Author: Primož Novak
Location: Kino Šiška / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 21.02.2014
Attendance: 600
Ticket price: €23/€26
Every once in a while, gigs throw together genre combinations that supposedly shouldn’t mix well. Often it’s some metalcore band sharing a bill with legendary death metal acts. Or, say, Swedish death metallers Unleashed alongside folk metal. This time it was a hardcore and grindcore combo, with Hatebreed and Napalm Death. The latter are pioneers of grindcore, and with their later albums in the nineties they also defined death/grind. Hatebreed aren’t exactly pioneers of hardcore, but they fused metal and hardcore in their music, which earned them quite a bit of recognition. For the occasion, a pretty decent number of fans of both bands gathered at Kino Šiška, though Hatebreed, as the headliners, naturally drew the bigger crowd.
The show was opened by local heroes from Trbovlje, Kreshesh Nepitash, who spent half an hour presenting material accumulated over the band’s ten years of existence. Kreshesh Nepitash’s music isn’t anything new, but the band serves up tried-and-true elements of New York hardcore and bands in the vein of Machine Head, Sepultura (Chaos A.D.) and Soulfly. The songs have a nice flow, aren’t dragged out and don’t have forced breakdowns. In three minutes or less, Kreshesh Nepitash get to the point. Given how long they’ve been around and their live experience, I’d still have expected a bit more movement on stage, or maybe stage fright simply hit them because of the big stage. Either way, the band made a good warm-up for Hatebreed, though not so much for Napalm Death.
First off, Napalm Death deserve respect, considering they’ve been around for more than three decades and still represent the extreme in today’s scene. Even though this isn’t the original lineup, the current one has been together for more than 20 years, and they’ve been performing as a four-piece since 2004. The show at Kino Šiška showed that it’s time for Napalm Death to slowly wind things down: their latest albums are nothing outstanding, and the shows themselves are on the verge of desperation. To be fair, the band’s performance is energetic; singer Barney Greenway moves around the stage constantly, but his vocals sound like the barking of a slightly older dog, which is sadly far from what he had in the nineties. Another standout is guitarist Mitch Harris, who isn’t anything special as a guitarist, but his screams are so powerful they positively slice your eardrums. In one hour, the band treated the crowd to plenty of hits, though the focus was more on songs from the latest album, Utilitarian. As is the band’s custom, they played some staples, like Suffer The Children, Unchallenged Hate, Nazi Punks Fuck Off (a Dead Kennedys cover) and the closing Siege of Power. The setlist also had a few surprises, like Necessary Evil from the album Enemy of the Music Business and Greed Killing from Diatribes. And of course the band didn’t skip a bunch of short songs from the first album, Scum. There was nothing to complain about in the selection; for a better cross-section of their discography, Napalm Death would have needed another half hour or so. The main problem was how tight the band was, which was downright dismal. Many songs were played too fast and, accordingly, the sloppiness was even bigger. The only one who held it together at some level was drummer Danny Herrera. You could make a drinking game out of it: take a swig every time Napalm Death »botch« something, and everyone would most likely be dead drunk in ten minutes. In the end, it turned out Napalm Death simply aren’t made for a hall like Kino Šiška. Overly good acoustics only hurt a band that thrives on as much »racket« or »noise« as possible. Napalm Death haven’t aged like fine wine; they’re more like an open yogurt on a radiator. They’d undoubtedly fit better in some poorly mic’d hall at Metelkova, where the booze flows like rivers and nobody cares about bad playing and bad sound. As long as it’s noisy!
Hatebreed, unlike Napalm Death, undoubtedly suited the hall better. Their music on recent albums is made for bigger crowds who’ll shout along to the band’s mighty choruses. The band’s repertoire fit that too, logically emphasizing songs from last year’s album The Divinity of Purpose, which got quite a few positive reviews. Hatebreed truly dominated with their sound. The heavy, metallized riffs came through nicely, and the simple, punchy rhythm section got many people going wild despite all the steps. Throughout the show, Hatebreed proved how important it is these days to hype up the crowd. Singer Jamey Jasta, whose voice was still in solid shape this time, kept encouraging and motivating the crowd through the entire set, repeatedly stressing it whenever he wanted to hear voices from the left and right sides. At times he came across as a hardcore version of Smiljan Mori, the Slovenian motivational speaker. The problem was mainly that Jasta’s banter, with his repeated recitations of his own lyrics, came off a bit too cliché.
Hatebreed delivered a tight performance, but somehow in that hour they didn’t squeeze in all the hits that could have satisfied the entire crowd. Old fans could mostly get their fix from a song or two off Satisfaction Is The Death Desire, while precious little was played from Perserverance and Rise of Brutality. The show ended up feeling routine as far as the rest of the members go, who, unlike Jasta, didn’t move around the stage much. Hatebreed’s live show has changed quite a bit over the past ten years. The band has a more professional approach to the crowd, and there was a barrier in front of the stage so they could avoid the constant stage divers, even though every now and then someone slipped onto the stage hoping to sing along with Jasta. But those random fans’ dreams of fame were quickly squashed by the security guards, who showed no mercy. Hatebreed thrilled the comfortably packed hall with hits like Defeatist, In Ashes They Shall Reap, This is Now, I Will Be Heard and the closing Destroy Everything, which the crowd, thanks to its bouncy rhythm, naturally followed with jumping. But after Destroy Everything, the band only took a photo with the whole crowd, then said goodbye, leaving some with a pretty bitter aftertaste, since they could undoubtedly have served up another song or two.
All in all, Hatebreed have become stars over the past ten years who can afford one-hour shows and still enchant a crowd of several hundred. The billing promised a proper hardcore and grindcore spectacle, but with a routine Hatebreed and a weakened Napalm Death, it turned out to be just another average gig.
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