Blastfest- Day 3: Bergen, NO


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On the last day of Blastfest, festival boss Yngve “Bolt” Christiansen had once again made a smart move. He had Wardruna open, and once again the crowd was much bigger than what one would expect at such an early hour. Wardruna are also extremely professional, if quite far removed from what one would consider metal. Although, they do have both Kvitrafn and Gaahl in their lineup, so the selling points in terms of metal are very much present. However, folk music, or the likes thereof, will in my mind never have anything to do at a metal festival, but to each his own, I guess. This became a day were I simply wasn’t able to run around and catch all the bands, but I did manage to catch most of them, and I did catch the first band at the Studio stage, which was Communic. You know, that band with members formerly in Scariot, that kinda sound like the Norwegian version of Nevermore? Well, they certainly do, and they certainly sport some technical abilities. Just like the opening act the night before, Sahg, they did their very best to get the audience started, and I think they really did a good job, at least from what I could observe.

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At the mainstage prime blasphemers Carpathian Forest were ready for a auditory attack. They certainly didn’t hold back, kicking off the show with ‘The Frostbitten Woodlands Of Norway’, which is one hell of a groovy song. Then came one classic after the other. Drummer for the occasion was Jonathan A. Perez, who usually plays with Sirenia. He was able to pull off filling the drum chair as a replacement for Kobro. The more alarming thing was a Nattefrost in front that seemed to have lost his ability to scream properly. All growls and snarls and whatnot only seemed like a mixture between half-heartedness and an actual problem with his voice. Maybe the former being a result of the latter? Well, we were given convincing versions of songs like ‘Suicide Song’, ‘Knokkelmann’ and ‘Mask Of The Slave’, so no one was complaining.

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Insidious Disease is one strange band. They have some really generic material, but are made up of people from Dimmu Borgir, Old Man’s Child, Morgoth, Napalm Death etc. For the occasion they also seemed to have recruited the former Blood Red Throne drummer Emil Wiksten, currently hammering down the nails for Swedish Aeon. I mean, there’s certainly nothing really holding this band back except for some really generic material. No eyebrows were raised.

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Speaking of … back down at the mainstage Aborted were on stage, and that is something completely different altogether. They certainly know both how to craft interesting material, put on a good and energetic show, and really raise hell. Too bad the room was only halfway filled with people as they went on stage. Maybe technical and brutal death metal par excellence was just too much for the audience mainly comprised of Scandinavians? I simply have no idea why people didn’t show up for one of the highlights of the festival – maybe not on paper, but their actual performance was flawless! Having missed out on Enthroned, I got ready for stallwarts of the death metal genre, Vader. I have seen them a couple of times before, and every single time they have been really impressive. Somehow that didn’t seem to be the case this time around. I can’t really put my finger on it, but something just seemed off about them. Maybe it was the volume levels again, just like with Hypocrisy. It just seemed a little tame and polished.

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Belphegor suffered from the same thing as Enthroned, although with Belphegor I actually got a short glimpse of them, but there was just too big a crowd to get a proper look. Back down at the mainstage, My Dying Bride were ready for their third ever appearance in Bergen. They started off a bit slow with ‘Kneel Till Doomsday’, ‘The Raven And The Rose’ and a song which I never get why is included in their set, seeing it as it is one of their weaker ones, ‘Like Gods Of The Sun’. Then again, after that, things really picked up, and they ended their set with a cavalcade of ‘Turn Loose The Swans’, ‘She Is The Dark’ and ‘The Dreadful Hours’, leaving me, paradoxically enough, with a big smile, in a euphoric trance-like state, and well on my way into blackout drunkenness. And remember good people of the world: next year (19-21th of February 2015) Yngve is doing things even bigger, with three full days at this year’s main venue. Also, where else do you get to stumble into King Ov Hell, Infernus, Abbath, Demonaz, Gerhard of Einherjer, Grutle of Enslaved and a whole host of other cult names casually hanging out in the bar? Actually, after helping Yngve move some stock and the backline just earlier today, getting a little insight into the things that are planned for the next edition: GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

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Words: Pål Lystrup

Photos: StiPa Photography


Blastfest: Day One – Bergen Norway


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The first year of Blastfest marked the beginning of a somewhat risky adventure, at least for mainman and festival promoter, Yngve “Bolt” Christiansen, a guy you might already know as front man of the Norwegian death metal band Blood Red Throne. He gave everything to get this up and going, and to secure Bergen a replacement for the much missed Hole In The Sky Festival, that unfortunately called it the day back in 2011, after twelve years of catering to Bergen’s metal needs. OK, so we did get Beyond The Gates already the year after, but they had downsized and focused on “underground” acts like Nocturnal Breed, MGLA, Nifelheim, Aeternus and the likes of them. So the gap, the segment of in between bands like these and Slayer, was really not catered to in terms of a festival. Up stepped Yngve, risking both his car and his apartment in the process. Yngve is a guy who thinks in what psychologist Kahneman has coined “System 1” thinking; he is indeed fast, instinctive and emotional, praise Satan for that!

I arrived just as the very first band of the festival played the last minutes of their set, thus Tantara was missed, except for that one single song, a couple of minutes of pure thrash metal. However, that was not the case with Finnish black metallers Woland, recently signed on Indie recordings. The two bands would preferably have switched places though, because Woland were a generic black metal trio, most memorable for their vocalist not just taking off his shirt, but also for him doing Fabio poses. Being remembered for poses is hardly krieg, right?

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The next band on stage was Lakei, which is Norwegian for ‘footman’. They set the bar a lot higher with their perfectly executed take on the sludgier and groovier form of metal. They’re also a local band, and really stick out in a scene mostly made up of extreme metal acts, in a city maybe most famous for black metal bands like Gorgoroth, Taake, Enslaved, Immortal and Burzum. Next up was the German thrashers of Fatal Embrace, and boy was this fatality! The lead guitarist seemed to have picked up his playing skills mainly through viewing the Abbath guitar lessons on YouTube over and over, which needless to say made for a subpar performance. And when the vocalist boastfully declared “We destroy this house tonight – this is ‘Another rotten lie’ “, I simply couldn’t help but giggle a little to myself. Said vocalist, as pointed out by some other attendees, could probably do good from a little cardio excercise too, since his face became all red already halfway into the first song. There was a lot of heavy breathing, and very little musical material of interest to be heard from Fatal Embrace.

Fellow Germans, Der Weg Einer Freiheit, were the next band on stage, and boy were they something else. Perfectly executed black metal, good sound and a lot of people left looking to buy their music in the wake of their performance. Sadly they didn’t seem to have brought anything for sale. Although, one must question what black metal has evolved into in later years, when you have a band looking as if they just came from a seminar in C++ programming, even wearing some beach loafers on stage. The aesthetical aspect seems to be more and more neglected, which might very well work out on an album, not so much so in a live setting.

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Koldbrann on the other hand; they adhere to the old school black metal aesthetics, full corpse paint and all. That being said, the vocalist had an eerily similar style to that of Batman sidekick Robin. He still came across as far more dominant and commandeering than the vocalists earlier in the evening, and the band churned out really good versions of songs like ‘Drammen’, ‘Totalt Sjelelig Bankerott’, ‘Djevelens Treskeverk’, and finished off beautifully with their cover of ‘Russian Vodka’. Then came Myrkskog, for the first time ever gracing Bergen with their presence, and with Nils “Dominator” Fjellstöm behind the kit for the occasion. And speaking of this guy; what the fuck does he do to manage to play at such infernal speeds!? The same goes for some of the guitarwork of Sechtdamon (which you might know from Morbid Angel by now). Boy can these guys play! They raced through songs like ‘Discipline Misanthropy’, ‘A Poignant Scenario Of Horror’, ‘Domain Of The Superior’, ‘Deathmachine’ and ‘Utter Human Murder’, all flawlessly executed. However a chaotic sound production probably made sure one had to know the material beforehand to really enjoy the show. The last band before headliner Shining were the veterans of Aura Noir. And one thing is always certain about this band, and that is the certainty of getting a superb performance. Blastfest got a run-through of a set filled with classics, like ‘Blood Unity’, ‘Sons Of Hades’, ‘Mirage’, ‘Released Damnation’, ‘Condor’, ‘Black Metal Jaw’ and ‘Hell’s Fire’. Sadly the band had to walk off stage before they were through with their set, but we all know that might happen at a festival. So there was no ‘Conqueror’, sadly enough. Also, at some point during their set they had to play with only one bass drum, which Apollyon referred to as “just like at the circus”. Speaking of circus … the final headlining act this first night was Sweden’s Shining. Seemingly people implicitly agree with me on the fact that Aura Noir should have been headlining, because the crowd was much thinner during the main headliner this night. we got the usual stuff, like spitting blood and drinking whiskey and whatnot, and the usual suicidal lullabies. And they are somewhat lullabies these days, as it feels more and more like the band has outplayed its role, at least to those having already passed through their teenage angst phase.

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Words: Pål Lystrup

Photos: StiPa Photography