Since their secret set at Download last year, Parkway Drive have been a nonstop talking point when it comes to potential headliners, and their latest arena tour has made those conversations even louder. Boasting an amazing lineup of Australian talent featuring The Amity Affliction and Thy Art Is Murder, Parkway Drive delivered a career high of over the top theatrics mixed with airtight musicianship.
First up was The Amity Affliction, a band that is perfect for this bill. Their breed of anthemic chorus-driven arena rock mixed with aggressive breakdowns makes them a brilliant addition. You could easily dismiss Amity Affliction as an octanecore band but their music has a lot more nuance and craft put into it beyond trying to get an audience pumped.
There’s variety beyond that with tracks like ‘Hell Down Here’ and ‘Drag The Lake,’ which featured really melodic passages before heading back into the savage territory that the audience have come to expect. There was the right blend of vicious breakdowns and glorious choruses on absolute anthems like ‘Like Love’. A more mellow experience would follow, but still a killer warm-up.
Thy Art Is Murder came next and caused a hell of a ruckus. Their headline show in Manchester back in 2023 featured a messy mix that was hard to decipher but this set was sonically immaculate. Every instrument was powerful and clear as day, with a setlist full of dense and heavy bangers like ‘Purest Strain of Hate’ and ‘Keres’.
The view from up in the stands was chaotic, the floor was full of violent circle pits and vicious hardcore dancing through rage-filled tracks like ‘Slaves Beyond Death’ and the ominous shred-filled masterpiece that is ‘Holy War’. Tracks like ‘Death Squad Anthem’ helped bill this feral atmosphere as the audience grew more and more unsettled until finally they hit critical mass and the most aggressive pits in recent memory broke out.
“You’ve got a death metal band in between two metalcore bands, you’ve got yourself a death metal sandwich,” said frontman Tyler Miller as he celebrated such a powerful bill of Australian metal, so far away from their home. It’s important to have some variety in a bill like this and Thy Art is Murder made a fantastic addition.
After a short intermission, the Parkway Drive entourage came out through the audience. There were giant flags and backup dancers coming through as the gang shook hands and gave high fives to everyone that crossed their path, as they slowly made their way to the small platform they would eventually play on.
Opening with the earth-shattering scream of ‘Carrion,’ Parkway Drive were off to an incredible start to one of the most well-polished and intricate stage shows you’re likely to find outside of the likes of Iron Maiden, Metallica and Amon Amarth. The choreography from the dancers, the pyrotechnics, the set pieces during solos were all phenomenally well put together and executed and made for a brilliant viewing experience.
The bouncing drumming of ‘Prey,’ the tight riffing of ‘Horizons’ and the soaring string section of ‘Chronos’ were just a short list of masterfully executed songs that made this show so worthy of the hard-earned money of each individual patron of the arena.
Celebrating 20 years is a momentous occasion and to have this much pomp and circumstance around it only makes sense. The only criticism you could possibly have is with the setlist, which included nothing from Deep Blue but everything else was well represented, including a gigantic medley of slamming breakdowns and hostility from their debut album Killing With A Smile.
As a fairly new fan of Parkway Drive, my favourite moments were the segments that featured borderline interpretive dance sequences on tracks like ‘Cemetery Bloom’ and ‘The Void,‘ which both set up this moody ambience and heavy atmosphere. Sure, the heavy moments are brilliant and what everyone, including Winston’s mum, was here for, but it’s these slower moments that help establish Parkway as a more forward-thinking, introspective and creative force than many others in the metalcore scene. It can get a bit cheesy and melodramatic, but that’s where half the fun is.
The latter part of the show had so much grandeur crammed into a small section, there were pyrotechnics, molotov cocktails, spinning drum risers and martial arts trained dancers all taking up the stage as frontman Winston McColl continues delivering insane vocals and the dual guitar attack of Jeff Ling and Luke Kilpatrick continues through anthems like ‘Crushed’. The set ended with the immortal singalong riff of ‘Wild Eyes,’ a certified metalcore classic that can muster hype from even the most resistant listener, a true masterclass in songwriting and musicianship performed by absolute professionals in the most hectic and epic setting you could possibly find.
There’s been much discussion about Parkway Drive becoming a headliner at Download and based on the sheer magnitude and polish of the sets on this UK tour, it’s highly possible that they could pull it off. Maybe not next year or the year after but some day, they could receive the call and absolutely knock it out of the park.
