Supports: Enisum, Helsott
Headliner: Skyforger
Location: headCRASH, Hamburg (DE)
The German black forest metallers Finsterforst recently embarked on a European tour as support act for Skyforger to celebrate their newest release “Zerfall” with Hamburg as one of the stops. The dedicated pagan metal audience gathered at headCRASH on a Friday to experience this madness!
Due to personal reasons, we arrived during the middle of the set of the support act Enisum. The band has been around for a while as they were formed in 2006 and describe their style as “first Italian Arpitanian black metal”. Latest album “Moth’s Illusion” was released earlier this year.
As soon as we entered the venue, it was hard not to skip this act as the candles, the overall stage decoration as well as the dark atmosphere was mesmerizing! There weren’t many cheers or applause as the atmosphere was enough to captivate the audience; it was just the perfect show to give in to the music. The band’s style also fit to the evening as the songs lied more towards the atmospheric side of black metal. Overall, a quite impressive show and we hope to catch Enisum from the beginning to the end next time.
Finsterforst was our highlight of the evening. Hailing from the black forest region in Germany, the band are one of the known names when it comes to the pagan metal scene. We are used to seeing them in pagan/black metal festivals in Germany so seeing them in a club show was something new and exciting for us. Since the band’s songs are rather long with most songs over 5-6 minutes, the setlist was short but promising. Surely the highlight was the newest fantastic release “Zerfall” and so the band started the set with “Wut” and played “Zerfall” as well as “Fluch des Seins” from the latest release. Given the complexity of the songs, the band managed to deliver a perfect show when it came to the new songs.
One interesting surprise was seeing a different face on vocal duties as Stef from the German black/pagan metal act Jörmungand was the vocalist of the band on this night. This is not a new thing though; since he performed with the band many times in the past, we could tell that he was quite confident and comfortable when it came to singing but also growling. So he managed to deliver a dynamic performance and also interacted with and entertained the audience.
What made the show a bit more colorful was the addition of songs from “Rastlos” (2012) as the band also played “Mach Dich Frei” and “Ein Lichtschein”. Especially during the beginning of “Ein Lichtschein”, we could tell that a few were quite happy to hear some older material but our highlight was definitely “Mach Dich Frei” with an epic performance as well as the lights and the smoke. As a matter of fact, the whole setlist showed that it is not easy to play the songs live, especially compared to the record, as there are lots of elements featured in each song but the band proved that they can pull this off despite of a small venue and a rather ‘OK’ audience.
Overall, Finsterforst delivered quite an impressive show! Our highlight was definitely hearing the new material live, which was quite challenging but just as we expected, the band delivered the new tunes perfectly! Maybe with a more passionate audience and a bigger venue, the show could have been more more epic but these Germans did not disappoint and so we look forward to seeing them sometime in the future!
Links:
Finsterforst
Enisum
Helsott
Skyforger
Text by: Basak G
Photos by: Heavy Harlequin