Northern Wind from Hokkaido, French Elegance and Chasing Shadows: NOISEMAKER, Revnoir and Coldrain Sell Out Szene Vienna

Coldrain (support acts: NOISEMAKER, Revnoir)
Sunday, 7 December 2025
Vienna / SZENE / Austria

This show was covered by Rockline’s youngest recruit, which means the (visual) report was unfortunately shot on a five-year-old POCO X3 rather than the gear a spectacle like this truly deserves.

2025 is clearly the year of the great Japanese scene comeback to Europe. A whole year heavily coloured by names from the East is wrapping up in exactly the same way — explosively. NOISEMAKER on their debut European run, backed by French metalcore newcomers Revnoir and one member of “The Holy Trinity of Japan’s C” — Coldrain (Crystal Lake, Crossfaith, Coldrain) — had no trouble at all selling out Vienna’s SZENE.
NOISEMAKER are hardly strangers to Japanese fans of modern rock and nu-metal. Despite being active since 2009, when they dropped their debut The 6 Matters of the 6, Europe hadn’t seen them until this year. Back home, the four-piece are reliable festival regulars — from Rock in Japan Fest and Summer Sonic all the way to Ozzfest, where they’ve already shared a stage with the giants of the global rock and metal scene.
“Howling north wind from Japan,” as they describe themselves, the band hails from the cold north of Hokkaido, and that often comes through in their sound — sharp edges of alternative rock, infectious melodies, a nu-metal undercurrent and a strong sense of positivity, which is why they’re frequently compared to the newer generations of American hybrid rock bands.
Frontman AG plays a huge role in their identity, effortlessly moving between rap, clean vocals and screaming passages — something that has become one of their most recognisable sonic signatures. The band has grown album by album — MAJOR-MINOR, RARA and H.U.E. have taken them to the very top of the modern Japanese rock scene. Their most recent singles confirmed once and for all that they belong among the most mature and internationally ready j-rock export acts out there.
And — in typically Japanese fashion — AG, HIDE, YU-KI and UTA took the stage at Vienna’s SZENE at exactly 19:30.
With an incredibly high-energy performance from the first to the last second, they caught off guard an audience that may have come expecting heavier fare and warmed the room up properly. As the “gentler” act of the evening, they certainly didn’t lack for crowd surfers and moshpits — AG himself even dived in while still singing, in the spirit of his spiritual mentor Ryo Kinoshita.

NOISEMAKER were definitely the positive surprise of the evening, with only one real flaw — they played just six songs before handing the stage over to the French, Revnoir. Both band and audience parted ways with smiles on their faces — the genuine kind, the sort that speaks louder than a thousand decibels.
After their set, the crowd rushed straight to the merch table, where NOISEMAKER were left with just a handful of shirts and a few stickers within minutes. Everything else — sold out. A more-than-deserved testament to their performance, and a clear sign of the audience’s appreciation. The four-piece stood by their merch the whole time, personally thanking every single person, posing for photos and promising they’d definitely be back in Europe.

Setlist:
1. Something New
2. MAJOR-MINOR
3. SADVENTURES
4. Supernatural
5. LAST FOREVER
6. NAME

Revnoir, the latest signings to metalcore label Arising Empire, grabbed attention the moment they walked onstage — especially among the female contingent in the crowd — with their sharp outfits and immaculately styled hair. The opening, however, wasn’t entirely without hiccups: the vocals raised a few eyebrows at first, but vocalist Maxime Rodriguez‑Medallo pulled himself together by the second song and finally let loose.

It’s not a lack of skill or talent — Revnoir are relatively young but determined. The band was formed in 2021, their debut EP Coma (2023) landed positively with critics, and this year they dropped the singles Revenge and Night Terror, which prove their ability to blend crushing metalcore riffs, melodic transitions and subtle electronic touches. Their discography is still slim, but every release shows they’re on a fast track to international recognition.

Although they used to sing more in French — especially on songs dealing with dark emotions and heavy themes — Revnoir have been gradually shifting toward an international audience. So while the crowd didn’t catch every lyric, they had no trouble keeping up with the pace and energy of the songs.
The most surprising thing, though, was that Revnoir’s closing songs stole the crown from NOISEMAKER, who had so far been labelled the “calmer” part of the evening. Their carefully constructed setlist, which started out measured, ultimately won the crowd over and created one of those moments where phone flashlights lit up like stars across the venue.
For a young band still on the way up, the performance sent a clear message: Revnoir aren’t just “French metalcore guys” — they’re a band that knows how to combine visual elegance, raw energy and compositional maturity. A band with serious potential, and one we’ll be more than happy to follow as they keep developing.

Setlist:
1. Into Quiet
2. Bang Bang
3. Night Terror
4. Snake
5. Revenge
6. Crève
7. New World
8. In Limbo
9. 20mg

And then the moment arrived — 21:25, almost dead on, the Coldrain intro starts playing. For a few seconds the venue held its breath, the crowd already pushing and buzzing with nervous energy — and then, boom! — Coldrain hit the stage.

Coldrain, the Nagoya-based band founded in 2007, need no introduction to anyone who follows the Japanese rock scene. Members: Masato Hayakawa (vocals), Ryo Yokochi (guitar, programming), Kazuya Sugiyama (Sugi — guitar), Ryo Shimizu (RxYxO — bass) and Katsuma Minatani (drums) make up a band that has been cementing their place both at home and abroad for over 15 years. Their sound is defined by heavy metalcore riffs, melodic vocals, screams and arrangements that are aggressive yet unmistakably melodic at the same time.

Their discography includes the EPs Final Destination (2009), The Enemy Inside (2011), and the albums The Revelation (2013), Vena (2015), Fateless (2017), The Side Effects (2019) and their most recent Nonnegative (2022). The band has regularly toured Europe and the US, played festivals including Download Festival (UK), Summer Sonic (Japan) and Rock am Ring (Germany), and built international recognition partly through singing in English.

The moment they stepped onstage, the crowd’s energy was impossible to contain. The first chords set off a wave of euphoria, and the lighting effects and visual production lifted the whole venue. From the very opening of FREE FALL, Masato could tell with his charismatic delivery that the audience was eating out of his hand and leaving not a single crumb on the plate. They moved into Paradise (Kill the Silence), and the crowd behaved like a Black Friday mob. The absolute mayhem right from the start put visible smiles on every member’s face. INCOMPLETE followed, bringing the first proper address to the crowd. Masato gleefully announced that the show was officially sold out — the audience erupted, and the band members turned more than a little red in the face at all the love coming their way.

Coldrain’s first sold-out show in Austria will undoubtedly stick with the members for a long time, and Masato promised that as long as fans keep supporting them, they’ll keep coming back to Europe. He capped the statement with a somewhat morbid note — that they don’t know how much longer they can keep it up, since they’re getting older too. That might sound strange coming from someone who’s only 38, but it speaks to that Japanese mindset again: “If we can’t give everything, we won’t give anything.” For bands as relentlessly energetic as Coldrain, aging is always a challenge they reckon with. Coldrain simply do not want to end up like those “classic” American bands in this genre — frozen onstage, each member barely moving, the singer strutting back and forth like a runway model — that’s not the Japanese way; you always give everything to the crowd no matter what, and Coldrain are no different.
After the speech came the first throwback of the night: The Revelation — the song that, ten years ago, stopped the world’s busiest train station for four minutes. Together with Monster Energy, Coldrain performed right there at Shinjuku Station. Naturally, the crowd lost it; the security guard was already eyeing the moshpit for potential fallers, though he had nothing to deal with. REVOLUTION once again had security’s hands trembling, with the front barrier shaking at intervals. The rigging held, and it was time for some newer tracks — before Masato asked whether anyone in the crowd was an anime fan. The younger generation of fans almost certainly knows them from exactly that. It all started with the anime Rainbow: Nisha Rokubō no Shichinin, for which Coldrain provided the opening song “We’re Not Alone” back in 2010. In 2024 they covered the opening of Ninja Kamui with “Vengeance”, and that same year Fire Force used “MAYDAY”, which Coldrain created together with Ryo Kinoshita. The question was clearly leading somewhere, because next up was the song that also served as the opening theme for the anime BASTARD! — none other than Bloody Power Fame. And there we were… a packed-out Szene creaking and groaning as half the room turned into a moshpit while the other half sang along. Masato gave in a few times and handed the vocal duties over to the crowd, who obviously didn’t let him down. The venue survived, and it was time for the cutest song of the evening, “Rabbit Hole”, followed by MAYDAY. The keener music fans were paying close attention to the second half of the track — the part that should have been sung by the previously mentioned vocalist Ryo Kinoshita — but lo and behold, Masato proved once again that he is a vocalist of many talents. Fans already knew this back in 2018, when he stepped into the shoes of the legendary Chester Bennington and, alongside Crossfaith, recorded Faint — delivering Chester’s part with such precision and vocal likeness that many people thought it was just a remix of the original vocal.
Masato expressed his amazement at the crowd knowing all the newer songs and looked genuinely surprised that the audience was keeping up with what was essentially a fresh setlist for this tour.
After the address came the final song of the evening, also from the new record — CHASING SHADOWS. It’s a track released just under four months ago on the EP OPTIMIZE, which includes Optimize, Chasing Shadows, Digitoll, Incomplete and Free Fall. The crowd went mental — the way they did back in 2015 when the then-flagship Coldrain track “GONE” was played on European soil for the first time. The band said their goodbyes, but as was entirely predictable, the crowd wasn’t having it. After two minutes of screaming for more, the band returned to the stage and launched into OPTIMIZE — again from the new record, but the audience sang it like they’d known it for years. You’d think one encore would be enough, but the crowd wanted more. Masato gave them a choice — one more or two — and when hands shot up with five fingers in the air, the crowd sent a clear signal: two wouldn’t be enough either. The band, delighted that the audience still had energy to burn, kicked off with Envy and closed out the evening with Vengeance.

The evening was proof that Coldrain remain one of the most energetic and dedicated j-rock/metalcore acts the European scene has seen in years. From NOISEMAKER to Revnoir and finally Coldrain — every band brought its own character and energy, but Coldrain elevated the whole night to another level, pouring everything into every chord, every vocal line, every move across the stage. The audience participated, jumped, sang along and created an atmosphere that’s hard to shake.
If one thing is clear after tonight: Japanese passion, charisma and dedication to the crowd aren’t just words — for Coldrain, they’re a way of life. And even though the old tracks, the anime openings and the hits from the new EP OPTIMIZE rang in everyone’s ears, it was the energy of the crowd that truly echoed long after the walls of Vienna’s Szene went quiet.

Setlist:
1.FREE FALL
2. PARADISE (Kill the Silence)
3. INCOMPLETE
4. The Revelation
5. REVOLUTION
6. Cut Me
7. DIGITOLL
8. Boys and Girls
9. Uninvited (Alanis Morissette cover)
10. Bloody Power Fame
11. Rabbit Hole
12. MAYDAY
13. CHASING SHADOWS

Encore:

14. OPTIMIZE
15. ENVY
16. VENGEANCE

Author: Denis Paradiž & Helena Medved
Photos: Denis Paradiž & Yamada Masahiro
Video: Denis Paradiž