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We welcome the summer solstice with four full days of metal music.

It’s Copenhell’s 15th birthday, and the lineup is succulent. The poster screams in bold letters: Dizzy Mizz Lizzy, Prodigy, Billy Idol, Slipknot.

But here at HeavyMetalWebzine.it, we’re metal truffle pigs – we dig deeper and shuffle the headliners deck to bring you our perfect combos:

Day 1: Flames!
Skunk Anansie, Kittie, Julie Christmas
Day 2: Unleashed Dogs
The Prodigy, Exodus, Syl x Eyes
Day 3: Olympus Metallicus
Carcass, Dream Theater, Soulfly
Day 4: Sand & Sweat
Slipknot, Kim Dracula, Powerwolf

If this is your first time hearing about the festival, go check out our reports from Copenhell 2024 and Copenhell 2023 – same spirit, same structure, same glorious chaos.

Prologo

Ten days before Copenhell: a breezy spring afternoon in Vesterbro. Davide and I are having an aperitivo at the Absalon canteen. “Davide, did you see Wednesday’s lineup? Kittie are coming, and I’m really curious about Poppy…” Davide nods, takes a sip of Mirinda. “Yeah… and Skunk Anansie too. What a lineup!”. A handful of peanuts later, salty crumbs dusting Davide’s moustache: “You know what? Wednesday’s a mini-festival within the festival. So many great girls-led acts… maybe we should focus on that thread.” No answer needed. The silence said it all: Day 1 is be dedicated to the girls of metal.

Day 1 – Flames!

We’ve been counting down for 361 endless sunrises, and finally, the day has come. Deep breath, big grin, eyes wide open. We’re ready to dive headfirst into the sticky tar of the Metal we love.

The gates swing open—this is it! We march in briskly through clouds of clay dust and here we are…

Nope, false start. Dead Poet Society welcome us with something that sounds suspiciously like elevator music. We were craving a blast of Danish metal to ignite our gasoline-soaked torch, but all we get are a few feeble sparks.

But fate makes amends: Myles Kennedy cancels last minute and makes room for an opening act truly worthy of Copenhell 2025—Vulvatorius!

Vulvatorious

Vulcanic Explosion

The drums hit, opening a chasm that rises into a crater, fiery guitar shards shoot from the fractured ground, Ditte’s guttural gurgle erupts, and a lava stream floods us from the stage.
The torch is lit—Copenhell has begun!

In a tank top strapped with leather and metal, Ditte is a punk soul embedded in metal. Corrosive and scorching, Vulvatorious once again bring the raw, intense energy we needed to snap out of our torpor.

They had already made a lasting impression last year, but this time Ditte and crew took it to the next level: granite-solid stage presence, unstoppable energy, and the confidence of veterans. They’ve learned how to command the stage.

But maybe the most surprising moment of the set was the introduction to Mormor Sang. A powerful song dealing with abortion and social stigma—also deeply personal for the singer and lyricist, inspired by stories from her grandmother (see interview here).
It would’ve been easy to just sing and let the metal melody win over the crowd. Instead, Ditte, with the unwavering sweetness of her natural voice, explained its meaning—turning the song into a statement, a condemnation, and perhaps even a prayer.

100% Copenhell Fire.

Skunk Anansie

Megaphone of the Soul

A fine-tuned concert, a setlist perfectly tailored for the afternoon slot—everything else is pure emotion.

Skin’s passion for music burns and radiates warmth beyond the stage, beyond the front rows, all the way to the last person in the crowd grabbing a sandwich at the food stand. Even they are enveloped by her explosive power and sincere fragility.

Unmatched, uncompromising—she expresses the emotion of every note with a harmonic vibration that starts in her vocal cords, commands her body, and turns her mouth into a megaphone of deep feeling. Watching her sing is passionate art, a presence that claims the whole stage—and everything beyond it.
When she sings Weak, she creates that magic moment. As she steps off the stage and walks among the crowd, you feel a magnetism—as if some energetic connection has taken place, creating a sense of unity with the listeners.

The moment I found most intense was the performance of Charlie Big Potato.
When I was a kid and saw the video on my cheap TV for the first time, it was a shock—adrenaline, distorted guitar, a scream smashing through the 10-inch Mivar device in my kitchen.

Hearing it live today, I discover the emotional force in the nuances of a song that is both caustic and violently sweet. Empathy grows with time, but Skin taught me a little more in just four minutes.

Impossible to stay indifferent.

Kittie

Fire!

And here they are, Kittie! On tour with their new album Fire, a band we’ve been waiting for since… well, 2000, when the legendary LP Spit cast its spell on us as teenagers.

Davide and I plot our conquest of the front row. During soundcheck, out pops Mercedes Lander. We try (very politely) to snag an interview, but there’s no time. Mercedes spots the groupie-level sparkle in our eyes and grants us a photo. Davide blushes like a `90s teen at a Take That concert — so I send him up front for the shot (in the gallery).

The gig has everything to teleport us back into metal dimension: technical skill, grit, fun, and the pure joy of seeing a band play metal from the depths of their passion. These Ontario girls are professionally tight but never lose that unique vibe of living their dream. You can hear it, see it, feel it: the first crowd-surfers sail right over our heads.

For us fans, it was a long awaited moment in our music life; for everyone else, a solid hour of metal music. At this concert, everyone won.

Hearing Spit live was the moment we’d been waiting for, but the new songs from Fire added a precious new layer to their set. Among them, Mouthful Of Poison had the perfect vibe for Copenhell. Definitely a festival soundtrack must-have.

Poppy

Our Fault

One of the rising stars of the new metal scene, Poppy promises a lot with her mix of electronica, metal, pop, and performance art. No photos allowed — it’s got to be an unmissable show!

The concert starts, we listen to a few tracks, but something just doesn’t click. The sky-high bar of our expectations stands lonely on top of a scorching hot afternoon. But only for us — the young crowd is huge and clearly having a blast, with plenty of enthusiastic fans around. Let’s be honest, it’s our fault. Kittie was our favorite comfort food, and now we just can’t get fired up about Poppy’s sound.

We come to the realization: Poppy has a great talent, but the sheer number of emerging artists we’ve seen lately emulating her style and choreography has dulled our senses. We’re old, we don’t get it, idiot us.

Swartzheim

Honestly Hardcore

Breaking the schedule, we swing by a young local band: Swartzheim.

These Danes promise to satisfy our craving for fast, shouted thrash metal—with a hardcore twist. And they deliver, even at the cost of their vocal cords. Despite a microphone embarrassingly low in volume, the singer screams from the depths of his lungs, pushing human limits. Kudos!

No frills here, we like it — they give us the pure, raw energy we want today. Essential.

Swartzheim, what’s a mic for when you’ve got two hardcore lungs?

There was the popular Dizzy Mizz Lizzy concert with a request setlist, but we make way for the local crowd and retreat into Udgaard’s woods to recharge. Still, beyond the clearing, we hear the opening guitar riff of “Silverflame” kick off a massive singalong.
A few minutes of live music magic find us in silence, savoring the voices of many fans.
Magical, even from the woods.

Julie Christmas

Nightmare before Midsommer

Until today, I’d only linked the name of this Brooklyn singer to her collaboration with the Swedish band Cult of Luna (Mariner LP, 2016), so to their ambient, melodic metal. More curious than hopeful, I steer Davide toward her show, sacrificing Vola and Dethklok.

A wall of mid-tempo sound fills the forest air. In the dark, a demon mask lit by LEDs moves toward center stage. The vocals open into a dramatic, visceral performance. Davide starts muttering, “…PorcoCán…” — the Trentino is expressing emotions he can’t put into words. And maybe I’m not ready to describe them either.

Let’s try to picture it as a collage.
The Pornography-style wall of sound by The Cure speeding up into a dramatic ambient. Light, delicate pauses amid the sonic storm invite slower glimpses of unwavering intensity — Siouxsie and the Banshees.

The mask is off, and the measured movements left behind; Julie becomes a decadent Tim Burton–Henry Selick doll. Hung on invisible strings, she interprets the music with movements that are sometimes immediate and instinctive, other times fluid and deliberate. She could be goth, she could be punk, but she’s metal stained with every shade of dark.

We’re left speechless, Davide stammers nothing but swear words. The intimately dark atmosphere of Gehenna swallows us whole. Critical thoughts dissolve in our cerebral cortex, the prefrontal lobes shut down, leaving the primitive brain to handle unfiltered emotional overload.

In the days that followed, we kept asking each other what that concert had even been. The only answer we could manage was:
“What happened? … Best show of the day!”

Festival Extra: The street art of CopenhagenPoster

The metalhead’s laundry basket is just a pile of black clothes — and that’s exactly where the vibrant colors of CopenhagenPoster’s giant spray-paint mural popped the most.
25 meters of green demons invading Copenhell.

It was halloween in June.
It could’ve been New York, it could’ve been Berlin — but no, it was Copenhagen!