XIX. AMPHI FESTIVAL 2025
Tanzbrunnen, Cologne, Germany
19–20 July 2025
Festival Review ELECTROWELT.COM
by Malice F.
Sunday, 20 July 2025
Sunday is always the day when the body starts negotiating with the soul. The soul wants everything. The body wants shade, water and perhaps a bench. At Amphi, both usually lose.
We started early again, knowing that Sunday held some of the strongest names of the weekend for us: Anne Clark, Klangstabil, Suicide Commando, Psyclon Nine, and more. The weather shifted, the air grew humid, and later the rain would add its own dramatic punctuation to the day. Other reviews also described the 2025 edition through rain, rhythm and a strong sense of community, which is perhaps the most accurate Amphi combination possible.
Auger, the British dark rock duo, active since 2017, blending gothic rock, industrial-tinged electronics and melodic darkness, opened the Main Stage on Sunday with dark rock confidence. The British duo have an accessible but atmospheric sound, combining gothic rock, dark rock, electronic elements and emotional choruses. Their morning slot could have been difficult, but they handled it with energy and charm. They played the Orbit Stage the previous year and were invited back to open the Main Stage in 2025.
They were a fitting opener: dramatic but not overbearing, melodic but still dark enough for the hour. Their songs have that direct festival quality that reaches people quickly, especially when the audience is still gathering its strength for the long day ahead.
We quickly headed to Orbit stage for some bombastic industrial tunes with ALIEN VAMPIRES who brought a much harsher flavor to Sunday at 15:05 pm. The Italian harsh electro / industrial act known for their aggressive sound, horror imagery and extreme club energy, with aggrotech, distorted vocals, club violence and horror aesthetics was certainly not subtle — but subtlety was never the point. Their Amphi debut added a dose of brutality and excess, which worked well as a contrast to the more poetic or classic acts of the day.
At 16:10 pm we were in place at the main Amphi stage for one of the true high points of the weekend: Suicide Commando. The long-running Belgian electro-industrial / harsh EBM project of Johan Van Roy, active since the 1980s and hugely influential in the darker club scene, remains a cornerstone of harsh electro / electro-industrial, and the Amphi crowd reacted accordingly. There was no hesitation, no polite distance — just full recognition and immediate surrender to the beat. The sky was getting pretty dark, it felt like a storm might be settling in.
The Main Stage became a battlefield of familiar hooks, hard beats and shouted choruses. For us, this was one of those performances that reminded us why the harsh electro scene still works so powerfully live. It is not only aggression; it is release. The audience knows every command, every impact, every moment where the body is supposed to answer before the mind does. Suicide Commando delivered exactly that. The audience embraced them and shouted along to classics such as “Bind, Torture, Kill,” “Kill All Humanity,” “Die Motherfucker Die” and “Hellraiser.”
Setlist: “Watch Them Bleed,” “God Is in the Rain,” “Conspiracy With the Devil,” “Kill All Humanity,” “Come Down With Me,” “Cause of Death: Suicide,” “The Devil,” “Bind, Torture, Kill,” “We Are Transitory,” “Dein Herz, Meine Gier,” “Die Motherfucker Die.”
We headed in the Theater stage for a much-anticipated act, that was also scheduled to perform at our own Death Disco Open Air in Athens, Klangstabil; they were, without question, one of the emotional centres of Amphi 2025. Inside the Theater, while outside the rain was pouring down, the atmosphere became almost unbearable: packed, humid, airless, devoted. But this kind of discomfort sometimes becomes part of the ritual.
Short trivia: Klangstabil are a German electronic project by Boris May and Maurizio Blanco, known for emotional intensity, experimental electronics and a cult following built around rare, deeply affecting live performances.
The front man Boris May appeared on stage barefoot, restless, raw and completely immersed. We were blown away by “Lauf, lauf!” and his performance.
That is exactly the kind of performance Klangstabil are capable of giving: not simply a concert, but an exposure. Boris does not just sing the songs — he seems to suffer, fight, collapse and rebuild them in front of us. Maurizio’s machines create the architecture, but Boris turns it into human damage. The crowd did not merely watch. It answered. It screamed, sang, moved, and gave back whatever the band was throwing into the room.
For us, Klangstabil were among the very best of the festival. They reminded us that electronic music can be brutally human when stripped of decoration and performed with this kind of honesty.
Setlist: “To Be Honest” intro, “To Be Honest,” “Pay With Friendship,” “Math & Emotion — The Square Root of One,” “Push Yourself,” “Twisted Words,” “You May Start,” “Lauf, lauf!,” “Schattentanz,” “End of Us.”
And then outside again at 19:05 pm for the legendary, electronic music pioneer Anne Clark.
There are artists who do not need volume to dominate a festival. Anne Clark belongs to that rare category. She does not simply perform songs; she delivers language as architecture, memory, wound and pulse. For many of us, she was not merely another important name on the bill. She was one of the reasons to be there.
As the sun returned after the rain, her presence on the Main Stage felt almost symbolic. After so much sweat, noise and movement, Anne Clark brought stillness — but not weakness. There is power in restraint, and her performance proved it. The words stood at the centre, surrounded by musicianship that gave them space rather than drowning them.
For us, this was one of the most precious moments of Amphi 2025. It was not about nostalgia alone. It was about the survival of a voice that still knows how to cut through time.
When “Sleeper in Metropolis” and “Our Darkness” arrived, they carried the gravity of songs that have outlived trends, decades and countless dancefloors. Some songs do not age because they were never fashionable in the first place. They were necessary.
Setlist: “Nothing Going On,” “Alarm Call,” “This Be the Verse,” “Heaven,” “Elegy for a Lost Summer,” “Now,” “Full Moon,” “Instrumental,” “Echoes Remain Forever,” “Abuse,” “Boy Racing,” encore: “Sleeper in Metropolis,” “Our Darkness.”
Lord of the Lost, the German gothic/industrial metal band from Hamburg, fronted by Chris Harms, known for their theatrical image, heavy sound and broad crossover appeal, closed the Main Stage with the kind of grand, polished, theatrical show they are now known for. Whether one connects deeply with their style or not, it is impossible to deny their professionalism and their ability to command a large crowd. They understand scale: the gestures, the lights, the anthemic refrains, the emotional peaks.
After Anne Clark’s poetic severity, Lord of the Lost felt like a completely different festival language: huge, dramatic, glittering, metallic. The crowd was with them, and songs like “Drag Me to Hell,” “Loreley,” “Blood & Glitter” and their cover of “Smalltown Boy” gave the evening a strong closing energy.
Setlist: “Intro,” “Moonstruck,” “I Will Die in It,” “We’re All Created Evil,” “The Love of God,” “Raining Stars,” “Smalltown Boy,” “My Sanctuary,” “Intro Drag Me To Hell,” “Drag Me to Hell,” “The Future of a Past Life,” “Morgana,” “Six Feet Underground,” “Die Tomorrow,” “Blood for Blood,” “Loreley,” “Ghosts,” “Blood & Glitter.”
The Turkish darkwave/postpunk act of She Past Away were another band many of us wanted to see, although the late-night clash situation made choices painful, as always. Their Turkish-language darkwave has become one of the most recognizable modern sounds in the global goth/post-punk scene: minimal guitar lines, icy synths, hypnotic bass and that unmistakable atmosphere of urban melancholy.
The official Amphi profile described them as masters of modern post-punk/darkwave, with minimalist guitar lines, hypnotic bass and synthesizers, and noted that their Turkish roots give their sound a distinctive flavor within the international gothic scene. We aught a glimpse of some songs at the packed theater stage.
They played “Durdu Dünya,” “Katarsis,” “Disko Anksiyete,” “Asimilasyon,” “Ritüel,” “Kasvetli Kutlama,” among others.
We wanted to definitely see the American industrial/aggrotech act led by Nero Bellum, known for merging harsh electronic music with metal and extreme visual aesthetics at the Orbit Stage, Psyclon Nine at 20:45 pm, our final band for the day. They delivered one of the most violent and explosive performances of the weekend. This was not a show for the faint-hearted, nor was it meant to be. Psyclon Nine have long crossed boundaries between aggrotech, industrial, blackened electronics and metal-infused extremity, and live they turn that hybrid into confrontation. Much younger crowd here full of raw energy, Psyclon Nine brought a harsher, younger, more chaotic energy — a reminder that darkness does not only preserve; it mutates.
Their set was abrasive, physical and uncompromising.
Setlist: “Devil’s Work,” “I CHOOSE VIOLENCE,” “Shoot to Kill,” “Money and Sex and Death,” “Crawling From Cunt To Casket,” “Behind a Serrated Grin,” “Better Than Suicide,” “See You All in Hell,” “Shadows Unveiled,” “Use Once and Destroy,” “Divine Infekt,” “We the Fallen,” and more.
Final Thoughts
Amphi Festival 2025 once again proved why this gathering remains so beloved. Amphi is more concentrated, more immediate, more manageable — and sometimes, because of that, more intense. The stages are close, the clashes are cruel, the Theater gets packed, the Orbit Stage requires commitment, and the weather will always have its own opinion, but the organizers promise you an intense musical experience with many highlights. Fun is guaranteed here at the Amphi festival.
This year gave us classic voices, modern darkness, harsh electronics, synthpop memory, neofolk poetry, gothic rock tradition and industrial violence. For us, the strongest moments came from Anne Clark, Klangstabil, Suicide Commando, Psyclon Nine, ROME, Spiritual Front, The Nosferatu and TRAITRS — each for completely different reasons, each representing a different doorway into the dark scene.
Anne Clark reminded us of the power of words. Klangstabil reminded us that electronic music can be painfully human. Suicide Commando reminded us of the brutal joy of shared aggression. Psyclon Nine turned the boat into controlled chaos. ROME and Spiritual Front brought poetry, decadence and historical melancholy. The Nosferatu gave us gothic rock with teeth. TRAITRS showed why the new post-punk generation still matters.
And somewhere between the Rhine, the rain, the sweat inside the Theater, the packed boat, the familiar faces, the impossible clashes and the final exhausted walk away from Tanzbrunnen, Amphi did what Amphi always does: it made us tired, happy, emotional, and already willing to return.
Because some festivals are not only dates on a calendar. Some are part of who we have become.
See you again in 2026, AMPHI, for your 20year celebration! Looking Forward to seeing all of you dark souls!
♥ Take Care and Control!
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