Valkyrian Music

Frosttide, Ne Obliviscaris, Cradle of Filth
Nosturi, Helsinki, Finland
21st November 2015

Cradle of Filth are one of the bands that I grew up listening to. I’ve seen them live three times before, in three different countries (the U.K., France and Finland). The last time I saw them was in Tampere back in 2013. This time they announced that they will only be playing one show in Finland – Helsinki.

The venue was a club called Nosturi (“the crane”) located near the shipyard, just outside of the city centre. I haven’t been there in years… Yesterday was the first day of winter which meant that I stood in the snow and rain waiting to get in. The place was packed by the time I entered the building.

First up was a Finnish band called Frosttide who won the competition to open up for the main band on the Finnish leg of the tour. Their style is a essentially a mixture of melodic death metal and folk metal. I enjoyed the show but I couldn’t help thinking about just how much they reminded me of Ensiferum. 3.5/5

The next act was the Australian metal band Ne Obliviscaris. These guys have a really unique style which is difficult to classify. They have two singers, one doing clean vocals whilst the other does the harsh, melodeath-style growling. The music itself features elements of death metal, prog-metal and folk. Think Opeth with a violin player and you will have a pretty good idea of the kind of style I’m referring to. Whilst I liked some parts of their songs, the mish-mash of styles was a bit too confusing for my liking. 3/5

The good thing about seeing Cradle of Filth live more than once is that no two of set-lists are ever the same. So whilst it’s guaranteed that you will hear some stuff from their latest album, you never know what else they decide to play… The new tracks played included : ‘The Right Wing of The Garden Triptych’, ‘Blackest Magick in Practice’ and many more. In addition to this there were some classics such as ‘Her Ghost in the Fog’, ‘Lord Abortion’, ‘Malice Through the Looking Glass’, ‘Nymphetamine’ and ‘Thirteen Autumns and a Widow’. I was also really happy to hear some of the old songs from the band’s early days such as ‘Queen of Winter, Throned’ and ‘The Forest Whispers My Name’.  5/5

Overall it was a really good night. It was well worth the trip. Whilst  I still prefer to attend local gigs, I’m willing to travel further so for bands like this.

Iza Raittila

This entry was posted on 22nd November 2015 at 8:18 pm and is filed under Gig, Live, Uncategorized with tags Cradle Of Filth, Extreme Metal, Nuclear Blast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.