With rumblings of new material on the horizon, Counterparts feel like a band at an interesting crossroads, and if tonight is any indication of the shape they’re in, whatever comes next is going to be something worth clearing your diary for.

Photos by Josephine Best (@josephinexbest) words by Felix Bartlett  | Feb 21, 2026

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It’s a Thursday night in Kentish Town and the queue stretching down Highgate Road tells you everything you need to know. This is not a crowd that needed reminding to show up. The Heaven Let Them Die tour has arrived in London, and the people who know, know.

Counterparts have a habit of bringing festival-worthy nights to their headline tours and tonights no exception with not one support, not two, but three bands who could hold their own in a room this size.

Merseyside’s Godcomplex are first up, and they waste absolutely no time. Lead man Harry Rule has the early arrivals in a frenzy within minutes, limbs flying, the pit already opening up like someone kicked a hornets’ nest. There’s something great about watching a local crew step up to a stage like this and look completely at home on it. About a year ago, these same lads were tearing through the sweat-soaked walls of Camden’s Underworld on the one off Knocked Loose show that already felt like a moment. Fast forward to tonight and the Forum’s bigger stage suits them just as well. The ceiling on this band feels a very long way off.

One Step Closer provide the gear change the evening needs. The Pennsylvania five-piece bring melody where the night so far has brought only blunt force, Ryan Savitski’s raw, unpolished vocal sitting somewhere between a plea and a threat. Tonight skews heavier than expected, and the crowd surfers start making security’s night considerably more complicated from about the third song in. A welcome bit of breathing room before the storm.

And then there’s Sunami, which, full disclosure, is the reason the ticket got bought in the first place. Josef Alfonso is exactly as advertised: part frontman, part motivational speaker, part force of nature, demanding the crowd match the band’s energy at every turn. Even the slow breakdowns have drums churning underneath like something trying to get out. The problem, if you can even call it that, is that it’s over before it’s really begun. Whether it’s the set length or the fact that a sizeable portion of it was spent horizontal on the Forum floor after catching a boot to the head and going down like a sack of bricks, the itch doesn’t quite get scratched. Longer set next time. Fewer feet in the face. We live and learn.

Which brings us to the headliners. Credit where it’s due: the Forum tonight is not full, and for a band of Counterparts’ standing returning to the UK after two years away, that’s a minor heartbreak. The mid-week date probably has something to answer for. What it absolutely does not do is affect the show in any way that matters.

The stage alone is worth the entry fee. Stained glass cathedral window visuals, candles, the whole thing draped in a gothic grandeur that somehow makes a room full of people screaming about grief and loss feel like a deeply spiritual experience. Which, if you’ve spent any time with this band’s music, is probably exactly the point. Brendan Murphy has spent the better part of two decades writing about mourning things that haven’t left yet, catastrophising, preparing for endings that may or may not arrive. Hearing that delivered live, with that level of conviction, in a room like this, lands differently than it does through headphones.

Murphy is a brilliant frontman: ferocious when the song demands it, disarmingly warm between them, leaning down into the crowd, sharing moments with people who clearly needed to be in this room tonight. The setlist moves purposefully across the catalogue, from the Heaven Let Them Die EP back through A Eulogy For Those Still Here and Nothing Left To Love, and the crowd, however not-quite-full the floor may be, gives everything back. Circle pits, spin kicks, crowd surfers. The full package.

With rumblings of new material on the horizon, Counterparts feel like a band at an interesting crossroads, and if tonight is any indication of the shape they’re in, whatever comes next is going to be something worth clearing your diary for. Get yourself down to see them next time. The stained glass alone is worth it.