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Black Flames of Blasphemy II - Day 2 - 10/8/2011 - DOM - Helsinki

The second day is clear that is what people were looking forward to the most, in fact, when Valkyrja begins to play, there is already way more crowd than “day one”. I have seen these Swedish guys, part of them known also for playing in Ondskapt, in occasion of the Marduk and Ragnarok show about a year ago. They didn’t leave me a very positive impression back then and they haven’t progressed much in this sense, still being very similar to Watain both in the music and the attitude, but just resulting in a bad copy of the original. Live-wise, that is. The band is in fact somehow better on record, as their two full-lenght albums show, but still nothing particularly special.
Much more interesting results the following act, Kadotus (Finnish for “Damnation”), which it seems it hasn’t been playing live often, as there was quite some fans cheering for them. This was actually a damn nice band, and even their latest album, “Vaienneet Temppelit”, works well live. It’s one of those gigs that makes you wonder how come you haven’t heard of this band before, and makes you want to dig more into the Finnish black metal scene. This was a breath of fresh air compared to what was about to come.
Mare carefully sets up the right atmosphere for their imminent show. Too bad that includes total absence of stage lights, and only a few candles lightning glasses of wine in front of the drums! Their slow, repetitive, almost hypnotic songs makes it hard to get through the whole 45 minutes of their set without heading to the bar to get something to drink, which is, in fact, what I did. What started as a potentially interesting show became kind of boring towards the end, and at this point I was just waiting for the main acts to appear on stage.
But before that, there was still Anal Blasphemy, a name that says all. Their concert will be surely remembered not as much for the music as for the stripping performance of this girl who got on stage with a big bull’s skull, and then began to take off her clothes - while doing other nasty stuff like sucking on the cross held on the singer’s neck – dancing and showing off naked and covered in blood to the many pervs touching her all over and filming with their mobile phones.
If this wasn’t a good expedient to get people stick to the show, I don’t know what else it could be! The fact is that it was nearly impossible to move, and this “variation” suits perfectly well with their music. Just think that their last album is called “Profane Fornication Ejaculation”. Their black metal infused with death influences is anyway not as original as their gig, and very little is remembered from the songs, since most of the guys are busy trying to get blood on their face from the girl’s private parts. An outstanding example of bad taste.
Finally, the goodies start to come when the forefathers of Czech black metal Maniac Butcher gets their turn to make havoc inside DOM. Even with their impossible and incredibly long song titles, they do have a good control over the audience, thanks also to the good sound quality that exhalts their riffing. The singer did quite a good job himself in lighting the fire within the audience, which was now more than ready for Rotting Christ.
The main act of today, and most awaited band of the evening, practically made their fans go crazy, as testified by the bigger moshing of the weekend. Starting with the beginning of the last record, “Aealo”, and “Eon Aenaos”, the guys from Athens seemed to be in a pretty damn good shape, leaving very little time to breath between one song and another. Little matters that the gig started slightly later, or that the sound is at times a bit confused, everything is forgotten while “Fire Death And Fear” or “The Sign Of Prime Creation” ignites even more the atmosphere inside the venue, as the show ends with “Noctis Era”.
Too bad the overall impression is not that of an amazing gig, but maybe the expectations were a bit too high, and you have to take what you get. RC still do their job really well, and make it for an involving show, one of those that makes you want to get there in the middle and headbang like crazy. That can’t be bad.
Another band I was really waiting to see again is Behexen. Here too, as with Mare, the atmosphere is very dark and obscure, with all the guys wearing black ropes with the exception of the singer Torog, which proves himself as a really good performer once again. There is still a huge crowd when the Finnish guys are playing, showing their devotion to the local scene. It’s always nice to see how the audience cares for their own countrymen, especially when they are such a good act.
“My Soul For His Glory” is well represented in the set, even if the band doesn’t of course forget to provide their fans with some good old classics, all with a similar setting as Mortuary Drape, candles to the sides, and the victory of darkness, figuratively, and literally on stage. Behexen are indeed one of the most successful bands of this festival, but still this is not quite the end.
It’s time, in fact, for the last performers, and second Brazilian act of this Black Flames, Goatpenis. From the name you wouldn’t guess that the band is more about war and “guerrilla” in general, and I confess I haven’t been listening much to them even though they have more than 20 years of history behind.
The stage is set with mimetic nets, a mortar, and other peculiar props, as the guys wear balaclava masks and military clothes, of course. It’s a shame that the sound is a bit too loud, and I’m somehow puzzled by the synth vocals, but otherwise it seems quite a good band, and I will surely dig more into their music. The genre, revolving more towards brutal death, is maybe not quite what you’d expect at this point, and makes it more difficult to appreciate it at 2AM after two days of festival. I’d be curious to see again these guys with the right mindset, but for now it looks like they could have been somehow better.

As BFoB II meets its end, the conclusion is that of a really promising festival, which has found the right formula, and has still room for improvement. I personally think that 5-6 instead of 8 bands per day would have been more than enough, as it’s quite much for a single evening. Someone complained about the beer policy of the venue, but I guess that’s only to blame on the drinking habits of the Finnish audience. One or two high level foreign acts, together with “cult” and local bands is a very effective mix, the kind that is able to grab the attention of fans from abroad, and of bands coming from all over the world. With Hammer in the summer and Black Flames of Blasphemy in autumn, now what’s left is a good winter festival, and these guys will have all that’s needed to make a proper stand in the black metal community. Then Finland will be the new Norway.


Photos:
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Goatpenis


Behexen


Rotting Christ


Maniac Butcher


Anal Blasphemy


Mare


Kadotus


Valkyrja


Report a cura di Marco Manzi