DOWN will destroy you with their riffs, ICE NINE KILLS will take you on a rollercoaster ride through the lands of horror, EVERGREY will bewitch you, and MARTYRDÖD will knock you out – behold these four new additions to the line-up of Mystic Festival 2026.
DOWN – Mighty, sabbathesque riffs, covered in slime from the New Orleans swamps; poser-repellent, primitive, sludge drive; the sweet trance of stoner metal and this voice! Down will come to Mystic Festival to melt your black hearts and the steel dockside cranes with their music. A supergroup that has earned the moniker not just with their stellar line-up – Phil Anselmo (Pantera), Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity), Kirk Windstein (Crowbar), Jimmy Bower (Crowbar, Eyehategod), and Pat Bruders (Goatwhore) – but, first and foremost, with their music. It doesn’t really get better than this in this neck of the woods. And since Down teased that they’re working on new material recently, we can hope for entirely new music to pair the classics from their repertoire.
ICE NINE KILLS – Their two live albums are entitled I Heard They Kill Live – with the second instalment being released in the middle of this year – and it’s hard not to appreciate that title’s double meaning. On one level, it highlights the fascination of the Boston band with horror, slashers and classic gore films; on another – that’s the truth itself of what Ice Nine Kills concerts are like, they take no prisoners live! They formed a quarter of a century ago and since then, have been perfecting their formula, relying on the marriage of horror-laden lyrics with a thrilling form composed of melodic metalcore, the intensity of hardcore and anthem-like, heavy metal choruses. Prepare for the American bogeys in the centre of Gdańsk.
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EVERGREY – The Swedes’ latest record, released in 2024, is entitled Theories of Emptiness, but Evergrey are proficient in more than just theory. For over three decades now, they’ve been making music that, on the one hand, is technically advanced and that marries under the vast category of progressive metal the influences of both the sublime of power metal and the sombre of gothic metal. On the other hand, however, it draws from the simplest yet the most powerful emotions. Evergrey dives into the deep end of sorrow, only to emerge seconds later, carried high on the wings of their passion – it is this versatility that makes Tom S. Englund’s band stand out not only on the Swedish scene.
MARTYRDÖD – Come in closer and your body won’t soon forget this gig. Don’t let your guard down though, for Martyrdöd strikes hard and without warning. The band composed of veterans of the Swedish scene has skilfully been merging crust punk with black metal for a quarter of a century now. With every drum kick, with every razor-sharp riff, Martyrdöd proves that rage has only one name.
Next up, festival organisers bring you happiness with four names – KUBLAI KHAN TX, as well as SCOUR, ACID KING and WINTERFYLLETH.
SCOUR – At the beginning of the 90s, when the world was burning with the fire that had spread from Norway, the vocalist of Pantera shocked everyone when he appeared wearing black metal t-shirts out in public. Back then, it felt like Phil Anselmo belongs to another world, that this was not his revolution, but we were yet to fully grasp the depth of his engagement with the extreme underground, both as a fan and – as we were soon to find out – as an artist. Scour is not the first black metal band with Phil at the mic, but it is the one in which he has shown the full range of his hellish talent. He’s joined by many a highly ranked member of the American extreme, musicians who have tenured with Cattle Decapitation, Misery Index, and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, to name a few, so there’s really no surprise that they’ve come to make music that leaves the bitter aftertaste of death/grind and the blood spat out from taking a jaw-breaking hit.
KUBLAI KHAN TX – Kublai Khan, the Mongol one, was the most powerful ruler of the Middle Ages. Kublai Khan, the Texan one, is one of the most important players on the American metalcore scene – or more specifically, its radical subsect. There’s no dissolving the socially engaged message in little too pretty melodies – here you have the machinery of the old thrash metal, the unyielding of hardcore, the brutality and the heaviness. Even with just their debut album, Balancing Survival and Happiness (2014), Kublai Khan TX were conquering the big stages. Now with each new record (the latest being their fifth album, Exhibition of Prowess, released in 2024) and each sold-out tour, they’ve only bolstered their standing.
ACID KING – They’ve taken their name from the pseudonym of Ricky Kasso, an American teenager, with a predilection for drugs and metal, who murdered his friend, allegedly, on the behest of the devil himself. The tragic case of Kasso fuelled the fire of the Satanic panic that engulfed America in the mid-80s. However, more importantly for our current point of interest, it inspired Lori S., a Californian guitarist and vocalist, to create the stoner/doom monster that has been bathing in the waters of tarry riffs, psychedelic trips and occult mysteries since 1993, daring us to swim with them. In Gdańsk, they’ll play a set composed of songs from their cult 1999 album, Busse Woods.
WINTERFYLLETH – The winter is coming. Winterfylleth hail from Manchester, a city not known for its heavy music, but their music claims pedigree somewhere further north, drawing on the Scandinavian vision of the black art. They combine this corrupt formula with their own artistic leanings, as well as the historical and spiritual heritage of the Old England. The tumult of bloody battles, the hale of the northern wind and the hushed exhale of mist-covered marshes all echo in their music, though what you hear first and foremost is that Winterfylleth know how to play black metal of the highest order.
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