Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Tolmin (confluence of the Tolminka and Soča) / Slovenia
Concert date: 06.08.2012
Attendance: 12,000
Ticket price: €107.00 (three-day pass) / €142.00 (seven-day pass)
We moan every year and we moan all year long. We (rightfully) complain about a lineup that looks like the »roster« of Nuclear Blast and/or the Rock the Nation agency, about Slovenian passports being handed out for free to bands like Amon Amarth, Eluveitie and Korpiklaani, and about the feeling that this is a volunteer fire brigade party with accordions and flutes that a few thousand metalheads stumbled into by accident. Okay, to each their own, but a more demanding metal fan would have had a hard time finding ten bands that don’t fall into the categories above. This year’s Metalcamp managed to surprise in that respect with a somewhat more exciting lineup. The headliners Machine Head and At the Gates stood out (along with alternative giants Korn, who in my opinion just don’t belong at a festival like Metalcamp), plus Testament, Sanctuary and many others. And whatever the grumbling throughout the year, it’s unforgettable to sink into the fantastic atmosphere that surrounds Metalcamp, soak up the spectacular nature and happily gulp down a cold beer next to the even colder Soča.
This year the honor of opening the festival on the main stage went to the local black/death metal outfit Morana, right after them came the American power metal veterans Vicious Rumors, whom I was really looking forward to. Of course, thanks to work obligations I was lucky enough to catch exactly the last ten seconds of their last song. The bitterness was soothed by a cold beer, and even more by the pleasure of torturing my ears with the show by cult Canadian technical death metallers Gorguts, who returned to Europe after seventeen years of absence. Gorguts were supposed to attack festival Europe last year already, but we were left empty-handed, with the official explanation that the guys were recording a new record (about which there’s still not a peep). Anyway, the leader and mastermind of the band, guitarist and vocalist Luc Lemay, has gathered a completely new lineup around himself, made up of bassist Colin Marston (Behold… the Arctopus), drummer John Longstreth (Origin) and guitarist Kevin Hufnagel (Dysrhythmia), and in just under an hour the guys delivered a phenomenal technical death metal massacre with classics of sick, twisted, otherworldly death metal from the albums The Erosion of Sanity and Obscura. A fired-up Lemay delivered a brutal vocal performance and, with his trio of instrumental wizards/psychopaths, strung together enough complex mathematical equations to fill a whole blackboard, translated into music. Gorguts played a show that was simply a must for all technical death metal fans, an orgasm of cosmic proportions, and at the same time it felt like having Linear Algebra shoved into your left ear and String Theory into your right.
Monday was the day for another legendary comeback act. If the breakup of Nevermore brought anything good, it’s the reactivation of the cult Seattle power metal outfit Sanctuary, in which bassist Jim Sheppard and vocalist Warrel Dane played before founding Nevermore (and Jeff Loomis too, as a live guitarist right before the band split). If Nevermore grew out of the ashes of Sanctuary in the early nineties, then Sanctuary rose from the dead on the ashes of Nevermore. Thanks to Warrel’s intelligent lyrics, the intriguing, almost progressive music and the brilliant guitar acrobatics of the Lenny Rutledge/Sean Blosl duo, they’re still considered a gem of late-eighties American metal, and the albums Refuge Denied (1987) and Into the Mirror Black (1989) are cult records (the first one was produced, rather dismally, since he was digging into very different lines than guitar ones at the time, by none other than Dave Mustaine). There was a lot of speculation about how Sanctuary would do on stage right now, and after the show opinions clashed on the forums too, ranging from total disappointment to musical ecstasy. I belong to the latter group and I think Sanctuary were the highlight of Monday. It’s been a long time since I saw a show during which I had goosebumps running down my back the whole time. The bulk of the doubts was clearly Dane’s voice, and the big question was whether he could pull off the inhumanly high falsettos from Sanctuary’s first run (with Nevermore he largely, or almost completely, skipped them). Dane admittedly doesn’t scream like in the old days, but he hasn’t delivered a better vocal performance since at least the Nevermore tour for the album This Godless Endeavor. He managed a few breathtaking screams and was only worn out by the closing classic Battle Angels. The new member, guitarist Brad Hull (ex-Forced Entry), also did excellently and confidently. He and Rutledge already form a mighty guitar duo, and I’m really curious what they’ll show on the upcoming record (supposedly it will be called The Year the Sun Died). The setlist? Unforgettable, full of crushers and epics – Soldiers of Steel, Die For My Sins, the Jefferson Airplane cover White Rabbit, then Future Tense, Eden Lies Obscured and The Mirror Black!!! The only thing I really missed was the chilling tribute to Tutankhamun, Veil of Disguise, but the band also introduced a new song, I Am Low, which sounds far too Nevermore-ish and melancholic for Sanctuary, but let’s wait and see what the new album brings. Welcome back, Sanctuary!
Given how often they visit our stages, I swapped the show by the legendary British grindcore pioneers Napalm Death for a cold beer and a visit to the confluence, and I squeezed back in front of the main stage a little after nine to greet the thrash giants Testament with great enthusiasm. With their new record Dark Roots of the Earth they’ve proven that right now they have no equal among the big names. In the style of the greatest, Testament, led by chieftain Chuck Billy, marched onto the Metal Camp stage and invited us to rise up with the crusher from the new record, Rise Up, which is made for live situations. Unfortunately the perfect enjoyment was spoiled by dreadfully bad sound that completely ate Billy’s vocals and most of the guitars of the Peterson/Skolnick duo (I suspect Gene Hoglan sat down on a speaker), but luckily it got at least passable by the third song in a row, the classic Testament thrash mauler The Preacher. And then it was a shot of adrenaline-fueled thrash metal all the way to the end, and under the stage there was no end (or beginning) to the headbanging and endless moshing. In the (way too short) time they had available, Testament put together a setlist that has a representative from almost every record (sadly there was no time for a surprise or two from the unjustly overlooked Souls of Black, The Ritual, Low and Demonic). The eternal classics, written in blood into history – The New Order, The Preacher, Into the Pit, Over the Wall – were easily matched by new masterpieces that will undoubtedly become part of the band’s iron repertoire. Native Blood, True American Hate and Dark Roots of Earth have all the hallmarks of classic Testament, mixed with the more aggressive creations of the nineties – catchy, infectious choruses, phenomenal guitar work from the brilliant duo of Eric Peterson and Alex Skolnick, and on top of it all the drumming of Gene Hoglan, the human atomic clock (after Chernobyl the man probably grew extra pairs of arms and legs). But Testament wouldn’t be the real deal without Chuck Billy, who proved once again that he’s one of the most distinctive thrash metal vocalists! A man who beat cancer roars like a lion! Whether it’s aggressive thrash lines, clean singing, or pure death metal growling in the The Gathering bombs D.N.R. and 3 Days in Darkness. Despite the poor sound, Testament closed out a top-notch performance in royal style with Formation of Damnation.
The excellent start to the festival on Monday was crowned by the giants of modern, thrash-rooted metal, America’s Machine Head, who are probably even one of the hottest bands around at the moment. After many hardships in the past, the Californian foursome of Robb Flynn (vocals, guitar), Phil Demmel (guitar), Adam Duce (bass) and Dave McClain (drums) is now at the peak of their career, and just a few years ago they could only have smirked at the words Machine Head and headliner. But the guys’ career has been climbing steeply since the album Through the Ashes of Empires, reached its peak with the phenomenal The Blackening, and Machine Head managed to keep up the pace with the current record Unto the Locust. The summer festival tour has thus still been largely in the light of that record, and Flynn and the guys greeted us with the opening epic I Am Hell (Sonata in C#). It really shows that Machine Head have grown and matured as musicians over these few years, because the new songs are varied and dynamic and full of unexpected surprises, not to mention the Flynn/Demmel guitar duo (the former duo of cult Vio-Lence), who shake supersonic-fast and gorgeous guitar duels out of their sleeves like it’s nothing. The rhythm section is no slouch either, and it’s especially a pleasure to listen to Dave McClain’s fantastic, one-of-a-kind drumming and the deep rattle of Duce’s bass. This time Machine Head devoted the bulk of the set to the albums The Blackening and Unto the Locust, but the iron classics Old, Bulldozer, Ten Ton Hammer and the closing anthem Davidian were not missing either. The best moments were without a doubt the fantastically performed, bulldozer-heavy Aesthetics of Hate (dedicated to former prisoner Randy Blythe) and the epic Halo, which kicked off the encore. That Flynn has progressed not only as a guitarist but also as a vocalist was proven above all by the ballad Darkness Within, which, with a gorgeous light show, came off even better live than on the record. And Flynn wouldn’t be Flynn without endless “fucks” and “mother fuckers”, but he was completely off the mark with the line that he can’t believe we still have so much energy after five days of festival and that Machine Head are playing first in Slovenia. Still, when the show ended you really felt like you’d been worked over by a ten-ton hammer. Machine fuckin’ Head!
I escaped back into cruel reality even before the show by the Italian folk metal outfit Krampus, and so I kept the first day of Metalcamp in fond memory.
Setlist
TESTAMENT:
1. Rise Up
2. The New Order
3. The Preacher
4. Native Blood
5. True American Hate
6. More Than Meets the Eye
7. Dark Roots of Earth
8. Into the Pit
9. Practice What You Preach
10. Over the Wall
11. D.N.R.
12. 3 Days in Darkness
13. Formation of Damnation
MACHINE HEAD:
1. I Am Hell (Sonata in C#)
2. Old
3. Imperium
4. Beautiful Mourning
5. Locust
6. This is the End
7. Aesthetics of Hate
8. Darkness Within
9. Bulldozer
10. Ten Ton Hammer
— encore —
11. Halo
12. Davidian
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