On a cold Seacoast night, Wally’s Restaurant felt anything but quiet. Known as a year-round hub for loud guitars and late nights, the venue has built a reputation as one of New Hampshire’s most reliable stops for heavy touring acts — it delivered again with a stacked bill featuring Burning Witches with support by Maxilla.
The first band of the evening was Maxilla. They are a rising metal band from Cleveland, Ohio, founded in 2023. Maxilla, the “feminist metalist,” hails from the CT/NY area. Maxilla began writing music in 2018 and recording in 2023.
Maxilla draws blood from the same vein as Halestorm, The Pretty Reckless, The Warning, and In This Moment. Maxilla’s main musical influences include Pat Benatar, Lzzy Hale, and Hayley Williams, along with Black Sabbath, GHOST, Green Day, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Soundgarden, and Volbeat.
At the end of 2025, Maxilla was nominated Best Metal Band by Cleveland Music Awards. In February 2026, Maxilla announced their Spitfire Tour. On this spring/summer tour, Maxilla provides support for Vixen, Enuff Z’Nuff, Burning Witches, Platinum Moon, Vicious Rumors, Flaw, and ALYXX. Maxilla plans to release a new single in 2026.
From the moment Maxilla hit the stage, there was no easing into the set. For a band still carving out its presence on the live circuit, they played with the urgency of a headliner, leaning into heavy breakdowns and punchy transitions that kept the crowd locked in.
The crowd, packed tightly into Wally’s intimate floor space, responded in kind. Heads were nodding early, but by the midpoint of the set, the energy had escalated into full-on movement near the stage. Maxilla used that to their advantage, feeding off the proximity and returning it tenfold.
If this show was any indication, Maxilla isn’t content to stay in the “supporting act” lane for long. They came into Wally’s as a relatively lesser-known name on the bill—but they left as a band people will be watching the next time they roll through town.
The final act of the night was Burning Witches. They are a Swiss heavy/power metal band, founded by rhythm guitarist Romana Kalkuhl, based in Brugg, Aargau.
On December 4th, the band released The Circle of Five EP before recording their fourth studio album, The Witch of the North. The album was released on May 28th 2021. The album entered the German and Swiss album charts at number 6 and 16 respectively. In February 2022, the band signed a new record deal with the Austrian record label Napalm Records. Their first tour of the United States with The Iron Maidens occurred in 2022.
The Swiss heavy metal outfit wasted no time establishing dominance. Opening with a surge of galloping riffs and soaring leads, they leaned hard into their classic-meets-power-metal identity—channeling the spirit of old-school European metal while injecting it with modern speed and precision. The dual guitar attack was razor-sharp, trading harmonized lines and blistering solos that filled the compact room far beyond its physical limits.
Frontwoman Laura Guldemond commanded attention immediately. Her vocals—clean, powerful, and unrelenting—cut cleanly through the mix, carrying both melody and aggression with equal force. She didn’t just sing; she led, locking eyes with the front rows and rallying the crowd like a battle captain.
The setlist pulled heavily from fan favorites, with high-energy tracks stacked back-to-back, leaving little room to breathe. But that was part of the thrill—there was no lull, no dip in momentum. The rhythm section drove everything forward with a relentless pulse, keeping the floor vibrating as heads banged in near-unison just feet from the stage.
By the final stretch, the room had fully surrendered. The energy peaked in a blur of raised fists, shouted choruses, and sweat-soaked intensity. When the last notes rang out, it didn’t feel like the end of a set—it felt like the aftermath of something bigger.
Burning Witches
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