Brainstorm Bring the Storm Back to the Slovenian Capital (2019)

Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Date: Tuesday, 29.01.2019

Power metal day has finally come to Ljubljana. German power metallers Brainstorm are back in the Slovenian capital, a good four years after they played Ljubljana’s Metelkova alongside the popular pirate drunkards Alestorm. This time Brainstorm hit the road on their own headlining tour, backing their new studio album “Midnight Ghost” – review HERE. They brought along another power metal standout from Germany, the seasoned Mob Rules, plus Gloryful, considerably younger torchbearers of the genre who already have four studio albums in their pocket.

Gloryful were first on stage. The room was still getting little attention at that point. People were hanging around the bar, though a handful of die-hard fans of marches and charges did gather in front of the stage. Gloryful had good reason to be grateful, since on this very same stage a year ago they opened for Allmanac, led by Belarusian musical wizard Victor Smolski, in front of a completely empty room. The quintet delivered a confident gig, with a sound that was solid for a support act: not optimal, but solid. Vocalist Johnny La Bomba struggled a bit to carry his vocal power through the midrange; maybe a cold had “gotten” him, or maybe he just wasn’t having his best day. Before the new song The Hunt, Johnny said it was inspired by the character and work of Suicidal Tendencies. As it turned out, it was one of the best songs of their set on this tour, and it’s on their freshly released album “Cult of Sedna”. Marches, a bit of Manowar-style marching in the phrasing and rhythm, and all perfectly solid, even if they’re riding on well-worn, familiar musical ground.

Mob Rules, a band we caught last year at the German festival Bang Your Head!!!, are celebrating 25 years of existence this year, and it’s also exactly two decades since the release of their debut studio album “Savage Land”. A few years back, especially after the album “Ethnolution A.D.”, they widened their arrangements, and with their bombast and epic scope, on the predecessor “Tales From Beyond” (2016) as well as the latest “Beast Reborn” – review HERE, they also flirt energetically with the vibe of a project like Avantasia. Two years ago they grew into a sextet, adding an extra (rhythm) guitarist, Sönke Jenssen, to the lineup. The band is commanded by the charismatic Klaus Dirks, today the group’s only original member, who didn’t forget to dress the part in some baroque-trimmed finery, complete with a Victorian top hat. At first glance he fleetingly resembles Urban Breed (Serious Black, Bloodbound). Klaus Dirks remains an excellent vocalist. Dirks sang brilliantly, and you can tell his teacher was Ronnie James Dio. He’s got no shortage of charisma, and with his tactical way of working the audience he shows great confidence and experience, if not outright routine. He’s also got plenty of sense for endearingly playful banter. The band showed superb tightness as they marched through the new songs (Children’s Crusade, Sinister Light and the opener Ghost of A Chance), as well as songs from “Tales From Beyond” (Somerled, On the Edge, My Kingdom Come), which complement and connect with each other very well, both creatively and in vibe. The band spiced up the show with two classics from what is probably the most recognizable album of their career, “Hollowed Be Thy Name”. These are two songs without which fans somewhere in Germany would probably lynch them: In the Land of Wind And Rain and the title track of that album, which closed the show. The setlist also made room for The Last Farewell from “Ethnolution A.D.” and Black Rain from “Among the Gods”. An extremely compact and tight performance, boosted by the superb soloing of the excellent Sven Lüdke, Dirks’ theatrics, and a very well-mixed sound. Excellent prep and warm-up for the evening’s headliners.

Brainstorm are a pretty well-known name in our parts among the “surviving” power metallers. “Midnight Ghost” is an excellent new studio album that justifies all of the band’s credibility. They showcased it generously at the show, playing a total of five songs from it (Devil’s Eye, Jeanne Boulet (1764), Ravenous Minds, Revealing the Darkness, The Pyre). Even though vocalist Andy B. Frank grumbled right at the start that he was seriously sick with a cold and couldn’t give 100% of a vocal show, you didn’t feel it for a second during the gig. He sang once again like a jet engine. Brainstorm have always been known as excellent musicians. Over a long-lived career that stretches back to 1989, the lineup hasn’t changed much, and those tight bonds and that sense of reading each other have pretty much earned full citizenship in Brainstorm. Their concerts have often “stolen” the show from more established power metal names like Grave Digger and/or Primal Fear, among others, precisely because of their exceptional performances. Milan Loncaric and Thorsten Ihlenfeld are a phenomenal guitar tandem that knows no misfires and admits none. Their tightness is unbelievable, and so is how in tune they are with each other. In harmonizing phrases, in trading solos, in their phrasing in general. Shredding left and right. Nonstop. Just as skillfully and nimbly, they use every inch of the stage. Andy B Frank keeps all his charisma and is a great frontman who quickly gets the crowd to join in at full throttle. Even the part of the crowd that seems reserved, or shows less interest at first, has no expectations, or is simply seeing this band live for the first time in their life. Andy remains an outstanding crowd motivator, and at Orto bar too, Brainstorm effectively got most of the room on their feet. Maybe the guys ran into a slightly smaller turnout this time, but the crowd still had plenty of boiling, red-hot power metal heads who kept the mood good and cheerful the whole way through and the power metal ambiance heated to just the right temperature. The crew of music buddies from neighboring Croatia especially, whom we’ve been running into regularly over the years at concert epics, now on our side of the border, now on theirs, kept up that fiercely devoted fan spirit right in front of the stage. The band felt the heat of the crowd in the first few rows and held nothing back in delivering the material. They gave their maximum, as they always do. Brainstorm is a band we’d normally file under Euro power metal, but their phrasing carries a pile of starting points and hooks that hint that in a different compositional environment you could have gotten the blueprint for a Teutonic thrash metal band. An unbelievable rhythm section that broke its shackles and chains. Fascinating work by drummer Dieter on the double bass pedal, with kinetic bassist Antonio backing him up the whole way. A truly insane performance by the quintet. Especially because it was a show in a proper club setting, where the chemical bonds between crowd and stage are so much more intense and the passion and emotions so much more bubbling over. At gigs like this you go back 20 years or more, to when power metal was on the rise, and the sense of everything else disappears. Of time and space. Only one thing remains. Magic. The magic that at shows like this we’re all one. No differences between us. One thing unites us. Faith in metal and its magic, which keeps us alive and untamed through our everyday lives. A storm, a tornado, a monsoon, if you like. Simply put: Brainstorm always deliver the best.

In the available stage time, the band tried to cover the bulk of their albums. We also heard: The World To See (“Scary Creatures”, 2016), In These Walls (“On the Spur of the Moment”, 2012), the title track of the album “Firesoul” (2014), Highs Without Lows and Shiva’s Tears (“Soul Temptation”, 2003), Falling Spiral Down and Fire Walk With Me (both from the album “Downburst”, 2008), and Worlds Are Comin’ Through and All Those Words (both from the album “Liquid Monster”, 2005). One more encore was planned, but the band didn’t play it. Most likely because of Andy’s cold. We were left shortchanged on the song Under Lights from the cult album “Metus Mortis”.

author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik