James Gibbons @ The O2 Arena London
February 14, 2025| Harry Shiels |LIVE REVIEW
Live Review: ‘The Poisoned Ascendancy’ – Bullet For My Valentine, Trivium, Orbit Culture | Utilita Arena (NIA), Birmingham | 31/01/2025
It took twenty years to make it happen, but Bullet and Trivium have joined forces for The Poisoned Ascendancy tour - playing both their respective industry shifting albums in full and staples of any adolescent greebo from the 2000’s CD collection. Joined by rising Swede’s Orbit Culture, tonight is a prime showcase of the certain future of the next biggest names in the metal music.
Orbit Culture
Regardless of the Utilita Arena’s achingly slow entry procedure leaving thousands queuing to get in throughout the duration of their entire set, tonight’s openers Orbit Culture still have a good chunk of the audience ready and waiting to be pulled under their spell. With tonight’s obvious stipulation of co-headline album sets, the viral Swedish rising stars only have half an hour to show off their groove laden bounce of their particular brand of melo-death and get the crowd warmed up. Opening with the title track of their 2023 album, Descent, they get off gnarly start and it’s safe to say that those in attendance were easily seized and pulled into orbit.
With a simple white backdrop and a couple banners on stands, this is all about the lighting and Orbit Culture’s penchant for stomp-heavy pit riffs that get the crowd warmed up. They sound at home in the large arena space and, as expected, gargantuan booming out of the towering PA system. The five song set is mainly focussed on their recent album, with a few throwbacks in the form of ‘North Star of Nija’ and ‘While We Serve’ making appearances for their diehards. Closing with mega single ‘Vultures of North’ goes down a treat and sets the night off to an excellent start, with the future of Orbit Culture looking bright with thousands of new fans joining their ranks across this run.
Photo Credit: James Gibbons @ The O2 Arena London
Orbit Culture
Trivium
The roar of the crowd as the lights dim and the instrumental melodies of ‘The End of Everything’ is fundamental proof that this tour was a long time coming for Trivium. The band waste very little time, storming the stage with high energy, frontman Matt Heafy encouraging mosh pit shenanigans from his first breath into a microphone. ‘Rain’ tears through the audience like a raging bull, pits are popping up all over the shop matching the band’s energy and throwing it straight back at them, notable when the breakdown towards the end of the track threatens to tear the floor apart. Any aversions to Trivium’s place as being a co-headliner in this spot vanish from sight as the drum fill introducing time tested and certified banger ‘Pull Harder On the Strings of Your Martyr’ is greeted with howls of joy. For the first of many times tonight, the crowd screaming the lyrics back almost drown out the mammoth PA, oppressive strobes flicker on the maelstrom that is the standing area.
Ever the professional, Heafy knows how to keep a crowd planted square in the palm of his hand. Riling them up by saying that Manchester had the best pits so far, answered by a chorus of playful boo’s as Birmingham has no plans to be outdone, and they’re encouraged by the cheeky frontman. ‘Drowned and Torn Asunder’ provides the perfect musical backdrop for the crowd to show off what they’ve got. The double kick heavy, well paced tempo melodeath inspired album cut sounds just as fresh today as it did twenty years ago. The same can be said for the band themselves, never a stranger to having high quality sound, they are on fire this evening. It could be described as “album quality” but that would be doing the band a disservice, they sound phenomenal.
One of the best things about nights like tonight is seeing the small pockets in the crowd reacting to their personal favourites, and the title track ‘Ascendancy’ definitely has fans in the room, elation in the air as it unfolds graciously. So far Trivium have kept a pretty low-key production approach: Japanese art inspired stage backdrops and riser banners adorn the stage, little faux stone dragon statues with red LED eyes sit in the corners. However, as a little drum solo leads into ‘A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation’, in an unexpected surprise an inflatable effigy of their Ascendancy album artwork swells from the back of the stage in a grand spectacle. The doom and gloom dramatics of ‘Gunshot…” is oh so delicious and even greater when the track breaks into the manic melodic runs with this imposing inflatable looming over the stage in menacing fashion.
‘Like Light to the Flies’ flies by in a blur of early metalcore angst and swagger before the bite size “emo-anthem” ‘Dying In Your Arms’ receives another heroes welcome from the crowd, how they even have voices left at this point is already a shock in and of itself. Again, no surprise, ‘Dying…’ has remained a fan favourite since its release and was a regular part of a Trivium set until around 2018. Back to unbridled metal fury with ‘The Deceived’, featuring some amazing little production flourishes that almost go unnoticed. Projected demonic Oni faces are subtly blended into the backdrop and in the more intense moments, uplighting is used on the inflatable to give the impression that the flames atop its head are alive and burning bright. Cuts like ‘Suffocating Sight’ just hit like a sledgehammer in a live environment and just continue to prove how vital Ascendancy was at its time of release.
With the album almost at a close, Heafy takes another time to bask at the size of the crowd before him and reminisce. Saying the main inspiration of this tour was feeling that the early years of their career passed by too quickly, regularly coming back to the thought of “I wish we could relive that”. Referencing their iconic Download 2005 set that has gone down in legend, it seems insane looking back that it took this long for Trivium to reach the point they’ve clearly been ready to step onto for a long time. While introducing penultimate track ‘Departure’, he shares a little insight: “It’s a record about the struggles I felt about myself and sometimes continue to feel, the things I didn’t like”. It’s an emotional moment that many in the room certainly feel akin to, a reason why the fan base is so attached to these two albums and accompany the song by lighting the room with torches and lighters. When the intro melody hits, ‘Declaration’ almost feels triumphant, the seven-minute closer collapsing into chaos for one last violent burst of love for Ascendancy and the band that brought it to us.
With just a touch of extra time left after Ascendancy comes to a close, Heafy says his final thank you’s for the night over the all too familiar striking piano chords of ‘Capsizing the Sea’. With one final request, asking the pits to give all the energy they have just one more time before the epic bellows introducing ‘In Waves’ close Trivium’s phenomenal arena showcase on an undeniable high note. Despite tonight’s second headliners familiarity with large scale venue’s, this felt like a true triumph for the Florida veterans, finally getting an opportunity to flex their rock star muscles and pulling it off with predictable and professional ease. There were blatant hints of this greatness a decade ago when the band originally got an opportunity to headline Bloodstock in 2015; however after this tour and their impending repeat festival headline set this summer, it looks like its time, once and for all, for Trivium to be cemented in their rightful place at the upper echelons of the metal scene.
Photo Credit: James Gibbons @ The O2 Arena London
Bullet For My Valentine
Much like Trivium, a large part of the atmosphere building around the arena for tonight’s closer is nostalgia. As the lights dim, the screens at the back of the stage flicker to life, showing old videos of fresh-faced young welsh lads with their whole career’s ahead of them. Footage and voiceovers of early shows, interviews, awards, it really felt like Bullet For My Valentine had the potential to conquer the industry in one fell swoop. The package starts to fade into The Poison’s ‘Intro’, the boys take their places on stage to a rapturous response and explode straight into ‘Her Voice Resides’. The Bullet diehards are loud, and they know every word from opening line to the end of the night. The screens are blasting pulp comic visuals in the style of The Poison’s artwork alongside by lyric hits, it’s a sight to behold. The tense crescendo bringing ‘4 Words (To Choke Upon)’ to life careens into an explosive break as the song and mosh pits strikes fever pitch for the first time in the set.
It seems silly, but it’s easy to forget how early ‘Tears Don’t Fall’ comes in the track list when it has such a legendary aura around it. There is almost no point in Tuck singing, the audience are almost drowning out the PA with almost 16,000 fans relaying the emo anthem word for word. They’re on fire, blasting through the album in flawless fashion, but unfortunately the momentum of their set hits a brick wall. Tuck briefly manages to squeeze out “we’ve just been told to stop, shit’s going down” as an injured fan needs medical assistance. After a short break, the titans return with ‘Hit The Floor’”, dealing with the situation as best they could as they keep moving forward through The Poison with more nostalgic bangers.
It’s time for another vocal cord wrecking session, angst filled alternative classic ‘All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me)’. The screens are effectively playing the now legendary video as the crowd sings at the top of their lungs. A barrage of lasers accompanies the chorus and at that moment Bullet feel like they’re on top of the world with the weight of the universe behind them. Hitting back to back with ’Hand Of Blood’ is an otherworldly moment, the debut EP cut still holding absurd power over an entire generation of alternative music fans. It’s been sorely missing from BFMV’s setlist for a number of years now, and hopefully this tour shows just how much their fans still love this throwback. In the same breath, ’Room 409’ is another deep cut that the band’s devotees hold dear to their heart and has been sorely missing and has fists pumping all over the shop.
Much like the previous acts, there are zero complaints about tonight’s sound, the band sound massive and squeaky clean, the only blemish being an occasional strain in Tuck’s vocals when he’s giving it everything he’s got. BFMV choose a different approach to Trivium’s take on headliner production, which just makes the experience of back to back arena headliners feel more exciting. Bullet’s production takes on the mantle of Metallica to Trivium’s lean towards Iron Maiden; which is to say: big screens, flashy lighting and a metric fuck load of lasers. Honestly, the only thing missing was heaps of pyro for both of tonight’s acts, but it seems like they kept the budget in check to spunk the lot in London (which was surely a spectacle in itself, but was a slight disappointment tonight). However, even without, Bullet have clearly gone the extra mile with the production to stake a claim as future headliners of Donington and they sell themselves incredibly well to be in that position.
Whilst there are still plenty of great moments in the album’s final run, The Poison does sit as a rather front-loaded experience. That doesn’t make a difference though, twenty years of listening has most of the audience locked in, and the title track has grown even better with age (much like a lot of thirsting fans liken to Matt Tuck himself on this recent run). The flow between the tracks is seamless and smooth sailing, it’s shocking how fast the set flies by. The melodic desperation and sadness of ‘10 Years Today’ has an emotional weight swelling until it threatens to burst with the final chorus. Likewise, ‘Cries In Vain’ has a strong portion of the crowd still singing along word for word. Before you know it, the rich melodies of ‘The End’ are finally here as it’s time to say goodbye, to the second landscape shifting album of the night. The seven minute closer starts as a reflective and sombre moment, but as we all know when the halfway point hits, the band want every ounce of chaos left in the room to be thrown into the pits for a tumultuous and satisfying ending.
Even though a decent chunk of time got eaten during their set earlier, Bullet still manage to squeeze in a two track encore to milk every last drop of elation from these vast crowds. Big single from their 2022 self-titled release ‘Knives’ goes down a treat with the BFMV faithful, though in noticeably smaller pockets compared to The Poison material, and is accompanied by some of the best screen visuals of the night. Finally bringing the night to a close with another classic banger from the back catalogue, Tuck calls for bloody murder in the pits with ‘Waking The Demon’ to send the crowd home on an adrenaline fuelled final note.
You could choose to be snarky and nitpick some finer details of what their set was lacking, but at the end of the day, it looks like Bullet have finally clawed their way back to the top and proven that they are an absolute must-see of the British metal scene. If their eighth album can deliver just a handful of bangers to ride this wave of (deserved) hype, then there is no doubt that you’re looking at a renewed mega-power back in their peak form at the top alternative world. Love them or hate them, at this stage to say they haven’t earned this spot, or they don’t deserve to be here is farcical, BFMV can undoubtedly deliver the goods with an arena worthy spectacle.
Photo Credit: James Gibbons @ The O2 Arena London
