The year is about the end, the holiday season is here… Time for a party we’d say! And there it suddenly was: Metal Orgy X-mas! They gathered some of the best of industrial metal to be found in Finland and toured the country to light up town after town. With the highly popular “disko metal” band Turmion Kätilöt heading the bill in the good company of Fear of Domination, Ruoska and King Satan, you just know that it’s going to be one hell of a party! We ended up at their stop at Nosturi in Helsinki, ready to go “loco”…
The evening got kicked off by the relatively new King Satan (***). Founded and fronted by the illustrious King Aleister Satan, the outfit released their debut album King Fucking Satan earlier in 2017. They bring a really catchy mix of hard rock, extreme metal and electronica elements (on regular occasions making us think of the glory years of 90’s house music) that just begs you to move and dance along to. As you could’ve guessed already, they’ve put all their cards on the aesthetic of the devil and its linked … You could almost say that it’s industrial metal with a slight black metal attitude.
Ringleader Aleister led his crew into a dark party with the tentatively dancing Kate on keyboards, a static swine mask bearing Magister Demaniac on guitars and the very active Jerry Rock ‘n’ Roll and Sir Changa McKenna respectively on bass and drums. Setting the present crowd already on fire early on in the evening, they proved to be the perfect warmer up for what came next.
Up next was Ruoska (***1/2), a band that I’ve known for awhile already but honestly didn’t impress me that much on record. Their music is the straightforward and pumping kind of industrial metal that will ring a huge bell of recognition with most of you: they sound like a Finnish copy of one of the grand masters of the genre, Rammstein. And just like their big brothers their songs are mostly sang in their native tongue, which is Finnish in this case of course. Though I have to say that after seeing them live, they’ve gone up in my appreciation.
No, there isn’t much originality to be found here, even vocalist Patrik looks like a Finnish copy of Till Lindeman, but the headbang inducing music combined with a really energetic performance (of especially Patrik) makes me understand why the band has such a big cult following in Finland. They really blew us all away live with strong tracks like Irti, Mies Yli Laidan and Lihaa vasten lihaa, basically bringing Rammstein with less theatrics, but hitting almost as hard…
In a way you could say that the event had a “double headliner” bill, since the last 2 bands nearly equal each other in popularity. First up was Fear of Domination (****1/2) and right from the start the energy and enthusiasm of the band and crowd was damn high. Their music is quite similar to their colleagues of Turmiön Kätilöt, with that distinction that as the second vocalist they have a girl behind the mic. And it’s exactly that girl, Sara, who elevates their music even higher in my opinion. The songs itself really gets the party going on itself besides the rowdy bunch of people that fill the stage, but the very impressive clean and harsh vocals of Sara in combination with Saku make you notice them even more. It almost seems effortless how she belts out her lines.
Overall the group also just radiates pleasure and fun in what they do, often joking around with each other and most of the time with a big smile on their faces, which gets the crowd easily more involved and excited about their show. The addition of stage monkey Miikki Kunttu being all over the stage definitely added to that, running around one time hitting the drums along Vesa and another time suddenly does a stage-dive to do some crowd-surfing. Songs were sang along to by most people there and when Sara and Saku jumped off the stage to get closer to their fans during one of the songs everything just felt absolutely right. Closing down with a cover of party classic The Bad Touch (by Bloodhound Gang), this was truly a celebration and for a lot of us we probably could’ve continued partying with them the whole night through. I think this band will grow really big still, both in Finland and beyond. After the gig Sara told me that they’re working on a new release that should hit the shelves in 2018, so that’s something to look forward to for sure!
The last band is in Finland quite the big name. Turmion Kätilöt (****) has been destroying stages since 2003 with their infectious industrial metal and crazy live shows. They released yet another record in 2017 with Dance Panique and they’re just the perfect band to close down an industrial metal Christmas party in Finland. With the stage as good as completely cleared of instruments and only the drums and keyboards/programming set-up in the back, the stage felt almost empty compared to earlier shows. On the other hand, a cult band like this with its “larger than life” characters in it, maybe can use a bit of space to go crazy in. As expected the crowd went wild when all the guys ran on stage and if you thought that people might have used up all of their energy during earlier performances, guess again…
Leader MC Raaka Pee was his ever imposing self and the band clearly has found their groove playing with the new live vocalist Shag-U (also known as Saku, vocalist of Fear of Domination) after longtime member Spellgoth made his exit. Sadly due to some medical issue, for this gig guitarist Bobby Undertaker had to give his axe to replacement Joonas Pulkkinen (from Black Light Discipline), who fulfilled his task wonderfully well, felt like he’s always been a part of the band! They didn’t use much gimmicks throughout the show besides some smoke columns in the back and MC Raaka Pee spinning his mic through the air on regular occasions. They just let the power of songs like Pirun nyrkki, Pyhä maa, Lataa ja varmista and Hyvää yötä speak for itself and simply blow the roof of the place!
For those who still didn’t have enough of the industrial party at Nosturi, there was an after party planned in Elmon Baari, led by Stereo Terror DJ’s. With yet again mister Saku “Shag-U” performing… damn, that man seems to have boundless amounts of energy! We wrapped up things though because we felt quite spend, though we went home still buzzing of the party of the year!
For more pictures go here to our photo coverage!
