Inferno Festival - Rockefeller, John Dee Oslo, Norway 9/3/23 ⋆ Ave Noctum

Easter Sunday began with a walk around the Oslo Opera House and the waterfront area, before catching up with a couple of friends over a beer before heading down to the venue in time for Urgehal.

They were, of course, a big name in the Norwegian underground Black Metal scene until the tragic death of the key figure Trondr Nefas back in 2012.

The remaining members completed work on the album but eventually called in a day four years later. However, the band was resurrected in 2022 with the intention of playing a select few lives shows to honour Trondr’s memory, and Inferno was one of these shows.

So, with a degree of poignancy to the show which was reinforced by a banner above the drum set with a picture of Trondr and a dedication to him, Urgehal exploded onto the stage. Morten Shax was initially on vocals and the band were aggressive and confrontational as they tore through ‘Antireligiøs’ and ‘Dødsmarsj til helvete’.

Frequent pyros further added to the effect as one unholy black metal sermon led into another. Midway through there was a change of vocalist with Sorath Northgrove taking over the reins bringing a different effect, but no let up in intensity or flames!

The band were decked out with corpse paint and the obligatory arm spikes but perhaps the most striking was Enzifer who wore his trademark mask with protruding spikes throughout the set. This was gnarly, snarling, nasty black metal, exactly as it should be.

Downstairs, John Dee was absolutely rammed for the Danish enigma Afsky. From the outset, their atmospheric black metal had the packed crowd captivated. When melodic they were serene, but when they played the heavier sections it was a dense, almost impenetrable, wall of noise.

As the set built, the atmosphere in the room grew more and more intense as the walls seemed to close in on the claustrophobic space. Sorrowful and melancholic yet delicate, while being oppressively heavy.

It’s not often you say this, but New Orleans’s Crowbar sounded light weight in comparison as they took to the Rockefeller stage and opened with ‘High Rate Extinction’ and ‘Fixation’.

Their sludgy tomes eddied around the venue, causing it to vibrate to its very foundations, although it was noticeable that the crowd was somewhat depleted. Despite this, those in attendance were lapping up every brooding riff, head banging in unison, until the set was brought to a close with ‘Like Broken Glass’.

The sludge/doom/stoner end of the spectrum is not my usual cup of tea, but recent live encounters with Crowbar have been winning me over and I found myself enjoying their set, and I found it to be relaxing as it washed over me!

Once more, I dragged myself down to John Dee, this time for Hometown act Fleshmeadow. For some reason, although I knew the name, I wasn’t familiar with their material prior to the festival but based on this performance I need to rectify this as a matter of urgency.

Opening with new song ‘The End of Everything’ the band laid waste to the crowd with the extreme metal. As ‘Polemos’ and ‘Winds’ flew by I found myself contemplating what genre they fall under, and decided that it was tough to categorise with elements of technical death metal, old school death metal and black metal all being present. At one point, I even found myself drawing a comparison with Gojira.

The band had an absolutely huge sound as they rampaged through their set until it was pulled to a close with ‘Long March’. I suspect Fleshmeadow made a lot of new friends during their brief set, and I count myself in those numbers.

Uada had been sitting pretty near the top of my “must see” list for the festival and I had been telling pretty much everyone that I spoke with that they needed to make sure they were in Rockefeller when the Americans took to the stage. Last time they played Inferno was back in 2018 when they were on the smaller John Dee stage and in my review I said “The band proceeded to unleash an immense display of flawless black metal, raising the bar for every other band at the festival, that few managed to reach”. Understandably, I was excited about this performance.

After a long ambient intro tape, the band appeared as hooded figures in silhouette against cosmic backdrops and opened with the awesome ‘Djinn’. The melodic, groove laden black metal resonated around Rockefeller with a decent sized crowd seeming to grow with each track.

‘The Great Mirage’ and ‘In the Absence of Matter’ followed as the crowd were transfixed. This was melodic to its core, but it was still aggressive and a full on black metal assault. There was no interaction with the crowd, but none was needed, allowing the music to speak for itself. This was a superb masterclass in contemporary black metal.

Vredehammer had been due to play next, but they sadly had to pull out shortly before the festival. Thankfully, the mighty Slegest were available to fill in with their melodic yet abrasive “sinister heavy rock”.

‘Maler lys i mørketid’ and ‘Undergangens tankesmed’ sounded massive with the boisterous crowd and band in good spirits. Early on, the crowd were asked whether they’d prefer to be spoken to in English or Norwegian…….”Norsk!” was the unanimous response causing the band to smile, before conversing in Norsk, at least temporarily.

The music had a pulsating groove, with a black n’ roll feel to it in places and the set flew by until they closed with ‘Wolf’. I’ve seen Slegest a few times but this was by far the best, and I think the crowd would agree judging by the party atmosphere in the room.

Things took a slightly more serious turn upstairs in Rockefeller for the mighty Abbath, who surely needs no introduction.

Taking to the stage with “flashbangs’ the band launched into an abrasive version of Immortal track ‘Triumph’ followed by I’s ‘Batallion’. With the exception of ‘The Storm I Ride’ towards the end of the set, the band then stuck purely to Abbath material with all three albums being well represented.

Although the band looked to be enjoying themselves, they looked more serious than I recall with a sense urgency that perhaps had been missing in recent years resulting in a tight, gnarly sound. During ‘Harvest Pyre’, Abbath temporarily left the stage, to return with a flaming torch before doing his obligatory fire breathing’s which received one of the biggest cheers of the festival.

A few songs later and the set came to a close with an awesome ‘Winterbane’, and just like that my festival was over for another year.

This year’s Inferno had been an absolute blast. There had been some intense sets performed by an amazing line up of bands, covering the whole spectrum of extreme metal, but Inferno is about more than just the music and yet again the whole experience was one to be remembered. I’ve already bought my early bird ticket for next year and I can’t wait to get back and do it all again.