The One Where We Finally Have Music
DISCLAIMER: If you came here for actual journalistic coverage of Fortress Festival—this is not that.
Please head over to [stormbringer.at] for a proper live report with facts, structure, and objectivity.
This? This is the personal side.
This one’s got feelings. Spirals. Regret. Way too many thoughts.
It is biased, chaotic, and emotionally compromised.
You’ve been warned.
Welcome back.
If you’ve made it through Parts I and II, congratulations—you’ve survived the packing crisis, the Eurowings knee crush, the M&S pilgrimage, and my scenic detour obsession.
We’ve arrived.
I’m holding a camera. I have a press pass. It’s just before noon on Saturday, May 31st.
The lights go down. The fog rolls in.
Fortress Festival has officially begun.
Nemorous – The One Where the Peacock Took the Stage
First band of the day was Nemorous. Atmospheric black metal from the UK. Noon slot, Great Hall.
They opened with fog and atmospheric synths. And a really good backdrop—some kind of glowing, tangled tree situation. Looked great in photos. Always appreciated.
Setlist? Nothing familiar. They played their upcoming debut. I’d listened to the 2021 EP beforehand, but that didn’t help me much.
What did stick: Nick Craggs, the vocalist.
Absolutely stormed that stage. Full power strut. Pacing back and forth like he was testing the floorboards for weakness.
Three days later, I couldn’t hum you a single riff. But that silhouette?
Burned into my brain.
Perennial Isolation – The One with Chaos Energy and No Right to Go That Hard
Perennial Isolation brought us atmospheric black metal from Spain.
I hadn’t done any prep for this band. No expectations, no assumptions. And then the vocalist walked on stage—short, bald, with a teddy bear build and a tooth gap—and just exploded.
Full conviction from the first note.
Pacing, pointing, shouting, sweating—the kind of stage presence that grabs you by the collar and makes damn sure you’re paying attention.
The rest of the band kept up. It was tight, loud, emotional.
But let’s be honest: frontman stole it.
Second band of the day. Second frontman win. Well, well.
Aquilus – The One Where They Hid the Tattoo God in the Fog
One of my most anticipated sets.
I love Griseus—the bombast, the scale, the whole dramatic energy of it. I was curious how they’d translate that to a stage.
First move: bring out a violinist in metal heels. Strong opener.
And then there was the bassist. Shirtless. Full torso tattoos. Absolutely stunning.
And naturally—they parked him right between the lights and the fog so I couldn’t get a single clean shot.
I spent the entire first song trying to focus on this man—and the fog just laughed in my face.
I’ve never been so personally victimised by stage design.
Aquilus flew in from Australia and played a seven-song set—some of it trimmed.
Nihil usually runs 14 minutes. They played the first half. Fair.
Photographing it was a nightmare.
So much fog. Too much. I gave up halfway through the pit and fled to the balcony instead.
And honestly? Best decision I could’ve made. I sat back, closed my eyes, and let it hit me.
Not dreamy. Not soft.
This wasn’t cinematic ambiance—it was black metal, proper and sharp.
Harsh vocals. Rolling drums. Tremolo riffs cutting through the fog like claws.
It wasn’t the set I expected.
It was better.
Devastator & Darkher – The One Where I Chose a Burger and Lost Everything
15:00–15:40 was a fork in the road.
On one side: Devastator, black/thrash from England, all filth, fury, and that don’t-give-a-shit attitude I love in bands like Hellripper.
On the other: Darkher, Jayn Maiven’s ambient doom-folk dreamscape.
Soft, slow, ghostly. The kind of set where everything hurts in a beautiful way—and no one dares clap too loudly in case they break the spell.
Two completely different moods.
Both happening at the same time.
And me?
I picked the third option: the vegan burger.
It looked fine. It was not fine.
I ate half of it, sat in the sun trying not to be sick, and missed both bands completely.
Choices were made.
Regret was had.
Spirit Possession – The One Where Red Light Actually Worked
Spirit Possession brought us black metal from the US.
As raw and stripped back as it gets.
Drum kit on the left. Guitarist on the right.
No intro, no spectacle—just blast beats, frantic riffing, and a constant barrage of angry UGHs thrown directly at your face.
The red light setup?
Actually decent. From the front, no weird shadows.
For once, corpse paint looked like corpse paint.
I had a lot of fun shooting this one.
Shame I had to leave early to queue for Osi.
Which is the only reason I left. Otherwise I was oddly into it.
Osi and the Jupiter – The One Where Nobody Dared to Clap
16:45 was another hard split:
Suldusk on the Ocean Room stage, or Osi and the Jupiter in the Theatre Room.
Both sit in the dark folk realm—but from very different corners.
Suldusk leans toward atmospheric black metal. Osi walks the pagan, ritualistic path, slow and reverent.
I’d been binging Osi for weeks.
There was no question.
We queued early—and good thing, too. The line grew fast.
Soon it was wrapping back and up the stairs. I don’t think everyone got in.
I left my camera behind.
There was a “no phones, no cameras” rule in the theatre room on Saturday.
A rule most people ignored, judging by the Instagram flood.
Still—I pocketed my phone, sat down, and actually let myself be present.
That’s the only way to experience Osi.
The promised candlelight?
Didn’t happen. Bit of a letdown, honestly. Would’ve suited the set.
But the space was small and intimate. That helped.
Kakophonix opened alone on cello—Fjörgyn.
Then Elyse and Sean joined.
They played a long, gorgeous set, moving through songs like Shake Healer, Appalachia, Mountain Shamanism, and a preview of Lurking Beneath the Pines from the upcoming album Larvatus.
The room held its breath.
And at the end—total silence.
No clapping. No noise.
Just… stillness.
Until Sean broke it with a laugh: 'Well, that’s weird.'
And only then did the applause start.
It was a beautiful set.
But I’ll say it—the sound was too loud for that room.
The reverb swallowed some of the nuance. It didn’t need it.
This music could’ve worked with barely more than the strings and their voices.
Not the band’s fault.
Just a sound guy thing.
Still.
It was the performance I came for.
And it absolutely delivered.
The Great Old Ones – The One Where My Brain Was Elsewhere
Post-Osi, I skidded back downstairs to catch the first three songs of The Great Old Ones.
Post-black from France. Very into H.P. Lovecraft. Very, very good at what they do.
The stage was all hoods and atmospheric lighting.
Three guitars. Perfect dissonance. Drums like a ritual storm.
You could tell this was one of the festival’s big moments—everyone was locked in. Hypnotised.
Everyone except me.
I was physically in the room, but mentally pacing a balcony, editing interview questions I'd prepped before and praying feverishly for the ability to form a coherent sentence.
Because at 18:30, I was scheduled to interview Osi and the Jupiter.
My first-ever live interview. And by now I was freaking out.
So I can’t tell you much about this set.
Only that it was grand, tight, technically flawless, and I definitely didn’t do it justice.
But hey—I got some solid shots.
That’s got to count for something.
Selbst & Sylvaine – The Ones I Missed While Stress-Sweating
Afterwards, Selbst took the Ocean Room—South American black metal, sharp, raw, and by all accounts ferocious live.
Sylvaine played the Theatre Room—lush, ethereal, emotionally devastating in that post-everything way I adore.
And I missed them both.
I was upstairs. Alone. On the balcony. Going over my interview notes for the umpteenth time.
Everything until now had been loud.
Now it was time to talk.
And I was absolutely terrified.
Continue reading in part IV.