Concert review: Annisokay, Heart of a Coward & The Narrator, Dynamo Eindhoven, 18 October 2025

I’m not gonna lie: When this show was announced and we immediately bought tickets, we already had tickets for 3 other shows of the Abyss tour (and we knew we were going to see Annisokay at Summer Breeze and Oelde Open Air). Just in case that anyone forgot how much I love Annisokay. But a) back then I hardly had any concerts scheduled for October and b) at least the line up for this show is a bit different than for the other shows I’m attending, because during this part of the tour, special guest were Heart of a Coward (instead of Our Promise for the later days). So I didn’t feel too bad about buying tickets for another Annisokay show. (At least I didn’t buy any VIP upgrades because of my strong dislike for VIP / Meet & Greet settings).

Nevertheless, when the day finally came my excitement was inexplicably low given that I was about to attend an Annisokay show. Was it still worth the trip? Yes, definitely.

The Narrator

The Narrator are a band I’m vaguely familiar with because I’ve seen them before, they kept appearing in my release radars when they released new singles and honestly, I personally think they’re a super promising band. They’re from Essen in Germany, they released their debut album last year and somehow I expect them to become vastly more popular in the next few years.

Since I personally have difficulties with classifying music, and find The Narrator a little difficult to classify I googled what other people said about their music and they’re mostly categorized as either metalcore or hardcore. Listening to their latest album, I’d rather go for hardcore/post-hardcore. Their sound is fairly melodic and really catchy, which made them fit into the line-up very well. For fans of Annisokay, The Narrator are definitely worth checking out. Also because political views seem to align – both bands raise their voices against fascism and for important issues in society these days.

I massively enjoyed their performance because their music makes it hard not to move and get involved. Their stage performance is also pretty much inviting and while I felt like the crowd was still warming up, a lot of people were genuinely enjoying the show. We got a small mosh pit going and as far as I could judge, both the band and the audience had fun.

As opener, they played a set of about 30 minutes, which was entertaining and went by pretty fast. Honestly, if you like Annisokay and don’t know The Narrator yet, go check them out (they’re also going on a headline tour next year in fall, so if you like them you should consider buying tickets :D)

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Heart of a Coward

The special guest of that night were Heart of a Coward from the UK. I didn’t know them before, so I had no idea what was ahead. I’d say out of this line up, they had the heaviest, „least melodic“ sound (no judgement here). More on the metalcore-side, I’d say. And wow, their performance was intense. The atmosphere in the room changed massively during their set, it felt really damn powerful I’d say. They really got the crowd going.

I’m not sure if I’ll check their music out. I had a good time during their set, but I also gotta admit that they didn’t really leave a big mark. It wasn’t so much of a lasting impression for me. They’re a good act, their sound is nice, but somehow it didn’t stick with me that much. Still it was an enjoyable performance and as I said, the atmosphere was intense. Just not 100% my cup of tea.

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Annisokay

During Annisokay, it became a lot more evident that the show was sold out. It was packed, it was hot and the moshpit was big. Nevertheless big shoutout to the super enjoyable crowd.

Their set was a bit over an hour long and included, obviously, a lot of the newer stuff of the Abyss cycle. And hell, I am in love with that. Each time I hear Inner Sanctum live I love the song a little more. I’m also growing more and more fond of My Effigy and I think Human is perhaps overall one of my absolute favourite songs to hear live. I mean, it’s basically made for aggressive headbanging.

The set was also a little different than in Oelde, as it included their latest single Splinters and they added Friend or Enemy back to the setlist (which was fun because they played it right after H.A.T.E. and Christoph accidentally started singing the H.A.T.E. chorus again during Friend or Enemy – surprisingly matching and the „I am the … enemy“ made me snort). I also don’t think that they played Like a Parasite in Oelde. They dropped Bonfire of the Millennials and Under Your Tattoos though.

Also, in comparison to their last headline tour (Abyss Pt I), they didn’t play any cover songs this time (unless you want to count Calamity as a cover). I kinda like that because yeah, cover songs can be nice, but I can perfectly live without them.

And while I kinda like some of the visuals they put on the video screens during their shows (often bits and pieces very similar to their music videos, high quality, genuinely nice), I must say I’m not the biggest fan of video screens in general. But like … that’s the usual Annisokay setting and I live with it. Otherwise there’s not much to say about their performance. I missed crowdsurfing Rudi a bit, but there was no gap between stage and audience, so it wouldn’t have worked as well.

All in all I wouldn’t say it was the best Annisokay show I’ve been to, but it was entertaining and enjoyable and once again, the crowd was really nice that night. There was some sense of community and some looking out for each other and just being genuinely kind in between the acts that I haven’t seen at shows in a while. Super nice setting.

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