August 19-20, 2011, Nová Baňa, Slovakia

Gothoom Extreme Core Terror or is a new festival of extreme music arising in Slovakia? It starts to look like that.

The second year of a new metal festival taking place in the heart of Slovakia began unconventionally about 5 PM. An interesting area of this event was probably the first thing that surprised me a lot. It didn´t seem like metal festival but more like a holiday. Try to imagine lake, hotel, beach volleyball, snack-bar, cottages...it´s really a perfect place for this kind of summer event, isn´t it? 

The first day brought first two headliners. A Czech legend HYPNOS playing a great gig. They were here in Slovakia really long time ago. And Italian masters of an extreme melodic metal GRAVEWORM. Stefan confirmed once again that his gift of a fantastic communication with the crowd is still there. Atmosphere was amazing as well as their setlist full of great songs like Legions Unleashed, A Dreaming Beauty or an immortal cover Fear of the Dark. Besides them, many Slovak & Czech underground bands presented their art to the audience. I have to mention bands like PYOPOESY, HECATE, BRAINSCAN, DARCHAIC, EDAIN, SMASHED FACE or GOD DEFAMER and ATTACK OF RAGE that would definitely deserved more numerous crowd because, unfortunately, majority of people left the space in front of stage right after Graveworm´s gig. Weather during this Friday´s night was really hot that´s why we all appreciated a little storm to refresh the air. 

The sesond day was also marked by a really hot weather what was probably the reason why many of the festival visitors didn´t enjoy the first bands of the day. Many of them took a break (after a very “ challenging“ night) or some of them enjoyed another summer pleasures with water which was really close to the festival area. This fact was also reflected on the number of fans. That was a pity for bands like “one man project“ MACERACE, PROTEST or PERVERSITY, EVERLASTING DARK and so on. Those bands also wanted to present their music to the wider audience. But all those bands deserve much praise because they tried to play their best. People started to gather in front of the stage during the performance of Czech band CRUADALACH that played a really fantastic show with one special surprise, performance of the song called “Confession“ with ex-Stribog vocalist. Another step in the schedule, “two man project“ UNMOURNED, PORFYRIA and a local star DOOMAS with massive support of the fans. After a short break, we moved somewhere else and, of course, I mean concerning music. A Slovak punk/rock KONFLIKT taught us how to criticize our society. This is what people always like. In any case, this band really knows how to amuse their fans. Slovak masters of death metal, DEPRESY, performed short but worthy setlist full of their best songs including Satyricon´s big hit K.I.N.G. To me, the biggest surprise of the evening was definitely performance of DEMENTOR. I thought that I will never ever see them live. 

Gothoom Extreme Core Terror is a young festival with a great potential. All it needs are a bigger names and more visitors. Organizers deserve much admiration and praise. They started to fight a really difficult struggle. Second year of the festival turned out really good. Of course, there have been some failures but I really believe that the organizres will be able to remove them. What I want to stress is a great sound on the festival. I would definitely recommend this festival for you as a next year´s choice. We need to support local events to help them to improve. I wish the organizers lots of patience and we´ll hopefully see each other on Gothoom festival in 2012.