Visualizzazioni post:768

Prologo

Well-oiled after three days of festival madness, it’s time to kick the bucket and dive headfirst into the final blazing lap. Let’s go!

Copenhell 2025 – Day 4: Sand & Sweat

Showering in sweat – if it weren’t for the fine sand that, lifted by the wind, hardens like concrete on the skin. The Gehenna woods are the natural choice to start and finish strong.

Gorilla Angreb

Happy Kid

Among the green foliage, I proudly wear my freshly bought Gorilla Angreb t-shirt — a Danish punk band that was hugely popular between 2005 and 2015.

An excellent start: a great positive vibe, fast-paced punk, female vocals, dancing, and smiles all around.
Another band nurtured by the Ungdomshuset scene — always a guarantee for passionate and genuine local crowds.

Years of musical hiatus haven’t dulled the chemistry between Peter & Mai one bit: fun and having fun, they radiate a sense of community and friendship from the stage that’s often missing from bigger bands. Genuinely heartwarming, they took me right back to my punk kid days at local Circolone club gigs.

“Copenhell Ligger I Ruiner” (Copenhell lies in ruins)… not quite yet, but they definitely helped crack the ground beneath the cheerful chaos of the pit.

Powerwolf

Lupus Melodicus

Still buzzing from the dancing, I head off in search of some singing.

But don’t worry about my terrible voice — the Greywolf brothers’ guitars and Roel’s drumming do a fine job of drowning it out. Plus, Attila Dorn and Falk Maria are gracious enough to lead the off-key oratory choir with lessons in melody and singing.

Powerwolf are one of those bands I always enjoy seeing live. Their reputation is well-earned — not just for skill, but for their theatrical, almost folk-theater-like ability to draw the audience in and make everyone feel part of the ritual. And you can tell: much like with Gloryhammer, the crowd is full of fans in tribute outfits, fully at home at the gothic mass held by the Saarbrücken clergy.

Kim Dracula

El Démonio De Tanzanía

Eyeshadow, heavy lipstick. No need for corpse paint — sunscreen will do just fine for Their Lordship, the Australian vampire Kim Dracula.

Their Lordship have just stepped off the plane on the note of the sax, grabs the mic with both hands, brings it to their fangs, and start rapping. Interludes flow into a constant stream of music, marked by relentless tempo and genre shifts. Every word lands right on the beat, from start to finish. Schizophrenic — in the best way.

As K-Pop has already taught us, in a four-minute track you can pack in four different melodies and five stylistic changes.

They are the new wave of metal in the social media era, but their music hits straight and hard. This is real rock.

On stage, they deliver a meticulously honed performance — even the improvisations feel deliberate. At times theatrical, yet always raw and energetic in the heaviest parts. Smooth jazz segments collapse into trap that screams metal, blares with Latin flair, and syncopates with disco-pop grooves. It’s a whirlwind of rhythm, like flipping through a deranged channel-surfing session.

What’s truly impressive is the finesse with which they blend metal styles — from classic to cutting-edge. My eyes widen as I catch metal subgenres woven into the madness. And yet, despite the chaos, every melodic ingredient is tossed together into a perfectly dressed salad: one cohesive, thrilling sound.

Described like this, their music might sound as appetizing as a sauerkraut and vanilla tart — but imagine coming back with me to August 1998, when, barely a teenager, I popped Follow the Leader by Korn into my CD player for the very first time. A sound I’d never heard before: metal in spirit, bold and innovative in its embrace of mainstream sonunds, even at the risk of spectacular failure. In its own way, the Kim Dracula project feels a lot like that turning point Korn represented — and I welcome it with the same enthusiasm.

When we talk about the nu-metal quake, a shiver often runs down our spine thanks to a few lyrics that, let’s admit it, have aged very poorly. But Kim Dracula goes well beyond those early trailblazers: layered lyrics, a deep interpretive range, and latin American flavors that close the loop with the best of Mr. Bungle’s experimental metal.

This bizarre musical concoction? Completely irresistible to my palate.

Kim Dracula don’t just surprise — they thrill. This is the new wave of metal I’ve been waiting for since day one. In my opinion, they’re the most exciting emerging act of this year’s Copenhell and absolute Killdozers on stage.

Take a bite of “Seventy Thorns” or sip on the brain-shrinking “Rosé”, and tell me what you think!

The Sandmen

Scandinavian Frontier

I was craving a bit of blues-country to spice up my festival’s Chili con Carne, but with Hardy forced to cancel, I turned to the legendary Danish group The Sandmen instead.

They brought to the festival a rock sound straight from the American frontier — the defining vibe of their new era. Still widely beloved, their rock spirit is alive and well, and the local crowd was fully invested in their performance.

They too received the signature Copenhell welcome: a team crowd-surfing session led by the festival’s very own majorette squad.

Unfortunately, I feel I can’t quite connect with them the way many in the crowd do—those who grew up with their music—I admit my limits. Still, I witnessed an undeniably enjoyable concert.

True Scandinavian cowboys.

Anaal Nathrakh

Fury Birmingham

The final ride begins, warming up for Slipknot with the English band Anaal Nathrakh.
Active for over 20 years, they won me over with their LP A New Kind of Horror, which our Lele Mr. Triton had listed among the best albums of 2020. I couldn’t agree more with that choice, and I’m eagerly awaiting their set at Copenhell.

We kick off heavy with “Acheronta Movebimus / Unleash” and “More of Fire Than Blood.” Vocalist Sam Lynes waits at the side of the stage, head down, pacing quickly in circles — a ritual that builds intensity, channeling destructive energy.

And that’s exactly what happens: the vocal cords unleash, and the blackened metal hits the stage like a shockwave. Technical, furious, with a touch of prog but plenty of melodic blackened metal. “In the Constellation of the Black Widow” is terrifyingly massive. A show that truly celebrates extreme rock.

Horns up—today we get our daily dose of metal once again.

Slipknot

A Tradition to Preserve

No photos — and we’re relieved, free to become pit animals. Thank you!

Corey Taylor brings Slipknot to Copenhell for the fourth time, promising they’ll keep coming back year after year.

Twenty-five years after their self-titled debut, Corey dusts off the classic mask with dreadlocks. Generously, they play “Wait And Bleed” and “Nero Forte,” not exactly his favorite live songs. Sadly, Shawn “Clown” Crahan had to leave the tour for personal reasons. We’re close to him, and his absence is deeply felt.

New of this year: Eloy Casagrande (Sepultura) joins on drums, teaming up with Sid to fill the sonic gap left by the missing percussionist, also compensating for some vocal hiccups from Corey.

It works pretty well. Actually, everything works perfectly fine anyway. Was the sound the legendary Slipknot metronome? Maybe not. But in the pit, we had as much fun as at any other show.

“Unsainted” remains an exceptional live track, and it is bundled with “People = Shit,” “Psychosocial,” “Duality,” and “Spit It Out.” I dive into the pit with friends and come out with new ones — all united in the effort of lifting people overhead, a conveyor belt carrying more heavy baggage than a Rome-Tokyo flight.

Maybe we didn’t listen closely enough to the music during this set, but everything felt euphorically perfect. We had fun like kids and want to mosh to their music year after year, for many years to come.

Corey, Danish citizen now!

Health

The last Noise

The final concert choice is tough: Sodom and Blood Incantation both put in strong bids. Between these two rivals, we pick Health. This experimental industrial band has rarely toured Europe and hasn’t played in Denmark for a very long time. We had to be there.

The Los Angeles trio takes the stage, but technical issues sink the electronics. Benjamin Miller seizes the moment: for nearly ten minutes, he delivers a drum solo that keeps the embers burning.

Health

The return of synth, vocals, and guitar reignites the flames. This is our moment of pure fun: the dark 120 bpm beat works perfectly. We unleash our last energies, and when our legs give out, arms lift us up for crowd surfing — after all the effort at Slipknot, we deserve at least two rounds (plus a bonus one).

Timidly, singer Jake Duzsik, impressed by the madness under the stage, offers an apology: “Sorry if I don’t scream as loud as the other bands.” A wild roar from the crowd drowns out his words. A slight smile on his thin lips reveals a certain pleasure in being silenced by the crowd’s frenzy.

There’s nothing left to do but restart the beat and crank up the volume.

Possessed (us) — Lovable (them).

We cling to the last scraps of the festival deep into the night (which at this time of year is basically dawn), but our party continues at the Biergarten and beyond the festival grounds. This is a moment for friends only, a moment that can’t be told — it’s lived, and it remains in the memories of those who lived it.
Those who come, will see.

Festival Extra: Copenhell Rock Academy and our Copenhell Family Gallery

We close with our people gallery, dedicated this year to the girls of the Copenhell Rock Academy.
We want this festival to become even more welcoming to every human being who wants to celebrate metal!