Bad Omens review – anthemic songs and pillars of fire soaking the nerves of the arena | metal

MMetal greats Bad Omens are going all out on their first UK headline arena tour. In the first five minutes, we’re treated to massive music riffs, pillars of fire, and horror-inspired supernatural visuals. Formed in 2015, the American band achieved mainstream success in 2022 with their third album The Death of Peace of Mind, which embraced the kind of brilliant pop songwriting and complex storytelling that made the band so irresistible on TikTok. Although their fourth album has yet to be released, this tour marks their graduation into the same league as genre giants Bring Me the Horizon, who they supported last year. Opener Specter is enough to justify the move: a recent single as atmospheric as the dry ice creeping around frontman Noah Sebastian.

Although tonight’s setlist is rooted in metal, it showcases the band’s ambitions towards other genres, incorporating elements of industrial, electronica and drum & bass. This smooth approach is anchored by Sebastian’s highly adaptable vocals, which shift from twang to scream to whisper, even brilliantly mimicking the flow of metal Princess Poppy during their collaborative single VAN. Dying to Love is exhilarating goth, Nowhere to Go is relatively playful pop punk, and Impose finds commonalities in breakbeats and double-kick metal drums. Drummer Nick Folio deserves special mention for balancing visceral crunch with expansive resonance. The band’s willingness to draw on zeitgeist pop sounds is key to their mainstream appeal: The Death of Peace of Mind is reminiscent of The Weeknd’s gloomy R&B, by way of Bring Me the Horizon — all faux, moody beats with drops of heavy metal.

This unabashedly big sound and anthemic songwriting is well-suited for arenas – but Bad Omens themselves are not, at least not yet. They’re like consummate professionals playing a good version of what’s already on the record; Maybe it’s the nerves of the big venue, or how widespread they are, but there’s a lack of connection on stage, like the star and his backing band rather than the group having chemistry. And the star is reluctant: when Sebastian asks the audience if they’re having fun, he doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself much.