There is something in the Crystal Lake formula that makes them instantly recognisable. Pure punishment — aggressive guitars, vicious breakdowns, meteoric drums — cut with hair-raising, fist-pumping moments that have kept listeners coming back for years. When it works, and at the O2 Academy Islington it absolutely did, you’d struggle to place them next to anyone else.
Returning to London as co-headliners alongside Ohio’s Miss May I, the band had around 45 minutes to make their case. The room wasn’t sold out, half capacity if that, but if anything the space worked in everyone’s favour. The floor made the most of it, with crowd surfers, pits and two-steppers filling the space, and the lack of a packed room only meant a more direct line between the band and the people in front of them.
Opening with ‘Neversleep’, pulled from January’s ‘The Weight of Sound’, the band were in your face from the first riff. The newer material sat comfortably alongside the hits, and tracks like ‘Apollo’, ‘Hail to the Fire’, and ‘Open Water’, hit exactly like they always have, John’s brutal growls walking hand in hand with the band’s technical precision and sheer velocity. When ‘Six Feet Under’ dropped, the floor hit its peak, breaking out the kind of pit that reminds you why you came out on a Thursday night.
Frontman John Robert Centorrino has had a journey building trust with longtime fans, and there was no question he’d earned it. Every MC opportunity he had, the love for the band, the crowd, and everything he’d fought to get to this point came through without effort, at his best when that New York “hey, I’m walkin’ here” attitude slipped out every now and then.
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Watching YD, the last remaining founding member, grinning ear to ear while ripping through some of the best riffs in metalcore more than two decades into his career, is the kind of thing that makes you feel genuinely good about music. There’s a joy to Crystal Lake live that doesn’t get talked about enough.
The band closed with ‘The Weight of Sound’, the title track of the new album. It’s a proper Crystal Lake hair-raiser, the kind of inspirational, fist-in-the-air number that feels like a band taking on the world again. But sit with the lyrics and it taps into something heavier: a life overwhelmed by noise while feeling unheard, burnt out and carrying the weight of years on the road. It hits like a comeback anthem and reads like a confession.
Twelve days after the tour closed in Birmingham, John announced he was stepping away from Crystal Lake. He had spent three years with the band, fighting his way through their open audition, recording the new album while becoming a new father, and touring internationally while living in the US.
In a video shared to his Instagram, he put it plainly. “The way it was running doesn’t allow me to be the type of father I want”, he said. “I don’t have proper memories of my kid as a baby, I only have pictures. I come home, and she doesn’t know who I am, and she’s over a year old, and I fucking hate that”.
Watching that London show back through that lens, what stands out is just how much of himself he gave every single night. He wore his heart on his sleeve at every opportunity. Choosing to walk away from something he’d fought that hard for, in order to be there for his daughter, takes its own kind of strength. He’s one tough dude, and he made the right call.
As it turned out, that night would be one of the last nights John would spend on a Crystal Lake stage. Forty-five minutes, a half-capacity room, not the sendoff the moment deserved in hindsight. Though Crystal Lake certainly made their case. No matter what, they are still one of the best sounds in the genre, and whatever comes next, you know it’s going to rip.
Crystal Lake have no intention of slowing down. All upcoming shows will go ahead with guest vocalists stepping in, and with a European and UK return supporting Fear Factory on the Cybernetic Domination Tour later this year, the question now is, who’ll join them next?
Crystal Lake
The Weight of Sound
Release Date: 23/01/2026
Label: Century Media Records
Stream: Links
CD & Vinyl: Century Media
