A Place To Bury Strangers returned to the Trabendo on tour with SYNTHESIZER, their newest and most abrasive record to date. The show opened without ceremony and escalated fast. No easing in—just a direct plunge into distortion, strobe, and smoke.
Oliver Ackermann led the charge. Guitarist, vocalist, gear obsessive. He sells his own custom pedals at the merch table. Onstage, those same devices turned guitars into blunt instruments. Shards of electricity cut through dense fog. Feedback surged, dipped, returned sharper.
The set operated on extremes: darkness to blinding light, rhythm to rupture. Smoke machines worked overtime. Strobes triggered with military precision. Songs blurred under layers of larsen and reverb, decibels warping the very construct of the room.
At one point, the whole band descended play from inside the pit. No barrier. No stage. Just proximity and shared overload, a feedback ritual. Sound as communion.
Every track landed like a body blow. Sonic fury, sustained and unrelenting. Moments of near silence arrived like gasps of air between waves. And when it finally ended, the silence felt unreal—too light, too still. A reset. Whatever had been shaken loose stayed on the floor.
