FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS 2025: THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE OF HEAVY CEREMONY

(Denver-based NCS writer Gonzo prepared the following extensive report on this year’s edition of the Fire in the Mountains festival. All photos except where noted by Jacob Juno.)

Like more than a few who will read this, the experience of the 2022 Fire in the Mountains festival left an indelible mark on me. That July weekend in the Tetons, now over three years in the rearview mirror, gave more than just a weekend of music in the wilderness to everyone in attendance. It took what easily could’ve been a risky one-off experiment and turned it into something decidedly different. Its success can be measured entirely by the community it built over those three unforgettable days.

Some of it was the incredible lineup, which included Enslaved, YOB, Wolves in the Throne Room, Wayfarer, and many others. Still more of it was the beautiful setting just outside Grand Teton National Park. But so much beyond that felt intangible, as if any human tongue lacked the words necessary to describe how it felt to be there.

I thought about all of this as I finished packing up my Subaru to the brim with camping gear two weeks ago. The wait was over. After three long years of uncertainty, the Fire in the Mountains festival would finally be making its triumphant return in a new place, rife with the potential for new beginnings.

And even though I didn’t know it at the time, the 2025 edition of this festival would not only obliterate every expectation I had for it, but it would signal the dawn of a new kind of heavy ceremony, paving the way for yet another weekend for which I’d struggle to find the words to describe.

The following recap is me trying anyway.

photo courtesy of FITM

Friday, July 25

The previous day, we’d finished the 14-hour drive from Denver to Red Eagle Campground on the Blackfeet Nation, the site of the 2025 festival. Set just outside Glacier National Park, these lands have belonged to the Blackfeet for thousands of years. You can feel it the moment you step out of your car and put a foot on the ground for the first time. The people and the land share the kind of connection here that fades out of view in the Western world, underneath a slog of emails and advertising and TikTok and glorifying the soulless grind of a 40-hour workweek.

The mountains in this part of the country are breathtaking. They have a certain sense of grandeur that defies reason or explanation. They would tower over our shadows all weekend, watching over us as age-old guardians of a land that has nearly been ripped from rightful hands countless times over the past several hundred years.

The short version of how these sacred new grounds became unlikely hosts for a weekend of heavy music: FITM organizers Jeremy Walker and Shane McCarthy, among others, discovered Red Eagle Campground was not only perfect for hosting an event like this, but also a spot whose people were actually excited to welcome some 2,000 outsiders.

But much like 2022, this wouldn’t be treated as a transaction. It would be the beginning of a new relationship between two worlds that simply haven’t had the chance to interact with each other to any meaningful extent. Beautiful things can be unearthed and forged in situations like this, and Thursday’s welcoming—which featured a grand procession from the Blackfeet tribe involving traditional dance and ceremony—was a breathtaking start.

11:30 am
My group of three had been escaping the oppressive heat of the morning in the chilly waters of Two Medicine Lake. This would be one of many dips we’d be taking, especially considering the festival grounds didn’t come with showers. The lake was the only bath I’d need for the next few days.

1 pm
Upon returning to camp, we discovered the intense wind had blown our canopy off our tent. A kind camp neighbor told us he’d re-staked it as best he could, and that our stuff “went for a little ride.” This level of kindness is hard to come by in real life, let alone at a festival.

2:30 pm
As we walked through “town,” where the general store, food vendors, merch booth, and artists were slowly starting to open their respective doors, the festival was starting to feel alive. Just over the course of a few hours, we’d met people from as far as Florida and Louisiana who’d driven the entire way. Clearly, it would take much more than a three-year gap to erode this community. Even still, I’d talked to just as many people who’d gone in 2022 as those who hadn’t. The buzz, apparently, was very real.

4:05 pm
Einar Selvik of Wardruna fame was hosting a workshop titled “Weaving New Sounds with Sources of Ancient Nordic Musicology,” and I wasn’t about to miss any of it. This year’s FITM made sure not to treat any of its many workshops, sessions, and lectures like afterthoughts. They were all very prominently featured throughout the weekend, with the Blackfeet culture proudly leading the way.

Today, Einar was talking about what goes into performing Wardruna’s music, how he draws inspiration from ancient music and related instruments, and he even played a couple of songs for us. This man is a true artist and an amazing performer. As captivated as I was by all of this, I then realized that this festival was already delivering an incredible experience and, except for the quick couple of songs Einar played alone during this workshop, we hadn’t even seen an actual set yet.

4:59 pm
We found a nice hay bale to sit on to watch the opening ceremony in front of the Lone Walker stage—one of two performance areas that sat side by side. This would be where we’d spend most of our time over the next few days, as every set was going to be featured here on either the Lone Walker or Running Eagle stages. An underrated advantage of small festivals like this: No overlapping set times, no soul-crushing decisions to make.

5:28 pm
Robert Hall, one of the locals who’d be presenting a few of the bands, took the stage to let us know we’re “running on Indian time” while on the rez, so the opening ceremony was running a little behind. This wasn’t a problem, even though I was slowly turning into a baked potato while sitting in this much direct sunlight.

5:31 pm
The opening ceremony starts, and my jaw is on the fucking floor. Elders from the Blackfeet tribe sang us their flag song with traditional drums—wearing garb that white people don’t get to see someone wearing very often. It was a beautiful and fearless display of culture that has survived centuries of oppression and mistreatment, and powerful enough to evoke at least a single tear to escape down the cheek of this writer.

6:02 pm
With the hypnotizing sound of Blackfeet voices still reverberating off the mountains, Navajo singer/songwriter Sage Bond was already well into her set. I’d heard a few of her songs before tonight, but nothing I heard prepared me for her downright diabolical death growls. “This one has more Cookie Monster vocals,” she said with a wry grin, after ripping her way through a few tracks that ranged from the serene to the savage.

This music, this setting—all of it was practically radiating a palpable energy throughout the crowd. It was almost as if a real, tangible entity was introducing itself to us. I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the first of many instances I’d be feeling this way over the next 48 hours.

7:31 pm
I’m back from getting frybread from a food truck that was so good I had to sit down and think about my life. Denver-based Munly is on the Lone Walker stage with his merry band of Lepercalians. These guys are always a treat to see live, even if it’s a bit weird to see them play at dusk in a setting like this. (Let’s just say it’s a far cry from the likes of upstairs at the Skylark in Denver at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday.)

8:14 pm
Munly is cooking, but the man himself apologized not once but twice that he wasn’t playing his best tonight, and everyone in the audience reacted with audible confusion. They were slaying it, even if Munly’s self-critique was on overdrive. Art is a cruel mistress.

9:10 pm
The versatile Krallice was treating us all to a special set of their ambient electronic stuff, and right around then, I decided to treat myself to another non-alcoholic beer. I don’t know how many 0.5% beers you need to drink to feel the least bit buzzed, but apparently, it’s more than six.

9:53 pm
Finland’s Hexvessel finally found their way to the FITM stage, and it was a moment that wasn’t lost on band or crowd alike. The band had to cancel their appearances at the previous two FITMs because of unexpected circumstances, and their gratitude for still being invited to play was almost tangible. The band led the way through their gentler, softer side this evening, and it was fantastic. They’d be returning the following night, whereupon they’d put on black hoods and use their mean voices for the entire set. I’d be there for it.

11:05 pm
My head is getting heavier to hold upright, but before I trudge back to my tent, I’m determined to let Chelsea Wolfe sing me to sleep first. It didn’t take long for her hypnotically dark folk to help my overstimulated brain slow down in the most pleasant of ways, and when I got back to camp, I could still hear her singing as I stared at the stars before closing my eyes. What a crazily good start to the weekend.

 

Saturday, July 26

Waking up in a tent on any given morning during a festival can be a miserable experience. If the hangover doesn’t get you, the weather probably will. Seeing that this is far from my first rodeo, I had convinced myself that waking up in 80-degree heat with a splitting headache was all part of the experience.

With this year’s FITM being 100% alcohol-free, though, I was amazed to see so many people bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the otherwise unthinkable hour of 8 a.m. Several people were already convening in the makeshift community kitchen, sharing food and stories and getting to know one another.

Having booze here seemed pointless. It was also by design, though, as Blackfeet Nation has historically had a very bad relationship with alcohol. The decision not to have any of it during this year’s festival was a bold move at first, but after a couple days, I’d even argue that no booze was one of this festival’s greatest strengths.

9:45 am
I kicked off the day with a panel discussion featuring tribal lawyer Evan Thompson and writer Sterling HolyWhiteMountain. The pair would be talking about sovereignty and what that word means in a tribal context.

As it turns out, there’s a lot to it—and a lot of it is fucked up in ways most Americans don’t understand. For one thing, the American Civil Rights Act offers no protections for natives living on reservations. Thompson, a wealth of knowledge on his own, also gave us the staggering fact that there are over 500 tribes living in the US, and only one constitution for all of them. One.

The rest of this train of thought could be a separate post by itself. Suffice to say it was eye-opening.

10:30 am
I stayed put at this beautiful lakeside spot to hear the next talk, titled “Heavy Music Heals,” moderated by the amazing dude behind Firekeeper Alliance, Charlie Speicher. This one was all about how the “Heavy Music Symposium” came to be at nearby Browning High School and how it’s affecting the students there. This program seems like the coolest thing to ever grace the halls of any high school anywhere: It focuses on listening to, playing, and discussing heavy music, from the early days of Sabbath into the modern-day world of Wayfarer, YOB, Year of the Cobra, and so many others. (All of those bands had members who participated in the program via Zoom calls or in-person jam sessions with the students.)

Where the hell was any of this when I was in high school?

Colin Sibbernsen, a history teacher at the school (and a face I’d see in almost every mosh pit through the rest of the weekend), seemed especially passionate about this, and said the program is literally changing the lives of his students right before his very eyes. The pure joy these kids had in their eyes when talking about their favorite bands was infectious.

1:25 pm
I rolled into the farm-to-festival barbecue that was graciously offered as an add-on. My group had pounced on these tickets as soon as they went on sale. Will there ever be another time you can eat freshly hunted bison on the land they’ve been on for thousands of years? Probably not.

The feast was every bit as delicious as I imagined, and the company that catered the entire thing was composed of incredible human beings.

3 pm
At long last, it was time for distorted guitars, guttural vocals, mosh pits, and corpse-painted faces. Two days of opening fanfare had primed us all for this cathartic moment, and indigenous black metal outfit Pan-Amerikan Native Front were ready to deliver the first set of the weekend on the Running Eagle stage.

Clad in animal furs, bullet belts, and at the end of set, actual bison blood, this hardened crew might not have been a household name to many of us in attendance, but their set may have changed that forever. Galloping blast beats, lightning-fast tremolos, and blast-furnace vocals propelled this set into instant infamy. The pit got rolling with hardly a note played, and the ensuing cyclone of smiles and dust let everyone know very quickly that this was probably going to be one of the best weekends of anyone’s life. On stage, Pan-Amerikan Native Front is simply a force to be reckoned with.

3:45 pm
I’m still reattaching my head to my neck, but Philly’s Witching is mercilessly punctual. Vocalist Jacqui Powell’s paint-peeling shrieks lead the charge on the smaller Lone Walker stage, drawing in a crowd that was still very fresh and ready for chaos.

Witching’s blackened sludge assault was a perfect follow-up to PANF’s ferocity, and they earned themselves at least a few new fans when the dust settled.

4:43 pm
What began as a simple walk to hide from the sun turned into a spiritual experience I didn’t know I needed.

Steve Von Til, whose haunting solo material has turned him into the Tom Waits of metal, took the stage. Like many of the other bands appearing this weekend, he’s been very close to the FITM organization leading up to this. He invited the crowd to come get lost in sound with him at the start of the set, and we were happy to oblige.

Back to my walk, though. The sparse clouds in the sky offered only temporary respite from the sweltering heat, so the trees next to Two Medicine Lake were an appealing detour. The perfect tranquility of this scene is really impossible to convey with words. Just as Steve and his band effortlessly melted into the beginning notes of “The Corpse Road,” something incredible happened. Scores of people began finding an open spot off the trail, laid down, and let this music wash over them like rays of sunlight piercing through the trees.

It was an immensely beautiful moment. I spent almost the entire set walking along the lake path in quiet disbelief, occasionally lost in my own meditation. This was simply incredible.

5:35 pm
I emerged from the transcendent experience in the woods for hydration and food. Two-person indigenous black metal duo Lilith began their set on the Lone Walker stage. With no cell service in the campground, finding people took a little extra effort. I found mine without too much of a problem and we watched some of Lilith’s time from a shaded spot.

6:05 pm
After telling my group about the woods experience during Steve Von Til’s performance, we decided to revisit that idea for Panopticon at the Running Eagle stage. These days, I feel like I haven’t gone a full year without seeing Austin Lunn & co. play at least once, and I considered myself lucky to have seen them for the second time in less than six months. (The previous time was of course in May in Seattle at Northwest Terror Fest.)

After FITM was over, I saw Austin post a pic he took from the stage of one guy sitting in a lawn chair, watching the band’s set from what was effectively the woods. Said guy wasn’t me, but I felt like it was the kind of “this guy gets it” moment that united us all.

7:15 pm
I went into this weekend with the low-key feeling that California’s Tzompantli would be one of the highlights. Turns out, I wasn’t wrong.

Right from the opening crack of the drums, the relationship between the audience and the band for the next 45 minutes was what I could only describe as ceremonial. Tzompantli was in complete control, pounding out immense riffs with knuckle-dragging heaviness, and the pit reacted like a cobra under the spell of a snake charmer’s flute. The symbiosis of all this was hypnotizing to watch. The crowd simply could not get enough of these guys, present company included.

7:55 pm
The serotonin overflow in my brain almost wouldn’t allow me to process the thought of seeing Blood Incantation on the Running Eagle stage. The risk of spontaneous combustion seemed real at this point, but it was one of many I was willing to take.

The minute Paul Riedl and his stalwart group of spaced-out death dealers assembled on stage, reality as everyone knew it ceased to exist. There was just us, them, and the masterpiece of Absolute Elsewhere. It felt less like a festival set and more like a ritual meant to rouse some ancient god out of a thousand-year slumber. For almost an hour, we existed together in this liminal space.

I’m not sure which crossroads demon made a deal with Blood Incantation, but they play with the unhinged mysticism of otherworldly beings. After playing the first half of Elsewhere, Riedl pointed to a random dude standing at front and center and said, “it’s time to play the B side of this record.”

“You!” he pointed, “turn the record around, like this,” as he demonstrated with an invisible record, staring directly at this guy. The guy responded with a blank stare at first, unsure if he was indeed the person Riedl was speaking to. Mother of fuck, I thought, what a hell of a time for this guy to realize that wasn’t a microdose.

8:51 pm
The sun has finally started to disappear beneath the horizon. Finland’s Hexvessel assembles on the Lone Walker stage, clad in distinctly different garb than they were last night. Their heavy set is magnificent, featuring all the icy angst of their two most recent albums, Polar Veil and Nocturne. I love it, but I also need to get back to the tent for a change of clothes before the temperature drops another 20 degrees.

9:30 pm
We’re back on the hill from where we saw Panopticon earlier, but this time, we brought our hoodies. The most anticipated set of the weekend was nigh, and that was none other than Norway’s Wardruna. The moments before Einar Selvik and his incredible group of performers appeared on stage, the night was radiating with the kind of magic you feel when you’re a kid about to watch a 4^th of July fireworks show.

Much like Blood Incantation earlier, all distractions and other stimuli instantly evaporated when Wardruna started playing. Truly transcendent moments don’t happen very often. When they do, you don’t always recognize it at the time. It’s only after you’re back on this plane of existence that you can fully understand what you just witnessed.

Seeing Wardruna in a setting like this is an experience I will never forget. The drums and effects seemed to conjure every spirit that had laid dormant on this land for so long, freeing them from their sadness stasis and giving them space to heal and rejoice. Selvik’s beautiful voice was a call to every person, animal, and entity throughout these mountains to revel in this moment, to vibrate like they never have before. It was almost perceptible to the naked eye.

I thought I wouldn’t have the words to describe how deeply profound this experience was. I still don’t know if I do, but they’ll have to suffice in the meantime.

I went to sleep that night as a different version of the person I was when I woke up. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but I knew one thing for certain: I wasn’t the only one who felt this way.

 

Sunday, July 27

I woke up this morning feeling unusually rested for having spent three nights in a tent at a festival. Connecting with this land has its benefits, and if you’re listening, it’ll help you. In my case, my insomnia couldn’t hurt me here.

It was barely 9 a.m. and the breakfast tent was filled with people recounting the incomprehensible majesty we all witnessed last night. I heard a lot of conversations happening with words like “transcendent,” “life-changing,” “revolution,” and “fucking wow.” Our group enjoyed a very pleasant morning recapping all of this over bacon and eggs. I’d long since mastered the art of bringing more coffee than we’d need to a festival, and we made fast friends with many others because of it.

I briefly caught up with festival founder and organizer Jeremy Walker at the barbecue pit area. Naively, I asked him when he first got here to start bringing this weekend to life, and he said wearily, “two weeks ago. I got here two weeks ago.”

As I said earlier this year in my FITM preview piece, this man’s commitment to making this festival amazing cannot possibly be overstated. He’s an incredible guy, and we’re lucky to have his passion leading the way.

11:55 am
After taking one last dip in the perfectly frigid waters of Two Medicine Lake, we ventured off to go find the spot for the Blackbraid III listening party. Metal Injection co-founder Frank Godla was there with band multi-instrumentalist Jon Krieger to talk about the new record after we heard it, and my main conclusion from the event was that this new record is an absolute banger. Grab your copy here.

2 pm
After devouring another round of the generously prepared bison barbecue feast, we were all set for one more day on this incredible land.

With full bellies and hydrated bodies, we wandered down to the Running Eagle stage for the day’s welcoming coronation. Tribal elders came out to sing another traditional Blackfeet song before Majesties would take the reins for their first-ever live performance.

3 pm
The Minnesota metal crew displayed zero nerves and came out all guns blazing with “The World Unseen.” With a debut album as good as Vast Reaches Unclaimed, it was truly only a matter of time until these guys, whose members have spent time with bands like Panopticon, Hulder, Obsequiae, and Crypt Sermon, to grace the world with a blistering live set such as this. I hope it’s not the last time any of this happens.

3:45 pm
Power trio Sonja takes the stage at Lone Walker, and I am already feeling the sun burn my face to a crisp. It’s time to make a run back to the tent for a re-up on the sunscreen and hydration, and I wandered back down to the stage area to see the band wrap things up from a shaded spot. Their performance at Northwest Terror Fest had certainly earned them a few new fans and today would be no exception to that.

4:20 pm
The venerable 4:20 hour is always worth celebrating, and Blackbraid would’ve come out hot even if it was 4:20 a.m. Featuring two new songs from the forthcoming record and every other track of indigenous metallic fury, the Appalachians had never looked this charged up.

The unlikely highlight? A dude waving an actual bison rib while running in the circle pit. This is one image that’s sure to be immortalized as an emblem of this festival, I thought to myself.

5:50 pm
BardSpec, the solo project of Enslaved’s Ivar Bjørnson, is starting his set of electronica that felt like a nice interlude before the rest of the evening’s lineup. As much fun as the techno Viking was, it was time to begin the formidable task of rearranging some of the gear in the car so tomorrow’s all-day drive could start a little earlier. I dreaded it, especially with the heat being frustratingly prevalent, but it had to be done.

7:55 pm
We were able to catch some of Emma Ruth Rundle’s beautiful solo set before Converge made their grand entrance on the Running Eagle stage. Accompanied by a thoroughly awesome introduction by Firekeeper Alliance’s Charlie Speicher, the seminal hardcore crew got right down to business as if it were any other “normal” show.

“Dark Horse,” “Predatory Glow,” and “All We Love We Leave Behind” punctuated the most intense and rowdy pit the weekend had seen yet, and predictably so. If there’s one band that I never expected to see on an FITM stage, it was them. But that’s not to say they were out of place at all. Their inclusion was just as intentional as anyone else’s, and even after 25 years, this band leaves everything on stage when the dust settles.

9:02 pm
As the sun set one last time on this year’s Fire in the Mountains, it was time for the backwoods boys in Inter Arma to twist our brains into dissonant dust. These guys have been among my favorite bands for much of the last decade, and every time I see them play, it’s a decidedly different experience than the last.

This time, though, would prove to be something out of a fan fiction story.

As they were ramping up the intensity during “The Long Road Home,” the power was completely and abruptly cut. Both stages went dark instantly. Confusion and groans of frustration were audible immediately, but drummer TJ Childers was having none of it. He seized the moment in legendary form.

He continued an impromptu drum solo through the first minute or so of the outage. When it became clear that this issue wasn’t going to be magically solved in a matter of seconds, Childers charged into the intro of Slayer’s “Raining Blood,” and let the entire crowd chime in on vocals.

We all ended up singing the entire song. Just us, having our moment, while Childers continued to seize his.

Another minute goes by. Still darkness. Childers shrugged it off and started playing the unmistakable drum intro to “War Pigs,” and the entire crowd swallowed it whole.

“This wasn’t the Ozzy tribute I thought it’d be,” I said to a camera man on the other side of the barricade. He cackled and kept shooting.

When the power was finally restored to an avalanche of enthusiastic cheers, vocalist Mike Paparo casually asked which song should be next, and I’d like to think my deafening shout of “CITADEL” influenced their decision at least a little bit. That song could cave in skulls when played at this volume, and Inter Arma crushed it as if nothing had interrupted them.

As if all of this could somehow be topped, the band brought out some extra snare drums, as well as students from Browning High School, to help them finish up the drum outro. Childers led the way for them, helping them come to a perfectly synchronized close.

The instant the music stopped, the gods themselves showed their approval with an instantaneous clap of thunder, a lightning strike that pierced the clouds with iridescent haze, and a downpour that all but seemed like it was holding off until the band was done.

Nature, it seemed, was not a passive observer of this festival.

10:20 pm (or thereabouts)
The downpour was threatening to become a real issue, and we huddled under the shade structure in front of the Lone Walker stage for cover. When it became clear that the lightning might become more of a problem than anyone would like to admit, we fled the stage area to make sure our campsite wasn’t about to turn into a mudslide.

10:31 pm
Thankfully, our camp was spared, save a few wet items. There was nothing we could do except wait it out at this point, and hope that Old Man’s Child could still play their anticipated first-ever set in the US.

10:40 pm
The rain stopped, and festival crewmembers rode through camp on ATVs shouting “GAME ON!” through a bullhorn.

Who the fuck needs technology, anyway?

10:51 pm
The Running Eagle stage is looking back to its original grandeur, and Galder & co. come out to a roaring ovation from a thousand very exhausted people.

Old Man’s Child didn’t let any bad weather get in the way of doing what they do. They casually tore through the set that everyone had been waiting over 20 years to see, featuring “Towards Eternity,” “Soul Possessed,” “Doommaker,” and the monstrous “The Millennium King.”

It was the kind of closing statement that only Fire in the Mountains could deliver. Conspiring with the gods to make the final evening all the more dramatic might as well have been part of the playbook. Nobody could’ve predicted the unforgettable close to this weekend. I could practically hear the land speaking to me as we trudged back up a muddy path to our tent one last time.

I officially had no sense of time at this point
Because the music was always audible all the way back to camp, we decided to let Blood Incantation play us a Timewave Zero lullaby to close things out.

I stared up at the sky from our cozy tent as the band moved through their dungeon-synth album from start to finish.

How in the hell am I ever going to write about this, I asked myself. What words are there to even convey the joy, the raw emotion, and the pure spiritual revelation that this weekend gave us? It all felt like a gift I was barely worthy of receiving.

I woke up the next morning with an acute sense of inspiration. The blood, sweat, and tears that everyone in this crew put in—from security and food prep to construction, sanitation, and everything else—has transformed what began as a small Wayfarer show in the Wyoming wilderness into the most profound experience I’ve ever had as a music fan.

It’s a new era for Fire in the Mountains. Whereas we left Heart Six Ranch with so much uncertainty in 2022, we left the Blackfeet Nation in 2025 with the assured sense that this wouldn’t be the last time we’d be here. A new kind of heavy ceremony has been born, and this festival has finally found a home where that spirit and that energy can grow beyond anything we ever imagined.

 
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