REVIEWED: Fortress Festival 2024 @ Scarborough Spa (Day 2)

The numerous assorted pubs, clubs and dive bars dotted liberally around the bustling, somewhat unsavoury heart of Scarborough Town Centre may have been teeming with all manner of drunken post-festival antics following day one of atmospheric black metal extravaganza Fortress Fest. Fast-forward to noon the following day, however, and as wave upon wave of bleary-eyed punters file wearily into the Ocean Room ahead of BLOOD COUNTESS’s blistering upcoming set, suffice to say there’s an altogether more sobering ambience among the no doubt significantly hungover fans in attendance here this afternoon.

A fact which is clearly of little concern to the Yorkshire aggressors’ wondrously vitriolic frontwoman Nina ‘The Cuntess’ Blackwood as she snarls into the mike, “We’ve got a new one, so I want to see some fucking movement!”. This emphatic interjection over and it’s within mere seconds that we’re engulfed in a raging tsunami of frantically battering snares and jagged tremolo riffing keen enough to rend flesh from bone. With every lethal, scalpel-edged accent and abrasive groove displaying searing, impeccably sculpted clarity in the mix, the Ocean Room is once again awash with violent energy and motion. Adorning these scabrous, manically energised dynamics with a deftly manipulated array of fretwork whose writhing, serpentine throes abound with tangible malevolence, Blood Countess comprise a ferocious and absorbingly sinister point of entry into today’s festivities.

Venturing below stairs to the venue’s aptly-named Great Hall, and it’s hard not to stop and marvel at the old-time charm and decaying gothic grandeur in which the place is positively steeped. Buried deep in the shadowy bowels of the building with its ornately twisted iron balustrades, capacious upstairs stalls and vaulted ceilings, this historic venue has certainly witnessed more than its share of lavish events and festivities since its ancient bricks and mortar were first laid here almost a full 200 years ago – each bygone moment passing on into nothingness with all the fleeting, neverlasting impermanence of restless spirits dissolving into the ether. Which makes it an only too perfect fit for a band possessed of their own immeasurable wealth of darkly looming phantoms, haunting remembrances and spectral vibrations so exquisitely delicate in form as to belong to some distant ethereal plane far removed from this earthly realm. Such is the towering, indescribably evocative scale of THY LIGHT…

Beneath a humongous, cinema screen-sized monitor depicting a vast forest densely shrouded in freezing fog, the darkly silhouetted collective proceed into the opening portion of their set in elegantly restrained yet tremendously affecting style. Through sumptuously rich and resonant layerings of flourishing orchestral trappings and icily entrancing synths, the Glaswegians manifest a truly staggering presence whose masterful melding of gnarly extremity and film score-worthy instrumentation elevates their sound to the stuff of genre-transcending artistry. Better yet, as we progress through the unearthly, vocal cord-rupturing screams and melancholia-weighted riffing structures of ‘Infinite Stars Thereof’ before seguing into the heartrendingly desolate, synth-laden orchestrations of 'The Bridge', it fast becomes apparent that there’s no limit to their capacity for conjuring forth the very darkest of sonic energies. And from every gargantuan, weightily reverberating blast and harrowing tremolo accent through to the most exquisitely intangible of ambient echoes, the myriad shades of undiluted anguish and deathly beauty that abide here leave eyes brimming and hearts aching long after this remarkable entity make their final departure from the main stage.

Continuing today’s prestigious, unbroken streak of utterly beguiling atmospheric brilliance, meticulously assembled Norwegian players VEMOD draw generously from the classic, craggily abrasive trappings for which their home country has long been globally renowned. Indeed, with its densely compressed clusters of staccato-laden snares, howling shrieks and weightily reverberating guitar lines, ‘Der Guder Dør’ is unsurprisingly quick to ensnare our full and undivided collective attentions. And while these accomplished performers could have opted to debut some of the more subtly restrained and slow-burning facets of their expansive back catalogue, the up-tempo yet atmosphere-laden repertoire they’ve selected for tonight is pitched perfectly for a main stage festival slot. Together with a sumptuous array of sleekly elongated guitar leads and dizzying, panoramic crescendos of riffery, Vemod combine unrelenting, blackened hostility and evocative musicality to darkly electrifying effect.

As GAEREA step on stage and a tremendous roar of applause rises from the many hordes of euphoric fans assembled here tonight, it’s hard to believe that, barely two years ago, this uniquely cathartic collective were a largely unknown proposition. Yet, with a genre-obliterating brand of sonic extremity in which frantically careening episodes of lacerating aggression coalesce with some of the most chilling, ornately crafted atmospheres extreme music has ever witnessed, the staggering talent of these apocalyptic players has long been keenly apparent from the get-go.

Pairing bewildering extremes of synapse-scorching acceleration and hyperblasting brute force with elegantly unfurling melodic passages whose sumptuous, darkly glimmering motions audibly drip ink-black melancholia, pandemic-era epic ‘Mirage’ wields a raw power and majesty on a par with a civilisation-levelling natural disaster. With their frantically animated forms shrouded in black from head to toe, the performers’ whirling, curiously balletic motions alone make for a mesmerising spectacle, each impeccably synchronised band member powerfully inhabiting the numerous shades of wistful yearning and anguish unfolding here before us.

As a track underpinning breakneck pacing together with a visceral feast of sinew-shredding textural intricacies, apocalyptic banger ‘Salve’ comprises a fine feat of unhinged yet wickedly calculating carnage. Across its varying strains of bile-stricken, corrosive screams, rapid-fire blasts and bone-shattering grooves, newly unveiled track ‘World Ablaze’ illustrates fluid and seamlessly coherent command over its many and varied parts. But, above all else, it’s the sheer, frequently nightmarish evocative intensity of their performance that makes Gaerea such a relentlessly compelling proposition.

From larynx-scalding screams wintry and caustic enough to chill the very marrow in our bones to fluidly cascading outpourings of intricately tangled fretwork, there’s no mistaking the all-too-tangible presence of the wilderness brimming in every conceivable inch of exquisitely folk-infused solo project BLACKBRAID. Hailing from the dense primeval forests and crystalline waters of North America’s jaw-droppingly majestic Adirondack Wilderness, theirs is a finely orchestrated interplay of searing, undiluted aggression, nimbly manipulated riffery and darkly absorbing atmosphere that’s richly steeped in gifted composer Jon Krieger’s Native American heritage. With its intensely cinematic opening slew of thunderous blasts and feverish ritualistic chants erupting in a synapse-scorching inferno of preternaturally contorting screams, ‘The Spirit Returns’ makes for a brutally compelling opener. Bestrewn with generous measures of gnarly, tautly manipulated groove and expansive riffs whose snaking, distortion-drenched throes abound with black-hearted majesty, both eerily immersive atmosphere and intricately crafted fine detail assume a prominent place within this sound barrier-shattering standout.

From here, this savagely impassioned collective proceed into ever more diverse and genre-transcending sonic territories, their shadowy forms faintly ethereal against a gleaming backdrop of exquisitely detailed, symmetry-laden artwork. And within this rich plethora of searing, meticulously sculpted extreme metal, the altogether more mid-paced and grandiose likes of ‘Moss Covered Bones on the Altar of the Moon’ luxuriate in a subtly nuanced and haunting calibre of darkness. Dropping momentarily to his knees as a blackly engulfing wave of darkly contorting riffage entwines with a sombre procession of bone-splintering, monolithic blasts, Krieger’s exquisitely poetic, low-slung verses display a soul-baring depth of expression.

As audibly awash with technical prowess as it is liberally steeped in the windswept majesty of the natural world, BlackBraid are a masterful, tremendously absorbing proposition indeed. And together with what's quite possibly the most hauntingly immersive and visceral festival experience the European extreme scene has to offer, it’s no exaggeration to conclude that Fortress Festival has surpassed all imaginable hopes and expectations.

Read Part 1 of our Fortress Festival coverage HERE

For more on Fortress '24, check out our interview with festival founder Gary Stephenson HERE