VoS-Adjacent:
Sunken - Lykke A wonderful Atmospheric Black Metal release from the Danes. Packed with cascading and surging, arpeggio-induced atmospheric, cinematic, and vivid music, with poetic lyrics.
Baulta - Pure Escapism First-class sweeping Post-Rock with expansive musical ideas, seeped in memorable melodies that range from the most delicate piano- and violin-induced parts to surging and gushing crescendos.
Beneath a Steel Sky - Cleave An album amalgamating styles into a mesmerizing album with layered textures and delicate introspective instrumental passages, swelling dense crescendos and powerful guttural growls. Throughout the album, Post-Metal embraces subtle Post-Rock, lifting it and carrying it on its sturdy back.
TOP5 Not written about in VoS
Feversea - Man Under Erasure A stunning debut release of Post-Metal music from a seasoned Oslo based musician. The band mixes Post-Metal with the aggressive intensity of Black-Metal and induces ethereal Blackgaze elements. This mix, fronted by the versatile female vocals, makes up for an immaculate Post-Metal album.
Evoken - Mendacium Evoken is a band that seems to have been with us forever, delivering Funeral Doom Metal since 1994. We might forget such bands if they have a bit of a hiatus - like Evoken with seven years since their last full-length. And in 2025, they came back mighty and slow as ever before, even with some Blackgaze-induced parts. This is heavy music to be immersed in, to meditate to, and enjoy in a blissful state as it crawls forward, clocking in at one hour with long tracks. Evoken´s heavy Funeral Doom always resonates with the listener.
Hedvig Mollestad Trio - Bees in the Bonet The trio released their seventh album this year. Fusing heavy rock, Prog, and Jazz makes the trio unique. Hedvig Mollestad is arguably Norway´s (dear I say world´s?) most versatile and expansive guitarist these days. Her riffs are heavy, the solos sharp, soaring, and intense. She is flanked by the throbbing and thundering bass of Ellen Brekken and pushed and driven by the vital drumming of Ivar L. Bjørnstad. On this album, they once more manage to translate their energy and vigor from the stage to an utterly engaging album, dipping into the heaviest sonics.
Ring van Möbius - Firebrand On the band´s swansong, they once again bring back the sounds and sonics of early 1970s Progressive Rock. One way to see this album is that it is an immaculate tribute to bands such as ELP, Rick Wakeman, King Crimson, Yes, The Nice, Atomic Rooster – yes, it is as retro as it can be. And yet, utterly engaging as they handle their instruments, organ, mellotron, synths, bass, drums with a virtuosity that perfectly mirrors their (and mine) Prog Rock heroes. Three long songs clocking in at 45 minutes. As Prog Rock songs should.
U.S. Christmas - Cannibals of Unaka The unruly, raw, and laid-back band is back after 14 years, gracing us with a new psychedelic and anarchistic take on Stoner-based Sludge Metal. They pick up where they left us and are just as inventive in creating their sonics with sections of spacey Darkwave sounds. Nate Hall´s voice is, as ever, very recognizable in every form.
Top Concerts of 2025
Shonen Knife I got to see this Japanese all-female trio for a second time. This time when they were on their European leg of their world tour. Attending a gig with these three women is as life-affirming as it can be. This Pop-Punk band started in Osaka in 1981, influenced by the Ramones. Its two founding members (sisters) on bass, guitar, and vocals are still rocking all over the world, now joined by a younger, vigorous, and vital drummer who must be the happiest in the world to sit behind a drum set. To Oslo, and the world, they brought us their energetic mix of rock, Surf-Rock, Punk, and Grunge as they sang about candy, banana chips, and happy things. Every skeptic in the audience was converted.
>Hedvig Mollestad Trio Another life-affirming band I was lucky to see last year was the Hedvig Mollestad Trio. When they take their music to the stage, they turn it up a notch, to eleven. And with energy following. It is three instrumentalists bringing their virtuosity to the stage, fusing guitar, bass, and drums together. Even if I am lucky enough to see the band a couple or more times a year, they always surpass expectations with their vitality and energy led by Mollestad´s unique guitar excesses, and Brekken’s wild bass playing, both on bass guitar and upright bass, and with Bjørnstad hammering relentlessly on the drums. It is heavy, it is delicate, it is, as said, life-affirming.
Djerv At the annual Tons of Rock festival in Oslo this summer, Djerv came to one of the stages and took the audience by storm. With their Metal-induced Hard Rock led by the vibrant and frisky vocalist Agnete Kjølsrud, they peaked right there, delivering a dynamic and vigorous festival set. Such festival sets are a bit short of course, but for us who were there, it seemed longer because the band managed to squeeze as much of their song catalog into the 45-minute set.
