While Easter is a time for religious worship for many, or perhaps overindulgence in chocolate, for the extreme metal community it means making the annual pilgrimage to Oslo for the unrivalled Inferno Festival, and this year was my tenth consecutive attendance. Set over four days, the festival always delivers a line-up of the best extreme metal has to offer. Of course, black metal is central to this but in truth, all extreme metal genres are covered and this year was to be no exception.

The festival is set in the Rockefeller/John Dee complex but also offers matinee shows in clubs across the city giving the chance to get up close and personal with these bands, but make sure you turn up early as these are very popular and usually reach capacity quickly.


Away from the venues, the festival is centred around the elegant Clarion Hub hotel which is the official festival hotel and caters brilliantly to the needs of the festival goers. The foyer is decorated with festival posters, the information screens show the bands’ stage times, the hotel PA system blasts metal for the duration and the famous breakfast buffet runs until later than usual.

The hotel also hosts the Inferno Music conference which offers the opportunity for delegates to attend seminars and debates as well as a drum clinic and of course the metal auction. This year there was also the opportunity to go on a “Black Metal Bus Sightseeing Tour” with Anders Odden (Cadaver, Satyricon) and the opportunity to visit Neseblod and the infamous “Black Metal Wall” basement, as well as guided tour “In the Footsteps of Edvard Munch”. If that isn’t enough, Katakomben records is a “must’ and of course there are all the other “tourist” things to do in the city. I’ve written about most of these in previous reviews so I’ll keep myself focussed on the music this time!

Thursday began with snow flurries setting an appropriately icy atmosphere as I made my way to the Vaterland venue. Vaterland is a great bar and pizza restaurant that has an intimate gig venue in a room upstairs. During Inferno this room always reaches capacity quickly so I made sure that I was there in good time for US black metal outfit Stormruler.

Although it was cold and snowing outside, it was baking hot and sweaty inside the venue even before the band took to the stage and we were entertained by Boltthrower playing over the PA. By the time Stormruler hit the stage the venue was absolutely rammed with a mixture of enthusiastic, vocal fans and those keen to catch a glimpse of this rising black metal outfit (who are currently on the road with Cannibal Corpse, Dark Funeral and Ingested) for the first time.

Decked out in the obligatory leather and spikes, the band proceeded to unleash a glorious combination of black metal melodies – epic, atmospheric and majestic, yet uncompromising and abrasive. The crowd warmed up as the set progressed achieving a fine balance of finesse and vitriol. By this point, the doors had been closed and people were queuing down the stairs and though the bar area as a one out one in system had come in to play. I consider myself lucky to have caught this band in such an intimate setting and I have no doubt they will be playing much bigger stages in the near future.


I headed over to the Rockefeller-John Dee complex ready for the main section of the festival to begin. These two venues are in the same building and are linked by a staircase meaning it is very easy to move between the two stages. There is no overlap between the stage times, meaning that in theory it is possible to see every minute of every band, unless there is a problem with bands finishing late.

However, Rockefeller has a capacity of approximately 1500 and John Dee approximately 400 meaning that it is not possible for everyone for get into John Dee and for most bands this very quickly hit capacity and security put in place a one in, one out policy. My advice would be that if you are keen to see a band in John Dee, it’s worth leaving the preceding Rockefeller band a few minutes early to secure a spot.

Norwegian thrash veterans Nekromantheon opened the day at Rockefeller. Choral music played from the PA as an intro and then ‘boom’ the band exploded into ‘Coven of the Minotaur’ and ‘The Visions of Trismegistos’.

Bathed in red light the band delivered an explosive set of unadulterated, exhilarating Norwegian thrash metal.

The crowd was packed for an opening band and this was surely testament to their ever growing reputation as a ferocious live act which was further reinforced here as the hurtled through ‘Blood Wisdom’ and ‘Gringo Death’ mid set before things were finally brought to a close with the immense ‘Rise Vulcan Spectre’.

Ukrainian band 1914 had been scheduled to open the John Dee stage but for obvious reasons they had to withdraw, leaving Blood Red Throne to pick up the baton to a packed, baying crowd. Opening with ‘Smite’ and newer track ‘Conquered Malevolence’ they proceeded to batter the crowd with their no frills Norwegian death metal.

Despite initial guitar problems, the riffing was brutal as the band head banged in unison with the crowd.

Between songs, Bolt bantered with an absolutely rammed John Dee, stirring up an ever increasingly active pit. New song ‘Latrodectus’ was aired (if I understood correctly this was the first time it had been played live) and kept the momentum going nicely as track after uncompromising track pummelled the packed crowd until the set closed with ‘Arterial Lust’.

There was a change in atmosphere upstairs in Rockefeller as a corpse painted Djevel delivered a sublime set of Norwegian black metal.

The stage was in near darkness, with candelabras providing almost all of the lighting creating a sombre, melancholic but sinister mood. The music was raw yet had swathes of melody.

This was not as frantic and battering as some black metal, but felt more controlled and malevolent as they mixed older tracks with newer material from ‘Naa Skrider Natten Sort’ in a triumphant set.

John Dee quickly reached capacity again for Navajo Black Metal troupe Mutilated Tyrant. Attacking the stage wearing spikes, bullet belts and corpse paint they unleashed their aggressive American black metal onslaught, ‘Ní’hodiľhił- first world/black world’ opened the set and was quickly followed up by the likes of ‘The Night’s Eternal’, ‘The Eternal Legions’ and ‘Falling Sun’.

The crowd were lapping up every rampaging track as the atmosphere in John Dee became more and more malevolent with each track. The vocals were rampant and the battery was relentless until the set closed with ‘My Journey’ and ‘Ho’dichiih doo’ saji’’.

This was my first encounter with Mutilated tyrant and I was very impressed.

I was back on more familiar territory upstairs with Black Metal maestros Dark Funeral as a proclamation of “God is not here today” was followed by a vitriolic ‘We Are The Apocalypse’.

There was no messing around as the Swedes laid waste to Inferno with their uncompromising black metal. Live favourites ‘The Arrival of Satan’s Empire’ and ‘The Secrets of the Black Arts’ came relatively early before my set highlight ‘Nail Them to the Cross’ came mid-set.

The sinister atmosphere was augmented by the red light bathing the stage. There wasn’t too much movement in the crowd, most of whom were content to stand head banging as the set came to a climax with ‘Let the Devil In’ and the epic ‘Where Shadows Forever Reign’.

Having endured recent line up changes, an energised Nervosa hit the John Dee stage with a point to prove during their first time at the Inferno festival.

The crowd were pumped up and there was a palpable air of anticipation as the foursome launched into ‘Perpetual Chaos’ and ‘Kings of Domination’.

A decent sized pit opened up as their death metal tinged thrash metal swirled around the John Dee confines.

Prika Amaral back on lead vocals as well as guitars did an awesome job whipping the crowd up before the set ended all too quickly with ‘Endless Ambition’.

From chatting to people at the festival, it seems that a lot were in attendance specifically for Cannibal Corpse as visits to Norway are relatively infrequent, with the last foray having been back in 2018.

Once more, red light bathed the stage as the band launched into ‘Scourge of Iron’ and my personal favourite ‘The Time to Kill is Now’. Of course a big pit opened up and the crowd surfers began, which is unusual at Inferno for some reason.

Corpsegrinder was in good spirits bantering with the crowd between songs, challenging them to keep up with him head banging (no change with that neck!) and dedicating ‘Fxxked With a Knife’ to the women in the crowd.

The crowd was a sweaty mess of heaving bodies before the set was brought to a close with the inevitable ‘Hammer Smashed Face’. Those that made the journey for the American heavyweights were not disappointed.

The day had passed really quickly and it was already time for the last band of the day on John Dee, Norway’s Mork. I’d heard several people comment that Mork should really have been on the bigger stage such is their popularity and predictably, the basement room was very quickly at capacity for their True Halden Black Metal.

Taking to a dark stage lit with candelabras, they band opened with ‘Forfort Av Kulden’ and ‘Død go Begravet’ in a display of melodic, eloquent yet aggressive black metal. The sound was dense but also crystal clear for mammoth tracks such as ‘Arv’, ’Da Himmelen Falt’ and my highlight ‘Tilbake til Opprinnelsen’.

The crowd started to thin a little towards the end as a magnificent ‘Dype Røtter’ brought the set to a close with Mork having shown why they are rapidly becoming one of the world’s leading black metal bands.

The anticipation for Emperor and their heading set was huge and Rockefeller was at absolute capacity as the black metal legends took to the stage. Visits to Inferno have been few and far between for the Norwegians but their previous two outings have been special with 2006 having been filmed and released as the ‘Live Inferno’ album and 2018 seeing the band play the ‘Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk’ album in full, so I was excited to see what 2023 would bring.


Opening with ‘Into the Infinity of Thoughts’ and ‘The Burning Shadows of Silence’ it quickly became apparent that the band were playing the ‘In The Nightside Eclipse’ album in full. This is of course one of the seminal black metal albums of all time and it was great to hear it live with one track rolling into another until the massive ‘Inno A Satana’ brought that portion of the set to a close. We were then treated to a few tracks from ‘Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk’ as well as ‘Curse You All Men!’ From ‘IX Equilibrium’ and ‘In The Wordless Chamber’ from ‘Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise’.

Emperor put on an absolute masterclass in symphonic black metal with epic melodies swirling within the barraging maelstrom, showing that they are relevant today as they have ever been. This had been a fitting close to the first day of this year’s Inferno festival and the bar had been set ridiculously high for those who followed.

Words and Photos: Andy Pountney @shot_in_the_dark_photography2

Part 3