For progressive metal fans, Euroblast has always been one of those events circled in red on the calendar – one of the rare festivals in Europe fully dedicated to progressive music. For years, I’d been wanting to attend, and when VOYAGER announced their exclusive European appearance, I did what any responsible adult does: I stared at my holiday balance, tried to bend the space-time continuum of work schedules, and finally booked the trip from Finland to Germany.
It wasn’t my first time in Cologne, but it was my first time experiencing music there. I already love the city. It’s easy to reach from Belgium, where I’m originally from, and always feels a bit like coming home. So the thought of adding a full weekend of prog metal to that backdrop was pretty much perfect. Euroblast 2025 ran from September 26th to 28th and featured names like ROYAL SORROW, BENTHOS, NIGHT VERSES, VOYAGER, TESSERACT, and many more.
The festival’s second day started off smooth… too smooth, actually. Because I had fucked up the hour, my group arrived far too early. The good news is that we had plenty of time to get our bearings and enjoy the calm before the musical storm. No one’s ever late on my watch; if anything, we’ll be unreasonably early and awkwardly punctual about it.
The second day came with a bit of a lineup shuffle that somehow made the festival even better. UK prog-metal titans HAKEN were originally meant to headline the night. Don’t get me wrong — I love HAKEN — but their cancellation meant two things: VOYAGER were bumped to the well-deserved headlining slot, and a new name was added to the lineup, IHLO. I had never heard of IHLO before, but let’s just say I left Euroblast with a new obsession.
The day kicked off with CEVRET, a Swiss band that started as a project in 2019 and only became a full band in 2024. Before the show, I did some pre-festival “research” on Spotify (as one does), only to discover they mostly collaborate with an impressive amount of guest vocalists. So I had no clue what to expect live. They released an EP, “Sensus,” in 2024, which gave me some idea — heavy, melodic, and surprisingly varied.
Live, they were a real treat. I didn’t recognize any of the songs (sorry, guys), but the balance between brutality and melody was so good that I didn’t care. The sound was fresh like someone threw a bunch of influences into a blender and it came out… delicious. The smaller stage was packed again, proving that Euroblast fans show up from the start.
Next up, WALKWAYS took over the big stage. I’d seen them before, when they supported NE OBLIVISCARIS, but honestly, I didn’t fully “get” them then. Probably because when you’re opening for a violin-wielding extreme prog-metal cult, the evening’s general vibe tends to be a little different. But this time on their own terms, it was a completely different story.
Frontman Ran Yerushalmi is pure energy: part hype-man, part emotional poet. One second, he’s engaging the audience crowd, the next he’s completely lost in his own little world. It’s chaotic, but in a beautiful way. Their set mostly drew from “Bleed Out, Heal Out” (2019), which still hits hard. Their show was tight, full of heart, and completely flipped my opinion about them. In fact, I kind of need them to record new music as soon as possible.
Then came MONOSPHERE, a band I was vaguely familiar with but hadn’t really listened to in depth. That changed fast. With two albums out, their mix of progressive and post-metal was both cinematic and crushing.
They opened with “Lapse, Pt. I & II,” and it instantly sucked me in — slow atmospheric build-up, then a furious storm of blast beats, emotion, and chaos. It’s the kind of music that sounds like the world ending in slow motion. This band deserves a bigger stage, but there was something magical about watching them unleash that sound in the cellar. This isn’t easy music to play (not that anything at Euroblast really is), but they made it look effortless.
NO OATH was next, a one-man project from France by Timothé Baqué, who’s apparently also a sound engineer and CGI artist. (Leave some talent for the rest of us, Timothé.) For Euroblast, he brought along two extra musicians (who are presumably part of the live lineup), turning the project into an atmospheric trio.
Their sound was hard to pin down; it’s an instrumental band playing around with electronic music, it had an industrial feel to it, with a cinematic twist that made me feel like I was inside a video game cutscene. It was post-apocalyptic, moody, and oddly hypnotic. Not the kind of show you headbang to exactly, but definitely one you zone out and feel.
Then came SENNA, another Mannheim-based band (seriously, what are they putting in the water there?), and they were a revelation. I’d never heard of them (at this point, I was starting to question my entire prog cred), but they ended up being one of the day’s most beautiful surprises.
Their sound felt like a warm embrace; emotional, melodic, and genuine. Maybe it was my own headspace — my grandfather had passed away three days before — but something about SENNA’s music felt like healing. Like they wrapped me in a soft blanket and told me it would be okay. Their new album “Stranger to Love” had just dropped, and it’s one I’ll be spinning a lot. There was even a subtle early-2000s emo vibe to their vocals, which scratched a nostalgic itch I didn’t know I had.
Then, DREAM STATE absolutely blew the roof off. In a male-heavy lineup, it was refreshing — and empowering — to see a woman command the stage. Jessie Powell was an unstoppable force: fierce growls, soaring cleans, and raw emotion spilling from every movement. She lived the songs — at times sitting on the stage mid-breakdown, completely immersed, and other times charging straight into the crowd in the pit.
They played their new single “Words Unsaid,” which ruled, but “Open Windows” was my favorite — especially when Jessie motioned for the crowd to wave their hands, and the entire hall lit up with movement. It was energetic, heartfelt, and cathartic — easily one of the day’s top performances.
Next up: NECROTTED, who took things from emotional to brutal in about 0.2 seconds. Easily the most extreme band at the festival, they unleashed ten songs in a single set. That’s what happens when you don’t write 12-minute prog epics!
Despite being less “proggy,” the crowd was into it — the cellar was crammed. Their set was tight, heavy, and honestly too big for that tiny stage. But that’s what made it so fun — there’s something special about watching a death metal tornado unfold in a basement.
Then came IHLO, the band I’d kinda written off as probably not my thing after hearing “Hollow” on the Euroblast Spotify playlist. It’s a fine song, but out of context, it didn’t grab me since it’s very dreamy and slow. Well, consider me humbled. Live, they were absolutely phenomenal.
They opened with “Wraith” from their new album “Legacy,” and within seconds, I was hooked. Around the 2-minute mark, the guitars go full melodic heaven, and I swear my brain short-circuited in the best way. Their sound blends progressive metal with electronic and pop touches, making it both technically impressive and insanely catchy.
They had some early technical issues that briefly buried Andy Maclunkey Robinson’s vocals, but they handled it like champs. At one point, Andy joked that they deserved “four stars on Google” because of the sound problems — easily one of the funniest moments of the day. For the record: if I gave ratings (which I don’t, because I’m the boss), they’d get six out of five. The set ended with “Signals,” and I’m still thinking about which booking agent I can force into booking them for a show in Finland.
With a name like ABBIE FALLS, I expected something Gothic or melancholic. Nope. Turns out they’re a “modern metal wrecking crew” from the Czech Republic, and yes — they deliver exactly what that promises: filthy breakdowns, face-melting riffs, and chaotic fun.
Their show was wild, but after nearly falling on the tiny stage earlier in the festival, I decided to admire the mayhem from a safe distance. My anxiety said no pit action today, thank you. Still, they were fantastic, and definitely a band to keep on the radar.
After all that heaviness, it was only natural that the evening would turn celebratory again. VOYAGER — the band that originally drew me to Euroblast — took the stage. Before their set, organizer John Sprich and his wife Lulu Davis (who also happens to manage VOYAGER) gave a heartfelt speech. Lulu praised John’s public speaking skills, only to then absolutely outdo him herself single-handedly with a beautiful, emotional message that had me crying my eyes out in the photo pit. I tried looking at the floor so my fellow photographers wouldn’t see me bawling, but it didn’t help much since subtlety isn’t my strong suit.
It was such a touching full-circle moment — VOYAGER was originally meant to headline Euroblast in 2023, the same year their frontman Danny Estrin was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Instead of being on top of the world after Eurovision, he’s been battling cancer — and yet here they were, playing a triumphant headlining set, with Danny flying in from Australia and due back home for chemotherapy just days later. Talk about seizing the day. The whole room was overflowing with love and admiration.
The show opened with a remix of the Eurovision theme and footage of their performance back then — the cheers were so loud that, again, I cried. The actual set kicked off with “The Best Intentions,” and it was everything I hoped for and more. Watching Danny perform, full of life and humor, and energy, was incredibly moving, and the rest of the band was extremely entertaining to watch with a next-level sort of energy. “Colours” was next — a total banger — and by the time they got to “Dreamer,” I was practically dancing in the photo pit, which probably annoyed every other photographer there. Sorry, not sorry.
The setlist was stacked with everything I love about VOYAGER — fun, heartfelt, and packed with hooks. One of the night’s highlights came when Einar Solberg from LEPROUS joined for the live debut of “Entropy.” The surprise was so perfectly timed that I swear half the audience gasped in sync. The two frontmen shared the stage with visible joy and mutual respect. And honestly, I couldn’t help but laugh thinking about it — Einar probably had to hide out backstage the entire day just to keep the surprise intact. Imagine him crouched behind an amp, dodging photographers and snacks, all for that one perfect reveal. Totally worth it, though as the moment was goosebump-inducing and absolutely unforgettable.
The tears came back during “Seen Better Days,” which is already an emotional wrecking ball of a song. I had only listened to it once before at home — it made me cry so much I never dared to play it again. But hearing it live, with everything that’s been happening in their lives and my own, was almost too much. It was heartbreaking but also healing in a way.
They closed with “Promise” and “White Shadows,” turning the venue into one big love fest. Fans were raising their hands in heart shapes, the atmosphere was euphoric, and I couldn’t stop smiling. It was the perfect end to the second day — emotional, cathartic, and full of heart.
Euroblast‘s second day didn’t just deliver musically; it reminded me why I love live music in the first place. It’s not just about the riffs or the technical wizardry. It’s about connection, community, and those moments that hit you right in the chest.
Text and photos by Laureline Tilkin
