Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: San Dona Di Piave / Revolver Club / Italy
Concert date: 11.02.2018
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: 20,00€
Why was it a smart move to catch this new Pestilence tour? Simple. The old school setlist the band is playing on the current »Fight the Plague« run through Europe. Not only has the band, with its upcoming new studio album »Hadeon« (out digitally at the end of this January), flirted stylistically with the first half of the nineties, it’s more than that. Two years ago the band was reborn, overhauled the lineup, did a complete “reset” and started more or less from scratch, or in plain words, went back to the cradle that earned it its pedigree as innovators and, in the technical death metal subgenre, even a bit of a pioneering role.
So Patrick Mameli, the indestructible elder statesman of the Dutch death metal pioneers, has resurrected Pestilence for the third time. The new lineup has Romanian drummer Septimiu Hărşan and (no less Romanian) guitarist Calin Paraschiv, who previously played together in Necrovile, while the bass is rubbed by Slovenian bassist Tilen Hudrap, who is clearly becoming an ever more respected and sought-after name on the international metal scene. Since 2013 Tilen has been a full-time member of American old school speed/thrash metal champions Vicious Rumors, he helped pull off a few shows for the legendary Testament (and it’s obvious that hardly anyone can fill Steve DiGiorgio’s shoes. Tilen can.) He also became part of the latest incarnation of the famous, long-lived Teutonic thrash metal legends, Germany’s Paradox. So? No need for much philosophizing here, because it quickly becomes clear that our Tilen is an exceptional Slovenian musician and in fact the first Slovenian musician to reach the status of a real professional in metal, one who knows no breaks and, regardless of his young age, is already a proper heavyweight when it comes to racking up mileage. Let’s hope he gets some real recognition from his homeland too, if the rest of the world values and respects him. To be honest, for that reason alone, going to the Pestilence show in San Dona Di Piave and its Revolver Club was, for me as a Slovenian fan, simply an obligation!
But let’s take it from the top. San Dona Di Piave is a town relatively close to Treviso, located in Veneto, and from there it’s not far to Venice either. And it’s Sunday again. A bit of an awkward slot, but this club loves putting shows on Sundays. The next one of interest to us is coming up on one of the March Sundays, when the famous former Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell plays there with his battalion of sons.
The doors opened at half past seven in the evening, and at the same time the first band started rattling away on stage. Two local acts opened the night this time. First up was Psychotomy, an Italian death metal quartet. A mixed, that is male-female, crew: the guys handle the rhythm section, the woman the guitars. “Seven-string paddles,” low tuning, deeper droning and rumbling. The biggest attraction was the vocalist’s grunting, who can boast an expressive and distinctive growl. That said, the band is currently a bit handicapped, since it mostly focuses on atmosphere alone. No solos, for instance, and no particularly interesting passages either. The female growl is eye-catching, though, so the group has some potential, but to evolve it would need to write a few more interesting originals and bring in at least one technically refined guitarist.
The second act on the bill was actually pointless. Gravestone, a sextet of dolled-up, school-trained musicians playing power metal with growl vocals that lack real punch and come across as pretty weak and bland. The band also had quite a few sound mishaps, so the guitars couldn’t be heard clearly, and one of the two guitarists couldn’t quite show off the sonic speed that his arpeggios demand. It looked like he hadn’t practiced enough at home. Apart from showing off their drilled, textbook technique and a big desire to work classical elements into the arrangements, the guys didn’t show anything tangibly authentic or special. So the time for a breather came sooner than I’d originally planned.
Things got “serious” when Dutch thrash metal revivalists Distillator took the stage. Lanky Lauren H, lead vocalist and guitarist going by the nickname “Desecrator,” remains the driving force and is still as flexible and stretchy on stage as a rubber band. We first caught the band back in late 2015, when Distillator kept the American oddballs Vektor company at Ljubljana’s Orto Bar. The trio has grown even more convincing when it comes to stage performance. Lauren H set up as many as three mic stands, in the style of Schmier (Destruction), and moved from stand to stand during the show while handling the lead vocals. Given that the guy has to solo, having several stands on stage makes the trip back to the mic for a verse or chorus mercifully shorter. In the process he ran back and forth in near-blind fury, stopping several times right at the edge of the stage, where he fired off extremely fast solos in the vein of “Kerry King chaos.” The outfits were old school, in the manner of Destruction and Artillery from the eighties: bullet belts across the chest, high-tops, black spandex… in short, thrash revival. In the style you can feel plenty of Slayer riffs. The band released its new studio album »Summoning the Malicious« last year and presented it with plenty of steel. On stage Distillator are a convincing unit that works extremely tight and confident. With all that stretched-out speed a little slip-up does happen, which is only logical, but hand on heart, which show goes by without mistakes? None. What really convinces is the heart, dedication, fighting spirit, commitment, tenacity, relentlessness. Maybe just one remark: Distillator remind you a little too much of the role models mentioned above (Slayer, Destruction,..). Otherwise, as far as the live experience goes, extremely toxic and devilish.
Rebaelliun are a Brazilian death metal trio with two eras of activity. In the first, Rebaelliun were active between 1998 and 2003, releasing two studio albums in that time, then reactivated in 2015 and the year before last put out a third one titled »The Hell’s Decrease«. The band confirmed its good form with the EP “Bringer of War (The Last Stand)”, released last year, with which Rebaelliun proved they aren’t slowing down, but are becoming ever fiercer usurpers of sonic “filth” and terror. Lyrics to match. They call for anarchy, disobedience, revolt, revolution, while at the same time Rebaelliun are big pacifists and keep warning about the delusions of war. The trio is incredibly convincing on the sonic side. A phantom-like crushing sound, produced by just three people on stage. Complete with an outrageously piercing growl. The sound was extremely full. On top of all that, the trio serves up superb technical skill. The drums thundered, and with their activity kept the motifs intensely moving. Complex, with the double bass drum pedal constantly in the highest speed gear. With such unbridled ferocity there’s certainly no time for indifference or a breather, and Rebaelliun managed to create a kind of hypnosis that sucked you into their musical world. So Rebaelliun are special. They’re raw, unpolished, yet they contain a bit more musicality than you’d expect from such primal rawness and eruptive execution. They’re old school and yes. They’re Brazilian to the bone, no doubt about it!
And for the big finale, Pestilence. Ten minutes to eleven in the evening it finally went off one last time that night at Revolver Club! At last. The front of the stage did thicken up, though, because the crowd seemed seriously reserved this evening. You’d expect carnage and blood in front of the stage, and instead you get a rather reserved and even slightly timid crowd. The response was the same. Right up until Pestilence, when the crowd finally woke up and about five people even ended up in the mosh. The band shot straight and direct! With the first act of the cult first album. Patrick Mameli looked in very good shape throughout the show. He handled the grunting at a more than enviable level, and the man has also pumped up his body and looks chiseled and dangerous. Especially when you add his experimenting with the hairdo, which even our Gianni (Noctiferia) would envy. For a 52-year-old Mameli looks incredibly fresh and rejuvenated, brimming with newfound energy and drive. It’s true that Italy is his second home, since his parents come from there, so he tossed out a few announcements in Italian as if it were nothing. Armed with a Steinberger guitar, he took care of at least half of all the solos, leaving the more demanding ones to Calin Paraschiv. Pestilence also showed excellent chemistry, and therefore a high level of tightness and cohesion. At every moment of the show. And the setlist was almost a dream. From the first to the fourth, that is the »Spheres« album. Over the course of the show the songs moved historically closer to 1993, though the band still gave a bit more attention to the third studio effort, »Testimony of the Ancient«. While Paraschiv, with his guitar strapped high, was in full battle gear the whole time to show off all the fine mechanics of fast-fingered soloing, on Mameli’s left our Tien Hudrap was bassing wildly, absolutely ripping through the show and digging into his Spector bass with relentless bite!
An hour and a quarter flew by in a flash. The setlist brought quite a few surprises. Songs that Pestilence have rarely played in their career. True, they had a long break lasting almost fifteen years, so for many classics there was no real chance to play them live. The first four songs came from the album »Maleus Maleficarum »(Maleus Maleficarum / Antropomorphia, Parricide, Subordinate To the Domination, Commandements). That was followed by »Consuming Impulse« classic Dehydrated, and then Pestilence swung on into the second part of the show with the album »Testimony of the Ancient« (The Secrecies of Horror, Twisted Truth, Land of Tears, Prophetic Revelations, Presence of the Dead). The closing part of the show went to the only »Spheres« track, Mind Reflections. An incredible carousel, or rodeo, of classic after classic. For the encore the band came back and fired off one more »Consuming Impulse« classic, Out of the Body, and the »plague rampage« was over!
With the revamped crew, Mameli lived up to the high expectations. The new lineup works superbly, and the songs performed live no less so! The band is nonetheless a bit tired, mostly because of the long distances between the venues they play. To illustrate: right after the show the band hit the road almost immediately, straight to Novi Sad in Serbia (800km from San Dona DI Piave), and the day after that they had to go on to Romania, heading for Bucharest (also about 800km from Novi Sad). Even so, after the show Mameli took time for the band’s fans, who besieged him for a good hour after the gig, signed a pile of autographs and of course took photos with them. The band is red hot, obviously in a new bloom, and there’s no shortage of demand for Pestilence shows in 2018. In the spring they head to South America, in the summer they hit the major European festivals, where brutal music naturally reigns, and in the fall they’re already planning a new European tour, which will be devoted to promoting the freshly released new studio album »Hadeon«. Let’s hope they get an invitation from Slovenia then too and visit Ljubljana again.
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