‘We’ll never sell out arenas,” Bring Me the Horizon guitarist Lee Malia told the Guardian in 2013. Five years on, there are unsold seats towards the rear, but otherwise the Sheffield metal quintet seem more than comfortable with their step up to large venues. There are streamers, smoke jets and confetti cannon, while heavily tattooed frontman Oliver Sykes has adapted to the bigger stage by unleashing his inner Freddie Mercury.
He leads the audience in a We Will Rock You-type handclap drumbeat, commands the entire crowd to jump (they do) and uses every inch of the catwalk. Sykes, who combines metal screaming with owning a clothing company, isn’t exactly shy of arena rock’s more tiresome cliches, but at least customises them for a South Yorkshire accent. “’Ow the fuck are we feeling, Birmingham?” he asks, to predictable roars. An invitation to “start the night off proper” results in an arena-scale mosh pit, which is even more of a spectacle than the confetti cannon.
BMTH are the most successful rock band from the Sheffield/Rotherham area since Def Leppard, but in leading metal’s renaissance in the mainstream, they have certainly had to compromise from their deathcore origins. They are still punishingly loud, and Sykes screams so much his tonsils should be subjected to a protection order, but their sound has broadened their teenage metal fanbase by incorporating emo, electronics and arena pop-style choruses. There’s a gentle acoustic number, Drown, and in their box-fresh white trainers, the three guitarists’ synchronised headbanging looks more boyband than metal.
Such stuff horrifies the metal hardcore, although for these cheering, air-punching hordes, there’s a deeper connection with BMTH than just music. Many relate to Sykes’ lyrics about depression and anxiety. He’s certainly not the first rocker to tap into such dark concerns, but after recent reports stating that one in eight under-19s has a mental health disorder, hearing the entire audience yelling “we’re going nowhere fast” is eerily bracing. Sleepwalking (which Sykes describes as a song “about going through a shit time and for anyone going through a shit time”) and the droll, sarcastic Happy Song similarly produce cathartic celebrations.
It’s a shame, then, that a promising speech about how this is a “pretty shit time to be alive, the government’s fucked, the environment’s fucked” leads only to the daft Antivist (“middle fingers up if you don’t give a fuck”). Sykes isn’t a spokesman for a generation, but there is a wonderfully subversive moment when a surprise revisit of their early deathcore songs – all speed metal riffs and bowel-rumbling grunting – is greeted with as much bafflement as if the band had launched into a Cliff Richard medley. “Back to the shit songs now,” Sykes jokes as they return to arena-metal bangers and, ever the wag, claims to have “forgotten” lyrics, so the crowd will sing them for him.
He never lets up, although with just two songs from the forthcoming sixth album, amo, this show feels more a consolidation than a progression. Wonderful Life is perhaps the closest they’ve come yet to mainstream rock. Its U2 circa Achtung Baby guitar riff, Red Hot Chili Peppers groove and darkly epic chorus (“Alone, getting high on a Saturday night / I’m on the edge of a knife / Nobody cares if I’m dead or alive”) make for a troubling yet celebratory anthem, which is most definitely arena-sized.
• At Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, 27 November; then Alexandra Palace, London (29 and 30 November).
