16-12-2011 Bar Bläkkäri

Venue: The Green Room, Helsinki (Finland)
By: Sabine van Gameren

Metal in Helsinki, this evening would take place in bar Bäkkäri, a.k.a the Green Room (or as us Tempelores girls affectionately say: The bakery). Barathrum was headlining the evening and while we planned to be here undercover we could not hold back some words on this event.

The evening starts of with a charismatic act of darkness. Saatanan Marionetit is playing and when they recently released their album “Satanick Destruction of Death” of which they state ‘Only the pope would not buy one’. The band surprises with an entertaining act in which vocalist Tritonus Satan shows of some interesting skills in the words that come out of him as well as the mimics during the performance. Clean or not clean the band steps away from the standards to mix different genres into their sound. The experiment works out well and we the band is bringing a nice show.

Second band of the evening was Bloodride, a formation that make Thrash Metal since 2000. The band has a strong instrumental base here tonight, which did result in having the vocals flowing more to the background. The intensity of the band comes from the guitars that maybe do not bring the most original riffs, but are quite tight. The passion of the band makes the show entertaining and while some more people are gathering in front of the stage, there is coming some response as well. The only thing that is lacking a little is some element that gives the band an own face, saying this is Bloodride, as it is not the most refreshing sound at all.

Gloomy Grim is more a band that brings show. With some candles at the front of the stage and some girls in the audience playing around with the grease the Black Metal in its most cliché comes up here. The band has a long history starting in 1984 under another name. Yet, there seems plenty fans in the venue and while the show starts as quite an act, the music takes over eventually. The focus is more on the vocals and the fact that the songs are often inspired on horror films is something you cannot miss. The set is going on quite long with the same vibes, at the end maybe a little too long seeing the attention for the band run a little loose at the end of their set, but the band show that black is black and still black.

The Black/Doom formation Barathrum has been around since 1990 and they have released eight full length albums since. The latest dates back to 2005 and only some small releases have followed since. Tonight they have collected quite a crowd, but for some reason the show seemed a little disappointing. Was it the booze they had been taking before, vocalist Demonos Sova almost tripping over himself a couple of times or maybe the fact that not all seem to work out that well tonight? Yet, the audience seem to enjoy the band quite well and in the last part of their set things seem to be a bit more on the level you may have expected, but yet not fulfilling the expectations.