Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Komen na Krasu / Slovenia
Concert date: July 21, 2012
Attendance: 600
Ticket price: €30.00 / €55.00
After a wild Friday night (wilder for some, tamer for others, as you could tell from the number of corpses lying around and the number of extras from Dawn of the Dead), Saturday morning arrived, swept by the bora wind. The Saturday lineup was kicked off by the Gorizia melodic heavy metallers Overtures, which feature one of our own, drummer Luka Klanjšček. Even though you can’t exactly say Italian bands have a reputation for quality, the guys stomped on the gas pedal in the early afternoon with catchy, seriously melodic heavy/power metal. It’s close to German bands like Helloween, Gamma Ray and Running Wild, with strong riffs, confident vocals and bombastic, singalong choruses. In a good half hour, Overtures played tracks from their debut Beyond the Waterfall (2008) and its follow-up Rebirth (2011), and crowned their set with a great rendition of the Running Wild classic Pirate Song, which they recorded for the officially released »tribute to Running Wild« compilation Reunation: A Tribute to Running Wild.
Because of lunch (the pizzeria in Branik – finger-lickin’ good, all twenty fingers) we sadly missed the Croatian thrashers Suffosia and the »local Voivod« Teleport. Mostly because of the latter’s delay and reports of their excellent show, I’m still whipping my ears with the Semargl CDs, but luckily the fresh-out-of-the-oven black metallers Valuk from Idrija slapped on a fairly successful band-aid. They were a pleasant surprise and a band that can carve out a nice spot on the Slovenian black metal scene in the future. Their old-school-sounding black metal is spiced just right with buzzing, bumblebee-like guitars that go straight to the ears, and there’s no shortage of sick, screeching vocals either. The guys really still lack a lot of mileage, which you can see from a mile away in the stiffness of the instrumental side of the band and the (cute; dude, I used the word cute in the description of a black metal band!) goofy appearance of the frontman, but they earn a plus for a seriously well-studied take on the Satyricon anthem Mother North.
As for the performance of the local »acid« mix Voodoo Mule, I still don’t quite know what that even was. A trio of local drunks who crashed into their instruments by accident in an alcoholic delirium, or a stoner/doom/rock/metal/whatever trio that can afford to have such a botched and such a great gig at the same time. Before the show, Voodoo Mule had apparently strapped the mule with big barrels of beer and who knows what else, and then showed total F.O.A.D. »attitude« on stage and played a gig that probably nobody enjoyed more than they did themselves. So it bothered no one, not the goofy swapping of a snapped string, not the totally delirious banter that only the frontman could understand, and not the improvised jam detours. It’s a shame the band obviously doesn’t realize its potential (which it has when sober) and takes gigs like this one at Metal Mania with a left hand.
Sadly, I don’t remember the gig of the Kranj death metal machine Armaroth all that well (damn you Mahr’s Bräu), but unfortunately my memory came back far too quickly for the show of the sleaze/glam outfit Street Creeps from Medvode. If my two brain halves can’t agree on whether Voodoo Mule was bad or good, then at the start of the Medvode guys’ gig they both wanted to run away screaming straight into the mouths of the aforementioned Romero extras. The guys have their image studied down to zero, and some of the ladies even reported that they themselves don’t know how to apply eyeliner that nicely, but with Street Creeps it’s a tough call. Are they just going to go for glam models, or will they also create something musically that’s easier to digest.
Then, with the sun slowly sinking below the horizon, came one of the bands I was looking forward to most at this year’s festival. The English NWOBHM/doom metal legends Pagan Altar! This NWOBHM diamond recorded its debut way back in 1982 (even though it officially came out only in 1998), but despite the quality music and the dark aura surrounding the band, it stayed in complete obscurity and more or less known only to fanatical collectors of NWOBHM rarities. We can blame a few die-hard fans for Pagan Altar’s return from the dead in 2004 after years of inactivity, and the resurrection carried them back onto the stage too. This year, onto the stage of Metal Mania! In their early days, Pagan Altar built up the musical side with a strong visual element, staging real occult and mystical spectacles at their concerts. Sadly, they’ve apparently dropped that side and showed up on stage like some die-hard British Top Gear viewers who get excited every time Clarkson mentions a Jaguar or an Aston Martin. Bad jokes about the Brits aside, despite loads of fumbling (you can tell the guys don’t step onto the pagan stage altar all that often lately), Pagan Altar played an unforgettable gig, stuffed with classics from the eighties. The new lineup gathered around frontman and vocalist Terry Jones carries on the legacy of former members musically, though you can tell perfect tightness isn’t quite a familiar concept to them. Still, it was a great pleasure to witness a gig by a band you’ll probably never be able to see in our parts again, even if Jones (Terry, not guitarist Alan, who is Terry’s son) reminded us of Ozzy too often live with his nasal singing (that association isn’t as pronounced on the albums). By effectively combining NWOBHM riffing and slowly rolling traditional doom in songs like The Cry of the Banshee, The Lords of Hypocrisy and Samhein, the band delivered one of the nicer surprises of this year’s Mania. Even though they didn’t quite manage to create the impression of an occult, mystical ritual that fills the records, and came across like old farts who gather in the singer’s garage in the afternoon, after a cup of tea with milk and a glass of brandy, to blast old Black Sabbath records on a crackling turntable.
After a stroll through the eighties, we were brought back to the present by the Swedish doomers October Tide, which feature two former Katatonia members, bassist Mattias Norrman and guitarist Fredrik Norrman. That’s also why it was pretty clear what October Tide would offer musically – a depressive, heavy and melancholic atmosphere, which, unlike (today’s) Katatonia, they build up with massive, mighty guitars and the brutal vocals of frontman Alexander. In terms of genre, October Tide are thus closer to the likes of Novembers Doom than to Katatonia, and they excel at building an effective, morbid ambience with mournful guitar lines that death metal beastliness cuts through in all the right places. October Tide got just the right amount of time, so they weren’t too long and therefore too heavy for the relaxed atmosphere of Metal Mania, and that hour of good doom was the perfect time for sitting in the stands and slowly shaking your head.
The organizers picked just the right time for a rest, since the next hour was once again reserved for brutalization by the German death metal meat grinder Fleshcrawl. The »German Dismember« shook Komen mercilessly right from the start with one of the best tracks in their discography, the legendary Soulskinner. Even though Fleshcrawl don’t exactly stand out as the most unique death metal around (hey, they even »borrowed« their guitar tone from Swedish death metal; Boss HM-2 pedal at eleven and let’s go!), caressing our ears with the gentle serenades of vocalist Sven Gross hit the spot just like a cold beer in hand. The Germans definitely played one of the most energetic gigs of this year’s festival, and the crowd below the stage was in the same mood, even breaking out into a mosh. The sharp riff-slicing of the Hanus/Grbavec duo skinned us with surgical precision and peeled us down to the bone, and Fleshcrawl stand out above all for their devastating drumming, which is dynamic and varied despite heavy use of blast beats. Into the Fire of Hell!
After saying goodbye to Fleshcrawl, we could rest our necks during the fireworks with which the organizers marked the tenth anniversary (happy birthday, thanks for an unforgettable festival and here’s to many, many more years!), stuff our bellies with cake, and then break our necks one more time at the show by the Saturday headliners, the Norwegian »all-star« black/thrash outfit Aura Noir. The Norwegian trio, made up of former (and current) members of bands like Immortal, Mayhem, Dodheimsgard and others, hurled Komen back into the primordial sludge of primitive, blackened thrash metal for a good hour. Raised on the legacy of Venom, Aura Noir, under the weight of Aggressor’s aggressive (hehe) simple but effective riffs (he kept his eyes hidden behind kvlt! Ray-Bans for the entire show), oompa-oompa drumming and Apollyon unleashed off the chain, played a top-notch hour of hellish, blasphemous black/thrash metal. Sodomy with Aura Noir was probably the best show of this year’s Mania, and thus more than a fitting finish with a bang.
We were lulled to sleep by the psychedelic/ambient black metal rhythms of Ater Era from Istria, and Metal Mania 2012 came to its end. We left Komen once again with great satisfaction, unforgettable memories and the hope that we’ll return to the scene of the crime again next year.
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