Live Review: Ultima Ratio Fest 2025
4th October 2025
Words: Rich Oliver
One of the fallouts from Brexit (and there are many) is that a lot of tours now seem to skip the UK. It’s a consequence that many in the music industry and many fans warned of but here we are unfortunately. Sometimes though some of these touring packages going across Europe are so good that you have to go to them and so I found myself getting on a flight to Osnabrück in Germany for Ultima Ratio Fest 2025 for the combined forces of Dark Tranquillity, Soen, Equilibrium and Iotunn. The venue Die Botschaft is located just outside of the city centre and is a former factory unit. A great sized venue with ample space, fantastic sound and great views from wherever you were stood.
Iotunn had the short straw of the evening with the shortest set. With it being a Saturday night, the venue was already nicely full when the Danish progressive metal band hit the stage for a swift three song set. As frontman Jón Aldará stated, Iotunn’s songs are pretty long so although it was only three songs the band were on stage for just over half an hour. The band’s mix of epic and melancholic melodic death metal won many over with Jon’s vocals providing the wow factor especially in the majestic ‘Mistland’ and progressive ‘Kinship Elegiac’. With only a short set, the audience was definitely left wanting more as Iotunn left the stage. A very promising start to the evening.
It had been a good long while since I last saw Equilibrium play live (the previous occasion being at Bloodstock in 2009) and the band has gone through a lot of changes in the intervening years with only founding member René Berthiaume remaining in the band. Equilibrium have also changed their sound steering away from the band’s folk metal foundations to a more synth driven epic metal sound. A good chunk of the set was made up of their latter day material with songs such as ‘Renegades - A Lost Generation’ and ‘Cerulean Skies’ sounding vast. Fans of the folk metal era were satisfied with ‘Born To Be Epic’ and ‘Blut Im Auge’ getting the crowd moving. Equilibrium themselves performed with vast amounts of enthusiasm with frontman Fabian Getto particularly energised. The band finished on a yet to be released song from their upcoming album “Equinox” bringing a fun set to a close.
In the main support slot were Swedish progressive metal band Soen. As a Welshman, it was entertaining that the band’s intro tape included a reading of the Dylan Thomas poem ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ showing that you can’t escape from home but from there on it was a powerhouse performance of Swedish metal with eight huge anthemic songs ensuring a crowd was completely entranced and singing along. Singer Joel Ekelöf is a formidable frontman and he, like the rest of the band, seemed to thoroughly enjoy being up on stage. It also helps that his vocals are spectacular. Guitarists Lars Åhlund and Cody Lee Ford were both given their moments to shine whilst drummer extraordinaire Martin Lopez showed why he is one of the most revered drummers in metal. A good chunk of the set was taken from the band’s latest album “Memorial” such as ‘Unbreakable’ and ‘Violence’ whilst other highlights included the meaty ‘Martyrs’ and the tender ‘Lotus’. A breathtaking set that seemed to be over in a flash.
When it comes to melodic death metal, Dark Tranquillity are arguably the best and most defining and consistent band in the genre with barely a misstep across their 34 years and 13 albums. This was just not any Dark Tranquillity show but a celebration of two of their most significant albums which are celebrating their 20th and 30th anniversaries respectively. “The Gallery” was released back in 1995 and “Character” was released in 2005 and both are stone cold favourites with the Dark Tranquillity fanbase so a special show was planned to celebrate these two albums and air some material which had been rarely or never performed live. The set was split into three sections - five songs from “The Gallery”, five songs from “Character” and five songs from later albums. The stage was draped in the backdrop from “The Gallery” as the band hit the stage and opened with the furious ‘Punish My Heaven’ before dropping into fan favourites ‘Edenspring’ and ‘Lethe’. Frontman Mikael Stanne took a moment to dedicate a song to former guitarist Fredrik Johansson and the Tomas Lindberg of At The Gates and the song was one which had never been performed live prior to this tour ‘The Emptiness From Which I Fed’ which Mikael stated was his favourite from ‘The Gallery’. This section of the set ended with the rarely played ‘The Dividing Line’ before the backdrop changed to “Character” and suddenly we were in 2005 with the relentless ‘The New Build’ demolishing the crowd and ensuring a furious moshpit developed.
Things were then changed up as the band introduced a song that had not been played on any of the prior shows of this tour. This song also happened to be one of my personal favourites from ‘Character’ so I was utterly joyous when the band dropped into ‘The Endless Feed’ for the first time since 2010. The moshpit endured for ‘Through Smudged Lenses’ whilst things calmed down for the atmospheric ‘My Negation’ though the energy levels reached critical for one of the band’s biggest hits - the anthemic ‘Lost To Apathy’. Then it was time for the final part of the show. The “Character” backdrop disappeared revealing a video screen for the last five songs of the show with ‘Not Nothing’ and ‘Unforgivable’ from the bands latest album “Endtime Signals”. Some of the biggest cheers of the evening came for the atmospheric ‘Atoma’ before the finale of ‘Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive’ and the anthemic ‘Misery’s Crown’. Mikael Stanne is one of my favourite frontmen in metal and he always gives it his all in his performances and you can tell he genuinely loves what he does whilst he is up on that stage. Mikael may be the only original member of the band remaining but the rest of the band play like they have been there for 30 years.
Ultima Ratio Fest 2025 was a fantastic evening with amazing sets from all bands involved and a great opportunity to celebrate two seminal albums from one of my all time favourite bands. It also encourages me to attend more shows overseas especially when great tours aren’t visiting the UK.
