Author: Rok Klemše
Venue: KUD France Prešeren / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 04.04.2008
Attendance: 70
Ticket price: 5,00€
Last December, KUD France Prešeren got its healthy dose of metal courtesy of Heavy New Year, with Burning Legion and Sweet Sorrow on the bill. A few months have passed, and it was high time to get the KUD hall headbanging again. Once more, the man behind the excellent organization was Sweet Sorrow drummer Peter Gale, who put together a metal night at KUD called Headbanging KUD, featuring three local bands – Sweet Sorrow, Dickless Tracy and Negligence.
First to storm the stage with a brutal massacre were Ljubljana’s Vikings, Sweet Sorrow. Over a career of more than ten years, a whole sea of members has passed through the band. Some bravely rode off to Valhalla escorted by Valkyries, while others left a lot less bravely. Today the only founding member left in Sweet Sorrow is the Einherjar Aljoša Us on bass, surrounded by a Viking legion that includes a new member, Marko Košmrlj on vocals. Fittingly, Sweet Sorrow blasted out a devastating set of fresh songs from the new record the guys are currently working on. Marko has only a handful of shows with the band behind him, but he gets better and more convincing with each one. He still lacks a good deal of the stage charisma and energetic presence that former vocalist Valentin “Bufo” Bufolin had down, but for now he makes up for it with a dynamic, excellent death growl that fits the new material like a glove. There’s still some work to do on talking to the crowd and on a more energetic, dynamic approach, but what is probably the best material of Sweet Sorrow’s career sounds killer live. You could immediately hear the improved sound system at KUD France Prešeren: the sound was much livelier and mightier, and it really showcased the destructive guitar duo of Pero/Joco and their melodic riffs, inspired by Swedish death metal à la At the Gates and Amon Amarth. The wrecking-ball rhythm section of Us/Pero was every bit as good. Too bad Sweet Sorrow played first this time and had a smaller crowd in front of the stage, and even that crowd was fairly static, but you could still tell the songs are slowly sinking in. Especially the “single” I Am Pain and God of War with its addictive chorus. With a set that was over way too fast, Sweet Sorrow proved once again that they’re one of the more professional and tighter metal bands around, and the new album is already eagerly awaited!
Sweet Sorrow:
1. 1000th Millenium
2. Betrayals of Humanity
3. God of War
4. The Scarlet Whore
5. I Am Pain
6. Twilight of the Gods
7. Another Life
Next, the masters of death/grind from Brežice, Dickless Tracy, tore the KUD stage into four pieces. With an excellent show they made up for missing Heavy New Year last December (the excuse was drummer Ivan “Tegle” Cepanec being sick, and he probably spent the evening watching an endlessly recycled Christmas Story). This time Ivan swapped the knitting needles for drumsticks, and Dickless Tracy fired off an hour-long grindmageddon. The Brežice trio played the entire debut album, which we’ve been waiting for since forever, but the Dicklessi make up for the album’s absence on stage with raw, brutal energy, with classics like the new song To Enter Martyrdome, which is already becoming a classic, and Incubator of Death, and with the typical Dickless Tracy trademark humor, carried by Cepanec number two, frontman Tzeppo. You can tell Dickless Tracy have racked up a huge number of touring miles, and despite frequent lineup changes they come across as tight and in sync on stage. More people had gathered in front of the stage by now, headbanging to Dickless Tracy’s extreme and brutal blend of death metal and grind and cracking up at Tzeppo’s monologues. A good hour went by way too fast, especially thanks to Željko’s mini-epic about bassist Sine’s ex-girlfriend. Dickless Tracy more than made up for missing Heavy New Year, and I hope they finally manage to record that debut album.
Dickless Tracy:
1. To Enter Martyrdom
2. Promised For Eternity
3. Grindstorm
4. Halls of Sickness
5. Become
6. Outside
7. Incubator of Death
8. Conflicts of a Time to Come
9. Conclusive Inscription
The last band of the night to attack the stage was the thrash sensation from Jesenice and Ljubljana, Negligence. Their debut Options of a Trapped Mind is still stirring things up, and finally, more than deservedly, increasingly so abroad too. The guys are slowly getting ready to record a new album, and in the meantime they’re gigging like crazy. After a long time it was Ljubljana’s turn again, and Negligence made a damn successful return to the capital’s stages. Understandably, the biggest crowd gathered in front of the stage during Negligence, who had the KUD hall heated to boiling point from the first moments of the thrash wrecker Addicted to Agression. There was no shortage of breathtaking soloing from one of the best guitar duos in the country, Dyz/Jey, who proved to be an incredibly in-sync pair, breathing as one and tossing killer solos and unforgettable riffs back and forth for fun, the kind even the greatest thrash masters wouldn’t be ashamed of. The rhythm section of Ruzz/Lipnik is just as hard-hitting, a tsunami, while Negligence can also boast the best frontman around. It’s incredible how far Alex has come since Metalsteel, where he was still battling a voice change, to Negligence, where he has a mighty, incredibly powerful voice, fantastic both in the thrash mid-range and in the falsettos. And Alex isn’t just the prototype of a phenomenal thrash vocalist: on stage he’s the personification of charisma and presence, delivering a performance charged with energy and plenty of headbanging. Negligence reeled off the killer wreckers from the album one after another, the moshing intensified with every song played, necks suffered more and more, and Negligence kept going, adding to the hits from Options of a Trapped Mind the classic Shark Attack, a precisely played cover of the Testament classic Into the Pit, and the brand-new song Mental Central, which sounds simply, in one word, incredible! One more reason the new Negligence record is going to be at least as eagerly awaited as Options of a Trapped Mind. Negligence ’till Death!
Negligence:
1. Addicted to Agression
2. War Machine
3. Shark Attack
4. Threshold of Society
5. Bay Arena
6. Places of Dawn
7. Legacy of Lies
8. Mental Central
9. Into the Pit
10. Fight Back
11. No Brain, No Pain
12. Options of a Trapped Mind
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Text: Rok Klemše
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