Bands: 3 Inches Of Blood / Goatwhore / Angelus Apatrida / Havok
Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Date: Monday, May 21, 2012
Canadian heavy metal outfit 3 Inches of Blood are no strangers to our stages. We’ve had the chance to catch them here several times, from their set at Metal Mania all the way to their most recent one at Kino Šiška. This time, in the style of the Canadian landing at Juno Beach in Normandy, 3 Inches of Blood (for the first time, if I’m not mistaken) stormed into Gala hala as headliners, bringing along their brothers-in-arms Havok, Angelus Apatrida and Goatwhore.
In front of a mere ten or twenty metal-thirsty souls, American thrashers Havok took the stage a bit after eight. They cut into the crowd with wreckers from their debut Burn (2009) and its even better follow-up Time Is Up, released last year. Denver, where Havok come from, isn’t exactly famous for metal, though Cephalic Carnage and Satan’s Host did crawl out of those parts. The Colorado capital is even less known for thrash, but if Havok are anything to go by, Denver could become the third thrash capital of the US. Havok play thrash exactly the way thrash is supposed to be played: heavy, punchy, fast, aggressive and uncompromising. Even better, Havok don’t sound like a cheap copy of the eighties genre pioneers. They sound fresh and youthful. Built on a foundation of riffs from Exodus, Slayer and other veterans, Havok have successfully added their own modern touch. The riffs don’t sound like the lines from Bonded By Blood or Reign In Blood that have been chewed over countless times (though you simply have to love vocalist David’s Araya “worship” screams), and the songs are high-octane thrash on the scale of the Tsar Bomba, the biggest nuclear bomb ever detonated. The phenomenal sound had roughly the same effect on everyone’s eardrums. The riffs cut like a scalpel, the drums thundered like the Battle of Kursk, and for once even the rattle of the bass strings was mixed well. That killer sound carried on right up until 3 Inches of Blood, the only band of the night with somewhat worse sound! With the raw energy and drive of pure-blooded thrash, led by the hits D.O.A. and Covering Fire, Havok easily warmed up the decimated crowd. Thanks to the great vibe onstage, the crowd came alive and gave the band the roaring support it had earned in blood.
We stayed in thrash waters with the next band too, as Spain’s Angelus Apatrida took the stage. They’ve just released a new record, The Call, and they’re no strangers to Slovenian stages, as this was already their third time playing here. After Havok, who played their thirty minutes with such an energy bomb that you’d think the end of the world was coming right after Monday, the Spaniards had a really tough job justifying their spot as the band following Havok. Angelus Apatrida managed to saw through their slice of the evening confidently and energetically, but their version of thrash went down a bit harder. Their riffs aren’t as infectious and sink into the ear a little more slowly. Their strengths are the beautifully intertwined twin harmonies, the dynamics of the songs, which (at times a bit too much) recall Megadeth, and the charismatic vocalist Guillermo. The band served up a thrash paella spiced further with the new album The Call, from which the Street Fighter-style You Are Next (why Street Fighter? Check out the video!), At the Gates of Hell and the beer ode Fresh Pleasure stood out most. There was no shortage of older tracks either, led by the title track of their previous album Clockwork.
The biggest genre detour of the night, without a doubt, came from the New Orleans band with the coolest metal name around. Goatwhore! The Goat Whore delivered a hefty dose of hard-hitting black/death metal, which the foursome pulled off in top form. The band is currently made up of members of proven metal names like Nachtmystium, Soilent Green and Crowbar, so there was nothing to expect from them but a black mass dedicated to the goat. And what a mass it was! The band didn’t talk much, but they played all the more, and words were replaced by the demonic barking of vocalist Ben, hellish riffs, a thundering rhythm section and excellent soloing from Sammy Duet. It’s not the clichéd death or black metal wankery of pinch harmonics and fast arpeggios, and you’d be more likely to find it in Judas Priest than Darkthrone. Goatwhore devoted the lion’s share of the set to their recently released record Blood for the Master, slipping in classics like Carving Out the Eyes of God and Apocalyptic Havoc among the new tracks. The Americans’ premiere blood-donation drive here was more than a success. Blood for Goatwhore!
For the fourth time, we finally managed to crawl across Niagara Falls and pay tribute to heavy metal and everything that goes with it. Long Live Heavy Metal, said Canada’s 3 Inches of Blood, who could also be called the spiritual successors of Manowar, at least in terms of playing traditional heavy metal with all the themes that come with it: metal, beer, women and fantasy topics from orcs to knights, gladiators and pirates. But with one big difference. Despite their fairly clichéd leaning toward true metal, 3 Inches of Blood manage to keep their credibility and avoid sounding like a caricature and (self-)parody, which today can easily be pinned on the band mentioned above. The Canadians’ new album, title included, sounds like one big homage to Rainbow, and it’s full of riffs that even Ritchie Blackmore wouldn’t be ashamed of, if he weren’t wasting his time these days picking flowers around castles and playing the lute. 3 Inches of Blood started off by blowing on the souls of all the metal ladies and sawing through Metal Woman, then strung together a selection of tracks from the new record, adding a garland of older ones. These ranged from God of the Cold White Silence (a real metal band obviously can’t be taken seriously unless it bows to Lovecraftian horror at least once, in this case the “Great Old One” Ithagua), through Isle of Eternal Despair and Trial of Champions (with a guest appearance by the Angelus Apatrida guitarist), to the closing The Goatrider’s Horde. The setlist could have used a few more sweet treats, and the band also looked a bit worn out, especially newcomer Byron Stroud and Cam Pipes. Pipes did bellow out his share, but he could have spared the crowd (admittedly already a bit tired after three bands) a few more words.
We haven’t hosted a package of bands this good in a long time. It’s genuinely rare for every act to be excellent, from the first opener onward, which makes it all the sadder that there were barely more of us in Gala hala than members of the whole touring crew. With journalists and photographers counted in, a measly fifty. Whether the reasons for such a poor turnout were the rainy Monday, the approaching festivals or exam season hardly matters now, but it’s a real shame that four great bands had to play to a half-empty hall and that the promoter probably sank deep into the red. But no matter what, those of us who were there proved that the title of 3 Inches of Blood’s new record isn’t just pulled out of thin air. Long Live Heavy Metal!
author: Rok Klemše
photos: Nina Grad
HAVOK:
1. No Amnesty
2. Fatal Intervention
3. Morbid Symmetry
4. Out of My Way
5. D.O.A.
6. Covering Fire
7. Afterburner
ANGELUS APATRIDA:
1. You Are Next
2. At the Gates of Hell
3. Clockwork
4. Killer Instinct
5. Blood on the Snow
6. Fresh Pleasure
7. Blast Off
8. Legally Brainwashed
GOATWHORE:
1. Collapse in Eternal Worth
2. Provoking the Ritual of Death
3. The Black Art of Deception
4. In Deathless Tradition
5. Carving Out the Eyes of God
6. Alchemy of the Black Sun Cult
7. When Steel and Bone Meet
8. Invert the Virgin
9. Judgement of the Bleeding Crown
10. An End to Nothing
11. Apocalyptic Havoc
