Meet Shiversa
A five-piece hard rock and alt-metal band from Southampton: sludgy, melodic and deliberately unpredictable, with vocals that swing from soaring melody to full growl. Started as a lockdown recording project, completed one member at a time, and now out on the South's grassroots circuit behind debut EP 'Search For Me'.
Shiversa are a five-piece hard rock and alt-metal band from Southampton, drawing on Deftones, Alice In Chains and Rage Against The Machine while refusing to sit still inside any…
Last updated: 22 July 2026
At a glance
Bio, key details, links and a peek at the act — before we get into it.
Shiversa are a five-piece hard rock and alt-metal band from Southampton, drawing on Deftones, Alice In Chains and Rage Against The Machine while refusing to sit still inside any of them. Three singles and the debut EP Search For Me have earned airplay including BBC Introducing and Total Rock Radio, plus a semi-final run at Metal 2 The Masses Southampton in 2025.
The origin
How the act came together.
Shiversa didn't start as a band at all. It started with Matt, locked down at home, recording guitar parts into Reaper and posting on Facebook to see who fancied making some noise from a distance.
A drummer answered first. Jacob sent programmed drums for the early demos, then pulled in a friend: Ed, a bassist. When lockdown lifted, the project stepped out of the home studio and into a rehearsal room at Planet Sounds in Southampton, and the thing on a hard drive started becoming a band in a room.
Finding the missing pieces
The lineup completed the old-fashioned way: adverts and patience. An ad on Join My Band brought in Omar, whose lead playing reshaped the guitar parts. The singer's chair took the longest. The band trialled vocalist after vocalist before Sarah, a singer from Germany, answered an online ad and made the sound whole.
We trialled singer after singer, holding out for someone who understood the artistic direction, and that patience shaped everything about how we sound today.The band are upfront that the search made the formation slow going, and just as upfront that it was worth it: finding members who understood the direction mattered more than finishing fast. Five members later, the slow build looks less like delay and more like quality control.
That patience also settled the band's shape: Matt and Omar share the guitar duties, Ed holds down the bass, Jacob drives from the kit, and Sarah fronts it all. It leaves Shiversa an even split of mates and strangers-turned-bandmates; Jacob and Ed arrived through friendship, Omar and Sarah through adverts, five people who found the same direction from five different starting places.
The lineup locked, Shiversa launched properly in the summer of 2024 and went straight to work. The three singles 'Design 42', 'Recess Divide' and 'A New Wave of Success' picked up plays from BBC Introducing, Total Rock Radio, Radio Wigwam and Express FM's 'Does it Djent', and the debut EP followed in March 2026, mixed and mastered by Neil D. Kennedy at The Ranch Recording Studios.
The sound
What you’re actually getting if you book the act.
Ask Shiversa where they sit and they'll put themselves between rock and metal: sludgy in places, melodic in others, and determined never to let you settle. Sarah's voice carries the contrast, moving between melodic singing and growls exactly when a song needs the weight.
The blend comes from five directions at once. Matt leans on Alice In Chains, Deftones and Karnivool; Omar brings Oceansize; Ed is an earthtone9 fan; Sarah pulls from modern hardcore and metal, with Rage Against The Machine in the collective DNA. None of it is treated as a template.
Songs tend to start with Matt writing both guitar parts, then Omar reworking his half until it's genuinely his. The rule underneath: serve the song. Every member gets creative input, and arrangements stay open until they've earned their final shape.
Built to be unpredictable
Dynamics are the point. Shiversa write against formula: shifts in intensity and mood that catch an audience leaning the wrong way. The aim, the band say, is music that leaves you pensive, thoughtful, sometimes slightly uneasy, carried by groove and hypnotic, repeating patterns.
If you come away feeling something you can't quite name, we've done our job.A band, full stop
When the question of marketing Shiversa as 'female-fronted' came up, Sarah's answer was simple: she'd rather Shiversa be seen as a band, full stop, not filed under a gender-based category. It's a question the band have thought about harder than most.
Neither she nor the rest of the band pretends the context away. Heavier music is still male-dominated, and audiences still sort bands by the voice out front. It's the same conversation that has trailed acts like Arch Enemy for years. Representation is improving, but the stereotype does its categorising before the first note lands. Shiversa's answer is to let the music do it instead.
Where to see Shiversa
Southampton base. Open to travel for the right room.
Home turf is Southampton's grassroots circuit: The Hobbit and Heartbreakers in town, and the Railway Inn up the road in Winchester, with Guildford and Reading next on the list.
Live is where the contrast earns its keep. Matt is not a stand-still guitarist, he'd rather be moving, and he's honest about pre-show nerves, which are mostly about whether the rig behaves rather than the crowd. Once the first song starts, the anxiety flips into the feeling he's chasing; that switch from dread to fulfilment is, for him, the whole point of playing live.
The show is built on the same contrast as the records. The quiet, uneasy passages get room to breathe, the heavy ones land harder for it, and somewhere in the middle Matt is moving again. It's a set designed to keep a room guessing, and it works hardest in the small rooms the band call home.
It has travelled beyond their own crowd, too. A semi-final run at Metal 2 The Masses Southampton in 2025 put them in front of the hardest audience in the scene: other bands' fans.
Playing a shrinking circuit
Shiversa are clear-eyed about the state of the scene. Getting people out to gigs is harder than it used to be, and the band point to Music Venue Trust figures on how quickly grassroots venues are closing. It's part of why Shiversa gig deliberately: local first, where their crowd can actually turn up, with online platforms to reach venues beyond their own contact book.
Grassroots venues are closing fast. That's why we play local first, where our crowd can actually turn up.Live dates synced from the Shiversa profile — enquire about an open date.
Booking & rates
How to get a quote, and roughly what to expect.
Live ranges from the Shiversa profile. Cross-check against the GX Index for Southampton-wide percentiles.
Shiversa are the complete live package: a five-piece originals band with a professional, road-tested rig and a promotion work ethic most bookers will notice before the first soundcheck.
The sound is dialled long before load-in. Matt runs a Fractal Audio rig, digital gear that lets him switch guitar sounds mid-set, and the band make a point of proving their tones in rehearsal rooms and live mixes rather than trusting what worked at home, so the low end stays heavy without turning to mush.
It's road-tested the hard way, too. They've had gear misbehave at shows and the lessons stuck: problems get planned for before they happen, down to how the equipment is looked after at the venue.
Promotion they bring with them
They pull their weight on the night's success. The 'Search For Me' launch taught them to have everything ready early, drip teaser clips in the days before a date, and never spam a feed. Steady, authentic promotion beats noise.
Between shows the feed stays warm with rehearsal clips and behind-the-scenes moments. The band are honest that the filming, the editing and the occasional mistake all take time, but authenticity online is part of why people turn up in person, and turning up is the whole game.
What they're looking for
Right now the band play Southampton and the surrounding South, with Winchester already on the map and Guildford and Reading in their sights, and they're actively looking for venues and promoters beyond their own contact book. A full press kit with images and tracks is ready on request, and their profile has the music, the videos and the enquiry button. If you book original heavy music, this is a band that arrives prepared.
None of it is accidental. The same patience that built the lineup shows up on gig night: tones proven in advance, contingencies thought through, promotion already running by the time the doors open. Book them, and most of the variables a promoter usually worries about have been worried about in advance.
Quick-fire Q&A
Seven honest answers from a working artist.
Which albums made you the musician you are?
For me it's Karnivool's 'Sound Awake', Pulse Ultra, and P.O.D.'s 'Satellite'. Ask the others and you'll get four different answers: Omar would say Oceansize, Ed's an earthtone9 fan, and Sarah comes from modern hardcore and metal. That spread is the band.
How do you keep a heavy set interesting?
Don't be predictable. We avoid formulas and write in shifts of intensity, mood and dynamics, so the audience never quite settles. If you can surprise people, you keep them.
Nerves before a show?
Honestly, yes. Mostly about the technical side, whether everything's going to work. The moment we start playing it disappears, and that switch from anxiety to fulfilment is the best feeling in it. Then I can't stand still on stage.
Advice for a band releasing their first EP?
Get everything ready earlier than you think you need to. We had the music ready for 'Search For Me', but things like artwork and CDs could have been sorted further in advance. Then tease it in the days before release and don't overpost. People switch off if you spam them.
Favourite venues to play?
The Hobbit and Heartbreakers in Southampton, and the Railway Inn in Winchester. Next on the list is getting up to Guildford and Reading.
What do you want a listener to feel?
Pensive, sometimes a bit uneasy. A lot of what we write is built on groove and repeating patterns that pull you in, then we shift the mood underneath you. If you come away feeling something you can't quite name, we've done our job.
Biggest challenge for a band coming up right now?
Getting people out to shows. It's harder than it used to be. Local scenes have changed and grassroots venues are closing fast. That's why we play local first, where our crowd can actually turn up, and use platforms like this to reach venues we don't already know.
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