Hellsinki Metal Festival has reached its toddler age, with this year’s metal gathering being the third overall, and in this relatively short time, the festival has become a prominent fixture in the Finnish metal music calendar. The festival organisation claims that their dedication to featuring both metal legends and emerging talents sets this event apart from its rivals, and looking at this year’s festival lineup, what with all the black-metal legends, pedigree thrash and death-metal acts, along with some hand-picked rising stars from all over the world, there is more than an ounce of truth in those claims. Let’s look at the headliners, for example. I reckon you couldn’t possibly have much bigger legends than KING DIAMOND and VENOM in this day and age – the bigger ones have either long since passed away or are not in a condition to perform anymore. That said, CANDLEMASS, DISMEMBER, NAPALM DEATH, and Michael Schenker all count as legends in their respective genres, let alone the black-metal giants such as OLD MAN’S CHILD, ENSLAVED, and MARDUK. Plus, the tribute to Quorthon and the music of BATHORY, set to wrap up the whole festival under the name BLOOD FIRE DEATH, sure was a special treat.
From the Finnish perspective, bands such as HEAVY METAL PERSE, KIUAS, or WARMEN all have enough mileage to count as legendary acts. I guess it has been a while since I last had the opportunity to see this many metal legends at the same festival. Yeah, this year’s Tuska Festival put up a good competition, at least to a degree, but I think Hellsinki Metal Festival still went one louder. You could feel the black wings of metal history gently brushing your skin quite repeatedly during the weekend at the Helsinki Ice Hall area. That said, not only did the seasoned veteran bands pull stunning shows across the board, but also some of the up-and-coming metal acts pulled such performances that it was hard not to feel like a kid in a candy store. While the capacity of the festival venue, the Helsinki Ice Hall area, is not perhaps a match for Suvilahti, where Tuska can pack up a substantially bigger crowd, this “limitation” might actually work in Hellsinki Metal Festival‘s favor, creating a somewhat cosier, more relaxed, and more homely vibe. The rumor had it that it was the original vibe of Tuska when it was held at the Kaisaniemi park. Well, I wouldn’t know because I never went there, but like the saying goes – size doesn’t matter if you know how to use it. The Hellsinki Metal Festival may be Tuska‘s younger and smaller brother, but in terms of musical stature, it is by far not small at all. With these two metal festivals occurring only about a month apart, one might think that Helsinki is not big enough of a town for such an extravaganza, but it is. Friday was nearly sold out, and, judging by how packed the venue was when VENOM played, Saturday must have come pretty close, too.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Finnish power-metal act from Kajaani, HEAVY METAL PERSE, so the festival kicked off on nothing short of a nostalgic footing. I never managed to figure out whether the band was just a tongue-in-cheek project that got out of hand – you see, their name translates to English as “Heavy Metal Arse” – but now, seeing them on stage for the first time, I realized that they meant business. Obviously, the band doesn’t take itself very seriously, what with the name and all, but the execution of the songs was top-notch all the way. While this type of power metal isn’t exactly my go-to subgenre of metal, I very much enjoyed the band’s bombastic performance about halfway into their set. I’m sure I would have enjoyed the rest of it, as well, but there was something on offer at the indoor stage simultaneously that I felt I should not miss for the world. That said, scheduling modern death metal and power metal for the same time slot was rather good thinking from the festival, considering that the fanbases of these two subgenres typically do not overlap that much.
Chilean death-metal squad DECESSUS set the festival in motion at the indoor venue, inside the Icehall. I made it inside just in time to hear the last few moments of their most recent single, “The Hollow Descent,” and it almost instantly made me regret that I hadn’t come sooner. Sweet mother of Beelzebub! This band kicked ass! The rest of the set proved only further that this relatively new bunch is going to go places! Not only was their choice of style a highly intriguing and exciting mixture of melodic and progressive death metal, but their frontlady, Ignacia Fernández, proved such a powerhouse vocalist that I wasn’t the only one in the audience who was completely blown away. The next day, when I chatted up some random people, asking them about the highlights of Friday, this band’s name popped up quite a few times, and Fernández‘s performance prompted some to draw comparisons to Tatiana Shmayluk of JINJER, even. Okay, she did not do clean vocals, but those growls – oh, man! Their song, “My War of Pain,” also resonated with a somewhat JINJER-like air, so the impressions may have come from that. The Helsinki Icehall is somewhat notorious for its bad acoustics, and, yes, the sound got a bit muddy, here and there, but even so, it couldn’t mask the fact that this band fucking rocked. It sure helped that the songs were such highly dynamic riff-burgers, among which the song “Deliverance” stood out, in particular, with its nice atmospherics and a bass solo to boot! The festival couldn’t possibly have started with a more pleasant surprise. This was the band’s first show outside their home country, and I guess they couldn’t have chosen a better venue than Hellsinki Metal Festival. So, next time they come to Finland – and I’m pretty sure that they will! – you will do yourself a huge favor by checking them out if you missed this performance. The band is so new that they have not yet released their full-length debut, so you might as well keep yourself on the lookout for that. It’s going to be a blast.
The first band to perform at the main stage was the Finnish bunny-metal duo, RABBIT CULT. What the hell is bunny metal, you might ask. Well, I used to help out a friend of mine who farmed bunnies back in the day, and I learned pretty quickly that those cute-looking little furballs are probably not only the horniest bunch in the animal kingdom, but they can also be brutal as fuck. I guess that pretty much sums up RABBIT CULT‘s disco metal quite as well; vocalist Salla-Marja flirted with the audience throughout the set and the electropop bangers were layered with a good pinch of metal riffs – so, horny and brutal it was. The traditional Finnish folk instrument, kantele, was a nice, unique touch, and, staying true to the band’s chosen aesthetic, both the kantele resting on a stand and the keytar version Salla-Marja grabbed at some point were painted pink. The duo is comprised of Salla-Marja and multi-instrumentalist Marianne, who played mostly drums for this show, but the live lineup had a guitarist and bassist as well. The show was pretty energetic, featuring also a saxophonist toward the end of the set, and RABBIT CULT‘s catchy, feel-good electro-bangers seemed to go down pretty well for the metalheads that had gathered in front of the stage. The last song in the set was introduced as having been written exclusively for the Hellsinki Metal Festival tribe, “Rabbit of Doom,” or was it in plural, I’m not sure. Anyways, it was a song that had not been released yet, and it sure was the cherry on the cake. Yeah, metalheads are genuine softies at heart. So, of course, we loved this cute little electro blast.
Next up on the side stage, the Finnish power-metal legends, KIUAS, were about to kick off in a minute. During their active years, from 2000 to 2013, the band was critically acclaimed for their unique blend of power metal, prog, thrash, and folk, but somehow their ever-evolving sound proved perhaps a tad too difficult to market for the larger public. Lucky for us, the band made a comeback a few years ago with their original lineup. Then, as if it weren’t enough of a special treat to be able to see these unsung heroes of Finnish power metal in action, this Hellsinki Metal Festival show also celebrated the 20th anniversary of their landmark album “The Spirit of Ukko.” So, the band played the album in full, reinforced with a few special bonuses, like the song the band’s vocalist Ilja Jalkanen jovially introduced as the “bonus track for the Japanese export.” Yeah, the band was in high spirits, and you could see for miles how they really enjoyed performing. While it’s true that power metal has never been my cup of tea, exactly, this band used to be the rare exception to the rule – perhaps due to their unique take on the subject matter. Back in the day, I didn’t think of them as a power-metal band, first and foremost, but rather a band that carried the torch of the 1980s-tinted heavy metal with which I grew up as a kid. Their Hellsinki Metal Festival show only further cemented this impression of mine – vocalist Jalkanen even sported a somewhat Miami Vice-vibed Hawaiian shirt for this gig. Still, as much as I enjoyed their feel-good performance, I felt obliged to leave a bit early to catch a song or two by the Finnish black-metal squad QWÄLEN performing inside the hall.
Hailing from Oulu, Finland, QWÄLEN is a relatively new act, having laid their foundation in 2017. The band members have a punk background, which makes their choice of black-metal aesthetic sound even rawer and more chaotic. Their music has been described as being the focal point where the vehement chaos of hardcore punk clashes with the ritualistic nature of black metal. So, obviously, I needed to check them out, and judging by those few songs that I managed to catch, the band sure had found its unique niche in the somewhat saturated black metal scene. First, their stage appearance made quite an impression even from a distance, with the guys looking like the characters from the epochal Finnish play, Nummisuutarit (“Heath Cobblers” in the 1993 translation), written by the father of Finnish literature, Aleksis Kivi, in 1864. Yet, unlike that historic, rural comedy, the band’s music was Intense with a capital I. That’s the thing with black metal – quite often it is all about the dark and intense atmosphere, and in this respect, the band surely delivered! I’m not sure whether I would listen to this sort of black metal at home, though. Well, maybe on a special occasion, but if I had the chance to see them on stage again in the future, I would definitely want to see their whole set.
Next, I was faced with the hard choice between the ever-amazing Finnish metal rogues, WARMEN, and the dark synthwave of GOST. My original plan was to catch a little bit of both, but, of course, WARMEN pulled such a high-octane show that I couldn’t leave early. I did see them only a year ago at Tuska, but I guess they have somewhat sneakily become one of those bands from whose shows you simply do not leave early for any reason whatsoever. Once again, the band was on fire, playing fan favorites, a couple of new songs, and a CHILDREN OF BODOM cover. So, you see? Of course, along with the BODOM cover, “Hate Me!” the band also played the banging cover of ROCKWELL‘s 1984 hit, “Somebody’s Watching Me,” as usual. So, in a way, the band did not do anything out of the ordinary, but since they kick ass so hard, you will be transfixed in a headbanging position for the whole duration of their performance, no two ways about it. Maybe I will get a chance to catch GOST somewhere else later – his new remix for PERTURBATOR‘s song “Behemoth” really slaps. However, I get it that it makes sense to schedule artists as diverse as these to play at the same time – their fanbases are unlikely to overlap. Insufferable music nerds like me are a minority, I guess.
Of course, I could have sneaked inside the hall for the last few songs, but when the German bunch, KANONENFIEBER, started almost immediately after WARMEN on the next stage, their entrée onto the stage seemed way too impressive – I had to stay and check them out in full. I mean, it’s not every day that you see a band come to the stage dressed in WW1-era military gear. The band’s music has been dubbed blackened death metal, and it worked quite well in tandem with the WW1 theme, even though I couldn’t understand shit about the lyrics since they were exclusively in German. The band’s name translates as “cannon fever,” being synonymous with the English terms such as “shell shock” or “combat fatigue.” I think it conveys the vibe of the music: dark and intense. The storytelling did not end with the song lyrics – the band pulled some theatrical antics on stage, too. I must say that their performance was one of the most unforgettable metal shows that I’ve seen in a good while. The music slapped hard – so hard that it’s kind of hard to believe the band was founded as recently as 2020! Well, they wore black masks on stage, so I had to do some digging into the band’s history to figure out who these crazy Germans actually were. It turns out the band started as a solo project by the anonymous multi-instrumentalist Noise. The point was to depict the grim realities of war without glorification or the gore aspects, as historically accurate as possible – and, perhaps, for historical reasons, the choice of language works wonders in this context. The 2021 debut album, “Menschenmühle,” proved such a success that the project eventually fledged into a fully functioning live band. This Hellsinki Metal Festival performance was so tight that I reckon the band members, referred to with names such as Kreuzer, Sickfried, Gunnar, and Hans, must be seasoned metal musicians, maybe even someone we know from some other German bands? As a concept, KANONENFIEBER is pretty unique among all the other war-themed bands, and it sure helps that their music is top of the class when it comes to blackened death metal. I wasn’t familiar with the band before this performance, but they sure made an impression and served yet another pleasant surprise.
The next treat on the main stage was a no-brainer must-see. The Swedish pioneers of doom metal, CANDLEMASS, have built a legacy that is right on par with the festival’s big headliners, KING DIAMOND and VENOM. The genre’s name arguably comes from the title of the band’s debut, and they have been about as important and influential to doom metal as you could possibly be apart from maybe BLACK SABBATH. This year marks the 40th anniversary of these gloomy Swedes, so this Hellsinki Metal Festival show was probably the closest thing I could ever get to see with respect to the vibe of the original BLACK SABBATH lineup – and the band not only delivered but did it with the dignified authority of true elder gods of doom metal. My original plan was to leave a bit early in order to catch some NIGHT SHALL DRAPE US, but… yeah, not a chance with a setlist like this: only vintage bangers and fan favorites! The band’s iconic 1986 album, “Epicus Doomicus Metallicus,” was visited with songs such as “Under the Oak,” “Crystal Ball,” and the epic closer, “Solitude.” Then, the set’s opener, “Bewitched,” as well as the next song in the set, “Dark Are the Veils of Death,” came from yet another landmark outing in their catalog, “Nightfall,” from 1987. “Dark Reflections” and the fan-favorite, “Mirror Mirror,” were from the late 1980s as well. The only new song was “Sweet Evil Sun,” but it blended right in with the sorrow-laden grandeur of their old classics. CANDLEMASS surely pampered us old metalheads, but their performance was so damn lit that a friend of mine, who’s almost 20 years younger than me, couldn’t stop praising their performance, bringing it up almost non-stop until Friday night drew to a close. Well, I guess the band has not earned the status of a doom-metal legend for nothing. The band was on fire, vocalist Johan Längqvist, in particular. He sang on the band’s debut as a session vocalist and returned as a full-time vocalist a few years ago. The band has always sported great singers, but it seems that, for many, Längquist is THE vocalist for CANDLEMASS. His performance in Helsinki sure demonstrated why. Then, I couldn’t help but notice how the band’s founding father, bassist Leif Edling, glowed when addressing the audience; the band seemed to enjoy the evening as much as the audience, which always adds a special layer of enchantment to a band’s show. This special treat was definitely something to remember!
Next, I was torn between the vintage American thrash-metal bunch, FORBIDDEN, set to play next on the side stage, and the Polish technical death-metal juggernaut, DECAPITATED, scheduled to play at the indoor venue half an hour later. I figured that I wouldn’t want to miss either band, so I decided to watch the first half of FORBIDDEN‘s set and then head inside the hall to check out DECAPITATED. For once, I stuck to my plan – and a good thing that I did!
FORBIDDEN was formed already in 1985, so this year marks their 40th anniversary, too, although their career seems to have been a bit tattered, going on a hiatus and reuniting every few years or so, sometimes with their original name FORBIDDEN EVIL and sometimes simply as FORBIDDEN. Two years ago, the band reformed with new members and, judging by the half of a set that I witnessed, hopefully this iteration of the band lasts. Perhaps it is due to this on-off nature of the band that it seems to be somewhat overlooked – way more than their insanely tight performance at Hellsinki Metal Festival would justify. Then again, their choice of style has not been exclusively thrash metal over the years – and the gatekeepers don’t like that, I guess. The set kicked off on a vintage-sounding footing, with the opener, “Infinite,” coming from the band’s 1990 offering “Twisted into Form.” The album was revisited with a few more bangers later on. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure that I would have loved the band 35 years ago when I was hyperfixating on bands such as ANTHRAX and METALLICA. In the back of beyond where I lived at the time, nobody had ever heard of this band, though, and there was a fat chance the local record shop would have stocked obscure stuff like this. As far as thrash metal goes, this bunch is every bit as good as the “Big Four,” if you ask me. In fact, I couldn’t help but think that the next song in the set, “Out of Body (Out of Mind),” was nicely reminiscent of “State of Euphoria”-era ANTHRAX. That album meant the world to me when I was 15, so these thrash-metal rogues sure made a good first impression! Too bad I just couldn’t skip DECAPITATED, so halfway into the set, I headed inside the hall.
Formed in 1996, DECAPITATED has built a reputation as an ultra-tight death-metal squad that fearlessly mixes a wild array of influences into a cohesive and groovy whole. That reputation had also reached my ears, so I was not going to miss this opportunity to see them in action. Knowing that the band came from Poland also factored in this, since I have yet not come across a bad Polish metal or prog band. I must admit to not being entirely familiar with their music apart from a few songs, but those had left such a mark that I expected that the band would be quite good on stage. The band took me by a mind-blowing surprise, though. They weren’t just good – they were fucking insane! I mean, DECAPITATED was one of the absolute highlights of Hellsinki Metal Festival 2025. When I walked in, the first song was in full blast already, and it sounded as though LAMB OF GOD and ORBIT CULTURE had pooled all their best bangers and condensed them into a single steamrolling riffage that hit you right in the face. I’m not even sure about the setlist because the sonic violence was so damn immersive – it sucked you into a vortex of sound and did not let go until the last chord faded into the sweaty atmosphere of the hall. As I arrived early at the festival premises on Saturday, I had a good chance to chat up some random metalheads, asking them about the highlights of Friday – apart from the obvious, KING DIAMOND, the name of DECAPITATED popped up almost every time. I don’t think I saw the indoor venue that packed over the course of the weekend, not even when the festival was brought to an epic close by the BATHORY tribute. I think that says a lot. It was nigh impossible not to fall in love with this bunch – if you already weren’t. Their most recent album, “Cancer Culture” from 2022, will be in heavy rotation for some time now, that’s for sure! And since I wasn’t familiar with the band’s history at all, I didn’t know that their new vocalist for some time now has been Eemeli Bodde, who previously sang in MORS SUBITA. So, when the realization finally hit me, things started to make a lot more sense. His insane vocal prowess fits DECAPITATED‘s insanely powerful music just perfectly. What an amazing band!
The overarching theme of Hellsinki Metal Festival 2025 – that is, the pampering of the GenX metal demographic – continued on the main stage next as the Swedish death-metal legends, DISMEMBER, took over. For some reason, a reason that still puzzles me, I never listened to them in the early 1990s when I had my most intense death-metal phase, although I listened to their peers, such as ENTOMBED. So, with this show being my first taste of their music, I’m not sure of the setlist apart from a few bangers, such as “Skin Her Alive” and “Skinfather,” because the former was introduced as being a song about vocalist Matti Kärki‘s neighbor who offed his wife and the latter in Finnish as “Nahkaisä.” Their signature sound was deliciously old-school all the way through, prompting me to be even more puzzled as to why I never gave them a chance some 30 years ago. Quite a few of my fellow Finns had, judging by the size of the crowd punching their fist into the air. At some point, near the end of their set, vocalist Kärki seemed genuinely moved by the love the band still garnered from the metal community – and it was beautiful. It was hard not to feel nostalgic when the band performed, even though I wasn’t familiar with their material. On the positive side, there is a wealth of new music for me to discover now, if you can say “new” about music that was released three decades ago.
The next treat on the neighboring stage was by far no less nostalgia-inducing: FEAR FACTORY. These guys were yet another band that has released iconic albums for over 30 years, with THAT mid-1990s classic “Demanufacture” being THE album for many, me included. It was – and still is! – a haunting mixture of death metal, thrash, and industrial sound. It still sounds just as invigorating as it did 30 years ago. Oh, yeah, we old grits like to wallow in the past, especially in the festival setting. The band seemed to acknowledge this by pampering us with quite a few songs from that album. The band’s new vocalist, Milo Silvestro, sounded an awful lot like their original vocalist, Burton C. Bell, which only layered their show with an extra coating of unforgettableness. Is that even a word? I don’t care. So, it is impossible to single out the highlights of the gig because it was one continuous highlight from start to finish. Yeah, the band played songs from other albums, too, and a cover, I think, but it was pure fucking awesomeness, non-stop. That said, the most intense pit action was probably ignited by the song, “Replica,” from that album classic. I read somewhere that the band was entangled in one hell of a soap-operatic legal mess at some point, but not even that managed to dim their stellar legacy – lucky for us! The band has reached nothing short of an iconic status for a damn good reason; their performance in Helsinki was an uncompromising show of metal greatness. Kudos to the band!
Unfortunately, the Norwegian black-metal legends, OLD MAN’S CHILD, overlapped with FEAR FACTORY and KING DIAMOND so badly that I could sneak into the indoor venue for merely one song before returning to the main stage for the headliner. Of course, I could have left early from the side stage, in the middle of FEAR FACTORY‘s set, or I could have missed the first 30 minutes of KING DIAMOND, but… nope. You simply do not do such a thing. Ever. That one song that I caught from these Norwegians was pure fire, though. I’m not sure which song it was – I’m not that familiar with the band’s back catalog – but it sure made me feel that I ought to correct this miserable shortcoming in my musical knowledge ASAP. The song in question must have been in the middle of their set, so it could have been “Unholy Vivid Innocence” or “Doommaker.” Both songs slap hard, now that I checked them on Spotify. Considering the metal legends on offer at the same time, these black metal legends had pulled quite a good crowd inside the hall. Then again, I reckon they have been dubbed the cornerstone of melodic black metal for a reason. Maybe next time, do not schedule three metal acts of such legendary stature to play at the same time, eh?
As the showtime of Friday’s headliner drew close, I fully realized the peculiar trait of Hellsinki Metal Festival that sets it apart from the rest: as the main stage is outdoors and the noise restrictions of Helsinki downtown area don’t really bend, not even for metal legends, the headliner wasn’t actually the last band to perform. KING DIAMOND was the headliner, yes, but his epic show did not wrap up the first day entirely. He was the last to perform on the main stage, but there was still one band to play inside the hall, after the headliner. Weird? Maybe, but logical, because the noise restrictions did not apply to the indoor venue.
KING DIAMOND‘s headliner performance was the last show for his Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920 Tour in Europe. So, having seen some footage from those earlier tour dates, I knew to expect something spectacularly theatrical. Still, the show was a mind-blowing, visual cavalcade of Gothic horror of such a caliber that it sure left us speechless. It was easy to see where bands such as GHOST have taken their visual inspiration. That visual eye-candy would have been enough to make a long-lasting imprint on your psyche, but that wasn’t all to it, not even half of it! The master of ceremony himself is closing in on 70 and he can still pull off those magnificent falsettos without blinking an eye – and it helps that his back catalog is littered with classics! The setlist was pure ear-candy from start to finish, but there were a few songs that seemed to get the crowd particularly wild – songs such as “Voodoo,” “Sleepless Nights,” “Eye of the Witch,” and the encore, “Abigail,” obviously. The rumor has it that KING DIAMOND is about to release a new album – a two-part horror concept, the first part of which is set for release later this year. The song, “Spider Lilly,” that was played somewhere around the middle of the set, was released as a single last year. It blended seamlessly with the older bangers, so it must be a good sign for the upcoming album! Overall, the show was epic to the point of the word “Epic” being completely insufficient to even begin to describe it. I guess it speaks of KING DIAMOND‘s legendary stature that the venue was packed to the full – later, it was confirmed that Friday was nearly sold out. No wonder.
So, even though KING DIAMOND was the undisputed headliner of Friday, the festival had one more treat on offer inside the hall: the Finnish folk-black-metal overlords, MOONSORROW. Their sonic witchcraft was one of the reasons I started to get into the black-metal aesthetic. You see, when the genre was born in the 1990s, I was such an elitist prog snob that I couldn’t give two shits about the style. Yeah, I was an obnoxious little shit, but as luck would have it, I have since learned to love the black-metal aesthetic – and these folksy tricksters played a major role in that transformation! So, in a way, I got to experience two headliners for the price of one. The setlist was comprised of only bangers – or maybe I’m just biased because these guys were my black-metal heroes, after all. Nah, the crowd literally ate from the band’s hands, so I think my judgment hit the nail on the head. The atmosphere was simultaneously very excited and solemn. I’m not sure how that’s even possible, but that’s the way I felt it – by turns, the band made everyone scream their lungs out and engage in fervent headbanging, and still, the overarching mood was almost pious, if that makes any sense. At some point, I thought I was going to lose my voice from all the screaming – I don’t think I’ve belted that hard ever before. Then again, I reckon everyone at the venue was a devoted fan of both MOONSORROW and metal music, in general. While the music was by far more aggressive in both the tone and tempo, I couldn’t help but reminisce on the recent performance of the Finnish dark folk act, NOIDUIN, that closed this year’s Tuska weekend for me. I mean, there was a somewhat similar, ritualistic, and enchanting feel in MOONSORROW‘s music – by some dark sonic magic, I’m sure. I already loved the band, but seeing them on stage now, for the first time, actually, made me love them even more.
So, what did I make of the Hellsinki Metal Festival? This was my first time, after all. Well, the festival lineup was pure gold and, even though I had to make some tough calls due to the overlapping time slots, I would say: HMF fucking rocked! The general atmosphere was just what I expected: the metal crowd is the best! You can chat up random people and before you know it, you’re engaged in a highly spirited conversation with total strangers (about metal bands, obviously). So, I guess there is more than an ounce of truth in the rumors that HMF feels like the original, the more old-school-tinted Tuska Festival when it was still in Kaisaniemi. I mean, I like the new Tuska just as well, but it is indeed charged with a slightly different vibe, what with the leanings toward all sorts of modern, crossover sounds. Hellsinki Metal Festival complements that rather nicely with their focus on the old-school bands and legends, without forgetting about what’s trending in the metal scene. I spotted quite a few familiar faces that I saw at Suvilahti this year, so I guess I’m not the only one who thinks that you can always have the best of both worlds, because why the hell not?
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Photos by Laureline Tilkin
