“Thrash of the Titans” with Testament, Obituary, Destruction and Nervosa in Ljubljana (2025)
Testament / Obituary / Destruction / Nervosa
Tuesday, 21 October 2025, 5:30 PM – 11:00 PM
Ljubljana / Media Park / Slovenia
Every once in a while, special concert events come along — and yes, right here in Slovenia! The kind you simply cannot turn your back on. The kind we’re sorely missing around here. A killer combination of classic-era thrash and death metal, carried by three veteran acts — Testament, Destruction, and Obituary — plus the blazing Brazilian thrash/death metallers Nervosa, fifteen years deep in the game.
Media Center was practically sold out. Every last corner was crammed with fans hungry for a proper fix. Moving around the venue was a challenge — whether up front or in the back. Attendance was exceptional. The Balkans showed up, Austrians showed up, Italians showed up, and of course so did the locals! Communion by the notes of extreme metal, the kind that summons the devil himself!
Everything ran on schedule. I caught Nervosa once, ages ago, before Suffocation and Venom.inc at the Explosiv in Graz — in a very different lineup back then. The band has cycled through a huge number of members over the years, but guitarist Prika Amaral has held it all together, and she’s back on lead vocals — or rather, on growl duty. The all-female quartet delivered a genuinely excellent opening warm-up. The girls aren’t breaking new ground musically, but the playing and the delivery left a thoroughly enthusiastic impression. Prika’s growl carries enough venom to radiate pure bestiality, and the commitment, dedication, and heart shown by the whole crew — completed by Greek guitarist Helena Kotina, Dutch bassist Emmelie Herwegh, and drummer and fellow Brazilian Gabriela Abud — made the opening set fly by in no time. They rolled out track after track, with the latest and fifth studio album “Jailbreak” (2023) commanding most of the spotlight. A straight-up kick in the face!
Destruction are considered legends — one of the pillars of Teutonic thrash metal. But if they were rolling out on a solo tour, they’d probably fill little more than Orto bar around here, legend status and all, Schmier and company included. Quartet again! Armed with their 16th studio album “Birth of Malice”, released this past March, Destruction delivered exactly what their fans came to Ljubljana for that day. Napalm-shaking, merciless whiplashing at maximum velocity, with no survivors. The 40-minute time slot was decidedly not enough. The crowd lost it right from the opening classic Curse the Gods, and the expected Mad Butcher — and Bestial Invasion near the end — kept the ‘destruction’ energy pegged in the red. The machine never let up. Schmier is holding up brilliantly — vocally too. It was great to see the legendary Randy Black, who we’d followed at many past shows when he was still playing with Annihilator and Primal Fear. The man remains flawlessly devastating behind his kit! Sound was excellent (I was standing slightly to the right — naturally closer to the bar, about 15 meters from the stage).
Obituary brought a completely different energy when they took the stage. Florida’s old-school death metal legends remain a constant. The quintet, who’ve been running with the same lineup for a good while now, built their setlist for this tour with a decisive focus on their second studio album “Cause Of Death” — and rightly so, marking the record’s 35th anniversary. One other crucial factor accompanied the band’s flawless execution: near-perfect sound. For that reason, Obituary were the undisputed highlight of the evening for many in attendance — especially given the genre gap with Testament, which draws on different tastes and different levels of personal affection toward each band. John Tardy doesn’t change. His phenomenal, one-of-a-kind growl — the thing that gives the band’s catalogue its distinctly sinister character — remains content-obliterating, delivered with those signature poses. That wavy curtain of hair hanging almost to his knees is a particular winner. The man, the myth, the legend. And the sound? Exceptional. That’s why the set gripped you so perfectly and, given its nature and dynamic range, brought so much more variety to the room than Destruction’s set, which essentially rode one single unbroken vibe from start to finish. The crowd confirmed this with some of the most intense mosh pits of the night — pits you simply didn’t see repeated later on. The snare drum sounded immense; its monstrous crack detonated in sharp contrast through the death metal groove of both guitars’ lumbering riffs. The elements of the sonic picture were exceptionally well-calibrated. The most compelling stretch of the concert was the mid-section, where the band strung together six consecutive classics from “Cause Of Death”, culminating in a grand finale at the very tail end of the set — they dropped the classic I’m In Pain from the third album “The End Complete” (1992) and closed out their outstanding performance with the inevitable title track of the debut “Slowly We Rot” (1989). One hour of primordial death metal school. As if those 35 years had never passed.
Then comes a full half-hour break, followed by thrash metal royalty — arguably one of the most celebrated thrash metal outfits ever to emerge from the Bay Area. Testament. Plenty of people would love to see them counted among the Big Four of thrash. A band that doesn’t just draw in thrash metal fans but also pulls in more demanding audiences. I ran into quite a few friends that evening who are pure prog heads through and through, and they’d come simply to soak in the wizardry of the technically jaw-dropping execution that Testament are famous for.
The band put out their new album “Para Bellum” in early October — an excellent addition that rounds out their already rich catalogue. Testament played for an hour and fifteen minutes, building a setlist as a cross-section of their career, with the new album making its appearance deep in the second half of the show. They dove into the ferocious Infanticide A. I., where the thrash riffs coexist brilliantly with transitional, almost black metal passages, followed by the excellent new and deeply dark ballad Shadow People. From their early period, “Souls Of Black” was left out entirely once again — but the walls were already shaking in the first half of the show when the band fired off the title track from “Practice What You Preach” back to back with its album companion Sins Of Omission.
The band radiated an incredibly upbeat vibe, driven first and foremost by their commander-in-chief — the impossibly charismatic vocalist Chuck Billy, who once again delivered an outstanding vocal performance and threw in a few choice comments along the way — and by one of the most respected bassists in the extreme metal world, and metal in general, Steve Di Giorgio, who kept himself entertained by pulling faces at the crowd, carefully picking Dovas’s sticks up off the stage and hurling them back toward the drum kit. Speaking of which — Chris Dovas, the band’s newest member, is a genuine revelation. He’s stepped into some extraordinarily large shoes left by Gene Hoglan, Paul Bostapha, and Dave Lombardo, and he filled them convincingly from the jump, immediately justifying his spot among such technically refined bandmates. That earned him the drum solo, and not for a single moment did it fail to hold anyone’s attention (Di Giorgio helped out by playing along on the cymbals). Dovas is a wrecking ball, and the band knows it. At one point the guys circled him like a hockey team surrounding their goalie. Peterson and Scolnick are a chapter unto themselves. Their solos and duels remain nothing short of pure poetry — the kind of concert moments you never want to end. Guitar playing that could go on and on. Forever.
After the dark but excellent new ballad Shadow People, the band delivered two gems from the classic album “The Ritual” (Return To Serenity and Electric Crown) and crowned the outstanding show with the expected closing blow Into The Pit from their debut “Legacy” (1987). Testament’s performance once again confirmed that the years simply have no grip on them — sound and all (for decent sound you had to be somewhere in front of the mixing desk — left or right, it didn’t matter, as long as you were in the hall on the audience side of that board).
And the bottom line? You get more than you expect or ask for. Insane company, an insane collective metal celebration. An insane show from four extraordinarily vivid bands in top concert form. That’s what it is.
Authors: Edita Klemen & Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Nervosa – setlist:
1. Seed of Death
2. Behind the Wall
3. Kill the Silence
4. Perpetual Chaos
5. Venomous
6. Jailbreak
7. Endless Ambition
Destruction – setlist:
1. Curse the Gods
2. Nailed to the Cross
3. Scumbag Human Race
4. Mad Butcher
5. No Kings No Masters
6. Thrash ‘Til Death
7. Bestial Invasion
8. Destruction
Obituary – setlist:
1. Redneck Stomp
2. Sentence Day
3. A Lesson in Vengeance
4. The Wrong Time
5. Infected
6. Body Bag
7. Dying
8. Cause of Death
9. Chopped in Half / Turned Inside Out
10. I’m in Pain
11. Slowly We Rot
Testament – setlist:
1. D.N.R. (Do Not Resuscitate)
2. WWIII
3. Practice What You Preach
4. Sins of Omission
5. Native Blood
6. Trail of Tears
7. Low
8. More Than Meets the Eye
9. Drum solo
10. First Strike Is Deadly
11. Infanticide A.I.
12. Shadow People
13. Return to Serenity
14. Electric Crown
15. Into the Pit
