Live Music Review: Reverb Appreciators Survived the Heat at Levitation 2026

Levitation Festival returned to Austin this past weekend (September 10-13), bringing a stacked international lineup back to a multi-venue format for its 2026 edition, with showcases scattered across the city. The bill pulled in longtime regulars, first-time festivalgoers, and a handful of acts making their first Central Texas appearance since they formed. Oppressive heat ran through all four days as the festival’s defining backdrop, but it didn’t stop Levitation from delivering for its loyal reverb appreciators once more, extending a run that’s outlasted a wave of beloved festivals in an increasingly unstable independent music scene. The Cosmic Clash team was on the ground for all four days. Here’s what stuck with us.

Thursday

The 13th Floor

California indie rockers Spacemoth opened the late-night bill at The 13th Floor on the evening of the Levitation kickoff, a fitting slot for the Greenway Records signees since the label shares leadership with Reverberation Appreciation Society head Harry Portnof. Led by Bay Area producer and engineer Maryam Qudus, the group works in psychedelic pop, krautrock, and dream pop. The set backboned Qudus’ songs with infectious creative optimism, playing so tight you’d think the band had been together far longer than their actual tenure. The project began as a solo effort in 2020. Spacemoth released their sophomore effort, Inward Eye, in 2026, a worthy entry from a producer who keeps the tunes coming as the Bay Area outfit’s figurehead.

Kentucky’s Doom Gong filled the stage with a sizable amount of gear that seemed to be testing the limits of 13th Floor’s footprint. Any more equipment and the stage plot would have needed to spill onto the venue floor. Under their self-proclaimed “Denim Psych” banner, the band delivered a flammable, fuzzed-out wall of noise: two drummers driving the engine, guitars stacked on guitars, and megaphone-reverbed vocals built for anyone who loves King Gizzard’s I’m in Your Mind Fuzz era. Their most recent LP, MEGAGONG, proves the young guard still knows how to whip up a raging wall of sound, a good thing for those of us who grew up on the genre’s heavyweights: Osees, King Gizzard, and the rest.

Friday

The Far Out Lounge & Stage

Levitation’s main programming kicked off at The Far Out Lounge & Stage with a seven-band bill mixing Levitation debuts and returning acts. Austin psych punk trailblazers Grocery Bag started early, ahead of their allotted set time given the incoming rain, and redeemed their canceled slot from Austin Psych Fest last spring. British synth-punk experimentalists Powerplant delivered a relentless set built on their black-metal-infused new LP, Bridge of Sacrifice. Frontman Theo Zhykharyev gave everything, barely pausing between songs as he and his bandmates tore through the set.

Japanese noise-punk outfit Melt Banana kept the pace going with a pervasive onslaught. Vocalist Yasuko Onuki’s voice hacked through at maximum overdrive while co-member Ichiro Agata manned electronics and guitar. It took a while to realize the drums were machine-triggered, coming from speakers stashed directly behind the pair for the whole set. The blast beats and crashes hit as hard as if they’d been played live, which only fueled the steady stream of crowd surfers on Far Out’s side stage.

Mohawk

English Levitation alums Temples headlined the Mohawk main stage Friday evening, their first Austin appearance since before the pandemic. Their debut LP, Sun Structures, remains essential for psych revival fans, and the quartet sounded impeccably tight in 2026. Even at 11 p.m., the early-September Austin heat had barely broken, and more than one out-of-town act commented on it from the stage. Every stage looked brutal for performers all weekend, but we’re Austinites. We make do. Frontman James Bagshaw played through the heat with his bandmates, pulling from a wide swath of the catalog, including a heavy dip into their 2026 full-length, Bliss. The pedals were primed, the rhythm section was dialed in, and it made for one of day two’s highlights.

Saturday

Far Out Lounge

An early-afternoon rainstorm delayed the start of Peter Hook & The Light, the band led by the Joy Division and former New Order bassist. With no lightning inside the safety radius, Far Out avoided an evacuation while the crowd waited out the weather. When Hook and his band finally took the stage, it was all about Ian Curtis, the departed Joy Division frontman to whom Hook dedicated the set. The band leaned into an all-Joy-Division set list, a departure from Hook’s usual half-and-half approach with New Order material. Fans young and old sang along to every track, visibly moved. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” pulled the whole venue back to its era, a reminder that this legacy act can still keep an audience young.

Brighton noise-punk outfit DITZ came as an unexpected highlight, working the raucous Levitation side-stage crowd with a sound that leans toward the New York noise scene. Sheffield industrial and post-punk legends Cabaret Voltaire delivered a rock-steady set of pumping synths sounds that predate Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, and a sit-in from Peter Hook, his voice riding atop the sputtering electronics, made it one of the day’s biggest wins. Neo-psychedelia-infused post-punk favorites Automatic made an ideal warmup for the night’s headliner, sounding more refined with every tour and cementing their status as a near-annual Austin visitor for close to a decade running. Belarusian darkwave collective Molchat Doma closed out Saturday night with an all-out gothic dance party, a big step up from the mellower set they played last time in town at The Concourse Project.

Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater

The masked, polka-dot-clad men of French-Canadian sensation Angine de Poitrine made their Austin debut with a midnight set at Stubb’s in the Red River Cultural District, a show that sold out within hours of the festival announcement. Earlier in 2026, the mysterious duo’s KEXP radio session went viral and pulled in attention well outside their usual circles. Their sound mixes loop-based prog, psych rock, and jazzy, sometimes Middle Eastern shades, built on microtonal intervals played on a double-necked guitar-bass hybrid by Khn de Poitrine, while Klek de Poitrine holds the multi-layered loops together on drums. Despite the sudden fame, the pair stay anonymous even as the sold-out shows keep piling up. Stubb’s was packed to the last standing inch, proof the mythos holds up in person.

Sunday

Far Out Lounge

Sunday at Far Out delivered one of Levitation’s most stacked bills yet, mixing familiar faces with an act we hadn’t seen in a while. New Zealand heavy-psych duo Earth Tongue came out swinging early, riding momentum from their latest LP, Dungeon Vision. Singer and guitarist Gussie Larkin is a wiz on guitar, layering in extra bass through her pedal board for a monstrous low end on every cut.

Longtime Austin doom trio The Well played on the eve of their long-awaited fourth record, …And Flames Ran Like Living Animals, their first in almost seven years. Guitarist and co-vocalist Ian Graham still wields some of Austin’s heaviest riffs, while bassist and singer Lisa Alley adds psychoactive backing vocals and weighty bass lines with a Birmingham, UK edge.

Perth’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets returned to Levitation to shred and deliver the goods. Coming off a heroic 2025 that saw two full-lengths, Pogo Rodeo and Carpe Diem, Moonman, the Australian psych-punks keep getting more refined and their catalog keeps expanding with every tour. Singer and guitarist Jack McEwan offers a masterclass in textural music architecture, refining his sound without losing what makes it his. Their 70-minute main stage set drew one of their biggest Austin crowds yet, pulling cuts from across a deep discography while the crowd moshed like every song was the last.

When the sun finally went down, Cambridge’s Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats delivered the night’s most coveted spectacle. It’s been one hell of a year for the long-running doom outfit, with a new record on the way this week and an unlikely feud with Damon Albarn after their set at a shared festival bill got cut short over volume, reportedly at Albarn’s request. Kevin “Uncle Acid” Starrs greeted the crowd plainly: “We’re Uncle Acid and we’re here to ruin your night.” Playing cuts from across the catalog, including tracks from the forthcoming record, the band sounded tight and hungry for its next era. Crunchy, Iommi-indebted riffs paired with Starrs’ hellish shriek made for a potent dose from one of doom revival’s most prominent names.

Los Angeles supergroup Primitive Ring served as a reminder that Fuzz’s Charles Moothart and Hooveriii’s Bert Hoover are West Coast psych royalty. The pair are joined by Frankie & The Witch Fingers keyboardist Jon Modaff on drums, adding extra range to two of LA’s best. With a self-titled debut out this spring on In the Red Records, Primitive Ring’s road-warrior reputation proves unfuckwithable.

We all saw it coming. Seattle-born doom trendsetters Sleep announced their return this year with a new album, Hempispheres, and a cross-country tour. But this came with a catch: a statement from Third Man Records revealed that longtime guitarist Matt Pike would no longer be part of the band. Fans reacted with horror online, some speculating that singer and bassist Al Cisneros and Pike were no longer on good terms. Between a string of disappointing singles and a lukewarm record, the live show didn’t deliver the way longtime fans had hoped. Melvins drummer Dale Crover, who joined for this cycle, turned in a stellar performance, but replacement guitarist Bubba Dupree’s playing didn’t come close to Pike’s riffage. Even with classics like “Holy Mountain,” and “Dragonaut,” in the set, Pike’s gargantuan riffs were nowhere to be found. When the set wrapped, Cisneros told the crowd to “Give our love to Matt.” Yikes.

The 13th Floor

Closing out the Levitation weekend at the Black Angels-themed haunt has become something of a tradition. For the closing two-band bill Sunday night, attendees burned off what was left of their energy with local punks Gus Baldwin & The Sketch and Dutch psych-and-roll madmen Iguana Death Cult. Ahead of the set, Baldwin announced that this would be founding guitarist David Rawlinson’s last gig with the band. (Rawlinson also plays in Commercial Breaks and the now-disbanded Luxury Television.) With the volume redlining at Levitation HQ, The Sketch played like it was their last show, giving Rawlinson a proper send-off as he moves on to his other projects around the Austin scene.

Iguana Death Cult more than made up for the underwhelming Sleep set that closed out Far Out earlier in the night, unleashing their chaos-harnessing brand of hellraising psych rock. Frontman Jeroen Reek commands the crowd with intention, sometimes wading in himself, mic in hand, to join the madness. With their latest release, Guns Out, out via Greenway Records, the possibilities look endless for Reek’s crew. Drummer Uri Rennert deserves a mention too, rattling the stage with his grooves until the 2 a.m. closing time. A bombastic finish for Levitation 2026.

Levitation returns in 2027, with details to come. Check the Levitation website for updates.

Featured photo of Psychedelic Porn Crumpets by Troy Gonzales