Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Location: Josefov Military Fortress / Jaromer / Czech Republic
Concert date: August 12, 2016
Attendance: 15,000
The weather was kind to us on the third day of the festival too, even though it got properly chilly in the evening. Budvar and an already almost-too-stacked Friday lineup made sure we didn’t freeze. We kicked off the early Friday afternoon with English hc/metalcore crew Bury Tomorrow, who failed to win us over with their clichéd, unoriginal metalcore full of sung-out breakdowns and generic clean/growl vocal combos.
The American crossover outfit Iron Reagan went down way better. They started four years ago as a side project of members of Municipal Waste and Darkest Hour. The Darkest Hour guys are gone from the band, and the core is now made up of two Municipal Waste lunatics: vocalist Tony Foresta and Landphil Hall, who doesn’t play bass here like in his main band but picked up a guitar instead. The Americans, who named themselves partly after Iron Maiden and partly after the surname of a former US president, got Brutal Assault on its feet despite the early slot. Short, punchy tracks blending hardcore and thrash metal influences were a bullseye. The goofy lyrics from the mouth of the energetic wild man Foresta, which sound like something mad Ronald Reagan himself might have written during his second term (I Ripped That Testament a New Asshole, Your Kid’s and Asshole, …), were just the cherry on top of a proper crossover beating.
Right after Iron Reagan, Swedish death metal elders Grave were supposed to take the neighboring stage, but the organizers announced they had been moved to the third stage, Metalgate. Jumping onto the main stage in their place were Blues For the Redsun, whose uninspired sludge/doom metal was so boring that we went looking for other things to do. And there was a ton of that at Brutal Assault this year: you could check out three different galleries, and the most original was definitely the Art-Brut-All art brut exhibition in the dark labyrinths inside the fortress, lit only by candles.
Time between snoozefests like Blues For the Redsun flew by, and it was well worth getting back in front of the main stage to see Canadian oddballs Voivod, who are (finally!) coming to Slovenia this fall, on November 2 at Orto bar, together with Entombed A.D. Voivod are old friends of the Brutal Assault stages, and they usually put together a more “metal” selection of tracks for this festival. This time was no different, as they gave us splitting headaches right away with the classic Ripping Headaches. Voivod are still a real explosion of unbridled energy live, thanks mainly to the outstanding guitarist Chewy and new bassist Rocky, who is slowly getting the status of maybe even the best bassist Voivod have ever had. What Away squeezes out of his basic drum kit is unbelievable, and Snake, with his unforgettable grimaces, had us laughing to tears again. Voivod also gave us the fantastic Killing Technology, Kluskap O’Kom, the title track of their current EP, and said goodbye to Brutal Assault with the anthemic bomb Voivod. After what we saw, we’re counting down the days to the Canadians’ Ljubljana premiere.
Under the tent of the Metalgate stage, after Voivod it was time for the ones who owed us a set from the main stage, Swedish veterans Grave, who almost blew the canvas roof off the jam-packed tent. Grave dialed in an ultra-loud, ultra-brutal sound, as befits the elders of Swedish death metal, and the band, led by the only remaining original member, the immortal vocalist and guitarist Ola Lindgren, tore through an excellent setlist like a rabid dog. It was full of classics a la Soulless, Christi(ns)anity and You’ll Never See… plus killers from the current record Out of Respect For the Dead, the title track and The Ominous »They«. The band shows no signs of slowing down or tiring live, which only confirms the strong studio form of the Swedish patriarchs. If only bassist Tobias Cristiansson would kick his Dismember buddies out of retirement and back among the living…
We crawled out of the graves and back to the main stage for Greek symphonic death metallers Septicflesh, who played in Slovenia, at Metaldays, just a good week before Brutal Assault. In the Czech Republic Septicflesh offered nothing shocking that we hadn’t seen many times already. The band’s leader, the man with the coolest mustache in metal, Seth Siro Antoniu, bored us again with the same poses he’s been using for years and dull, hackneyed stage banter. The Greeks, who for the last two years have had Austrian drumming machine Kerim “Krimh” Lechner (ex-Decapitated) behind the kit, played only tracks from their last three studio albums, and with a worn-out, overchewed setlist they got pretty boring toward the end of their set. You can’t fault the band’s stage performance, since they do their job confidently and uncompromisingly. The problem is just that the songs are already too similar to each other and the whole thing gets monotonous fast. It’s nice to see the brilliant, robotically precise Krimh in action in a fairly big band, and it’ll be even nicer to hear him if he records a new album with Septicflesh and shows off his drumming mastery on it.
Swedish elders Raised Fist delivered another hc punk assault. They spent many years on Burning Heart, the label that launched numerous Swedish punk bands, and today they’re on Epitaph, another label that’s just as important for punk. The guys brought a fresh explosion of hc/punk energy and were way better than the stylistically related Bury Tomorrow. They played perfectly typical punk songs with short running times and punchy choruses, and the stage was totally full of every single band member. A bit more trivia: Raised Fist’s current drummer is Matte Modin, the former drummer of Dark Funeral and current drummer of Firespawn with L-G Petrov.
After Grave did their excellent thing from the Swedish graves, it was time for the other death metal giants of the day, the legendary Floridian Obituary, led by the Tardy brothers. With perfect sound and without a shred of mercy, the band ran over Brutal Assault already with the killer redneck-stomping instrumental intro Redneck Stomp, and the Americans shifted into an even higher gear when the long-haired John Tardy ran onto the stage and thrilled everyone with the very first scream, the kind every death metal fan recognizes in an instant. Obituary are at least very good live every single time, if not outstanding, but I hadn’t seen them this good in quite a while. Donald broke bones again with his superb drum sound, Trevor Peres tore off limbs with the “Celtic Frost-y” crunch of his legendary riffs, and he and guitarist Kenny Andrews have become a solid duo. Obituary skillfully lined up a few new tracks from the current record Inked In Blood to start, and then fired off hit after hit while the crowd went wild. They even pulled Intoxicated and Bloodsoaked out of the drawer from the debut, plus, for the first time in ages, the unforgettable Find the Arise, bestially sung by Tardy. In a superb closing trio, Obituary cut Brutal Assault in half, turned it inside out and slowly rotted it. Ugh!
The absolute (personal) highlight of the festival was one of the most respected and cult bands on European soil, Swiss technical thrash metal masters Coroner. The legendary band made a name for itself with a unique fusion of thrash metal with classical and avant-garde music, progressive rock and industrial. Their reputation as the “Rush of thrash metal” is fully justified, since during their original run each album was a bolder experiment than the last. Coroner stopped operating in 1996 and reunited in the original lineup just under five years ago. Today drummer Marquis Marky is no longer in the band. He insisted that Coroner would only play a handful of shows and never release a new album, so vocalist Ron Royce and guitarist Tommy Baron showed him the door. Judging by what we saw and heard, the only right call! The Coroner set wasn’t just accompanied by top-notch sound that let you hear every detail, especially of Baron’s crazy soloing, but above all by such a good performance that you could easily think it was Coroner from 1993 up on stage. Ron Royce did an excellent job vocally, live keyboards, assorted effects and backing vocals lifted it all even higher, and new drummer Diego Rapacchietti stepped into Marky’s shoes confidently and did a stellar job. Baron, rooted to his spot, pulled off the guitar wizardry as if the devil was on his heels, and Coroner said goodbye to Brutal Assault with the immortal Reborn Through Hate and Die By My Hand. The only minus? It was all over way too fast, and with such a rich discography, not big in quantity but very high in quality, I’d have wanted at least one or two more tracks. I missed Son of Lilith, for one. Coroner’s Brutal Assault show was truly exclusive, since they’ve played only two other shows this year, and luckily the band announced they’re releasing a new album next year!
It was just right that darkness had fallen over Josefov, because Portuguese lycanthropes Moonspell had already taken the neighboring stage, and they work by far the best in the dark. The gloomsters, led by charismatic singer Fernando Ribeiro, greeted the crowd as expected with the opener from the current record Extinct, Breathe (Until We Are No More), which still remains an extremely atmospheric concert opener. Thanks to the excellent sound, which was often the festival’s Achilles’ heel in the past, Moonspell shone in their best light too, first and foremost thanks to the superb Fernando, who kept the crowd in the palm of his hand the whole time. The mix of the gothic, new wave aesthetic of the newer songs and the good old brutal tracks once again enchanted the crowd with their dark, vampiric atmosphere without any trouble. The classic and totally expected finish with the duo Alma Mater and Full Moon Madness came all too soon.
One of the most anticipated moments of the festival came from Norwegian black metal veterans Satyricon, who are marking 20 years since the release of their undeniably strongest album, Nemesis Divina, on this tour, and play it in full accordingly. A gigantic backdrop of Hieronymus Bosch’s Christ in Limbo already hinted that something special was coming, and from Satyr’s opening scream “This is armageddon!” listening to one of the most important black metal records was pure pleasure. On Nemesis Divina Satyr matured as a songwriter and wrote what is probably still the band’s strongest material today. It made them widely known, and for many people this very album opened the door to the world of black metal. Satyricon made a smart move, changing the track order a bit and playing the legendary anthem Mother North at the end of the “album”. Keyboardist Anders Hunstad (Sarke) further reinforced the already outstanding sound and might of Satyr and Frost’s performance, making sure the medieval motifs of the album came to the surface too. Satyr, who wrote Nemesis Divina almost entirely on his own, confirmed his genius live, but unfortunately the closing run of newer songs Black Crow on a Tombstone, The Pentagram Burns, Fuel For Hatred and K.I.N.G. got even more response from the crowd. But that’s how it goes. Still, it was a privilege to hear one of the most important records of the whole genre live in full, and Nemesis Divina played front to back was without a doubt one of the highlights of this year’s Brutal Assault.
The performance of Japanese avant-garde attraction Sigh was unforgettable too, played in front of a jam-packed Octagon stage area. As is customary with the Japanese, their set was full of theatrics, from burning books opened by bandleader Mirai Kawashima and singer and saxophonist Dr. Mikannibal, to candles, skulls and the classic dousing of Dr. Mikannibal in blood. Sigh thrilled once again with their skillful blend of the many influences flowing through their music. With Sigh you can hear everything from heavy, death and black metal, all mixed with a progressive approach without any boundaries, Japanese traditional music influences, jazz, nursery rhymes and music in the style of Italian horror, say Fabio Frizzi. Mirai and Dr. Mikannibal were an extremely well-coordinated pair live, both in delivering the vocal lines and in flirting with the crowd, where the singer, whose real name is Mika Kawashima, naturally took the lead (the “Dr.” before her stage name isn’t there for nothing, as the girl has a PhD in physics). The good thing about the Octagon stage was that, as a rule, only one act played it per day, so Sigh were luckily given a fairly generous slice of the program. With new guitarist Youji Oshima, Purgatorium, The Transfiguration Fear, The Forlorn and the creepy farewell classic Me-Devil stuck in memory for a long time.
The festival grounds were probably never more jam-packed than during the set by one of the headliners of the 21st Brutal Assault, Swedish-Canadian-American giants Arch Enemy. Singer Alissa White-Gluz, who replaced Angela Gossow two years ago, has settled into the band very well already, and the biggest ax Arch Enemy have probably dropped into their lap is the arrival of guitar wizard Jeff Loomis (ex-Nevermore, solo, Conquering Dystopia). The band is still eagerly promoting its current studio album War Eternal and played the lion’s share of songs from it, which is a pity, since it’s without a doubt the most boring album of their career and they could have played plenty of better tracks. Besides the new stuff, the band offered a totally classic selection of hits, led by Ravenous, My Apocalypse, No Gods, No Masters and We Will Rise. There were no complaints about the performance, mainly thanks to the out-of-this-world Loomis, who tweaked some of the solos slightly and put his own stamp on them. Amott naturally did his part flawlessly too, and the rhythm section, made up of the younger Erlandsson brother and bassist Sharlee D’Angelo, delivered unerring drumming and bass. Alissa does her screams confidently and convincingly, and she’s gained more self-assurance in her stage banter and crowd-hyping as well. As expected, Arch Enemy didn’t play a single track from their first three albums, without a doubt the band’s strongest, so it would have been much nicer, if I can be a little spiteful, if the Czechs had made the effort and brought Black Earth to the festival instead, the name under which the original lineup with singer Johan Liiva plays only the first three records.
We wrapped up the third day of the festival with Boston metalcore crew Unearth, who deserve attention despite a genre label that isn’t exactly popular among orthodox metalheads. The grounds had already emptied out quite a bit by the time Unearth played, but the Americans gave it their all anyway and got a very solid response from those who get off on breakdowns and melodic riffs in the style of In Flames or At the Gates. Unearth were devilishly energetic on stage the whole time, the performance was very confident too, and closing out the third day of Brutal Assault with them was totally fitting.
Setlists
VOIVOD:
1. Ripping Headaches
2. Tribal Convictions
3. Kluskap O’Kom
4. Killing Technology
5. Post Society
6. Psychic Vacuum
7. Voivod
GRAVE:
1. Intro/Deformed
2. Christi(ns)anity
3. Out of Respect for the Dead
4. Soulless
5. You’ll Never See
6. Hating Life
7. Trail of Ungodly Trades
8. The Ominous »They«
9. Into the Grave
SEPTICFLESH:
1. War In Heaven
2. Communion
3. Pyramid God
4. Prototype
5. The Vampire From Nazareth
6. Lovecraft’s Death
7. Anubis
8. Prometheus
OBITUARY:
1. Redneck Stomp
2. Centuries of Lies
3. Visions In My Head
4. Intoxicated
5. Bloodsoaked
6. Dying
7. Find the Arise
8. ‘Til Death
9. Don’t Care
10. Chopped in Half
11. Turned Inside Out
12. Slowly We Rot
CORONER:
1. Golden Cashmere Sleeper, Part 1
2. Divine Step (Conspectu Mortis)
3. D.O.A.
4. Serpent Moves
5. Internal Conflicts
6. Semtex Revolution
7. Masked Jackal
8. Grin (Nails Hurt)
9. Reborn Through Hate
10. Die By My Hand
MOONSPELL:
1. Breathe (Until We Are No More)
2. Extinct
3. Night Eternal
4. Opium
5. Awake!
6. The Last of Us
7. Ruin & Misery
8. Mephisto
9. Vampiria
10. Ateagina
11. Alma Mater
12. Full Moon Madness
SATYRICON:
1. The Dawn of a New Age
2. Forhekset
3. Du Som Hater Gud
4. Immorality Passion
5. Transcendental Requiem of Slaves
6. Nemesis Divina
7. Mother North
8. Black Crow on a Tombtone
9. The Pentagram Burns
10. Fuel For Hatred
11. K.I.N.G.
SIGH:
1. A Victory of Dakini
2. Purgatorium
3. The Transfiguration Fear
4. The Knell
5. Shingontachikawa
6. Corpsecry – Angelfall
7. At My Funeral
8. The Soul Grave
9. The Forlorn
10. Introitus/Kyrie
11. Inked in Blood
12. Me-Devil
ARCH ENEMY:
1. Khaos Overture/Yesterday is Dead and Gone
2. War Eternal
3. Ravenous
4. Stolen Life
5. My Apocalypse
6. You Will Know My Name
7. As the Pages Burn
8. Under Black Flags We March
9. Avalanche
10. No Gods, No Masters
11. Dead Bury Their Dead
12. We Will Rise
13. Nemesis/Enter the Machine
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