Festival: A Night of British Black Metal
Line-up: Necrocracy, Nefarious Dusk, Old Corpse Road, Wolfbastard
Venue: The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh, Scotland
Organiser: Wulfhere Productions
Date: 17/10/25
Intro
Whilst I go to many gigs from bands around the world, I am a firm believer in supporting the local scene and keeping it growing. So when Wulfhere Productions announced their first show in Scotland, I immediately bought a ticket, having been familiar with the shows they host in the north of England, I was delighted to see them come north of the wall.
The venue for this show was the Banshee Labyrinth, supposedly Scotland’s most haunted pub (but doesn’t everywhere claim that?), which is in the underground vaults of Edinburgh’s old town district.
The stage itself is set in a small, intimate room in the basement, and with this show being sold out, we were in for a cosy experience.
Necrocracy
First to take the stage was Necrocracy from Glasgow. I saw these guys back in March supporting Abduction & The Infernal Sea so I was looking forward to seeing them once again, and what an amazing start to the evening they were. They perfectly set the mood of high energy black metal with an incredibly tight set.
In particular, the drummer, who seemed to be the life of the party as he constantly vied for crowd interaction and was beating his kit like it owed him money, and the cymbals held the majority share.
A moment that made me chuckle was when they introduced their song A Storm on the Horizon and the guitarist whispered “Oh, fuck” as he prepared to play its impressive riffs.
Also, I’ve mentioned this before about another band, but it absolutely is worth repeating – bonus points for the Ibanez Iceman, an iconic and eye-catching style.
Nefarious Dusk
The man behind Wulfhere Productions steps up to the stage with one of the several bands of the Cumbrian black metal scene he is a part of.
This was the only band of the night to do any stage decor, as two candelabras adorned the 2-inch-high stage, each standing about a foot high. It’s absolutely the effort that counts, even if the impact on the ambience was minimal.
This band performed as a two -piece—Hrafn himself on guitars and vocals and JJ on bass, with the drummer in this case being an iPhone plugged into the feed.
There was a languid atmospheric introduction track before we kicked off into pure black metal. The vocals were low in the mix but sounded great as they reverberated around the small venue, whilst JJ on bass was stomping around the stage and sneering into the crowd, leading to the band having great stage presence despite just being the two of them, and overall they played a great set.
Old Corpse Road
A change of tone as this symphonic/melodic black metal act with folk elements from Darlington prepared for their performance. The six of them crowded on the small stage, with the keyboardist hidden away in the back corner, and we had three vocalists, each with distinct styles, dominating stage left. Whilst the singer without any instruments was fairly quiet to hear in the mix, the bassist’s vocals and spoken word sections sounded great and clear to make out.
The singer also seemed statue-like with his arms down at his sides for the majority of the show and barely moved, perhaps due to the extremely limited space to move on the cramped stage. It seemed to detract from his stage presence, but not enough for it to impact the full band.
This was also the debut show for their new guitarist, The Redeemer, who played his part extremely well – fitting in perfectly on the stage for his first outing.
As they finished Hag of the Mist the singer introduced us to the next song… Hag of the Mist to which the bassist quickly retorts – “it is not! It is Harbingers of Death!” causing a good laugh between the band and audience alike.
Being north of the wall they of course had to play Isobel – Queen of Scottish Witches before they finished with their namesake’s track Old Corpse Road where Hrafn joined on vocals, thoroughly enthusiastic to be screaming along to the catchy chorus – perhaps even more so than the band members themselves
Wolfbastard
A bottle of Buckfast besides the drum set and a plastic carrier bag full of cans of beer. This Blackened Crust Punk band from Manchester knew what they were preparing for, and despite their minimal soundcheck, they were the best sounding band of the night.
Other than the fantastic sound, I have to say the highlight of this band was the sheer amount of banter between tracks with plenty of self-deprecating humour and jabs at the crowd. Though if you want to do some damage to yourself, take a shot every time they ask you to fuck off; your liver will be crying out in pain in no time.
There were several new songs sprinkled in the set, teasing their yet unreleased album.
And then it was time; the Chekhov’s bottle of Buckfast that was set up had finally reached its relevance in the plot as it got passed around the crowd for us all to take a swig of the communal tonic wine and livened us all up, ready to mosh to their anthem, Buckfast Blasphemies. This energy kept up throughout the remainder of the set with the mosh pit breaking out and the crowd yelling along to songs like Hail Satan Kurwa, Drink Fucking Beer, and Graveyard Slag.
Conclusion
I made my way through the aptly fitting labyrinthian maze-like tunnels of this venue to find the merch area, and I got myself stocked up on new goods and had a chance to chat to some of the band members.
Overall it was an amazingly fun night, and I’m looking forward to the sequel next month, where four different acts step up onto this stage for the return of A Night of British Black Metal.
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