With over a year having passed since DARK FORTRESS took to the stage, many fans were thrilled to find out that these veterans of Black Metal were embarking on a European tour, following the recent release of their highly acclaimed album "Venereal Dawn". Needless to say, there was a very decent turn-out at the Munich leg of the tour, despite the fact that it was a weekday night.

Starting off the night's conflagration was SCHAMMASCH, a Swiss Black Metal formed in just 2009. Bathed in the fiery inferno-like stage lighting, and looming through the billows of fog that engulfed them, SCHAMMASCH's set had a very ritualistic and occultist feel to it, which was all the more enhanced by various stage props such as burning black candles, a smoking censer of frankincense, and black horns reaching to the sky. Added to this were the elaborate costumes: the vocalist bedecked in an ornate robe complete with cowl, whilst the guitarist and bassist on either side were adorned in loose black shirts with intricate edgings of gold, shod with Jesus sandals. One thing that must be said about SCHAMMASCH is that their music is absolutely mesmerising: slow, dark, and insidious, there were more than a few people in the audience standing with their eyes closed, heads gently nodding to the tempo, lulled by the ethereal swirls of melodies that came cascading from the stage. All in all a hypnotic performance that went down well, even garnering a shout for an encore at the end of their set.
 

Co-headlining the tour is SECRETS OF THE MOON, a German Black Metal band that has been around for over 2 decades. Whilst SCHAMMASCH was captivating and ritualistic, SECRETS OF THE MOON incorporated heavier and faster elements into their music, giving them a more of an aggressive sound. With a heavily bass-driven sound, this band soon had heads banging a bit more. The setlist was also nicely chosen, with half of the choices coming from their most recent 2012 album "Seven Bells", whilst the other half of the setlist paid tribute to SECRETS OF THE MOON's back-catalogue. Flaming pillars on either side of the stage added to the mystique of the music, whilst the low gravelly voice of their female bassist did much to enhance the raw power of their songs, rounding everything off perfectly. SECRETS OF THE MOON were the perfect continuation of SCHAMMASCH's show, melding the ritualistic feel carried by SCHAMMASCH with the aggression and forlornness that was to come in DARK FORTRESS's set.
 

Setlist:
1. Intro
2. Blood Into Wine
3. A Million Suns
4. Serpent Messiah
5. Lucifer Speaks
6. Nyx
7. Outro
8. Carved In Stigmata Wounds

Finally it was time for the eagerly anticipated performance by DARK FORTRESS. Again, the transition from SECRETS OF THE MOON to DARK FORTRESS was smooth and flawless, with DARK FORTRESS's music bringing to the fore the elements of that had been hinted at during SECRETS OF THE MOON's performance. I must really say that this lineup of bands was perfect: each performance complemented the others impeccably, and each band paved the way for the next so that the night was an unbroken progression. DARK FORTRESS themselves put on a relentless performance that engulfed the audience totally and utterly, and for the duration of their set, nothing else seemed to exist: everyone's attention was riveted to the stage. The set list here was also well picked, appealing to both older and newer fans alike, showcasing the new album "Venereal Dawn" whilst still playing the more time honoured favourites. With the recent departure of their long-standing keyboardist Paymon, keyboard duties fell to Phenex, an experienced keyboardist who also tours with other bands such as SATYRICON. However DARK FORTRESS had a special surprise for Munich fans, with Paymon making a guest appearance for the final song "Poltergeist". Needless to say, the end of this song had the audience eagerly calling for more, with "Baphomet" going down exceptionally well as an encore.
 

Setlist:
1. Betrayal and Vengence
2. The Unflesh
3. Venereal Dawn
4. The Valley
5. I am the Jigsaw of a Mad God
6. Chrysalis
7. When 1000 Crypts Awake
8. Poltergeist
9. Baphomet

If you find yourself with the opportunity to catch this amazing tour, I'd highly recommend taking it. With the exception of WATAIN's recent performance at Summer Breeze, I struggle to think of a single Black Metal concert that I have enjoyed so much this year. One thing I must truly commend is the choice of line-up: each band picked up perfectly from where the other left off, ensuring that the night was a flowing crescendo. Simply superb!
 

Before the show, I got the opportunity to speak with V. Santura, guitarist of bands such as DARK FORTRESS and TRIPTYKON, as well as producer at Woodshed Studios. We spoke about the tour, about the new album "Venereal Dawn", as well as a bit about the band's history.

Today is the first day of the tour: are you excited?

Yeah! The first day of course is a bit stressful; you're a bit nervous, you hope that everything turns out the way you want it, and I'm actually quite looking forward to the moment when we are sitting in the night-liner and drive to the next show, because then everything is rolling and then probably I'm also losing a bit of inner tension. So the first show is always like "Argh, I hope everything goes well". It's also our first show in a while. We haven't played since August or September last year, so it's more than a year.

Are there any highlights you're particularly looking forward to, or places you've never been to before?

Well, tomorrow I'm really looking forward to playing in Vevey because DARK FORTRESS has never played in the French speaking part of Switzerland. I met the promoter once before. He was doing a TRIPTYKON show, and he spoke to me, saying that he was a really big DARK FORTRESS fan and that he'd really like to bring us over there. That's four years ago now that we spoke, and now it's finally happening, and I hope there are a lot of people coming. Also Paris and London are hopefully highlights. But let's see. Sometimes shows where you don't expect much turn out great. I'm also very happy about the tour package, that we're finally doing a tour with SECRETS OF THE MOON. I've know the guys in the band for more than ten years, and SCHAMMASCH is also a good group, so it's a really cool tour package for me.

After him being in the band for 16 years, how does it feel being on tour without Paymon?

Well, it's not the first time we are on tour without him. He hasn't been on the last few tours with us. So Job, the guy who is helping us out now, has been on tour with us twice already. I'm sad that Paymon left the band, but he will be there today, and he will also play one song with us. It was nothing personal, and we're still good friends. It was due to personal reasons in his private life that he decided to leave the band. In reality, the band will probably not change that much, because he wasn't able to be fully involved in the band in the past few years. Job has played several shows with us, and he's also experience because he plays with SATYRICON, so it's going to be cool with him.

Are you going to try get a permanent keyboardist, or are you going to stick with this arrangement?

That's something I can't really answer at the moment. We have the feeling that we don't really want to search or settle for a permanent keyboard player. I really like working with Job. I think he really understands the music and he's a cool guy. For example, the day before yesterday, we still needed to make a live intro and samples in between the songs. So Job and I did that together at my studio, and it was really a great pleasure creating all these things, and really a nice creative energy between us, and he came up with really great ideas where I really thought "Man, you really understand what this band is about". So I can always see working with him in the future.

Speaking of your studio, how does it work balancing Woodshed Studios with TRIPTYKON and DARK FORTRESS? It must be tiring!

When it all started, I thought I can handle this. But I recently have to say that it's sometimes really extremely difficult, especially with the time schedules of both bands. We had to produce the TRIPTYKON album and the DARK FORTRESS album almost at the same time, and that kind of burnt me out to be honest. I really really really want to avoid that in the future. We recorded DARK FORTRESS in October/November. I tried to mix it then, but I was running out of time and energy, so I had to quit the mix, then do the TRIPTYKON production in December/January, and other jobs were also lined up, so I didn't get any rest for a very long time. So I finally got around to the DARK FORTRESS mix in May. But somehow I have to be able to handle it: it's great to play in both bands. My studio is what I make my living with, because I couldn't be able to live just off being a guitar player; you don't make much money with that. So it's a good combination. I'm still working with music, and I'm my own boss so when we have a tour I can just take the time off, so that works pretty well actually.

What about "Venereal Dawn"? Was that all done at your studio?

We recorded the drums at a different studio because we wanted to have a bigger room for acoustic reasons, but I engineered everything. That goes for both albums. Ar, the guitar player from SECRETS OF THE MOON also has a studio in Munich, so we help each other out sometimes. He was helping me out a bit for the mix for DARK FORTRESS because I had the feeling at a certain point I was losing objectivity. He called me for some other reason, and I said "Hey man, what are you doing at the moment? Do you have time? " and he was like "Yeah, actually tomorrow I'm free", so he came over and helped me clear my mind. It was very healthy to have him helping me.

I read that the concept behind the album is living light. How does that tie into the music?

Well, our singer would be better able to answer that, he's the one who created it. But it's true, it's about living light, but it's also mixed with the concept of a world where the light of the sun is cursed. So it's a very hostile environment for human beings, and it's a bit about the idea how you as a human would deal with the situation where you know that your own extinction and the extinction of your own kind is inevitable. How would you deal with that? Would you kill somebody just to live on for another day? At a certain point, the story shifts to the inside view of the protagonist. He goes through a transformation and also in the end turns into one of these light beings. So the basic idea is you have to deal with something very fucked up but can turn it into something positive in a way.

Which would be your favourite track off the album? Do you have one?

(Laughs). I should never have a favourite track, because I should like them all equally! Maybe I do have a favourite track, but that's the one we are not playing live, because when I wrote it, I knew we could never play it live because it's arranged for three guitars, and is unplayable live. That would be "Luciform". I love all the songs, but "Luciform" and "Chrysalis" are closest to me because I like that really spacy atmosphere of those songs.

And was there one that was particularly difficult to write or mix?

For some reason, "Betrayal and Vengeance" really made me insane when I mixed it. I thought it would be the easiest song to mix, so I started that song. When I did my first mixing attempt in November, I spent three days only working on that song, and then I gave up because I was just doing bullshit. In the end, the rough mixes sounded better than the mix. When I started again in May I thought "No, I'm not going to do that song for a while" but we did one tiny re-recording, and I thought "Hey, the rough mix sounds great!" So I started the mix on that song, and worked another two days on that, and just ended up making myself insane again. So finally after five days of mixing in vain, I skipped that song and started with "Venereal Dawn", and that went pretty smooth. After that, I went back to "Betrayal and Vengeance" and then it worked.

The album artwork is also stunning. It reminds me of some post-apocalyptic world.

Basically, the world where the story takes place looks like that. It's the idea of the living light of that cursed sunlight, and all you see is rotting trees, and everything that is living is falling into pieces. So it is post-apocalyptic, as you say. We had the honour to work with an artist who made the whole artwork custom-made for us.

Now looking at DARK FORTRESS's history, the band has technically been around for 20 years, although there were big line-up changes that happened around 2000.

Technically yes, but exactly: there were changes.

Looking back, what are some of your favourite memories?

That's difficult to say. There were a lot of highlights, and a lot of lowlights of course, but I can't think of a particular moment. Getting signed to Century Media was of course a big thing, or playing for the first time at Party.San, or the last time we played Summer Breeze was a really amazing show for us, things like that. But sometimes it's not the obvious things: it's more like you're sitting in your room, writing a song, and it's finished. And these are sometimes the greatest moments, when you listen to it for the first time, just to your shitty demo recordings and you're like "wow!" and you listen to it again and again and again, five times at full level, and you have goose bumps. They are very private moments, but those are sometimes the biggest highlights for me.

My final question: with such a history, you must have learnt a lot along the way. What advice would you give young bands who look up to you?

I'd just say do what you want. Find out what you really want to do and stick to it. Allow yourself to cross borders. Don't just try to sound like somebody else. Do what really comes from inside of you, because this is the only way that you can create art that has a meaning.

Great, that sounds like good advice. Thank you for your time!

You're welcome!