Zee Asher @ O2 Ritz, Manchester
February 27, 2025| Harry Shiels |LIVE REVIEW
Live Review: Four Year Strong, Koyo and Shoreline | SWX, Bristol | 24/02/2025
Back for their first proper tour of the UK in seven years, Massachusetts pop-punk veterans Four Year Strong give Bristol a night to remember, with fast rising stars Koyo and German mainstays Shoreline.
Shoreline
There is quite a large gap on SWX’s dance floor as German post-hardcore/alt-rock/“emo” four piece Shoreline step out despite the decent crowd that’s come down early, but their charismatic frontman Hansol Seung encourages the crowd to step forward and get involved and close the space. Working as a perfect opener tonight, they exude a strong early 2000s energy, showing off material from last year’s album To Figure Out and other tracks from their back catalogue. They’re true devotees to the punk rock ethos and want an inclusive audience; taking a moment to talk scene ethics and politics, bemoaning the predominantly white male centric rep in the punk and hardcore scene and encouraging more diversity.
Shoreline weaves from the impassioned screams and angular rhythms of post-hardcore to a more low-key influence of Saves The Day. The recently released single ‘Forgive’ (feat. Knuckle Puck’s Joe Taylor) is well received. You can see more pockets start to engage with the bands’ performance with growing cheers after each track, winning over a lot of new fans and rightfully so, the band play and sound great. Whilst not encouraging chaos and boundless energy from the audience, Shoreline’s opening set goes down a treat, a thirty-minute quick fire demonstration of one of Germany’s hottest prospects.
Shoreline
Koyo
Joining the tour just for the UK leg, New York “Stony Brook hardcore” five piece Koyo have made massive waves in the scene with their beloved debut album Would You Miss It? Clearly it struck a chord on the nationwide scene, as the venue is almost at capacity just before they take to the stage. A 2000s spinning word art of their album title stays on the screen throughout the set, the band waste little time breaking into the melodic hardcore throwback of ‘I Might Not’. The crowd go ballistic down the front for the whole set, screaming back their gang chant vocals at full force. After a bit of a thin sound of their first track, Koyo are soon sounding untouchable as they dip into ‘Moriches’ from their Drives Out East EP.
They blast through their set, pulling mostly from their debut album, their big singles like ‘Life’s a Pill’ and ‘You’re On The List (minus one)’ book ending the album opener ‘51st State’. ‘What’s Left To Say?’, ‘Anthem’ and ‘Message Like A Bomb’ are delivered with angst tinged intensity and a magnetic energy as a live band. Anyone unfamiliar with the band in the room are being won over with ease, even more so when Koyo take a moment to thank Four Year Strong for bringing them out, as the headliners are influential to themselves, their friends and their scene. Closing the set with 2022 fan favourite ‘Mile A Minute’ sending the pits into one final unhinged flurry of bodies bouncing off each other. It’s so easy to see why Koyo have generated this devout fan base over the past few years since storming the scene, they clearly love every second of performing for their fans and present for a strong future of the scene. It is surely only a matter of time before we see Koyo headlining venues of this size themselves.
Four Year Strong
If it’s not a sold out show tonight in Bristol, then it’s not far off; the audience are spilling all the way to the back of SWX, past the merch and bar, foaming at the mouth for Worcester’s (Massachusetts, not the Lea & Perrin’s one) easycore/pop-punk/melodic hardcore veterans Four Year Strong. Aside from the pair of Slam Dunk dates in 2023, this tour marks the true return of Four Year Strong to British shores this side of the pandemic. The band have amassed a loyal fan base over the years, first playing all the way back in 2008, highly influential and well respected. The band clearly have a deep love for their UK fans as well. It feels like the band have truly found themselves in recent years, stepping away from their easycore past and embracing the alt-rock and melodic hardcore aspects of their inspirations, with new album Analysis Paralysis feeling like a breath of fresh air.
It’s made clear from the moment the house lights go down that tonight is all about fun. Using Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’ as a walkout tune, storming the stage and battering the expectant audience with the barbed combo of Analysis Paralysis opener tracks ‘aftermath/afterthought’ and massive single ‘bad habit’. Pits break open from the opening second and don’t let up until the final chords ring out. It’s a concise, no bullshit affair and the pace is unrelenting. Their presentation is kept simple, stage lighting and the occasional backlight alongside their modern logo emblazoned on the stage screen. This is by every account, a no frills, honest to god rock show and Four Year Strong sound massive the moment they step onto the stage. They are here to cram as many bangers as possible into just over an hour, showing off their new album, drawing a lot from 2021’s Brain Pain and dipping into their back catalogue for fan favourites.
Speaking of favourites, a handful of older pulls starts with ‘Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die’, an eruption of cheers for the easycore classic and its legendary opening riff. Followed by stompy Brain Pain single ‘Get Out Of My Head’, the audience’s voices already being put through their paces as an ocean of hands wave in the flickering strobes, bouncing along screaming “we’re fucked as far as I can tell”. The back to back duo of Enemy Of The World classics sends the crowd into a frenzy; ‘It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now’ hits like a truck full of petrol, an explosion of nostalgic glee (one might say a “beatdown in the key of happy”) for arguably the defining song of the bands career. ‘Find My Way Back’ has a similar effect on the audience, the air collectively being sucked out of the room as the crowd sing back every word.
The Turnstile-esque Analysis Paralysis single ‘uncooked’ does nothing to slow things down, vocalist Alan Day demanding floor spanning pits and receiving them. Rise Or Die Trying’s ‘Catastrophe’ brings the intensity down a touch, replacing the pits with more singalongs and collective pogo’ing, however ‘daddy of mine’ and ‘Brain Pain’ undoes all that hard work immediately, the heavier riff heavy tracks tearing the floor open again. ’maybe it’s me’ and ‘Seventeen’ work as an unhinged compliment to one another, chilling for a moment before cracking into more fast-paced territory.
Taking a second to breathe after the last onslaught, it’s clear that Four Year Strong are just stoked to be back in the UK. They make an appreciate shoutout to their Welsh fans, having no Cardiff date on this run and being painfully close to the country, just before the venue encompassing sing along for new single ‘dead end friend’. EP deep cut ‘Go Down In History’ has the lead melody chanted back to them as it emanates from the PA, another throwback to a decade prior inspires some chatter before the final run. The band shouting out the likes of Slam Dunk and even the long defunct predecessor Give It A Name just to show off how deep their ties to the UK scene are.
The final trifecta of crowd-pleasers have come around all too soon, Brain Pain opener ‘It’s Cool’ slowly blooms before erupting into venue wide headbanging, fist pumping and one of the most furious pits of the night. Self-titled favourite ‘We All Float Down Here’ and its opening line can barely be heard from the PA as the audience sing their hearts out. Closing proceedings with the undeniable anthem from another time, ‘Wasting Time (Eternal Summer)’ is a shot of nostalgic joy straight into the veins and still to this day, one of the best anthems from the scene in the early 10s, sending the crowd home happy with rose-tinted joy and burnt out vocal cords. It’s joyous to see Four Year Strong receiving such a heroes welcome back to the UK, they’re one of the most underrated live bands in the (pop)punk world and still feel like one of the best kept secrets in arguably the most mainstream corner of alternative music. It must really rule to be Four Year Strong right now.
