MATTER OF TASTE
VEINS OF SUFFERING
TABERNIS
BURNING WITCHES
SOULFLY
ALESTORM
Celebrating its tenth anniversary, Metal on the Hill 2026 transformed Graz’s Schlossberg into an unusually atmospheric meeting point between historic architecture, spectacular scenery and uncompromising heavy music.
Opening the festival, Matter of Taste provided an intriguing contrast to the heavier acts that followed, their symphonic progressive-rock approach relying on melodic detail, emotional depth and carefully constructed arrangements.
Veins Of Suffering subsequently shifted the mood towards melodic death metal, combining aggressive guitar work, driving drums and harsh vocals with enough melodic sophistication to make their performance considerably more than straightforward brutality.
The arrival of Tabernis introduced perhaps the festival’s most unconventional sonic palette, with bagpipes, davul percussion, dark-folk textures and metal creating an almost ritualistic atmosphere that worked particularly well against the ancient stone surroundings of the Kasematten.
By the time Burning Witches took the stage, the festival had fully entered classic heavy-metal territory, with their twin-guitar attack, powerful rhythm section and Laura Guldemond’s commanding vocals delivering the kind of precision and authority that makes traditional metal feel anything but nostalgic. Their performance was one of the afternoon’s strongest displays of musicianship, balancing melodic guitar harmonies with a muscular rhythmic foundation and giving the growing crowd plenty of reasons to raise their fists and sing along.
Then came Soulfly, and the festival’s intensity immediately climbed several levels as Max Cavalera and his band unleashed their distinctive fusion of groove, thrash and death metal, enriched by Brazilian and tribal rhythmic influences. There was little room for unnecessary theatrics in Soulfly’s performance because the riffs themselves did the talking, with Cavalera’s unmistakable vocal attack and the band’s crushing rhythmic precision generating a genuinely physical impact across the venue. The audience responded accordingly, turning the space in front of the stage into a celebration of heavy music in its most visceral form, while the surrounding Schlossberg provided a remarkable visual counterpoint to the sheer sonic force coming from the stage.
Yet Alestorm proved that heaviness and outright fun need not be opposing concepts, delivering the festival’s most exuberant performance with their unmistakable combination of power-metal riffs, folk-inspired melodies, keyboards and deliberately outrageous pirate-metal theatrics. Christopher Bowes proved an ideal frontman for the occasion, while the band’s musicianship ensured that beneath the jokes, drinking songs and larger-than-life imagery there was a remarkably tight and powerful metal unit.
The crowd embraced the spectacle completely, turning the biggest choruses into enormous communal singalongs and demonstrating why Alestorm’s live reputation has made them such a natural choice for a festival anniversary designed around celebration and excess.
What made the evening particularly memorable, however, was the setting: the Schlossbergbühne Kasematten, embedded in Graz’s Schlossberg, offered a dramatic natural and architectural backdrop that gave every performance an additional sense of occasion.
The enthusiastic audience feedback throughout the day confirmed that Metal on the Hill had achieved exactly what a tenth-anniversary festival should, bringing together contrasting strands of metal while maintaining a remarkably warm and communal atmosphere.
Ultimately, Metal on the Hill 2026 succeeded not merely as a collection of concerts but as a carefully balanced celebration of metal culture, with excellent performances, an appreciative crowd and one of Austria’s most beautiful festival locations combining to make the tenth anniversary an especially convincing chapter in the festival’s history.
