Festival Review: Dark Easter Metal Meeting (2026)

Dark Easter Metal Meeting in Munich, Germany is one of those festivals that always catches my eye with the fantastic lineups and has remained a temptation over the years. This year it was finally time for me to join in, as there were several bands I just could not miss.

Day One

Pre-festival we had a fair amount of time, so we wandered the Old Town area seeing the sights and filling up on hearty Bavarian cuisine and quality beers which I’m pretty sure is a legal requirement when visiting the area. 

Fueled up on pork and helles, we headed onwards to the venue Backstage - a slightly maze like jungle where the acts would be split across three different rooms with food and drinks vendors aplenty to ensure you won’t be famished.

Koldbrann & Urgehal

Norwegian black metal legends Koldbrann wasted no time in getting our energy up with Ingen Skånsel. With a great stage presence delivered to the decent turnup of a crowd, everyone was amped up for the day ahead. Amongst the setlist was their self titled demo track from 2002 and Kaosmanifest off their debut album to incorporate tracks from across their nearly 25 year career.

Urgehal were another early in the day from the Norwegian scene whose arrival to the stage was heralded by the bells tolling. The room was packed for them, with their relentless blast beat pace of classic black metal - including the unsubtly titled track Satanic Black Metal in Hell to prove what they’re all about.

These two early on in the fest really got everyone in the mood for the brutal weekend ahead of us that would leave our necks sore from all the headbanging.

Kyi

Sandwiched in between these two well established black metal acts was Kyi, a recent formation that released their debut EP Vagrant Circle last year. This was in fact their live debut, and at one of the larger metal festivals in the area… no pressure then!

Taking to the stage this Austrian/German mixed band first had a bouzouki being played to establish a chill atmosphere, an unusual instrument to see normally, let alone in the black metal scene. With candelabras and tea lights across the stage, the mise-en-scene was set ready for their act to properly begin.

The five piece squeezed onto the smallest stage of the festival, and their fast paced black metal began. Strong lead vocals from Ynoxia were very impressive, unfortunately I could quite say the same for the questionable back up vocals which broke up the groove of their music and took me out of the moment every time - even more so than the cowbell action which never fails to be amusing in any music scene thanks to a famous SNL skit from 2000 establishing it as a piece of pop culture.

This band did also employ some theatrics into their set, where about halfway through a girl wearing nipple covers was led onto the stage in chains, where Ynoxia picked up her flask of blood, poured it into a goblet, and then poured it over the imprisoned girl who just stood there as it happened. 

The rest of the band lightly jammed throughout this ceremony, as wax dripping took place and then she was made to kneel. Without addressing any of this, the band then went back to their set, playing a couple more songs whilst this girl sat there dripping in wax and blood, absolutely still like a statue. Slightly odd, like they wanted to incorporate some theatrical elements but did not quite have the full plan ready - still, I guess it got people talking (and me writing) about it so it worked.

Sakis Tolis

The man, the myth, the legend.

This was by far the toughest decision of the festival for me, as on the other stage at the same time was Misere Luminis who have recently released a particularly spectacular album that is right up my alley.

However. Rotting Christ are one of my favourite bands, and I've been listening to the melodic black metal legends for a long while. When Sakis started his solo career i was immediately on board with Among the Fires of Hell being a perfect blend of A Dead Poem and The Heretics style RC with his own flair accompanying each album under his name. 

A third of the set consisted of songs from that album, combined with a couple from his new album, and even two Rotting Christ songs thrown in; Tou Thanatou and Holy Mountain. It was amazing, I’m really not sure what else I can say.

It was high energy, crowd pumping, and everyone there seemed to be having a great time as Sakis played his hellenic melodic tunes. I’m not gonna lie, I was slightly fangirling a little bit as song after song was played - so imagine my delight when Sakis fist-bumped me mid song unprompted, then gave me his pick at the end and I got a setlist. Joy doesn’t even begin to express the 45 minutes I experienced here.

Unfortunately we ran out of time so Non Serviam was cut from their set, a shame as that would have been a perfect closer - but we did close with Nocturnal Hekate, a Daemonia Nymphe cover that featured on his Among the Fires of Hell album which was still a great choice.

I caught a little bit of Vinterland here, who had impressively flawless drumming and such a great sound. However I will be seeing them at Fortress Festival at the end of May, and alas I was quite hungry. So exploring my options I settled on the convenient choice of a shawarma wrap and caught up with the other friends I was with to see how they were enjoying the day so far before we moved on to the next band.

Auðn

Icelandic atmospheric black metal, a phrase that conjures up such vivid imagery in the mind, and a band that are pretty well established with their melancholic vibes. 

The six took to the stage in their business smart attire, blazers and all - and much like their clothes depicted they were an absolute class act from their arrival through to the respectful bows at the end of their performance.

The highlight here was the absolutely scathing vocal work from Hjalti Sveinsson that were filled with a sorrowful angst that absolutely blew me away. The bass lines were incredibly rich, the three guitars were all headbanging along in perfect synchronicity, and the entire room was just dripping with atmosphere. 

They may have been fairly high up in my list for the festival ahead of attendance, but having seen them live they surpassed all my expectations and among the top highlights of the full weekend.

Schammasch, TodoMal, & Blackbraid

In this trio is one band I love, one I'm sort of familiar with, and one band I've never heard of until this. For the clash of Schammasch and TodoMal, a friend I was attending with highly recommended the latter so I split my time between the two acts so I could experience both.

Schammasch took to the stage cloaked and masked, establishing an occultish eerieness from the first moments. C.S.R.s vocals endlessly reverberated around the hall, absolutely filling it with his coarse howls. 

I only stuck around for a couple of songs from the surrealist Swiss black metal band, and moving through to the club for TodoMal was a hell of a tonal shift which I was all for. 

The atmospheric doom metal band from Spain were in the midst of a more ballady tune with clean vocals when we walked in, so after recovering from the characteristic whiplash I found a spot on the balcony to comfortably experience this new-to-me act.

The slow heavy riffs were glimmering with gloominess, with every note lingering on as the clean vocal work unfolded over the dread. It was different, and perhaps a much needed change of pace for the day as lord knows I was starting to suffer from too much fast paced headbanging.

I think the greatest thing of this show was the drummer absolutely beating the shit out of his drum kit, such heavy handed force as he struck each drum and cymbal like a sledgehammer coming down. A stick breaks, he throws it over his shoulder and grabs a new one in one flawless move without breaking the beat.

Although Blackbraid are a band I love, I would not be sticking around for their full set for two main reasons. The first is I would be seeing them in less than a week in a more intimate venue, and secondly I desperately wanted to secure a good spot for the next act.

Kicking off with Celestial Bloodlust they played expertly in an incredibly tight performance - I was back to headbanging along at blastbeast pace again, neck pain be damned. Songs from all three self-titled studio albums were what filled the rest of the set for the rapid-paced Native American atmospheric black metal act. I only saw half of the full show, but I’ve seen them before at Fortress and now I was even more excited to see them again in Glasgow. 

Secrets of the Moon

And here it is. The main reason I am here in Germany is to finally see one of my favourite bands live, a band that broke up years ago and reformed this year to celebrate two decades of Antithesis. An album I got out the vault recently to air my thoughts on it, and here I am in person ready to here it played in full from the stage - and I was right at the front, prepared.

From the opening intro of Nowhere (11:18) that led into Versus through to the final note of Lucifer Speaks I was giddy with excitement to finally witness them. Pure catharsis is the only way I can accurately describe the feeling, it was everything I wanted it to be.

The vocal work shone through, the guitars, the bass, the drums - maybe it’s a bit of bias considering they are one of my favourite bands of all time - but it seemed perfect. Accompanying them for Lucifer Speaks was C.S.R. from Schammasch to chant along with this spiritual song. 

The setlist itself of course contained no surprises, leaving only Exit off from the album. They instead chose to depart the stage with feedback deafening the crowd, ringing out for minutes until a crew member came out to turn off the amps. I nabbed the setlist laying in front of me, and took a couple moments to come down from cloud nine before leaving the hall.

And with that, my first day drew to a close.

Day Two

It was Easter Sunday, the story of the J-dog son of god, rabbits, and one of them giving birth to eggs… .or something like that I kinda forget the plot as it always seemed a bit farfetched to me anyway.

22 degrees on this bliss spring morning and whilst I was in a beer garden enjoying more Bavarian food and beer, the UK was being hit by a storm and it was snowing in Scotland. Seemed I picked the perfect weekend for a trip away.

I caught a little of Lik, the Swedish death metal band just to give myself a wake up call with their heavy thrashing action - but I skipped most of their set much like Firespawn the previous day as death metal has just never been my jam.

Schreigarm

Though established in 2020 with two albums under their belt, this was the debut performance of Schreigarm from Neuss, Germany. They’re listed as atmospheric black metal, but I also got some heavy post-black metal gives from them in the vein of early Chrome Waves or Waning with the styles of dirging riffs that came in at times.

There was no bass for this act, so the backing track stepped in to fill that role of this normally two piece act who had enlisted a drummer to form a trio for their performance today. I suppose I could say four piece, and I’ll get into that shortly…

Musically, the band were very strong. Nice tremolo riffs, guitar solo laden, and both front-men Ingvarr and Styrr shared the guitar and vocal work evenly throughout their songs with solid form. They also kept going for some crowd interaction which was good to see, getting them chanting along or to participate a little, they were not shy of being on stage for the first time.

As for the fourth member I mentioned, before the other three even played a single note there was another person dancing along to backing music on the stage, and at first I had assumed they were going to be the singer. However once the music started they left and weren’t seen again until halfway through for another ceremony piece. The two front-men chanted, as she dramatically presented a skull to the crowd, and pretended to stab near a voodoo doll, then left again.

As it is Easter of course, they included the traditional greeting of “f*** jesus” as they led into Nine Days on the Gallows Tree, and the girl joined on stage once again sans-mask, dancing along to the music like Bez, or perhaps Tony from that Nirvana - Live at Reading performance. 

A Ukrainian flag was raised in the crowd, and the bands final words were “F*** Putin, Slava Ukraini” before getting a photo to commemorate their first time on stage.

Ruïm

The other difficult clash for me. Whilst I did absolutely have to see Ruïm, I felt bad for ditching Cwfen - the gothic doom from Glasgow which would have provided a taste of home. Highly recommend checking out Cwfen, fantastic music with otherworldly live shows.

On the other hand, Ruïm who made one of the best black metal albums of the past decade, and absolutely blew me away at Fortress Festival 2025. As they opened with Blood. Sacrifice. Enthronement. I knew I was in the right place, ready to be absolutely melted away.

The flawless and effortless guitar playing of Blasphemer was pure spectacle as I stood right at the front of the crowd, as incredible riff after riff was played in songs like Black Royal Spiritism or Evig Dissonans. 

He talked about his time in Mayhem, joking that he’s “not even sure if they’re a band anymore” before being joined by Nornagest from Enthroned who would perform vocals for the two Mayhem covers I Am Thy Labyrinth and Fall of Seraphs. The set was absolutely top tier, and high up among the highlights of the festival.

1914

War in. Ukrainian legends of WWI themed black metal entered to the stage, with Dmytro solemnly clutching onto the flag of his country before breaking out into FN .380 ACP#19074.

Another band that has become a favourite of mine since I was introduced to them with The Blind Leading the Blind back in 2018 and it was humbling seeing them on the stage, even the microphone giving off some awful feedback during the first song.

Between Vimy Ridge and Easter Battle for the Swinin Ridge Dmytro addressed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling for support towards Ukraine to stop the war spreading further across Europe. Cheers from the crowd, and the couple I saw with the flag earlier on today raised it up high once again in moral support.

A couple more tracks off their latest album Viribus Unitis and Dmytro went to give another speech, but his microphone apparently decided to stop working entirely. Never mind, the band continued by playing the introduction to Passchenhell, where Dmytro started to unassumingly creep around the crowd, sneaking up behind unsuspecting members of the crowd to yell the lyrics in them. The friend I was standing with even got "baptised" in the mud across his face.

Their set was fairly short, I could have easily enjoyed more from them but regardless it was a fantastic performance and hopefully I see them again in the near future.

Hail Spirit Noir

This Greek black metal band with experimental and psychedelic qualities were another main draw for me and a big reason I flew out for the festival. 

I got in to the club early during soundcheck, ready for my final performance of the weekend and just from hearing fleeting riffs from songs I knew and loved I was excited for their performance. 

This is the first time with their new singer Arne Vandenhoeck who hails from Belgium, joining the Greeks on the stage. He had the voice, and he brought the energy - even playing air guitar and pretending to drum along to the music at times where his vocals weren't required which added an extra layer of entertainment.

They really embraced the quirky side at times, leaning into the feedback and odd notes they could get from the guitar and keys to add a subtle enhancement of oddity.

Conclusion

With that all over, my weekend in Munich drew to a close. I prepared myself for the flight back to Scotland, the dread of going back to work, but the excitement of being reunited with my kittens who I had missed and were being spoiled by someone else in my absence.

Dark Easter Metal Meeting is absolutely a festival I would recommend visiting, and one I will keep a close eye on for lineup announcements going ahead. The venue was great with each stage having fantastic sound, everyone I met was so lovely and genuine, and the vibes were just perfect the full weekend.

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