided to be upfront about it, and the characters they chose, war, death, pollution, famine, and revelation, aren’t that far from the news on any given morning. The fantasy world and the real one aren’t as separate as the concept makes them sound.

‘The Bloodletter’, their debut single, closed in on the end of the set. A good number of folk in the room knew the words and were singing them back. For a band with one song out, hearing that must have felt like something. It looked like it did.

The set ended the way a set like this should. The instruments slowed, bled into each other, dissolved into a sustained wall of noise like an alarm that wouldn’t stop, and Jasmin dropped to her knees and finished it there. Then the band walked off. A moment later, one of them came back to turn off the ambient sound. Perfect punctuation. Deliberate, theatrical, completely their own.

King Tut’s is not always my favourite room. It can be loud in a way that flattens the talent in front of you. But this was my best visit. Modern Ruin made it that.

We caught up with Modern Ruin after the gig and you can read the full thing HERE.