Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Športni park Svoboda / Ljubljana Vič
Concert date: 06/18/2011
Attendance: 250
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry!)
This event came out of nowhere, like a bolt from the blue! Metal Witch! The second one in a row! Why the hell Witch? Because it’s in Ljubljana. And in that same old Ljubljana, our beloved capital of Slovenian “croaking”, there’s also, among other things, Vič! The organizer is none other than the band Aperion. When you take things into your own hands, you know nobody can let you down on what they promised, so everything can be run 100% properly and smoothly. And that held true for this year’s Metal Witrtch too. The event succeeded in every respect. There could have been a few more people, but we’ve gotten used to that lately, since the market is oversaturated and gigs are just less well attended. I’m talking about real gigs. Acts whose musical substance is something you can actually touch!
Yes, that same Aperion, who finally gave birth this year to an excellent debut studio album, “Act Of Hybris”. With it, Aperion vehemently stepped into the company of European bands that can boast their own artistic trail of adventurous blending of metal, gothic, pastoral and symphonic musical elements.
It was finally a clear June afternoon, and at the grounds of the Svoboda sports park near the student dorms on Gerbičeva in Ljubljana, a bunch of curious people gathered, along with loyal supporters of an interesting lineup that practically begged to be visited all by itself.
First on the bill were the young metalheads from Novo Mesto, Necrotic. First name, first surprise. Modern, snarling, melodically venomous extreme metal! The guys build on brutality and a rhythm line full of “groove”! It’s not hard to conclude that this is a band that’s technically exceptionally well versed. The songs are multilayered. Riff-chopping gives way to a sudden turn into mid-tempo atmospheric swaying, followed by another unexpected turn into wild riff-neighing, and so on… My Apostasy is an example of the band’s songwriting that brings this multifaceted design of a hybrid of melodic death metal with touches of black metal exoticism to the listener most plainly and directly. The guys obviously need gigs. The awakening grassy grounds sent them off with loud ovations, since right from the start the guys steeply cranked up the sharpness of this year’s Metal Witch with vehemence and confidence. The use of a seven-string guitar points to a search for mass in the wall of sound, which was developed most optimally in the chopping march Icon Of Impurity – surely one of the band’s artistic peaks right now. The vocals could use a bit more venom and malice in the growl accent, which is a job for the band to build on in the future. After what they showed at Metal Witch, Necrotic are an incredibly bold and promising unit that has adorned the Slovenian music scene, and above all the Slovenian metal movement. Keep it up, guys. Record and release your debut studio album as soon as you can.
Brezno have grown from a sextet into an octet. The Ljubljana folk metallers were recently left by singer and flutist Ines Osina, who followed the band from the crowd. Brezno played their tried-and-tested material, including Glasnik and the bombastic folk metal march V nebo. You can tell that the new singer Sara doesn’t have quite as wide a range in shaping vocal melodies, and you can also sense that the revamped lineup is still finding itself, which was confirmed by the slight lack of looseness in the octet’s female section, which came across as tense and static in the flute, violin, vocals and backing vocals department. Otherwise there’s nothing to fault the band for. Excellent support from the mixing desk, which allowed the band to present itself confidently! They gave their current stage maximum. The band now needs a debut studio album as soon as possible and as many gigs as they can get, so that the new lineup can gel as much as possible and the bonds within the team can grow.
Shanti Nilayas are absolute oddballs on the Slovenian music scene. You can only love them or hate them. There’s no in-between. Modern metalheads who combine the legacy of post-punkers / darkers like Sisters Of Mercy, industrial oddballs Laibach and/or Rammstein, and build on a stage look that adds a gothic touch to their character, are marked by a distinctive voice. It creates a vibrating, deep, dull, almost “hollow” vocal character, for which you need quite a bit of “Einstein” to get your head around it and take it “as your own”. But once it’s yours, things flow smoothly from there. When it comes to bands like our heroes Shanti Nilaya, and if I stretch this a bit provocatively to gothic metal groove makeup artists like Combichrist, 69 Crazy Eyes, there are, as a rule, also keyboard matrices and programmed loops in the mix, spreading and deepening the band’s live sound in the background. Considerably dreamier, calmer, and mourning in endless anguish, Shanti Nilaya express themselves in Slovenian, which gives them an extra pedigree of oddballs. Krizantema is an excellent song in this regard, ‘confirming the peculiarity of the band’s musical format. The band has a polished performance and tries to approach things professionally, in order to underline the core of their own artistic expression as clearly and directly as possible. The provocative “black” stage outfits belong to that too. If you’re looking for something special and different, then Shanti Nilaya are exactly the address for you. The song Gospodar Sanj really caught on with the crowd by that day, and toward the end a few requests crept in for the guys to play it again. Given the specifics of the vocals, we missed a bit more power and support from the mixing desk, but sadly it couldn’t get any better. The vocals simply need, because of their peculiarities, more prominence in the mix of the band’s live sound, so that the ice and cold of Shanti Nilaya’s music can embrace the listener’s heart.
Aperion, the main pillars of the evening, keep growing and developing. “Act Of Hybris” is a release they can rightfully be proud of. It took a long time to make. In that time Aperion have also found their profile, and today they represent a name that can boast clearly recognizable musical expression. Singer Zala, of course, with her excellent operetta soprano vocals, brought that necessary quality, so the band delivered its repertoire with a great new asset.
Aperion put on an extremely self-confident show. The only slight distraction was the stage play, which occasionally “hid” Zala somewhat in the background, while we got to watch the lightly tensed biceps of cellist Samo and violist Martin on the front line. So, a singer like Zala should absolutely be put front and center of the stage performance in the future. And if she happens to feel uneasy during the instrumental parts, the guys should shove a tambourine into her hands. The band kicked off with the excellent ballad Uspavanka, then there were also Ü, Fe+, and Maya, an excellent combination of Slovenian folk tradition and metal in the song Dajte, and the band wrapped up its set with the gloomy Black Flies, spiced with the use of a didgeridoo. During this period of the band’s active stage life, guitarist Črt has transformed into a real leader, confidently linking the songs with commentary in between that kept the audience awake in front of the stage. But above all, the band’s polished, convincing performance counted. Excellent tightness among the building blocks of the band’s demanding, richly layered sound. Lovers of natural sound collages, Aperion persistently ignore the use of synthesizers, which also makes them special and different.
The successful mini festival ended at exactly midnight. Huge respect to the organizer, the band Aperion! They gave a chance to present themselves to exactly those bands that need it most badly and that, amid all the stepmotherly treatment from Slovenia’s club scene, have a hard time getting gigs. A package of four bands like the one this year’s Metal Witch presented could hold up for a few shows all across Slovenia. Hypothetically, of course. For a real mini tour of five or six shows. The musical coexistence of all four bands in such a lineup is incredibly appealing.
photos:
Martin Prezelj (Brezno, Shanti Nilaya),
Uroš Škerjanc (Necrotic, Aperion),
Dare Brenko (Aperion)
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