Author: Primož Novak
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Concert date: 08.03.2014
Attendance: 50
Ticket price: €8.00
Quite a few big names from the hardcore scene have landed on Slovenian soil lately. The promoters Dirty Skunks, together with the HCKP crew from Koper, also bring over lesser-known acts that show real potential, and prove that new hardcore bands are still being formed today. So on a pleasant Saturday, International Women’s Day to be exact, Orto hosted a hardcore night that should in theory have drawn metalcore and hardcore fans alike. Sadly, the turnout wasn’t great, even though the number of people marked as going on the Facebook event looked promising.
The night was kicked off by young Slovenian hopefuls Burn fuse, who served up some pretty heavy metalcore with the occasional softer transition and clean vocals from the guitarist. With their second song they pretty much announced that they want to be the Slovenian version of Parkway Drive: they played a cover of that well-known metalcore band’s Karma. Having a cover as only the second track gives the impression at first that more covers are coming, but luckily the band went for more original material, which will appear on their debut. That’s where the greater potential clearly showed. You can see the miles on this band, and besides the standout vocals, the drummer stood out with inventive transitions. Sure, in metalcore there’s really nothing to do but reheat the same old soup, but Burn fuse show quite a bit of ingenuity, even their breakdowns pack some power, plus they’re well woven into the songs and have an element of surprise. Burn fuse are definitely promising, but they should save the covers for the end.
The second band, Felony, painted a different picture. They served up rawer hardcore with no embellishments, the kind that gets expressed through all sorts of melodies these days. But the harder the band tried to deliver real hardcore, the more boring they got. There were tons of clichéd three-chord riffs and dull ding-ding breakdowns in the style of Nasty, which isn’t exactly a good example to follow. On top of all that dullness, the band was pretty “all over the place”. The guitar tone was terrible, and the members’ tightness together wasn’t much better. You can tell Felony haven’t practiced their instruments enough, and writing the songs themselves doesn’t come easily to them either.
As for Croatia’s Free Ride, it’s safe to say they can’t be to the taste of hardcore purists. But that doesn’t mean the band doesn’t serve up listenable music. The only thing that bugged me the whole time was that the singer did his whole set down below the stage, which did at least get part of the crowd going wild. But later on he could have simply gone back up on stage. Free Ride came across as clichéd at times, but the songs from the album Venture came through well thanks to the band’s tightness and good sound. Free Ride were full of surprises, and only with the keyboards did I occasionally get a feeling of unnecessary add-ons, but in the end it turned out that the sextet works well as a whole. There were no noticeable mistakes, the band’s rhythm was more than on point, and only certain breakdowns and the occasional passages with clean vocals felt a little worn out. Well, with their dynamics alone Free Ride were a bit of a breath of fresh air, though definitely too melodic for some.
The night was closed out by Austrian hardcore crew United Blood from Salzburg. Luckily the band wasn’t as sloppy as Felony, the guitar tone was really strong, and the vocals matched it. The United Blood singer’s throat was truly powerful and merciless. United Blood didn’t offer anything new, though. The songs were short, the guitars simple, and the rhythm section was built on plain old stomping, as it should be. As a whole the band definitely convinced when it came to tightness and stage presence. Even though United Blood’s music itself felt chewed-over at times, what saved it was the guitar tone, which with its heavy distortion picked up a sludge metal flavor. In their short set United Blood got a little repetitive, but they’d definitely fit as an opening act for some HC heavyweights, because these guys do more than a solid job of channeling the music of their idols.
International Women’s Day at Orto wasn’t all roses and chocolate boxes. The metalcore bands brought a few tender moments, but the night was mostly rough and raw, and in the end it’s safe to say the gig hit hard enough and was well worth showing up for. Sadly, it was proven once again that if it’s not a big name, the event simply gets ignored.
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