Spiritbox, 17th June 2023, Hades, Copenhell Festival, Denmark

Photo: Urban Mescalero Photography www.urbanmescalero.com

Spiritbox is a Canadian band formed some five years ago by two former Iwrestledabearonce members, guitarist Mike Stringer and vocalist Courtney LaPlante. They’ve released a few EPs and quickly gained a decent following, but it was with the release of their debut album, Eternal Blue that things seriously took off for them. The album gained them not only commercial success, but also critical acclaim, making it to many end-of-the-year top lists in 2021.

Musically the band combines elements of Metalcore, Nu-Metal, electronics and Djent. What characterised their debut album was of course the overall quality, but just as much the depth that came across. Something many of the similar bands lack. So that was a big reason to look forward to this concert to see what this band is like live.

Another aspect that made their appearance interesting is that looking at this year’s headliner at Copenhell, festival, one couldn’t help but wonder who will take over once the classic acts are no longer able to tour and draw those massive crowds. The youngest headliner at this year’s edition of the festival has been around for almost three decades.

The stage setup was extremely minimalist, with basically just a drum kit and big simple backdrop. The quartet started off with lots of energy delivering three almost equally strong songs before they left the stage for a rather long time, taking into the consideration that we didn’t get to encore or anything. That took some of the initial energy out of the show, but the band got back on stage and played a few more songs, and then withdrew again. Performance-wise, Spiritbox did a good job with LaPlante exercising he vocal diversity throughout. She easily shifted from mellow parts to the very harsh ones and in general did her job as expected.

Long pauses did drain some of the intensity from the show, but in general the band kept a solid hold on the crowd though major portions of the show. The “We are all equal” and “Shake booty” speeches have been heard many times before elsewhere, and for the most part delivered with more conviction. LaPlante delivered a few witty lines as well, but in general lacked connection, especially in-between songs.

Musically, the band appeared focused on delivering an energetic show rather than bringing those beautiful layers of their music. Maybe that’s a good approach for a festival gig, where a big portion of people simply want to rock-out. On the other hand, on that very same stage few days earlier Life Of Agony proved that you can do both at the same time and give the audience an experience of a vastly broader spectrum.

Spiritbox’ performance at Copenhell was fine, but it didn’t live up to the buzz or to that which they delivered on their only album so far. So are the Canadians the next big thing? Time will show, but for now they could’ve done a much better job this grey evening in Copenhagen.

SETLIST:

1. Rule of Nines
2. Hurt You
3. Yellowjacket
4. Halcyon
5. Rotoscope
6. The Void
7. Secret Garden
8. Circle With Me
9. Holy Roller
10. Hysteria
11. Eternal Blue