Behemoth & Dimmu Borgir w/ Dark Funeral @ O2 Academy Brixton, London - 17/10/26
The three-headed dog raises from hell: Behemoth, Dimmu Borgir and Dark Funeral invade London
There are very few things that are as reassuring as knowing that, ten years later, some things remain unchanged. Dark Funeral are still making music that sounds like the soundtrack to burning down your local church, black metal fans still dress up as though they have been summoned to haunt an exclusive funeral and I am still willingly spending my Saturday evenings in rooms full of people who scream “Hail Satan” whilst wearing corpse paint before they jump on the Victoria Line to go home like none of the above has happened.
On 17 October 2016, I snuck my little camera in The Underworld in Camden to photograph Dark Funeral. I waited at the gates of the venue before it opened just to be at the front to get a photo of the band I have been listening to since using Facebook was a thing. Now, on 17 October 2026, EXACTLY (and spookily) a decade later, I found myself trekking to the O2 Academy in Brixton to watch the Swedish black metallers again, this time supporting the co-headline show of two black metal royalty bands: Norwegian Dimmu Borgir and Polish Behemoth. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Encountering Dark Funeral live after ten years was not only oddly satisfying, but also a deeply anti-religious experience (pun intended). Formed in Sweden in 1993 by Lord Ahriman and the late Blackmoon, the band emerged from the Scandinavian extreme metal underground with a sound built on blistering tremolo-piked riffs, relentless blast beats and their commitment to blend extreme vocals with melodies that sound like they could open the gates of Hell. Their reputation as pioneers of the Swedish black metal movement (second-wave to be exact) has been built on speed, atmosphere and identity maintained despite the numerous line-up changes. But with vocalist Heljarmadr at the helm, the current incarnation of the band delivers an oddly pleasant listening experience. Their set was short but immediate: they opened with the anthem “Unchain My Soul” (which I had set as my mum’s ringtone on her old iPhone for the plot), they brought their signature combination of ferocity and atmosphere into Brixton straight on. As “The Arrival of Satan’s Empire” and “The Secrets of the Black Arts” came, the crowd was roaring in excitement. After a few obligatory “Hail Satan” chants, the band ended with “Where The Shadows Forever Reign”, which one could even call a crowd favourite.
Even if the set was too short to even fathom the history and impact of this band in the past thirty years, the unexpected anniversary of seeing them on the exact same date ten years later is very hard for me to pass. If anything, it is a clear reminder of how long some of us have been following the music, the venues, the photo pits and the increasingly ambitious productions while the bands themselves continue to build on the foundations they laid decades ago.
In contrast to the relentless and stripped-back aggression of Dark Funeral, Dimmu Borgir have always been rather more interested in what happens when you give that darkness an orchestra, a theatrical production budget and an unhealthy appetite for grandeur. I have to admit, after listening to their album “Enthroned Darkness Triumphant”, I haven’t followed the band as much as I should. But since 1993, Dimmu Borgir have helped bring symphonic black metal to a much wider audience, combining extreme metal’s speed and aggression with keys, orchestral arrangements and a bit of drama for good measure. Opening this grandiose performance with the newer “Ulvgjeld & Blodsodel”, straight onto 1997’s “Mourning Place”, the band showed their crowd that they did not come out to play. By the second song, they had brought flames and pyro to the production, enough to complement the brutal riffs and the momentum of the drums to create a cinematic entrance.
The band continued their set with newer materials such as “Kings of the Carnival Creation” to sit alongside older numbers such as “The Serpentine Offering” and “Puritania”. There is an argument being made here that symphonic black metal can occasionally become too grande for the heaviness of the sound, but Dimmu Borgir, at their best, showed that the two are not mutually exclusive. The orchestral elements enhanced the underlying extremity of their sound, and by the end of their set I fully admitted, I was wrong about missing out on them all these years. The audience had plenty to absorb from the full-scale theatrical production too.
The evening’s headliner, Behemoth, is a band that brings a religious dispute to the stage more than just a catalogue of songs. The band started off in the black metal underground, but developed a unique technically elaborate and death metal influenced sound that made them the name they are today. Bringing confrontational imagery and theatricality to their performances, and absolutely no shortage of pyro, they are widely recognised as an act that is just absolutely incredible to watch live. So when the curtain fell, and “Daimonos” echoed in the room, Behemoth launched themselves without compromise to offer a monumental live performance.
Making the stage look like a ritualistic temple, the contrast from Dimmu Borgir’s show was evident; moreover, Behemoth brought the focus back to the physicality of the performance: there was a lot of movement, a lot of imagery, heavy riffs, and the commanding presence of frontman Nergal that differentiates them as a band. When “The Shit Ov God” and “Conquer All” came, and the flames lit up the venue, Behemoth’s strengths were in full display. Their music remains brutally precise and sharp, whilst the songs have enough structural variation to showcase every era of the band seamlessly into one setlist. But the theatrics of songs such as “I, Scvlptor”, “Ov Fire and the Void” and “Bartzabel”, the light production and the pyro all create a spectacle that is hard to describe as anything else other than absolute cinema.
The evening's most significant moment arrived when Behemoth brought out Dimmu Borgir frontman Shagrath for “In League With Satan”, the Venom cover associated with the tour's title and dedicated to the recently deceased Cronos. This choice matters, given Venom’s influence on extreme metal (remember I said about second-wave earlier? Well, Venom is the first wave). So without bands like Venom, whose raw, provocative and confrontational music helped establish a whole lot of extreme sub-genres, the musical landscape occupied by Dark Funeral, Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth would look very different.
For all the elaborate production and increasingly ambitious compositions, the music still carries traces of the raw, confrontational spirit that helped establish the genre in the first place. The tribute was therefore more than a convenient way to incorporate the tour's name into the set. It was a reminder that even the most elaborate musical worlds have origins, and that the artists who helped build those foundations deserve recognition. For me, the lineup represented more than just a musical evolution; it carried the weight of three decades of extreme music and reminded me that longevity does not necessarily require reinvention; all it needs is some pyro, corpse paint, and 5,000 people screaming “Hail Satan” all at once.
