OCTOBER 10 - 11th 2025
SOUTHERN COMFORT
METAL FESTIVAL

Review By: Dmitry Sukhinin

Tiny band pleasures. In the past few years, I had written to the festival four times, but I surely am one of very many. Also, my non-local name does not help at all: it probably redirects to the garbage bin right away. Strangely enough, in October we received a short notice invitation to play in Kristiansand’s Southern Discomfort festival. Tiny band pleasures. 

Norway has this speciality - a relatively small festival in the cutest place ever, - a fantastic posh venue like a house of culture that seems like it was open yesterday - everything is so new there - or, like now, in a fancy hotel in the very downtown of the southern pearl of Norway. Like our local Hellbotn (Kolbotn, 20 min from the center of Oslo), it is a small festival for just under three hundred visitors, but everything is organized with such care and attention to detail, this is my favourite format. Not too many people, intimate, loads of places to catch up, chill, get great merch or hide. 

The offer we got is very good, though, we are just the second band, we take the morning train that takes about four hours. I highly recommend taking the shoreline road to the south - the scenery is fascinating! It is indescribable. Forest and lakes, rocks, tiny houses, swamps, streams becoming rivers, mountains covered by moss. I would recommend both driving the southern road or taking a train like we do now. 

For the first time this year for me, a train departs on time. Last year 34% of trains in the country were either delayed or cancelled. I am not sure how that is even possible. Our train arrives thirty minutes later, - had to stop in some field due to the traffic signal issues. Typical. 

But here we are, in Kristiansand - one of my favourite cities of Norway, in Radisson Blu Caledonien, where the festival takes place, and where we stay (courtesy of the festival). 

Ironfister are the first band to play. An energetic thrash with elements of black metal. I warm up in a dressing room, which is a conference room of this hotel, and then go to see the band from the back stage. Loud, fast and heavy. Fellows do deliver. What is interesting is that the drummer of the band is blind. 

As always with a festival, we only get a line check - there is no time for a proper sound check. This means if you do not hear something - you have to try to survive. For the first time I hear only myself - and almost nothing else - no bass, zero drums, and only a bit of the drummer’s  vocals. Diskord play a lot of notes, since it really is very non-straight music, so it may get chaotic. Only visual contact saves me, two times I ask to lower the guitar and increase the drums in my monitors, only to find out after the set that the stage sound is done on the side of the stage, and I am not heard. Haha, stage sound on the side - this is actually fantastic, I did not expect it, and it is a lost opportunity to address my needs in the right direction. Our set is dangerous, but only thirty minutes and eight songs. 

It takes a few seconds to get my stuff gathered (it is really fast with Kemper power head) I rush from the stage to catch the next act. Afsky sound simply amazing. They are my highlight of the day. Simple and extra raw, - I like it more than on the recordings. Ultraviolent vocals, well-mixed drums, audible bass. I would tweak guitars to make them more prominent, - it mostly sounds like some background rhythm and high-pitched tremolos, but the notes are not always possible to distinguish. Yet, a fantastic module, please book them - great black metal act! 

The reformed Trail of Tears are next on the list. I remember discovering them in the early 2000th, so it feels like a nostalgic act coming back from the past. The sound is quite good and I also like the female vocals - Ailyn (Pilar María Del Carmen Mónica Giménez García) is hitting all the notes. As experience is something that makes new things look old after some time, the same happens with the music - and to me the band sounds like a snap of the long past, - something that has not sustained the test of time. But this is just me, and the goth style is something that ages really fast. 

Thyrfing are the main act and they did have a proper check, so I am sure it will be good. I caught up with Daniel to tell him how I enjoy his old band Raise Hell, an extra catchy Swedish thrash that are on hiatus now. 

Since our dressing/conference room has a beer fridge, we really jump on the opportunity which also has a consequence: I am not able to provide any meaningful input to the Thyrfing gig, - so I hope to catch them at some point later. 

I am happy that I can check Kristiansand and this domestic festival. Sunday and sunshine, I am packed with a heavy backpack, Pelican wheel case for my amp and a double-guitar case ENKI, - heading to the train station on my way back home. The train departs one minute earlier than scheduled.