Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: Gromka, Ljubljana
Gig date: 05.05.2017
This year’s crop of metal releases was already exceptionally varied here at home in the first half, and in early May Eruption added their own piece to it with their long-awaited third studio album Cloaks of Oblivion. A good week ago they marked the release with a release party at Gromka in Ljubljana, which doubled as a warm-up show for the Dark »O« Metal festival in Rijeka, taking place on July 14 and 15. Eruption will be playing there too, with black/thrash metallers Melechesh headlining, whose current drummer is Slovenian Simon Škrlec.
In the spirit of good neighborly relations, which are a foreign concept in politics but not in metal, three Croatian bands shared the Gromka stage with Eruption last Thursday, and first up was Rijeka band Czaar. In a solid half hour the five-piece laid out their vision of thrash metal with tracks from both studio albums, Too Drunk to Think (2007) and Stari panj (2011), winning us over with a few punchy riffs and above all with Insanus’s excellent, varied and lively drumming, which spiced up the rhythm section with some death metal tricks. Czaar actually turned out to be a pleasant surprise… until vocalist Dane opened up and let out a hopelessly botched vocal that sounded like a bad mix of Čulk and Mucy, one moment growling, the next declaiming, and the whole thing just sounded totally off. But the bewildered stage presence was so endearing that you couldn’t help but smile through it all.
Second of the Rijeka trio were Krematorium, whom we first met two years ago at the Live After Death festival. They didn’t quite convince back then, and this time wasn’t any different. The guys are extremely confident and self-assured on stage and they know their instruments, but their thrash sounds far too generic. It didn’t help that the vocalist seemed less than thrilled, and the uniform »hillbilly« look of denim jackets with no shirts underneath didn’t do much for the picture either. Krematorium get the job done without any major complaints, but sadly they serve up cliché after cliché and quickly turn dull and one-note, which not even a cover of the Exodus classic Metal Command could prevent.
Which can’t be said for Eruption at all, since they’ve evolved from their typical thrash beginnings into excellent, distinctive thrash metal, marked by a somewhat more technical and complex approach that doesn’t build on speed alone. Lineup changes have brought a different, less wild performance than in the days when Tim Tajić still played in Eruption, but the music has gained depth. Despite a few technical problems, the gal and the guys presented Cloaks of Oblivion in a brilliant light, the new tracks sound top-notch live, the riffing of the Čuk/Kamenšek duo was fluid, dynamic and convincing, and the rhythm section was thundering and earth-shaking. Buco has grown into an excellent vocalist, so it’s a shame that, with time running short, they didn’t also play the outstanding This Barren Existence. The only slight distraction was Čuk’s backing vocals, which didn’t blend all that well with Klemen’s vocals, but otherwise Eruption confirmed live without any trouble that Cloaks of Oblivion is an outstanding contribution to the Slovenian metal scene.
After the intensity of Eruption, closing act Monox had a very tough job convincing a considerably thinned-out crowd, but they didn’t let it get to them too much and still delivered a very good set. Sadly, any recognizability of the riffs got lost in the roar of the eight-string guitars, and Monox also played without regular vocalist Tonko, who does the job much better than guest singer Alen. Again, Monox by no means did a bad job, but this time their groove/death/djent landed on more or less deaf ears after Eruption.
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