Do you have a few moments to talk about Atheist and death metal?
They came, they saw, they conquered!!
Just in time we were wondering how to manage and be on time for the concert that starts in time usually reserved for children’s birthday parties, we got the news that Monastery won’t perform, so us being a bit late wasn’t a problem. By the way, there are many complaints about the early start of the concert but in fact I like it very much and appreciate the fact that it’s more convenient for working folks and the bands also as sometimes they travel ahead very soon after the concert. Hopefully it will become a tradition and everyone will get used to it.
ALMOST DEAD came to us from San Francisco and the band identifies as a Bay Area Thrash, Groove, Hardcore Metal Band. The band has been active for 20 years and have published 6 albums. The band gave us a great introduction into the evening ahead of us. It’s a shame so many people stayed outside and missed out on a great concert. The performance was very energetic as hardcore overcame above metal and other influences which is always a good intro into raising up the amounts of energy within the crowd.
SERPENTSLAIN were the second band to take over the stage. They are a death metal band from Zadar, Croatia, formed 19 years ago. The band proved reaching their full maturity and successfully raised the level of energy as nothing about them is dark or overly-depressing. I liked the vocal abilities of the vocalist, Damir Tomić, who very skilfully exchanged the whole arsenal of growls and screams that painted the performance into an explosive audio-visual attack you wouldn’t want to miss!
ATHEIST represents one of the first progressive death metal bands to appear on the scene, also known as one of the bands within the “Florida Death Metal” stream. They come from Florida and were formed 37 years ago and went through many turbulences and phases. The band is considered a Progressive Death/Thrash Metal with Jazz influences and I was happy to see audience members really excited to see the band, maybe even more than the headlining band. I must admit I didn’t really know what to expect from the live performance but the band won me over and tore down all prejudice about “it might sound to progressive/experimental”. They proved their status as one of the highly influential bands with ecstatic and highly energetic live performances!
Finally, the time for CRYPTOPSY arrived!!! They arrived to Croatia for the very first time and it’s a fucking shame as the band is considered to be one of the most influential Canadian death metal bands. They were formed 32 years ago and everything about them is exceptional. Cryptopsy has 8 albums behind it, and the latest “As Gomorrah Burns” is the one they are presenting tonight.
The drummer Flo Mounier is considered as one of the most outstanding drummers in death metal and the band possesses the unique quality to sound 10 times better than anything we have expected. I’m sure there were numerous youngsters that fell in love with the band at first listening as their energy was contagious and indescribable! If you were not a fan of the band- you will become immediately after the first live gig you attend!!! That is the most unique point of the band. They came, they saw, they conquered!!
The vocalist Matt McGachy possesses the unique personality of a possessed nice person you know you should get to know a bit better but you are dying to as his charisma, stage performance and personality radiates beyond all reason and conquers. He has the unique and very special ability of creating instant fans and followers even amongst those that thought they can not be won over. Unique, great and perfect!
Finally, we had great moshing and crowd surfing and it was an extremely beautiful sight to see as it gave us belief there is hope for this new generation that will take over the scene at some point. All the congratulations to the organisers as, once again, entrance for younger than 18 was free! Beautiful benefit and hopefully more and more youth will use it!
