Calleth August and cometh the Hellsinki Metal Festival at the Helsinki Icehall area, Nordis, between friends. This year’s metal meeting was the fourth overall, and once again, it proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Helsinki is big enough for two major metal events only about a month apart; Tuska Festival 2026 was sold-out on both Friday and Saturday, and Hellsinki Metal Festival was nearly sold-out, having pulled a crowd of approximately 16,000 metalheads during the weekend. As it happens, the weather gods had seemed particularly pissed throughout the summer here in Finland; it was not unusual to read about festivals having been hit by heavy rain, and so far, I’d not needed to go to the beach, either; foraging days in the woods had also been mostly cancelled due to bad weather. However, if there was one silver lining in this dismal state of affairs, it was this: come rain or shine, both of these big metal festivals in Helsinki pulled their A-game by throwing in a killer line-up of awesome bands – once again. In late June, the Tuska Festival weekend was actually pretty damn good weather-wise. The weather forecasts for practically the whole of August read like some post-apocalyptic hellscape, but that did not stop me from wanting to haul my middle-aged arse to the Nordis premises on this special Friday when this spectacular metal banquet kicked off.
What was on the menu was simply too good to be missed, with BLACK LABEL SOCIETY and ACCEPT being the biggest names of Friday and OPETH doing the honors of headlining on Saturday. There were some minor changes in the festival lineup as ILL NIÑO‘s performance was cancelled due to value conflicts and logistical challenges, and so the Finnish metal rogues, NUMENTO, had stepped in. If I recall correctly, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY and ACCEPT had swapped their slots, making it nigh impossible to figure out which one was supposed to be the headliner (as if we mind, to be honest). Otherwise, the festival lineup had remained pretty much intact from the first announcements. Speaking of which, even reading the festival lineup sure made me feel like a kid in a candy store! My solemn plan was to catch as much of every performance as I possibly could while reserving myself the right to be too overwhelmed to follow the plan too strictly at all times.
If my experiences at last year’s HMF were anything to go by, something like that was bound to happen, maybe quite a few times. Then, in addition to the spectacular music, I learned just before the event that this year, the Hellsinki Metal Festival was launching its own beer brewed by Fat Lizard, a beer named Brutal Fucking Lager. So, even though I decided to arrive in Helsinki by car (at least on Friday, in order to be back home at some decent hour so that I could be in top shape the next day), I thought I might as well give it a try at some point – just one beer, two at the most. Y’know, it was highly unlikely that I would dare enter the mosh pits either this year, but merely watching the human pinball energy explode in those pits might make me thirsty. The hipster inside me has cultivated my taste in beers to lean more toward porters, stouts, and the darker stuff in general (that’s more metal, anyway), but if a lager had a name like this, I was obviously going to have to taste it at some point, if only in the name of investigative journalism. What I wouldn’t do to keep Tuonela readers well informed about the most important stuff! And speaking of the non-musical attractions available at the festival, in addition to the standard festival range of street food, alcohol, and band merchandise, the Nordis area had it all: Inkferno tattoo parlor, all sorts of artisan crafts related to the metal community, and Svart Records booth – too bad I no longer collect vinyl, because they had some real gems on sale there! Like last year, there was an art gallery entitled Dark Art Gallery, which had some really cool stuff on display. I heard that there was show-wrestling in between bands somewhere inside the hall, but I didn’t see any signs of such, so I cannot say if this hearsay was on point or not. Maybe they thought there was supposed to be because, last year, there was, or maybe I just managed to miss that entirely, y’know, buzzing so high from the spectacular bands on offer that I didn’t really register my surroundings that precisely, or something. I guess the average metal fan is not just as hellbent on seeing every band like me, so it’s nice that there is something interesting to do while there are some not-so-important bands on stage. Then again, the artisan vendors were positioned strategically along the path from the main stage to the indoor venue, so you couldn’t miss them entirely even if you tried.
Strolling back and forth between these two stages, I spotted all sorts of interesting stuff, like artisan jewelry, and some really cool prints by Finnish photographers just by the main entrance. I mean cool in that “This would look extremely stunning as a metal band’s album cover!” fashion. Next year, I’d better come with an extra budget and a big suitcase for this cool stuff – and a friend to hold onto that suitcase while I have a thrash-metal seizure in the mosh pit.
Once again, I arrived at the premises an hour early, just to get into the vibe and chat with random people. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I met some familiar faces, like the Italian summer Santa from this year’s Tuska and, reportedly, from Steelfest as well. I asked around what the dudes were expecting the most, and these three names popped up: BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, CRYPTOPSY, and MAWIZA. It’s always nice to see that the main attraction for some is not necessarily the biggest band of the bill. The next day, my cousin dropped by exclusively for KALMAH, so it’s nice that there is a lot of variety in the festival lineup. The Hellsinki Metal Festival has found its own niche somewhere between Steelfest and Tuska, and judging by the size of the crowd on both Friday and Saturday, it seems to be a rather winning move. I have not seen the official stats yet, but I reckon it was nearly sold out on both days. Without further ado, let’s get down to business, though.
The up-and-coming Finnish melodeath powerhouse, HORIZON IGNITED, had the honor of kicking off this year’s HMF. They impressed me and everybody else at Suvilahti last year, when they kicked off the Tuska Festival 2025. So, by the looks of it, their knack for opening big festivals by setting the stage on fire (only metaphorically speaking, of course) has not gone unnoticed. Music like theirs would have worked even better at a little bit later hour, surely – it was just an hour past noon, for Jezebel’s sake! Then again, the festival line-up of Friday was literally jam-packed with metal legends, so I guess this early slot was the best option available, and I’m sure no one objected to this magnificent start for a beautiful weekend of metal mayhem. HORIZON IGNITED is steadily becoming one of the most eminent new forces in the Finnish melodeath scene. It obviously helps that the band’s material, last year’s “Tides” album especially, is characterized by the best traits of this particular style – heavy riffs, slick guitar leads, and just enough smooth synth textures and clean vocals to add dynamic flourishes. Their music is a potent mix of melody, aggression, and intensity – the perfect combo for an exploding live experience, that is. It’s also worth noting that Okko Solanterä has evolved into one hell of a metal vocalist; his death-metal growls resonate with the air of Mikael Åkerfeldt circa 2006, and his cleans are no less impressive these days. The setlist had a good dramatic arc to it – those mid-tempo riffers were nicely balanced with the somewhat more atmospheric epic, “Leviathan,” from the band’s magnificent 2019 album “After the Storm,” and some crisp uptempo bangers toward the end of the set. Because I’m a prog nerd, the other atmospheric banger, “Beneath the Dark Water,” from last year, was the absolute peak of their set. The song features a section sung in Finnish, which makes the song resonate with an intriguing air of sorts, I bet, for metal fans who do not speak Finnish. Despite the early hour, the band had pulled quite a good crowd. Sure, there should have been a lot more, given the band’s kick-ass quality, but for the opening act, they did quite a good job. I reckon it was a good omen for this weekend. The band is embarking on a tour this fall in Finland, and judging by their performance, you would do yourself a huge favor by attending one of those shows, but I’ll elaborate on that joint venture a little bit later in my festival report when I get to the band that’s joining the bill. Yeah, they played at this year’s HMF as well.
The first band to conquer the main stage was a Swedish metal legend, so it seemed that HMF was not going to pull any punches this year, either. This Swedish veteran band has traversed a long and strange path since the early 1990s. I reckon they were one of the first few metal bands to adopt the Viking metal moniker, or something. It’s never been my go-to sub-genre of metal exactly, but I do appreciate a good beer-swigging metal tunage when I hear one. (Maybe I should have already fetched one of those Brutal Fucking Lagers to go with this performance…) So, I was not exactly familiar with any of those UNLEASHED songs on offer, but after a few bangers, my impression of the band was something like an old-school thrash-metal juggernaut with Viking-themed lyrics. Well, y’know, like SLAYER if the band had come from Scandinavia approximately 1,000 years ago, but with Fender Stratocasters and Marshall amps. The band’s vocalist-bassist Johnny Hedlund even sounded like Tom Araya here and there. It’s kinda weird that I was not aware of this band before this weekend, because their pre-history crossed paths with ENTOMBED in the early 1990s, but that’s life. I reckon the band played old stuff mixed with some new bangers from their latest album, “Fire Upon Your Lands,” released last year, and still, the setlist had a nice balance to it, so evidently the band still had plenty of juice in their engine. Then again, the so-called Scandinavian approach to death metal has always sounded quite appealing to me, probably because of that Stockholm bunch mentioned above. UNLEASHED is certainly one of the Big Four of vintage Swedish death metal. Their performance at Nordis left no room for doubt, even though Hedlund seemed to be making grunting faces at some technician at some point as if there was something wrong. I didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, so it might have been just part of the show as well. You never know with these metal bands.
Then, it was time to make some hard executive-level choices. Should I stay outdoors to check out OMNIUM GATHERUM or head indoors to catch the melodic black-metal squad, WORMWOOD? They were scheduled to start at the same time. I’d never seen either one, but as far as I knew, both had a firm reputation of being killer live bands. Bummer. Since missing either performance entirely was out of the question, I opted for catching a little bit of both.
Now, OMNIUM GATHERUM is one of those Finnish bands that I’ve been aware of mostly by name, save for a few random songs that my friends have introduced to me over the years. I have found some of their old bangers pretty damn good, but for some reason I never really bothered to check them out in full – or had the time and energy to do so, since I used to juggle in a dubious number of bands myself when this bunch started to make waves some 15 years ago. Last year’s “May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way,” the band’s tenth studio album, was the first full-length by them that I finally managed to give some proper attention – only to find out that the band’s signature sound had evolved into substantially more progressive since the last time I heard anything from this melodeath posse! Needless to say, it warmed my aging prog-nerd heart. While the band’s songcraft is still closer to traditional melodeath than vintage prog, I must say I was pleasantly surprised by this new direction. So, there was no way I was going to skip their performance entirely at Nordis! As luck would have it, the set kicked off with an anthemic banger from the said album. Entitled “The Last Hero,” the song set a rather nice tone for the whole set to come. By now, the asphalt field in front of the two outdoor stages was getting nicely packed, but I reckon it was exactly what you would expect if there’s something like OMNIUM GATHERUM on stage. The band has 30 years under their belt already, so we can safely put the “melodeath veteran” tag on them – and the experience sure did show! Everything sounded flawless, and the band members appeared to be in good spirits, having a blast. After two more punching riffages and riveting guitar solos, I decided it was time to head for the indoor venue, though. I simply had to check out the first band on the indoor stage, too.
Swedish black-metal bunch WORMWOOD is a bit younger band, but in no way less interesting. Having started as a black’n’roll outfit in 2014, the band has streamlined their sound into a more unique blend of melodic black metal, folk, and dark, cinematic rock over the years. As it happens, the band was about to release a new EP, entitled “Å,” the release date of which was set on the same day as they were scheduled to play at HMF. Thus, it was highly likely that they would drop some new songs in their set! Not only had the band been nominated – twice! – for Best Rock/Metal Act at the Swedish P3 Gold Awards, they had also developed quite a reputation for being a killer live band. While I hadn’t checked out any of the band’s albums in advance, I was more than curious to see them in action. For one thing, HMF has demonstrated one hell of a knack for picking the best possible black-metal bands in their festival lineups over the years, and secondly, if the black-metal outfit comes from Sweden, it’s highly likely to be something worth checking out. In this respect, HMF did not let me down. WORMWOOD turned out to be something I would have regretted not seeing in action! The band’s 2024 album, “The Star,” has been accused of being as magnificent as atmospheric and melodic black metal possibly can be. I arrived at the venue somewhere in the middle of “Ensamheten,” from their 2021 album “Arkivet,” and I was thrilled almost immediately: yeah, this band sounded pretty good right away! What came next, however, blew my mind to pieces. “Stjärnfall” from the said 2024 outing turned out to be something out of this world! For the first 4 minutes or so, the band rolled out the standard black-metal oeuvre – nice blast beats and tremolo guitars, some BORKNAGAR-esque stuff, which I liked a lot, but then… For the atmospheric section of the song, the band switched into a full-on PINK FLOYD mode! Guitarist Tobias Rydsheim‘s choice of tone and phrasing paid homage to David Gilmour in nothing short of a haunting manner. I guess I just found myself yet another black-metal to hyperfixate on for the next couple of weeks. The rest of the set – that is, another epic, entitled “Isolationist” – proved every bit as haunting, so I guess I fell in love with these Swedes. As much as it bummed me to cut OMNIUM GATHERUM‘s set short, missing something like THIS entirely would have constituted a crime of cosmic proportions, my friends. WORMWOOD‘s set was only 45 minutes, so I managed to catch the last 15 minutes of OMNIUM GATHERUM‘s set. Yeah, I get it that the fanbases of melodeath and black metal do not necessarily overlap so much, but still, being forced to choose between two bands of this caliber really sucks ass. On the other hand, I’m glad that I did get to see a little bit of both, because with only two stages, the festival experience would be substantially poorer, in terms of metal music’s alchemical magic. To my dismay, upon checking the band’s setlist at Nordis, I found out that they had played one of their absolute best epics while I was gone (“The Darkest City,” from the latest album), which bummed me even further, but I guess that’s the way it is: you can’t have everything in these metal festivals – the bigger the lineups, the more they are likely to overlap. We do not wish to go back to the way it was in the 1990s, right? If you’re an old shit like me, you might remember how you sometimes had to wait 30-45 minutes just counting your thumbs while the roadies were setting the stage up for the next band, and the only attraction to keep you busy was to drink more beer with the risk of getting too drunk to recall much of the bands the next day… These overlaps are still a rather bearable tradeoff for the seamless flow of music we have nowadays.
After such a cavalcade of contemporary melodeath, Viking hordes, and fiery black-metal sermons, it was time for a calibration dose of some old-school sound. Now, CARCASS has never been a band that I would necessarily hyperfixate on, but I wouldn’t want to pass the chance of a lifetime to finally see these metal senseis in action either. My friends used to toot the horn for this bunch so prominently in the early 1990s that even I had to check out what they were going on about, only to find out that – sweet mother of Beelzebub! – this band actually slapped pretty hard (that one 1993 album, in particular). When they disbanded in the mid-1990s, they dropped off my musical radar for aeons, until I chanced to meet up with some of my old high-school friends about 10 years ago, and they were going all bonkers about this band – again! Oh, yes, CARCASS made a comeback in 2007, and they weren’t about pulling any punches this time around either. Their comeback album “Surgical Steel” (2013) has been hailed as one of the most impressive bounce-back endeavors in metal history, although the later affair, 2021’s “Torn Arteries,” was met with a bit more mixed reviews. Their signature sound has evolved from the early grindcore-ish pounding toward more melodic, more death-metal-esque grind (sic!), but as someone on Reddit once said: goregrind CARCASS was peak; the new melodic death metal CARCASS is slightly less peak but still peak all the same. I’m not entirely sure where exactly their landmark 1993 album “Heartwork” lands on this spectrum, since it was released relatively early in their career – or was it? The band has been around since the mid-1980s or something! Be as it may, the album sure was ahead of its time – like, by decades! Hence, I nurtured this secret wish that the band would drop a song or two from this masterpiece. Well, did they? I heard later that CARCASS had visited Helsinki not so long ago, in April, which concert had completely evaded my all-seeing eye, and the setlist had been garnished with four tracks from this very album!
The elder gods of metal must have noticed my humble wish, since the band dropped five (!) bangers from this classic album. I guess it speaks volumes about this band’s legacy that some of my friends came to the festival because of this band – and those friends of mine weren’t even in elementary school yet when “Heartwork” came out! The band started with “Unfit For Human Consumption” from the said 2013 comeback album, and glancing around at the size of the crowd at the main stage, it was pretty obvious that these legends were one of the main attractions of this year’s HMF. This marked the first occasion during the whole weekend that I thought the festival must have been rather close to being sold out. I mean, the outdoor festival premises were packed almost to the full. Like usual, the age distribution of the audience was prominently closer to GenX than the younger metal demographics, which was probably why the band catered to us old geezers by playing those old bangers almost exclusively. “Dance of Ixtab (Psychopomp & Circumstance March No. 1 in B)” was the only new song, from “Torn Arteries,” and the comeback album was visited by one more song. Otherwise, the setlist was leaning heavily on those 1990s albums. Two songs, “Genital Grinder” and “Foeticide,” were from the band’s 1988 debut endeavor “Reek of Putrefaction,” even. So, the band’s longtime fans had a field day, I reckon. Then again, my friend said later that CARCASS was one of the highlights of this year’s HMF – and he was born in the same year the band’s debut came out! It’s nigh impossible to disagree. The sheer power of the band’s surgically precise and tight performance, the blastwave induced by these razor-sharp riffages, surely incinerated every thought of doubt whether the band in its current form was firing on all cylinders – oh, it bloody well was! Halfway into their intoxicating set, I felt compelled to leave and head indoors, though. There was something equally intoxicating on the menu for the indoor stage, set to kick off any minute now.
BRYMIR is yet another Finnish melodeath squad that has methodically released good albums, one after another, since the early 2010s. It was somewhere along the way between 2016’s “Slayer of Gods” and 2019’s “Wings of Fire” that these rogues popped onto my music radar. While their signature sound was not perhaps yet fully formed then, they made a pretty good first impression – and “Voices in the Sky,” released in 2022, finally hit a jackpot with its focused and streamlined melodeath punch in the face. So, even though hauling my lazy bones to the indoor stage meant missing a hefty portion of CARCASS‘s set, there was no way I was going to pass this chance of seeing these rogues in action for the first time. I’m glad that I made it inside the hall just in time to catch the beginning of their set, too! Their entrée onto the stage was one of the most mind-melting opening acts during the whole festival. While I was inching closer to the stage, the amps started airing some nice, ambient synth textures. Nothing particularly spectacular or unorthodox about that, sure. I’m not exactly a big fan of recording video clips from gigs with my mobile phone, because I rarely watch them afterwards, so what’s the point? This time, though, I had an epiphany to grab my phone and record the beginning of the gig. A hunch from the netherworld, or something? When the ambient synth pad stopped, the bombs and pyros went off, and the band rushed to the stage to kick off with the live premiere of “Sleipnir,” a track from the band’s upcoming album “What We Leave Behind,” due out on October 2nd. Pardon my French, but what the actual FUCK I just saw?! That was one hell of a way to enter the stage – the contrast between the ambient synth intro and the explosive song, let alone the massive pyros! Then, as if the explosive entry was not enough to make a lasting impression, the rest of the set was no less impressive by way of packing a punch. I knew some of the band’s older stuff, so I was expecting that they would probably sound pretty good, but I had no idea BRYMIR would bite this hard live. I’m not sure how the Hellsinki Metal Festival did it, but they practically replicated the effect DECAPITATED and DECESSUS had at this same indoor venue last year. Since it happened again, it cannot be a coincidence that a band, which is set to play relatively early in the festival lineup, knocks me completely breathless. Last year, those two bands had the element of surprise since I wasn’t aware of either one, but BRYMIR is something else entirely: I knew them – and still, they caught me totally off-guard by delivering a technical knockout from the stage. Is it some kind of dark HMF magic? The band played another live premiere right after the opener, a song entitled “Tempestbound.” Its title was quite an apt description of the whole experience: standing in the crowd, being pummeled by the band’s relentless riffs, felt like standing in the eye of a hurricane. I’m not sure whether their cover of the vintage SCOOTER classic, “How Much Is the Fish?,” was supposed to be a comedic relief or not, but the sonic violence sure gave you no mercy. For this song, the band threw some big, furry children’s toys, fish-shaped, into the pit while explaining the history behind the weird fish theme. Then, way too soon, the set closed with “Wings of Fire.” Well, whaddaya know, these sneaky bastards turned out to be one of the absolute highlights of HMF 2026. Needless to say, the band’s performance was enough of a calling card for the new album – it went straight to my shopping list, and that’s not all, folks! These Finnish melodeath rogues are embarking on a tour in Finland with HORIZON IGNITED and OMNIVORTEX later this fall, in order to celebrate their upcoming fifth studio album. This extravaganza will cover thirteen venues around Finland. That is one hell of a royal flush of modern Finnish metal, so you’d better keep your eyes peeled for further info about the dates. As a nice bonus, when the band had left the stage, their “outro” song of choice turned out to be a Finnish comedy classic – a song from a children’s TV show from the 1990s, with the lyrics going, “Meitä on kaksi vekkulia, jotka tekee kokkelia…” You see, “kokkeli” is Finnish for scrambled eggs, but it also is a slang term for cocaine. Yeah, even the children’s stuff was something else back in the day… and it’s always a welcome sign if a band sports questionable humor, at least in my books. Yeah, it sure was a bummer to cut CARCASS short, but I don’t know how I could ever forgive myself if I missed something like THIS!
The next treat scheduled for stage two was one that I had bookmarked in advance as a must-see. IKINÄ is another relatively new Finnish alt-metal act blending modern metal with all sorts of exciting flourishes. Their repertoire is exclusively in Finnish, but as it has become a norm in the metal scene, far from being a limitation, the choice of language is entirely irrelevant when the music is strong enough to transcend linguistic barriers through the sheer power of emotion. The band released their fourth studio album “Valkyria” earlier this year, and it has been warmly welcomed by the Finnish metal community, so that quite a few of their recent concerts have been sold out. This HMF performance was something out of the ordinary as the band was reinforced by the CHOIR OF HECATE, a special vocal ensemble featuring prominent metal vocalists, such as Heidi Aaltonen, Jessi Frey, and Netta Laurenne – for this special gig, the choir actually featured fifteen (yes, 15!!!) top-tier metal vocalists! This metal choir collaborated with IKINÄ last year on the single, “Jumalatar,” which raised a few eyebrows due to those deliciously theatrical vocal layers. Oh, yes – this treat sounded like something I must not miss for the world!
My initial plan was to catch the show right from the get-go, but since BRYMIR had just had me transfixed in awe to the very last minutes of their set, I arrived at the outdoor venue in the middle of the song, “Syvämeri.” On the other hand, I made it just in time to hear their cover rendition of the PMMP hit “Lautturi” in full. At this point, the first few members of the CHOIR OF HECATE were also welcomed to the stage. I reckon the hardcore PMMP fans may have disliked the very idea of turning that song into a metal banger, but in my opinion, IKINÄ pulled it off rather nicely. Of course, in a perfect world, they could have featured the full choir in every song, but I do understand (having participated in a backing choir of this sort once myself) that the sheer hell of organising the logistics of a choir this big is not a walk in the park. Further into the set, the choir grew by new members, little by little with each new song, so that, in the end, the band wrapped everything up with the full fifteen members of the choir! The band played the hit song, “Jumalatar,” obviously, but for me the peak was the set closer, “Tie,” which featured Jessica Salmi from FEAR OF DOMINATION on lead vocals. It’s fantastic and peculiar at the same time that Kouvola has delighted us with two absolutely gorgeous bands that both played at this year’s Hellsinki Metal Festival (HORIZON IGNITED and IKINÄ, respectively). Because, let’s face it, it is a Finnish city with a rather grim reputation of being a cold and desolate-looking, concrete hellscape. Its nickname, “Kouvostoliitto,” jocularly refers to the Soviet Union of yesteryear. I used to work there for a couple of years some 15 years ago, and I can confirm that some of those high-rise suburbs sure did look like some Soviet doucheville from 50 years ago. Then again, you would have only needed to walk 20 minutes from the festival area to the north-east, into the dystopian-looking Pasila East Side to get the same vibe. For some reason, we haven’t seen metal bands of this caliber coming from the eastern parts of Pasila. If there is one, they sure aren’t making too much noise about their neighborhood.
Then, it was yet another occasion for making hard decisions: should I opt for the old-school death-metal juggernaut, BLOODBATH, or choose some quality sognametal from Norway, courtesy of VREID? I’d never seen either one live before. With their prestigious résumés, I was sure that both bands would keep things all honky dory, which made choosing between them only that much harder. VREID‘s 2021 album “Wild North West” was my introduction to the band’s take on black metal, and I must say they made quite a good first impression. In April, the band visited Helsinki on the Mass Hallucination Tour with VOMITORY, ABBATH, and HYPOCRISY, but I was blissfully unaware of the event at the time. Their HMF performance would set that record straight – except that the band with which their slot overlapped was no less legendary a bunch. Founded in 1998 as a therapy project of sorts by the four stooges – Mikael Åkerfeldt, Anders Nyström, Jonas Renkse, and Dan Swanö, yeah, you might have heard of them? – BLOODBATH set out with a mission statement of playing quality old-school death metal, and it has remained intact all these years despite several lineup changes. I wasn’t exactly sure about their current lineup, to be honest, but glancing at the lineup on their latest studio album “Survival of the Sickest” (2022) did hype me up about this HMF slot quite a bit. Now that PARADISE LOST was booked for Saturday, could we see Nick Holmes on lead vocals by any chance?! The album also boasted former OPETH drummer Martin Axenrot, one of my favorite rhythm executives, so I was really torn between two excellent options here. I guess I had no other choice but to try catching a little bit of both, starting with the old-school death-metal juggernaut about to start plucking the ribbons of the big iron bells of gloom since I was by the main stage already.
When the band entered the stage, I was delighted to spot Nick Holmes at the helm, and even more so when I recognized the set opener to be “So You Die,” an old classic from the band’s 2002 debut full-length. I’m not so sure whether you can call a death-metal song of this sort a “hit,” but if there ever were such a thing, this song would definitely qualify as one. Holmes‘ gutturals are remarkably different from vintage Åkerfeldt, but not in a bad or annoying way, so the set was pure ear candy all the way through. Yeah, especially so with the setlist highlighting the band’s “Nightmares Made Flesh” album from 2004, because it’s their only album that I know pretty well. Peter Tägtgren from PAIN contributed lead vocals to that album, and Holmes‘ signature growls were overall a tad closer to him than the ogre antics of OPETH‘s primus motor. Plus, that album features the band’s best and lyrically most hilarious song, “Eaten,” which nicely wrapped BLOODBATH‘s set at Nordis. I reckon it’s the band therapy-project nature that makes it sound so good: the band members probably don’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone – they just write these silly songs because it’s fun – and because it’s fun for them, it’s equally fun for us to listen to. I’m still not sure about the band’s current lineup in full, but some of the guitar melodies – their live execution, in particular – had a somewhat KATATONIA-esque feel about them. Thus, I reckon the lead guitarist must still be Anders Nyström. It was hard to tell from a distance, but at least he wrote a good few songs for the band’s latest album and played the guitar as well.
At some point, however, I dropped by the indoor venue to catch a few songs by VREID, too. Like I said, as far as black metal goes, these Norwegians are one of the top-tier bands. I have not yet checked their new album “The Skies Turn Black,” released in March, because it kinda slipped by my radar until now. Yeah, there are too many great bands dropping great new records all the time. It’s hard to keep up. When I walked to the indoor venue, I overheard someone say that the new album sounded a bit like WORMWOOD here and there, which certainly made me want to check it out later, now that I’d seen that Swedish bunch live! That’s the risk in attending Hellsinki Metal Festival, I see: last year, I had a ton of new metal albums added to my shopping list, and just a few hours into this year’s festival banquet, the same phenomenon was in full gear already. There is something cinematic in VREID‘s music, albeit not necessarily in the usual “slap ambient synths and symphonic orchestra here and there” fashion, but more like a David Lynch soundtrack, so I guess it’s no wonder that the new album features an instrumental track that appears in the new Norwegian film entitled Kraken. At their most mellow, VREID almost resonated with the air of GREEN CARNATION, while the rawer cuts had a nice, vintage ENSLAVED feel about them, and yet, the band’s signature sound is remarkably unique. I guess that’s why they call their music sognametal (after their home, Sognefjord, I reckon). I’m afraid that, having visited Helsinki twice in such a short time, the band is not likely to return to this neck of the woods any time soon, but whenever VREID is dropping by again, I have a feeling that it would be a grave mistake not to go and check them out. In the meantime, checking out that new album will have to do.
My son, a 20-something black-metal aficionado, had told me that the band scheduled next on Helsinki Stage 2 was something I should definitely check out. When I asked him if he wanted to tag along to this year’s Hellsinki Metal Festival, he said there was only one band he would like to see, so he chose not to come. The band in question was BLACKBRAID, a one-man black-metal project of Jon S. Krieger a.k.a. Sgah’gahsowáh – a Mohawk name meaning “The Witch Hawk.” Native-American black metal, you say? Yeah, something to that effect, I think. I was only vaguely familiar with his 2023 endeavor entitled “II,” and if it featured something inherently Native American, besides those somewhat obvious hints in the song titles, it must have evaded me by being not too in-your-face. I mean, even those folksy bits resonated more with the air of BATHORY and the like. Just a while ago, this project released a new album, aptly titled “III,” but I haven’t yet checked it out in full. Now, depending on your online source (these damn Internet trolls!), the album was released either last August or March this year, but let’s just say it came out relatively recently. Seeing the band’s name pop out of the lineup for this year’s HMF, I certainly had to add that pleasant task of checking them out to my To-Do list. The thing is, the band’s sophomore album is pure unadulterated fire and brimstone, just like my son had warned me. For live performances, BLACKBRAID features a full-fledged lineup of musicians – David Meredith alias DM of GUDSFORLADT on bass, Johnny Valles from BLISTERING ROT (among a million other bands) on drums, and Eduardo Mora alias Y.E. on guitars, from IMPENETRABLE FURY and IXACHILAN, to name a few of his undertakings.
When the band started, they sure made an impression! Those Indian war paintings, my friends! They sure looked evil in the best way you could imagine. On the same note, the band sure did not cut us any slack; they kicked off with an ultra-tight punch right in the face – a song entitled “Celestial Bloodlust” from their recent EP, “Nocturnal Womb,” released this year. The only thing that bugged me was the live sound: the kick drum was mixed so loud it overpowered everything else quite a lot, so that you could not hear shit from the guitars at times – or, maybe we were just standing in a shitty location, and the wind blew the guitars to devil knows where. Whatever the case, the live sound did no justice to the band, to be honest. It got better after the first few songs, but by then, it was time for me to head indoors as per my solemn promise to myself to catch every band on the menu. On the positive side, the band’s performance was top-notch nonetheless, so I’m cautiously hoping that these rogues would come to visit Helsinki again some time in the not-so-distant future – and when that day comes, I’d better make sure that I will be there. In the meantime, there is this new album to check out. For a band that has released three full-lengths in a relatively short time – the debut came out in 2022 – BLACKBRAID has demonstrated quite a solid vision from day one. However, the indoor venue had something equally important coming up, so halfway into the set, I had to excuse myself and head inside the hall.
As per the conventions of the death-metal genre, SANGUISUGABOGG‘s name is something that I haven’t got the faintest idea of how to pronounce, plus it seems to be a thinly veiled take on toilet humor: “sanguisuga” is Latin for “leech” and “bogg” is most likely a derivative form of the British slang term for toilet. “Leech toilet?” Nice. The band released a new album last year, their third full-length overall entitled “Hideous Aftermath,” which has been hailed as their most refined, structurally sound, and mature endeavor to date – although “mature,” in this case, does not necessarily refer to the lyrical themes and song titles, such as “Erotic Beheading,” “Ritual Autophagia,” and the like. Yeah, you know how it goes with these old-schoolish DM bands… In this respect, these rogues must have been inspired by bands such as CANNIBAL CORPSE and the like – and we’re not complaining! Death metal and absurd humor go together like gin and tonic.
The first thing that struck me as a pretty unique approach to the genre was the lack of a dedicated bass player: the band featured only a drummer and two guitarists! The trick was to have the guitars tuned REALLY low, so that the sound was pretty close to the muddier end of the sludge spectrum. Yeah, the sound was kinda muddy, but in a good, somewhat swamp-metal-esque fashion. So, while emerging from the morass of tradition-savvy death metal, this Ohio bunch certainly did shine a new light of wisdom upon the genre with their unorthodox approach. When I arrived at the festival, I had a chat about this band with a dude who was more familiar with their music than I; now, having seen the band in action, I think the guy nailed it as he described their music as tightly syncopated death-metal grooves with well-placed breaks. Oh, yes, there’s nothing more intoxicating than bashing your proverbial skull with tasty metal rhythms! I reckon the festival organisation must have some sixth sense when it comes to booking these bands, because, so far, there has not been a single band to disappoint me in these last two events that I’ve been to. I mean, I’m not the pickiest douche in terms of live concerts, but I’m not the easiest one to please either. SANGUISUGABOGG went straight to the ever-growing list of pleasant surprises at the Hellsinki Metal Festival. Since I was not familiar with the band at all, I have no idea about their setlist. The Internet could not help me out here either, so all I can say is: the band fucking rocked. Sorry about the cuss word, but a less charged adjective won’t do here. Check these rogues out if you don’t believe me.
Even though I’m not even that guitar-oriented, not like I used to be in my early twenties, and hard rock has never been my go-to genre exactly, there’s something irresistible in BLACK LABEL SOCIETY. Songs like “Stillborn,” “In This River,” or “Fire It Up” slap pretty damn hard, my friends. Besides, Zakk Wylde has a way with the electric guitar that really pleases the ear. Nope, he’s not about to revolutionize the guitar world, and the pyrotechnically oriented fans of guitar music probably think his riffs are downright boring. Still, I would reckon he has not become a guitar legend for nothing. The years he spent with Ozzy Osbourne sure left an indelible mark on his approach to songwriting, but what’s there not to like? BLACK LABEL SOCIETY will soon be celebrating their 30th anniversary, and the band has seen a lot of ups and downs. Their latest album “Engines of Demolition,” released in March 2026, offers little by way of novelty. Still, it’s exactly as the metal magazine Kerrang put it: riffs that feel like tectonic movements and ripping solos that bay like hyenas scenting flesh. The setlist at Nordis featured only one song from the new album, its opener entitled “Name in Blood,” but it blended right in with the old bangers. Consistency is the key, as they say. The set kicked off with one of those old bangers, “Funeral Bell,” from the 2003 breakthrough endeavor, “The Blessed Hellride,” which was visited by a few more songs during the show. Yes, of course, the set was closed with – you guessed it! – “Stillborn,” from that very album. I mean, it’s entirely irrelevant whether you love the band or hate it with a passion; you cannot escape the fact that this one song kicks some major ass. I’m not so well-versed with the band’s more recent albums, but I reckon the songs in the first half of the set were predominantly newer material, while the rest of the setlist leaned more toward those old hits. At some point, Wylde, clad in his trademark Scottish kilt, and his wingman – Dario Lorina on rhythm guitar, I presume – had a guitar duel, showcasing their best Jimi Hendrix tricks, such as playing the guitar behind their back and so forth. Well, they did not play their instruments with their teeth, but otherwise, it was pure Hendrix stuff – slightly bluesy shredding without going full-on pyrotechnical. Somewhere along the set, the band also visited the Ozzy Osbourne hit, “No More Tears,” before ripping out with the title track of that 2003 album classic “The Blessed Hellride.” While it may not be just as mind-melting as some of the other bands on the menu, it must be stated that BLACK LABEL SOCIETY pulled off a magnificent performance. One guy in my entourage just wanted to hear “Stillborn,” and we got to hear it, eventually, so it was all for the win. The best description of his new album said something like not every track rising to equal heights, but also that few tracks overstay their welcome – and you could say the same about the band’s setlist – it was a rock-steady performance of beefy riffs and fiery solos, sort of like “Make Hard Rock Sound Great Again.” If I made all of this sound as if we were not entertained, do not get me wrong – oh, we sure were highly entertained.
Without a moment’s notice, right after Zakk Wylde and his hard-rock cohorts had wrapped up their show, the Canadian tech-death squad, CRYPTOPSY, kicked off on the next stage. I must admit that the band’s name did not ring a bell in the slightest. I had no fucking idea whatsoever what they were going to sound like. The guys I met at the festival gates before the grand opening had briefed me a little: this band basically laid the foundation for the whole tech-death scene some 30 years ago with their “None So Vile” album. Pioneers, or legends, whichever term rocks your boat. Still, I had no way of knowing what kind of technical death metal I was about to hear since I’m such a Johnny-come-lately when it comes to that type of sound. What the band actually delivered was certainly something other than what I had expected – the music was tenfold more brutal and furious (gnarly cacophony like someone on the Internet called their style) than the stuff I know from this particular genre. The effect of this brutal onslaught was somewhat similar to my first experiences of deathcore, courtesy of LORNA SHORE a couple of years ago: I could not yet say whether or not I truly liked this weird fucking noise, but there was something strangely alluring in it. I mean: who the fuck puts a slap-bass breakdown in a death-metal riffathon like in the set opener, “Slit Your Guts” from the band’s seminal 1996 album classic mentioned above?! They’re either seriously deranged or downright geniuses! On the other hand, these two options are not mutually exclusive as far as I know… So, before I started heading for the indoor venue for another must-see metal act, I was literally bulldozed over by a relentless onslaught of sonic mutilation of the most brutal and technical sort. The band’s lyrical themes are all about horror and insanity, so I guess it just wouldn’t do if the music did not live up to that sort of sentiment. The band was fantastically insane, and the music was pure horror in the best Dario Argento fashion you could imagine, only in fast-forward. I probably need to lend some ear to their albums before I can make up my mind about whether I like the music or not. To give credit where it’s due, they sure made a lasting impression! I would have stayed right until the end, but… the band that was set to play next at the indoor venue was something I must not miss. For me, it was one of the biggest attractions in the festival lineup this year – an indigenous groove-metal act from Chile. Last year, hailing from the same country, DECESSUS had literally melted my brain at HMF. The band had put the country on my metal map, so there was no way in hell I was going to miss this chance to see another Chilean bunch!
MAWIZA is a groove-metal act hailing from the ancestral territory of the Mapuche nation in South America. The Mapuche are a group of Indigenous people living in South-Central Chile and Southwestern Argentina. They are most famous for their long resistance to colonialism, fighting against the Spanish and Chilean governments for about 350 years in a conflict that is called the Arauco War. The Mapuche culture has sometimes been referred to as Araucanian, which is a Spanish word that is now seen as offensive to the Mapuche people, so I reckon they do not really appreciate this term. Their language, Mapudungun, is highly threatened now, which makes the band’s choice of language even more respectable. Somewhere along the band’s set at Nordis, the vocalist briefly brought up their struggles with colonialists’ interests, but for the most part, they let their music do the talking – and it spoke volumes, my friends, right from the beginning! When the band entered the stage, they had nothing but small frame drums – y’know, the same type of drums that shamans use. The set kicked off with a new song entitled “Mür,” which was basically just shamanic chanting and drumming. By way of making an entrée, MAWIZA put up a tough competition to the way BRYMIR opened their set! I mean, this was certainly something I would never forget! The opener sounded more like a sonic spell than a song – and spellbound we all were for the next hour or so. I had actually checked out some of their songs in advance, so I knew to expect that they would soon change to a tad more traditional metal-band instrumentation – and they did. The enchanting, trance-like feel continued to pervade the music even with the standard rock trio set up of drums, bass, and an electric guitar. Now, having seen these metal sages in action, it’s no wonder GOJIRA‘s frontman Joe Duplantier has been enamoured by this band. Their performance was one of the absolute highlights of this year’s HMF! I’m not yet familiar with their music, so I cannot say this or that about the setlist – except that the band offered us a banging interpretation of the vintage METALLICA classic, “Battery,” at some point – only adapted to Mapuzungun, if I heard correctly. The way these Mapuche warriors conquered the stage felt almost like a religious ritual, or maybe even more like an ayahuasca ceremony – an invocation of some ancestral spirits or something to that effect. I offer you my sincerest apologies for the use of this foul language, but… FUCK ME, IT WAS AWESOME! The band has already achieved some pretty impressive milestones in their career, like opening for GOJIRA and MASTODON. For a bloody good reason, I’d say.
So, since the German heavy-metal legends, ACCEPT, took to the main stage as the last act of Friday, I reckon they were the actual headliners, right? For the obvious reasons stated above, I missed the first 30 minutes of their set, but there was still an hour to go, so I’m not complaining. For some reason, I never really listened to ACCEPT in the 1980s, even though I turned into a full-on heavy-metal kid the moment my ears were exposed to IRON MAIDEN‘s seminal album classic “Powerslave” in 1984. In retrospect, I guess it had something to do with their album covers – they had none of that somewhat clichéd Dungeons & Dragons imagery that the other bands from the same era had. For a 10-year-old rascal, that was the deal breaker. That’s why I’m still something like a newbie when it comes to this band: yeah, sure, I’m familiar with some of their biggest hits, but apart from the most obvious bangers, I don’t know shit. So, I guess it was high time to set the cosmic balance anew about this bunch, more than 40 years later. And speaking of big numbers, having emerged from the industrial city of Solingen back in 1976, ACCEPT is celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. If that ain’t a mammoth milestone, I don’t know what is! Befittingly, this legendary band is releasing a new album in September, and it will be aptly entitled “Teutonic Titans.” The album will boast a guest list of 50 class-A guest musicians, so I guess I’m going to have to check it out! (That list of albums to check out seemed to be growing almost by the minute at the festival…)
So, I’m not going to pretend to have recognized a single song in the set, because, quite frankly, I did not – not until the vintage hits started to roll: “Princess of the Dawn,” from 1982, and then, after a medley of sorts, “Fast As A Shark,” from the same 1982 album classic entitled “Restless and Wild,” followed by the most iconic ACCEPT song of all time, “Balls to the Wall,” before the set closed with another timeless classic, “I’m A Rebel.” After the festival, I read somewhere that the festival had pulled something like 16,000 metalheads during the weekend. I’m not sure how much more the venue could have had – not much, I reckon. It was nearly sold-out, basically, and you could tell that just by looking at the size of the audience during ACCEPT‘s performance: the field was packed pretty tightly. The band seemed pleased, the crowd even more so, so the festival organisation must have done something right. Personally, seeing ACCEPT on stage meant that I could check yet another legendary band from my list of bands that I’ve never seen live. Even though their songs do not have that extra weight of nostalgia for me as some of their peers’ material does, I would certainly check this band out again if it were on the bill at some metal festival in the future. Because, by the looks of it, “Sedät jaksaa heilua!” as we say in Finnish.
Hellsinki Metal Festival is a peculiar event, because there was one more band to see, even though the headliner had already wrapped up their show. It has something to do with the city curfew: you cannot make that much noise outdoors after midnight. So, the party was not over yet, and the next act set to start in a minute on the indoor stage was something out of the ordinary.
CARPENTER BRUT visited a Finnish metal festival for the first time already at 2018’s Tuska Festival. I guess it is in order to mention here since some of the old-school brigades were probably wondering how this sort of sonic delicacy would, could, or should fit into the festival’s otherwise heavy banquet. On the other hand, the band’s signature synthwave sound is just as heavy-hitting as any guitar-driven riff machine, so it shouldn’t actually rub any metalheads the wrong way. Alas, I sorely missed the band’s previous visit to Finland, but I heard their show was nothing short of a mind-melting audiovisual experience. So, even though my middle-aged life goals these days seem to be increasingly about getting into bed in the single-digit hours, missing this fine opportunity was simply out of the question – besides, after midnight, it’s single-digit time once again! (Don’t I just love these sorts of loopholes!) Plus, I have a dubious history of raving in the underground techno scene of Helsinki around the turn of the millennium, and boasting a history of playing the keyboards in a dubious number of electronica and metal projects back in the day, I’m obviously big on the synthwave aesthetic, to begin with. I’d say the marriage of analog synth textures and metal riffs is by far one of the best things you can do with your clothes on – or even without, if that’s more to your liking. Then again, after entering the venue, I couldn’t help but notice that CARPENTER BRUT did not merely appeal to us weirdos with a synth-porn fetish: the venue was packed to the full! I mean, sold-out full. I was kinda hoping that I could put my old rave moves to good use once again, as I did during THE BROWNING‘s performance at this year’s Tuska, but there simply was no room for my elastic jazz hands. Okay, had I worked up my courage to enter the circle pit area, I could have maneuvered some of my signature moves, but it looked a bit dangerous, what with my Hello Kitty shoulder bag getting in the way and all. Yeah, excuses, I know… Well, be as it may, but the HMF crowd sure did take me by surprise! I didn’t expect to be packed in an ocean of metalheads like a sardine in a tin can, not with a closing act of this sort!
The band performed as a trio: drums (both acoustic and electronic as far as I could tell), guitar, and a shit-ton of synths played by the maestro, Franck Hueso, himself. Of course, a lot of the synth stuff came from a sequencer, but even so, the heavy-metal-level intensity of the music was no small feat with a minimalist lineup of this type! Sure, Hueso did play some of the stuff live, too – the main melodies, hooks, and solos, at least. The synth aesthetic took a rather deep nod to the vintage sound of the 1980s, which means a lot of analog synths, or at least pretty damn convincing emulations at least. I was too far to get a reading of his gear, but the sounds were top-tier all the way through – the synth pads resonated with the analog warmth of those iconic Oberheim synths, and the leads and stabs had a good bite just like some of those vintage Roland synths used to have. Oh, I fucking loved it!
The setlist seemed to lean quite heavily on the latest CARPENTER BRUT album, “Leather Temple,” released in February. In fact, the first three songs were the first three songs from that album. “Roller Mobster” interrupted the theme, but the next two bangers continued this streak as if the concept were about playing the new album in full. Well, it wasn’t. The new album was visited by a few further songs later on, but the rest of the set was predominantly comprised of those old bangers. I recognized a couple of songs from the 2022 album, “Leather Terror” – and, yeah, of course, the smashing choice of a cover that closed the set on a high note. I had a habit of going to a techno rave practically every weekend some 25 years ago. So, I’ve been to a party where the name of the game is dancing to some banging electronic music. Still, CARPENTER BRUT playing at a metal festival was something else entirely. When the last song of the set kicked off – and everybody recognized it to be a cover rendition of the 1983 Michael Sembello hit, “Maniac,” the venue literally exploded! Everybody sang along to the chorus, and my friends joined the circle pit that was going full-on bonkers. I have now learned that CARPENTER BRUT has a habit of closing his sets with this banger – and why the hell not? It bloody well works! This synthwave extravaganza sure did shut out all those traumatic memories of the kitsch-riddled synth pop of yesteryear that I got from playing in a 1980s cover band back in the day. There’s a cardinal difference between the iconic, yet somewhat plastic-sounding synth aura of that particular decade and synthwave of this caliber. CARPENTER BRUT made my true, undying, and everlasting love for synth textures grow into beyond-epic proportions. The set closer added just the perfect finishing touch to the whole experience. I mean, it’s always mesmerizing to be standing amidst an ocean of people singing their hearts out, but it’s even more mesmerizing to hear the crowd sing along to a song like THAT in a metal festival setting. Plus, it was cool to see not only a circle pit but also a wall of death in a synthwave concert of this sort. I bet they don’t have that in those EDM festivals – they sure didn’t have those at the techno raves back in the day. The last song slapped so hard that my friends – metalheads, post-rock aficionados, and prog nerds, mostly – actually disappeared from my line of sight for a moment, only to be seen going all bonkers in the circle pit a few minutes later. Cool! I probably should have done the same thing, but well, y’know, I’m an old shit now.
What an absolutely stunning way to bring the first day of the Hellsinki Metal Festival 2026 to a close! Thanks, y’all! It was one hell of a blast! As a bonus, the weather gods had been in good spirits, as well; despite the utterly dismal forecasts, the weather was pretty good not only on Friday but also on Saturday! They must have some sort of an affinity toward metal music! The first festival day was nothing short of a kick-ass cavalcade of awesomeness – sixteen bands of top-tier metal-trashing madness! If I were to single out the highlights, my top 3 performances of the first day would be BRYMIR, MAWIZA, and CARPENTER BRUT. So, by the looks of it, the indoor venue had the most delicious stuff this year, but if truth be said, every band on the first day’s festival lineup was pure unadulterated fire, so the best three won only by a slight margin, to be honest. And if this weren’t enough to make me happy like a dog with two tails, the menu for the second day looked even better! So, stay tuned for day two of this year’s HMF extravaganza!
Written by Jani Lehtinen
