INFERNO KICKOFF – Oslo – John Dee

The yearly Oslo metal tradition, since 2001, goes by the name of Inferno Festival and lately with its kick off party concert during which the full lineup is announced. This is an occasion for listening to some extreme music, either played live on the John Dee stage or decided by the evening’s DJ, plus meeting a bunch of known faces that you haven’t seen since the last big metal event in town. All in all, a cool and cozy evening in a real metal style. Unfortunately I had to miss the first of the bands on stage, Oslo Faenskap, as prior to the kick off I attended other two concerts, including one of the most beautiful mini release concert, by Hoist. From what I was told, Oslo Faenskap played a metal cover of ‘I like to move it, move it’, which must have been really interesting to watch live. Next time.

Up next, the stage is in the hands of Iskald, a Bodø based band who precisely perform a clean and cool sounding black metal that I found pretty enjoyable to the ears. Not much of a show to watch, but the cool melodic guitar parts and their attitude made it to be a cool performance, and actually it turned out to be my favorite that evening. That’s because the next two bands failed to make a better impression. Nidingr’s mix of everything that sounds brutal made the live performance hard to digest. I’m guessing they have a lot of technical parts that might make more sense after you have listened to their albums, but since I haven’t, I didn’t really know what to make of the blend of black, death and punk. The last band of the evening, Koldbrann, came out to present their latest release, Vertigo, but also to entertain the black metal fans with some old and classic tunes and spice them up with some Russian Vodka. Wearing face paint and looking and headbanging like a real black metal band should, Koldbrann did offer a new reprise of non genuine Norwegian Black Metal, which ended a very successful and loud Kick Off party. I must say I was very
impressed to see how many people showed up for the shows.

The 2013 Inferno lineup was announced in the break between Iskald and Nidingr. It’s a mix of old and new names, a mix of styles, from the blackest of metal to almost rock’n’roll (take Chrome Division for example). One of the best responses from the crowd came when Solefald was announced, so I’m hoping for a full Rockefeller when the band performs on Saturday. To my surprise, some of the coolest bands have been scheduled for the Club Day, which is the Wednesday before the festival. On one hand you have the killer lineup made of Dark Essence records bands that will perform at Blå and on the other hand you have an even more killer lineup at DeVille’s with some of the coolest Norwegian thrash bands of the moment: Exeloume, Ninth Circle and Imbalance. I’m also glad to get to see Dark Funeral live or Satyricon ending the festival and unleashing the crowd. I’m curious how many people will John Dee manage to fit when it comes to Saint Vitus playing at midnight on Saturday and also who the last headliner for Friday is.

The full lineup with band descriptions and presentations can be found on the festival’s webpage or here at Eternal Terrors own Inferno page and one can only look forward for the Easter weekend now, the pre and after parties at hotel Christiania and the musical treats at Rockefeller and John Dee. See you there!