Fagerlund's reviews

First band of the festival was this local band playing some decent Death Metal. Nothing that really stuck in my mind however, so can't say that much about them. 

 

Black Metal... of the very monotone kind. In fact, so dull that they had to cover the whole thing up with a show instead. They had a guy dressed up as Jesus on stage who was tormented by a guy with meat hooks. Graphic, but quite boring.

 

Grave once again! Since I saw them for the first time I've seen them at least once every six months or so on average... and I never seem to get bored by them despite having seen them eleven times! Basically the same set as the month before when they opened for At the Gates, in other words a lot of old stuff. All that "in your face"-stuff. A bit messy performance this time around, but they've been around for long enough to cover it up good enough. Too bad they played so early! But still a very solid deliverance. This time around they also had a surprise guest doing vocals of the first verse of Into the Grave! Clean vocals in Grave?! Sounded cool though! His voice is so familiar but I don't know who it was, someone filmed it though so see for yourselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVKapFi-FlU

 

Sixth time I see these guys and their Rock'n'Roll Black Metal and apparently they have a new line-up, with only the two brothers still in the band. They also played three new songs(!). But you know what? It was the same old as usual, but a very solid performance. Lots of energy as usual, and they grabbed the crowd as usual. It seemed like they wanted to play an encore as well, but they also started late so no room for that in the schedule... 

 

Speaking of the same old, here comes Entombed! Except that it wasn't the same old! Finally some new songs in the set! And they also played some classics as well, that I haven't heard live before either. So a very refreshing change for me indeed! The new songs are really heavy and sounds great live, while the old songs are... well, they're Entombed. Pretty sloppy performance though, but the drive of the songs carries them on to a nice set indeed!

 

So time for the home soil heroes then! They started by playing all of Panzer Division Marduk. After that I was quite numb and bored. They have a lot more interesting songs in their repertoire, but an hour of blasting away in the fog is one way of doing it I suppose.

 

And finally the headliner for the day! They were on tour celebrating their album Covenant this time around, and thus played all of it. I'm not a fan of that album actually, and neither did they play many other songs that I like. But despite that, their performance was so damn good that this became the highlight of the festival for me! Vincent is a really charismatic frontman, and Tim Yeung is pretty damn fast behind the drums... he might've tried to set some kind of record in dropped drum sticks this night, but he was so fast getting new ones up that he barely missed a beat! And then you add a superb guitar duo to that. I think that Thor Anders Myhren might have the strongest thighs in the scene, considering he stood in a crab position and played for basically one and a half hour...

Really good show, I was very impressed indeed. And that despite the lack of songs from Altars of Madness (I think there was only one)!

 

 

 

 

First up on the second day was this young Death Metal band. Much like the first band the day before they weren't bad, but I kind of got the feeling they were somewhere else. An allright start of the day anyhow.

 

Ah, Zombie Death Metal at it's finest! This is one of those bands who doesn't try to play as fast as humanly possible, but instead they focus on groove and heaviness. And such a tight deliverance made this the most headbanging friendly set of the day I think! Always nice to see these guys!

 

So Necrophobic are back with their original vocalist and they've also lost one guitar player so it was only Fredrik Folkare on stage... and I must say they lost a lot of their sound that way. The vocals were all right, but the loss of the second guitar was a pretty big blow to their sound I think. Fredrik is a great guitar player though, and for me he was the saviour of this show. Other than him it felt kind of sleepy... but oh well!

 

Aura Noir on the other hand is the complete opposite of sleepy! They blast away full speed at all times! Their Blackened Thrash is just putting up a huge wall of sound that doesn't really stop until five minutes after they get off the stage or so. Lots of energy and a great performance this time as well. Since they were in Sweden they also decided to play a Bathory cover, which is always appreciated!

 

I must confess I didn't have any expectations on Sodom this night, since last time I saw them they weren't really on top of their game. This night however they set the bar high by starting with Agent Orange, and then they simply kept it up for the rest of the set! Great choice of songs all around, and really good pacing as well. The mix of fast, super fast and midtempo songs were spread out really nicely in the set. And add to that a great frontman in Angelripper who had a great connection with a crowd... I guess they proved that old dogs can still deliver!

 

So since Marduk helped arranging this festival they also played two sets. They started by playing Those of the Unlight in its entirety... which I honestly skipped. Old Marduk isn't that interesting to me, and having seen them the day before was enough for me. Instead I came in for the second half of the set where they played a more mixed set that I enjoyed a lot more than the set before! But even so I was quite happy with just watching 30-40 minutes or so instead of a full hour.

 

And finally to close the festival we had Satyricon! So I've actually seen them three times this year so I kind of knew what to expect, but even so they played a couple of songs I hadn't heard live before which was nice! But most importantly for me, they also played The Pentagram Burns and To the Mountains back to back this time as well - those are probably my favourite Satyricon songs so it's good to see them in the set once again! 

Overall Satyricon did what they usually do, but I did notice some new arrangements in the songs which was interesting. Perhaps this is a taste of the tour next year where they have invited other musicians to jam with them on stage? Ah well, that's in the future.

Overall a nice set, but nothing out of the ordinary for Satyricon. They're just one of those bands who know how to deliver a good show.

 

 

And that concludes the first Black Christmas! A really excellent initiative that was really well made. I have to give really big ups to the sound technicians who made a great job all weekend! Superb sound all around, and the few minor issues that came up were fixed quickly. The response seems to be almost only positive, so perhaps Norrköping will be the place to be for Christmas in the future?