SOEN – Oslo – 24.02.2026

A dark February Tuesday evening in Oslo is not an easy day to fill up a venue, especially that most days of the first few months of this year have been filled with fantastic events in Oslo. Yet, the Swedes in Soen and the two support acts managed a very nice crowd at Rockefeller and they delivered an exceptionally energetic show which is surely worthy of a sold out label. They worked hard to get here and hope next time it’ll be a full mad house.

Before Soen though, we were delighted with pure prog joy from another Swedish act, Vulkan. For me, it was love a first song. I haven’t felt a wow vibe since I first listened to Rishloo, so now I’m basically hooked and going to spend a lot of time listening to this act. The singer was so damn spot on among the complex arrangements of guitars and bands and all those small cool gimmicks all over the place. Yes, more of such cool support acts please. As it happens often, the support acts only get like half of the stage so that the changeover for the main act is reduced to the minimum, but that also makes it feel like they could use even more room to sound more massive. So many layers, so many goodies and they surely need a lot of spins to be untangled. I couldn’t make out what they sing about, so that will be another layer I’m curious to discover. And given I have seen a couple of fans singing along and headbanging to the rhythm, I can only hope there’ll be more fans to justify their own headlining show in the near future.

The next support act were the German symphonic metal band Xandria, led by the captivating Ambre Vourvahis and her impressive singing skills. She goes from rock bits, to high pitched screams, to operatic parts and even growls. It sounded ever so nicely at all times. My brain didn’t want to switch to any interest for the symphonic metal as I was still under the spell of Vulkan. And while I found myself moving along Xandria’s tunes, I can’t recall anything but the beautiful voice. And she did a guest appearance later with Soen for the song Hollowed, and she nailed that one too.

Now, Soen was certainly nice to see them with their own stage show and setup that seemed way more massive. The drumkit was decorated with two huge black flags, there were several ‘vertical smoke’ machines that blew these white smoke funnels like shape high into the air and most of the floor of the stage was covered in smoke. The overall visuals were rather eerie and dramatic, well sustained by several of Joel’s outfits, either in his dark leather jacket, tailcoat, military coat or just a regular tshirt. I am not familiar with their newest release – which was the one promoted on this tour – so I couldn’t always connect the outfit with what ideas were being transmitted. But I know they were quite visual. Yet, the band didn’t bother with anything else too fancy, except a very nice lightshow to match their rhythm.

One thing I noticed with Soen’s sound since I first heard them many years ago is that they invest into more heaviness and in your face kind of sounds and songs with each album, leaving less room for ballad like pieces. Not a bad thing, because Joel surely gives it all when he sings, no matter if it’s slow or at a faster pace. But it made the show felt more galloping than before and it was actually nice to interrupt it a bit with slower parts like Hollowed or Lotus. And their guilty pleasure, Lascivious.

Guitar parts were swiftly executed and mr Lopez behind the drums could have sometimes just be placed in front of the other musicians, given how central his role is in the music. As I said, I’m yet to get acquainted with the band’s recent release, “Reliance” and I missed some of the old stuff being performed live. But that didn’t make the show any less enjoyable and I am glad I got to witness it live and also get some good energy from the crazy fans int he front rows, whose necks were about to break due headbanging. To more Soen shows to come \m/