Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: Trainstation Kranj
Concert date: 14.04.2018
April isn’t just the month of weird weather, it’s also the month of the annual, traditional metal weekend at Kranj’s TrainStation Subart. This year, the second day of it was more than tempting thanks to an interesting and varied lineup, and even more so because of the warm spring weather, which lured out a pretty sizeable crowd. The combination of a young, fresh band that plenty of people came to check out, followed later in the evening by tried-and-true veterans, turned out to be a great move and will no doubt go down as one of the nicest spring events.
Not to ramble on, the first act on stage was a new force of Slovenian heavy metal that has made a bigger splash than any other band in a long time. I’m talking about Ljubljana heavy metal outfit SkyEye, who after releasing their debut EP Run For Your Life took concert stages by storm too, proving that the EP is no beginner’s luck or studio trick. The guys blew us away once again with an outstanding show that’s just waiting for much, much bigger stages. On Saturday the band once more played the whole EP, which gave you goosebumps from start to finish. Despite the sound being a bit rough at times, it was a pleasure to listen to the varied and well-thought-out riffing of the guitar duo and the hard-hitting rhythm section, while the attention, whether intentionally or not, gets stolen by vocalist and remarkably polished frontman Jan, who took over the stage completely, in true »Dickinson« fashion. Jaws were once again catching flies at his vocal acrobatics, and the crowd was quickly won over by the band, headbanging along to the rippers Fire, Book of Life, Run For Your Life and Stardust. A faithful and energetic rendition of the Maiden classic Trooper was just the icing on the cake, and the epic Tsunami was further confirmation that the band isn’t resting on the laurels of its well-received EP and is reaching higher and higher as songwriters. Superb!
The only foreign guests of this year’s second metal weekend day flew in from the Italian nebula, though they weren’t a completely unidentified flying object. Tuscan technical sci-fi thrashers Vexovoid first introduced themselves to the Slovenian crowd on the New Forces stage at last year’s Metaldays, and this time they landed in Kranj with their almost brand-new debut Call of the Starforger, which came out last December. Vexovoid will perk up the ears of fans of progressive/technical thrash metal à la Vektor, Obliveon and Droid, and hand in hand with technical thrash goes sci-fi theming, of course. Vexovoid have plenty of both, and at a pretty high level. This time, unlike at Metaldays, the guys showed up as a four-piece with two guitars, which really showed in the sound, much richer this time around, with dissonant riffs and maj7 chords flying in from all sides, and the competent rhythm section did its job properly too. A minor demerit for the Italians is that in places they get a little too close to Vektor, but they showed enough energy, excellent tightness and charming banter from frontman Danny in broken English that it was easy to overlook.
Even more impossible to overlook, though, was that Eruption played one of the best shows I’ve personally seen from them in Kranj. The girl and the guys exploded like a bomb of pure energy and their own unique take on thrash metal, which undoubtedly reached its peak on the current masterpiece Cloaks of Oblivion, which is getting well-deserved attention beyond our borders too. Eruption put the spotlight mainly on songs from the new album, while for the old school fans they surprised with The Sands of Time from the debut Lifeless Paradise. It was right during that one that it struck me how hard it sometimes is to believe that Buco turned into such a mature, commanding and confident frontman from the kid who years ago, on the stage of Kranj’s Bazen, pestered James Rivera during Helstar (hehe). And not just him, the whole band (lineup changes aside), which shows in their stage presence, because you’d have to try hard to find a tighter band in this country. From the wild solos of the Čuk/Kamenšek duo, Nika’s rattling bass lines and Tegla’s earthquake drumming, with the addition of Buco’s mighty vocals… simply everything works flawlessly. So it was perfectly clear that the crowd wouldn’t just let them off the stage after the brilliant The Prophet Eruption, and so they got The Yearning as an encore.
Kranj Metal Weekend 2018 was closed out by hometown heroes Armaroth, who after three extremely high-quality bands had a tough job on their hands, but they pulled it off without major trouble. The guys are locals, after all, and the support of the home crowd was to be expected. It’s true, though, that Armaroth had a pretty thankless role this time, since they represented the biggest genre departure, deep in the waters of extreme metal. Even so, the guys handled the task with ease and made sure the crowd headbanged and moshed itself out one last time.
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