Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine review: The Poisoned Ascendancy in London

“This is going to be the metal tour of 2025,” Bullet For My Valentine’s Matt Tuck stated when the Welsh floorfillers announced the Poisoned Ascendancy run with American mavens Trivium. Call it cockiness if you like, but the facts paint a promising picture: the metalcore-era co-headliners will play their venerated 2005 albums in full and fill the kind of venues their respective legacies have long deserved.

For all their similarities – they ‘broke through’ almost simultaneously, affirming the rise of snarling and thrashy riffs after the decline of nu metal – the pair present themselves in polar opposite ways. TRIVIUM’s London stage-show is a full-throttle throwback, introducing the night’s Metallica-style ‘snakepit’ format, which lets the bands perform surrounded by their fanbases. Midway through their set, they double down on the 80s worship: a massive effigy of the demon on Ascendancy’s cover inflates behind drummer Alex Bent as an ode to Iron Maiden’s Eddie.