“Why are gigs in Bristol always on a Monday?” says the girl in the Blood Incantation queue behind me to her boyfriend. It is a good question, for I seem to spend too many starts to the week rushing across the Second Crossing to get to one of the many venues that the Metal community in Bristol are spoilt to have in their fair city.
Blood Incantation – Oranssi Pazuzu – Sijjin
Electric Bristol – 6 October 2025
Words And Photography: Paul Hutchings
I am not the only one, though. For this show, the first of a short burst in the UK for Denver outfit Blood Incantation has sold out. Kudos to Effigy promotions, who are doing sterling work in the region for top-level shows.
It is a stacked lineup, with a rare visit to these shores from Finns Oranssi Pazuzu alongside the Death Metal of Sijjin making it an appetising bill.
Blood Incantation
Electric Bristol is packed to the rafters by the time Blood Incantation take the stage. In fact, I have rarely seen this venue as sold out as it is tonight, with hordes of fans taking to the balcony, something rarely offered here.
They arrive on stage minutes after finishing a soundcheck whilst wearing hooded jackets, which, given the rising temperature in the venue, seemed a tad unwise. But they have removed the outer layer and, in simple jeans and tees, hit the stage.
It is an impressive set, two monoliths flanking either side of the stage and lighting up to great effect during the show.
Last year’s stunning Absolute Everywhere was rightly lauded as one of the best of 2024, and they prove it with a full play of the album. Heads nod in unison as Blood Incantation weave their spell.
Their Progressive style mixing is described as Floyd meets Atheist in some corners. I prefer to say that they have a unique approach and sound, and that it does not really matter who their obvious influences may be.
The Stargate is side one, whilst The Message is side two. Paul Riedl laughs as he talks to the audience about physically turning the record after the first 20 minutes cover side one.
The Message is just as intoxicating, and whilst heads around the room are straining to see, the nodding does not stop, with the occasional pit spluttering into life during the more aggressive passages of technical Thrash.
For the most part, though, people are content to absorb themselves in the superior quality of this band, who, as Riedl admitted to Shyan Trivax on a recent episode of the excellent Iblis Manifestations podcast, are about five years ahead of where they think they are.
The set adds to the atmosphere, with part of it decked out from the Absolute Everywhere album cover, and spotlights searching the stage. It adds up to a phenomenal 90 minutes, which is concluded by The Giza Power Plant and closer Obliquity Of The Ecliptic. Many leave open-mouthed.
If this is Monday in Bristol, maybe it is the weekends that need to be toned down a bit. 
Oranssi Pazuzu
Over the course of their nearly 20-year journey, Finns Oranssi Pazuzu have not been regular visitors to the UK. Thirteen gigs according to Setlist.FM does not seem an awful lot.
For many, their addition to the lineup was probably more for curiosity value, although the band did play Arctangent in 2022 so they have been in these parts before. 
Forty-five minutes of them leaves me and many others shell-shocked. Pazuzu are one of those bands that defy genre labelling, and during their set, it is difficult to explain what we heard.
We get a blend of uncompromising Black Metal, electronica beats, and psychedelia swirled and grated in equal measure. At times, it is so raw you fear that wounds would appear on bare flesh. The histrionic growls and screams of Juho “Jun-His” Vanhanen and Ville “Evil” Leppilahti tag-team back and forth, whilst guitarist Niko “Ikon” Lehdontie whirls like a Dervish.
It is all bathed in lighting that flickers demonically, reds and blues swapping with darkness and causing my camera to have a meltdown at one point, shutter flickers across the photos.
I will not pretend to know their songs in any detail, although I recognised a couple from their latest release Muuntautuja. Regardless, their whole delivery is captivating, such is the energy that sparks from the stage.
This is emotive, powerful and rightly receives a big ovation from the packed floor. Would I see them again? Very possibly, but I would need time to process this one first.
It was something quite unworldly.
Sijjin
It is a rude awakening for Sijjin who hit the stage shortly after doors open, meaning that their first couple of songs are played to an almost empty hall.
Their cause is not helped by a huge swell for the merch of the headliner, prompted by a sign that tells fans to buy early because they are closing sales well ahead of the set end due to a ferry trip to Dublin.
Who said being on the road was glamorous?
It soon fills up, though, and by the time they hit the final song Condemned By Primal Contact from debut album Sumerian Promises, there is a healthy audience digging the combination of crushing riffs and snarling vocals.
An international outfit drawn from Berlin and the Basque Country, they make a big noise for a three-piece. They may have little room to manoeuvre, for the front of the stage has more cables strewn across it than Madison Square Gardens, but they fill their part of the stage with ease.
It is a blistering aural assault from a trio who seem genuinely pleased that so many have made the effort to get in early. Drawing tracks from their debut and 2025’s very decent Helljjin Combat, Sijjin do their best to live up to their name and conjure up a vision of that place at the bottom of Hell.
