Tonight the mighty Bring Me The Horizon return to Cardiff for the first time since the release of their glorious new album ‘Sempiternal’. Solus is a fairly intimate venue for them to play, and if they’d wanted to, they could’ve upgraded easily, but the whole point is to keep this tour fairly small and sweaty as something of a treat for the fans who have kept their faith with them while they’ve been away.
First things first, Bring Me The Horizon have brought the utterly fantastic Crossfaith along for the ride. The Japanese metalcore titans look utterly at home playing to BMTH’s rabid fans. Judging from their huge sound and incredible stage presence, Crossfaith should be back to play their own headline tour in the very near future and rightly so.
There’s no doubting that tonight’s main event is Bring Me The Horizon. One small gripe is that tonight’s set is not nearly long enough, clocking in at around sixty minutes long, but it can be argued that it’s the epitome of “short and sweet”. Opening with ‘Shadow Moses’, the crowd go utterly insane, and it only gets more manic when they follow it up with the massive ‘Chelsea Smile’.
Bring Me The Horizon have made three flawless albums in the last five years, and tonight they play an incredible mixture of tracks off all of them. It’s one thing to create fantastic music, but it’s quite another to be an unbelievable live band as well. BMTH are one of the rare bands that are even better live than they are on record, so it’s no surprise they’re selling out huge venues around the world while the rest of the genre is struggling to make an impact as large as them.
The crowd reaction to new songs taken from ‘Sempiternal’, which was only officially released last month, is overwhelming. Songs like ‘The House Of Wolves’ and ‘Go To Hell, For Heaven’s Sake’ prompt singalongs that could rival songs that have been out for decades and it’s unbelievable to watch.
Even when BMTH slow it down for ‘And The Snakes Start To Sing’ (where frontman Oli Sykes proves that he actually does have an excellent singing voice) and ‘Blessed With A Curse’, the energy in the room is still fantastic. And then closing with ‘Antivist’ and coming back on for a quick ‘Sleepwalking’ encore, it’s safe to say this band manage to ignite a crowd unlike any other.
The simple fact of the matter is that no band in the world does it better than Bring Me The Horizon right now. Go and see them before they take over the world.
LAIS MW