For someone, Friday started early with the traditional Quiz at Garage - for other as The Dungeon brought 2 acts at the basement with 13th Moon from Spain and Vorum from Aland, Finland.
Garage got packed quickly with the people coming from the Quiz and others that just came to the performance. 13th Moon was indeed a new band to check. They perform, as well; a more kind of ritual mass - candles, incense and darkness - lights are mostly no used except from the candles. Dark and cold intro to receive the band that show themselves in black tunics. Fast and grim riffs with a crude sound and vocals. I had previously listened the band and it was interesting to see them alive. Vorum has a complete different sound from the previous, old school death metal, fast; thrash influences, grim and raw - violent as the band it is. Vorum showed an intense 40 minutes performance and made everyone to headbang in the mid of the afternoon. The harsh vocals and the intense performance that these Finnish guys do on stage really blowed Garage and everyone who was in there... if you reading don't know about them - you better gotta have a listen to its material. Simple a blowout explosion!
 
At USF the first concert was in the hands of Icelandic act Misþyrming, they have a tough and heavy black metal sound - which has characterized to a couple of Icelandic bands in the last 2-3+ years. Started in 2015 they have already conquer their own space and sound - and as far as I know, they have been on tour and other festivals out in Europe. Their performance on stage recalls the icelandic act, cold and brutal; fast riffs and heavy sound - grim and strong growling. Negative Plane (US) and The Ruins of Beverast (GE) are two bands, which although they are quite active on tour I never saw them before.
Negative Plane has a more traditional black metal sound and hymns on occultism, chaos and death. They have some atmospheric passages that gives hints of melody to their songs when still being very raw and crude.
The Ruins of Beverast has a black/doom proposal; they have developed a sound that really identifies the band which hymns are inspired on esoterism, war. Exuvia, their newest full length was released last May and they played a set of old songs and new ones. 
Vemod, norwegian atmoshpheric - experimental black metal act from Trondheim did a brilliant performance - as every time I have seen. Their sound and lyrics always blow my mind - they manage to balance perfectly a raw black metal sound experimenting with atmospheric passages giving melody to their sound without going into a melodic sound - although that sound a paradox description. The vocals are cold, clean and raw at the same time, the guitar riffs are grim and the performance manages to put all together. It is stoner on some passages and at same time is harsh, raw and brain blowing. J.E. who drives Vemod is indeed a great musician and song writer, he manages to explodes on aggressiveness in other acts like OTOH while bring cold rawness in a more experimental act as Vemod.

Revenge is a band that I was really looking forward to see; basically I like the brutality and toughness of their sound and lyrics! This Canadian black/death act exploded Rokeriet with their fast and heavy / though riffs and sound. They indeed manage to bring all the aggressiveness on grim / harsh and cruel growling vocals. I didn't expected them to be as brutal and aggressive live as their albums sound when listening.
I saw many people headbanging and going nuts with their carvernous riffs and incredible drumming... felt like breaking the limits before breaking your neck with their noisy blast and abrassive performance.
 

To close Beyond the Gates second night so it was Mayhem's turn.. Performing complete De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas album. Regardless I have seen Mayhem a couple of times before in other festivals or concerts, this was the first time that no pig / sheep heads were placed in the scenario as part of the performance. Instead, a more likely DMDS album artwork was in the background, as the posters and the altar seen. The band members were wearing long tunics and Attila came as a priest - reproducing a feeling as if one would have been inside Nidaros Domen (Church in the album cover art).
The performance lasted approximately 50ish+ minutes - as they went through all the albums songs. The sound lights made the atmosphere cold and dark - like been drop in a lonely church but hearing on the back preachers from the album hymns. It was indeed a different performance from Mayhem. Attila vocals were amazing, grim and cold - he dragged the albums essence to the stage. Hellhammer drumming always to perfection. The moment they performed Freezing Moon was cold and grim - of course there is much production nowadays that what would have it been in the early 90s, but surely it felt to go back in time... to me they closed second day black mass with latin words... AMEN