Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Location: Bohinjska Bistrica / Dvorana Danica
Concert date: 03.02.2018
Winter Days of Metal debuted in Bohinjska Bistrica last year and proved to be a really pleasant festival with plenty of potential. On its second round it only confirmed that, and this year the crowd turned out in much bigger numbers than last year, too. That was most obvious on the second day, when headliners Dropkick Murphys drew a crowd of roughly eight hundred. We caught this year’s festival on the last day, Saturday. It had shrunk from a whole week to a welcome three days, and thanks to the weather it also lived up to its name this year. That day once again confirmed the festival’s pleasant, homey atmosphere.
Britain’s Novacrow kicked off the last day. They first introduced themselves to the Slovenian crowd at last year’s Metaldays, which I only found out thanks to Google, even though I actually watched them. Since they didn’t convince in the slightest back then, they sank into oblivion, and they’ll be forgotten even faster after this show. Novacrow took the stage at Dvorana Danica weakened: their drummer had clumsily wiped out at the water park in Bohinjska Bistrica and, thanks to the injury, had to hand his seat over to the drum machine. Judging by what I saw and heard, the band, led by singer and guitarist Kittie, took the whole thing with their left hand and treated the gig more as a joke than the real deal. The quality of the performance was clearly subordinate to the stage show put on by the overly posing Kittie and the bassist, who ran around the stage like a rabid monkey and spent almost more time below the stage than on it. The instrument was more or less a prop, since it wasn’t even plugged in. Otherwise Novacrow sound like somewhat trashy guitar pop, so the set was mostly a matter of watching the clock for when it would end.
Spain’s Immorgon were a bit better, at least performance-wise, which was on a much higher level than the openers’. But what stood out far more was that the guys from Barcelona are clearly struggling with a serious identity crisis, which was obvious already when they marched on stage in chainmail shirts and with drinking horns. Yes, Spaniards singing about Vikings. Worse, they try to sell that image with their whole look too, which is kind of like a band from Maribor dressing up as ninjas and singing about katanas. Besides, despite good sound and a confident performance, Immorgon sonically reminded me way too much of Ensiferum and, who else, Amon Amarth.
Because of the road conditions, Italy’s Hour of Penance cancelled their show the previous evening, and sadly Norwegian black metallers Endezzma went the same way, which wiped out their set too. After a longer break, Germany’s »nautical« funeral doom metallers Ahab took the stage, one of the most revered names in the genre, who proved over a good hour why that is so. The band’s name was of course inspired by Captain Ahab from Melville’s literary classic Moby Dick, and the group tied the sea theme brilliantly to slow, agonizing and menacing doom metal. Despite the rather heavy nature of their music, which isn’t for everybody, Ahab managed to create a wonderful atmosphere, built on the varied dynamics of otherwise ultra-slow doom. The Germans know exactly when to push you from the slow, hypnotic echo of the dark depths of the sea into the middle of a brutal, merciless ocean. They pull it off mainly by alternating melodic guitar lines and clean vocals on one side with massive chords and animalistic growls on the other. That latter side especially wrapped the crowd up mercilessly like the tentacles of a giant squid, and Ahab only let them out of their grip with the very last note.
The headliners of the closing day, legendary Dutchmen Asphyx, tightened the vise even more brutally. This was their first return to Slovenia since Metaldays 2014, and also their very first show of 2018. You could tell from a mile away that the Dutch four-piece were hungry for the stage and for suffocating the audience with raw, greasy death/doom metal. At Metaldays Asphyx presented the then-fresh Deathhammer; this time Incoming Death, released the year before last, was on the menu too, and the band rounded things off with a great pick from Death… The Brutal Way and iron-clad classics from the early ’90s. With excellent sound, the depraved, filthy riffs of Paul Baayens came surging out, along with the sick vocals of the exceptional van Drunen, who hasn’t lost an ounce of power and conviction despite the years. At moments you could hear that the guys had toasted their first show of the year a bit, as they tore through a few tracks several times faster than usual, but after top-notch anthems à la Deathhammer, Scorbutics, Last One on Earth and the closing M.S. Bismarck, my neck hurt the next morning like it hadn’t in ages. A headliner done right!
The real last goodbye to Winter Days of Metal 2018 came from German grind goats Milking the Goatmachine, but by then the crowd had gotten tired and far fewer people watched the final act. Besides, Milking the Goatmachine don’t offer anything beyond average grind, and personally they bore me pretty quickly. This time too they left no deeper impression on me, but the close of Winter Days of Metal 2018 was the right one regardless. The up-and-coming festival left a nice impression again this year, only confirming its great potential and proving it’s a very welcome shot in the arm for the early-winter gig scene, which is otherwise more or less dead. Here’s hoping the festival manages to clear one more hurdle in the future, which mostly comes down to the fact that very few bands are out on tour in the early winter months.
Setlist
ASPHYX:
1. Vermin
2. Candiru
3. Division Brandenburg
4. Wardroid
5. Death the Brutal Way
6. Asphyx (Forgotten War)
7. Deathhammer
8. Scorbutics
9. We Doom You to Death
10. Wasteland of Terror
11. Forerunners of the Apocalypse
12. The Rack
13. Last One on Earth
— encore —
14. M.S. Bismarck
Photo Gallery
