02 - 05 December 2015, Brussels, Atelier 210 + Magasin 4

Circumstances couldn’t have been much more complicated for the final edition of NIDROSIAN BLACK MASS. Following the terrorist attacks in Paris and the identification of Brussels as the epicenter of terrorism in Europe, the whole city was put under massive surveillance by the authorities, resulting in several concerts and events being cancelled in the days before the fest. On the social networks you could see fear spreading even among the death-defying ticket holders, resulting in endless discussions about the safety of the event and several people cancelling their trips to Belgium. Suddenly the apocalyptic leanings in the announcement of „an ending in fire“ seemed very real. 

Wednesday, 02/12/2015

Luckily, the organizers never showed the shadow of a doubt that the show would take place and when I arrive in Brussels on wednesday, there’s no tension tension in the air. From what I can see, the city is pretty much back in normal state, which means the streets are packed with cars and people. Due to the heavy traffic, I arrive at the venue - the first night takes place at Atelier 2010, a nice old theater with even some of the old seats left inside - just in time to witness CULT OF FIRE start into their set. Watching this band perform on elf their rituals is literally and otherworldly experience. The stage props are even more opulent than at their legendary release show in Essen: Millions of candles, skulls and bones, the smell of incense fills the air all the way back to the entrance door. There’s no need talking about the incredible music the czech horde has created as anyone reading this should be familiar with their records - seeing the black-robed band play those hymns live is a totally different beast and certainly one of the most exciting experiences contemporary Black Metal has to offer. NBM V couldn’t start any better. 

Stating that Iceland has one of the most interesting Black Metal scenes in the world is pretty old news. MISþYRMING received a lot of attention following the release of their debut record „Söngvar elds og óreiðu“ - and rightfully so. Their music deserves to be heard and the performance tonight underlines this fact. Furious and with an unstoppable will to deliver their message, the four men rage through their set, bringing the enormous vitality of their music directly to the stage as well as the complex, technical-yet-melodic guitar work which makes the stand out from most bands on their field. 

Germany’s DROWNED are next and I have to admit that, though having noticed the attention their album „Idola specus“ got, I am not familiar with their music at all. What I see at Atelier 210 is a dedicated performance of punishing, goddamn heavy Death Metal that wouldn’t feel misplaced at all on a bill with the likes of Incantation or Grave Miasma. Unfortunately, the guitar drowns a little bit in the all consuming sound of the bass guitar, making it hard to figure out the riffs. Nonetheless, this is a no-bullshit punch in the face, executed by three gentlemen in black who son’t feel any need to conform to any scene dress code. Nice.

Iceland, the second: As SVARTIDAUðI enter the stage, the first thing I notice is - they are not masked anymore. The beast is showing its true face and it’s a face of brutality, hate and ugliness. SVARTIDAUðI’s songs are mountains made of sharp, dissonant guitars, raspy vocals, complex drum patterns and an overall feeling of hostility and alienation. Being able to see the fire in the eyes of the musicians makes the whole experience even more intense. There are a few sound problems here and there tonight but the possessed performance totally makes up for it. SVARTIDAUðI cement their status as one of the most important newer Black Metal bands. 

Speaking of possessed performances, the name ONE TAIL, ONE HEAD certainly shoots through your mind. The first „Nidrosian“ Band on the bill, OTOH take no prisoners at all. Their straight-forward, fist-pumping Black Metal is made for a live setting and the pure fury of the performance is just impressive. Luctus is a maniacal frontman pushing his band as well as the audience to the limit all the time and so, even though I don’t listen to their stuff a lot on record, i find this a highly entertaining show - with an abrupt ending though. Halfway through the last song, the sound is turned off as the band hits the curfew at midnight. OTOH continue playing the song with just the drums being audible to the audience before they leave. A for effort!

Time to head back to our apartment and get some sleep for the coming days. This is just the beginning. 

Thursday, 03/12/2015

Spending a nice, sunny day in Brussels isn’t the worst way to kill time waiting for the Magasin 4 to open its gates. With the venue right across the canal from our apartment block, this is probably the most comfortable and relaxing festival experience ever - if terms like „comfortable" and „relaxing“ don’t fail to conform to the kvlt codex, that is. However, taking a walk by the water looking for something to eat, it becomes evident really quickly that, despite the perfectly blue December sky, some pitch black clouds are gathering around the area. Black-clad folks are lurking around the street corners and on the rooftop terraces of pricey apartment buildings and even the ships on the canal right behind the Magasin 4 wear Black Metal compatible names today as documented in the picture section of this post. 

The first band of tonight are Russia’s PSEUDOGOD. A thick, black wall of blackened Death is what I see and hear from the back of the room. I liked „Deathwomb Catechism“ and I like PSEUDOGOD’s performance here - nothing more, nothing less.

If you listen to a lot of Black Metal, you’ll probably face a certain feeling of redundancy here and there as this particular music can get quite repetitive with bands all sounding alike. Fortunately, there are some exceptions, and even more fortunately Ole and Leslie are very good at spotting them. NEGATIVE PLANE are definitely NOT your average genre band. Their way way of blending impressive technicality and really unusual harmonies into their Black Metal without compromising on the atmosphere of their music is unique. Especially the guitar playing of Nameless Void is  extremely impressive and reveals more more details and musical ideas than the majority of the scene. There are no stage props, costumes or visual effects distracting from the three men playing their songs, the sound is excellent and everyone’s happy.

The paring of Black Metals most important „new“ band MGLA and Mikko Aspa’s controversial one-man outfit CLANDESTINE BLAZE is certainly one of the most anticipated events of the whole festival. Everyone should have noticed that MGLA represent the bleeding edge of Black Metal when it comes to quality and songwriting. Their last two albums „Exercises in futility“ and „With hearts toward none“ are genre classics already, their sense of catchiness while maintaining as uncompromisingly dark and sinister as anything is unparalleled. As always, the four men enter the stage with masked faces, wearing a uniform of Black hoodies and leather jackets - faceless phantoms unleashing a maelstrom of razor sharp riffs and haunting melodies, ferocious blasts and neck-breaking uptempo passages. There’s a stoicism in the performance that makes the musicians appear as mere vessels for the sounds sent right form the blackest void. Stunning. 

MGLA leave the stage after an exhausting 45 minute set, only to return after a short break, this time accompanied by Aspa, whose face is just as masked as those of the band. Together, they perform songs from the huge catalog of amazing CLANDESTINE BLAZE songs. Aspa’s stage presence is intimidating, and MGLA treat the much more primitive material very well. An abrasive and in-your-face performance which finds its highlight in the programmatic „Fist of the northern destroyer“. A very special performance, indeed. 

URFAUST are one of the very few really unique bands in all of metal. Their stage setup is just as singular as their release politics, their approach to merchandise and presentation and first and foremost their sound. IX’s howling vocals and meditative guitar playing, VRDRBRS drumming - you haven’t heard anything like it from any other band, have you? Tonight’s ritual of intoxication is just as unforgettable as always. URFAUST really manage to make space and time become completely irrelevant for the time of their playing. If there’s any point of criticism at all, it would be that, despite having a quite impressive body of work to chose from, the dutch duo plays very similar playlists at each of their rituals but hey, who really cares?

When URFAUST finish their set around 10 pm I head back „home“ early tonight. Stoked for day 3? You fucking bet!

Friday, 04/12/2015

Thursday ended with unique duo, Friday starts with one. Switzerland’s BÖLZER have gotten an enormous amount of praise for their two EPs „Aura“ and „Soma“ as well as for their live performances - and they deserve every bit of it. BÖLZER’s ability to unleash a swirling, ravishing storm of riffs, drums, roars and chants that consumes everything within its reach with just a guitar and a drumset is every bit as impressive as ever, no matter how often you’ve seen these guys live. KzR doesn’t simply play his music, it’s like there’s a primal force breathing through him and materializing as sound. What a fucking great start for the day. 

It’s exactly one week ago when I last saw NIGHTBRINGER live and as you may have read in these unholy pages it was in front of an almost empty room, which makes even the best band appear a little lost on stage. Seeing them in front of a full venue at Nidrosian Black Mass is a stark contrast in every regard. Here, NIGHTBRINGER’s essence comes to full effect and Ar-ra’ad Al-Iblis conducts the ceremony with utter sovereignty. Every gesture, every howling scream sits exactly in the right place. Again, there are some sound problems resulting in nasty feedbacks and hardly decipherable guitars here and there, but anyway. NIGHTBRINGER remain one of the most exciting bands in all of Black Metal. Period.

I miss NYOGTHAEBLISZ due to some urgent goat worshipping obligations and return to the venue just in time to witness the arrival of Finland’s bestial Black Metal horde No.1, ARCHGOAT. I’m not really the biggest fan of this particular subgenre but if there is a band worthy of playing at a handpicked festival as this one (besides the almighty godfathers to appear right afterwards) it must be these face-painted maniacs. And ARCHGOAT deliver. Clearly a crowd favorite, judging from the amount of raised fists and „Archgoat!“ shouts, the three-piece hammers its ultra-primitive hymns of perversion and blasphemy right in our faces and you just can’t help but bang your fucking head to this orgy of barbarism. The Hammer of Satan, indeed.

But everything witnessed before is just a prelude to the arrival of the one and only: BLASPHEMY. The announcement of the genre-founding legend as a replacement for the dissolved Antaeus caused some excitement among those lucky enough to attend and when the Ross Bay Cult finally takes over, there’s no holding back. „Prepare to be bent backwards and broken“, the advertisement said. And damn, never was an announcement so true. Call it War Metal, call it Bestial Black Metal: This is the real deal. 4 monstrous, massive men, an Inferno of unrelenting blasts and absolutely face-ripping, world-devouring riffs. Their armor of leather, spikes and bullet belts alone is heavier than your shitty band will ever be. BLASPHEMY’s show is a revelation, a cathartic experience that leaves you with the feeling of just being run over bei a tank division. And those who manage to maintain some clarity in their heads will notice that the riffs by Caller Of The Storms aren’t as simple as you probably think. All hail BLASPHEMY!

You need a moment to recover from this aural and visual assault and MARE & LAMIA VOX take their time to set up the stage for the show that perhaps embodies the term „Nidrosian Black Mass“ most accurately. MARE are without doubt the most mysterious and most promising of the Nidrosian bands and for tonight they have prepared something special - a collaboration with Russian ritual ambient artist LAMIA VOX. When all candelabras are finally lit up, the ritual starts with the droning sounds coming from the notebook of the black-haired woman hiding behind the moniker and it takes a few minutes before MARE enter the stage and kick off with their traditional, eerie Black Metal sound. HBM Azazil represents the diabolic sacral nature of MARE in an almost unreal way. There’s a mysterious aura surrounding this band and there’s a hypnotic. meditative quality to their music you don’t find that often these days - even without the support of LAMIA VOX. The ambient sounds and ghostly whispers of the Russian connect the songs throughout the gig which results in a little lengthiness now and then. Apart from that, this is a supreme ritual of necromancy performed with extreme sincerity and dedication. 

It’s hard to believe that three out of four days of the final Nidrosian Black Mass are already over, but that’s how it is, tempus fugit. Prepare to end it all on Saturday.

Saturday, 05/12/2015

The first in the row of bands chosen to end it all today are Iceland’s SINMARA. I think their debut record „Aphotic womb“ is one of the most exciting Black Metal releases in recent years and so I was really looking forward to their performance at Nidrosian Black Mass. And SINMARA don’t disappoint - but they don’t make me freak out completely neither. Without any unnecessary amount of action, the band plays through their set, the awesome songs suffering a bit from the kind of muddy sound. Not bad, but there’s still some potential left.

Speaking of live presentation, AOSOTH are on a completely different level. Not only do the frenchmen know how to use lighting and a very tasteful stage decoration with B. Vierling designed Banners to full effect, they also present themselves as arguably the most active, ferociously headbanging band of the whole festival. There’s an enormous amount of confidence speaking from AOSOTH’s stage acting, allowing them to win over the audience in seconds. Their music speaks for itself of course, French Black Metal of the highest order. Definitely a highlight!

I don’t watch LVCIFYRE for…reasons, but I’m back at the venue just in time for THE RUINS OF BEVERAST. The Germans have become a regular guest on the stages of the Metal world in the last two years - and I’m happy they have. There is simply no other band sounding alike, the pitch black, massive wave of death and despair the men around Alexander von Meilenwald kick loose buries everything underneath. TROB’s music lies heavy on the heart like a stone. As always, the minimalistic stage show and lighting support the all-consuming atmosphere of the music in a perfect manner. When THE RUINS OF BEVERAST are playing, nothing else in the world exists anymore. Awesome. 

Back to reality, I use the break to talk some shit and drink some beer before DARK SONORITY play their first gig ever. I can virtually see my kvlt-level dropping a few points admitting that I haven’t been aware of the Nidrosian outfit’s excellence until shortly before the fest. Shame on me, their record „Kaosrekviem“ contains some of the finest traditional Black Metal I have heard in a very long time and tonight’s ritual is a perfect celebration of this amazing music. Throwing in some songs of the band’s predecessor, Kaosritual, DARK SONORITY deliver exactly the kind of Black Metal i love. Bleak, harsh yet painfully beautiful, presented by face-painted, black-robed guys reading the lyrics from an occult book on a music stand (!). You might call me immature, but this is what initially drove me to this music and will forever fascinate me enough to write lengthy articles about this kind of stuff on some shitty blog. Together with Wednesday’s opening performance by Cult Of Fire, this show forms a perfect bracket for these four days of debauchery and devotion.

I don’t want to have this unique feeling blown away by electronic beats, so I leave before PERTUBATOR starts. Sorry, folks. 

Consummatum est.

Nidrosian Black Mass has come full circle.

What happened in Brussels in these last four days really was an ending in fire and there’s nothing left to say besides: Thank you, Ole and Leslie, for creating something that was legendary already before it started and will live forever in the memories of those who witnessed.

Now and forever. Death to false devotion!

Vernichtungsschmerz