This year's SPOT Festival (May 27-28, 2011 in Aarhus, Denmark) was another successful industry showcase for Danish and Scandinavian music.

After a sun-baked SPOT last year, skies were gloomy for the 17th annual SPOT festival, but a splattering of rain didn't dampen the mood of the international delegates and local crowds. This is primarily an indoor festival anyway, spread across a handful of Aarhus' cultural venues and some additional tented stages.

(Speaking of Aarhus' skies, on the Saturday a rainbow-inspired installation by the artist Olafur Eliasson, whose works play with the idea of manufacturing the weather, opened on the roof of the Aros contemporary gallery. The permanent work is called "Your Rainbow Panorama", and from now on anyone who comes here for the SPOT Festival can also walk inside it to experience colourful 360 degree views of Aarhus below. For more info on that, see www.aros.dk)

Among the most talked about new bands at SPOT this year was Just A Number 05272011, with a sound garnering comparisons to Fever Ray and The Knife. The band played their first ever public gig here, having previously only been heard online.

Ahead of the show the act was shrouded in mystery, with some people believing Just A Number to be a male solo artist from the Isle of Man, as mischievously implied on their SoundCloud site. Some journalists told me they had sought interview, and been turned down.

The show didn't feature any Knife-style masks or disguises though, and revealed them to be a mixed-gender band, fronted by a female singer. I'm told by someone who works with them that they are Danes, despite one of the two festival programs listing them as Swedes. They played a great, innovative set, realising dance music through live instrumentation. If you want to check them out, here's a link: http://soundcloud.com/just-a-number-05272011

Female performers seemed to dominate this year's most packed-out SPOT shows, in the shape of acts like Denmark's Our Broken Garden a vehicle for the beautifully spooky vocals of Anna Bronsted. She and her band played an intimate show in the city's cathedral the night before the festival, and on the Friday night were the final act to play the main Musikhuset venue.

Two very different sirens of Danish pop/rock, Fallulah and Oh Land, each drew big crowds and kept them dancing. Oh Land's strength and vigour as a live performer allowed her show to transcend its wilfully dippy lyrics about dream and rainbows.

Less full, but brilliant, was a show by Norwegian indie rockers Harrys Gym. Fun fact: singer Anne Lise Frøkedal is apparently the sister of The Megaphonic Thrift's bassist Linn Frøkedal.

Sweden's Jenny Wilson is a woman who has transformed her music and herself since her time fronting the band First Floor Power, finding inspiration in R&B and funk. She played her SPOT show on Friday night in the main Musikhuset, with the Tensta Gospel Choir. Nina Kinert, a cult Swedish indie star in her own right, added flute and saxophone. Wilson seemed to be on a Grace Jones tip in a daring black cat suit and 'statement' hat, and fans were out in force to cheer her on.

SPOT wasn't all about the girls, though. Vinnie Who returned for a show that was packed out in seconds, and the festival would have felt incomplete without Treefight For Sunlight, Danes who now have an increasingly international fanbase thanks to support from the label Bella Union.

It was also a special festival for Alcoholic Faith Mission, who were upgraded this year to playing the main Store Sal hall of the Musikhuset venue, and whose pre-stage jitters (their manager says they were very nervous) were rewarded by a standing ovation at the end of their set.

For those who came looking for Icelandic sounds, there were shows by Dad Rocks!, the solo project of expat Snævar Njáll Albertsson from Mimas; 'Icelandic Elvis' Mugison; and the bands Ham and Dikta. Dikta's single "Thank you" recently became the most-played song in the history of Icelandic radio, for what that's worth.

Acts who seemed to win new fans included chirpy Danish sisters Pil and Liv and, gaining a lot of attention, the rather lovely and eccentric Danish band Raised Among Wolves.

To check out the full list of musicians who played SPOT this year and hear their music, visit www.spotfestival.dk

- Sophy Grimshaw

With less big-name international bands on the bill than previous festivals and a year that's seen riots and a pots-and-pans revolution in Iceland, the emphasis was very much on the more brutal end of the extensive local talent base to keep the natives happy and at the aforementioned bar on the Saturday night -- at the peak of the festival's four days of madness -- they exceeded expectations, with a little help from Canada's Cancer Bats. But that's not to say the local bands, amongst which some truly promising talent emerged, proved to be a disappointment.

As a dedicated metal night organised by British metal magazine Kerrang!, there was just one way for the evening to start and Ten Steps Away, a four piece from the suburban sprawl of Reykjavik's outskirts, provided ample opportunity for those floors to get some moisture. Combining some fairly radio-friendly riffs and arena-style posturing, they captured the brash confidence of the night in a stroke even if their music couldn't be considered adventurous. But what they do -- light metal with soul and not a little emotion -- they do very well and with a poise that makes them eminently watchable, if not surprisingly brilliant. Beer was spilt, but not enough.

Noise, a well-established band containing members of the sadly now defunct Sign and likened to Velvet Revolver, came up around mid-evening, just as the notoriously late-coming crowd began to trickle into town and take stock of the dozen or so shows it's possible to see at one time. They provided a more classic metal sound, grinding their way through a set of 80s old-school rock that was tighter than a puffin's backside and just as juicy (roasted in brenninvin -- a real evil brew of a spirit -- is best). Their drummer is called The Eagle and he, along with the rest of the band, showed that you can show off with your instruments without being dressed in spandex or living in decades past.

The rain might have been soaking anyone who dared make a worthy dash between venues to watch as many bands as possible, but being anchored to Sódóma felt like a cleansing antidote to some of the softer music that had dominated the first few days of the festival. The likes of the Brainlove Records day-long jam at Karamba, America's The Golden Filter and Sweden's The Tiny had all left a positive impression with a mix of airy folk (The Tiny), pumped retro synth (Golden Filter) and general goodly madness (all of Brainlove Records), but none had hit the home run just yet. Local alt-rock stalwarts Dikta came nearest but they lacked bite, despite possessing some excellent tracks that you could imagine being played on heavy rotation on mainstream radio.

It was time to make a dash to check out For A Minor Reflection at a graceful old theatre that'd been turned over to the festival for the week. The setting was perfectly suited to the young band's mildly aggressive post-rock compositions and they drew a huge crowd, many of which were chattering in admiration as they headed out into the rain again. For A Minor Reflection, in retrospect, were one of the highlights of the festival. Their grasp of instrumental rock music is staggering given their tender years and relative inexperience -- they are one band who, if anyone at the festival deserves it, will be spread far and wide across the globe just as Explosions In The Sky have been over recent years.

A brief stop at the Reykjavik Art Museum to see Britain's Cocknbullkid (they were too dull to even waste your time with, dear reader) only hastened a return to Sódóma to see Cancer Bats, who'd landed at Keflavik airport only hours before after a long flight from Canada. Perhaps being straight edge worked in their favour, considering the circumstances, and they launched into a set of explosive post-hardcore metal that had crowd surfers clamouring for the front and everyone else straining to see lead singer Liam before he took to the monitor stack. To say their performance was popular would be a gross understatement -- the atmosphere was the most volcanic of the entire festival and tracks from their highly-rated album "Hail destroyer" were despatched all too quickly for the baying audience. New material was also aired to a similar reception.

For sure, the floor was sticky now and the crowd took to subsequent bands Shogun and hardcore mainstays Klink with equal relish. "Fuck Trentemøller! Fuck Trentemøller!" announced Klink towards the end of the night, in reference to the Danish DJ who was performing at the dance-orientated NASA only a couple hundred meters away, and there wasn't a single person there who would rather have been dancing to 4/4 with some carpet under their feet. Metal ruled the festival, and long may it continue.

Words by Ben H. Murray