SLOMOSA – live at Rockefeller
- Posted on 20-12-2025
Full photo gallery here:
Text and photos by Andrea Chirulescu
For my part, the last live event of 2025 happened to be SLOMOSA’s sold out show at Rockefeller on Thursday, December 18th. It was three days after landing from a long holiday so my jetlag tagged along and got to enjoy the shows too. The opening show was held by the Sami rooter metalcore/doom/stoner mix Nagirčalmmiid. I have recently watched them live at Høstsabbat, as a duo. And I remember saying that it was too bad that the drummer had to sit on his chair, else both him and the main vocalist/guitarist would have moved around constantly. Luckily, for Rockefeller, they became a quartet and a second guitarist with intense stage show made for a lot of intensity during their 30-40 minutes performance. I still cannot make up my mind about the first few songs as I couldn’t figure them out musically. But after that I put the camera down and watched them from the crowd and once the guy behind the drums started to also sing and growl, it all became really interesting. With a clear touch of punk and some core-style, the more beautiful compositions stood out and felt more compact and appealing. And we even had a piece which I believe is inspiring by joiking, which was really touching. All in all, it was quite a powerful show to watch and I believe there is plenty of room for the four band members to build something that will make them a crowd’s favorite in short time and feel more compact and well oiled together. They are very young kids with lots of potential and I’ll make sure to stop by their shows in the future as I’m curious which way they go from here.
With a recent local Grammy award (Spellemann prize) for their “Tundra Rock” album, Bergen’s based band Slomosa is riding some cool waves lately. I’ve also just seen them this year at Desertfest (I believe) and they made quite the impression then. So I couldn’t leave all expectations aside for this evening, yet the band was nothing short of amazing. They performed as a 5 piece band, with one guitarist placed a bit more in the background. But the front ‘strings trio’, with Benjamin Berdous on vocals and guitar, Maria Moe on bass and Tor Erik Bye on guitar are delivering each note with all the power and adrenaline that they built up for this show. And it’s quickly visible how much the crowd loved the intensity that is so well marked with a great lightshow and projections on the big backdrop. This is indeed the show of a band that sells out a venue like Rockefeller.
I’m yet to digest their “Tundra Rock” better, as I liked the few spins I gave it. But, even if the band has been around for less than 10 years, I think they have already composed some lovely hits that certainly stick with you after their concerts and you pretty much always want to go back and listen to them when you come across the band on streaming platforms. And those hits were well known and liked by the crowd, leading to some cool interactions at times. This concert was all good mood with an intense musical background. Sadly, once I moved towards the back of the venue, it was almost impossible to move back closer to the stage as it was really really packed. Which I find to be quite the achievement for Slomosa. So big congratulations for this! And thank you for offering me a very pleasant ending of the 2025 concert season! Let’s see what’s in the magic hat for the year to come!