You could justly call this the first significant metal tour of the year. By 2025’s end, you might even call it the most significant metal tour of the year. Not only is The Poisoned Ascendancy Tour the hardest name going, it represents what was arguably the ground zero for metal’s direction over the last two decades. On one side, there’s Trivium, who spearheaded an entire wave of US metal that produced genuine, all-time luminaries (themselves included, of course). On the other, there’s Bullet For My Valentine, who…well, the one-time ‘biggest British metal band since Iron Maiden’ sort of speaks for itself, doesn’t it?
It’s a huge benefit that both The Poison and Ascendancy still hold up fantastically well, even 20 years on. Nostalgia ultimately decides which is ‘better’—this writer was always more of a Bullet Boy growing up—but the fact that the impact of both is still hugely prevalent today is enormously special. Apparently, a tour like this has been bounced around for a while, but there’s no better time than right now. Both Bullet For My Valentine and Trivium remain venerated, and despite some prevailing unevenness over the years (from one more than the other, to be clear), they can pull off a massive arena jaunt with ease. It’s an easy sell—a co-headline run with both albums played in their entirety, and a rotating closer each night in acknowledgement of the near-equal magnitudes of these twin legacies.
For further proof of that, look no further than our openers. Despite playing closer to Trivium’s side of the park, it’s hard to deny how indebted to that entire mid-2000s era that Orbit Culture are, and how well they pull it off. You’d never peg them as mere openers in any other circumstance—the huge sound, look, feel; it’s all there. It’s a testament to how surprisingly well a heavier kit keeps inside the Co-Op Live, though from how merciless the pounding groove-metal riffs across the entirety of opener Descent are, Orbit Culture themselves are no slouches. Special mention needs to go to drummer Christopher Wallerstedt for how thunderous his work is (especially the double kicks on Vultures Of North). Honestly, though, you’d be hard pressed to find a weak link among them. Maybe the Hetfield-ier elements of Niklas Karlsson’s voice get swallowed up, but as the band bulk themselves up into melodeath grandeur on From The Inside, it hardly seems worth complaining. There’s a metal band for the ages waiting to emerge from Orbit Culture, just like how tonight’s closers had their now-legendary explosion at Download Festival all those years ago. Before long, that’ll be about due again.
Speaking of Download, it also plays a heavy role in Bullet For My Valentine’s little pre-show history lesson. A montage plays of the early attention and coverage they received, with a particular onus placed on their debut Download appearance in 2004. Even if it’s not the mythologised tidbit of UK metal lore that Trivium’s a year later has become, it’s been a critical springboard nonetheless. More than two decades later, Bullet For My Valentine have parlayed the experience into becoming seasoned arena-dominators, with tonight being no exception. They definitely feel it with Matt Tuck most often at the head of their ringed walkway into the crowd, a frontman who’s well aware of his enormous prowess. It’s not just him, mind; a bit of self-indulgence is key for Michael Paget’s solos to catch the most air, another key piece of the slick, well-oiled machine that is the Bullet For My Valentine live experience.
It might be a little too slick for some, but you get what you pay for in that department. They’re efficient to a fault, with all energy removed from surprise or colouring outside the lines, and deposited into consummate playing and showmanship. (With the…let’s say ‘tumultuous’ early days of this venue, Tuck’s utterance “I know this building is new, but the roof is coming off” is entirely unintentional in its hilarity.) It’s not rote, though, on the basis of the fresher presence of The Poison’s lesser-played cuts. Hit The Floor is the first main one, being allowed to stretch its legs on this tour for the first time since 2016, and sporting the lack of rust customary of present-day Bullet For My Valentine. The crowd reception is a little more muted here—ditto for the final run of deep cuts—but that doesn’t bear down on anything. Criticise Bullet For My Valentine if you want for a machine-like deftness on the live stage, but it fully works when they’re bringing the goods. They’ve got every song down to a science here, and they’re clearly loving the ability to show it off and make it work. Naturally the playing is on point, and bassist Jamie Mathias handling the majority of screams now is a flawless transition.
Of course, though, it’s the big hits that rack up the most mileage, the area where, of our two co-leads, Bullet For My Valentine are handily in pole position. As odd as it is to have Tears Don’t Fall come in as only the third song, the size of it is undeniable. It’s arguably their signature song, and even among The Poison’s stacked front half, it’s the easy highlight. In a similar vein, 4 Words (To Choke Upon) and Suffocating Under Words Of Sorrow unearth a ferocity that hasn’t been at this capacity in long while, and All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me) remains the band’s secondarily seminal emo-tinged scream-along. There’s even a cheeky Waking The Demon thrown into the (rather awkwardly clunked-on) encore section, breaking out of the full-album purview, but embracing the depth of Bullet For My Valentine’s bench that’s still their number one strength. And, yeah, they’re great at bringing it out, as always. You’d expect nothing less from a band with this amount of enormo-room experience, but even so, it’s like seeing an old friend when Bullet For My Valentine bring it live. ‘Standardly excellent’ is still excellent, you know.
But even so, you’re almost tempted to feel a little sorry for the cities where they’re closing, because Trivium manage to blow them out of the water. They feel like the ‘true’ headliners, even through just a more interesting visual aspect. The coiled dragon statues flanking the stage are cool; the Asian-themed backdrop of a demon skulking atop a plinth is, too. Even better is the night’s main set piece, an enormous, inflatable recreation of the Ascendancy cover’s creature that emerges partway through the set. (Rendered in real life, with the head, grimace and bulging eye, it’s a bit Jonah-Hex-meets-blue-Bart-Simpson, but hey, the intent can’t be faulted.)
It arrives after Alex Bent’s drum solo, which itself comes early enough to get it out of the way, but without skirting the redundancy that, somehow, arena bands still haven’t clocked onto yet. As far as criticisms for Trivium go, that’s where the job begins and ends, because otherwise, they’re unbeatable. Just the first leg plays like a highlight reel—Paolo Gregoletto’s furious bass-work on Rain; the hammer-drop chants on Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr; Matt Heafy and Corey Beaulieu’s duelling guitar solos on Drowned And Torn Asunder. There’s an insane proficiency across the board, combined with a looser overall feel. Where Bullet For My Valentine are locked in on rockstar archetypes, Trivium can be more playful without sacrificing their brawn. Just look at Heafy for that, a frontman who’ll flick between an ultra-intense scream-face and playful crowd-goading at the drop of a hat.
As a unit, too, there’s a magnetism to Trivium that requires no build-up or patience; it’s there from the off. Part of that has to do with the album in question, as Ascendancy remains a considerable creative peak that translates to the stage effortlessly. But even then, the modern incarnation of Trivium takes it those crucial next steps further. It can sound ridiculously heavy—The Deceived might actually take the crown for the entire night—and refreshed by all the technical growth the intervening two decades have brought. Not that there was none in the first place; it’s just that the maelstrom of solos that leap out the furthest on A Gunshot To The Head Of Trepidation could only come from the absolute best in their field. It’s also worth highlighting Heafy’s screams and how it’s almost unthinkable that there was a period in which he had to give them up. Note-perfect from the first breath, on a level of performance, it’s unquestionable that he’s in the upper echelon of modern metal frontmen.
As for nailed-on highlights, Trivium aren’t necessarily trafficking in that lane. Dying In Your Arms is the closest to a singular hit (sporting the monster key change that it does), but the whole thing rockets along at a stratospheric height that’s borderline impossible to pick apart. 20 years on, Ascendancy sounds better than it ever has, entirely because of Trivium themselves. Their non-album tag-on is In Waves, more proof if it were needed that Trivium’s current golden age is real, not just affixed to the nostalgia circuit. There’s a visceral sensation in how it all connects, like this is a true metal great spreading their draconic wings and dominating all in their wake. And while that’s true of both of this tour’s headliners to an extent, Trivium at their best can be on a different plane of existence altogether.
Words by Luke Nuttall
Photos by Will Robinson (Instagram)
