Heavy Music Magazine Issue #10

metal on YOUR radio: our extensive PROGRAM guide  a u s t r a l i a’ s p u r e s t h e av y m u s i c m a g a z i n e 

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carcass back from the dead

heavy metal VIDEO GAMEs plug in and crank it up! ki l l er b e k i ll e d /// d e v i l you k n ow origin /// animals as leaders WACKEN TURNS 25 /// DRI /// edguy CRISTINA SCABBIA /// whitechapel p s y c r o p t i c / / / d o w n / / / s a BAT ON

oz underground

Disentomb

Taking the world by storm

BORIS THE BLADE ♦ TA B E R A H E L E C T R I C H O R S E ♦ DA R K E R H A L F

plus THE TWISTED ART OF THRASHWOLF

ISSUE 10 $9.95 inc.gst ISSN 1839-5546

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contentsissue10

16 carcass

The legendary grind band is back with a message for metal bands: stop whinging about the industry.

20 origin

Technical death metal titans Origin shed light on what it takes to survive as a touring band today.

22 killer be killed

There’s a new supergroup in town, and they’re not shy about rocking the boat.

24 wacken turns 25

The world’s most infamous heavy metal festival is turning 25. We preview this year’s event.

38 Metal RADIO guide

Sick of commerical radio? We show you where you can dial in the tunes that matter.

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heavy video games

Let’s face it. Video games go better with heavy music soundtracks. Here are our favourites.

DRI Photo: Colin Davis

6 Shrapnel 12 Hi-Rotation 26 Sabaton 28 Edguy 30 Disentomb 32 Oz Underground 42 Heavy Legends: DRI 48 Heavy Surveillance 51 Pinups: Thrashwolf 53 Animals As Leaders 54 Devil You Know 55 Down 56 Whitechapel 57 Industry Insight 59 Dotted Lines 61 Strings & Skins 65 Fuggenweirdshit

Got a smartphone? By that I mean an iPhone or an Android? If so, this magazine you’re holding is about to come alive with HEAVY music!

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But first you’ll need a QR code reader, and we recommend you download the FREE Digimarc Discover app from iTunes, or wherever else you can get your hands on it.

By simply holding your smartphone about 6-10cm above a QR code (ie. that Lego nightmare looking thing above) you can instantly access songs (and/or videos) on that same band you’ve just been reading about.

Pretty cool, eh!? It’s a whole new magazine reading experience.

Enjoy!

welcome

c u l p r i t s Executive editor & publisher Olivia Reppas

editor

Nick Lord

Art Director Peter Falkous

Publishing Consultant Effie Dimitropoulos 186Red Pty Ltd

ASSISTANT editors Tennille Secomb Amanda Mason

COVER PHOTO Courtesy of Soundworks

Distribution Gordon & Gotch

Printing Blue Star Group (Printed in Australia)

Specialist contributors Sam Bean – bass Rob Brens – drums Dave Higgins – airwaves Amanda Mason – legal Doug Steele – guitar

Other Contributors Matt Allan Mitch Booth Nathan Eden Patrick Emmett Nick French David Griffiths Steven Jenkins Karl Lean Nick Lord Sebastian Mackay Amanda Mason Anthony Moore Damo Musclecar Carl Neumann Will Oakeshott Michelle O’Rance Tennille Secomb Sheri Tantawy Justin Tawil Josh Voce Patrick Warnes Tarrant Yelds

C

a poignant reminder

ome closer, kids, and gather round as Uncle Nick tells you the tale of a place and time that existed long before you were born.

Millions of years ago, before we’d ever heard the terms ‘nu-metal’ and ‘metalcore’, there was a band called Carcass who roamed the musical landscape. Carcass was a ferocious, horrifying beast with huge riffy claws, long gnashing leads and a deep growling voice that terrified mainstream radio.

When Carcass walked, its footsteps boomed like giant bass drums and when Carcass ran, the sky would tremble and crack with heavenly double-kicked thunder. Everywhere Carcass went, it would wreak havoc and destruction, smashing apart venues to feast on smaller, weaker bands and crushing any objects in its path.

Here was a beast to be respected and feared, and mainstream radio was afraid. They forced the beast underground where only the bravest of adventurers would seek it out and sit in awe of its remorseless brutality.

Carcass seemed indestructible until a great battle with Colombia Records – an equally ravenous beast that also terrified the mainstream but in an entirely different way – forced Carcass into hibernation. While Carcass slept, the musical landscape changed.

New bands came, each one claiming to be the most ferocious the world had ever seen, and each had the Facebook fans to prove it.

Their strings tuned lower; their amps roared louder; they didn’t just have tattoos, they had tattoos on their tattoos! They also brought new production methods and equipment that made them seem louder and more terrifying, even if it were all just an illusion.

For a short time, the world forgot Carcass even existed. Eighteen long eons passed until a great rumbling shook the land. Carcass was awake and Carcass was hungry. The beast burst free of its trappings and roared ten great messages down upon the mosh, all neatly packaged in a jewel case and available from all good music retailers.

So terrifying was the beast that all the other new bands ran from the sacred land, unable to compete with its ferocity but revellers flocked to the beast’s concerts, praising its album as the best of the year, and thanking the metal gods for sending them something new and exciting. “This is the latest thing,” they cried. “More brutal than all other brutal beasts!”

All the while the heavy metal elders scratched their heads in confusion. Is this not the same Carcass that existed before? How can it be having a greater impact on the musical landscape than when it was younger, faster and more relevant?

The answer to that is easy, kids.

Carcass reminds us of what we loved so much about metal in the first place. It transports us back to a time of excitement and discovery and scolds us for forgetting what it sounds like, feels like and smells like to be metal.

At some point, we lost sight of the path we first chose and were seduced by false idols but all is not lost. Now that the true way has been revealed to us again, we are in raptures once more!

- Nick Lord Photo: Nelli Scarlet

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HEAVY Music Magazine is Published by MLM Media Pty Ltd PO Box 1313 Lalor VIC 3075 ACN 151 654 330 The opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of Publisher MLM Media Pty Ltd or Editor. All statements made, although based on information believed to be reliable and accurate, cannot be guaranteed and no fault or liability can be accepted for any error or omission. All material published in this magazine are subject to copyright provisions and cannot be reproduced, in part or whole, without the written permission of the Publisher. All rights reserved.

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carcass back frOm the DeaD

heavy metal vIDeO Games pluG In anD crank It up! killer be killed /// devil you know origin /// animals as leaders waCken Turns 25 /// dri /// edguy CrisTina sCabbia /// whiTeChapel p s y C r o p T i C / / / d o w n / / / s a b aT o n

oz underground

DIsentOmb

takInG the wOrlD by stOrm

BORIS THE BLADE ♦ TA B E R A H E L E C T R I C H O R S E ♦ DA R K E R H A L F

ISSUE 10 $9.95 inc.gst ISSN 1839-5546

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plus THE TWIsTED ART OF THRAsHWOlF

Email: subscribe@heavymag.com.au Photo: Nellitoday.

Scarlet 5

Photo: Mitch Osborne

Slamming Studio Report w/Psycroptic There’s a rumbling in the bowels of the country as Tasmanian noise terrorists Psycroptic put the finishing touches on their next album. Heavy editor Nick Lord corners drummer Dave Haley and extracts some information about the new tunes and the band’s upcoming tour with American brutal deathsters Aborted.

Photos: Cristina Scabbia

Cristina Scabbia’s Skin Art

The Lacuna Coil singer talks to Karl Lean about a hobby with a difference: drum skin art.

Cristina Scabbia has been keeping busy (and sane) during Lacuna Coil’s US tour for new album Broken Crown Halo by sketching and selling unique drum skin art.

“It is a pretty common thing for bands to sell signed stuff at the merch booth and we’ve definitely put out signed skins before, but we never really completed them with art,” Scabbia explains, adding that the idea arose almost by accident. “I started to do it for fun one day and people loved the idea.”

Is it true the Libs wanted to use Psycroptic tracks to terrorise Greens voters in the recent Tassie election?

Not too sure about that one. Libs usually cannot read and write so it’s hard to understand what they are getting at when they grunt at you. If you voted Libs, you voted in Tony Abott and you are a f**kwit!

Stop the Boats would be a cool name for an album from Tassie. Is that what it’s called?

We haven’t decided but we’ll take that name on board for consideration (pun intended).

Where are you recording it, who’s working on it and what the hell did he do to deserve this?

Joe [Haley, guitars] is recording it at Red Planet Studios and at his own studio Crawlspace. He was dumb enough to play in this stupid band so he got roped into recording this stupid album.

What stage are you up to? Whose turn is it to buy lunch?

Well, I’ve finished my tracks so I don’t really care what the others are doing!

I believe Joe has finished all his guitars and we’re up to vocals. Since we own our own studio, we can take as long as we like to record, which is a curse in itself. Buy your own lunch!

Are you one of those bands who sticks pics of tired old porn stars all over the studio? Or are you guys too busy racking up speed so you can keep up with the click track? What gets you through the sessions?

We’d have to stick our iphones on the wall if we were to do that, as porn mags are old school. It’s all about the online content nowadays. No speed or chemicals in sight. We’re all hippies so you’re more likely to find a fruit smoothie or iced coffee around the studio.

What’s it like being told by your brother to “Do it again, and this time with feeling”?

I’m not sure how I feel about this question. He doesn’t say that anyway; he hits the stop button and says, “That was shit!”

Every band says the next album is their best yet. Tell us about it without using that expression.

The next album is going to be our sickest yet.

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Who’s the beer bitch in the studio?

There was already beer in the fridge when we got there.

Jason Peppiatt does what in the vocal booth?!

I don’t know as I’ve never seen him do it but it sure smells in there – I’m not game enough to enter.

Who was the last person to use the word ‘quantise’ in the studio?

Not sure about that. You’ll have to ask the studio quantise robot.

What happens to members of Psycroptic who haven’t rehearsed enough?

They play in Psycroptic. That’s one of the key points to playing in this band – minimal rehearsing Pretend you’re selling me a set of drums. Now use the same language to sell me your album.

Buy Pearl Drums, and buy our new album. I have a marketing degree and I still can’t sell shit. I’ll stick to drums.

How many dim sims were killed in the making of this album?

There were a few, and there will be a few more yet! There is a nasty 24-hour greasy takeaway joint near where we record. It’s claimed many a food poisoning victim, yet we still answer the call of the dimmy [then the call of the dunny – Ed.] What else do we really, really need to know?

We’ll be releasing the new album later this year. We’re also touring with Aborted in Australia in June. Here are the dates: Friday June 13 - Uni Bar, Adelaide (Lic/AA) Saturday June 14 - The Hifi, Melbourne (18+) Sunday June 15 - The Albion, Albury (18+) Monday June 16 - The Basement, Canberra (18+) Tuesday June 17 - The Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle (18+) Wednesday June 18 - Corrimal Hotel, Wollongong (18+) Thursday June 19 - Factory Theatre, Sydney (18+) Friday June 20 - Shark Bar, Gold Coast (18+) Saturday June 21 - The Brightside, Brisbane (18+) Sunday June 22 - The Lab, Brisbane (AA)

German stoner rockers Mother Engine found themselves without a vocalist in 2011 and it seems that focusing on the music alone has served them well. They have now re-released their sold-out 2012 album Muttermaschine on vinyl.

It’s a pretty straight-up stoner rock sound but these guys know how to write and the vibe is perfect. Also keep an eye out for a full-length follow-up later in the year.

Dutch band Radar Men From The Moon are predominantly an instrumental, psych space rock group, although their sound includes elements of shoegaze, melodic pop and more. It’s instantly catchy and well worth the trip. Their third album Strange Wave Galore is available now through Fuzz Club Records.

Portuguese hardcore/metal band Grankapo have been on high rotation. Their strength is definitely in their song writing, blending in the pure passion and aggression of classic metal with addictive and driving hardcore.

Scabbia finds inspiration for each design from somewhere personal.

“There is really not a common concept in between the drum skins I draw on,” she says. “Some of them are gothic with skulls and bats; some are funny with cartoonish fantasy creatures. I never do sketches or think about an idea before I start. I just start doodling and I go from there. I love the fact that the designs are coming to life by themselves. I let my hands guide my imagination.”

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Stoner/fuzz news with Anthony Moore

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In this way, no two skins are ever the same, Scabbia continues: “Every skin is different from any other – a unique piece that you can bring home and hang. I really enjoy doing these a lot.”

Scabbia’s drum skin art is, of course, not just for the fans and she has completed quite a few works that she has kept for herself.

“I actually did some drum skin art for my house too,” she says. “I bought a used set of skins and started to paint them. The surface of the coated drum skins is the best to draw on. The transparent one is hard to make the design come out properly.”

Along with the art, there’s also the occasional musical activity happening in camp Lacuna Coil. Scabbia and the band are firing on all cylinders and enjoying the chance to play the new album live. “So far so good,” she says of the album’s reception and subsequent tour. “After the Revolver tour with Sick Puppies, we are completing the headliner run with Kyng, Eve to Adam and Cilver. We’ll be in Brazil and Mexico soon and we’ll play big festivals in the States and in Europe. We are really proud of our new album and our fans love it too. It’s a win-win situation for everyone!”

More of Scabbia’s drum skin art can be viewed at her official Facebook page: facebook.com/ cristinascabbiaofficial

DEAD/VAZ 7” split release between Melbourne sludge punkers DEAD and New York noise band VAZ. It’s a collaboration between labels WeEmptyRooms (Melbourne) and Wantage (US), is limited to 313 copies worldwide with two covers, and is pressed on black vinyl and housed in 7” x 7” letter-pressed envelopes. The first 100 are brown/ kraft stock with the remaining in grey. All feature a hand screen printed DEAD beer coaster.

WeEmptyRooms have a long history of handmade DIY limited-edition screen printed releases and this is definitely another one that will impress both musically and visually.

Let’s sp li t

DEAD​/​Vaz - Split 7” @Bandcamp

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Words and compilation: Amanda Mason

Words: Josh Voce Photo courtesy of The Senseless

Winter Solstice Playlist

Winter is coming and we’re not talking about Game of Thrones. Put on that knitted Slayer sweater you got for Christmas and embrace the cold, dark days and long, frosty nights with some good ol’ winter-themed metal.

To get you started, we’ve prepared 35 icy-cold tracks that you can hear right now on Spotify at bit.ly/HEAVYWinter

NEW ALBUM NEVER SURRENDER COMING IN 2014

Killswitch Engage – Daylight Dies Immortal – At the Heart of Winter Opeth – Bleak Benighted – June and the Laconic Solstice Atrocity – Cold Black Days Toxic Holocaust – Red Winter Coal Chamber – Dark Days Savatage – Dead Winter Dead Before the Dawn – Winter Within Behemoth – Thy Winter Kingdom My Dying Bride – A Cruel Taste of Winter Veil of Maya – Winter is Coming Soon Iron Maiden – Fear of the Dark Queensrÿche – Cold Thy Art is Murder – Reign of Darkness Dawn of Ashes – Dark Reality Sodom – Equinox Nightmare – Eternal Winter Ancient Ascendant – Driven by the Dark Parkway Drive – A Cold Day In Hell Gojira – Born in Winter Watain – Death’s Cold Dark Testament – Alone in the Dark Dissection – Frozen Satyricon – That Darkness Shall Be Eternal At The Gates – The Burning Darkness Rainbow – Stone Cold Metallica – Trapped Under Ice Judas Priest – Winter The Tea Party – Winter Solstice Anthrax – Now It’s Dark Raised Fist – City of Cold Cradle of Filth – Queen of Winter, Throned Devildriver – Winter Kills Wintersun – Winter Madness chill out

HEAVY Playlist @Spotify

DARKERHALF.COM

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/DARKERHALF

R.I.P. The Palace The Senseless (QLD)

Ex-Berzerker member Sam Bean has been nutting out some insane grind riffs with his one-man band The Senseless. With the absurd amount of death, destruction and negativity in extreme metal, The Senseless opt for a more positive vibe. The terms ‘happy metal’ and ‘heavy mental’ have been thrown around in the media and the band have sparked the interest of overseas magazines such as UK’s Zero Tolerance. To the delight of gamers, an exclusive song was written for a PlayStation 4 video on game reviewer Grindhead Jim’s YouTube channel. Visit the band’s Facebook page to check it out. (www.thesenseless.com)

Zombiefication (MEX)

Those Mexicans sure do know their stuff, be it spicy fajitas or extreme metal. Zombiefication were originally concocted as homage to the glorious ‘90s era of death metal. Since their first two fulllength releases, Zombiefication have developed their own peculiar sound, abandoning the homage aspect to create fresh new music and gather fans along the way.

One fan is into the band so much that he reconstructed the cover of their album At The Caves Of Eternal using Duplo. Take that Lego movie! Zombiefication’s third fulllength album Procession Through Infestation will be released through

Doomentia Records sometime this year.

Meatal Ulcer (VIC)

In a sick and twisted world where people make bowel movements out of their noses, Meatal Ulcer would still be considered one of the most vile goregrind bands around. This repulsive two-piece outfit is enough to make even the most sadistic of villains squirm. Meatal Ulcer have been hard at work releasing several tapes in 2013, a bunch of splits and a full-length entitled Why Won’t It Die?. The man behind the filth, Leo Whitcroft, has established a distribution channel named Rampant Thrush where you can find all Meatal Ulcer releases plus a few extra grind goodies, all housed in the one unflattering location.

P.L.F (USA)

An intense thrash/grind band with a name so pungent, so virulent and so nauseating that it had to be abbreviated in order to protect the ears of the innocent. Brace yourself because Pit Destroyer is about to unveil the stench that P.L.F stands for... Pretty Little Flower. That’s right. This cosy little trio have been pollinating with the seeds of hate since 1999. They’ve just released their fourth full-length album, which is a solid slab of thrash cross over, through Australia’s leading grindcore specialist Blastasfuk.

Barring a miracle, the last-ever show at The Palace in Melbourne is happening on May 18 before it closes its doors for good on May 31.

I’ve just seen Kill Devil Hill and Killswitch Engage at The Palace. It was full and the show was brilliant.

If I’m honest, there are really only a few more gigs I’ll see there. I will have seen Karnivool and Jake Bugg by the time this issue of HEAVY hits the shelves and I’ll be gearing up for the venue’s last-ever show, whatever it may be.

Every city is losing live-music venues, mostly due to urban development, and while there are guys in positions of authority batting for us, the music-loving public, money talks and people who don’t give a stuff about our culture will continue to tear down our history.

Melbourne music fans will all have their own great stories of bands they’ve seen at The Palace, of musos they’ve met there after gigs and of random nights of insanity.

To list the bands I’ve seen at that venue would take up too much space but I do remember one night there. It was an album launch and

I attended with a couple of friends (girls) who weren’t really into the music. They were just there to check out the venue as they’d never set foot inside the place. Needless to say, they had a great time there, chatting up bar staff and getting free shots, and I think they may have even have found love, however fleeting and meaningless it was.

What happened to me that night?

Well, as far as I remember, umm… it’s a bit hazy. I woke up in a hotel room bed next to a naked woman – not one of the girls I took there – just as another woman came in to yell at us and kick us out. To this day I don’t remember the hotel but I do remember the girl, fondly.

This is the beauty of The Palace.

It’s more than a building; it’s a community. I’ve never seen a fight there, although I’m sure there’s been a dust up or two over time; you can see the stage from just about everywhere you care to plonk yourself; and even the staff are music lovers.

It sucks that’s it’s closing. It really sucks.

Thanks for the memories.

R.I.P. Palace Theatre.

Tune in to Distortion every Saturday night at 11pm1am (Melbourne time) on MMM 105.1FM as Higgo spins the best in metal from around the country and the globe.

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Words: Amanda Mason

Party Like It’s 1994 Do you remember buying Far Beyond Driven on cassette from Brashs with your pocket money twenty years ago? I certainly do. That was way back when cassettes, Pantera, Brashs and pocket money still existed.

If you, like me, are old enough to remember buying albums in ‘94 and want to reminisce about a bygone era, then this crossword is for you.

It’s all about 1994!

Words: Damo Musclecar

The Pantera quiz: Unveiling the Wicked use your mouth for a score

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that Pantera’s hyperaggressive little album Far Beyond Driven just turned 20. To celebrate, we recommend getting together with a few of your mates, pouring a dozen of Dimebag’s infamous Blacktooth Grins – four shots of whiskey watered down with a splash of Coca Cola – and taking on our commemorative Pantera quiz.

Game rules: • Get a question right – have a drink; • Get a question wrong – have a drink; • Ask a question – have a drink; • Listen to a question – have a drink; • Finish the quiz successfully – have a drink.

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DOWN 1. Band formed in ‘94 with singer Jamey Jasta 2. Hard rock band that won two Grammy awards in ‘94 3. Band formed by Devin Townsend in ‘94 4. Band that released Tales From the Thousand Lakes 5. Band that released Terminal Spirit Disease 6. Artist that released Balls to Picasso 9. German industrial band formed in ‘94 10. Grunge icon that committed suicide 12. First single from Pantera’s Far Beyond Driven 13. Band that released Youthanasia 15. Machine Head’s ‘94 album 17. Band that released Handful of Rain 19. Pioneering nu metal band that released

Answers: 1. Mouth for War; 2. Power Metal; 3. Diamond Darrell; 4.

Four; 5. Planet Caravan; 6. Far Beyond Driven; 7. Beckon the call; 8. Cowboys From Hell; 9. CFH; 10. He burnt it down; 11. Ace Frehley (Kiss); 12. Phil (New Orleans); 13.

Megadeth (Sweating Bullets); 14. Phil; 15. The Exorcist

ACROSS 3. Band formed in ‘94 with guitarist Michael Romeo 5. Dream Theater’s ‘94 album 7. Testament’s ‘94 album 8. NIN’s ‘94 album 11. Band that sued Elektra in ‘94 to get out of their unchanged 10-year-old record deal 14. Mercyful Fate’s ‘94 album 16. Queensrÿche’s ‘94 album 18. Band that released Lunar Strain 20. Band that released De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas 21. Varg Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years jail for the murder of this person (stage name) 22. Band that released Divine Intervention 23. Second single from NIN’s ‘94 album

Questions: 1. Which Pantera song was the first metal single ever to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard charts?

2. What was the first Pantera album to feature Phil Anselmo on vocals?

3. When Pantera first formed in 1981, what was Dimebag’s stage name?

4. How many albums did Pantera release before Cowboys From Hell?

5. Which Black Sabbath song did Pantera record as a cover?

6. Upon which album does it appear?

7. In the song ‘By Demons Be Driven’, which phrase does Phil repeat throughout the song?

8. In which song does Phil sing “Pillage the village, thrash the scene”?

9. Which three letters are tattooed on each of the Pantera members’ bodies?

10. What did Phil do to his parents’ house as a young boy?

11. Who was Dimebag’s favourite guitarist? Hint: it was tattooed on his body.

12. Only one member of Pantera was not born in Texas.

Who is it?

13. Dimebag’s signature drink, the Blacktooth Grin, is named after a lyric by which band?

14. Which member of Pantera died for “four to five minutes” as a result of a heroin overdose in 1996?

15. The title of the Pantera album Vulgar Display of Power comes from dialogue in which popular horror movie?

Shy England Misspent Youth (1989) don’t be shy

‘Money’ @YouTube

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania there’s a store called Jerry’s Records. It’s a little out-of-the-way store that you’d probably never find if you weren’t specifically looking for it. Entering, my jaw dropped instantly. In front of me was a haven of sheer vinyl goodness. Jerry’s Records houses over one million vinyl LPs within the confines of its dusty décor. I knew that leaving empty handed was impossible so I spent the next two and a half hours digging through the metal and hard rock section when there they were: Shy England. Who? Exactly! I had never heard of them before either but their band photo in a back alley looked tough and their whole poise came off like a Faster Pussycat reject. Sold! I couldn’t have thrown my $3 at them quickly enough.

Upon my arrival home, jet-lagged and still buzzing from the Xanax that combats my fear of flying, I had to kick back for some much needed, hard-rockin’ tunes. I quickly discovered that Shy England are actually known as just Shy and this album, their fourth, entitled Misspent Youth, is apparently their most embarrassing moment. I knew this was going to be good so I cranked it up to ten, thinking ‘I don’t always listen to Shy but when I do, the neighbours do too!’

Album opener, ‘Give It All You Got’, starts with promise and really kicks into gear with a bitchin’ riff and sweet solos. Vocalist Tony Mills brings the goods and has those strong powerful ‘80s glam vocals that sound like a cross between Stephen Pearcy and Rob Halford.

The song’s only downfall is that it just doesn’t seem to end. Seriously, this song goes longer than the two and a half hours I spent in Jerry’s Records perusing vinyl gems.

‘Burnin’ Up’ follows and is a real fist-pumpin’ jam. The catchy licks and shred-master solos from lead guitarist Steve Harris (not from Iron Maiden) are so damn cool that by the Fastwaymeets-Def-Leppard third track ‘Money’, this album is quickly becoming an Unveiling The Wicked classic. Their token ballad, ‘After The Love Is Gone’, is next and would have been better suited to a Warrant album but this is ‘80s glam and these bad boys don’t play by the rules.

Side A closes out with ‘Never Trust A Stranger’, which is probably their best RATT moment (never a bad thing). ‘Body Talk’ it’s not but ‘Round And Round’ it could have been... almost.

‘Broken Heart’ seems like it could be a great way to start Side B but it’s not. While it is full of clichéd everything, it’s still got an awesome solo and I bet it was during this song that Mills would cry out “Let me see your hands” to the audience. Hell, I paused writing this just so I could start clapping and waving my hands in the air like I just don’t care. ‘Shake The Nations’ comes next and this mediocre anthem would have been better off as a B-side to a single no one would have bought. Again, Harris’ guitar skills are what’s on offer here, even if his tapping solo is only 12 seconds long. There’s another delightfully painful ballad to follow in ‘When You Need Someone’ ,which was subsequently redeemed by‘Love On The Line’, with its Bon Jovi-esque sweetness. The finale ‘Make My Day’ is the street-talkin’ party anthem we have been yearning as Mills commands, “If you’re lookin’ for trouble, stay outta my way… Go ahead and try it, make my day!” Once over, this modern-day Freddie Mercury, brings it to an exhausting close with one more chorus from the opening track, ‘Give It All You Got’ – just to remind us that you can’t have too much of a good thing.

Overall I am surprised that this album is seen as the band’s most embarrassing moment.

Sure it’s no Too Fast For Love or Invasion Of Your Privacy, but it’s still a pretty good effort from a band who were largely overlooked but somehow managed to squeeze out 13 releases between 1983 and 2011.

Some applause wouldn’t go astray, my friends.

Bust this! Misspent Youth was produced by the legendary Roy Thomas Baker. For those not in the know, he worked on classic albums for Mötley Crue, Cheap Trick, The Darkness and Ozzy Osbourne. He was even one of the countless producers that worked on the album that should have never been recorded: Chinese Democracy by whatever’s left of Guns‘N’ Roses.

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by

Strict Vincent

Independent

Killer Be Killed by

Killer Be Killed

Nuclear Blast

Metal Los Angeles/Atlanta/Phoenix killerbekilled.com Review: Justin Tawil With an eclectic array of musicians - Troy Sanders (Mastodon), Max Cavalera (Cavalera Conspiracy, exSepultura), Dave Elitch (The Mars Volta) and Greg Puciato (Dillinger Escape Plan) - it’s no wonder that the final product of Killer Be Killed’s debut album has such a frenzied amalgam of groove and thrash. The record focuses largely on Max Cavalera’s signature style of riff, by infusing high octane aggression and his Brazilian ferocity with an unrepentant groove that has been enthralling metal fans since ‘85.

With the help of iconic producer Josh Wilbur (Lamb of God, Gojira), the band’s punchy groove remains a constant throughout the entire record.

Every drum beat comes down like a meteor crashing into earth and this type of devastating brutality is frequently delivered by the band on this album. Dave

iPad

Elitch has a particular flare in his drumming, a trait that made him fit in so well with The Mars Volta’s chaotic sound, and this flare really spices up the album.

The track ‘Curb Crusher’ is an excellent example of this with blazing fills introducing the song and continuing throughout this mammoth track.

The fact that the band has three incredible vocalists helps to push the band’s sound further into this chaotic style. The duality of Greg Puciato and Max Cavalera’s vocals specifically put extra weight behind every riff and beat on the record and adding Troy Sanders’ majestic vocal lines on top of that makes for quite a unique experience.

Most supergroups don’t set out to create something that’s been done a thousand times before, and Killer Be Killed have definitely created something unique with this exceptional debut.

Mathcore Melbourne, Australia strictvincent.bandcamp.com Review: Tennille Secomb Strict Vincent’s debut album All That Is, Occupies Now, slipped out in the latter half of last year but only now have we had a chance to swallow and digest the technical wizardry that drives this release down your throat. A cacophony of blast beats, machine-gun riffs and demonical, belligerent vocals, Strict Vincent have brewed their own infusion of chaotic, deathinspired mathcore that slams the listener with a wall of sound, only to delicately reprieve them with intermittent jazzy cutaways.

Channelling The Dillinger Escape Plan, this musically-schizophrenic release has much to offer, peaking with songs like ‘Urine Blonde’ and ‘The Coed Killer’, the second of a three-part Ted Bundy tribute.

How this album has gone unheard for so long is mystifying as the skull-numbing heaviness of All That Is, Occupies Now resounds clearly across the Australian metal landscape.

Esoteric Symbolism by

Teramaze

Nightmare Records

Progressive groove metal Melbourne, Australia teramaze.com.au Review: Nick Lord Put briefly, Aussie progressive metal band Teramaze offer a darker, more aggressive take on early-2000s Dream Theater without the pomp. Previous album Anhedonia (2012) was excellent and Esoteric Symbolism doesn’t disappoint. Musicianship is of the highest order – riffs are complex and catchy, solos blazing and clean, drums punchy and powerful – and the production is tight and modern. It’s all very European.

Vocalist Brett Rerekura is the star of the show; his vocal range and control world class, his selection of melodies a joy. The album simply works when Rerekura is ‘on’ and standouts include the driving downbeat rhythm of ‘Bodies of Betrayal’, riff-heavy rockers ‘Parallels-Dual Reality’ and ‘Transhumanist’, and strongest track ‘Spawn’. ‘VII Darkest Days of Symphony’ is also a vocal triumph. Apart from a rudimentary and cheesy opening instrumental, Esoteric Symbolism is strong everywhere and will win the band new fans. Well played.

face the kill er

Wings of Feather and Wax + Face Down @YouTube

be oc c u p ied

‘Ted Bundy Pt 2: The Coed Killer’ @BandCamp

en ter th e m a ze

‘Punishment

By Design’

Wasted Years by

OFF!

by

Vice Records

The Joy Of Motion

Tibi et Igni Vader

by

Nuclear Blast

Punk Los Angeles, USA offofficial.com

Animals As Leaders

Sumerian Records

Death metal Poland vader.pl/band-e.html

Progressive metal/djent Washington, USA facebook.com/animalsasleaders

Review: Kimberley Croxford

Review: Tennille Secomb

Review: Steve Jenkins

From the moment the driving opening riff of ‘Void You Out’ explodes in your ears, prepare to fly through 16 tracks, propelled by Dimitri Coat’s relentless powerchord assault. Guitar dominates the foreground throughout the record, which was also produced

by Coats, and his foot-to-thefloor, no compromises approach hammers home Keith Morris’ (Black Flag, Circle Jerks) frank assertions. Morris’ shouts are a protest against ignorance and apathy: spitting out powerful lines such as “we’re overrun by the misinformed,” and “blind spot the size of a nation,” he delivers scathing, politicalised observations (‘Red White and Black’; ‘No Easy Escape’; ‘Over Our Heads,’) and reflects critically on former, foggy ‘wasted years’ (‘It Didn’t Matter to Me’, ‘Wasted Years’). Consistent with previous material, but with a more commanding guitar tone and sharper lyrical focus, Wasted Years is energetic ’80s style hardcore punk determined to wake you up (by punching you directly in the jaw).

Tibi et Igni, Latin for ‘You and Fire’, offers exactly what you would expect on the eleventh album from these Polish legends.

While the album is solid overall, it doesn’t exactly break any new ground and instead draws on old school thrash to create that classic Vader death metal sound.

The production is full and crispy with the drums slicing perfectly through the mix. Although some of the riffs are straight from the textbook, the crunchy guitar tone is satisfying and if it’s solos you’re after, there’s no shortage here. There are a couple of album fillers, but songs like ‘Hexenkessel’ and ‘The Eye of the Abyss’ stand out for their dynamic song structure and pummelling rhythms.

Undeniably heavy and essentially faultless, Tibi et Igni is a strong effort but it left me wondering, ‘Is this enough?’

When Tobin Abasi founded Animals As Leaders back in 2009, it was merely a side-project. But now with three full-length albums under their belt, this instrumental trio are taking the metal world by storm.

The Joy Of Motion is set to redefine the genre and set the bar for other bands who want to be different from the rest.

Containing elements of progressive metal, jazz, djent, electronic and ambient soundscapes, it’s a creative journey that will see this band gain much deserved recognition. With an array of various producers and mixers, it’s an album that’s definitely a lot to take in upon first listen, but it only gets better and better from there. An instrumental album can often be hit or miss because it needs to be something special to keep the listener interested.

Animals As Leaders have created something special here and there’s a certain key element to their music that will grab your attention and

switch off

b e i n -vad e r -e d

lead the way

‘Void You Out’ @YouTube

Tibi et Igni album teaser @YouTube

‘Tooth and Claw’ @YouTube

Timetravellers & Bonfires by

Sevendust

7 Bros / asylum

Nu-metal turned easy listening Atlanta, USA www.sevendust.com Review: Nick Lord So Sevendust is still kicking around. Yeah, I was surprised too.

The once guitar-heavy nu-metal band has carved a niche for themselves churning out easylistening mainstream radio fodder that has all the impact of being clobbered with a cloud of fairy floss. Sevendust has generously spared their label the indignity of paying for this trite offering and gone hat-in-hand to their fans to beg for the money to release Timetravellers & Bonfires, an acoustic album of old classics (time travellers) and unreleased tracks (bonfires). In what is truly one of the great rock’n’roll swindles, fans handed over 235 per cent of the band’s goal.

Of course, there will be those who like this record, what with its delicate vocal harmonies and 12-string guitars. Others will love that the focus is squarely on the talented Lajon Winterspoon. Sadly, however, it’s lullaby stuff; cerebral chewing gum to distract us from what’s clear: Sevendust has no interest in heavy music and is now a hard rock band in history only. feel the f l ame

‘Come Down’ @YouTube

we recommended

album of the issue

All That Is, Occupies Now

The Beauty of Destruction by

Devil You Know

Nuclear Blast

Metalcore Los Angeles, USA facebook.com/Devilyouknowofficial

Review: Michelle O’Rance

With its pedigree line-up Devil You Know has a lot to live up to and their debut The Beauty Of Destruction not only lives up to the expectations, it exceeds them.

But what do you expect when you have John Sankey on drums (ex-Devolved, Fear Factory and Divine Heresy) Francesco Artusato on guitar (ex-All Shall Perish) and the guttural roar of Howard Jones’ vocals (exKillswitch Engage)? Add in Ryan Wombacher on bass and Roy Lev-Ari, also on guitar, and you have a band that is tight and polished on their first release.

Sankey is a precise machine on the skins and Artusato’s riffs melt faces with both artists using Devil You Know to experiment with their style.

Vocalist Howard Jones is in his

element. The trademark roar and his melodic clean singing show no signs of the health issues that led to him stepping down from Killswitch Engage.

Produced by Logan Mader (ex-Machine Head) in Los Angeles, The Beauty Of Destruction is definitely one for fans of bands like Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying and August Burns Red. There are quite a few standout tracks on The Beauty Of Destruction, including ‘The Killer’ and ‘Shut It Down’, which demonstrate the brutal side of the music, but then there is also the absolute gem ‘As Bright As The Darkness’, which is a fitting end to an album that is packed with force.

The album has put the band in contention for the award for Best New Band in the 2014 Metal Hammer Golden God Awards and I suggest you pick up a copy to find out why.

meet the devil

‘Seven Years Alone’ @YouTube

The HEAVY MAG android app is live & get

the apple mac version from itunes

ONE TWENTIES BOOK YOUR SPOT NOW

12

13

by

Eye of the Enemy

Independent

Metal Melbourne, Australia facebook.com/EyeoftheEnemyBand

Review: Amanda Mason Eye of the Enemy’s long awaited sophomore album opens with a predominantly instrumental track ‘The Vision’, which gradually builds in intensity, creating anticipation and preparing you for the unrelenting rhythmic onslaught that is to follow. From the first driving guitar riff in the second track ‘The Oath’ to the closing track ‘The Regret’, the album’s ferocious intensity is set to maximum with the resonating pounding of the bass drum filling your chest cavity.

Lyrically, the aptly-titled The Vengeance Paradox is a demonstration of how evil begets evil in the tale of a quest for vengeance that ultimately results in evil.

Following the release of powerful track ‘The March’ as the first single from the album,

by

Black Label Society

Mascot Records

Metal/rock Los Angeles, USA blacklabelsociety.com Review: Michelle O’Rance The first chords of the new Black Label Society release have a slow, Southern groove but don’t let that fool you because Catacombs Of The Black Vatican is only just getting started. The tracks ‘Fields Of Unforgiveness’ and ‘Beyond The Down’ have a distinct Alice In Chains feel, but the solos in ‘Damn The Flood’ and ‘Shades Of Gray’ are a testament to guitarist Zakk Wylde’s talent and are well and truly a throw-back to the Boozed, Broozed and Broken-Boned days.

The album is a definitive step forward in the new direction that Wylde has embraced with his sober lifestyle and, while the wild side that we all loved seems to be well and truly laid to rest, there are elements of his writing that will never die and this is evident in their tenth album.

Catacombs brings enough of the oldschool BLS to keep the diehard fans happy, but there’s also enough of the new to keep everyone happy.

Dead City Ruins by

Dead City Ruins

Independent

Hard rock Melbourne, Australia facebook.com/deadcityruins Review: David Griffiths Arriving in Melbourne via London are Dead City Ruins, the hard rockers that had tongues wagging with their 2011 release Midnight Killer. Now, as if to show that was no one-off, they deliver the musically-perfect follow up Dead City Ruins.

Dead City Ruins contains a brute force that only the most experienced musos can deliver and there simply isn’t a weak track to be seen. ‘Blue Bastard’ sees Dead City Ruins deliver an epic sound that is well beyond their years while the brilliant guitar work on ‘D.I.B.’ leaves the listener panting for more. Don’t even get me started on the amazing vocals of ‘Shot Through’ or ‘Hapenzella’ which are a reminder of the greatness that only legendary bands like Black Sabbath have delivered in the past.

To put it bluntly, this is one of the best damn albums of the year.

see the vision

h eavy h ym n s

c l ea r th e c ity

‘The March’ @YouTube

‘My Dying Time’ @YouTube

‘D.I.B.’ @SoundCloud

Space Police: Defenders of the Crown by

Edguy

Nuclear Blast

Power metal/hard rock Fulda, Germany edguy.net Review: Patrick Warnes Edguy are a band that are never scared of showing their humorous side. With a foray into hard rock on their previous three releases, their 11th album Space Police: Defenders of the Crown isn’t much of a divergence.

Standout song ‘Defenders of the Crown’ features a crafty intro and interesting riffs, while ‘The Realms of Baba Yaga’ features an incredibly catchy chorus. In saying that though, they didn’t really escape the conventional hard rock sound and instead come off as repetitive and lacklustre for a large part of the album, but it will probably please Edguy fans.

The production was good and the album flowed well, but you can’t help but find that within all the jokes their music has been misplaced in conventionality, repetition and carelessness.

Vocalist Tobias Sammet marketed this album to one their heaviest of all time, but I would have to disagree. Instead, it left me yearning for the heavy power metal from the Hellfire Club and Mandrake days.

Eternal Enemies

Broken Crown Halo

Our Endless War

Victory Records

Century Media

Metal Blade

by

Emmure

Metalcore New York, USA emmuremerch.com

by

Lacuna Coil

Hard rock Milano, Italy lacunacoil.it

by

Whitchapel

Deathcore Knoxville, USA whitechapelband.com

Review: Steve Jenkins

Review: Karl Lean

Review: David Griffiths

Emmure often create controversy with their ‘love them or hate them’ critics, but there’s no denying that after the release of their sixth studio album the metalcore titans are here to stay. Heavy-hitting and balls out is the best way to describe Eternal Enemies, one of their heaviest offerings so far.

Emmure are definitely not the most technical band in heavy music, but it’s safe to say that they’re pros at delivering simple yet in your face lyrics, crushing breakdowns and ruthless aggression. They seem to be sticking with the nu-metal/rockrap influences, but it seems to work for them because this album is without question a catchy offering featuring top notch production by Joey Sturgis (Asking Alexandria, The Devil Wears Prada). Surprisingly, there’s a couple of melodic tracks such as ‘A Gift A Curse’ and ‘Grave Markings’ which are standouts. The album probably won’t win over any new fans, but it’s enough to keep those loyal to the band happy.

Lacuna Coil have always floated somewhere on the fringes of the gothic metal genre, musically often edging towards a nu-metal vibe, but always keeping the focus on strong choruses built around the vocals of Cristina Scabbia. For album number seven they seem to have found no reason to move far from familiar ground, and Broken Crown Halo will be instantly recognisable by long time fans.

Overall, it does feel angrier than previous releases. The hard edge of a track like ‘Nothing Stands In Our Way’ or the brooding progression of ‘Die & Rise’ point towards a gradual move in search of a darker dimension. It increases the contrast with the lighter and catchier choruses that are a band trademark and results in the album feeling both familiar and yet more dynamic than their other recent releases.

This is not their finest hour, but still a solid addition to the LC discography.

So often these days bands deliver albums that are factory fodder with no feeling behind the tracks and lyrics that are hardly poetic. That certainly can’t be said for Whitechapel’s latest album Our Endless War, which has obviously been written to voice the band’s anger at everything around them.

Whitechapel don’t waste any time launching straight into their deserved tirade with the title track that is uncompromising with its onslaught against our political leaders - a great way to guarantee getting your listeners on-side. The anger then moves to modern media with ‘Worship The Digital Age’, one of the best tracks on the album.

Fans of the deathcore marvels will also be impressed by singer Phil Bozeman’s sensational vocals on ‘The Saw Is The Law’ and ‘Mono’ while Ben Savage’s guitar makes ‘Diggs Road’ a track you’ll keep re-visiting.

This is Whitechapel at their brutal best.

fly far away

make e n e mi e s

don the halo

b e at t h e d r u m

‘Defenders of the Crown’ @YouTube

‘Nemesis’ @YouTube

‘Nothing Stands In Our Way ’ @YouTube

‘Our Endless War’ @YouTube

party hard tunes

local boys do good

The Vengeance Paradox

the band left the selection of the second single to a fan vote with one of the catchier tracks ‘The Deed’ winning the vote. Despite not being one of the singles, the stand-out track is easily ‘The Justification’ with its inexorable drumming, melodic guitar riffs and deep, growling vocals.

The album was recorded by the band’s ex-drummer Troy McCosker, whose engineering credentials include Ne Obliviscaris’ Portal of I; was mixed by Ermin Hamidovic who has worked on albums by Orpheus Omega, Elm Street and In Malice’s Wake and was mastered in Sweden by Thomas ‘Plec’ Johansson whose clientele includes Scar Symmetry and Watain.

Four years on from their debut album The Weight of Redemption, the band have really honed their sound, which coupled with the infallible quality of the recording make this a serious contender for year-end top ten lists.

Catacombs of the Black Vatican

All You Can Eat by

Steel Panther

Open E Entertainment

Glam metal Los Angeles, USA steelpantherrocks.com Review: Nathan Eden

To propose that Steel Panther’s work is tongue-incheek doesn’t quite grasp the complexity, for the band’s collective tongue is busy somewhere much naughtier on their fourth album All You Can Eat. One might suggest it ticks all the sexy, novelty boxes lyrically; however, that would be under-selling the tunes.

Steel Panther’s fourth fulllength album is full and lengthy in the way that metal intended; anything but subtle. The single ‘Party Like Tomorrow Is The End Of The World’ tones down what stands proud and erect about the rest of the album.

‘Gloryhole’ pokes its head into familiar, hilarious places whilst ‘Gangbang at the Old Folks Home’ is a triumphant tale of geriatric gyration.

The artwork for All You Can Eat parodies Da Vinci’s

The Last Supper as the lyrical content addresses the social zeitgeist where relationships are concerned. ‘Bukkake Tears’ laments in gangbang hindsight before ’Ten Strikes You’re Out’ exposes a tolerance in the face of a continuously irresponsible lover with lines as heartachingly revealing as “Strike three; you gave my dog V.D.”.

The politically incorrect gems in All You Can Eat are best extracted unspoiled and so dues must be paid to its musical prowess. There are twelve diamonds waiting to shine that require nothing but an ear, a sense of humour and a decent set of speakers.

At some stage Steel Panther may run out of sexual juice and be labelled as a gimmick but that’s part of the inherent danger of genius. As Michael Starr sings; “It’s a burden being wonderful like me”.

riff it out

‘Gloryhole’ @YouTube

‘IN THE WAKE OF CHANGE’ A HARD HITTING NEW ALBUM BY

SE SE BON BON KI RA

OUT NOW!

14

15

cover story

cover story

Ge t c a rv e d

‘Unfit For Human Consumption’ @Youtube

Words: Nick Lord Photo: courtesy of Soundworks

“I always thought it [the album] was going to go one of two ways: it was going to be lauded like it has been, or it was going to sink like the Titanic.”

Returning to Australia this month in support of their crushing new record Surgical Steel, UK legends Carcass have renewed their thirst for extreme music. Infamously gruff front man and bassist Jeff Walker talks to Nick Lord about how today’s metal bands should man the f**k up and stop whinging about the state of the industry.

“I

’ve decided I don’t like to do interviews,” rasps Carcass vocalist and bassist Jeff Walker through a crackly Skype connection in what is a superb start to our 20-minute chat together. “They’re a pain in the arse for everyone; we’ve got 12 hours’ difference between us so it’s never a good time for you or for me, is it?”

Does this mean he’s sick of discussing Surgical Steel, the 2013 album that catapulted the band back to the top of everyone’s playlists after an 18-year absence?

“I don’t mind talking about it if the questions are interesting,” Walker says, almost groaning, “but you just get the same thing over and over, which is a bit of a drag – you think people would know how to use Google by now.”

“Well, I can ask something else,” I say, with entirely no idea of what the hell that’s going to be. I feel as though I’m being tested, as if Walker is handing me some kind of challenge in the generationsold battle between rock star and journalist, and that the success of the whole interview depends on whether or not I can return serve, so I close my eyes and speak: “We could skip the album talk and I could just ask you why you’re such a c**t.”

It’s a gamble and I hold my breath, waiting for the line to go dead. After what feels like an eternity of silence, Walker responds in a tone that is the perfect amalgam of dry British satire and unnerving serial-killer sedateness.

“You see, you could ask that, and you might think you’re being funny but you might not be as funny as you think,” he says. It’s not knee-slapping stuff but there’s enough of a droll, jocular undertone in there to know that we’ve survived. We’re OK, and can now proceed with a more regular line of questioning.

The entertainment industry loves a comeback and they don’t get much bigger than this. Carcass, the dour UK grindcore band

16

with a taste for autopsies that hacked its way out of the Liverpool sludge with a sharp tongue and a rusty scalpel to laud over the metal scrapheap before crawling back to the morgue from whence it came, is everyone’s darling once more.

Across the decade spanning 1985-1995, Carcass released four ground-breaking, must-have grind albums before splitting up after a failed attempt to spark a relationship with Columbia Records/ Sony. In 1996, the band limped back to original label Earache Records, released a fairly forgettable finale in Swansong (1996) and, well, died.

Except they didn’t.

For almost two decades, the corpse of Carcass festered and bubbled below the surface until finally bursting free of its tomb in May 2013 to ink a licensing deal with Metal Blade records. Sixth album Surgical Steel dropped shortly after, in September, as did jaws all over the metal world.

Unashamed romantics and scene philosophers are probably seizing upon the Carcass story as a proclamation of the enduring power of music to overcome obstacles. “Not even 18 years on a cold steel slab could stop this record from coming out,” they’re blogging madly, but Walker has been quick to pour saline solution on even the most subtly-glowing ember that suggests the band are somehow saviours of death metal.

“What’s that say about the state of modern music when people want Carcass to reform? I don’t think Carcass are that bloody great,” he recently told metal conversation blog Steel For Brains in a sentiment he continues here. “There is nothing revolutionary about the album we just made; it’s just Carcass.”

Critics beg to differ, and have described the album en masse as a meticulous effort by the band and producer Colin Richardson

to faithfully recapture the ‘classic’ Carcass sound and splatter it all over the scene at a time when death metal badly needs to be saved from its stale pursuit of soulless technical exactitude.

Headbangers are rejoicing in the streets. Here is an album they can feel; an album that has transported them back to what made metal great in the first place. Reviewers have lined up to praise the barking fury and precision of Surgical Steel’s ten tracks, as well as the toasty nostalgia of it all, and end-of-year accolades have flowed like manna from the metal gods.

Of the success, Walker is unsurprised, refreshingly immodest and laconic.

“We definitely intended upon making what we thought would be a good album,” he says, indicating that he and founding guitarist Bill Steer approached Surgical Steel with a boom or bust mentality.

“I always thought it [the album] was going to go one of two ways: it was going to be lauded like it has been, or it was going to sink like the Titanic. I didn’t foresee it going in any other direction.”

The band has just returned from a three-week tour of the US, which followed a five-week tour of Europe. With Australia and South America in the pipeline, the promotional effort can now be called a world tour. Did Walker ever expect, just by making Surgical Steel, that he’d be signing back up to life in a full-time touring band?

“We had to prove to our label that we were serious about this record because they [Nuclear Blast] gave us a lot of money to promote it,” he explains of the touring cycle, adding, “In America, for every CD we sell, they’re spending about $2 on promotion.

That’s the sort of thing you would never get from a label like [past label] Earache; they just don’t have the funding.”

Reports of the death of the record label have been greatly

exaggerated, according to Walker, who says the strength of Nuclear Blast suggests otherwise: “Nuclear Blast is stronger than it’s ever been. I remember when that label started in ‘87, it was laughable.

We were like, ‘Who the hell would start a record label now?!’ Here we are, some 25 year later, and it’s probably the biggest independent metal label on the planet.”

Carcass has been vigilant about installing regular breaks in the tour, which Walker says is necessary for band contentment.

“We did five weeks in Europe and three weeks in the USA and now we’re coming to Australia, but it’s only for a week. We still get plenty of time off and as long as there’s time off, we’re all happy. I like having breaks in between the gigs. I like to have a life. I don’t particularly want to be stuck on tour for two years. I mean, I’m turning 45, you know.

“You never think you’re gonna be in a band at 45. My younger self would’ve slapped me in the face and told me I’m too old to be doing it, but the funny thing is that the older you get, you’re still a teenager in your head, you know – it’s your body that ends up betraying you!”

Is this inner teenager the one who keeps Walker interested in extreme metal or has the band instead become an occupation, a means to an income? “Carcass is what we do best and we enjoy doing it,” he says.

Walker doesn’t want anyone to be under the illusion that the band is mucking around. The passion is definitely back and as far as he’s concerned, Carcass MkII is serious business.

“We’re not going through the motions, me and Bill. For example, when we started this tour, we were playing for an hour. By the end, we were playing 1.5 hours a night because we kept adding stuff to the set,” he declares, acknowledging that the energy in the

17

cover story band is not dissimilar to how it was in the early days. “I think Bill has gone full circle back to when we were teenagers, and I’m the same. I guess it’s like a bizarre mid-life crisis, you know. “ Carcass is in an enviable position. By tasting commercial success in three separate decades, the band in the company of only a small number of acts who have first-hand knowledge of not only what the industry was like for extreme bands back then – ‘80s and ‘90s – but what it’s like for bands on today’s internet-saturated playing field.

Surprisingly however, Walker doesn’t see much difference.

“For Carcass, it’s the same as its always been.

We never sold millions of albums – we’re selling the same amount of albums now as we did back in the day – so, for us, it’s business as usual,” he says.

In fact Walker says much of the doom and gloom about the state of the industry is not necessarily substantiated by facts, and that bands need to stop complaining about CD sales and just get on with being bands.

“All this whinging from bands that people aren’t buying CDs, well, I was looking at [Nielsen’s music-sales tracking service] Soundscan and can tell you that there are still bands who sell shitloads of albums,” he says. “They may not necessarily be bands I like but they’re definitely there, selling albums.”

Walker suggests bands who aren’t selling might need to look inwards for the reason, rather than outwards: “A lot of bands complaining are the ones who’ve been around for the past 25-30 years and maybe they’re just a bit long in the tooth, you know. Carcass is lucky because we had a break and we managed to come back and impress people. If this [Surgical Steel] was our 15th album, maybe the audience would’ve drifted away by now.”

So the scene isn’t in tatters as some would have us believe?

“I don’t have as pessimistic an outlook as that.

I hear a lot of whinging from a lot of bands. All I can say is that I’m quite happy how everything’s going for Carcass. We never set out to be Metallica; we’re happy maintaining the level that we’re at.

I never wanted to be famous. I never wanted to be rich. As long as I’ve got enough money in my pocket for beer, I’m happy.”

Nevertheless, the band must’ve had a decent

return on their Surgical Steel investment.

“My parents always told me it was rude to discuss money. If I told you, I would look like a c**t,” he laughs before telling me anyway. “OK, we got close to a quarter of a million dollars all in [from Surgical Steel]; it’s nothing to retire on but our lawyer was quite impressed.”

It’s no secret that Walker isn’t a big fan of what’s happening musically in modern metal.

Hell, the Surgical Steel track ‘Noncompliance To ASTM F 899-12 Standard’ directly targets the creative bankruptcy of extreme metal bands today, labelling them “dulled, blunted, low tensile dearth metal”, “melodists of soullessness” and “purveyors of rottenness”.

Walker makes a point of calling out bands who rip off old-school bands with this corker of a lyric: “Germinated spores are sown, plagiarised as your own, but it’s you we’ve outgrown; stillborn at birth.”

“I want to be genuinely excited again, but it’s few and far between,” Walker told Steel For Brains recently. “Don’t get me wrong. There are a few bands once in a while but all the nu-metal stuff, it’s like for fuck’s sake – give me a break. Why the hell would you be interested in that stuff, you know? We’re not listening to the stuff that’s come out since our demise and getting off on it.”

There’s hope, however; Walker does believe that good music will come back around again.

“Music moves in circles and death metal has been around for 30-plus years now so it’s not a new music genre. I think what’s out there isn’t that interesting to me because I remember the older bands. I also think Carcass [still] fits into the gap because we’ve influenced a lot of new bands.”

On the topic of bands they’ve influenced, including the imitators who’ve tried to spin off Carcass’ genre-defining sound, Walker is dismissive: “How many fucking grind bands does the world need?,” he said in a recent interview.

“It’s like there’s hundreds and hundreds. C’mon, guys, does the world need five hundred fucking grind bands trying to be Napalm Death? Napalm Death still exist!”

Reminded of these words, he sums up his thoughts: “No one does Carcass as well as Carcass.”

Amen to that. H

Same, same but different.

It’s great to have Carcass back, but there are some conspicuous absentees from the band’s classic line-up.

The Carcass sound has returned but something is missing. Past members Michael Amott and Ken Owen don’t play guitar and drums respectively on Surgical Steel.

Owen suffered a cerebral haemorrhage in 1999, three years after Carcass disbanded. He did emerge to play a brief drum solo for fans at the Danish Metal Awards in November 2008 but Carcass founder and guitarist Bill Steer told Trash Hits TV in that Owen just wasn’t physically capable of drumming for Carcass.

“He’s in great shape considering what he’s been through but, in terms of him playing drums in that way, it’s more or less out of the question ,” Steer said in September 2013. Still considered integral to the band, Owen recorded backing vocals on the record, appearing on ‘Unfit For Human Consumption’.

“Just the fact that he’s got this far is a miracle,” Steer continued, adding, “It definitely meant a lot to have him on the record.”

The absence of Michael Amott from the line-up seems to have more to do with scheduling issues. Reports said the Arch Enemy founding guitarist, whose Ferrari-red locks have made him a crowd favourite over the years, was indeed rehearsing with Carcass in 2007 in preparation for a string of reunion shows.

The shows didn’t happen and when the time came around to record the album some five years later, Amott simply missed the boat, according to vocalist and bassist Jeff Walker.

“Michael was never interested in doing a new Carcass album,” Walker says, “and it wasn’t until me and Bill were working on one that he wanted to be part of it but it was too late; by then, there was basically no room.”

Might there ever be a chance that ex-drummer Ken Owen could do some song writing for the band again? “He does write music – electronic stuff. We’d love it if he came up with some music for us but the stuff he’s doing doesn’t translate into heavy metal at all.”

Walker isn’t even sure if Owen would be interested, saying, “Ken’s life has moved on, you know. Me and Bill are the ones who are stuck in a rut, still doing what we were doing 20 years ago!”

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10 19

fin d y o u r ORIGIN

‘Expulsion of Fury’ Live @YouTube

Words: Tennille Secomb

Origin: Revel in the presence

Death metal titans Origin are wrapping up their Australian tour and preparing to release their sixth album Omnipresent. Vocalist Jason Keyser chats with Tennille Secomb about what it takes to chase the musician’s dream.

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here’s so much complexity and precision demonstrated throughout Origin’s discography that it would be easy for one to believe that the way they create music is just as tightly structured. According to Jason Keyser, however, this isn’t always the case.

“I was warned previously by our drummer John [Longstreth] that the writing and recording process was the most stressful, hairpulling process ever,” he laughs. “Everybody puts all this pressure on each other because they’re bad at communicating, and everything gets done at the last minute, yet he told me to persevere because that’s how the magic happens.

“I went in terrified, expecting stuff to be thrown and people yelling at each other but it was apparently the smoothest that any Origin CD has ever been recorded.

Everything was on time, people were amiable – we were shocked!”

Origin’s two previous albums, Antithesis (2008) and Entity (2011), were landmarks in the band’s career, placing them in a prominent position on the contemporary death metal map and helping to fortify their status as masters of both brutality and technicality. Keyser says, regarding the songs on Omnipresent, that he didn’t stray too far lyrically from Origin’s usual sci-fi-esque misanthropy but that the music on the new album is a little different to what they’ve produced previously.

“Paul [Ryan] the guitar player who wrote the songs definitely went to a different end of the spectrum this time as far as the style,” Keyser explains. “It’s not all rapid-fire, Originstyle machine gunning; we go from a straight-up blast beat at light speed to absolute zero sludge parts with black metal in there somewhere, as well as old school death grind – we’re definitely touching a lot of bases and I don’t wanna scare anybody but people are either going to love it or they’re going to hate it.”

Keyser joined Origin in 2011 after spending time fronting quite a few bands in the surrounding New York scene. From within the potent death metal populous, Keyser ruminates on what it takes to keep your head above water at a time when the scene is threatened with oversaturation.

“I don’t think there’s such a thing as too many bands,” he says, “but it’s definitely a different playing field now with the technology we have available. The internet has really brought a double-edged sword – I’m old enough to remember cassette trading and stuff like that, but I know people who have never known a period of time where they couldn’t just have what they want at their fingertips.”

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While it may be absurd today for some people to imagine not being able to freely stream and download music, Keyser insists that the process of hunting for music in record stores and zines, as opposed to torrent sites and file-sharing blogs, afforded a different gratification to the digital free-for-all we are currently experiencing.

“When I was younger, there was a certain amount of effort you had to put in just to be exposed to something that wasn’t mainstream,” Keyser explains. “To get an album in the mail, hold a CD in your hand and know that not that many other people have it... well, there’s a certain sense of pride in that, and it goes hand in hand with creating music too, because it’s so easy now bands just spring up and then disappear within the course of a few years time.

“There’s a different level of pride taken in the scene nowadays, but maybe I’m just pontificating like a cranky old man,” Keyser laughs, and then adds with some reluctance, “At the same time, I haven’t brought a CD in a long time either though I guess.”

It’s not really a secret that there’s less money circulating around the death metal economy than in past decades, and that trying to make a living off the current industry model is seemingly futile, so what are Keyser’s estimations of actual ‘success’ in the extreme music realm?

“The number ones and twos – the Metallicas and bands like that – will always be fine but the bands a little bit below that are going to start to topple because their record labels demand them to sell 400,000 records and they only sell 300,000 – there’s just an insane imbalance.

We sell 1,000 CDs in our first week, which we think is great, but it’s not the same for bigger bands like Machine Head,” Keyser says, referencing Machine Head singer Robb Flynn’s recent gripe about record sales.

“It’s just a matter of how rockstar you wanna be about it. We aren’t the biggest band in the world and we all need jobs in the meantime...

except me,” he laughs. “I eat a lot of ramen noodles!”

In the end, Keyser concludes that there’s really only one reason to get into the death metal business: “You’ve gotta consider where this kind of music was 10 – 15 years ago when Dying Fetus were out touring constantly, playing from show to show. It’s never been about money, and it shouldn’t be about money.

Keeping the scene alive is about touring bands and playing live shows.

Fans want to be a part of it, to see it and shake the hand of the person that gives them the feeling they get when they listen to your music.”

Origin drummer John Longstreth recently announced he was leaving Canadian heavyweights Gorguts to focus on Origin’s busy schedule around the release of Omnipresent but that doesn’t mean Longstreth is stopping all of his projects. Keyser reveals that the pair are still taking the time to tinker with a side project of their own.

“It’s a project called Crator,” he says. “It’s pretty top secret but we’re working to release this in concurrence with the instructional DVD that John is doing. One of the perks of the Indiegogo campaign is getting exclusive EPs from the band that have already been recorded.”

As Origin wind up their tour Down Under on the last run of their Entity (2011) album cycle, Keyser confirms Australian fans will be among the first to experience tracks from Omnipresent live.

“You guys being in the future time zone, it’s only fitting that you get to hear these songs before anybody else because you’re like, 12 hours into the future – you should be picking out my lottery numbers,” he laughs.

I don’t know about us all being fortune tellers but it certainly doesn’t take a crystal ball to know that the outlook for the month ahead is grey and ominous with an onslaught of brutal death metal expected. H

Wounds of war Words: Tennille Secomb

“It’s never been about money, and it shouldn’t be about money. Keeping the scene alive is about touring bands and playing live shows.”

In December last year, Origin were playing a sold out show at the Cobra Lounge in Chicago when vocalist Jason Keyser accidentally dislocated one of his fingers mid-song. The incident went viral when photos and videos showed the finger dangling at a horrifyingly perpendicular angle, before Keyser casually snapped the bone back into place.

“It happened really early in the set and I knew that if I didn’t do something, it would be way worse afterwards and I’d have to go to the hospital, so I just decided to do a little frontier medicine [I thought that was only for The Avalanches – Ed.] and pop it back into place,” Keyser says. “It was cool because the roar of the crowd at the time was way louder than the music we were playing.”

F**king metal! sna p yo ur fi ng er

Watch it here... if you dare

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fa c e t h e k iller

‘Wings of Feather and Wax’ and ‘Face Down’ @YouTube

Words: Will Oakeshott Photo: Glen La Ferman

A collaboration between members of Soulfly, Mastodon, Mars Volta and The Dillinger Escape Plan seems the stuff of fantasy but it’s happening right now. Metal god Max Cavalera speaks with Will Oakeshott about metal’s newest supergroup.

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merican art historian Bernard Berenson once said, “Genius is the capacity for productive reaction against one’s training.” It’s a heavy way of saying that the measure of a genius is how well he can perform when faced with unfamiliar environments.

Such a situation is occurring in the supergroup Killer Be Killed where members of four of rock and metal’s biggest acts have left the comfort of their regular bands to come together to write, record and release an album of new material.

Killer Be Killed features Soulfly and ex-Sepultura front man Max Cavalera on guitar and vocals, The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato on guitar and vocals, Mastodon’s Troy Sanders on bass and vocals and The Mars Volta’s Dave Elitch on drums – four seasoned veterans who have combined their talents to create music they hope is fresh and unique, uninfluenced by the styles that made them all famous.

Discussing the self-titled album, Cavalera says the project has definitely succeeded in pulling him in an entirely new direction.

“The record as a whole is a pretty varied mix of heavy metal music – some thrash, some hardcore and some sludge metal parts – but it has a lot of melody too,” he says. “I think that’s what differs us from all the other bands out there: our use of melody. It is definitely the most melodic thing I have been involved with in my whole life, which was a bit of a challenge to write heavy riffs but also add in melody that I had never really used before.”

According to Cavalera, the songwriting process was about freeing each member from his respective comfort zone, something that could only occur once they threw out the rulebook.

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“The coolest thing about writing this with the other guys is that we had no expectations or rules; we did what we wanted,” he explains. “We wanted a powerful record, something different to what any of us had done before, and there was a lot of talent in the one room, you know.

We are each from established bands with a lot to offer and we achieved exactly what we set out to do. Personally, this is one of the coolest projects I have ever done. I am very proud of it. In ten years I will still be talking about Killer Be Killed.”

It is impossible to ignore the résumés in the room for they are as extensive as any in the metal scene today. In fact, the decision to bring together not only members from other bands but three lead vocalists has had a strong impact on shaping the eclectic and diverse sound of Killer Be Killed. There are hardcore leanings on the song ‘Fire To Your Flag’, doom metal influences on ‘Dust Into Darkness’ and thrash metal drive on ‘Face Down’, and such a mish-mash of genres can seem confusing at first. Ultimately, however, the end result of this unlikely amalgamation is quite the spectacle and immensely engaging. Even critics will have to admit that the record is undeniably “one of a kind” and the question arises: Given the personalities involved, were there obstacles to overcome? Character collisions perhaps?

“It’s a good question but it wasn’t something we ever had a problem with,” Cavalera says. “It [Killer Be Killed] started with just Greg and myself and then Dave added drums to what we had. Troy joined a bit later in the process and we wrote even more, plus we added a new angle to some of what we had already written. Honestly though, we just shared everything.

To put it simply, all ideas were on the table, Cavalera continues: “This was a band approach and not just a project. We shared and switched lyrics with each other and sometimes we would be writing riffs and we would point out who should sing on top of that part. Or Greg would have really liked one part and asked to sing in that section, which we were really happy to let him do. Troy probably sings the most, but that is because he has an incredible voice.”

Removing all the barriers to collaboration gave the sessions a certain organic vibe. “When we were jamming, the songs just came so naturally that whoever had a role on whatever part was almost decided for us by the music itself. The songs sound and feel like they have been rehearsed for a long time, maybe months or years, but they really haven’t been at all; it’s just what came out in the studio,” Cavalera says, adding that responses have been positive. “So far people have been liking it a lot, which is cool to discover because it is different to what any of us have done before.”

One wonders how difficult it was for the guys to even find the time to break away from their respective bands to write an album, let alone record one. Were the demands of their main bands detrimental to the project at all?

“It has been quite a journey, especially with our schedules and how many times we had to break up the momentum, Cavalera admits. “I think it helped though to keep coming back to Killer Be Killed when we were interrupted. We had time to dwell on ideas or bring in something fresh, and it just got better and better each time we returned to it. It was an unbelievable experience watching this [Killer Be Killed] develop from its primitive stages and punk rock beginnings into a band with a great record.”

The plan is now in place to record the quartet’s first video, which will be for lead song ‘Wings Of Feather And Wax’. Considering the array of excellent videos the lads have all created with their main bands, coming up with something cool shouldn’t be too much of a problem and Cavalera is more than happy to discuss the video’s artistic direction.

“We are doing some final preparations for the Killer Be Killed video for the song ‘Wings Of Feather And Wax’,” he says. “We are a band featuring members of The Dillinger Escape Plan and Mastodon who have always had really extraordinary film clips to their songs, so we are definitely looking to having both performance and a small feature tale to match the lyrical topic of the song, which revolves around the infamous Greek myth of Icarus. We might look into some computer animation to represent that side of the story as well as us performing in a studio or in some kind of abandoned room.”

Besides the variety present on Killer Be Killed, one of the more notable highlights throughout the album’s eleven tracks is the ferocious energy, which has been captured perfectly by producer Josh Wilbur (Lamb Of God, Gojira). The record sounds like it will translate perfectly into a live situation, and so the question is whether this four-piece will hit the road to support the album, and whether Australia will be one of the countries on the itinerary.

“It’s going to be amazing live and I am really itching to take Killer Be

Killed out and perform it around the world,” Cavalera says. “The music has a lot of energy and if anybody has ever seen The Dillinger Escape Plan live, well, they know that Greg is absolutely nuts onstage. Troy and myself are more instrument-focussed but we have been performing live for many years now. We love doing it and know how to put on a show.”

Clashing commitments are sure to present significant challenges to the band’s touring aspirations in coming years but Cavalera feels confident he can get Killer Be Killed onto Aussie shores: “We really want to try and properly tour with this, probably next year because we all have our own commitments with our main bands obviously. Hopefully in 2015 we can do a world tour of some sort for the album and we would definitely come to Australia with it; it’s very high on our list.”

For now, fans will just have to be content with the album, which shouldn’t be too difficult. H

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sta rt pl an n i n g

Wacken 2014 Festival Trailer @YouTube

Wacken

Words: Tennille Secomb & Nick Lord Photo: courtesy of Wacken Open Air

THE Mecca of metal

Germany’s renowned Wacken festival is the stuff of heavy metal dreams and an annual pilgrimage for headbangers from all over the world. Tennille Secomb and Nick Lord preview Earth’s largest open air metal festival on the cusp of its 25th birthday.

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ailed as one of the most important events on the annual metal calendar, Wacken has established itself over the past quarter of a century by presenting diverse bills of black, death, power, thrash, goth and folk metal.

Born on the farming fields of northern Germany in 1990, Wacken began as a small event for local German bands but it wasn’t long until it grew to became a major European festival. Over a few pints one night, Holger Hübner and Thomas Jensen conceived the idea for an outdoor metal party in Jensen’s hometown of Wacken, a small town in the village of Schleswig-Holstein, with little idea of the legacy they were creating.

The first Wacken festival, comprising a six-band bill headlined

by Skyline, took place on August 24-25 and attracted a crowd of just 800 people; however, as news of the festival spread rapidly by word of mouth, attendance figures grew exponentially each year. Reflecting the event’s popularity, the line-up swelled to include the most prominent names in the national and international metal hall of fame, such as Slayer, Immortal, Cannibal Corpse, Dimmu Borgir, Morbid Angel and Kreator, just to name a sliver of acts who to have participated at Wacken since its inception.

Shoot forward 25 years and Wacken today boasts a bill of some 70 bands playing to a crowd in excess of 75, 000 people. By all counts, Wacken is simply one of the biggest institutions in metal.

A good indication of the festival’s popularity and prevalence in the global scene is the event’s unique system for ticket sales. So revered is the festival’s reputation that tickets go on sale a full year in advance, either

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online or at the current festival, before the full line-up has even been revealed! A small handful of bands are announced at the time of ticket sales but the majority of the line-up is disclosed teasingly throughout the year. A highlight of the announcements is December’s Advent calendar tradition, in which organisers announce one to two bands each day of Advent until Christmas arrives.

Reflecting the significance of this year’s milestone event, sales for the 2014 festival have been record breaking. With just a fraction of the line-up revealed, including Emperor, Behemoth, King Diamond and Iced Earth, Wacken sold out for the ninth year in a row, smashing previous years when tickets were snapped up in under 48 hours.

History will again be made in August when Wacken becomes the site of the largest denim battle-jacket convergence in the world when the festival celebrates its 25th birthday. Joining the party is Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Bring Me the Horizon, Carcass, Children of Bodom, Decapitated, The Devin Townsend Project, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Megadeth, Motörhead, Sodom, Steel Panther, W.A.S.P and just so many more top-level bands.

Much of what has cultivated Wacken’s fabled status is the exceptional organisation of the event that sets the bar for world-class festivals. So much more than just ‘bands on stages’, Wacken operates at a level of professionalism that far outweighs the majority of its contemporaries – the schedule is always on time; the sound set-up is near flawless despite a vast number of stages; the camping arrangements are proficient; and, there are more attractions than you can raise your horns at.

What’s more, the Wacken community is active all year round. With

thriving forums, a battle of the bands contest, various fan competitions, sideshow tours and countless ‘warm-up parties’ that begin as early as March, there’s barely time to finish licking your wounds from the last festival before it’s time to don your beer hat and most exclusive band tee and do it all again.

Aside from losing yourself in the moshpit of your favourite bands in the largest metal crowd in the world, Wacken offers festival-goers a range of other interesting experiences. The Wackinger Village is a two-acre medieval zone within the festival that showcases different highlights daily of the feudal life, such as weapon shows, Viking and knight fights, juggling and music.

Another must-see at Wacken is the volunteer fire-fighter’s band, who traditionally open the festival every year. Wacken also hosts an

Wacken Open Air 2014: Essential information When: 31.07.14 – 02.08.2014 Where: Wacken, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

Cost: �150 Line-up: A Pale Horse Named Death, Amon Amarth, Apocalyptica and Avanti! Orchestra, Arch Enemy, August Burns Red, Behemoth, Bring Me the Horizon, Carcass, Children of Bodom, Chthonic, Crematory, Decapitated, Devin Townsend Project, Dunkelshön, Earth Divide, Emperor, Excrementory Grindfuckers, Five Finger Death Punch, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hammerfall, Hatebreed, Heaven Shall Burn, Hellyeah, Iced Earth, King Diamond, Kreator, Megadeth, Motörhead, Prong, Skid Row, Sodom, Steel Panther, The Ocean, W.A.S.P. + 30 more.

Travel: Once you’ve secured your festival ticket, the next thing you need to lock in is your flight. Going to a travel agent is easy but doing it alone can be cheaper, and you’ll need to decide if you’re going to fly straight into Germany or make use of the cheap international travel within Europe. The closest airport to W:O:A is Hamburg.

From there, you can catch a ride to the festival site on the Metaltravel bus for around €�19.

annual Soccer Cup, has an outdoor movie theatre, a market, a plaza, a bunch of bars and food areas, and a meet and greet tent, just to name some of the attractions.

Wishing you had a ticket now?

The 2014 festival is entirely sold out so your only chance of attending Wacken is by registering for the online ticket exchange, which is organised directly through the festival. Each ticket is personalised to keep scalping at bay and sold at cover price, though the purchaser does pay a transfer fee of �15 ($A23) to have the ticket reissued in a new name.

But never fear, metalheads. If you can’t make it to Wacken this year, just start saving for 2015 because each year is bigger, louder and of more epically-drunken proportions than the last.

Hail Wacken. Hails. H If you’ve been adventuring in surrounding countries, you can now hop aboard one of Wacken’s two Metal Trains – Swabia and Bavaria – which leave from Stuttgart and Munich respectively and deliver you straight to the grassy doorstep of your campsite. Needless to say, a journey like this is akin to riding a satanic rollercoaster and is the perfect way to kick off your Wacken experience. No matter where you are in Europe, there are a bunch of coaches, shuttles and trains that Wacken provide, and directions from all locations are given on their website.

Accommodation: Camping and parking is included in the ticket price and the Wacken website itself offers a range of tents, campervans and cabins for hire. If you don’t want to stay on site – why the hell wouldn’t you? – there are plenty of surrounding hotels that you can hire for a few nights, but book early because this tiny town almost disappears under the blackened crowds streaming in over the course of the three days and the chances of getting something last minute are non-existent. (An interesting side note: this festival actually helps the town flourish throughout the rest of the year. The locals have even been known to come out on the streets to offer festival-goers the chance to use a clean shower and toilet for a small fee.) In 2013, Wacken also introduced the MS Wacken, a giant, Dethklok-esque hotel boat... if that’s what floats yours. If you think three days in a campsite with 75,000 metalheads seems like a long, sleepless, muddy, intoxicated bloodbath, you’re right! But it’s worth noting that the camping-hire services are particularly well-equipped due to Europe’s prolific range of festivals.

Some hiring companies even go to the trouble of pitching your tent for you just so your drunken ass doesn’t have to worry about sticking your tent peg in the wrong hole [Heyoooo – Ed.]. Besides, part of the experience is the 3am karaoke renditions of ‘Master of Puppets’ with your arms slung around the necks of your new Teutonic BFF.

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Words: Karl Lean Photo: Ryan Garrison

this time it’s personal Swedish power metal veterans Sabaton are heading back to the frontline in May with

new album Heroes. Like their previous releases, the lyrical content will again deal with warfare but this time the album tells stories of conflict on a much more personal scale.

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for me,” he explains. “I’m not a warmonger or about glorifying it; I’m mostly hugely interested by the human side of things. It’s not how many bullets were fired, but rather why bullets were fired at all. People think everything is black and white and it certainly isn’t in life, and especially not in warfare.”

This belief that war is really shades of grey runs through the entire album. For example, the idea that one’s actions are more important than the uniform one wears is at the core of album closer ‘Hearts of Iron’, which tells the tale of German general Walther Wenck during the final weeks of World War II. “His [Wenck’s] orders were to drive the Soviets out of Berlin but he told his fellow officers, ‘This is not about the Reich. This is not about Berlin; this is about the people’,” Brodén says. “What he did then was not a battle but rather a humanitarian operation.

They drove a spearhead into the heart of Berlin – he made a corridor from Berlin to the river Elbe, where the Americans were, so the German civilians could

chose not to mention the war, it would be a strange kind of World War II album,” he says with more than a touch of sarcasm. “We are just telling a story. No one would ask Steven Spielberg if he’s a Nazi when he did Shindler’s List, but if we tell a story about World War II, we must be Nazis. We’ve had that thrown at us, but it’s usually easily shot down. Still, we were banned from playing a show in Russia that was the anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad because some local politicians thought we were Nazis.”

Heroes is the first album to feature Sabaton’s ‘new’ line-up, after four members departed suddenly in March 2012 after previous album Carolus Rex. The situation placed an extra burden on Brodén’s shoulders when he started writing Heroes, one that he struggled with at first.

“When I started writing the album, I stopped and threw a lot of it away because basically I didn’t deem it good enough,” he explains.

“My biggest fear actually was that people would say ‘Old Sabaton was better’ and blame the new members. I didn’t want to give people that impression when it was never their [the new members’] fault at all.”

The new faces have brought new life to the band, along with some unexpected benefits. “We went to Studio Abyss, like we did for Carolus Rex, and the guitarists did all the guitars, including overdubs and solos, in four days,” Brodén exclaims, adding, “I wasn’t prepared for that because I hadn’t finished with the lyrics yet!”

It’s a good problem to have and just one example of what Brodén describes as an overwhelming positive change for the band.

“I’m thoroughly enjoying it,” he declares. “Honestly, I haven’t had this much fun doing heavy metal in maybe 10 years. It’s not a rebirth; it’s a time machine going back, because now everyone wants to play music all the time and be on the road, so it’s been a blessing in that sense.”

With a fresh line up and an album that tells tales of war at a more human level than ever before, Sabaton are ready for the fight once more. H

l ate s t re l ea s e

his isn’t the first time Sabaton have chosen to take a closer view of warfare. The track ‘White Death’ from 2010’s Coat of Arms deals with the topic of the 1940 Winter War between Finland and Russia through the story of one man, Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä.

“It’s still military history, but it was actually quite interesting to focus on individual things, or very small units, instead of singing about the big picture for once,” songwriter and vocalist Joakim Brodén says.

“It is a bit tougher to get the lyrics to match the music when you are dealing with individual fate on a more personal level. On the other hand once you get them to fit together you get an emotional connection with the song that you wouldn’t with half a million people dying at the same time.”

To place this new lyrical perspective into a framework for the new album, each track on Heroes tells the story of, yep, a different hero. For Brodén, the whole idea is to look beyond the nationalism of war to instead explore the actions of individuals, irrespective of race.

“That’s really what has been the most fascinating thing about war

surrender to the American side rather than the Soviets. Thanks to him about a quarter of a million people lived. So a German general is the hero ending the album.”

There’s also a strong Australian connection to the new album – the story of Victorian corporal Leslie ‘Bull’ Allen is told on ‘The Ballad of Bull’. Allen was awarded the US Silver Star for his actions at Mount Tambu, New Guinea in 1943.

“One of the most fantastic stories on the album according to me,” Brodén declares. “The Australians and Americans had been overrun on Mount Tambu; there are snipers and machine guns everywhere. Allen realised there were wounded men still up the mountain so he goes up and comes back with an American on his shoulders. And again. And again. Every time he comes down, he has a wounded American on his shoulders and bullet holes in his uniform. Twelve men he saved that day, one by one. It’s very cool that he’s a hero that probably didn’t even carry a gun.”

Despite being very clear that their lyrics are about telling war stories, and not about selling the politics behind war, Brodén admits it’s a constant challenge to make others understand this. History is written by the winners, and talking – or singing – about ‘the wrong side’ can attract criticism.

“We’ve been thinking about that, and we’ve decided not to care about it,” he laughs. “It wasn’t to try and be cool and be rebels because as soon as we do that, we are making a political statement. As soon as we start censoring or choosing not to tell something because ’they’ might get upset then we have lost the whole idea, which is to tell human stories, not to tell people what to do.”

Sabaton’s determinedness to sing about both sides of the conflict in World War II has exposed the band to accusations that the band are Nazi sympathisers and the band has had to take steps to address perceptions – Sabaton videos contain no images of Hitler and no swastikas.

It’s a balance that Brodén finds slightly confusing. “I guess if we

“No one would ask Steven Spielberg if he’s a Nazi when he did Shindler’s List, but if we tell a story about World War II, we must be Nazis.

We’ve had that thrown at us, but it’s usually easily shot down.”

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Heroes

by Sabaton Words: Karl Lean With album seven, Sabaton once again deliver a quick fire slice of Scandinavian power metal. This is ten tracks in 37 minutes, loaded with simple yet punchy riffs and epic, chanted choruses. From the opening strains of ‘Night Witches’ to the final fading chorus of ‘Hearts of Iron’, there’s plenty on offer.

Any lingering doubts that the new line up could stand up to the previous one are laid to rest on ‘Resist and Bite’. Short, yet well constructed, this track brings it all together and is the perfect example of the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

New guitarists Chris Rörland and Thobbe Englund deliver the goods and give the album a sharp, clean edge.

Solos are focused and seem to sit ‘in’ the tracks, rather than dominating the mix. Joakim Brodén’s vocals remain the defining characteristic of the band’s sound though, and he’s in fine form once again.

This is quality over quantity and Sabaton is all the better for it. p r epa r e fo r WAR

‘The Story of Heroes’ @YouTube

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u n l e as h y o u r i n n e r r o cks tar

‘Love Tyger’ @YouTube

Words Carl Neumann Photo Alex Kuehr

Since the dawn of rock there have been those who do the unusual, the risky and the overwhelmingly loud. KISS masqueraded in painted masks, Alice Cooper took onstage theatrics to new levels and Queen changed everything by playing heavy licks under operatic vocals. Edguy are no different.

N

o matter which genre of rock or metal you examine, you will see artists flamboyantly rocking out and strutting their stuff while fans worldwide adore them as fantasy heroes.

Edguy are no different, and this is clearly demonstrated in their latest single and film clip, ‘Love Tyger’ from their recent release Space Police: Defenders of the Crown.

It’s full of life, it’s full of the ‘80s Los Angeles-style of cheekiness, and it’s very nicely polished with clear guitar harmonics and vocal harmonies. The clip is far from serious but not goofy enough to not be taken seriously, as front man and songwriter Tobbias Sammet explains.

“A lot of people accuse us of being goofy on purpose, which is not true. We take music very seriously,” he asserts. “It’s just entertainment and entertainment begins with entertaining yourself. We are spontaneous and we are not trying to pretend that we are miserable. We just let things happen, not only on stage, but in the studio as well.

“You can play serious music with a tongue-in-cheek attitude.

That’s the reason we have been around for 22 years. If we were to take everything dead seriously, we wouldn’t have lasted.”

Sammet goes on to explain that ‘Do Me Like a Caveman’ is also a serious song.

“The only thing a bit goofy is the main catch phrase, and that one phrase turns the whole song into something absurd... but the song itself is a real serious track,” he assures.

While talking with Sammet, it’s plain to see where he stands with his artistic approach to music and to life. He’s vibrantly young yet has a profound sense of wisdom about living life to the fullest, about doing what he feels is right and not what others tell him.

“It’s nice to be able to do whatever you like and feel and get away with it,” he explains, “and making [music] with a quality that nobody doubts is serious. That’s what Edguy has always been about.

“All my favourite bands that I started to listen to when I was a kid were Van Halen, Queen, Twisted Sister and AC/DC. AC/DC would play serious music but they were singing songs like ‘Whole Lot of Rosie’ and ‘Big Balls’ and they had a guitar player that was a grown-up man jumping around on stage in a school boy’s uniform, showing his naked ass to his audience.”

Just like their flamboyant predecessor, Edguy proves that rock music can be tongue-in-cheek without people doubting the dexterity of the talent, the pervasiveness of the energy and the attitude of the band.

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After all, it’s just entertainment and it doesn’t need to make sense all the time. As David Lee Roth once put it: “You don’t find a lot of reasonable people on the crest of a high mountain.”

Sammet agrees: “We have bravado, and I think that is the ultimate key to heavy metal. It means having the balls to do things that other people would question or not do.”

This is the essence of ‘Space Police’. The song is about what an aspiring heavy metal musician experiences and the desire to live outside the rules by exploring forms of self expression and identity.

“You just want to be yourself,” Sammet explains. “You just want to live out your creativity and be yourself: an artist, a rocker and an outlaw.

That’s why you become a musician instead of a banker.

“Three or four albums into your career you realise there are a lot of so-called ‘Space Police Officers’ who want to give you good advice or demand you to follow the rules they come up with. Even in heavy metal a lot of people think they know what is or isn’t good for the band. Be it record labels or journalists, even some of the old fans, people want to tell you what the rules are in a field where there should be no rules.”

Sammet goes on to explain that the artwork of Space Police represents one such rule they were trying to break.

“It yells at the viewer just like the music, which is very flashy and needs attention, and I think the cover artwork grants that attention,” he says. “We didn’t want to go with something stereotype that would look pale in the record store next to all those bloody gore metal skull covers.

We wanted to have something just as flashy and flamboyant as we are. It has balls and reflects bravado and it’s very tongue-in-cheek.”

Edguy have travelled to Australian shores several times and have always pulled a hefty crowd. Excitingly, Sammet confidently stated that Edguy will be back in early 2015 as the band get ready for the Space Police World Tour that kicks off in Sweden in August.

“The next tour we are going on will have a big stage again, like on the Hellfire tour, but whenever we play in Australia we play small clubs without our stage production. I am sorry for that,” he apologises, adding, “At least we bring ourselves!

“A lot of what we do is based on word of mouth. It’s how things plough through, no matter if you have a giant mainstream marketing machine behind you or not. I think this album will do its job just by word of mouth, and I feel comfortable with that.” H

Dressing Room Delights

by Carl Neumann

“We have bravado, and I think that is the ultimate key to heavy metal. It means having the balls to do things that other people would question or not do.”

Contained on the 2014 release Space Police: Defenders of the Crown is a cover of ‘Rock Me Armadeus’ by ‘80s Austrian artist Johann Hölzel, better known by his stage name Falco.

‘Rock me Armadeus’ went to number one on the US Billboard charts, which was rare for German-speaking artists.

Tobias Sammet says Edguy decided to cover the song as a tribute to the pop rock musician.

“We quite often play Falco before we go on stage in the dressing room.

We are all huge fans of Falco, so we thought we had to do a cover version of him.”

ROCK OUT TO FA LCO

‘Rock Me Armadeus’ @YouTube

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Zdzisław Beksiński 1929 – 2005 Words: Tennille Secomb

Words Tennille Secomb Photos Tarrant Yelds

Following their recent appearance at Jakarta’s Hammersonic fest, Brisbane heavyweights Disentomb chat to Tennille Secomb about the brutal death metal scene in Indonesia and the release of their new album Misery.

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ustralian brutal death metal is a relatively niche scene that was pioneered by bands like Sadistik Execution and Armoured Angel more than two decades ago. While the genre remains firmly rooted in the Australian underground, contemporary bands like Disentomb seem to be finding more success internationally in countries such as Indonesia than at home.

“There is an insane brutal death metal scene in Indonesia,” Disentomb vocalist Jordan Philp says. “It’s not even underground there; it’s actually huge throughout all the villages.”

The Hammersonic festival in Jakarta is the band’s first appearance in Indonesia but Disentomb’s reputation precedes them and they have already established a strong fan base among the country’s many death metal enthusiasts. Philp says Indonesia accounts for a significant portion of the band’s merchandise orders, explaining that their following was largely cultivated through social media and licensing shirt designs to local vendors.

“We’ve seen other brutal death metal bands have a lot of success over there, like Disgorge and Condemned, so we thought we would try to do a similar sort of thing,” Philp says. “We make contact with [fans] on Facebook and just chat to them, send out free things sometimes and it’s paid off because it seems like our name has exploded over there.”

The vast size of Indonesia immediately differentiates their BDM scene from our own. While the immense population not only affords bands the opportunity to play to considerably larger crowds, Philp says the country is also producing a mass of untapped death metal genius.

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“Their brutal death metal is good – it’s uncompromising and a lot of it should be much bigger than it is – but because it’s from a country that can be considered ‘third world’, it doesn’t get out there as much,” Philp asserts.

The larger network of active bands has brought the genre to the forefront of the music scene in Indonesia, while Philp believes brutal death metal is only beginning to hit its stride in Australia.

“The Australian BDM scene is still in its early stages,” he says. “It’s only in the last five or so years that there has been a scene where bands have been getting along, chatting to each other and hooking up shows together, so we have a long way to go in comparison.”

Disentomb have played a large number of momentous gigs since their formation in 2009. Of particular note was their 2011 appearance at Switzerland’s Mountains of Death Fest with Decapitated, Wormed, Defeated Sanity and To Violently Vomit; their UK tour with Cerebral Bore; and their 2012 Australian national tour with Cannibal Corpse.

Touring life is expensive and Australia’s isolated location makes overseas gigs even harder, so was it always an intention to capitalise on overseas markets?

“We’ve always wanted to take Disentomb as far as we could,” Philp says. “Personally I’ve never wanted to be a guy in a band that is content to just play locally. I want to play to bigger crowds and meet new people, and I want to play with as many bands as I can. We all have that drive in us that has led us overseas because you’re limited with what you can do in Australia.”

The bleak and often nightmarish paintings of renowned Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński provided much of the inspiration for Disentomb’s new album Misery. As famous in life as in death, Beksiński passed away in February 2005 after he was brutally and repeatedly stabbed in the head and chest by 19 year-old Robert Kupiec, the teenage son of his long time caretaker, and Kupiec’s 16 yearold cousin Lukasz.

The two boys had gone to Beksiński’s house to borrow the equivalent of about $100. The painter refused and was found dead in his apartment the following day.

Beksiński’s fantasy-realism paintings positioned him as a leading figure in contemporary Polish art and his legacy has seen the establishment of an eponymous museum in his hometown of Sanok and even the instalment of the Beksiński Cross at the legendary Burning Man festival in Nevada.

G e t e mb al me d

‘Purity Severed by the Antidiluvian’ @Reverbnation

Juggling work and music can be hard but the boys all hold down full-time jobs to financially support the band and fund their own tours: Philp is a recently-promoted newspaper editor; Henri Sison [drums] is a radiographer; Jake Wilkes [guitar] works a factory-labouring job; and Jim Parker [bass] works in the mines in Perth.

“People think that we’re making a bit of money off [touring] because we play overseas but it’s completely the opposite,” Philp says. “We fund our tours off our own backs; no one else is going to pay for us to do it. It does create financial struggles but we use our holidays to tour so we are pretty lucky to have a good setup.

“We do get some sort of payback from shows, but you really do it for the love of it and not for the money,” he adds.

Disentomb have plenty of gigs and tours booked for 2014, including a trip down south for Melbourne’s Living Death Fest in August and a tour with what Philp clandestinely describes as “the biggest bands in their respective genres”. The band are planning to hit as many locations across the nation as possible to promote their sophomore album Misery.

Misery is set for release via US label New Standard Elite (NSE), which is renowned for signing brutal, underground death metal bands like Gorgasm, Cerebral Effusion and Aussies Seminal Embalmment.

“We signed to NSE in April last year after jumping off another label, Brutal Bands, because the guy was just running it into the ground,” Philp says. “Every single release on NSE is just complete brutality so we thought they were the right fit, and it was a great choice because they’ve been really supportive of us releasing this album.”

“When we went across to the UK, people were just going insane at every show... jumping off the stage, getting really f**cked up and breaking their bones.”

Recorded by Adam Merker at Studio Anders Debeerz just north of Brisbane, Philp believes the production on Misery takes Disentomb’s heaviness to a new level.

“With the first [album], the production was pretty poor because we just recorded it in our jam space but, with this one, we’ve gone to a proper studio and taken the time to make it perfect,” Philp says. “Everyone is going to be able to hear things that Disentomb do but haven’t been able to hear in previous releases, like the intricacy of the guitar. What we’ve tried to do is capture the live performance, which is our strong point.”

Misery was written over a four-year period in which songs were re-worked again and again until the band were content. The artwork, created by New Zealand artist Nick Keller back in 2012, was released in February this year along with the album’s track listing.

The cover is striking and is inspired by the surrealistic, gothic paintings of Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński. Keller intended to represent the aural ‘misery’ contained within the album’s music in visual form. “[The music] has taken a darker turn,” Philp says. “We’ve mixed some doom elements in there and a lot of slam. Everything is composed a whole lot better – it’s still brutal and 95 per cent of it is still blasting but everything is just ten times better. This is the album we have always wanted to make and we can’t wait to put it out there.”

Excitingly, Philp reveals there will be several guest vocalists on the album including Trevor Strnad from Black Dahlia Murder, Konstantin Lühring from Defeated Sanity and Steve Tucker of Morbid Angel fame. Philp takes the time to divulge the band’s collective love for Morbid Angel, with whom they recently played at Hammersonic, and reminisces about listening to the band in the back shed with guitarist Wilkes when they were just 12 and 13 years of age.

“It’s awesome to have three guest vocalists and it’s especially awesome because Steve Tucker sang on Formulas Fatal to the Flesh (1998) and that was the first death metal album I ever bought, so there’s a bit of sentimental value to have him on it,” Philp says.

As the final touches are put on the album, Disentomb are preparing for the onslaught of tours they know are on the horizon. Challenging audiences to take it to the next level, Philp says the one thing Australian fans could take from international crowds is a lesson in brutality.

“When we went across to the UK people were just going insane at every show. People in Australia can be much more reserved, standing at the back with their arms folded, and that’s fair enough if that’s how you enjoy your music but it was awesome to see that, in the UK, people were jumping off the stage, getting really f**ked up and breaking their bones,” he laughs.

So when Disentomb tear through your local scene this year, don’t be afraid. Step up and hurl yourself into the fury of one of Australia’s most brutal death metal bands. H

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Taberah

Words: Nathan Eden Photo: Ricky Pfeiffer

Words: Josh Voce Photo: Callum Broom

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point, but Boris the Blade are insistent they will keep touring, even hinting at parts of Asia.

Bands touring Australia generally stick to the main cities, often only getting around to the East Coast; however, Boris the Blade are making it their business to include dates in slightly more unorthodox destinations like the small towns of Leederville and Swan Hill.

They choose rural shows in less populated areas mainly so that they can unlock the all ages crowd – country kids thirsty for bands to come visit. It’s a formula that has worked for the band since releasing their EP The Tide of Damnation in 2011.

Back then, Boris the Blade undertook several tours to promote the release, hitting everything from large stages in inner-city Sydney to tiny gigs in Orange and other even smaller rural towns. Sharpy recommends teaming up with local bands when touring inland in Australia, adding that local supports are what make the show worthwhile.

To coincide with the release of The Human Hive, Boris the Blade have released a music video for the song ‘Desolation’. The video encapsulates the band’s intimidating live performance, interwoven with the story of a backpacker who brutally overcomes his deranged attackers in a classic revenge-themed horror formula. An uncut version of the video has already been banned in a number of countries with Boris The Blade having to upload the video on different service providers for fans that are unable to view the video.

Boris the Blade will be returning to Europe and America following their second Australian tour for this year. As the band prepare for the rest of their busy year, the best way for fans to stay updated with their sporadic movements is via their highly active Facebook page. H

Deathcore Melbourne www.boristheblade.net

l ate s t re l ea s e

Australian bands are garnering attention from all corners of the globe, and Boris the Blade is no exception to the rule. It’s astonishing to see a band rise so rapidly with only two official releases, the second of which having just been released through UK label Siege of Amida.

Boris the Blade’s debut full length, The Human Hive, only just came out (May 2014) but the Melbourne quintet already have a legion of fans behind them eagerly anticipating their first set of shows overseas. When a band has such a massive following with an incredibly small amount of songs, it begs the question, how did they do it?

The answer lies not with gimmicky tactics or viral infections across the internet, but with some good old fashioned live shows and constant touring. Vocalist Daniel ‘Sharpy’ Sharp believes their live performances are what have captivated crowds, telling HEAVY that the band strives for an intimidating stage presence that inspires everyone in the crowd to get angry and have a good time.

Indeed, having an exhilarating and heart palpitating live show can certainly gain attention from fans and media alike, with UK label Siege Of Amida now taking Boris the Blade under their wings and giving the band a leg up. With even more shows lined up overseas, a European tour is bound to see exponential growth in the band’s fan base.

The band are taking the same explosive enthusiasm they display on stage to their busy international tour schedule, as Boris the Blade kangaroo-hop back and forth between different continents. Kicking things off with an Australian tour, the band then head over to Europe for three weeks then back to Australia for a second tour, then back to Europe, then to the US, then to... well, it all gets a little hazy around this

The Human Hive

by Boris the Blade Words: Josh Voce

Bible. Not a religious decision by any stretch of the imagination, the name ‘Taberah’ just looks good in logo form and has three syllables so it works well as a crowd chant. [Shit, they’re right! Ta-Ber-Ah! Ta-Ber-ah! - Ed.] Brockman and fellow founder Jonathon Barwick (guitar/vocals) have been hearing the “Ta-Be-Rah!” chant quite a bit of late, along with Myles Flood (guitar/vocals) and Dr. Dave Walsh (bass/vocals), who may or may not hold an actual doctorate. Both Walsh and Flood were poached from other promising Tasmanian bands: Flood came from Vulgar who recorded an unreleased album with Lord Tim (LORD/ Dungeon) and Doctor Walsh from the awesomelynamed Solar Thorn.

Curiously, the band are musically diverse in terms of their influences and subsequent output of sound.

The Taberah line-up also performs under the name of “Johnny B and The Goodes”, a ‘50s and ‘60s rhythm and blues band that can be found rocking the pubs around Tasmania on a regular basis. Think Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Beatles and Elvis played through louder amps.

Brockman’s attitude towards his art is not to take it too seriously. The band insist upon enjoying their music and hope their audience have as much fun listening as Taberah do playing. Whether you’re working or studying during the week, weekends are all about “that good old-fashioned, good time remedy they call rock’n’roll” [Thanks Angry Anderson - Ed.].

The drummer sums up the sentiments of how his band exists to enjoy and hopefully entertain people when he says, “Metal isn’t as serious as people make it out to be. Loosen the f**k up and get your scones out.” Get your scones out indeed. H

Heavy metal Hobart www.facebook.com/taberah.tas

l ate s t re l ea s e

Boris The Blade

From 2006 onwards, Taberah have made the leap from sixteen year-olds playing the pubs of Hobart to sharing the stage with Motörhead. The band was handpicked by the man himself, Lemmy Kilmeister, to open on the Sydney leg of Motörhead’s 2011 tour.

Taberah’s influences are immediately obvious and their tunes are anything but subtle, which is not a bad thing. Classic heavy metal riffs coupled with soaring traditional, occasional group vocals will see you sitting on the train or queuing at the supermarket singing, “I will not rest in peace until you lay in your tomb, there is no escape; I am your doom!”

It’s as catchy and fun as it is musically accomplished. After signing a management deal with German based promotion company Rock n Growl in 2012, the band released second album Necromancer worldwide via Dust On The Tracks Records in 2013.

The album is seriously good, an opinion that has been reflected in many positive critical reviews. It also hit No. 1 in Germany on the Amazon rock/metal genre within 24 hours of its release!

Necromancer follows three self-releases: demo Exordium (2006); a live EP called LIVE...ish (2009); and the band’s first full length, The Light of Which I Dream, which was recorded, mixed and mastered by Joe Haley (Psycroptic).

Taberah’s live performance reveals a beast whose movements hint of Queen and The Darkness. Its eyes glow red with Dio-era Sabbathness and when it roars the listener hears the voice of Iron Maiden. While its heart may be pure and true AC/DC and Thin Lizzy, beware, for when the beast is angry its intensity is as aggressive as early-Metallica or Motörhead.

Drummer and founding member, Tom Brockman, explains the band’s name was sourced from the

Necromancer

by Taberah Words: Nathan Eden

Shut your eyes listening to Necromancer and you could be Delorianed back to the ‘80s when soaring vocals and group chants acted as graffiti over walls of classic metal riffs. The only difference is there exists a modern tinge of intensity that lifts Taberah above most other bands of a similar style.

These guys from the Apple Isle might be tongue-in-cheek but their musicianship is serious; their second full-length is flamboyant and full of balls. ‘Burning In The Moonlight’ is a piece of work whose artist paints with a brush still wet with Maiden paint but makes furious strokes in vain of the first four Metallica albums.

There’s light in ballads such as ‘Don’t Say You’ll Love Me Forever’ but as with classic metal albums of such magnitude, it’s in the darkness where Necromancer shines.

Whilst Boris don’t really stray from the familiar blueprint created by peers such as The Red Shore and Thy Art Is Murder, they present it with an immense ferocity that rivals the competition, and it’s not hard to see why fans of the genre have taken such a liking to the deathcore quintet. Not every band has to be re-inventing the wheel musically, and that’s not what this album is about. Tracks like ‘Spawn Of Agony’ offer a bludgeoning of death metal-style riffing before escalating into an absolute frenzy that eventually makes its way to the all-important breakdown. While it may not gain fans outside the realm of brutal deathcore, The Human Hive will certainly appeal to the demographic it is targeting.

meet boris

‘Mortal Procession’ @YouTube

ch e ck e m o u t

‘Burning In The Moonlight’ @YouTube

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Darker Half

Words: Patrick Warnes Photo: Cat’o’nine Tails

Words: David Griffiths Photo: Terry Soo

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and Rammstein.

While they might bring the power on stage, where Electric Horse really light up has been in the studio.

The band quickly set tongues wagging with the arrival of their Translations EP in 2011 and reviewers were all over the underground EP with many claiming this was Australia’s new super-group.

Instead of letting the high praise go to their heads, the boys from Electric Horse concentrated on a heavy gig load before sitting down in 2012 to write the tracks that would eventually end up on their first full-length album, Venomous.

The band kept the work on Venomous very local.

Instead of heading to Europe or the United States they stayed on the Gold Coast and, as with the Translations EP, headed to Loose Stones Studios, which was originally set up by Luke Attrill and his father Gary. After laying down all of the drum tracks at Loose Stones, the rest of the work was completed in Dog Jackman’s home studio. The album was even mixed by a local, Brisbane-based Bernie Wedrat.

The local flavour whet the appetite of the Australian crowd, and the band were once again reeling in stellar reviews.

Since Venomous dropped, Electric Horse have been touring heavily. Among their appearances at Bigsound Live and El Grande, the band have also headlined their own tour. Currently galloping through another year, now is the time to get in the saddle of this Electric Horse. And if you don’t like it, the band have some advice: “Go check out someone else’s music and discover some rad new shit,” they say. “Music is free and doesn’t discriminate; get amongst it!”

Hear, hear! H

Hard rock Gold Coast www.electrichorse.com.au

l ate s t re l ea s e

When Electric Horse released their Venomous album in 2013 it had music journalists once again raising that old chestnut, ‘is it heavy metal or hard rock?’ In the end the answer was irrelevant because the result of 12 months’ hard work was one of the most underrated albums of the year. In the bands eyes, however, they’re just playing good ol’ fashioned rock music.

Hailing from Australia’s own paradise on earth, the Gold Coast, Electric Horse have really started to make a name for themselves in the national music scene. The band formed in 2009 when a group of talented young musicians came together, sharing a love for the kind of music they would teach at the Keith Richard’s Rock School – if ever such a cool place existed. The band matured quickly due to the fact that all of its members had extensive experience in other bands. Luke Attrill (guitars) and Cory Absell (bass) had previously been in King Mungi together, while Scott ‘Dog’ Jackman (guitars) was originally with Melbourne band Black Seed. Just to keep it in the family, Attrill, Jackman and original Electric Horse bass guitarist Stewie Williams had also previously been members of Lump together. Then of course there’s also Dan Brown (drums) and his brother Jason (vocals) who were once part of the very popular Sunk Loto.

Four years on from their formation and Electric Horse have established themselves as one of the country’s favourite acts. Demand for the band has seen them share the stage with the likes of Grinspoon, Shihad, Cog, Karnivool, Floating Me, Birds Of Tokyo and Dead Letter Circus as well as being part of the 2011 Gold Coast Big Day Out with Deftones, Iggy Pop

Venomous

by Electric Horse Words: David Griffiths

Darker Half’s first release was demo Rush (2003), then EP Enough is Enough (2006). The band went from a melodic death-metal-meets-power-metal sound to a more refined melodic power/thrash sound that reveals the influence of traditional bands such as Iron Maiden.

Simpson is capable of bellowing high notes that hit the roof and brutal gutturals, best showcased on tracks like ‘Holocaust’ from Duality (2009), while brother Dom, who was originally one of the guitarists, is super-tight on the drum kit as well.

Studio efforts are one thing but a truly superior band should be able to exert a good live performance as well, and Darker Half’s live sound is certainly on par with their recordings. Their live performance is shaped by blistering energy and an accurate recreation of their well-crafted releases.

The calibre of Darker Half’s live show has been proven so far with the band holding their own during heavyweight support slots for Nightwish, Children of Bodom, Queensrÿche and Stratovarious. They also appeared at Screamfest at the Enmore Theatre alongside Edguy and Sonata Arctica.

In terms of the future, Darker Half are preparing for the release of their next album Never Surrender.

Recorded at Def Wolf Studios in Redfern, Sydney the album was engineered by Matt Grave, mixed by Dave Hammer and mastered by Tony Lindgren at Fascination St. Studios in Sweden. The band are also making an international appearance, travelling to the USA for the Warriors Of Metal Fest VII. As fans get psyched for a new Darker Half album, one thing they can count on is that Never Surrender will espouse the band’s infectious energy that says heavy metal without the doom and gloom.

Hey, at the end of the day, it’s all still rock’n’roll. H

Power/thrash metal Sydney www.darkerhalf.com

l ate s t re l ea s e

Electric Horse

Darker Half are a rising melodic metal band who have been busy leaving their mark on the Australian metal scene. Touring with big-name bands like Children of Bodom and Queensrÿche has helped solidify the Sydney band’s reputation since their inception in 2003. Now on the verge of releasing a new album called Never Surrender, things are geared in an upward direction for this hardworking group.

Darker Half have always been a very interesting band, managing to transcend the saturated market of power metal and thrash acts to become a high flier in the Australian metal scene. The band have tinkered with their sound since their initial releases and the most noticeable change has been the dropping of early death metal vocals in favour of more traditional metal influences.

Darker Half not only possess a studio sound that is quite remarkable for such a young band but they have an equally impressive live sound characterised by relentless energy and accuracy towards their playing.

Through their unique guitar wizardry they’ll remind you of acts like In Flames and Kreator as opposed to Manowar and Sonata Arctica.

Darker Half show that the bridge between European metal and Aussie metal is quite small. Consequently they’ve managed to establish themselves as one of the genre’s top acts.

Vocalist Steven ‘Vo’ Simpson was inspired by the sounds he discovered on a mix tape featuring Iron Maiden, Metallica and Judas Priest. He promptly founded Darker Half during high school with his brother Dom on drums, and the band has had many members through the years. Later, Darker Half recruited Simon Hamilton on bass and Brad Dickinson on guitar to form the current line-up, stable since 2009.

Desensitized

by Darker Half Words: Patrick Warnes

Desensitized marks the abandonment of the death metal aspect of Darker Half’s music, but that doesn’t mean the music doesn’t still kick ass as the album is full of uniquely awesome guitar riffs. After a brief intro, Darker Half kick off the album with one of its strongest songs, ‘Lost in Space’, an almost seven minute epic that blasts through several awesome riffs and harmonies, coupled with a performance highlighting the talents of each member. The ensuing songs follow a similar formula, with the odd progressive element chucked in every now and then. With plenty of room to stretch their wings and grow, Darker Half are definitely heading down the right track with this album.

fi nd yo ur d a r k er ha lf

‘Lost in Space’ @Facebook

Just like their underground EP from two years earlier Venomous was easily one of the most under-rated albums of 2013. Musically it drifts between the sounds we have come to know from bands like The Butterfly Effect and the riffs off leading grunge/rock bands of the ‘90s. What really stands out on the album is the fusion of genres, with some tracks purring along with the slight aggression of The Foo Fighters while others contain a full-on punk attack. The one thing the listener can count on with Venomous, however, is not a single moment of boredom.

mount the horse

‘Light It Up’ @YouTube

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“The show has gone from strength to strength, not only interviewing some of the biggest bands on the planet but also, more importantly, broadcasting a good portion of Aussie talent”

The Aussie

Words: Mitch Booth Photo: Silk Imagery

Airwave Assault

stations now also stream their broadcasts online and the listener has a huge amount of choice out there.

Take Melbourne’s PBS (106.7FM) as a prime example. Gary Carson and Peter Fundeis have been hosting Screaming Symphony for almost 15 years, dedicating their Thursday nights to everything power and prog.

Not only do they play the finest new releases but also some of the worst [That’s certainly why I tune in – Ed.], as well as interviews, a gig guide and reviews. Screaming Symphony is comprehensive, specialist music radio at its finest. Moving to Friday nights, there’s Metal Genesis and Burning Bitumen, the former focusing on heavy metal classics and the latter on black, death and thrash metal. Through The Collapse on Tuesday nights is the place to go for the less-straightforward end of the metal spectrum, never shy to play ten-minute sludge or post-black metal tracks, while Fret Net is all about guitar-work with everything from Pink Floyd to Animals As Leaders. There’s also Shock Treatment and Sunglasses After Dark covering punk and garage. Oh, and Pojama People, where you’ll hear all sorts of stoner rock, psychedelic material, post-rock and occasional drone. In every single one of those shows, listeners will find more local material being played than they knew existed, and that’s only one station.

Still in Victoria, Triple R (102.7FM) has Musically Incorrect, where you’ll hear everything from Judas Priest to Sanguinary Misanthropia, as well as Teenage Hate for the punk and hardcore fans. Heading deeper into community radio, Chris, James and Roger bring intensity and comedy to The Heavy Session on 3CR (855AM), 3Syn FM (90.7FM) has metal night every Thursday, Gippsland FM (104.7FM) has The Black Arts on Wednesday nights, Casey FM (97.7 FM) has Infernal Noize on Monday nights, and the list goes on.

In New South Wales, 2RRR (88.5FM) goes heavy all Monday night with the triple threat of Punk and Hardcore, Monday Night Metal and

The Dead End getting progressively heavier as the clock ticks. The Annex on Blu FM (89.1 FM, up in the Blue Mountains) plays all of the latest new releases and touring bands, and The Sound of Metal over on SWR is perfect for a Saturday arvo dose of classic heavy metal.

Up in Queensland, The Doom Hippy and The Metal Maiden on 4ZZZ (102.1FM) play an enormous amount of local music with a focus on the Brisbane and Gold Coast scenes.

Some of the most un-radio-friendly radio actually comes out of Western Australia, with Behind The Mirror and Critical Mass on RTR FM (92.1FM). Behind The Mirror delves into the darkest depths of music, covering black metal, power electronics, neofolk and dark ambient.

Critical Mass, on the other hand, played Anaal Nathrakh, Coffins and Mammoth Grinder on a recent show.

There once was an age where it was near impossible to listen to, or even discover, these stations outside of Wangaratta, Nimbin or wherever else they broadcast, but now they’re as accessible as any of the radio big guns – most stream directly through their websites and keep podcasts recorded for weeks afterwards. There’s also a tonne of alternative options via digital radio and various apps, and that’s without even getting into online-only shows like Andrew Haug’s post-Racket endeavour, andrewhaug.com.

Some will say that radio is becoming extinct with the rise of streaming services like Spotify. At the same time, there is more music than ever being released, which is exactly where the hosts who carefully program these playlists add value to the listening experience.

As a bit of a generalisation, metal fans are the type of people who will go that little bit further to discover new bands, whether by reading online blogs or scouring Encyclopaedia Metallum. Put the same amount of effort into finding and supporting Australian radio shows and watch the specialist stations grow stronger with each new listener. H

Those who say there’s nothing good on radio anymore aren’t searching deeply enough.

With just one turn of the dial, listeners can unlock a whole world of wild wireless wickedness.

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sk anybody to name an Australian radio show that plays metal and 99 times out of 100 they’ll say, “The Racket”, which isn’t any surprise given its history. The Triple-J show started back in 1990 as Three Hours of Power, hosted by Helen Razer and Francis Leach. Costa Zouliou took to the mic for a few years in the late nineties before Andrew Haug made a name for himself hosting the rebranded Full Metal Racket for over a decade.

With new-ish host Lochlan Watt in the chair – he was appointed in 2012 – the show has gone from strength to strength, not only interviewing some of the biggest bands on the planet but also, more importantly, broadcasting a good portion of Aussie talent to the masses; however The Racket ain’t the only show in town.

Also on Triple J is the long-running Short.Fast.Loud, on which Stu Harvey showcases the hardcore and punk side of life. Over on Triple M, after a few petitions and some immense listener support, popular

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daytime presenter and HEAVY mag contributor Dave ‘Higgo’ Higgins got his weekly metal show Distortion up and airing in the three eastern states.

Outside of those few hours though, where does one go for heavy metal radio? There seems to be an almost constant flow of metal fans criticising commercial stations for only playing bland pop music and pimpin’ hip hop, but that right there is what makes them commercial stations. Just as you wouldn’t walk into a Sanity music store expecting to find an original cassette version of Ulver’s Vargnatt demo, you can’t flick on NovaFM expecting to hear exciting, forward-thinking music, and that’s where community and specialty radio stations step in.

Throw aside the unfortunate stigma of community stations playing outdated folk music by some band nobody has ever heard, because it’s simply not the case anymore. Australia has one of the most vibrant radio cultures anywhere in the world. Combine that with the fact that most

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Dial in for death Tune into any of the shows listed here to support radio that matters.

Sundays The Doom Hippy and The Metal Maiden (metal) 8pm-10pm, 4ZZZ 102.1fm (QLD) Powersurge (metal) 8pm-10pm, 3DDD 93.7fm (SA) Mondays Defenders of the Metal Faith (classic metal) 1pm-3pm, 2RDJ 88.1fm (NSW) Punk and Hardcore (punk and hardcore) 6pm-7pm, 2RRR 88.5fm (NSW) Monday Night Metal (metal) 7pm-10pm, 2RRR 88.5fm (NSW) Punk Show (punk and hardcore) 8pm-10pm, 4ZZZ 102.1fm (QLD) Geology (rock and metal) 8pm-11pm, Tune! 106.9fm (Armidale) Infernal Noize (metal) 9pm-10pm, Casey 97.7fm (Vic) Metal Shavings (metal) 9pm-10pm, Heritage 107.3fm (WA) The Dead End (underground metal) 10pm-11pm, 2RRR 88.5fm (NSW) Dead Air (metal, punk and hardcore) 11pm-1am, FBI 94.5fm (NSW) Tuesdays Anarchy On Air (metal) 8pm-10pm, Twin Cities 89.7fm (WA)

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Kallawatts (rock and heavy metal) 10pm-12am, Edge 99.3fm (Tas)

Burn The Airwaves (punk) 10pm-12am, RTR 92.1fm (WA)

The Racket (metal) 10pm-1am, Triple J (national)

Teenage Hate (punk, garage and hardcore) 12am-2am, RRR 102.7fm (Vic)

Musically Incorrect (classic metal) 12am-2am, RRR 102.7fm (Vic)

Fridays Heavy Metal (heavy metal) 8pm-10pm, Oak 101.3fm (Wangaratta)

Wednesdays The Black Arts (metal) 9pm-10:30pm, Gippsland 104.7fm (Vic)

Earache My Eye (metal) 8pm-10pm, NIN 102.3fm (Nimbin/Lismore)

Critical Mass (extreme metal) 9pm-11pm, RTR 92.1fm (WA)

Metal Genesis (glam and classic metal) 10pm-12am, PBS 106.7fm (Vic)

The Annex (metal) 10pm-12am, Blu 89.1fm (Blue Mountains)

Hallowed Sounds (goth and industrial) 10pm-12am, Edge 99.3fm (Tas)

Short Fast Loud (punk and hardcore) 10pm-1am, Triple J (national)

The Heavy Session (metal) 11pm-1am, 3CR 855am (Vic)

Behind The Mirror (black metal) 11pm-1am, RTR 92.1fm (WA)

Saturdays The Sound of Metal (classic metal) 4pm-6pm, SWR 99.9fm (NSW)

Through The Collapse (extreme metal) 12am-1am, PBS 106.7fm (Vic) Thursdays Moshpit (metal and hardcore) 8pm-10pm, Syn 90.7fm (Vic)

Distortion (metal) 11pm-1am, Triple M (Mel, Syd, Bris) Burning Bitumen (rock and metal) 12am-2am, PBS 106.7fm (Vic)

Loud Noises (metal) 10pm-11pm, Syn 90.7fm (Vic) Screaming Symphony (prog and power metal) 10pm-12am, PBS 106.7fm (Vic)

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cr o s s i n g o v e r

‘Abduction’ @YouTube

would come home with nothing but then we’d get royalty cheques, which DRI’s iconic ‘skankin’ man’ logo has nowadays would never happen. Even become synonymous with metal heads with downloads and stuff, it’s not that and punks everywhere and is just as much – you get cheques in the mail for recognisable as Venom’s goat head 15 cents! I had a record company call or Black Flag’s four bars. Whether it’s patches on jackets, stickers on guitar me up and say ‘We’re just checking cases or bands paying homage to the on you ‘coz you never cashed that last logo by altering in some way, Brecht cheque’ and I said ‘You mean the one is nothing but flattered about the for seven cents?’ and they said ‘Yeah, popularity of the image.

“I’ve seen one where he’s on we just wanted to make sure we sent it crutches, one where he’s on a to the right address.’ That was probably skateboard, one where he’s on for 10,000 downloads.” rollerskates,” he says. “There’s Armed with a good sense of one that’s a girl with a dress and a ponytail, all kinds of funny and humour, DRI’s legacy will definitely different variations. Ours is just a see the band written in history as one variation of a walking sign. The funny of the original thrash bands. For a thing is that the band didn’t care to while, they were even considered one use that as our logo. We were starting our own record label, Dirty Rotten of the fastest bands on the planet, if Records, and we put our first 7” out. not the fastest.

We just had it as a record company “We all liked fast music but we logo on the back cover and it wasn’t started playing slow and then just until we did Crossover years later that we decided on it as the logo for sped it up and tried to keep it as fast the band.” as we could but still keep it tight,” It must feel like an honour to know Brecht remembers. “We all seemed something you have created has kind of good at it so it clicked. People become so influential.

“It surprises me how many bands had heard about us because we were say they were influenced by DRI,” together for quite a long time before Brecht continues. “Dave Grohl when we ever played our first gig. Other he was starting out; he talks about it people would say that we were totally all the time and that’s like the biggest honour really, that other bands like ready to play live and that we were you and are influenced by you and really tight. They thought we were respect you.” better than what we thought we were.

We weren’t really prepared to actually get out there and play a gig until other people told us to go for it.”

DRI’s abrasive style thrust into the faces of all those in attendance would have been the perfect fly-on-the-wall moment. In the early ‘80s,

Words: Damo Musclecar

Words Damo Musclecar Photo Colin Davis

Thanks to the 1983 debut full-length Dirty Rotten LP, Houston’s DRI have become a household name with metal fans and thrash aficionados. Back in the early ‘80s, however, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles weren’t so openly accepted. DRI front man Kurt Brecht sits down with Damo Musclecar to tell the whole sordid story.

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s a band, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (DRI) achieved the unthinkable, cramming quick bursts of punk, hardcore and metal together in chaotically short songs. It was unheard of in 1980 that a band could squeeze three verses, three choruses and possibly a guitar lead break into 23 seconds of music. In fact, it would still be another year or two before this insanely brash style of hardcore would become accepted and that the band who coined the term ‘crossover’ would be finally accepted as contenders in the world of thrash metal.

Calling from his home in Houston, DRI’s vocalist Kurt Brecht is fired up for his Australian tour, their first shows down under since 1987.

It’s been a long time between drinks but Brecht sounds thrilled to finally return to the land Down Under.

“The first show we ever got to play in Australia was shut down before we even got to play,” Brecht recalls. “All I remember is that I came out selling shirts and someone said ‘OK, it’s over. Everyone has to get out!

There’s fighting outside and people throwing bottles.’ So the cops shut it all down and that was it.”

The cancellation wasn’t the only bizarre happening on that tour.

“When the promoters picked us up from the airport, they took us to a hotel by the beach in Sydney and left us there for like three days before the first gig, I guess to get over the jetlag,” Brecht says. “We were all staying in one room. We had bunk beds and there were five or six

42

of those because we had roadies too. Our drummer had fallen asleep smoking a cigarette in bed above me and his bed was on fire. I woke up screaming ‘Dude, you’re bed’s on fire!’ He still had a beer in his hand and he just poured it into the hole that was burning down into the mattress and then just went back to sleep.”

Welcome to Australia!

The band did go on to play a handful of blistering shows around the country and escape without further incident. Today, after 30 years of playing hardcore and thrash metal, the band aren’t showing any signs of retiring anytime soon. Their relentless approach to touring has meant they’ve been able to (somewhat) make a living off playing across the globe without releasing any new recorded material – Full Speed Ahead, the last DRI studio album, came out in October 1995. “Bands need to go out and tour like the old fashioned ways and that’s why we are set,” Brecht says of DRI’s touring lifestyle. “We’ve been doing it for so long that we know the most economical way possible to do it and still sound decent. That’ll be our legacy someday, I think. We used to come home with nothing, a lot of great memories and that was it.”

Playing live is a means of survival for DRI who, without new material, can no longer rely on revenue from recording royalties.

“You want to make a business out of it so you can make enough money to come home and survive,” Brecht explains. “In the old days we

the bold move to be so fast surely would have had some ramifications.

“At our very first gig I was just really nervous standing on stage. The band just started playing and I jumped into the audience where I felt more comfortable,” Brecht says. “I guess I didn’t want everybody looking at me so I just jumped out there and eventually came back on stage when it was time to start singing.”

It wasn’t long before the shyness wore off: “I eventually got over that.

When we did our first tour around the United States, people would just stand there and stare and watch us play because they had never seen anything like it before. Then they’d get the record and the next time we came back, they were ready and everything was different.”

In 1987, the band underwent one of the biggest changes in the combined genres of hardcore and metal when they ‘crossed over’, mixing both styles together to create a more unique sound.

Brecht says the move cost them some of their diehard fans who appreciated their shorter, faster songs.

“We never really thought we were the fastest band but people started telling us that. I remember having talks with Spike and saying ‘Do you really want to stay as the fastest band? And then there’s all these bands trying to play faster than you?’ He wasn’t interested in it and neither was I. We started adding more variety so that we could play the fast songs but we could also play other stuff too.”

It was almost as if DRI had to earn their stripes again playing to a whole new audience.

“We caught a lot of flak for it [crossing over],” Brecht says. “Punk rockers threatening us over it and saying things like they’ll never accept us back again. It was really strange and pissed off the punk rock purists. They didn’t like that we were using metal elements in hardcore, especially in Europe.”

Brecht says much of the flak had to do with the notion that hardcore was a rebellion against commercial metal in the first place, so adding metal back in seemed counter-intuitive.

“You gotta figure that hardcore came out of commercial metal.

There was all this commercial metal and then there were people who hated that music. They looked different, their bands sounded different, everything about it was different. They wanted to hang out with other people like themselves so, if all of a sudden these commercial metal people start coming to the shows, of course the punk purists are gonna

three decades of dri... and counting 1982 The band forms as Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (DRI). Members are Spike Cassidy (guitar), Kurt Brecht (vocals), Eric Brecht (drums) and Dennis Johnson (bass); DRI releases the Dirty Rotten EP, with 22 songs in 18 minutes; 1983 The band presses a 12” LP version called Dirty Rotten LP and relocates to San Francisco. Dennis Johnson is replaced with Sebastian Amok, who is soon replaced with Josh Pappe; The Violent Pacification EP follows in 1984.

1984 Felix Griffin replaces Eric Brecht on drums; 1985 DRI releases second full-length album Dealing With It. Josh Pappe takes a break from the band and is temporarily replaced by Mikey Offender; 1987 DRI releases third album Crossover, marking DRI’s progression into thrash; 1988 DRI releases fourth album Four of a Kind, continuing with their metal crossover; Josh Pappe leaves for good. His replacement is John Menor; 1989 DRI releases fifth album Thrash Zone; Felix Griffin leaves the band and Rob Rampy takes his place on drums; 1992 DRI release sixth album Definition; 1994 John Menor leaves the band. He is replaced with Chumley Porter; 1995 DRI release seventh album Full Speed Ahead; 1999 Chumley Porter is replaced with Harald Oimoen; 2006 Spike Cassidy is diagnosed with colon cancer. He is pronounced cancer-free in August 2008 and returns to the stage; 2010 Beer City Records reissues DRI’s first four releases on vinyl; 2012 DRI celebrates their 30th anniversary; 2014 DRI arrives in Australia ready to kick some ass.

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be pissed off. ‘This is our music! Get out of here!’ That’s how it was for a while until some of the hardcore people started liking some of the metal bands.”

Brecht believes early thrash pioneers did much to bridge the gap between metal and punk.

“I remember the day somebody told me ‘Have you heard of Slayer or Venom? They play real fast and there was stage diving and a pit!’ and I was just like ‘What? For a metal band?’ It was really surprising and then I checked it out and it was all true,” he says. “A few years later, we were signed to the same label as Slayer and playing shows with them!”

To think of DRI and Slayer sharing a stage may surprise people even today when they compare the early works of both bands but Slayer’s link to punk hardcore has been well documented, especially with Undisputed Attitude, the band’s 1996 release of punk and hardcore covers.

Brecht remains thankful for the opportunity that the godfathers of thrash metal gave DRI. “It probably helped that the guys from Slayer were wearing our shirts in a lot of their photoshoots. I think it warmed people up to the idea that we were something cool and people seemed to like it. Spike was playing a lot of metal stuff and blues-oriented leads – very un-punk stuff, but it was fast and people seemed to dig it.”

DRI’s love of touring is still the key to the band’s ongoing success.

“There was a time when we would play 300 shows in one year but nowadays we would play something like 60. We take it pretty easy. It’s almost like a part-time job compared to what it used to be like – we were touring constantly to promote an album and, as we don’t have a new one, we’re not touring around trying to promote it as much as possible.”

Brecht says all members of the band just love getting out on the road.

“We just love to travel. If you look at our itinerary it looks like somebody just going around the world on luxury cruises and stuff,” he

adds. “We go to Indonesia, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, all over Europe, Brazil, Peru, and Mexico – we go all over the place. We get to the bigger cities in the USA every year. We don’t get to Australia too often but, in 2012, we were in Europe four times within 12 months. We would go there and people would say to us ‘You didn’t play Greece and Slovakia’ so we go back there and play those places.”

What about pushing up into the metal heartland of the northern European nations? “We still haven’t gotten up to Scandinavia yet. Maybe we’re not death metal enough,” Brecht says.

As for new recordings, DRI recently recorded two new songs and made them available online. Brecht likens the tracks to a cheap demo recording but says more recording is on the horizon. “Those songs are killer and have some of the best lyrics I’ve ever written,” he says. “It would be great if we could write a whole album like that. It’d be very hardcore.

Spike told me to be prepared to record at least three songs in the studio of Bill Metoyer the next time we play in LA. [He’s] the same guy who used to record us for Metal Blade. He was the vice president of the label for a while and also was the engineer for Slayer’s first few albums and bands like The Mentors and all that Metal Blade stuff. He pretty much engineered them all, including a lot of our stuff like Crossover, Four Of A Kind and Thrashzone. He’s got his own studio now and so it looks like we will eventually end up recording some stuff.”

Brecht is just keen to record and says any release doesn’t need to be an album right off the bat: “It’d be nice to even just put out a 7” vinyl.

Something to get us over until the full length comes out.”

A long awaited return to the studio for DRI would be welcomed by fans everywhere. There seems to be no stopping DRI at this rate and for that, we can only be thankful. It’s also why these guys are HEAVY legends.

DRI’s releases are available through Beer City Records. H

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10 45

Tony Hawk Series The Tony Hawk series of skateboarding games, which began with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in the late ‘90s, has always been renowned for its music. Its soundtracks are traditionally more on the punkier side of the heavy music spectrum, but with the inclusion of hundreds of songs spanning the fourteen games currently in the series, there’s plenty of good ol’ head banging to be had.

The series features music from Iron Maiden, Papa Roach, Mastodon, Metallica, Lamb of God, Entombed, At The Gates and more. Even Australia’s own Voltera have had songs featured in Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground and Tony Hawk’s Project 8. If you’re not into playing the game and wasting hours mastering flat land tricks while skating around in search of the letters S, K, A,T and E, you can still enjoy the music, thanks to some enthusiastic sole who has compiled a Spotify playlist of over 450 songs from the series.

Rating: 4 out of 5 burst eardrums; getting nice and heavy.

Madden NFL Series The Madden NFL series of American football video games has been around since the late ‘80s and includes a whopping 29 releases, which have collectively featured soundtracks that sound like they could be a Soundwave playlist. Just like a Soundwave line-up, you’ll bask in the splendour of bands like Iron Maiden, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Mastodon, System of a Down, In Flames and Hellyeah, but you’ll also be subjected to the horrors of Cypress Hill and Linkin Park.

If, with all the metal in the game, Madden NFL is still not metal enough for you, the game is also supposedly cursed. Almost every football hero who has graced the cover of the series since ’99 has had some sort of career-debilitating encounter, but seeing as these were mostly injuries incurred while playing football, there’s probably no need to involve Mulder and Scully just yet.

Rating: 3 out of 5 burst eardrums. Good but not great.

Words: Amanda Mason

Video game soundtracks were once limited to a series of beeps, boops and primitive MIDI files but no more. Grab your headphones as we review a bunch of classic games loaded with headbanging hits... and we’re not talking about Guitar Hero.

Doom and Doom II Heavy metal actually managed to work its way into video game culture way back in the day when games were still rocking hideous MIDI soundtracks. The musical scores of first person shooter (FPS) pioneers Doom and Doom II were heavily inspired by the songs of bands like Metallica, Pantera, Megadeth, Slayer and Black Sabbath. So much so that you can find any number of YouTube videos comparing the remarkable similarity between the game’s musical score and the songs of those bands.

If you’re a fan of heavy metal in MIDI format – and who isn’t? – why not pop out and grab yourself a copy of Doom Music, a CD released in 1997 by Doom composer Robert Prince, containing 20 rocking MIDI tracks from Doom and Doom II. He’s probably rolling around his authentic Scrooge McDuck money bin with all the cash he made selling that gem.

Rating: 3 out of 5 burst eardrums; it’s a start.

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Grand Theft Auto Series The general object of the GTA series is to engage in as much violent, criminal activity as possible. Because of this, it has been the subject of much furore and outcry. Gasp! Won’t somebody think of the children?! Violent and immoral it may be, but there’s really nothing more enjoyable than listening to Cannibal Corpse’s ‘I Cum Blood’ while running over hookers in your stolen car.

GTA IV, GTA: San Andreas and GTA: Vice City all feature a variety of radio stations that you can hear while driving to help get you into that special, homicidal mood. The two earlier games of the three, Vice City and San Andreas, each have a dedicated rock/metal station – V-Rock and Radio X respectively – featuring Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Iron Maiden, Danzig, Guns N’ Roses and Ozzy Osbourne. GTA IV knocks it up a notch with two dedicated metal stations: Liberty Rock Radio 97.8 with DJ Iggy Pop and Liberty City Hardcore, featuring DJs Jimmy Gestapo and Max Cavalera.

The addition of the dedicated metal stations provides for a heavy metal goldmine that’s not just the usual Big Four thrash bands. Instead, players can enjoy the aural delights of Sepultura, Deicide, Bathory, Kreator, Terrorizer, Soulfly, Entombed, At The Gates and Celtic Frost.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 burst eardrums. Did someone say Bathory?!

Earache: Extreme Metal Racing Earache: Extreme Metal Racing is a novelty racing game – think a metal version of Mario Kart – with a soundtrack of artists signed to Earache Records. What the game lacks in graphic quality and original ideas, it makes up for in bitchin’ tunes from At The Gates, Deicide, Hate Eternal, Morbid Angel, Municipal Waste, Napalm Death and The Haunted.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 burst eardrums. HEAVY approved!

Brütal Legend Any game with the word brutal in the title, complete with an umlaut over the U, is going to have a good soundtrack. The metalthemed action/adventure game Brütal Legend sees you playing as a roadie, equipped with an axe and a flying V guitar and voiced by Jack Black, who is on a mission to save the world. The game’s soundtrack contains a staggering array of metal with 107 songs in total – by far the best video game soundtrack in the history of the universe. Bands who have contributed songs that will give your ears super happy fun times include Rotting Christ, Children of Bodom, Deathstars, King Diamond, In Flames, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, Dragonforce, Rob Zombie, Whitesnake, Testament, Manowar, Def Leppard and Dimmu Borgir.

Rating: 5 out of 5 burst eardrums. Legendary! H

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Words: Tennille Secomb

The Nerve

Sectu Blending the classic tone of Swedish metal with death-oriented technical mastery, Sectu have made a pulverising entry to the international death metal arena over the past few years.

Drawing on the Latin word ‘Sectus’, meaning to divide or cut, the band name alludes to the multifaceted, indefinable nuances present within Sectu’s music that pay homage to influences such as Terra Tenebrosa, King Diamond and Slayer.

Originally formed under the name Cimmerian Dome while vocalist/guitarist mastermind Stefan Lundgren (Sobre Nocturne) was studying abroad in Spain in 2005, the band, who are primarily based in Stockholm, changed their name to Sectu in 2010 during the recording of their debut album. Inundate was released the following year, showcasing the band’s aggressive death metal style and proficient technical groove. Current guitarist Anders Ericson joined Sectu shortly after Inundate, although a solid bass player wasn’t locked in until after their sophomore album Gerra in 2012 when Johan Niemann (Evergrey, Demonoid, ex-Therion) joined the band.

Sectu are currently preparing to release their third album Nefarious. It will be recorded by Sverker ‘Widda’ Widgren at Necromorbus Studios in Stockholm. The release will see founding drummer Calle Bäckström step down and session musician Richard Evensand (Soilwork, Chimaira), who has just returned from a six-year stint in Australia, take up the position, while Bäckström will continue his involvement with the band as resident artist.

Enhanced by their now solidified line-up, the twisted arrangements, rhythmical shiftings, chord progressions and harmonies that characterise the music on Sectu’s first two releases have positioned the band for a head-turning third release in 2014. For fans of Psycroptic, Behemoth and Morbid Angel, Sectu are a tight unit of Swedish fury that are definitely worth checking out. check em out

‘Court of the Sloths’ @Bandcamp

check em out

Headbore Hailing from the Adelaide Hills comes one of the best-damned-named Aussie metal bands of all time – Headbore.

Made up of Adam Fisher (vocals), Chris Ward (guitar), Luke Fisher (guitar), Adam Day (drums) and Daniel Sloan (bass) the band say their members met at high school and gravitated together because of a love for music and beer.

Their first show was in February 2012, since then having played several Adelaide metal festivals including The New Dead Fest, Metal for a Cure, and Blacken the Globe.

Headbore have also appeared on support slots for bands such as Frankenbok and Claim the Throne, and had a combined album launch with Truth Corroded (The Saviours Slain) along with Hypno5e (France), Desecrator, Rome, Alkira and Blood Covered Shovel. Their debut album Strength In Numbers was released in November 2013,

Words: David Griffiths

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Scorpion Child

Words: David Griffiths

In this digital age, the internet plays a pivotal role. YouTube and Myspace have helped to launched many bands, including The Nerve.

The quartet formed on Skype, scouring members from across Australia, and played their first gig in Melbourne in February 2013.

Signed to Sydney’s Bird’s Robe Records, fans of Australian music will instantly notice that most of The Nerve’s members are recognisable for their work in other bands over the years. The Nerve comprises singer Ezekiel Ox (Mammal, Full Scale, Over-Reactor, The Ox and The Fury, and Full Scale Deflection), drummer Lucius Borich (Cog, Juice, Kevin Borich and Floating Me), bassist Davaraj Thomas (Pre-Shrunk, Nursery Crimes) and notable solo/session guitarist Glenn Proudfoot.

According to Ox, The Nerve began because of Proudfoot’s tenacity in pursuing the band over many years. When the group finally got together, the combined experience of the band and their no-bullshit attitude produced a well-rounded heaviness that could only bring success. Having played two national headline tours across five states

(and one territory), The Nerve are garnering a considerable amount of attention as they work hard to get their music out. The Nerve’s debut album Audiodacity was recorded, mixed and mastered at Screamlouder in Melbourne by Reggie Bowman, while Lucius recorded the drums in Sydney with his own equipment, and has received airtime on stations like Triple J and other community broadcasters.

The Nerve say their name came from a friend who enjoyed indulging in hallucinogenics, and is a humorous reference to possessing both audacity and unmitigated gall. Living up to their name, what is appealing about The Nerve is the hearty energy poured into every song and live performance. Capturing the spirit of their live shows, you can check out The Nerve’s debut album Audiodacity on bandcamp now.

Hailing from Austin, Texas, Scorpion Child took their name from a line in The Cult classic, ‘Lil Devil’. Although they share the same love of swagger, classic rock and solid guitar riffs, there is a lot more to the sound of Scorpion Child.

Formed in 2006, the current line-up consists of Aryn Jonathan Black (vocals), Christopher Cowart (lead guitar), Shaun Avants (bass), Tom ‘The Mole’ Frank (rhythm guitar) and Jon Rice (drums). Their sound is a melting pot of all their backgrounds combined: punk rock, metal, thrash and the whole Seattle sound (where newest member Rice also hails from). They’re a guitardriven band with plenty of hooks, loads of classic Zeppelin-esque groove and vocals reminiscent of early Robert Plant, Ronnie James Dio and Shannon Hoon (Blind Melon).

In December 2012 Scorpion Child signed to Nuclear Blast and finally released their long-

Words: Anthony Moore

awaited self-titled debut album in June 2013, which was included in top-ten lists the world over. Recorded using analogue technology to organically capture the sound, the album was produced and arranged by Chris ‘Frenchie’ Smith (The Answer, Jet), mixed by Jason Buntz and Donny James and mastered by Dave McNair (David Bowie, Helmet, The Gaslight Anthem).

They have been touring extensively with Clutch, Orange Goblin, Kadavar, Gypsyhawk, Orchid and Blues Pills, and show no signs of slowing down in 2014. Aside from the neverending tour, Scorpion Child are currently writing the follow up to their debut album and hope to release it later this year. What do they hope you’ll take away from it?

“Have fun!” Cowart says. “Music is a release; it’s a way to escape and forget about the shitty parts of life.” Cheers to that.

c h ec k em ou t

ch e ck e m o u t

‘Audiodacity’ @Bandcamp

‘Polygon of Eyes’ @YouTube

Words: Sebastian McKay

Words: Nathan Eden

Words: Amanda Mason

Disparaged Boasting only one line-up change in their impressive fifteen-year history, the Swiss death metal veterans Disparaged have evolved into a musical powerhouse that deserve far more recognition than they receive.

Formed in Lucerne in central Switzerland in 1999 by Ralph Beier (guitar) and Tomislav Kuzmic (guitar/vocals), the pair recruited Adrian Scheiber (bass/vocals) and Heinz Imhof (drums) to complete the band. Three years later Disparaged released their debut EP Death Trap. Recorded and mixed by Beier, the DIY EP was like a death metal smash to the face and caught the attention of Twilight Records, scoring the band a record deal for the release of their 2003 album Overlust.

2006 saw the band release their second album Bloodsource, which was mixed by Jean-François Dagenais, the guitarist of death metal legends Kataklysm who also happens to be a prolific producer/engineer, having worked on recordings by the likes of Malevolent Creation, Ex Deo, Misery Index

c hec k em o ut

‘Approaching Underworld’ @YouTube and, of course, Kataklysm.

In 2009 Disparaged released their third album The Wrath of God, the first with current drummer Deniz Lebovci. With each album, you witness the band’s transition into a modern death metal machine and their fifteen years of hard work is clearly evident in their greatest triumph to date, And Babylon Fell (2013). The release is a stunning display of modern death metal with powerful, melodic guitar riffs and a smattering of audio samples for maximum aural excitement. The album is also adorned with the artwork of Michal ‘Xaay’ Loranc, an artist with some serious metal pedigree, having created artwork for Behemoth, Nile, Necrophagist and Decapitated.

Throughout their lengthy career, Disparaged have had the pleasure of performing alongside metal greats including, Nile, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse and Cradle of Filth and, following the release of And Babylon Fell, they are definitely one to watch.

Words: Patrick Emmett

‘Strength In Numbers’ @YouTube

recorded by Andy Kite at Against the Grain Studios in Adelaide and mastered by Jens Borgen at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden (Opeth, Soilwork, Katatonia and Devin Townsend etc). A combination of thrash, melodic and traditional metal, Headbore’s sound is aggressive enough to incite violent mosh-pit behaviour while retaining enough groove to wanna bang your head.

The good news for Aussie metal fans is that if you want to check out Headbore sometime soon you might just be in luck. The eager band have already begun writing for another album, and say they hope to debut some new material as they play shows across the country over the coming months. You can look out for the guys at the next New Dead Festival in May with headliners King Parrot, as well as Devour the Flesh Fest in Sydney in October.

Miazma Miazma simultaneously remind the listener of all that is good about great ‘90s death metal and yet at no stage does their sound feel anything but modern. Clearly fans of Cannibal Corpse and Carcass, line-up changes within the Alice Springs quintet, which formed in 2008, have allowed their music to evolve and develop a dexterity that has them sitting atop the rotting heap of similar death metal bands.

On stage Miazma’s sound is massive.

Sharpening their skills touring in support of bands such as Psycroptic, King Parrot and The Amenta, the band are as tight as a dingo’s arse. The sound is a wall of aural complexity that delivers wave upon wave of evil wasteland riffage punctuated by precise stabs of technical ecstasy that are sharp enough to circumcise a camel. Miazma consists of Shaun Howell (Guitar), Tim Glyde (Guitar), Kyle Mines (Bass), the absolutely accurate drumming of Malcolm McDonald and the stylistically diverse but always truly terrifying vocals of Jackson smith.

Growing up good mates in the heart of

the country, the boys from Miazma share a small-town bond developed from the love of fast, heavy music. These ties helped instil the resilience required to travel from such a remote area to cities across the country to play to the heavy masses. This ‘have metal, will travel’ attitude coupled with sheer ability as performers has earnt Miazma a reputation as a must-see show. Australia’s northern neighbours will be treated to the pleasure of the band’s abilities this April as the boys venture from one side of Indonesia to the other, playing six shows starting in the West, making their way across to enjoy their well-earnt Bintangs in Bali.

Before you get the chance to see them in the flesh, check out their album Bacteria Of This Earth. True Northern Territory death metal. c h ec k em ou t

‘No Greater Man Cares’ @Facebook

The Arbiter

Our Last Enemy The old cliché says all good things take time. For Our Last Enemy, time is almost of the essence. Formed in 2006 from the remains of the several other bands, it was six months of practice before they’d set out to become a crossover band with cult status.

With three original songs and three DJ remixes, …Is Death was the start of a cult classic both in the dance and metal scenes.

That was in 2008.

Fast forward to 2014 and the band’s many accomplishments including their most recent release, Pariah, have rendered them a force to be reckoned with. Among other highlights, the band graced the stage of the famous Whiskey a Go-Go club during a three month stint in LA while recording their debut album Fallen Empires (2010) and also terrorised the east coast on the 2011 Tearing Down the Empire tour. It hasn’t always been smoothing sailing, with line-up changes on keyboard and guitar, but Our Last Enemy have kept their eye on the prize and wrangled a deal with Eclipse records in North America.

Voted album of the week in Revolver

Magazine, their latest album, Pariah, dropped in March and is a seriously colossal effort. Of late, the band have been busy creating one hell of a disturbing music video for ’10,000 Headless Horses’. The track, which was originally released on the 2008 EP, was re-released on Pariah and also featured on the Rock Band video game.

To be frank, the album is an awakening for industrial metal. It’s gritty, heavy, and aggressive and an embodiment of the symbolism in the band name. A biblical reference, the band see ‘our last enemy’ as death and believe this represents both an ending and a beginning. This overarching concept of duality is integral to the band and it is the different elements they’ve blended together that put them beyond the standard in metal. ch e ck e m o u t

‘10,000 Headless Horses’’ @Reverbnation

Fans of the video game series Halo would know The Arbiter as the highest possible honour bestowed upon Covenant Sangheili, but in Australia’s heavy music scene, The Arbiter is a four piece groove metal band from the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

Featuring ex-members of Black Water, Whoretopsy, Internal Nightmare and a number of other bands, The Arbiter came together in September of 2013.

The band jokingly claim that they went to the music school of KoRn and have Bachelor’s in Pantera, which would accurately describe their self-proclaimed ‘brutal groove’ sound. Taking heavy influences from groove-oriented bands like Sepultura and Lamb of God, as well as the brutality of Decapitated and Pig Destroyer, The Arbiter have set themselves apart from other Melbourne bands.

The Arbiter’s train of thought is to “do it today, not tomorrow”, which for them means they’ve wasted no time waiting around to get music recorded. Two weeks after they formed, they went into Complex Studios with Roman Koester (ex-Boris the Blade, The Red Shore)

to record their debut singles ‘Breathe’ and ‘Jesus Pest’, and again shortly after to record a 5-track EP titled Cult. One of the tracks ‘Swallow the Moth’ features Matt Young from grindcore heavyweights King Parrot on vocals, and was featured on the HEAVY cover-mount disc in issue nine.

Owing to their dedication to recording and releasing music, compounded by a band member leaving, The Arbiter have been relatively slow with getting into the live scene. They have only played two shows in Melbourne, with a mini festival appearance in Tasmania, but sleep easy metalheads because by the time this article is published The Arbiter will be playing shows in Melbourne and interstate frequently. Word on the street is the boys will also have a brutal new single/music video released for free download. Get involved. c hec k em o ut

‘Breathe’ @YouTube

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g e t art i s t i c

Thrashwolf www.blackcraftcult.com

Words: Sheri Tantawy Photo: Courtesy of Thrashwolf

Thrashwolf at the door

Thrashwolf, aka Logan Gray, is dominating the Melbourne scene with his striking, colourloaded style. He rips it up with HEAVY’s own design nut Sheri Tantawy.

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alifornia-born Logan Francis Gray runs Thrashwolf, a Melbourne-based design studio producing gnarly illustrations for use on shirts, skateboards, posters and even tattoos. He is also the dude responsible for the sick lines and bold textures on your newly acquired Lucipurr hoodies from Blackcraft Cult – whenever you’re sporting an Electrik Dynamite tee, that’s a Thrashwolf piece; diggin’ the contrasting colours on that Buried In Verona singlet? Thrashwolf again.

Gray runs with a tightly-knit crew of musicians, artists and all round sick dudes. As demand for quality designs in the local scene grew, Thrashwolf came to fruition naturally. We’re all familiar with the ‘80s-influenced glam-inspired outfit Electrik Dynamite but did you know the band’s iconic and sexy tee designs are the sole creation of Thrashwolf and all feature Gray’s strong signature lines and bright contrasting colours in bold triadic, complimentary and split complimentary colour schemes?

Gray’s also worked with Psycroptic, Sullen and Buried in Verona, to namedrop a few locals, and is responsible for posters for Toxic Holocaust, Iron Reagan, Havok and King Parrot.

The Thrashwolf online store sells mainly prints. Gray has entertained the idea of creating his own line of merch but, when

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he has the chance to be creative for other people, there’s no need to really go down that road just yet.

“One of my most prized pieces is probably the snowboard I did for Fyve, super fun to work on and basically let me have free reign to put my artwork on a snowboard!”

While it’s important to have a solid list of clients, the need for passive income can’t be ignored. This Californian young blood is the one and only designer for Blackcraft Cult, a US-based apparel label promoting cats, coffee, Satan and spells [I’ll have one of each –Ed.].

“I’m very lucky to be able to work with such radical people,” Gray says about Blackcraft Cult, “and, at the same time, be able to put food in my stomach and a roof over my head.”

Time to talk skills. At the age of 15, Gray picked up a sweet deal on a Wacom Intous 3 tablet and dedicated countless hours upon hours trying to master the tool. Today his tool kit includes two Wacoms, a lusciously-sinful Cintiq, paper and graphite. Some of Logan’s techniques are a mixture of traditional drawing and digital art – he infers that his workflow is 100 per cent digital on most days, but grabs the pencils on occasion due to the ease and efficiency of generating ideas. Many new designers make the mistake of

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S pace o u t

‘Tooth and Claw’ @YouTube

Words: Steve Jenkins

jumping straight to the machines and while everyone has their own process, it’s important to keep in mind that the computer is simply a tool. In Logan’s case, he has found that the best way for him to work is to jump into Photoshop and get creative.

“Although I don’t feel like mixed media improves the look of my artwork, I do believe that it improves my workflow. I can get ideas down quickly,” he says.

Having a workspace, whether it be a studio, an office or even a zoned-off study in your own home is another important tool for a creative to be creative. Without your own environment to fall into and make things happen, the routine of daily life can be crushing.

Gray’s consistently fresh and interesting ideas come together in his studio where he can be one with his passions and peruse image libraries for inspiration.

“I try to look at lots of gnarly images, the more the better,” he says. “Anything I find inspiring, I usually try to draw little ideas from.”

Some of his top picks include Cghub, Instagram, Behanced network as well as just the humble Facebook: “If you’re following the right artists on Instagram and Facebook, and not just people posting photos of their food, it can be quite inspirational.”

Gray also credits the work of artists like Hydro74, Grindesign, Big Daddy Ed Roth, Godmachine, Pushead, Jim Phillips and many more.

When asked how he uses social media to help promote his artwork, Gray is of the opinion that Facebook pages have gone

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to absolute bollocks. Word of mouth has been one of the main driving forces in building his clientele, “They are honestly the best guys and girls to work with, the ones who are happy with the level of work and share my details with others.”

He still believes that a new artist can use social media to their advantage if their work is as solid as their physical presence.

“They [artists] can set up social media pages like Instagram and Facebook but that won’t necessary get them work or a following,” Gray says, admitting that networking – yes, real life networking, the kind where you walk up to people at shows and conferences and engage in real time interaction – is where it’s at: “This might be an old school mentality but, honestly, going to shows, making new connections with people in bands or even people in general is very helpful.”

From his perspective, the Australian market is very much driven by who you know rather than what you know “If you have a vast amount of skill but are useless connecting to people then you’ll run out of business quickly,” he warns aspiring artists. “It’s all about finding a happy medium.” H For more on Thrashwolf, check out www.thrashwolf.bigcartel.com and www.blackcraftcult.com.

Sheri Tantawy is a Melbourne-based graphic artist, lecturing at SAE Qantm Creative Media Institute

Animals As Leaders alien space metal

Already at the forefront of technical musicianship, Animals As Leaders have upped the ante with their latest album, adding a modern twist on progressive music and sending listeners on a dynamic journey.

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or the very few people that haven’t come across Animals As Leaders, lead guitarist Tobin Abasi says “Alien space metal” would be the best way to describe this instrumental troupe.

With the release of their third studio album, this unique and atmospheric band are quickly becoming leaders – pun fully intended – of not only the instrumental world but also the heavy music world.

“A lot of our textures and formalities sound kind of other worldly, but the heart of our sound is definitely as a progressive metal band,” Abasi explains, adding, “I don’t really think labels help and I’m not a believer in labels. We’ve always been a band that just wanted to sound exactly the way we sound, so genres often fall short in terms of our music.”

Animals as Leaders’ third studio album The Joy Of Motion takes listeners on an intricate ride through space and time. Going from ballsout heavy one moment to euphoric and peaceful the next, the band does an outstanding job of painting unique and delicate soundscapes.

“We spent the longest on this album compared to our other two,” Abasi continues. “The process for this album began at the beginning of 2013 and we were actively working on it all year. We recorded about seven tracks for the album on pre-production and they just sat there for months, then we finally did a few more demos with Diego from Volumes, and they sat there too.

“We eventually solidified who was going to engineer the recording process, then we solidified who was going to mix it, [handle] the electronics and so on. It’s actually the most inclusive of outside members and it’s the longest window of time working on a body of work, but the end result turned out pretty good,” Abasi humbly explains.

The band’s complex and free-running new material has received positive feedback so far at their live shows. As an instrumental threepiece band in a world without too many instrumental metal bands, Animals As Leaders regularly find themselves playing on bills with bands who have vocalists. Abasi credits this as helping the band

introduce their music to large audiences who might otherwise not check it out, and people who are new to Animals As Leaders are often pleasantly surprised by the powerful and lasting musical experience the band provides.

“It’s interesting,” Abasi says. “It’s sometimes hard to play our new material in a live situation; people have to take in a lot [when they watch an Animals As Leaders show] in real time, but the reactions have been really cool, especially for ‘Physical Education’ – when you hear that song for the first time and totally catch on to what’s happening, the reactions have been mostly very positive so far.” Abasi says.

Abasi raves about the last time Animals As Leaders were in Australia, which was just a few months ago when they were down here to support Periphery.

“We love touring Australia,” he says excitedly. “The whole thing was a highlight – Periphery are some of our best friends; it was really warm; we got to see some really cool sites; the people were super friendly; the shows were well attended; and, you guys also have some really great coffee! We can’t wait to get back there soon.”

With so many layered sounds and techniques, Animals As Leaders are such an incredibly unique band that this author sometimes wonders which artists inspire the band. Where do you turn for musical inspiration when your band contains musicians who are world-class?

“I’m a huge Meshuggah fan, Machine Head and even Bjork – it’s all over the place and that’s what makes us who we are,” Abasi says. “All three of us have different tastes and styles in music and I think you need that in order to be open-minded and to become successful these days.”

The Joy Of Motion is the sort of album that takes time to reveal itself, and it’s likely that those of short-attention spans looking for quick fixes will walk away disappointed. It’s filled with clear sounds and vibes but layered with so much detail that everyone’s going to need a few listens to appreciate what this album really is – a work of art. H

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c h ec k e m o u t

‘Seven Years Alone’ @YouTube

DOWN Words: Josh Voce Photo: courtesy of Soundwave

Words: Sebastian McKay Photo: Hristo Shindov

Engaging with the

Devil You Know

Howard Jones is making his comeback with Los Angeles supergroup, Devil You Know. HEAVY catches up with the infamous American vocalist to discuss their first ever live show and the highly-anticipated release of their debut album, The Beauty of Destruction.

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ince their formation in 2012, there has been no hiding from LA-based powerhouse Devil You Know. After playing their first live show at this year’s Soundwave festival, the band have been concentrating on launching their mammoth debut album. Hailed as one of the most unique releases of the year, The Beauty of Destruction is crafted with the delicate balance possessed by pedigree musicians, registering as heavy enough to make your ears bleed while retaining moments of pure melody.

Howard Jones’ voice sounds resigned, as though his secret’s been released, when he confesses the deeply personal nature of the album.

Lyrically, Jones explains that he has drawn on the past five years of his life in the writing of The Beauty of Destruction.

“If you don’t know me and you want to know me, just read the lyrics because it’s all there,” he says.

The inspiration comes from a dark place within the tormented vocalist – a place he still visits from time to time. He confesses that playing live and recording all takes its toll emotionally.

“There are times where it hits me and I think ‘I’ve been through a whole lot of shit’. It stays with you for a while,” he says.

Parts of the album drip with Jones’ emotional intensity, and he admits that the writing process helped to “stop [him] from going crazy.”

At the end of the proverbial road, Jones has become tight-lipped in interviews, letting the songs on The Beauty of Destruction speak for themselves and concentrating on traversing his own warpath.

“I’ve been through a whole lot and I’ve had a lot of time to reflect” Jones says quietly. “It [the album] is very honest. There’s raw emotion dumped into it.”

Jones describes himself as “being in a dark place” at the time of writing, and this is a sentiment that is felt upon first listen of the album.

It’s clearly perceptible in songs such as ‘As Bright as the Darkness’ – an eerie number with morbid lyrics that strikes the listener with its raw, uninhibited honesty.

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Jones champions the album’s emotional intensity as its strong point. While Jones’ career may be famed for his time fronting Killswitch Engage, the two bands couldn’t be more different and any thoughts of comparison should be eliminated. While Jones says there are never any conscious decisions to separate themselves musically from their other bands, he concedes modestly, “I’m just me” and undoubtedly everything he touches will have his mark.

“What I did with Killswitch was a huge part of my life. While I can’t let that go and just forget it, this is sound is different and it’s a different project,” he says.

Musically the album is a combination of melody and death-defying energy – an approach that Jones had wanted to try for a while. With time and reflection comes experimentation and that side of writing, he says, “was a lot of fun.” His lighter side begins to come out when he says that if there’s anything he wants the listeners to take away from The Beauty of Destruction it’s “a second copy of the album,” he laughs.

Though he may be a man of few words, often appearing as somewhat reserved, he isn’t afraid to have a laugh and given the chance, he’d breathe fire... “because then everything I ate would be piping hot!”

[Mmm... smoky –Ed.] It’s important to note Jones’ ability to shift at a moment’s notice from discussing the depth and heaviness of the album to more jovial topics. If the album reflects the past five years of his life, there are surely nuances within it that reflect times where he wasn’t waging war.

The Beauty of Destruction is an album that’s grim and emotional yet interspersed with moments of honesty and hope. Overall, the album rampages and crushes, soars and whispers, revealing itself to be as lyrically and thematically complex as the man who wrote it.

Despite its darkness and overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, I can almost see the smile on Jones’ lips when he says, “I still think that there’s hope in it.” H

hea d o n d o wn

‘We Knew Him Well’ @YouTube

Phil Anselmo, the Big Bad Wolf of metal, chats to Josh Voce about why Down decided to split their next releases into four parts, and adds his seal of approval to one of Australia’s fast rising bands, King Parrot.

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own has released just three studio albums in twelve years, so Down fans have come to accept that records from the Southern rock-metal band are about as rare as guys without beards at a Zak Wylde lookalike contest.

In 2012, Down released the first part of what is to be a four-part series of EPs, the second of which is due out this month. The idea is to give fans something smaller to digest over a shorter period of time, according to vocalist Phil Anselmo, and is also a great way to maintain band momentum while tiding audiences over until the next release.

“Honestly, doing a full-length record for me these days is boring,” Anselmo says. “I lose my concentration in it; it takes too much f**king energy out of me. With six songs, I can concentrate and make sure they’re good enough, and it definitely gets the music out there quicker.”

When asked about the relevance of full-length albums in today’s cluttered marketplace, Phil is still adamant that full-length albums are something to be cherished.

“You know there are bands out there with records you could listen to front-to-back, and there are certain bands [whose records] you want to pick and choose – fast forward to the rockin’ track; skip back to the slowest track. It depends on the band and it also depends on the listener.”

On new EP Down IV Part 2, Down has pushed forth with more new members, and Anselmo says the newcomers are reciprocal contributors.

“It’s our bass player Pat’s [Pat Bruders] second record with us,” Anselmo says, “and he is an awesome contributor, a riff-writing motherf**ker. We also have a new guitar player in Bobby Landgraf, and he’s an incredible player who contributed right off the bat. I think having the new blood help out us old core members is like an infusion of new blood and new energy. I’m pretty happy with the results; I think I like this [EP] better than I liked the first EP.” As with previous Down records, there are some unusual track names on the EP – ‘Bacchanalia’ strikes home as a particularly intriguing title and some quick research suggests Bacchanalia to be an ancient Roman festival in honour of Bacchus, Roman god of wine. Naturally, it’s evolved over time to mean ‘a piss up’, which is closer to Anselmo’s intention.

“The city of New Orleans is endless Bacchanalia – you drink when the football team wins; you drink when the football team loses; you drink if a hurricane’s coming; you drink if a hurricanes going,” he laughs.

“There’s always a reason to drink! Halloween, Christmas, Mardi Gras, you name it. We live an endless Bacchanalia.

“Case in point, one of the main parades during Mardi Gras is the Krewe of Bacchus, and Bacchus is the Greek god of Wine and merriment. Hail Bacchanalia,” Anselmo roars.

Hail Bacchanalia indeed. I mention that Australians also love to drinking whether their team wins or loses, and Anselmo immediately points out his affection towards our fair country.

“God, I love Australia,” he says. “I love it! And I know, I know you motherf**kers are drinkers. Goddamn, it’s tough to keep up with you.”

While here for Soundwave, Anselmo had the opportunity to share the stage with Melbourne’s King Parrot, who joined Down to jam the track ‘Bury Me In Smoke’. Photos of the event even recorded Anselmo in a King Parrot shirt, though the rugged front man admits he didn’t quite ‘get’ the band’s unique take on pub thrash in the beginning.

“I was taken slightly aback at first, but now I am completely catching the vibe,” he says of King Parrot. “They are a thrash band, a thrash band with hardcore sensibilities, and I was into f**king thrash when it first hit and many waves after. Is there really a song that’s heavier than Angel Of Death?! I love thrash and I love hardcore attitude, and King Parrot has both so big thumbs up.”

Considering HEAVY is celebrating the recent 20th anniversary of Far Beyond Driven, Pantera’s seventh album – fourth with Anselmo – I’d be remiss not to ask Phil about his favourite tracks.

“It’s been a long time but I do revisit certain tracks for sure,” he says of the metal classic. “I like ‘25 Years’ and I like ‘Slaughtered’. It’s not like I dislike any of them but those two tracks are a couple of my favourites, and maybe parts of ‘Strength Beyond Strength’. ‘Use My Third Arm’ is a damn good one also and ‘Becoming’ is very unique. ” How does he think the record has aged?

“I think it holds up pretty well. You have to listen to it and put it into a context. Like with any other heavy metal band that makes a dent, you’re going to have bands that are influenced, and there are a lot of bands that have been influenced by Pantera’s sound and attitude.”

Phil’s memory of recording Far Beyond Driven is somewhat hazy.

“I have pretty damn scattered memories because we were in lots of different places,” he says. “I ended up singing in some studio where I’d never been before and have never been since, so my memory of making the record is kind of vague.”

Down IV Part Two is out May 13 via Down Records and ADA Music. H

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c he ck e m o u t

‘The Saw is the Law’ @YouTube

Words: Nick Lord Photo: Nick Lord

From THE blade

to THE NEEDLE Even deathcore vocalists need day jobs. Boris the Blade’s Daniel Sharp invites Nick Lord into his burgeoning tattoo store in Seddon, Victoria.

Words: Nick French Photo: courtesy of Soundwave

Whitechapel leaving the gore behind

Deathcore darlings Whitechapel are back with a new album and, as Nick French discovers, it’s not all about the brutality this time.

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n the legendary text The Art Of War, Sun Tzu wrote, “In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.”

Brutality merchants Whitechapel may well have tapped into the victory of which Tzu speaks with their latest release, Our Endless War, which came out on April 29.

The Knoxville, Tennessee band has continued their development on this album, growing musically since their 2007 debut effort. While their new album isn’t miles away from their first, it’s certainly a decent walk.

“The sound is, I wouldn’t say completely different, but it’s definitely different for people that came from The Somatic Defilement days,” front man Phil Bozeman explains. “It’s kind of hard to swallow, I guess you could say, but either way, the response has been relatively positive.”

Speaking about the lyrical content on Our Endless War, Bozeman says, “ You get past writing gore stuff and mean stuff and just want to venture out and explore your other emotions. You don’t want to just keep writing the same thing over and over again; it’s nice to be able to branch out and do stuff like that, not having to worry about keeping this image like you’re the most pissed-off, tough person in the world.”

The title track is a prime example of the evolutionary path previously mentioned. It’s “referring to the United States of America. A bunch of stuff has gotten so bad over the past decade now,” Bozeman moans.

“I feel like our country is focused so much on the small, stupidest little things, like reality TV and stuff, and we don’t really focus on the point at hand, which is the dead, and our health care system and things of that nature.”

Another track from the new album that got Bozeman talking philosophically is the old-school death metal-infused ‘Worship The Digital Age’. On its meaning, he clarifies, “It has a lot to do with how people worship (and) idolise people and defend people that really have done nothing for them – there’s people that will defend celebrities to the death. In the end, does that one celebrity care for every single one of their fans equally? If one of their fans died, would they ever know about it?

“Take Justin Bieber for instance,” he continues. “He’s like the biggest celebrity in the world right now; he’s got millions and millions of fans, not all of them crazy but I’m sure a lot of them are, and they would literally give their life to him just because he makes music that they like.

There’s no reason to give up your life and everything you have going on for you just to please this person that wouldn’t even know if you

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died right now. It’s just amazing to me that people can give so much to someone they don’t even know.”

For Bozeman, it is the art that is most important, and not the artist.

“I would really like to see people just appreciate the music and stop worrying about looking cool.”

When asked about what else he would like people to understand, his answer is surprisingly sensitive: “I want people to realise that we’re just not some death metal band that just writes brutal stuff all the time, like killing people and just gore, gore, gore. It’s not all about that. We’re actually human beings and we actually have emotions; we’re just like everyone else. We have problems just like anyone else.”

Bozeman believes there’s a great misunderstanding about the size and status of band members playing in groups like Whitechapel.

“People really think that our lives are so much different from theirs and they’re really not; they’re the same. We’re not living a better lifestyle than them [fans] – we’re not rich and famous; we don’t do crazier things than they do. I tour in a band and live the lifestyle that you think is so mysterious and amazing but people in my family still die, people have money problems and we all deal with it.

“We’re all human and we all have emotions,” he continues. “We just want people to realise that everybody in this world is dealing with the same shit in their lives.”

One of Whitechapel’s most distinguishing characteristics is their three-guitar attack. Bozeman says the decision to include a third guitar is really about replicating material live.

“Say there’s a riff that has harmonies to it, and there’s three or four different guitar parts going on. You can’t really pull that off live unless you have a backing track that is playing over it to make it sound like it does on the CD. We try to just implement three different guitar parts going at the same time live so we can actually have each guitar doing something different. On the heavier parts, with the three guitars live, it gives it a fuller sound.”

Will Australian fans get to witness this full sound live anytime soon?

The last Whitechapel tour was in 2010, and the band pulled out of Soundwave Festival in 2014 due to a death in the family.

“We do have talks about coming back,” Bozeman says. “It’s not necessarily confirmed yet but it is in the works right now. It’d be awesome; we love to coming to Australia for sure.” H

S

ince the turn of the century, the underground art of tattooing has exploded into prominence. Once reserved for salty seadogs and straying soldiers on stopovers in shanty towns, tattoos are today as mainstream as going to the footy, interwoven into youth culture so deeply that it’s anecdotally possible that there are more Aussies aged 18- 25 to have been tattooed than not.

In metal, the prevalence rises further. Metal is to tattooing what tattooing is to metal – two unique subcultures that happen to share much of the same fanbase. As forms of expression, both have grown so much in popularity and acceptance that the lines separating the two subcultures have blurred. Don’t believe it? Name the last time you saw an un-inked band.

Fans of modern metalcore are especially known for their liberal use of tattoos, and tattoos on traditionally taboo areas like the hands and neck are now a part of the scene so it makes perfect sense that guys like Daniel Sharp would choose to straddle both disciplines.

Approaching his 26th birthday, Sharp seems to be living the dream. He’s fronting Boris the Blade, one of the nation’s favourite deathcore bands, and running his own business. D-Sharp Tattoos is warmly ensconced in the leafy inner-west suburb of Seddon. It’s an

unbranded upper-floor private studio with a stunning view across West Melbourne where Sharp inks clients mostly by appointment only.

“I started tattooing when I was 18; I was still in high school actually,” Sharp remembers. “One of my dads’ mates was a tattooist and I’d go in there and watch when I was 10 years old. I was good at drawing skulls so I’d take in my drawings to show him and he’d tell me to go home and draw a book of butterflies to mix it up. Then when I turned 18, I went in there and started tattooing.”

That store is Pro Ink in Croydon and Sharp earnt his apprenticeship there before moving closer to the city: “I did my apprenticeship in Croydon and I was there for four years. Then I went to another tattoo studio in Port Melbourne and I was there for another four years. I opened this place [D-Sharp Tattoos, Seddon] about six months ago.”

D-Sharp ain’t no regular ‘High st’ tattoo parlour. For starters, it has no shopfront. Clients gain entry via the back alley so it’s almost entirely private.

“When I moved here, I figured I’ve got that many clients already that I went private. We’ve only ever had two or three guys walk in off the street. Everything’s usually appointment only.”

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Words: Amanda Mason, lawyer, Dwyer Bruce Legal

Protecting your band or business name

Your band name or business name is a valuable asset, especially if you’ve gained a decent reputation using it or have a garage full of merch that you still need to sell. As with any valuable asset, you should endeavour to protect it and one of the most effective ways to do so is by registering a trade mark.

Going private also helps Sharp balance his time between Boris the Blade and his studio, which is definitely a challenge when the band is touring.

“It works out alright, really.,” Sharp says of mixing music with work. “This is the first time since I started tattooing that I haven’t had bookings flat out so I’ve been able to settle into tattooing week by week, tattooing only when people email me pretty much.”

One of the perks of tattooing is how easy it is to do it on the road and Sharp is always looking for ways to fill the down time that surrounds gigs with ink work, something he’s planning upon doing during the band’s upcoming four-week European tour.

“We’ve got working visas in Europe so I’m going to take my tattoo equipment with me and maybe tattoo while we’re there,” he explains. “We went to Perth last weekend and I took my stuff with me and ended up doing a sleeve on my guitarist!”

Band mates would be locking in the mates rates, surely.

“He gets freebies,” Sharp moans.

Tattooing on the fly means Sharp needs a good command of different styles.

“I try to do all styles really, from neo traditional to realistic and everything in between. I’ve got influences but there are too many to mention, really.”

Instead, he lists the other tattooists at D-Sharp as his daily

inspiration: Sam, Eyan and Zac, but not without a smile and a hint of sarcasm.

If band members are calling on Sharp for free tattoos, it probably follows that they’re calling on him to design Boris the Blade merchandise also, right? Sharp claims this isn’t the case.

“I’m too busy tattooing to do merch, man,” he says. “I’ve drawn shirt ideas and stuff but they never go into print. I’m too flatout and I’m not that good at Photoshop.”

Does he recommend tattooing as a career?

“I love it man. Listening to music and drawing on people, hanging out with my mates. I definitely wouldn’t go trading careers with anyone,” he beams.

With almost a decade of tattooing under his belt, Sharp’s got to have a few stories that he can share with the readers.

“I’ve had people spell their own kids names wrong. That’s pretty funny,” he laughs. “Also, Sam tattooed my tongue last week, which was pretty weird.”

Did it hold? “Nah, it’s gone already,” he says.

Customers arrive and it’s clear time’s up. Before he goes, Sharp does offer some parting advice for all those aspiring young tattooists out there: “Draw, draw and then draw again. After that, go and show tattoo artists your folio and see if they want to give you a job. If they don’t, then draw some more and go again.” H

Boris the Blade is touring in support of latest record The Human Hive, which came out on May 9. For more information on D-Sharp tattoos, email dsharptattoos@hotmail.com

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What is a trade mark?

A trade mark is something that identifies your goods, services or business in trade, like a brand name or a logo. Brand names and logos are the most common form of trade mark; however letters, numbers, phrases, slogans, pictures, shapes, aspects of packaging – Coca Cola’s signature bottle, for example – and even smells can be registered as trade marks in Australia [I smell like money and bitches – Ed].

Does a trade mark have to be registered?

No. A name, logo, slogan etc. will be considered a trade mark provided it has been used to represent your goods, services or business in trade to the extent that people recognise it and can use it to distinguish your goods, services or business from those of others.

What are the benefits of registering a trade mark?

• You have the exclusive right to use your trade mark in relation to the classes of goods and services in which it has been registered;

• you’re provided with a greater level of protection than that of an unregistered trade mark; • it’s easier and cheaper to protect a registered trade mark than an unregistered trade mark; • it provides a clear record as to the specifics of your trade mark, the areas of trade in which you use it and the date of registration; • it’s much easier to sell or licence it to someone else; • it can be a deterrent to others wanting to use the same trade mark; • you can have Australian Customs seize imported goods that infringe your trade mark.

®

What’s the difference between the and symbols?

The ® symbol refers to a registered trade mark. You can only use it if the trade mark is registered. The ™ symbol can be used on unregistered trade marks to demonstrate to the world at large that you’re intending to use that name, logo etc. as a trade mark.

It’s a good idea to use the ™ symbol prior to registration or if your trade mark is unable to receive registration.

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What can and can’t receive trade mark registration?

As you are granted an exclusive right to use your registered trade mark, things that would grant you too greater monopoly and which would be unfair to other businesses will not receive registration.

Words that describe the goods or services provided, such as “death metal” for a death metal band will be unlikely to receive registration because all death metal bands should be able to use those words; however “Eagles of Death Metal” is likely to have more success because it includes the word “eagles”, which is generally unrelated to death metal.

The fact that Eagles of Death Metal are not actually a death metal band is irrelevant to a trade mark as the classes in which trade marks are registered are not musically genre specific.

An image that is commonly used to represent certain goods and services, like a photograph of a guitar for a business that sells guitars, will be difficult to register; however a drawing of a guitar incorporated

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into a business name logo will be more likely to receive registration.

The easiest trade marks to register are stylised logos, made-up words, such as Psycroptic, or a series of words that aren’t commonly used together, like I Killed the Prom Queen, because these are things that other similar businesses would not need to use to describe their goods, services or business.

What are trade mark classes?

When you register a trade mark, you can only register it in the areas in which your business trades. For example, a band would not be able to register the band name as a trade mark in class 29, which relates to food, unless it actually sold food, but it could register the trade mark in class 41, which relates to live performance.

With each class comes additional application and registration fees but you also receive greater protection, as your trade mark is protected in the areas of trade covered by each class.

What’s the cost of registering a trade mark?

For an Australian trade mark, IP Australia, the government body that handles trade marks, charges $120 per class for the application fee (if made online) and $300 per class for the registration fee. In addition to this, you’d be looking at legal fees, which vary between law firms, but will usually be somewhere between $300 and $500 for a single Australian trade mark. International trade marks are usually more expensive and the price varies between countries. You can apply to register a trade mark yourself, but trade marks can be tricky and there’s no point applying to register one if it’s not done properly.

How long does it take to register a trade mark and how long does the registration last?

The time from application to registration is lengthy, usually around seven or eight months, but registration is backdated to the date of the application so protection is obtained from the time of application. A trade mark application has to first be approved by IP Australia. Once it has been approved, it will be advertised in the

IP Australia Official Journal for two months to allow for opposition from anyone that thinks that the trade mark should not receive registration – If there is no opposition after the two-month opposition period, the trade mark can be registered once the registration fee has been paid. Registration lasts ten years, at which time a registration renewal fee will need to be paid to continue the registration.

So there you have it. Now you know how it’s done, there’s really no excuse not to get out there and protect your IP. With so many other bands already around, and hundreds of new ones forming each year, trade marking is the best way to avoid name disputes down the track. H

Amanda Mason is our resident legal expert. When she’s not changing the world as a lawyer with Dwyer Bruce Legal, she loves to scour Twitter for tour rumours.

Follow her at twitter.com/metalawyer.

A Bunch of Dimes Words: Douglas P Steele XII

We’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of Pantera’s Far Beyond Driven, the first extreme metal album to ever hit no. 1 on the Billboard Top 200. It’s also the first time Darrell Abbott was christened ‘Dimebag’ Darrell, which is good because he used to be called ‘Diamond’ Darrell. Ha ha, what a goose! full of crazy, muted power chords and frantic single lines. Dime’s lead style was cowboy on acid – pentatonic scales combined with threenote-per-string minor shapes as well. He was extremely adept at not only pinch harmonics, which he seemed to be able to hit just about everywhere on the neck, but he was an absolute god with natural harmonics as well. He’d dip that whammy bar, hit the note on the G-string second fret then slowly raise it back to pitch. hell, he’d even pull the note higher by yanking on the bar.

Vai made it famous. Dimebag made it scary! He was a perfect mixture of feel and shred. One part Duane Allman, one part Paul Gilbert, ten parts bad ass, and definitely not afraid to show all of himself within a metal context.

It’s 1994 and grunge is sittin’ pretty. Metal has seen better days but Texan band Pantera is unfazed by the trends and continues to crank out the heavies.

I was fortunate enough to see Pantera live when they were touring Far Beyond Driven. I also went to the record signing. Both were nothing short of incredible. Dimebag was a true force to be reckoned with, and an inspiration to me and many of my axe-wielding peers.

How did he kick so much ass?

Tone Dime’s tone was solid state, and he used a parametric EQ to tweak it just a bit more. Total scoop – the bass and highs were cranked and all those pesky mids were gone. He used Randall amps exclusively at that stage. Twenty years ago, the only companies making solid state heads (aside from Randall) were Marshall, Laney, and Ampeg. Dime also played the Dean ML guitar outfitted with Bill Lawrence pickups, which were installed upside down! I’m sure that was a happy accident.

Anyway, gear is only going to help you so much. At the end of the day, the tone is in your hands.

Attitude Above all else, above the practicing and the riffery, Dime just loved playing guitar in a metal band. And when I say he loved it, he loved it!

You could always tell this was a guy who loved every process of being in a band – the writing and recording; the touring; the signings; meeting people; and, probably most of all, the partying!

Enough of this chatter though. You’re here for Far Beyond Driven so let’s take a look at a few of Dimebag’s best moments on this sick little record.

Style Dime was an absolute gun on guitar. Pantera rhythms were chock Standard tuning

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Shedding Skin intro

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This riff is your typical thrash metal riff and is very reminiscent of MOD’s ‘Godzilla’, except the MOD version was first and everything was muted power chord as opposed to Dime’s single-string method. it’s a killer intro for a killer song. Requires a slight stuttering with your picking hand but once you get started, it’s so addictive that it’s hard to stop.

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I’m Broken Intro

Far Beyond Driven: the ‘Brown’ notes This is the more challenging part of the intro. it has a total blues-metal vibe. Best of all, it’s slow enough to pick with downstrokes. Feel free to pinch harmonic the higher notes.

Words: Sam Bean

I’m Broken solo

Here, Dimebag incorporates a total dorian/blues feel. As with the intro, it’s slow enough to use all downstrokes. Careful how you bend though, especially if you have a floating Floyd-Rose whammy bar.

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Easy peasy. This is the E dorian scale with a triplet feel going down in threes, something Dime did a lot. It’s a very intuitive way to play descending notes. Keep it as legato as possible. The picking is notated but I’d suggest trial and error on your part. Experiment to find what works for you.

Dimebag will be sorely missed. Pantera made eight studio albums and most of them were good). Dimebag was one of those rare, larger-thanlife characters who was utterly a master of his instrument. Dime’s writing style and his punchy guitar tone put groove metal on the map and wherever Dime went, tonnes of clones followed. I should know. I was one of ‘em!

Doug Steele is guitarist for progressive metal and jazz fusion masters Alarum, a popular emcee, a radio presenter and a voiceover artist. He’s also a guitar teacher, founder of the eclectic Guitar Fight Club clinic and something of a YouTube celebrity, thanks to his prolific output of free lesson material via his own channel. He can be seen on HEAVY mag’s own HEAVY TV, and followed via his website: dougfcknsteele.com

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F**king Far Beyond Driven kicks so much ass that you need iron trousers just to listen to this album. I’m assuming you heard it soon after learning to read and don’t require any instruction on how it’s one of heavy metal’s greatest albums, so allow me to sing hallelujahs about the bass playing of Pantera’s Rex Brown instead.

Like most of the elite metal bands out there, Pantera had an all-star lineup. Each member was an ace musician at the very top of their game, including the bassist. Sure, it would be easy for a metal bassist to get lost amongst such a pile-on of talent, but right across the band’s entire extensive discography, Rex has managed to hold his own.

Part of this was due to the diesel-thirsty tone he dialled up with his Spector/Ampeg SVT amp setup, which sat perfectly in the band’s mix; ballsy, tight, dirty, and obvious without sounding like some clackity-clack show-off. Occasional forays to C sharp tuning? Not a GODDAMN problem.

It’s been said a few times that you know a good metal bass player because you can’t tell he’s there.

Well, not on this album brother.

The bass stands out as an equal 25 per cent to all other components and it works perfectly.

Another reason why Rex has been so good at holding his own is because the music on Far Beyond Driven is utterly perfect for bass playing. When the songs don’t require Rex to lock into the staccato rhythms of the kick drum patterns, the band breaks out into gumbo-thick southern groove that needs basslines that don’t so much walk as swagger like a pack of thirsty marines on weekend release in the streets of Austin, Texas.

Add to that the fact that these rednecks were perfectly happy for Dimebag to rip solos without requiring a second studio guitar – definitely a ‘f**k it’ decision to recklessly ignore much of the ultra-layered guitar-heavy metal of the era – and you’d have to be both

deaf and dumb to miss the bass on this album.

The best example of those signature sounds, but by no means the only one, would be on the album’s macho call-out ‘5 Minutes Alone’. Here, the sparse backing under Dime’s police-siren solo gives Rex’s walking bassline a big show. Post-solo, Rex does the most Olympian power-walk right up to the podium and even takes a little bow at the end. A slightly more subtle approach is found on opening face-wrecker ‘Strength Beyond Strength’, where the bass punctuates the opening riff with an occasional harmony that manages to make a brutal riff sound even more inhuman.

This is a bass player at the top of his game: shadowing and locking in when required,

hitting you with flourishes when they’ll do the most good, and overall just delivering those bass lines as tightly as tight can be.

As the record continues, Rex’s pernicious basslines present the listener with one rhetorical question after another: •‘I’m Broken’ – how does he stay audible despite that redonkulous amount of bass in Dimebag’s solo?!; • ‘Slaughtered’ – how tight can a bass lock in?; • ‘25 Years’ – the song hits those counterpoint verse rhythms and then you learn exactly how precise someone can get; • ‘Use My Third Arm’ – the rhythm rolls along like a mountainsized horse and those hits in the bridge show percussive bass at its best.

Look, I could really bloviate about every track on this album but, for me, ‘Good Friends and A Bottle of Pills’ at the midpoint is where all the veils are gone.

Here, the bass is naked and completely visible. It also seems to be the only thing keeping everything together; it lurks in the background like a menacing pimp with a strong back hand while the rest of the song flips right the f**k out.

I remember plenty of people who weren’t impressed when this album came out. They thought it was overproduced, and that the songs weren’t as strong compared to Pantera’s previous output. Those people were a bunch of sissies. Far Beyond Driven is Pantera’s heaviest album, and mandatory listening for every aspiring bassist and music lover alike.

Planet Caravan, peace out. H

Sam Bean played bass for The Berzerker and UK death metallers Mithras, releases solo CDs as The Senseless, and records with international breakcore outfit Kiri Kiri Kiri. Read about his unprintable industry experiences at www.thesenseless.wordpress.org

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Far Beyond Diddles

Example 1

Vinnie Paul might not have been as blazingly quick or as technical as some of his metal contemporaries, but his playing certainly isn’t without nuance and his focus towards song-writing gave considerable strength to Pantera’s sound.

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Words: Rob Brens

You’d never expect to hear the words ‘nerdy’ and ‘Pantera’ in the same sentence but you better believe I’m going to give it a red-hot go... and then you didn’t give it a go.

The opening track on Pantera’s superaggressive Far Beyond Driven provides a prime example of how to shape a song and take the listener on a real journey using drums.

In ‘Strength Beyond Strength’, Vinnie Paul flies out of the gate with a classic thrash feel but then deftly flips the beat when the riff changes. He does this merely by swapping the kick and snare around. After the second revolution of the two riffs, Paul follows the riff between the kick and snare (see example 1, kick and snare only) then moves to a half time feel, which I always liked because the guitar riff doesn’t change. This is just one example of how subtle changes can have a large impact on song feel. Have a listen to the other songs on this album and pay attention to how often Vinnie changes his feel throughout a song – it’s almost as if he doesn’t want to give anyone a chance to get bored.

Let’s take a look a few select cuts Track seven ‘Slaughtered’ provides a tasteful application of rudiments around the 2:10 mark. Before tackling grooves like this, it always helps to start with the basic hand pattern, which in this case is RLRLRR LRLRLL. This is otherwise known as a double paradiddle. You can start simply by playing it on the snare and, when you feel comfortable,

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move the right hand to the ride cymbal. From here, add the kick drum at the same time as the RLRLRR portion of the pattern and you’re set (see example 2).

This is a fun groove to play but don’t stop there; you can use any other rudiment or just come up with your own combination of rights and lefts over which you can add a bass drum. Let your imagination run wild and your (drum) vocabulary will never run dry.

It’s track 2, ‘Becoming’, that has the kick drum pattern that left us all mystified 20 years ago, and it’s a pattern that would probably still elude plenty of drummers today (see example 3).

Sure, it’s not impossible to work out the rhythm but any attempt to play it can quickly result in some tangled feet. A brief Youtube session (search ‘Vinnie Paul becoming double bass’) reveals the great man’s trick for navigating this convoluted pattern – LLRRL R LRRL R LRRL is the pattern you want to be doing. (Note that I’ve moved the left foot to a separate line in the transcription just to highlight the pattern).

The key to this pattern is how the left just bounces away on the eighth note while the right foot fills in all the gaps. While this greatly demystifies the technical elements of this groove, it still requires some gnarly rightfoot speed to make it happen so just keep at it until you develop the speed you need.

Now that everyone’s warmed up, let’s move from the fiddly stuff to something a

bit more... well, mind bending. In ‘5 Minutes Alone’, Paul throws the listener a curve ball during the verses by reversing the groove (see example 4). What makes this such a choice musical decision is that the verse starts off by adding a couple of off-beat accents in the riff, except instead of coming back in on the beat, Paul continues to play the entire groove off the beat.

If you plan on incorporating this idea into your own compositions, it’s paramount that you know where the pulse is, otherwise you (and most likely your band mates) will lose that beat and not be able to find your way back. [Sounds like the premise for a film – Ed.] This is where counting comes in handy. See if you can play this while counting “1and2and3and4and” the whole time. If you can, you can move the beat to wherever you like without losing your place to create some much more interesting phrases. Initially, I wouldn’t get too wild, otherwise the groove will vanish quicker than a cold beer at a house party and you’ll start sounding like a skipping CD. Far Beyond Driven contains no shortage of trickery, but the most important thing to note is that these tricks are applied in careful moderation with full regard to what’s happening musically. Adopting such an attitude is what makes a band like Pantera a whole greater than the sum of its parts. H

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Rob Brens is one of Australia’s hardest-working drummers. As well as being a fixed member of death metal demons Hadal Maw and progressive metal masters Alarum, he has handled the sticks for King Parrot, Dreadnaught, Desecrator, Aural Window, Infinity, Moneypenny, Cherry Bomb, Brad Pascoe, Luthor, Tristan Coates, Stan Bicknell, Phantom Power Wizard Master Smasher, Sexual Chocolate, Ace of Spades and The Australasian Michael Buble Show... and that was just last year. He also offers lessons through his website at www.robbrens.com

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Words: Amanda Mason

It’s not unusual for metal bands to appear in TV commercials promoting products, especially now that times are tough and musicians can barely make a buck from album sales, but some of the things that metal bands are promoting nowadays have reached the point of being totally ridonk. Fire up your YouTubes, kiddies, ‘coz these ads are ‘must see’.

Carpet cleaning

In an ad for Stanley Steemer carpet cleaning, Dee Snider appears in full ‘80s Twisted Sister gender-defying garb, trashes some clichéd housewife’s carpet and then tells her to call 1800-STEEMER – not to be confused with 1800-STEAMER, which may or may not be the Cleveland steamer hotline.

And just in case you were wondering, the answer is yes; the carpet does match the drapes.

Politics

Jedrzej Wijas, a member of the Polish Democratic Left Alliance, promoted his political campaign with a death metal tune about his political policies.

We’re not so good at speaking Polish here at HEAVY but one useful online translation includes the term “end of stupid wars”, and the powerful, voteswaying line, “Freedom, that’s my aim; vote smart.”

Internet security

In an ad for Norton Internet Security software, Dokken and a raw chicken are used in an unusual analogy for a computer virus and a hard drive. The high point is most definitely the line, “Would you like to allow Dokken to have its way with your chicken, unleashing a wrath the likes of which your chicken has never seen?” While the low point is a synchronised crotch thrust from Dokken that makes the chicken spontaneously combust.

Bah, who am I kidding? That’s a total high point too.

Electronics

Dressed in a whacky, futuristic get-up that looks like it’s been stolen straight from the set of Tron: Legacy, Ozzy Osbourne plays an old guy who hasn’t kept up with ever-changing technology in this ad for Best Buy’s Buy Back program. He’s joined by ‘the Bieb’ who plays a tech-savvy kid, presumably before young Justin decided he needed to quit doing ads for Best Buy and start smoking copious amounts of weed instead.

years as well as fronting its own metal/hard rock festival Scion Rock Fest.

Mötley Crüe have also appeared in an ad for a new car, but for a car that’s much closer to the mum car demographic, the Kia Optima. Lame car aside, in a smart move for the Crüe, their song ‘Kick Start My Heart’ also features in the ad, presumably resulting in some sweet royalties [no doubt promptly spent removing Vince Neill’s manboobs – Ed.].

Used cars

Historical documentaries

New cars

Video stores

In an atrociouslytacky commercial for Park Auto Mall used cars, Chris Barnes of Cannibal Corpse and Six Feet Under talks about how some chick called Tiffany sold him a 2003 Porche Boxter S. [Did what happen after become a Cannibal Corpse song? –Ed.]

Municipal Waste drummer Dave Witte and Exodus singer Rob Dukes star in a really long documentary-style online ad for the totes-hot Scion FR-S coupe. Someone over at Scion clearly loves their metal ‘coz the group has also entered into promotions with Meshuggah and Revocation in recent

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Suffocation starred in an ad for The History Channel’s The Dark Ages documentary, resulting in a slew of online commentary declaring The History Channel as “the most brutal channel ever”.

Oh no. Being such hardcore thrash dudes and all, Skeletonwitch’s Nate Garnette and Scott Hedrick have scratched all of their CDs and DVDs! Luckily, in this low-budget gem of an ad, Dave at Dave’s Video (he of the mullet and handlebar mo’) repairs scratched CDs and DVDs. Call him now.

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