Once again, we ventured into the basement of On The Rocks for a rare early Saturday night show (due to a different event starting at 22:00), the occasion being SEVEROTH‘s return to Finland, a few months after their successful show at Steelfest. Opening the night was symphonic black metal act THE CHAMBERLAIN.
Having released their debut full-length “Draconian Magick” this year, the band from Turku, formed by members of NORRHEM and AESTHUS, (among others), had the chance to present their record to the Helsinki audience, who meanwhile slowly gathered in the venue, anticipating the main act. Taking a stance towards the mid-90’s symphonic black metal – especially early DIMMU BORGIR and OLD MAN’S CHILD come to mind at a first listen – the band delivered a bit of a nostalgic trip to the older part of the audience (or at least those in their 40s and beyond). In an attempt to revive that kind of sound in a more modern way, with the melodies led by their synths and guitar riffs, along with the scream vocals of Magister Lucifugus. Their set was pretty short, but if you hang around in the Finnish black metal underground, you’ll definitely see more of this band in the future.
After a short changeover, even shorter than originally scheduled, as the show began 10 minutes earlier, it was time for SEVEROTH to test the Finnish crowd in a club setting. The Ukrainian-turned-Polish-based project led by the artist of the same name performed again with his fellow KRODA bandmates (minus one of the guitarists) and already has his own little following in Finland after a positive appearance at Steelfest Open Air last May. Their atmospheric black metal worked nicely for this time of the year when days are getting darker and shorter and everything slows down, as seen with songs such as “Eyes of the Dark Night,” or “And Winter in my Heart…,” and their melodies. The long instrumental parts set the atmosphere with people attentively listening and applauding with enthusiasm at every chance. The set lasted about 90 minutes due to the nature of the songs, but time went by rather quickly, and it was clear that both the fans and the band got what they came here for. This worked even better than the festival performance at Steelfest, as this smaller kind of setup made the band and the crowd connect more closely. It was definitely a pleasant way to start the evening, and as a bonus, there was still plenty of time to go by for the rest of the night. I wish gigs would end this early more often! Check our photo gallery here…
THE CHAMBERLAIN
SEVEROTH
