Black Spikes — Imperatorė (Live at M.A.M.A. 2025)
Lithuanian modern metal band Black Spikes performing 'Imperatorė' at the 2025 M.A.M.A. Awards in Vilnius. A heavy band on a mainstream Lithuanian awards stage is its own statement. The riffs do not soften for the broadcast camera. Watch what a Baltic metal scene looks like when its national music industry actually pays attention.
The Baltic metal scene gets very little press coverage in Western Europe. That is the gap this video drop is trying to fill. Black Spikes are a modern metal band from Vilnius, Lithuania, with a debut album going back to 2020 (Šesėlių Vedami) and a Bandcamp catalogue that has expanded steadily since. Imperatorė — Lithuanian for Empress — is the track they took to the 2025 M.A.M.A. Awards, the annual Lithuanian Music Association ceremony.
That last detail is the one to sit with. M.A.M.A. is a televised national music awards show. A modern metal band taking a heavy track to that stage, on national TV, without softening the production for a broadcast crew, is not how this works in most European countries. It is closer to how Finland treats Lordi or Insomnium than to how Belgium treats Amenra. The institutional acceptance of metal as part of the national music conversation says something specific about Lithuania.
Black Spikes themselves are described in their own Bandcamp bio as a modern metal band built around “raw energy, intricate guitar riffs, and intense stage presence.” The live cut here confirms it. Watch what happens to the crowd in the M.A.M.A. hall during the second half of the song. That is a room learning, in real time, that Lithuania has a metal band worth booking on a primetime broadcast.