About four years ago, I discovered the lovely Brazilian ladies of Nervosa with their kickass debut with Napalm Records named ‘Agony’. Shortly after I managed to catch them at that year’s edition of Tuska Open Air in Finland and live they kicked even more ass. Sadly, ever since that first time seeing them on stage, I somehow managed to miss out on every single show they played in Finland. So when they were dropping by Helsinki to play a small headline show, I made sure that I was there for sure!

Tyrantti (***)

Warming up the crowd tonight at the small bar on the Suvilahti grounds, were the local heavy metal heroes of Tyrantti! Despite them not being as heavy and “brutal” as Nervosa, we got a typical classic heavy metal show as we’d come to expect from these guys. Energy through the roof, attitude for miles and unapologetically catchy heavy metal… You don’t have to understand a single word of their Finnish lyrics, soon you will find yourself getting dragged in by their stage presence and nodding your head to the music!

Nervosa (****)

By the time the girls from Nervosa got on stage to get ready for their show, the rather limited room in front of the stage had filled up quite nicely, giving it a quite packed feel. Fernanda Lira belted out a beast of a scream to introduce ‘Horrordome’, kicking off a whirlwind of a show as we expected from this band. And they did not take the foot off the gas pedal for one second, continuing with the older track ‘Justice Be Done’ and the – in the mean time for me – classic ‘Intolerance Means War’. Prika shredded one after the other grooving riff and blistering solo out of her guitar and Luana beat up her drum kit as if she wanted to destroy the thing. And Fernanda as usual growled, screamed and pulled out demonic looking faces besides her big grins showing her pleasure of seeing the swirling and boiling crowd in front of her.

Because yes, by now a moshpit got engaged in the limited space we were crammed in. The closeness of the band with the crowd, the low ceiling, smallish space,… all added to the feeling we were at one of those legendary underground shows of the past, and it was an absolute riot! A set list with a good mix of oldies and newer songs simply made the room explode and erupt into a frenzied energy. Nervosa loved it, we loved it, please come back again soon!

Setlist:

• Horrordome
• Justice Be Done
• Intolerance Means War
• Bleeding
• Arrogance
• Hostages
• Enslave
• Time Of Death
• Kill the Silence
• Raise Your Fist!
• Vultures
• Masked Betrayer
• Fear, Violence and Massacre
• Death!
• Never Forget, Never Repeat
• Into Moshpit

For more pics of the night, go here.