Author: Rok Klemše
Location: Rock Cafe, Postojna
Concert date: 04.02.2010
Attendance: 150
Another Thursday and another night of the Epic RockLine contest… This time it was the fifth one in a row and the second night painted entirely metal. After the first metal invasion carried out by Sagaris, Brezno and Eternity, this time Panikk, Use Less and Inmate were up to lay siege to the Rock Cafe stage. It promised to be a night with plenty of variety (at least as far as metal goes), with three bands that have already made a real dent in Slovenian stages and proven themselves live more than once.
First to take over the stage at Postojna’s Rock Cafe were the young thrash metallers from Ljubljana, Panikk. In a Slovenia oversaturated with thrashers, this young lineup brings a fairly fresh approach to thrash metal, packed with aggression on one side and melody on the other. They play a mix of thrash that at times recalls young Metallica, with touches of German and sometimes even British thrash. The moment these guys stepped on stage, they showed they were bursting with youthful energy. Their varied thrash metal, full of dynamic riffs, an old-school “rasping” vocal and a demolishing rhythm section, was occasionally marred by teenage outbursts that, sure, belong in thrash metal, but came off as slightly tasteless and overdone. Sadly, Panikk soon ran into technical trouble too, so in the second half of the gig the guitarist/vocalist gave up on his guitar and took over vocal duties only. Despite the problems, the guys kept the crowd entertained with a fun improvisation while fixing things, carried on with the gig in the spirit of their recently released demo, and said goodbye with the Slayer classic Raining Blood. Panikk are without doubt a promising name on the homegrown thrash scene, but despite their confident, uncompromising approach, they still lack some live mileage.
Panikk successfully warmed up a nicely packed hall and brought Rock Cafe up to working temperature. The ground was prepared, and up on stage stepped Use Less from Kamnik, who promised three quarters of an hour of hellish heavy metal ass-kicking. And they delivered! The guys were last seen last summer in Kranj, and then they locked themselves in a garage, where they wrote and rehearsed like their lives depended on it. The result is more than visible, as Use Less sound completely reborn, and a good few notches better than before the creative break. Instrumentally, the guys have made huge progress: the rhythm section is full and massive, the guitars are heavy-metal spiked and razor-sharp, and Matej Osredkar in particular won a ton of sympathy with his excellent soloing and a lovely Hawaiian shirt. Frontman Rok Tavčar does his job with confidence and was born to front a heavy metal band. His banter between songs is original and funny, and the excellent vocal, which is much, much better than on the demo recording, knocks your socks off. The creative break undoubtedly did Use Less good, and you can tell they’re hungry for the stage and the stage is hungry for them. The tracks from the demo tore it up, especially the speedy Money is the Name of the Game, and the new songs promise a lot, especially the fantastic ballad The Challenge of Love. The covers of Iced Earth and Virgin Steel were also praiseworthy and fired up the crowd nicely, a crowd that during Use Less’s set probably reached the biggest size of any night of the contest so far. Even though victory slipped away from Use Less by a hair, with this kind of pace a bright future awaits these guys, and I have no doubt their time is only just coming!
Last to present themselves were Inmate from Velenje. Inmate, too, are returning to the stage after a longer absence, since it’s well known that the guys searched for a vocalist for a really looong time. Well, they finally found one in Mike, and Inmate are back on stage reborn and complete. Inmate are by no means an exception here, as plenty of lineups have their biggest trouble finding the right vocalist. But while most bands spend that time toughening up in garages, Inmate warmed up the crowd at gigs even without a vocalist. And for an instrumental lineup, they did it very successfully. With Mike, a new era opens for Inmate, marked by extremely energetic and confident performances, just like the one on Thursday. The band is in top form, the tightness is outstanding, and the eye candy is above all guitarists Andrej and Aleš, who deliver exceptional solos and Maiden-style harmonized triplets, plus the Swedish school of melodic death metal. Thanks mainly to the vocal, which switches between rough growling and clean singing, Inmate also come close to the American school of modern metal a la Shadows Fall and the like, while a truly lively frontman, who often joins the crowd below the stage, takes care of the energy erupting off the stage. The songs sound seriously promising live, and we’re waiting for studio versions of the crushers Fire, Walk With Me, In the Circle of Courage and others.
After all three bands had played, the jury probably faced its toughest task yet, as the Epic RockLine Contest has never seen a trio of such quality and such evenly matched bands. The crowd proved once again that metal on home soil lives, breathes and feeds on the energy of live gigs. Rock Cafe hadn’t been this full on any of the previous four contest dates. After the vote, Use Less took the absolute win from the audience, while Inmate also earned the votes of the expert jury and took the win for the fifth night of the Epic RockLine contest.
Photos: Mojca Perdih and Martin Prezelj
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