Fear Factory bring industrial metal history to Kentish Town

Fear Factory, Crystal Lake, Hate and The Nocturnal Affair.
O2 Forum Kentish Town, London – Saturday 10 October 2026

Saturday night in Kentish Town brought four very different sides of heavy music together for Fear Factory’s Cybernetic Domination Tour. With dark alternative rock, Polish extreme metal, Japanese metalcore and industrial metal on the bill, the evening offered plenty of variety before the headliners took to the stage.
Fear Factory have spent more than three decades building a reputation as one of the defining names in industrial metal. Bringing their extensive back catalogue to the UK alongside three international support acts, the tour gave fans a chance to revisit some of the band’s most important songs while hearing their newest material with the current line-up.

The Nocturnal Affair

Opening the evening were Las Vegas dark rockers The Nocturnal Affair. Led by vocalist Brendan Shane, the band combine alternative metal and hard rock with darker lyrical themes, melodic choruses and a strong emphasis on atmosphere. Their songs balance weighty guitar work with accessible hooks, giving their music plenty of room for both heavier passages and more melodic moments.

Their set included Cross Me Out, Choke, Benefit of Doubt, Place in Time, Deal With It and Oxygen. Shane’s vocals are central to the band’s sound, moving between a brooding delivery and more forceful sections, while the guitars and drums provide a solid foundation throughout.

The band are no strangers to UK audiences, having previously toured the country with acts including Wednesday 13 and Kris Barras Band. Their dark aesthetic and dramatic presentation suit the material, while their songs give them a clear identity within a bill that moves through several different styles of heavy music.

They finished with a cover of Haddaway’s What Is Love, an unexpected choice that brought a familiar tune into the set. It has become a feature of their performances on this tour, giving the audience something different to finish on before the evening moved into heavier territory.

The Nocturnal Affair provided a melodic opening to the night, introducing their own material to the crowd and setting the stage for the bands that followed.

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HATE

Next up were Hate, the Polish extreme metal band who have been active since 1990. Led by vocalist and guitarist Adam Buszko, the band have spent decades developing a sound rooted in blackened death metal, with punishing riffs, deep growled vocals and dark atmospheric elements.

Their music is built around relentless drumming and tightly arranged guitar work, with the songs maintaining a sense of intensity throughout. Hate have developed a substantial catalogue over the years, earning an international following through their releases and extensive touring.

Their 2025 album, Bellum Regiis, continued that history, and its title track featured in the set on this tour. Other songs included Erebos, Sovereign Sanctity, Rugia, Iphigenia and The Vanguard, giving fans a selection of material from different points in the band’s career.

On stage, Hate focus on the music rather than lengthy exchanges between songs. Buszko’s harsh vocals and commanding delivery sit at the centre of the performance, backed by the band’s precise playing and uncompromising approach. Their music demands concentration, with fast passages and heavier sections carrying the set forward.

Hate brought a darker, more extreme sound to the evening and showed the depth of experience behind a band that has remained active in the metal scene for more than 35 years.

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CRYSTAL LAKE

Japanese metalcore band Crystal Lake followed, bringing a change in pace and a set full of movement. Formed in Tokyo in 2002, the band have built an international following through years of releases and touring, developing a sound that combines metalcore and hardcore with technical guitar work, aggressive vocals and prominent breakdowns.

Their music moves between fast, tightly played sections and heavier passages designed to hit hard live. There is plenty of detail in the arrangements, but the band’s performances also leave room for audience participation, with the energy on stage playing a major part in how their songs come across.

Their 2026 album, The Weight of Sound, marks the latest chapter in their career. Vocalist Park Kang-hyun, known as PK, officially joined the band in August after previously filling in for live performances. His arrival has given the group a new frontman for this stage of their journey, and he has been a prominent presence throughout the tour.

The set drew from across the band’s catalogue, including Six Feet Under, Prometheus and Blüdgod. The mix of older and newer material gave longtime fans familiar tracks to get into while showing the range of Crystal Lake’s sound.

PK’s energetic performance is a big part of the band’s live identity. He encourages the crowd throughout, while the instrumentalists maintain the speed and precision needed to bring the songs to life. Reports from earlier dates on the tour have described circle pits, crowd surfing and plenty of audience interaction, reflecting the physical nature of Crystal Lake’s shows.

Their position immediately before Fear Factory made them an effective final support act, bringing a modern metalcore sound to the bill and building anticipation for the headliners.

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FEAR FACTORY

After three distinct support sets, it was time for Fear Factory to take centre stage. The Los Angeles band have been shaping industrial metal since the late 1980s, developing a sound built around tightly controlled guitar riffs, machine-like rhythms, electronic textures and lyrics exploring technology, humanity and dystopian futures.

Their 1995 album Demanufacture remains a landmark release, helping establish the band’s distinctive approach to heavy music. Follow-up albums including Obsolete and Digimortal expanded their catalogue, producing songs that have remained central to their live performances. That history was reflected in a London set that moved across different eras of the band’s career.

The current line-up features vocalist Milo Silvestro alongside founding guitarist Dino Cazares, bassist Tony Campos and drummer Pete Webber. Silvestro stepped into the role following the departure of longtime vocalist Burton C. Bell, taking on a catalogue that demands both aggressive vocals and cleaner melodic passages. With so much history attached to the band’s songs, his role is an important part of this current chapter.

The London set opened with Acres of Skin, Industrial Discipline, Powershifter and Shock, immediately bringing the band’s tightly wound rhythms and heavy guitar sound to the front. Edgecrusher followed, with Crystal Lake vocalist PK joining the band for guest vocals. It was a welcome moment of crossover between the bands on the bill and gave the song an additional connection to the evening’s line-up.

From there, Fear Factory worked through Linchpin, No One, Invisible Wounds (Dark Bodies) and Soul Hacker. The set gave fans a substantial run of established material, with each song drawing on the combination of precision, aggression and electronic influence that has long defined the band’s sound.

The band’s newest single, Roboticist, was also included. Released in August 2026, it marked the recording debut of the current line-up and offered a look at where Fear Factory are heading next. Its place in the set was particularly fitting for a band whose music has spent so much time exploring the relationship between people and technology.

With the classics making up much of the performance, the new track also gave fans something from the band’s present rather than just its past.

Musically, the performance depended on the interplay between the members. Cazares’ guitar work remained central, with the riffs providing the tightly controlled structure behind the songs. Campos’ bass added weight to the low end, while Webber’s drumming drove the material with the precision that Fear Factory’s music demands. Silvestro carried the vocal parts across the set, moving between harsher delivery and cleaner sections where the songs called for it.

Taking on Fear Factory’s catalogue comes with obvious expectations, particularly given Bell’s long association with the band. Silvestro has approached the material with a strong understanding of its vocal demands, while bringing his own energy to the performance.

The current line-up has now had time to establish itself on stage, and the London set showed how the musicians work together across both the older songs and newer material.

The main set continued with Martyr, which featured guest vocals from Hate frontman Adam Buszko, followed by Arise Above Oppression and Archetype. Having vocalists from two of the support bands join Fear Factory gave the night a sense of connection between the acts, rather than each performance feeling entirely separate.

The band returned for an encore beginning with Demanufacture, one of the defining songs in their catalogue. Zero Signal and Replica followed, giving fans more from the band’s classic era, before Resurrection carried the set towards its conclusion.

The final song was a cover of Gary Numan’s Cars, a track that has long been part of Fear Factory’s live history. Brendan Shane of The Nocturnal Affair joined in on guest vocals, with members of the support bands also coming on stage. It brought the evening to a close with all four acts sharing the stage, a fitting finish to a tour that had brought them together across Europe and the UK.

Fear Factory’s set balanced the songs that established their legacy with a first taste of the current line-up’s recorded work. With Roboticist included alongside Demanufacture, Zero Signal and Replica, the performance made room for both the band’s history and what may come next.

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GALLERY