The annual, traditional celebration of the stink — that is, the birthday of our most active concert organizers, Dirty Skunks — has somehow become synonymous with the first major post-New Year’s event. The Dirty Skunks mini-festival turned into a January fixture, a date that had to be “marked” on the calendar every year — until you-know-what happened, and the twentieth anniversary celebration unfortunately couldn’t go ahead. No worries, they said from the skunk dens, and just rolled the twentieth and twenty-first anniversaries into one — and not at a single venue (the last edition had already spread across three stages at Orto bar). “Go Big or Go Home,” they said, and put together a proper festival that ran over two days across five stages with around 40 acts, plus DJ afterparties. For someone of a certain age, this edition of the Dirty Skunks fest was already a serious undertaking, which is also the main reason we only caught a portion of the acts on the festival’s second day.
Saturday’s concert odyssey at Orto bar kicked off to the slowly rolling doom rhythms of Ljubljana’s Mist. I hadn’t managed to catch them live in quite a while, so their opening set was a proper welcome. The band took the stage — fittingly for the genre — under dark-tinted lights, and in just under forty-five minutes reminded us of their excellent debut Free Me From the Sun, while also digging a bit further back into the past and, better yet, pointing toward the future with two new tracks. One thing that was different this time: Neža Pečan was no longer behind the bass, as the band had announced her departure just before the Dirty Skunks fest. Bass duties were handled this time by Urban Železnik (Challenger), who did an excellent job. Mist once again captivated with their slow, dreamily ominous rhythms, commanded by Nina’s ever-present vocals — vocals that always take your mind somewhere up on Slivnica, beside a witch’s cauldron, at the moment they sealed their pact with the Devil. Powerful and convincing! Mist (too) quickly reached their close with the title track from their debut, but not before wowing the crowd with a new track, if I’m not mistaken titled Mountains, which surprised by showing some influence from Northern Irish Darkest Era (who last year released Wither on the Vine, one of the best albums of the year).
The evening at Orto bar continued in a completely different register, with HC/post-metal outfit Decair, whom I hadn’t managed to hear live before, so I let myself be surprised. The guys first and foremost delivered an exceptional light show, while musically they took things back somewhere into the nineties, sounding at times close to the nu metal that was popular back then. They have the stage performance down to a fine art — the aforementioned lighting impressed, with the bassist and guitarist standing monolithically amid it, and effective too was the use of various sound effects to bridge the otherwise silence between tracks. Decair mostly presented material from the EP Through Distance, which probably won over genre fans; personally, Decair won me over mainly with the faster, heavier sections, while the choruses and clean-vocal parts left me fairly cold. Or maybe Mist’s stronger impression was still ringing in my ears.
The last act at Orto bar proved more convincing — Ptuj’s melodic death metallers Ashine, whom, like the previous bands, I hadn’t managed to hear live before. Ashine stepped onto the stage differently: with a high level of confidence and instrumental command, they took the Orto stage like a hurricane. In just over forty minutes the guys reminded us of their debut Force of Nature, which, given their stage presence, is fittingly titled. Ashine set the necks moving in a finally somewhat fuller Orto bar, and impressed above all with some truly epic-sounding lines, memorable melodic riffs, deep growls, and an excellent drum performance. Ashine undoubtedly signaled that more attention needs to be paid to the east Slovenian metal scene — and above all to the debut Force of Nature, which has unfairly slipped under the radar amid the many high-quality local releases in recent years. Time to go back and remedy that.
Since I prefer my bathroom business at home rather than in front of the stage, we skipped Gutalax as headliners at Orto bar and caught the final moments of Styrian Dethrone the Corrupted at Gala hala, whose set was close to Ashine in both genre and intensity. The evening at Gala hala then shifted into completely different territory, as the instrumental trio Auto took the stage and wrapped Metelkovo in the haze of progressive, psychedelic rock, transporting the crowd into entirely different musical spheres. At times Auto ripped it up in a full-on metal fashion, then at other times, with long psychedelic passages and guitar solos, took things back to seventies rock. In Auto you could hear the influence of both Cream and The Vintage Caravan, and a nicely full Gala hala nodded along contentedly, grooving to the infectious rhythms of the playful, energetic trio on stage. It’s great that Dirty Skunks, with their genre-diverse lineup, offer a window into different musical worlds and shine a light on bands that would otherwise stay “under the radar.”
We’ve seen the veterans of Slovenian thrash many times, so you know exactly what to expect from them. And that’s nothing more and nothing less than high-octane thrash, delivered live at the highest level. Well over half a year had passed since the release of the fourth studio album Tellurian Rupture, and it had well and truly lodged itself in the ears of the fired-up crowd, who were devouring every lyric, every guitar line, and every hit of the rhythm section in Gala hala. The guys and gal are probably one of the tightest units in the country right now, and under the command of Bucot’s vocals they proved once again that every Eruption show is finger-licking good. Once again the exceptional guitar duo Kamenšek/Lavtar killed it — the latter in particular has embedded himself in the band like a worker bee in the collective hive mind, his excellent playing complemented by reliable backing vocals and constant headbanging, and you can really tell the guy is having the time of his life playing in Eruption. Eruption once again proved that nobody in Slovenian thrash comes close, and that their trajectory is only ever pointing upward — as proven by Tellurian Rupture, their best record to date.
We wrapped up Dirty Skunks fest 2023 at Gala hala with atmospheric/experimental black metal outfit Kamra, who capped their work to date at the end of last year with the well-received debut Cerebral Alchemy — one of the more exciting releases of last year. Saturday thus closed in the ominous, dissonant tones of unconventionally-sounding black metal, augmented beyond the shrieked vocals with passages of spoken word and a unique clean vocal.
Arguably the most ambitious Dirty Skunks project to date — even if mostly with local acts — will stay in fond memory, even though it was quite a logistical undertaking for both organizers and attendees alike. But it’s also a powerful reminder of the richness and diversity of the Slovenian underground scene, of which Dirty Skunks are an important part. Until the next big Dirty Skunks project — this year’s premiere edition of Tolminator!
Photos: Nina Grad
