Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: Orto bar, Ljubljana
Concert date: 09.01.2018
»No rest for the wicked« goes the famous saying, and true to form, barely a week into the new year Orto bar got its first post-holiday package. Some old friends of Slovenian stages came back to Ljubljana: the Colombian-American duo Inquisition and the Greek champions of symphonic death metal, Septicflesh.
This time the warm-up duty fell to a rather exotic act, as Odious hail from Egypt, yet genre-wise they fit the headliners perfectly. Just like Septicflesh, the band from Alexandria plays death/black metal heavily propped up by pronounced symphonic elements. The Egyptians served the sparse crowd plenty of canned parts that didn’t blend well with the otherwise perfectly decent death metal, which was mostly saved by some colorful drumming. Vocalist Bassem tried hard to get the crowd going, but it fell on barren ground, and with his rather monotonous vocals and relentless “oi, oi” chanting he quickly got boring. Going by what we heard, Odious won’t exactly be finding a spot on anyone’s home shelf, though it’s true we’ve seen plenty of opening acts, and plenty much worse ones.
Dagon and Incubus have worked over Tolmin, Gala Hala and Kino Šiška in recent years, but this time they stepped onto the Orto hala stage for the first time and, with From Chaos They Came, reminded everyone where they come from. From darkness and chaos. The duo dressed the stage with huge banners to fill the empty space that would otherwise have been pretty obvious, since only Dagon stands up front with his guitar, moving every now and then from one microphone to the other. Inquisition got a pretty hefty chunk of stage time this time around, and they made good use of it, even freshening up their already well-chewed setlist, which didn’t lean only on the last three albums. Sound-wise, after a shaky start the duo nicely filled out the mix with a powerful, clear drum sound and a crushing guitar, but things got stuck again on Dagon’s vocals, which are one of those you either love or hate. Personally, a voice that really does stand out from the flood of black metal screaming, but sounds like an evil version of Popeye, gets tiresome fast, which is why Inquisition rarely find their way into my home speakers. The torture was a success nonetheless, and next to the evening’s headliners, without a doubt by far the most authentic.
The Greek veterans Septicflesh came back to us after a good year and a half. In July 2016 they presented the then-current album Titan at Metaldays, and this time in Ljubljana they presented the new Codex Omega. On record, all the band’s symphonic pomp still works, but pulling it off live is something else entirely. A big part of Septicflesh’s live sound unfortunately comes from a pronounced, all-encompassing backing track that stands in for the orchestra, the choir and even the clean vocals, which robs the show of a good chunk of authenticity. Live, Septicflesh sadly don’t offer anything all that shattering. The weak guitars are buried under the canned orchestrations, the bass is practically nonexistent, and Seth Siro Anton’s voice is far from the powerful one we’re used to on the albums. Then Spiros of course throws in his rehearsed poses and boring, cliché, silly banter that only convinces teenagers. The only truly astonishing thing, really, was the performance of the excellent drummer Kerim “Krimh” Lechner (ex-Decapitated). Overall there’s not much to fault in Septicflesh’s show at Orto, as it was more than solid, energetic and extremely confident. But it was also like fast food. Filling in the moment, but five minutes later you realize the fullness was fake and regret not treating yourself to a proper meal instead.
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