A lot of time has passed since the first and last time we reviewed Iotunn, and changes have occurred.
Not so many changes that we weren’t still interested in catching up with them however, and while it has nearly happened a few times between then and now, this was finally the time it worked out. As you can imagine, we were pretty excited.

“Roskilde! Epic Fest! Are you feeling epic?!”
- Jón Aldará (vocals)

Iotunn played in King Roar’s Hall, and they had brought an epic lightshow with them there to grab our attention. As we stood there waiting in the dark, the special microphone stand with the light at the top held centre stage, and hanging down from the ceiling were several long, thin lights that were glimmering like snow or ice.
New vocalist (well, new in comparison to our last review) Jón Aldará (Hamferð, Barren Earth) and one of the Gräs brothers (sorry, it’s hard to tell them apart when you don’t know them) opened the show by themselves on stage, starting out with Kinship Elegiac from the latest album. It was a slow, melodic way to open, beautiful and a good way to invite us in with feeling.
The rest of the band stepped out when it was time for them to join the fun, and so we were off. As you may know, Kinship Elegiac is just shy of 14 minutes, so we had an epic journey ahead of us, finished off by Aldará putting some real pressure on the final “you left me, you left me”.

With that, and the general length of songs, Iotunn only had six songs on their setlist, and it was an interesting choice to let no less than five of those be songs from the latest album. The only other song played was, maybe not surprisingly, The Tower Of Cosmic Nihility, but even though this is to be considered the big hit of the band as far as I’m informed, it was stuck pretty much in the centre of the list, not at the end as one might have expected.
While the songs are certainly good, it was sad that they didn’t get a better introduction on stage, and the sound suffered a bit so finer details were lost on us as well.
Regardless, it was clear for all that the few power metal influences I felt I heard back in the day were far from what the band stood for nowadays, and since we were at a primarily power metal oriented festival, Iotunn definitely delivered one of the heaviest shows this weekend. Too heavy for some, it seemed, but there were a lot of fans as well, that could be seen on the gathered crowd.

I mentioned that the songs didn’t get much of an introduction, but actually Aldará didn’t speak much at all through the show, and when he did, it was in English. Not sure if this is because he’s from the Faroese Islands, or out of respect for the geologically diverse crowd.
He did emote the feelings of the songs however, as he squirmed around the microphone stand.
Aside from him, bassist Eskil Rask (Sunless Dawn, Nautilus) was the only one putting an effort into delivering a performance as well as the music, and he was also the only one to seek out any form of contact with the crowd. He was the only one to react to the applause the crowd gave up between songs, for instance.
Now, the band did look like they enjoyed playing, but at the same time, it did feel like they were having a party that they forgot to invite anyone else to. I got the feeling that this performance would have looked the same even if there weren’t anyone else around, and that was a bit sad, and unexpected.
At least they took a proper farewell when the show was over.

Iotunn were good, but the show was sadly altogether forgettable. Enjoyable enough while it lasted, but as soon as it was over, it was pretty much out of mind. I had expected more than this, but maybe expectations were part of the problem? It’s hard to say.

Setlist:

Kinship Elegiac
Mistland
Twilight
The Tower Of Cosmic Nihility
Earth To Sky
The Anguished Ethereal