Starting off the weekend strong last Saturday, BRYMIR hit Turku on their Trigger Wars tour alongside the talents of MORS SUBITA and ASSEMBLE THE CHARIOTS. Those first two band names alone are enough to get any fan of modern melodic death metal excited and ASSEMBLE THE CHARIOTS brought a fantastic energy that perfectly set the tone for the rest of the show. It was a night of massive riffs, emotional moments, and mosh pit pillow fights with stuffed fish.
Recently “reborn” symphonic deathcore act ASSEMBLE THE CHARIOTS showed up and they showed up hard. They started off our evening with tracks from their debut album “Unyielding Night”, which was released just a few short months ago. “Unyielding Night” is a bit of a concept album, with its own lore, story, and some of the best orchestration I’ve heard this year. It translated very nicely to live performance, with phenomenal symphonic tracks backing their act.
While talking with people in the crowd before the show, I was surprised to hear that many of them were most excited about ASSEMBLE THE CHARIOTS, as I figured it would mostly be a crowd of melodic death metal fans. But by the end of their set, ASSEMBLE THE CHARIOTS’ cult following at this show made perfect sense to me. While having the signature brutality of deathcore, they also brought the raw power of MORS SUBITA and the ethereal spirit of BRYMIR. I want to give a special shoutout to their guitarist Kevin Apostol who had a fantastic stage presence.
Next up was MORS SUBITA, who never fail to remind us why we love that classic Finnish melodic death metal feel. They had the crowd whipped up into a circle pit during their first song, an endless whirlwind of heavy metal spirit and loving fans that lasted practically through their entire set. Despite all the crushing riffs and happy moshers, this was a bittersweet performance. This show marked the last time that vocalist Eemeli Bodde would perform live with MORS SUBITA. Eemeli has been a staple member of the band since 2014, and it has been a great decade for them. With stunning album releases such as “Into the Pitch Black”, “Origin of Fire”, and “Extinction Era”, Eemeli has provided vocals for a lot of the best music to come out of MORS SUBITA to date. He’s now the vocalist for DECAPITATED, a very exciting and well-deserved position. The emotion of his departure clearly came through in his performance and made MORS SUBITA’s set truly something special that night.
As the wave of Eemeli’s last hoorah with MORS SUBITA subsided, BRYMIR transported us to a familiar realm of soaring spectral melodies. They opened up with “Ride On, Spirit”, which served to introduce us to what turned out to be a killer set of many of their most beloved tracks from their last two albums “Wings of Fire” and “Voices in the Sky”. BRYMIR’s extremely talented guitarist Joona Björkroth is on paternity leave, so filling in for him was Antti Nieminen. Those are some massive shoes to fill, but Antti fit right at home in this role. His playing was on point, and his stage energy fit the band perfectly.
BRYMIR’s vocalist Viktor Gullichsen certainly knows how to work a crowd, and he brought a great lighthearted energy to his interactions which really seemed to resonate with the crowd. At one point in the show, he started throwing large stuffed pike fish into the mosh pit for us to hit each other with. For the next few songs, the pit became a giant pillow fight, with stuffing fluff and severed fins flying in every direction. By the end of it, people were dancing in the pit with long deflated fish wrapped around their necks like scarves. The dichotomy between that and the powerful heavy-hitting songs like “Forged in War” made the show especially memorable. The band members also switched around instruments for a bit, showing off their impressive versatility while also having a bit of fun with it.
BRYMIR finished off their set with their 2019 album’s title track “Wings of Fire”, a fast-paced favorite that was a fitting end to such a high-intensity show. Suffice to say, ASSEMBLE THE CHARIOTS, MORS SUBITA, and BRYMIR rocked Utopia Club to its core. We laughed, we cried, and we hit each other with stuffed animals. Under all the blistering solos and melodic riffing there was a theme of new beginnings that night. Whether it be ASSEMBLE THE CHARIOTS’ rebirth and album release, MORS SUBITA’s vocalist change and goodbye to Eemeli, or BRYMIR showing off how much they’ve grown musically with their last two albums, this lineup gave us a glimpse into a bright future for Finnish metal.
Written by Ken Kirwin
Photos by Magdalena Niemczura
