VILKŲ ŽIEMA: the Feast of Darkness Returns to Vilnius

At the end of January, KABLYS music club in Vilnius will host hundreds of heavy and dark music fans, gathering for one of the most powerful metal events in the capital – the eight edition of the traditional VILKŲ ŽIEMA festival. This year’s one-night line-up will offer a trip from the southernmost coasts of the Italian south to the frost of Iceland and Norway in the north, ranging from the blackest of metal to meditative melodies.

This year we're focusing on quality, not quantity with a careful selection of the dark notes to keep up with the festival vibes. Black metal fans will likely be most satisfied, but the festival is so much more than that. This year’s opener will wrap the audience into the mist of emotion and drown it in the swamps of heavy atmosphere.

Lithuania will be represented by one of the most active dark and progressive metal bands – JUODVARNIS. Attentive concert-goers can see them at various events a few times a year. However, this band is like songs you never remove from your playlist: at first, you're happy to have discovered them and then they become your emotional haven you never want to leave.

VILKŲ ŽIEMA will also see the return of the multi-instrumentalist LILI REFRAIN from Italy, who will hypnotise the audience with her unique compositions – many have discovered her at KILKIM ŽAIBU festival last summer, falling in love at first note. Although her work is not really ‘metal’ in the strict sense of the genre, the talented musician has truly found her way to capture emotions through sound.

The Italian-Norwegian black metal duo DARVAZA was yet another discovery from last year’s KILKIM ŽAIBU. Metal fans know the members of this team very well. Gionata Potenci, known as Omega, works with bands like BLUT AUS NORD, MOLOCH, and many others. Björn, known under his stage name Luctus or Wraath, became known working with bands like BEHEXEN, RITUAL DEATH, and some others. The fusion of the two metal stars will offer a dose of high-quality, rough and uncompromising Satanist black metal.

The Icelandic team MISÞYRMING, formed more than a decade ago, will continue the black metal ritual, luring the audience into a viscous and atmospheric sea of sound. MISÞYRMING has been praised since their very first album, with critics even titling them as one of the best Icelandic metal bands, which is truly something in that country. Although small in terms of population, Iceland has deep heavy music roots, likely counting more metal bands than volcanoes.

The undisputed headliner of the event is PRIMORDIAL, merging Celtic folk music with doom and black metal elements. Very likely we’ll be able to listen both to a few new songs from their album ‘How It Ends’, released in 2023, and the well-known classics from their nine former albums.

All metal connoisseurs are already marking the night of 27 January on their calendars. VILKŲ ŽIEMA will offer a music event that will be not only high-quality, but also meaningful both spiritually and ideologically. It will be a journey into the dark depths of music. Each of the bands of the line-up have already proven multiple times their ability to capture their audiences better than any of the bands titled as global metal giants.

Let’s celebrate our winter with wolves and look forward to the summer with thunder and lightning!