Saturday at Copenhell Brought Death Metal, Pirates and a Rock Storm
Saturday at Copenhell served up a scorching cocktail of genres, generations and degrees Celsius, as the country’s temperature record left its clear mark on the day’s programme. From Maceration and Katla’s dark underground sound to Alestorm’s cheerful pirate party and Volbeat’s grand rock show, there was something for most tastes, even though the heat sent the crowd searching for shade more than ever. Here’s an overview of the day’s highlights, from the smaller stages to the main stage’s dramatic finale.
Maceration
Maceration ranks among the pioneers of early Danish death metal. When the band was formed in Esbjerg back in 1990 by, among others, Invocator members Jakob Schultz and Jacob Hansen, they laid some of the foundations for an entire genre at home. The style has roots in the traditional Swedish school, where the guitar sound is centred around the characteristic, chainsaw-like HM-2 pedal, combined with heavy, dragging mid-tempo riffs and dark arrangements. After a long hiatus spanning several decades, the band returned, and they still stick to their old-school death metal style, which is great to see still has room at a festival that often focuses on everything new. The music is raw and brutal, and the crowd eats it up. One could assume that many of the same faces who knew them from 30 years ago would be present, but there are also plenty of young faces in the crowd. It’s great to see the originators passing their craft on to the new generations.
Katla
The Copenhagen band Katla has marked itself as a fixed part of the domestic underground since 2018. Since breaking through in the Danish underground, they have refined a style that draws on a dirty and heavy blend of stoner, sludge and blackened doom metal. The music moves through a raw and cold universe, where everything superfluous has been cut away to make room for pure, mechanical weight.
Katla has a clear-cut audience and is well placed on the Pandæmonium stage. However, they’re challenged by the heat, and the country’s temperature record has clearly had an impact on how many people have shown up to the concerts throughout the day. There are hardly any people in the area, and certainly not in front of this stage, which is the most exposed to the sun. Still, they deliver a solid show, as the professionals they now are.
Vexed
British band Vexed, fronted by Megan Targett, have created a style that balances between technical surplus and cold, mechanical aggression. The music sits at a crossroads between angular djent, heavy deathcore and progressive metalcore, but with clear, unconventional detours into hip-hop, grime and electronic music.
Their music is built around extremely heavy, syncopated guitar riffs and polyrhythmic patterns that draw clear parallels to names like Meshuggah and Jinjer. The song structures are often complex and unpredictable, where glitches, atmospheric soundscapes and heavy breakdowns alternate without ever losing the rhythmic momentum.
They may not be the most well-known act at this year’s festival, but they provide a welcome break from the other genres and truly deliver for the audience that has sought refuge in the shade by the Gehenna stage.
Alestorm
Alestorm is the embodiment of the more festive and lighthearted side of the folk metal scene, which they themselves have dubbed “Pirate Metal”. Since being formed in Perth, Scotland, in 2004 under the name Battleheart, the band, fronted by Christopher Bowes, has built a solid discography on pure party energy. The music fuses lightning-fast power metal with traditional sea shanties and folk music, creating an extremely melodic and festive expression.
The song structures are typically built classically, with an enormous focus on massive, anthemic choruses and folksy hooks tailor-made for singalongs and drinking. Bowes’ rough, raspy, pirate-like vocals, supplemented by choir growls and rapid tempo changes, support the theme, and everyone in the crowd knows exactly which band they’re there to see. This is also evident in the fact that several traditions have emerged, both from the band and the audience. One of these is a duck theme, which has already become part of Copenhell culture, where a tradition was created some years ago of handing out small plastic ducks and good vibes to strangers. Another is when larger and larger sections of the crowd sit down in rows and start rowing. It’s always a party at Alestorm concerts, and today was no exception. The heat made it simply a welcome excuse to drink a few more beers.
Malevolence
The band has truly established itself as a recognisable name within modern European hardcore and metal. The music hits with enormous physical weight, drawing clear parallels to both Pantera and Crowbar, but delivered with a modern and sharp metalcore precision.
Their musical signature lies in the unusual crossroads between raw street-fighter energy and technical surplus. The guitar sound is massive and deep, where ton-heavy, dragging breakdowns and “chug riffs” are suddenly broken up by lightning-fast, neoclassical guitar solos and harmonised leads that sound like something from the thrash golden age of the ’90s. The song structures are dynamic and unpredictable; they manage to strip the tempo right out of the equation to make room for dirty Southern grooves, before everything explodes into an aggressive d-beat tempo.
The band has a great rapport with their audience and delivered both walls of death and large mosh pits for the relatively large crowd that had gathered. One fan even had a sign on which he’d written his wish to sing one of their songs, which he was allowed to do.
Volbeat
It’s safe to say that Volbeat has cemented itself as one of the biggest and most successful rock beasts Denmark has ever produced. Since forming in Copenhagen in 2001, frontman Michael Poulsen and the rest of the band have refined a style that has always met with great scepticism from the rest of the rock and metal scene, but which ended up taking much of the world by storm. Their well-known blend, often dubbed “Elvis metal”, fuses the heavy guitar tradition of Metallica and Black Sabbath with 1950s rockabilly, punk and classic, catchy pop craftsmanship. Their musical signature lies in the unique dynamic between the heavy and the incredibly catchy. The biggest focal point, however, is Michael Poulsen’s distinctive and powerful vocals, which draw clear lines to idols like Johnny Cash and James Hetfield.
They have also attracted a large portion of this year’s guests, many of them quite enthusiastic. Especially when the lead singer of Magtens Korridorer, Johan Olsen, comes on stage and gives it his all on their two biggest hits, ‘For Evigt’ and ‘The Gardens Tale’. It’s in this fusion, with the added vocals, that Volbeat truly shines. Beyond this, their regular repertoire is somewhat monotonous. This is further underlined when Martin Leth Andersen from Strychnos comes out and adds some serious growls. Whether he was called upon so Volbeat could prove they also belong on the metal scene remains uncertain, but they have at least proven that when they want to, they can crank up the brutality with great success. The concert ends up being cut short after almost 1.5 hours due to an escalating storm with lightning and thunder, and the crowd was also ready to call it there.
Photos (c) Morten Holmsgaard Kristensen
