GALLERY: 19.5.2023 Sonic Rites – Day 1 @ Ääniwalli, Helsinki

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Sonic Rites is a 2-day festival showcasing the heavier and gloomier end of the music spectrum in Finland and sporting some interesting visitors from abroad. The festival has quickly gained name as a place to be for people interested in buzzing fuzzes, apocalyptic sound scenes, and psychedelic jamming. This year’s festival opened with ten acts on Friday, May 19th.

AIRUE opened on the stage set up outside Ääniwalli with their rumbling mesh of electric sounds, guitar, and acoustic percussions. BABES IN THE ABYSS continued the night on the smaller stage inside the venue with their simple yet enchanting and cinematic keyboard-drums-bass -trio. Next, it was time for the Italian visitors, NERO DI MARTE, who opened the main stage with their take on some more progressive metal. On to the small stage was the industrial metal machine that is DOME RUNNER and then, again back to the main stage, it was time for some Finnish metal veterans: LORD VICAR.

There ain’t no rest for the wicked, so it then was back to the outside stage again for Aidan Baker, a solo artist playing his ambient sounds to the darkening summer night. Then it was back to full-on aggression, as KANTAMUS exploded on the small stage with their HC-influenced sludge rock show. Again the tempo turned down a bit when the third foreign visitor of the evening, DARKHER, brought their doom-laden riffs to the stage. Second to last was MANSION on the smaller stage, tuning their doom metal more to the biblical frequencies of sin and punishment. Last, and arguably the most anticipated act of the evening, was Japanese legend BORIS, with an energetic set that kicked the evening through the roof and rewarded fans who had come to see this rare visitor.

All-in-all, the first day of the Sonic Rites festival was a well-organized event with an interesting lineup of nice variety and interesting takes on the darker side of the music scene.

Airue

Babes in the Abyss

Nero di Marte

Dome Runner

Lord Vicar

Kantamus

Darkher

Mansion

Boris