Metal is back in Tolmin! Well, to be honest, it never really left — Tolminator just had one hell of a hangover and had to sleep it off under Kozlov Rob, King Matjaž-style, before it could wake up again. And wake up it did, refreshed and well-rested, just in time for the first edition of the festival named after that my(s)thical creature.
There’ll be plenty of time to cover all the new stuff, so let’s get straight to it — the second stage was kicked off by Macedonian Slave Pit. Well, almost — the small stage was nearly swept away in a flood, so the organizers scrambled to get the covered so-called Hangar stage up and running (which would go on to host the DJ after-parties on the nights that followed). Slave Pit did a solid job, then the bar was raised even higher by Carinthian Britof and the maniacs Vulvathrone, while Italian Vexovoid took care of anyone thirsting for Vektor/Voivod-style progressive thrash.
A few minutes before five, things got properly started on the main stage, where Danish death metal beasts Baest stepped up — currently one of the hottest names in “modern” death metal. The guys had killed it at Ljubljana’s Orto Bar just over a year ago, which was pretty much the reason they got the call to shake up Tolmin with their powerhouse death metal. And shake it they did, serving up an early afternoon neck-workout for a crowd that was, admittedly, still rather thin on the ground. The morning storm had clearly left its mark, but people gradually filtered in under the main stage as Baest tore through a high-octane blend of death metal drawing on both the Florida and Swedish schools, with melodic touches straight out of a Carcass playbook. The guys backed that killer sound with a loose, upbeat energy that spilled right into the crowd, who they battered with demolition jobs like Meathook Massacre, Genesis, a tribute to the too-soon-gone Trevor Strnad with Gargoyles, and the closing Necro Sapiens. Sit down, full marks.
Swedish veterans Demonical followed in a far more serious and darker death metal vein — last seen at this very venue some five years ago. This time they rolled into Tolmin with a new frontman, Charlie Fryksell, who handled the job very solidly, and a noticeably larger crowd made it down to the stage. In just under an hour, Demonical delivered a reliable Swedish riff-grinder, channelled clean through the iconic Boss HM-2 pedal tone, and had no trouble satisfying anyone’s appetite for Swedish death metal.
After the death metal double bill it was time for something a little different — grind polka and odes to shit, sperm, and all manner of (in)human bodily excretions. Dutch outfit Rectal Smegma served up short hymns to each of the above and won over an already more sizeable crowd purely on the strength of their humor. Track titles like Two Girls One Cupcake, Fat Grannies are Cool, and Cream Bukakke say it all. The Dutch had the crowd well in hand, largely thanks to vocalist Yannic’s constant stage banter — who once again couldn’t resist pulling his shirt off to show off his tattooed, pumped-up body. Rectal Smegma did exactly what needed doing, though goregrind in the vein of Rectal Smegma, Gutalax, Spasm, and their ilk is definitely an acquired taste that I myself can’t quite get my head around — I’d rather take care of that kind of business on the toilet than have a polka doing it for me through the speakers.
Brujeria are old friends of Slovenian stages, but this time they hit Tolminator on a very special tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of their debut Matando güeros, which they played virtually in full — a great call that drew a solid crowd. The narco-Satanist cartel Brujeria once again slipped through every border control and threw a full-on death/grind Mexican fiesta on the Tolminator stage, packed with humor that, admittedly, only Spanish speakers could fully get — Brujeria made just one announcement in English: their upcoming new album Esto Es Brujeria, due out shortly. Brujeria put on an incredibly energetic show, powered largely by no fewer than three vocalists constantly swapping in and out, backed by equally commanding instrumental work. Dance breaks were plentiful and kept the Mexican fiesta lively, and Brujeria wrapped things up, as is now firmly tradition, with their cover of the Macarena — Marijuana.
The upward momentum of quality performances on day one was then thoroughly derailed by Finnish Lost Society, who once showed genuine promise as a young, fresh new-wave thrash metal act but over the last few years have done a complete genre U-turn, pivoting hard into an overtly metalcore and nu-metal sound. Clean, polished vocals, a heavily made-up image, and electronic flourishes were at times pretty hard to stomach — but thankfully, what followed reduced Lost Society to little more than a distant memory.
The personal highlight of day one — if not the entire festival — was delivered by British Anaal Nathrakh. Their story is by now well known. The duo of Dave Hunt and Mick Kenney forms the band’s core. During the pandemic, Kenney relocated to the US, and with his heavy producing workload he unfortunately no longer has much time for the band. Last December, Anaal Nathrakh played what was initially billed as their farewell concert in London. But the audience response and fan demand were simply so overwhelming that the story of this band — music’s synonym for a detonating hydrogen bomb — thankfully isn’t over yet. And the bomb went off from the very first notes of the opening instrumental Acheronta Movebimus, its mushroom cloud growing all the way to the final tones of the closing Endarkenment, the title track from their 2020 album. Anaal Nathrakh sounded like the Oppenheimer soundtrack throughout, due in no small part to the outstanding instrumental performance — but even more so to the feral Dave Hunt a.k.a. V.I.T.R.I.O.L., who spewed every ounce of fury at humanity through the most inhuman sounds imaginable, yet stunned with cleanly sung, epically soaring choruses on tracks like Forging Towards the Sunset, Libidinous, and Endarkenment. And that’s before even getting to older gems like Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes, Between Shit and Piss We Are Born, Submission Is for the Weak, and Do Not Speak. Speechless… Hunt rounded off the whole band’s outstanding performance with sharp, intelligent crowd addresses (he is, after all, a doctor of philosophy) full of dry British humor — including the gem about the bassist on the phone to his daughter, introducing her to the festival: “You see, sweetheart, those lot over there are Rectal Smegma.” The finishing touch was a special, premiere performance of their cover of The Specials’ Man at C&A — and I can only say it again: Anaal Nathrakh simply cannot and must not stop, because this shit-stained world genuinely needs what this band has to say.
Day one was closed out by American death metal veterans Dying Fetus, who had the misfortune of following a set in which Anaal Nathrakh had thoroughly pissed off the sky and everything above it — which duly retaliated with a heavy downpour that showed the trio absolutely no mercy, making it increasingly difficult for them to keep delivering brutal death metal until they were eventually forced to cut the show short somewhere just past the halfway mark.
Words: Rok Klemše
Photos: Sebastijan Videc
