Get this for a simile of Unhealthy Omens’ present place: image a stunt rider choosing up pace as they put together to leap a load of double-decker buses. Besides they’ve form of already executed that, so the buses are a mile excessive and the pace is mach 4. Such has been the ascent of the Richmond quartet over the previous couple of years. Tonight, as they headline one in all Louder Than Life’s two huge important levels, the subsequent two years come into fairly outstanding focus, and the promise they’ve already been delivering on correctly kicks in like a cartoon fruit machine paying out.
Over latest weeks, the band have dropped new songs with no warning or remark, a lot much less affirmation that their eagerly-awaited fourth album is subsequent within the pipeline. Duh, that’s solely made issues extra excitable round them. At Louder Than Life, headlining Foremost Stage 2, duking it out with Deftones instantly after them, to a frankly impenetrable crowd, it could take an excessive and centered effort to fuck it up.
By no means probably the most forthcoming of bands, the present is predicated extra on ambiance and atmosphere than private showmanship. That is superb, as a result of Noah Sebastian is an enigmatic fellow. Whereas he does discuss to the gang, his important dispatches are executed through arty movies between songs, wherein he communicates through poetic prose. As a frontman, he’s not precisely minimize from the identical fast-talking, showboating cloth as Corey Taylor. However what Unhealthy Omens ship and ship effectively is a extra all-encompassing vibe, mild and shade executed to chonky digital metalcore.
Opening with CONCRETE JUNGLE is a superb approach to break jaws with their muscular heft. V.A.N. – sadly with out a shock visitor spot from Poppy – reveals what they’ll do with a thumping beat. THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND is stonkingly big. The 2 new songs, Specter and Impose, each making their dwell debuts, sound like a band already working with this present actuality in thoughts. Oh, they usually principally announce nearer Dethrone by setting the ground of the stage on hearth.
All through, the present is cinematic in scope, one minute in close to darkness, the subsequent showing as if on futuristic steel beams, or in a big haunted mansion. For the latter monitor, the towering screens across the stage present footage of babbling water, cunningly positioned in order that it seems to be as if drummer Nick Folio is definitely adrift within the sea. At different factors, crafty perspective makes it appear like they’re dashing down a red-lit hall.
“I wanna see a moshpit,” requests Noah. “Or a wall of loss of life – your selection.” He doesn’t scream this as, say, Robb Flynn, Oli Sykes or Matt Heafy would possibly, barely breaking a sweat, however he will get it anyway. “Flip in your flashlights, I need to see how many individuals there are right here.” The reply is: just about all of them.
When you noticed them on tour with Deliver Me The Horizon final 12 months, you’ll understand how skilled for large levels like this Unhealthy Omens are already. Although they’ve been frustratingly coy about what they’re as much as subsequent, it additionally makes tonight the subsequent a part of a massive reveal. Once they reveal all of it, anticipate this to grow to be the norm.
Posted on September twenty first 2025, 6:47p.m.
