Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Kranj / Transtation Squat / Slovenia
Concert date: 13.12.2013
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: €8.00
Friday the 13th! Perfect for plunging into the abyss where Satan lives and having him drain every last drop of your blood! A Noctiferia gig!!! Are we late to the venue? A bit. It’s already thundering away merrily at Kranj’s Trainstaion Swuat! For a good half hour, the place had been hoisted up onto its tiptoes by the promising Škofja Loka thrash metal revivalists Moshead. Sadly we missed the first part of the set and caught only the last 15 minutes, when the band wrapped up the show with covers of Raining Blood (Slayer) and Arise (Sepultura). The quartet of Gregor Lavtar (vocals, guitar), Matevž Vršič (vocals, guitar), Klemen Berglez (bass) and Robi Buh (drums) still has to work on the look a bit. Sure, the music comes first, but looks matter a ton when you’re »buying« the crowd at gigs! Right now the shortage of hair footage in the band is covered only by guitarist Gregor’s thick, curly mane. As for the other three, the best thing is to turn into »mean-looking« longhairs ASAP, and then the thrash metal blade will really be cutting in top gear. The band has a demo of three originals in its pocket, and when the original Game Of Knowledge kicks in, it’s hard to miss the Slayer influence. The guys don’t hide their talent or their big potential! They’re locked in nicely, and they don’t come off as naive for a second. The solos in the songs are well crafted and show real talent. What Moshead need at this stage is as much stage experience as possible, to raise their cohesion another notch, and then it’s straight to the studio to record and release a debut album!
Penitenziagite, the Kranj death metal meat grinder with technically brilliant, razor-polished material, is a different story! In their current lineup of Anže Demšar (guitar/vocals), Žan Kavčič (guitar), Gašper Čebulj (drums) and Matic Diba (bass), they’re right on the verge of releasing a studio debut! They’ve got two demos under their belt! It’s been a good while since the second one, »The New Evolution,« came out, and the band keeps developing its own take on death metal, which now and then, in distant flashes, runs parallel to black metal. The band came across rock-solid, with a compact, impenetrable stage presence. Grim, raw! Bestial. Butcher-like! But also confident and carried away, as they took over the Transtation Squat stage and served up an excellent feast for demanding ears that, besides all the extremity of a death metal show, also crave the »theatrical extravagance« of entertainingly daredevil drum passages and switching between all sorts of rhythmic structures. The band almost races toward the edge of chaos, only to masterfully return to a tight form. I don’t want to exaggerate, but if fate sadly decided that Gonoba would call it quits, the very same Gonoba who this year put out the fantastic studio album »Endless Cycles« on On Parole Records, then Penitenziagite might just be the ones to fill the gap on the current Slovenian scene when it comes to technical death metal. So the guys are heading into 2014 with a studio debut! On their 10th anniversary! Let’s hope Penitenziagite will use it to play Slovenian stages more often. Festivals too. At home and abroad! The outlook is very bright indeed! An extremely confident and polished stage performance in Kranj!
First fiddle on Friday night, the thirteenth day of the last month of the calendar year, went to what we can already call veterans of the Slovenian woods of metal gloom! The first standard-bearers of metal in Slovenia! Noctiferia. In recent months they’ve been showing up more often on home turf, and next year is going to be a hot one for the guys, when they release their new studio album! Noctiferia is a big band in Slovenia when it comes to metal. They approach things professionally. There’s no doubt when Noctiferia hit the stage. They’ve got a huge mileage behind them and the logistics are spot on. They’d rather not show up on stage before that’s the case!
And the band’s machine started grinding mercilessly shortly before eleven o’clock! A crowd of around a hundred heads closed ranks and gave themselves over freely to the concise riff mass that, with the occasional industrial groove beat, spat fire in leaps and bounds from every corner of the stage! When you look at Nocitferia on stage, it’s clear this band can take on similar peers in its genre on the international scene with no trouble at all! This time, though, the »groove mass« of the band’s crumbling soundscapes was boosted even further. In Kranj, Noctiferia showed up as a sextet. They’ve taken on a new member, Damjan Tomoski, who, besides reinforcing the rhythmic foundation with percussion that dictates a »tribal march,« also handles the programmed sampling, which fuses seamlessly into the riff mass of the Nardin / Fileš guitar tandem!
This time too, Noctiferia built the set around their current sound and body of work, just as expected! We got a setlist loaded with tracks from the still-current record »Death Culture,« while the middle of the show was given over to a presentation of brand-new songs, namely Rudra The Roarer, The Sleeper Is Awaken, Gaga People and I Am You. Noctiferia created an atmosphere so screamingly gloomy, with such a doom-laden grip, that it sucked every sinful soul that found itself in or near Transtation Squat that night into the bottomless maw of the abyss of evil. All to cleanse them through the purification of the metal craft! An execution »par exellence.« Gianni, as always, in the role of the confident stage commander! Not the smoothest host between songs, but once he steps into his vocal performance, it’s clear the man is the true address of Noctiferia when it’s time to lead the band’s fans, soul and all, into an unforgettable ritual of extreme metal worship.
So Noctiferia delivered a top-notch show! Gianni had some trouble with a mic that was picking up feedback from the stage, so a few times he’d rather dodge the higher-pitched, brutal »screams,« which was honestly the only remark of the night. Vocals clearly up front, rhythm section tight, riff mass eruptive, and Igor Nardin again effectively spiced up the band’s live presence with interesting guitar solos. You couldn’t ask for more. With Noctiferia you get exactly what you expect. An excellent show! May the band survive the coming months in the studio, and may the new year grant the guys a virtuous burst of creative inspiration as they craft their new studio album!
Setlist
PENITENZIAGITE:
1. Lords Long Forgotten
2. Fire Makes Way
3. Cleansing
4. Path Lain In Shadows
5. Humanity Galore
6. Dictation
7. Origin of Desolation
8. Circle of Life
9. My Life Will Go On
NOCTIFERIA:
1. Intro (Fond of Lies)
2. Deluders And Followers
3. Slavedriver
4. So Devoid
5. Demoncracy
6. Rudra The Roarer
7. The Sleeper Is Awaken
8. Gaga People
9. I Am You
10. Terror
11. Catarsis
12. Samsara
13. Mara
—encore—
14. Holymen
15. Bring Out the Beast
Photo Gallery
