Sonic Rites is a yearly festival focused on the darker end of music genres: doom, dark ambient, industrial, hardcore punk, etc. The festival manages to pull an interesting lineup of visitors from abroad and the cream of the Finnish underground music scene year after year. Naturally, we wanted to see what was cooking this year, on May 17th and 18th, 2024, so we headed to Ääniwalli to see the event. The festival’s final day on May 18th included bands like KADONNUT MANNER, DART, THE DEVIL’S TRADE, LOKA, DOPELORD, NERO KANE, KOLLAPS, MANTAR, HERO DISHONEST, and EYEHATEGOD.
The festival took place at the renewed Ääniwalli premises in Vallila, Helsinki, and featured two stages with an opening act for both days at a small outside stage. The festival was pretty much sold out, with the last tickets sold at the door, so the venue seems to be a perfect fit for a festival of this magnitude. The industrial surroundings also fit the event’s atmosphere well.
Saturday kicked off in the yard with an acoustic guitar performance by KADONNUT MANNER. After that, it was indoors again, first to the smaller stage, where DART launched the night to speed with their fast and furious show. One of the best shows from the smaller Finnish acts definitely! On the bigger stage, the opening act of the night was Hungary-based THE DEVIL’S TRADE with a folk-vibed doom approach. On the smaller stage, LOKA then took the night in a more sludgy direction.
On the bigger stage, Polish DOPELORD dealt out a dose of psychedelic doom. Their act was one of the strongest on Saturday from the visiting foreign bands. After them, there were again two acts on the smaller stage: Italian duo NERO KANE with their more etheric, ambient take on music and then the brutal noise wall of Australian visitors KOLLAPS.
As the evening turned towards its end, the German duo MANTAR played with furious energy and pleased their fans with some material from their first album. Then a sweaty hardcore punk act by HERO DISHONEST pumped up the audience. The night ended with a performance from sludge metal legends EYEHATEGOD.
Check our photos of the second day here…
Kadonnut manner
Dart
The Devil’s Trade
Loka
Dopelord
Nero Kane
Kollaps
Mantar
Hero Dishonest
Eyehategod
Photos by Arto Alho
