Venue: Cvetličarna, Ljubljana
Concert date: March 20, 2010
Attendance: 400
Ticket price: €25
Death metal old-timers Obituary are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, and they’ve marked the respectable milestone with their recently released album Darkest Day. Obituary are considered one of the best-selling death metal bands out there, having sold over half a million records, which is a respectable number for death metal. The cult The End Complete alone sold over 100,000 copies, while Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death drew up the blueprint and laid the foundations of the death metal genre. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the Xecutioner days, and luckily Obituary stopped by here on their new tour, for the first time since Metalcamp 2005.
Persefone, who hail from the metal-exotic mini-state of Andorra, had the rather thankless job of warming up the crowd, and they did it fairly unsuccessfully. The local shop probably doesn’t have much of a metal record selection, so Persefone just drew their influences from those two or three albums. The guys don’t sound that bad, but the whole thing is so clichéd and chewed-over, heard countless times already and in far better forms. The totally off-key choruses didn’t help much, nor did the whiny voice of the keyboardist, who played truly clichéd quasi-symphonic parts. At least the drummer proved he knows how to really hammer the skins when needed. The guys wrapped up their solid half hour with a competently played Star Wars suite, joined on stage by Obituary guitarist Ralph Santolla, though I still don’t know whether that was a good or bad move for the young Andorrans. It at least turned out fun, and either way the hall, with sadly rather gaping holes in the crowd, was waiting for only one thing. For Obituary to hit the stage!
The Florida death metal giants stormed the stage with a double whammy from their current, eighth album, Darkest Day. Even though Darkest Day doesn’t sound like the next big thing for Obituary in the studio, since the guys stick to the strict guidelines they laid down with their debut, List of Dead and Blood to Give sound mighty and crushing live. Onstage, Obituary successfully deliver what makes them unique: death metal that has just crawled out of the primordial ooze and sounds hellishly slow and fucking fast at the same time. In 1989, Obituary laid an important cornerstone for the developing death metal genre with a tectonic shift of a debut recorded at the legendary Morrisound studio in Florida, and they only cemented their status with later releases, and they’re still one of the best-selling death metal bands today. What the then all-instrumental foursome — Trevor Peres and Allen West with morbid riffs and Lovecraftian solos, plus the rolling, crushing force of the rhythm section duo Donald Tardy and Daniel Tucker — put on the cult debut Slowly We Rot, vocalist John Tardy lifted to a whole other level, stamping the genre with an unmistakable seal. And when, after 25 years of croaking from the stage, Tardy still sows fear in your bones with that monstrous, deep growl, you realize why Obituary are such a respected name! Especially when it’s time for the Florida rednecks — ahem, hicks — to chop you in half and turn your skin inside out, in the style of the fantasies of lovable Leatherface from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, with the chainsaw medley Chopped in Half/Turned Inside Out from the cult Cause of Death. And when Tardy mercilessly pounds the drums so you feel it deep in your stomach, while Santolla and Peres rev up your heartbeat with their riffs, you’re just waiting for Tardy to bury a chainsaw in your back, because the brutal scream “Chopped in Half, Feel the Blood Spill From Your Mouth!” is already echoing behind you. The refreshed Cvetličarna delivered really excellent sound this time, as Tardy’s phenomenal drumming rattled every one of the two hundred-odd bones in the place. I haven’t heard a better snare sound in a long time (last time was at Obituary in Zagreb, haha!), and he showed off his mastery with an excellent drum solo. Donald’s appearance with the obligatory cap on his head has become an Obituary trademark anyway, just like the fact that John occasionally joins his brother in hacking away at the snare drums, which comes off really crushing. The Peres/Santolla duo dissected limbs and organs with surgical precision using razor-sharp solos and bludgeoned heads with riffs like cold steel (only Santolla could tone down the posing a bit, but that Italian blood just does its thing). Legendary bassist Frank Watkins, who’s currently also earning his bread with Gorgo(crap)roth, was replaced this time by Terry Butler (Six Feet Under). We were fantastically bombarded with, sadly, the only track from Back From the Dead, a fast and aggressive assault from Threatening Skies, a nice surprise with the Celtic Frost cover Dethroned Emperor, plus another classic, The End Complete, and the only representative of the World Demise album, Final Thoughts, which is fine proof of the uniqueness of Obituary’s death metal: ultra-slow, almost doomy/sludgy parts suddenly slaughtered by ultra-fast thrash parts, with Tardy’s phenomenal vocals on top. After a visit through the albums Xecutioner’s Return and Frozen in Time, we reached the obligatory finale far too soon: the unforgettable death metal anthem Slowly We Rot, during which all the members of the opening band Persefone got their moment too, pounding away on their own drum kit behind Donald Tardy’s back. After a good hour and a half, Obituary bowed out triumphantly. For the cherry on top, maybe just one more older classic was missing, à la ‘Til Death, I’m in Pain, Killing Time, Rotting Ways or Redneck Stomp. But all in all, it was an unforgettable show by a band that, after a quarter century of playing, is still raw, aggressive, crushing and uncompromising — like the best kind of slowly fermenting homemade redneck moonshine that still slaps you on the back damn good, the Gorenjska way.
Photos: Martin Prezelj
Setlist
OBITUARY:
1. List of Dead
2. Blood to Give
3. On the Floor
4. Face Your God
5. Chopped in Half/Turned Inside Out
6. Dying
7. Threatening Skies
8. Dethroned Emperor
9. The End Complete
10. Final Thoughts
11. Forces Realign
12. Contrast the Dead
13. Slow Death
14. Evil Ways
15. Slowly We Rot
Photo gallery
