Performers: Oceans of Slumber, Ne Obliviscaris, Enslaved
Location: Ljubljana / CUK Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Date: Monday, 10/24/2016
Norway’s highly revered progressive black metallers Enslaved didn’t get that status overnight. The band, which took its name from the song Enslaved In Rot by fellow Norwegians Immortal, made it clear on its debut Vikingligr Veldi that they were far from your typical black metal band. Enslaved only confirmed that as their career went on, developing a stylistically unique approach and becoming something like the Pink Floyd of black metal. This year Enslaved are marking a venerable quarter century of existence, and their tour has finally brought them back to our venue after a long time, together with progressive metallers Oceans of Slumber and Ne Obliviscaris.
With the first openers, Texas’s Oceans of Slumber, it quickly became clear that they’re one of those “love ’em or hate ’em” bands, with no middle ground. The Texans are probably easiest to describe as the love child of Skunks Anansie and Opeth, mostly because of the female vocals of the sexy Cammie Gilbert, whose moves, at least live, suggest she’d belong on MTV more than in a metal band. You can’t deny that she has a top-notch, soulful-sounding voice, but personally, Oceans of Slumber’s take on the genre wasn’t really my cup of tea.
The real treat for all the music gourmets and progressive metal fans, though, was definitely the Australian colossi Ne Obliviscaris, who shot up from total obscurity to become one of the more esteemed bands in modern progressive (death) metal very quickly. The sextet from Melbourne has played here before, but because of technical problems their first show on our soil at Metaldays the year before last didn’t go quite as planned. This time around it was a chance to retake the exam, but at the start, during the opening Devour Me, Colossus (Part I): Blackholes, it looked like another failing grade was on the cards. Luckily, guitarist Matt Klavins got his seven-string up and running fast (which, sadly, the crowd greeted with rather rare enthusiasm), and from then on everything went like clockwork. The Australians put on a first-class show, and the credit goes mostly to the epically long songs, which don’t get boring for a second. Ne Obliviscaris weave in black and death metal influences, spiced with dizzying complexity that’s breathtaking above all thanks to the animalistic drumming full of blast beats and polyrhythms, and also to the excellent guitar trio, who often go wandering up and down their fretboards with jaw-dropping four-finger tapping. What sets Ne Obliviscaris apart from the crowd of similar bands, first and foremost, is Tim Charles’s skillfully woven-in violin, which isn’t just decoration but an equal instrument that more or less takes over the role of lead guitar, plus the superb mix of clean and brutal vocals. If Charles’s cleans sometimes come off a bit too soft, Xenoyr fixes the taste, feeling right at home in both black and death metal waters. Ne Obliviscaris means “do not forget” in Latin, and we definitely won’t be forgetting this show from the band from “down under” any time soon.
The Norwegian veterans Enslaved won people over before they even really started, as the pre-recorded voice of Alex, brilliantly played by Malcolm McDowell in Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, called the crowd to the front of the stage. The band’s top form was then confirmed right away by the opener Roots of the Mountain. Enslaved delivered an excellent sound, letting both the black metal onslaught led by Grutle Kjelson and the psychedelic excursions, courtesy of the keyboards and Herbrand Larsen’s epic clean vocals, really shine. After the first song, Grutle addressed the half-empty hall in flawless Slovenian (the reasons are probably to be found in a gig-packed October and a rainy Monday, but a band of Enslaved’s caliber definitely deserved more people in front of the stage), and then took everyone on a journey an hour and a half long, mostly through the later half of the band’s output. Enslaved proved once again that they’re world-class musicians who’ve got pretty much no equal in Norwegian black metal. The Norwegians absolutely enslaved the blend of clean and brutal vocals, and there’s no need to waste words on the instrumental performance, since both Grutle’s bass pounding and the Bjørnson/Ice Dale guitar tandem (and the latter’s soloing) were outstanding. Later on there was a rather unnecessary and not-so-original drum solo, which could have been swapped for another song or two, and given that this was a 25th anniversary celebration, Enslaved could have dusted off a long-unplayed track or two. If they were going to focus on the newer era of the band anyway, they could at least have thrown in something off Isa or even the EP The Sleeping Gods. Still, the Norwegian veterans once again delivered a top-class show of progressive black metal that few ever get truly close to.
Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
OCEANS OF SLUMBER:
1. Winter
2. Sunlight
3. Devout
4. Suffer the Last Bridge
5. Nights in White Satin (orig. The Moody Blues)
6. …This Road
NE OBLIVISCARIS:
1. Devour Me, Colossus (Part I): Blackholes
2. Of Petrichor Weaves Black Noise
3. Painters of the Tempest (Part II): Triptych Lux
4. Pyrrhic
5. And Plague Flowers the Kaleidoscope
ENSLAVED:
1. Roots of the Mountain
2. Ruun
3. The Watcher
4. Building With Fire
5. Ethica Odini
6. Fenris
7. The Crossing
8. Ground
— encore —
9. Drum solo
10. One Thousand Years of Rain
11. Allfǫðr Oðinn
