And on the very last day, instead of a souvenir shirt, the organizers could’ve just printed “I Survived the Hell of Metaldays 2019” tees, because weather-wise this year’s festival was without a doubt one of the hottest ever. But we scraped together our last bits of strength and fought the heat by quenching our thirst with XXL cocktails.
On day three, Stoned Jesus won over a big crowd on the BB stage. This time another treat was on the bill for stoner and doom metal fans, as Poland’s Dopelord took the stage. But the crowd’s fatigue was already showing by this day, so there was less support. On top of that, Dopelord sound dirtier. With their slow-crawling sound the band recalled the legendary Electric Wizard, Dopethrone, and at moments even Sleep. So it’s a pretty specific thing, the kind that gets more of a response at festivals à la Roadburn. Definitely a good fit for fans of the bands mentioned, but don’t expect much more than that.
As an appetizer for the final day, we treated ourselves to German death metallers Critical Mess as our first band on the Lemmy stage. They’re led by Britta Görtz, vocalist of Cripper, who split up last year and were regulars on Tolmin stages. Critical Mess have two studio albums behind them, and with those they’ve proven to be of much higher quality than the pretty average death/thrashers Cripper with their five, and on stage too Britta and the guys ran like a well-oiled machine. This superbly tight lineup doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel with its death metal, but their live sound is thick and destructive enough to get the crowd moving despite the afternoon heat. Credit for that goes mostly to the energetic Britta, who also won us over with her beastly vocals.
On the BB stage we then welcomed the French black/death metal institution Svart Crown. The quartet from Nice delivered a lesson in hypnotic black metal full of monolithic riffs and on the slower side, with most of the setlist made up of tracks from their still-current record Abreaction. Svart Crown sounded very good live, but I was itching to know how the Swedish heavy metal/hard rock outfit Bullet would sound on the Lemmy stage. The Swedes bit into their set like rabid dogs, getting people moving with a contagious sound of AC/DC meets Accept (with Udo) meets Grave Digger (mostly thanks to Dag’s vocals), but sadly there was no real standout moment, as the whole thing, despite the energetic show, felt pretty lukewarm.
Texas power metal veterans Helstar, on the other hand, blew us away, with their adopted Slovenian James Rivera (renamed Janez Rečnik). Partly because of him, if I’m not mistaken, Helstar haven’t skipped Slovenia on any European tour in the last few years, but sadly I missed them the last couple of times, and the last time I caught them Rivera’s form was pretty poor. This time, despite a trip of more than a day because of cancelled flights, James was vocally convincing right from the opening classic Baptized in Blood. He nailed even the highest screams with no trouble, once again donned the vampire cape, and with a top-notch instrumental performance kept delighting right up to the too-early end with the epic classic Run With the Pack, and during Helstar we got the first refreshment of the week in the form of rain.
After Helstar, the BB stage was reserved for something completely different. The Ruins of Beverast took the stage. All the music is created in the studio by mastermind Alexander von Meilenwald, but for live shows he’s backed by an experienced crew. The Ruins of Beverast’s music is described as doom/black metal, which is already a slightly unconventional combination. At first it seemed things would be pretty monotonous, but with every song a different picture emerged. On one hand there were plenty of slow moments that, with the keyboards, got downright morbid. On the other, there was no shortage of faster black metal bits. But it was mainly the slower parts that really nailed the atmosphere. Definitely another surprise at this festival, though one that demands a lot of attention and patience from the listener.
The schedule ran like Swiss clockwork throughout the whole festival, right up until it was the Finnish diva Tarja‘s turn. She took a good ten minutes of delay for herself, and the bad start sadly didn’t lead to a good ending either. You have to admit that her voice took Nightwish among the giants of metal and the undisputed favorites of its symphonic subgenre. But her story with them ended fourteen years ago, and after a decent first solo album she seems kind of lost musically. I got that same feeling at this show. Unclear what style she even wants to play, with a mix of normal and operatic vocals and, surprisingly, pretty poor vocal form, she didn’t win me over this time. Whether the fact that this was the penultimate show of a tour that started in early May is to blame, we’ll probably never know.
How the Finnish forest clan Korpiklaani landed such a high slot on the main stage isn’t quite clear to me, because I haven’t seen a more boring and painful show in quite a while. Okay, it’s obvious that folk metal is popular with the mostly German and Austrian festival crowd, but judging by what we saw, Korpiklaani, who once invited people to beer parties with songs like Beer Beer, have turned into that annoying local drunk nobody takes seriously. The power outage was a real godsend for the eardrums, but alas, once the electricity was back, the Finns wore us out for the finale with more silliness like Vodka.
Luckily, the symphonic black metal giants Dimmu Borgir fixed the taste in our mouths, returning to Tolmin after a long ten years. This time they came with a relatively fresh album, Eonian, released last May, and the Norwegians showcased it more extensively than anything else. Dimmu Borgir treated themselves to a hulking stage, pyro bits and an altogether fitting set design, and delivered a show worthy of the festival’s closing headliner, and more importantly, they showed up in a very, very good light. Standing out were mainly Galder’s melodic touches and the keyboards, which gave Dimmu Borgir an epic flavor, and the confident Shagrath, who had the already somewhat tired crowd in the palm of his hand, a crowd that nonetheless stuck it out in the rain. For the end Dimmu Borgir saved the classics Progenies of the Great Apocalypse and Mourning Palace, proving they’re often unfairly labeled as the commercially friendlier side of black metal.
The honor of fully closing the festival went to Swedish elder statesmen Tiamat, who this time put big emphasis on the cult albums Clouds and Wildhoney, but sadly the fatigue took its toll and we could do no more than skim them quickly. Still, it undoubtedly sounded very good.
And so another week of metalizing in Tolmin came to a close, marked this time not just by hellishly hot weather but also by somewhat weaker attendance, which could probably be put down, hand on heart, to a not exactly thrilling lineup. Everyone could once again find something for themselves and we saw some superior shows, but the cherry on top with a bigger-sounding name was missing, like Judas Priest last year. Still, the excellent organization and the festival’s top-notch tidiness and cleanliness once again deserve praise. Thrash giants Testament, doom/gothic veterans Paradise Lost, death metallers Malevolent Creation, grind pioneers Napalm Death and the Canadian speed/thrash cult Razor are already invited to Metaldays 2020. Whether, because of the announced construction of the (unnecessary) bypass, this really will be the last Metaldays at the Tolmin location, we’ll yet see, but either way, see you next year at the scene of the crime.
Photos of Critical Mess, Svart Crown, Bullet, Helstar, The Ruins of Beverast, Impaled Nazarene: Nina Grad
Photos of Dopelord, Tarja, Korpiklaani, Dimmu Borgir: Sebastijan Videc
Video: Sebastijan Videc
Text on Tarja: Sebastijan Videc
Text on Dopelord, The Ruins of Beverast : Primož Novak
Text on Critical Mess, Svart Crown, Bullet, Helstar, Korpiklaani, Dimmu Borgir : Rok Klemše
