From the outside looking in, Sheffield-based Bring Me The Horizon seem like a band in the midst of turmoil. Not only has the past few months seen a further delay of the next instalment in their highly anticipated Post-Human album series, Nex Gen, but it’s also seen the departure of long time band member Jordan Fish who has often been revered as the key to unlocking the creativity held by frontman and vocalist Oli Sykes.
However, the show must go on, and with a near sell-out tour covering just about every expanse of the UK, including two nights at London’s O2 Arena, as well as a date across the water in Dublin too, it was up to the band to show that they still mean business despite their recent struggles.
Cardiff is where it all kicked off, and kick off it did. Anyone familiar with the band will be aware of the story building and lore that they like to sprinkle throughout their live shows, which is why we were introduced to the show by the AI bot Eve.L, who is controlled by a cult shrouded in mystery. Before long the band found themselves in their starting positions, received with cheers and applause, bursting the show into the life with one of the few Nex Gen songs that have been released so far: ‘DArkSide‘.
While ‘DArkSide’ got the crowd warmed up it was the next song in the set that really got the crowd sizzling, fan-favourite ‘Empire.’ Bring Me The Horizon are a band that are often quite fussy about diving too deep into their discography, so to hear such a rarity brought immense joy to many in the crowd and especially those who were looking to get particularly rowdy.
Setlist staples like ‘Mantra’, ‘Teardrops’, ‘Shadow Moses’, and ‘Parasite Eve’ were all treated to new stage graphics and animations, appeasing both first-time viewers as well as dedicated followers of the band. While the imperious track ‘Kingslayer’ was the first song of the night where the band showed off their incredible new laser setup, turning the show almost into part-mosh, part-rave.
The cult-ish new track ‘Kool-Aid’ made an appearance live for the very first time and despite having released just four days prior to the show the crowd knew every word. Which is certainly a testament to the catchy nature of the song.
Things were slowed down with an acoustic performance of ‘sTraNgeRs‘, allowing for both the crowd and the band to catch their breath. This break was certainly welcome ahead of the next song, ‘Diamond’s Aren’t Forever’, one of the stand-out tracks from Bring Me The Horizon’s Suicide Season album. It saw the crowd swell and surge like only the most violent of ocean storms and at Sykes’ request a wall of death was quickly formed and everyone colliding with one another.
It was a particularly great night for those in attendance who were particularly big fans of the band’s Sempiternal album, with Noah Sebastian of Bad Omens joining the band on stage for a particularly loud rendition of the rebellious ‘Antivist’.
Stalwart set closers ‘Drown’ and ‘Can You Feel My Heart’ saw off the end of the regular set but, of course, there was much more to come.
After another AI-based interlude, the gorgeous orchestral introduction for the much adored track ‘Doomed’‘ flooded the arena, which was met with gasps, goose bumps, and tears from much of the crowd. Accompanying it on the screens was a visual montage of the band right from their early days all the way to their career-defining headliner set at Download last year. The track saw perhaps the night’s biggest singalong and certainly affirmed the band’s choice of including it on the set.
The last of the Nex Gen tracks to play was ‘LosT‘, which brought along dizzying, colourful graphics in conjunction with its equally dizzying hyperpop-turnt-metalcore breakdown. Finally, ‘Throne’ saw the night come to an end as the crowd obliged to the usual routine of crouching and jumping, with the band exiting the stage to even more cheers than they arrived to.
So, are Bring Me The Horizon a band in turmoil? Absolutely not. Despite recent struggles they seem more intent than ever to maintain their reputation as one of the UK’s arena rock powerhouses, and based on their showing in Cardiff there seems to be no sign of that title going anywhere anytime soon.
