Hellflame Festival 2006

In 2006 the HELLFLAME Festival is again generous in matter of a superb line-up. While the last year’s edition of the festival was built up around a tourtrack of four bands (added by 5 another ones), this year 8 “single bands” were invited to give us some pleasure. And hell – the billing promises not only a long night but a crushing one! Ok, in my opinion MARDUK could have put aside in favor for any other band. I have seen them so many times and most of the shows weren’t that great. However, witnessing GOREFEST’s comeback live on stage and GOD DETHRONED’s and NECROPHOBIC’s new album performances (so I hope) is already enough to make me happy I could hardly await to jump into my first fall-festival-pleasure ;)

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:. ADVERSUS ~ is a band I haven’t heard of before and they immediately knew to surprise… well, in some way… Anyway, regarding the billing I did not expected that an 8-head-crew with violin, flute and contrabass would enter the stage. ADVERSUS offered a mix of folkloristic tunes, electro sounds & samples and metal. Lyrics were completely sung in German and had a poetic approach. Male lead vocals were alternating between clean and black metal-like singing with a strongly rolling “R”, while the female soprano just scared to death. It was in fact not wrongly pitched and it seems she is quite talented with her voice, but it did not suit the rest of the music and came quite disharmonic into my ears. Second female voice and the guitar were mixed out and could not set any accents. They keyboarder alternately played the flute and the keys. Singer Rosendorn (*lol*) was joking around, well knowing, that’s not an easy task to open just festival line-up with this kind of style. So he at least could make the people laughing when he introduced the band as “… we’re not so evil as the other ones and play some melodies” and announced the track Deiner Schönheit gewahr with: “that’s a romantic track, even metalheads need love…”

:. 1349 ~ did not only care for a gross change in style but also for the first and only delay of 15 minutes, running through the entire line-up till the end. Why? Satan knows… But for that the crowd got finally pleased with some great black metal tunes. Cute corpse-painted Norwegian pandas played their asses off while mysteriously vanishing in tons of smoke. 1349 delivered a great show and got deservedly got enthusiastic feedback from the fans.
[Seb] I was a bit curious if 1349 would be able to convince without Frost. Frost had to take a break for the rest of the year due to his obligations with Satyricon, but as a replacement, there was no one else than Tony Laureano. Of course he did a great job. 1349 raised the bar for all following bands with their extraordinary brutal and fast sound. The audience seemed to like the performance as much as I did. I bet not least because singer Ravn gave the micro to many of the guys in the front-row of the stage, so everyone who could make it till the first row could participate a bit in the show... great gig!

:. NECROPHOBIC ~ yea, yea, yea… death metal supreme! *lol* That’s a band I was really curious about and looking for…
[Seb] Yeah, finally ... the first time I was able to see NECROPHOBIC live on stage! Since they where able to continuously grow with every album, I was hoping for some more tracks from the most recent release…
[Cal] …Their current album Hrimthursum caused some furor (9.5/10 on NH; how to speak that btw.?). Unfortunately they only played one song from this album…
[Seb] …I especially missed the outstanding Eternal Winter. But anyhow, the Norwegians have so many killer songs on their other albums, that one great track followed another…
[Cal] …the rest mainly came from The Third Antichrist and The Nocrturnal Silence. Great! First highlight! Oh… and btw… if you lamenting Dissection, take NECROPHOBIC, that’s the perfect replacement!
[Seb] Near the end of their performance they dedicated one of the songs to their late compatriot Jon Nödtveidt. Altogether, a very well selected best of and for me: my personal highlight of the evening!

:. WINTERSUN ~ sound like Children Of Bodom, but have less power and drive. Something nice to listen to…
[Seb] …but could not really convince with their live performance. They might have earned much positive response with their debut, but in comparison with the bands playing around them at this festival, they stayed quite pale. It was a solid but unspectacular gig. The band was simply a bit to tame, what already began with the keyboard intro. I guess that was the band for the girls this year *g*

:. GOD DETHRONED ~ just fucking great! Soooo bloody ass kickin’! They rocked down da house, leaving scorched earth. So much energy, groove and brutality in best harmony to fall down upon your knees. Top that all they played a brand new song from their upcoming album The Toxic Touch (to be released on October 20 via Metal Blade). What can I say? Expect a hammer! As for the rest songs from their 2004 released masterpiece The Lair Of The White Worm like Arch Enemy Spain and Sigma Enigma did it too. Fans got crazy and sung along powerfully. Oh, did I already tell that the show was fucking awesome? It was! For sure! As for me greatest band of the evening! Yeah! \m/

:. MARDUK ~ *yawns*… was like a serenade to fall asleep. Umpteen times seen (ok, overstatement), not really bad, don’t get me wrong, but nothing that kicks you out of your socks either. The “new” singer did a good job, solid show I’d say. I just was waiting that Mortuus would stumble on his huge converted cross that hung till the hollow of his knees. But he didn’t…
[Seb] …no surprise for me either. Most seen band for me, I think. Experienced as always, MARDUK had a typical, hyper fast and hard performance mostly the younger fans seemed to impress. I was not disappointed by their show, but there where definitely bands that gave me more this night.

:. UNLEASHED ~ thrashed through their entire history and made the audience freakin’ out with classics such as Victims Of War and In The Name Of God. The highlight came near the end, when a many-voiced choir screamed for Before The Creation Of Time. Even if you are not a Death Metal freak, this really kicked ass. After the speed attack by Marduk, this was finally a feast for the headbanging fraction. I bet, if anyone suffered from neck pains the day after, UNLEASHED are not completely innocent. Very great show!
[Cal] Here, my cam came up with an uninspired error 99. As for me I more heard UNLEASHED instead of seeing them, while being in conclave with my expensive equipment...

:. GOREFEST ~ are back after a six years hiatus and a strong comeback album entitled La Muerte released October 28th 2005). And finally they hit the stage again, proving that the Dutch groove-monster legend is really back. As expected, the hall emptied a bit (coz of time, train & busses) but there were enough fans left to party hard and to band their heads off. Long time ago I saw them performing live and listened to their stuff. But nothing has changed. Everything remained unaffected (except the hair color of JC maybe). Being veiled in tons of smoke, flooded in white and bluish light and strobos they killed necks. Hell of a sound, hell of a groove. GOREFEST groove as fuck! Presenting a great best-of list from Get A Life (False, 93) via the Erase and Low from the classic Erase up to the come-back album with You Could Make Me Kill (literally, I tell ya!).At the end GOREFEST was the one and only band playing an encore… one track…

Upshot: Once again a great HELLFLAME edition…
[Seb] …yeah, and again with a quite successful band selection. The HELLFLAME is becoming a metal institution in September…
[Cal] …I’d say, there was less audience that in the last year, but for that, there was a little beer garden added. Chip shop was tasty and prizes ok. Inside of the hall beer had 2.50 Euro what is – if I remember right – 50 cents more than in 2005. The two-head-team behind the bar was overstrained, especially during the breaks, no relief in sight. Ok, the first band is a matter of taste; they surely were off-beat, in a negative sense…
[Seb] …anyhow, the organisation team shouldn't make it a tradition out of it. At least not with such an “unsuitable” band on the billing. But that's already all I have to nag about this year.

[Cal] Hardly surviving I hit the road back home at 2am in the hope to bridge the remaining 2 hours to my morning shift with a caffeine-containing refreshing cure and expedient work (photos for example) to survive the eight hours afterwards while writing down this live report. It worked, didn’t it? ;)
As in the last year: next event is the WINTERNOIZE FESTIVAL with Moonspell - Lacrimas Profundere - Communic - Endstille - Primordial - Moonsorrow - The Duskfall - A Life Divided
Cheers and see ya there!