Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Komen na Krasu / Slovenia
Concert date: 12.08.2011
Attendance: 1200
Ticket price: €45.00
After three years of silence, our beloved yum-yum festival “Metal Mania Open Air” is back in Komen. Why beloved? Simple. Because this festival is the model of the biggest, most unshakable authenticity of everything metal culture stands for in Slovenia. Slovenian metal bands that need gigs to break through get their chance here to prove themselves and put themselves on the map.
This is a festival with no “airs” and no profit calculations. Genre-wise it always embraces metal in all its developmental “factions” and subgenres on equal footing. I’d even say it gives priority to the obscure stuff, which is that much more appealing precisely because of its obscurity. In recent years we’ve been watching a drift toward the extremes, so this year’s Metal Mania Open Air smelled very uncompromising and sharp in its stage mix.
This year was even the first Metal Mania where not a single drop of rain fell across both days of the festival. Until now, at least one of the two days had always been welcomed with rain. And the crowd? Thoroughly starved after two years without a Metal Mania, or more precisely since the Paranoid Open Air festival! And here it is again. A real, let’s say “pure-blooded” metal paradise, where old friends meet again and that genuine warmth is born, the feeling that you’re part of one big family. A feeling we’ve truly missed for a good while. And it was born again.
Our expedition arrived at the scene of the crime late, just as the set by the lovable “grindcore slipper-wearers” from Murska Sobota, Vulvathrone, was winding down. Brutal and thoroughly experienced sexologists of a bizarre imagination that mere mortals can only dream about, they showed up at the festival like they were ordered, to hand out some useful sex-ed tips to the clueless and inexperienced naked folks.
This year’s Metal Mania hit with a fury, favoring a lineup of bands that fall under the umbrella of metal’s extreme subgenres. Condemnatio Christii, whom we were waiting for because Divine Illusion cancelled their show, are one such gain on the Slovenian scene. A superbly put-together crew who left a mark especially with the sculpted video for the song Codex Sacrus, they poured out all the blackness they had into the glare of the early afternoon. Complex, varied, with a touch of uncertainty about what awaits the listener around the next bend, dynamic and above all permanently ominous. The guys still have some mileage ahead of them. A hugely promising Slovenian black metal band is on the march!
Through an atmospheric switch-over we were dropped for a good hour into the scorching cauldron where Bay Area thrash metal was born, as Ljubljana’s Panikk, in short pants for this edition, took the stage and confirmed with their set that they’re unstoppably progressing and growing in their defiance. The guys gathered a few more people in front of the stage, even though most were still cooling their heads in the shade on the stand to the right of the stage. Beer sales kicked into full gear. With songs like Away (from Reality), Society to Adapt and Messiah Of Decay, Panikk confirm exceptional discipline and a strict, clear focus in chasing their goals. Bay Area revivalists, they’re cementing the popularity of the young metal generation in Slovenia, led by Negligence. An excellent set that lacks only a bit more kinetic energy from the bassist and the second guitarist to go all-out wrecking the future! One more thing! Gapa is the man! He sings what’s demanded, plays brilliantly! And he runs around and tears it up like he’s off the leash the whole time! For his bandmates too!
Penitenziagite are death metallers who enjoy a lot of support in the Slovenian metal community. No doubt about it. The guys have charisma. Sharp, long faces, grim stares and sturdily sculpted stage presences. Excellent sound, a massive wall of riffs backed by the clear crack of cymbals. They also proved to be great communicators with the crowd, trading a few juicy ones with people they knew in the audience, which added to the festival’s authentic feel. Otherwise, no mercy and the pedal pushed through the floor of a race car. For a moment, darkness fell on the earth!
And it kept getting darker. Here come the black metallers Somrak. A meaningful name, no doubt! A union of straight-ahead stage mixing, razor-sharp guitars aimed at hellishly fast single-string picking, unstoppable growling and croaking over a solid rhythmic undercarriage. An excellent, more than polished show. An alienated stance, as befits the pedigree of reviving total cataclysm, which keeps the engine and the creative hunger of the band alive. An energetic set with the dimension of the blackest Nordic frost didn’t leave the crowd indifferent, and many fans of extreme metal erotica caught the right step and set their neck vertebrae to the proper spin, as demanded by the engine of Somrak’s black metal craft. We Slovenes really do have excellent bands!
Then up on stage come another set of old-school “thrash” metal revivalists, Keller. A band that went through a transformation, a band that was even rumored to be done playing. Nope. Back in a renewed and revived lineup. The Hudrap brothers, men who know all the metal shenanigans of the great masters far too well, from Chuck Schuldiner onward, are just the address for patching up such gaps, especially when the whole thing looks very critical. Anyway, the guys threw out all doubts and delivered a red-hot, energetic and heartfelt set, fanned by terrific audience participation. The crowd, more than obviously, had been waiting impatiently for the band to arrive.
The first foreign act of the day, Germany’s Wizard, were in fact the only representatives of power metal across both days of the festival. A fact that by itself speaks of this year’s great festival sympathy for bands that prefer “growling” to singing. Even though the guys blew the worshippers of extremes away from the front of the stage and were eagerly watched only by fans of pomp and melody, it has to be admitted that the band had the best sound up to that point. With their stage play they were also a nice example of how to move and use the available space so that the effect of the show is even more intense. Expressively uninteresting, we could even say dry, Wizard nevertheless prove at their gigs an exceptionally smooth, well-oiled, tight and compact live act.
Horna, translated into Slovenian as abyss, hell – formerly Shadowed, with a devilish baptism into Christianity, first served up a nice bit of spice with their strict addressing of the crowd in Finnish. Vocalist “Spellgoth”, dressed as a sacrifice of mankind – Christ wearing the headgear of Obi-Wan Kenobi from the movie Star Wars, with gestures, kitsch of upside-down stars – pentagrams, lime-wash makeup like you’d use for painting walls or storing potatoes, as befits the band’s mission, and a grimly absent expression, made no secret of his contempt for the audience in front of the stage. Horna shook out all their wrath and damnation! They’re seasoned old foxes, on the scene since 1993 with a heap of releases behind them! An excellent combination of lights and mist stoked a veil of doomy atmosphere. In other words, the ambience in which a band like Horna is instantly recognized. Merciless black metal flogging, rock-solid performances, a full crowd in front of the stage and sporadic stormy reactions from an otherwise hypnotized audience made this one of the day’s most interesting, fully realized and convincing sets.
The big finale of the first day went to the German Teutonic thrash metallers Destruction, driven to Komen by their fresh studio release “Days Of Reckoning” (2011). This trio too is unshakable and immortal with its inflexibility and constant touring, as well as the steady release of fresh studio albums. As long as the charismatic Schmier has things in his hands, nothing can go wrong for these, we might say, German thrash legends. Schmier in excellent vocal form, the trio sounded bulletproof! Schmier showed signs of extremely cheerful spirits and his banter with the crowd was solid throughout. The guy didn’t let us breathe, firing up the audience extremely effectively.
Credit is also due to the infallible sound man! Who else could it be but the indispensable fixture of every Metal Mania, “Yowda”, who set the knobs on the mixing desk just as required! Never mind Schmier’s outburst in the second half of the show, when he hurled the mic to the floor in anger, claiming his vocals couldn’t be heard enough. A musician’s tantrum, proof that his ego slipped the reins for a moment, it slightly spoiled the genuine vibe and showed that Schmier can also behave like a rock star when it’s (un)necessary.
The ever-reliable guitarist Mike Sfiringer with a toothpick silhouette topped by a shaggy curly mane, the beastly Schmier who strode with wide, deliberate steps among the three microphones set across the width of the stage, and the one-of-a-kind bomber Vaaver (Wawrzyniec Dramowicz), who showed this evening how to serve up drum fills with a double bass drum pedal! “Mad Butcher”, “Return of the Mad Butcher”, “Crucified”, the new “Hate Is My Fuel” and Armaggedonizer, then D.evilution, the prehistoric Curse Of The Gods,… Schmier, the rabid thrash metal shaman, and his company in the middle of the Slovenian Karst! Unforgettable feelings!
But the evening still wasn’t completely over. After the cleanup of the wreckage Destruction left behind, the promising Slovenian metalcore band Hellcrawler took the stage. Unfortunately, with a completely botched performance. I can’t get past the impression that the vocalist looked like a thoroughly stoned baboon who had no idea what was going on around him at any moment. Hence the problems with the gear setup and tuning. It was hard to tell when the show actually began and whether a mini soundcheck was still going on. Then came the messing up, restarting songs because of messing up after a minute of playing,…. The set looked more like a “stand up” comedy than anything else. Getting a chance at the Metal Mania Open Air festival and showing up with such unseriousness is not exactly good provisions for the band’s future “exploits”(?). Whatever. The first day came to a close. It was excellent and a great success all round.
photos: Martin Prezelj & Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
00.35-01.15 HELLCRAWLER 23.00-00.20 DESTRUCTION 21.20-22.30 HORNA 19.50-20.50 WIZARD 18.30-19.20 KELLER 17.35-18.15 SOMRAK 16.40-17.20 PENITENZIAGITE 15.45-16.25 PANIKK 14.50-15.30 CONDEMNATIO CRISTI 13.50-14.30 VULVATHRONE 13.00-13.35 DIVINE ILLUSION 12.10-12.45 BURNING NOISE 11.20-12.45 THE BETRAYAL
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