Il portale della musica Heavy Metal

Steelfest Open Air 2015 - 5/15/2015 - Villatehdas - Hyvinkää (FI)

Steelfest had once again the honor of opening many people’s festival summer, being so early in May and all. Despite this there was some very sunny and warm (at least on a Finnish scale) weather during the day, even if people were freezing come nightfall. Everything worked again well on the organizer’s side, with a crucial change for the better since last year: indoor restrooms! This included unlimited free water straight from the tap, fixing my greatest complaint last year. Kudos!

The fourth Steelfest had three gigs that were far apart from the rest, but more about them later. I managed to catch a glimpse of Satanic Warmaster just before they ended their set, the vocals were mainly the thing that caught my attention. Next up was the German Mor Dagor who failed to make a lasting impression despite some good elements and attitude. The first death metal act of the day, Vorum, looked badass drenched in blood, but despite a good and heavy sound they got too monotonous towards the end. Another boring act was Evil Angel, with too many blinking lights and studded diapers (wtf?).

Next up was by far the best act of Friday: Demilich. This legendary Finnish technical as fuck death metal band has had quite a few last gigs ever, but it’s hard to care about that when they work so amazingly well live. Antti Boman’s vocals were just as otherworldly guttural as expected, and the precision of the band’s playing was shattering. Following the day’s best act was the worst, Temnozor. The ear-raping pipe playing on top of generic riffs was enough to make the gig shit.

Friday was wrapped up by first Unleashed who kept to their viking roots, with Asgård smiling on them while they blasted their epic metal. The evening darkened as people gathered indoors to see Dark Funeral. They had the coolest stage props so far, and their furious music enraptured the masses, a strong close to the first day.

Saturday was a rather heavy day personally, with the word of a death in the family coming just minutes before heading out to Hyvinkää. Fortunately, the first act I caught was the second best of the festival: Torture Killer. I fully expected them to completely slay, and of course they did. The way they combine total brutality with an immense groove, which makes it really hard to listen to them standing still, is as far as I know surpassed by none. The highlight of the gig was the massive “I Chose Death”, a totally killer song. It was kinda disadvantageous to play after them. The always nigh-perfectly playing Sotajumala didn’t really sound like anything after the groovy flow of TK, with their exact blastbeats mostly sounding boring.

The Greek death metal act Dead Congregation was very promising, but suffered a lot from muddy mixing, with most of the leads being inaudible. Moonsorrow, playing indoors, didn’t suffer the same fate. They were very aware of their audience, and they played a lot more black metal set compared to the usual epic larp feeling they go for.

The second to last band was the main one for me. It was amazing seeing the Dutch death metal legends Asphyx live and loud. They also suffered from bad mixing at first, but luckily by the time “M.S. Bismarck” rolled in everything was nice and brutal. Martin van Drunen’s inimitable vocals combined with their signature cross of Death and Doom made for a gig to remember. By the time the closing act, Nokturnal Mortum, rolled on, I was barely able to appreciate their unique sound due to festival fatigue.

There was again for my taste way too much generic black metal, but the three great death metal gigs were so good Steelfest again left me eagerly awaiting next year.

Check out the all the photo galleries from the event at the event by clicking on the following image (all photos by Marco Manzi):



Report a cura di Markus Karppinen