Metal and nuns have long been blasphemous bedfellows – think Cradle Of Filth’s ‘vestal masturbation’ T-shirt, featuring a woman of the cloth pleasuring herself. But newcomers Dogma are doing it for the girls.
Dressed in habits and with corpsepainted faces, their explicit, 80s-inspired Euro-metal songs are about shaking off religious purity and living life on your own terms. Tonight is their debut London show, and they’re going all-out.
Arriving at the Black Heart, punters are faced with an actual confessional booth, where they can spill their sins to a fire-and-brimstone-spouting priest in exchange for a free drink. Upstairs, the band appear onstage to the strains of an organ, and soon set about playing and writhing in pleasure.
Highlights include My First Peak, with Lilith singing about stealing an ear of corn from the convent kitchen and having her first orgasm – while on her period, because why not – and Father I Have Sinned, a ridiculously catchy tale of seduction.
Given no one knows where these Sisters have come from or who they are, and they’re putting on a theatrical occult rock act couched in Catholicism, comparisons with Ghost are inevitable – and on tonight’s evidence, they could one day follow Tobias Forge’s creation into arenas.
But Dogma feel more like a gang. As frontwoman, Lilith might be the obvious focal point, but the other members – guitarists Rusalka and Lamia, bassist Nixe, and drummer Abrahel – are just as compelling, slut-dropping and grinning lasciviously. These nuns are sexual, sure, but they’re not aiming for sexy. This is religious rebellion filtered through the female gaze, their pleasure taking priority over any men watching.
After the show, a male fan asks them to sign some photos for him. They decline. You can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him as he slinks away. But Dogma aren’t passive paper pin-ups – they’re larger-than-life action heroes who extol the virtues of guilt-free sex in the most OTT way possible. Come join their sexual sect.
