Live Review : Architects + Wage War @ Co-op Live Arena, Manchester on October 10th 2025

2460 days, 3 albums, and 1 UK festival headline appearance. This is how long it’s been since UK metal heroes Architects have taken to the stage in Manchester. Last time they were here, it was two nights at the Victoria Warehouse; tonight they're taking another massive leap and pitching up at Europe’s biggest arena. This Co-op live show not only marks the start of their largest UK arena tour to date but also is officially their largest ever headline show, even surpassing their Bloodstock appearance last summer. They have taken the long way round to get here, but this is the moment that Architects become the UK’s most prominent young metal act (Bring me the Horizon abdicated that post long ago) and they bring the performance to prove it.

This is Wage War’s second big tour of the year, after having opened for Papa Roach in February, and they are getting very used to large stages and humongous crowds. This is stadium metalcore, brutal enough to have a mean left hook but polished enough to be ludicrously accessible. They work exceedingly well as tonight’s premiere warmup, getting the pits swirling and the heads banging. It may not push any boundaries or challenge any conceptions, but this is thoroughly well-done modern metal, complete with scream-along choruses and titanic breakdowns. If their job is to get throat muscles stretched and ham strings limbered up then it is mission accomplished.

Architects frontman Sam Carter is wise enough to know his environment. His natural attire of Man United shirt is wisely left in the dressing room as he is less than a hop, skip and jump from the home of his beloved football team's noisy neighbour (He is from Brighton of course, he is a  red). Instead, he reaches for the garb of Manchester’s second greatest cultural export, Oasis with Fuckin in the Bushes fittingly sound tracking his ring walk.

Sam has long spoken of feeling a huge degree of imposter syndrome, but tonight he embraces his role as the lead singer of a bloody big band. He absolutely owns the stage, sprinting up and down it as if he is warming up to come on for his beloved United. He is also incredibly charismatic, speaking to the audience as he is addressing his mates instead of proclaiming to a throng of admirers. Later in the show he proclaims it to be the best they have ever played and you actually believe him. The emotion that resonates in his voice gives away that these are no false platitudes. Emotion and loss are very much at the heart of the Architects story and as well as the now traditional plaudits played to the late great Tom Searle, we also get a passionate and pathos-filled eulogy to crew member Miles, who passed away just days before. Sam does not just play the part of someone that cares, he lets that persona flow through his whole being.

The Architects have had so many false dawns and nearly moments that they know what is at stake. This is a stunningly constructed and contoured set list that immaculately manages to balance between pleasing those who have stayed the course with them and those that have arrived on the last two albums. We still go no further back than “Daybreaker “ but there is now enough ground between it and the new album to provide us with a luxuriously opulent diversity of tracks. Wage War join them for backing vocals during ‘Impermanence’ and House of Protection, who opened the whole shebang are dragged back into the bearpit for ‘Brain Dead’. Architects have managed to get to this level without dumbing down or compromising on their values. They support the same conservation charities that they always have and they maintain the same level of emotional intellect. As said they have gone around the long way but they have reached this pinnacle by preserving the soul of this complex and astonishingly clever band. 

They also prove that arena shows don’t necessarily need to be Guy Fawks night on acid. The production is impressive, but it is not over the top. They use light bars as opposed to pyros and the staging has a minimalistic gleam that means you focus on the band as opposed to all the bells and whistles. Again, they focus on the audience with the most effective special effect being when they ask everybody to light up with their phones, turning the auditorium into a cauldron of blazing neon. ‘Blackhole’ brings the main set to a close and Sam’s vocal range reaches a new level of superlative. He is crisp and clear and his quavering notes that just sail up into the sky. Architects have worked harder than most bands to reach this level and tonight they prove there is no level of complacency. We get a simple but astonishingly moving show that shows that the spectacular can be achieved simply through the performance and the songs.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Architects + Wage War