Mystic Festival 2025: From aggression to melody

Dark Tranquility and Tiamat, two living legends hailing from Sweden, with the entrenched in the past Green Lung and modern Cobra the Impaler to boost – here are the newest names you can expect in next year’s festival program.

Dark Tranquility
At the threshold of the 90s, the Swedes had not only mastered how to play death metal but almost immediately begun to change the rules of the still-emerging genre. Dark Tranquility was among the pioneers from Gothenburg who married brutal force with melodies straight out of NWOBHM. It’s a history still being written. The title of the latest Dark Tranquility record is Endtime Signals, but all it takes is one listen to decode that the signal hardly signifies the end – the band still has a vision for and the energy to follow their own path.

Tiamat
They also started out with death metal, but they quickly decided to blow up the convention with turns to prog rock, doom metal and gothic rock. Johan Edlund and his bandmates were not the only ones to walk the experimental path, but few have come across as many treasures there as Tiamat – The Astral Sleep, Wildhoney, A Deeper Kind of Slumber, Skeleton Skeletron… there are too many to name. You cannot mistake their sound for that of any other band, for Tiamat has had many copycats, but virtually no competition.

Green Lung
A blend of stoner rock and doom metal, lyrics full of eerie superstitions, blood-churning folktales, almost forgotten curses and the devil incarnate. If it were an Olympic sport, the UK would always bring metals home and this London four-piece would sport at least three golden ones, one for each album.

Cobra the Impaler
Impeccable technique, a talent for merging different subgenres of metal, a mastery in writing earworm refrains, and fantastic vocal harmonies – this is the Belgian band Cobra the Impaler. Although the title of their latest record, Karma Collision, might suggest otherwise, the band smoothly takes their turns, speeding from groove metal, through thrash and metalcore to traditional heavy metal.

Mystic Festival has a chance to be nominated for the European Festival Award in the Best Medium-Sized Festival category. All your votes matter, thank you.