Photos: Jerneja Jerak
Venue: Gala Hala, Metelkova
Concert date: 29.07.2012
Attendance: 400
Ticket price: 15€ presale / 19€ on the day of the show
What do our little sub-Alpine nation and the great tribes from beyond the Urals have in common? After a few centuries of Germanization, groveling to the gentlemen in Vienna and bowing to the overlords in Brussels, all you could say is: “Precious little!” And yet there’s something in the blood that not even glossy Germanization, the watering-down by Vatican religious zeal, or the dazzle of high-flying culture’s labels can wash out. Over the past few years the feeling has been growing that “pagan” can be exactly what sobers up this off-center world and steers it back into more traditional, primal waters. The Swedes and the Nordic metal world proudly reached for the Vikings, the British Isles and their neighbors for Celtic lore, the fanfares of the Slavic tribes rang out from the Russian steppe, and part of the soldiery defending the colors of the true and by no means forgotten gods of the Slavic pantheon also has a few homegrown names from the music crowd on its side. They’re not exactly a mass movement, but still – among them are folkers Brezno, who, alongside the Russian attraction Arkona, were the main and only local ace of Sunday night at Ljubljana’s Gala Hala, and I was hoping for a horde of fur-clad fans of warrior cries, paganism and oceans of beer.
It’s great when predictions come true in practice, and sure enough, around eight o’clock the crowd in front of the open-air stage of the epicenter of concert pleasures at Metelkova started to swell: young guys, young women and some a bit less young in years but young at heart, decked out in Thor’s hammers, runes, and shirts of Viking and other warrior hordes, filed onto the scorching gravel of Ljubljana’s Gala Hala. The night promised a relaxed good time, an excuse for boozing and unrestrained revelry, and the first on stage were the locals Brezno, better known as Vyrej back in 2005. Right from the start, the septet of Slovenian defenders of the folk metal colors made it clear that their main recipe for winning the ears and hearts of crowds hungry for folk is laying on the exaggeration and glorifying the golden age and the ancestors. Personally, I’d much rather fill up on a rawer, less refined sound than on delicate, feminized epic versifying, but it’s worth mentioning that, unlike the sweet-sounding stuff you can hear online, Brezno live opted for somewhat sharper renditions of the songs from their album Viharnik. The center of the stage is confidently held by vocalist Sara, who, along with flutist Eva and keyboardist Katarina, makes up the estrogen side of the lineup, but after the stage performance and some throat-chakra cleansing it’s clear that the one calling the shots in spinning the tales of Kajtimar, the defenders of Svarun’s banner and idealized vignettes of a past that wasn’t all that epic is bassist Mitja. Flanking him are kilt-clad guitarist Max and guitarist Luka, while behind the kit the rhythm is counted off by the rather lukewarm but confident drummer Matej, who never breaks from a trot into a gallop but provides the metric foundation for some pretty unpretentious hip-swaying. The seven of them do no injustice to the definition of melody, but the predictability of the rather monotonous songs – which, after Dolina pogubljenih, Glasnik, Izdana legija, Žanjica and V nebo, never rise above a level of pleasant likability – is what, after a few minutes of odysseys through the battlefields of the past, all too soon reminds you of patterns you’ve already heard from bands like Avven, Aperion and the like. Plenty of them know their trade, but very few have that extra pinch that gives me goosebumps at the sagas of Eluveitie, makes me surrender to the drinking spell of the likes of Korpiklaani, or believe in the full might of Arkona. We Slovenes too often sound pretty two-dimensional and predictably chewed over with this monotonous recipe, but credit where it’s due: Brezno are capable of writing and pulling off a solid, fairly decent string of songs, topped by their hit V nebo, where the main flute line of an extremely dynamic flutist weaves beautifully into balanced distortion, coaxing out of the instrument, against all odds, exactly those notes that have to cut into your heart and soul. And it may well be true that before a folkoid descent into the gorges of the past a person should first unwind a little and knock back a cup of beer more rather than less …
After the high-pitched cannonade of the Slovenian septet’s gentle feminine shades, the stage filled up with a swarm of sound techs putting the last touches on the setup for the stars of the night – the Russian veterans of traditional pagan tunes, attractive folk metallers Arkona. After the expected intro and a gallop of hordes across the Russian steppe, the gaps in front of the amps slowly fill in. Next to the imposing, towering guitarist Sergei Lazar come drummer Vlad Artist, the chubby bassist Ruslan Kniaz, and the multi-instrumentalist on pipes and bagpipes who is also the brain trust of the band, Vladimir Volk. Last of all, onto the scorching boards of the pretty well besieged Gala Hala stage steps hyperenergetic and exceptionally good-humored vocalist Masha Scream, who this time uncompromisingly lives up to her nickname. She commands the stage with finesse, and the crowd has been eating out of her hand since the opening song Arkaim, when she, drum in hand, enchants the Slovenian audience that has seen it all. Slavsia Rus rolls out as a hymn to Slavic compatriots who haven’t forgotten their roots despite all the globalization, like a metalized song of the balalaika and traditional tones, and Masha, the orator of the proceedings, full of eroticism and primal force, this time impresses less with grace than with her neck-circling roadkill in the shape of a wolf, which she probably hunted down herself. Soon the sounds of Goi Rode Goi foam out of the speakers, a pretty important tectonic shift for a dynamic band that manages to blend guttural punch, metal groove and traditional rhythm in one pot, and who, while singing of the pagan sacrifices of the ancestors, don’t sound stale or lukewarm for a single moment. The sleeping Slavic heart awakens in the crowd, and among the whirling dervishes of a sweat-soaked night, fur-clad poseurs, Slovenized Vikings and totally clueless passers-by all end up shoulder to shoulder, finally buckling under the pressure of the unstoppable rhythm and ever-escalating relentlessness of Arkona, already seen at Pagan Fest. Among the hardest-hitting moments of the show was the outstanding rendition of Pokrovi Nebesnogo Startso, where Masha, the band’s main rotor, showed that the Slavic soul is as violent as it is tender, and as vast as the expanses of the Siberian taiga. No less ear-sharpening is the death metal sonic blast of the song Nikogda. The song Yarilo adds a raver’s trip into the traditional world of parties, orgies and boozing, while somewhere in the subconscious the polka-ish metal of Stenka Na Stenku races by, getting its epilogue in the calmer, heart-wrenching rendition of Liki Bessmertnykh Bogov. A bouquet of the best of the seven dynamic releases mixes with the smell of sweat, beer and glorious exhaustion, and in the selection we heard, Arkona devote themselves both to their roots and to the album Vozroždenje from 2004, a rebirth of the primal with songs like Rus, Bratye Slavyane, dedicated to the Slovenian crowd, and K Domu Svaroga. With Lepta , Chyornye Debri Voyny gets woven into the subconscious, then Voin Pravdi, and the already folk-classic Goi Rode, Goi knocks the last aces out of the hands of the doubting posers, since Arkona carry out their renewed landing on Ljubljana more precisely than the German Blitzkrieg – and they’re as gentle as the tanks outside Stalingrad.
The show lived up to expectations, and the Russian brothers once again stole the heart of the Slovenian audience, which by now expects nothing but the best from Arkona. If Cvetličarna was the warm-up years ago, this time an 88-minute missile of primal Slavic directness filled even the hungriest heart. That’s exactly why I dare say that Arkona’s show was something better than anything I’ve ever felt at gigs filed under the heading of unusual and exotic. Slavic blood is without a doubt fresher than the chewed-over tunes about Odin, and after Arkona I can only swear by what’s homegrown, one-of-a-kind and sincere (almost) homegrown. Out of primal memory are woven images of a home beyond the Urals, from where the first proto-Slav arrived long ago and sowed the gene of rebellion in the fertile soil of the place that I, despite rotten globalism, can now call home with courage and pride – without additives, poses or a tendency to forget too quickly. A part of this fresco of pride is also carved into the heart by this night, which was marked by the total domination of Arkona. Slavic soul and blood are stronger than Europe’s artificiality, aren’t they?
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