AT LEAST four of the bands playing at a city music festival are involved with the Neo-Nazi metal scene, the Glasgow Times can reveal.

One group booked for the Darkness Guides Us event has a song called “Gas Chamber” and lyrics which include the phrase “Sieg Heil!” and refer to “torching the Jewish creation”.

However, the organiser has insisted that his event isn’t “political”.

Dimitris Artofsin said the weekend of music in November was “anti-authoritarian, neither right nor left but with extreme hate towards both ends.”

In January we revealed how the festival was forced to book a secret venue for headliners Taake after anti-fascist campaigners promised to mobilise over that band’s past flirtation with Nazism.

Since then Artofsin has announced a number of other bands, including three others with known connections to the sub-genre of metal known as National Socialist black metal (NSBM).

They include Kalmankantajah from Finland. The band’s lead member, Grim666, is in Order of the White Hand, who are an openly national socialist outfit.

Glasgow Times:

Satanic Warmaster are also lined up to play. They’ve been in conflict with anti-fascists in Glasgow before, because of their links to NSBM.

Singer Werwolf – real name Lauri Penttilä – contributed to a 2006 compilation titled Declaration of Anti-Semitic Terror and has issued split-releases with NSBM bands including Aryan Blood and shared with the stage with Germany’s Absurd.

One member of that band broke parole terms when, on release from prison for murder, he gave

a Nazi ­salute.

Nocturnal Depression too have expressed views supporting NSBM.

It’s not the first time, the event has found itself in the middle of a race storm.

Last year the Ukrainian band Kroda were booked to play. The group are holocaust deniers with links to a Russian outfit called M8l8th. The 88 is Neo-Nazi shorthand for “Heil Hitler”.

The Glasgow Anti-Fascist Alliance promised to “mobilise” against Darkness Guide Us. A spokesperson said: “We as anti-fascists will not stand idly by and allow Glasgow to host a festival which, as the line-up is announced, is proving to be a Nazi-sympathising event. We will be mobilising against this.”

Glasgow Feminist Anti Fascist Assembly hit out at the Classic Grand who are holding the event: “While Femafa supports free speech, we certainly have massive reservations with venues in Glasgow hosting hate speech. Calling for genocide and violence against women isn’t art, it’s propaganda and we hope Glasgow City Council’s licensing committee will be looking into this.”

Responding to the criticism, Artofsin said: “I don’t know if you are aware, but I’m not a white power supporter, hell I’m not even white myself.

“I’m getting tired of this. Darkness Guides Us is at its core, like me anti-authoritarian, neither right nor left but with extreme hate towards both ends. Antifascists and fascists are the same for me and I’m disgusted by what they both represent.”

He said he couldn’t care if any of the banks booked for his event had “a member in their band affiliated with another band that is political”.

He added: “The publicity has certainly helped me, it’s like free advertising.”

The Classic Grand did not respond to requests for a comment.