Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Location: Josefov Fortress / Jaromer / Czech Republic
Concert date: 13.08.2016
Attendance: 15,000
The first mission of the festival’s third day was to find out what the hell the »secret point« marked on the map actually was. At its location, above the arch of the entrance to one of the fortress tunnels, hung a sign reading Temple öf Lemmy, and the festival staff were handing out candles at the entrance that we visitors could light beneath the stained glass of the iron chancellor (under which, of course, quite a few empty Jack Daniels bottles were already sprawled). A beautiful, touching tribute to a rock ‘n’ roll icon.
On Saturday we finally got that proper summer weather at Brutal Assault too, and the sun stayed with us until evening. The last day was perfect for soaking up the final impressions and memories of the festival. Something that won’t stick in the memory for very long is Finnish thrashers Lost Society, the first band we caught in the early Saturday afternoon. It was nice to hear something genre-wise different coming out of Finland than Nightwish , Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius, Ensiferium and black metal, but Lost Society didn’t offer anything overly original. Their Bay Area-sounding thrash had a few interesting ideas, some pleasant riffs and an energetic frontman, and that was pretty much it. The best Finnish thrash metal export remains the cult heroes Stone.
Hungary’s Ektomorf hadn’t been to Slovenia in ages, even though they used to play here almost every weekend, so we had to go all the way to the Czech Republic to see them. Well, not really, because Ektomorf are still not all that exciting and still pull cheap tricks, like using the theme song of the ultra-popular series Game of Thrones as an intro this time. You can spot from a mile away that vocalist Zoltan, the only remaining original member, is the boss of the band, since the other members are visibly subordinate to him, and Zoltan is still a kind of lesser copy of Max Cavalera. You can’t accuse the Hungarians of lacking confidence or self-assurance, as they easily got the crowd into moshing and circle pits, but musically they’re still stuck somewhere around Roots Sepultura. The same old »jumpdafuckup« riffs and extremely low-tuned guitars quickly became a living bore, and the at times downright idiotic lyrics of Holocaust, Fuck You All, Black Flag and Evil By Nature (on the album version of which George »Corpsegrinder« Fisher helped out) were even worse.
The next dose of hardcore punk came from California’s Stick to Your Guns, who will be remembered mainly for their annoying frontman Jesse Barnett, who kept thanking and shouting out his brothers in a thousand and one hardcore bands, nonstop and all over the place. Fellow Americans Stuck Mojo did better, rap metal pioneers and honestly a pretty obscure surprise of the festival. Stuck Mojo were among the first bands to add rap to a base of Southern-flavored heavy metal, and with their debut Snappin’ Necks they really made a name for themselves. Sadly, the current lineup doesn’t include original singer/rapper Bonz, and new frontman Robby J can’t hold a candle to him. His rapping seemed completely off the whole time, but luckily the band’s boss, guitarist Rich Ward, saved the impression and proved to be a real bomb of energy. The best memory was undoubtedly the song about the »American cowboy«, Charles Bronson, which had the whole of Brutal Assault jumping.
To my considerable disappointment, cult thrash metallers Whiplash from New Jersey cancelled their appearance right before the festival started, and their replacement was fitting genre-wise, but far from ideal. In their place stepped in German thrash veterans Holy Moses, who have been led since 1981 by the unstoppable Sabina Classen. Mrs. Classen is a respectable 52 (!) years old, yet on stage she still acts like she’s thirty at most, constantly active, running around the stage and headbanging nonstop. Vocally, though, from what I heard, Sabina is sadly already pretty worn out, as her raw, aggressive vocals were mostly completely unintelligible, and instrumentally Holy Moses lag well behind their better-known German thrash colleagues. Sabina and her thrash dogs said goodbye to Brutal Assault with a decently performed version of the Dead Kennedys classic Too Drunk to Fuck. Solid, but nothing special.
Next up was by far the best band of the entire festival, so good that any words would completely fade next to its brilliance. Just look and listen to this genius from Germany’s Eskimo Callboy!
What followed was painted in the darker, colder colors of Finnish melancholics Insomnium. The guys still play mostly their newer material live, forgetting about the older songs that surpass the new ones in many ways. The good sound brought the essentials of Insomnium to the fore: a more aggressive melodic death metal full of slow, sorrowful passages typical of the Finnish metal scene. Insomnium made good use of their time, but it seemed like they weren’t having their best day, or were only pressing the gas pedal at half power. The energy was pretty gloomy, and singer Niilo sounded rather pathetic vocally, with his growl sounding less like a beastly snarl and more like the coughing of a pensioner who’s been smoking for fifty years. Insomnium’s melancholy just didn’t work all that convincingly this time, in the late, sunny Czech afternoon.
Then came the third Finnish attack of the day, with Helsinki’s Moonsorrow, but their pagan/folk/black metal with long songs and lyrics sung in Finnish was a real drag too, so the time of their set was perfect for a refreshment and some last-minute shopping.
Better suited to the atmosphere of the slowly winding-down festival were the fathers of hardcore, Agnostic Front, who carried the crowd from European soil to the dive bars and concert holes of New York in the mid-eighties and early nineties, for an hour at least. The band, formed way back in 1980, is certainly one of the most influential in the genre, and a huge crowd gathered in front of the stage accordingly, with a few real punk mohawks spotted among them. Agnostic Front fired up the engine uncompromisingly and without stopping, spewing out two-to-three-minute hardcore rippers. The crowd was happy, and we got plenty of mosh pits during Agnostic Front. Funny that at a metal festival the biggest carnage in front of the stage is created by punks and hardcore kids, hehe. The guys from Agnostic Front were thrilled too, vocalist Roger Miret was visibly in a great mood, and guitarist Vinnie Stigma flirted with the audience the whole time. Agnostic Front strung together a pile of classics, from Victim in Pain through Crucified (an Iron Cross cover), Only In America and For My Family, all the way to the unmistakable Gotta Go. The legendary New Yorkers also delighted the crowd with the news that the show was being filmed for an upcoming DVD, and closed their set with the rock-solid Ramones classic Blitzkrieg Bop.
Poland’s black/death metal giants Behemoth probably gathered the biggest crowd in front of the stage across all four days of the festival. The reason for that probably also lies in the fact that the festival is located near the Polish border, and the Poles are the most numerous visitors after the Czechs. Behemoth had thunderous support from the home crowd as well as plenty of others, and as expected they once again played the current studio album The Satanist in its entirety, by now completely worn out and overused. It’s understandable that for frontman Nergal the album is a kind of personal catharsis after beating cancer, but hearing the same songs, heard countless times already, wasn’t exactly thrilling. With Behemoth you know exactly what to expect, since every show is rehearsed to the last detail. This one was a bit less so than a few months ago at Kino Šiška, but again there was no shortage of tongues of fire, incense and dramatic posing. What impressed most this time was the fast Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer, while the slower and rather similar songs had already sunk into oblivion. It’s high time Behemoth properly shuffled their setlist and put The Satanist on ice for a while.
We wrapped up Brutal Assault 2016, the 21st edition of the biggest Czech festival of extreme music, with the godfathers of Teutonic thrash metal, Destruction. The German giants delivered probably the hottest performance of the festival, as the fire-spewing just wouldn’t end. Destruction’s set was pure thrash shots from the opening assault of Under Attack all the way to the closing classic Bestial Invasion. Schmier belted out his lines like a stage victim of a crazed butcher, while Mike cut and chopped with a butcher’s precision through guitar riffage and wild soloing. The band’s great form was confirmed by superbly performed classics Curse the Gods, Mad Butcher (during which the mad butcher himself appeared on stage and chased the band’s unsuspecting mistress), and also Thrash Till Death and Eternal Ban. An outstanding show worthy of closing the festival, even though the program carried on with at least Polish black metal champions Mgla and Venom Inc., but for this year it was enough. With its exceptional lineup, cheap beer, unique location and numerous side activities, Brutal Assault once again proved itself a festival worth visiting.
Setlist
STUCK MOJO:
1. Here Come the Infidels
2. Rape Whistle
3. Pigwalk
4. Throw the Switch
5. Charles Bronson
6. Open Season
7. Rising
8. Not Promised Tomorrow
HOLY MOSES:
1. Def con II
2. Finished With the Dogs
3. Hellhound
4. Nothing for My Mum
5. World Chaos
6. Undead Dogs
7. Panic
8. Life’s Destroyer
9. Reborn Dogs
10. SSP (Secret Service Project)
11. Current of Death
12. Too Drunk to Fuck
INSOMNIUM:
1. The Primeval Dark
2. While We Sleep
3. Change of Heart
4. Down With the Sun
5. Revelation
6. Ephemeral
7. The Killjoy
8. Devoid of Caring
9. The Promethean Song
10. Mortal Share
AGNOSTIC FRONT:
1. The Eliminator
2. Dead to Me
3. Social Justice
4. My Life My Way
5. Police Violence
6. Only In America
7. Warriors
8. For My Family
9. Friend or Foe
10. Victim in Pain
11. Never Walk Alone
12. All Is Not Forgotten
13. Crucified
14. Gotta Go
15. Take Me Back
16. Addiction
17. Blitzkrieg Bop
BEHEMOTH:
1. Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel
2. Furor Divinus
3. Messe Noire
4. Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer
5. Amen
6. The Satanist
7. Ben Sahar
8. In the Abscence ov Light
9. O Father O Satan O Sun!
10. Ov Fire and the Void
11. Conquer All
12. Chant For Eschaton 2000
DESTRUCTION:
1. Under Attack
2. Curss the Gods
3. Nailed to the Cross
4. Mad Butcher
5. Life Without Sense
6. Second to None
7. Thrash Till Death
8. Eternal Ban
9. Thrash Attack
10. The Butcher Strikes Back
11. Bestial Invasion
Photo Gallery
