Introduction
So here we are again, millions of people worldwide have holidays to celebrate the religious exploits of the Easter bunny, or was it the Jesus chad? Anyway, the holiday proceedings in Oslo went under a more hellish moniker, the notorious Inferno Metal Festival. Inferno has become a safe-haven for black clothed, festival deprived metal fans to seek shelter from the religious, yellow painted bunny-worshiping mass.
Inferno is held in the capital of Norway, which also happens to be the capital of black metal, Oslo. Every Easter, a wide selection of mostly black and death metal bands play on various stages and venues in Oslo during the 4-day festival. The main event is held in one building, housing the stages Rockefeller (main) and John Dee (smaller).
Before the main concerts there are smaller gigs held mostly during the day at the pubs/venues Vaterland, Brewgata, Goldie, Kniven and Dattera til Hagen.
The festival also hosts a wide arrange of activities and stuff to do for free or for a fee, depending on the activity. These can include; black metal bus tour, art convention, metal music conference, tattoo fair, and drag music bingo + metal fashion shows for those interested in that.
For me, this festival is about one thing, maybe you can guess it already… *drumroll*. Black metal.
Inferno is also a place where a lot of the metal community in Norway gathers, along with friends from abroad, so there’s an ever-growing list of friendly faces to catch up with each time I’m here.
What about the bands?
As seen above, this year’s festival had a ton of heavy hitting black metal bands. The range of bands usually lay within black, death or the extreme genres, but most years Inferno has a couple of stray cats from other scenes playing too. This year, Violent Magic Orchestra and Rosa Faenskap are two examples of such bands. Last year’s editions had none-extreme acts such as Arthur Brown and Jo Quail.
Concert reviews
This year, I was looking forward to sharing the Inferno experience with Black Metal Zine’s chief Roberto, and also writing this review together. However, he unfortunately had to cancel, and I was left with the Inferno duty on my own. Like last year, press manager Runar granted me and BMZ with a press & photo pass.
So I set out to the concerts with my camera gear and notebook in hand to gather what impressions I could for your reading pleasure. With that said, let’s get into the gigs that I wanted to share with you!
Malum was the first concert I got to see at Inferno, but was supposed to be my second. The Hellstain bands YR and Malum were kicking off the festival at the venue Vaterland. When I arrived, a massive line had gathered, the queue went far into the street and I was stuck there for the duration of YR‘s set. My hopes were getting low as Malum‘s start time was approaching. To my amazement, right before I threw in the towel, the queue was chopped in half by people exiting after the YR gig, I got inside the venue at last. The steaming hot room was filled with people as the masked men of Malum took to the stage. All dressed in black outfits and wearing masks with only their eyes peaking out, heavy guitar riffs filled the room and deep sounding drums blasted like gunshots to the chest. A heavy, atmospheric set with fantastic drums sums up the actual content of the gig as the band focused on their music rather than theatrics on stage. Playing into their gimmick of being mysterious and dark, banter or chatting with the crowd does not take place. Personally, I would prefer to see Malum later at night, to add some more punch to that darkness they convey.
Syn was a band that I decided to skip at Beyond the Gates festival last year, as I haven’t been a big fan of their releases. However, I got the chance again now at Inferno, and it’s safe to say I probably missed a great gig at Beyond the Gates. I really enjoyed how their music was conveyed in a live setting compared to streaming. The vocalist was masked in a dark hood, and he was roaming the stage, delivering raw powerful vocals backed by heavy riffs and deep sounding drums. Great gig!
Udåd oh my…. where do I start with this one? Maybe with the band itself, Udåd is the side project of Thomas Eriksen from Mork and this gig at Inferno would be the band’s first one ever. I didn’t have many expectations as I had never heard their material, but I was thinking that it would be a good gig as Mork’s gigs usually are. But I was wrong, very wrong. Eriksen’s vocals were heavily faded, making it sound very unnatural and tame. Their song structures didn’t add much to my enjoyment, with what I described in my notes as dull riffs and the same boring drums on repeat. I stayed a bit to try to get some hang of it but the vocals really put me off so I left the venue.
Spectral Wound was the band I was looking the most forward to at this year’s festival. After fuming off with a beer after that Udåd gig, Spectral Wound served as a groovy and energetic remedy. It seemed like a lot of other metal heads shared my excitement as the venue was packed long before they would set to the stage. Security were blocking all entrances and would only let people in if someone was leaving. This is due to the venue being the smaller one, and this is one of the bigger issues with this festival. Crypta playing here last year was the same story. Still, I managed to get in to experience the Canadians and their black’n’roll-y tunes. Jonah on the vocals was a beast on stage, moving all over, the way I prefer compared to lifeless mannequins. Please have them on the main stage next time!
Abbath, ahhhh what a man. One of the best headlining acts of the entire festival. The sound was overall very good at this show compared to a lot of the other bands at Inferno. Beers flying, mosh-pits, crowd-surfing and an overall good atmosphere all orchestrated by the true showman Abbath. In between songs he kept yelling nonsense to the great amusement of the crowd. The band seemed to enjoy themselves on stage, and they delivered a bomb of an ending to the first day of the festival.
Non Est Deus, the Germans also known from the band Kanonenfieber, delivered an atmospheric ritual dressed in white robes, masks and slippers. They took to the cross decorated stage in a packed venue. They delivered a very convincing set, blending the theatrics with great delivery and interacting with the audience in a non-verbal way. The vocals and drums were a bit dominant compared to the string instruments but still a very satisfying show,
1349, the headlining act of day 2, kicked their proceedings off with a small pyro act, some guy fire-breathing and then rushing off the stage. The showmanship from the band was good, but their gig was troubled with some sound issues which threw me off from fully immersing myself.
Seth played a fantastic show. One of the best of Inferno festival all in all. They are a French band who also dwell in the realm of atmosphere and theatrics. The vocalist, cloaked in red, performing among chopped up heads on spikes while his bandmates delivered melody and rawness, making it a spectacle that is worth seeing again.
Satyricon is one of my all-time favorite bands, and the absolute best headliner of this festival IMO. What a highlight this show was, from Sigurd / Satyr’s good mood, reminiscing the old days of Rockefeller to honoring late Jan Martin (Inferno festival boss), dedicating To the Mountains to him. I had a blast witnessing this show, and it all topped off when they brought out Sivert Høyem to perform Phoenix with them, as close as possible to the album version. There were multiple teary-eyed metal heads during this part of their set. This gig was an overall better experience of Satyricon than their two shows at Beyond the Gates last year, perhaps the Unholy Trinity tour has warmed them up well.
Lamentari was a band that I had never heard of before seeing them live on the last day of the festival. I went in blind and found myself immersed in symphonic blackened death metal. Kind of mixing Dimmu Borgir with Fleshgod Apocalypse. The band is dressed in robes and masks, looking quite similar to Schammasch‘s attire. With a smell of incense filling the room, Lamentari delivered atmospheric metal with an uncloaking ritual, revealing the bands’ faces and levitating the live experience. Very cool gig, I’d happily see them again.
Schammasch is a Swiss avant-garde black metal band that I never really enjoyed on record, but I wanted to give them a try live since I heard so many good words about them from people I know. The band spend a lot of time themselves doing the sound check before playing. 3 out of 5 members were wearing masks, making the inconsistency seem a bit lazy. The band had nice banners and excellent sound but delivered very little groove, no movement and too much atmospheric crap as I like to call it. Probably a good show for fans of their genre, but totally not my thing.
Nattverd is a band I had eagerly been looking forward to seeing as I knew it was a side project of Nordjevel and Doedsvangr. My anticipation got bigger as I spent the entirety of Batushka’s concert to have a chat with Doedsadmiral/Ormr and Steinar Aven at the Rockefeller “apartment”. On stage the band’s attire includes corpsepaint, spikes and inverted crosses, something I love to see as a concert photographer and black metal enthusiast. The venue was packed, a clear sign that Inferno’s crowd love their black metal. Doedsadmiral was intense on stage, and I mean intense. The man was leaning on one of the monitors on the front of the stage and kicked it off as he finished one of his lines, sending the speaker straight off the stage and torwards one of my photo-pit colleagues. Some time after, the Admiral went to grab his mic from the stand and knocked it straight towards the front row. I managed to grab it and push it back in on stage to the Admiral, no photographers were hurt haha! The rest of the band were also into it, Renton on the drums were terrific and Aven had a huge grin on his face through the entire show. The sound in the venue was not the best, and extremely loud. Still, the concert carried a great atmosphere and was very enjoyable.
Naglfar played a fantastic show. It was my first time seeing them live and did not know what to expect. I found myself in front of a group of men with great enthusiasm for their music. Very engaging members, shouting the lyrics towards the crowd, doing the guitar machine gun stance and overall, very entertaining to watch. I noted that they played disgustingly loud with an apparent sound and somewhat overpowering drums, but it was pouring melody, groove and pure energy into Rockefeller. Exactly what I want from live music.
Bythos was heavy heavy stuff. A ton of gritty atmosphere in the again packed John Dee venue. Their gig had some technical issues on the vocalists side, vocals occasionally muted. The band carries none of the black metal aesthetics on stage (corpse paint, spikes, etc.) and were quite stand-still in their spots, which made their concert a bit less entertaining to see. However, their music really hit me and I stayed for that.
Tsjuder ahhhhh fucking Tsjuder man. I love this band and I loved seeing them again now at Inferno. From Nag’s raw vocals to Draugluin’s consistency on the guitar and headbanging, Tsjuder delivers stunning black metal visuals. Painted faces, inverted crosses, spikes, beautiful lighting and killing for Satan. Everything I want from them, delivered how it’s supposed to be. To top it off, the band also played a great Bathory set as one of its founders, Frederick Melander joined them on stage that had been redressed in Bathory accessories rather than Tsjuder’s. I also want to mention the honorable Tsjuder manager, Håkon Grav who I noticed was helping out the audience in wheelchairs by offering to take their mobile phones to capture pictures of the band from the pit! Gotta love that!
Celeste is a band that I’ve listened to but never gotten into them. I did not expect to have any different take on them than that from their live performance, either, but I ended up loving this. Celeste was pouring out smoke into the John Dee venue like no other band before. Most bands just want to hide their ugly drummer with the smoke machine, but Celeste went all in to cover everyone. Security were closing the doors to not fill the other venue as well with the French fog. On stage, the band were playing in darkness with only red headlights lighting the venue. This just screamed atmosphere, and it was really cool to see. Not so much to catch from a photographers’ perspective though, haha! One of the best gigs at Inferno Metal Festival this year,
Behemoth, the Rammstein of black metal, was set to headline the last day of the festival. Although I’m not a big fan of their music, I know a good show when I see one. Nergal and the crew were one of the most interactive bands at the entire festival. Nergal and Orion were going real close to the audience, playing in the front row multiple times. Nergal was in a good mood, chatting with the crowd and joking about the smallness of the Rockefeller venue. The stage was dressed with props, pyrotechnics and the smoke bombs were going off every other song and to finishing it off with confetti. Behemoth also used some nice projectors on a big backdrop in between some songs, and the band also do costume changes occasionally to keep you engaged. Their audio was clear and nice but too low to my liking. I like to have the option to take out my ear protections for some occasional ear-abuse during my favorite songs, but I didn’t find ear protectors necessary at all for their concert (except for in the pit).
Gallery
Your festival plans
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