Last Friday, most of Slovenia was probably busy gorging on duck, mlinci and red cabbage washed down with young wine, while those hungry for a dose of brutality poured into Orto bar for a deathcore package the likes of which we probably haven’t seen since the Never Say Die tour packages a few years back. No fewer than five bands descended on Orto, and despite the early start, I can’t remember the last time there was already a queue outside at six in the afternoon — a clear sign of strong turnout. And sure enough, even the first act already had an impressively enviable crowd in front of the stage.
First up were young British deathcore outfit Viscera, who had already drawn a decent crowd — no small achievement for a relatively unknown band whose debut and so far only album, Obsidian, came out just two years ago. In their half-hour set, the Brits laid out their vision of modern deathcore, built primarily around relentless breakdowns with slam elements sprinkled in here and there. Instrumentally, Viscera sounded pretty fresh and — for the genre — varied and dynamic, but they fell short on the vocal front. Frontman Jamie Graham simply failed to convince with his generic harsh vocals, and even less so with a weak clean vocal that didn’t exactly do the choruses any favors. Still, for the very first opener on the bill, perfectly solid.
The deathcore marathon continued in a similar vein with Dutch-Slovak quintet Distant, who sounded even heavier and more monolithic than their predecessors. Distant play classic deathcore, but regularly push it further with slam elements and — above all — a string of downtempo passages that slow time to a crawl like bullet time scenes from The Matrix. The ultra-massive sound was bolstered by a torpedoing drum kit loaded with blastbeats, layered atmospheric interludes, and vocals even more guttural and shrieking than the band before them.
Distant handed the baton to the first bigger name of the evening — American outfit Oceano, who’d been quiet for quite a while, with a good five years since their last album. But their studio silence was easy to overlook this time around, as they put on an excellent live performance backed by great sound and an engaged crowd. Not completely studio-dormant, mind you — at Orto they also unveiled the fresh single Mass Produced — but even setting that aside, Oceano sounded far, far better and above all more varied and professional than the two acts before them. Sonically the Americans hit like a monolith from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey — massive and apocalyptic — driven by strong death metal influences, heavy breakdowns, groove, earthquake-level drumming, and the brutal vocals of Adam Warren, who also smoothly MC’d between songs. Based on what we saw and heard, Oceano are in exceptional form, and if Mass Produced is any sign of what the new album holds, it absolutely needs to be on the radar of everyone who gives a damn about this genre.
Then, after a brief stage changeover, came the eagerly anticipated first co-headliner of the tour — Polish technical death metal titans who, after everything they’ve been through in the past, are stronger than ever (something Vogg’s stint with Machine Head probably helped a little). Decapitated aren’t strangers to our stages — they play here fairly often — but it’s always great to catch them, especially since they consistently put out exceptionally strong albums. No different with the current Cancer Culture: Decapitated opened with the title track and then played through most of the record. That unfortunately left little time for a longer trip back through the catalogue, but fair enough — a band should get to showcase new material, especially when it’s as strong as Cancer Culture. Despite a rough start on sound, Decapitated quickly sorted the mix and hurled the crowd straight into a technical death metal storm that very few can match — and the Poles get under your skin and into your neck muscles even faster thanks to a generous dose of groove. With Decapitated it’s a given that live means nothing short of the highest level, and they delivered again — though the rest of the band were almost slightly overshadowed by the killingly good drumming of James Stewart, without a doubt the best drummer the band has had since at least Krimh, if not Vitek before him. By far the most accomplished drumming of the evening, and not one that just leaned on endless blastbeating. As mentioned, the heavy dose of new material meant less room for older stuff, but of course the bulldozing Spheres of Madness couldn’t be left out — the room went wild — and for an even older treat there was Nine Steps from the debut Winds of Creation. Decapitated wrapped up all too quickly with Iconoclast, during which the lovely voice of Robb Flynn briefly drifted through the speakers, and sadly the loudly demanded encore never came.
Closing out the marathon evening were Canadian deathcore heavyweights Despised Icon, considered among the founding fathers of the genre and last seen on our shores as part of the Never Say Die tour all the way back in 2009. Despised Icon are true veterans of the genre and they sound like it — proto-deathcore through and through. Compared to the bands before them, the Canadians came across as somewhat predictable and one-dimensional at times, as their music leans primarily on slower brutality packed with breakdowns, drumming that relies heavily on blastbeats, and the dual vocal attack of Alex Erian and Steve Marois. The former brought a clearly-enunciated growl with a distinctly hardcore edge, while the latter handled the high shrieks, brutal guttural growls, and pig squeals. After a solid hour, Despised Icon wrapped things up with Purgatory in routine but high-energy fashion, making it clear even to the uninitiated and the unconvinced — and I’d count myself among them — that there’s plenty worth finding in deathcore.
Photos: Nina Grad
