DARK MATTER WEBZINE’S TOP PICKS FOR INFERNO FESTIVAL 2025

Encompassing everything from the monumental, weightily pulverising grooves and icily visceral fretwork of national genre icons Satyricon to the eerily transporting, balletic spectacle of Portuguese visionaries Gaerea through to the lacerating yet ornately configured ritualistic orchestrations of Batushka, Inferno Festival has once again gifted us with a musical event of endlessly diabolical and darkly absorbing proportions. With barely 24 hours to go before Oslo’s iconic Rockefeller Music Hall is once again packed to the proverbial rafters with the most prestigious names in extreme music, Dark Matter presents just a handful of our most hotly anticipated forthcoming highlights…

SATYRICON

Like the sweepingly majestic, snow-capped fjords and primordial peaks of their jaw-droppingly picturesque native homeland, Satyricon’s influence on the iconic yet ever-evolving musical landscape of Norwegian black metal is one of indelibly enduring and timeless proportions. With its genre-shattering intermingling of dissonant, icily visceral riffing structures, ornately entwining pre-Renaissance instrumentation and morbidly entrancing atmospherics, now-iconic 1992 debut ‘Dark Medieval Times’ established the then-teenaged duo as an immeasurably vicious and sonically intrepid powerhouse of a musical entity. And from the humongous, blackly contorting riffage and intensely corrosive guitar leads of 1996 classic ‘Nemesis Divina’ through to the gargantuan expanses of rumbling, obsidian-hued groove that reside in monumental 2012 opus ‘The Age of Nero’ and ‘Deep Calleth Upon Deep’s’ intoxicating blend of densely muscled riffery and ghoulishly opulent operatic flourishes, theirs is a staggeringly expansive body of work. Having long been defined by a lawlessly instinctive approach to composition together with an immeasurable passion for their craft, the Oslo-based duo’s equally stellar reputation as a notoriously blistering live entity has seen the pair perform an ever-expanding host of utterly riveting headlining shows and festival slots, together with a storied performance alongside the Norwegian National Opera back in 2013. With their most recent touring cycle now well underway alongside fellow genre heavyweights Behemoth and Rotting Christ, Inferno 2025 sees this national treasure of a black metal band make a long-overdue return to their beloved home city in a triumphant headlining set of civilisation-levelling proportions.

SETH

“The wounds of the soul are eternal,” proclaimed bitingly visceral yet endlessly entrancing black metal horde Seth on their now-iconic 1998 debut ‘Les Blessures De l'Ame.’ Indeed, in the 27 years that have elapsed since the unleashing of this delectably sinister, obsidian-hued slab, the fairly unrelenting tide of world conflicts, natural disasters, epidemics and innumerable acts of unspeakable brutality that have come to pass in recent decades abundantly illustrates the lasting and immeasurable damage humanity is capable of inflicting upon itself. And for this uniquely insightful and genre-defying French collective, their own nation’s notoriously brutal legacy of poverty-stricken oppression and blood-drenched political uprising runs exceptionally deep, its lasting and indelible scars enduring well into the equally turbulent and precarious modern era in which we presently find ourselves. With these historic atrocities being inherently aligned with the ever-stifling influence of organised religion, Seth’s seven-album back catalogue has long been rich with a plethora of haunting sepulchral imagery and ethereal atmospheres spanning everything from sumptuously ornate orchestral flourishes to airily entrancing lashings of traditional church choirs. With the sweepingly expansive arches and heaven-grazing spires of Paris’s iconic Notre D’Ame cathedral serving as a richly symbolic metaphor for the incalculable power wielded by an endlessly corrupt and oppressive Catholic church, 2021’s ‘La Morsure du Christ’ comprised a lacerating yet breathtakingly intricate slab of haunting, atmospheric brilliance. Having gathered ever-increasing creative momentum since unveiling this ghoulishly absorbing tour de force, the band unleashed follow-up opus ‘La France des Maudits’ back in the summer of 2024. Containing a fresh host of elegantly unfurling symphonic trappings and insanely paced episodes of bone-shattering sonic extremity fused together in a breathtaking feat of genre-obliterating sonic alchemy, Seth’s now-imminent return to Inferno Festival promises a darkly intoxicating feast of post-apocalyptic carnage.

GAEREA

With its macabre assortment of ghoulish corpse-paint, morbidly inclined imagery and relentlessly wintry, tremolo-stricken sonic frequencies, black metal has long been inherently aligned with the very bleakest and most tortured recesses of the human psyche. But where many a pentagram-sporting pretender may have flirted with these now-ubiquitous trappings and accoutrements of the proverbial ‘dark side’, precious few so thoroughly inhabit these deathly, transcendental energies with the soul-bearing authenticity exhibited by mesmerising Portuguese aggressors Gaerea. Melding together sound barrier-shattering extremes of frantically careening acceleration and intensely visceral, frost-stricken riffage together with a wondrously sinister host of nightmarish atmospherics, apocalyptic banger ‘Salve’ saw the band quite literally implode onto the underground extreme scene ahead of the release of stunning 2022 opus ‘Mirage’. Vividly manifested in the form of a meticulously orchestrated stage show that combines the most agile and fluidly balletic of motions with a frenzied energy that audibly reverberates with existential torment, the masked collective rapidly forged a prestigious reputation as a gargantuan and utterly arresting live entity. Expanding and pushing the parameters of their genre-shattering signature sound still further, 2024’s brutal and lavishly intricate ‘Coma’ is the latest addition to an ever-growing sonic arsenal of extreme music that’s as raw and unflinching in its intensely affecting emotional depth as it is teeming with craggy, second wave hostility.

NAGLFAR

As far as the business of landing on a suitably gnarly, necro-sounding band name goes, deriving one’s moniker from that of a ghoulish mythological ship reportedly fashioned out of the toenails of the dead is, all things considered, a pretty strong move. Playful joking aside, however, the unceasingly wintry hostility, weightily contorting grooves and icily abrasive melodic intricacies that Naglfar showcase in rich, blackly intoxicating abundance have seen these Swedish aggressors forge a legend of their own ingeniously fashioned making. With their unearthly inception coinciding with the notoriously bloody and anarchic genesis of the now-iconic second wave of black metal, this uniquely configured collective were quick to carve their own sonically intrepid path with intensely corrosive yet sonically layered 1994 debut ‘Vittra’. And from the delectably craggy and caustic riffery of the Swedes’ electrifying debut through to the elegantly unfurling, folk-tinged trappings of 2007’s ‘Harvest’ and the densely pulverising aggression and lavishly grandiose melodic structures underpinning 2011 masterwork ‘Teras’, theirs is an endlessly evolving and viciously compelling craft. As finely sculpted in form as it is audibly bristling with hostility and spilling over with decay-stricken atmospherics, pandemic-era masterwork ‘Cerecloth’ comprises an only too perfect soundtrack to the exceptionally grim and desolate time period in which it was conceived. Soon to besiege the hallowed grounds of Oslo’s iconic Rockefeller Music Hall, Naglfar brings to Inferno a truly unparalleled calibre of epic and endlessly adrenaline-fuelled carnage.

BATUSHKA

Use the word ‘ritual’ in reference to any given black metal gig and you’ll more than likely raise a sceptical eyebrow or two. But despite the term’s rather overzealous application by various music labels and associated members of the press in recent decades (see also: ‘trve cvlt’) there remain those rare musical visionaries whose richly absorbing, transcendental rites qualify as nothing less. Pairing both the wintry, intensely scabrous throes of classic second wave black metal with an impeccably engineered wealth of ghoulishly opulent traditional Eastern Orthodox trappings, Poland’s Batushka meld these decidedly disparate traditions together with a level of masterful compositional ingenuity seldom seen in this oftentimes technically primitive and derivative sub-genre. Established in 2015 by Krzysztof ‘Derph’ Drabikowski with vocalist Bartłomiej ‘Bart’ Krysiuk joining the fold shortly thereafter, breathtaking debut album ‘Litourgiya’ was released later that same year to an explosive critical reception. Redefining the shape and stylistic parameters of extreme metal above and beyond all conceivable expectations, the duo’s profoundly unholy marriage of corrosive extremity and gargantuan layer upon layer of sumptuous, majestically rumbling Gregorian choirs soon sparked the avid fanaticism of many a newly converted follower. However, when Krysiuk and Drabikowski parted ways in 2018, an extensive legal dispute concerning rights to the band’s name followed, leaving the foreseeable future of this once-thriving musical entity hanging in the balance. Indeed, it was not until the summer of 2024 that this exceptionally prolonged rights battle would finally be laid to rest, with a court ruling declaring Drabikowski the rightful owner of the name Batushka. Teeming with lacerating sonic extremity and brimming over with the restlessly turbulent energies and vibrations of some ancient, unspeakable evil, theirs is the stuff of violent yet exquisitely rendered nightmares.