After a quarter century, Watain still reign supreme
ESTER SEGARRA
THE SLEEK, MODERNIST
Konsert &Kongress complex, with its long escalators leading up to the main auditorium, isn’t the first place you’d imagine to be hosting the bowels of Hell. Watain are no strangers to this venue, though; 15 years ago they marked their 10th anniversary here, having to stop the show mid-set because they set all the fire alarms off. Back then, they were already regarded as black metal’s heirs apparent, and, for two nights, they’re commemorating their quarter-century as the scene’s (literal) torchbearers – the one band able to translate its unruly, underground ethos into an ever more ambitious Grand Guignol vision, now one of the most spectacular and immersive experiences you’ll find anywhere across the metal world.
Tobias Forge and Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeld and Fredrik Åkesson are here tonight, along with hardcore followers in Watain Disciples leather jackets, international pilgrims and the more casually attired. But as soon as the stage curtain drops to reveal a set that suggests you’ve entered Hell’s VIP 10th ring, everyone here is unified in awe. Elements from all their eras are represented: the new, hieroglyph-bearing metal columns, Roman columns, burning tridents, burning racks, chalices, chains, an ossuary’s worth of bones and skulls, and more.
From the band’s ritual descent to the stage onwards, the set is clearly calibrated to the occasion, too. They begin with an instrumental cover of Veadtuck by Von - the US proto-black primitives from whom Watain took their name –before launching into the rarely played Hymn To Qayin, sounding like an army storming out of a inter-dimensional portal. As ever, Erik Danielsson is an incensed seer, both elegant and beholden to currents of whiplash energy, and it’s the strains of vast, baleful melody being forged in Hymn…’s core that become the dominant theme.