Live Review: Keo

The Louisiana, Bristol - 28/10/2025

If there’s a band to be keeping an eye on right now, it’s London’s Keo. 

Raw, poetic, and beautifully unpolished, the rising quartet is one of the most talked about bands of the past year, and when you watch them live, it’s easy to understand why. 

Their debut headline tour in support of debut EP, Siren, released at the beginning of the year, sold out in minutes. Venues were upgraded before selling out instantly again.

Confusingly, The Louisiana’s 140 capacity was never upgraded, tickets for tonight’s show highly sought after. However, it becomes clear why when Keo enters the stage, explaining how the iconic venue, which has hosted the likes of Amy Winehouse, Florence & The Machine, Dua Lipa, and even Coldplay, is one they’ve always wanted to play. Consequently, tonight was the smallest show of the tour, and undoubtedly the last time we’ll be seeing Keo playing in the backrooms of pubs. 

Kicking off the night is support act Brooki. Hailing from Dublin, the quartet incorporates the honesty of Jeff Buckley, and grit of early PJ Harvey, into their own distinctive sound. Tracks such as Apple and 16 carry the same emotional weight and relatability as Keo’s discography, their grungy sonics, littered with Red Hot Chilli Peppers-esque basslines, and the smooth tones of Sarah Brookfield’s vocals making the 90s inspired, “grunge-folk” sonics the perfect warm-up for such a highly anticipated gig.

However, closing song, Amber, is the standout of the set. With soaring vocals, it’s a song bursting with anger and by the time the final chorus rolls around, the already packed out live room joining in. “Give me a second / I can’t breathe / And I’ve tried everything / But I still can’t see” packs a punch, and you can’t help but scream along. 

It’s one of the best support sets I’ve seen in a while, and Brooki are sure to be the next big thing. As soon as their music is available to stream, it’ll be straight on my playlists. 

It’s a novelty to see a band so hyped having to push their way through the crowd to get to the stage they’re performing on, especially when a band is receiving such critical acclaim. Yet it also serves as a reminder that the bands we love all start out somewhere, venues such as The Louisiana playing such a vital role in the music industry. 

Opening with Hands, the energy is high from the get-go, the crowd chanting “Keo” before the band have even played a note, and continuing this chant between every song and in turn with every applause until the band comes offstage an hour later. 

Formed by brothers Finn (vocals and guitar) and Conor Keogh (bass), and joined by Oli Spackman (drums) and Jimmy Lanwern (guitar), Keo takes the emotional resonance of Jeff Buckley and Radiohead and pairs it with more contemporary sonics reminiscent of Wunderhorse and Fontaines D.C.

Much of their set is made up of unreleased songs such as Deserts, Young, Spaceman, and Kudos; however, these don’t falter the energy. Almost everyone in the room continues to loudly sing along, arms are flailing in the air, and it’d be impossible for an outsider to be able to guess which of the tracks on the setlist have been released and which are new. There’s truly something special happening here.

SoundCloud exclusive tracks Fly and Crow, both slow, grunge-laden numbers, embrace the raw, and celebrate imperfections, reaching their climax at feverish cries resonant of a Wunderhorse track, and receive the expected high levels of frenzy.

For the chorus of Thorn, the frontman hands vocal duties over to the crowd, who were screaming the words louder than him anyway. Completely engulfed in the crowd, somewhere in the middle, I take the moment to turn around, the back of the crowd impossible to see, the room feeling so much bigger than it really is. The atmosphere of the music, paired with both the passion of Finn’s vocals and the catharsis of the audience is enough to leave you with goosebumps and whiplash. From such a small venue, it feels cult-like. How this will look when the band hits bigger venues in the near future is unfathomable. 

Slower tracks such as Stolen Cars build up to big sing-along choruses, as the room is filled with phone screens and pints are raised, perfectly showcasing their distinctive sound, completed by urgent and cathartic vocals paired with soaring, distorted guitars, sitting somewhere among 90s grunge, shoegaze and alt-rock.

However, the stand-out of the set is closing number, and first officially released single, I Lied, Amber, brimming with aching vulnerability. On the surface, the track is all fuzz and distortion, but when you really stop to take it in, there’s a real depth and beauty to the introspective lyricism.

What makes Keo so special is not just how electrifying their stage presence is, but their authenticity and compelling mix of vulnerable storytelling and genre-blending sonics. 

Believe the hype. Keo has firmly proven themselves as the next great thing in indie-rock.

KATIE HILLIER