Goth Fight Cage is the solo project from Mark Holloway of Belfast’s heavy weight fuzz champions, Fagash McCann. As Goth Fight Cage, Mark takes a decidedly more indie rock approach to his song writing. Over the course of three successful singles, debut ‘Optimism’, follow up ‘I’m Going Out’ and ‘Tired’ released in October last year, Mark has already established a sound that allows him to move between spikey guitar indie and intimate acoustic guitar tracks with ease. The singles were enough to catch the sharpened ears of BBC Introducing, Hot Press, RTE2XM, Chordblossom, IMRO, Genuine Irish, Ragged cast, Rock N Load and Uber Rock. New single ‘I’m Not In Love With You’ is a perfect two minutes and change slice of razor sharp indie rock. Recalling all the best elements of early 2000’s guitar driven indie bands, the track drips with effortless cool. Goth Fight Cage is built around a strong DIY ethic, as Mark shoulders duties of song writing, performing, singing, producing, engineering and mixing. All from a room he describes as ‘all the instruments at one end, a computer at the other and a bed in the corner’. On ‘I’m Not In Love With You’ Mark captures a sound that bands pay head scratching amounts of money to get, all on his trusty yellow Dan Electro. The song is given visual language by a video that portrays Mark as the captive of a fan/lover, Misery style, tied up and abused but given cigarettes.
The song opens at a blistering BPM with Mark attacking his Dan Electro as though it has wronged him in some past life. The song was birthed from hammering this one chord into oblivion until the lead line came floating into existence. After a short drum break the song resumes at the same blistering pace, even the drum machine is being tested to keep up. The bright guitars and overdriven bass, that recall NY’s indie royalty The Strokes, are a bed for earworm melancholy melodies. While lyrically the song doesn’t shy away from addressing the subject matter head on, no flowery language or metaphor as the confessional ‘I’m not in love with you’ is put front and center. As Mark sings ‘lets have a drink or and try to pretend it doesn’t matter’, it’s clear that this unrequited love is too complicated to simply walk away from. No need for verse chorus verse here as the song unfolds over the course of the one sided conversation, acting entirely as its own hook and chorus. Mark says: ‘The sound itself comes from the nature of the home recordings, I’m limited in what I can do in certain places so I’ll tend to lean more into more scrappy lo-fi/garage sounds. The gear I like to use is simple and mostly broken.’ All mastered by Belfast’s own Joel Harkin (@ayesoundmastering).
The video for the track was filmed by Mark and Suz (@venusportraits). Pulled together at the last minute as plans for an alternative video fell through on the day of. The pair shot this over afternoon with Mark running a fever and Suz scrambling to get to work on time. The result perfectly captures the sound of Goth Fight Cage as well as the sentiment of the song. Suz systematically abuses and tortures Mark while he’s bound to a chair, but lovingly still gives him cigarettes, before Mark makes an unsuccessful escape attempt.
Goth Fight Cage continue to show that you don’t need to spend hundreds or thousands of pounds to capture the sound and voice of a band. When the intention is clear it will shine through regardless of it being in a studio or a bedroom. Mark’s songwriting and melodic approach sharpens with every release, there’s no fat on the track here and dispensing with a more traditional verse chorus verse only makes this track stronger. Ones to watch in 2026.