Death metal and satanic black metal dominated Steelfest's lineup 19.5.2012 in Hyvinkää. When I arrived, Forced Kill was warming up audience by shouting "The next song is dedicated to everyone who thinks that there are advantages to being a vulture!" Dart Management, which just got 1/3 of Greece's remaining treasury after buying bonds by bottom price would surely agree.
The dagger, the chalice, the torch and the iron
The 4 satanic bands had a little contest on the most outrageous stage show. They were all very good at creating the kind of haunted, intense atmosphere which sets black metal apart, where the musicians don't just entertain the audience but channel visions from the other side. Sawhill Sacrifice established baseline with corpse paint and intense drumming. While they are musically great, they need more work on their core message (claiming that Cthulhu will rise from the dead isn't very credible message.)
Cavus continued preparations for the black ceremony by announcing that they were prohibited from summoning the devil, bringing rats and playing with blood, and adviced anyone interested in those to come to the backstage.
After that, Sacrilegious Impalement whipped the audience to frenzy with their perfect combination of fast and relentless music and well thought out mystical, satanic message. The singer had a chalice of blood (maybe from the rats of Cavus?) which he also sprinkled to the audience. Afterwards some listeners took photographs on the grass with the unwashed bloodstains. They also had an inverted, sharpened cross as stage prop - I half expected them to impale something there, but they didn't go that far.
Enochian Crescent finalized the mass with a baptism of fire to cancel the singer's Christian baptism, first warming up an iron with a torch and then grilling himself.
Also animals were killed for the pleasure of Steelfest audience. Not by impaling them to a sharpened, inverted cross but instead beforehand to provide meat for the delicious double steak hamburgers in American Diner's vendor stall. If someone wants to feel shocked and ban something, start with the actual, irrevocable "fun kills" by banning the hamburger stall.
Barely Legal
You could see that the satanic bands were mainly restriced by Finnish criminal law. First of all, impaling something to an inverted cross would have been a first degree animal protection crime, producing a 4 - 24 month jail sentence. Some high priest grilling an acolyte with a hot iron (instead of the singer grilling himself) would have been manhandling, prosecuted even if the "victim" won't sue.
Blessed to resist Islam
Sacrilegious Impalement had heeded the call to arms by Ironmistress by printing T-shirts which resist "the laws of Sharia invading our homes", using Paganism to fill the memetic void when Christianity is too weak to resist Islamic extemism. I saw just one such T-shirt, so it is not a mass movement even if black metal bands would love to lead the nativist defense against violent Islam.
Also Taake's main singer had Norwegian flag as a cloak, and one girl in the audience waved Norway's flag.
If you want peace, prepare for war
Death metal lineup started with Forced Kill and Corpsessed, culminating in Sotajumala's (War God) brutal hammering. War God's message combined cold, harsh military discipline, necessary for effective national defense, with the mindlessness of dying. It appealed to the Finnish audience (3/4 male), most of which had served as conscripts and done the mental exercise of imagining what it is like to be in war. Also shouts from audience reflected that.
Other bands
Also Saattue, XII and The Crown played in the festival, but I didn't see them. Thanks for the organizers, it was a great event except for one thing. Instead of being racist, xenophobic assholes, permit the mages summon devil to the party next year!
No comments:
Post a Comment