Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Medvode / MC Jedro / Slovenia
Concert date: 03/31/2012
Attendance: 40
Ticket price: €0.00
There’s no need to waste words on Sarcasm. With their cornerstone work »Crematory« – the cult »top shit« debut released in 1989 – the Slovenian speed/thrash metal outfit laid the foundation stone of Slovenian thrash metal. They’d been officially formed just two years earlier. The first 25 years flew by.
To mark this epic milestone in their story, the band picked Medvode’s own MC Jedro club. To their »wedding« they invited Austrian power/thrash metallers Klynt, with whom they’re evidently on good, exemplary friendship terms, which also opens the door for Sarcasm to play stages in our northern neighbor’s country.
It was Saturday, a crystal-clear, crisp night, the dewy buds on the branches had finally burst into full bloom, and the last day of March was slowly sliding into April. Such is the play of nature, you could say with a touch of »sarcasm.« However you slice it, people just would not, under any circumstances, show up at the club, despite an event that shouldn’t have gone unnoticed on the Slovenian metal scene. True, this wasn’t Sarcasm’s first show this year, and the main storm of metalheads had already rolled through on their gigs along the Kranj – Ljubljana – Kamnik route from mid-February to mid-March, but this event carried the label »one-off.« This is the kind of event where the no-show of the entire Slovenian metal community isn’t exactly excusable.
Klynt did their job by ten in the evening. The young lads from Graz cultivate a raw, furious blend of heavy power riffs and thrash rage, with a few epic-flavored lines that even try to evoke Iced Earth. The vocalist certainly grabbed the attention with his Conan-style strutting of a freshly shaved armpit, with which he tried with all his might, but in vain, to win over the few onlookers in front of the stage. But he couldn’t coax anything more than an apathetic, politely approving response out of the handful of people there. The band’s debut »Of Klynt And Man« was presented, but they failed to impress. With their checkered shirts, short hair and neat haircuts they look more like a society of atomic physics fans, or at the very least like Fripp’s schoolboys »The League Of Crafty Guitarists«, than like angry, naughty boys playing dangerous games, as we know them from the legend of thrash metal. »Master Yoldi«, though, got them a really nice sound at Jedro.
Around half past ten everything is ready for the legends to take the stage. Despite the emptiness yawning across the room, Muci and company didn’t let it weigh on them much. The band exploded at full tilt, carefree, uncompromising, with the basic gospel every solid band has to bring to a situation like this: »No matter what, let’s enjoy it standing tall for as long as the stage is ours!!«
The band is superbly tight. You can tell Sarcasm played a string of shows around Slovenia in a short time. With Tomaž Frelih joining, the band didn’t just get a seasoned musician who handles a bass guitar deftly (Yoldi is an outstanding guitarist as well), but also a great buddy who, by joining the crew, brought them absolute sound control at concert venues too, since he’s a polished sound engineer. Sarcasm wouldn’t be Sarcasm without Aleš Blaznik and the essence of his innate knack for bringing a killer riff to a song and, above all, fantastic soloing that belongs right at the very top of the most respected and appreciated names in world thrash metal. He and Klemen Renko complement each other brilliantly, driving the band’s opus along in a riffing frenzy, confidently and with a feel that nothing can knock them off their breakneck guitar rally. While Yolda dug and gouged away on the bass as if cutting smoothly through concrete with a knife, the work of excellent young drummer Aleš Korošec can’t be overlooked.
In the first part the band hammered out mainly marches from the excellent new studio album »Something To Believe In« (2011) – RockLine review HERE, and mixed in a few career classics! Of course, Love At First Sight and Road Warriors from the cult debut »Crematory« – RockLine review HERE stood out among them. An excellent performance in every respect, sound included. No complaints. Muci’s vocals hold up like the ominous maw of a roaring apparition relentlessly spewing fire in front of it. The only flaw of the night was the shortage of people, since the energy the band generated on stage quickly drained away into the room. The walls swallowed it. Without a real crowd you can’t build a real bridge of interaction, and so the performers on stage can’t develop real concert intensity. Such a shame!
Here are the unforgettable classics Krueger Story and Crematory, both again from the debut, then the excellent Slovenski genocid and, as expected, the closer Dej mi, Sarcasm, which didn’t manage to draw much energy back from the handful of people at Jedro. With the obligatory encore, in which another great banger from the album »Crematory« called Thrash Tonight sparked up, the revelry with the band wrapped up after an hour and a half. The lights come on, the few remaining stragglers scatter photophobically into the corners, and the band is left, in effect, completely alone in the room.
Despite the thorough rumbling and thrash takeover of a top-notch concert execution, the real under-the-skin impact just wasn’t there this time. I keep repeating myself as I ramble on, but the blame lies with the dismal turnout of the »supporters,« who »forgot« to visit MC Jedro on Saturday night and pay respect to the legendary band for its first 25-year jubilee. I’m sure this didn’t get to Sarcasm even slightly and that after the concert run they’ll head back to the studio as soon as possible and start writing and recording new material for the follow-up to »Something To Believe In«. Given how good that one is, it pays to strike while the iron is hot! »Another liter on the table! Here’s to the next 25 years, boys!«
Setlist
1. Surrender
2. Žena
3. We Are At War
4. Love At First Sight
5. License To Sarcasm
6. Terrorist
7. Road Warriors
8. Something To Believe In
9. Voices Of Verdun
10. Liter na mizo
11. Krueger Story
12. Slovenski genocid
13. Whiplash
14. Summer ’91
15. Crematory
16. Dej mi, Sarcasm
—-encore—
17. Thrash Tonight
18. Ace Of Spades
19. Believer
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