Editorial

date: 23 January 2000

A new year and a new wave of live shows. For all tastes and all pockets sizes. Napalm Death, Evergrey, Cannibal Corpse and others will assault our stages and I ‘m afraid they’re gonna kick our asses once again, teaching us what show means, what attitude on the stage means. We’ll see each other again, always the same people for all the shows. That’s it, we got used being just a few, and still it’s good to have a nucleus of audience present at every important show. A sensitive issue rises up now, still sensitive though it has been turned upside down many times already. Our bands. What are we introducing? Do we have anything to introduce at all? I guess we don’t have, with few exceptions. We’ll end up having only foreign bands as opening acts (though I’ve seen many of those below average too) for the simple reason that we have none enough valuable for that. We have no one worth opening for Cannibal or Napalm. Not even in terms of the genre we are not able to go further. WE HAVE NO EXTREME METAL BANDS! We call them death-metal but it’s just a mid-tempo with no balance at all and some growling. Not to mention that own sound (or at least good sound) is out of discussion. There is nothing in the middle. But it shouldn’t be either. We can’t afford to be in the middle. We are way behind the European scene and we still have the same attitude: “from now on I am listening to Slayer and Kreator and I’ll compose as they do”. It leads to nowhere. We focus too much to sound like those we have on posters on the walls instead of looking for something our own. I don’t hope to find in Romania a band to revolutionize the metal, but at least bands to sound singular or break the walls while they play…There are enough bands abroad that didn’t revolutionize a thing, but they have their specific sound and their own approach. We are afraid. It’s natural. The crowd loves Slayer, so why don’t we do it that way? If only one would be close… I rarely hear in live shows blasts or one pit of technique (there are 2-3 exceptions, ok). Vena Cava has been compared to Cannibal Corpse. LAUGH BREAK!!! Whoever made this one should burn his CD’s and start listening to 50Cent! Negura Bunget and Vokodlok were the fastest bands we had… I don’t really know where the second one vanished. Psycho Symphony and Taine are the only technical bands. Code Red has recently had a good (very good actually) start. Cadavrul is fine, but their live sound is simply awful. Trooper sounds great live, but I won’t comment upon their compositions. If there are any other bands to rise, in any direction, please do tell me who they are. SEVEN big bands and none of them have everything it needs, except for Psycho Symphony, which play live rarely and release albums even more rarely. A solution? Well, I have none, but I think I know what’s to do. Stop complaining that much and look after someone to have anything to tell through the music. And that only because we’re invaded by bands from the neighborhood- Bulgaria, Moldavia, Hungary, and it tells a lot about our movement. If the promoters starting telling they had none to bring as opening act, I assume they do have a point here. See you at Napalm to watch our grindcore bands! Haha! Cheers!

Sebastian