Live Review: Desertfest Oslo 2025 Night One
Posted in Features, Reviews on May 10th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
Got to the hotel and slept. Slept on the plane as much as I could, but I was pretty much collapsing by the time I made it to my room. No problem checking in, and the flight was fine; a week’s worth of anxieties dissipating like water vapor only to condense again soon. The nervous cycle. Evaporation, condensation.
I watched a bit of Graveyard’s soundcheck from the balcony of the Rockefeller, which along with John Dee, Revolver Bar and the back garden outside the latter are the locales of the four stages. They’re kind of around the block from each other, but they have it set so you can walk through, all kind of in a Desertfest nook, not entirely dissimilar from how The 
Black Heart and The Underworld become a pocket for the Desertfest in London. At least that seemed to be the idea to me. Oslo, of course, is its own kind of party.
Restlessness takes hold. No photo pits means get there early. You start to get the lay of the land. You meet Ole Helsted, also in SÂVER and who also is part of running Høstsabbat, in the lounge after Graveyard are done. He’s apparently been living your secret dream of being a goat farmer. You say a quick hi to Elephant Tree and get a Bear Bones tape off Pete before they clear out and DVNE soundcheck on the John Dee stage, club-size, and come to think of it the smallest stage you’ve seen them on. Cool. There’s a bit to go before that, though.
I was reading a review earlier, on the train from the airport. Mistake. The dude who wrote it was talking about how this scene is old, uncool, like a bunch of weird uncles trying to break away from their dayjobs or somesuch. Seems pretty needless to pick on grayhairs who’ve probably been going to shows for decades, or even if not, just unnecessary. The gatekeeping of the insecure. Fact is, I wouldn’t trade the community spirit of the heavy underground for all the arthouse cred in the world, and I’m somebody who very much enjoys being well thought of on the occasion I might come to anyone’s mind other than my own.
There’s a longer discussion to have there about genre, audience aging and the need for fresh generational blood, and the heavy underground for sure has its issues — diversity most glaring — but I was more interested in checking out the 
merch and getting a sense of the vibe taking shape here, now. It was nice out. Yeah, maybe nobody’s getting any younger. Still here though. That seems worth seeing in a more positive light, is all I’m saying. In a world actively putting itself to shit on multiple fronts, some of them existential, I’m gonna take the next two days and check in with the deep value this music and the community around it has in my life. It’s not just restorative, because the fact is I’ll go home Sunday more tired than I am now — believe it — but it’s more like an equilibrium unto itself.
I popped up the alley to see Håndgemeng at the Revolver Backyard, but no dice — ‘too many humans,’ as Buzzard might say — so I scooted back to John Dee well in time for the start of DVNE. I met the guys from King Potenaz, who seemed very nice and came here from Italy, and ran into a couple other familiar faces, but by the time DVNE actually went on, I was good and ready.
The UK-based five-piece are out celebrating their 2024 LP, Voidkind (review here), and they recently underscored the point with the follow-up Live at Biscuit Factory. I knew what was coming but that didn’t stop it from being rad, and DVNE continue to impress in bringing the fullness of their studio sound to the stage. Of course there’s more direct attack and energy as one would expect, but they still build textures well around those big, strides-the-behemoth grooves, and as hard as they hit, the melody is right there.
Extra glad to have seen their soundcheck since I didn’t get to stay 
all that long before I was pulled away to Revolver — a smaller, basement-type club you enter from out by the backyard stage; I tried going in the front door, and there may be a way downstairs, but I didn’t know it. I’d never seen Gjenferd before and knew I wanted to, so I made my way down and in front of the stage. It was humid and packed and there was a technical problem with the camera that I needed to work out, so I was kind of in and out of there too, and not wanting to do basically the same thing for Pallbearer, the ol’ in-out, I decided to socialize a bit and say hi to folks en route to disappointing them. A bit of stress about the camera — if it breaks for real, I’m basically stuck — but I figured out the issue and to no surprise it was human error.
Gjenferd, however, do rock, and it was nice to confirm that for myself in-person. Their self-titled debut (review here) came out last year and in my mind they’re very much a part of the generational turnover happening in Norway right now. Slomosa are the elephant in the room there, I suppose, but there are new and new-ish bands all over this country and it seems like more all the time. I don’t know if it’s a movement, but it’s definitely a fresh perspective, and even for just a few minutes until the crowd press got to be too much, I appreciated the chance to see them for the first and hopefully not last time.
Back at John Dee, DVNE were loading out as Lowrider were setting up for their set, plenty of time. This would be my first time seeing them live since they put out both 2020’s Refractions (review here) and last year’s split LP 
with Elephant Tree, The Long Forever (review here), so I was excited to see what would be in the set, even though I could probably look that up on the internet by now. Still, I’d only seen the band once before, at Desertfest London 2013 (review here), and I can only speak from my own limited experience, but a Lowrider set is a thing to catch while you can because you don’t know when or if the chance will come again. For example, given my druthers, it wouldn’t have been 12 years between Lowrider sets for me.
So how were they? You’d have to tell me, because I kind of lost time there, to be honest. All of a sudden they were into “Ode to Ganymede,” and the set was like half over which I think means it wasn’t long enough. But was it really going to be? Lowrider were not at all the only reason I came to Desertfest Oslo — but for sure they’re high on the list. They did their three tracks from The Long Forever, opening with “Caldera” and pushing into “And the Horse You Rode in On,” which was a blast, and “Into the Grey” later on. That would have been the likely point of onstage collaboration if it was going to happen with Jack or Pete from Elephant Tree, who’d close the room later, but no dice.
“Lameneshma” is Lowrider’s “Gardenia” and even though they played “Caravan” that’s a hill I’m willing to die on. But how were they? Look. They’re one of the bands who made it okay for desert rock not to be from the desert — do you understand how good you
have to be to do that shit? And they were like 20 at the time. That’s insane. I was looking forward to the newer material — nothing against the classic 2000 debut/then-swansong Ode to Io (reissue review here), mind you — and between “Through the Rift,” “Ode to Ganymede,” “Pipe Rider,” which could only close, and the songs from the split, they 100 percent delivered the set I was hoping for. And they did it as one of the best bands ever to do the thing.
True, there were sets going on when they finished — did I mention they were a five-piece? the organ was splendid throughout — but also true, about 10 hours before, I was stepping off an overnight flight. I needed a break and took one, if only to go back to the room, sort photos, have a bite of the peanut butter I brought (homemade, dry roasted, no salt, medium grind) and drink three bottles of water. I did that and then all of a sudden I was sitting up with the pillows behind me against the wall. Then I was kind of leaning over. Then my eyes started to close and I realized I needed to get the hell out of there because there was still more show to see. After an undeniable peak in Lowrider’s set, my night would wind through Truckfighters, Elephant Tree and Graveyard to close out. Tired I might’ve been, but I had places to be.
Swedish fuzzlords Truckfighters had a new song, but as guitarist
Niklas Källgren said from the stage, it’s been around a while. I’d take a record happily and a couple more new songs to throw in the mix, but that new one was mellow early and picked up with a roller of a riff — my point is I firmly believe Truckfighters have more to say as a band and I hope at some point they say it. In the meantime, I very much appreciated the run (mostly, but entirely) through their albums to-date. Källgren and bassist/vocalist Oskar Cedermalm have a drummer with them who absolutely pounds when they need him to, but they have a varied enough catalog and they’re mature enough at this point that they come across as a more dynamic band than they used to be, while still making it the blast on stage that it’s always been.
Granted, Truckfighters have been pro-shop since before they actually were, but they’ve become among the most reliable heavy rock bands on the planet. They’re gonna show up and give people a good time. They did exactly that. It wasn’t a surprise — though I don’t think I’ve seen them play the same show twice, except maybe 15 years ago on successive nights — but it was satisfying. Reassuring, even. They’ll get to a record whenever. I’d rather have them take their time.
I heard Magmakammer were good — can’t see everything, but I’m looking forward to hearing their new single when I get a minute — and went downstairs to catch the start of Elephant Tree, sitting on the floor, forgetting to refresh my water bottle, not really caring. It’s been since before the pandemic that I saw them last, and that was 
long enough ago for people to have forgotten a vaccine fixed it. The London four-piece announced a few weeks ago that John Slattery, who had been playing keys and second guitar, was out of the band and had been replaced by Charlie, with no last name given. Thanks to the deep investigative reporting you’ve come to rely on The Obelisk for, you can now know it’s Charlie Davis on guitar and synth with Elephant Tree. He’s also in Beggar and Wasted Death. Don’t you feel better now?
The UK contingent in my otherwise too played material from the split, with Peder Bergstrand watching from the side of the stage, but they reveled in older songs as well. Bassist Peter Holland, who I’ve said on multiple occasions is one of the most charming human beings I’ve ever met — charm as a defining feature; we get to hang out sometimes at Freak Valley — got genuinely excited when they were about to play “Dawn” from their 2016 self-titled (review here, discussed here), and even “Wasted” from Habits (review here) had an older-school kick to it. I’ve written a bunch about Elephant Tree the last few years and guitarist/vocalist Jack Townley’s life-threatening accident a couple years ago, coming back from that, and I think part of what they’re most enjoying about being in a band right now is being able to hit it. There’s a lot of fun, some catharsis, and there’s a new dynamic taking shape with the new lineup.
Charlie was a groover on stage, and it seemed like Holland and Townley — that’s not to exclude drummer Sam Hart, but it was kind of hard to see back there where I was standing by the side of the stage out front — fed off that energy a bit, and they were clearly having fun as they let loose a bit through “Bird” from Habits and realized they were running out of time still with plenty left for “Aphotic Blues” to close. The build into the big riff finish brought Townley down from the stage and into the crowd, which lifted him up and surfed him back up to finish the set. Got up there, adjusted the monitor in his
pocket, and hit it on the next measure. It was emotional to see them after so long. I hope I get to do it more often.
Graveyard were the close to my night, just as the first non-jet-engine volume push I’d heard in the afternoon had been their soundcheck. They were ripping it up, as they will, but I grabbed my photos and got out, in no small part to wipe off the beer that someone had spilled on my camera bag when I was taking pictures. Glad it’s hard plastic on the front, but the smell of the sides made me want to bury it. Plus I was more than willing to both admit and give in to exhaustion by then. Made some vague and tentative breakfast plans and hoofed it back up to the room to finish sorting the photos and try to catch whatever minimal quotient of typos I could by reading through what I’d written all day. I’ll reserve comment on how that went.
Tomorrow picks up in the afternoon with day two of Desertfest Oslo. It’s awesome here. I might need a new backpack though.
Thanks for reading. More pics after the jump.
