On Saturday evening in Riga, Skyforger played a concert titled Akmenī iekaltās zīmes — “Signs Carved in Stone” — built almost entirely from the two records the band made in its first years. It marked thirty years of a group that has spent all of them singing Latvian history in a language almost none of its European audience speaks, and getting booked anyway.

The story

Skyforger formed in Riga in 1995. The anniversary concert on 19 September 2026, held in the Kokaru Hall of the Mežaparks Great Bandstand, was not a career retrospective but a deliberate step backwards: the programme drew mainly on Semigalls’ Warchant, released on cassette in May 1997, and Kauja pie Saules, released in October 1998, returning to the raw black metal sound the band started with. The evening opened with the experimental folk project Līgas pH3, with guitarist Dāvis Burmeisters of the post-metal band Tesa also appearing.

Thirty years in, the band’s argument for itself has not changed. Guitarist and singer Pēteris Kvetovskis, who writes the historical material, describes the purpose without decoration: this is our small mission, he says, to carry out into the world our culture and our history, which is fairly unknown to everyone else. And then, on where Latvia sits in the European cultural picture — a black, black hole.

Key details

  • Band: Skyforger, formed in Riga, Latvia, in 1995
  • Concert: Akmenī iekaltās zīmes, 19 September 2026, Kokaru Hall, Mežaparks Great Bandstand, Riga
  • Programme: early material, principally from Semigalls’ Warchant (demo tape, May 1997) and Kauja pie Saules (October 1998)
  • Selected discography: Semigalls’ Warchant (1997), Kauja pie Saules (1998), Latvian Riflemen (2000), Thunderforge (2003), Sword Song (2003), Kurbads (2010, Metal Blade Records), Old Prussia (2015, Thunderforge Records)
  • Awards: Kurbads — best metal album, Latvian Music Awards 2010; Old Prussia — best rock and metal album, Golden Microphone 2015
  • Touring: 24 countries over three years behind Old Prussia, plus shows in the United States and South America
  • Line-up: Peter — vocals, guitars; Edgars “Zirgs” — bass; Alvis — guitars; Jānis — drums

Context

For a country of fewer than two million people, cultural export usually runs on grants, delegations and showcase slots. Skyforger has spent three decades running it on festival stages instead, reaching twenty-four countries on the touring cycle behind Old Prussia alone, along with dates in the United States and South America. Its songs are built from Latvian pre-Christian mythology, the Baltic wars against the crusading orders, and the riflemen of the First World War — material that no European audience arrives already knowing, sung in a language that audience does not read.

That turns out not to matter much. As Kvetovskis notes, within folk and pagan metal the language question has largely settled itself: bands sing in their own, and nobody objects. The genre has become one of the few reliable channels through which a small national history moves across borders — not through cultural policy, but through record labels and festival bills.

The anniversary also says something about how the work actually gets done. Skyforger has never been a full-time band. Kvetovskis has worked as a plumber at the Daile Theatre in Riga for more than thirty years. Edgars Grabovskis has spent his career in printing and designed a limited T-shirt specifically for this concert. The concert visuals come from video artist Jēkabs Vilķārs, who has been handling the band’s stage imagery.

That is the Latvian music sector in one sentence: professional-grade output produced after hours. It is also why LRMA keeps returning to the same question — whether popular music in Latvia is treated as a cultural sector with a workforce, or as a hobby that happens to sound good.

Quotes

Tā ir mūsu mazā misija – nest pasaulē mūsu kultūru un vēsturi, kas ir citiem diezgan nezināma.

This is our small mission — to carry our culture and history out into the world, a culture and history fairly unknown to others.

Pēteris Kvetovskis, LSM Kultūra, 15 September 2026. Translation by LRMA.

Tas ir tāds melnais, melnais caurums Eiropas kopējā kultūrā.

It is a black, black hole in Europe’s shared culture.

Pēteris Kvetovskis, LSM Kultūra, 15 September 2026. Translation by LRMA.

About the artist

Skyforger is a folk and pagan metal band formed in Riga in 1995, singing in Latvian and drawing its material from Baltic mythology and Latvian history. Its discography runs from the 1997 demo tape Semigalls’ Warchant through Kauja pie Saules, Latvian Riflemen, Thunderforge, Sword Song, Kurbads and Old Prussia, alongside the metal opera Kurbads – ķēves dēls. Kurbads was released worldwide by Metal Blade Records and named best metal album at the Latvian Music Awards in 2010; Old Prussia won best rock and metal album at the Golden Microphone awards in 2015.

Sources