Fortress Festival 2025, Scarborough Spa: The Review
Once a year, thousands of black metal purists descend upon the sunny seaside town of Scarborough in a way that is visually reminiscent of Saruman’s Uruk-Hai terrorising the gentle and pleasant village folk of the Riddermark. However, the best summary of Fortress could be heard from the locals when one of them raised the question of: “What’s with all the goths?”
“It’s a heavy metal thing, the music is shit, but the people are lovely.”
Here’s what went down at what is possibly the UK’s best black metal festival, and for everyone reading this who is now shouting: “But what about Cosmic Void??” Well, Cosmic Void is in London—end of argument. A one-man show of somebody doing Macbeth on a bouncy castle could sell out in London. Selling out a black metal festival in the far Northeast in a quiet seaside town is an achievement that can’t be overstated in its magnitude.
Opening the Saturday were Nemerous. Now, these lads were not in an enviable position, opening a black metal festival at 1pm right next to a beach on one of the nicest days of the year. Fortress Festival goers had to pass through families relaxing, eating ice creams, children making sandcastles and dogs happily chasing one another, which might be as far away from black metal ‘lore’ as one can get. But they were still able to pull together a blistering set of capable black metal that did its job well to ‘wet the lips’, so to speak, of what the weekend had in store to come.
Next up on the main stage were the Australian collective Aquilus. Before we get into Aquilus, a little bit of context is needed. This year’s Fortress Fest wasn’t actually Fortress Fest. It was really Agalloch-Fest. This is Agalloch’s first UK show -post break-up and reformation- since 2015. If you’re an Agalloch fan who lives in the UK, maybe even Europe, you had a ticket for Fortress pretty much as soon as they were announced. With this in mind, Aquilus is the first of many bands booked throughout the weekend that could be considered ‘Agalloch-inspired’, with the line-up being half curated around their star booking headliner. Aquilus were heavy enough on the incense to create the nature-themed atmospheric and synthonic sound that they were striving for, festival goers entered into a hypnotic trance of musically laden ecstasy as the Australians bounced between brutal blackened blast beats and soft contemplative climaxes.
Over to the Ocean Room now, which, due to capacity, means leaving the main stage early is an essential if you want to get into it; we’ll find Derbyshire blackened thrash masters, Devestator. These boys brought the party with them to a bit of an overall sombre and serious festival, which is to be expected with the genre, of course. Exploding into thrash heavy enough to put Slayer to shame, Devestator were able to conjure perhaps the only real mosh pit of the festival. In light of the recent controversy with Slam Dunk’s (lack of) security, it was pleasing to see security taking the mosh pit very seriously. Devastator were a crowd favourite, with football-like chants of: ‘Deve-stator!’ between songs. At the end of the set, the lads went around the barriers high high-fiving and fist-bumping their fans, new and old. Overall, they were reminiscent of an ‘evil Motley Crue.’ They put on one of the best shows of an incredibly stacked weekend, which is especially impressive as they were probably the most ‘divergent’ to the black metal genre as well.
Returning to the Grand Theatre, American duo Spirit Possession take the stage. If Devestator were ‘blackened thrash, the fun version’, Spirit Possession are ‘blackened thrash, the serious version’. The duo were able to create a raw and aggressive blackened sound that admittedly gets off to a bit of a slow start, but culminated in a face-melting climax that was nostalgic of the Scandinavian golden years of black metal of the 90s.
Now, as the day progresses, so does the pain in the hips and feet of many. This is where Fortresses’ most appealing feature comes into play. Imagine, if you will, a festival where, whenever you wanted, there was a comfortable seat to sit in whilst you could also catch a main stage band. Fortresses’ home in the Scarborough Spa Grand Theatre allowed this, with the main room and the balcony being open to everyone. It was a game changer to those of us who are already dreading the physical toll that this year’s two-day Damnation threatens. In the Gods, is where we caught The Great Old Ones. This year’s album entry of theirs, Kadath, a stellar album, creating considerable hype for their set. The Lovecraftian black metallers were a serious highlight, imposing both brutality and anxiety in their gargantuan and atmospheric sound.
Another marvellous feature of Fortress is that within the venue, there is a smaller theatre that is comparable to a Christmas panto or school drama show in size. Here, Sylvaine confidently took her acoustic show to hundreds of eagerly awaiting black metallers. This would be a daunting prospect for some, but Sylvaine kept us all enthralled in her soft croons and clean acoustics that felt as though you had been released from a washing machine filled with razor wire into a warm bubble bath with pleasant floral fragrances. It’s something this reviewer is very keen to see more of in future editions of Fortress.
Ruim in the main stage next put on a show that was similar to Dragged Into Sunlight’s fabled 2024 Damnation set, which has ingrained itself into the UK heavy music scene’s folklore. The chaos, the sensory overload and the relentless brutality and uncompromising sound, Ruim are what people came to Fortress for. To close out Saturday, the magnificent Ahklys. Though, the lead singer did look hilariously like Bane from the Christopher Nolan film with his mask on, but he took a break from fighting Batman to enthral Scarborough with some of the most hypnotic black metal built up across the entire weekend.
Photo Credit: Ruim. Photo by Acidolka.
Crawling from the nighttime hovels with ears ringing and feet stinging, the swathe of metallers hit day two of Fortress Festival. Abduction is the first band up, playing their latest album, Existentilamus, in full. Gary and co sure know how to treat their attendees. The set is blistering, intense, heavy, all the good descriptors one can think of to use for a black metal band. As the backdrop to their music, Abduction plays scenes from anxiety-inducing movies such as Begotten’s famous scene of ‘God’ strapped to a chair, mutilating himself with a knife over and over again as he desperately tries to escape, and other intensely disturbing imagery. Fortress is not the sort of place you want to be taking any sort of hallucinogen at during moments like this. Abduction had no right being that good this early in the afternoon, they are probably one of the most exciting UKBM bands going right now, and one to keep an eye on, even if that eye is half closed from all the fear that they bring with them. Belore are playing in the Ocean Room, they plough through a wonderful set of classical blackened folk that is reminiscent of a medieval tavern during the black heights of the plague. Their fans are having fun with this one, dancing in ye olde type jigs with their arms linked in circles.
After Belore, we take a break to return to the theatre for a conversation with Agalloch. This Q&A has a wonderful atmosphere, as only the most dedicated fans of the band are taking a break from the music just to hear them talk. This is a room full of the obsessives, the diehards, hanging on to their heroes every word. The band keep it light and convivial. Though, it must be admitted that it is pretty devastating to hear your favourite bands talk about your emotionally charged favourite songs by saying: “Oh man, I fucking hate that song!” which attracted various rounds of playful ‘boo’s!’ from the crowd. But the ‘In Conversation’ Q&As held in the theatre are just another example of what Fortress does well and better than similar sized festivals.
Moonlight Sorcery have been described as blackened Iron Maiden. Maybe a misplaced comment because they are better than that. The group absolutely tore the house down in a rare performance. There’s not really any pitting at Fortress, but Moonlight Sorcery seemed poised to burn the entire house down if one was sparked. The crowd was a sea of festival goers air guitaring along to their impossible riffing and blackened shrieks. The band also came out to the Final Fantasy soundtrack, which was a wink to the comparison with their guitars. God loves a band that can have a joke with itself, especially within the oft annoyingly serious black metal scene.
Forteresse were so hyped and enigmatic with their insistence on speaking French to an almost entirely English crowd, they conjurer the thought: ‘You know what, maybe Quebec should devolve from Canada into an independent state!” Alas, many in attendance probably know about as much about Canadian separatist politics as they know about the colour spectrum of fashion beyond priest-sock black. But, what these Forteresse guys know is that they seem pretty convinced of it, and their playing is energetic and passionate, so they just may be on to something.
There were other bands, Suldusk, Grift, Ulcerate and Dodsrit that all deserve a review all by themselves. All of them melted the collective faces off, but there are only so many adjectives and descriptors for black metal bands, so in short, we shall call them: devastatingly accomplished with their respective sets and should definitely be queued up on whatever your choice of music streaming service is.
Finally, after seemingly overdosing on black metal, the almighty Agalloch takes the stage. Agalloch is one of those bands that no one really just likes. You either don’t know about them, or you’re obsessed with them.
The set was a triumph. The band knew they were playing to their most fanatical fans. They gave the set seemingly everything they had. It could only be ended by guitarists John and Don, splayed out on the floor like injured Family Guy characters. They played the hits. They played the deep cuts. And they played it all to record standard quality. It was, in short, a victory lap for the band. Time seemed to stop, and festival goers became utterly lost in the music. The security was handing out tissues to those at the barrier who were emotional wrecks.
To conclude, Gary Stephenson and Co. at Fortress and Reaper put on a demonstration, no, a masterclass on how to put on a superb festival. It had soul, it had community, it had world-standard music for the black metal scene, and most importantly: it had adequate seating.
Photo Credit: Moonlight Sorcery.
Photo by Acidolka.