Video Premiere: EYES – Live at the Royal Danish Academy of Music

Hardcore is meant to be experienced in a live setting. It doesn’t matter how catchy or heavy a song is on the seven inch if it doesn’t connect with listeners in a live setting. The halt on live shows has made this sort of connection harder to achieve, but Danish hardcore crew EYES give it a shot with the release of their live session from the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

As frontman Victor Kaas explains, EYES were invited to perform at the former radio station—which has hosted the likes of Miles Davis—and decided to approach the performance from a less-typical angle than they normally would.

“We decided on a more subdued form of performance, as you’d see on a radio show or an Audiotree session,” Kaas says. “Vincent, who’d handled the camera on our last session, did this one as well and he knocked it out of the park.  We’re stoked on how it turned out, and it’s really a different perspective of us as a live band—one you’d rarely get to see, unless you snuck in and hid in our practice space!”

That subdued form of performance is juxtaposed with the stompy, jangly form of metallic hardcore that the quartet play. With a setlist comprised of tracks from their last full-length, Underperformer, EYES blow off some of their quarantine-related frustrations and give one of the first performances since the album’s release.

Watch the full performance below and grab a copy of Underperformer via the band here.