Live Review: Desertfest Oslo 2025 Night Two
Posted in Features, Reviews on May 11th, 2025 by JJ Koczan
I don’t know what it was that Agriculture were soundchecking when I walked into John Dee from upstairs at Rockefeller, but it sure sounded a lot like CKY’s “96 Quite Bitter Beings,” which was cool because I just got that song out of my head last week for the first time since like 2003. So I was due.
Sleep did happen — the state, not the band — and I woke up two hours after my alarm to discover I hadn’t actually finished setting it. Didn’t matter; plenty of time to sit around and be anxious for the start of the day. I video called home — the house is a mess, which very much is how it goes when I’m gone — and all is well. Ate a couple bites and tried to sleep a bit more, but the three double espressos tearing ass through my bloodstream weren’t having it. Sometimes living in the moment means calling yourself dumb later.
Agriculture’s lights were going to be too 
much for my brain. I knew that going into the set, because soundcheck, but when it happened, it was still punishing. The overwhelm is part of it, purposeful. Part of what you sign up for. But the sandblasting and the immersion, coinciding, is why you stay. Watching them, I couldn’t get the parallel out of my head between the traditions of Norwegian black metal and their subversion in terms of weather. That is, if the ‘trvest’ of black metals was born in this place — and they have it scrawled on that basement wall for people to take pictures with, so it’s arguable — in the dark and cold of winter here, then the aural brightness of Agriculture, the natural-light-reflecting-on-water of their post-rock-style guitar floating above all the pummel and screech, feels correspondingly climate-born to Los Angeles, where the band are from. To paraphrase George Carlin, the sun probably sets 10 minutes from their rehearsal space. Of course they’d make black metal beautiful.
That’s a generalization, obviously. Broad strokes to cover lack of insight. The truth of their presentation is more emotionally complex and less niche-declarative, but transgressing just the same, though maybe black metal is used to it by now; a punching bag catchall genre to push against the borders of. The tie with Agriculture is in tonal heft and the honesty of their scathe and the atmospheres they build around it, and they’d be a sore thumb in the lineup if Desertfest was stoner-only, but neither day was. It’s all one big heavy melting pot, and genres evolve. Always cool to see it happen on the stage right in front of you, though.
But the lights got me, so I headed upstairs to the Rockefeller balcony ahead of Slift. I know. Not like Slift were going to take it easy on visuals. Still. The French heavyspace trio are riding the course of 2024’s Ilion (review here), and the fact that they’ve spent the better part of the last three years touring was not lost on their stage presence.
The story of their set was kind of that 
I blew it there as well. Got my photos and moved on. I was dragging, had basic human needs to attend to in food, water, bathroom, so broke out of Rockefeller a bit into the set in an effort to get my head right. I was saving the second half of Friday’s weedy muffin for later in the day, but there’s nothing like when the check-into-your-flight notification comes in while you’re trying to enjoy a busy afternoon of writing, taking photos, and general sonic obliteration.
Hippie Death Cult ruled last year at Desertfest New York (review here) and with their new live album, Live at Star Theater (review here), it felt like half the point of the damn thing was to argue in favor of showing up when the band inevitably comes through where you live — Parsippany, New Jersey, if you’re tour planning — when the opportunity presents itself. So there I was. I’d already bumped into guitarist Eddie Brnabic and drummer Harry Silvers at the hotel, and they and bassist/vocalist Lauren Phillips would soon take the stage to unroll a blanket of riffs onto the crowd, roll that same blanket back up again with the crowd in it, and then send it careening down the side of a mountain. I’m really, really looking forward to their next album.
Nothing against 2023’s Helichrysum (review here), mind you, but — and I think this is something the live LP posited as well — they sound like they’re just getting started. The lineup change that resulted in Phillips taking the lead vocal role, plus bringing Silvers in on drums, made them a different band. On the record and live, they’ve explored harsher, more direct and classic feeling ideas, but at the same time, begun to develop a character for themselves separate from what it was just a few years ago. This is a strength. Some bands would just fall apart. Hippie Death Cult have figured, are figuring out, how to make it work and progress from their new starting position.
And since much of this work has happened on tours, yes, I am very much convinced their best work is ahead of them. They can be warm and bluesy — Brnabic’s shred suits all sides — or sludge-nasty and it doesn’t matter. Songs like “Arise,” “Red Giant,” “Toxic Annihilator,” as they’re playing them now, are paving the way for a band who can crush or boogie or gallop at a measure’s whim.
Phillips let out a couple Tom Araya-esque screams while Silvers was on the double-kick, and they’re getting more comfortable bringing that kind
of metal into their foundation in capital ‘h’ Heavier groove. They’re a monster band. They should get monstrous, and I think they just might continue to do that. This was their first time in Norway. Someone in the crowd shouted, “What took you so long?” Near-total reset takes some time, I guess, but it’s done Hippie Death Cult well in terms of the intensity level. They finished big and noisy — at some near-final point, I looked up and Phillips’ mic stand had disappeared — and I watched the whole set and wouldn’t have wanted it another way.
Back upstairs to Rockefeller for Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu. True, I saw them a couple weeks ago, playing their latest album, Muuntautuja, in full, no less, but whatever. I dug it then and wanted to investigate the band further. Seeing them again felt like a half-decent way to do that. The balcony was full before the floor, which the lightshow would soon justify, but the room was full by the start of the set.
The thing was, they’re a name I’ve seen around for well over a decade, and a band I’ve listened to before and appreciated for what it was but soon enough moved on. But after that Muuntautuja set at Roadburn, they kind of took up residence in the back of my head. I was glad to recognize a few songs from one show to the next, including the opener, and while they’re not usually the kind of 
band I’d go all-in on, and I’m positive I don’t know enough of their music to call myself a fan, after seeing them these two times, I do feel compelled to dig further.
There’s enough going on at any given moment in their songs to trace threads of influence and constantly end up in a different place. That’s black metal, straight up, but then there comes a synthier part, or a drone stretch, or some Ministry-style keyboard thrash. Krautrock guitars might meet up with some soul-grinding ferocity, and the band seem to delight in precisely that manner of fucking with norms; picking apart ideas about style and what the rules are, cherrypicking which ones they want to uphold and which they want to break and then breaking most of them anyway. Like Agriculture, they’re in-genre outsider art, but whatever the stylistic cast, Oranssi Pazuzu refuse and refute pigeonholing.
My scheduled break was next. I went back to the room, had that half a weedy muffin — I could not tell you the last time I ate an actual muffin; nine years at least; I don’t normally do breadstuffs — drank a bunch of water and took some ibuprofen, tried and failed to check in for my flight because my town has both a different mailing address and a hyphen in it (not joking) and confirmed an earlier decision about the course of my night.
Chat Pile were sub-headlining the Rockefeller, and Whores. would be on at 22.00 in John Dee. I skipped both in favor of Villjuvet at St. Edmund’s Church right around the corner from Revolver. I had gotten to see the inside of the church earlier in the day — it was active-catholic enough to give yer boy eucharistic flashbacks — and been told a bit about the project, the visual component and the work of Ruben Willem, who in addition to operating as Villjuvet is a producer and has either mixed or mastered releases for an entire slew of bands from Lonely Kamel to Håndgemang who were in Friday’s lineup, to Gluecifer, Suncraft and Kal-El. I could go on.
I’ve seen Chat Pile, again recently. It was cool. I’ve never seen Whores., and frankly part of the reason why is the danger of liking them and then having to admit to myself I like a band with that name, but I know people who swear by them, and I actually did end up watching them for a few minutes and they were killing to a packed room. But I was told ahead of
time, “Villjuvet might be just your speed,” and was happy to take the recommendation to a path less traveled before finishing the night off back at Rockefeller for Elder. Slow and weird, you say? That sure does sound like my speed.
At 9PM, it was still pretty broad daylight, but the church was dark, the door ominously left open. I took a seat in the second pew — was not at all the first one there — and waited as more people came in. There was some white noise drone, but I’ll be honest and say a big part of me wanted to hear “Holy Diver,” though that went away when the actual show started.
You could follow the projections — branches and the like, nighttime ambience, loosely creepy but mostly for the soundtrack — up the white wall with the stained glass windows onto the wood ceiling as Villjuvet turned out to be very much indeed my speed. Willem played facing the projections before a sprawling pedal board, often kneeling as if to a true god being revealed. His drones came through in looped layers and hit high and low through guitar and bass amps. It was not a tune to take out earplugs, despite the lack of percussion. A couple popes later, church has really changed since I was last forced to go, probably around three decades ago. I recall a good time this January sharing religious traumas over a breakfast in Las Vegas. Life takes you weird places when… you expressly make it do that because you enjoy it.
Rockefeller was filling up quickly for Elder and I knew the second Whores. finished downstairs that crowd would flood out, which was exactly what happened. I was at the bar at John Dee at the time, chatting amiably as one does, and then it was time to head upstairs to cap the evening. A 6AM wakeup loomed large over the 11PM start-time — hazards of the trade at the end of a fest; it’s part of the thing — but with the band celebrating the anniversary of 2015’s Lore (review here), and having missed them when they came through Brooklyn with Sacri Monti, there was imperative.
I could go — and have gone! — on about Lore as both 
a creative statement and a breath of daring fresh air operating in an underground genre that can at times pride itself on traditionalism. I’ll gladly argue its influence is still felt and spreading, even as the band have continued to move forward. But there’s no denying it was a special moment for them, a progressive breakout in craft to which their work before had been leading. So, 10th anniversary it is. Not unreasonable.
Guitarist/vocalist Nick DiSalvo got on mic before they started and thanked the crowd, thanked the fest, said it was an honor to close it out, and explained what they were going to do, and soon enough they were off into “Compendium” and on from there. I always loved “Deadweight” but I knew I wouldn’t make it that far into the set and I didn’t. I was glad to see them though, even briefly as I felt the pull of getting back to finish work and crash out ahead of the early start. The responsible thing. The me that knows I can’t sleep on planes would thank me in the morning, but it was a hard sell to the me looking down the ramp to walk out of Rockefeller and be done with the night and Desertfest Oslo more broadly.
But I did. If I’m fortunate enough to come back next year, I’ll try not to make it so tight, but that’s kind of how it has to be for me to be here in the first place, and a couple Elder songs is better than no Elder songs, so I guess my old-ass punk-rock guilt can fuck off. Time to crawl out of my own head a little bit.
Thank you to Desertfest Oslo for having me. Thank you Ole and Preben for the invitation and thank you to everyone who has worked here to make this happen. The sound, the lights, everything has been spot on, and for this being the second year this festival has taken place, they’d be entitled to a few screwups. I saw none. I did, however, see a bunch killer bands, a bunch of old friends, and some things I wouldn’t have been able to see anywhere else. I am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity.
It is not lost on me that in the US this weekend, today, is Mother’s Day. Thank you to 
The Patient Mrs. for the work she does as a mother always, and for the sheer indulgence that allows me to exist as I do both at and away from home. She is so much more than the love of my life that is humbling she would deign to be it. I know I’ve said this before, but I am the luckiest boy you know.
Thank you to my mother, Pamela Koczan. Thank you to my sister, Susan Wright. Thank you to Cate Wright and Samantha Wright.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for saying hi, for giving a shit after so many years and so many typos and run-on sentences. Dumbassed blocks of text, just endless. Thank you for being here for it in some way at some point, maybe now. The support this site gets is what sustains me doing it. One more time, thank you.
More pics after the jump. No posts tomorrow (Monday) while I get caught up writing/living. Thanks again.
