Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: Orto Bar, Ljubljana
Concert date: 27.09.2012
Attendance: Too many
Ticket price: /
For many years Orto bar was the home of metal nights. They even included the traditional Christmas karaoke, which will live on in memory forever (or maybe not, depending on how much you put away). Then Fabrka took over as the go-to spot for heavy-metal-flavored nights. The duo Dirty Skunks ran metal Saturdays there for a few years, but Fabrka on Poljanska sadly shut its doors recently. Still, the metal nights are moving back to Orto under the baton of the dirty stinkers, now under the name Kadilnica of Death!
The opening night of the new season had been hyped for ages like the trailer for a long-awaited movie, and a good turnout was expected. Still, I hadn’t seen Orto packed this tight in a long time, if ever. Until headliners Dickless Tracy took the stage you could still sort of breathe upstairs, but then, in Halls of Sickness, even the last few molecules of oxygen left in the room vanished. But first things first.
On Thursdays at Orto bar, Kadilnica of Death serves up cheaper beer, foosball and pool, a full-on steelworks of music requests, showcases of new metal releases, and once a month, gigs too (knowing Dirty Skunks, that number will surely double). The honor of playing the Kadilnica ov Death premiere went to a genre tutti-frutti: Medvode-based sleaze/glam outfit Street Creeps, symphonic black metallers Condemnatio Cristi, and veterans of the local metal scene Dickless Tracy, who marked their fifteenth anniversary with this show.
Street Creeps were the first to deflower the stage, and hand on heart, they’re not exactly known as the best live attraction on our stages. Luckily the guys pulled themselves together a bit after a few disastrous gigs and fixed the bitter aftertaste of those past shows. Their meticulously crafted image is finally being matched by some live consistency too, really slowly but steadily. There were far fewer botched bits than before, though the vocals still sound at moments like a compilation of the worst auditions from the cringe-fest Slovenija ima talent. It’s commendable that the guys are working hard on original material, which already takes up a good chunk of their set, and it’s great to hear it pushing to the front instead of sloppily played covers.
Something completely different from Street Creeps came next with Condemnatio Cristi, eeem… CC.. eeem, Condematio Cristi. We went from sunny Sunset Strip into the dark, cold forests of symphonic black metal as Condemnatio Cristi play it. The band has been through plenty of lineup changes, but luckily the current lineup is obviously staying strong and tight. After their debut Incest, the band is announcing the release of the cinematic Soundtracks, but this time we got Condemnatio Cristi in their basic, raw black metal form backed by epic symphonics. The backing track caused no small amount of trouble this time, but that didn’t stop the guys, who confidently presented their vision of atmospheric black metal in just under an hour, with elements of death metal sneaking in between the lines. Despite the rich rhythmic foundation and the mighty wall of sound from the backing track, Condemnatio Cristi currently lack a bit of variety and dynamics in the guitar lines, mostly expressiveness. But judging by what they showed, they’re well on their way to becoming one of the more respected local black metal acts.
To close, the Brežice »birhtday boys« Dickless Tracy opened the doors to the halls of sickness, celebrating 15 years of the band, which puts them at the very top of the longest-running metal acts in this country. Dickless Tracy blew out the candles on the cake of sickness in a special way: they played their upcoming studio album in full, with recording set to start shortly. The material sounds incredibly promising and might even be the best of Dickless Tracy’s career. The Cepanec brothers, the driving (dictatorial, hehe) force of the band, have taken the music from primitive grind into almost technical (I never thought I’d use that word in the same paragraph as Dickless Tracy) waters of brutal old-school death metal. The twin-guitar attack of Cepot and Pussy delivered some excellent riffs and passages, Tegla proves he never runs out of good ideas and varied transitions, and the thundering rhythm section was bolstered this time by the bassist from the Brežice band Küzlavec. Like Romero’s zombies, we’re hungry for fresh brains, waiting for the album!
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