Location: Tolmin / Sotočje / Slovenia
Date: Tuesday, 07/25/2017
After Monday’s downpours we were all hoping Tuesday would feel a little less like Judgment Day, and luckily that more or less came true. So in the early afternoon we got to catch a few bands on the smallest of the three stages. First up, we quickly sampled German melodic death metallers The Black Court. They were nothing special, but their melodic take on death metal at least didn’t send anyone running for the hills. The guys were basically closest to Amon Amarth with their pretty generic melodic death metal, mostly thanks to Oskar’s vocals, which strongly recalled Hegg’s. Still, despite all their effort on stage, The Black Court were forgotten fast.
The Dutch band For I Am King, on the other hand, stuck in the memory a bit longer, first of all thanks to the small, shy vocalist Alma Alizadeh. Her banter between songs sounded like a frightened little mouse, but when she roared, she showed off a vocal talent worth envying. The Dutch five-piece is firmly rooted in modern melodic death metal with clear metalcore influences, which this time didn’t even bother me, because the girl and the guys put on one hell of an energetic show. Even the frequent breakdown moments didn’t get in the way, spiced up as they were with melodic guitar bits, mostly breakneck song tempos, and a convincing Alma. A surprisingly listenable band for such an early hour, and one that doesn’t sound wrong even through the home speakers.
Avven are a Slovenian musical institution that has taken a huge step up in recent years. Especially when it comes to racking up live mileage, and from the very start Avven have been seen as a band that manages to deliver something different and fresh in its musical vision. That constant transformation of artistry is still going, as the latest EP “Eos” shows. In three quarters of an hour the band properly warmed up the crowd, which happily partied in the little grove by the second festival stage, and delivered an extremely tight, highly polished, and confident show. The sound was spot-on too. Having found its expressive niche, blending modern riff structures of heavy metal with a bold implant of folk melodies and highly melodic chorus hooks led by an authoritative male vocal, the band delivered a repertoire of old and new. They played the bulk of the EP “Eos” (Oceans, Reborn, Red Sun, The Void, Join the Dance, Empires), while the older songs (Zmaji, Vvile, Sijaj, Hej ti!,…) found their place in the first half of the gig.
Since we support the local scene, four o’clock was the time to get ourselves in front of the New Forces stage and give in to the joys of vasectomy at the surgically precise fingertips of the Prekmurje death metal doctors Vasectomy. After Monday’s disaster, which wrecked the third stage, they unfortunately had to play on an improvised version of it, but that didn’t bother them. Early in the afternoon the guys gave plenty of necks a proper workout in front of a nicely packed crowd and showed what a Prekmurje death metal wind feels like. Patrik confidently growled and screamed over a massive, fat foundation of good riffage and a solid rhythm section. For a great show, Vasectomy deservedly earned a slot on the Boško Bursać stage at Metaldays 2018. Guys, stop teasing us already and finally unleash the long-awaited debut Deathcon 1!
Evil Invaders, Belgian heavy metal revivalists, or more precisely hurricane-force speed metallers who have been holding their ground on the scene for a whole decade, spent this summer hitting festival grounds. We already caught the band at this year’s edition of Germany’s Bang Your Head!!! festival, where they staged a truly orgasmic delirium of a breakneck show. It’s unbelievable how these guys can keep running back and forth, pull off all kinds of acrobatics, and still stay rock-solid and tight the whole time, led by the devilishly screechy Joe on vocals. Metaldays 2017 wasn’t much different. The band had the first five rows glued to the stage, eating out of its hand, while right behind them dust and sand swirled up from wild circle pits that never let up throughout the show. Yet another gig where you knew right away it would be over before it began, and forty minutes of enjoying a show like this is definitely far too little. The band opened the gig with As Life Slowly Fades, off the current EP “In for the Kill”, thus announcing the upcoming new studio album “Feed Me Violence”, due out at the end of this September. Around the middle of the set they confirmed it with another new song, Mental Penitenciary. The bulk of the material, with Pulses of Pleasure, Fast, Loud ‘n’ Rude, Shot to Paradise, Master of Illusion, and Starway to Insanity, focused on the still-current last studio album “Pulses of Pleasure” (2015), and Evil Invaders literally rolled from one track to the next. Uncompromising, with all their fury and force, strapped with a full bag of rabies and outstanding aggression. A young band delivering a first-class revivalist blast back to the old days, when metal bands, in the era of this genre’s rapid development, chased shock value by wanting to play even faster and even louder.
Just when Krisiun were supposed to take the main stage, the heavens opened with a vengeance, and the heavy rain didn’t let up until seven o’clock, maybe a bit longer. Regardless, right in the middle of the downpour the legendary American metallers from Seattle, Sanctuary, stepped onto the main stage, led on vocals by the famous and one-of-a-kind figure of Warrel Dane. Their set was split into two halves. Rainy and dry, and when a patch of clear sky appeared in the northwest, Warrel deftly nailed it: “Oh, a glimpse of light!” The show was understandably cut a bit short, the band lining up just seven songs, opening with Arise and Puriy, and of course not forgetting to slip Frozen into the set. Next came Let the Serpent Follow Me, Season of Destruction, Die for My Sins, and Question Existence Fading, and the gig closed with Taste Revenge. Cult riffs, cult faces, cult band. It’s just a shame the weather screwed it up, so Sanctuary didn’t play in optimal conditions. Warrell remains an exceptional commander: charismatic, sharp in his on-stage banter with the crowd, and a constantly interesting conversation partner. Still, the man no longer has that vocal form and power from the old days, when walls cracked under his screams, so most of the time he adapted by only occasionally showing his vocal wear and tear more noticeably when reaching for the high notes (the occasional scream), and otherwise preferred to stay in the mid-range. It’s a pleasure to watch and listen to Lenny Rutledge’s soloing, and the band as a whole remains magnetic, even though it couldn’t build that magnetism as intensely as it did at the warm-up day of this year’s Bang Your Head festival in Germany. Let’s hope we get to see Sanctuary again soon. In optimal gig conditions. In any case, props to a lineup that bravely took the stage despite the weather’s antics and did what it could in such tough circumstances.
One of the most unfortunate clashes of the festival was definitely Sanctuary overlapping with Macabre. I went for the latter, because I was hungry for children’s flesh and everything else the cult American band sings about in its songs. Macabre have been around for almost three decades and, even though they never truly belonged to this scene, they’ve noticeably influenced death metal and grind. The trio, which sings about serial killers and other mass murderers in its songs, is finally active live again after a few years of silence, and they convinced at Metaldays too. Even though it poured heavily again right during their set, quite a few enthusiasts stood in front of the stage, and Macabre delivered a priceless live experience. The star of it all was frontman Corporate Death, who screams and growls the songs like a victim of one of the serial killers he sings about (Jeffrey Dahmer, Albert Fish, Ed Gein, etc.), and between songs completely innocently serves up the story behind each individual track. The band proved it’s in great shape, and I hope the long-announced second part of Grim Scary Tales, a historical cross-section of mass murderers like only Macabre can present, is finally getting close to release.
Katatonia were considered the musical oddballs on this year’s Metaldays lineup. Although they’re a cult Swedish band that has been active since 1991 and has ten studio albums under its belt, Katatonia are a band that radically changed its musical style over the years. Today it’s incredibly hard to label that style with just one word (maybe gloomy art rock?). The band that once defended death and doom metal colors now sounds closer to the tastes of people who like, among others, the new Anathema, then Porcupine Tree, Tool, or even Pink Floyd. In the Stockholm quintet, the main faces today are still the two original members, vocalist Jonas Renkse and guitarist Anders Nyström, while the current lineup is rounded out by guitarist Roger Öjersson, drummer Daniel Moilanen, and bassist Niklas Sandin. Katatonia served up a repertoire that reached back no further than the fifth studio album “Last Fair Deal Gone” (2001), from which they played Teargas in the first half of the gig. It cut through the opening trio from the current studio album “The Fall Of Hearts” (2016), represented in succession by Last Song Before the Fade, Serein, and Old Heart Falls, while the rest of the set was covered by songs from the albums “Dead End Kings”, “Viva Emptiness”, “The Great Cold Distance”, and “Night is A New Day”, and toward the end of the gig one more song from the new album, called Passer.
Katatonia are big perfectionists when it comes to performance. For modern times, their expressive stance has kept the original gloominess, darkness, and obscurity, in musical expression gazing into eternal melancholy and doom. And with all its peculiarities, that atmosphere quickly took over the festival grounds. A real treat for true fans of the new Katatonia. Even in optimizing the conditions for the gig itself, which luckily suited the band down to the ground. Renkse is an outstanding vocalist. Incredibly immersed the whole time, and strikingly real in his passions and emotions. The band, clinging to old-school musical logistics, developed an excellent, full sound, with tight playing in which sheer feeling absolutely takes the dominant role. The dark atmosphere of intoxicating trip-hypnosis therefore worked across the board, and if you found yourself on the same wavelength as that mood, the gig felt like a sweet, short dream from which you were only jolted awake by Jonas’s closing farewell and thanks to the crowd.
The whole crowd that visited the festival this year was waiting on day two for one single act. At the Sotočje grounds, an act long since adopted as one of the people’s own. That’s the Swedes Amon Amarth. The access road to the main stage area was literally clogged several times, as the crowd waded euphorically toward the band’s gig. It’s probably not excessive to add that practically the whole festival watched the band’s show. Over the years Amon Amarth have grown into a gigantic franchise that fills venues all around the world. The scenography and the richness of the stage sets have grown along with them. And with last year’s album “Jomsviking” still current, the band is constantly, continuously on stage. This latest visit by the band to the festival can definitely be summed up in a single word. Spectacular. The whole production. With constantly changing sets, outstanding pyro bits, the crowd stoked in between by vocal beast Johan Hegg, who in the grand finale heroically tamed a giant, ugly, evil dragon, and of course in the performance of the repertoire itself. Strictly professional and studied down to the last detail. From the first to the last second. Only one thing bothered me in all of this. The gig was too quiet. The logistics of the available sound system for this day and the first day of the festival, both considered “stormy”, simply allowed no more. But that didn’t dampen the outstanding energy and interaction between crowd and band, which never let up throughout the show. A massive presentation of the new album and the must-have classics of the iron repertoire brought the band yet another victorious visit to the Tolmin confluence, and it’s clear it won’t be the last. Amon Amarth came, saw, and (once again) conquered.
The second day of the festival was closed on the Boban stage (after Kadavar very unfairly cancelled their show at the last moment) by the Polish black metal institution Mgla. A touch of exclusivity was added by the fact that the band is stepping away from stages for a while after the summer festivals. In a good hour the Poles showed how black metal should be served, lining up a heap of eerie melodies, ominous moments, and one of the best approaches to modern black metal. The Poles blurred the lines with songs from all three albums, Groza, With Hearts Towards None, and Exercises In Futility, shining above all with the effective and masterful guitar parts from the last two. The heavily exaggerated stiffness of the band members, whose faces are covered by black masks, was a bit distracting, but the band still proved that Poland is at the top of European black metal right now. Fading spectacularly into the night were above all the (personal) favorites from Exercises in Futility, and teamed up with Batushka, Mgla were without a doubt the black metal highlight of Metaldays 2017.
Rok Klemše: The Black Court, For I Am King, Vasectomy, Macabre, Mgla
Aleš Podbrežnik: Avven, Evil Invaders, Sanctuary, Katatonia, Amon Amarth
Nina Grad photos of all bands except:
Klemen Udovč (photos): Avven, Vasectomy
SANCTUARY:
1. Ad Vitam Aeternam/Arise And Purify
2. Let the Serpent Follow Me
3. Die For My Sins
4. Seasons of Destruction
5. Question Existence Fading
6. Frozen
7. Taste Revenge
MACABRE:
1. Zodiac
2. Nero’s Inferno
3. Dr. Holmes (He Stripped Their Bones)
4. Albert Was Worse Than Any Fish in the Sea
5. Scrub a Dub Dub
6. Ed Gein
7. The Iceman
8. The Bloody Benders
AMON AMARTH:
1. The Pursuit of Vikings
2. As Loke Falls
3. First Kill
4. The Way of Vikings
5. At Dawn’s First Light
6. Cry of the Black Birds
7. Deceiver of the Gods
8. Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags
9. Destroyer of the Universe
10. Death in Fire
11. Father of the Wolf
12. Runes to My Memory
13. War of the Gods
— encore 1 —
14. Raise Your Horns
15. Guardians of Asgard
— encore 2 —
16. Twilight of the Thunder God
