Last year we visited Hellsinki Industrial Festival and we were so pleased by the selection of artists and overall atmosphere that we just couldn’t miss out on this year’s edition. Again they managed to select some of the best that the industrial/EBM/synth music scene has to offer and we were really excited to make it there again! Also it was the last time it could take place at the legendary Nosturi venue, that with its old warehouse look is simply a perfect fit for this event.

The day before had turned out a bit later than I had anticipated, so I ended up back at the venue a tad bit later than planned. That meant that I sadly had to miss what Miseria Ultima brought to the table and only caught part of the Old School Union show (which sounded damn hard). I couldn’t focus too much on seeing them though, because soon I had to head upstairs to go have a talk with the charming Chris, frontman of Blutengel. That talk ended up causing me to also miss out on the Greek Cygnosic, of who I heard a lot of positive things of their show. But onward we go, here is what I did catch…

Fear Of Domination (***1/2)

First band that I properly saw this second night of industrial fun, is quite the household name in Finland! Fear Of Domination was quite the familiar sight for me and it’s always a pleasure to see this gang of misfits tear up the place. I was wondering before if the more metal oriented music might not work with the crowd of this festival, but I could soon forget those worries. There was much jumped around, heads were banged, fists and horns were raised, lyrics shouted along,…

Also for Fear Of Domination it was a bit of a special night. They were celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ‘ Call of Schizophrenia’ album and at the same time saying goodbye to Nosturi, a place where they’ve played plenty of times and that will be missed by many. They clearly were ready for it, because straight from the start they kicked off hard and never let the energy go down, sporting their signature neon face paint and tons of black lights throughout the show, they proved yet again how strong they are live.

Priest (*****)

And then there was the moment that I had been looking forward to for months… the Swedish synth collective baptized Priest finally made it to the Finnish lands! Earlier this year I was very impressed by their EP ‘Obey‘ cramped full with one after the other spooky, commanding yet ridiculously catchy track. Their music makes me smile and want to dance. Where vocalist Mercury wears a gimp mask with pins, the 2 musicians backing him are sporting a variation on the Medieval plague doctor masks.

Besides the music basically consisting of hard beats and dancing melodies, there is the charming and ever so slightly devious character of Mercury. He was constantly playing with the crowd, moving seductively and cracking little jokes in between songs. We were lucky to catch these guys live still in November, because that month proved to be the very last one for this incarnation of the band. There is a change coming, but no one knows yet what that will be… curious times ahead of us!

Blutengel (****)

It’s taken a long long time for the German dark pop outfit Blutengel to get to Finland. The project exists already for several decades and it was the very first time they came to play in this country. Frontman Chris mentioned earlier to me that he was kind of nervous to see how the Finnish crowd would react, but he needn’t to worry one bit.

The musicians came on stage, a couple of praying pretty nuns showed up and off we went for a good hour of dark and Gothic infused electro pop music with the deep voice of resident vampire Chris. He was basically everything a frontman needs to be through the duration of the show: charming, alluring, interacting with the crowd,…

Backed by Ulrike on female vocals and regular appearances of his dance girls for added theatrics, this was a fun show to watch. With almost every song the crowd erupted in excitement and went bonkers on the music. Blutengel came, saw and seductively conquered! I’m pretty sure they’re not going to wait as long anymore to come back to Finland…

For more pics, go here.