German heavy metal, British street punk, and high-energy Polish rock’n’roll will be playing erman heavy metal, British street punk, and high-energy Polish rock’n’roll will be playing out over the weekend of 26th to 27th June in the scenic and historic grandeur that is Szczecin in Poland for the inaugural Hells Bells Festival.
In contrast to most music festival traditions, the event will be driven by multiple headlining shows across three stages. This is intended to allow for a more diverse range of musical tastes and ensure that the performances are more spread out across the schedule, reducing time pressure and providing a better experience for both the artists and the audience.
Over the weekend there will be international legends, top domestic acts, bands who are veteran rock warriors and younger new bands too.
Charging in from our British shores will be the legendary UK Subs, still fronted by Charlie Harper; veteran hardcore punk band Discharge, and representing the sounds of Oi! both The Cockney Rejects and The Last Resort.
One of the most iconic voices in heavy metal, Dirkschneider will be performing a career-defining set of Accept classics, and so too fellow German heavy metal band Grave Digger who’ve been going strong for forty years, and so too Frank Blackfire, guitarist with the likes of Sodom and Kreator.
You want longevity from Poland itself? Punk rock pioneers Dezerter will be present to celebrate their 45th anniversary as a band, with a new album due soon and a career-spanning set over the weekend. Longevity’s also the name of the game for The Analogs, with the street punks due to perform a special set of classics from their most iconic albums, and also present will be The Stubs, widely considered one of the finest garage rock bands Poland’s produced. For those ageists out there, there’s one of Poland’s most talked-about young punk crews, Seks W Czasach Wojny, alongside blackened punks Owls Woods Graves.
Ending a long absence and promising to deliver a set of pure carnage will be death metal pioneers Vader as well as boundary-pushing black metal act Furia for their only confirmed festival date this year. Currently riding a massive wave of popularity in the underground scene, blending thrash metal aggression with a punk spirit, Hamulec will be performing, and similarly having earned a cult following Belzebong will be adding a heavy dose of fuzz to the lineup. The experimental side of the underground will be represented by Dola, who fuse avant-garde black metal, ritual ambient, and sludge, occasionally punctuated by jazz and electronic elements, while djent and modern progressive metal will be represented by The Materia, metalcore courtesy of My Own Abyss, horrorcore energy from Słoń, and hailing from Szczecinek itself Pretensje.
Opening Friday and celebrating their own 35th anniversary, from the USA Pro-Pain, who will continue to bridge the gap between thrash metal and New York hardcore. Death metal pioneers Possessed will outdo them in the anniversary stakes, celebrating the 40th anniversary of their Seven Churches album.
Meanwhile, fellow Stateside act NunSlaughter will be offering their own brand of raw, primitive, and uncompromising death metal.
Greek death metal act Dead Congregation and Northern Ireland thrashers Gama Bomb also make up Europe’s massive contribution to this event.
Beyond the established billing, the festival will soon launch a dedicated band contest, offering a unique opportunity for emerging acts to join the 2026 lineup and showcase their music on the Szczecin waterfront.
For more about the many tourist attractions that Szczecin in Poland has to offer alongside further information about the Hells Bells Festival at RAMzine click here.
Tickets and more information can be found here.
