The fourth and last day of Inferno had Watain as the headliner, but we got many other musical highlights. To me, Rotting Christ from Greece was a positive surprise, the same with the Norwegian veterans Gehenna. I also saw and heard the FInnish band Oranssi Pazuzu, Black Witchery and Tulus. (Picture above: Blodstrup from Tulus)

Gehenna was my first band this night. They have existed since 1993, and are one of the veterans of the Norwegian black metal scene. Their singer and guitarist Sanrabb is the only founding member left, and he is the natural center on stage. Their music is classic black metal, but they have also had strong elements of symphonic black metal and death metal in their music. A grand opening of the night for me.

My next band this night was Tulus. They started two years before Gehenna, and their only original member is singer and guitarist Blodstrup. Tulus is an interesting band, but being a trio, they become a bit more monotonous than the other bands I heard that have one more guitarist. But Tulus is tight and hard and did a good concert.

After Tulus I went down to John Dee to see a band that was highly recommended to me, Oranssi Pazuzu. They are Finnish, and play experimental, psychedelic metal, with two keyboardists together with the standard guitar, bass and drums. What I heard was good, interesting and with great variety in dynamics and sound, but I must admit I refer the more straight forward bands.

Rotting Christ from Greece was next out at Rockefeller, and they were the evenings first surprise to me. I knew nothing about them from before, and they gave us a set that was hard, energetic, and with some guitarist posing that reminded me more of heavy metal guitarists than black metal. Their songs are also flirting with heavy metal aesthetics, but all together their set was  just what I needed after three and a half night with music. The band has existed since 1987.

Black Witchery from Florida, USA was next at John Dee. As with many other black metal bands, they are also concerned with occultism, satanism and death. So be it, but their music didn’t hit me as much as Rotting Christ and Gehenna, so I went back up to Rockefeller to wait for Watain.

Watain closed the Inferno festival this year, and you can see more pictures from that concert on another blog post.

Gehenna

Gehenna

Tulus

Oranssi Pazuzu

Rotting Christ

Rotting Christ

Rotting Christ

Rotting Christ

Rotting Christ

Black Witchery

All pictures are © Per Ole Hagen and must not be used without written permission.