I guess I’ve had something of an affinity for all sorts of weird music since the delicate age of 18, when I discovered John Zorn’s eclectic grindcore-jazz ensemble NAKED CITY. So, when it was announced that the French metal oddity IGORRR was about to play at Kulttuuritalo in Helsinki on February 18 th, 2026, I knew the event was one I wouldn’t want to miss. For some reason, I hadn’t yet seen this band on stage, even though I’d been following their eccentric career for a good number of years already. Words such as “mind-bending” or “genre-defying” sound like understatements when it comes to the wild fusion of styles that characterizes IGORRR‘s trademark sound. The band’s primus motor, Gautier Serre, is either a true visionary or a mad scientist of the highest order. I mean, even with all these wildly eccentric bands, like MR. BUNGLE, DARTH VEGAS, KIM DRACULA, EVIL KANGAROO, and the like, this bunch really stands out from the rest for its sheer craziness. This gig marked the Finnish leg of their ongoing European Tour Part Two, with the Edinburgh post-metal squad, DVNE, and ADHD-metal rogues THOUGHTCRIMES from New York as supports. I wasn’t familiar with either of them, so this evening was tinged with lots of excitement.
So, I didn’t know what to expect from the first band, THOUGHTCRIMES, but after a few songs, they convinced me that it paid off to show up early to the venue. I’ve always been a huge fan of THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, and while this New York outfit was perhaps a little less chaotic with their mathcore-ish antics, I couldn’t help but notice a somewhat similar primal energy. As I’m writing this report, I just learned that this band is actually the brainchild of Billy Rymer, who used to play the drums in TDEP as well. Oh, well, whaddaya know – at some point, I thought I wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest if the band had pulled a cover of the Aphex Twin classic, “Come to Daddy,” which was one of the pinnacles of TDEP‘s Chris Pennie era. It would have felt right at home with this band just as well. I’m not really sure about the setlist – except for a couple of songs; the opener was more than likely the latest single, “The Violent Garden,” the name of which is rather telling: the set kicked off with a burst of pure, violent energy. Toward the end of the set, the relentless sonic assault got more nuanced – and the song that was introduced as a new one had a nice 15/4 groove to it. THOUGHTCRIMES did what an as-yet-unheard-of support act was supposed to do: the band sure left a good first impression! So, I had no other option but to make a mental note: I need to check this band out in-depth at home!
At first, I was almost sure I’d seen DVNE at the Tuska Festival a couple of years ago, but when their vocalist said quite early on that this was their first time in Finland, I realized that my brain must have glitched and had them mixed up with URNE, whose atmospheric sludge and progressive post-metal sound is not that far from DVNE. What sets these Scotts apart from them, or from any other post-metal-tinged act, actually, is the band’s vocal power: DVNE boasts three vocalists, so both the harsh and clean vocals were executed rather prominently. Here and there, you could almost sense a kinship with old MASTODON, but with a penchant for post-metal atmospherics – like a proggier version of CULT OF LUNA. Do I even need to tell you what a winning combo that is? One other thing that I noticed to work in the band’s favor was the subtle Celtic vibe in the music – especially in the banger that steamrolled in quintuple meter, “Cobalt Sun Necropolis,” perhaps? Another song to trigger such associations was “Eleanora.” Both songs were from the band’s latest album, “Voidkind,” released in 2024. I reckon that I need to check it out ASAP, as well. That’s the risk associated with support acts – you find out new gems all the time, so that you either run out of both money and storage space for physical albums in your living room, or your Spotify playlists reach the 10K limit one after another. Nonetheless, with the gems being anything like these two warm-up acts on this night, that’s the risk I’m willing to take. With support acts like these, I was happy like a dog with two tails even before the main dish was served.
IGORRR kicked off their set with the opener, “Daemoni,” from their latest album, “Amen,” which was one of the highlights of last year. Ever since my wife introduced me to these French experimentalists, I have been mentally prepared for just about anything from this bunch – and still, that album was wild. So was the band’s live performance! Upon seeing KIM DRACULA at the Tuska Festival last summer, I thought that was the peak of esoteric abandon in terms of live music, but boy! Was I wrong?! If that Australian trap-metal sensation was like MR. BUNGLE on steroids, I’m not sure what psychoactive overload would even remotely resemble the sonic assault of IGORRR‘s completely unhinged and ingenious music. It’s one thing to pull something like this off on record, what with all these modern studio tools available. It’s a whole other ball game to pull it off on stage! The band’s drummer, Rémi Serafino, was out of this world, in particular! Unsurprisingly, I noticed a few metal drummers in the audience paying close attention to his stellar, almost inhuman chops. Legendary jazz drummer Max Roach is believed to have once said that a band is only as good as its drummer. Even if the quote has been misattributed, the sentiment would perfectly align with his musical philosophy, and you have to admit that there is a ring of truth in it. In this respect, IGORRR has no reason whatsoever to be afraid; that’s for sure.
The setlist was a nice cross-section of IGORRR‘s latest three albums – “Amen” (2025), “Spirituality and Distortion” (2020), and “Savage Sinusoid” (2017), respectively – and since the fundamental premise of the band’s music is all about assaulting your senses without a moment’s mercy, it is nigh impossible to single out any highlights. I did notice, however, that the songs with strong Middle-Eastern flourishes, such as “Blastbeat Falafel,” seemed to get the crowd particularly excited – and me? I guess I was blown out of my mind by each song, regardless of whether it was one of those Aphex Twin-esque IDM seizures, erratic death-metal outbursts driven by vocalist JB Le Bail‘s blackened snarls, or Baroque moments adorned by mezzo-soprano Marthe Alexandre and, of course, blast beats. Frank Zappa once asked whether humor belonged to music, but his own music resorted way too often to the most clichéd and piss-stale type of toilet humor, while IGORRR is a prime example of how not to take things too seriously while still kicking ass with an iron foot. The show lasted for about 75 minutes with the encore songs, and these were some of the most intense 75 minutes of my life, hands down. When the lights came back on, Frederik Chopin‘s famous gloom-piece, “Marche Funèbre,” started playing through the PA. I couldn’t help but think: “I see what you just did there, you sneaky tricksters!” While waiting to get my coat from the cloakroom, I overheard two guys discussing the concert with these exact words, “The best concert of 2026 was served already in February, how about that?” Maybe it’s a bit too early to make such assertions, but in the afterglow of such a mindfuck experience it was certainly hard to disagree.
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Igorrr Setlist
- Daemoni
- Spaghetti Forever
- Nervous Waltz
- Blastbeat Falafel
- Downgrade Desert
- ADHD
- ieuD
- Hollow Tree
- Polyphonic Rust
- HEADBUTT
- Infestis
- Pure Disproportionate Black and White Nihilism
- Silence
- Viande
- Himalaya Massive Ritual
Encore:
- Very Noise
- Camel Dancefloor
- Opus Brain
