REVIEWED: Inferno Festival 2025 @ Rockefeller, Oslo (Part 2)

“Burn this place to the ground!” howls ROTTING CHRIST’s wild-eyed, uncontainably euphoric frontman Sakis Tolis mere moments after ‘Fire, God and Fear’s’ teeming mass of gnarly, frantically contorting fretwork leaves the Rockefeller quaking to its very foundations. Indeed, the seismic, densely reverberating heft and pulverising aggression exhibited here in amphitheatre-sized abundance is a mammoth, darkly engulfing spectacle to behold. Add to that an impeccably synchronised array of lacerating riffage and weightily reverberating grooves low-slung enough to graze the depths of the abyss itself, and it’s easy to appreciate why these Hellenic metal legends incite such frenzied adulation among live audiences the world over. And from a frantic cacophony of curses that spew forth atop a densely muscled expanse of ripping, wickedly angular fretwork to the tombstone-weighted, Latinate chants and mesmeric, riff-laden symmetries of ‘666’, theirs is a rich and genre-transcending evocation of ancient evil.

Across its deftly interwoven strains of brutalising percussive blasts, sumptuously enveloping baritone choirs and vertigo-inducing crescendos of stratospheric fretwork, ‘Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού’ pairs insane pacing and ornate riffing structures to exhilarating effect. With its generous layerings of harrowing tremolo and tautly muscled guitar leads amassing blistering momentum beneath a frenzied slew of hoarsely accented incantations that audibly bristle with malevolent intent, ‘Elthe Kyrie’ manifests unparalleled extremes of deliriously euphoric energy. Capped off with dizzying zeniths of theatrically whirling guitar solos and vocal cord-liquefying screams that abound with all the ferocious, ceremonial majesty of the battlefield, Rotting Christ remain one of the most electrifying and intensely cinematic entities operating in extreme music and beyond.

With SATYRICON’s much yearned for return to the summer festival circuit last year bringing with it a career-spanning wealth of material encompassing everything from the craggy, folk-tinged orchestrations of 1993 classic ‘Dark Medieval Times’ to the colossal, obsidian-hued groove of 2008’s ‘The Age of Nero’ and beyond, there’s no overstating the Oslo-based icons’ genre-defining yet sonically intrepid status in black metal. And on a night that finds the band moments away from headlining the very same venue that, decades prior, bore witness to some of the most pivotal performances in their storied career to date, it’s clear we’re on the cusp of literal history in the making.

Hurtling headlong into a pulverising onslaught of sound barrier-shattering blasts and sinewy, reverb-laden groove, ‘Now, Diabolical’ comprises a classic, viciously energised point of entry into tonight’s infernal festivities. Bridged with humongous, blackly unspooling grooves whose weightily contorting throes rumble and reverberate with calculating intent, theirs is towering, intensely malevolent presence. With the early portion of tonight’s landmark performance centring on material released in the subsequent years and decades following 2002’s notoriously divisive ‘Volcano’ album, ‘Repined Bastard Nation’ comprises an inconceivably hostile yet exquisitely layered assault. Structured around an insanely hooky central refrain whose gnarly, weightily churning contortions see the Rockefeller engulfed in a teeming frenzy of hair-flailing motion, the morbidly entrancing multitude of icily visceral guitar leads and ornately entwining twin riffage that follows is awash with tangibly chilling atmospherics.

Among the obsidian-hued wealth of colossal, blastbeat-laden bangers and eerily transcendental, subterreanean classics laid before us here tonight, 1993’s ‘Walk The Path of Sorrow’ is a monumental exercise in bone-shattering aggression, elegantly orchestrated musicianship and hauntingly ethereal instrumentation. Starkly illuminated beneath a frenetic flurry of white-hot strobe lighting, the seamless cohesiveness and visible chemistry underpinning this frantically windmilling collective is a joy to witness here in the murky half-darkness and feverish heat of Saturday’s tremendously expansive crowd. Rounding off tonight’s electrifying performance with the ever-iconic ‘Mother North’ together with gargantuan, black ’n’ roll anthem K.I.N.G, these illustrious players take a final bow as a deafening wave of applause erupts from the 1,300-strong horde of ecstatic metalheads assembled here this evening.

While it’s long been the norm for less established bands to find themselves relegated to a minuscule basement venue with a capacity roughly equivalent to that of your grandma’s conservatory, it’s clear the good folks at Inferno take an altogether more enlightened approach to festival planning. Underpinning a meticulously sourced line-up spanning iconic heavyweights and subterranean gems alike, their selection of symphonic extreme metallers LAMENTARI as the first band to open up the Rockefeller on this bleary-eyed Sunday afternoon rapidly proves to have been an excellent move. With the spring of 2025 finding these masterful musicians fresh from unleashing breathtaking debut ‘Ex Umbra in Lucem’, these relative newcomers are an instantly riveting proposition. Pairing breakneck episodes of blastbeat-stricken aggression with a host of genre-transcending influences encompassing luxuriantly unfurling riffage and orchestral movements befitting the most darkly disquieting of cinematic horrors, the Danes amass a sumptuous richness of sound that is nothing short of intoxicating.

Via a synapse-scorching array of weightily blasting horns, airily flourishing strings and choral vocal sections expansive enough to level whole civilisations, these gifted composers manifest an intensely transporting presence. Throwing back their ink-black ceremonial cowls to reveal cadaverously painted faces that gleam bone-white in the densely enveloping prevailing gloom, the epic theatricality underpinning these electrifying compositions makes for an uncommonly immersive spectacle. And with its deftly manipulated melange of sumptous acoustic fretwork, ghoulishly echoing atmospheric nuances and intricate crescendos of Fleshgod Apocalypse-esque riffery, electrifying closer ‘Dolorum Memoria’ finds these uber-talented Danes at the pinnacle of their compositionally ingenious powers.

Since first emerging from in amongst the sizeable raft of largely interchangeable black metal bands comprising the subgenre’s now-iconic second wave, NAGLFAR have spent the past three decades forging an infinitely more distinctive and ghoulishly absorbing sonic identity. From the pulverising grooves and folk-steeped configurations of 2007 masterwork ‘Harvest’ to the apocalyptic, blasbeat-stricken carnage of pandemic-era smash ‘Cerecloth’, tonight’s set pulls together some of the most ruinous and blackly entrancing cornerstones of the Swedes’ genre-transcending back catalogue.

Beneath a pulverising slew of ceaselessly churning blasts and supersonic shrieks of abject torment, ghoulishly anthemic standout ‘The Darkest Road’ is luxuriantly drenched in darkly enveloping atmospherics. With its intensely malevolent host of snaking, darkly elongated fretwork and reverb-stricken grooves displaying a delectably layered richness of sound in amongst its numerous episodes of hyperblasting ultra-violence, these technically adept Scandinavians pair unflinching sonic extremity and groove-laden musicality to relentlessly compelling effect. Elevated to exhilarating heights of infernal majesty via a vocal cord-liquefying arsenal of corrosive shrieks and diaphragm-rupturing growls caustic enough to rip a hole right through the stratosphere, frontman Kristoffer Olivius is an indescribably vicious vocal talent.

Delving still deeper into these lacerating, meticulously orchestrated energies, both undiluted viscerality and finely-wrought complexity figure prominently in the career-spanning wealth of classic and altogether more current material that follows. And from ‘Harvest’s’ cascading profusion of beguiling, twin guitar-led harmonies to the teeming multitude of frost-stricken tremolo accents that abide in the turbulent throes of ‘Cerecloth’, Naglfar are an adrenaline-fuelled beast of a live entity.

Missed Part 1 of our Inferno Festival coverage? Check it out now HERE