Author: Primož Novak
Location: Gromka, Ljubljana
Concert date: 19.02.2016
Ticket price: 10€/14€
Slovenian death metallers Within Destruction have taken a big step forward with their album Void, and an equally big one when it comes to playing live. Fully aware of the risk, the guys rented an RV and hit the road with Disentomb, Kraanium and Visceral Disgorce. The tour kicked off in France, and before it landed in Slovenia, it had already rolled through Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Austria. In other words, Within Destruction have racked up a ton of mileage in a short time.
At eight o’clock, the moment of truth arrived in the hall of Gromka at Metelkova. Within a few minutes, the doubts were happily blown away. At the start, the band didn’t sound all that tight, and even the drummer’s feet weren’t exactly flying. But then the band showed that too little sleep, a lack of home-cooked meals and constant partying simply aren’t going to stop them. The packed Gromka got an energetic, intense set from Within Destruction, and the front rows greeted it with a moshpit. The band confidently and tightly played the new material from the fresh album Void (review HERE). Rok Rupnik’s vocals are powerful live too, the rhythm section flattened everything in its path, the Juretič/Bajuk guitar duo kept reeling off uncompromising brutal riffs, and the breakdowns got quite a few bodies moving in the packed hall. It’s definitely commendable that the crowd came out to support the band, given that this is pretty brutal stuff that doesn’t aim at the masses. Sadly, after half an hour Within Destruction said their goodbyes with King of Serpents from their first album. The band proved that a bright future may still lie ahead of them, as long as they keep going the way they are now.
Next up were the Americans Visceral Disgorge, who have only one album under their belt and drew their set from it. Even though Visceral Disgorge are slam death metal representatives, their music came across as a mix of older brutal death metal bands with the slow sections that Dying Fetus introduced long ago. Still, Visceral Disgorge undoubtedly delivered on what a brutal band should be: murky guitars, even more unintelligible vocals and decently fast drums. They weren’t anything special, but for fans of so-called slam death metal, they were more than satisfying.
The English-Norwegian team-up Kraanium was less convincing. The band can boast a powerful sound, thanks to seven-string guitars and a six-string bass. But with undynamic drums and vocals, Kraanium are far from anything that would stand out. And you could hardly talk about any real extremity here, since the band sounded like a slightly more aggressive version of Emmure, except that Kraanium use growled vocals and even throw in the odd blast beat. The comparison comes mostly from the image alone, but sadly Kraanium just don’t show anything special enough to be memorable.
With Australia’s Disentomb, things luckily turned in the right direction. The band undoubtedly lives up to its origins, a country that has sent quite a few standout bands onto the metal scene, whether more technical or more deathcore-leaning. Australia certainly has a number of special acts that are now recognized extreme bands, and Disentomb don’t fall below that average. The music is fast, not overdone with slow parts or breakdowns. You could say it justifies the “slam” label because it doesn’t lean on repeating the same old »chugga chugga« sections, but has a dynamic of its own, driven by a fast, heavy rhythm section and deep growls (as with all these bands, of course). With their material, which covered both albums, Disentomb won over the crowd too, and toward the end there were more and more people up on stage.
With the Within Destruction, Disentomb, Kraanium and Visceral Disgorge show, Klub Gromka got a hefty dose of the kind of brutality you don’t get at just any metal gig. And we wish Within Destruction that this tour opens plenty of doors for them around the world.
