Counterparts Brought The 'Heaven Let Them Die Tour' To New York City

Counterparts have released their latest EP Heaven Let Them Die at the tail end of last year and have wrapped up the first week of their Heaven Let Them Die North America Tour at Irving Plaza in New York City along with Foreign Hands, Malevolence, and New York's own; Pain of Truth.

The fans that got there early had the chance to get in and catch Foreign Hands, a Delaware-based hardcore/metalcore band that is both chaotic and melodic. Formed in the mid-late 2010, the band's lineup is Tyler Norris (vocals), Jack Beatson (guitar/vocals), Gill Gonzales (guitar), Chuck Minix (bass) and Tyler Washington (drums) and are currently singed to SharpTone Records. The band has been touring and playing shows relentlessly for the past year in support of their latest release What's Left Unsaid. Foreign Hands had an action-packed set filled with metallic riffs, aggressive breakdowns, hard hitting drumming and raw screams and that were only contrasted by melodic cleans and harmonies. With hard hitting songs like "Resetting the Senses", "Tearing Down Your Reality", and "Laceration Wings", you can believe the crowd was filled with moshing and two-stepping and only took breaks to sing along to the melodic songs like "Chlorine Tears" or the clean choruses in "Horror Domain" and "Conditioned For A Head-On Collision". New York always shows up for Foreign Hands and thats why New York City is one of their favorite cities to play in. This was my eighth time seeing Foreign Hands and it never gets boring watching them. Their energy makes it hard for me to not go into the pit myself. After wrecking the pit up to the ending breakdown of "Separation Souvenir", the crowd was all warmed up and ready for some British hardcore.

Now with Foreign Hands out of the way and the crowd pumped and ready to go, it was time for some English beatdown. Next to grace the stage, making their New York City debut, was Malevolence, all the way from Sheffield, England. Formed in 2010, the band has been considered beatdown hardcore and metalcore with its members consisting of Alex Taylor (vocals), Josh Baines (guitar), Konan Hall (guitar), and Charlie Thorpe (drums). To date, they have released three studio albums and have established their own label called MLVLTD Music. Malevolence’s set was filled with heavy breakdowns, moshing and two stepping and Taylor even got into it on stage with the two stepping and swinging his arms around. The pit opened up wide for the first breakdown that dropped during "Karma" and kept moshing hard all the way through "Life Sentence" and "Trenches". The band dedicated "Self Supremacy" to Pain of Truth and a huge circle pit formed. Taylor got up on the barricade and sang part of the song with the fans upfront. He even stuck the mic out to some crowd surfers that were passing by and they definitely took that opportunity to scream what words they could. This was Malevolence’s first NYC show and the crowd gave them a nice warm welcome. They have played New York before but on Long Island, last time with Beartooth and Trivium at The Paramount in Huntington two years ago. The band played their last song "On Broken Glass" and Taylor wanted to see some crowd surfing action happening. Once the song kicked in, security saw a sea of crowd surfers coming towards them, putting them to work at catching them for the rest of the set. Taylor called for a circle pit and gave the pit one last chance to go all out in the final breakdown, warning them; “Last f**king chance, front to back, side to side, open this f**king place up”. The mosh pit gave it everything they had left and made the floor a battleground as Taylor let out one last scream to close Malevolence’s violent set.

Representing Long Island Hardcore, next up were the hometown boys Pain of Truth. Formed during the pandemic in 2020, the band becme one of the fastest growing hardcore bands today with their hard hitting lyrics and intense live shows. The band is made up of Michael Smith (vocals), Nick Hansen (guitar), Zach Stachura (bass), and Nick Barker (drums). The band is currently signed to DAZE and have released their debut studio album Not Through Blood in 2023 and have been playing touring in support of it since. The Long Island crowd made their presence known during Pain of Truth's set. The band kicked it off with "Blood On Your Hands" from their debut split EP with Age of Apocalypse and the pit was filled with two steppers and hardcore dancers the whole way through. The dancing kept going into "Lifeless on the Ground" and Smith shouted out a kid for crowd surfing and called for more. During the song, Smith climbed up to barrier and held the mic out to the crowd for the fans to grab it. He then followed with a somersault into the crowd during the breakdown and crowd surfed back to the front. Even with a barrier, that didn't stop Pain of Truth from turning this show into a hardcore show. A circle pit formed during "In Your Heart" and Smith was throwing windmills on stage during "Under My Skin".

The band went old school again and played "Pain of Truth" from their debut LP No Blame Just Facts and the pit resumed their two-stepping and fans up front were grabbing the mic once again after Smith handed a second mic to the crowd. The band then went back to their latest release Not Through Blood with the title track "Not Through Blood" and "This Falls on You" which saw more two-stepping and aggressive moshing and dancing. After switching back and forth between their first album and their latest one with "Two Choices" and "You And Me" respectively, Pain of Truth was beginning to wrap things up but still had a few more left in the tank. The next one really got the crowd 'actin' up' because it was the heavy beater "Actin' Up". This song is instense becasue it has two really heavy breakdowns. The song is also known for its "I'm on a mission from God! Tell him you failed!" intro which is taken from the movie Paul. Smith and Hansen switched instruments and Taylor from Malevolence came out to cover Steve Buhl from 200 Stab Wounds part in the closing breakdown and let me tell you, that made the pit very very, unsafe. With two songs left, Smith checked out the crowd and made sure everyone was okay before giving a small speech about Long Island and its hardcore scene and dedicated the next song to Long Island, called "LYNYHC". Both Smith and the pit were dancing aggressively in representing Long Island Hardcore and showing New York City how Long Island gets down. The band wrapped things up with "The Test" and the crowd surfing returned and the whole floor was singing the words. Long Island had one last chance to represent and they took that chance in the closing breakdown, wrecking everything in their path. That was a wrap on the hometown show for Pain of Truth but the night was about to get better.

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It was now time for the main event of the evening; Counterparts. Counterparts is a melodic hardcore punk band from Hamitlon, Ontario that has been crushing stages all over the world since 2007. The band is currently signed to Pure Noise Records and is made up of Brendan Murphy (vocals), Jesse Doreen (guitar), Tyler Williams (guitar), and Kyle Brownlee (drums). The band is known for their hardcore roots and combining it with melodies to make a sound that is both heavy and melodic. The band has been touring in support of their latest EP Heaven Let Them Die which was released last November.

Counterparts kicked it off with "A Martyr Left Alive", the first track off of Heaven Let Them Die and Murphy ordered the crowd to move which they did once the song started. The pit opened up wide and moshers were throwing hands everywhere with others screaming the words out. This continued into "With Loving Arms Disfigured" and "Bound to the Burn" where fans started to two step and crowd surf in waves. Murphy was on top of his game vocal wise, switching from mid fry's to harsh growls to spoken words like it was nothing and fans radiated off that, either screaming the words back to him or letting Doreen and Williams' heavily layered metallic riffs and chugs carry them into the mosh pit.

Counterparts went back two albums and played "What Mirrors Might Reflect" and "Wings of Nightmares" off of A Eulogy for Those Still Here and Nothing Left To Love respectively before going into the older 2015 Tragedy Will Find Us track "Choke". Murphy gave a lot of love to New York City, pointing out that this was their biggest NYC show to date and that every time they came through, it would aways get crazy which the fans cheered to. If there is one thing Murphy doesn't like, its when everyone is standing still and would repeatedly tell to the pit throughout the night "don't piss me off" when a breakdown was about to drop. He even told the crowd early on in the set that they had twenty songs to play and to not slow down on him. The pit was very active the entire night, with fans two-stepping to songs like "Wings of Nightmares", "Choke", "Sworn to Silence", and "Cherished", moshing to heavy beaters like "Your Own Knife", "Unwavering Vow", "To Hear of War", and "No Lamb Was Lost", or singing along to "Paradise and Plague". It got very hectic during "To Hear of War" and "No Lamb Was Lost" because both of those songs have really heavy breakdowns that brought the intensity up one level. Counterparts had a very creative stage setup for this tour. There were stain glass windows on opposite sides in the back with the drums in between them. In front of them were replicas of wax candles on the guitar cabinets with more candle stands on opposite ends of the stage in the front. It looked like it was the interior of a cathedral or a church, which was a fitting imagery to the band's latest release.

Counterparts had four more songs left, "some new, some old, some good, some REAALLY good" as Murphy put it and this one was old and REALLY good, in fact he said it kicks a*** and it was the crowd favorite "No Servant of Mine". Fans were running around in a circle for the first half of the song before screaming the two-word pre breakdown line "NO SERVANT", leading into the breakdown that turned the circle pit into a hybrid pit of singingalong and intense moshing and jumping up and down. The pit got pushed far back to the sound booth which made room for moshing and two stepping. If you thought that ended there though, you were wrong because this continued into "Praise No Artery Intact" and "Monument", with the fans only stopping to scream the bridge to "Monument" at the top of their lungs. Counterparts closed their main set with "Heaven Let Them Die", the EP's title track which gave New York one last chance to wreck things up in the last breakdown where Murphy let out a blood-curling scream to close the song out.

After Counterparts finished their set and walked off stage, the fans were immediately chanting "one more song, one more song!" which shortly changed to "two more songs!" because everyone knew there was gonna be a two song encore. Murphy joked with crowd again, asking if they really wanted two more songs or if they just knew they would play two more because they saw the setlist online. Regardless, Murphy thanked the crowd and hoped they had fun before proceeding into "Love Me", which the whole room joined in unison to sing the whole twelve words of the song back to Murphy. The band wrapped it all up with "Whispers of Your Death" which Murphy dedicated to his cat Kuma, thus closing the biggest and most explosive NYC show to date and the first week of their Heaven Let Them Die North America Tour.