A bit groggy from last night, the weather seemed to have a hangover as well, since it felt a lot colder on this second day in Wacken! 

SATURDAY

GENERAL INFO – THURSDAY – FRIDAY – SATURDAY – SUNDAY – AFTERMOVIE / NEWS

TROLLFAUST

Trollfaust is a highly energetic German medieval music act that does not use amplifiers to bring their music. With three bagpipes and two drummers they bring forth an epitome of rhythmic music ideal for a winter festival and a medieval market. Everybody on this festival had the chance to see these guys as they played like eight times on the smaller Mystic Woods stages.

Heavily German focused, but you would be surpised how captivating they are on stage. A real feast for trolls!

VOGELFREY

At Wacken Winter Nights there is no shortage of laughter and folk music, and what better band than Vogelfrey as the best example of German Folk Rock. The swifty guitar riffs and melodic strings give the band a real feeling of freedom on stage. We do realise that non-German speaking people have problems with following the band but nonetheless a great performance!

MOONSORROW

For years Moonsorrow is one of the leading bands combining melodies to the harshness that is Black Metal, as a bit of an outstander on this lineup (they’re often described more as black metal by people who just discovered the band) they certainly earn a place high on the bill at the Ice Palace. With a captivating intro they steamrolled the set for that day, what a performance it was. No bullshit and letting the music speak for itself, we got a good mix of songs from different album although this is always a hard choice, since the songs of Moonsorrow could exceed the 15 minute mark or are different songs in one if you think about it.

A good and very atmospheric passage at WWN!

EREB ALTOR

Ereb Altor is a band that has great potential, always brings a good set, but do not get spoken of a lot. It’s one of those gems you rarely get to see and watch live, so we made sure we would not miss it this time. Proclaiming themselves as a dark metal band in the beginning of the set, we heard a lot of influences from melodic doom metal and symphonies you often pick up in the Gothenburg scene, not surprising of course because the band is founded in Sweden and says it’s influenced by Bathory.

We seriously enjoyed hearing this band but unfortunately the sound coming out of the boxes was not of great quality. It was yet again too loud to really differentiate the layered music of the band. The clean vocals we recognised from their other project Isole clearly came through in the music and formed the backbone of the melancholy of certain parts, slowly building the tension for the harder parts in the song. Truly beautiful Dark Metal. We hope to see them soon in Belgium.

ELUVEITIE

One of the most crowded concerts at WWN was the show of Eluveitie and they are bigger than ever. A lot of fans were waiting all day to see this powerhouse of celtic folk metal. We got a live version of a song they will bring out on a new release on april 5th “Ategnatos” that certainly will bring the band to a lot of stages this summer and till the end of the year.

All things considered it was nothing else then a decent metal show at WWN, and with the critique on the singer (the female vocals obviously sound different with another female vocalist) and the sometimes difficult mix of all the instrument it really did go perfect. Chrigel Glanzmann vocals seem to have matured well, the wave of sound is sometimes overwhelming and we have to give the light technicians a big thumbs up at the Ice Palace.

Pictures & videos by Wacken Winter Nights.