The Gathering Of Autumn Souls – Day I

The second edition of the autumn extreme festival AUTUMN SOULS OF SOFIA 2016 is over. And just as the leaves scattered by the wind, settle to slowly to take their place in the endless variegated autumn landscape, I decided to leave my thoughts and mainly emotions to settle before trying to write this and try to describe it, for you.

The early afternoon of 13th October seemed to be warm and sunny, filled with one of the many shades of the many-faced autumn. Shades, that later one would be enriched by the guest bands and only by those that we would see that night. In the “FANS” club the ambience was still calm amidst the piles of suitcases and apparatus, the already arrived musicians are occupied with their things.

The first colors in our autumn picture were given by our death metal band ABBADON. The participation was really precious, because the band from Varna plays live quite rarely. The set consisted mainly of songs from their debut album. A hail from Mesopotamia and a lurch towards Egypt. Energetic and real as it gets. We hope to see ABBADON on stage as frequently as possible and we are expecting their second album impatiently.

The thrashers from Stockholm INFLIKTED took their place on stage. The Swedish four has a quite short story and even shorter discography but their sincere, rebellious thrash metal infected the fans. Their songs, built on the contrast between melodic, slow parts transferring to classic, fast thrash left the fans of the style more than satisfied. Apart from their I-don’t-care behaviour and humour of the frontman Mikael Karlsson filled their image. I will quote some of the things said during the show “What you hate most? The government? Then say it, rebel! Instead of listening to some depressive black metal and crying”…

While we were recovering from the appeals against the governments and the new world order, the Norwegians CreTura prepared the stage for their act. Yes, I said act, because there were quite a few acts or plays during the festival, but each thing at its time. The six from Bergen is productive in means of creating albums (three full length albums for six years) and really attractive in their outfits. This (un)expectedly was not at the expense of music quality or professionalism, considering the fact that the average age of the band members is around 20 years. The stage was occupied by evil forest spirits and good (although in black) elfs, who lead us though the Norwegian woodlands. They led us in a fantasy world of tenderness and passions, of triumph and loss, of love and suffering. The high, dramatic voice of Sárá Márjá Guttorm, contrasted with the deep, harsh vocals of Markus Oddekalv Pettersen, which even reeeked of hatred. The game and the attempt of suggestion between the light and the dark sides, was definitely successful. Sárá Márjá was not just the front lady, she openly flirted with the public and led the fans wherever she decided. CreTura were a really interesting band and their show was worth it. If you didn’t attend that night, don’t miss them wherever you have the chance. Their show was a real aesthetic pleasure.

And after the interesting mixture between symphonies and sincere black metal, which the Norwegian elfs created, the fans of the old school black metal were impatient for the next band in the list. The veterans from THE STONE. My personal observations were that their set gathered the biggest amount of fans. The Belgrade pagan black metallers apart from heating the fans with their set, also gave a lesson in professionalism. No matter how strange that sounds, said about an old school black metal band that blows your brain with its music. And I am sure that all those who came to see them were satisfied. Furthermore, besides everything else, the similarities in language and territories quickly removed the borders between us.

I’m not sure that I am ready to talk about the concert of INFERNO but I can no longer delay the tale. It is not something that must not be heard or seen, it must be felt with your very soul. And as INFERNO opened the hellish abyss beneath our feet, we also needed to open our souls in order to “see” the invisible world, which is developed by this black metal band time after time, spell after spell. The music of the Czechs was dissonant, middle paced and monotonously hypnotic. Red candles were lit at the corners of the stage, while in the middle two Sigils of Lucifer were placed. Adramelech came on the stage dressed in a long robe, painted with sigils from Goetia. His fiery hair covers almost half of his body…a real “king of fire”, which is the meaning of his pseudonym. A low, enchanting voice, that came not from the stage but somewhere beneath the ground. A real invocation of Chaos. After this ritual you feel numb and empty of content. A waterfall of merciless sound which makes you senseless and puts you in a trance. That which the Czechs made I can only compare to the rituals of Erik Danielsson, but INFERNO have less magical items but nonetheless the effect of the ritual is ground shaking. I left completely under their spell, with the hope of seeing them again.

INFERNO were the only band in the whole festival that managed to keep its anonymity and to stay away from the attention and vanity. They appeared literally from nowhere, took their places on the stage and left in the same way. They were completely hidden in the crowd, if they even mixed in it.

With the end of the second edition, it is quite early to talk about traditions (as some colleagues wrote), but we hope that with time the meeting of the “autumn souls” will become something really traditional and unique, which will continue to gather extreme artists and fans of the most sincere, deep and in the same time outcast styles of music. Who also was at the two other days of AUTUMN SOULS OF SOFIA 2016, you will see in the next articles, coming soon.

Photos as well as other interesting news and articles connected with the participating artists you can find at the page of the festival AUTUMN SOULS OF SOFIA.