Live Review: Kill-Town Death Fest – Sunday
7th September 2025
Words: Sam Jones
Foeterem play their debut live show here and whilst the crowd isn’t plentiful initially due to the Heavy Metal Market held indoors, people start streaming to the Outdoor Stage. The sun again is beaming though today it’s in earnest where not a shred of cloud cover is in sight. From the outset Foeterem set the tone for Gloomy Sunday; we’ve had our racing, blinding onslaught on Saturday but Foeterem open the day up with crushing, methodically paced riffs that crash and rend what peace the day had thus accumulated. I imagine the allure of riffs heavy enough to summon black holes is too much for people to turn away from for soon the crowd swells for Foeterem’s debut live performance; and though it’s only their first live show they’ve evidently practised and practised as their performance is tight, powerful; you’d think they’d been doing this for some years already. If this is the kind of atmosphere Gloomy Sunday will consist of, it shall be a most fine day indeed.
Sanctuarium are the last Outdoor Stage band of the festival and one of our most anticipated. Hot on the heels of their latest record Sanctuarium immediately hurl us into a dirge of depravity and morose soundscapes. Guttural vocals pound the dazzling sun as the bass drums underline their performance with this meaty and doomed aesthetic. They’re another band who could have easily played the main stage; half the crowd here have fists raised to the sky, headbanging is the norm, everyone is utterly sold on Sanctuarium’s crushing volleys. The utter scope their sound encapsulates is tremendous, you could almost catch these riffs in your hands, feel their physical dimensions, the netherealms such riffs must surely be conjured from, the clarity of evil displayed.
Assumption are the first Main Stage band for Sunday and as we climbed the stairs for their set, we were taken aback as to how dark it was traversing the crowd for a closer look. Though the stage is awash with violent and crimson hues the hall is otherwise pitch black, centring our attention solely upon Assumption. Their doom is far more transient, bringing to life the hallowed and wailing despair so prevalent in death/doom, there are no blast beats remotely teased during their set as Assumption offer something considerably shorn of hope. Should everyone present see each band playing today, Assumption provide a more conventional death/doom attack but the you have moments where the band’s intensity rockets and those growling, encroaching vocals assume an altogether demonic appeal.
More than any other band I’ve heard this Gloomy Sunday, Japan’s Gravagrav absolutely embody that funeral doom style. Their stage may be enthroned in cerulean but the tones they ooze are decrepit and woeful to the maximum. Their guttural vocals are truly incomprehensible, acting the kart of additional instrumentation to the point where the vocals imitate cries of horror and loss of life. Guitarist, bassist and drummer each stand and play towards each other as opposed to the crowd; in doing so Gravagrav harness a more unified stance where the projection of their sound seems to come from the negative space thus created by their positions, thrusting outwards upon us. But there are decent chucks of time where the band aren’t playing a single note and merely let their tone linger, and linger, and keep it lingering until a single chord is played, bringing us into the next track. It’s a wondrously immersive bit of playing that keeps us enthralled before moving on to the next song. Interspersing various sections of their performance with spoken haiku where each line is a set number of syllables it truly is something different, something removed from the rest of the acts we’ve seen here. They also play the Funeral Doom equivalent of Napalm Death’s “You Suffer”. Everyone laughs. Camaraderie is rife.
Trollcave were amongst my most anticipated bands of the whole festival, having been hyped beyond anything when I saw them initially announced. Sharing members with Sanctuarium, Trollcave go even further by employing Funeral Doom throughout their songwriting and as the smoke machines put the work in, and the stage accumulates haze, this miasma establishes Trollcave as one of the more atmospheric acts of the weekend. However, owing to Trollcave’s long tracks, their songwriting doesn’t rest upon its laurels nor snail’s pace all the time as they weave differing tempos, intensities etc into their performance to keep us on our toes. Personally, Trollcave’s set was my favourite across all of Kill-Town Deathfest
Cancer were announced earlier in the year following the wake of Eternal Darkness splitting up and frankly I was made up to see Cancer take their slot. Right on the heels of Trollcave’s performance Caner took to the stage, arguably one of the biggest names on this year’s lineup. Just as energetically ferocious as I’ve ever seen Cancer come down on us, riling the masses up, as they descend into utter slaughter with classics off their To The Gory End and Death Shall Rise records including a few off more recent releases. They’re a band you don’t to see often so any live performance from them is a treat and towards the back half of their set the sheer intensity of their sound drives people into a huge pit that smashes and crashes. You know you’ve received the full set yet it raced by so quickly, they could have played another forty-five minutes easily without losing the crowd’s passion.
Funeral Moth close out this year’s edition of Kill-Town Deathfest, pledging to play a few new tracks off their forthcoming record. The Black Stage is awash with an emerald light as everyone is given their chance to reflect on the experiences had and the friends made throughout the last few days. Though Funeral Moth’s performance is steeped in sorrow and remorse there’s something oddly hopeful skimming the surface, it hasn’t breached the water, but it’s visible if you peer hard enough. After enduring the carnage that was Cancer, Funeral Moth are a necessary comedown as we collect our breath before ending the night. The tone is massive but the licks come through with searing clarity, rending an abysmal dusk with shards of light pouring down. Funeral Moth are much more introspective, the way one looks at their life in reverse yet cannot slow the speed at which memories are rushed by. Now the scene has changed, the lights have reddened and what was at first pleasant and joyous has turned harrowing.
Reflecting on Kill-Town Death Fest I recall writing in my preview that this festival, pending on my feelings after its duration, could result in a reshuffling of my yearly plans. It turns out i was right on the money. I haven’t had that good of a festival experience since the UK Deathfest back in 2022. Not only are you there amongst friends but you have band members mingling with the crowd the whole time so you receive this genuine community sense that everyone present, whether they play or not, are each on the same page, there to celebrate this adoration of this niche style of heavy metal. But this isn’t a “Danish” festival, it’s an international festival that happens to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. During our time there we met and befriended people from Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, the United States, Japan etc. Kill-Town Death Fest is a legitimate global festival that brings so many cultures and backgrounds together, so many exclusive band appearances and ultimately so much fun, that I’m astounded I never took the plunge years ago to begin with. Kill-Town is this oasis where people from across the planet come and share in the experience of filthy and vile death metal, in one small pocket of Copenhagen that rapidly becomes home for those attending. Nowhere else could I have seen Corpus Offal, Left across, Galvanizer, Sanctuarium, Trollcave, Cancer, Morpheus Descends, Ruinous Power, Assumption and so many more at the same place. Time has barely eclipsed since this year’s Kill-Town finished and I am already hyped and planning for its 2026 edition. It’s the festival I never knew I needed. Simply outstanding.
