Live Review : Jinjer + Unprocessed + Textures @ O2 Ritz, Manchester on January 29th 2026

As Roy Schediour once proclaimed “We are going to need a bigger boat”. The Ritz is not just heaving; it is positively bulging at the sides. Whilst the box office inexplicably still seems to be trying to flog the last remaining tickets, there is scant room inside to breathe, let alone move. Jinjer have firmly graduated from potential to being a thing. What is really interesting is that the crowd is much more diverse than your usual metal troupes. Whilst they remain blisteringly heavy, they seem to have found a way of engaging with those who would not naturally see themselves as metalheads. So, we find ourselves in a hall with plenty of punters in civilian attire brushing up against those of us in branded merch and battlejackets.

Jinjer’s ascension up the ranks means that their show requires an awful lot more stage furniture. This leads to a rather cluttered performance area as opening act Textures proceed to tread the boards. With six of them in their ranks, it is all rather a squeeze. Guitarists Bart Hennephof and Joe Tal, Bassist Remko Tielemans and vocalist Daniel de Jongh all stand in a line along the lip of the stage. The keyboards and drums directly behind hem them in, meaning that they haven’t got much room at all to operate within. However, after 25 years, they are all consummate professionals, and they don't let the lack of personal space deter them. They are currently celebrating their first release since returning from hiatus in 2013, and we receive a couple of numbers from the just-released “Genotype”. It may come 10 years after their last album, but they are very much picking up from where they left off. They continue to be impressively technical prog metal, but with a firm lean towards the heavier, more virile end of the spectrum. The blend of intricate guitar plucking and hell-for-leather riffage is both scintillating and seductive. It might not have been much teeth gnashing during their absence, but it is only with their return that we realise what we've been missing.

Calling themselves Unprocessed feels rather a misnomer. This painfully young German band are anything but. Their version of metalcore is intrinsically engineered and beautifully rendered. It is also fantastically varied. ‘Glass’ sounds like Vampire Weekend go metal, whilst ‘Snowlover’ is Meshuggah goes pop. There is an outstanding amalgamation of creativity at play. Tracks like ‘Thrash’ and ‘Lore’ possess an outside shell of immense heaviness, but once you delve inside they are shelved with the most immaculate textures and variant shades. This is not an organic or (pardon the pun) unprocessed approach to music. Every note played is precision-planned and precision-placed. What you end up with is a fantastically constructed cathedral of beautifully sculptured sound. And to make the feelings of inferiority even more raw and hurtful, they are all young enough to be our grandkids.

Whilst high-profile support slots and festival berths have made it feel like Jinjer have been a constant presence in this country since 2022, these are actually their first UK headline shows since both the pandemic and the unlawful Russian invasion of the homeland. It is true, a lot can happen in seven years. Back in 2019, they were an increasingly fancied outfit from an Eastern European country that not many of us knew much about. Fast-forwarding to the now, Jinjer are at the forefront of a new emotive style of metalcore, as well as becoming the defining face of their country's resilient struggle against oppression. The reaction that there entrance onto the stage elicits is spine-tinglingly astonishing. Rather than alter themselves and their sound to please the mainstream, they have allowed the mainstream to come to them.

Their reason for being out on the road is to promote last year's “Duel” and we get eight of its eleven tracks this evening. The album closing title track is inverted in order to open the show in quick succession we get ‘Green Serpent’ and ‘Fast Draw’. The former is accompanied by appropriate imagery of infinite slithering snakes, whilst the latter gets a short, sharp intro of “I head you like hardcore”. Apart from that, there is not much interaction from Tatiana. We get occasional enquiries about whether we are having fun and how much fun it is to be here, but there is no mention about the continued bombardment of Ukraine or the stop-start nature of the peace process. In many ways, they don't need to; their very presence speaks volumes about the humility and humanity of their homeland and its people and their desire to carry on regardless. This is very much a case of letting the music do the talking, and they tear through the sixteen-song set with a striking velocity. 

There is an assuredness to Jinjer’s approach which is infectious. Their version of metalcore has a defining heavy bottom and titillatingly angular riffs. But within that template, they managed to play impressively with form and function. ‘Teacher, Teacher’ has an industrial feel to it, whilst Kafka is haunting and gothic and then Judgement (& Punishment) is for all intents and purposes, ska. With I speak Astronomy, we even wander into Pink Floyd territory.  It is that variance and ability to play with metalcore's boundaries and assumptions that allow Jinjer to appeal way beyond metal's usual fraternity. There is very little showboating this evening, and they come across as an incredibly cohesive unit. Titiana may steal the headline, but it is obvious that this is a democratic and equalitarian unit.

‘Pisces’ from sophomore release “King of Everything” is as far as they go back in the annals of time, and it provides a fitting finale to the main set. With an audience this engaged and enraptured, an encore is just a formality. However, there is no suppressing the looks of joy on the band's faces as they are summoned back by a voluminous cacophony of voices chanting their name. ‘Sit Stay Roll Over’ from the same second release acts as a culminating effort, and the pit whirls around one more time in appreciation. The remarkable thing about Jinjer is the ability to marry harshness with harmony. It is not just the way Tatiana alternates growls with beautifully rendered clean singing. It is the whole construct of a material. Heavy enough to have weight and presence but melodious enough to be commercial and accessible. They walk a fine line, but boy, do they do it remarkably well. 

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Jinjer + Unprocessed + Textures