Performers: Heathen / Toxik
Venue: Ljubljana / Orto Bar / Slovenia
Date: 5 June 2022
Summer is usually a dead zone for concerts — or at least the action shifts to outdoor stages and festival grounds. This year, for reasons everyone knows, things are completely different: the gig calendar stays packed even through the summer, with Dirty Skunks and others keeping it full. Case in point was two weeks ago, when the thrash tag-team of Toxik and Heathen rolled into Ljubljana on a scorching Sunday.
First up were the cult New York outfit Toxik, who carved their name into history in the late eighties with the twin-album punch of World Circus/Think This. On those records they were among the first to weave more complex and technically demanding approaches into thrash, which is why many consider them among the earliest — if not the very first — representatives of technical thrash metal. Toxik have started and stopped a few times over their career, and this time they set foot on Slovenian stages for the very first time. Naturally, they’re led by the sole remaining original member, guitarist Josh Christian, who has assembled a young and driven crew around him and has finally recorded the long-promised third studio album Dis Morta, due out in a month and a half. Toxik don’t exactly have a sprawling discography, so we got a generous helping from those two cult records, and the boys fired off wrecking balls like Heart Attack, Greed, Think This and World Circus one after another, without mercy. Not all the attention went to Christian alone — who, despite his age (he turns 56 in July), is one with his guitar and still sounds angry and brutally good, technical difficulties mid-song notwithstanding (which a friendly punter from the front row helped sort out). No, all eyes kept snapping to young vocalist Ron Iglesias, who screamed like a wild animal, nailed every sky-high falsetto, and threw himself around the stage with enough energy to star in a Red Bull ad. Iglesias owned every inch of that stage the whole night, and his relentless calls for a mosh pit finally paid off toward the end (he was also one of the chief instigators of the pit during Heathen’s set). Toxik also premiered the title track from the upcoming album, which — aside from a memorable chorus — hasn’t made a massive impression just yet, but the band absolutely did, with an outstanding performance and a genuinely grateful, humble attitude toward the crowd. Dis Morta is without doubt one of this year’s most eagerly awaited records.
Heathen aren’t exactly a prolific band either — just four albums since 1984, and their latest, the still-current Empire of the Blind from 2020, took them the better part of a decade to deliver; its predecessor The Evolution of Chaos came out way back in 2010. A year later, Heathen played what turned out to be their last show here at Thrashfest, and their very first appearance in Slovenia — back in 2010 in Maribor — went down in local history (almost as memorably as Forbidden, also in that Styrian capital), so expectations ahead of their shows are always sky-high. The first disappointment this time around was the absence of the band’s sole remaining founding member, Ukrainian giant and guitarist Lee Altus, who wasn’t with them on the European tour. Stepping into his very large shoes was young, lesser-known Canadian guitarist Kyle Edissi (his home band is Invicta), and there’s nothing bad to say about his performance — he did the job brilliantly. Still, watching Heathen without Altus feels a bit like watching Exodus without Gary Holt. Regardless, Heathen greeted Ljubljana with new track The Blight and — despite some dodgy sound at the start — made it clear they were in seriously good form. Leading the charge were familiar faces guitarist Kragen Lum and, of course, vocalist Dave White, whose clean vocals are, alongside the infectiously melodic guitar work, the main reason Heathen have had a melodic identity all their own since their debut Breaking the Silence — making them one of the most distinctive acts in thrash from the very beginning. The soaring melodies were all over the place again this time, but the one thing that left a slightly bitter taste was the setlist. It leaned almost entirely on the new album, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem in itself — The Blight, Empire of the Blind and Sun In My Hand all carry those big choruses that showcase both Heathen’s crushing heaviness and their razor-sharp guitar precision and melodic instinct. The problem was that with such a heavy focus on Empire of the Blind, the classics from the first two albums — the ones that actually put Heathen on the thrash map — were almost entirely overlooked, save for the unforgettable Goblin’s Blade, Death By Hanging and the closing Hypnotized, ushered in by the ominous voice of Jim Jones. They could have at least thrown in Opiate of the Masses, which they do play on this tour. That said, the heavy hitters from the excellent The Evolution of Chaos rang out brilliantly at Orto, particularly the epic Arrows of Agony and Dying Season, and special credit goes to drummer Jim DiMaria, who — after the technical storm of the Toxik set — flawlessly powered through a second full show in the same evening! Bottom line: not the best Heathen show I’ve seen to date, but without question still one of the better gigs of the year.
Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
