Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: Gala Hala, Metelkova
Concert date: 04.06.2013
The Boys Are Back In Town was what Thin Lizzy sang in 1976, and the legendary New York death metal giants brutally tore it up on their third return to our capital. But no matter how many times Suffocation come back, the local death metal crowd always welcomes them with open arms and big joy. After all, they’re not a band like Amon Amarth or Korpiklaani, for whom »one gig too many« was already their first, heh. This time the New Yorkers returned with the new record Pinnacle of Bedlam, a new and much better-suited replacement for the missing Frank Mullen, and three support acts that promised a good warm-up ahead of the death metal titans.
The job of warming up the crowd on this tour went to a young American outfit that wears no turbans and doesn’t come from Iraq, yet still gave itself the name Fallujah. By their own account that’s because they grew up in a post-9/11 world, and the Iraqi city of Fallujah was, during the second Gulf War, the city that suffered the most destruction and the most human casualties on both sides. This April the Americans put out the EP –Nomadic-, from which they played two thirds of their set, with the rest made up of tracks from the debut The Harvest Wombs. Before the show, the name Fallujah promised fairly solid things, but the band, who play atmospheric/technical death metal with strong modern and metalcore influences, only partly delivered. Mostly we ran into awfully bad sound, which made it impossible to pick out all the complex nuances of the guitar-and-bass tandem. So only the »keyboard-y« atmospheric solos floated to the surface, and most of them sounded like a poor copy of Cynic, while the muddy roar of the monotone vocals and the rest of the instruments added up to one big chaotic racket. It’s nice that a band from San Francisco isn’t just another one of the many thrash metal bands from that area, but for Fallujah to leave even half the mark that some of their neighbors have, there’s still a lot of work to do.
Thrash metal is exactly what the next band to take the stage plays, and they greeted the Slovenian crowd once again. Havok from Denver left a puddle of blood at this very scene of the crime last May (on May 21, 2012 they torched it with Goatwhore and 3 Inches of Blood), and this time they showed up in Ljubljana just before the release of their new record Unnatural Selection, which comes out at the end of the month. A lot was expected of Havok, and the American thrash maniacs had no trouble living up to their reputation as one of the better modern thrash metal bands. The crowd surprised too, following the guys, led by roaring vocalist/guitarist David Sanchez, eagerly and faithfully from the first notes. So why are Havok some of the best you can find in modern thrash? Because, like Warbringer, they stand out with unbridled energy, rawness, aggression and speed, plus solid technical chops and an excellent live presence. In their good half hour they lunged like a hungry shark at an unsuspecting swimmer and gnawed us to the bone with crushers like D.O.A., Covering Fire and Scumbag in Disguise. And it wasn’t only the crowd going nuts, since the Americans were just as energetic and wild; no shortage of snapped strings or microphones flying through the air! The excellent sound, which pushed both the riff meat grinder and the plenty of inventive solos (accompanied by guitarist Reece’s crazy grimaces) and the thundering rhythm section (the insane drumming especially stood out!) to the front, was the cherry on top of a show that probably even topped the first one.
From the black, thrashy sheep of the evening, Havok, we moved with their fellow countrymen Cephalic Carnage back onto the paths of more brutal death/grind metal. The walls of Gala Hala haven’t heard such a technical mindfuck since the Americans’ last gig, which the guys call hydrogrind, a term for a mix of death metal, grind and eternal love songs about marijuana. As the eternal third act on the bill (this time the Cephalics played Gala Hala for the third time, yep, third on the bill again), they shook the crowd’s ear butter with a potent mix of death metal and grind, topped with jazzy structures, constant changes of rhythm and tempo, technical, atonal and dissonant guitar lines, and animalistic drumming, with the exceptional six-string bassist Nick Schendzielos adding his own. Cephalic Carnage throw some sludge and doom into their already varied and colorful music, and the cup runneth over. But not for Cephalic Carnage, who attack with dual vocals traded back and forth between Nick and chief cookie monster Lenzig Leal, without a doubt one of the best and funniest frontmen in extreme metal. He called more than once for smoking weed, or »grass« (to which they of course dedicated the ballad Kill For Weed), and kept us entertained with flamenco interludes and all sorts of twisted banter. Cephalic Carnage presented a smoked-out opus from six studio albums, and for extra fun they finished with a crazy black metal parody – Black Metal Sabbath – during which they put on corpse paint masks, studs and spikes, while Nick wore an apocalyptically neighing pony mask with the obligatory little tail. If you ever walk into a room with five dudes stoned to the point of collapse, rolling their umpteenth joint to a soundtrack of psychopathic music, then you know you can only be in the company of Cephalic Carnage. “Squel piggy!”
And then, once again, the anticipated peak with the death metal giants Suffocation. It doesn’t matter that the legendary New Yorkers stop by pretty much every tour; we look forward to this mighty band every single time like a kid looks forward to a scoop of ice cream. Because we know they’ll give it their all each time and play a death metal show the way it’s supposed to be done. Sadly, this time Suffocation again played without legendary frontman Frank »The Tank« Mullen, whose shoes were filled by the equally (vocally) brutal John Gallagher (Dying Fetus). The choice may have looked questionable at first because Gallagher’s stage act was an unknown – in Dying Fetus there isn’t one, since he just stands planted in front of the mic the whole time. I was afraid he’d stay glued behind the mic stand with Suffocation too, but to my great joy I was wrong. Gallagher moved around like a madman on speed, took care of the between-song banter, and above all delivered a fantastic vocal performance that was just as brutal, aggressive and convincing as Frank’s. The performance of the other members was never in question anyway. Terrance Hobbs and Guy Marchias once again won us over with technically superior playing, serving up head-chopping riffs, and returning drummer Dave Culross shone too. It’s probably thanks to him that we got two tracks from the Despise the Sun EP, which he played on, and broke our necks to the eternal death metal anthems Catatonia and Funeral Inception. Bassist Derek »bobblehead« Boyer, held back by a neck injury, came across as a bit odd and unfamiliar. His headbanging is normally the textbook example of the craft, but he still did his bass thing the way only he can. Gallagher approached the rest of the material with a great deal of respect, and the tornadoes from the current record Pinnacle of Bedlam went over really well. Above all he proved he’s a hundred times better pick than burly Bill Robinson (Decrepit Birth), who played with Suffocation on their last visit to Ljubljana. The crowd’s response matched: spontaneous moshing and probably a stage-diving record, which even the fairer sex wasn’t shy about! Suffocation prove again and again that they are, and remain, an unstoppable death metal force, firmly anchored on the bloody throne of death metal!
Setlists
FALLUJAH:
1. Alpha Incipient
2. Venom Upon the Blade
3. Become One
4. Cerebral Hybridization
5. Assemblage od Wolves
HAVOK:
1. Covering Fire
2. Point of No Return
3. Scumbag in Disguise
4. Unnatural Selection
5. D.O.A.
6. Time Is Up
CEPHALIC CARNAGE:
1. Raped By An Orb
2. Divination & Volition
3. P.G.A.D.
4. Endless Cycle of Violence
5. Warith
6. Warbots A.M.
7. Kill For Weed
8. Lucid Interval
9. Black Metal Sabbath
SUFFOCATION:
1. Thrones of Blood
2. As Grace Descends
3. Catatonia
4. Funeral Inception
5. Rapture of Revocation
6. Liege of Inveracity
7. Pierced From Within
8. Purgatorial Punishment
9. Mass Obliteration
10. My Demise
11. Infecting the Crypts
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