Kreator headline Nummirock on Thursday 24 June 2027, twenty one years after the last time they played it, and the organisers say it will be their only Finnish date of that summer.
The festival runs at Nummijarvi in Kauhajoki from 23 to 26 June, and the first wave is twelve names. Norther are the one that will travel furthest in the telling: they have not played live in fourteen years.
The rest reads like a map of the Finnish scene rather than a bill. Turmion Katilot arrive off a Helsinki Ice Hall show and a number one record, Insomnium bring the melodic death metal, Rytmihairio and the Tampere punk band Huora cover the harder, faster end, and Brymir come in a year after their twentieth anniversary.
Two of the bookings are exclusives of a particular Finnish kind. Havukruunu play their only summer show outside the Helsinki ring road here, and Mors Principium Est their only festival of the summer, which for a festival four hours from the capital is the whole argument.
Whispered are back with Honorbound after a decade of nothing, Ashen Tomb bring Helsinki death metal, and Hyljatyt are made of musicians from Stam1na and Wolfheart.