Dark Mental is a small festival in Copenhagen that has existed since 2011, with exception of a break in 2015, it's a home for local or smaller bands mostly in the doom, sludge and black metal scene, but of course a wide variety of bands play there in the venue called Kraftwerket, located in the townpart of Valby. It's easy to go there and to find it, which is a good thing if you're not from around.

Day 1

Descending to the Dark Mental

Weather was Danish and not on my side, to bike there was a lot worse than I had thought and I was a bit late. Working at a night shift combined with the usually, I can't sleep, moves the time forward and gets settled with laziness inside the mind.

Walking up the stairs, got in, look around and then went to light descent into the basement of the building where the sound of electric guitars filled up the room. The stairs are the way in and out, not only for the guests but also for the bands, which is a bit too narrow when you have to run up and down with equipment. So sometimes patience is needed.

 

The Basement. Down the stairs and you find to your right the smallest little Merchandise room in the world and the toilets. Basically it's room for about 4 - 5 people or 2, if free passage to the toilet is needed. You enter small dark room with a little light and the smell of sweat, leather boots and clothes with a stench of wet beerfloor and everyone is dressed in black. Most colourful people in the world.They are black with black, that is dipped in black to make more black.

 

Dead Man's Hand

The band is playing hard rock and a girl screams her lungs out. I have to admit, I thought for a second I heard it wrong, but no, it's Dead Man's Hand with their new front singer. I must say, she did a really good job, but a fast look at the audience in the back, they weren't all pleased. After the gig I heard some of the older metallers talk about “that it was at least better than Doro... which don't say much but...” and I couldn't stop laughing a bit. It wasn't bad at all, the girl had good energy and power, the music was straight hard rock and it was nice tunes. After they have finished, they announced a longer break and most people went out for a beer and a fag.

 

Dirg Force was up next and with there energetic sludge metal that took it's sweet time, they managed to have a great combination of ultra slow passages, fast and brutal explosions and rhythms like another South States rock band. I couldn't help myself thinking that I was listing to another rock band that with riffs close to Motörhead just had a bit more distortion in the sound. I had again to laugh a bit. In their set piece, they had time to place three songs and a fast one, which I think was only a 5 minute song.
Catchy tunes and impressed with their technical play, I wondered how the small drum set survived it, since the drummer kicked it down several times. It was quite funny and no, there is not much space on the stage, in the room, in the bar, in the merchandise, in the toilets, at the stairs and the outside was storming weather. Not for claustrophobic people.     

 

It was time for a longer break again, this time it wasn't because it was planed, but because of some tehnical issues they had in club. The thing for me was, I had to go to work, so I didn't really had all the time in the whole world to see people running on and off the stage to fix things that didn't get fixed.

Genfærd

Eventually after a serious amount of time Genfærd was ready to play and with their corpse paint and all that is needed they blasted their way into the little room and it's audience and blow them away! They were of course worth the wait and with a brutal attitude they played like no trouble had occurred, which also seemed to agree with the crowd. It wasn't more than two songs for me, since the delay basically took the whole gig from me. Thinking about it, or the time I spend there, on the bike to work, I was kinda happy. I liked the atmosphere and meet some old friends. When the bands finally played, they were really good and all in all I was really looking forward to the next two days.

 

Day 2

Again a bit late out of the door, but this time I was waiting for a good friend that needed some good metal this weekend.

Again the stage was ready, it seemed and the beer was cold and it went down really fast.

 

Kibitzer was playing as the first band for us and it was like the night before, back to the rock riff melodic songs and it was really catchy. I don't think I expected to much rockish music, but that doesn't mean I didn't like it. I look forward to see them again, but with a different “expectation’’, since I think most of the crowd was looking forward to more metal inspired music rather than rock, but some really enjoyed it and they weren't bad at all. Just a bit misplaced.
 

Fjorsvartnir was up next and I was looking forward to hear them again. I saw Fjorsvartnir once a while ago, but in the meantime a new record came out that had been given a lot of good reviews, I was ready to get my share of black metal'ed up. But the issues from the night before seemed still to linger and the show just didn't want to start. The sound technician has not only fail to show up for hours, as I heard, but the staff that was present didn't know enough about the equipment either. So when the technician finally bothered to show up he was so stoned that the communication was lost and 40 minutes was the delay. As the issue was recovered, the brutal, dark and cold tunes hit the room and set a chilling atmosphere. The band was technically brilliant, but the sound had to be adjusted again and again and that just didn't work at all.

 

Big hand to the audience that not only stayed, but managed to keep the mood high. Unfortunately it meant that it wasn't possible to squeeze out more than a few songs before everyone just gave up and they couldn't delay the whole program any more. What we got was good, no doubt about that. Later I’ve came to notice that a group called Antifa bothered Fjorsvartnir and accused them of many things so they had to leave the premise.
A statement was later released by the band on the situation.

 

Beyond The 9th gave it the hell with their trash metal with a touch of catchy songs. Not bad at all.

One of the few effects of waiting, problems with the sound, technician and whatever may had come along that night, was that it gave me more time to drink and chat with people instead. So the amount of beer that had to be consumed became higher than anything else. Which meant, we had a blast of a time but it all started to disappear in normal party fun, instead of listening to the bands.

 

Overall the things that could go wrong, went wrong. The bands just all had similar starting problems and I’ve got impatience as the most of the crowd. Like one yelled just before Eciton went on, “just play instead of all this shit, we don't care, play!”

 

Eciton took up the speed with their brutal death metal and what an awesome drummer! Again it was a joy to watch when they finally got the music going, and my friend was blown away by the drummer and we talked in general that the level of talent of the band was really high. Give it, as might I missed some good straight metal and with Eciton, I got that. It had a fine edge to it, the songs had that variation in it that is needed and again there was a well deserved roar from the audience once they’ve finished.
It was my favourite gig of the night and yes, we were now happy as hell!

Mork was up next from Norway with their old school Norwegian black metal and I must say, they were really good. I’ve been looking forward to this band, but given the pure fun from the last band was I really ready to gear down? The long passages filled with great atmosphere, the vocal was cold as ice and together it really just hit right in. It was a joy to see, and they blasted the audience away which by now probably had the biggest crowd of the night. I didn't had to gear that much down, they were really in control of their act and mastered it fully. I hope to see them again and hope they had as much fun playing as the crowd did.

 

 

In retrospect

Honestly the time delay of the bands was now well over an hour, how much I didn't know, but we spend the time well with beers and at a certain point you more or less give up to keep track on the show. I think also it had much to do about the problems, it really annoyed and it didn't seem to get fixed.

We saw some of the last band that played that night, Dark, but I don't really remember a thing and by now it's all about the fun and I really didn't mind. Given the waiting was fully enjoyed and when the bands play and blew us away with their talents, I think this ended being more than just a great night and we weren't ready to end this.

My friend from Australia and I went down town to hit the last hours of the bars and just talked tried to hold the atmosphere of the festival close and of course than ended in way to many hours of heavy drinking and to party like it was 1999 maybe to much for old guys like us. Result, we died and couldn't move for several days after.

 

I hope they fixed the problems for the third day at Dark Mental Festival, but for me, it was over. Instead of two great night, we had one and one of the best nights in years.
Awesome!