Rockfreaks.net

support Spiritbox + Loathe
author AP date 29/01/24 venue Forum Black Box, Copenhagen, DEN

Architects have come a long way since I first saw the still young and confrontational metalcore band live in 2009. Gone are those days of intimate shows; the Brighton-formed outfit is now headlining some of the biggest venues on the European continent, with a stage production that rivals the most revered live acts in metal. Danish fans have had to wait more than four years for their return, as their much anticipated performance at the 2023 edition of Copenhell was hindered by inclement weather for the second time, and those fans have turned up in legions for this Monday night showdown, which also includes warm-up concerts by two bands on the verge of their own major league breakthroughs. Tonight’s venue Forum may be configured into its smaller Black Box setup for the occasion, but make no mistake — this is going to be the biggest concert by Architects yet on Danish soil.

Loathe

Leading the charge is the Scouser act Loathe, whose arrival on stage is preceded by a few minutes of opera music when the lights are dimmed. The classical sounds are struck into a stark contrast by the band’s dissonant opening track, “Gored” off their 2020 outing “I Let It in and It Took Everything”, which is unfortunately lost to a muddled mix, even if drummer Sean Radcliffe’s groove does manage to invoke bouts of headbanging here and there. By the time “New Faces in the Dark” from that same album takes over, most of the sound issues have been resolved by the engineer on duty, allowing the group’s fusion of nu metal and metalcore to make its mark at last, and guitarist Erik Bickerstaffe to prove he has other tricks up his sleeve, too, unleashing a number of whining leads from the midst of his crushing seven-string riffage for atmosphere. “YEAH, MAN!”, roars Kadeem France in a distinctively Caribbean accent, taking in the huge audience who have just witnessed the hulking, energetic frontman perform a series of daring jumps and swings at unseen phantoms in “Aggressive Evolution”. It is an aptly titled, belligerent piece of music that would be far better off without the less than tonal clean singing of Bickerstaffe distracting from its heavy core. Indeed, there does not seem to be any need for his vocal contributions, as in the following, Deftones-inspired “Screaming”, France largely shuns growling in favour of a much better singing voice than his compatriot is able to muster.

The song itself is an odd change of pace — one of several that bestow upon the concert an almost schizophrenic disposition that is particularly notable in the context of such a short set. Perhaps if the band were headlining their own concert, these lapses into dreamy and grungy soundscapes that at times resemble Loathe’s countrymen in Basement would not sound so abrupt, but instead exist as part of a larger flow. But tonight, both this track and the band’s 2022 standalone single “Is It Really You?” feel like confusing additions to an otherwise caustic and riveting performance. “Dance on My Skin”, with its djent-y riffs and off-kilter rhythm, and the black metal-influenced closing piece “Heavy Is the Head that Falls with the Weight of a Thousand Thoughts” emerge as consummate highlights, but overall, Loathe delivers a somewhat uneven show that also suffers from a persistently subpar sound mix within which any semblance of intricacy swiftly drowns.

Spiritbox

Spiritbox’s concert begins with a dark, electronic backing track, building up tension for their explosive opening track “Cellar Door” from last year’s “The Fear of Fear” EP. Courtney LaPlante may be quite petit, but she possesses a gargantuan voice, the combined might of it and the heavy instrumentals immediately sparking a large moshpit in the centre of the venue. One could be forgiven for thinking that Spiritbox is the true headliner here, and on the basis of their confident, dynamic, and altogether captivating performance, it is high time the quartet is given exactly that opportunity. Just like on the EP, the first song flows seamlessly into “Jaded”, in which LaPlante showcases the cleaner segment of her immense vocal range, and is carried away into a seductive dance in the chorus. She is a very expressive frontwoman, using her hands and bodily movements to accentuate the messages in her lyrics, both resembling the enigmatic Julie Christmas at times, and incorporating the sort of moves one would expect from the biggest pop stars in the world. Her presence on stage is nothing short of intoxicating, though a significant portion of the audience seems completely oblivious to it, preferring instead to focus their attention on efforts like creating a 360° wall of death during the breakdown in “Angel Eyes”, or taking their chances at crowd surfing in the likes of “Yellowjacket”, taken from their 2021 album “Eternal Blue”. “STOP!”, she abruptly screams halfway through the latter, and as a more traditional wall of death forms, Architects’ frontman Sam Carter is seen arriving on stage to reprise his cameo on the record.

It makes for an entertaining duet, with Carter and LaPlante feeding off of each other’s energy, acting out the elusive lyrics in vivid, reciprocal movements. It has to be said though, that LaPlante is more than capable of shouldering the weight of this song on her own, and as such, the guest appearance feels a bit unnecessary. After all, guitarist and backing vocalist Mike Stringer has been harmonising with LaPlante throughout the show thus far. And speaking of Stringer, even though LaPlante invites most of the spotlight onto herself by virtue of her spellbinding antics, the rest of the band should not be underestimated either. Stringer, bassist Josh Gilbert, and drummer Zev Rosenberg all have their own moments to shine across the 40-minute concert, with Gilbert in particular stealing the show with his slick riffage in “The Void” early on, and Rosenberg laying down a devastating rhythmic foundation for the fan favorite “Holy Roller”. It is a song that speaks to the crowd’s primal impulses, resulting in dozens of beers flying through the air and people losing their footing on the moshpit’s well-hydrated floor. Before the final track of the set, “Hysteria”, LaPlante delivers a short but empowering speech in tribute to all the women she can see in the audience tonight, telling them that “if [she] can do this, [they] can do this!". It is the perfect show-ender, delivering ethereal respite in the first half, before concluding things on an extremely heavy note and leaving us all thoroughly warmed up for the headliners.

Architects

The fact that it is Queen’s grandiose 1978 classic “Don’t Stop Me Now” that is played when the lights are dimmed seems to foreshadow the enormity of the production that Architects have assembled for this tour. And when the song is replaced by the band’s own, bassy, electronic intro music, the stage is gradually unveiled in full glory; it consists of three staggered levels, all of which double as gigantic LED screens projecting a wealth of visual motifs to go with the Brighton band’s anthemic metalcore. Their set opens with their brand new single “Seeing Red”, which is initially marred by a hollow, yet overpowering drum sound akin to Metallica’s “St. Anger” from 2003. Vocalist Sam Carter (or rather: his silhouette) presides over the venue on the top tier, watching with approval as beer cups go flying through the air and the centre of the floor erupts in a large moshpit. There seems to be a lot of pent up energy in the crowd being released, and the band’s raving fans are certainly given their money’s worth by a visual spectacle out of the ordinary during the likes of “Deepfake”, taken from their 2022 album “The Classic Symptoms of a Broken Spirit”. During the breakdown in the following “Impermanence”, Carter forces his growls to a brutal death metal depth, compensating, perhaps, for the lack of any real menace in these newer songs that are more geared toward an arena setting.

There is an argument to be made that the stupendous stage production is mere smoke and mirrors for a setlist in which 11 out of 18 tracks in total stem either from the aforementioned record, or from its 2021 predecessor, “For Those that Wish to Exist”. Over the course of the 90-minute concert, it is hard not to notice the lack of variety between one song and the next, even if the four musicians and their two hired guns for the live setting do an excellent job in terms of showmanship. Bassist Alex Dean is often seen dancing across the various levels, spinning in his step, while Carter uses every opportunity he gets to lift off and perform death defying jumps. Meanwhile, the sound mix defies the bad reputation that Forum has in this regard, conjuring a crisp and heavy soundscape rendered richer by the presence of session musician Ryan Burnett, whose tasks include additional rhythm guitar, keyboards, and beefing up the clean voice of Carter for the many anthemic choruses that arise from songs like “Discourse Is Dead”. “None of this would have been possible without you,” Carter offers in its wake, humbled by the thunderous sing-along he has just witnessed, before dedicating the following “Hereafter” from 2018’s excellent “Holy Hell” to his fallen comrade, former guitarist Tom Searle. It is the consummate highlight of the show thus far, delivering the perfect mix of heavy, drop-tuned riffage in the verses and sheer heartbreak in the choruses.

The moshing continues unabated as “Gravedigger” off the group’s 2014 offering “Lost Forever // Lost Together” is unleashed, transforming into an enormous circle pit that threatens to consume the entire floor at one point. “Dead Butterflies” then delivers a mist of butterfly confetti, before Carter takes a few minutes to explain his struggles with anxiety and how he is experiencing its clutch around his throat right now. There are tears glistening in his eyes as he tells us this, though it is difficult to gauge whether this is a nightly address given to every audience, or a genuine, fragile moment. Regardless, Carter stretches his voice to its absolute limit for the following, standout “Doomsday”, singing and screaming with such strain one worries for his vocal cords in the powerful chorus. The screens then transform into stock market tickers and Loathe’s frontman Kadeem France charges in for a savage duet on “These Colours Don’t Run” from Architects’ 2013 outing “Daybreaker”, concluding in a hard-hitting, indignant roar of “You f**king pigs!” as the words simultaneously appear on the screens. For me, this is last true highlight of a rather beige setlist (to borrow an expression from the Gen-Z’ers), one that leaves me thinking all of the edge this band used to have has been blunted in favour of an inoffensive mainstream format, as heard in the likes of “Meteor” and “When We Were Young”. As such, I am not particularly blown back by the encore, for which Carter has changed into a Danish national football shirt with Rasmus Højlund’s number 11 on it, and which ends in a rain of string confetti from the ceiling as “Animals” rounds things off. A visually enthralling, but musically harmless performance by the British metalcore titans.

Setlist:

• 1. Seeing Red
• 2. Giving Blood
• 3. Deep Fake
• 4. Impermanence
• 5. Deathwish
• 6. Black Lungs
• 7. Discourse Is Dead
• 8. Hereafter
• 9. Gravedigger
• 10. Dead Butterflies
• 11. Little Wonder
• 12. Doomsday
• 13. These Colours Don’t Run
• 14. A New Moral Low Ground
• 15. Meteor
• 16. When We Were Young

— Encore —

• 17. Nihilist
• 18. Animals