Holy shit. Look at the time fly. It’s winter. It’s -20 Celsius outside and here we are, publishing our experiences from 6 months ago when we attended Tuska Open Air metal festival (again for the ~9th time.) We weren’t originally planning to go, as other obligations had gotten in the way, but seeing how a band like Body Count was headlining, we knew we had to make the arrangements — no matter the cost. Unfortunately this meant that we could only stay for two days instead of three, but hell, two’s better than nothing. Especially with Body Count and Gojira on the bill.

So it’s winter. 2018. New year, yet mankind is consuming the planet, waiting to be devoured by global warming and other cataclysmic events. So what’s a good way to get rid of all that negativity? Look back at the summer of 2017 and Tuska festival’s 20th Anniversary.

Sauna Open Air shut down a few years ago after some financial hurdles, so we were surprised to see the name pop up again in 2017. Rebranded as “Sauna Classic,” the festival has returned to its roots with a more traditional and local heavy metal line-up. Naturally, Teeth went in to find out how this scaled-down operation is working now.

Summer is finally dead. Someone clever might shout ‘Winter is coming! Winter is coming!’ from the top of their still-attached heads, but we here at Teeth know that Game of Thrones references are so last season. Instead, we’re talking about a quantum leap to stranger days back in July. July, when we went to Tuska Open Air Metal Festival in Helsinki and lived to tell about it. So come with us, and longingly remember three days of sun, rain and heavy metal.

When the almost 10 year old Sauna Open Air went bankrupt in 2013, the old punk capital of Finland, Tampere was to go without a hard rock/metal festival. A different organizer came in and scooped up the slot, and thus the South Park Festival was born — named after Eteläpuisto, the park it’s held in, and not the television show (though that would be an entertaining event as well!) So, third year in, how did the festival go this time around?

You know the moment when your privates get all wet or hard (or both) when you hear something that’s undeniably good? Like, say for example, stumbling for the first time upon Disillusion’s Back to Times of Splendor or Devin Townsend’s best of compilation with all your to-be favorite tracks on it? Stam1na’s latest offering, Elokuutio […]

While summer 2015 didn’t met all the expectations, there was at least one constant in that equation; Wanaja Festival held in Hämeenlinna, Finland. Again, its inclusion on a heavy metal site is questionable at best and totally schizophrenic at worst, as most of the artists on the bill aren’t necessarily singing about Satan or promoting safe sex with dead people. But as always, there’s at least a band or two that gives us an excuse to attend the festival and live to tell about it on a heavy metal website. So gather around for some egotistically driven babble about the experience from few months back — when the weather was actually still nice.

Wanaja Festival, held in front of a medieval castle in Finland, is not a festival for those who are exclusively looking a weekend’s worth of heavy metal; most of the acts mingle between pop and rock. Most of the acts and names you’ve never heard of since they cater to such a niche audience; the average Finnish music listener. Only a few bands add enough distortion, play enough riffs and grunt properly every now and then to qualify for a surefire spot on this site. But like you’ve probably noticed, we hardly limit ourselves here at Teeth, but if you do, then consider this a review of Turisas’ hometown concert.

Even if the Finnish summer does its best impression of having a bipolar mental condition by throwing hail out every other day, there’s one thing you can count on in June and that’s Tuska Open Air Metal Festival held at the capital of Finland, Helsinki. The 17th Tuska was fighting an uphill battle with the visitor count being somewhat stagnant as the mainstream heavy metal boom is starting to wind down after Lordi’s Eurovision victory in 2006. World economy hasn’t improved much either and a lot of different things like Zirconium and Tony Little’s latest ab machine are fighting for people’s spending money. So how do Anthrax, Dimmu Borgir and Emperor fare in a tight spot?

I was ecstatic when Ice-T’s and Ernie C’s heavy metal syndicate, Body Count made a comeback eight years ago with their Murder 4 Hire album. Unfortunately that disc turned out to be a dud and became the bastard child no one speaks about in the group’s discography. Despite Ice-T, the music simply wasn’t that interesting […]

Whenever in need of a new power metal fix, Sabaton has been my go-to band ever since I’ve been high and addicted on Pervitin and their 2008 standout album The Art of War. The hot frying pan of hot lead and tracer rounds is dripping of tasty cheese with the slightly perverted combination of perfectly […]

Spring and summer bring blooming flowers and whatnot, but Kaunis Kuolematon (‘Beautiful Immortal’) manages to slip in a bit of gloomy darkness just before everything turns to green and people forget their rotten misery and empty lives. Not surprisingly, the Finnish group skips picking up dandelions and instead throws in a melodic death/doom mix with […]

On paper, Khroma might not sound that awe-inspring as they route heavier grooves through industrial and electronic synapses, dedicating most of their time to the pummeling mid-paced groove rather than any sort of delicate melodies or touchy feelings. Sure, ‘this’ has been done before. Hell, probably multiple times at varying degrees of success. And at […]

On Kauan’s previous album Kuu..  from few years back, the last track “Suora Liila Sydänkäyrä” ended the excellent album in a weighty fashion, closing up the album but hinting of unfinished business. Not surprisingly, with their newest album Pirut, the merry band from Chelyabinsk continues from pretty much where they left off (and one asteroid […]

“I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!” insisted Dante in Kevin Smith’s Clerks and being in the middle of a cold, breezy 10th Wanaja Festival on Friday, July 19th — held in the historic city of Hameenlinna, Finland — I thought the exact same thing. And, the weather wasn’t the only thing on my mind since the lineup made me question my own priorities as well. The metal bands could be counted with three fingers and all of those three would make an appearance on the second day. Yet, following my life patterns like the rats in that Paul Simon song, I still had asked if I could come. I didn’t hear back until just right before the festival’s D-Day when they said “Come on in”, so after shuffling my obligations around and trying to make it all work, here I was.

Helsinki, Finland was a busy place on the last weekend of June 2013. Not only were there three, four or five festivals going in and around the city, but the streets were full of gay pride as well. For whatever reason, Tuska Open Air Metal Festival’s visitor count has been on the decline since the relocation from the Kaisaniemi park to the industrial zone — not that the other events around the town helped, quite possibly snatching a few casual listeners with acts like Green Day and Rammstein. However, Teeth of the Divine never abandons those in need, and thus we summoned ourselves to the 16th Tuska Festival where acts like King Diamond, Bolt Thrower and Testament graced the main stage.

After a year long hiatus, Tampere’s Sauna Open Air festival returned again in 2013 for a weekend that consisted of mainly Northern European acts like Nightwish, Children of Bodom, Opeth, Volbeat and Sabaton — with the only US visitor going by the name of Hatebreed. The festival also saw other changes. Instead of being ushered into a park setting, the party was held in a sports stadium and rather than doing three full days, there were only two. And we were there.

It’s not often these days that my mind is completely blown away by a musical album, but the latest output, Coal, from Norwegian progressive metallers Leprous did just that. Not once, not twice, but goddamn, the album rolls throughout the entire 60-minutes. I first caught a glimpse of the band at this year’s Tuska Open […]

Teeth of the Divine’s battle-worn assault squad is back for the last time to recollect the experiences and ordeals they went through on the last day of Tuska Open Air Metal Festival — held in Helsinki, Finland for the fifteenth time. Sunday provided quite possibly the festival’s brightest highlights with Overkill storming the stage and Huoratron blinding everyone with their over-the-top strobo-lights. This is Sunday and the end of our epic three-part quest to TUSKA OPEN AIR 2012.

Teeth of the Divine’s battle worn assault squad is back to recollect the experiences and ordeals they went through on the second day of Tuska Open Air Metal Festival — held in Helsinki, Finland for the fifteenth time. Saturday not only saw heavy metal’s more empowering side, but its blackest as well. Thus, our report of epic proportions continues with the last day of June 2012. This is Saturday.

The fifteenth Tuska Festival was held for the second time at the Suvilahti-area, only a short distance away from the very center of Finland’s capital, Helsinki. The ever-changing and unpredictable weather saw almost fifty or so bands (including Ministry, Megadeth, Behemoth, Anaal Nathrakh, Sabaton, Trivium and Horna to name a few) play for around 28,000 metalheads during the final days of June (and first day of July) 2012. Teeth of the Divine’s task force was sent to investigate and muster up a report of epic proportions. This is Friday.

Hämeenlinna is a city (with a population of 60k) some 100 kilometres north from Helsinki. A somewhat of a beautiful place during summertime (for example, the national park Aulanko). The city’s name stems from the iconic castle of Häme, built around the beginning of the 14th century. In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the city was also the home of a long-defunct festival, Giants of Rock, which saw acts such as Dio, Sepultura, Suicidal Tendencies, Helloween, Motörhead, Anthrax, Obituary and countless others play live — some could argue that some of those bands were in their prime at that time. (Check out Sepultura’s gig on YouTube.) But enough with history lessons…

Slumber’s demise was somewhat of a disappointment after their excellent 2004’s full-length Fallout. The album had its own character within melodic death/doom genre of the time, standing somewhere between Katatonia and Finland’s Rapture. The following turmoil between the band members and the birth and death of their new projects left me wondering whether or not […]

Anathema has been doing their own thing for a while now ― the group’s metallic origins a distant memory ― touring and serving fans with their own progressive-oriented rock music. Last year the band returned to their formative albums on the Falling Deeper full-length, re-imagining classics to fit their current, softer expression ― just as they did on […]

In 2001 something happened. Something that changed the world altogether. Something big. Something that should never be forgotten. Something truly awesome: newborn Swedish power metal gods, Lost Horizon, released its debut Awakening the World via now defunct label Music for Nations. The reason I’m speaking about an 11 year old album is because The End […]