This year’s iteration of the Beyond the Gates Festival brings some heavy hitters and big names to headline the four-day event.
Highlights include “Experiences” such as guided tours of Black Metal landmarks, visits to the famed Fantoft Stave Church, and the tattoo event called Beyond the Ink, where you can get a tattoo if you like. With a small selection of food stalls and a great atmosphere, you’re in for a fantastic week of metal and unique experiences!
Additionally the festival worked out special offers around Bergen for the Festival goers, Discounts on food places, Kode Museums and my personal favorite the Bergen Aquarium. Thanks Beyond the Gates team!
Beyond The Gates Festival spans three different venues; Kicking it off at the USF Verftet, a refurbished sardine factory that now hosts cultural events.
USF Verftet features 2 stages: "Røkeriet" (To the Left side) for smaller audiences and the main larger one called "Hallen" (To the right.) To be honest the pictures do not reflect much on how big the "Hallen" is. Both stages are comfortable and you can see the performing bands from most spots. The sound quality is good overall, though "Hallen" stage can be a bit challenging due to its open spaces perhaps? Nonetheless, all bands delivered a solid sound. (Thanks Audio and Stage Crew!)
Now that we have introduced the venues, we can start talking about the main events.
~ The gigs ~
On day 1 we starts with a heavy hitter from Norway playing what we came to hear, high quality metal, in this case Nidrosian black metal.
Whoredom Rife.
With a setlist combining both old a new songs, we have to talk about their recent release "Den Vrede Makt" Which to me is an absolute gem. K.R's vocals and prescence are intense as they can get and V. on drums are killer performances, All live members deliver violently what Whoredom Rife represents. And heck you are in for a wild ride.
Some of the songs in their set included; Curse of the Moon, Den vrede makt, Beyond the skies of God and more.
Balanced and heavy set.
For more Whoredom Rife pictures, check the full gallery here.
Next up we had more from the Terratur Possessions gang.
From Poland: MANBRYNE!
Gotta love Poland's black metal which has some bands which I personally catalog like gems such as In Twilights Embrace who was on the previous edition of Beyond The Gates Festival and who also are from Terratur Posessions roster.
This year does not disappoints, Manbryne delivers black metal with strong melodics and rawness. They have released their newest album back in October of 2023 through Terratur Possessions and Malignant Voices in Poland.
With a set that felt short they did indeed deliver as much as possible, songs from both album latest and old; songs from the newest release as "Piach i niepamiec" and "Grzechy Ojcow"and from their first album "Pustka Ktora znam" their set was fast paced and tightly ablaze. One could hear people talking about this set afterwards for a while.
Next up, bloodied papers around town announced the storm to come..
Without a doubt Watain live is a must see. Blood, Fire and death? Perhaps also a sneak peak of what's to come?
Between a set with a duration of almost an hour, If not awakened previously the audience was fully awaked by Watain intense set, torches and blood both which both ended on the audience side as well.
Erik is an incredible front man, with passion and energy takes us for a ride in hell through Watain repertoire.
With songs such as Devil's blood, Wolves Curse, Septention and closing with Malfeitor left the audience in pure agony and ecstasy.
Next we had a dose of black by Black Anvil.
Not much to say about Black Anvil performance, straight to the point, black with what one can feel US thrashy influences throwing speedy but flavorful blackened riffs. Loved the sound of this band live and certainly the audience loved this as well.
Following up we got the delighting act of Mayhem with their 40th Anniversary show, "40 years of pure fucking chaos".
With some great Intro visualizer showing the story so far, old and new members and a tribute to fallen ones it kicks off Mayhem's 40 anniversary set constituting of a variety of songs passing the hour run time.
With a few surprises along the way, such as special appearances of Messiah on vocals and Manheim on the drums.
For being a 40th anniversary these special appearances went hard. Seeing Manheim on drums blasting Deathcrush, Necrolust and Pure Fucking Armageddon was a delightful treat for Mayhem Fans.
To close the day we got Trelldom, one of Gaahl's project which precedes it's time in Gorgoroth, Trelldom stablished in 1992 and debuting live at this edition of Beyond the Gates. The start of the set was odd and slow with clarinet and saxophone on stage, but it did ramp up and definitely in for a piece of Gaahl's and peers talented musician skills.
Day 2 starts strong with the day shifts and afterwards the night shifts in Kulturhuset.
Ancient evil Rock over bergen!
This awesome power trio is one of my favourite bands from the Netherlands, playing some fast paced speedy ancient evil rock.
With corpse paint, mullets, chainmail hoods and big sunglasses they went and blasted through their repertoire, which at this time consist of a few demos and a recent full length "Hell Returns" released recently! Quoting Fenriz: "Big Sunglasses very important, Big Sunglasses cool band". Rocking pieces like "Sexual Lich", "Devil's swindler" and "In Hell I belong" left the audience asking for more.
I'll leave the embedded player below as you need to listen this madness.
Doombringer did bring.. DOOM!
Doombringer is another Polish gem, Death metal with heavy tints of black metal, the energy of the vocals from "Medium Mortem" and company stage presence was high.
Playing songs as "Children of Moloch", "Red vapour fills the skull of the cadaver" and "Ominous Alliance". Definitely brought the mood to Kulturhuset.
Hail Satan, slay the lamb!
To close the early shifts we got Ritual Death, pure black metal terror!
Ritual Death is one of the many projects of the multi instrumentalist Björn from Darvaza, Fides Inversa and many more. One of the interesting attribute is how Ritual Death music is composed, nothing crazy, simple but heavy blackened riffs. With a single Full-length self titled. Live performances of Ritual Death are full of eerie presence by the mysterious masked Wraath.
With these three bands we close up the day shift at Kulturhuset and next we go back to USF Verftet for another round of heavy and black metal on the second day of Beyond The Gates Festival.
Around 5:30PM we start the second part of the day with Cult of Fire on the "Hallen".
Cult of Fire scenography and stage full of props do create an environment that sets the mood for the ritual.
The blood... Covenant?
Next up we had some heavy metal from Portrait, who stepped in short notice for replacement of Attic, unfortunately they had to cancel.
With so many bands releasing new albums, Portrait does not stays behind, they had recently released a new Album "The Host", It gives some serious King Diamond vibes.. In a good way! Which definitely is worth a listen, this band does shows some serious energy on the stage! Check their recent album!
Lay Down Your Souls To The Gods Rock n' Roll!
The godfathers of heavy metal! Continue with the heavy metal flame on this second day of Beyond The Gates, Cronos does know how to hype up the crowd and deliver an dynamic performance. Playing songs like Black Metal, Welcome to Hell, Don't burn the witch and Witching Hour it was a great set full of classics.
Receiving transmission from outer space... Darkspace.
From the dark depths of Switzerland, Darkspace emerges to present the dark spatial ambient black metal to Bergen, The sound.. Impeccable representing their cold and eerie void of their music, one of my favorite shows of the entire festival.
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O Father, O Satan, o Sun!
One of the big shows presented in Beyond The Gates without a doubt would be Behemoth.
Behemoth brings the entire production on the festival, with the shadows introduction and lots of fire around, certainly something to look for.
With a spanning set of their entire discography, they played classics as Demigod, Bartzabel, Conquer All and a fan favorite Christians to the lions.
As Nergal explained they have officially outlived Jesus Christ after 33 years going strong in the music path.
Talking 'bout Jesus Christ?
Death SS from Italy closes the day in the USF Verftet with a very heavy metal set full of classics, a Interesting show to say the least and big crosses.
But the day is not over yet, we still had the night shift to enjoy!
Past mightnight we travel back to Kulturhuset, for the final bands to perform, Akhlys from United States, kicked off the night shift with brutal riffs and an embracing red darkness it felt like a bulldozer passing over one without warning or mercy.
Akhlys are incredible musicians which will satiate any cravings for brutality and their performance live is incredible. Definitely no words to describe their show. They have recently released an album as well which is top tier. "House of the black Geminus" Go do yourself a favor and listen to it. Absolute Gem.
Unfortunately a few days after, down the road they had their tour van broken in and some merch and cash from their sales was stolen, some other stuff were also taken from them, they have started up a go fund me to help get back some of their stuff back, if you'd like to donate something you can do here.
Now finally closing the day and the night shift, we got the legendary Specter.
From the Netherlands.. Old Tower.
If we talk about dungeon synth one of the names which usually jumps out is Old Tower, or at least nowadays.
With albums back from 2015, their name feels like growing up in the Dungeon Synth scene.
Specter in my opinion is a incredible musician, if you know his other projects you know his great music capabilities.
Old Tower also played recently on Nuclear War Now fest in Japan. Talk about cool bands!
Not much to say besides Old Tower delivering epic mysticism and dark ambient landscapes.
Photo Report by Rodhnny for Abyssalvoid.nl
