After last month’s celebrations and shenanigans at the Dirty Skunks’ birthday party, the first weekend of February saw label On Parole reach American legal drinking age. They should have celebrated the round 20th anniversary, but like so much else, the plague took that from them. So Chop and Simona combined two years of celebrating into a two-day festival, marking the story that began back in March 2002 with the release of Sarcasm’s album Igra narave (with a bonus Crematory debut thrown in), followed to this day by dozens of releases from local (and a few foreign) bands. The first day brought Ate Era, Deprivacija, Vulvathrone and Hellcrawler to Trbovlje’s Dom svobode, while Saturday delivered five more acts from the only homegrown label that’s spent over twenty years making sure Slovenian bands see their music released on proper physical media.
The honour of opening Saturday went to Kranj death metallers Penitenziagite, who released their debut Humanity Galore on On Parole back in 2015 — an album that, in my book, ranks among the three best death metal records ever made on our soil. We haven’t seen Penitenziagite on stage in ages, so spotting their logo on the concert poster was quite the surprise. Expectations for Penitenziagite live have always been high, and they didn’t disappoint this time either, even if the extended time off stage showed ever so slightly. This time they took the Trbovlje stage with a freshened-up lineup, with Mičo from Gonoba stepping in on guitar — and he absolutely nailed his debut gig with the band. In just under three-quarters of an hour the band trampled everything in their path with punishing death metal driven by Demshy’s powerful, crystal-clear vocals, which haven’t lost an ounce of power over the years, backed by varied riffs and a brutal rhythm section. Epic death metal erupted like a volcano in tracks from the debut like Origin of Desolation, Cleansing and Path Lain in Shadows, and it was great to hear some new material too, which pushes the sound further with even more elaborate guitar work and an interweaving of black and death elements. Here’s hoping Chop and Simona keep kicking Penitenziagite up the backside (for which Demshy thanked them on stage) and boot them into finishing a follow-up to Humanity Galore sooner rather than later.
Things got even more brutal with death grinders Glista, who put out their debut Death Machinery on On Parole in 2018. In proper grind fashion, Glista rattled through roughly twenty tracks in just over forty minutes, covering everything from classic Napalm Death/Carcass grind to oompah polka and disco interludes. Pure chaos and madness, exactly what you expect from Glista. Matija’s deep gutturals, shrieks, pig squeals and everything in between always win the crowd, but what really seals the deal are his slightly awkward between-song speeches in beautiful, literary Slovenian — which then dissolve into the tornado of the rhythm section and the meat-grinder riffage of the guitar duo, who also put on a compelling stage show. While Gapa goes full Tasmanian devil across the stage, the other guitarist stoically tortures the strings in the half-dark. That’s Glista in a nutshell. And even better — now you can skate with Glista too!
Things slowed down a notch with the coastal stoner/doom trio Omega Sun, who’ve been making regular inroads on European stages over the past few years. Their debut, Opium for the Masses, came out on On Parole in 2017. With a great sound, Omega Sun delivered genuinely heavy, massive riffs, fat bass lines and powerful drums. The trio lace their classic stoner sound with psychedelic and more atmospheric moments that nod to the seventies and Black Sabbath, and at other times a more modern edge not far from the nineties Seattle scene. While the slowness and thickness of Omega Sun is rooted in the bass and drums, it’s Aris’s guitar that keeps things from getting monotonous with its varied lines — and of course Med’s powerful, convincing vocals, sounding like a blend of Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell and John Garcia. Omega Sun were a welcome genre detour in an evening of mostly more extreme-sounding bands.
Heading into somewhat related but much, much heavier waters were Carinthian outfit Britof, who released their second studio album Ruins on On Parole last year. But even more recently they shook up the local scene by becoming the first and only Slovenian band to play (the digital) Ozzfest! Probably still riding the wave of that achievement, they hit the Trbovlje stage and from the very first second unleashed a genuine hurricane built on animalistic fury, in which the trio deftly blends heavy and stoner metal with Motörhead rock’n’roll swagger. Above all, it’s Alex Paradič who is something truly stunning to watch live — his animalistic (read: Animal from the Muppets) assault on the drums paired with a penetrating, powerful semi-growl of a vocal that at times recalls Phil Anselmo’s grittier moments. But bassist Jan Laznik and guitarist Matej Pok are no slouches either, forming the solid backbone of a trio that, based on what you see and hear live, is the very definition of a power trio. Britof truly turned Trbovlje to Ruins.
Last to take the Dom svobode stage were Ljubljana’s Morost, who released their second album Forged Entropy on On Parole in 2021 — but this time a trip back to Ljubljana won out, so we’ll catch Morost another time. Either way, all that was missing at the end was one of Dr. Chop’s juicy speeches — but heartfelt congratulations to On Parole all the same, and may the banner of Slovenian metal publishing fly for many years to come.
Photos: Nina Grad
