After a long time away from Europe, KRALLICE decided this year that they missed their fans overseas, and with the excuse of their 15th new album just out, they started their tour tonight, right on October 8th, 2026, here in Helsinki. For us, this was the 4th time seeing the band live this year (the first three at Roadburn), so we already knew how the new material would sound live, which only made us more determined to be here tonight at Kuudes Linja. For being the first time the band ever played in Finland, we would have thought the venue could have been far more crowded, but we also tend to forget at times how niche some of the bands we listen to actually are.
Even more niche, or at least completely unknown to us until tonight, was the opening duo SAINT SEER. Their offer can be described as electronic/dark ambient, and it was a pretty odd choice of warm-up band for a main act that – no matter how experimental – is definitely considered black metal. The performance was definitely curious to the crowd that started flowing into the club: the two musicians took the stage behind a table filled with synths and a Mac, with an animal skull in the front, lit by a small candle, being one of the only two light sources, together with a small light coming from the floor of the stage behind them. At some point, the lead singer stepped down, and as she walked around the audience distributed what seemed to be bone fragments. When this rather peculiar show came to an end, the two bowed to the audience and then hugged before heading off the stage, in an emotional moment that can only hint at how nervous they were at playing this gig.
A short while later, and with the venue starting to fill a little more, KRALLICE took over, and the atmosphere immediately changed. The fans who until then were shying away from the front moved further against the stage, and the mayhem began. It was like watching a concentrated version of the three shows the band played in the Spring at Roadburn, with the three in the front alternating vocal duties throughout (first Mick Barr, then Colin Marston and finally Nicholas McMaster), each bringing their own distinctive touch among the band’s highly technical, at times nearly hypnotic barrage of riffs, creating an engulfing, dense sound, yet dynamically moving from one song to the next, with the main focus being, of course, the recently released “Scour Order.”
We can’t say that the audience was exactly going wild, but that’s pretty much expected, not just per tradition with Finnish crowds, but also for the complex nature of the music, which requires more focus to the listener. As the first gig of the tour, the band delivered a good show, which fans seemed to appreciate, and they were rewarded with an encore of sorts after a short jam between Barr and drummer Lev Weinstein before the rest of the band came back on stage to end the show.
The night ended pretty early as it’s been often the case lately, which actually is a pretty welcome development, especially mid-week as in this case. The guys had a Riga gig themselves on Friday, so hopefully the extra time allowed them to get some proper rest; they are going to need it for the rest of the tour!
SAINT SEER
KRALLICE
