We Came as Romans / After the Burial / Currents / Johnny Booth

Aug 23

FOR FANS OF: Dealer, ERRA, Veil of Maya, The Contortionist, Silent Planet, Northlane, The Callous Daoboys, Better Lovers, Greyhaven, Invent Animate, The Plot in You, Like Moths to Flames, Wage War, Memphis May Fire, The Ghost Inside, Volumes

August 23, 2025 at The Fillmore in Detroit, MI

I went to this show to see Johnny Booth for the first time and After the Burial for the ~20th time. Johnny Booth had come up as a suggestion from Apple Music while listening to bands like Dealer. Asymmetrical came on and it was one of those songs where I grabbed my phone like “who the pissed off fuck is thisssss!?” I like my metal and metalcore to actually make me mad (but happy about it) and make the stank face at myself in the mirror. Johnny Booth just does it for me. Andrew Herman, the vocalist, has perfect tone and energy for this kind of music and makes you want to go outside and yell and see if you could become as professional at it as him. You can’t. Absolutely check them out, the energy at their show was insane and Andrew dove into the crowd during the last song. As my friend Ogre (the bassist for Critic City) once said, “Booth fucking rules.”

Currents came on next and I wasn’t too familiar with their music even though I saw them next to us before the show eating burgers and knew who they were. We chatted for a bit and I took a selfie with the band, (which wasn’t even my idea so these guys were super nice). They have tones as heavy as After the Burial and Booth but have clean vocals as well. I liked their set and they killed it. I was excited to listen to more of their music when I left the venue. When I did, though, none of the music really stuck with me. It’s exactly the music I SHOULD like but for some reason, I don’t get that replayability factor from them.

After the Burial was next. The pit got bigger. As soon as they stepped out, they look like they’d done this a million times and this was just another day on the job. Resting and casual faces and calm demeanor. Then the first note hit and they exploded with energy and heaviness. Their music has been in my playlists since I had an iPod classic. When I was 15, I heard of a band chugging the digits of Pi. I didn’t even know what that meant. Come to find out, they play the song Pi (the Mercury God of Infinity) on their Forging a Future Self album reciting the digits of Pi like “One Two Three, One, One Two Three Four, etc.” all the way. They initially went to 71 digits and then went to 110 in the re-recording. Absolute prog insanity. I was hooked ever since and listen to all of their music to this day. Their album, Dig Deep is my favorite more recent album (even though it was 11 years ago already). The song Lost in the Static is their most popular on Apple Music and my favorite is Mire. The tones and djenty tightness are insane. I’d love to talk to them about their signal chain and gate settings. I will see them any chance I get.

As for We Came as Romans, they’ve never really been “for me.” But holy shit did they come out and put on a show. Their pyrotechnics and steam as well as lighting made it obvious they were the headliner. Their vocal style is a little more poppy at times which turns me off from metal other than rare cases. They have driving electronic elements which keep their timing tight and their drum tone is huge. The crowd had no problems singing along to their music. They put on a great show but I’m not gonna lie, I left in the middle of their set to buy merch from Booth and ATB.

Check out Bad Luck, a song created by 3 of these 4 bands below!

Images shot by Shane McNicholas @elsephoto with a Ricoh GRIII HDF