It’s getting close, friends, and in just a few days we’re starting the ball known as Metal Merchants Festival 2011!

Unfortunately, Solstice had to cancel their appearance for internal reasons, but we’ve managed to get a hold of a mighty fine replacement in Swedish favourites IN SOLITUDE. For all those vaguely familiar with the new heavy metal breed, IN SOLITUDE is a sweet sounding name, and coming straight from studio to help us out, and even presenting new stuff for a live audience for the very first time, we can’t help looking VERY much forward to their gig!

http://www.myspace.com/insolitudeheavymetal

The lineup then looks as follows;

Friday
Procession
Blizzard
Elixir
In Solitude
Brocas Helm

Saturday
Convixion
Gehennah
Devil
Jaguar
Nuclear Assault

The venue is still John Dee in Oslo, and for once, we seem to be selling quite a few tickets, believe it or not, so jump straight to www.billettservice.no to get yours.

Best regards,
Sigurd Sabbath, Faceless Ronny and The Monolith Stian

Friday January 28th
Doors: 19.00
PROCESSION 19.25
BLIZZARD 20.10
ELIXIR 21.05
SOLSTICE 22.15
BROCAS HELM 23.20

Saturday January 29th
Doors: 18.00 (Updated: opens 18.00 instead of 19.00 Saturday)
CONVIXION 19.30
GEHENNAH 20.15
DEVIL 21.15
JAGUAR 22.15
NUCLEAR ASSAULT 23.20

As a special treat for us all, we’ve decided to invite PROCESSION from Chile to do a showcase for us on the first day of the festival. With their acclaimed album Destroyers of the Faith out recently, PROCESSION has taken the doom metal underground with storm.

http://www.myspace.com/processionburn

We are very pleased to welcome our friends in PROCESSION, and we’ve also been able to arrange the order of the bands during the weekend. One day passes will be out first week in January, so those who wants to be certain to get a festival pass at NOK 500, should act now. Tickets still at www.billettservice.no.

PLAYING ORDER 2011 (last bands first):

Friday January 28th

BROCAS HELM
SOLSTICE
ELIXIR
BLIZZARD
PROCESSION

Saturday January 29th

NUCLEAR ASSAULT
JAGUAR
DEVIL
GEHENNAH
CONVIXION

All in all, we’re pretty safe this gonna KICK ASS, so we wish you all a great christmas, and are looking forward to seeing you all in january.

Best regards,
Sigurd the Snowman, Ronny the Rednosed Reindeer and Santa Stian

Unfortunately Testimony will have to cancel their MMF performance, but we hope to see them around some other place anyway.

Instead we have managed to book a quite awesome replacement, namely Kings of the Sidewalk, GEHENNAH! One of the first and most important Scandinavian black/thrash combos, with a number of partyhits made in hell, such as Bitch With a Bullet Belt, Piss off I’m Drinking and Say Hello to Mr. Fist. GEHENNAH har basically called it quits, but they’ve decided to get back together to do special occations and selected shows, such as Metal Merchants Festival. It’s time to raise your glass and yell!

Tickets are going at steady speed, and even though we seldom do this, it’s now time to advise people to get their tickets for the festival at www.billettservice.no. The date and venue is still January 28th and 29th on John Dee, and the billing is as follows:

NUCLEAR ASSAULT
http://www.myspace.com/theofficialnuclearassault

BROCAS HELM
http://www.myspace.com/brocashelm25

SOLSTICE
http://www.myspace.com/solsticeenglander

JAGUAR
http://www.myspace.com/jaguaronline

ELIXIR
http://www.myspace.com/officialelixir

GEHENNAH
http://www.myspace.com/wearegehennah

BLIZZARD
http://www.myspace.com/blizzardoffiziell

CONVIXION
http://www.myspace.com/convixionband

DEVIL
http://www.myspace.com/devilband

+ SPECIAL SURPRISE ACT SOON TO BE ANNOUNCED (This one is a treat for you doomsters out there)

Amongst other things we will have a nice merch stand and a DJ with cool projection of classic covers just as last time.

Hope to see you all there!

Cheers,
Saturdaynight Sigurd, Ronny Rebel and Hardrocker Stian.

One of the risks of booking early is that one can not see all circumstances, big or small. We unfortunately have two cancellations for 2011, and two replacements. As many of you already know, Asomvel’s Jay Jay tragically died in a car crash a little time ago. We at Metal Merchants Festival will dedicate the 2011 festival to his memory. Rest in peace. Also, Whyte Ash has been forced to cancel their appearance.

As for replacements, we have a couple of exciting names for you to get to know. We hope you enjoy it!

TESTIMONY (NO)

We guess there’s no further info needed? It is? Haha, well, here it is; Testimony is one of Norways classic extreme metal bands that really never got out of the rehearsal room, except for some live performances, such as supporting Kreator back in the day. The little fame they might have accomplished, is unfortunately not much about the music (luckily some of us remembers the great music as well!) but maybe just as much around the fact that this is Rune Blasphemer Eriksen (Aura Noir, Mayhem) who plays guitar for TESTIMONY. We were quite pleased when they wanted to pick up their weapons again, and we’re looking forward to seeing one of Norways best hidden gems in january!

www.myspace.com/testimonynorway

DEVIL (NO)

By far the newest band ever seen on Metal Merchants Festival, but hopefully it sounds anything but new! We will not blow our horns too much about DEVIL, because it’s actually the band of Stian and Ronny, two of the MMF promoters. Imagine a dirty mix of Pentagram, Black Sabbath and NWOBHM, and you are in the neighbourhood. The demo is out in these days, and due to awesome feedback from you people out there, DEVIL is a force to be reckonned with in the future, with the debut album out in the spring of 2011. As mentioned, we will not brag too much, but we hope you will check us out, and join us for a helluva party in Oslo in january!

www.myspace.com/devilband

We are also working on a 10th band for the bill, but since we don’t do compromises, we can’t promise we’ll find anything good enough (and affordable) on such a short notice.

This leaves us with the following and PRETTY brilliant lineup for now:

NUCLEAR ASSAULT
SOLSTICE
BROCAS HELM
JAGUAR
ELIXIR
BLIZZARD
CONVIXION
TESTIMONY
DEVIL

Tickets can as usual be bought at www.billettservice.no, and the venue is as last year John Dee in Oslo. The dates are January 28–29.

Devilish regards from those who entered obscurity,
Sigurd, Ronny and Stian

Greetings once again, fellow metalheads!

The time has come to reveal two of our last bands, and to be honest, two great bands, one from when we were kids, and one for the kids of today, both great metal bands for generations to come. In addition to the already announced bands, we feel we’re putting together an extremely strong lineup for 2011 as well, so we are happy to introduce the following two acts:

WHYTE ASH – From the ashes (pun intended to both bands) of Burning Saviours, WHYTE ASH arose. Where Burning Saviours was a critically acclaimed doom band loved by the fans, WHYTE ASH has brought out Swedish heavy metal at its best from the guys. After some PRETTY convincing demo material, 2010 offers the debut album ”I Will Remain”, which we urge you all to get a hold of as soon as possible. Heavy metal according to old power masters is what we’re looking at, and WHYTE ASH at Metal Merchants Festival 2011 is what YOU are looking forward to!

http://www.myspace.com/whyteash

NUCLEAR ASSAULT – We could rant on and on about NUCLEAR ASSAULTS’S history, but this band you already know, since you’re an old school metal head. Mixing up the American and German way of thrash, adding some hardcore punk tendencies, NUCLEAR ASSAULT produced a couple of the really classic thrash metal albums of the 80’s. This one is a must, peeps! Dang, we’re proud just now!!

http://www.myspace.com/theofficialnuclearassault

So, as said earlier, the place is John Dee, Oslo, January 28th and 29th of 2011, and you can find all info you need on this website, and you can get your tickets at http://www.billettservice.no.

These are the confirmed bands for now:

NUCLEAR ASSAULT
BROCAS HELM
SOLSTICE
JAGUAR
ELIXIR
BLIZZARD
ASOMVEL
CONVIXION
WHYTE ASH

So, we’re of course looking forward to seeing YOU at Metal Merchants Festival 2011!

Best regards,
Mr. Softee Sigurd, Ronny the Pope and Nuclear Stian.

We’re getting close to a full lineup, and we’re pretty sure most of you are just as excited as we are over the new additions. No time for bull, here’s the gravy!

CONVIXION (GRE)

Believed to be one of the hopes of the Hellenic underground, the thrash metallers of CONVIXION will be brought in to the cold north to shake loose the most impatient headbangers amongst you. With an EP and one album in the catalogue, CONVIXION have already received great reviews and jobs such as Up The Hammers Festival II for their curriculum vitae.

BLIZZARD (DE)

Most of you already know BLIZZARD, the old school maniac crew that brought partying back to music from hell. With a handful of releases throughout the last decade, filled to the edge with mad metal, hard partying and insane attitude, you better hold on to your beers and souls when PURE FILTH AND MAYHEM fills Metal Merchants Festival as Blizzard enters the stage!

BROCAS HELM (US)

You didn’t see that one coming, did ya? Besides Manilla Road and Cirith Ungol, BROCAS HELM is widely considered as the finest thing ever to come from the American underground heavy metal stage. We’re not gonna rant on about this, but really, people? BROCAS HELM!! Hands down!

So, tell your friends and buy your tickets, cause this is gonna be a blast!

This is the lineup for january 28th and 29th so far:

JAGUAR
ASOMVEL
SOLSTICE
ELIXIR
CONVIXION
BLIZZARD
BROCAS HELM

Cheers from Sigurd, Ronny and Stian, ALL HERE TO ROCK!!!