By Jase Walker
Sometimes I feel like these sorts of festivals are over before they truly begin but it’s probably just the insane quality of bands that make it all a blur. Anyway it’s time for day two of more post-everything/whatever goodness!
I’m in first thing for the start of the day with Törzs and good god am I glad I didn’t miss these. Dreamy post-rock in a similar vein to Explosions In The Sky and ASIWYFA, what a fantastic way to kick off day two! A tasty bit of loop pedal use allows for some nice layering while the guitar player weaves some beautifully melancholic melodies while the rhythm parts keep the pulse of the song going. At times this feels extremely Pink Floyd inspired, especially when the drummer evokes similarly ‘slow’ playing of Nick Mason. Again the crowd is fantastically silent in respect to the band so the stripped back parts of their songs ring clear, unmuddied by a dull roar of conversation, beautiful.
Next up is This Will Destroy You’s other project, You, Infinite. I feel a bit spoiled to get a second go with these after such a stellar set yesterday. It’s noticeable that this is similar-ish to TWDY’s stuff but seemingly focuses a lot more on keys driving the main melodies when the guitars focus on tremolo picking with an absolute ton of reverb on it, resulting in a sound similar to violins. I didn’t think it’d be possible to have an even more chilled version of TWDY but You, Infinite definitely is just that. Much more emphasis on extended, slow, minimalist feels, more subtle texturing and dreamy.
I did think this was overall going to be a fairly relaxed set but You, Infinite suddenly changes that with pulling out a much more aggressive segment out of nowhere which felt a bit jarring. Quite happy to know this collective has yet more music for me to discover though, so will be doing a bunch more homework on these when I get home.
Back to the smaller stage for The Gorge, who my friends did a piss-poor job of describing to me as they kick things off and I’ve gone from potentially dipping out to being immediately transfixed on them. There are elements of Mastodon in their sound with their use of unclean growling and hypnotic arpeggios alongside groovy riffs. Very much a palette cleanser compared to the vast amount of post-rock so far this weekend so if people aren’t awake by this point in the Sunday, they absolutely bloody are now. They fully blindsided me at one point with a song intro that sounds like it’s straight out of the Iron Maiden playbook and I fucking love it. Definitely the right sort of switchup I needed for the day to get my attention.
Now for Pothamus. I missed these at Dynamo last week so what better way to catch them than here? Opening with tribalistic beats, droney guitar and shoegazey, ethereal vocals, as if I’m sucked into a kaleidoscopic trip. The slow, lumbering, colossal force that every moment of this show goes on smashes into my chest with immense force. This is what post-metal is about, the overwhelming feel of their music surrounds me from all angles and commands my attention. I’ve just noticed where the incense smell is coming from also as they have a burner down at the front of the stage, so this not only covers sight, hearing, touch, but also smell and taste.
Pothamus are a fine example of how to craft an experience that sticks with you, a live show that needs to be seen in person to truly get a feel for it. I’m actually kind of glad I caught them here over Dynamo, given the way their live set works, I don’t think it would have quite grabbed me in the same way in an open-air show in the middle of the day. Having caught this in a pitch black room, with the full effects of the light production added into it as well as the incense, this all makes up part of an incredibly intense experience that has really caught me by surprise. Genuinely blown away by this and I will make every effort to see these again later this year.
Next up is one of my biggest draws for Pelagic Fest 2025, Hypno5e! I cannot overstate just how much I adore their ‘Sheol’ album, so seeing them smash a bunch of this out is going to be a huge treat for me. After the monologue intro, straight into ‘Sheol’, just what I wanted and this absolutely blows my face clean off. There are times where even the chugs and blast beats from Hypno5e would make even the most hardcore for Gojira fans gurn out of sheer respect.
I cannot get over how incredible their light production is either, it’s so absolutely spot on as it ebbs and flows along with the music, every single moment of it perfectly curated to suit whatever is happening at any given moment. The band themselves sound absolutely incredible too, all of the low end is felt in my legs, feet, chest as it shakes the floor to the point where I feel like I’m actually bouncing around.
Hypno5e never fail to fill me with energy to bounce around, headbang, and generally just go a bit nuts but this isn’t a crowd for pitting, so I’ll just have to settle for getting lost in the moment.
I decided as I felt a bit dead by this point to have a proper rest, get some decent food and get myself ready for Ihsahn. Fortunately, this year he’s been able to make it rather than being trapped at Oslo airport as per last year, so let’s get this headline show going. Going off the sound check it looks like this is going to be quite a varied show of his material.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Ihsahn without some good old black metal vocals in there because, ya know, Emperor. Some damn mean riffs and aggressive playing interspersed with more traditional prog metal elements similar to the likes of Opeth and Steve Wilson. Also, little surprise at the number of super-fast tremolo picked segments and blast beats but that is exactly why I’m here, all wrapped up with a nice sprinkle of proggy progressions and time signature fuckery to go with it, lovely.
This is definitely one of these moments where I’m kicking myself for not getting more familiar with Ihsahn’s material prior to this show. That being said, I can certainly revel in this being my first proper introduction to his music. I was actually expecting this to be a bit more like the last few newer Opeth albums and be a lot more spacey soundscape exploration but this is just fully blowing my face off. It’s riffy, jazzy, heavy but above all, it’s just some damn good fun metal to headbang to.
The sound and lighting production once again are absolutely fantastic, the band barely have to worry about much other than smashing their music out while the crew supporting them makes sure they sound and look damn good doing it. Compared to yesterday’s much more chilled and dreamy affair, tonight’s is a haunting bedtime story that’ll see Ihsahn’s voice creeping into your nightmares.
Another fantastic year of Pelagic Fest is in the bag, back to normality, for now.