Metal Klavnica XXVII (2011)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Urban Bolta

Location: MIKK /Murska Sobota / Slovenia
Concert date: 07.10.2011
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: €4 (reserved) / €5 (day of the show)

Murska Sobota, and its main alternative club MIKK in particular, has a long history of putting on metal shows under the Metal Klavnica banner. On the second Saturday of October the 27th edition went down, and this time the lineup was especially inviting. Metal Klavnica nights usually lean hard into extreme metal, but this time the organizers also brought a hard’n’heavy band to Slovenia’s northeast, which had a lot to do with Rockline’s debut visit to the Klavnica.

MIKK sits right in the center of Murska Sobota, part of a big complex in the middle of an even bigger park. The club hides shyly in one corner of the castle complex, which also houses the Regional Museum. Finding the camouflaged front door would honestly be a tough job if a swarm of young metalheads didn’t give it away. The 27th Metal Klavnica brought together Gorenjska’s Tomcat, local heroes Before The Murder and Dickless Tracy from Posavje, who stepped in just a few days before the show for the German grinders 5 Stabbed 4 Corpses, who had canceled.

When the first notes of the UFO classic Doctor Doctror drifted out from inside, MIKK started filling up fast. It was time for Tomcat, currently one of the hottest young hard rock/heavy metal bands on the home turf. After getting the wheels turning last year, Tomcat have been showing up on stages more and more over the past few months, and this time they made their Pomurje debut.

The band has come a huge way since Metal Mania in August. Intense rehearsing lately has helped the instrumental quartet tighten up, something that caused them some trouble in Komno here and there. All eyes of the band’s supporters were on new vocalist Denis (ex-Deadline), making his debut on stage as the Tomcat frontman. By bringing his own vocal interpretation to the songs, Denis proved to be a great addition, and most importantly he took the frontman duties off guitarist Rok’s shoulders. Stage performance is a key part of a Tomcat show. Letting loose all that spare energy in the style of notorious eighties hard rock is the best way to pass it on to the crowd, this time made up mostly of the band’s loyal friends. When it came to throwing stage energy around, bassist Šujo led the way, while the guitar duo of Rok / Luka still strikes me as playing a bit stiffly, cramped by a lack of experience. Not that there’s anything to complain about in their playing. These two know their stuff, they’re talented, down-to-earth and unpretentious, and with further development they have a great shot at moving up. In just under an hour, Tomcat walked through a collage of punchy originals, from Purgatory, Riders and Metal Mania Hangover to the closer, the Judas Priest cover Race With The Devil. Tomcat have clearly come a long way lately. Too bad, by their own account, that the gear gave them trouble, so we were almost entirely robbed of the backing vocal harmonies. And what matters most: after a long time, Prekmurje got a proper heavy rock show, even if “only” in an intimate club version.

Next up were the Lendava quintet Before The Murder, a band already reaping the rewards of their short career. Right about now the guys are heading out on a short tour of the neighboring countries, which is of course a big achievement and motivation for any young band to keep going. Since I last saw them two years ago in Črenšovci, the band has taken a big step forward. Jure (Vulvathrone) and Andy have joined the ranks in the meantime, they put out their first EP “Ruins” and boosted their popularity around their home turf in Prekmurje. No wonder MIKK filled up nicely during their set. The mix of deathcore and hardcore got the baby-faced fans up front dancing, and it only got wilder as the set went on. The biggest strength of Before The Murder’s music is definitely the constant switching of rhythm and the stuffing of several ideas into each song, from insanely catchy melodies and hypnotic breakdowns to the hellish tempo of the rhythm machine and screaming guitars. Before The Murder scattered across the stage like they’d just snapped off their chains, and proved that Slovenia has a say in the (most) modern strains of metal too.

The last of the trio was Dickless Tracy from Brežice, a death metal/grind band whose core has been the Cepanec brothers for almost a decade and a half. A third act on stage brought another genre twist, which showed in the crowd, mixed up yet again. This time Tegli got rhythm support on bass from Škof (Eruption, Patrons), who missed Metal Mania in August because of unavoidable commitments and so unintentionally turned the band into a trio (again). New guitarist Andrej has meanwhile settled into the band nicely and was raising a rather charming ruckus on the right side of the stage. The spotlights were aimed at frontman Cepot as usual, and as usual he knew how to make the crowd laugh between songs. “Look at what’s going on in the world, money piles up in the hands of monopolists, sheikhs get richer and richer, the worker toils day and night, and what does he get out of it..? Anyway, the next song has nothing to do with that”. And off they went again. Dickless Tracy ran through a collage of songs from all eras, blowing straight into the souls of fans of the more extreme end of metal, semitones and low tunings. The seasoned guys from Posavje brought the set home with routine and cashed in on their experience, easily winning over the crowd without breaking a sweat.

Credit also goes to the organizers, because the show ended at a decent hour, which in my experience is more the exception than the rule at MIKK. That meant those of us who came from central Slovenia could head home at a sensible time instead of in the middle of the night.

Photos: Martin Prezelj