Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Location: Josefov Fortress / Jaromer / Czech Republic
Date of the concert: 09.08.2016
Attendance: 15,000
Three years have passed since our last visit to the Czech Republic’s biggest metal festival, Brutal Assault, and its 21st edition was the perfect excuse to head back into the embrace of the former Josefov military fortress. After a night drive we rolled into nearby Hradec Kralove in the early morning hours, where one of our accommodation options was waiting, and a well-organized shuttle bus dropped us at the festival grounds, a good 20 kilometers from town, shortly before three.
The endless queues at the entrance were waiting for us again, and they’re obviously a massive headache for the festival every year (luckily, our press duties let us skip them), and the chips on the wristbands, this year the only way to pay at the festival, caused a few problems too (though later on they turned out to be a really handy and simple solution). Brutal Assault pleasantly surprised us this year with a few new things, more on those below and in the upcoming reports. Not that long ago, Wednesday was just a warm-up night with mostly Czech bands and one bigger headliner (in 2013, for example, Testament), but for a few years now Wednesday has been an official festival day, and it already offers some pretty big-sounding names.
In the early afternoon, Czech post-hardcore outfit The Truth Is Out There greeted the crowd on one of the main stages, and they were awful, while German Dust Bolt didn’t convince in the slightest with their generic thrash metal, so easing into the festival vibe was a better choice than yawning through cliché piled on cliché.
The first serious band of the warm-up day was definitely the great American thrash hopefuls Vektor, who proved with their latest studio album Terminal Redux that thrash in the 21st century can still sound fresh and killer (unlike Dust Bolt). If the Philadelphia four-piece gave us just a teaser of the new album last year at Ort, this time was a whole different story, as Vektor devoted four-fifths of their (way too) short set to their third studio album. The roaring chants of the name Vektor showed they’re an increasingly in-demand band, and they charged onto the stage with the nine-minute opening epic from Terminal Redux, Charging the Void. Despite somewhat worse sound, Vektor had the already sizable crowd sunk without much trouble into nebulae, distant galaxies and dying planets with a veritable constellation of unforgettable guitar moves from the David DiSanto/Erik Nelson duo, while the wildly feral rhythm section bombarded the crowd like an asteroid swarm. A big plus is that DiSanto almost dropped the sometimes pretty annoying high-pitched screaming for the new album and replaced it with a typical thrash growl, while the minus is that after the four Terminal Redux tracks, Vektor only had time for one more aggressive assault, Hunger For Violence from the debut.
The excellent opening menage-a-trois continued with Swedish vampires Tribulation, whom we also caught on home turf a little over a year ago, at Ljubljana’s Channel Zero with Melechesh. The Swedes build on a death metal foundation with black metal influences and a retro approach in the spirit of seventies rock bands. Tribulation are still riding the success of their latest studio album Children of the Night, and they greeted Brutal Assault with its first single, the chilling Strange Gateways Beckon. This time they had more room to move on stage, which guitarist Jonathan, who looks like a ballerina, put to good use for his dance steps, while the other three members with their pale-painted faces rounded out the atmosphere of classic horror, and the charismatic frontman Johannes and his commanding, raw vocals did so even more. The most memorable moment was the unforgettable The Motherhood of God, during which the heavens opened during the harmonic guitar outro. Tribulation are still an exceptional live treat and at the same time the perfect musical counterpart to Kinski’s Nosferatu or Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.
The third (personal) highlight of the first day, unlike the previous two, hasn’t played in Slovenia yet. American death metal outfit Gruesome is actually a “tribute” band, even though they play original material. Gruesome are the brainchild of Matt Harvey (Exhumed), who got a craving on the Death To All tour to play the early material of the legendary giants Death (that is, from the debut Scream Bloody Gore to roughly Spiritual Healing). Since that wasn’t possible as part of the DTA tour, Matt didn’t dwell on it much and founded Gruesome, whose goal is a perfect emulation of early Death. Gruesome admit this completely openly, and it has to be said that this is without a doubt one of the most respectful and sincere tributes to the late Schuldiner, period. Of the bands we saw, the Americans probably even had the best sound of the festival, as bassist Robin Mazen shook our guts mercilessly the whole time, the guitars of Harvey and Daniel Gonzalez (Possessed) gnawed like hungry cannibals in the cult schlock Cannibal Holocaust (Gruesome used clips from the film, still banned in many places today, for their Savage Land video), and Harvey howled and screamed like one of the victims those cannibals served themselves for dinner. In three quarters of an hour Gruesome played a good chunk of the debut Savage Land and the EP Dimensions of Horror, and threw in a fantastically played Open Casket. You’ll be able to see and hear more about the band, horror, Death, Chuck Schuldiner and plenty else in the interview with Matt Harvey, which will be published soon.
Devildriver’s set was dinner time, and once again there was plenty to choose from this year, with food that was a lot tastier than in previous years. Besides Czech specialties like bramborak and trdelnik, there were at least burgers, pizzas, Mexican food, Chinese noodles, beef jerky, meat prepared a hundred and one ways, and for the first time vegans even had their own “village”. The drink selection was spiced up too: besides beer, wine and spirits, there were decent cocktails at reasonable prices.
With a full belly, it felt good to rest to the elders of post-metal and sludge, Neurosis, though the Americans quickly shook things up with fat, crushing riffs, Scott Kelly’s raw vocals and ambient psychedelic touches. As a rule, the pieces are pretty long and repetitive, and despite the massive sound and excellent performance they didn’t win me over all that much. Neurosis would probably work much better at an indoor show in some smoky hall.
So I quickly popped over to the brutal American trio Dying Fetus, who from what I saw lived up to their reputation, but I was even more curious about one of this year’s festival black sheep. Every year Brutal Assault makes room for a few acts that have little to do with metal genre-wise, but thanks to their darkness or other qualities fit the festival’s concept perfectly. This year the first of those was American musician King Dude, real name Thomas Jefferon Cowgill. King Dude is one of the most prominent representatives of so-called neofolk or darkfolk, and from what I saw, without a doubt the only true spiritual heir to the Man in Black, Johnny Cash. In his expression King Dude can be even darker than any black metal and even more brutal than death metal, even though his music is mostly stripped bare down to his deep baritone and simple guitar lines. With his mix of gloomy folk with a strong American South spirit, occultism and paganism, where you can find influences from Elvis to Danzig, Nick Cave and Lou Reed, King Dude thrilled the packed-to-the-brim crowd at the festival’s new, fourth stage, Octagon, and was crowned the festival’s nicest surprise.
American heavyweights Mastodon were the biggest headliner of the first day, but they only partly lived up to their status. At first the awfully bad sound got in the way, making Mastodon sound like a broken radio in a tiny bathroom, apparently because the sound guy forgot to switch on half the speakers, since the sound finally got fixed, but only after almost half the show, during the catchy hit High Road. A real shame, because classics like Blasteroid and Oblivion, played before that, were almost impossible to make out. Once the sound did get fixed, the whole picture was spoiled by a lot of fumbling and flubbing in the multi-voice parts and by the totally off-key shouted parts handled by the beastly Brent Hinds. Ignoring his vocal contributions, Hinds did wow with hell of a lot of soloing. Even more so with his gorgeous white fringed shirt, heh. The vocal duties also gave drummer Brann Dailor some trouble (he struggled most during Ember City), but he gets a pass, since he truly thunders across the drums like some kind of Leviathan. Troy Sanders came off best, but overall this Mastodon show was a bit of a sad affair, and it was also slightly distracting that almost half of the songs played came from the latest album Once More ‘Round the Sun, which isn’t exactly a standout.
We wrapped up the evening of the first day with black metal’s most famous corpse paint, Abbath. The black metal icon is still flying high on the wings of the raven after his “solo” debut was received excellently following the fiasco with Immortal. That makes it all the more surprising that this time Uncle Olve Eikemo decided to greet Brutal Assault with just two songs from his album, and, with the exception of Warriors, to devote the rest of the set entirely to Immortal “covers.” So with Abbath we only heard To War! and Winterbane, and then we were led across the icy plains of Blashyrkh and through the Immortal classics Nebular Ravens Winter, Tyrants and One By One. Abbath once again delighted with his legendary poses and gate-splitting announcements, while guitarist Farstad still has less energy than a sequoia. As expected, Abbath said goodbye with All Shall Fall, though he could have gifted the crowd at least Count the Dead or Ashes of the Damned too.
Setlist
VEKTOR:
1. Charging the Void
2. Cygnus Terminal
3. LCD (Liquid Crsytal Disease)
4. Pillars of Sand
5. Hunger For Violence
TRIBULATION:
1. Strange Gateways Beckon
2. Melancholia
3. In the Dreams of the Dead
4. The Motherhood of God
5. When the Sky Is Black With Devils
NEUROSIS:
1. Lost
2. Times of Grace
3. Bending Light
4. Locust Star
5. Broken Ground
6. At the Well
7. Stones From the Sky
MASTODON:
1. Tread Lightly
2. Feast Your Eyes
3. Blasteroid
4. Oblivion
5. The Motherload
6. High Road
7. Aqua Dementia
8. Bladecatcher
9. Black Tongue
10. The Wolf Is Loose
11. Ember City
12. Crystal Skull
13. Divinations
14. Blood and Thunder
ABBATH:
1. To War!
2. Winterbane
3. In My Kingdom Cold
4. Nebular Ravens Winter
5. Warriors
6. Solarfall
7. Tyrants
8. One By One
9. All Shall Fall
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