We Came As Romans live at The Roseland, August 12th, 2025
August 12th, 2025 was a busy day for the music scene in Portland. There were no shortage of shows to choose from — I personally had three on my radar for the day and ultimately made what I believe turned out to be the best decision to attend We Came As Romans at the Roseland Theater. While I admittedly hadn’t listened to We Came As Romans much in recent years, the line-up for the show couldn’t be beat and included one of my most favorite bands, Currents, who I will never miss a chance to see live, as well as Johnny Booth, a New York metalcore outfit I unfortunately missed the last time they came through Portland and have been wanting to see live. After The Burial, a progressive metalcore band from Minneapolis, also supported We Came As Romans on their tour. We Came As Romans new album All Is Beautiful…Because We’re Doomed doesn’t release until August 22nd, but fans that have seen them thus far on their “bad luck” tour have been privileged enough to hear some of the unreleased songs early.
The set opened with a recording of the intro track off their upcoming album “All Is Beautiful…” and as the band took to the stage they went into “bad luck”, the first single from All Is Beautiful…Because We’re Doomed. The catchy song had fans singing along and jumping right away. After “bad Luck”, We Came As Romans played “Plagued” from their 2022 album Darkbloom. They then followed with another song from their new album, one that hasn’t been released yet, “Red Smoke”. It sounded exactly as one would imagine a song with that title would and the crowd headbanged as their faces lit up red from the stage lights.
Based on the singles thus far from All Is Beautiful…Because We’re Doomed, I honestly wasn’t expecting We Came As Romans’ set to go as heavy as it did. “Culture wound”, also off the upcoming album, impressed me more live than it did on the recorded track. Vocalist Dave Stephens’ screams sounded even more brutal live and the mosh pit reflected his force. After heavy moshing and crowd surfing, the set slowed down a bit for “Learning To Survive” from 2017’s Cold Like War, but promptly picked back up afterward with “Carry The Weight”, a song dedicated to We Came As Romans former bandmate, clean vocalist and keyboardist Kyle Pavone who passed away in 2018. The themes of grief and moving on are still present in We Came As Romans’ new music, too, as the song that followed. “one by one”, states “I’m still trying to find a reason, trying to fix the damage I’ve done” — Stephens’ taught the crowd the lyrics before singing the unreleased song from All Is Beautiful…Because We’re Doomed.
While most of the songs on the setlist were from their upcoming album and their most recent two albums (2022’s Darkbloom and 2017’s Cold Like War), We Came As Romans did pull out one song from the archive when they played “Hope” from 2013’s Tracing Back Roots, a song that arguably brought out the most crowd surfers and heaviest moshing of the evening. While We Came As Romans admittedly wasn’t the band on the bill I was the most excited about the night of August 12th, I was nevertheless blown away by their performance. One of my favorite things is when I can tell the band members are thoroughly enjoying themselves performing and I could tell that was the case with We Came As Romans. Bassist Andy Glass had a huge smile that never left his face the entire set while he spun in circles across the stage and headbanged over the risers.
We also saw similar energy and stage presence from all of the supporting bands leading up to We Came As Romans’ set. I had heard good things about Johnny Booth’s live performances and those good things proved to be true. Vocalist Andrew Herman danced, jumped and spun in circles around the stage while bassist Nick Martell jumped, kicked, and made faces at the crowd.
Currents, the band I was personally most excited to see, didn’t disappoint, either. It was my third time seeing Currents live and every time their stage presence and energy is phenomenal. Bassist Christian Pulgarin is well-known for his moves on stage, dancing cumbia and spinning in circles while playing Currents’ distinct djent-y metalcore riffs. We also got to hear live for the first time the band’s new song “It Only Gets Darker”. Currents showed their appreciation for We Came As Romans as well, mentioning that the headlining band was one of the first to take them on tour when they were a new band.
After The Burial followed Currents and primed the crowd for We Came As Romans. Vocalist Anthony Notarmaso told the crowd they haven’t toured since 2023 because they have been working on a new record. The band played their newest single as well, entitled “Hum From The Hollow”. When the band played “Death Keeps Us From Living”, which Notarmaso said was the one that gets everyone crowdsurfing and instructed the crowd to get to the front, he told the crowd it was the hardest for him to sing live and therefore was just going to stay in one place rather than jump around because “I’d rather sound good than look good”. And he did sound good. His vocals were deep and powerful and the rest of the band made up for his stillness on stage while waves of crowdsurfers came to the front. After The Burial is a band that, despite being familiar with, I hadn’t listened to too much previously, but after their performance opening for We Came As Romans, I realized they are definitely a band that I should listen to more.
