REVIEWED: Inferno Festival 2025 @ Rockefeller, Oslo (Part 1)

From such high-grossing corporate giants as Download through to the cosily intimate, subterranean delights of Yorkshire-based black metal weekender Fortress Festival, attending a festival of any given scale or sonic persuasion is always guaranteed to be an intense and oftentimes totally all-consuming experience. Spending countless hours standing in a remote field in rural Derbyshire or holed up in a dingy basement venue in an undeniably bizarre state of being that sees you utterly insulated from the outside world, you emerge, some two to four days later, to an unnervingly silent and sobering state of normality.

Yet, of all the myriad extreme metal fests and eardrum-decimating weekenders we at Team Dark Matter have had the distinct pleasure and privilege of attending since first starting this humble ’zine almost a full decade ago, nothing, to date, can begin to rival the blistering, indescribably immersive experience that is Inferno Festival 2025. Nestled in amongst the deceptively sleepy, labyrinthine streets of central Oslo, the iconic Rockefeller Music Hall is a venue drenched in decades of extreme music heritage, having famously played host to some of the most iconic names in black metal and beyond.

Neseblod Records, Oslo

Better still, a 20-minute walk beyond the chic boutiques and trendy, ultra-modern bars of central Oslo up towards the more nefarious outskirts of the city brings the intrepid festival-goer to infamous black metal record shop Neseblod – a subcultural landmark whose densely packed treasure trove of extreme metal LPs and assorted memorabilia is an experience to be savoured in its own right, and at considerable leisure given the sheer volume of rare collectibles and memorabilia contained therein. Together with a wealth of extreme metal conference events, a black metal bus tour and an art exhibition featuring the works of such iconic names as Kristan ‘Gaahl’ Espedal and Seth Siro Anton running throughout the weekend, never has a festival event been so deeply entrenched in musical heritage and culture…

On an Easter weekend that sees all local convenience stores and supermarkets impose a blanket ban on the sale of alcohol, it’s rather amusing to note that this most thoroughly infernal of music events should coincide with the aforementioned sacred period of pious reflection and sobriety. And though it’s barely 6pm on a Friday night, the shadowy quarters of the Rockefeller are already buzzing with anticipation, a cacophony of elated chatter and assorted conversations assuming a steady, ambient hum below a pleasingly raucous soundtrack of popular metal songs.

With their visceral yet finely sculpted craft having first coalesced into being more than a full three decades ago, NECROPHOBIC have a more than sizeable wealth of material from which to forge a varied and thoroughly absorbing live repertoire. And while many acts of a similar vintage may have long ago entered a painfully prolonged period of creative stagnation, these visionary Scandinavians are an altogether more vital and sonically inventive proposition.

Atop a pulverising backbone of sound barrier-shattering blasts and weightily reverberating riffage, ‘Darkside’ lets loose a lightning-paced deluge of icily abrasive guitar leads. With its many delirious, fluidly cascading crescendos of anthemic riffage leaving jaws agape as the leather-clad collective accelerate onward into the ripping, apocalyptic territories of ‘The Nocturnal Silence’, the latter portion of their set witnesses an audible darkening and increased viscerality of sound. And through a frantically rampaging undertow of propulsive blasts and larynx-shredding screams that palpably drip ink-black malevolence, the Swedes’ exhilarating fusion of tremolo-stricken hostility and airily lacerating fretwork is an adrenaline-fuelled spectacle to savour.

Necrophobic’s electrifying opening set concluded and the expansive, yet curiously comforting confines of the Rockefeller are once again filled with the familiar hubbub of casual, post-gig chatter as a never-ending throng of darkly attired punters streams in amongst the sprawling labyrinth of terrace bars, merch stands and balconies comprising this uniquely characterful live music hotspot. But from the moment the stage lights dim to a purplish, crepuscular haze and a gilded flurry of exquisitely intangible strings drift and unspool ghoulishly into the ether, the entire venue is submerged in a tense yet tangibly reverential silence. With a caustic, combined assault of vocal cord-liquefying screams and churning blasts amassing post-apocalyptic enormity beneath a raging tsunami of rumbling baritone choirs, it’s a rare and intoxicating pleasure to witness Krzysztof Drabikowski’s BATUSHKA in its full, blasphemously disquieting glory.

Krzysztof Drabikowski’s Batushka

Shrouded forms silhouetted ink-black against an exquisitely rendered backdrop of an ancient cemetery uplit in luminous swathes of electric violet, it’s with pulverising force and impeccably measured precision that these accomplished players proceed into the icily harrowing throes of 'Песнь V'. With a mesmeric opening sequence of eerily tinkling ceremonial bells and rhythmic clapping summoning forth cinematic levels of blackly absorbing atmosphere ahead of a monumental implosion of brimstone-scorched screams, few acts combine ritualistic atmosphere and face-melting sonic extremity to such utterly magnetic effect.

Melding together its myriad strains of staccato-laden aggression, visceral fretwork and airily glimmering atmospherics into the stuff of genre-shattering sonic alchemy, GAEREA manifest a relentlessly compelling calibre of carnage. Across colossal implosions of machine gun-paced blasts that rumble and reverberate like the footfalls of an angry demigod through to gossamer-fine spirals of transcendental fretwork, the seamless arrangement and searing intensity underpinning the Portuguese players’ accomplished back catalogue has seen them ensnare ever-increasing legions of fans since first entrancing the global extreme scene with pandemic-era masterwork ‘Mirage’.

Gaerea

And from the moment a gigantic, circular backdrop resplendent with a host of eerily luminous occult symbols splits in two like some Hellraiser-esque portal ushering us headlong into eternal damnation, we’re left with the unmistakable sense of entering a realm far removed from this earthly plane. Via a civilisation-levelling mass of propulsive blasts and ceaselessly writhing fretwork, electrifying opener ‘Hope Shatters’ hurls us headlong into these brutally turbulent, subterranean territories. Displaying an exceptional command of sound barrier-shattering pacing and sinewy power abounding in every densely churning blast and gnarly accent of tremolo, Gaerea are a technically masterful wonder to behold.

Packed with frantically battering blasts and darkly contorting grooves that amass jaw-dropping extremes of warp speed within literal milliseconds, ‘Salve’ is a heady and bewildering exercise in undiluted carnage. Elsewhere, the gleaming, airily delicate phrases and sleekly elongated guitar lines of ‘World Ablaze’ make for a profoundly affecting spectacle. Glimmering with gossamer-fine, transcendental majesty, it’s with nimble and meticulous placement that these exquisitely fine details are interspersed in amongst the track’s extreme elements, each note a gleaming, impeccably sculpted gem in this turbulent, multi-faceted assault.

Septicflesh

From sinewy slabs of densely reverberating groove and diaphragm-rupturing screams to sultry, elegantly unravelling strings that tangibly glimmer with infernal fire, SEPTICFLESH comprise a breathlessly exhilarating live entity. Having far surpassed the searing but stylistically limiting parameters of conventional death metal with landmark 2008 opus, ‘Communion’, the Hellenic aggressors’ sound circa 2025 operates on a monumental scale hitherto unseen within extreme music.

Atop a stage lavishly bestrewn with morbidly entrancing imagery sourced from 2022 masterwork ‘Modern Primitive’, atmosphere-laden opener ‘The Collector’ is a bewitching, intricately layered affair. With its gracefully unfurling, Middle Eastern acoustics taking generously unhurried time to work their darkly intoxicating magic on the crowd, the handful of tracks extracted from this most recent, electrifying album blend pulverising aggression and cinematic atmosphere to riveting effect. In amongst ‘The Hierophant’s’ deftly synchronised fusion of dizzying orchestral crescendos and apocalyptic hyperblasts, frontman Seth Siro Anton projects a hugely charismatic stage presence. Spitting forth a caustic onslaught of snarling, relentlessly energised vocal contortions, his visible joy of performing and highly interactive rapport with the crowd add no small amount of feverish euphoria to the mix. And be it in ‘Portrait of a Headless Man’s’ lacerating symphonic flourishes and battleground-worthy ceremonial horns or in the lithe, exquisitely tangled strings of 2017 epic ‘Martyr’, theirs is a repertoire tangibly teeming with adrenaline.

Stay tuned for Part II of our Inferno Festival coverage, coming soon...