Show Review: Paleface Swiss bring their “Cursed” tour to Chicago

Alongside two long-time industry bands Stick To Your Guns and Nasty, deathcore/metalcore Paleface Swiss ended their U.S. “Cursed” tour at Chicago’s Talia Hall on 4/26.

Since 2004, Belgian beatdown-hardcore band Nasty has brought the heat, especially on their latest EP Black My Heart, where they return to their roots.

Stick To Your Guns, another long-standing punk band active since 2003, brought their heat from recently released record Keep Planting Flowers, described by the band as “a call to those who are tired of just watching the world spiral into hell”.

Paleface Swiss took the stage, with dark red lights barely illuminating the stage as Cursed album intro “un pobre niño murió” played, before the band burst onto it. The last time I saw them at Milwaukee Metal Fest, the show was bare bones but this time around, technical difficulties were nowhere to be found. Jumping right into one of the new albums heavier songs “Hatred”, vocalist Zelli punched through each song in his classic mesh shirt. Although this tour was focused around Cursed, they still threw in some classic old songs like “Gallow” and “Please End Me”, catering to the audience members who prefer their harder sounds over their most-recent exploration of nu-metal.

Zelli did something I’ve never seen a band do and it actually had nothing to do with their music. Paleface Swiss, Zelli specifically, comes off as incredibly nice but his next move sealed the deal for fans at Talia Hall. Since this date was the end of the U.S. tour, he acknowledged all the crew members out with them, calling them out by name or bringing them out on stage from merch managers to tour managers. He went beyond just acknowledging the openers, he told specific personal stories about how Nasty was one of the first bands that inspired them, saying similar remarks about Stick To Your Guns. Paleface Swiss always puts on an incredible show while looking effortless.