As Fear Factory came to visit Copenhagen on their DisrupTour, they had no less than three support bands with them, all of which were first time experiences for us. Ignea from Ukraine was the second band to play, and they were more or less ready to rock the Danish crowd.

“This is going to be a very special show. I love Copenhagen and have been here several times. Also, a few days ago I lost my voice, so I won’t be doing any growls tonight.”
- Helle Bogdanova (vocals)

I suppose the fact that I didn’t know she usually does growls made it so that it didn’t sound weird to me; also, if Bogdanova (please take the spelling of this and all other band members names with a grain of salt, as the web presents several different ways of spelling them in the Roman alphabet) was holding back in other respects for taking care of her voice, at least I couldn’t tell. Her clean vocals sounded perfectly fine to me. Also, she was talking quite a bit between songs; not too much, just enough to keep a good connection going with the crowd.
Actually, the entire band was good at keeping the crowd engaged. The performance was lively and compelling, and all of the front crew were good at getting connected with the audience. That Evgeny Zhytnyuk was playing a keytar of course helped him in his ability to raise hell along with the rest of them.

The band’s country of origin couldn’t go uncommented of course, given the times, and Bogdanova and the band thanked us for all our support, and voiced a hope that we would continue helping out, so that one day we could all live in peace, and that we would be able to visit them in their home, just as they were now visiting us.
On a less political note, she also hoped that we’d give the band’s albums a spin, where things would be “much heavier and more brutal”, in her own words.
Even though her vocals in it are minimal, the band chose to play the Ultra Sheriff cover Leviathan instrumentally this evening - however, retrospectively thinking about it, since they were to put a cover in their set, wouldn’t their Eivør cover of Í Tokuni have pandered more to the local audience? Still, there was a bit of local pandering, as Ignea invited guitarist Inuuteq Kleemann of Copenhagen band Forever Still to play with them on Nomad’s Luck off their latest album. This meant that Ignea’s own guitarist, Dmitry Vinnichenko, could take a break for a short while. Kleemann also had a bit of a lie down, although that was by way of crowdsurfing while playing, so I can’t speak to how relaxing it was.

Vinnichenko was back for the final track of the evening, Opiumist, and this was doubly special, as not only did we finally get to hear Bogdanova deliver some growls after all, but we were, as mentioned by the band, also the first ones to hear this song, as they hadn’t played it on the tour so far. I’m glad they did play it, because it’s a pretty epic tune, if you ask me.

I was very pleasantly surprised by my meeting with Ignea. They had an interesting sound and were highly skilled stage performers, both important aspects in this kind of setting. I wouldn’t say they topped Fear Factory, but they were by far my favourite of the support bands this evening.

Setlist:

To No One I Owe
Camera Obscura
Jinnslammer
Leviathan
Nomad’s Luck (feat. Inuuteq Kleemann)
Opiumist