Author: Primož Novak
Venue: Gala Hala / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 05.05.2014
Ticket price: 20/24€
Black metal outfit Taake have already played on Slovenian soil a few times. Most recently they took the stage at the Metaldays festival, where they wowed a good chunk of the crowd. Among other things, they were joined there by Mayhem vocalist Attila Csihar. Taake and their charismatic frontman Hoest now had another shot at charming the Slovenian crowd, this time in a more intimate setting. A healthy number of people gathered before the show, proudly showing their black metal allegiance with shirts and patches from bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone, Satyricon and others. It looked like a real black metal spectacle was on the cards.
First onto the Gala Hala stage were the locals from the Karst, Gorge of Cerberus. In their half-hour set the band served up raw black metal that simply didn’t give a damn about modern trends. Fast songs with zero embellishment were front and center. Gorge of Cerberus have only one demo to their name, which is a good enough sign that new bands are still forming in Slovenia and reaching for real black metal, even if nothing here is groundbreaking.
Next up were Ivje, who have been on the scene for a few years, but after a hiatus of several years they came back in 2012 with their debut ‘Descending Through Halls of Agony’, which introduced the band in a changed and beefed-up lineup. Unlike the opener, Ivje didn’t go for raw black metal; the keyboards gave them a more modern touch, which showed mostly in the atmosphere. Ivje played pretty energetically, except for the athletic-looking keyboardist, who was too static, though her parts were undoubtedly well woven into the songs. Apart from a couple of drawn-out passages, Ivje served up fairly dynamic black metal full of surprises in its structures. What lifted them a notch higher was the metronome-tight drummer Tine Horvat, who showed off a real feel for speed and some clever transitions. Ivje were definitely a surprise; they could just play a few more shows a year.
Then came a half-hour break, and after that the stars of the night hit the stage: Taake, or rather Hoest and his backing musicians. For just under an hour the crowd got authentic, filthy black metal, with Hoest standing out most with his getup and his high kicks into the air, which at times got downright comical, like some glam rock band. But this authenticity has a flip side too. Taake’s music itself at times sounded like overblown recycling of cult Norwegian black metal bands. And to push the clichés to a climax, cheap punk tricks were often used, the kind you can hear from the likes of Darkthone. On top of the set being pretty short, Hoest’s backing crew seemed to be taking the gig quite routinely, even though Hoest himself definitely showed plenty of energy on stage. As a result there were mistakes; the drummer wavered in speed quite a few times and seemed pretty out of sync. But in the end these slip-ups weren’t distracting. Taake were far better at Metaldays 2013, though. This time you could tell they were playing to a smaller crowd, which did get quite involved, but the show was no standout.
Despite Taake’s short set, Gala Hala got the real deal: authentic, filthy and uncompromising, just the way black metal should be.
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