“This role of warrior brings nothing but the misery.”
Jinjer are something of a rarity in the modern metal scene. Groove, metalcore, and prog styles abound, and they’re among the best at channelling these, but that alone wouldn’t set them apart. What does is their absolute focus on developing their own sound. They continue to resist the allure of obvious breakdowns, drowning their core sound out with atmospherics, or even going more ‘pop’ through tired structures and choruses. In a year that was largely a step back for modern metalcore, 2025’s Duél was the sound of this four piece being themselves, through and through, asking audiences to pay attention to what makes them unique. Besides festivals, their last tour of the UK was in support of Sepultura, and other tours in support of Duél have been under Trivium and BABYMETAL. In early 2026, it’s finally time for Jinjer to headline their own tour in their own territory. They brought a tech focused line-up: genre staples Textures got to join their first tour post-reunion and Unprocessed are part of the new wave of ridiculously technical metal.
Words by Dobbin T, photography by Kieran White, contact Kieran prior to any image use.
Textures
There’s always a pang of discomfort when you see the ‘OGs’ supporting the ‘newbies’. There’s no doubt that Unprocessed and Jinjer would have been spinning Silhouettes and Dualism in the early days, dreaming of touring alongside them in some fashion some day. Of course, this feeling only spawns from my perspective of having been around that long myself, and there was absolutely no sense of this in Textures’ performance. They were beaming, delighted to be fully back in action after a long break, and showing any new listeners a slice of the good old days. Their official reunion year was 2024 involving many, many festival appearances including ArcTanGent here in the UK. If 2026 has them truly back in full force, they still have a lot of work to do on the touring circuit to re-introduce themselves to the shifting audience of modern metal. Genotype is a strong argument for their continued relevance, pushing the progressive and clean vocal elements of their sound to the fore without forgetting to throw things to a djenty-eleven from time to time.
From their new album, they played “Closer To The Unknown” and “Measuring the Heavens”, the former including one of the few classic ‘solos’ of the evening, and the latter being the evening’s most extended synth-prog cut of the night. Textures kept the rest of the set list broad, pleasing absolutely everyone. The swelling crowd got down to moshing quickly, including many of the usual suspects from the Radar and TechFest pits. Some crowd pleasers were “Reaching Home”, “Timeless” and “Awake”, featuring all the amazing clean vocal moments that Daniël de Jongh is still slaying at. Closing on “Laments of an Icarus” was absolutely perfect, diving into the most twisted djenty and heavy parts of their back catalogue. The very last moments of the set prompted an in-unison, swirling headbang from all the long haired members for the final riff. Textures have been back for some years now, but seeing them out on the road for a full tour feels like the moment where they really are back.
Unprocessed
As a website we’ve seen Unprocessed many times, and though they feel like the new kids on the block, they’re in their twelfth year as a band. We missed reviewing their latest album, Angel, but a brief summary is that it continues to take their sound in the direction that …And Everything In Between did – both heavier and more refined in terms of its pop sound. Their earliest work didn’t make the set list, which is understandable given their metamorphosis that’s happened with 2022’s Gold, which by now can be seen as their teething album on the way to refining their ultra-tech sound.
Their two new albums reigned supreme as they opened with a full run of Angel’s openers (“111” through “Beyond Heaven’s Gate”) and some of its singles (“Snowlover” was sublime with amazing slips between falsetto and harsh vocals). For “Solara” bassist David John Levy amply stepped up to cover the Paleface Swiss feature. When they went hard, it was ridiculous – “Lore” and “Terrestrial” are just incredible pieces. Unprocessed are truly one of the gems of the modern heavy metal world, and it’s only a matter of time before they’re headlining this very stage.
Jinjer
For many fans, the first introduction to Jinjer was that classic studio performance of “Pisces”, a rite of passage for every vocal coach to film a reaction to. When Tatiana Shmaylyuk’s vocals hit, I felt like one of those reacters, and when her harsh vocals hit, I too would have fallen from my seat had I not already been standing. Much has been said about Shmaylyuk’s vocals; it’s not enough, she’s just fantastic. She showed no signs of weariness at the end of the headline set, even in the middle of a long tour, let alone being sixteen years into her time with Jinjer.
As for the rest of the band, the perfection continued. Drummer Vlad Ulasevich was visible in high definition from his gigantic riser, adding all the ridiculous detail to Jinjer’s rhythms. The bass and guitar were perfectly matched in the mix. Eugene Abdukhanov shone in the many gentler segments where he’d switch to tapping. Roman Ibramkhalilov is incredibly reserved for a guitarist in a metalcore band, always delivering to make the songs work the way they need to. This band really is balanced between its members, something that perhaps becomes lost in the spectacle we’re beginning to expect from the genre.
As this tour was Jinjer’s own, the stage production was completely their choice, and they delivered in spades. I have seen many shows at O2 Forum Kentish Town, and none of them (including the pyrotechnics of Tesseract) beat the incredible format they put together. They brought a huge screen which lit the entire stage. To speak in a very ‘2026’ way, it felt very ‘anti-slop’ as all the visuals were bespoke for each track, and were fantastically synced and often hand drawn, enhancing the storytelling of each song. I began noting the alignment of each visual to the song, finding some favourites: “Vortex” showed cyclones wrecking a cityscape with retro game aesthetics, “Somebody’s Daughter” showed a woman’s armour turning to a barbed wire cage, and “I Speak Astronomy” ‘s cybernetic stardust formed cosmic patterns. The classic “Pisces” was the pre-encore track, and the choice of “Sit Stay Roll Over” was an absolutely delicious encore.
With such a big stage presence, they feel ‘stadium ready’, already outgrowing the house-of-blues sized venues that they’ve booked for this tour. Of course, in this market that is a long way off. Such a jump would probably mean a compromise on their core sound, and would no doubt be worse for audiences on a practical level, too. However, Jinjer deserve their success, and more. They have admirably navigated their path through adversity, sticking to their principles the whole time – exactly what the alternative scene should aspire to.
