Rotting Christ are perhaps one of the most iconoclastic black metal bands to have achieved worldwide fame. With Norway's Borknagar and France's Seth, they will visit Gdańsk – all bands are promoting this year's releases.

Rotting Christ started out as a rabid grindcore unit (as documented on their 1989 split with Sound Pollution), but quickly grew bored with it, switching to black metal. It was a shot in the arm – as was giving themselves the name they did – because in the darkest of metal genres, the Greeks are fully themselves and have been triumphant for years. Their approach to the mainstream is invariably characterised by immediacy combined with a thoughtful and densely pumped atmosphere and melody – it is for the melodies that everyone has come to love them. At the same time, Rotting Christ has always been a creative band that builds a style using many component parts. They have long felt a passion for gothic metal, they also incorporate almost symphonic elements from time to time and they definitely do not like the simplest solutions.

Borknagar have not been an ordinary black metal band since their debut. Despite sitting up to their ears in the genre, they were looking for ways to expand its (and at the same time their own) boundaries, and were always expanding them. They are quietly one of the most important line-ups in the field of mixing blackened matter with Nordic, nailing folk. You could hear it in the beginning, you can still hear it now, but the Norwegian line-up has never played one card. Over time, progressive elements began to be added to their arsenal, which now also form the axis of this music.

The Frenchmen of Seth are inspired by romanticism and hatred of Jesus Christ. The group has been nurturing an authorial approach to black metal since 1995 (excluding a five-year hiatus) and they do it brilliantly. Their version of the genre draws from many of its strains, but never entirely deviates from the classic patterns. Aggression and gushing evil are paramount, but this is varied by peri-folk, symphonic and highly atmospheric elements.