22-09-2023 Helsinki Techfest

Opening the festival is Unscaled Seven. The band is coming all the way from Oulu, which is quite some hours from Helsinki and they were bringing their Progressive Metal to the stage. Helsinki crowed showed up rather early so they were having enough people to entertain. Performance wise they seem a bit timid, especially compared to the other bands playing today, but the band has something else that draws their attention, the music is interesting enough to keep our attention and that makes that the whole is coming out nicely. Although the guys have founded in 2015 already they are not having many releases out there yet. A shame, for they are sparking interest. Hopefully the band will cross our paths again some when.

Crucify The Faith describes themselves as Modern Metal and last year the guys have released their debut album “As The World Ends”. It seem to have hit well in the scene as the guys brought some more people into the venue. And the guys leave no time go to waste to show us how much energy they bring along. Included is also a lot of interaction with the audience which responds well to the sound that these guys bring along. Looking at their set, we might have liked a bit more variation into it as the songs are built the same way and so at the second half of the set it became a bit alike. Luckily they had enough fans and friends who loved all of it though.

Third band of the evening was Atlas Northcore but they are going as Atlas as well. This was the band that surprised us mostly. They have a sense of mystery around them. In a way they feel distant, yet intense and before you know it they are in your face with their music. Sneaking up to you like that. More direct than you might have thought at first. Their sound is freezing your over and the band themselves recognizes that and warns you online by stating ‘Embrace The Cold’. So it is not strange to see that people are getting into motion to warm themselves up again, the venue is energetic tonight. The band was also announced for Euroblast so if the mystery is teasing you a bit, we recommend to see them there. Definitely a highlight!

For Oceans Ate Alaska it was the first time to perform in Finland. The Metalcore formation flew in from UK and it seems like it was the right thing to do at this time, for the venue was full with fans having their best time at the show. The band experiments with different sounds in their music and that makes it interesting. Performance wise they stand out with their charismatic way of interacting with the audience. The band makes people in the venue feel personally addressed and appreciated and that is an unique skill to master. Most lately the band released an instrumental version of their 2022 release “Disparity”. An interesting choice to do so, but for tonight we have seen the version with vocals mainly. And otherwise it would have been filled in by the fans we can imagine.

Altogether these British lads have no issues entertaining us tonight. A top class act, which probably will return to Finland soon enough.