Hulkoff was as odd an addition to Epic Fest as it was a surprising one. Dark, heavy, with a good sprinkling of folk was not exactly the regular menu of the festival, which catered much more to high fantasy power metal with a side order of progressive.
The question was, would Hulkoff prove to be a tasty dish, or a culinary catastrophe?

“Good evening my fellow Danish vikings! I thought there would be three guys, but you’re a lot of fucking guys!”
- Pär Hulkoff (vocals/guitar)

Hulkoff was the only band that managed to pull us over to Gimle, which of course was placed a bit of a walk from the larger venue where the main and second stage was. Given that, we hadn’t expected a big turn-out for this specific concert (and apparently the band hadn’t either), but to our surprise Gimle was exceptionally well filled when the band was ready to enter the stage. In fact, it was only a third of the actual band that was here, main man and primus motor Pär Hulkoff. By his side was something of a family affair - behind the drums we saw the familiar face of Anders Johansson (ex-Hammerfall, ex-Manowar), and on bass was Karl Johansson, and finally on guitar we saw Niklas Johansson. Noticed something similar? Yup, Karl and Niklas are Anders’ sons.

While everyone was playing well, Niklas seemed almost a bit shy while his older brother Karl was a natural born performer, full of energy and not able to stand still for more than 30 seconds at a time. I noticed another fun little detail, and it was that every time he struck his strings, his plectre would light up in a flash. Never seen that before, but it was a fun effect.
Pär Hulkoff was the natural centre of attention however, as we know him to be from the many times we’ve seen Raubtier. Why we haven’t seen Hulkoff live before is a clear oversight on our part, but that’s another story. To get back to it, Pär Hulkoff was clearly in a good mood this evening and he wasn’t just introducing the music between songs, but was chatting away about anything and everything that came to his mind. Entertaining anecdotes, personal philosophies, hard-hitting history, nothing was left untouched. Something that resonated well was his comment that most fight through life to get to a vacation, whereas he had fought for a life which he didn’t want a vacation from. It’s not necessarily an easy life, but probably a way to look at it that would do many of us good - or is it just me?

“It’s getting warm in here, so I hope you’re not just drinking beer. You need to inject something stronger as well.”
- Pär Hulkoff (vocals/guitar)

But, but, but. Before we sidetrack too far, it was the music that was the main attraction here.
Hulkoff was without comparison the heaviest band at the festival, more riff and chugg based while most others were melodic and symphonic, but that’s not to say that there isn’t melody in Hulkoff’s music as well. I mean, just listen to Hammarslag, which is an absolute sing along banger, or Blood & Iron which sounds like a contemporary evolution of the British neofolk movement of the late 60ies and 70ies. Ok, the vocal harmonies in Hammarslag’s chorus could do with some work, but other than that the gig felt tight and precise.
All of this resulted in an impressive response from the gathered crowd. Headbanging was immediate, singing along was, well, enthusiastic if somewhat incomprehensible at times, and when the band reached Hersir a wild moshpit broke out in the middle of the floor. I don’t know how it was on the balcony in the back, but on the floor this was one sweaty affair!

It didn’t take long to understand that Hulkoff was more than a simple palate cleanser, it was the hidden chef’s kiss dish that we had all been waiting for. The band may not have been the headliner of the festival, or even placed on one of the larger stages, but they were our headliner and highlight, and they are always welcome to land their dragon ship on our shores again.

Setlist:

Krigsherren
Holmgång
Berserkr
Ingvar
Hammarslag
Hersir
Dragon Tattoo
Jórvik
Dragonrider
Uldin
Hekwos
Blood & Iron
Einherjr
Scyth