Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana (Pržan) / klub Pržan / Slovenia
Concert date: October 4, 2014
Attendance: 70
Ticket price: €3.00
This weekend things got seriously heated out in Pržan too, at the local klub Pržan (known among the natives as “Pržanček”). You know the place, it’s at the last stop of Ljubljana’s city bus »number 7«, tucked away behind the Polhov Gradec Dolomites. It’s a somewhat secluded spot, hidden from the eyes (and ears) of the neighbors in Pržan, Dolnice and Glince, where until recently they mostly threw »Balkan parties«, but obviously the times are getting rockier there too. Three bands, each genre-wise miles away from the others, repped an event called »Pržan se prži«. They put it on themselves. Head to toe. Just Le Seprtentine from Kranj and the Ljubljana outfits Pyroxene and Portmänteau.
First on stage were Le Serpentine. Just before ten in the evening. Not late at all. The improvised stage, which actually had no lighting to speak of, welcomed a quartet armed to the teeth with original material. They served up a string of compact songs with just the right dose of musicality and a full-blooded rhythmic groove, and every now and then those same songs bristled up with some rock spikes of their own. The guitar mostly sticks to clean tones, no distortion, so it shone especially nicely in contrast, leaving the bass room to stretch out more dynamically and concretely within the sonic picture. Le Serpentine are fronted by a female vocalist, which isn’t anything special in Slovenia anymore, since bands like that are swarming around like a small sea. Even though the girl has pure alt-rock dynamite in her throat, some vocal excess on stage would come in handy to liven up the band’s performance even more. The band certainly doesn’t lack dedication and drive, at least judging by how carefully packed their all-original songs are, the kind that would appeal even to some “seasoned” 90s grunge fans or Jeff Buckley (if he were still around). So it’ll be interesting to see what their studio debut serves up. The guys and the gal gathered a decent crowd of friends in front of the stage who came to support them, so the place was by no means empty. Sound was optimal.
Pyroxene, Slovenia’s »chemical« metalheads, are of course kneaded from a completely different genre dough. They too can boast original material, a stuffed mix of retro riffing from 70s heavy rock bands as well as metal jaggedness! The band is commanded by the seriously electrified vocals of Jan Tehovnik. That’s the guy who joined the elders of boogie metal, Leni kosti, two years ago. Ten songs that night, true to the band’s name, set off a whole pile of energy detonations and chemical chain reactions. The crowd got properly stirred up, and even a few metalheads rolled up front to whip their lush manes around. The band played the originals Things I Was, DRP, Quarantine, Bullets Fly, Cleansed in Fire, Choose Your Poison and Fireborn, and wrapped up the party with an extended version of Helium 3. The covers Electric Funeral (Black Sabbath) and the classic You Really Got Me (The Kinks) kept the good vibes going too. The band feels special. The main magnet is definitely Jan’s toxic voice, which could be used to knock down concrete walls, since he screams like Halford in his best days. In choruses like the one in Quarantine, his soaring »scream« demolished everything in front of it! Already with the opener Things I Was, backed by a galloping rhythm, the band flagged an interesting cross between metal and heavy rock, since the guitars even pull some bluesy levers in the solos. Pyroxene are definitely a somewhat different band on the Slovenian scene. It’s absolutely worth keeping an eye out for when they drop their first studio document!
Third on stage were Portmänteau. You honestly don’t know how to pin them down genre-wise. The sextet builds its compositions with serious ambition and approaches the musical craft in layers. One moment their music evokes typical elements of 70s psychedelic rock, occasionally even Doors-like sonics (thanks to the keyboard sound and the singer’s vocal character), but elements of blues, cabaret music, the neo-classicism of acoustic guitar arrangements and, interestingly, prog rock sneak into the arrangements very quickly, especially the kind that’s sweet on the retro sound of Yugoslav bands from the seventies, like Korni Grupa, Igra staklenih perli or Smak. Every so often a streak of lucidity eats its way into the tracks, along with the bitterness of alt-rock themes. It’s a real shame they played so late. The clock struck almost half past midnight when the guys, all six of them, could barely squeeze onto the small stage. By that hour the crowd was already seriously brewed on alcohol and off in »other spheres«, so only a handful of the most dedicated visitors stuck around to follow the band, and they got plenty to enjoy and hear. Portmänteau are a band for everyone drawn to ambitious musical experiments. They have a hard time putting up with stiffly sitting inside genre frameworks and instead strive for eclecticism and total artistic freedom! After what we heard, we can conclude that the third band of the night will also have a studio debut worth all your attention!
»Pržan se prži« was a success, then! No doubt about that. It’s the first rock event at klub Pržan, which definitely sounds (and reads) more than promising. Let’s hope the club’s owner stays open to young Slovenian rock and metal bands in the future, because they desperately need chances to present their music on stage and do their own self-promotion! Let’s also hope that by the next gig of this kind in the club, someone finds a few coins for two beams of white light! That way the bands’ performances will get the optimal effect they’re meant to have, and photographers won’t have to “shoot” the musicians with a flash!
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