Arkona, Helsótt, WarTroll
- Hectic
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
February 9, 2026
DNA Lounge
San Francisco, CA
Question: How do you get a metal show to be over by 8:45?
Answer: Announce that it is going to start really early, and then start it 30 minutes earlier than that.
Even as I write this, the DNA’s website clearly says doors @ 6pm; show @ 6:30pm - 9:30pm., but apparently the show started at 6 PM.
I love the DNA Lounge, but they really need to stop messing with the start times, especially for shows that are already starting early. The bands should start when advertised, or afterwards if things are running late (not something the DNA ever does, especially when they have a dance club happening after the metal show).
So I was running a little late from work, hoping to catch the end of local openers WarTroll, as I saw them once before and they were great, very entertaining to watch as well. But showing up 5 minutes before 7 PM, I barely even saw the second of three bands.
Helsótt, meaning "Fatal Illness" in Old-Norse, are a Pagan Death Metal band from Southern California. I’m not entirely familiar with the sub-genre of Pagan Death Metal, if that even is a thing.
They had some orchestral keyboard backing tracks at times that were a bit different than your standard death metal, and the singer was wearing a robe. Since I only caught the last 2 ½ songs or so I didn’t fully get into their set, but they seemed pretty decent. Not sure why the silly video above is Wild West themed.
Headliners Arkona, a Pagan Folk Metal band from Russia, were heavier than I expected. I wasn’t really sure what folk metal meant, other than the whole band was wearing gray tattered robes like medieval friars. Pagan metal definitely means robes are critical, I know that much now.
Musically Arkona had a lot of different influences and a number of songs had a fairly classic metal feel. But vocalist Masha Scream did both deep evil metal growls, mixed with higher vocals that sounded more like traditional folk songs over the heaviness. I don’t have many reference points but some of her vocals were ethereal and reminded me of Dead Can Dance or Diamanda Galas.
I’m not sure I have heard a metal band sing in Russian before. It does explain why their logo seems hard to decipher, even though it is very clean for a metal logo – the letters are Cyrillic.
“Dude, you are not going to understand the lyrics, they sing in Russian” my friend said, which I thought was pretty funny. Like you can understand extreme metal lyrics in English? Not often.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed Arkona’s set, and got into their music quite a bit more than I expected to. They had some sampled sounds, apparently some traditional Russian instruments as well, but it was well integrated into the sound and didn’t bug me like overdone backing tracks sometimes do.
Definitely worth checking out, and different from your standard metal fare. Arkona played the DNA last year supporting Belphlegor, so you may be able to catch them again in 2027.
–Hectic
