Viva Sounds 2025
Gothenburg, Sweden
27-29th November 2025

From streams to sticky floors, is the future of indie music offline? Louder Than War’s Christopher Lloyd returns to Gothenburg to report on this year’s Viva Sounds Festival.

As winter takes hold, the snow avoids falling in Gothenburg, replaced by a low level fog with lashings of punishing rain. It’s a kind of weather that makes you think of home; I could be walking just a half a mile from my house and have this wet, grey sky looming above. The weather also acts as a great metaphor for the Viva Sounds festival itself. From when I first stepped foot in the Majorna district of Gothenburg three festivals ago, right up to my arrival at Landvetter airport this time round, the festival feels like home. Where the aim of most showcase festivals is to make contacts within the industry and to source some great bands to write about and program into other festivals worldwide, Viva has a distinctly different feel. It’s more low-key and the emphasis really is on an absolute love of the scene, and the people that work within it. It’s an inclusive attitude that makes you feel that you are making friends, not colleagues, and all in a city that has a harder edge to its big brother Stockholm.

Of the four days the festival takes place, the first two is for us delegates. Far from it being a cavalcade of boring power point presentations over bottled sparkling water and canapés, it’s all about real drinks, real food, real connections and real subjects, from how best to market young indie bands worldwide in an era of nightmarish visa scenarios, right through to how to navigate the streaming algorithms.

It’s strange to state that when the conference is over the partying commences, as the conference itself includes a bowling session that sees yours truly placed on a team that loves a shot for every strike. Two delegates from a German metal label and a Danish music group respectively seem to score a strike every round of the two games, which puts a serious doubt as to whether I’ll actually be sober enough to get to see any band actually play… Worry not, though, as professional as ever I manage to spend the Friday and Saturday catching some fantastic bands over the multitude of venues, spanning from fantastic thrash metal with saxophone (Agabas, from Norway) to the Elasticaesque harmony fuelled brilliance from NYC’s up and coming Skorts.

There are so many bands to fit in, but here are a handful that are highlights for me.

Child are BRUTAL!!!! Taking to the cramped stage at The Abyss, they lay waste to a packed mosh pit with heavily political punk metal that weaves in just enough melodic breaks and unexpected turns to lift it well above the typical thrash that can often tire quickly, creating something genuinely unique. Incidentally, returning to my theme of feeling at home at Viva Sounds: in last year’s review I accidentally referred to The Abyss as “The Asylum”. The Asylum is a fantastic rock bar in my home city of Birmingham. More proof that it all feels homely, and a venue I’d love to see Child come over to play…

Boutique Feelings from the Mothland label in Montreal play a couple of sets over the festival; a strange amalgam of jazzy instrumentation, heady beats and, at times, furious rapping spat out from a velveteen voice. Some older readers may remember a one album wonder band called Earthling back in the mid-Nineties. Boutique Feelings have a similar vibe, but more stretched out and progressive. Plus they have a flautist that not only adds to the sound, but elevates it. How often can you see a flautist play with a band and not flee in terror, but actually love it? Good Work BF.

Swedish band Virginia and the Flood claim to channel the sound of Twin Peaks via Bristol. With the ethereal vocals and striking face paint of Cornelia Adamson, they wouldn’t feel out of place in The Roadhouse; yet at times they jolt you out of that Lynchian haze with crunching electronic beats. Imagine Lana Del Rey having a fistfight with The Knife while a mist descends over the dancefloor, crackling with electric fuzz and entranced audience members, and you’re on the right track.

The award for the most fun artist to hang around with at the festival goes to Semiah and her collaborator, Maggie. A Rez Dog from Six Nations, Semiah plays two sets over the weekend, both being a mishmash of singer-songwriter acoustic gems and some of the best electronic pop songs of the year, let alone the festival. The dance moves and audience interaction are plentiful, and in both sets the performers exude confidence and an absolute joy at being in Gothenburg and performing. It’s totally infectious and perfectly reflects their offstage personas. Check out Clementine and I defy you not to have it stuck in your head for days.

The only UK band I managed to catch over the festival, Mellt, hail from Aberystwyth and perform in their Welsh mother tongue. As someone whose surname begins with a double “LL”, I’d love to be able to tell you what they were yacking on about, but sadly I don’t speak Welsh. What I can say, however, is that their music is an accomplished blend of late-’80s indie, weaving in echoes of The Jam and The Smiths, yet carrying a distinctly Welsh twang that lifts it beyond mere imitation and into something more nuanced and individualistic.

Three years in, and I finally make it to a venue I’ve yet to visit: Kulturlagret. It appears to sit in the middle of a housing estate, and it’s eerily quiet. I have to knock on the door to get in, and when I do I’m greeted by a very dark room where Sputnik Falls are already on stage. The band are very young, but their stagecraft is tight, a curious blend of Emo and Grunge that isn’t derivative of either, instead carrying its own Scandinavian twist. It also seems they’ve built quite a following among the younger girls, who crowd the barrier afterwards, clamouring for autographs. It wasn’t the most packed gig of the weekend, but with their accomplished sound and solid fan base, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sputnik Falls appearing on some of the bigger Viva Sounds stages in future.

Newly signed to the Stockholm based Punk Slime Recordings, Oslo based four-piece Veps craft an effortlessly mellow style of indie pop that mostly simmers gently, occasionally breaking out into repetitive, catchy hooks before drifting back into the dreamy indie-pop sea of comfort that has you closing your eyes and nodding along.

The highlight of the festival for me, EF, are here to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Give Me Beauty Or Give Me Death, re-recorded for the occasion and performed in full at Viva Sounds with added brass and string sections. I’d first heard about them last year and my curiosity was sparked after a chat with the lovely John Kennedy from Radio X, who told me how his listeners had been reacting with genuine shock at how good EF were, and how baffled they were not to have heard of them before.

The moment EF take to the stage and ease into the opener, ETT, every jaw in the room hits the floor. The sheer scope of the sound is immense: post-rock mastery of the highest order, leaving you wondering how on earth they aren’t already huge. I won’t lazily name drop the usual post-rock comparisons, but I can say they delivered a set better than some so-called genre heroes I’ve seen.

Midway through, the band is joined by the vocalist from local legends Makthaverskan for We’ll Meet In The End, and, for the first time in a long while I see multiple audience members visibly in tears. The whole performance is utterly moving. You have to check them out. Quite possibly the best set I’ve ever seen at Viva Sounds… this year or any year.

The final night arrives, and it’s time for Sylvie’s Head, a band I end up seeing twice, playing almost identical sets in two very different environments that completely changes how their music lands. The first takes place on a boat sailing around the shores of Gothenburg. Down in the basement, the band delivers what feels like a come-down set, largely thanks to the boat’s muted sound system, yet the crowd still receives them rapturously. It seems Sylvie’s Head are fast becoming local heroes.

Their headline slot at Pustervik, however, is a different beast entirely. Those muted, hazy tones are transformed into a snarling, post-baggy, nightmarishly funky fusion, like a multi-era Primal Scream run through youthful swagger and sheer determination. One moment we are swaying in a Screamadelica style haze, the next we are being slammed by breakbeats and distortion straight from the harder edges of the XTRMNTR era. Strangely enough, there is even a touch of the Lo-Fidelity Allstars in the mix.

Sylvie’s Head, Sputnik Falls and many of the bands named above…. they’re all young bands who seem to have taken in a love the UK and indeed the world’s musical DNA and turned it into something fresh, unique, and utterly exhilarating, and the perfect way to close a blinding showcase festival. A global affair with the heart of a small independent community.
Viva 2026 is undoubtedly already taking shape in the production offices of Gothenburg, and I, for one, can’t wait to return, catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and discovering yet more brilliant bands from around the globe. See you on those sticky floors!

For more information on Viva Sounds check out their official website.

~

All words by Christopher Lloyd, you can view his author’s archive here.

Photo Credits:

Boutique Feelings & Virginia and The Flood by Mattias Eliasson
EF by Josefine Larsson
Mellt by Nikos Plegas
Sputnik Falls by Marianne Grande
Sylvie’s Head & Veps by Elena Perota
Child, Semiah & the Viva Sounds intro shot featuring Maggie of Semiah by Forrest Penner