Blackened Death Metal supergroup Sinsaenum stamp their mark on the UK with an intimately brutal return to the stage with their new album In Devastation, four years after the passing of drummer Joey Jordison.
Despite the fierce competition Sinsaenum’s London show faced, in the form of clashes with Killswitch Engage and their formidable support lineup, as well as Paradise Lost and Sonata Arctica performing at venues across the capital, their visit to the Underworld is a compact gathering of dedicated Sinsaenum fans, eager to see the return of the band they have waited seven years to reconnect with.
The night’s support is a triple D threat: Die Ego, Damim, and Dendera pull off an attack of Heavy Metal force, tinged in darkness and humorous stage mishaps. There may be a breeze in the Underworld this night, but howling waves of dark riffs and thrashing beats close the spaces between.
Sinsaenum – Dendera – Damim – Die Ego
The Underworld, London – 17 October 2025
Words: Lucy Dunnet
Photography: Ash Nash
Heavy Metal trio Die Ego are first on the stage, ripping straight into a groovy blend of Thrash, Death, and Classic Metal, as unpredictable as it is exciting. Vocalist and bassist Gabe Scapigliati’s soaringly unhinged vocals are echoed in his slightly mad facial expressions, a powerful melodic torrent that charges through the Die Ego storm. 
‘Guitarist on a leash’ Diego Fardel is a never-ending source of epic guitar solos and entertaining carnage; “Cables, you know, they fucking suck,” Diego chuckles, after getting wrapped up on stage and unplugging them with his physical enthusiasm. The joys and imperfections of live music will never be underappreciated, and the boys of Die Ego, completed by new drummer Bruce Praill, are slick in their handling of musical and technological chaos.
Accompanied by the red lights of hell, Progressive Blackened Death nightmares Damim are next up, launching into a performance of nonstop drum bashes and rageful chugging, as a committed line of headbangers clinging to the front of the stage do their damndest to keep up.
The pace of Damim is so relentless that it verges on stressful, but in an endorphin-releasing kind of way. Vocalist Nathanael Underwood confirms the band’s intentions when he ponders the “need to pierce those eardrums”, before descending into the Descendent Of Amalek. Damim’s set is a haze of fury, coloured only by the lighting trip through the colours of the rainbow.
Our final D of the night is Dendera, whose modern Melodic Metal brings a cheeriness to every Metalhead’s favourite Camden basement, and a surge in energy amplified by vocalist Ashley Edison’s rapport with the crowd. It’s horns up, smiles out, and a slew of earworms from this Portsmouth-based band of brothers. 
Sinsaenum break the silence with In Devastation’s title track, opening the floodgates to an hour of emotionally heightened, celebratory, Death Metal punches. Extreme vocalist Sean Zatorsky unleashes his magnetic command on the Underworld, beckoning everyone forth to open a pit, his eyes piercing the souls of anyone who dares to look away. Spacious yet vicious, wild and carefree, the intimacy of this small show and its power to erase the outside world is unrivalled.
Older tracks Ashes, Sacred Martyr, and Splendor And Agony reveal the savages in the crowd, tumbling over each other to demonstrate their devotion to Sinsaenum and free a few of their own demons while they’re at it.
But then it is time to turn it down a notch. “This one goes out to our brother Joey and anyone who’s ever lost someone,” Sean says, before the melodic tension of The Last Goodbye takes over. In Devastation, the album dedicated to Joey Jordison, who passed four years prior to its release, and to Leclercq’s father, is weighted in loss and powered by the band’s grief, but characterised by its hulking, textured, unfiltered heaviness.
With Andre Joyzi, Joey’s former drum tech, taking up the drumsticks, the family camaraderie of the band lives on. Although for this tour, Moonspell’s Aires Pereira picked up the bass, joining guitarists Frédéric Leclercq and Stéphane Buriez to make up the international Sinsaenum assault.
The body smashing pit returns for Army Of Chaos, with chains of Sinsaenum T-shirt clad fans headbanging their way into oblivion as shouts of “chaos” wash over the Underworld. Two more of Sinsaenum’s gifts to 2025, Shades Of Black and Spiritual Lies, ensure that time absolutely plummets past, steered by the menacing riffs and coolness oozing off the stage. Final Resolve slams on a final burst of impassioned, creative precision, and swallows up any remnants of malcontent. The crowd leaves the Underworld high on Sinsaenum, lighter from this evening of aggressive catharsis and reunion.
