We at Allfather could not think of a better way to christen our brand new website than jetting over the Atlantic Ocean to the land of fjords, black metal, and vikings to cover one of the premiere extreme metal festivals this world has to offer… Beyond The Gates. Branded as ‘4 Days of Darkness in the heart of Bergen‘, festival organizers have certainly captured the vibe of the festival and its relationship to the city that birthed it. Along with Oslo, Bergen, Norway, the capital of fjords, is best known in metal circles as one of the birthplaces of True Norwegian Black Metal. Illustrious bands and personalites such as Enslaved, Borknagar, Gorgoroth, Taake, Immortal, Gaahl, and Burzum‘s Varg Vikernes got their start in this beautiful city.
Now a decade in, Beyond The Gates has become the preeminent festival in Europe of its kind, attracting both bands and fans from every corner of the world. Each year, organizers do their absolute best in bringing a diverse range of music to suit the tastes of all. On top of that, they organize some very meaty extracurricular activities for fans, such as the Beyond The Gates Experience, with guided tours of black metal landmarks, spectacular nature, and local culture. There is also the Beyond The Ink Tattoo Convention that runs the entirety of the four days, which brings together many of the world’s best tattoo artists.
If this isn’t enough to keep one busy, each year the festival puts together a career retrospective exhibit of one of its bands. Last year it was Enslaved, and this year it was Satyricon. In celebration of their thirty-plus year career, the festival exhibition at Grieghallen provided a glimpse into Satyricon’s musical journey — with pieces culled from their classic black metal imagery with theatrical make-up and several inches long spikes, to the refined visual and auditive aesthetic that characterizes the band today.
With so much to do and see, we thought we’d put a little day-by-day feature together to bring you all into the world of the Beyond The Gates experience. To start, let’s go back to day one and the incredible lineup of bands that kickstarted the festival off!
WHOREDOM RIFE (Hallen)
Forged in silence during 2013 and 2014 in the outskirts of Nidaros, Norway, the band was founded by V. Einride and K.R. Armed with a vision of melding new ideas with the sounds of the early nineties, the idea behind the band was to breathe new life into the art form and lifestyle that we know as True Norwegian Black Metal. It comes as no surprise, then, that Whoredom Rife were given the opportunity to open the festival with their unique and vicious brand of Nordic black metal.
With a half-packed house at USF Verftet (a former sardine factory building accommodating five venues for presentation of music, theatre, films and contemporary art), the venue that hosts the first two days of the festival, the guys took to the stage bedecked in all the obligatory accoutrements of the genre and launched into the track ‘Curse Of The Moon’ from their 2021 album, Winds Of Wrath. This was immediately followed by ‘Den Vrede Makt’ (literally translated to ‘The Angry Power’) off this year’s album of the same name.
It was at this point that venue Hallen (the larger of the two stages at USF Verftet, the smaller stage being Røkeriet) started to fill up with festival goers. Witnessing Whoredom Rife live is certainly an experience I recommend, as the band are quite apt at drawing the listener in with their hypnotic and trance-inducing performance. A fantastic start to what would become one of the best days of the festival!
Setlist
‘Curse Of The Moon’, ‘Den Vrede Makt’,’Cursing The Storm To Come’, ‘From Nameless Pagan Graves’, ‘Hevnens Rett’, ‘Beyond The Skies Of God’
MANBRYNE (Røkeriet)
Comprising several live members of Blaze Of Perdition, Poland’s Manbryne are a relatively new entry into the sphere of black metal. SInce their inception in 2017, they’ve released two very well-received albums, and quickly gathered momentum with fans of the sub-genre. Their latest release, 2023’s Interregnum: O próbie wiary i jarzmie zwątpienia, has certainly propelled the guys to the next level, with the overwhelming consenus among reviewers being that these guys are the next big thing. If today’s display of black metal sorcery from the stage of Røkeriet was any indication, Manbryne are certainly destined for big things.
The thing about stage Røkeriet is that it is dark… very dark (with a tinge of reds, blues, and whites). This can be both good and bad. If you are a photographer, it can make things quite difficult to get those spectacular shots. For the bands, and fans, the darkness only amplifies the blackened metal mood. Manbryne thrive in darkness, both musically and thematically, making this the perfect scenario for the cacophony of extremity being spewed forth.
Setlist
‘Totentanz’,’Piach i niepamięć’, ‘Pustka którą znam’, ‘Grzechy ojców’, ‘Majestat upadku’, ‘Pierwszy kamień’
WATAIN (Hallen)
Satan’s disciples of total black metal insanity, Watain, know how to put on a show. The theatrics on display tonight were at once captivating and grotesque. Of course, like every Watain show, pigs blood was spilled on the first few rows of punters (most who were doused wore it with pride for the remainder of the evening). The heat from the many fires burning onstage could be felt several rows in, making this a literal hell of a show! Frontman, Erik Danielsson, though petite, certainly knows how to command a stage, summoning spells and incantations like a ten-foot Sumerian demon.
Tonight, the Swedes offered up a mixed bag of fiery goods, beginning with the track ‘Hymn To Qayin’ taken from their 2010 album, Lawless Darkness. With fires burning on every corner of the stage, Erik and his minions jumped into ‘Devil’s Blood’, the very same track that the chalice filled with pig’s blood found its way onto those fans unfortunate enough (or fortunate, depending on your penchant for blood) to be within the splatterzone.
The rest of Watain‘s set was far less bloody, but the fires did continue to burn. This was by far the best set I have seen from these guys over the years. One could get the sense that this festival, on this particular evening, in this particular city, was an incredibly special moment for the band. As a result, the fans gobbled it up and paid their blackened respects to this legendary band.
Setlist
‘Hymn To Qayin’, ‘Devil’s Blood’, ‘Four Thrones’, ‘Wolves Curse’, ‘Sacred Damnation’, ‘Not Sun Nor Man Nor God’, ‘Before The Cataclysm’, ‘Septentrion’, ‘Malfeitor’
BLACK ANVIL (Røkeriet)
Straight outta NYC comes this altogether different sounding beast of blackened thrash metal. With just under twenty years of history behind them, Black Anvil could be considered grand pappies of black metal inspired thrash… and it shows! Their performance tonight was exceptional on two fronts: musicianship and showmanship. They have this thing wound tighter than a nun’s… well… you know.
The thing about Black Anvil is that they are one band who truly can fit on any extreme metal billing. They don’t pigeonhole themselves into any corners. They would be just as comfortable sharing a stage with either Testament or Mayhem. This has served them well over the last couple of years, touring with many bands, whether that be Enslaved, Abbath, Cannibal Corpse, Skeletonwitch, or Killswitch Engage. With this in mind, it only makes sense, then, that they were invited all the way to Norway to take part in the four days of darkness.
Tonight, the guys tore their way through a set that comprised material from their five full-lengths and one EP, including a good helping of tracks from their latest Season Of Mist-released album, Regenesis. The energy being exuded from stage by all members, but especially frontman P., was absolutely palpable. Black Anvil demonstrated tonight that they are a band at peak performance… gonna be hard to top this one!
MAYHEM (HALLEN)
The sons of Northern cacophony, Mayhem, are an incredibly busy band, particularly around festival season where they can be seen zig-zagging across the globe to bring their particular brand of True Norwegian Black Metal to the masses. Tonight promised to be unlike any other of those appearances, as the guys were presenting 40 years of the Mayhem machine on home turf… in the very city they recorded their eponymous De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. It truly is a special thing to catch a band on the soil of which they were birthed, as it just brings things full-circle. Additionally, it allows that band to invite local former members to the stage to contribute to the legacy, which Mayhem did tonight (more on that later).
They kicked things off with a big-screen retrospective of the band’s lengthy history, year-by-gruesome-year. This lasted for several minutes, with the last thirty seconds building in intensity until the huge payoff at the end where the band bursted onto stage with thunderous accolades from the jam-packed house with the song ‘Malum’, taken from their 2019 album, Deamon. This was immediately followed by ‘MILAB’ and ‘Psywar’ from 2014’s incredible Esoteric Warfare.
With the contemporary stuff out of the way, for now, Atilla and his henchmen steamrolled their way into the ears of the devout with the track ‘Illuminate Eliminate’ from their classic 2007 album, Ordo ad Chao, and ‘Chimera’ from the 2012 album of the same name. By this point, things were locked in… the band and fans swimming in the same blackened sea of subconcious terror. Taking everyone by surprise, they then ripped into a track from an album that, from my knowledge, rarely gets attention, if ever, from the stage… 2000’s Grand Declaration Of War. The chosen song was none other than ‘Crystalized Pain In Deconstruction’ (which also happens to be my favorite song from the album). This was a nice treat.
As I hinted to at the top of this, what truly made this performance extra special was that Mayhem had a little help from two local heroes that date way back to the founding of this band. Both Manheim (original drummer) and Messiah (original vocalist) joined the band onstage for the songs ‘Deathcrush’, ‘Necrolust’, and ‘Pure Fucking Armageddon’ from their debut album, Deathcrush. Suddenly, this display of True Norwegian Black Metal was transformed into a punk show… and the fucking crowd went absolutely ape-shit!
An incredible end to one of the best performances of the four days. Bucket-list, to say the least!
Setlist
‘MILAB’, ‘Psywar’, ‘Illuminate Eliminate’, ‘Chimera’, ‘Crystalized Pain In Deconstruction’, ‘View From Nihil’, ‘Ancient Skin’, ‘Freezing Moon’, ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’, ‘Funeral Fog (With Dead vocals)’, ‘Deathcrush’, ‘Necrolust’, ‘Pure Fucking Armageddon’
TRELLDOM (Røkeriet)
4 Days Of Darkness In The Heart Of Bergen wouldn’t be the same without the man who is the ACTUAL beating heart of Bergen (from the perspective of black metal, that is), Gaahl. Having been to Bergen many times over the last several years, it is not uncommon to run into Gaahl either at his art studio, Galleri Fjallar, or sipping on wine at a local watering hole (or, if you are like me, nearly getting bowled over by the trenchcoated man while walking to the store in the morning). Gaahl presented himself to this year’s Beyond The Gates with his newly-resurrected band, Trelldom (who played their very first show ever at the festival).
For those that are unfamiliar with Trelldom, the band was formed in Sunnfjord, Vestland, Norway way back in ’92, and featured a young Gaahl on vocals, Bjørn Inge Storkås (guitars, bass), and Ole Nikolai Løbø (drums). They released three very-well received albums (with various members coming and going), before falling off the face of the earth after their 2007 album, Til Minne…
The band resurrected earlier this year and released their newest album, …By The Shadows…, on Prophecy Productions. A far cry from their early pure Norwegian black metal roots, the album takes on a far more experimental tone, barely resembling anything related to black metal. This isn’t to say it’s bad. Not at all. Just different. Tonight, the guys dug into tracks from said album, and delivered a truly mesmerizing set that was a nice change of pace from the extremity that would be on full-display for the next three days of the festival. To the happiness of many in attendance, they did bust a few oldies.
Stay tuned for Day 2 of Beyond The Gates coming soon!
July 31st, 2024 @ USF Verftet (Bergen, Norway)
Images By: Kim Baarda
Words By: Jason Deaville