Once, September was notoriously empty when it came to club gigs. Bands and promoters were having a break between the summer festival season and the beginning of the autumnal tour craze. Nowadays, instead, the calendar is completely saturated, and in one single weekend we counted up to 20 events worth checking out! It then comes as a surprise to see how – even on a Thursday night, September 24th, 2026 – there was still a pretty sizeable crowd at On The Rocks for this night of black metal featuring AFSKY and the local support BLOODMOTHER.
We didn’t know a lot about the former band until tonight, and that’s partly explained by the fact that the band would be releasing their first full-length – “Militant Black Magic”, via Time to Kill Records – only the following day. The Helsinki-based act served as a good warm-up while the crowd started to gather inside the venue, providing some traditional black metal in a no-nonsense, old-school fashion, with heavy influences from bands such as early MARDUK from the neighbouring country. It’s good to see there are still new bands that keep the tradition alive without falling into trying to make the “next weird thing”, and surely at least the more middle-aged section of the audience might have enjoyed this small return to the past. The band had a surprisingly long set for being relatively unknown to most, with their show lasting 45 minutes, after which a long break allowed to set up the stage for the main act without too much of a hurry.
AFSKY received a warm welcome, considering they have a solid fanbase here in Helsinki, where they have now performed a bunch of times in the last few years. Much of their set was focused on their latest “Fællesskab”, and while not being the most intense kind of band, given the more atmospheric nature of their music, they offered a solid performance to their fans. Maybe the fact that this was the first show on the tour had a bit of an impact, as we have seen much tighter shows from them, without diminishing tonight’s outcome, which still got an overwhelmingly positive response from the many fans gathered here at On The Rocks. A strong positive was that at least this time the band was not acting as a warm-up for someone else, so they had a bit longer set, although they could have easily added another couple of songs, stopping a bit after one hour of playtime. The sensation was overall still quite positive, and it’s always nice to catch these Danes live when the opportunity arises.
The evening itself ended quite early, since the following day was still a Friday after all, so we ventured briefly into the stormy weather that accompanied this dark, early autumn night, getting a fair dose of water on our clothes on the way back home. But we can say confidently it was all worth it.
BLOODMOTHER
AFSKY
