Fagerlund's reviews

Soo... third time for me visiting this little festival in the north of Sweden! That makes it the festival I've visited the most times actually... which tells you I really like it since I keep coming back! And nothing has changed in that department this year either, even though I heard the locals were very disappointed with the line-up this year and thus there were less people around this year. Personally I think it was a GREAT line up, but then again - most of the bands this year were from the north of Sweden themselves so I reckon the people up there have seen them quite some times... Anyhow, on to my experience!

 

 

Yeh well, that wasn't a band... but it's awesome every year. :P

 

 

 

 

First band of the night for me was this Death Metal band. I had never heard of them before, but they sounded quite nice. Not a bad start really, but I don't have much more to say about them I suppose.

 

Decided to check these guys out and well... I really wasn't in the mood for this style of music even though it was well played and so. So I actually went back to check the end of Daemonicus instead - but as they finished much earlier I got back and saw the end of Corroded as well. To be honest, the highlight for me was when the singer says something along the lines "so when I grew up in the stone age we used to wave lighters in the air for the slow songs, and maybe if you get touched and have a tear in your eye and feel like throwing your bra on stage... that's totally fine with us..." - and someone actually DID throw a bra on stage! Which one of the guitar players used to blindfold himself, which made the singer laugh and forget the lyrics... ah entertaining at least!

 

After that on to Aeon! I've seen these guys two times before, making this my third so I knew exactly what to expect. What I didn't really expect though, after a quite slow start on the crowd side of things were a full venue of people for these guys. But that's nice to see!

They played their super fast and technical Death Metal, just like they always do. No mistakes, no bullshit, just crushing peoples heads. I hope to one day get to hear their acoustic version of God Gives Head In Heaven - but this day wasn't that day. Solid set, and just long enough.

 

So, Katatonia were supposed to play here, but cancelled the event the day before... but the HoM crew managed to call in Entombed who plays all the time, any time, any where. Good job getting such a nice replacement with less than 24 hour notice!

Allthough they had some technical problems with the guitar and started 15 minutes late, and Nico on the other guitar was missing as well you know Entombed will always kick ass. But since they started late I only managed to see 25 minutes, but as far as I could tell they played the same set that they always do (no surprises with no time to prepare!) but with only one guitar it did sound quite different from how it usually does. Alex (guitars) had to improvise some bits, which made it quite cool despite having seen them loads of times.

You'll never be disappointed with Entombed though. They're Entombed.

 

So the reason I left Entombed early was to catch these hometown guys. It was quite some years since I last saw them so was curious to see how they had evolved and if they'd bring up something special for playing in their hometown or not. The last couple of times I saw them my feeling was "this is a good, Swedish, copy of Behemoth". I mean, their sound, stage show, clothes, perfomance... everything felt a lot like Behemoth. Now they've kind of moved away from that. Which should be a good thing, but oddly it gives them less character for me! Now they're just another Death Metal band from Sweden (there's no shortage of those!) and I can't call them "Swedish Behemoth" anymore.

Even so, they put on a solid show. Just not quite as memorable as they used to be. For me at least.

 

 

Next up was a local band on the demo stage. Sadly I can't really say that much about them, because their sound was really bad. The drums sounded nice at least! :P

 

So the big clash of the first day, Tankard playing at the same time as Mayhem. I didn't hesitate for one moment which band to see, even though Tankard played the second day as well (I heard they played the same set again so I didn't miss anything).

Second time I get to see these old school German Thrashers! They've been around for 32 years now (!!), and despite being big guys as well they haven't slowed down for one bit. I mean, seing Gerre bouncing around the way he does on stage he puts a lot of younger bands to shame. So much energy!
And that despite the venue being incredibly empty. Was really sad to see that, but at least those of us that were there had a great time!

The set was a nice mixture from all eras, having everything from the first album up until the latest one. Personally I'd loved to see more from Beast of Bourbon as it's my favourite, but that one's getting old now so...

Great to see one of those old bands still having loads of fun on stage! Gerre brought up a girl from the crowd on stage to dance with, and Frank came out in the crowd during the encore to shout with the rest of us for the band to come back on stage... Fun times were had, and great seing Tankard again! This is really a band that fits in a smaller venue instead of a festival like last time I saw them, it really does bring them out a lot more!

 

 

The second day kicked off with one of the bands I was really looking forwards to seeing! Also one of the bands from Umeå, where the festival is held it'd be nice to see them perform there! I suppose that's also the reason why so many showed up so early as well, all though it was still quite much space on the floor.

They started off really nice, with a cool intro. Instead of having a back drop they had a see-though curtain with the band logo in front of the stage and red lights behind it - so you could see the band, looking somewhat daemonic. Really atmospheric!

One of the big questions for me was of course would Jens Rydén be missed on the vocals? Even though I think Teras is an awesome album (and I've still not heard Harvest, silly of me I know) it's always a bit sensitive when a new vocalist sings the old songs. But I can say that was certainly not a problem here! Kristoffer Olivius made the old songs sound just as great as the new ones. And there was a pretty nice mixture of new and old as well, even some stuff from Vittra came up. Was also a bit surprised that they had a quite long set (1 hour and 15 minutes I think). They also get cred for some great pyro! Really added to the show.

Over all I'm really pleased, and the second day couldn't have started better.

 

Then I had to chose between seing Tankard again (which was tempting after the great show the day before) or seing these Norwegians. Again, not a hard choice after all since I missed Aura Noir when they played in Stockholm last fall and was really happy to get another chance here!

And again, no regrets. Because this was without a doubt the best show of the festival for me! They completely blew me away and my neck is still aching two days after... For those who don't know they play Blackened Thrash, and it's fast paced, energetic and still catchy. No nonse, just killing. The only break was basically when the drummer broke his bass pedals so they had to change... Simply awesome stuff. Oh, and with members like Blasphemer, Aggressor, Appollyon it might be no surprise that they kick some ass...

I was planning to just watch half of their show and then go see Amorphis, but I couldn't make myself leave until they were done so...!

 

 

But due to them starting later and having a longer set I was still in time to see the last three or four songs at least. And the fourth time I see them, they seemed to be enjoying themselves despite the quite sparse crowd. And I must say, it was really great coming in after Aura Noir to the large stage where you could sit down, and then just chill out to Amorphis. They're one of those bands that you don't really need to actually see, it's enough to listen because there's where the magic happens.

 

After that I had 15 minutes to spare so went back to the demo stage for another local band. As you could guess from the name it's Thrash this time, and it didn't sound bad. I think they had some good ideas going and with some time they might do something good out of it.

 

Another reason I went to the festival this year was to see these guys. I really like their debut album, and the second one is all right as well (all though I'm not super happy with the direction of that one) but haven't heard the third one that came last year. Anyhow it's Christian Älvestams (Torchbearer, Scar Symmetry etc) current Death Metal project. It started out quite melodic, but judging by the second album and this show it seems they've moved away from that. Too bad I think, because it makes them sound a bit more generic.

They were also one of the bands missing a member (and were quick to point out that "unlike some others" they didn't cancel), but as they've cut away the melodic parts anyway you didn't notice much change in the sound really. It was good, but not good enough for me to watch their whole show since Sodom started...

 

Second time I see these Thrash oldies! Actually it has been five years since last time I saw them so I was looking forwards to this one!

And yeah, they've been around for a very long time and they know what they're doing. They know how to make some noise (even though Angelripper complained about not being allowed to play louder) despite being only three people. They also just let it rip, song after song having a good mix of new and old. They have quite the reportaire after all! I was missing Napalm in the Morning and I am the War however, but other than that a really nice selection! It actually almost felt like they ended a bit early - might've been because the lack of people... by the end it was really empty in the venue which felt really silly. I heard people say "This is the best show ever!!!" and then five minutes later leave to drink beer. So I guess the layout of the festival did hurt Sodom a bit there...

Despite the disappointing crowd it was a really nice show! The band did what they could, and they did it really well.

 

And that was a nice end to my festival. So to summarize, great bands, great performances, but a very lacking crowd. The ones who were there did give good support, but I mean when you have a indoors venue that takes 2500 people (I think) and there's just a couple of hundred in there it feels very empty... But I'll chose to remember the good parts instead, and that's the chance to see Aura Noir and Naglfar for the first time, and a super show by Tankard with some additional nice performances as well!