Saturday, 27th of June, marked round two of this year’s Tuska extravaganza, and I arrived at the premises about an hour before the gates opened, as usual. Too bad the Monster guys were not there handing out free energy drinks like the day before – an extra boost of caffeine would have been in order a little bit better at the beginning of day two instead of the opening day. I mean, I’d already had my morning mug of strong espresso and a can of energy drink, but 4 hours of sleep is only 4 hours of sleep, my friends. I met up with some guys from Porvoo, and soon Friday’s summer Santa joined us, dressed up as a Barbie Goth for Tuska Saturday. I did a little survey about the highlights of Friday, and each dude mentioned MEGADETH, albeit I also heard that the set could have been more epic, considering this was probably the last chance to see the band on stage. Then again, Mustaine had already debunked the myth that this was his farewell tour. We’ll see. Clearly, MEGADETH was THE band of the first day. For me, BLOOD INCANTATION was equally unforgettable. Once inside the festival area, I headed straight for the coffee vendor for a hot cup of black coffee and chatted up a young metalhead from Mikkeli. He’d also been to the Radio City tent for that psychedelic death-metal mass, and it was from him that I heard the phrase that it was not your average metal-music show but an Experience with a capital E. I couldn’t agree more. He also told me that this year’s Tuska lineup had four bands from Mikkeli. Obviously, the guy had chosen BLOODRED HOURGLASS over SKINDRED on Friday, for instance, because the band came from his hometown – and the band had played a killer set. So, I guess I’ll just have to wait for a chance to see them somewhere else one day. Then, it was time to kick off the second day at Suvilahti with another metal squad from Mikkeli on the Nordic Energy Stage – BALANCE BREACH.
Last year, this relatively new (well, they’ve been around since 2015, so it’s relative, indeed) Finnish metalcore force released a kick-ass album, “Save Our Souls,” which earned them a place on my Best Finnish Metal Albums of 2025 list. So, I was pretty stoked to finally catch
them on stage. Besides, is there a better way to start a beautiful summer day outdoors than by watching BALANCE BREACH in action? I reckon there really isn’t. And talking about the weather, by the way, this year’s Tuska weekend was probably the best I’ve been to so far: yeah, we got some brief rain showers now and then, but overall the weather was really good, which only made the whole experience so much more enjoyable. (On the other hand, nothing beats jumping and raving in the rain when your favorite band is playing, so there’s that, too…) When it comes to metalcore, these up-and-coming Finnish bands seem to lean more towards beefy riffs and raw power rather than resorting to being more emo than Edvard Munch, and BALANCE BREACH was not an exception to this rule. Their stage presence was nothing short of commanding, with the set being rather prominently centered on the new album. No objections there. Since I’d never seen them before, I couldn’t tell how this performance differed from their usual antics, but I was told that they looked somewhat different – a dress code of wearing exclusively black, perhaps. Yeah, sure, small details like that do elevate the experience a good few notches. Technically speaking, black is not a color, but just for the sake of argument, let’s say it is – it sure is the most metal color there is!
The band is already going places on an international scale, and after seeing them live, it’s easy to see why. Nonetheless, I was curious to see what the fuss about MELROSE AVENUE has been all about lately, so I left a bit early to catch at least a couple of songs from the Aussie metalcore juggernaut, too.
Seeing AURORAWAVE vocalist Nathan Aurora drop a surprise cameo appearance on the stage with SKINDRED was a pleasant surprise on Friday. I was kinda hoping that I could make it to the venue just in time to catch THE FUNERAL PORTRAIT frontman Lee Jennings pulling off the same stunt with MELROSE AVENUE since these two bands had dropped a collaboration single just before the Tuska weekend – and I did! The new single, “Cemetery Friend,” was the only song that I recognized among the last few songs that they played, and it surely rocked! Compared to BALANCE BREACH, this Aussie bunch sounded more like a traditional metalcore band, a little bit emo here and there, but not too annoyingly so. The delivery was tight and energetic, so it stands to reason that the band will be coming back to Helsinki for one show at the legendary Tavastia venue and one show in Tampere in early 2027. If this performance was their calling card, I’m pretty sure both of those gigs will be sold out. There should have been decibel meters at the Radio City Stage, too, because I’m pretty confident that MELROSE AVENUE broke the record for the loudest audience.
The next treat on the main stage was a completely new act for me, a new force in the Finnish dark rock scene – HOKKA. The band includes three familiar names from some of Finland’s finest rock and metal acts – Joel Hokka of BLIND CHANNEL fame, Pauli Rantasalmi, who was one of the founding members of THE RAMUS, and the young drummer phenomenon, Jimi Aslak. Their mission statement is to make the sound of the early-2000s great again, and by the looks of it, they surely are poised to become the next big thing on the Finnish rock scene: later this year, HOKKA will be joining LOST SOCIETY on the co-headlining tour entitled HOKKA & LOST SOCIETY: Miseria is a State of Mind Tour 2026. Their intro song at Tuska 2026 was definitely something else! It was the AUDIO BULLYS song “Shot You Down,” which sounded like some kind of modernized version of that haunting twang-guitar classic “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).” (which was actually written by Sonny Bono for Cher in 1966, but everyone probably knows it better as that iconic Nancy Sinatra version from Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol.1…) What makes HOKKA a rather unique bunch is the fact that they don’t seem to have a bassist at all. From a distance, it seemed as though they had one, but later on, I noticed from the Tuska photos that they had two guitarists instead. The somewhat cold and Nordic melancholy that oozed from the songs sounded pretty good, but…
The annual Tuska press tour was scheduled to overlap with both HOKKA‘s performance and SWALLOW THE SUN, and that’s why I decided to skip the tour this time. I felt that my solemn duty as a Tuonela Magazine journo was to be present at the Radio City Stage for the whole duration of SWALLOW THE SUN‘s set. Thus, I had to leave the main stage a bit early to secure a good spot inside the tent. Not only is the thing so that nothing shall overlap with SWALLOW THE SUN, but it is also so that you must get pretty close to feel the music with your whole being. Sorry, MAJESTICA. I know you were playing at the Nordic Energy Stage at the same time, but this is the immutable law of the universe that one shall not break. Besides, I was more than curious to hear how the new songs would fit in the band’s older material in the live context. I had not, in fact, seen the band on stage since their last
Tuska appearance in 2023, and the new album, “Shining,” which came out in 2024, introduced us to a slightly different, new facet of the band’s signature gloom. Plus, this year, I could finally tick the box of completing the band’s whole discography in my own CD collection by getting hold of that early 2008 EP, “Plague of Butterflies.” What better way was there to celebrate this achievement than to see the band on stage at Tuska 2026?
The set kicked off with a bang as the band played one of those singles off the new album – “Innocence Was Long Forgotten.” If my memory serves me right, it was the lead single, even. It did rattle some feathers upon its release, largely due to its modern sound, but in this live context, you couldn’t tell any difference: it sounded every bit as haunting and mind-melting as the band’s old bangers. I was standing relatively close to the stage, dead center, so it was impossible to see how many metalheads there were inside the tent, but judging by the volume of the screams in between songs, the place must have been packed. I did my best to scream my lungs out, too, so that I almost lost my voice completely. The new album was given the spotlight in the setlist, obviously, and the new songs worked wonders, indeed, among the older stuff. Speaking of which, the band pampered us longtime fans by playing two (!) tracks from the 2003 debut, “The Morning Never Came,” and one from the 2005 album, “Ghost of Loss.” Otherwise, the set was split between the new album and 2009’s “New Moon.” The only way they could have treated their fans any better would have required a 2-hour set at the very least! Mikko Kotamäki proved once again that he is by far one of the most versatile metal vocalists on this planet, and Juha Raivio‘s signature stage moves made him look like a druid necromancer in the act of summoning some ancient forest spirits. Bassist Matti Honkonen encouraged the audience to fist-bump the air almost non-stop and, at some point, drummer Juuso Raatikainen made hand signs as if to say it was pretty damn hot behind the kit. Well, I bet it was, because the tent was so packed that you could almost taste the sweaty atmosphere in your mouth. SWALLOW THE SUN‘s death/doom metal mass was one of the absolute highlights of this year’s Tuska Festival, hands down. At this point, I made a peculiar observation; I thought the band played a bit loud – only to realize after the show that I had not put on my earplugs! Usually, when that happens, I notice it immediately when the band begins to play. I mean, most bands play at a deafening volume, so that YOU WILL KNOW if your earplugs aren’t in place. So, I guess this can only mean that the first bands of Saturday did not, in fact, play very loudly – I didn’t even notice the loudness during BALANCE BREACH‘s set at the Nordic Energy Stage a moment earlier. Although I was standing next to the mixing booth – that is, relatively close to the stage. I couldn’t help but reminisce about my experiences at Ruisrock 2006: even though I had my earplugs in when SOILWORK wrapped up the first day with their headlining show, I can still recall that the music was REALLY loud. Then again, those old-school sound engineers probably lost most of their hearing somewhere around 1997, and in this day and age, the new generations of sound engineers have a somewhat less volume-oriented approach to mixing. Sure, it needs to be loud, but I reckon it’s not necessary to alert the earthquake sensors in the Baltic countries just to let them know we’re having a metal festival in Helsinki.
For those craving something a little brighter—and perhaps a little less existential—MAJESTICA was the place to be. In fact, the other half of our team decided it was about time to inject some pure happiness into the day. Who can blame them? Somehow, despite hailing from neighboring Sweden, MAJESTICA had never played in Finland before. Better late than never, because a healthy crowd had gathered to finally experience their infectious brand of power metal live. The Finnish summer was already doing its best to roast everyone in the audience, but apparently that wasn’t enough for the band, who decided to crank the temperature up even further with pyrotechnics and one uplifting anthem after another. Thankfully, fans won’t have to wait another eternity to see them again. MAJESTICA will already be back in Finland this October as support on GLORYHAMMER‘s tour. Consider this your warning—and your excuse to dust off your imaginary sword.
All this screaming had made yours truly hungry like a wolf. So, I figured, after glancing at the schedule for the rest of the night, that this was probably the best moment to grab something to eat, if I didn’t want to miss something essential. When it comes to food vendors, Tuska is one of the top-tier festivals: sure, the food isn’t exactly cheap, if you compare the prices to those at the junk-food joints downtown, but the price range is nowhere near as expensive as it is at some other music festivals in Finland. Plus, there are plenty of vendors, so you don’t have to wait long for food. This time, I opted for the “Black-Devil-Something” burger, and it tasted really good. I think the vendor was Queens of Fucking Beers & Burgers or something. “Viis kautta viis,” as we would say in Finnish. That’s basically 5/5.
With a belly full of goodness, I headed for the main stage to catch some of THE PLOT IN YOU. It’s one of the rare new metalcore bands on this year’s Tuska menu that I was already familiar with. The band has been around since 2010, but for some reason, it has remained relatively unknown in this neck of the woods – unless you’re a die-hard metalcore fan, I guess. I hadn’t heard of the band until the release of their EP series Vol. 1-3, the last of which came out in 2024. Sure, their music does resonate with a good pinch of emo here and there, but the band manages to make it still sound good. My wife thought that the band sounds a bit like THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS with the metal knob turned to eleven. It’s hard to disagree, now that I’ve seen them on stage, too. The band’s vocalist, Landon Tewers, screams his lungs out with the same relentless force as Jared Leto used to do back in the day. The set was comprised mostly of new songs from the upcoming, eponymous album that’s due out on July 10th – that is, right about now (funk-soul-brother) – which obviously means that I might have to check it out shortly. While it’s true that the band does not sound exactly revolutionary in its approach to metalcore, I must hand it to the guys that they do blend raw emotion and sonic power pretty damn flawlessly. There is good emo, and there is bad emo, and THE PLOT IN YOU is definitely a prime specimen of the good stuff. That said, I have not yet heard a bad metalcore band at Suvilahti to this day, so I guess the festival organisation must have a scout with some sort of sixth sense about these matters. This festival nails it every goddamn time.
My original plan was to head for some more metalcore next, because THE FUNERAL PORTRAIT was basically the other one of these two new metalcore bands on the festival menu that I already knew about. My friends (all male, pretty obviously) convinced me to drop by the Radio City Stage first, though. I wasn’t really familiar with any of the controversy surrounding the occult-rock band, DOGMA, but judging by their promo pictures, I couldn’t really tell whether they were some practical joke or not. I mean, metal nuns on a carnal mission to liberate the world with a generous exposure of cleavages and guitar riffs does resonate rather thickly with the air of comedy. Yeah, I’m sure all the young dudes in the audience appreciated the visual side of the band – hot-looking nuns with corpse paint and corsets and all – but what about the music? Well, it wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t too inspiring, either. I read somewhere that the band has been accused of lip-syncing to a backing track, but to my ears, the playing sounded a bit sloppy here and there, so I’d say they played 100% live. If not, kudos to the guy who made the backing track with the sloppy parts included – you’re the next-level shit when it comes to mind-controlling the masses! Seriously, though. I gotta admit it: dressing up an army of Samantha Foxes in nun costumes and making them play old-school heavy metal riffs might make you smile once, but it probably won’t work the second time around – or, at least, the band would need better songs. At first, I thought DOGMA was an all-female version of GHOST in a soft-porn mode, but GHOST has much better songs in their catalog. Still, when the band entered the stage, I have to admit that a smile crept across my face – this bunch is a band that (young male) fans probably want to see on stage, with the emphasis on the word “see,” in particular.
Still, the band playing on the Nordic Energy Stage was too good to be missed, no matter what carnal pleasures were on offer inside the tent. I have not followed THE FUNERAL PORTRAIT very long – I just found the band earlier this year, but I liked their approach to this one particular metal sub-genre a lot. The band’s signature sound has been hailed as an inspiring antidote to stagnant metalcore – and that’s a pretty accurate description. Plus, the band gets extra points for their name! You see, there is a song by the same name on that one special OPETH album from 2001 – “Blackwater Park,” which happens to be THE OPETH album, if you ask me. I reckon it’s just a coincidence, but what a great fucking band name! I probably should have come earlier to the venue, because after the festival weekend, I learned that the band had kicked off their set with a cover rendition of “Mad World” – yeah, that TEARS FOR FEARS original which became even more popular as the haunting Gary Jules‘ version on the Donnie Darko soundtrack some 25 years ago. Shit. I should have been there right from the start, man. I did catch the ending of “Generation Psycho” and everything from there on, though. Among the highlights of the show were no doubt “Voodoo Doll,” featuring guest vocals by BLOCK OF FLATS singer Jonne Nikkilä, and the last two songs, “Dark Thoughts” and “Suffocate City.” The second day was barely halfway through, and we had already seen quite a few of these special appearances at this year’s Tuska. Not that I complain. Stunts like these elevate the festival experience a good few notches.
The next dish on the main stage was yet another nu-metal legend I had not yet seen on stage: P.O.D. Had they not released quite an impressive new album, “Veritas,” their eleventh overall, in 2024, I probably wouldn’t have been aware that they’re still active. They are – and their performance at Suvilahti proved that they can still fire on all cylinders. The set kicked off with one of their old classics, “Boom,” and it set the tone for the whole experience pretty nicely: something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue. That borrowed part offered a nice surprise: I didn’t expect to hear THE BEATLES cover at the Tuska Festival, not by them, nor by anyone else, actually, like ever. The song in question was “Don’t Let Me Down” from 1969, and P.O.D.’s nu-metal version sounded pretty damn cool! It was nearly as mesmerizing as SOUNDGARDEN playing “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” from “Abbey Road” in Helsinki some 30 years ago. I guess I can consider myself a metalhead of sorts, but still, THE BEATLES fucking rocks! Then, as for the new part, it was represented by the single cut from the new album, “Drop,” the recorded version of which features Randy Blythe of LAMB OF GOD. His trademark grunts came from tape, but I didn’t mind. The song is easily one of P.O.D.‘s heaviest numbers, so I reckon it did not come as a surprise to anyone that it got the crowd particularly excited in the pit area. The blue part of the set was probably best covered by either “Murdered Love” or “Southtown.” Then, serving as the absolute highlights of the set for us old grits, the old part obviously meant a few more old bangers – “Satellite,” “Sleeping Awake,” and, of course, “Youth of the Nation.” The last of these classics came pretty late in the set, although not as the closer, and it marked the cue for me to start heading for the Radio City Stage. The band played two more songs, but the band scheduled to play next in the tent was one of the very reasons that I wanted to come to the Tuska Festival this year in the first place.
Yeah, it was time for some RIVERS OF NIHIL, my friends! They played in Helsinki last year, warming up for CYNIC if I recall correctly. Of course, the gig was sold out, and I had some other obligations anyway, so I sorely missed the chance of a lifetime to get my mind blown to pieces. Now, it was time to set the cosmic balance anew – and now, after their kick-ass performance, there is nothing much to say about the gig except: holy shit, Batman! How was that even humanely possible, you Pennsylvanian bastards?! I mean, now that the whole weekend is wrapped, RIVERS OF NIHIL played one of the best fucking shows of the whole Tuska metal banquet! If BLOOD INCANTATION challenged even MEGADETH‘s headlining performance in terms of psychological, spiritual, and physical impact, this crazy death-metal squad pulled off the same stunt on Saturday with respect to BAD OMENS. Then again, I guess it’s relatively easy when you’ve got a back catalog such as that of RIVERS OF NIHIL. I’ve often brought up the beauty of contrasts when I’ve written album reviews or live reports, and these boys gave that term a whole new meaning with the range of emotions in their set. Yeah, those brutal and technical death-metal onslaughts were brought front and center, but the insane intensity of those riffages was hauntingly balanced with the atmospheric sections, during which saxophonist Patrick Corona was given the spotlight. Bassist Adam Biggs really smashed it on those harsh vocals, not to mention his fretboard wizardry, and what I was most curious to hear – the clean vocals: they were pristine as fuck! Guitarist Andy Thomas did a phenomenal job, and so did their drummer Jared Klein, who doubled some of the clean vocals. How is it even possible to play this kind of stuff and sing at the same time? The setlist was a nice cross-section of their last three albums – each of which is destined to be a future classic – so it’s nigh impossible to single out just one or two highlights. The whole set was one continuous mindfuck. That said, the last three songs in the set – “Water & Time,” “House of Light,” and “Where Owls Know My Name” – gave me the biggest goosebumps during the performance, if not during the whole weekend. After the show, my friends were left pretty speechless – they hadn’t known what to expect from the band, and judging by the looks on their faces, this technical death-metal knockout was something they had not prepared for. As for myself, I knew that the band would be good, but even I wasn’t prepared for this. They were insanely good! I heard that the next day, the band commented on their Tuska performance by saying that Helsinki is possibly their favorite place to play in the entire world and that Tuska was no exception. Well, I guess the feeling was mutual, because the band sure got the crowd going out of their minds.
The Swiss deathcore juggernaut, PALEFACE SWISS, set to play on the Nordic Energy Stage at the same time, didn’t really have a chance. I’m sorry, but RIVERS OF NIHIL is in the same category as SWALLOW THE SUN in my books: I don’t care if they were raising the dead back to life on the next stage, you simply do not skip these bands.
So, what can you do after a show like that?! As much as I like some of the older TRIVIUM albums such as “Vengeance Falls” (2013) and “Silence in the Snow” (2015), it took a while to re-calibrate my brain to receive any neuronal signals other than WTF?! The band had pulled quite a good crowd to the main stage, though. Then again, I think it was announced already that the Tuska Saturday had also been sold out, and it sure looked like it. The first half of the set included two songs from “Vengeance Falls,” so I cannot really complain, albeit I decided to try sneaking into the tiny KVLT Stage after “Until the World Goes Cold.” The set had included those older songs quite prominently so far, almost as if the band had made it a priority to pamper their longtime fans. “The Sin and the Sentence,” the title track from their 2017 studio album, was the only “new” song that I recognized before I headed for Tiivistämö.
The thing was, way too many people that I’d chatted up at Suvilahti over the past two days had put in a good word for the Danish shoegaze-metal comet, 802. I thought, what the hell! Let’s see if I can sneak myself inside the venue! Two of my friends tagged along, and maybe we were on the move early enough, because we could just walk in.
Well, we couldn’t get very close to the stage, though. I guess the word-of-mouth had worked its magic, because the venue got packed really fast. Talk about perfect timing! If we had waited just a little bit longer, I reckon there would have been no chance in hell of getting inside. Yeah, there is something irresistible in the mixture of beefy metal riffs, hazy shoegaze, and space synths. Plus, it’s always something worth checking out if a band boasts a drummer who tackles the lead vocals, too! When the band started, my first impression was something like a crossover of early TYPE OF NEGATIVE, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE. The band sure has found their own unique niche. As for their setlist, I haven’t got the faintest idea – the band is so fresh and new that you cannot find too much info about them on the Internet, but I reckon that is about to change shortly. Hopefully. Halfway into their set, I noticed that quite a few metalheads decided to leave – maybe they’d had enough of this beautiful weirdness, or maybe they just wanted to secure a good spot at the other venues, who knows…. We stayed right until the end, because you don’t get a chance like this too often. I’d say it’s a job well done from a band if you can both headbang and dance to their music, or just take a puff from your jazz cigarette and doze off if that’s your thing. During one of the band’s riffages, my friend started to sing the lyrics from QOTSA‘s “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” – and it bloody well worked!
At this point, my legs were killing me, and I felt pain in my lower back, in places that I didn’t even know could feel so sore, my neck, too, from headbanging maybe a little too much already – and there were two more bands to check out! Yeah, Tuska is a great name for a festival! First, I had to choose between the Texas-based hardcore bunch, KUBLAI KHAN TX, and the Leeds-based post-hardcore outfit, CASKETS. The latter was scheduled to play inside the Radio City tent, so I opted for the Nordic Energy Stage instead. Having spent the last 45 minutes or so inside the Tiivistämö sweatbox made me want to get some fresh air. I’m sure I could have gotten enough of that in the tent just as well, but I also wanted to sit down for a change, which might have proved a tad more challenging inside the Radio City venue. So, outdoors I headed.
I reckon it also factored into my decision to choose this Texas bunch that the band had been likened to HATEBREED, which played at the Hellsinki Metal Festival last year and turned out to be a rather brilliant act. Of course, listening to a hardcore outfit while sitting cross-legged on the ground is probably not the best way to enjoy music of this sort, but what else could I do? I’m an old shit whose age begins with the number five, so I guess I should consider myself lucky that I don’t need a walker just yet. On the other hand, sitting in a lotus-like position like this while a crazy bunch of hardcore metallers is trying to punch a hole into the space-time continuum through sheer force is quite a Zen-like experience. Maybe you should try it? I highly recommend. As for the band’s performance, the setlist leaned prominently toward their latest album “Exhibition of Prowess” from 2024. If ultra-tight hardcore is your specific metal niche, you should definitely check it out. This type of music is not exactly the kind that I listen to at home, not too often, anyway, but in the live context, it bloody well kicks ass. For some weird reason, American hardcore bands turn out to be from another planet entirely. They play in a league of their own, so I’m guessing they must have some Hogwarts-style academy where they train these bands in secret until it’s time to let them loose, out in the open. The thing is, they seem to come out of nowhere and they straight-up demolish everything in their wake – and it’s damn beautiful. This hardcore punch-up served as a breather to me, as weird as it may sound. I think normal people don’t usually relax to music like this, but metalheads are, as we all know, cut from a different cloth. Of course, the circle pit would have been an even better way to enjoy the raw power of KUBLAI KHAN TX. Maybe next time? I’m too old for this shit anyway, so why not go all the way? YOLO.
At the Radio City Stage, it was time for British post-hardcore outfit CASKETS to take over. The contrast between audiences couldn’t have been more obvious when compared to KUBLAI KHAN TX—let’s just say one crowd looked like they were ready to start a pit, and the other looked like they were ready to start a group hug. That said, energy-wise, CASKETS were anything but soft. The intensity was still very much there, just expressed in a completely different emotional register. It was our first time seeing them live, but definitely not the kind of performance you forget quickly. If anything, it felt like one of those sets where you unexpectedly go: “Oh… I get it now.” And judging by the reaction, we might very well not be seeing them for the last time either.
BAD OMENS was supposed to be one of the Tuska Festival headliners already in 2024, but the band had to cancel their European tour. Two years ago, I had no idea what the band was all about, to be honest. When it was announced that they would finally come to Suvilahti this year, I felt curious enough to check out their music in advance. I thought the band was just another metalcore bunch, but much to my delight, their music turned out to be something else entirely – or, at least, the album entitled “Concrete Jungle” from 2024 did. I didn’t check out their other stuff, though. I thought it was best to give the band a chance to surprise me even more at Suvilahti – and they sure did! Not only was their performance one of the most stunning shows, visually, that I’ve seen since TOOL‘s performance at Ruisrock in 2006, but I also totally fell for their darkly shaded “Twin Peaks -core,” as their style has been called. (It’s too bad OMNIVORTEX was set to play at the same time at the KVLT Stage, because that up-and-coming Finnish metal squad kicks ass, but maybe I’ll see them somewhere else some other time…) If I remember correctly, these two shows in Finland (at Provinssirock and Tuska) were the last stops on their Do You Feel Love Tour 2026. Last but not least – the band showed no signs of weariness.
As for the set itself, it had an overarching narrative, much like the headliner show by BRING ME THE HORIZON at Suvilahti 2 years ago. In between the songs, the story continued on the video screens. Okay, I must admit that I was too blown away by the music to pay too much attention to what the narrative voice went on about. Even so, the cut-screen stuff layered the concert with an epic aura of quite a unique kind. For me, the highlights of the set were, obviously, those songs that I was already familiar with – “The Drain” and “Anything > Human,” in particular. I have no issues with metal bands incorporating electronic elements into their music. In fact, I’m all in for that type of behavior – and the way BAD OMENS put those delicious synth textures to good use really hit the spot! Here and there, I couldn’t help but think that some of the songs sounded almost like SLEEP TOKEN, only a bit better. “Dying to Love” was a good case in point. The most goosebumpey banger was the last song before the encore – “Impose.” The music and the video projections created nothing short of an epic feel of closure to the concert. The band wouldn’t have needed to play the encore, to be honest. This song had it all. Now, I totally get why people have been going bonkers about this band! Yeah, I bet the songs are pretty damn good even from the records – the songs on “Concrete Jungle” certainly are – but they pale in comparison with the band’s live shows, because – fuck me! That was impressive! The music, the visual side, everything. Haters are probably going to keep hating the band, no matter what I say, but it’s their loss, not mine. Sure, you can debate all you want whether BAD OMENS is metal or not. I don’t give a shit. Maybe it’s not, but it’s pretty fucking haunting music to be experienced like this – raw, live, and real. Music brings back the feeling of being alive like nothing else, so fuck the labels. Music keeps us sane when we are being surrounded by all sorts of insanity and bullshit, and it imprints itself in our soul deeper than any other human experience, with maybe yelling at the moon naked in the middle of a cornfield in the moonlight notwithstanding. What a great show! What a great day! Now, having learned the hard way that public transport sucks ass after 10 PM, I headed for my shitbox car and started driving home after midnight. I was hoping that the car wouldn’t break down in the middle of nowhere, and also that I could grab a little bit more than an eyeful of sleep tonight, unlike yesterday when I got home after 3 AM. Well, of course, it didn’t work that way – I got home way earlier than Friday, but I was still buzzing from all these great fucking shows that I couldn’t fall asleep until about the same time as the night before. Yeah, Tuska is a great fucking name for a metal festival, that’s for sure.
Written by Jani Lehtinen & Laureline Tilkin
Photos by Laureline Tilkin
