PartySan open air Report Saturday 09.08.2025

How quickly the time is running without realising that today is the last day of PartySan 2025. Just wake up but still feel tired, as usual, the energy is not the same as the first day we came here, but it’s great, we had a great time and had fun exploring the Festival venue, and also hung out with friends whom we meet every year here at PartySan.

The last  PartySan Open Air, the warmest so far, on the main stage kicks off right on time at noon, where German Oldschool Death Metal from Bielefeld, Scalpture hit the Main Stage. The band, which had already impressed in the tent stage in 2022, now brings their thunderous mix, drawing from the European death metal forges of Bolt Thrower, Entombed, and Asphyx to the main stage, armed with their new fourth album Landkrieg. Their sound shifts between crushing, driving force and doom-laden, dragging heaviness with a thick groove. The audience responded differently now. Still moving, still shouting—but with a sharper awareness, as if the performance had shifted from entertainment to statement. was grateful open.                                                                                                                                                 Things get noticeably rougher and noisier next with the French band Blockheads—hardly surprising, as the group has been known for over 30 years for their no-frills, in-your-face deathgrind in the vein of Napalm Death and Nasum. Accordingly, the audience immediately launches into action with high energy, not least because frontman and vocalist Xavier Chevalier takes to wild crowdsurfing with a microphone in hand, further igniting the crowd with his enthusiasm. He uses the mic not only for the genre’s typical animalistic vocal acrobatics but also for equally characteristic socially critical and political statements. Song after song blurred together, each one short, fast, relentless. Time didn’t stretch here—it collapsed. Twenty tracks felt like one continuous surge. The band blasts and grinds their way relentlessly through more than twenty tracks, delivering the first full-scale demolition of the day already by midday. Very tight performance.                   Next, hit the Main Stage, also a French band, Necrowretch, stepping up, the atmosphere shifts. Their blackened death metal brings a thicker layer of hostility to the performance—more biting darkness, more frostbitten intensity typical of black metal, even as fire barrels roar onstage. The contrast is striking: heat and flame against a sound that feels carved from ice. Yet the chill is not only musical. There is a noticeable distance between the band and the audience. Necrowretch perform almost entirely without words beyond the vocals, offering no banter, no breaks in character. It could be intentional mystique—or simply the aftermath of a prior band having already drained much of the crowd’s momentum. Either way, sustaining the energy proves difficult. Still, the band commits fully to its approach. They play with focus and conviction, and the audience responds in kind, even if not explosively. It is a performance that lands, but only just sits above the baseline of expectation. In the end, Necrowretch leave behind a set that feels solid rather than unforgettable—like a winter storm that briefly sweeps through the stage, impressive in form, but fading quickly once it passes.       The afternoon heat hangs over the festival grounds as the next band, Death Trash Metal from Belgium Schizophrenia. Who already impressed at the “small PartySan,” the Herbstoffensive, and are now playing the main festival on the big stage. The guys are clearly into it, grinning from ear to ear — singer and bassist Ricky fires up the crowd alongside guitarists Marty and Romeo, while drummer Lorenzo proudly sports his FCK-NZS shirt — solid move. Solid move. The wild show is rounded off with an extremely tight SLAYER cover of “Necrophiliac.” Schizophrenia, you’re welcome back anytime!. Awesome show, very tight performance.                                                                                                                 Next is The Portugal Slam Brutal Death Metal Analepsy. The band has been active in the scene for over ten years, but today they are performing for the first time at the PartySan Open Air. You can think what you want about Brutal Death Metal, but the Lisbon group knows exactly how to dissect their audience: the riffs are razor-sharp, the slam passages hit perfectly, and the crowd eagerly joins in. The first riff cuts through the air like a scalpel. The drums follow—precise, punishing. Then come the slams, landing with the force of collapsing concrete. The audience doesn’t just listen—they react. Bodies collide, the pit churns, and sweat becomes part of the atmosphere. Was great to see them here, really great performance.           Ereb Altor stepped onto the stage. From the very first note, the mood shifted. It was as if a cold Nordic wind had swept across the festival field, silencing the violence without ever asking for permission. Their sound did not attack the audience; it surrounded them. Melodic black metal flowed into epic Viking hymns, while slow waves of atmospheric doom rolled over the crowd like thunder across distant mountains. The recurring clean vocal passages, sometimes performed in three-part harmony, offer a welcome change from the guttural dominance that had defined the day so far, while the quartet’s grand and pathos-filled compositions create an entirely different and deeply impressive atmosphere compared to the sonic wreckage delivered by the previously performing bands. However, despite the band coming across as extremely likeable and being equipped with a massive, crystal-clear sound, there is still the feeling that the show keeps a certain brake on the energy in the infield. Perhaps this is simply due to the Scandinavians’ style, which ultimately inspires reverent admiration and subtle nodding along rather than complete chaos and total crowd eruption.                                     As early evening approaches, though the blazing sun gives no sign of it yet, the festival returns to a band that feels perfectly at home at PartySan: Skeletal Remains. After the audience’s journey through Nordic mythology, the Californians arrive to drag everyone violently back into the here and now, at least to some extent. Musically, Chris Monroy and his crew still keep one foot planted firmly in the late ’80s and early ’90s death metal era. The influences of Obituary, Death, and similar acts have increasingly faded into the background on the band’s last two studio albums, making way for a noticeably more brutal sound. That development is clearly audible in today’s set as well: the band unleashes a barrage of intense blast beats, though not at the expense of sluggish lava-like passages and stomping mid-tempo grooves.                                                                                                                                                                       Active since 1997 and never before appearing at PartySan for a grindcore institution like Pig Destroyer, that is actually quite hard to explain. This year, however, it finally worked out, and as if the band needed to make up for all the missed opportunities of the past, they tore through their wild and noisy set with unstoppable energy. To truly recognise major differences between the songs here, one probably has to be a dedicated noise expert — or it can simply not matter at all, which is likely the case for most of the partying audience. Pig Destroyer is simply fun; it’s as simple as that, even between the songs. During the stage banter, the crowd learns, among other things, what one can apparently do with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s while performing a handstand.                                                                                                                                             Grave, a legendary name in Swedish old-school death metal, returns to the main stage of PartySan after nine years. What makes tonight particularly legendary is the fact that the band is performing in its original founding lineup, featuring Ola Lindgren, Jensa Paulsson, Jörgen Sandström, and Jonas Torndal. In addition, a classic setlist has been announced, consisting exclusively of songs from the first three albums: Into The Grave, You’ll Never See…, and Soulless. Accordingly, the infield is packed by the time the quartet opens with the title track from their debut album. Ola Lindgren, who had served as the band’s frontman for many years, stands to the side tonight and leaves both the central role and vocal duties to bassist Jörgen Sandström. He handles the task confidently, covering up the fact that things occasionally not only rumble but also stumble with dry and disarming self-irony. As a result, the band even manages to squeeze in the closing song, “…And Here I Die…Satisfied” from the EP of the same name, despite having already run out of time. All fans of the Stockholm school of death metal, and judging by the massive crowd, there are certainly plenty of them, get exactly what they came for and turn Grave into the secret headliner of Saturday.                                 No less legendary and equally Swedish, though having turned away from the more extreme metal styles toward gothic rock decades ago, are the next band to take the stage: Tiamat. However, while Grave earned euphoric reactions with their nostalgia-driven performance, this show is likely to have left even devoted fans feeling disappointed. The appearance and stage performance of frontman Johan Edlund seem almost suited for a carnival attraction, somewhere between a freak show, a haunted house, and an esoterically inspired fortune teller. Although the instrumentalists deliver a solid musical performance, they are unable to counterbalance the bizarre and at times simply embarrassing behaviour at the centre of the stage. As a result, the Metal1 crew eventually decides to retreat and conserve energy for the rest of the evening. In the aftermath, numerous die-hard fans around the campsite are said to have expressed their disappointment over this memorable, though not necessarily for the right reasons, performance.                                                         Gorgoroth celebrate their premiere at the airfield in Obermehler tonight, as Infernus and company last appeared at PartySan back in 2007, still in Bad Berka and still with Gaahl on vocals. While the setlist offers few surprises — for the true Norwegian black metal veterans, it has remained more or less the same for over a decade now- Gorgoroth often manage to surprise people through the lineup of musicians who may or may not appear on stage. Tonight, however, it is vocalist Hoest handling microphone duties, something that had already been announced beforehand. And he handles it in the most literal sense possible: as if trying to compensate for the one-frame flipbook stage acting so often associated with black metal instrumentalists, the heavily studded frontman storms enthusiastically across the stage throughout the performance. Meanwhile, the main stage itself is kept relatively simple, decorated only with a basic logo backdrop. Yet nothing more is really needed — combined with the blazing fire barrels and the deep red lighting, the result is a fitting and highly effective stage atmosphere. In that sense, it almost feels appropriate that Gorgoroth end their set after only 50 minutes despite having been given a full 60-minute slot. The closing act, not only of the final night, but of the entire PartySan 2025 is the Swedish-British death metal joint venture Bloodbath. With singer Nick Holmes alone, the band has already performed in Schlotheim three times, which naturally invites comparison. Today, the only remaining founding member, Anders Nyström, handles guitar duties alone, while Jonas Renkse has been replaced on bass by Joakim Antman of LIK. Nick Holmes himself — previously seen dressed in priest robes or a sharp suit — appears this time in the same casual outfit as his bandmates… or even the stagehands from the changeover. As a result, the performance also feels somewhat subdued. Perhaps Nick Holmes is still feeling the strain of the journey from the Czech Republic, where he performed with Paradise Lost at Brutal Assault  Open Air the day before? Of course, he still delivers his usual dry humour between songs, and of course, the tracks themselves — from the opener “So You Die” from the 2002 debut to the inevitable closer “Eaten” from the heavily featured Nightmares Made Flesh — remain fundamentally enjoyable, not to mention performed with technical precision. And of course, the infield is still fairly well filled with celebrating fans despite some thinning areas. Still, the impression remains that Bloodbath are largely operating on autopilot, running through a routine set rather than truly igniting the stage. It remains a solid festival closer, but overall it feels somewhat — pardon the expression — bloodless, and will likely go down as only the third-best performance the band has delivered in the festival’s history at the airfield.

PartySan, what a great weekend, how fast the time is running, not realised it was already the end of PartySan 2025, now we must wait one year to be here again. See you next year.