What is medium format, you might ask? Medium format refers to photography that uses 60 mm wide film (120 or 220 film) or equivalent digital sensors. It sits between small format (35 mm) and large format, offering superior image quality with an exceptional level of detail.

The photographs you’re about to see were taken with a Mamiya 645 Pro TL, a modular system camera based on the original M645 from 1977. This particular version of the camera was released in 1997. I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a Mamiya nerd. I already own a couple of their cameras, and I certainly wouldn’t mind expanding the collection. Mamiyas are true workhorses, with models such as the RB67 and RZ67 designed primarily for studio photography, while the lighter and more compact 645 series became one of the finest wedding photography systems of its time. Today, medium format remains alive mainly in the high-end professional market, where the larger sensor delivers exceptional resolution. Hasselblad, Fujifilm and Phase One (the Danish company that collaborated with and eventually acquired Mamiya) are among the leading manufacturers, although I can assure you that you won’t see many of these cameras at a concert.

Back to analogue photography. One of the beauties of 120 film is that the image format changes depending on the camera. My Mamiya 645, for example, produces 15 exposures per roll in a 6×4.5 cm format. Other cameras, such as my Mamiya C330 Pro, produce twelve 6×6 cm exposures. 6×7 cameras give you ten exposures, while 6×9 cameras produce just eight. As you can see, it’s a format full of possibilities and different configurations, but they all have one thing in common: every single exposure costs money. Quite a lot of it.

The consequence is that using analogue medium format today without burning a hole in your pocket is difficult—not impossible—but it forces you to think before pressing the shutter. You have to ask yourself whether the photograph you’re about to take is really worth it. If the answer is yes, it pushes you to make sure there’s something on that negative that’s worth stopping to look at, even if only for a few seconds.

That’s why I recommend any photographer who’s become overly dependent on mirrorless cameras to buy a 35 mm film camera and practise with it. Having to think through every single frame is the exact opposite of the run-and-gun approach encouraged by modern mirrorless cameras, where you can fire off a dozen frames in a matter of seconds, pick your favourite and move on. Not only does that feel lazy to me, but it’s also incredibly boring.

The first film used for this series was Ilford Delta 100. The company describes it as: “ISO 100, medium speed, exceptionally fine grain, black & white film. Ideal for uncompromising image makers who want to capture maximum detail and sharpness.”

For me, in medium format, it’s an absolute joy to use, offering an almost perfect balance between sharpness, detail and contrast. I’m extremely happy with the results, especially because the lighting conditions were ideal for getting the very best out of this emulsion.

The second film used in this series was Ilford HP5 Plus 400, a faster emulsion better suited to photographing movement under changing light conditions. In return, it delivers medium contrast and fine grain, provided the exposure is right. As always with black and white photography, the general rule is to expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights.

Steelfest also seems to have more merchandise stands every year, with an increasingly international presence, alongside other stalls that go beyond the traditional merch of clothing, CDs or vinyl records.

One of the things that fascinates me the most is watching a blacksmith’s forge in action.

I’ve always admired this kind of craftsmanship for keeping ancient traditions alive—traditions that have almost no place in today’s world of injection-moulded plastic and mass-produced, low-cost products with neither soul nor personality.

Just thinking about the time it takes to learn, master and eventually excel at a craft like this makes it clear that the people who dedicate themselves to it have a complete devotion to their art, their trade and craftsmanship. Knowing how the world works today, I can only assume it’s almost impossible to make a living from it, at least during the first few years, which I imagine must feel like crossing a desert, forcing them to combine it with a paid job simply to make ends meet.

With that in mind, I got in touch with Black Metal Forge, whose work you can see in the following photographs and I asked to describe what is Black Metal Forge about, and I found it quite interesting, from the roots in the US to relocating to Finland:

I’m originally from Ashland Township, Michigan, and now live in the small village of Vaskivesi, Finland. I started welding when I was just 14 years old, and over the years my work has taken me into some very different worlds. I first welded systems for Ford trucks before moving into military aviation, working on fighter jet engine parts for the F-18, F-22 and F-35, as well as burner cans for B-52 bombers.

About ten years into my welding career, I found my way into blacksmithing. It started as a way to forge my own pieces and bring them into my personal welding work, but over time it became a craft of its own and an increasingly important part of who I am.

I moved to Finland in 2021, where I have since welded machinery used in geothermal drilling. Today, I’m taking the next step in my journey by pursuing an official degree in blacksmithing and continuing to develop a craft I have already spent years exploring through my own work. Music is another important part of my life. I have the privilege of being both the guitarist and blacksmith for the band Famulus ab Satanas, creating forged work for the band while also being part of its music.

For me, welding, blacksmithing and music have always belonged together. They are different forms of the same thing: working with your hands, creating something from nothing, and leaving a part of yourself in what you make.

If you need proper stage gear for your Black Metal band, dont hesitate to contact at hellwindrituals@gmail.com

That was one of the recurring topics of conversation throughout the three days of the festival. Every time it came up, I shared my opinion without hesitation, and I still stand firmly by it: Steelfest could book the exact same lineup year after year and still be the best festival in Europe. I don’t have much to say about the bands themselves. They’re always great, and honestly, I wouldn’t even know how to rank one above another. If anything, as the years go by, I find myself carrying more gear, more cameras, more things that need to be prepared and managed. Inevitably, that means sacrificing parts of the sets to make sure everything is ready when I need it to be.

The downside is that I can no longer experience the shows in the same way I used to. Gone are the days of spending entire performances in the pit, completely immersed in the chaos and energy of the moment. These days, I’m often thinking about batteries, film rolls, lenses, audio recorders, and whether everything is actually working. t’s a different way of experiencing the festival. Not necessarily worse, but certainly less immediate than it once was.

Everything I managed to see, I thoroughly enjoyed and honestly, I don’t care if some of these are bands I’ve seen over and over again. Satanic Warmaster? Yes, please. Archgoat? I missed them! I want them back every single year, god damn it.

At this point, seeing certain bands at Steelfest feels less like ticking names off a checklist and more like meeting old friends. Their presence is part of the ritual. Part of what makes the festival feel like Steelfest. Maybe that’s another reason why I don’t really care if the lineup repeats itself. Some things are worth coming back to again and again and I will die holding this hill.

This little place called Hyvinkää, Finland, has rightfully become an important part of my life. A state of mind. After all, I’ve spent almost a quarter of my life travelling to Steelfest every single year. Although this year came with a small setback involving the audio recorder for my camera, which rendered almost all of the videos practically unusable from an audio standpoint. It’s been incredibly frustrating because I genuinely think the footage itself turned out quite well, especially considering I’m not a professional and I push that camera to its absolute limits.

I’d like to say that’s the reason I’ve been so late publishing all of this, but honestly, I’ve got nothing to hide, and I can use my own website to vent a little: I’m fucking fed up. I’m tired of never having enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do, and if I’m being honest, none of them are particularly important. I guess it’s the logical outcome of an entire decade passing by. Daily life keeps moving forward, routine slowly takes over, and the little free time you have gets swallowed whole. And to be honest, after all these years managing social media and watching it evolve, everything has simply become worse. We’re prisoners to the algorithm. Immediacy reigns supreme, yet somehow everything is already too late—old news. Content is consumed and forgotten instantly as people rush toward the next new experience, the next new thing or the next new drama. Music albums, videos or pics are already outdate at the moment of release. You can count me out of this new era of psychopatic digital consumerism.

I don’t need the stress or the anxiety that social media platforms artificially manufacture just to keep their business models afloat. Maybe that’s why I’ve been drifting further and further away from the digital world and taking refuge in the analogue one. Because, frankly, it pisses me off that nowadays you even need an app just to unlock a car.

Right, enough of the old man yelling at clouds routine. On top of that, I came here with a different plan than in previous years. I didn’t really want to take photos of the bands—or at least not nearly as many as I usually do.

Everyone does that. And after a while it all starts to feel repetitive: more of the same. One photographer throws a sepia filter on it, another goes for purple tones, someone else converts everything to black and white, but in the end they’re often just different versions of the same photograph.

That doesn’t interest me much anymore. What interests me is everything happening around the festival rather than just on stage. The people. People who over the years made what the festival is today. Some of the friendships I’ve made at Steelfest are approaching a decade in age. Every year, we return to the same corner of Finland and pick up exactly where we left off, as if no time had passed at all.

So this year I tried to focus a little more on that side of Steelfest: the people who actually give the festival its character, with a street photography-documentalist approach.

Now lets talk photography, as for the gear I used this year and jumping purely into photo nerd territory, so feel free to skip it entirely. I brought two analogue cameras with me. The first one I’ll talk about is the Olympus OM-2n, manufactured in 1979. This time, I loaded it with Kodak Eastman 5222 35mm film, better known as Kodak Double-X, or simply Kodak XX. If you love black & white photography with a timeless, cinematic look, Kodak Double-X is the go-to. Originally designed for motion picture cameras, giving it a unique grain structure and tonal range this classic stock has been used in some of Hollywood’s most iconic films: from Kill Bill’s black and white scenes to Scorsese’s cult piece Raging Bull with De Niro as Jake LaMotta and maybe the most notorious one Schindler’s List.

The origins of Kodak Double-X can be traced back to Kodak’s Super-XX film, an ISO 200 black and white stock introduced during the early years of World War II. At the time, it represented one of the fastest photographic emulsions available and remained Kodak’s flagship high-speed black and white film for more than a decade, until the arrival of Tri-X in 1954. Once Tri-X took over as Kodak’s premier black and white film, Super-XX gradually disappeared from roll-film formats and survived only as a sheet film before eventually being retired altogether in the early 1990s.

Meanwhile, Kodak’s motion picture division continued refining the original emulsion, working to improve image quality and reduce the pronounced grain structure that characterized the early versions. The result was Kodak Double-X 5222, introduced in 1959 and pretty much, and prety much has been unchanged since. While Kodak recommends it to use it on Daylight 200 ISO or Tungsten 250 ISO, is a high film latitude that can be used on anything from 100 to 1600 and still get great results with a nice tonal range and that vintage black and white look straight out of mid-century photojournalism. All photos have been processed with a Noritsu scanner keeping all settings neutral at Carmencita Film Lab in Madrid, Spain.

For all this you need to be the first one posting the pics online, so hopefully the band will catch the tag and share your stuff, succeding on the mission. This goal involves certain sacrifices, one being sitting in front of the computer, laptop or tablet for quick edits sacrificing usually sleep hours. This is a sacrifice I’m not willing to do, because I have a child who doesn’t sleep, a physical dayjob, I have also started studying and a family and friends I need to take care of, which I wont be exchanging for your sweet likes on social media. Which I want you to know that I deeply appreciate, by the way.

It’s july and I’m still Steelfestposting stuff done in may. I’m very late to the party. I’m very old news no one gives two fucks about anymore. I think this may open another debate, on social media, immediacy and a constant feed of content. I will not go that way because I havent sleep well the past three months and I’m on a deep brainfog. Just wanted to give a bit of context on the reason of this post, which ultimately is praising one of my favourite live bands: GORGOROTH

Earlier this year, on a period I had some time to sit in front of the computer I posted a photo of Hoest with Gorgoroth during Steelfest 2024. See what I meant with being a slow photographer when it comes to deliveries? Posting stuff after one year it happened.

Anyway, the pic got shared many times and one day, many weeks after; I received a private message from someone in the band writing me how they liked that one pic and asking if I got more visuals. They were looking to create something, I guess a poster, to advertise and promote their 33th anniversary tour. Not gonna lie, I was super excited and that time I worked very fast to deliver the shots I considered worthy. I was rubbing my hands thinking how much exposure I could get, or poor naive me, even some pocket money. But like most things, it didn’t work out, I didn’t do a follow up and this went nowhere. But that’s ok, life is just like that, we move on and forget about it. Until I saw the new Gorgoroth tour leg happening and I remembered I still have these.

Since social media algorithms don’t like photos being posted in packs or galleries and I don’t have the energy to post on daily basis, mostly because is boring as hell, here they go.

These are all from Steelfest 2024 except one pic from Inferno 2022. And using the search option on my on social media I realised I have photos from GORGOROTH over the years in Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden or Finland. This band is always amazing to see live because ultimately, they transmit everything Black Metal stands for.

This is the second time I’ve written this entry, and I’ve learned that doing things at night time might not be such a good idea. When I’m tired after a long day, I just sound like an angry old man yelling at the clouds for no good reason.

Well, lets begin, I was not entirelly satisfied with this batch and I simply thrashed the manufacturer on my previous writting. I don’t really get why everyone’s so hyped up about the Ildford rolls. I get that the aesthetic might be appealing to a lot of people, but I think they lose their impact and power when used in black metal, death metal or any other metal context.

Contrast, thats the key. Or may be, since the current trend is underespoxing photos to almost unseable pics and using a high contrast for a powerful darks & blacks tones. For me Ilford rolls produce photos that are far away from the pretty much, standarized metal imagenery & aesthetics.

To sum up this little experiment, which I’ll keep running, I’d say Kodak comes out top for contrast values. Too bad I have 4 Ilford rolls left.

Before I jump to the photos from the festival, big shout and eternal thanks to Sini and all her family for hosting me on their AirBnB. Now, for you all steelfesters. If you want to travel to Finland in the following years and want a genuine finnish experience with woods, sauna, a lake etc. let me highly recommend you this place. Took me more than expected to say a thank you but hopefully, this will bring more business in the future for them and they deserve it.

So, This year’s Steelfest was a very very last minute travel for me because, well, family, life and reasons. So I didnt had many options and I was very very happy to find out this AirBnB. I hardly use this platform because I prefer hotels but I had no other choice 10 days before the festival. Very pleased to get something nearby, just 10 kilometers away and 15 minutes by car ride. Actually, my wife did the whole thing for me.

So, first surprise came after arriving to Hyvinkää and I gave the address to the taxi driver: Kylä-Katilantie 181.

I will never forget that stare and the question that came afterwards on mid ride when i was trying to do a small talk.

‘why are you going there?’

Im just staying at an AirBnB.

His laughs. well, It happens the compund is a recovering center for addictions, alcoholics, drug addicts etc. Which is basically no joke, if you ever suffered from any addiction like myself, or worked with someone, or seen a friend spiraling down on this.. you will know how hard it is to reach the point to seek help.

So, the place was lovely, extremelly calm surrounded by a forest. Actually you get there on a dirt road without asphalt. I was scared first time we left the asphalt road asking myself where the fuck Im going. But let me highly recommend you this host and place, they even let me a bike to ride to the lake which was a great way to spend the morning. Only downer was getting to the place since I didnt rent a car, but Sini gave a ride to the festival every single day and I came back by taxi, which was 30 euros per night. About 4 beers at the festival. Totally worth it.

I’m going to pause for a minute because I want to chat about this photo. As I said above, it’s pretty much explained there. When you’re setting up a new roll, you need to wind it forward. This isn’t a fully winded frame (a roll has 36 frames, so 36 photos). This effect is more noticeable in the last picture than the first one. I’d also like to mention that I used a different lens for this Korgonthurus pic, a Tanrom 80-210mm. So, it’s a telephoto lens. I tried it out, and it’s a pretty slow lens, but the images it produces are sharp and clear. But since it’s fully manual, it’s a bit slow for dynamic environments, just like metal shows. So there aren’t many pictures with it, but I’m really pleased with how this turned out. There is no phothosop or whatsoever in here.

Hellwind-Vritrahn performed their first ever concert, which was a once-in-a-lifetime event — or at least their only show of 2025. Naturally, I had to document this rare occasion by using a whole film roll plus you can see at the end of the post a video of half show, as I switched to photos after the first two songs.

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Olympus turned the world of cameras on its head when it introduced the OM series. Up until that time, SLRs were getting bigger and heavier. Olympus went in the opposite direction, shrinking the package down to a very compact size. The OM2n, released in 1979, was an improvement on the revolutionary OM1, which debuted in 1972. The OM1 was a manual, mechanical SLR. The OM2n added an aperture-priority autoexposure system driven by a revolutionary TTL/off-the-film-plane metering system. For all you camera enthusiasts out there, the auto aperture-priority auto-exposure feature, which is now standard on any camera, was first introduced in 1979 on the OM2n. Plainly speaking, on auto aperture mode the camera reads the available light and sets the correct aperture time to take to photo. This was first a mechanical feature until the the OM4-Ti was realesed in 87, being a fully electronic camera.

Since extreme metal revolves around peculiar aesthetic guidelines, I chose two film styles that I thought would both work. The first is Kodak 400 TX, a black-and-white film that produces crisp, high-contrast images with very little grain. Once digitalised with a good scanner, these images offer some room to be edited in Photoshop. Secondly, there is Ilford HP5 Plus 400, a very popular black-and-white film with low contrast and a high grain count. While the low contrast reduces the possibilities for working with the digitalised files, the high grain proves its value for black metal aesthetics.

What remains halfway free and out of reach of the turbo-capitalist tentacles that require products to be discounted, bleached and neatly packaged to appeal to the maximum number of customers? Because you have become just that, a customer of a service; a service that offers an experience and seeks to connect emotionally by offering two, three or four days of ‘freedom’ in order to gain your loyalty.

For me, after years of photographing festivals, the answer is clear: private initiative. There are a number of festivals where a number of people put their private wealth at risk, their economic future at stake, out of pure devotion and true love for underground metal.

If I have to spend money, I want it to be spent on something worthwhile. Projects where getting all the tickets doesn’t even guarantee you won’t lose money. Projects that don’t involve an oil company, an energy drink, the European public television conglomerate or vulture investment funds as your capital investors. Because that’s a long way from the underground scene, and as you may have noticed by now, the mainstream feeds on the ideas of underground movements and scenes. It kills the ethos, repackages ideas and aesthetics into a mindless merchantilized blob accessible to everyone.

This time, and for once, I have set my sights on a very tiny one-day festival in a country where I have yet to photograph as a music journalist. Oddly enough, my own home country. A country with an internationally underrated extreme metal scene, despite having given us some indisputable cult albums. I’m talking about everyone’s favourite country to holiday in: Spain.

This time, and for once, I have set my sights on a very tiny one-day festival in a country where I have yet to photograph as a music journalist. Oddly enough, my own home country. A country with an internationally underrated extreme metal scene, despite having given us some indisputable cult albums. I’m talking about everyone’s favourite country to holiday in: Spain.

So why not forget about the cheap booze, shitty beaches full of wallet thieves and tourist trap paellas that would make anyone with a pallate puke, and if you follow my travel advice in this guide you might end up visiting Spain like you never imagined.

Black Templar Extreme Metal Fest

Held in the small town of Monzón, in the heart of Huesca, a very interesting area that contains both a desert and the second largest mass of trees in Spain, many natural parks, medieval castles and Pyrenean peaks.

Black Templar will see its second edition on the 14th of September and although this text was supposed to be published a month ago for promotional purposes, life got in the way and delayed it. It is still not too late to promote the festival properly and make a quick travel plan. You may be wondering why I set my eyes on this one-day event in, say… “the middle of nowhere”. Two main reasons, usually “middle of nowhere” is where people are usually more grateful and friendly, the food is excellent, nature can be crazy good, is less concentrated with tourists and I honestly believe that Black Templar has the potential to become Spain’s Under The Black Sun, Steelfest, Throne Fest or Eternal Hate Fest. And you want to be there when the wheel starts rolling before a logical growth and expansion. After the first edition, with a line-up made up exclusively of Spanish bands, this second edition goes international with top names from Finland, Norway or Colombia, plus another showcase of Spanish bands that will demonstrate what is brewing.

Monzón, Huesca as a festival destination, but why there? Ouija is our answer.

Ouija is a long standing Black Metal band from the very same Monzón, still around since their 1997 debut LP (Riding Into The Funeral Paths – recently reissued on LP via Negra Nit Distro), and I tracked down Midgard (vocals) for a quick interview over the phone to get a better picture of Black Templar Extreme Metal Fest.

The idea came from Asociación Pasión por el Ruido, who told us that they wanted us to play Ouija in Monzón at the first event last year. As a result, I told them that if we played, we could create a small festival, which ended up getting out of hand, in quotes. We had a big festival, a big festival with the best black metal bands in Spain.

So the creators of the idea were Diego and Sergio from the Asociación Pasión por el Ruido and me, I became a member of the association because it’s in Monzón. Sergio and I got more involved this year and, realising that the event was growing, we contacted Mario and Chus from Quintessence from the Madrid association and Quique and Luis from Manguales Stream from the Barcelona association. Because we needed logistical support and help with other aspects such as contacting bands, promotion, etc.

This year, between the three associations, we got involved and created this festival. And then there’s Leonardo Ávila, who handles the graphic designs, artworks, merch designs and so on. You know he’s a great artist and he creates everything. The City Council of Monzón, they are providing us with the facilities, a number of beds for the bands to sleep in and they also take care of the cleaning and so on. They provide us with a lot of things but not any kind of financial support. To be honest, the facilities like the stage and so on are top level and this year the city council have been very helpful and supportive with our project, understanding the festival attracts people to our city, people who will spend money here and help Monzón get known.

Monzón, from Dark Medieval Times

You’d think Satyricon’s youngsters read Monzón’s story in 1993 and called their debut album Dark Medieval Times. I doubt it, but it would be very appropriate. For any lover of medieval history, Monzón is one of the places to be.
As you enter the fertile plains of the Cinca River, the first thing that catches your eye is the castle of Monzón. Standing on the top of a hill, it has been dominating these lands for centuries. Its walls have been besieged countless times throughout history. Its towers have seen epic defences and its rooms have sheltered illustrious figures.
It is recorded that El Cid passed through this castle. One of the lords of the castle was Don Ramiro, who was married to one of El Cid’s daughters. Ramiro’s son was García Ramírez, who later became King of Navarre.

The castle, located in such a strategic position, passed into the hands of the Order of the Temple. It was in this castle that the Templars kept the famous Tizona, El Cid’s mistical sword. Jaime I the Conqueror, one of the greatest kings in the history of the Kingdom of Aragon, was raised by the Knights Templar. He reconquered the Balearic Islands from the Muslims, but his greatest success was the conquest of Valencia in 1238. The stay of the young Jaime I in the castle of Monzón is still celebrated nowadays. In spring, the “Homage to Guillem de Mont-Rodon” is celebrated, a Templar master who was King James I’s tutor. On this day, a colourful medieval procession is held in which villagers dressed as Templars march from the village to the castle.
Originally a Muslim castle, after it was given to the Templars and turned a fortress and later belonged to the Order of the Hospital. It was later rebuilt (17th and 18th centuries) to make it more resistant to artillery attacks- hence some of the walls were built on a slope-.

We should not limit ourselves to visiting the inside of the castle, as most visitors do. After following in the footsteps of King Jaime I through the rooms of the castle, it is highly recommended that you take a short walk to the hill of Santa Quiteria, from where you will have the best views of the castle. This hill takes its name from the hermitage that once stood on it, which has now disappeared. The hill is crowned by a geodesic point and there are still remains of the old fortress that completed the defence of the castle. This hill was dangerous due to its height and made it easy to attack the main castle with artillery, which is why it was decided to fortify it in modern times. We can still see the remains of the walls on the west side and a large moat on the south side.

Another attraction that many visitors to Monzón Castle overlook is the ruins of the church of San Juan. It is located outside the walled enclosure and there are signposts leading to it. This church was once of great historical importance, as it was the church that King Sancho Ramírez ordered to be built after the conquest of the castle on the day of San Juan (24.6.1089). Sancho gave this small temple the title of Royal Chapel. In 1149 it passed into the hands of the Order of the Temple. It is certain that the young King Jaime I visited and prayed in this ancient church, of which today only the remains of its floor plan remain.

Following the path that leads to the ruins of the church of San Juan, we come to the gun emplacements dug into the rock of the hill. These are artillery positions that controlled the strategic Cinca passage during the Civil War (1936-1939). Beneath the castle are ancient corridors, underground passages, galleries, mines and countermines created during the sieges to which the castle was subjected. One of the most famous was during the War of Independence, when a garrison of 100 French soldiers under the command of an engineer held the castle for five months against two regiments of Espoz y Mina’s Division of Navarre. The castle was finally surrendered after the fall of Lérida.

El Cid, the Order of the Temple, Jaime I the Conqueror, battles, sieges… There is a lot of history to be remembered in the castle of Monzón…

The fine art of the bon vivants: eat, accomodation and how to get to Monzón

Part of the magic of travel is the enjoyment of good food, indulging in the local culinary magic. City rats, accustomed to food chains and franchises, tend to look for what they already know, an easy answer to a basic need, without considering the cultural and historical philosophy behind eating and drinking. Local cuisine is the historical and cultural evolution of our ancestors and for me it is an inseparable part of my travels.

A habit I always had, before Google Maps and modern online tools, was to travel with a destination, an address to go to, and very little else. I liked knowing where I was going without having a very good idea of how to get there, because it forced me to find my own way, most of the time interacting with strangers. This led to all sorts of conversations that are best had with crazy people: what to do, what not to miss and, above all, where to eat well. The only trick to finding the right places is to strike up conversations with the locals and ask them for their favourite and best places in the area. That’s all it takes.

For that, I asked Midgard – Ouija, vocals – about the best places to eat and sleep in the area during the interview and i did a research on my own following his advices

Let’s start with the food. Although Monzón is a small town, it has a decent, high-quality cuisine that pays tribute to local products. So we can expect flavours and food that actually has a taste.

Hello northern Europe and its bland food.

Most of them work with quality meats and we can find a good lamb shank or braised oxtail at Delicioso, a very tasty chuletón at La Amistad. Wait, you’re in Spain and you don’t know what a chuletón is? You really have to go and get one. They are also the to-go place if you want to eat snails.

Last time I had them, in a French bistro in Oslo, they were badly done. Still unbeatable are the snails in biscaine sauce I had in the mighty Basque country.

For meat lovers, the Plaché restaurant is in the best tradition of Argentine steakhouses. The restaurant Rogelio is also very good at grilled meats, and these are just some of the places to eat in Monzón, as there are many places in the area where you can enjoy a good meal.

As far as accommodation is concerned, despite being a relatively small village, there are several hotels and within a radius of 10-15 km there are more in the neighbouring villages. There are also many AirBnB options and rural houses throughout the area.

booking info

In terms of transport and access, Monzón can be reached by bus or train. It is also only two hours away from Barcelona, which is the ideal airport for those who are brave enough to fly in from abroad. Madrid is a little further away, 4 hours. However, buses have been organised from different cities: Madrid, Bilbao, Barcelona or Valencia, which will stop in other cities on the way. We want to facilitate access to the festival from the peninsula.

Huesca, an unknown province.

If you’re coming from outside Spain, as any sun and beach seeker; you probably won’t have much interest in a mountainous inland province, but for winter sports enthusiasts, the province of Huesca has two of the most visited ski resorts in the country. Moreover, the second highest peak of the Iberian Peninsula is located in the Aragonese Pyrenees, the Aneto. Therefore, this province of the Autonomous Community of Aragon has many options for those who like dynamic and active tourism. You can stay in museums, but I prefer to climb mountains and visit castles from times gone by.

Speaking of castles, and given that the main theme of the festival is the former Templar fortress, I have prepared a little recommendation. It is a relatively short trip, less than 250 km and 3 hours by car, and will take you to some of the Templar fortresses still standing in Spain.

Another option, which requires more time and which I do not have, but which I guarantee I will return to with my family in the future, is to visit one of the many natural parks in Huesca.

In particular, I have been wanting to go to the marvellous Ordesa-Monte Perdido for many years and do the Faja de las flores trail

As I will have just enough time, I will try to visit some points on my way to Monzon, as I will be making a road trip from Bilbao. So on my itinerary is a visit to Loarre Castle and the Gorges of Guara, as we recently went to the south of Aragon to visit the Gorges of the River Mesa and it was incredible.

Huesca has a large number of castles, in various states of conservation, which can be visited, of course, and which also offer the possibility of organising trips around their visit(2). Another of the curiosities that I have discovered in the course of documenting the places to visit is the large number of abandoned villages, where a visit is usually a curious, strange and spooky experience. One of the ones that caught my attention the most was Fet, in an incredible landscape. this website compiles all the abandones places(3).

Yeah, but what about the bands

Let’s get down to business, we travel to see the groups and alternative activities are secondary. Is it worth the effort to get there, especially from abroad? Like myself traveling from Norway…

We are going to see the debut of the Finns Horna and Sargeist in Spain. For me that alone justifies the trip. If you’ve been following my site for a while, you’ll have noticed that I’m a big fan of both bands. Colombians Masacre, Norwegians Ancient playing a setlist from their ’96 album The Cainian Chronicle, Finns Convulse and a setlist from World Without God, Acherontas from Greece and some highlights from Spain that I’m looking forward to, Hrizg, Empty or Regent Death. It’s going to be fun.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• 1 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpcw9hzTFSE
• 2 – https://issuu.com/diputacionprovincialdehuesca/docs/castillos_siglo_ix
• 3 – http://www.despobladosenhuesca.com/

But was it a problem of having said it all, or was there something else behind the curtain? After a period of introspection, a short one as the answer was so obvious and obvious that I had spent time just ignoring it: I had reached the point of total boredom, listening to so many bands that contributed nothing and just added more fuel for a everlasting fire of boredom and rutine.

But that’s maybe a debate for another time, it’s really great the democratisation and accessibility to produce music at low cost, sometimes with a full equip studio in one of your rooms, but the surplus of generic bands that came out of this is really overwhelming and for me, it killed my will to keep discovering music and listening to new records. Simply put, theres too much of the same.

Now I understand the answer I got from a certain shop in Oslo when I asked about the possibility of selling the vinyl I had released on my own label: real hype booms work and maybe sell good but in general, music buyers are only interested in reissues of classic records. Too old to discover new music with a dead Open-earedness (1) as the academics may call it and works as a good insight into the current situation about abundance and wide range of offer, but ideas and musical resources seems to be drying on variety.

Every now and then there is a real gem, either because of genuine musical freshness with new ideas, original approaches, genre disrupters or because a lot of money has been spent on marketing strategies, buying reviews and hype that has worked. Today i will write about one of these rare finds that manages to get me excited.

Don’t be suspipcious, this whole activity of writing about metal, taking photos, going to gigs etc. still costs me a lot of money to the annoyance of my wife, so this review is totally honest and is more about those gems that come out of the underground every now and then and really motivates me to write and recommend them. Cutting through the cheese, Germany’s up-and-coming black metal force Ad Mortem have finally unveiled their debut album ‘In Honorem Mortis’ and is good, very good.

I want to go back to 2018 to talk about the origins. I know I just wrote in the previous paragraph that this is not a paid review or in any way related to the rotten business of buying reviews to promote albums. But still, there is a bias in this review because I have somehow developed a close relationship with their music.

So for context, as mentioned, it’s early summer 2018 and I’m writing to the man behind Worship Tapes, a true titan and warrior for the metal underground. Notorious for promoting German Black Metal on K7 format. I gave him 50 Euros and asked him to send me whatever he liked because I trusted his taste. Well, I am not that naive and I know that he probably cleared dead stock by sending me horrible tapes that were impossible to sell; but at the same time he sent me some gems and the Ad Mortem demo was among the collection and the only tape I took with me on my summer holiday, which was also my wedding. Imagine, a lot of nerves, stress and the only way to vent was to listen to Archgoat and Ad Mortem’s demo for a whole summer.

Since that demo, I have been following the band’s development through their releases and trying to get hold of any audio-visual material from their live appearances, and have witnessed a development from a band with a well-layered musical base to a band who have refined their style while clearly managing to be consistent in their ideas and aesthetics, and who can become a possible contender for the top of the German underground crown.

I won’t lie, it’s a very familiar sound if you’re into Finnish Black Metal and germans are notorious for having a fetish for the sounds of Perkele Land. In fact Ad Mortem’s Black Metal is Steelfest material. There is nothing new invented here, but still; the freshness on their compositions is what I admire on Ad Mortem. Melodies are always catchy and remind me that in Black Metal either you’re touched by the black flame and make consistent stuff or you just release very forgettable and irrelevant music. Ad Mortem has this black flame, this touch; this unexplainable thing that only a few musicians are gifted with to delight us with. You know, you can play music and you CAN PLAY music. The feeling, a sentiment wrapped in an atmosphere that carries you somewhere. And this is kind of universal for music in general, but what I find captivating about Black Metal is how this genre can evoke so many emotional dimensions. This is where I really enjoy Ad Mortem and their very unique melodies, transporting me somewhere deep inside me where I am forced to metamorphose in a Kafkian way to confront the true self that we hide daily for the wageslave mundane life. That very unique moment when you are just you, without masks or mirrors, stripped of any superficial distracting energy and you are just you.

Tracks like ‘Labyrinth’, for example, are so uplifting that it is easy to get caught up and carried away by the energy of the music. I find it quite brilliant when people manage to provoke that. Music with essence. With something to say, something to convey that is more than just a song.

I mentioned the melodies, which are outstanding this time on ‘In Honorem Mortis’, and these are my friends, usually a guitar work. But in this album it would be totally unfair to attribute it to a single instrument work, because this band functions by being a whole package in itself, where the drumming, the vocals and the bass layers all work together to form a single entity. Now, this is something that only a few manage to get absolutely right. The whole thing as one. A single entity.

Wrapping up, “Labyrinth” i mentioned, the epicness of the closing track ‘Death and Beyond’, the punch in the face of ‘Von hohen Himmelm’, even the synth moment in the intro, which is good but can be better; so many incredible moments packed into one album. I don’t like to do reviews that go song by song and album has so many memorable moments that ring a wide range of emotions that i could be writting a wall of text, like I said, you just have to listen and enjoy for yourself. I think this is good, so good that I would feel totally ashamed to be so audacious as to rate this album with a number when I am totally incompetent to produce a single melody as good as the many that ‘In Honorem Mortis’ contains. Absolutely recommended.

And for the record, I have listened to ‘In Honorem Mortis’ in various sources and formats. I have the cassette, the vinyl and the mp3. Vinyl is a banger, the tape edition is simply amazing, but tape sound is tape sound, love it or hate it. Do yourself a favour, get the vinyl or get some good headphones for your portable devices. Totally changes the listening experience if the source is good.

(1) – https://neurosciencenews.com/music-aging-22716/