Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Gala hala (Metelkova) / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: December 13, 2010
Attendance: 80
Ticket price: €20.00
Texas “old school speed” metallers Helstar are firing on all cylinders again! Three years ago every last scrap of news about the band’s regeneration and revival landed like a wildest dream come true, but now they’ve cemented their status as living, breathing metal legends all over again. They dropped the comeback album “The King Of Hell” (2008), spiced it up with a European tour, and this year confirmed they’re fully back in the saddle with a new album and another European tour.
We have the open friendship between singer James Rivera and the Medvode band Metalsteel to thank, in large part, for Helstar coming back to Slovenia so gladly after last May’s visit to Kranj. Let’s not forget the more-than-successful cover band Sabbath Judas Sabbath they put together, where the entire Metalsteel lineup backs Rivera on vocals. With a handful of Sabbath Judas Sabbath shows around Europe the bonds got tighter, and among the new generation of Slovenian metalheads Helstar have become practically a mandatory part of the furniture, filed right under the dossier of the Slovenian metal scene.
But so that things wouldn’t go too smoothly for Helstar, it happened that before the Ljubljana show, on the road from Munich, Germany to the Slovenian capital, the guys had to leave bassist Jerry Abarca behind in a Munich hospital. It was a matter of life and death. When an appendix bursts, there’s no room for jokes.
Decilence, recently renamed from Eliminator and hailing from Celje, got the chance to open the night and show off their freshly revamped musical identity. The quartet is busy reviving the old thrash/speed metal school. Technically they’re excellently equipped, and there’s not much to complain about in the performance either. Of course the guys are just starting out, so they need to rack up some mileage. Their sound is perhaps best summed up in broad strokes by the covers they played, of Judas Priest and Forbidden. Aggressive, snarling and angry. The vocals are headlong and impetuous, yet melodic and fitting in every respect. Convincing, with the feeling that the band knows what it’s doing and what it wants. Let’s hope something big grows out of this band in the future.
Metalsteel took the stage second. The guys and the girl have a new album in their pocket, their fourth, which they actually played to the crowd in full. You can tell the band has been through a stretch of real gigging, at all sorts of venues, in all sorts of live conditions, in front of all sorts of crowds. The bonds have grown. The lineup is brilliantly tight. That’s confirmed above all by Beni’s excellent and incredibly confident singing, the upgraded harmonies of the backing vocals, and the concrete dialogue between Beni’s and Rok’s guitars. The new songs are angrier and more aggressive again. Metalsteel keep the melodic feel they’re after in them, coming from the traditional values of heavy metal, to which they remain loyal. For the ballad Topla je smrt, the band’s first singer Alex, known as the frontman of Negligence, stepped back on stage with his old companions for the first time in a long while. The band officially releases the new album just before New Year, and will mark the festive moment with a launch party in Kranj on December 23, 2010. Metalsteel are moving onward and upward. That’s just a fact.
Helstar are Helstar. Even with Jerry missing from the stage, Rivera and the guitar duo Trevino/Barragan, with the stellar form and experience of old seasoned foxes, kept everyone so occupied that nobody thought too much about the missing bass on stage. At this show the band also introduced new drummer Mikey Lewis, who with his superior technique and skill held the band together so well that you could hardly catch a slip-up during the set. The band went big on the excellent new studio album “Glory To Chaos” (2010), which sticks diligently to the legacy of the classic Helstar albums. The guys hit straight in with the new song Angels Fall To Hell, which spills over into (yet another new one) Pandemonium. Rivera is in top form. The shift of power from the mid-range up to the highest of highs worked flawlessly. Vocal articulation without a flaw. Full throttle! The man has tremendous charisma, and from his gestures you can tell James learned plenty of useful stuff from his excellency, the late Ronnie James Dio. And the vocal character? Imagine Dio wanting to sound like Rob Halford. Or vice versa, Halford like Dio. That’s roughly how you’d get an approximation of James Rivera’s vocal interpretation. After Wicked Disposition the man eased off the gas a bit, took a breather, explained to the crowd why there were only four Helstar musketeers on stage tonight, admitted that Slovenia has become his second home in a short time, and then announced a cover of Scorpions’ Animal Magnetism, from the album of the same name by those esteemed German hard rockers. As it should be. Totally “Helstar-style”. From head to toe. Anyone who didn’t know the song definitely got the feeling it was a fresh original from the band, that’s how excellent and authentic the “Helstar” outfit it wears is. Trevino and Barragan’s riffing brings an innate touch of delicacy to this cover, which puts Helstar in a special spot on the thrash/speed metal planet. The song is also on the new album “Glory To Chaos”. But you only get it on the CD, and only on the European market version, as a bonus track. Rivera floored everyone once more with his vocal performance in the new Bone Crusher, which sounded especially imposing and crushing live. From the new batch the guys also unleashed Alma Negra and Monarch The Bloodshed.
The rest of the set brought The King Of Hell, Rhapsody In Black, Baptised In Blood, Evil Reign, The King Is Dead, The Plague Called Man, Digital Nightmares and, to close, of course Run With The Pack. For that one Metalsteel bassist Matej Sušnik also stepped on stage. The band picked him to help carry the rest of the European leg of the Helstar tour through to the end. Four shows remain, and Jerry of course has to rest after the operation. Matej is known as a wunderkind bassist, since at barely twenty-three he’s already knocking on the door of the top bass players, with a truly shining career possibly ahead of him. Of course it all depends on courage and on not letting the praise “go to your head too much”. This is certainly a great honor not just for the bassist, but also a big vindication for Slovenian heavy metal, which got recognition for having exceptional musicians and exceptional bands that have kept pace with the times in terms of development and reach of world metal in 2010.
Helstar played another phenomenal show. The turnout was modest, though. About eighty people. I get it, wallets are pretty empty these days. Still, the small crowd went wild. With his performance and charisma, Rivera pulled the crowd in with feather-light ease and had them wrapped around his finger. Larry Barragan and Rob Trevino thrilled with their masterful command of the guitars, their precision, their outstanding picking and, in general, their incredible telepathy on stage. Mikey Lewis more than justified his role as the new Helstar drummer.
Simply put: Helstar remain a powerful stage presence, a one-of-a-kind essence. Jerry’s absence did show, with the gap “poking out” especially in the mid-tempo passages of the songs, but still. “Glory To Chaos” got a fantastic showing in Ljubljana, and everyone who cares about quality and original songwriting grabbed their copy of the new Helstar CD after the show. A magical heavy metal lesson from under the scorching Texas sun, forged in the mold of the most authentic origins! Serve it red-hot!
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
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