On February 16th, 2023, Norwegian black metal veterans GORGOROTH with Dutch rising stars DOODSWENS hit Orwohaus in Berlin on their European Tour, with supporting bands HATS BARN & TYRMFAR also on the bill.
TYRMFAR came from Switzerland and the band had two distinctive features: no bass player and no stage corpse paint. Surprisingly, this worked well and didn’t hurt the songs, but still, it might have been the missing link to build more pressure. It was also astonishing that the band didn’t play pure black metal, but rather dabbled in this area with style. What was striking was the strong, powerful voice that went forward and mobilized people. Despite the stylistic difference, many listeners stayed and were won over.
HATS BARN was next. This band had their own unique style and built a dense atmosphere. The stage was filled with bones and skulls and the costumes were believable. Musically, they had a lot to offer and put together a well-rounded package with a great live presence. The vocals were quite quirky, as they were very high-pitched and raspy. Aggression played an important role here. In the intervening passages, the vocals dropped out and the band showed off their music purely instrumentally.
DOODSWENS, the co-headliner of the evening, were given 40 minutes of playtime and the crowd was clearly expectant, as the hall was now as full. After the stage was smoked through, Inge van der Zon entered the stage, approached the altar, and lit a sage smudge to begin the ritual. The atmosphere was just thick enough to then crush it with a fat, fast riff. This time the sound was very well-balanced and the guitar was very easy to hear. There were no flaws at this point and the gig had everything it needed. The atmospheric build-up mixed with the raw black metal is exactly their style. This simplicity gave their songs a lot of punch. They presented a new song from the upcoming album as well.
GORGOROTH‘s set suffered an hour’s delay due to the fact that the band arrived an hour before the show because of a delayed flight. However, the time had come and the headliner of the evening took the stage. They were introduced in a gloomy calm, with smoke filling the stage, and then the audience was treated to a kick in the face. The fans all pressed forward and the band fired up a lot and put on a good set. TAAKE‘s singer, Hoest, took over the vocals a couple of years ago and this man delivers! The singing was accompanied by disturbing harmonies and an uneasiness that couldn’t have been better. The band also took the opportunity to animate the crowd with simple bass drum kicking, which may still be quite atypical for black metal.
TYRMFAR
HATS BARN
DOODSWENS
GORGOROTH
