Helsinki Metal Festival really delivered on their debut year bringing a ton of old school bands and maybe the most old school of them all Pentagram crushed it early on Saturday! Even with their age, this band still brings it, with Bobby Liebling still sounding better than ever and looking his usual menacing self with his intense stares. This show was a teleport back in time for many. Great show and one of the best of Saturday, though way too short for clearly everyone who was enjoying themselves. Maybe a legendary band as this deserves to be higher up the line-up and more time to kick ass…?

Probably one of the most out there acts on the whole Hellsinki Metal line-up, but definitely one we were really excited for. The Swedish Priest manages to combine these hypercatchy, yet dark songs with some really hard and tough beats. For the duration of their set, the indoors stage turned into one big rave, and not only among the crowd. All 3 of the guys constantly busted some moves, and frontman Mercury was his charming self as usual. But since our first meeting with these guys live, both his companions Sulphur and Salt have really gotten more loose, with them regularly leaving their instruments behind to do a quick move, hyping up the crowd. The people who didn’t bother to come and check them out, really missed out on something. Think Ghost meets Carpenter Brut, and you’re getting there, such a fun show!

Morbid Angel is simply a legendary death metal band, and one of its original vocalists David Vincent continues the legacy he created while he was with the band by touring under the moniker I Am Morbid, showing the world what true old school death metal is. Starting the show with classic Morbid Angel songs from their classic album Altars of Madness and continuing the old school onslaught. From the first note to the last one, there was not a single person not headbanging in the front, sending a nice breeze to the extremely hot photo pit.

The British metalcore band Bury Tomorrow has been steadily rising in popularity, and after catching them on one of the outside stages at Hellsinki Metal, we can see why. They manage to pummel you to bits with their heavy music, but then infuse the songs with some crazy catchy pop-like singing, without ever losing any of the crunching groove and sledgehammer hit in the face. Lead vocalist Daniel is an absolute beast on stage, and the rest of the band are closely following him in energy. Throw on top of that despite the aggressive music, a message of inclusivity, positivity and offering a safe space for everyone, and you can’t help but leave their show with a core memory. Epic!

In our honest opinion, maybe the greatest Norwegian black metal band Emperor took the stage, starting the show with the instrumental intro from their legendary In The Nightside Eclipse album, and had an absolutely insane setlist playing basically every great Emperor song you’d like to hear. This was a must-see for any fan of great 90s black metal. Talking to Ihsahn earlier that day, playing in Helsinki is also extremely special for them with Helsinki being the first international show outside of Norway they ever played back in the 90s so coming to play in Helsinki is always like a homecoming to them, and every time we take them back with open arms.

While all the black metal fans were getting dreams fulfilled outside with the show of Emperor, on the inside stage there was a completely different scene to be found. The US metalcore/deathcore outfit Fit For An Autopsy set up shop there, and while at first things seemed to get started a bit slowly, their killer riffs and energy quickly translated into a front row that was going insane and a circle pit the size of almost the whole venue. Probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest maelstroms of moshing people of the whole weekend! It was the first time for these Americans to drop by Finland, but we wanna bet that they’ll be eager to come back looking at the crazy response and turnout from the crowd there!

And then it was time to cap off the festival basically setting the whole inside stage on fire, and not even kidding. It was a black metal ritual in all its dark glory, everything you’d expect from a Watain show at full force without any limitations: blood, fire and absolute intensity on stage. You haven’t experienced Watain properly live if you haven’t seen them with the full stage production as they’ve always intended. This was the perfect way to end the festival. Sending the crowd home happy and almost engulfed in flames and covered in blood.