Live Review: SKYND – European Tour 2023 – The KOKO, London

Camden Town is the home of the outcasts, so what better place to host a night of true crime music than the world famous KOKO? SKYND had embarked on her largest headline tour to date and with the support of Zetra had packed out the famous Camden venue. We were lucky enough to witness what went down within its four walls. Here’s what happened!

Opening the night would be the eccentric Zetra. A mysterious duo that utilise a powerful synth in order to generate their mysterious sound. No spoken word, just music added to the mystery as their set went on. The crowd seemed to adopt the out there style of Zetra pretty well and, as a result, people slowly started to loosen up and move, over to the music being provided. Certainly a unique and acquired taste, Zetra offered something new and exciting to the SKYND family.

Darkness would fill the KOKO music venue before the notorious SKYND would take to the stage. Opening with an impactful duo of ‘Richard Ramirez’ and ‘Elisa Lam’ quickly set the tone for what was about to go down. Fans sang and danced to the sinister sounds being provided by SKYND and an overwhelming feeling of togetherness took over the room. ‘Michelle Carter’ upped the ante and added a real spooky undertone to the evening.

True crime is certainly a unique musical theme, however SKYND’s use of distorted vocals and powerful cleans helped send fans into a trance-like state where they found themselves in the belly of the beast per se. SKYND’s most recent single ‘Bianca Devins’ went down exceptionally well while tracks such as ‘Jim Jones’ and ‘John Wayne Gacy’ offered an exciting sound style that elevated the performance even further.

One of the more upbeat tracks of the set came in the form of ‘Columbine’ with its infectious chorus being echoed around the KOKO by the SKYND family before ‘Edmund Kemper’ helped to display just how impressive ‘SKYND’s vocal range is. ‘Tyler Hadley’ brought out an attitude late on in the night with fans dancing their life away to the words “Bang, Bang, Boogy Boogy Bang, Bang”. The twisted party would unfortunately have to come to an end eventually and the sounds of ‘Gary Heidnik’ would close out the evening’s performance.

SKYND is quite unlike anything in the alternative music space at the moment. A rare and exciting artist who seems to have already mastered her mysterious look and sound, SKYND seems to be able to draw a large crowd already and her music is only going to attract more attention as the prolific nature of her songs is always going to attract the attention of listeners. As for her live performance, It’s simple, yet massively effective at creating the atmosphere she is after.