Here to stay – Hellsinki Metal Festival 9.-10.8.2024, Part 1/2

Last year another star was born on the map of Finnish metal festivals. Aptly named after its host city, Hellsinki Metal Festival exploded onto the scene in August 2023 and immediately earned its place among the hearts of heavier music. Considered by many as a hell-sent response to Tuska festival, whose musical fares seem to grow lighter by the year, the second iteration of Hellsinki Metal Festival shook the grounds of Helsinki Ice Hall last weekend on August 9th and 10th. 

The first day of the festival proved to be a heated one, figuratively and literally. For most of the day, the scorching sun baked the asphalt festival grounds and those who trod upon it unrelentingly. Emotional temperatures rose for many in the hellishly long queues as over 90% of the festival-goers had decided to exchange their ticket for a wristband on the day of the festival. The organizers were woefully unprepared for this, and the lines grew excruciatingly long. 

Fortunately for me, I managed to make it through the festival gates just in time to catch Suotana’s set on the indoor stage. Prior to the festival I’d debated with myself whether to see Suotana or Deathchain as the festival’s opening act, but since the schedule was tight and Suotana played conveniently on the stage closest to the entrance, my choice was quickly made. Hailing all the way from Rovaniemi, Suotana delivered 45 minutes’ worth of melodic death metal wrapped in wintry and naturalistic themes. Most of the day’s crowd was still outside the gates waiting to get in, but what people had gathered showed ever-increasing support for the band. The set included one new song called “Foreverland“, which fit in very well with the older material.

After Suotana it was time to venture outside into the blazing heat. In much the same vein as Suotana, Finnish Wolfheart did their best to blow some wintry spirit into the late summer day. This melodic death metal outfit is slated to release their seventh studio album next month, and a couple of tunes from the upcoming “Draconian Darkness” record were featured in the set. Their appearance at Hellsinki festival was the only Wolfheart show in Finland this summer, and the band were on fire. Unfortunately I’ve never found Wolfheart’s music as captivating as I would’ve liked, but with their newest album on the horizon I just might have to give another go at their catalogue.

Up next on the smaller outdoor stage it was Terrorizer’s turn to tear up the place. These American grindcore veterans were in Finland for the very first time, and their debut show in this country couldn’t have been at a more proper setting. The legendary old school venue of Helsinki Ice Hall has been home to many of the most memorable heavy metal concerts in Finland, and the greyish parking lot of concrete and asphalt was like made for a true metal bacchanal. Several thematic art installations decorated the site here and there, most notably the Bodom Badlands-exhibition containing lots of Children of Bodom memorabilia. 

The day wore on with Emmure and Triumph of Death performing Hellhammer, each band catering to different sects of the audience. On the indoor stage, Massacre serenaded the crowd with some truly gut-wrenching death metal, providing a vent for the fans to unleash their needs to mosh their heads off. The band weren’t one for idle chit chat between songs, letting their riffs do the talking, and a short snippet of “Raining Blood” towards the end had the crowd going like nothing else. German Obscura began their set with a deceptively serene intro, which then segued into progressive death metal mayhem. Despite their sufficiently aggressive output, the band had to verbally encourage the crowd into performing a circle pit for the occasion. 

During the interim between Massacre and Obscura there was a show wrestling act on the standing floor of the ice hall. Courtesy of Slam Wrestling Finland, the event was a nostalgic trip to my childhood years, when American show wrestling was the shit. 

Back outside, the evening continued with Heaven Shall Burn, another German act with genuine violence and fury in their performance. Shirtless, vocalist Marcus Bischoff performed like a man possessed, doing his best to imbue the audience with his energy. On the Hellsinki 02-stage, Norwegian Satyricon needed no explosive rage to win over the crowd. Beginning their set with the mesmerizing “To Your Brethren in the Dark“, Satyricon emanated the sort of easygoing charisma that proved instantly captivating. The band had amassed an impressive horde of black metal faithfuls to bear witness, and I would’ve loved to stay for longer if not for the overlapping show of my favorite band on the indoor stage. 

That favorite band being Soen. Releasing their debut album in 2010, Soen has since put out six additional records, and with each release they have more thoroughly cemented their place as one of the dearest metal bands in the world to yours truly. Soen’s meandering, melodic and utterly mellifluous output may have been a touch out of place in the company of the likes of Terrorizer, Massacre and Obscura, which did nothing to lessen my enjoyment of the show. Soen graced the darkening evening with ten songs, with “Monarch“, “Modesty” and “Antagonist” being the highlights. One can only hope that each concert Soen plays in Finland will increase the band’s fanbase here, paving a way to their future visits in these northeastern backwoods of Europe. 

The last outdoor act of the day was Tobias Sammet’s Avantasia. This symphonic metal opera supergroup provided a perfectly dreamy atmosphere to the night that had fallen outside, and their soaring music and fantastic background visuals filled the darkened parking lot of Helsinki Ice Hall with a sense of wonder and hope. The night drew to a close in the depths of the ice hall with an atmosphere of a darker kind of wonder, as Swallow the Sun had the distinct honor to lay the day to rest. These masters of melancholic doom got to show what they were made of to an almost full ice hall. The first half of the show consisted of the full performance of “Plague of Butterflies“, the 34-minute epic from 2008. The latter half of the set saw the band debuting two tracks from their new album out in October, as well as evergreen hits such as “New Moon” and “Swallow“. “Innocence Was Long Forgotten” and “What I Have Become” proved their prowess along with the older songs, and “Shining”, the new Swallow the Sun album out on October 18th, is definitely one to look out for. 

Photos: Kai Lukander

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