AMARANTHE & EPICA // BEACON, BRISTOL
a monumental night of metal mastery at the Bristol Beacon
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(5/5)
EPICA AT BEACON, BRISTOL
PHOTOCREDIT: DEEPAK RAMADASAN
The date is 20th January 2026. It is a Tuesday and it is raining in Bristol. It is cold, wet and miserable outside this evening but fret not because inside the Bristol Beacon, things are about to get hot because Swedish metal powerhouse Amaranthe and Dutch symphonic metal pioneers Epica are uniting to co-headline for the Arcane Dimensions tour.
Amaranthe, formed in 2008, built their identity around a genre-hybrid sound that is both heavy and aggressive but glossy and instantly catchy. At the core of that is their triple-vocal approach – clean, melodic vocals sitting alongside harsh growls and processed electronic elements. Their songs are built for impact – short runtimes, big hooks and relentless momentum. Subtlety isn’t the goal, maximum energy is! The house lights dim and the crowd, visibly excited and audibly charged are treated to the striking backdrop featuring artwork from Amaranthe’s latest album, The Catalyst – a sleek, futuristic and synthetic visage of a female humanoid figure. The stage also contains pipework of sorts, slowly billowing smoke that would make even H.R.Giger proud!
Amaranthe are no strangers to Bristol, having supported Dragonforce at the O2 Academy a couple of years ago and tonight, we are treated to a rapturous applause as the three vocalists Nils Molin, Elize Ryd and Mikael Sehlin take the stage. They open with ‘Fearless’ and ‘Viral’, getting the crowd all fired up. Guitarist Olof Mörck and bassist Johan Andreassen are full of energy, jumping and bouncing all over the stage, matching the timing of the lasers that are firing off into the ceiling.
‘PvP’ increases the tempo and gets all the gamers in the crowd throwing fist bumps into the air after which Elize and Nils pair up for a beautiful and haunting rendition of ‘Crystalline’ which gets the crowd swaying their hands from left to right, a beautiful sight to behold amidst the lights and lasers. After yet another song from the Manifest album, ‘BOOM!1’, we are treated to the full force of ‘The Catalyst’ which shows off the band’s high-octane energy, hand in hand with the pulsating lights of the set which gets the crowd totally engaged and up on their feet.
After ‘Chaos Theory, the lights dim for a while and the side lamps are illuminated to Elize walking back onto the stage to join Olof for a piano rendition of ‘Amaranthine’ followed by the rest of the band joining in to finish off this fan favourite. ‘Amaranthine’ is one of Amaranthe’s defining songs – a perfect snapshot of their identity and how and why they stand out in modern metal.
For the encore, we have ‘Archangel’, ‘That Song’ and ‘Drop Dead Cynical’. ‘Archangel’ is delivered fast and forceful, hitting hard from the very first riff. ‘That Song’ includes a cheeky snippet of ‘We Will Rock You’ and the final track of the night, ‘Drop Dead Cynical’ lifts the roof of the Beacon. A vast majority of Amaranthe’s songs tonight were from the ‘Manifest’ album and one hopes that their return to Bristol in the future will feature newer material as they continue to redefine modern metal.
And now it is time for Epica! Formed in 2002, they specialise in grand scale and cinematic heaviness. The band fuses crushing metal riffs and blast-driven intensity with orchestral arrangements, choirs and philosophical themes drawn from religion, science, psychology and politics. In the metal community, Epica are widely respected as one of the genre’s standard-bearers and regarded as a band that proves extreme metal can be intellectual, emotional and immense all at once.
Unlike Amaranthe, Epica have taken their set design to a whole different level. There is no standard backdrop to be seen here – instead they have opted for a two-tier stage, at the back of which is a monstrous 4K video screen. Keyboardist Coen Janssen and drummer Arien van Weesenbeek are positioned on the upper platform, engulfed in a swirling fog of white smoke whilst founding guitarist and vocalist Mark Jansen, bassist Rob van der Loo and lead guitarist Isaac Delahaye are all on the lower platform/main stage.
And out of the smoke and against the bright lights of the 4K video screen, a faint figure is slowly becoming visible. This figure is none other than vocalist Simone Simons, dressed as an apparition – the bellow of “DIVE INTO THE UNKNOWN!” has got the crowd headbanging. Yes, you guessed it, Epica open with ‘Apparition’ off of their latest album ‘Aspiral’. They do a great service to the new album, playing an additional 4 songs off of it – ‘Cross the Divide’, ‘Eye of the Storm’, ‘Fight to Survive’ and ‘The Grand Saga of Existence – A New Age Dawns Part IX’
Coen is full of energy and keeps swapping between his keyboard on the upper platform and then getting into the midst of the action with a curved keytar, engaging in playful interactions with the rest of the band. After ‘Never Enough’, the entire auditorium goes dark for a while and the darkness is broken by blue lighting and lots of smoke billowing from the stage floor. Simone, now in a different outfit, is joined on stage by Charlotte Wessels and they team up for a beautiful, glorious duet on ‘Sirens – Of Blood and Water’.
Then something strange happens – the house lights come on and one can hear the fire alarm going off. The band have not employed any pyrotechnics during this show and the band announces that they are just as confused as anyone else and add that they do not know how long this break will last for. Simone jokes “Now is the time to go for a number one…or two” which has the crowd in a moment of laughter…
Ten minutes later, the show is restarted albeit some audience members have already left the auditorium. ‘Tides of Time’ kicks off the restart of the show, followed by the epic ‘The Grand Saga of Existence – A New Age Dawns Part IX’. I can’t help but wonder if playing with Metallica on the M72 tour in Paris and Hamburg had any input into writing ‘The Grand Saga of Existence…’. ‘Cry for the Moon’ is up next and Simone’s powerful and haunting vocals are gracefully intertwined with Mark’s raspy growls.
Epica survive the unfortunate fire alarm by finishing off the night with ‘Fight to Survive’, ‘The Last Crusade’ and the fitting finale, ‘Beyond The Matrix’.Epica once again served up a grand, cinematic and emotionally intense show, this time in a much larger venue, compared to the O2 Academy when they last visited Bristol as part of another co-headline tour with Apocalyptica in January 2023.
REVIEW + PHOTOS BY: DEEPAK RAMADASAN
