Well, this was my first trip to the Black Metal festival in close proximity to the German capital and it was nothing but an absolutely worthwhile experience. Despite a seven hours trip, almost frightening thunder-storms just before our arrival at the festival site, some branch-slalom on the road, nice people and a load of beers turned Thursday into a pretty good start… Besides me having a serious hangover on Friday noon – yes, I took quite a long nap after drinking some of the worst beer brands ever brewed – the weather had changed for the better and ‘til Sunday a mix of sunshine, short rainstorms and a lot of wind created a satisfactorily “festival-climate”. On both of the two festival days sunshine and dry weather were on time when the first band entered stage until the last one finished and people went or lurched back to their tents…
First up on Friday were German HEYDNBLUT which entered stage around half past seven, if I remember correctly, but I was having a Spaghetti Bolognese in the festival site’s restaurant with some friends and what I heard was not really my cup of tea. Some of the approximately 500 people (I think it were even less then, but it the audience grew to around 700 later) were already at the site and listened to the festival opener, I had the munchies, so excuse me, ok?
When Dutch FLUISTERWOUD started I had just finished my meal and musically the traditional, morbid Black Metal band did a very good job! Unfortunately sunshine and a little static musicians dimmed the intensity of the band’s material, including songs off the demo “En Sinister Schouwspel” (1998) and the debut album on Full Moon “Langs Galg En Rad” (2003). Sound was excellent, music unoriginal, but great, too, only weather and stage acting turned FLUISTERWOUD’s show into a so-so gig…I bet in a dark club they’d been much better and would have acted with increased enthusiasm.
The first real highlight were Czech DARK STORM, the sky slowly grew darker and the band’s violent storm of oldschool Black Metal was just perfect and could convince the audience at instant! People started to bang, the musicians spread lots of charisma and delivered straight Black Metal with commitment and feeling. Corpsepaint, chains, fire spitting, good stage acting, again a crisp and clear sound, watching DARK STORM was simply a pleasure and they are live certainly stronger than on CD…
Highly active Finnish AZAGHAL’s show resulted in pretty oppositional reactions, some said they should have played more old stuff, some enjoyed them a lot – I think I belong to the latter… Black Metal with mostly Finnish lyrics and a good dose of surprising Thrash riffs well performed and of rousing intensity. Especially the typical Finnish rolled “r” and lines like “Kosi, Kosi, Kosi” came across very cool and once again I got riled since I never cared much about these guys, but they are powerful, hateful and perfect for live situations. The Thrash Metal elements and the diversified song material filled with surprises and memorable parts might have helped, as well as the good sound and a solid stage performance. Really good show!
THE disappointment of the festival were ISVIND, I like “Dark Water Stirs” but the three-piece’ appearance was slightly arrogant, plagued with timing and sound problems (especially at the beginning) and the few old songs performed came along as inefficient as the newer ones and don’t call me feminist, but dragging a young – honestly spoken – pretty attractive woman off stage in a rather gentleman-unlike manor was a little senseless. Maybe it should distract from ISVIND’s lame show… Me and a couple of other people I talked to afterwards had definitely expected much more!
My Ancient Spirit Terror colleague Vasili said that after Friday’s headliner INQUISITION from the USA played he could have head straight home! Despite a mediocre sound, the mysterious intensity and capturing force of the duo’s mesmerizing dark Black Metal hymns was simply awesome, unique and a perfect headliner for the first festival day. Yes, the sound was not perfect, but especially singer / guitarist’s Dagon way of moving and filling the stage with his incredible charisma and presence enthralled the whole audience. Even some new tracks were performed (e.g. ‘Crush The Jewish Prophet’) and with a better light show (e.g. more darkness, less colourful lights, torches, candles…) INQUISITION’s magical effect could have been increased, but nonetheless the band achieved to deliver an extraordinary, individual and unholy show. I’ve never seen satanic ideals and sinister moods realised on stage in such a capturing, epic and atmospheric way, hail INQUISITION, you guys fuckin’ rule!!!
Day two started with less hangover-related headache, only the weather had stayed the same and alternated between rain and sun, but when ANAEL entered stage after almost an hour delay (they should have started at 18 o’clock, but played their first song at 19 o’clock) the weather was dry again and another dose of killing Black Metal intensity was about to be unleashed. Of course broad daylight was not really the right setting for heavily SAMAEL-inspired Black Metal, but ANAEL delivered a solid show and received some positive reactions. Sure you can grumble about the German band copying the Swiss legend to 99%, but e.g. a new song like ‘Storm Of The Past’ or ‘Storm From The Past’ (sorry, I’m not sure about the exact title anymore) shows an increased dose of individuality spreading in ANAEL’s sound and I really hope they will continue to develop in this direction. Among all those speed-orientated bands they certainly had a special status along INQUISITION and NEGURA BUNGET as one of the three slower bands…
MERRIMACK from France delivered skilfully played, varied Black Metal of utter intensity and due to the vocalist’s excellent performance captured depressive moods as well as hate filled aggression! Again I was not too familiar with the bands material, but I will be soon, believe me, I need to get the “Ashes Of Purification” album since the songs they played off this release were simply awesome and another good example of the prospering French Black Metal scene. The quite tall singer had an impressive stage presence and when MERRIMACK did a cover of the mighty PROFANATICA’s ‘Weeping Of Angels’ in the middle of the set I was as happy as can be…great band, that received excellent reactions despite them having to play almost at daylight, hope to see them again one day!
I have to admit that I missed AVENGER, which I had already seen on tour with BLACK WITCHERY in 2002, but I was hanging around on the camping site… I really like their albums and fortunately the music was loud enough to be easily heard even on the camping site and most reactions reaching me after the Czech’s show were very positive, I’m sorry I can’t tell you more…
Then the festival’s most individual sounding band beside INQUISITION came up stage and a dark mixture of Black, Pagan and Dark Metal was unleashed upon the people watching Romanian NEGURA BUNGET. The band’s moody sound is definitely stuff you’d better listen to at home with a glass of wine, lights out etc, but even live as Saturday’s first band playing in full darkness a certain aura and atmosphere caught fire among the audience. The keyboards were a little too loud and caused a rather unfavourable sound mishmash and narrowed the space needed by the two guitarists and their diversified performance. Ok show revealing enough of the band’s existent qualities making me eager to hear their albums in depth and detail…
The third Finnish band on the bill beside IMPALED NAZARENE and AZAGHAL were Underground Black Metallers SATANIC WARMASTER who released pretty strong yet extremely traditional albums of dark, hateful and possessed art. Unfortunately this effect was not achieved onstage, without corpsepaint, a decent show or a sick stage acting nothing was left but great music lacking an appropriate performance and outfit. Many uttered being disappointed by SATANIC WARMASTER and I can do nothing but agree, they could have done much more of such well-crafted Black Metal, but they did not…
You think IMPALED NAZARENE have lost some of their chaotic charme, their violent power, their sheer intensity over the last few years? Maybe on albums like “Absence Of War Does Not Mean Peace” softer songs sneaked into IMP NAZ’s discography, but live they fucking ruled! A lot of stuff from “Ugra Karma”, old songs like ‘Condemned To Hell’ or ‘Sadogoat’ and some newer tracks like ‘The Lost Art Of Goat Sacrificing’ or ‘Halo Of Flies’ got mixed and altogether one can say it was a hellish good best of show, exactly what people had expected. Sure the Finnish violators have developed further and appear more mature and experienced onstage, but the aggressiveness is still there and Mika Luttinen’s voice was just killer. Even the pretty muddy yet loud enough sound did not affect IMPALED NAZARENE’s intensity and although the bass fucked up during the encores Arc v 666 showed his improvisation talents, dropped his instruments and just yelled along with Mika. This was a great rousing final of this year’s Under The Black Sun festival and despite a flat tire on our way home the festival itself was well organised, the people at the bar, restaurant and breakfast buffet (superb idea!!!) were extremely helpful, friendly and nice to the load of stinking Metalheads at Ahlimbsmühle. I hope the billing next year will meet the standard of 2004 and I’m sure I will return to the UTBS, since in addition to the aforementioned aspects prices, sanitary facilities and the camping site were great, too, but please expand the “emergency provisions” of cigarettes the next time, I bought one of the last packets around early Saturday evening and I never received so much sex offerings after people knew I had some left, haha…
And if you are interested in knowing if there were a lot of Nazis at the UTBS, I would definitely disagree, of course you’ll see a lot of so called “political incorrect” shirts and there are some stupid people as well, but honestly spoken, I’ve seen more idiots at Wacken or Party.San and the security at UTBS reacted pretty fast on every putative problem, sometimes one had the impression the guards were getting hornier and hornier to bash up someone, but except one negative example when the stage guard tossed a woman off stage during the INQUISITION show I did not perceived any negative behaviour. The UTBS is a festival I can only heartily recommend to anyone into Black Metal and the fact there are way fewer bands playing than usually on festivals makes it much better, more intimate and increases the level of attention the audience shows the performing musicians. Two thumbs up! Visit www.folter666.de (Folter Records) or www.triple-six-concerts.de (Triple Six Concert Agency) for additional infos, bandlinks, forum and so on and so forth…

Foto credits: 
Inquisition, Dark Storm, Anael: Armagedda / Metall Katharsis Zine (http://home.arcor.de/metallkatharsis)
Satanic Warmaster: www.ring-of-metal.com
Merrimack: cypherthefallen@t-online.de

A big thank you to all of you!!!!!!!!

Stefan Franke