Broken By The Scream-Bitterzoet-Amsterdam-4 August 2026

By Jase W

Another fine example of Japan’s metal idol culture that has seen the likes of Baby Metal propelled to massive stardom far from the shores of their homeland returns to Amsterdam, Broken By The Scream. This time round they’ve brought the band along with them as their last show here had them sadly absent despite their festival appearances.

Anyway, it’s good to see the stage beset by bass, drums, and guitar this time round so I’m quite buzzed to see the difference in sound compared to the backing track! No support for tonight’s show, just Broken By The Scream and going off the previous show we’ll get just over an hour of show. Oddly it seems they’re opting to start the show a bit earlier than the venue’s stage times stated so good job I got over a bit earlier!

The masked zombie band jumps up on stage looking suitably metal but with a bizarrely clashing music intro that sounds like jazzy elevator music. It’s not long before that’s pierced by the familiar sound of metal and the Broken By The Scream ladies begin running up on stage to the whoops and cheers of the crowd.

It always catches me out when their unclean singers get going because of the bouncing back and forth of gutturals and frys that wouldn’t be out of place in a black metal band. Of course the kawaii metal elements that you’d expect otherwise of more poppy and fun moments are still very much there too. The difference of having a live band backing them is phenomenal though, there’s so much more punch to their sound fitting of a stage far bigger than the one they’re currently occupying.

The whole idol metal thing is bonkers to me visually too because of how they’re constantly dancing around through a fully choreographed show and singing at the same time. The sheer cardio fitness that must be involved to be able to keep this up must be insane. Their introduction of the band is pretty typical of Japanese bands too, taking turns to have the audience shout their names out and a nice polite thank you for being here. They immediately then follow this up with their new single which immediately proceeds to blow my face off. This sort of performance is why I love seeing Japanese metal bands so much, they’re so incredibly extra with their performance and make it seem so very effortless at the same time.

The ‘zombie band’ gets a proper introduction too while they jam away and get a chance to blast out a quick solo each after their name is shouted out. Some younger lads near to me finally get hyped up enough to kick off a moshpit and I do wonder why it took this long but quite a few of the others close to the front seem to be having none of it, it’s a metal show! They decide to switch it into a rowing pit instead so I guess that’ll do for now eh?

One of the more oddball song choices for their set is “Tsuioku No Nazca” from their most recent album which I can only describe as something along the lines of a 15 minute long prog metal epic. This song flows through several stages of epic vocal melodies, aggressive head banging moments, jazz excursions and moments that sound like storytelling. Continually full of surprises, don’t just write Broken By The Scream off as just another J-Meral act, they’ve got some serious artistic chops that’ll catch you off guard.

But of course, the crowd here is hungry for yet more Broken By The Scream so they’re not willing to move until we get an encore and the band decides to do just that. The intro to the encore starts with a familiar riff that I think is In Flames, followed by Bullet For My Valentine, a bit of Ozzy and.. the Final Fantasy 7 boss theme AND Electric Callboy? The last couple of songs get huge reactions from the crowd, plenty of raised horns and screams and the pit finally kicks off again much to the disapproval of a few less than enthusiastic grumps nearby. What a bloody fantastic show though, I did enjoy their last show a ton but having a proper band behind them takes this show to a different level entirely.

A fantastic way to spend Tuesday night, hopefully they’ll be back again soon but with a stage that is befitting of a fantastic show like this. Great stuff.