Preparem-se para ler isto como deve ser. Infelizmente nao pude meter as fotografias, nao deu. Houve algum espirito filho da puta que se intrometeu e sabotou essa parte...
INFERNO FESTIVAL, 5-7 APRIL 2007, OSLO/NORWAY
Without any doubt one of the most acclaimed extreme Metal festivals in the world: three days of pure madness and performances of the best bands around the globe! To play on Inferno Festival is much of a prestige, for it stands not only for quantity, but most definitely for quality too. When I say ‘extreme Metal’ I mean Black, Death and Thrash Metal and the likes, being the main focus on the Black Metal branch though; but well, what else could you expect from a Metal festival in Norway?
The event was held in the Rockefeller Music Hall, right in the heart of Oslo. I must say it’s a quite nice view, all these Metalheads hanging out in this strongly Christian town, totally ignoring the death and consequent resurrection of this silly man called Christ, and thus congregating in pure blasphemy…
But back to the venue… It’s fucking huge! By far the best possible place I can imagine to hold a festival of this amplitude. It consists on an enormous building, something like a city hall. It contains one big stage (Rockefeller), and a smaller, cosier one in the basement called John Dee. Between these stages there’s a room where a Metal market takes place (CD’s, vinyl, shirts, rarities, etc etc.). There were four floors in total, and on the upper floor there’s a roof terrace with a barbecue: the only place in the building where people could smoke their lungs pitch black, bliss!
Everything seems to be pretty well organized at the festival. For example, there are toilets and mini-bars everywhere, so you never have to stand in annoying cues, and so the barricades to drunkenness are abolished, except for the price of beer that is, but hey, then you shouldn’t have come to Norway! Anyway, as the ambience was set, the bands came in one at a time…
Thursday, 5th of April:
The festival opened with the Swedish Black/Death Metal band Fatal Demeanor, followed by the Norwegian Metal All Stars (featuring members of Emperor, Enslaved, Red Harvest and Susperia), playing covers of Metal-classics like Motörhead, Slayer, etc. Then, back on the small stage, the German band Karkadan played their set. I won’t tell anymore about these first three performances, for I missed them totally, hehe.
No, Inferno Festival for me started only after this, namely with one of the most imposing acts of the entire festival, Trinacria. I had never heard of this band before, so my thoughts went:
- “Please no, not another band ending on ‘ia’, and especially not with women incorporated in the line-up! This can’t be good… There already are too many Tristania’s, Divercia’s, Sirenia’s, Imperia’s, and so on! Why start another one?? But hold on for a second, I read that some members of Enslaved are in this project, say what!?”
- 
And indeed, there I saw Ivar and Arve Isdal on guitars and Grutle as vocalist/frontman. On the left-side, two women hysterically pushing buttons and manipulating frequencies and volumes behind a mixing-console each, besides a lot of other interestingly vague equipment. One of them also played a highly pitched horn from time to time, while the other wielded a theremin, and provided some weird whispers and hysterical screams.
Trinacria is the clash of musicians from at least two entirely different scenes, namely Metal and Noise (as I’ve been told after the show by one of its female members, Hild Sofie Tafjord), and apparently these combine pretty well, the formula works!
Trinacria’s show was a hypnotizing one, with a lot of visual effects to it, namely an enormous screen on the background providing psychedelic and sometimes quite apocalyptic images. The result was a very imposing and experimental, theatrical show, sometimes as ominous as a Drone Metal-act like Sunn O))). Musically it was pleasantly chaotic, combining riffs à la Enslaved as we know them now, with more bombastic, industrial parts. It is without any doubt one of the most imposing bands I’ve ever seen playing live, and apparently it was their first gig ever! Hail! I guess we’ll be hearing much more from this band in the near future. Let’s just wait for them to get a proper label and get out the first release!
Down to John Dee I went to check out the Norwegian band Unspoken. The first impression was a good one: the vocalist walking around with a negroid sex doll which he introduced to the audience as “This one here is Jesus Christ!”. Perhaps a bit childish way to do it, but nevertheless mocking Christianity is always a good thing, hehehe!
Musically, Unspoken stand for in-your-face Thrash/Death Metal. The concert was ok, but not very special. One minor point was the skinny bass-player with a Gunther-like moustache and a Melechesh girlie top, he looked kinda gay…
Next on the bill was Primordial, back on the big stage; and the big stage was definitely needed, for Primordial has really grown to this big, major band. Their music is still pretty much the same as always though. It’s actually mainly vocalist Nemtheanga who delivers one Hell of a show, by times even giving the impression he outgrew the rest of the band. He completely gets carried away by his lyrics, ending up in a somewhat violent trance and giving away a very theatrical show.
Some words to describe Primordial’s gig would be melancholic, dramatic, original, convincing and honest. And by the way, the crowd went out of its mind (as far as that’s possible with a Norwegian audience anyway)!
Paradigma was particularly appealing to me since its vocalist/guitarist and bassist are part of the DHG-asylum nowadays. I knew I had to expect some sort of Doom Metal, but it turned out to sound a bit like old Dismal Euphony, also with (well-performed) female vocals and keyboard incorporated. It was a solid show, but apart from that, maybe the vocalist should eat a bit more, as one could easily count his ribs…
Next was Zyklon, the band of ‘Mr. Important’ Samoth, and it was totally boring. The best option at this point was to take a break with some alcohol and tobacco.
Watain’s latest albums have been acclaimed by many as best albums of their respective years, and I guess it’s true, Watain is a fucking great band; and so was their gig! So fucking massive, full and imposing...
Everything was there: a wall of Black Metal sound, a really Satanic sphere and of course the infamous putrid corpse-smell all over. The absolute highlight here was the title-track from their new album Sworn to the Dark, really awesome. It just annoyed me when vocalist Erik, at the very end of the show, instead of thanking the public or something, had prepared a ‘surprise’ by shouting ‘Fuck you all!’, as if it were such a glorious thing to do. Come on man, do people still get aroused by this cliché??
Last but not least on this fine day of Metal-overdose came Suffocation, a band that needn’t introduction. Concerning their show, it was exactly what I expected: an ultra-massive, tight sound of very fast and utterly technical American Death Metal. Hails go to the guitarist and the drummer!
Those two niggers give away one Hell of a show, fucking good musicians they are! The vocalist was kind of annoying though; he talked too much in between the songs, clearly pissing-off the rest of the band. It didn’t spoil the party though. The audience was really enthusiastic, and therefore received a well-deserved encore. This was definitely a good ending for this first evening.
Friday, 6th of April
While the inevitable hangover was slowly creeping away (or just nicely being disguised by new liters of beer), the day at Inferno started off with the Greek 4-man’s formation Ravencult, a band I was already acquainted with, also because of their non-traditional Greek Black Metal sound.
The concert was a bit insipid though, without too many highlights. The songs were generally mid-paced, alternating with blast-parts and featuring some cool riffs from time to time. Together with a cover of Celtic Frost’s ‘Into the Crypt of Rays’, it was actually quite a cheerful start of that day’s Metal marathon.
Up we went to have some shots of tobacco, when we were shuddered by this Dronelike atmosphere completely surrounding all actions and thoughts; it was Red Harvest opening on the big stage. The sound bursted out like a Tiger tank rolling over the whole place, a heavy machine, ominous as doom.
If monotony were atmospheric it would make this one Hell of an atmospheric show, and this is meant in a good sense! The sound was so incredibly loaded that it reminded me of an industry. Even though there wasn’t much melody to the music, there were keyboards, but these sounded somewhat more like a distorted bass. I liked this show, especially the more bombastic parts, but I think nose picking on stage is a bit too much of self-confidence during a concert...
Then played the Norwegian Ground Zero System, but for some reason I appear to have missed this one out! So, moving on, it was the turn for Dutchmen God Dethroned. I don’t have much to tell about this act though. The set was tight, the audience appeared to have enjoyed the gig and it ended with quite a cool drum-solo, yet I think the band’s charisma was a bit too impersonal…
It was time to check out Rotten Sound from Finland. When I arrived they were already playing. I was welcomed by a wall of sound and quite an aggressive atmosphere. I was immediately captivated by the immense sound of the bass, reminding me of the strength of the bass-guitar in Dismember.
Also the drummer was notoriously good. All in all, this concert was very stirring up and convincing, giving me a very good impression from a band I didn’t know before.
Back on Rockefeller-stage there were the horror-rockers of Sigh, all the way from Japan. I was quite curious to see this act, and curious it was. A Black Metal band from Japan is quite an unusual sight on itself, but Sigh even makes their sight (ahahah, what a stupid joke) more exquisite by having its singer (frontman Mirai) wildly playing keyboards at the front, and featuring a sleazy looking Japanese girl (Mikannibal), frantically wielding a saxophone and alternately grunting, while dressed up in tight black latex, stockings, suspenders and a skirt so short that you could see her panties all the time.
Apparently it was her debut-concert with Sigh, and I must say she definitely rocked! Unfortunately the music didn’t really get to me though, it seemed a bit poor, a bit empty, but that might have had something to do with the sound also, I don’t know. Also both the guitarist and the bassist didn’t really move much on stage, they just stood there and didn’t seem very convinced of their roles. It was a nice concert though, with as highlight their well-known sing-along ‘Hail Horror Hail’.
It seems Legion of the Damned has, since their formation (just two years ago!), immediately grown to a big band in their thrashing genre. John Dee was actually so full that no one could enter anymore (well, except the press of course)! The sound was immensely powerful and in-your-face, with some of the tracks reminding me of the likes of Aura Noir.
Legion of the Damned really is a concert-beast, and vocalist Maurice certainly makes the band breathe out a lot of self-confidence.
Next was the Portuguese well-known Gothic-scented band Moonspell. They’ve already been active for quite some years now, obviously having seen many a stage, and one can tell! It is a band with a lot of self-confidence, with a lot of arrogance I daresay, but maybe this arrogance is even a bit justifiable. Fernando Ribeiro has a very good interaction with his audience, and the same goes for the rest of the band actually. Moonspell’s show was very bombastic and energetic, and together with the background - an enormous screen or curtain simulating a graveyard by night -, the eerie light and the smoke-effects, it resulted in a very cool and spooky atmosphere.
Concerning the sound, I noticed that the base-drum and the vocals were a bit too loud in comparison to the rest, which was quite a pity. Moonspell played a lot of the older hits like ‘Opium’, ‘Wolfshade (a werewolf’s masquerade)’ and ‘Vampiria’. One song was specifically dedicated to the ‘possible vampires’ among the crowds, but actually I don’t recall having seen any teenage kids at the venue really…
My literal notes from the Hecate Enthroned concert are as follows: the shittiest band ever; stupid keyboards; no charisma whatsoever; bad drummer; vocalist wears a skate-shirt?!; I expected something more solid, instead got a continuum of anti-climax keyboards and annoying screeches; one can easily walk through the thinly numbered audience, everyone seems like dying… This says more than enough I suppose.
It was finally time for the main act of the day – Immortal!
Everybody seemed to be eagerly looking forward to this moment, holding high expectations towards the performance of this trio of blizzard beasts. Immortal is without doubt a band that can easily give away one Hell of a show, nonetheless this time they didn’t really achieve such quintessence, which of course was a great pity. Just as with Moonspell, the base-drum was annoyingly overdubbing all the rest, and possibly this was the sphere-ruining factor. Even though Immortal’s adherents were in great number, they lacked in enthusiasm (especially comparing to Moonspell, the previous act on this stage), and you could see on Abbath’s face that he was damn well aware things weren’t going as smooth as he’d wished. It was a nice thing to see Apollyon on stage though, at ease as always. I think he’s definitely a great gain for the band. A lot of great songs passed by, but the highlight for me might’ve been the performance of ‘Mountains of Might’.
Saturday, 7th of April
The second hangover in a row… Today it better be damn amusing or I might not survive until the end of the evening… And fucking Hell, amusing it most certainly was! I can’t imagine a better band to start the day off than Lobotomized! Holy crap, I never laughed as much at a gig as with these Norwegian fuckers! Let me explain: the stage had been turned into a very silly exposition of garbage cans, old porn videos and a toilet. Apparently these thrash-cans were completely filled with dispensable objects. As if it were grab bags, the crazy vocalist would take out stuff from the cans from time to time and throw it into the audience. Thus I saw the most varied collection of junk being thrown around: old jackets, table-cloth, porn-tapes, a toilet-brush (announced as “a big toothbrush for big people”), goggles (“for real Black Metal people!”), a tennis-racket, music-cassettes of Michael Bolton and Wham! (this particular one was actually thrown back onto the stage, hehehe), a white fur cap about which the vocalist said he’d made it especially for Abbath for the Battles in the North-album, but Abbath didn’t like it, so off it went into the laughing crowd (this part of the gig can actually be found on Youtube!). Needless to say that the vocalist had a real good sense of humor, and with his truck-driver look, he could easily be a stand-up comedian as far as I’m concerned. Of course the interaction with the audience was great and incredibly funny.
The music was raw and ugly, exactly what I expected from the looks of the band-members. They played tracks like ‘I cum beer’, ‘Stench of Shit’ and ‘Kill me or I’ll fucking kill myself’. Nearly every song would be announced as “This is not an Autopsy-cover!”, so I actually ended up not knowing whether they played an actual Autopsy-cover or not. As if this still wasn’t enough, at a certain point towards the end of the gig there came this crazy drunk kid on stage; a special guest to scream along with the band, but for a change, no one famous.
The second band today was Brutal Truth, a band I’d completely lost out of sight since their Extreme Conditions…-album. I was amazed to see a show far more interesting than I could have foreseen. My attention was immediately drawn towards the drummer: by far the weirdest drummer I’ve ever seen! He looked to me as some sort of psychopath in his forties with ADHD. Damn, this man was energetic! Lifting his arms and legs and wildly shouting from behind his very minimalistic drumkit, but the chaos that came out was amazing! Most of the time I wasn’t able to follow what he was actually playing; sometimes I just saw a fan instead of a drumstick hitting the snare-drum, that’s how fast this crazy man played! As a matter of fact, the general sound of Brutal Truth was weird and chaotic. One could hardly define the structures of the songs, but the band-members showed to be very much in synchrony with each other. And I think that if you can play such chaotic madness in such an organized way, you just gotta know what you’re doing!
Still dazzled by this freaky show, I went down again, this time to check out the German band Resurrected. I didn’t really like this gig. Resurrected’s grinding Death Metal was quite boring and a bit messy too. Besides, the band’s members didn’t seem very comfortable on stage. The sound was pretty heavy, but the grunt of the vocalist was a bit strange and annoying. Not surprisingly, there were just few people witnessing the show, and they didn’t really breathe out enthusiasm.
And then, finally the long wait was over! The moment supreme at last – Dødheimsgard!!! In total euphoria I watched the curtain going up and the devilish mongos starting off with ‘Vendetta Assassin’ from the new album Supervillain Outcast. The atmosphere was uncanny and weird, just as I was looking forward to. On stage there were two mannequins wrapped in aluminum foil and wearing a gasmask each; most conspicuous from the members was this strange individual with a very eerie look (Vicotnik) and the energetic new frontman/vocalist (Kvohst), looking like a fucking demon!
DHG is a band that will never stop surprising me with sheer originality, this I know for sure. Unfortunately the sound wasn’t at its best, and apparently neither on the stage, resulting in some minor flaws, especially from the drummer’s part. I must say it took me quite a while to be certain that the vocalist on stage wasn’t Aldrahn, for Kvohst impersonates Aldrahn’s vocals in perfection, sounding exactly like him! It was not before Aldrahn himself got on stage that I could be sure who’d been singing all that time. Aldrahn’s presence didn’t pass unnoticed, this man is huge! Announced as “the ever so fucked-up Aldrahn” he came on stage wearing a leather muzzle and sang ‘En Krig Å Seire’ for old times’ sake. It was fucking awesome!
After a while Kvohst returned to the stage and they sang together for some time. As the gig progressed the silicone-layer Kvohst had over his face gradually decayed and started falling off in fleshy chunks. This might’ve not been exactly the plan, but he sure resembled more and more a terminal leper, which actually totally fitted the show! DHG played songs from their brand new album, but also ‘Starcave, Depths and Chained’ and some other old tracks came along. Anyway, it was already after they played ‘Traces of Reality’ that I could’ve died a happy man.
But since I didn’t die, I decided to check out Blood Tsunami down in the basement. The mere fact that a band has incorporated Faust on drums doesn’t necessarily make it an interesting band for me. The gig was crowded though, so I guess a lot of people dig this Thrash-influenced band. Personally I think the music was quite monotonous and therefore I decided to move elsewhere.
I totally missed out Dark Funeral’s concert, but this band has been in the spotlights more than enough anyway. Let’s pass on…
The next band playing was the Norwegian Black Metal-machine Koldbrann. It was a particularly good gig. It was so crowded that you just couldn’t get in. I couldn’t even get to the security-staff that were holding back the eager mass, to show them my press-card and enable my passage. Thus I decided to wait for this madness to calm down. When I could finally get in, I saw a very enthusiastic audience, a sea of horned hands being stormed over by this tremendously massive wall of Black Metal. The sound was amazingly heavy, outbalanced, and enhanced by quite melodic guitar riffs and Mannevond’s aggressive vocals (one of the finest in the genre if you ask me!). Overall, it was a very convincing and hateful act, a pleasure for any Satanic soul!
After this it was time for a change, time for something calmer, time for Tiamat. The Swedes gave away a steady concert, a very self-confident performance. Their controlled, melancholic and accessible music somehow felt as a relief after all the previous gigs of extreme Metal. It almost felt like a massage! The sound was good and the audience enthusiastic.
Besides a lot of new songs I also intercepted the nowadays more classical songs ‘In a Dream’, ‘Whatever that Hurts’ and ‘Gaia’. Meanwhile Anaal Nathrakh from the U.K. had already started playing one of their seldom gigs downstairs. I never really understood the big fuss around this project, but everybody talks about it and hails it as if it were one of the best bands around nowadays. Whatever. Even though the venue was really full of alleged fans, I can’t say I found the show very appealing or special whatsoever.
This night (and with it, the festival) finished off with the old German Metal-gods Sodom. Obviously there was a great gathering of people in front of the stage, and it was a good show. The sound was pretty good as well, just not quite as loud as the previous acts. Also the drummer seemed to play very controllably, especially on the cymbals. He hit them so softly that you could hardly hear ‘em! But you’d get used to this soon enough…
At a certain moment Abbath from Immortal joined on stage to sing a cover of Motörhead’s ‘Ace of Spades’, this was quite an amusing moment actually. The concert seemed to endure and endure, they just kept on playing. But to everything comes an end… It was time to hit the road, back to the netherworld.
To sum up things, I can say Inferno Festival is definitely a quality-festival, with very good light-effects and overall sound. It’s an event that you can’t miss out if you really are into extreme Metal. It’s an expensive 3-day Metal feast, but it’s worth every penny! It’s just a pity the audience never seems to get out of its mind, they’re all just so well behaved. And this I refuse to understand...
Text: Vitriol
Photography: Blue Blood
