Metaldays 2015 (Day One) – The Eagle Has Landed in Tolmin!

Yes, there are festivals with bigger reputations, better lineups, fatter budgets and plenty of other things Metaldays doesn’t have, but there’s only one Metaldays, and coming back to Tolmin every year feels like coming home. The year flew by, and once again a crowd of twelve thousand came home, greeted by around a hundred bands, a heat wave and, because of it, an even more beloved Soča. Our crew survived a week of headbanging, and we’ve condensed what we saw and heard into reports you can read over the next few days, along with the improvements (and a few shortcomings) of the twelfth edition of the biggest and best festival on Slovenian soil.

Action on the Metaldays main stage kicked off with Swiss thrash/death metallers Total Annihilation, who obviously borrowed their name from the legendary nineties strategy computer game. The Swiss quintet did try to win over the handful of people who showed up hungry for faster, more aggressive stuff. Sadly, there wasn’t much of real interest to hear from them.

Then things calmed down with German stoner metallers Slomind, who offered nothing new, just a rehash of riffs defined by Black Sabbath, Kyuss and the like.

Krokodil showed a bit more inventiveness. They’re a new band put together by former members of Sikth, Cry For Silence, Gallow and others. They’ve only got a debut album behind them, and the set drew from it: a mix of all sorts of genres, with elements of sludge metal and post-hardcore standing out the most. They’re definitely a band with promise, which will show once they put out a bit more material and build an identity of their own.

The first big name on the main stage was the immortal Canadians Anvil. Despite being a major influence on huge bands like Metallica, they were only remembered a few years ago thanks to the excellent documentary The Story of Anvil. Wrong moves took a band that was destined for greatness more than twenty years ago and turned it into a total underground cult, but Lips is the living embodiment of an unquenchable faith in metal, which doesn’t die so easily. Anvil will release their sixteenth studio album this year, and while the quality of their studio output can swing wildly, that’s never true of their live shows. The tireless trio hit the anvil with everything they had and opened by sending the number of the beast, 666, from the cult Metal On Metal over Metaldays. Then, despite the brutal afternoon heat, they flattened Tolmin with heavy metal that stomped around like Godzilla over Mothra. And of course that song was there too, probably the best moment of the Anvil show, which Lips and new bassist Chris Robertson (who was superb and won hearts with his grimaces, which look less like a heavy metal bassist and more like something with a really low IQ, preferably dragged out of the American South) carried off with a theatrical, ultra-“cheesy” performance. Kudlow’s charisma and childlike silliness are so contagious you’d want to pinch his cheeks after the show, even if the old pervert still rubs a dildo over his guitar during the closing Metal On Metal. Awesome!

After Anvil (“And the good people of Tokyo”), the Canadian occupation of Tolmin continued with musical wizard Devin Townsend, who was back on Slovenian stages for the first time since his Slovenian debut in December 2012 at Kino Šiška (funny enough, also alongside Fear Factory back then). Townsend’s career exploded a few years ago and is still on the rise. Who would have thought that crazy SYL Devin (“waka, waka, waka”) would one day play venues as prestigious as London’s Royal Albert Hall? But if anyone deserves that status, it’s Devin, since it’s hard to find a harder-working man in music today, and on top of that his live shows are the perfect combination of pure musical pleasure, off-the-wall humor and loads of positive energy. Devin, Ryan, Beardhead, Mike and Beavis greeted Metaldays with Rejoice, and Tolmin was instantly flooded with pure joy. With excellent sound, top-notch vocals and flawless playing, Devin and his bearded Canadian lumberjacks (Ryan aside, the guys even convinced Devin to grow a beard for this tour, but all he managed was a pubescent fuzz, hehe) spun Metaldays into an interesting setlist. It wasn’t exactly a festival setlist (though Night, Deadhead and even the unforgettable Bastard were played, and thankfully the overchewed Lucky Animals was left out), but with it Devin confirmed once again that first and foremost he stays true to himself. True, something more danceable like Addicted! would’ve gone down well under the hot sun, but then what if they’d played something like The Death of Music, hehe. In a little under an hour Devin also tossed in a handful of jokes, from having a small one to how nice it is when your wife sits on your penis every now and then, and during March of the Poozers a few plush Ziltoids even rose up from the crowd. Devy, we love you. Even if you’ve got a small one.

Given their reputation, the legendary Queensryche could easily headline festivals like Metaldays, but fate decreed that after the largely overlooked Promised Land this cult band fell far, far from its former glory. A string of mediocre and increasingly poor studio records, mostly thanks to vocalist Geoff Tate’s snobbish turning up of his nose at metal, finally led to Tate getting kicked out of the band in 2012 (followed, of course, by the obligatory lawsuit drama over the rights to the Queensryche name). The original trio of Michael Wilton, Eddie Jackson and Scott Rockenfield carried on with guitarist Parker Lundgren and an exceptional vocalist named Todd La Torre, who had previously proven himself as a complete unknown in Crimson Glory. Given La Torre’s vocal abilities, it was clear the band could easily return to its progressive heavy metal roots, as confirmed by the very solid album Queensryche, released two years ago, and the guys lived up to the high expectations, pulling out classic after classic after the opening Anarchy-X. Ironically, the “new” Queensryche are the best the “old” Queensryche were ever capable of. The crowd was served mostly the cult quartet of Queensryche (EP)-The Warning-Rage For Order-Operation: Mindcrime, with brilliantly played and even more brilliantly sung (by La Torre) cult anthems like En Force, Warning, Queen of the Reich and Eyes of a Stranger. The return to the past could have made Queensryche look like a lame nostalgia attempt, but the guys play this stuff so that it sounds relevant and convincing. The Wilton/Lundgren guitar duo delivers hellish soloing, and the otherwise rather static show is lifted by the truly superb La Torre. Queensryche put the cherry on top with the new song Arrow of Time from the upcoming album Condition Human, which sounds very promising and suggests the band isn’t done yet.

Because it clashed with Queensryche, on the second stage we caught a good ten minutes of Swiss psychos Blutmond, who proved with their schizophrenic sonic cacophony that only Norwegian lunatics Shining can come close to them in that department. The band’s energetic show erupted off the stage like a volcano, pouring over the crowd like magma in the form of roaring seven-string guitars, unhinged vocals and psychotic saxophone sounds.

After the unusual Blutmond, it was time for a serious change of pace. England’s Malevolence, who have already played in Slovenia twice, took the stage. The band presented songs from the album Reign of Suffering, which is recognized as something fresh in the hardcore scene, where new things rarely turn up.  Alongside hardcore riffs, the band weaves in elements of death metal, which gives the whole thing more authenticity and originality. True, it’s tried-and-tested stuff, but at the same time it’s something that isn’t as predictable as other hardcore outfits.

The main stage was winding down, and the second-to-last act was Fear Factory, legends of industrial metal. Of the original lineup only vocalist Burton C. Bell and guitarist Dino Cazares remain. Bass duties belong to the experienced Tony Campos (Static-X, Ministry, Soulfly), and drums to Mike Heller, who also recorded the latest album Genexus, which is about to come out, with the band. In a good hour the band ran through the hits of their discography, opening with Shock from the album Obsolete (1998), which, along with Demanufacture, is undoubtedly the best opening track. The band’s form is solid and the rhythm doesn’t flag. The precision of Cazares, Heller and Campos is very pronounced and powerful. The main problem remains vocalist Burton C. Bell, who still can’t sing properly. His condition has improved since the last visit to Slovenia, but we still can’t say his form is top-notch. Setting Bell’s state aside, the band had quite a few surprises in its repertoire. Two new tracks from the upcoming album Genexus were played, but the band didn’t forget the debut Soul of the New Machine either, playing Martyr and even Scapegoat from it. To close, the band struck with legendary songs from the album Demanufacture, which turned 20 this year. With the closing songs Demanufacture, Zero Signal and of course Replica, the band showed the Metaldays crowd too that it created something timeless and a very important milestone in the metal scene. All in all, Fear Factory are definitely worth checking out, you just have to look past the weak state of Bell’s singing voice.

Billed among the main acts of the first day on the second stage were Dark Fortress, who have proven themselves in Slovenia several times already. The band presented last year’s record Venereal Dawn, which again proved that Dark Fortress are oddballs in the black metal scene. The band uses typical fast black metal moves over a more melodic foundation, but with slow intros and passages in between they manage to make the atmosphere that much more convincing. They also have a sense of song structure, mostly thanks to guitarist V. Santura, who is also a producer. Vocalist Morean got a lot of attention too, since he doesn’t just use screaming vocals but many other vocal techniques, which makes Dark Fortress even more special. The rhythm section was convincing as well, with crazy Hannes Grossmann (Alkaloid, Obscura) on drums, who once more let everyone know with his precision that he’s a world-class drummer. Dark Fortress were a real treat, even if their recipe departs from the nihilistic forms of black metal.

The honor of closing the first day of the festival on the main stage rightly and only fittingly went to legendary metal warriors Saxon, who have been shaking the earth with their heavy metal for an almost unbelievable four decades, and who will soon release Battering Ram, their twenty-first studio album already! The great frontman Biff Byford kept repeating throughout the show that most of the songs they played are older than a considerable number of the people in the crowd, but that doesn’t matter at all, because Saxon is a band that knows how to bring old and young together. Gentlemen, most of whom carry a respectable sixty years on their shoulders, convince and surprise every single time with their youthful, tireless energy, and this time too they played a show worthy of the status of first-day headliners. The band, in excellent form both vocally and instrumentally, delivered an outstanding, classic Saxon set with no shortage of immortal anthems, from Power and the Glory, Heavy Metal Thunder, Crusader and Princess of the Night all the way to the closing iron hit Denim And Leather. It does annoy me a bit that Saxon didn’t shake up their festival setlists a little more and offer something along the lines of (my personal favorite) Killing Ground, but what can you do, with twenty-one studio albums it’s simply impossible to make everyone happy. The veterans had no trouble bringing heavy metal to life in the Tolmin night like it hasn’t been in a long time.

For a good-night send-off, homegrown veterans Noctiferia delivered a fiery pyrotechnic spectacle fitting for their current album Pax, in front of a nicely packed venue.

Text on Total Annihilation, Slomind, Krokodil, Malevolence, Fear Factory, Dark Fortress: Primož Novak
Text on Anvil, Devin Townsend Project, Queensryche, Blutmond, Saxon, Noctiferia: Rok Klemše
photos: Nina Grad & Aleš Podbrežnik