Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Location: Orto bar, Ljubljana
Date of show: 02.11.2016
In 1982, Commodore unveiled the cult Commodore 64 computer, the Falklands War broke out, Spielberg introduced E.T., the public got its hands on CDs for the first time, Italy invented ciabatta, and Canada adopted a constitution that finally cemented its independence from the United Kingdom. And that same year, in Quebec, Canada, one of the most idiosyncratic and unique metal bands of all time was born. Voivod! We waited a full 34 years for them to make their first stop in Slovenia, but last Wednesday we finally got them. In the company of Entombed A.D. and Lord Dying.
The three billed bands were joined at the last minute by a fourth, the Finnish-Norwegian duo Barren Womb, made up of guitarist Tony Gonzahl and drummer Timo Silvola, who also share vocal duties. Barren Womb play a musical brew dominated by noise elements, with touches of hc punk and even country here and there. In a good half hour the two lads dumped out a pile of repetitive riffs and monotonous noise-style screaming, which was interesting for a song or two, but then the whole thing started repeating itself and got boring. All that will stay in memory is Timo’s truly merciless pounding on the skins, which probably shook the pensioners on Grablovičeva right in the middle of the weather forecast.
Quite a bit more listenable were Lord Dying from Portland, USA, who mostly wade through the swampy waters of sludge metal and, both vocally and stylistically, often pull toward NOLA forefathers Crowbar. Even though Lord Dying borrow their musical foundation from the genre’s veterans, vocalist Erik Olson often sounds like Kirk Windstein, and Jeff Golden, who until recently played in Crowbar, now handles bass in the band too, Lord Dying are still no carbon copy of them. As they showed live, Lord Dying are often quite a bit faster, and what sets them apart first and foremost is the excellent riffing and soloing of Chris Evans, which doesn’t rest only on massive riffs but can drift toward thrash and heavy metal, as the epic, melodic »bridge« of Darkness Remains nicely showed. Lord Dying proved to be a very solid warm-up for what followed.
And then came the ones who made this the most anticipated show of the year. For the very first time in its long career, one of the most revered bands around stepped onto a Slovenian stage, a band that in the eighties invented a thrash metal sound all its own, one that quickly broke out of genre confines and shot off into the progressive cosmos. Voivod were inspired by punk, Motörhead and progressive rock, and the result of those influences is a sound that’s recognizable instantly and belongs only and exclusively to Voivod. Despite the death of Dennis »Piggy« D’Amour (he died of colon cancer on August 26, 2005), the main culprit behind music full of dissonant sounds, weird rhythms and atonal chords, Voivod live on. With new guitarist Daniel »Chewy« Mongrain, who breathed new life into the band, they recorded the excellent comeback album Target Earth, and this February also the EP Post Society. What a post-society looks like through Voivod’s eyes, we could finally see on our own stages too. The Canadian giants greeted Ljubljana with the title track of one of the most majestic moments of their career, Killing Technology, and right up until the last note of the last song faded, it felt like a wonderful journey through galaxies, nebulae and star clouds. Voivod once again staged an unforgettable encounter: the goofy grimaces and sexy dance moves of frontman Snake, with one of the most recognizable vocal approaches around, were endless; Away’s salvos on his minimal drum kit were cannon-like; Chewy’s guitar antics were complex and wacky (he diligently sipped on Tektonik’s Iggy during the set, heh), and Rocky’s bass rumbled and roared, fitting into the band so well that you don’t miss Blacky anymore (even though he left a huge mark on the band). Voivod presented the new EP with the melancholic Fall and the Mad Max-style Post Society, and made the surprisingly packed hall happy with the classics The Prow, Chaosmöngers, Korgüll the Exterminator and the more rarely played treats Inner Combustion and Order of the Blackguards. The space hour passed way too fast, ending with the closing anthem Voivod, but it’s an hour that will never be forgotten.
To close things out, we took the left-hand path too, the path of darkness, black magic and death, with the Swedish incarnation of the immortal Entombed, Entombed A.D., led by vocalist LG Petrov, who, with the exception of the album Clandestine (1991), lent his lovely little voice to every album of this Swedish cult. Entombed A.D. returned to Slovenian stages for the third time (they first visited us in October 2014 with Grave, then this February with Behemoth and Abbath) and again didn’t disappoint, delivering a reliably good set of Swedish death metal full of guitars buzzing like circular saws and Petrov’s ever-confident barking, which, with his rabid-bulldog style, may indeed get monotonous quickly, but is always confident and fun. Only a minority of the set this time was made up of four songs from the Entombed A.D. albums Back to the Front and Dead Dawn; from the latter, the crushers Midas In Reverse and Dead Dawn were convincing, which are admittedly not on the level of, say, Left Hand Path or Wolverine Blues, but successfully continue the crushing death ‘n roll story as only Entombed ruled it. The energetic and charismatic Petrov, as usual, delighted with flawless Slovenian (on his mother’s side he’s half Macedonian, by the way), and the band walked hand in hand with the devil through the iron-clad classics such as Stranger Aeons, Revel in Flesh, Wolverine Blues and Left Hand Path. Petrov and the band quenched the thirst for good Swedish death metal, though it will be interesting to see what the rivalry between Entombed A.D. and the Entombed of Nicke Andersson, Alex Hellid and Uffe Cederlund brings. After a court settlement, that trio is entitled to play the album Clandestine under the original name, and at a recent show on the Close Up Baten cruise, where they were joined by former Morbus Chron members Robert Endersson on vocals and Edvin Aftonfalk on bass (the band has sadly split up, but the brilliant Sweven is a must-listen!), they proved that it sounds outstanding.
Setlist
VOIVOD:
1. Killing Technology
2. Tribal Convictions
3. Inner Combustion
4. Order of the Blackguards
5. Fall
6. The Prow
7. Korgüll the Exterminator
8. Post Society
9. Chaosmöngers
10. Voivod
Photo Gallery
