Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: Channel Zero, Ljubljana
Concert date: September 18, 2009
Attendance: 200
The September gig season is in full swing, and with it the dirty polecats have obviously crawled out of their holes. On top of an incredibly varied fall lineup, we got one more show: Danish thrash metal legends Artillery. And since you don’t exactly see them on Slovenian stages every day (actually, you don’t see them at all), showing up to Saturday’s gig was a must! Nothing beats a Saturday show, because you don’t have to drag yourself through work or lectures the next day after a wrecked night. The turnout matched, too: Channel Zero was nicely packed already for the first band.
The neck-muscle warm-up was handled by the tireless thrashers from the coast, Keller. They delivered a good half hour of an adrenaline dose of pure Teutonic thrash metal with real bite, straight into the jugular! Fast twitchy riffs, wild soloing and demonic riffage, crushing drumming full of interesting transitions, and dynamic bass playing with lively bass lines heated the hall up to thrash working temperature in an instant (666 degrees C, heh). Napalm was ignited, and the crazed general Martin barked orders at his band of mercenaries like a rabid, aggressive Rottweiler. Despite the band’s busy gigging schedule, the songs from the demo are still seriously incendiary, and lines like “killing for no reason! in Death command!” still cut like sharpened bayonets. We can’t wait for the debut, which will revive the tradition of true German old-school thrash, something rare around here. Until then, we’ll be waiting for more bombing raids like Saturday’s, which was also thanks to the excellent sound!
Gonoba may have been a bit of the black sheep of the night, but if you set aside Hopsy’s vocals, they were pure thrash metal blitzkrieg. I hadn’t seen them in quite a while and had forgotten how good these guys are live. I’d forgotten how fantastic dynamic riffs cut live and how inhumanly good bass lines caress you. What a pleasure it is to watch Brane’s fingers fly over the bass strings! Hopsy has become a real frontman, with great, goofy banter between songs, and vocally he fit completely into the whole. The death metal growls are deep, aggressive and raw, and the thrash vocals in the chorus of The Fall of Mankind sound fantastic too. Live, Gonoba is an unstoppable avalanche of dynamic thrash metal with lively riffs and guitar parts, a phenomenal rhythm section with fantastic bass playing, and sick vocals. The guys have saddled a whole herd of camels and are once again mercilessly conquering Slovenian stages. We can’t wait for October 30th and the release party for the debut Chains of Ignorance!
The main event of the night was taken over by the legendary Danish thrashers Artillery. The band was formed back in 1982 and so helped define and establish the thrash metal genre itself. By 1991 they had put out a pile of demos and three excellent albums, and written themselves into the history of the genre in golden letters. In 1998 they reunited and recorded their fourth album, B.A.C.K., then soon vanished again, though not for good. Two years ago they started up again, this time without longtime vocalist Flemming Roensdorf, but the lineup was soon filled out by new frontman Soren Nico Adamsen. With this lineup they recently released the phenomenal album When Death Comes, and European stages were eagerly waiting for Artillery to take them over. To the intro, the men marched onto the stage, looking like they belonged more at Oxford, with the obligatory five o’clock tea, The Times in hand and a discussion of current affairs with professor colleagues, than on the stage of Channel Zero. Whether the gentlemen were on a field trip, I don’t know, but they heated up a full Channel Zero with the very first chorus from the new album, Rise Above it All. Despite the sound being a little worse at times, we flat-out enjoyed the brilliant technical riffs, the wild soloing and the insane, fast tempos of the songs. Nico proved right away that he belongs in Artillery like a woman in an Austrian cellar (too early for such black humor, heh?), because he’s an energetic frontman with a fantastic voice that easily handles the aggressive thrash lines, the high screams and excellent melodic clean singing all at once. This time we can finally say it’s right that the guys gave a good chunk of the setlist to the new album, because it’s more than excellent, probably even one of Artillery’s best records. Still, it was so nice to hear the classic Artillery anthems, led by By Inheritance, The Almighty, Khomaniac and Terror Squad! The only thing I can complain about is that the show was too short. Or maybe it was simply so good that a solid hour felt like it flew by in a heartbeat. Artillery are still pure Terror Squad!
Photos: Nina Grad
Setlist
GONOBA: 1. Procreation 2. Violent Solutions 3. Constructing Deconstruction 4. Victim of Myself 5. Human: Error 6. Sickness 7. Fall of Mankind 8. In Vain 9. Chains of Ignorance ARTILLERY: 1. Intro 2. Rise Above it All 3. By Inheritance 4. The Challenge 5. When Death Comes 6. Cybermind 7. 10.000 Devils 8. Upon My Cross I Crawl 9. The End 10. The Almighty 11. Khomaniac 12. Terror Squad 13. Out of the Sky
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