For the eleventh time – we’d say consecutive, but you know, COVID… – we found ourselves traveling to Hyvinkää to visit the biggest extreme metal event in the country, if not the Nordics at the very least: Steelfest Open Air 2023. Already in the train to town, one could hear people from different countries, lots of Americans and Germans for instance, who were slowly gathering for this 3-day marathon of darkness, black metal, and way-too-sunny weather for the season.
Being Helatorstai – i.e. a religious holiday – many shops were closed or with limited hours, which I am sure had been noticed by whoever tried to buy alcohol at the dedicated Alko stores. Without being able to buy drinks before entering the festival, the only sensible choice was to get inside the area earlier, starting with CORAXUL who opened this Steelfest Open Air in front of a still numb crowd.
The Finnish band (despite the very Mexican name) includes members of SACRIFICIUM CARMEN, CURSE UPON A PRAYER, and LICHTS DES URTEILS, among others. As well, a stuffed raven was placed prominently on display in front of the stage. I am sure the band would have enjoyed a better spot on this very busy schedule, but nonetheless had the chance to perform from their debut album and get the early crowd slowly into festival mood.
Next on the outdoor stage here at Villatehdas was a very familiar sight for the Steelfest aficionados: AZAZEL. It was impossible not to notice the several cans of Lonkero lined-up next to Lord Satanachia in this 2023-exclusive show, with a little bit less drunk shenanigans than usual and no flashy guests on stage. Especially the foreign part of the audience still seemed entertained, the rest lazily watching in a mix of boredom and curiosity, as if waiting for something to happen.
NATTVERD was next inside. The band, featuring members of NORDJEVEL and GEHENNA (live) as well as the drummer (and “bouzoukist”) of TROLLFEST, is the first ripple in a wave of Norwegian black metal that would trample over the excited metalheads throughout this weekend. At the end of the month, the new “I Helvetes Forakt” will be released, and they gave us a glimpse of its contents in their short set.
Hailing from Colombia, UTUK-XUL (not to be confused with the short-lived Finnish black metal act briefly named UTUK XUL back in 1993) brought some of that typical over-the-top South-American enthusiasm on the table, and here is when people really started to dive into the atmosphere of the event. “Ritual in the Full Moon” is their latest effort (from 2022), and while inciting the fans with horns and their tongues out, they had the time to spread their satanic message, leaving a pretty nice impression.
One-man act HAIL CONJURER is well known to the locals, as the eclectic Harri Kuokkanen is a very familiar face in the scene (and difficult to miss). Armed with his guitar and wearing only a pair of shiny black leather pants, he drew the audience into his world with a convincing set and a performance that shows you don’t really need much to give the audience a good show. Rumors say that later in the gig the pants were gone, but we’ll never know for sure, or perhaps it’s best to keep the mystery alive on that front.
No rest for the wicked, as – between going from one stage to the other, occasionally bumping into people, and processing photos in between (while also trying to stay hydrated) – NOCTURNAL SORCERY was next outside. This Finnish band has been falling quite under the radar as they have been active for over a decade, but only last year released their first full-length (“The Holy Law in Total Ruin”). The bits of the show we got to see were somewhat enjoyable if not for the sun pretty much ruining the atmosphere, especially for a band with “nocturnal” in their name. Let’s see how this will work in a more appropriate setting.
Over the years, SACRILEGIOUS IMPALEMENT have gone through many transformations, but recently they retained a more stable lineup, and for example this year it’s been already a decade since Wrathprayer took over the vocal duties from Hellwind (and Kaosbringer before him). Today the band is, as such, a solid staple of this scene and could proudly present their freshly released “IV – Infinite Victor” to the fans. The show was pretty much the no-nonsense black metal that we came to expect from this band over the years, if we don’t count the singer eventually hitting a sort of cylindrical metal container with a bone as part of the performance.
LOITS was a bit of the oddball on this day, but in a good way. Despite the young-looking lineup – for three out of five of them at least – their frontman Lembetu is a seasoned veteran who has been heralding the LOITS flag for almost 3 decades, conquering a loyal following of fans with his unique and passionate performance in true Estonian style. Not being very productive in terms of releases in the past 10+ years (a good part of the show was focused on “Vere Kutse Kohustab” from 2004), they are still quite active live and that really showed, as theirs was certainly one of the most interesting gigs of the day.
Coming back to Finland after their Steelchaos show in 2019, the international project THE COMMITTEE (with members from The Netherlands, France, Russia, Serbia, and Hungary) returned here for showing the sequel to “Memorandum Occultus” in their latest release, “Utopian Deception.” There is something that it’s perhaps hard to place about this band, but the impression from the gig was that the newer material was even more powerful and engaging live, providing an overall positive show from these masked individuals sweating on the indoor stage. Good thing the gig was inside and this wasn’t UADA, or there would have been a desperate need for electrolytes.
A nice surprise in the otherwise quite serious tone of the music offered so far, was the resuscitated Finnish PEST, although more than resuscitated, this gig was meant to be just a one-off. The band, fronted by Nazgul (best know perhaps as Werwolf), had a way more laidback attitude and really seemed to enjoy themselves on stage, perhaps also because they hadn’t performed these songs live in so many years. This made for a nice change of pace as I am sure most of the people in the crowd seemed to appreciate it and quickly got into the atmosphere set by the trio on stage in this extra rare opportunity.
HORNA wasn’t originally meant to play at this year’s edition, but as plans don’t always go as expected and bands tend to cancel for one reason or another, they immediately – and gladly – came to the rescue once again to fill in this spot. They have come to be a constant in the quality of their performances, which nowadays attracts the younger audience, which could be easily seen from the front row. This despite having just returned from a European tour only a couple of days earlier (with the exception of their drummer who was replaced during that time by the current bass player VnoM, with Infection playing bass instead). On this night, the band once again guaranteed a solid show, and it would be surprising if it was anything otherwise at this point.
Last on the outdoor stage was DESTRÖYER 666. Warslut & Co. put up a very familiar show, with him and the other guys looking as tight as always on stage, with the odd over-excited fan screaming out their lungs in front of the stage. Through band’s classics and newer material, the evening could have easily ended on a high note already here, but there was still one more band to see.
We are of course talking about MARDUK, the main headliners for the first day, who immediately puzzled the fans by showing up as a trio. The bass player had just left the band and there hadn’t been any time for finding a replacement, so things were understandably pretty weird – not unlike last year’s edition when TAAKE had to perform without a guitarist – but also in a way more “unique” and definitely unusual as a performance from the Swedes. Despite the obvious impact, the crowd still went wild during of the show and, of course, they played the über-classics, up to the conclusive “Panzer Division Marduk.”
At this point, many people had already left as they needed to commute to other towns or cities and the connections on this night were not exactly the best, being a holiday. On top of that, apparently the track works on the route towards Helsinki made for a pretty inconvenient night train trip for many people, but nonetheless everyone was able to get home and hopefully gather a enough sleep to face the longer Friday schedule.
Photos & text by Marco Manzi
