Decibel Magazine #180 - October 2019

TORMENTOR

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE CULT OF LUNA LIFE WON’T WAIT IT'S ELECTRIFYING

ANNO DOMINI HALL OF FAME

REFUSE/RESIST

ALSO OCTOBER 2019 // No. 180

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VITRIOL

HAMMERFALL

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE

DEVOURMENT

TO BATHE FROM THE THROAT OF COWARDICE

DOMINION

ATONEMENT

OBSCENE MAJESTY

SACRED REICH

CULT OF LUNA

AMON AMARTH

VENOM PRISON

AWAKENING

A DAWN TO FEAR

BERSERKER

SAMSARA

PALADIN

PSYCROPTIC

SEEYOUSPACECOWBOY

WORMWITCH

ASCENSION

AS THE KINGDOM DROWNS

SONGS FOR THE FIRING SQUAD

HEAVEN THAT DWELLS WITHIN

KORN

3 FROM HELL

QUEEN OF THE DAMNED

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October 2019 [R 180] decibelmagazine.com

56

Poison Ideas COVER STORY

COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY ESTER SEGARRA

upfront 10 metal by muthas A castle needs a princess 12 live review:

heavy montréal They bless the rains over Montréal

14 low culture But how does he feel about The Dirt?

15 no corporate beer Rocky Mountain drunk 16 studio report:

strigoi

O’ ye of little faith

18 creeping death Let it be written, on page 18 20 vitriol Abandoning their core values 22 workshed No drinking on the job 24 in cold blood There’s no integrity in giving up

features

reviews

26 devourment Hungry for more

36 killswitch engage Fistful of metalcore

28 elder This krautrock ain’t sour

38 cult of luna Drawing down the moon

69 lead review Crypt Sermon’s torch burns ever brighter on The Ruins of Fading Light

30 monolord Northern discomfort

40 q&a: entombed a.d.

L-G Petrov has that gut feeling

32 visceral disgorge Honor the fallen 34 crypt sermon Ascending Mount Doom

44 the decibel

hall of fame Escaping the shadow of Communism in Hungary to cast an even darker shadow of black metal across the world comes Tormentor’s debut album Anno Domini

70 album reviews Records that don’t need FaceApp tie-ins to sell records, including Exhorder, No One Knows What The Dead Think and Witch Vomit 88 double negative Shake your tail feather

Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, paid at Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia PA 19107. © 2019 by Red Flag Media, Inc. ISSN 1557-2137 | USPS 023142 All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited.

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REFUSE/RESIST

October 2019 [T180]

PUBLISHER

Alex Mulcahy

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Albert Mudrian

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Decibel’s fearless ad sales director

James Lewis recently asked me if I could have imagined still running this magazine 15 years into the future when I started it back in 2004. A resounding “fuck no!” was my immediate response, because there was no guarantee that the idea of an authoritative (yet irreverent) extreme music magazine would last 15 issues, let alone 15 years.

It’s easy to forget that, even back in the summer of 2004, industry experts were already preparing print’s obituary. To the general public, the landscape at least appeared healthy; when Decibel launched, there were over a half-dozen competing titles on the racks. I mean, fuck, there were even actual magazine racks back then. It was a surprisingly crowded market. Labels like Relapse, Nuclear Blast, Prosthetic, Metal Blade and Century Media—which all have been Decibel advertisers since issue #1—had plenty of other options, so their early support was not only a welcome surprise, but also paramount to getting the magazine off the ground. As was our initial round of subscribers, who took a chance on a new magazine with absolutely no track record— more remarkable still is the fact that many of them have stood by us for 180 issues and counting.

That unrelenting publishing schedule is largely the result of a handful of talented and tireless core employees—past and present—who have worked obsessively to develop the magazine while simultaneously publishing historical books, releasing a monthly flexi disc series, updating a vibrant website, booking an annual tour and staging a pair of annual bicoastal festivals in their “spare time.” All the while never losing sight of the simple fact that the bound printed matter in your leathery hands right now is the engine that powers this entire machine.

Fifteen years later, Decibel is now the only monthly metal magazine in North America. We are all extraordinarily proud of what we’ve accomplished to this point, but no one here feels the least bit nostalgic.

We’re just grateful for your continued trust in us, which is both more than we ever imagined and all the inspiration we need to ensure that Decibel’s best years still lie ahead. albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

Patty Moran

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READER OF THE

MONTH Who is the Seattle band we don’t know about yet, but we'll be covering the fuck out of this time next year?

Jason Wagoner Seattle, WA

You work for the Seattle Opera as a stage carpenter. Most people don’t think of opera as very metal, so sell us on that notion.

Opera is very metal. I mean, Bathory’s Hammerheart takes cues from German composer and theatre director Richard Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” series with the tracks “Valhalla” and “One Rode to Asa Bay.” That entire album is Viking metal. Other examples include Wagner’s “Die Walküre” and “Götterdämmerung,” both combining chaos, Vikings, dragons, charred corpses and death. Opera is super grim and brutal. Hell, Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” includes alleged witches burning alive, kidnapping and burning of babies, murder, beheadings… and that’s before intermission.

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As far as Seattle local bands making waves, definitely deathCAVE. Their name sums it up—there’s some primal shit goin’ on here!

They’re a trio of hardworking heshers banging out the grooves.

It seems lately every other week they are on a bill. So, keep an eye peeled for these fabulous gents in the near future. They have a three-track demo recorded and mixed by Tad Doyle at Witch Ape Studio. Check ’em out on Bandcamp. You have been warned.

You spent much of the ’90s and early aughts in the Savannah/Atlanta area. Tell us about the first time you saw Baroness and Kylesa.

Speaking of Kylesa, I must first start with Damad’s Victoria Scalisi (RIP) and Brian Duke (RIP). In 1993, I had the pleasure of being present for a few Damad shows. But the one I actually remember was the first show I put together as a promoter. The bill was Buzzov-en, Harvey Milk and Damad at Big Gas Cycles in Savannah. It was an evening of sweat,

metal and greasy concrete that I will never forget.

As far as Kylesa, I remember a heavier, more dynamic, crushing and organic sound from former members of Damad. Ever-evolving and -growing; always something crushing, new and interesting.

Baroness was an eye-opening experience. John Baizley had mentioned that they practiced for six months before their first show ever at the Jinx in Savannah. Of course, this was long before the “color” albums, before First and Second. BUT THEY WERE SO TIGHT! The tone of Tim Loose and Baizley’s guitars was super groovy with a crunchy metallic edge. Summer Welch handling the lowend bass duties and Allan Blickle traveling down from Virginia to beat the skins. So much hair and humidity—it was an amazing experience.

Give us your elevator pitch on a record you believe is Hall of Fame-worthy that you doubt we’ve ever considered inducting.

I’m not much for “elevator pitching,” but back in the early ’90s, there were these three handsome blokes out of Nottingham, England. They produced the absolute perfect combination of noise, rock, reverb and much heaviness—everything was perfect! Plus, they covered Cream and the Motor City Madman (who is actually a madman... or just a fucking dick). The band, of course, is Fudge Tunnel. The album: Hate Songs in E Minor. A majority of early Earache releases were my college soundtrack, which I still listen to religiously! No joke. Hate Songs is timeless.

Chuck BB is the illustrator of the graphic novels Black Metal, Vol. 1, 2 and 3 For more info and art, head over to chuckbb.com

A Swiss army knife of metal, ‚Orphans‘ embraces everything from dazzling tech-death to sweeping, cinematic hard rock with ironclad purpose. - Loudwire

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NOW SLAYING Wonder what Decibel world HQ has been rocking for the past month?

Well, here are the records that we spun most while knowing everything about the new Tool album before you.

Because not all of us were spawned in the darkest recesses of hell

This Month's Mutha: Stevie Floyd of Dark Castle/Taurus

Take us through your daily schedule in 2019.

It changes every day. I work on art/logos for bands and my own music. About to put out my third solo record, but this time it’s more DM/ BM shit. Been preoccupied with opening the new Devout Records physical metal record store again!

Getting extremely close, been working at it for over a year. It’s gonna be killer, though.

You haven’t released a Dark Castle record since 2011, and the remainder of your Metal Archives page indicates radio silence. How much of that inactivity is due to your responsibilities as a mother?

Well, for one, Metal Archives won’t acknowledge my two solo records or my two records with Taurus, which is what I’ve been doing since 2010.

I am beyond proud of what Ash [Spungen] and I do together in Taurus, and it’s a huge disrespect that they deem it “not metal.” Guttural vocals, tremolo-picking scales and one of the best female drummers on the earth is killin’ it with double bass and more.

Anyway, Dark Castle has been doing a lot more than usual lately. We were writing a new record, and halfway through decided to play a bunch of shows/fests and re-release a box set containing our entire discography. We also just did a track for Adult Swim!

Has your passion for writing and releasing music—much less touring—changed since you had your daughter?

It’s changed, yes, as far as what I am physically able to do. Passion does not change. The best thing you can offer your child is for them to see you create. So many mothers stop what they’re 1 0 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

doing to be a “mom,” and what does that even mean? I’ve never stopped; time just gets shorter.

You’re friends with other women in the scene who have had children. Do you feel like you can identify with them more than mainstream parenting experts?

A couple, yes, and the fact that they keep playing music is incredible. In the sense of unconventional parenting, that is a rare thing. You have this child needing your attention at all times. It’s extremely intense. It’s easy to give up; I just don’t.

I’d rather my kid be bummed that I’m busy creating than her wonder WTF I even do. We played shows/practiced and played loud music during my entire pregnancy to hopefully instill in Grail to be accustomed to this, and it worked. I have had many band practices where I would put Grail down for a nap upstairs and start practice in the basement downstairs. She wouldn’t fall asleep until the music started. It was her comfort zone.

What kind of music do you expose your daughter to?

Grail is allowed to listen to anything that is real music. I don’t let her listen to pop Auto-Tuned garbage. Her favorite band is KISS. We took her to see KISS live and Judas Priest, and I was amazed by her attention span. She made it through the entire show both times and was singing along at three and four years old! She has clearly had her fair share of DM and BM around her constantly, but we play all kinds of other music as well. She definitely has a very well-rounded view and taste for what is good. —ANDREW BONAZELLI

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Gatecreeper, Deserted  Strigoi, Abandon All Faith  Napalm Death, Diatribes  Napalm Death, Utopia Banished  Magic Circle, Departed Souls ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Rainbow Grave, No You  Ramones, Leave Home  Tiamat, Skeleton Skeletron  Sisters of Mercy, First and Last and Always  UADA, Cult of a Dying Sun ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  Blazon Stone, Hymns of Triumph and Death  Lo-Pan, Subtle  Tomb Mold, Planetary Clairvoyance  Batushka, Hospodi  Dark Tranquillity, The Gallery ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  Crypt Sermon, The Ruins of Fading Light  Cattle Decapitation, Death Atlas  Thorns, Thorns  No One Knows What the Dead Think, No One Knows What the Dead Think  Vitriol, Pain Will Define Their Death ---------------------------------Alex Yarde : d i r e c t o r o f m a r k e t i n g  Richy Mitch and the Coal Miners, Subliming  Schammasch, Triangle  Panopticon, The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness, Pt. 1  Frank Ocean, Blonde  Nas, The Lost Tapes 2

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Mike Hill : t o m b s  Gaahls Wyrd, GastiR - Ghosts Invited  Darkthrone, Old Star  Ringworm, Death Becomes My Voice  All Hell, The Witch’s Grail  Cable, Take the Stairs to Hell

Follow Stevie Floyd on Instagram at @stv_flyd.

PHOTO BY DANTE TORRIERI

HEAVY MONTRÉAL

Mandatory suicide  (clockwise from l) Slayer’s Kerry King divebombs his last solo in Montréal, Cattle Decapitation leave the audience with several questions while Municipal Waste have nothing but wrong answers

HEAVY MONTRÉAL

O

ver a lunchtime conversation with J-F Michaud, the dude responsible for WHEN: July 27-28, 2019 booking Heavy Montréal, he decoded the PHOTOS BY MIHAELA PETRESCU peculiarities of the region’s metal scene, essentially explaining a) why it makes sense for mainstream Christian rock band Skillet to immediately follow deathcore bruisers Despised Icon, b) why he considers it a success if someone attends only being into a handful of bands, yet leaves being a fan of a handful more, and c) if you like all 51 bands playing, you’re probably crazy!

WHERE: Parc Jean-Drapeau,

Montréal

Fair enough, but this year’s edition is all about Slayer. With the legends on the cusp of retirement, all the energy and sun-baked rowdiness is being saved for the angels of death. The angry dude next to us chose to greet Skálmöld’s North American debut of their proggy, noodly, waltzy Viking metal with sarcastic screams of “What is this shit?! This isn’t Slayer!” Similarly, we’re not sure if the muted reaction to Galactic Empire’s costumed and metalized Star Wars salutation was due to an early time slot, the anticipation of hearing “Raining Blood” one last time or because Montréal lacks a solid contingent of sci-fi nerds.

Last time Municipal Waste played Heavy Montréal, frontman Tony Foresta had people tree-diving. This year, at the appropriately named Blabbermouth/Forest Stage, he ramped up the entertainment factor by goading the crowd into massive circle pits around two 1 2 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

adjacent trees during “Wrong Answer.” Cattle Decapitation continued to dominate on Canadian soil with a violent flurry of activity that, judging by facial expressions conveying fear and disgust, was a shock to newbies. Those facial expressions remained during Watain because, despite the open air and fresh breeze, you can still smell them. The malodorous black metal militia foraged forth, not allowing their salaciously evil sounds to wilt under the sunshine and humidity, and eventually hurling a torch into the crowd as addition to the hellish heat.

Anyone familiar with The Great Sabatini knows that they aren’t your average sludge/ stoner band. The weather gods apparently concur, raining intermittent sun showers during their set’s quirkiest parts, which added spectacle and made up for them not having a big-ass backdrop like most everyone else. Gamma Ray also lacked a backdrop, but had extensive help from

the props and lighting department in creating the sinister-looking space-age chandelier behind the band, who themselves looked like a reunion of Beyond Thunderdome extras. That was the most sinister part of their set of candy-coated, air-raid siren power metal, which provoked big grins and bigger sing-alongs.

Demolition Hammer bolted out of the gate with bassist/vocalist Steve Reynolds quickly usurping Terror’s Scott Vogel (whose band played immediately before them) as champion of ridiculous stage raps. While Vogel spent more time threatening those who dared not circle-pit, Reynolds was sealing his victory by introducing “Omnivore” with, “This next song is not about no carnivore, it ain’t about no vegetarian and it ain’t about no trout!”

Considering what Slayer are packing on their way out, their (supposed) retirement will be extra heartbreaking. Tom Araya easily outroared 25,000 people during “War Ensemble,” and Kerry King’s enthusiasm for headbanging, whammy bar usage and excessive wallet chains is unmatched. The sound was pristine, the lighting scheme was brilliant, the backdrops were eraappropriate and the flamethrowers shot inverted crosses! All the production punctuated a careerspanning run from Show No Mercy to Repentless.

That they can still generate excitement and goosebumps with the ancient “Chemical Warfare” demonstrates that there’s more in the tank. It’ll be sad to see ’em go. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

Cold Take (Not the One With “Cherry Orchards”) everybody, I finally saw Lords of Chaos. I waited until it was on Hulu so I could watch it for free months later and have one less thing to bitch about if it sucked. I mean, I guess if I had paid money to see it, that would give me some license to complain about it robbing me of $20 and two hours of my life like everyone who swore they weren’t going to see it and ended up doing so anyway. But I like to live outside of the norms.

Cool, right? Anyway, here’s my ice-cold take on a subject we’ve all mostly stopped talking about a few months ago because some band wrote something that got them kicked off a tour, or there’s some new group that sounds like a fourth-gen Incantation clone that the metal community won’t shut the fuck up about until they forget the band ever existed six months from now.

I have no dog in this fight whatsoever. I don’t know any of these guys personally, and I wasn’t involved in that scene when these events went down. So, I didn’t really give much of a fuck about how they were portrayed. Because it’s Hollywood, I assumed that liberties would be taken, as the general moviegoing public probably doesn’t give a fuck about scary music made by grumpy-looking teenagers unless there’s a romantic subplot or some kind of cinematic storytelling trope. Luckily for them, there’s a few of those here that really serve to draw out an already too-long movie. It was kind of like High Fidelity if John Cusack and Jack Black’s characters were combined into some dude who might’ve been in one of the Home Alone sequels, but wasn’t because all his siblings look similar. Just think, though: If he was one of the two Culkins who were a part of that historical franchise (featuring future president Donald J. Trump in a deep character stretch as an asshole), he could’ve booby-trapped his apartment and Varg wouldn’t have had time to stop IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING MURDER to make Ovaltine because he’d be protecting his nuts from flying paint cans or something, probably involving a trip wire made with the hair he cut off in that obviously transformational scene.

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Another thing I found fucking ridiculous— that I would find ridiculous in any movie, really—was the extended dream sequence where Euronymous is frolicking with Dead in the forest, but it gets all kinds of jump-scare spooky. Is that what’s going on in horror movies now? I thought The Witch was boring as fuck.

How is Mortician supposed to sample these things? And his crying over Dead’s corpse (after posing the body, taking pictures and grabbing skull pieces) was ham-fisted. Ever watch that Mayhem documentary that’s heavy on the reading because it’s in Norwegian? General consensus in it is that Euronymous was an asshole. I just didn’t see the remorse being true to life, but I wasn’t in the room with them, so what the fuck do I know?

Besides being confused by how many Culkins and Skarsgårds there are and which ones were in this, I actually enjoyed it as a movie. I wouldn’t say it’s great or a future classic, but I don't regret watching it. The only thing I really disliked was the actor who played Varg, and not for the reasons that groups full of “cool guys” on Facebook lamented. I just thought he was a shitty actor—a really shitty actor who took me out of the movie. Besides his fucking overwrought giggle, which he tossed in towards the end of the film, he just delivered lines like he learned the craft at an acting school taught by the people who wrote scripts for early-’70s porn films. His performance brought me back almost 20 years to Attack of the Clones, which is like thinking back to losing your virginity and judging it on your performance. He was in The OA, too, apparently, and I thought that series fucking sucked as well, so I can’t blame it on how he was written.

So, black metal’s arrival into mainstream cinema has come and gone with absolutely no real impact into the modern spirit of the genre, which has been boiled down to people arguing on the Internet like a pack of hens in a burning barn. You don’t have to worry that Lords of Chaos ruined black metal—the current participants are doing a good job at that all by themselves.

TRAPPIST FRONTMAN crafts a monthly journey through

MORBID ALES

BY CHRIS DODGE

Trve Brews, Baby, I Love You

M

y last time in Denver

was in 2014 for the Great American Beer Festival, a Bacchanalian annual gathering of thousands of breweries serving unlimited tastings under one roof. Coupled with the massive number of local breweries/ taprooms and overall craft beer culture, I nicknamed Denver “Beer Disneyland.” This week, I dragged the wife through the thin atmosphere of the nosebleed capital to see if it’s still true.

In the now-gentrified RiNo (River North) district of the city, we hit Ratio Beerworks.

The open-air tasting room is clean and streamlined, and the beers are straightforward, distinct and unpretentious, with a philosophy rooted in punk and hardcore.

Head brewer and co-founder Jason zumBrunnen played in bands like the Fairlanes and spent enough time in the back of a van to adopt the work ethic necessary to head up a grassroots brewery. Marketing manager Tristan Chan confirmed, “We do aim to translate that DIY spirit through our brewery from the music we play in the taproom, names of the beers, local music and arts groups we support.” Dear You, their citra-hopped saison, paired well with Dead Kennedys “Too Drunk to Fuck” on the house speakers, proving punk rock is better with good beer than cheap corporate swill.

 The hoppiest place on earth (Clockwise from top l) The bald, the bearded and the brewtiful with Nick Nunns, the now post-punk Ratio Beerworks and some of the new and true brews offered by Trve and New Terrain

Just outside of the big city is the boomtown of Golden, home of Coors—the bastion of GMO-tainted horse urine. But in this majestic mountain environment, next to roaring Clear Creek, it’s difficult not to at least appreciate the history of what this brewery used to represent, founded 146 years ago by German immigrant brewers, rather than what it has become. On the opposite side of the river, innovation is represented by New Terrain Brewing, an outdoorsy-themed beer spot for the self-satisfyingly active Teva and Birkenstock crowd. I was curious if locals harbored a kinship for Coors brand loyalty, but on a Monday afternoon in a remote industrial park, this independent taproom was packed. I felt inferior surrounded by hiking, biking and kayaking superhumans, considering my only exercise consisted of lifting taster glasses to my gullet.

Each afternoon, anvil-shaped thunderheads grew in the sky, and we were forced to dash through unexpected downpours. Denver is no stranger to darkness, not the least of which is the annual Denver Black Sky heavy music fest, sponsored by the brewery of the same name. Black Sky brews are quaffable, although my personal affinity for local doomy braus is for TRVE Brewing.

Dave Witte and I ran across TRVE for the first time at GABF in 2012, where they poured a pale gose brewed with volcanic salt. It was a revelation. Even in their first year of operation, TRVE had it dialed in. Seven years later, they’re killing it across the board, and it resonates with beer fans from all walks. While the aesthetic of the tasting room is Anton LaVey chic, with sludge metal booming from overhead speakers, it’s not uncommon to see “normies” like grandparents in neon activewear sipping sours next to crusties in black denim battle vests. Downto-earth founder and brewer Nick Nunns confirmed that although they outwardly portray all things brutal, he gets a kick out of delivering the unexpected. I asked him why Scorn, a brew created for locals Primitive Man, isn’t a beer as heavy as the band themselves. “We’re not going to be what you expect us to be,” Nunns explained. “3 Floyds has already done the extreme beer thing. It’s better if we give them a sessionable Pale Wheat Ale instead.”

Over the course of four days, we hit countless breweries with mixed results (Zuni, for instance… cough, cough). I mentioned my initial thoughts on Beer Disneyland to Nunns, who only smirked, paused and said, “There is a lot of beer here. But that doesn’t mean there’s a lot of good beer.” Trve, very trve.

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STRIGOI

STUDIO REPORT

STRIGOI

N

otes of desolation permeate the punky black/death of

“Phantoms.” It’s the kind of righteous opener that has launched careers in our filthy corner of the world. We’re ALBUM TITLE talking “Left Hand Path,” “Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay,” Abandon All Faith “Immortal Rites” and “Evolved as One” here. See, “Phantoms” is off Strigoi’s debut album, Abandon All Faith. And who the fuck are LABEL Strigoi? Well, they’re not from Sweden, Norway or somewhere in Nuclear Blast Eastern Europe. This spiked fist to the throat is from the charred STUDIO remains of death metal combo Vallenfyre, who left this hellhole Black Planet, Yorkshire, UK of a planet in 2018.

RECORDING DATES “Vallenfyre was attached to a sentiment,” says Gregor January-March 2019 Mackintosh. “Which was why I ended it after three albums. With Strigoi, I wanted to carry on where Vallenfyre left off, but with RELEASE DATE its own flavor. So, Strigoi did come from the ashes of Vallenfyre.”

November 22, 2019 Huddled in a rabbit hutch-sized studio—fittingly named Black Planet—are Mackintosh (guitars, vocals, production), guitarist Chris Casket (Eastern Front) and drummer Waltteri Väyrynen (Paradise Lost), as the playback to Abandon All Faith hits brutally between both the shoulders and legs. Strigoi’s old-school death metal doesn’t sound old-school except when it does. It’s a throwback to nothing, yet it resonates like the first time we all experienced (and were suddenly diehard for) Like an Everflowing Stream, Gothic and A Holocaust in Your Head. That it sounds heavy and unhinged makes it all the better.

“It’s the first album I have tracked in my new studio,” says Mackintosh. “It’s just a small live room and a small control room. We just recorded when we were in the mood to do so and also when Chris could make it up to my studio, as he lives a couple of hundred miles away.”

Recorded over three months by Mackintosh— our man also assumed the engineer role— Abandon All Faith wasn’t complete until it was handed off to old pals Kurt Ballou (mixing) and Brad Boatright (mastering) to up the bruiser quotient. The entire affair, according to Big Mac, went smoothly, with a routine that included good grub, brews and killer tunes after all the good Lord’s work was done.

“We recorded between about midday to 8 p.m.,” Mackintosh says. “Then, every night we would go for a curry and straight to the pub. One of the pubs has an app-based jukebox, and the place was full of trendy dickheads putting Oasis on and throwing stuff, so when we left, I managed to load the jukebox with Napalm Death’s first three albums and hit play.”

That’s our boy! —CHRIS DICK

STUDIO SHORT SHOTS

VASTUM HOLE UP IN THE STUDIO FOR CAVERNOUS NEW LP San Francisco-based death metallers Vastum are wrapping up production on album number four at Earhammer Studios. In keeping with their custom of giving their LPs evocative two-word titles, the latest will be called Orificial Purge. And according to guitarist/vocalist Leila Abdul-Rauf, Vastum have outdone themselves this time. That’s especially exciting news considering the band features bassist Luca Indrio (Necrot, Acephalix), guitarist Shelby Lermo (Ulthar), vocalist Daniel B. (Acephalix)

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and now Chad Gailey (Mortuous, Necrot, etc.) on drums. “[This] was our first time working with Chad on drums, and the tight Luca/Chad rhythm section stands out on the album,” says Abdul-Rauf. Vocalist Dan B. describes the new record as “more hypnotic than any of our other albums,” adding, “The album doubles down on the mid-paced dirge of our other recordings, but it also revisits the speed of some earlier songs.” AbdulRauf, also a celebrated solo composer, provides “dark ambient flourishes,” while her bandmate in Ionophore, Ryan Honaker, contributed “some somber string work and ambience.” Orificial Purge is expected to come out this fall on 20 Buck Spin. —DUTCH PEARCE

CREEPING DEATH Let it be written: They aim to be the best ever death metal band in Denton

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eath metal’s new breed of old ghouls mutates vintage fringe into the modern mainstream. Leveraging the rhythmic latitude of thrash and hardcore, Creeping Death torque the genre’s thick, guttural trademarks with a ramrod propulsion and knockout delivery that’s seemingly innate.

Full-length debut Wretched Illusions will burn the Denton, TX quartet onto the map. ¶ “We wanted to play something faster, heavier and more metal,” emails guitarist Trey Pemberton, who helped spin the group out of the Dallas/Fort Worth hardcore scene where he first met frontman Reese Alavi. “Reese and I didn’t become close friends until he moved to Denton roughly two blocks from my place.” ¶ Home to UNT’s world-famous College of Music, Denton remains your typical campus hub. “Since there aren’t many venues that will host shows with more aggressive bands, most people end up playing wherever they can in the DFW area,” Pemberton shares. “J&J’s Pizza, Andy’s, and Killer’s Taco still do hardcore and metal shows in town, but that’s really it.”

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When Alavi woofs “spreading the disease” on elbow-thrower “Bloodlust Contamination,” those joints likely erupt into a froth of blood and spit. Likewise, “Sinner’s Torch” alternates speed and slog with galvanized hair-whipping that bleeds into the succeeding “Corroded From Within” and “Peeled From Reality.”

Wretched Illusions thus catches fire like arson, alighting one track after another in the push and pull of tempo and tension.

“A couple of albums come to mind,” affirms Pemberton when asked about production swaths they brought to the studio. “Blood Red Throne, Come Death and Brutalitarian Regime; Cannibal Corpse, Bloodthirst; and Obituary’s Cause of Death.

Honestly, [bassist] Rico [Mejia] is the tone god of the band. He’s got an amazing ear when it comes to dialing things in.”

Peers are heeding the call, too.

Creeping Death’s forthcoming

monthlong jaunt with High on Fire, Power Trip and Devil Master (beginning in November) is destined to crack teeth in pits from Asbury Park to Berkeley. Not to mention the two Lone Star torpedoes on the bill are sure to drive each other to frenzy.

“Texas has so many badass metal bands that I’d say a movement has been going on now for a while,” agrees the bandleader. “Iron Age, Power Trip and Mammoth Grinder have been holding it down, and newer bands like Frozen Soul, Kombat and Skourge are sure to keep it going.”

Predecessors like the galloping Demo 2015, thick and undiluted 2016 EP Sacrament of Death and last year’s five-track sound lock Specter of War all contributed to Creeping Death’s OSDM ascension. As for Illusions, Pemberton rightly suggests, “We all feel like this album can open up a lot of doors for us.”

—RAOUL HERNANDEZ

PHOTO BY CAMERON NUNEZ

CREEPING DEATH

VITRIOL

Extended incubation breeds a plague of extreme metal sickness

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s much as Vitriol vocalist/guitarist Kyle Rasmussen would like to lay to rest—if not cremate—his previous musical endeavors, it was time spent in deathcore outfit Those Who Lie Beneath (alongside drummer Scott Walker and vocalist/bassist Adam Roethlisberger) that actually stoked the trio’s desire to start anew. That was 2012, and the new recipe included not only a subtraction of the “core” part of the equation, but a directive to create metal with as much broad-stroke ferocity, heart and (sure, why not?) vitriol as could be mustered. ¶ “Part of what has taken Vitriol so long to rear our head is that the developmental phase of our sound was painstaking,” Rasmussen explains via email. “I don’t think anyone is ever entirely clear on what they’re going for if they’re trying to do something honest to them. What I knew is that I was repulsed by the pulling of punches I felt a lot of modern extreme metal was guilty of. Whether it was subject matter, sonic representation [or] songwriting ambition, I wanted to take reckless amounts of time necessary to make a death metal record that turned every knob to 11.

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“Vitriol believes in the primacy of excess,” he elaborates. “I was looking for a type of punishment from a band that I wasn’t finding.

I tried to amalgamate the most hostile aspects of the extreme genres without the concern of cultural alienation. All I knew is that I wanted to be crushed.”

The seven years since the rechristening of the now-quartet— recently filled out by guitarist Mike Ashton—could hardly be described as smooth sailing. Rasmussen refers to Vitriol’s existence as oscillating between being “a legitimate live act and glorified studio project.” An undiagnosed case of Crohn’s disease resulted in him suffering a perforated intestine right around the release of 2017’s Pain Will Define Their Death EP. The result was an extended period of hospitalization that curtailed most of Vitriol’s live and touring plans. All this anger and frustration bursts forth on debut album

To Bathe From the Throat of Cowardice, set for release via Century Media, which signed the band on the strength of an online playthrough video of leadoff track “The Parting of a Neck” and soul-baring email conversations.

“When the album is released, I urge those who honor us by listening to do so without the burden of a genre’s expectation,” Rasmussen stresses. “This was a piece of work made very carefully by people who have a deep appreciation for the full breadth of extreme and aggressive music. This album will be most effective on those who believe that the virtues of extreme music transcend the conversation of genre. It was a sound born from beneath a pressure that proved to be insufferable at times. Vitriol doesn’t have a history of being an easy band to participate in. There has been work required on every plane. We are very pleased that the work is being seen.” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PHOTO BY CHARLOTTE LITTLE WOLF

VITRIOL

WE LOST THE SEA T R I U M P H

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WE LOST THE SEA’s momentous follow up to 2013’s critically acclaimed “Departure Songs” is finally here! Produced and mixed by Greg Norman at Electrical Audio, “Triumph & Disaster” presents the bands most epic release to date.

The album serves as the concept narrative to a post-apocalyptic view of the world, detailing the story of a mother and sons last day on the Earth as it unfolds.

OUT NOVEMBER 8

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New York’s progressive metal instrumental trio DYSRHYTHMIA deliver their 8th studio album and first batch of new material in three years entitled “Terminal Threshold”. The album was recorded at Menegroth, The Thousand Caves by the band’s very own Colin Marston (Gorguts, Krallice) and continues the story of their organic evolution. Meticulous arrangements house collisions between technical shredding, complex rhythms and straight up thrash riffing for a completely unique outing.

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ALL I HOPE FOR

LEDGE epitomizes the end time message that frontman John Hoffman (ex-Weekend Nachos) wants to impart on the world. The band’s sophomore effort “All I Hope For” presents epic stoner rock epiphanies interwoven with sludge and doom. Each song contains truly hateful riffs with purely nihilistic lyrics that round out one of the most devastating releases to ever come out of the Midwest! Recorded and mixed by Andy Nelson (Harms Way, Jesus Piece) and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (High On Fire, Tragedy).

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Denver’s GHOSTS OF GLACIERS presents their breathtaking album entitled “The Greatest Burden”. Atmospheric post-rock collides with progressive metal while effortlessly slipping into a dream state of consciousness.

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WORKSHED

Ex-Cathedral duo finds therapy in metal again 26 years later

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orkshed take their name from a Bruce Campbell quote in Evil Dead II, but nonetheless occupy themselves with the expunging of altogether more earthly horrors through oversized and downtuned riffs. Comprised of Adam Lehan on vocals/guitar and Mark Wharton on drums— both formerly of Cathedral and Acid Reign—Workshed aren’t doom, but exist within its orbit. The urban claustrophobia that decolorizes Godflesh’s oeuvre performs similarly here. There’s a raw punk energy. Lehan’s guitar, with its faintly Stockholmish tone, calls to mind a post-millennial Celtic Frost. What’s morbid here, however, is the headspace and its venomous overspill. ¶ Released through former Cathedral bandmate Lee Dorrian’s label, Rise Above, Workshed’s self-titled debut is what Lehan calls “the anxiety album.” The lyrics document his experiences with anxiety, depression and alcohol dependence.

Maybe they were too honest, thought Lehan, too explicit. But couching them in metaphor didn’t feel right. Lehan went all in.

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“There is one song in particular, which was when I was at the lowest of the low, the lowest I had been ever,” he says, referencing “A Spirit in Exile.”

We often ascribe the act of making music a therapeutic quality, but, as Lehan explains, it’s not as simple as translating trauma into song, then moving on. “Definitely not,” he says. “No. It’s not a magic cure, and it hasn’t cured me, really. It’s an ongoing thing. But it was certainly a learning process in terms of me analyzing what went on in my own head, and it’s still going on now. I definitely know more about it now, and knowledge is power.”

The story of Workshed’s debut is inextricably linked to Lehan’s recovery. Happily, he believes he has the better of the alcohol. But it’s also about two guys getting back in the game. The last time Lehan and Wharton were in a recording studio

was August 1993 for Cathedral’s Statik Majik EP. “There wasn’t any digital,” says Lehan. “That’s how long ago it was.”

Workshed had hitherto been a bit of fun, knocking around some riffs, but it became real once they got to the studio. They had 10 days booked, with Jaime Gomez Arellano producing, and finished up in six. Now Lehan is looking to augment their sound, pulling other elements into the harsh gravity of his riffs. “Obviously, there are limits, but within the genre, we could do anything,” he says. “I would want to go a bit further with it, maybe bring in some ambient stuff. Anything goes as long as it’s angry.”

The next step? Find a bassist.

Lehan has one in mind, but won’t say who. “It’s definitely not Gene Simmons,” he laughs. “And it’s not Roger Glover!” —JONATHAN HORSLEY

PHOTO BY SAM SCOTT HUNTER

WORKSHED

IN COLD BLOOD

IN COLD BLOOD

Cleveland metallic hardcore heroes rejuvenated by other Cleveland metallic hardcore heroes

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egions of angels may be the most vital, fully actualized offering in the sometimes on/mostly off two-decade existence of deep underground metallic hardcore heroes In Cold Blood. To repurpose the title of the band’s savage 1998 debut full-length, it sounds as if it is devised to create hell on earth. But the album was very nearly smothered to death in the metaphorical crib of the Mars Recording Compound 40 miles east of Cleveland. ¶ The creative tension between guitarists Blaze Tishko and Aaron Melnick slowly ripened into something more poisonous and insoluble. Both are veterans of Integrity; the former played on the 2003 “comeback” record To Die For, while the latter was an invaluable driver of the seminal Those Who Fear Tomorrow (1991) to Seasons in the Size of Days (1997) era. The band that not so long ago was excitedly moving mics around and playing with reverb to chase that Sunlight Studios vibe suddenly imploded. When the dust settled, Tishko was alone with the orphaned riffs. “It sent me into a downward spiral personally,” he admits.

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“Here’s the guys I’d been in bands with basically my whole life telling me, ‘We don’t want to play music with you anymore. We’re done with you.’ I’m just like, ‘Well, that’s a stinger. Can we at least still be friends?’”

For a time, Tishko tried to convince himself that “sometimes you maybe should say die.” Two problems: First, the ex-One Life Crew/Ringworm member possesses a stubborn streak a mile wide. Second, he owns a restaurant in the Ohio “boondocks,” and working long, lonely hours facilitated a reconnection with a certain Belgium-based former roommate/Integrity bandmate. And Dwid Hellion wasn’t having surrender.

“If Dwid feels a real connection, he’ll do anything for you,” Tishko says. “He’ll die for you. He’ll believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself. Rare shit. So, Dwid helped guide me out of a real bad spot in

my life, then was like, ‘No more feeling sorry for yourself. Finish this thing.’ It was incredibly inspiring.”

Tishko re-recorded virtually every instrument on Legions of Angels aside from drums. He taught himself to play and sing. (“I’m not doing Robert Plant stuff, obviously,” he muses, “but there’s still an art to making it not sound like absolute dogshit.”) Perhaps the highest compliment one can give the record is that it makes the most of its scars, weaving real beauty and nuance into the top-shelf metallic hardcore maelstrom. “You’ll hear it over and over in the lyrics—overcome, push on, rise above,” Tishko says. “Misery loves company. A lot of people will want to see you fail if they see you try. Maybe it’s an enemy. Maybe it’s even someone in your family, among your friends, in your music scene. Don’t give anyone that satisfaction.” —SHAWN MACOMBER

DEVOURMENT

Brutal death metal crew evolves without slamming the past

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e like to keep things confusing,” Chris Andrews knowingly chuckles. ¶ To put it simply, Devourment’s nearly 25-year history is as confusing as a physics textbook to an art history major. It possesses as many ups and downs as the rollercoaster collection at the massive Six Flags Over Texas theme park on the outskirts of their Dallas hometown. The list of past and present members wouldn’t fit on the sleeves of an XXL Vulvectomy longsleeve, with various incarnations being the result of members coming and going (and returning), switching instruments, joining other bands, passing away, being incarcerated and almost anything else you can imagine. ¶ “Since we reformed with the new version, we’ve been on a pretty steady upward trajectory as far as how we feel about the band and what we’re accomplishing,” says drummer Brad Fincher, who formed Devourment in 1995, but was out of the band from 1999 until 2014. “It’s coming to a head with an album release six years on from the previous album and version of the band, which I absolutely credit Chris with.”

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“I mean, I’ve quit the band several times that never made the official Wikipedia history,” laughs guitarist Andrews, who played bass from 2005 to 2014. “There have been times when motivation has been low and relationships have been bad. I was ready to quit again before this last reformation, but we got a large tour offer and the opportunity arose for me to take the ball and run with it. Once I was able to get Brad and [vocalist] Ruben [Rosas, guitarist from 2005 to 2014] involved and shift to guitar, the motivation to do something we hadn’t really been able to do in the 10 years previous was lit.”

Dizzying behind-the-scenes activity aside, the goal has always been brutal death metal, which the pair believes their latest album, Obscene Majesty, epitomizes. While juggling trials and tribulations in the past, Devourment still managed to become one of the more popular names on the slam scene, though Fincher and Andrews agree that the

new record utilizes broader forms of brutality beyond the tempo changes and rhythms that get basketball shorts shaking in the pit.

“I created this band with a certain aesthetic and sonic vision,” says Fincher. “Chris came from the second era with a different take on that idea, and this album is a merging and evolution of those ideas.

Originally, this band was designed to be like Frankenstein, where we took everything we liked and put it in a pot to create the most extreme, catchy and creative songs we could come up with. We just want to maintain the elements we identified as Devourment and make the most extreme version of everything.”

“Not to put down the previous three albums,” reasons Andrews, “but those are a lot more mediocre compared to what we can do now. With this lineup, we’re able to paint with more colors, even though it’s still black, basically.”

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PHOTO BY PAUL MOSELEY

DEVOURMENT

ELDER

ELDER

Boston doom experimentalists explore their softer, krautrock side

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pparently, this year’s Fourth of July, which landed on a Thursday, excused everyone in the U.S. from work for an entire week. So, given a last-minute assignment on July 3 to write about Boston stoner/doom quartet Elder and their new release, The Gold & Silver Sessions (Blues Funeral Recordings), the prospect of tracking down someone in the band for an interview seemed unlikely. As luck would have it, however, vocalist/guitarist Nick DiSalvo currently lives in Germany, so when questions were submitted via email on July 3, they were dutifully responded to and returned on Independence Day. ¶ Though The Gold & Silver Sessions arrives two years after Elder’s previous Stickman release, Reflections of a Floating World, this isn’t really a “follow-up” per se. Given the opportunity to contribute to Blues Funeral’s PostWax series (“an ambitious series of releases with interconnected art and an ethic encouraging its artists to try things they might not within their normal album cycles”), the band—DiSalvo, bassist Jack Donovan, drummer Matt Couto and keyboardist Mike Risberg—decamped to a Berlin studio and decided to take a significant stylistic “sidestep” (their words). ¶ “The idea of this record was to jam on a few loose-end ideas we had 2 8 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

kicking around while on tour and just see what happened,” writes DiSalvo. “Speaking in sonic terms, we wanted to explore the more mellow side of our musical tastes and make something completely different than any of our previous records. Since this was a special release, we wanted to give the world something that sounded unique in our catalog as well.”

The three songs (totaling 34 minutes) offer little in the way of the dynamic prog/psych/doom thunder of previous releases. This music is more meditative and pulsating, using krautrock’s repetitive, rhythmically terse and often drawn-out/spacey grooves as a launching point. It’s instrumental mind music all the way, only getting “loud” very briefly at the end of the 18-minute “Weißensee.”

As noted above, the genesis for this material was jams played on tour, so there’s a certain looseness to the final effort that feels generally improvised and spontaneous, or at least free-flowing. DiSalvo tracked

all of the instruments on the floating “Im Morgengrauen,” but the longer “Illusory Motion” and “Weißensee” benefit from a lack of extended rehearsing. “We basically hashed out a structure for the longer two songs, went into the studio and played them live a few times until we felt like we had a cool take,” DiSalvo notes.

“After the live tracks were done, we recorded a few overdubs, and Mike and I spent some days adding keyboards and other little effects.”

Though Gold & Silver is a curveball, DiSalvo assures Decibel that it isn’t an indication of a new direction— just a brief indulgence. “This is actually much more the kind of music I listen to on a daily basis than the louder, more abrasive sound we project on our other albums,” he writes. “Maybe this is actually a reaction to playing loud music for so many years; it feels great to play quietly for once and to work with more mellow dynamics. The next LP will be the real evolution of Reflections and continue on a more heavy path.” —ADEM TEPEDELEN

MONOLORD

Swedish doom trio aims to trade obscurity for maturity

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ive years after their sterling debut, Empress Rising, and two years removed from their most recent album, Rust, Gothenburg doom trio Monolord are set to take their brooding, groovy sound to a larger audience with No Comfort, their first release under the Relapse banner. Vocalist/guitarist Thomas Jäger, bassist Mika Häkki and drummer Esben Willems have always excelled at the lugubrious, hazy, jazzy chemistry that doom metal demands, but the new record is a considerable step up thanks to some changes in their approach. ¶ “I feel that it is ... a bit more cleaned up, sonically speaking, but of course without tampering with the rumble we love so much,” explains Jäger. “I think that this might be the cleanest album we have done, production-wise. The drums, for example, [were] recorded in a really good room, instead of in our tiny rehearsal space, so that is a big difference in the sound landscape. We recorded it in a studio

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called Let Them Swing with a guy called Kim Gravander. We did as we usually do, but in a better room.

Esben mixed the whole thing.”

Jäger is especially proud of his songwriting, as he should be, because this six-track, hour-long album dynamically weaves between imposing jams and more contemplative passages, culminating in the somber title track. “I have written most of the material in Monolord and I have to say that the song ‘No Comfort’ is one of the best I have ever written,” he asserts. “There’s lyrically some play with words that I usually don’t do; it is heavy and it is really emotional.”

As for the song’s meaning, he adds, “I don’t feel very comforted at all when there still are people that kill, lie, steal and all in the name of religion. Or whenever you read about how doctors now found

a way to cure cancer, the next page is about how someone blew someone else up. Or killed 25 kids at a school.

The list of not comforting things go on and on. But it is also about the loss of loved ones. If it is a dog friend, a human friend [or] a relative, it doesn’t matter. That sadness feels black and endless sometimes.

Like there is no comfort left in this world to save you. This record is about all that.”

No matter what, Monolord are grateful for the chance to bring their music to more people. “Of course, we would play, but we would not tour an average of around 100 days a year if we still only had 55 people in the audience,” Jäger admits. “We love and embrace the progression we’ve made for ourselves.

To be honest, it is fucking hard work, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.” —ADRIEN BEGRAND

PHOTO BY ESTER SEGARRA

MONOLORD

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VISCERAL DISGORGE

Brutal Baltimore death cult returns with new flesh

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ack in 2011, Baltimore baddies Visceral Disgorge were at the cutting edge of brutal death metal. Their Ingesting Putridity debut was a hack ‘n’ slash head-turner with the rabid squeals and requisite slams to turn any stagnant pit into a scrum. Depending on your intestinal fortitude, if you ventured into the depraved lyrics of founding vocalist Travis Werner, you might echo Pulp Fiction’s sentiment that “this is some fucked-up, repugnant shit.” But following the death of guitarist Steve Rosenzweig, momentum faded and the project’s future seemed precarious. ¶ “We all have had our doubts over the years,” Werner admits. “[But] it wasn’t that long after [Rosenzweig’s] funeral that we all came to the conclusion that Steve had, like the rest of us, a history of failed musical projects, and that he would have most likely wanted us to carry on, succeed to some degree and keep the band moving forward. That’s exactly what we did, and we tried to stay as true to the newer, faster, more aggressive material Steve was bringing to the table before he passed away on June 17th of 2014.”

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After indoctrinating new members (guitarist Charlie Marvel and drummer Billy Denne) and more recently welcoming past collaborators (bassist Randy Henry), Visceral Disgorge feature a lineup with deep roots to Charm City’s early-’90s death metal scene. But when they started the long process of writing their sophomore record, Slithering Evisceration, they wanted to honor their fallen comrade by severing reliance on the band’s past.

“A good chunk of [Ingesting Putridity] was written 10 years ago,” Werner reminds Decibel. “A lot of what the band did at the time was done to stick out from the crowd, and not just be lumped into the rising number of cookie-cutter slam bands that were popping up all over the world, one sounding identical to the next.”

Embodied by samples from cult films like Videodrome and From Beyond, Werner decided to lean

away from the slasher aesthetic and gravitate towards cosmic terror. In album highlights “Fucked Into Oblivion” and “Saprogenic Deformation,” Visceral Disgorge blend the creeping discomfort of Cronenberg body horror with alien grooves and razor-wire riffs. Instead of a clone of their debut, Werner describes Slithering Evisceration as something more akin to “Ingesting Putridity on methamphetamines.”

After a successful run with Suffocation and others in 2018, Visceral Disgorge are primed to support Slithering Evisceration while embarking on the Bloodletting North America tour this autumn. In preparation for the record’s release, first single “Architects of Warping Flesh” was released in mid-June.

“Coincidentally, almost by fate, our single dropped five years to the day of Steve Rosenzweig’s death,” Werner reflects. “That blew my fucking mind.” —SEAN FRASIER

PHOTO BY LEXI DUNCAN

VISCERAL DISGORGE

CRYPT SERMON Philly doom lords’ methodical pace pays off

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e have been fortunate that, at least for us, scarcity breeds demand,” admits Brooks Wilson, vocalist of vicious Philadelphia epic doom outfit Crypt Sermon. The band’s astounding debut record, Out of the Garden, made a splash when it was released in 2015. Amid a field of doomed and stoned bands worshipping massive pedal boards and little else, Wilson and co.’s reverent worship of Candlemass and solo Dio material—not to mention their instrumental chops—stood out as grim, true and, yes, much more real. ¶ In the interim, the band has played a smattering of live dates, mostly at festival appearances, while dealing with turnover in the bass department. Now, the prospect of their sophomore song collection, The Ruins of Fading Light, has fans salivating—and rightly so, since the group’s dedication to quality control added to the four-year wait. “We kept a pretty good writing schedule in the interim of our festival dates, but we found that we weren’t satisfied with our material; we wanted to grow a bit more,” Wilson admits.

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“By the time we decided to take some time off to focus on writing and recording, we ended up scrapping about a half hour of music, maybe more. But it helped us refocus on what we wanted to work on.”

Consider those abandoned 30 minutes of music a blood sacrifice well made. The Ruins of Fading Light bests its predecessor in terms of heaviness— drummer Enrique Sagarnaga delivers a stirring drum performance, and guitarist Steve Jansson’s solos involve more shredding and pyrotechnics than doom often contains. “We really wanted to raise the bar higher in every way for this record,” says Jansson. “The songs and atmosphere just had to be bigger and heavier.”

At the same time, the record doubles down on its predecessor’s medieval atmosphere, thanks in no small part to guest spots on atmospheric interludes by Tanner Anderson of Obsequiae and Lucia-Mariam Fåroutan-Kubik of Grabesmond.

Crypt Sermon reunited with producer Arthur Rizk, who recorded the band for “about a month” at Creep Records in Philadelphia. “We really prioritized the writing and recording process this time, and we set aside a lot more time to work in the studio,” recalls Wilson, noting how much he enjoyed his vocal sessions. “We made sure to practice steadily and set aside the right amount of time for everything.”

“This entire record was more or less completely demoed and finished, which made the recording process go by much quicker,” Jansson concurs. “[Arthur’s] schedule is pretty insane, so time constraints could be an issue at times, but due to the fact that we were very rehearsed, it didn’t matter. Arthur is a great friend, as well as super easy and fun to work with. He also understands the vision of the band, so that helps tremendously.”

—JOSEPH SCHAFER

PHOTO BY SCOTT KINKADE

CRYPT SERMON

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE are still alive and breathing 20 years in

I

B Y

J E F F

T R E P P E L

t’s easy to look back now and make fun of the windmill kicks and breakdowns

that accompanied lesser bands of the metalcore genre, but back when that scene started, nü-metal held America’s popular metal scene in a death grip.

Endless chugga-chug and white-boy rapping were the rule of the day. Metalcore brought back killer riffs, guitar solos and passionate lyrics about things other than being mad at dad. ¶ Killswitch Engage have flown the banner of that sound for “20 fucking years,” as founding guitarist Adam “Adam D.” Dutkiewicz puts it.

“I guess we’re lucky to still be around. People still care and that’s what makes the difference. You can’t play shows and be out there making music if people didn’t care. We’re lucky to have people that support us.”

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Atonement is their eighth album overall, and third since original vocalist Jesse Leach returned to the band in 2012. Leach sang on the band’s self-titled debut and Decibel Hall of Fameinducted sophomore record Alive or Just Breathing, with its monster hit “My Last Serenade.”

According to Dutkiewicz, their working relationship with the once and future singer is a pretty easy one—although this time, there were some unforeseen bumps in the road when Leach had to go in for throat surgery.

“Obviously, it set us back a bunch,” the axeman admits, “because we had to stop production of the record and let him have time to heal; and then that sent him into kind of a tailspin, just being scared and being nervous about the future, and if it was gonna work and if he would be able to keep singing at the level he was singing before. It actually made him a better singer, I think. It helped him out, he’s healed and now his throat is healthier than ever.”

The clearing up of Leach’s physical issues doesn’t mean that there aren’t deep emotional issues remaining, and he wrestles with some of them on the album. The title itself speaks to a recurring theme of the record. “I know a lot of the songs can be summed up with the word ‘atonement,’ as the point of coming to

forebears Only Living Witness; “The Crownless King” features guest vocals from thrash metal royalty, Testament’s Chuck Billy; and “The Signal Fire” even includes former Killswitch vocalist Howard Jones.

“It’s just like hanging out with a friend,” Dutkiewicz notes of Jones. “There’s no pressure, no weirdness. We’ve been friends with Howard since he left, so it was easy.” In fact, the band almost has a tradition of inviting back exmembers—Leach sang on some Jones-era tracks as well. Dutkiewicz lays it out pretty simply: “There’s no reason to be angry with people if things don’t work out. We can always come to an understanding and be cool to each other. I think the world would be a better place if more people could do that.”

There’s no reason to be angry with people if things don’t work out.

We can always come to an understanding and be cool to each other.

I think the world would be a better place if more people could do that.

Adam Dutkiewicz

terms with something in your life or something happening in your life,” Dutkiewicz offers. “I know Jesse covers a lot of things about mental health—depression, anxiety—and a lot of things to do with the state of mind of the world today and the attitude and losing connections.”

As for Dutkiewicz, he came into the album trying to keep things fresh for himself. “I can’t speak for everybody else in the band, but for me personally, I wanted to write some fast, thrashy songs... a little more energy, try to steer away from some of that mid-tempo breakdown metal stuff we’ve been doing for a while. Trying to write something different for this record [helps keep it fresh]. We don’t want to keep writing the same song over and over again.”

The record itself is another typically strong effort, with songs like leadoff single “Unleashed” a solid representation of what we’ve come to expect from the band. Leach brings his passionate good cop/bad cop singing, Adam D. and Joel Stroetzel lay down some sweet melodic dual guitar interplay, Mike D’Antonio adds that harsh hardcore bass twang and Justin Foley kicks the heck out of his double bass drums. “I Am Broken Too” continues their tradition of heartfelt power ballads; “Take Control” pays homage to genre

They’ve also come to an understanding with a new label, Metal Blade, after spending most of their career on Roadrunner. That decision also came down to the band’s love of working with cool people. “Our contract was up, and we had a lot of options getting thrown at us,” Dutkiewicz says. “We’ve always really liked the Metal Blade people. It feels more like a family than a record label. I’ve [produced] a bunch of records for the label, so I was already friends with a lot of people in the office. It doesn’t feel like a corporate thing, which I think Roadrunner really turned into over the years.”

Ultimately, though, the label doesn’t matter as much—it’s not like Killswitch Engage rely on record sales to be able to pursue their rock ‘n’ roll dreams for a living. It all comes down to getting out there, whether it’s headlining or playing with bands ranging from Iron Maiden to Clutch. And they couldn’t do that without their fan base. “We love our fans,” Dutkiewicz beams.

“It just seems like we have some of the best fans ever; they’re so supportive and down to earth.

They really believe in us and love us. Like I said, we’re lucky to have them. Can’t play music without them. Well, we could, but we’d have to play in our basements.”

FAT AL VISI ONS

D E C I B E L : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 3 7

the

C U LT E L E C T R I C Lightning strikes that never were power C U LT O F LU NA ’s latest opus

S

by A N D R E W B O NA ZE LLI • photo by S ILVIA GRAV

candinavia is held in justifiably high regard for its natural splendor. The Spå-Klemmet Pine is a nightmarish exception. Just an hour’s drive northwest from Umeå, a prominent arts epicenter on Sweden’s eastern seaboard, the centuries-old tree resides in relative isolation on a hill called Stor-Ralberget. It is disarmingly gnarled and contorted, as if it froze to death trying to corkscrew its way back beneath frozen soil. ¶ It should not be surprising that the pine has an equally twisted history. In the mid-18th century, during one of Sweden’s many armed conflicts with Russia, the region’s indigenous Sámi people were in the process of being displaced, marginalized and forced into Christianity, not unlike American Indians. “A shaman from the Sámi people had a conflict with a soldier named Tiger in 1750,” says Johannes Persson, the driving force of Umeå-born Cult of Luna for over 20 years. “[The shaman] was like the drunk, the guy that everybody made fun of, bullied him, beat him up and all that. He was accused of throwing fireballs [at Tiger’s cottage] from the hill above the farmers. Lightning [had] struck and somebody else’s farm went into flames and they blamed him, of course.

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“It’s a long story, but it ends up with the soldier [being] killed in 1750 in the war against the Russians, and in 1751, the shaman was killed by the soldier’s wife when he was trying to get in their house. There’s two fates that were connected in some weird way. The tree he was accused of sitting under and throwing fireballs, it’s still there. It’s all dead, a super cool-looking tree. That was a story that I wanted to tell with music, and a story that’s gonna be a long song.

[Laughs] As my stories are.”

Not only is that story told in the form of “Lights on the Hill,” the despondent 15-minute linchpin of Cult of Luna’s eighth album, A Dawn to Fear, but longtime manager/live lighting expert Alexis Sevenier hid the coordinates of the Spå-Klemmet Pine in white-on-white on the band’s homepage. You know, for those enterpris-

ing European fans interested in a casual hike to the ol’ notorious creepy-ass death tree. (God, we wish we lived there.)

Suffice it to say, the Cult of Luna experience is not one for the impatient. After 2016’s Mariner, their refreshing collaboration with Made Out of Babies/Battle of Mice enigma Julie Christmas (“She’s a very special woman in every aspect of the word,” Persson touts. “Her brain is all over the place and her emails are like reading comedy”), the six-piece has returned with a staggering 79 minutes of new music. A Dawn to Fear is absolutely in the vein of their preexisting oeuvre, despite a lack of both the acoustic interludes and synth-laden transitions that peppered recent predecessors Eternal Kingdom and Vertikal. It is postmetal, yes, but from rampaging marital opener “The Silent Man” through squalling conclusion “The Fall,” it is the crème de la crème of the oftmaligned genre. “For years and years and years, we have had to live through every kind of pigeonholing,” Persson sighs. “At the start, we were ‘industrial/goth/black, blah blah blah blah blah, sludge.’

It’s just us playing music.” And that eight-song out-

pouring is all the more notable an achievement for a collective spread not only all over Sweden, but Europe at large.

“We were very close to everybody quitting the band when we started to write Eternal Kingdom,” Persson recalls. “We tried out democratic musicianship and… it just didn’t work.

You need a captain for everything. And since then, when we decided to throw away every-

going to be great. They’re all better musicians than I am.”

Press Persson on perhaps a little false modesty in that regard and he will vehemently disagree.

“I’m not a good guitarist,” he stresses. “I know how to write songs—there’s no false modesty there; I think I’m a pretty good songwriter—but that’s it. I know nothing about the technical aspects and I don’t want to know anything.” He doubles down on the point when asked about the advantages of his band migrating between labels yet again; A Dawn to Fear will be Cult of Luna’s Metal Blade debut after years with the notorious Earache and more modest Indie Recordings.

“I’ll tell you this: For the last 15 years, I’ve tried to gradually stay away from as many things as possible that don’t involve me standing on a stage playing songs, writing songs and doing things that nobody else can do,” Persson demurs. “All I know is, when I picked up Lizzy Borden’s Menace to Society in 1987 or 1988 and saw the logo Metal Blade, it was the coolest two words put together in the English language, and I stand by that. [Laughs]”

I’m not a good guitarist. I think I’m a pretty good songwriter, but that’s it.

I know nothing about the technical aspects and I don’t want to know anything.

—JOH A N N ES PER SSON— thing we wrote for that album and just start from scratch—it was either that or waving the white flag and saying goodbye—we decided that every song needed to have a writer able to finish their vision before we start working with the song and changing it. Now there’s no question. I know when I’m coming up with a song, I can just put it out there, [the rest of the band can] do whatever [they] want with it, and it’s

D E C I B E L : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 3 9

interview by

QA j. bennett

L-G WIT H

ENTOMBED A.D.’s frontman on bourbon nightmares, country covers and his old friend Pelle “Dead” Ohlin

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L-G

Petrov is at his pad in Stockholm, the city in which he

was born and raised. It’s summertime, and Entombed A.D.’s gregarious frontman is sweating a lot. (“But that’s part of the heavy metal thing,” he laughs.)

He’s also come to a realization: Entombed A.D.’s third and latest album, Bowels of Earth, is shorter than he thought it was. “When we were recording, I didn’t realize it was just 36 minutes,” he explains.

“We could have made it two hours, but then it gets boring. Better to keep it short and then just listen to it again. Or put on some other record!” ¶ Speaking of other records, Bowels of Earth is Petrov’s second release of 2019. The first was the new Firespawn album, Abominate, which came out in June.

“It’s been a hectic year,” he says with another hearty laugh. “A lot of lyrics to learn in this shrunken metal brain.” ¶ If anyone can handle it, Petrov can. From his early days as the drummer of Morbid (which featured a pre-Mayhem Pelle “Dead” Ohlin on vocals) and growler for Nihilist to his lengthy career as the vocalist for Entombed proper, our man is the quintessential death metal lifer. “It’s the only thing we know how to do,” he says of himself and his current bandmates. “But as long as we can make records and people come to the show, it’s awesome. Even being in the rehearsal room, just playing together, is awesome. Heavy metal, death metal, black metal—it’s always there. It’s constantly near you. And it’s a good feeling.”

As you mentioned, you’ve had to learn a lot of new lyrics this year. When was the last time you forgot words onstage?

Every night! [Laughs] I’m just being honest. It happens every night. But lots of the songs are old ones that you have in your spine—it just comes naturally once you’re up onstage. But shit happens. That’s the funny thing about playing live: As long as you keep the audience happy and they don’t leave? Great success!

Not many death metal guys your age seem to have the youthful spark and energy it takes to be in two bands and release two records in the same year. What’s your secret?

I enjoy it as much today as holding the vinyl from your first album in your hand. That’s how it feels after 30 years. The same spark, as you say, is there. I don’t have the new one in my hands yet, but I’ll have it soon and I’ll get the goosebumps, like, “Yes!” Then you put it on your vinyl player, of course. But time goes by really fast, too—so maybe we’re getting stressed to do as much music as possible. [Laughs] But we take it day by day and let it flow. We’re productive, and we’re a happy bunch of guys.

Do you have a regular job these days, or do you live off of touring?

Sometimes I do, but just to keep the discipline up—get up in the mornings, drink some coffee.

I do fire protection stuff, like when you build a PHOTOS BY MACIE J PIELOCH

house and make sure everything’s tight. We’re touring and making music pretty extensively these days, but when we’re not, I do this. Instead of being at home, you just do something and keep alive, you know? [Laughs] What inspired the new album title, Bowels of Earth?

There’s a lot of crap going on in the world today, but it’s always been like that. You deal with it and move forward. Shit happens, but we’re still here. Our time on earth is really, really short—and getting shorter. Of course, you can fight for your opinions and your beliefs, but in the end, we’re just here making music, headbanging, and going around and playing. Whatever the world gives you, it gives you something to do.

What’s the story behind the new song “Bourbon Nightmare”?

[Laughs] We played in Mexico City with Deicide and Dark Tranquillity and, for some reason, they didn’t have tequila. They had bourbon!

I don’t remember which bourbon it was, but there we were, drinking bourbon after the show in Mexico. Everyone was drunk and our guitarist, Guilherme [Miranda], said, “I’m gonna write a song about this!” And when we got home a week later, he had this song. [Laughs] It was great! But that’s typical of how a song can be produced by us.

Guilherme has been playing live with you guys for a while now, but this is the first time he’s played on an Entombed A.D. album. Why did you decide to bring him into the writing process this time?

We were on a South American tour, and he lived in Brazil back then. He was playing in a band called Krow, and they were supporting us. He wanted to play live with us then, and he was going to do tour managing, play in the support band and play with us. [Laughs] Fucking amazing energy, you know? He ended up just tour managing and playing in the support band, and he was really tired after that tour. But after a while, he came over to Sweden and did some shows with us—and then the guy just moved here. So, he lives here now and has a job and everything.

He’s a hell of a guy. The energy just keeps pouring out, so maybe he gives it to us, you know? He wrote a few songs for the album, and he has the unmistakable HM-2 sound as well. So, he definitely brought us back in a good way.

The title track has an intro that sounds like it comes from a horror flick. Is that from an existing film or is it an original piece?

We recorded the drums and some guitars in one studio, and then we jumped into another studio, which is [guitarist] Nico Elgstrand’s little hangout.

He can sit for weeks and just write riffs and stuff.

So, he comes up with these things, sometimes in the middle of the night. I don’t know what he smokes, but something. [Laughs] So, he proposed that little part, and it sounded good, so we used it.

I’m not personally a lyricist, you know? I don’t have a guitar. But if somebody’s good at something, they should do it—like Nico and Guilherme and all of them. They sit at home and riff away, and then we do the songs. Sometimes I come up with some ideas and we throw it in there.

You covered Hank Williams’ “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” for this record. Why did you pick that particular song?

It was nice and weird. We actually did six cover songs that are coming out later in one way or another. We did some Motörhead, some Piledriver—and Nico chose this Hank Williams song. Motörhead covers are great, but choosing something different is interesting.

What was it like adapting a country song to metal?

It was pretty easy—just add distortion! [Laughs] That was basically it.

The Motörhead song you did was “Back at the Funny Farm,” from Another Perfect Day, which is my favorite Motörhead album because it’s so different than the others. Why did you choose that song?

For me, it was the very first album I bought, so D E C I B E L : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 41

 Bowel movers and shakers

But live goes on for L-G Petrov (second from r) and the rest of Entombed A.D.

a crocodile and Drutten was… something else—a little bear or something. Pelle said, “You’re gonna be called ‘Drutten.’” So, I said, “Okay.” But it doesn’t mean anything.

Obviously, the other Entombed is out there playing shows now. Is everybody at least getting along at this point?

I have no idea. I haven’t spoken to them in a long time, a couple of years even before all this happened. I know they released some live thing, but it is what it is. They’re on that side; we’re on this side. It would be silly to be angry or bitter or whatever. We just keep on doing what we do.

I know [Entombed] released some live thing, but it is what it is. They’re on that side; we’re on this side. It would be silly to be angry or bitter or whatever.

We just keep on doing what we do. therefore it is my favorite album. [Laughs] I went with my mother to buy it. She knew I wanted to buy a heavy metal album and she wanted to see what it was. For me, it will always have a special place, so I wanted to cover “Back at the Funny Farm.” And I recorded the vocals in one take!

You also covered Piledriver’s “Metal Inquisition.”

Why that song?

Because it’s one of the best records ever made.

[Laughs] I think I actually have two copies of it with the plastic around it. I even wrote the singer, wanting to tour with them, but he wasn’t touring at the time.

There’s a recent photo of you with Jonas Åkerlund on the Entombed A.D. Instagram page.

Did you see Lords of Chaos?

Yes, he gave me a DVD of it. I thought it was good. It was pretty much to reality. I mean, nobody for certain knows what was going on there. But it’s cool.

I was playing with him, we were great friends, very close to each other, and it was always smiles and stuff. I remember once we were at my mother’s place and I was playing guitar. He was drinking a light beer, and that was the only time I saw him pissed and not happy. [Laughs] He was always friendly to me.

But he didn’t stay in touch when he moved to Norway?

No, he moved to another world. From then on, who knows what happened? I have no idea. But he was a good man.

You were the drummer in Morbid. Why did you switch to vocals when you joined Nihilist? Were you just tired of sitting in the back?

[Laughs] No—I was pretty good at drums, I think.

But then the whole Nihilist thing came together, and it was like, “Okay, this is fun. I can just hold a mic and scream!” From there it went, and here we are today! [Laughs] But I have no idea how to play drums anymore.

You played in Morbid with Pelle “Dead” Ohlin before he moved to Norway to join Mayhem. How did you feel about his portrayal in the film?

Your stage name in Morbid was “Drutten.” What does it mean?

Maybe Pelle felt a little bit more self-destructive and depressed the further on it went, but when

There were these two puppet characters on Swedish children’s TV, Drutten och Gena. Gena was

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Does any part of you wish that you could all play together again?

Yeah… I mean, why not? But with Entombed and Nihilist, people have always come and gone.

It’s nothing unusual. If people wanna play, just do it. Some members of Entombed A.D. has been in Entombed when it was Entombed longer than the quote-unquote “original” people. So, people have come and gone, people have put out records.

[Laughs] It’s normal.

In the decades since Entombed started, Sweden has become known for its excellent heavy metal.

Do you feel like you’re upholding a national tradition these days?

I would like to think so. I don’t know if that’s the way it is, but you know, Dismember is coming back for a couple of shows. I saw Unleashed this past weekend in Copenhagen.

I was down there for a festival and I did some guest singing with Amon Amarth. I also did karaoke on [Entombed’s] “Out of Hand.” [Laughs] The festival asked me to do that. It felt awkward, but it went okay, actually. There were 3,000 people in that beer tent going nuts, so it was fun. [Laughs] But metal is alive in all of Scandinavia—Norway has their bands, Finland… Denmark is coming now. We’re going on tour with Bæst from Copenhagen—they’re really, really good. The generations are about to switch, and it’s good to see the kids coming in and taking over at some point.

Did you ever think you’d be doing this for over 30 years?

Yeah, we’re gonna do it until it becomes ridiculous. [Laughs] “Dude can’t walk; what’s he doing out there?” We’ll do it as long as it’s fun. But there’s no talk of quitting in the next 10 years.

Maybe people have suppressed that thought, so nobody talks about it. [Laughs] But I just wanna make albums and have a good time.

the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

story by

chris dick

Shadows Over a Lost Kingdom the making of Tormentor’s Anno Domini

T

he roots of heavy metal’s evil-

When Tormentor signed on to a stateowned record label, the future looked est progeny—black metal—go grimly promising. With that foul wind in back. The genre is old, tenebrous their sails, they wrote and recorded their and snakelike. What Venom, debut album, Anno Domini, at one of the best Hellhammer, Bathory and studios in Hungary in 1988. But things in Mercyful Fate founded and then the Communist era didn’t pan out. Their engendered in the early-to-mid-’80s transmanager and label representative Faragó muted to varying degrees in disparate Gábor vanished, and with him any chance parts of the world not many years later. of Anno Domini finding its way (at the time) As the first wave crashed, the second wave to vinyl. Tormentor, however, managed to had already begun. In Norway, Greece, dub a copy, and from there, the tape-traded Brazil, Switzerland, the United States, lore of Hungarian black metal, in the form Canada, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the of Anno Domini, is told. It took years of echo of the genre’s dark history started to D B H O F 17 8 rumor-milling and copying the full album manifest itself in new ways. The beast was to reach the States, Western Europe, South changing into forms deadly and deadlier.

America and Scandinavia. By that point, For Tormentor, Hungarian denizens of Tormentor had disbanded—fallen heroes the unlight, their world was gray, uninAnno Domini in Budapest, but a rising cult outside the spired and overruled by mediocrity. It was SE LF -R E LE A SE D Soviet Bloc. Anno Domini was never officially only when Eastern Bloc copies of Slayer, 1989 released in its day—eventually licensed to Possessed, Bathory and Venom—mere offand released by Nocturnal Art Productions/ prints of the originals—hit the Hungarian Stay Hungary Head Not Found in 1995—but its horror tape-trading circuit that the electricity and cruelty heavily influenced or inspired and occult allure of heavy metal’s most bands like Dissection and Emperor in the villainous forms became a lightning rod ’90s and Watain and Nifelheim in the for the Budapest-based quartet.

Formed in 1985, Tormentor quickly got to aughts. Still, Tormentor were a footnote work, jamming in inhospitable places on very expensive equipment (for the era compared to the role frontman Attila Csihar would play on Mayhem’s nearand region) while the Communist authorities peered in surreptitiously from religious awakening De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. In fact, it was through the their concrete towers. The school-age Hungarians weren’t necessarily a threat Norwegians that Anno Domini would surface as a must-hear relic, a gem of yet, but the potential for their noisy din to spark social upheaval was top-of-mind black metal antiquity and example of profane Hungarian enterprise. for suspicious and easily unsettled government officials. Members of Tormentor From the gruesome “Tormentor I” and the wicked “Damned Grave” to downplay the observational role of the then-Communist party, but “Western” the haunting “Beyond” and stone-cold classic “Elisabeth Bathory,” Anno ideals—i.e., noisy, deathly metal—were state enemies. Nevertheless, the mem- Domini’s mere presence is unsettling. It feels, at its core, made of the most bers of Tormentor pooled their resources for their first demo, 1986’s Live in Budapest damnable and odious things conjurable by humans of ill intent. But that’s 86. In the overcast and drab mid-’80s Pearl of the Danube, Tormentor’s disturbed why it was—and continues to be—vital. Anno Domini is real. As for its story, and derelict black resonated. Not with critics, but with like-minded youth of there’s not one decisive feature—even the various iterations on Csihar’s the day who were eager to cut the prosaic qualities of life with savage spectacle Saturnus Productions—that unfurls Tormentor’s malevolent rise, their and hard-hearted metal. A Tormentor live show didn’t happen often, but when unceremonious downfall and Anno Domini’s subsequent cultdom as told by it did, word spread quickly. By 1987, demo The 7th Day of the Doom bubbled and all four members. Decibel is hereby honored to chronicle (translated from oozed unnaturally into Hungarian metaldom. Lineup changes—Márton Dubecz Hungarian to English) the mighty Tormentor and their crucial black metal (drums) and Tamás Buday (guitars) left the fold, while Zsolt Machát (drums) masterpiece, Anno Domini. Into empire of fire and blood… joined in—didn’t stop Tormentor from becoming renowned in Budapest.

(Special thanks to Jorge Orsovay for the interview translations.)

TORMENTOR

PHOTO BY EVELYN STEINWEG

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D B H O F 17 8

TORMENTOR anno domini

What do you recall about the time leading up to Anno Domini? The end of Communism in Hungary as a result of the Revolutions of 1989, and the removal of the border fence with Austria are of particular note.

Political orientation had absolutely nothing to do with Tormentor’s music. At that time, the government didn’t look very kindly upon the output of rock and metal bands, so we enjoyed annoying the authorities.

Most people disliked and frowned upon the genre we played, which was just part of everyday life in that tired world.

Because of this, we faced a lot of conflict. I had constant problems with my teachers because of the way I dressed.

Average people on the street were very vocal about disliking me, and I was regularly insulted by the police. One can say that Tormentor stood tall in the face of adversity. It wasn’t easy resisting against contemporary Hungarian traditions and society.

GYÖRGY FARKAS: Despite the regime of the time, I never conveyed any concrete opposition to the government in our music, and even tried to perform as apolitically as possible. However, in my personal life, I felt a constant urge for anarchic resistance; yet I had to live my everyday life in a “normal” manner. There’s no doubt that I, like many others, was fed up with this constant angry energy. I’d always intended to put this energy into Anno Domini’s repertoire. At school, during my compulsory military service—and later on, in the workplace—this inner tension grew with my hairstyle, the way I dressed and the ongoing conflicts with my chosen lifestyle.

ZSOLT MACHÁT: I came from the 1980s punk movement. I was always openly against the system.

Back then, there could have been around 3,000 extreme music fans in the entire country, but we all, more or less, knew each other. I got used to state control. You had to get used to it in order to go about your day. We dealt with stupid bullying. Everything was joyless. A young person can accumulate a lot of anger and fury if they’re suppressed and snapped at everywhere. Especially if you’re talented and just want to live your life. We hit walls everywhere. I had this feeling inside me, and I brought that to Tormentor. Over time, I think the band has become even wilder to me, which makes me very happy to this day.

Absolutely, it was fantastic when the Berlin Wall fell and something new was born.

ATTILA CSIHAR: This was the end of those times, where cops hit you first and then would ask a question. It is hard to describe today that age of total grayness. There were no selection of goods in the stores and everything had to deal with ATTILA SZIGETI:

“We always practiced in very harsh and often dangerous conditions. I did not experience this myself, but just recently someone told us that we were under constant observation. I don’t know if this is true, but I don’t think it’s implausible.”

stupid political ideologies. The school had this kind of military aspect. Like, at the national holidays, you had to salute the communist flag...

But I must say, Hungary was still better than all the rest of the then-Communist countries. We could travel at least once every three years to the West behind the Iron Curtain. I adore my parents for taking me to the West once every three years when I was a kid. It was incredible, an almost blinding-like experience. It is hard to put it in words. Also, because of this opportunity, we had some goods in Hungary that people kind of smuggled in. This way, you could find records in small private, half-legal record stores. That’s how I got, for example, my first Bathory LP. They were insanely expensive, so having those records meant the world for me.

What were some of the hardships Tormentor faced as a band?

Since we were students at the time the band formed, the musical instruments we needed were financed by our parents. Their purchase was difficult and—considering our parents’ financial situation—very expensive. It was very difficult to be able to rehearse. In many

SZIGETI:

O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 4 6 : D E C I B E L

cases, our friends helped us out, but we always practiced in very harsh and often dangerous conditions. I did not experience this myself, but just recently someone told us that we were under constant observation. I don’t know if this is true, but I don’t think it’s implausible.

FARKAS: I’m three or four years older than the rest of the band, so I’d already purchased my first really high-quality instrument; that was my longtime dream back then. It was exactly four months of my salary. I could afford it because I lived with my parents at that time, and that was very helpful. There weren’t many opportunities to rehearse in actual rehearsal rooms. You needed friends and acquaintances to help provide practice spots. Of course, as time went on, conditions improved, but we didn’t have an ideal practice space back then. I hadn’t experienced it and I haven’t heard that we were being spied on at the time.

MACHÁT: Instruments were very expensive for all of us, but we were able to get what we needed. This was the prerequisite for playing music, so we gathered money from anywhere we could. It was almost impossible to find a practice space. We rehearsed in absolute

PHOTO BY FEHER BERTALAN

AT T ILA SZIG ET I

D B H O F 17 8

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holes, sometimes in terribly cold weather.

But that’s what needed to happen. We knew it and we didn’t whine. Hungary in the ’80s was beginning to lean towards political liberation, but people’s ideologies were still being observed by the government. As for being watched by the authorities, it’s not a maybe, but a certainty. We have serious evidence of it. It doesn’t matter. We survived through all that.

Line Assembly, Current 93, Diamanda Galás, Death in June, Coil, Alien Sex Fiend, Fields of the Nephilim, Demented Are Go and the Meteors, etc. All those bands had an influence on me. I was interested in any type of music dealing with obscurity and darkness no matter what kind of music they were.

What about other bands from behind the Iron Curtain? Were you aware of, or in contact with other Eastern Bloc bands like Root, Vader, Master’s Hammer, etc.?

I didn’t know of other Eastern European bands, and there was no way to get to know other bands. Now, in hindsight, I must admit that our band’s attitude at the time was a bit antisocial.

Anyway, even if we really wanted to, it would have been difficult, but we’ll never know.

FARKAS: I didn’t know about any other Eastern European bands.

CSIHAR: Not really. I only heard about them years after Tormentor, but now we are friends and really respect each other.

SZIGETI:

Who were some of Tormentor’s influences? I gather it was primarily Mayhem and Bathory, but it sounds like you were also listening to Sodom, Celtic Frost and, of course, Black Sabbath. How much “Western” music were you consuming as fans of heavy and dark metal?

Fortunately, obtaining Western music in Hungary was not so difficult because there was a Yugoslavian record label who pressed them, so the genre could get into the Eastern Bloc even if the albums weren’t full versions of the original records. These LPs were then copied onto cassette tapes (as there was no chance for anyone to buy them), so they could spread within our circle of friends. Indeed, Bathory was the foundation of the musical genre. Personally, I didn’t even hear Mayhem back then, but Celtic Frost, Sodom, Kreator, Destruction and Possessed all had a big impact on me.

FARKAS: I read about Mayhem in foreign magazines, but I didn’t know their music at all. However, Slayer, Bathory, Destruction, Motörhead, Sodom, Kreator and Celtic Frost really did have a great impact on my musical taste. And among punk bands, I liked the Dead Kennedys, the Exploited and the Sex Pistols.

These were all bands whose music I obtained through friends and acquaintances. I kept listening to these bands at home or in the car, whenever I could.

MACHÁT: I had an amazing music collection back then, as well as today. I own about 8,000 CDs. Celtic Frost’s black metal style had a big impact on me. Even today, I still think they’re the best.

Unparalleled. Of course, the first four Bathory albums were imported into Hungary, but not the rest. Kreator, Sodom, Destruction [and] Venom were also great personal favorites. Otherwise, I’m also a huge Motörhead and Discharge fan.

Dead Can Dance also had a great impact on me, as well as [Dmitri] Shostakovich. I won’t write more about what I’m listening to because it would fill pages. [Laughs] I was listening to only Western or Eastern foreign music outside of Hungarian punk.

CSIHAR: Besides the above-mentioned metal bands, I listened to other types of music as well, thanks to our fans from various music scenes who attended our shows back then. From them, I got to know bands like Skinny Puppy, Front SZIGETI:

What were Tormentor trying to achieve musically? The soundscapes were very chilling, yet brutal.

The question is also the answer. Our goal was to do something that nobody else had achieved. After a while … I consciously stopped listening to metal music so that it wouldn’t lead me away from the individual direction I was heading towards. I was more likely to go deeper and I listened to dark-spirited, abstract music. When I wrote riffs, it was always important to create sounds that would not normally be played by a guitarist, not the usual scales and modes, and for them not be ear-friendly—preferably discordant.

FARKAS: To me, the outside world was, above all, unusual, startling and scary, so I used all that to create our music. I deliberately sought to break the rhythm with half-tone shifts that removed the listener from a melodic comfort zone and thoroughly whispered to their emotions.

MACHÁT: The complete package. Like battlefield battle songs. Crushing. A presentation of strength and power. Thought-provoking.

Startling. One thousand percent in everybody’s face. The manifestation of our occult souls.

Throwing around both serious topics and just rough ideas.

However, I can’t neglect the importance of The 7th Day of the Doom. The songs “Damned Grave” and “Mephisto” were both the basis of the Anno Domini concept.

FARKAS: “Damned Grave,” on The 7th Day of the Doom, was originally an instrumental track, but later on had a theme. We wanted to update it, so we added it to Anno Domini. The Tormentor title track became clearer and no-frills, so that was a new concept.

MACHÁT: I didn’t play on The 7th Day of the Doom, but my favorite is “Damned Grave.” I’m glad we redid it. “Tormentor I” is an indispensable anthem. I’m glad we’re playing more brutally on Anno Domini.

And faster. I achieved my goal. [Laughs] What memories do you have about the song “Tormentor I”?

“Tormentor I” was written in a few hours during our first full band rehearsal, based on Tamás [Buday]’s idea. After that, we were sure we would have to play together no matter what.

MACHÁT: Very good memories. Even when I’m drunk, which was almost always a long time ago.

I still like drinking these days, but now I don’t drink before a show.

CSIHAR: That was our first song ever written!

SZIGETI:

SZIGETI:

Tormentor released their second demo, The 7th Day of the Doom, in 1987. Some of the tracks, like “Tormentor” and “Damned Grave,” made it to Anno Domini. What do you remember about the writing sessions for Anno Domini?

The 7th Day of the Doom and Anno Domini are two separate and distinct concepts, although there is a real overlap. The former was the band searching for their sound, and Anno Domini is where we found our way, our path.

SZIGETI:

O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 4 8 : D E C I B E L

What about the song “Damned Grave”?

MACHÁT: There had been some problems, for the same reasons mentioned earlier. Like getting drunk before playing. I really had to concentrate to play it correctly. But I always managed to pull it off.

CSIHAR: Like it was said above, first it was an instrumental song, but later I added vocals to it.

It is still one of our first songs; maybe it was the fourth song we had ever written? I like to play it—so many ancient memories.

And, of course, the song “Elisabeth Bathory.”

What do you remember about that song?

One day I was practicing this song— towards the end of practice when I was just playing anything—when I figured it out. It just suddenly clicked. When I showed the others, they said it wasn’t bad and to just go with it.

Truthfully, we finally heard what it would sound like after the studio was set up during recording. I played a distorted chord breakdown in a specific key, which happened to be a total coincidence.

FARKAS: We went over to Szigi’s apartment.

Szigi was on his bed, almost laying down and playing random chords, a derivation of different riffs. We all looked at each other and decided that we needed to write a song out of what he was playing! During practice, we came up with ideas. Some riffs we used had existed for a long time, but we hadn’t used them before because they were too slow. However, they fit perfectly here, and next thing you know, we had a whole new song.

SZIGETI:

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MACHÁT: It was fantastic. Szigeti brought it to rehearsal and we all started learning it. The song came together slowly, but surely. Personally, I was happy to have a slow number. As far as the recording sessions, it was a great experience.

Attila spoke into the microphone and said, “Has anyone seen my breakfast?” with the vocal effect making him sound like the Evil Dead demon. He sounded frenzied, which is exactly what we wanted. I’m very proud of this song. It’s a true work of art. I see that the world agrees, which makes me even prouder of it.

CSIHAR: [Laughs] Yeah, that was fun for sure [being] in the studio playing around with effects like pitch shifters and synthesizers. We had never been to a real studio before—it was such an experience. About “Elisabeth Bathory,” I’ve always loved that song. I felt immediately that it was something very special. When we added all those things in the studio, it just became enormous.

a visual moment, a feeling or a scent… That’s the way it was, and so is the start of “Beyond,” which is inspired by the music of the horror movie The Beyond. Adding these ideas to the songs meant reviving those specific moments, and when we played them with Tormentor, I returned to the original mood, which then influenced my performance.

Lyrically, what were things that inspired or informed Tormentor? Of course, darkness, evil and horror movies were part of it, but what else was lurking in the shadows?

FARKAS: For me, my defiance is primarily against religion, against God, against his power.

CSIHAR: All those lyrics came naturally.

Sometimes, I discussed them with Szigeti or whomever composed them. Like, what were their feelings behind it? They were mostly about challenging religions, classic literature, Hungarian history and even some folk stuff.

What do you remember about the Omega II Studio sessions?

We had a week to record the material, so we had to be there every day from morning until evening. Because we were students, we had to skip school. I was a little worried that this was going to cause problems, but surprisingly, the school supported it and let us work to complete

SZIGETI:

The song “Intro” is from the movie Phantasm.

What inspired you about the film to make it part of Tormentor’s music?

There are melodies that grab me and I can’t let them go because I connect them to

SZIGETI:

the sessions. We’d never been in such a wellequipped studio before. They had a Korg M1 synthesizer, so we fiddled around on it for effects that we could use. I found the chorus sound by accident and told the others that it wouldn’t be a bad thing to add to “Elisabeth Bathory.” I tried it out and the effect really did make a difference! The song sounded completely different, giving it an extra mystical charge. From that point forward, there was no stopping us. For Anno Domini, we also added both the chorus and the organ since it helped make it sound better.

If there hadn’t been a Korg M1 in that studio, we might’ve never had keyboards in Tormentor…

We were very lucky!

FARKAS: We were incredibly impressed with the quality, knowledge and professionalism that characterized both the studio as well as the engineers. We believed that they were really taking us seriously. We all wanted to do our very best through the entire recording session, and that’s what happened. We worked hard in such an inspiring atmosphere, from start to finish.

MACHÁT: First of all, I never had any money.

My earnings were not enough for anything.

It was horrible. I remember being hungry in the studio one day and I had no money to buy myself anything to eat. I’m sure I didn’t get behind the drum kit because of the fun. I remember how far we were from the technical equipment and the mixing console, of which only two existed in the entire country. In addition, we got to know a couple of celebrities from the Hungarian musician world that I found to be very interesting and funny. One of the celebrities, a singer, wanted us to be their backing band. “Örökzöld Melódiák”—which means “evergreen melodies—[is] a cheesy Hungarian song. [Laughs] What happened to the original “release” of Anno Domini?

CSIHAR: We don’t know. The original master tape disappeared together with our, at the time, manager named Faragó Gábor, who was fired from our state-owned company record label.

What was the label name?

CSIHAR: We have no idea. It was different times.

Fucking old system.

They didn’t even release it on vinyl? Why not?

“We’ve never received good criticism.

The ‘music professionals’ hated us.

That’s when I knew that we were on the right track.”

ATT ILA SZ IG ETI O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 5 0 : D E C I B E L

CSIHAR: That is a very good question! Because it was still in the old shitty system and those people were complete morons! I wonder what would’ve happened if Anno Domini would’ve been released in 1989! The story in short: Zsolt met this guy called Gábor somewhere in the Budapest night at the end of 1987. By then, Tormentor was pretty infamous in Hungary, so this guy who worked for some state-owned record company gave us an offer. Actually, it was pretty good because we could choose a good studio and

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D B H O F 17 8

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they did not ask [us] too much about the music.

However, they were looking at the lyrics. Like, I had to change them here and there where it was “politically incorrect,” but they were no big deal because my lyrics were non-political in general and they did not care about the anti-religious/ Satanic themes too much.

So, after like one year of heavy rehearsals and working on the new material, eventually we picked a pretty fucking cool studio, but the people who worked there had no clue what metal really meant. Anyway, it was a well-equipped studio and it was one of the more expensive and better ones of that time in Hungary. We had like two weeks to do it all, so we had to be quick, but when we finished, the guy just took the master tape and disappeared. There was no news for months. Then, we heard that at least the studio was paid. Later, we figured out that the guy got fired from the state-owned company and they just swallowed our master tape and basically told us to fuck off. We only had a cassette from the studio that we used to record from for our closest and [most] demanding fans when it was clear that this album would not be released. Then, Anno Domini was just copied and copied. And it is how, eventually, through the tape-trading culture, it ended up in Scandinavia like two years later and affected the whole underground scene there.

But one cool thing also happened—big thanks to the father of Attila Szigeti (RIP). His dad borrowed from his work a hi-fi VHS video system, which was a brand new—and pretty expensive—system of the time. You know, it was a new system where the sound is recorded in the VHS code by the rotating video heads. It means that you got almost perfect sound quality. Thanks to our Dark Lord, we made that sound recording with that machine from the master tape in the studio; and miraculously, we found that very VHS tape almost a decade later. Before that, only the copies of those old cassettes existed, which had spread throughout the underground.

Anno Domini was “released” as a demo in 1989.

What do you remember about the response to it?

The underground is a bit slow, but it’s always reliable.

MACHÁT: It exploded like a bomb, just like that.

People who liked that style immediately loved it, but there were idiots and “great experts” who hated it. I should add that we’ve never received good criticism. The “music professionals” hated us. That’s when I knew that we were on the right track. I didn’t come into this world to have everyone love me and be my friend. People who are everyone’s friend have no real friends. Those who hold on to their goals are always facing walls in their way.

CSIHAR: Well, like I told you, it was not “released.” There were only bootlegs. In a way, we bootlegged our own band. [Laughs] But yeah, our fans just loved it. However, only in Hungary.

Since the album did not come out on vinyl, we kind of started to lose our spin, and eventually we stopped in 1990. We had a relatively big crowd. By that time, we easily pulled like 1,000 people for our shows; still only in Hungary. Later in 1991, I heard that one of our songs appeared on a Mexican compilation, which was kinda shockingly strange and weird news. Like Mexico…

WTF?! And then from Norway, Euronymous from Mayhem approached me about releasing Anno Domini, as well as asking me to replace their passed-away vocalist Dead, whose favorite band was Tormentor.

“Before the show, a young Christian guy angrily asked, ‘If you’re such Satanists, would you be able to sacrifice children?’

To which Attila Csihar replied, ‘Yes,’ in a totally serious voice.

He got what he wanted to hear.”

GYÖ RGY FA RKAS What do you remember about the Tormentor shows for Anno Domini?

One of the most memorable concerts for me was the Petofi Hall one. Csihar decided to have sour cream drool out of his mouth during the intro as a horror effect. It wasn’t specifically planned ahead of time, but I remember seeing the two boxes of sour cream before the show. We started playing the intro and Attila came out onstage and began slowly oozing the white liquid from his mouth—all of the sour cream had collected on his face; it was incredible!—while gesturing with a large metal upside-down cross that he held in one hand. It was blood-chilling, an awesome sight, and I was completely hypnotized… As for the audience, they’d never seen such a show! It was really astounding, shocking!

FARKAS: When we met up at the Petofi Hall before the show, a young Christian guy angrily asked, “If you’re such Satanists, would you be able to sacrifice children?” To which Attila Csihar replied, “Yes,” in a totally serious voice.

He got what he wanted to hear.

SZIGETI:

O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 5 2 : D E C I B E L

MACHÁT: I had a connection through which we got into the National Theater and borrowed their stage costumes for a short while. We could take whatever we wanted. I don’t think I need to say much more. We entered the warehouse door and we went nuts, taking what we could.

Thanks to this, there were miracles on the Petofi Hall stage!

CSIHAR: Yes, thanks to Zsolt, we got those theatrical costumes, and that opened a whole new dimension for me. I was already doing corpsepaint and used a leather mask back then.

The audience loved it and we just got more and more (in)famous in Hungary. We started to play in venues like Petofi Csarnok, which had like a 2,500 [person] capacity. It was going pretty insane. Still, we only had bad reviews everywhere! Actually, I can’t recall even one positive review from all Tormentor’s ’80s career! We only got shit from the Hungarian mainstream.

Ironically, all those bad reviews were just more oil on our fire.

Anno Domini was very influential to the second wave of black metal, particularly in Norway and Sweden. What does that mean to Tormentor that you were considered of similar importance to music as Bathory, Venom and Celtic Frost?

I didn’t want to believe it when they first told me. Even today, I find it hard to believe, but now I see that it’s true. What can I say? Is it an honor? Yes, it is! But in the end, this is what we wanted to achieve: to create something that no one else had done before. And we succeeded! I’m really very proud. It’s an incredible feeling!

FARKAS: This band’s existence wasn’t trivial.

Years passed by, but I was always proud of us, and time proved that what we brought to the table was valuable.

MACHÁT: To be honest, I personally didn’t know for a long time that we’d made such a hugely influential record. I’m just now realizing the importance of what we’d created. It’s wonderful and I’m proud! Especially because nobody wanted us to succeed in our small homeland— not to mention becoming world-renowned!

Where are the critics now? They’re nowhere or still stuck in the same place as before, which, in my eyes, is still nowhere.

CSIHAR: Actually, it is true. We had an influence on the Scandinavian [scene], especially on the Norwegian scene. If you just think about it, Anno Domini was created in the same year as Mayhem’s Deathcrush.

SZIGETI:

The Nocturnal Art Productions version of Anno Domini was mastered from a dubbed cassette.

It’s now long out of print, but it must’ve been exciting to have Anno Domini issued after years of obscurity. What do you remember about putting the 1995 version together?

CSIHAR: The first time I had heard from Euronymous, he was already super-excited

D B H O F 17 8

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 Eternal torment The past is alive through the reincarnation of Tormentor

“Actually, it is true. We had an influence on the Scandinavian [scene], especially on the Norwegian scene. If you just think about it, Anno Domini was created in the same year as Mayhem’s Deathcrush.”

ATT ILA CSIHA R

The re-reissue of Anno Domini, on Csihar’s label, Saturnus Productions, was remastered from the original master tape. What’s it like hearing Tormentor’s music off the master tape?

FARKAS:

It was very satisfying that Anno Domini

was finally released with the quality as originally intended. And not by an “outside” record label.

CSIHAR: Like I mentioned earlier, luckily, we had a copy of the original studio master on a VHS hi-fi system as well, thanks to the father of Attila Szigeti. That was so rare and advanced that time that we even did not know what it meant to be [on VHS hi-fi]. But we found that tape more than a decade later! That was pretty amazing. So, I asked Samoth if he was cool with me releasing Anno Domini via my own label, Saturnus Productions. Of course, he was OK with it since we are more like friends than business associates. So, I made new artwork and first released it on CD. Yes, finally, it sounded like as it should be. I made little touch-ups at my friend’s studio to “remaster” it, but basically it is how it was supposed to be in 1988. So, finally, after more than a decade, the album has been released in its full glory.

Later, we made a vinyl edition with the original artwork, which was painted by Zsolt Machát himself. It’s still available from Saturnus Productions. The art designer was my good old O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 5 4 : D E C I B E L

friend Jonas Svensson. It really is a beautiful collector’s item.

The band reunited in 2017. What does that tell you about Tormentor’s longevity and relevance?

I think it speaks for itself that a band can organize a full-length concert after 30 years of inactivity and play just as well as they had 30 years earlier. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a message: It means that Tormentor still has legitimacy and must continue. Personally, I see another opportunity to bring something unique and new to the genre. We’ll see if we succeed again. I believe we will!

FARKAS: An old dream has come true, and if it’s up to me, we’ll do it together as long as we’re alive. For my part, I’m full of energy [and] ideas; there’s no limit for me to continue.

MACHÁT: It says a lot! I’m shocked at how much it still means even. What does the future hold?

Good question! We’ll see! I would like Tormentor to receive the “Hungaricum” award, which is presented to high-quality and high-value things promoting the country’s reputation and strength.

FARKAS: Horns up!

SZIGETI:

LEFT PHOTO BY FEHER BERTALAN • RIGHT PHOTO BY CSABA BENDE

about releasing Anno Domini. He desperately wanted it for his label, Deathlike Silence Productions. So, when I went to Norway, I took a DAT tape with me. DAT was the first digital format. I made that DAT in Hungary from my original TDK-Metal cassette, which was recorded in the studio. People from the ’80s should know what all this means. TDKMetal was the best cassette you could buy. But it was still a recording from a cassette, if you know what I mean. When Euronymous died, Hellhammer cleared up his place. He found the DAT and gave it to Samoth [of Emperor]. Around 1995, Samoth reached out to me in Hungary and asked for my permission to release it via his brand-new label, Nocturnal Art Productions.

Of course, I was happy to let him do it because finally Anno Domini was going to be released, seven years after its creation.

5 6 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

OPETH mainman and prog metal hero Mikael Åkerfeldt knows that the times are a-changin’— he just doesn’t give a shit Story by CHRIS DICK

Photos by ESTER SEGARRA

mikael åkerfeldt has reached the age where the kids are suddenly not all right. The Opeth mainman isn’t talking mentally, physically or socially, but rather how they engage music. As a father of two daughters, Melinda and Mirjam, he’s been unable to solve the Generation Z puzzle. To Åkerfeldt, music is an event, something to make time for.

Indeed, most conversations with the Swede will invariably center on or lead to an artist recently discovered—like obscure British singer-songwriter Philamore Lincoln—or how he enjoys playing the “masterpiece” game, whereby participants take turns cueing up masterpiece-level albums in their respective genres, such as John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme or Judas Priest’s Sad Wings of Destiny, to have an emotional observation (or scholarly discussion) about what’s playing.

The ceremony of music is all very florid and antiquated, but no less important to Åkerfeldt, whose life gravitated towards at it a young age, and whose livelihood—since Opeth’s 1995 debut album, Orchid—it is built on.

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Åkerfeldt feels like the kids these days aren’t experiencing or participating in the joy of music.

Certainly, this has an “old man yells at cloud” feel, but the generational shift in discovery and exposure has happened, whether Åkerfeldt chooses to accept it or not. Record stores are still there—though annual growth from 2014 to 2019 is down nine percent—as are the online retailers, disruptors like Amazon. Generation Z and Generation Alpha, however, are largely finding music through social media or streaming companies. Why does all this matter to Åkerfeldt?

He’s been doing the back-of-napkin calculus to figure out why kids aren’t treating music as an important cultural waypoint. More importantly, Opeth are about to release their 13th album, the mysteriously titled In Cauda Venenum, D E C I B E L : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 19 : 5 7

in Swedish and English via the Moderbolaget/Nuclear Blast partnership. And he wants the kids to be into it.

“I look to my kids to see how they consume music,” Åkerfeldt says from his hotel room in Paris. “There’s a world of difference from how I consume music and they do. My kids don’t even know albums. They listen to songs. Not even whole songs, actually. They play 10-15 seconds and then move on to the next song. I’m like, ‘Wait a minute! Why did you change the song?’

They’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah… but this other song.’

They’re so restless. For my kids to sit around and listen to a whole record—I’m not talking children’s records, which were popular in Sweden in the ’70s—is crazy. I would say I ‘enjoy’ listening to an entire record. My kids would say ‘endure.’

I remember growing up not seeing Ritchie Blackmore move. He was only pictures. Now, everything is out there and if you don’t deliver in 10 seconds, you’re dead.”

Longtime bassist and confidant Martín Méndez agrees with the elder Opeth statesman.

Times have changed, but he also doesn’t have the same “restless children” problem. In fact, Méndez’s son is a budding musician and engulfs new music on the regular. “The culture of buying records and the way of listening to music has changed,” says Méndez. “The reference they get is not the same that we got when we were kids. I’m very proud of my kids, though. My son is playing

guitar and he loves it. He loves music the same way I do. He often surprises me when he shows me music that he discovered by himself. He is really passionate about it. For sure, times change.

With that, you kind of lose sense of what the majority of younger kids are into these days.”

Indeed, times, people and behaviors change, and, fuck, music definitely changes. But Opeth aren’t changing with the times. They’re reversing course as they extend into their 29th year, in fact. That’s down to Åkerfeldt’s position as the main creative force, who increasingly sees song design as elaborate and opulent, not facile and convenient. The first two songs that Åkerfeldt wrote for In Cauda Venenum, “Ingen Sanning Är Allas” and “Hjärtat Vet Vad Handen Gör,” exemplify this mantra, a pronounced againstthe-grain creative mentality imbued with the stubbornness of someone who isn’t a luddite, but rather sees value in simpler, hazier times.

“It’s fucking stupid to record music like this if you want to make a living nowadays,” he says. “We’re one of those bands, judging from our history and longevity, that has always gone against the instant gratification trend. I live in the past as far as culture is concerned. I have no problems looking at a fucking tree for hours.

It feels like we’re not part of the digital generation, where everything happens at the click of a button. That’s one of the things I like about being in this band. One of the reasons we are

I LIVE IN THE PAST AS FAR AS CULTURE IS CONCERNED.

I HAVE NO PROBLEMS LOOKING AT A FUCKING TREE FOR HOURS. mikael åkerfeldt

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how we are, which is anti-trend, is because of me. I’m an old fucking git.”

TRICK OF THE TAIL written by åkerfeldt at his studio Junkmail after the Sorceress album cycle, In Cauda Venenum—Latin for “Poison in the Tail”—finds Opeth stretching out and getting emotionally “heavier,” using the filmic qualities of Åkerfeldt’s diverse influences to layer in new dimensions of sound. All this was done surreptitiously, however. The album-tour/album-tour paradigm had eventually gotten to the musician.

Ever since Blackwater Park—the genesis of Opeth’s present-day business—the Swede has been in rotation. That’s a good 18 years (and counting).

So, he told management that he needed a yearlong respite following the success of Sorceress.

Request granted, Opeth’s rotary telephone went off the hook instantly. “Obviously, since the band has become my job, there’s pressure to deliver a record every now and then,” says Åkerfeldt. “At this point in our career, it’s a bit like a rat race. Many times, I’ve been pushed into writing because management is calling up asking, ‘When are you going to start writing?’

I’m like, ‘I don’t know… is now a good time?’ Of course, they already have a plan together and everything. There’s a timeline already for tours.

So, more often than not, I was writing because there was a plan around it. But this time, I

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wanted a break from all that. So, I said, ‘I’m going on sabbatical.

No plans, no tours. Nothing!’”

At first, he meant it. Foot down, the shop doors closed until further notice. Now, if Åkerfeldt were a Swede of normal motivation, he’d be off the grid foraging for wild mushrooms and forest berries—as part of Sweden’s “Allemansrätten” experience—like a goddamned Hobbit. Nobody in his cultural orbit would think it cross if that were to happen, in fact. But that’s not what transpired. “I’m not so strict when it comes to sabbaticals, apparently,” Åkerfeldt says.

“Of course, I started writing almost immediately.

I couldn’t help it, actually. OK, I took a few weeks off, but I started to think about music, the creative part of it. That’s what pulled me in.”

Sensing freedom on all sides and feeling a bit like “twentysomething Mike,” he quietly set up his studio, with its outmoded-but-sufficient technology, to write. Åkerfeldt organized his daily routine around his daughters’ school day, essentially setting up a 9-to-5 “job.”

Conveniently, his studio is located on the way to his daughters’ school. It’s also couched in the same building inside which Opeth rehearse. He couldn’t have better planned his little covert operation if he tried. “I can be really lazy,” says Åkerfeldt. “I need discipline. That early morning start and that ‘OK, work’s done, time to go’ finish. I haven’t had a steady job—a day job—in forever. Since [the record store] Mellotronen, I think. I wasn’t even fully employed there. I felt more like I was covering for somebody’s lunch.

That was the last time somebody expected me at a workplace. Now, with the studio, I had my own working place. I got to control myself, which was nice.”

The innocence of writing, or rather the return to it—along with the epiphany that whatever came after Sorceress would be in Swedish—was a major source of inspiration.

Every day, Åkerfeldt would write. Even if he tossed things, it was progress. All alone in his studio, In Cauda Venenum slowly came into view. Management was under the assumption that while he was enjoying his requested time off, the rest of Opeth—Méndez, drummer Martin Axenrot, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson and keyboardist Joakim Svalberg—were off doing their own respective things, while fans, always on the hunt for more Opeth, were still salivating after the 2018 release of Opeth’s first-ever Red Rocks concert, Garden of the Titans: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheater. Not even trusty Méndez was clued into what his bandleader was up to. “Well, that’s the way it’s always been in this band,” says the bassist. “I deeply respect that. He is the creator of the ‘Opeth sound,’ and I fully understand he needs to continue doing that.”

“Writing music is a bit like playing with toys when you were a kid,” Åkerfeldt reasons. “Like

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Lego. It’s a very freeform and creative process.

Once I start writing new music, I have a childlike innocence. There’s no business involved.

There’s no hidden agenda. I’m not thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to write a big record for us! A financial crusher, a record that’s going to secure the living for the five of us and our families for the next five years.’ I never think that way. As far as I’m concerned, when it comes to all forms of culture, it will be watered down or reduced to nothing if what matters is perception, how it’s going to sell, what it’s going to do for your career on a financial level.”

Of course, the minute Åkerfeldt let the cat out of the bag with management, Opeth were immediately open for business. The planning, the meetings, the endless navigating of tour itineraries and festivals and everything else associated with running the Swedes’ proverbial ship returned with the usual vengeance. As exhausting as it was, Opeth have built a bustling business engine that constantly needs to be fed. “It is a business,” says Åkerfeldt. “When I started out, I would’ve never imagined myself a businessman; I have Omerch, too. I would’ve never imagined Opeth being a business. That’s not where my head was at when I was in my 20s. I just wanted to make music. I still just want to make music.”

VI FÖRSTÅR INTE SVENSKA foreign language albums in our beloved genre(s) aren’t novel. From Norway’s Darkthrone and Japan’s Boris to France’s Sortilège and Russia’s Aria, non-English metal is not that uncommon. Taking things a step further, some bands—like Swiss folk metallers Eluveitie (Gaulish) and French progressive rock gods Magma (Kobaïan), respectively—even dig up dead or invent their own language to add mystery to or draw attention to their lyrics. Certainly, English-language albums have a wider commercial reach, but albums in languages other than English aren’t always career suicide. Case in point, Neue Deutsche Härte outfit Rammstein. The fire-happy Germans have, in fact, laid waste to the ageold assumption that foreign language albums aren’t commercially viable. Over the course of Rammstein’s seven-album career, they’ve sold an astonishing 3.3 million German-language copies (including DVD/Blu-ray/video releases) in the United States alone.

“I don’t really think about [Finnish or English],” says Swallow the Sun vocalist Mikko Kotamäki, who also moonlights in the Finnishlanguage-only black metal outfit Verivala.

“Finnish is a really strong-sounding and unique language. I think it fits metal music very well.

[Even if they’re in Finnish], I would hope people would pay attention to the lyrics.”

Enslaved’s main brain Ivar Bjørnson has a similar, yet more pragmatic viewpoint on the subject: “What we have learned from writing in both Norwegian and English, and even one in Icelandic, is using language serves different purposes. We did a change to English after we started touring extensively in the second half of the ’90s; mainly because meeting fans all over the world brought back to us how much the lyrics meant to our listeners—and we recognized that in ourselves as music lovers. Listening to music and simultaneously following the words from the printed lyrics, or knowing them by heart, adds another major dimension to the experience of listening to music you love. On the other hand, there are still bits of Norwegian in our lyrics even today; we use contemporary Norwegian as well as archaic forms all the way back to Old Norse— because sometimes the sounds are more important than the literal meaning, and some things can only be said in our native tongue.”

There are about 10.5 million Swedish speakers in the world. When Åkerfeldt announced that Opeth’s 13th album, In Cauda Venenum, would be entirely in Swedish, denizens of metaldom unfamiliar with the language reacted with curiosity rather than cynicism. Opeth have taken us on very personal journeys since Orchid, so it stands to reason that new excursions with In Cauda Venenum wouldn’t be diminished via a change in the narrative language. In fact, the changeover to Swedish may heighten the overall experience, with “Hjärtat Vet Vad Handen Gör,” “Banemannen” and the portentous “Allting Tar Slut” serving as the soundtrack. “I came up with the idea to make a record in Swedish while taking my kids to school,” Åkerfeldt says. “It’s not something I thought about too much over the years. I guess because we are an international band. But for record 13, I thought, ‘Why not?’

It’s not like I had wonderful lyrics in Swedish beforehand. I also didn’t have a preset idea of what the music would be either. So, this was all new to me. It was very inspirational to have nothing but a concrete idea.”

The Swedish thing, however, has been hinted at before. The Special Edition of Watershed included a perfectly rendered cover of Marie Fredriksson’s heartbreaking all-Swedish “Den Ständiga Resan.” That the non-Swedish speaking world doesn’t know the difference between Surströmmingspremiären and Fika shouldn’t be of particular concern. There is, after all, an Englishlanguage version—released simultaneously—in the event that the mere thought of pronouncing and listening to “Livet’s Trädgård,” “Ingen Sanning Är Allas” or “De Närmast Sörjande” terrifies.

“Of course, I got anxious,” admits Åkerfeldt.

“I started to think, ‘OK, it’s in Swedish. What happens if they don’t listen?’ I was chickenshit about not having an English version. Scared, actually. So, I went ahead and made an

English version. I thought it might be easy, but it wasn’t. I had to match the melody, how words ended, syllables from Swedish to English. This presented a potential problem, however. The music would match, but maybe the vocals wouldn’t. I had to really make some of the songs work in English.

‘Minnets Yta’ is a good example. I think the Swedish version sounds a lot better than the English version, ‘Lovelorn Crime,’ but in the case of our fans, I had to give them both options.”

The decision for In Cauda Venenum to be in Swedish didn’t come lightly after the initial work started. Screaming or growling in Swedish has never appealed to Åkerfeldt. Proof of the aforementioned dislike is spread across Opeth’s 12 English-only albums, but it also manifested personally during a 2009 trip I took with Åkerfeldt and Åkesson to Vintage Vinyl in Fords, NJ. On the way back to the venue, I played an advance copy of Till Makabert Väsen by Swedish black metal weirdos Bergraven. Instantly, Åkerfeldt incredulously asked, “Is that Swedish?!” and then snarled, “That sounds absolutely horrible!”

I didn’t turn it down or replace Bergraven with something less linguistically nauseating.

As for singing in Swedish, it’s obviously easy (and sometimes preferred) by Swedes, but the depth of its lexicon is no match for the eloquence of the English language. “For so many years, I was hiding, so to speak, behind beautiful English

words,” Åkerfeldt says. “I mean, I would go to the dictionary, find a great word with a great meaning, and suddenly it’s in the lyrics. I’m talking about pompous Renaissance-era words, words nobody ever uses except me. Words only Edgar Allan Poe would use. But in Swedish, there are no beautiful words. Nothing to hide behind in Swedish. I liked that. I mean, I don’t put too much weight behind lyrics. I like lyrics that sound good and lyrics that I can sing like I mean them. That being said, half of the songs are about reality, in a way. They’re a bit sarcastic, angry, contradictory and ironic. And maybe about love.”

“I thought the idea of doing an album in Swedish was great!” adds Méndez. “The Swedish language is very limited in the sense that only Swedish people and some Scandinavians will understand it, so I think doing an English version as well was a really good move. But for us, the Swedish version is definitely the main one.

Mainly because it was the first idea [that started the album process], and it was the first version I had listened to.”

Singing in Swedish presented another problem. Not that Åkerfeldt was suddenly exposed— hiding behind “the mysteries of the woods,” as he calls it, was no longer an option—or that he didn’t have the depth of English at his disposal, but rather there was a hint of trepidation in the veteran musician. He was heading into virgin territory on In Cauda Venenum. To ensure that the

execution of his vision wasn’t for naught, he listened intently to the vocalization of Swedish singers. Frontmen in bands like Life, Trettioåriga Kriget, Pugh Rogefeldt and Paatos. The way they sang was, in a way, a vocal Rosetta Stone. He had heard songs in Swedish all his life, but the quest wasn’t about that. Åkerfeldt needed to figure out how to camouflage his speech impediment.

“I can’t roll my R’s,” he says. “So, I started to listen to rock albums in Swedish to hear how they sang. More specifically, how they rolled their R’s. I was trying to hear the proper Swedish roll of the R. The thing is, in Swedish, rolling R’s can be very theatrical. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t doing that, so I talked to Jonas [Renkse] of Katatonia about it. He assured me that it was nothing but the ‘Stockholm R,’ and that I shouldn’t be ashamed of not rolling it. I will admit, there are songs on In Cauda Venenum where I slur the R’s instead of simply singing them, but I guess that’s how I sing in Swedish.”

Even Renske himself even tried to roll the Swedish R in Katatonia, but also came to the same conclusion as Åkerfeldt. When not employed properly, the rolled R is too playful for overcast, heavy and melancholic metal. The fact that Renkse can roll his R’s is a different story altogether.

“The Stockholm R is a funny little thing,” offers Renkse. “It sounds pretty American, and not like most other Swedish accents where

I’M ALSO A KING DIAMOND FAN. HE’S HAD HOW MANY HOUSES ON HIS RECORDS?

I HAD TO HAVE AT LEAST ONE COVER WITH A HOUSE. mikael åkerfeldt

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the R’s roll more. We get shit for sounding like that, but that’s another story. Now, Mikael can’t do the rolling R anyway, so he probably thought it would sound weird when he was singing in Swedish. He asked me what I thought, and my reply was that it was cool. To me, I think it just adds to their ’70s feeling because the Stockholm accent back then was even more obstinate. I assured Mikael that he would be fine.”

Indeed, Åkerfeldt would be and is fine. He’s actually looking forward to the day when In Cauda Venenum drops. Swedish or English. The choice of one or the other or both! The R’s, however, are the same.

FIRST AN ACT OF DESTRUCTION artist and illustrator Travis Smith has worked with Opeth since Still Life. That’s a two-decade, 10-album relationship. The mutual understanding between Smith and Åkerfeldt goes without saying, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t iterations—or instantly killed ideas—for cover art. The current and final state of the In Cauda Venenum cover wasn’t even the initial idea. Rather, after several back-and-forths, the duo settled on the third proposal, a mysterious house with the members of Opeth visible in the windows and a quaint scene in front of it, with a horse-drawn carriage, a fountain and copse of Heritage trees on the right. Of course, it’s all very ’70s. “I’ve always liked old 19th century houses,” Åkerfeldt says. “Big houses in old photographs, I mean. They have very appealing aesthetics, almost horror-like. Plus, I’m also a King Diamond fan. He’s had how many houses on his records? I had to have at least one cover with a house.”

“The second scene [Åkerfeldt] suggested was the courtyard of a manor,” Smith says. “With a group of trees as topiaries clipped into the heads and faces of the band. That was coming out pretty cool, but I was uncertain of how he was seeing a few particular things about it, so I roughed up a few variants of the scene. One had a dark house in the background. And that’s when he suggested bringing the house to the foreground and building around that. That’s how the final cover became what it is today.”

The illustrious cover, which was rendered

by Smith using a hybrid technique of drawing, painting and photography, is not only a tenuous nod to King Diamond, but also full of detail that might elude not-so-curious passersby. Never one to evade humorous, if wicked swipes by members of Opeth is manager Andy Farrow, founder of Northern Music Company (Paradise Lost, Devin Townsend). Certainly, naked men or women pissing in fountains always has and always will cause outrage here in the puritanical United States, but in Europe, such things are woven into the cultural fabric. The fabled Manneken Pis

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sculpture has been piddling for 400 years without so much of a “Hey, that’s offensive!” peep.

The In Cauda Venenum cover sports a take on the famous Brussels fountain—yes, it is Farrow in full discharge atop the fountain.

“I was on one of my infrequent calls to Mike about the album setup, chasing up many unanswered emails,” says the affable Opeth manager via email. “He mailed me the cover.

I said, ‘That’s great!’ He said, ‘Look closely!’ To be honest, it’s an honor. I’m currently reading a book about Peter Grant, and apparently his image is somewhere on a Led Zep cover.” Åkerfeldt laughs, “That was my idea. I guess you can read into it what you like: pissing in the wind or taking the piss. The idea was, like Travis often has with our fucked-up faces, to have a bit of fun with [Farrow]. I don’t think he minded too much. And I will say this as well: Don’t read too much into the cover and the album title, In Cauda Venenum. The cover doesn’t relate to the title. All that being said, I like the new cover a lot.”

I CAN SEE YOUR HOUSE FROM HERE park studios is probably like every other studio in Stockholm. Behind the almost-always unassuming front doors is usually a wonderland of gear, consoles—preferably a Neve or SSL— echo chambers, live rooms and other recording accoutrements. How Opeth arrived at the Acke Gårdebäck-built Park Studios for the tracking of In Cauda Venenum was the result of three happy accidents, actually. Two are quietly pedestrian.

The third isn’t too dissimilar from the cover of Lucifer’s Friend’s Banquet album, only the spread more stupendous and the guests, at this juncture, far more (in)famous.

“It was [Ghost mainman] Tobias [Forge] who made the recommendation,” says Åkerfeldt. “We share the same set of friends and we have these big dinner parties around the holidays. It was at one of these parties that, after hearing me talk about studios I was interested in—like Janne Hansson’s Atlantis and David Castillo’s Ghost Ward—Tobias simply said, ‘Have you considered Park Studios? I think you might like it.’ I had completely forgotten about Park.”

Finnish guitar hero Jukka Tolonen, stoner/ doom darlings Graveyard, Nicke Andersson’s Imperial State Electric and, most notably, Swedish rock legends Kent have recorded at Park Studios. Åkerfeldt had tried to return to Atlantis to little interest from Mr. Hansson (apparently, the studio veteran wants to sell), while a scheduling snafu pushed Ghost Ward out of the running. Not really willing to venture outside of Stockholm (or Sweden), Åkerfeldt took Forge’s advice and scheduled some time with Park Studios guru Stefan Boman. Plus, by staying in Stockholm and going to Park Studios, Åkerfeldt could spend more time with his kids

between sessions. “It’s true,” he confirms. “The studio is 15 minutes from my house. I ended up calling Stefan to see if the studio was available.

Miraculously, it was. So, we went over to check out the studio and it was perfect.”

The sessions, which started in November 2018 with Boman engineering and Åkerfeldt co-producing, went swimmingly. All the vintage gear at Opeth’s disposal would’ve excited younger versions of the band. But this time, that wasn’t the reason for the jubilant and easygoing sessions.

Rather it was Boman’s engineering expertise that allowed Åkerfeldt and co. to blaze through “Svekets Prins,” “Hjärtat Vet Vad Handen Gör,” “Charlatan” and “Kontinuerlig Drift” with smiles on their faces.

“As long as it sounds good, that’s what I’m into,” admits Åkerfeldt. “I like the idea of doing things for real, though. Using someone’s expertise to get what you want. I want to sit with an amp, turn some knobs to get the sound I want.

There’s physicality to it that I like. I want someone with expertise to put up a nice microphone that he or she picked because they knew it would sound good with the amplifier that I picked or am using. There’s teamwork there. I wanted decisions we made during the recording to be complete. We recorded everything the old-school way, except we didn’t use tape; we used Pro Tools.”

Méndez, whose bass nearly exploded during tracking, had an equally pleasant time with Boman at Park. “Every experience is unique, and this one has been one of the greatest for sure,” he says. “Working the way we do, and having Stefan and his assistants there was great. It’s always nice when you work with good people who make you feel good and relaxed during the recordings. I can’t say anything else than this being a great experience.”

THE NORTH WIND BLEW SOUTH (MOGA) for most opeth fans, the highway change— the complete and utter removal of Åkerfeldt’s signature growl—came with 2011’s Heritage. For the diehard contingent—the up-to-Watershedor-bust! types—this was thought to be a quaint diversion. Damnation was perfectly acceptable, if not put on an ultra-high pedestal after it followed “companion” album Deliverance. But entire albums of Åkerfeldt singing (as in four of them) have bordered on metallic apostasy. Even as the In Cauda Venenum press release gallantly rolled across the world and the powers that be premiered the first song, “Hjärtat Vet Vad Handen Gör,” to nearuniversal acclaim, the kids in the back of the bus petitioned for “Make Opeth Growl Again.”

“The way I’ve experienced it—after Watershed—is that fans really centered on the death vocals,” says Åkerfeldt. “They really did. I know I had something different to offer in that

department, but that’s not where I’m at now. It’s as if when we took the death vocals away, we somehow became something less. I’ve always thought the opposite.

We’re more than the just the vocals.”

Obviously, Opeth weren’t the first death metal band to use “clean” vocals. Fellow Swedes Edge of Sanity were, in fact, one of the early pioneers. On 1992’s Unorthodox, vocalist Dan Swanö shocked death metal to the grave with his use of an actual voice on opening track “Enigma.” The ’90s were a different time and Edge of Sanity never had the visibility of Opeth, but they experimented often and without restraint over the course of their 10-year run. Cases in point: “Eternal Eclipse,” “Black Tears,” and their covers of the Police and Manowar.

“I cannot remember any negativity towards the use of clean vocals for Edge of Sanity,” Swanö recalls. “In fact, it was the total opposite! It boosted our career a lot. The fuzz around ‘Enigma’ and its clean vocal passage was enormous. The fact that I had a pretty decent normal singing voice and did the growling as well was pretty unique at the time. From that moment on, clean vocals were another color in our musical palette; just like we experimented with synthesizers, cello, piano. I think it is super weird that the most beloved Edge of Sanity songs all include clean vocals.”

There haven’t been growls on an Opeth album since Heritage. That was eight years ago. And yet, the chorus of “Make Opeth Growl Again” continues unabated. As if Åkerfeldt would reconsider a creative decision that, in fact, has very little weight with the songwriter. He proved that in the two full songs he dumped in the post-Watershed writing sessions. That deliberate act was, as our September 2011 cover story detailed, an exit for the Opeth-man. It was catharsis not to have to predictably write analogs to Ghost Reveries or Watershed.

Unquestionably, he had some of the most wicked, near-inhuman growls in metaldom—check out “Heir Apparent,” “Master’s Apprentices,” “Forest of October” and Edge of Sanity’s 40-minute “Crimson”—but Opeth offer more now than ever before. “I can never say never,” says Åkerfeldt.

“But I’m not really interested in that anymore.

The last full death metal record I listened to was Morbid Angel’s Domination. What does that tell you? I will always be a metalhead, a kid who worshipped death metal, but as a musician and a singer, it was time to move on.

“I will say this: If you want to hear me growl, come see us live. We still play all the Opeth classics. I’m not 19 anymore, so some of my growls will sound different, but that’s to be expected. I mean, I had a gift for it and it was something I was pretty proud of back then. As for the new music I’m writing—and have written for almost 10 years—where I’m going vocally is pretty obvious.”

Special thanks to Geronimo’s FGT in Stockholm for allowing Decibel access for this story’s photo shoot.

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THE LAST FULL DEATH METAL RECORD I LISTENED TO WAS MORBID ANGEL’S DOMINATION. WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU? I WILL ALWAYS BE A METALHEAD, A KID WHO WORSHIPPED DEATH METAL,

BUT AS A MUSICIAN AND A SINGER, IT WAS TIME TO MOVE ON. mikael åkerfeldt

available on:

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INSIDE ≥

72 CULT OF LUNA Review even longer than actual songs 74 EXHORDER Yesterday don’t mean shit

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

76 HAUNTER Picking orchids at morningrise 78 THE NUMBER TWELVE LOOKS LIKE YOU Yeah,

but YOU look more like a six

82 TOOL Needs more Chris Haskett sledge hammer

Epicus Doomicus Futurus

OCTOBER

CRYPT SERMON reject sanctuary, chase immortality

15 2 1 0

on next-level sophomore effort

Years

Batushkas

Trivium cover

Regrets

T

hough the 14th century is now recognized as a period of world-altering upheaval—the Black Death, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, the Hundred Years’ War, the first green shoots of the Renaissance—for a 20-year-old Jew named Abraham The Ruins of Fading Light in Worms, Germany, the tribulation of its waning years hit closer DARK DESCENT to home. His father had just died and, while raising his younger siblings, he found himself seized by a “very great passion to understand the True Mysteries” of creation. ¶ To that end, Abraham eventually traveled great distances and spent 10 years as a disciple of a rabbi who purportedly “possessed in full the Divine Wisdom,” awaiting a transcendence that never arrived. At a small lodging house alongside the Nile during the long, disillusioned trek home, however, Abraham heard tell of a powerful mystic living a three days’ journey into the uninhabited desert wilderness.

CRYPT SERMON

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

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Risking death and further existential disappointment, he nonetheless left the beaten path, met the sage, learned to beckon angels and—as he contends in The Book of Abramelin (1458)—became conversant in “the Veritable Magic, and how to command and dominate Evil Spirits.” nbd.

Strangely, the damn near metaphysically awesome 2019 Crypt Sermon sophomore full-length calls to mind the 1397 quest of Abraham. And not simply because Aleister Crowley, who was profoundly influenced by Abramelin, and the Philadelphia “epic doom” quintet apparently share a keen interest in the “Key of Solomon.”

Rather, the buzz surrounding the band’s 2015 debut, Out of the Garden, could’ve easily tempted Crypt Sermon to settle into the warm embrace of hype—maybe tinker around the sonic edges, sure, but mostly find contentment by meekly accepting that what is seen is all that is. Who would have protested a repeat performance?

Instead, to its inestimable credit, on The Ruins of Fading Light, Crypt Sermon choose to pierce the veil, to plumb the depths, to eschew comfort in favor of majestic ambition.

Of course, there’s a reason that bands trick themselves into believing complacency is a noble consistency. Often as not, a leap of faith ends with an annihilated corpse and a chorus of told-you-sos. Here, however, the results are nothing short of fantastic. Want to talk “veritable magic” or commanding spirits? Check the lithe, crazy-diverse, brilliantly interwoven, doomtranscendent riffs that Steve Jansson and James Lipczynski summon from a seemingly inexhaustible dark flame. Or the sublime, otherworldly delivery of vocalist Brooks Wilson, selling lyrical esotericism with deceptive ease.

Though still clearly guided by its Candlemass/Solitude Aeturnus North Star, Crypt Sermon’s relation to the constellation has shifted dramatically. If Garden established the band as wily celestial navigators on terra firma, The Ruins of Fading Light finds them in ascent, elbowing their way into the great empyrean, less homage-payers to standard-bearers now than peers. —SHAWN MACOMBER

ASAGRAUM

7

Dawn of Infinite Fire EDGED CIRCLE PRODUCTIONS

Asagraum > Ass-a-gram

Whether it’s too raw or too produced, bad black metal typically falls victim to the sins of excess: too much distortion, too many repetitions of a riff, too much blasting, too much of whatever it is Dani Filth does to make his voice go that high. Wisely, on their sophomore album, Asagraum chart a middle course 7 0 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

through those most satanic of waters and find themselves on hallowed shores.

The Dutch power duo (trio? Vocalist Hanna “Obscura” van den Berg is credited with all string instruments, but their promo photos feature three members) delivered a savage and satisfying debut album in 2017, and changing drummers hasn’t dulled the band’s edge one bit on Dawn of Infinite Fire. While van den Berg’s approach is always aggressive, her compositions never skimp on melody. Rock ‘n’ roll beats courtesy of Amber “A.” de Buijzer give those melodic riffs just enough time to make an impression before accelerating into D-beats and good oldfashioned blasting. It’s nothing groundbreaking—Immortal and Dissection figured all of this out decades ago—but it’s executed with taste.

Better, with nine tracks totaling just over 45 minutes of music, Asagraum don’t overstay their welcome. To this corpsepainted Goldilocks, their porridge is just right.

Still, by the end, Asagraum show the limits of their imagination: Most of these songs follow a similar structure, coming in fast out of the gate, slowing to a comfortable and atmospheric pace in the middle, then racing toward the finish.

Maybe van den Berg will throw a couple more curveballs on album number three; until then, this will do nicely. —ROD SMITH

CEMICAN

7

In Ohtli Teoyohtica in Miquiztli M-THEORY AUDIO

Fuck alien weaponry, this is Cemican

The government of Mexico has been waging war on the country’s indigenous population pretty much since it took over from the government of Spain in 1821—more than 300 years after conquistador Hernan Cortes began the long and arduous process of killing as many natives as possible and replacing the Aztec empire’s rich and complex culture with dumbshit Catholic garbage.

Miraculously, the invaders and their heirs have yet to entirely succeed—which might be one reason why Cemican’s third full-length tends to ring truer and strike harder than many attempts in folk metal at reanimating ancient traditions. The Guadalaharan sextet is taking the living aspects of Nahuatl (Aztec) culture and extrapolating as needed in the course of drafting ancient instruments, melodies, rhythms and stories in the service of metal.

Per the traditions it so successfully mines, In Ohtli Teoyohtica in Miquiztli (The Mystical Path of the Dead) relies as heavily on battle and deities for subject matter as it does drums and wind instruments (especially flutes) for sound—

which isn’t to say it lacks for heavier electrical options. Realistically, Cemican would make for a damn good power metal band (not an easy thing in itself), even minus all the folkloric elements. Guitarist Tecuhtli comports himself especially well, consistently building muscular solos with a strong narrative presence and tons of personality—and even more strikingly, fortifying songs with riffs that tend to last twice as long as sound judgement would seem to dictate without ever losing anything in the way of tension or power. —ROD SMITH

CRIMSON MOON

7

Mors Vincit Omnia DEB EMUR MO R TI P R O DUCTIO N S

Diviner eves

New Crimson Moon albums always arrive spellbound with astrological events. To wit, the lunar eclipses prevailed in 1996 when mysterious man Scorpios Androctonus unveiled debut LP To Embrace the Vampyric Blood. In 2016, when Oneironaut rolled out of Androctonus’ dungeon, the Transit of Mercury and the Celestial Lineup had spoken in tongues ancient and unknown across the solar system. Now, three years later—which is better than the 11-year gap between albums two and three—Crimson Moon return with the new moon in Virgo on Mors Vincit Omnia. Musically, there’s a sense of confidence in Androctonus’ new material, as if the addition of two full-time members has had a net positive impact on his output.

To wit, leadoff single “Godspeed, Angel of Death” and “Parcae - Trinity of Fates” have a slinky, serpentine vibe to them, an Inferno-meets-Dolorian blend of evils. Elsewhere, songs like “Vanitas,” “Upon the Pale Horse” and “Funeral Begotten” are formulated with Androctonus’ signature style, which is two parts mid-’90s Swedish black, one part orchestra/ chant work and one part Castlevania II themes.

What sets Mors Vincit Omnia apart is the medium tempos used throughout. It sets a sinister mood, against which Androctonus, Agreas and Sabnoc can strum, pluck and stroke notes of dissonance without the effect getting lost in a whirl of drums and vocals. There’s a bit of nuance on tracks like “Godspeed, Angel of Death” and “Altars of Azrael.” Also, the addition of session drummer Blastum (of Aosoth and Antaeus fame) is in no way detrimental to a band that previously fancied and used drum samples.

Mors Vincit Omnia isn’t a terribly memorable album—few of its type are—but it contains enough evilly sourced material to faithfully secure two horns up from the Crimson Moon hordes. —CHRIS DICK

CULT OF LUNA

8

A Dawn to Fear

DARKEND

Spiritual Resonance

ME TA L BL ADE

DARK ESSENCE

Blink and you’ll miss it

Peace be with you

In these, the waning years of humanity’s attention span, it’s the rare entity that can capture imagination and focus for more than the length of a Reddit thread, cat video or bodycam footage of cops planting drugs during routine traffic stops. Have you been to a movie theater lately?! How is it that a screen in someone’s hand can be more enticing than a screen a thousand times bigger, one that you’ve just voluntarily paid an arm and a leg to behold? It’s interesting to note that it’s taken a review of Cult of Luna’s seventh (or eighth, or ninth, depending on how you look at it) album to have me sounding more like my father than ever.

Damn you, millennials and kids of today.

Thankfully, there are still those who don’t mind metal’s equivalent of slow-cooking. A band like these Swedish post-metal behemoths should be on the extinction list given their propensity for epic-length, marinating songs with dynamic overload and hypnotic repetition.

Instead, the former Umeå hardcore kids and present-day pop-rock superstars—drummer Thomas Hedlund also plays in Phoenix—have experienced consistent upward trajectory since 2006’s Somewhere Along the Highway.

A Dawn to Fear—almost as if to directly address today’s goldfish—hits heavy from the off with “The Silent Man”’s thunderous wall of distortion. As it progresses along 10-and-a-half minutes, it’s revealed to be a song of contrasts where gravelly vocals are layered over twitchy guitars, disco beats underscore Godflesh/Isis riffing and space-age keys lead into pockets indirectly inspired by Master of Puppets. It’s a song that revolts against the entire first paragraph of this review—proving that attentions can be placed into chokeholds with expansive, exploratory and non-compact art.

The remaining seven tracks may not as effectively address this issue, but for Cult of Luna to not milk the incredible perpetual motion riff-and-soundscape layers in “Lay Your Head to Rest,” not offer a 15-minute melding of country twang and celestially profundity on “Lights on the Hill” or ease up on the cinematically orchestral monolith of “Inland Rain” would be compromising their aesthetic (the post-metal equivalent of selling out). So, you damn kids, get out of my yard, develop some patience and go experience the majesty that comes with time.

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7

Thanks to decades of Dio horns and subliminal messaging, most headbangers have been wellconditioned to worship at the scaly hooves of the devil, but when you live within driving distance of Vatican City—the undisputed capital of Jesusville Worldwide—it’s safe to say you have a significant advantage in the blasphemy department. Such is the case for Italy’s Darkend, who have been penning symphonic/melodic black metal odes to the Lord Below since 2006 and continue the unholy crusade on their fourth LP, Spiritual Resonance.

Opener “The Three Ghouls Buried at Golgotha” immediately lays the groundwork for the 40-plus minutes to come. The calming serenity of an Om chant is upended by a sinister keyboard line, vicious blast beats explode the milieu and a grandiose chorus kicks in the mausoleum door to pick up the pieces.

Similar leanings can be found on the last few offerings from fellow Euros Rotting Christ and Septicflesh—minimalist, mid-paced riffs with tons of layering and soundscape details—but Darkend’s melodic sensibilities and command of atmosphere go a long way toward cementing their character.

Interestingly enough, that has less to do with the symphonic elements of Spiritual Resonance and more to do with the tasteful lead work of guitarists Ashes and Nothingness. They provide the strongest melodies on standout tracks like “Scorpio Astraea High Coronation” and “Hereafter, Somewhere,” even when they’re sharing sonic real estate with the ever-present keys of Antarktica. It’s a smart approach that grounds the album in gritty terrain and circumvents the Dimmu Borgir fast track in favor of a more memorable destination. —MATT SOLIS

7 DEAD NEANDERTHALS W/ SCOTT HEDRICK Ghosts UTECH

Wicked Witch of the West

Noise as music can be a hard one to grasp. Without predictability and the well-known constructs of the rock world (intro, verse, chorus, bridge, etc.), there’s nothing to tether your expectations to. Bands in the extreme realm—from Neurosis to Earth, among others—have definitely mined the visceral power of noise and improvisation to bring an added intensity and create “shading,”

so it’s not completely unfamiliar, but what Dead Neanderthals (a Dutch sax and drums duo consisting of Otto Kokke and René Aquarius) do is considerably different.

With the unlikely assistance of Skeletonwitch guitarist Scott Hedrick (now living in L.A.), the pair has created two songs, “Bone Hill” and “Death Bell,” where, other than the constant rhythmic pulsing of the drums, it’s nearly impossible to identify what’s making the droning sounds layered above the steady beat. Nothing sounds like sax, per se, so clearly that instrument is being put through effects and used non-traditionally. Hedrick’s guitar and piano contributions are more discernible on “Death Bell,” but “Bone Hill” is terse and relentless rhythmically, with droning patterns painted over the framework. It’s at once meditative and a bit anxiety-inducing.

Hedrick’s playing is mostly restrained and repetitive, using precious little distortion while layering repeating melodies and sonic textures across Kokke and Aquarius’ loose foundation.

And when, after a brief pause in “Death Bell,” he suddenly drops the hammer and creates a black metal-inspired cacophony—with Kokke bleating over the top of it—what was previously a pleasantly little sonic stroll turns sinister and dark. The set-up is perfect, the payoff incredible, and it brings the album to a savage close. Whether or not you you “get it,” the intensity of the sounds and the way it’s all delivered is capable of producing the same rush as any extreme metal. —ADEM TEPEDELEN

ECSTATIC VISION

6

For the Masses

H E AV Y P SYC H S O U N D S

Vision without execution is hallucination

You ever dearly wanted to dig a band, but just couldn’t muster the requisite zeal? I’ve personally assembled a small battery of artists and albums over the years that I just never clicked with, despite my best efforts. A precious few have happily come into focus for me as time wears on (oh, early Judas Priest, I was such a fool!), while most remain stubbornly out of reach (KISS flutters immediately to the fore of the mind).

To relish Ecstatic Vision, you’re going to have to appreciate the ever-loving shit out of Hawkwind, and believe me, I really and truly want to do so. I’ve tried for honest-to-god decades to bend my appreciation in Hawkwind’s favor.

No, I don’t mean to imply that Ecstatic Vision are exclusively mirroring Lemmy’s former digs.

While several other touchstones show through (Melvins, Amon Düül II, Neu!), Hawkwind have

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the wheel pretty much to their lonesome on For the Masses, and their influence steers Ecstatic Vision maddeningly out of orbit. The album is thickly haunted by wild incidentals, ghost noises and inscrutable, warbled loops (god, the last portion of that sentence makes me feel very old).

The relatively linear “Yuppie Sacrifice” satisfyingly recalls EV’s earliest output, the hooky “Grasping the Void” rewards, and the obfuscated groove and subtle menace of “The Magic Touch” is cool, but is For the Masses good? I don’t know. Is Warrior on the Edge of Time or Space Ritual good? Don’t look to me for the solution; I’ve probably just divulged to the world that I have terrible taste. The answer, my friend, is blowing in the (Hawk)wind. —FORREST PITTS

EXHORDER

7

Mourn the Southern Skies NUCLEAR BLAST

The original Southern trendkill

Back in the day, Exhorder always sounded as if their metaphorical gas pedal just got stuck to the floor, melting brake pads and quivering tires barely holding on through the sharp corners the band reveled in taking. White-knuckle heavy metal. Seriously, Decibel Hall of Famer Slaughter in the Vatican (1990) is a frenetic, feral, death-tinged dark thrash masterpiece that should’ve launched the NOLA quartet at least into the Big Ten. And, though the more “groove-oriented” (sigh) followup The Law (1992) carried the vibe of a cocoon split open mid-metamorphosis, it, too, trucked in its own brand of high-octane seductive savagery.

That such idiosyncratic, incandescent output ultimately got reduced historically to proto-Pantera shadow-dwelling is maddening bullshit. Fuck, not even Tipper Gore would’ve mistaken Slaughter for Cowboys or The Law for Far Beyond Driven!

Now, after more than a quarter-century and three previous short-lived reunions, original vocalist Kyle Thomas (Trouble, Floodgate, Alabama Thunderpussy) and guitarist Vinnie LaBella have properly resurrected Exhorder.

Hallelujah! The subsequent record, Mourn the Southern Skies—also featuring vets Marzi Montazeri (Superjoint Ritual/Philip H. Anselmo), Sasha Horn (Forbidden) and Jason Viebrooks (Grip Inc., Heathen)—is hardly a disappointment. The perennially underappreciated LaBella remains a veritable font of wholly original, potent, catchy and heavy riffs, and Thomas possesses the range and moxie to keep up. (No small feat.)

That said, aside from a few killer old-school barnburners—demo re-recording “Ripping Flesh,” “Hallowed Sounds,” “Beware the Wolf”—most of Mourn doesn’t feel very…

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RUMBLY RU MBLY THROUGH A SPEAKER THROUGH

Force Fed Broken Cassettes

BY DUTCH PEARCE

UNDEATH

Sentient Autolysis CALIGARI

Rochester-based death metal trio Undeath have wasted no time in following up their demo, which only came out in March. They’re already back with Sentient Autolysis, 16 more minutes of the same twisted and original brutality, except the production here is much clearer. Everything about Undeath’s sound benefits from this bigger production. Kyle Beam’s riffs need room to move around and mutate. They’re given just that here, and the results speak for themselves—especially during the last minute of the tape when Beam solos over what sounds like the apocalypse.

PATH TO WAR

No Man’s Land

CARVED CROSS

Sapped of Strength, Left to Wither and Fade Away PERISHED SOIL

Holy crow, a Carved Cross tape for everyone! After countless tapes released in meager runs, Carved Cross finally released a tape that was (for a limited time) widely available to anyone who wanted it. Not only that, but after seven years of their drainedof-life, implacably slow approach to raw black metal, Carved Cross open this new tape with a D-beat! They even blast! Thankfully, over half the time they still find themselves amidst one of their signature slow jams. And let’s be honest—these are the best moments on Sapped of Strength.

GRIM EXISTENCE

DESERT WASTELANDS

Expansion of Reality

PRODUCTIONS

FHED

Path to War are a trio of death metal arms dealers from Maryland. While they obviously worship at the bullet hole-riddled altar of Bolt Thrower, their take on War Master-themed, groove-laden death metal is far more primitive. They’re almost a death/doom band, their approach is so ponderously crushing. The release in question, No Man’s Land, is an eight-song compilation of three of their previous demos.

This tape is a perfect starting place on a highly recommended path worth taking.

EXCARNATED ENTITY Stillborn in Ash SELF-RELEASED

A couple of real heavy hitters from the PNW underground metal scene play in Excarnated Entity. Dan Fried from Anhedonist plays bass and handles abyssal grunts; the current drummer of Demoncy and Crurifragium (who’s also the bassist of Cerebral Rot) plays guitar. Consequently, Excarnated Entity have a sound that’s at once straightforward and bludgeoning, yet layered with subtleties worth noting. Altogether, the four songs on this demo are more ambitious, more technical and way faster than anything these guys have done prior to this. Why aren’t you buried in this tape already?

Expansion of Reality is the new demo from English quintet Grim Existence. Two tracks of down-tuned gravecore, plus an instrumental intro that also sees to the mosh and your partaking in it. On the title track, Grim Existence run a dogged D-beat behind some likewise-tempered Swedish buzzsawing, only to break it down even gnarlier.

“Chambers Echo” is more of a closing track than a second track, although it is both here. Dour, albeit heavy power chords and an all-around introspective mood lead into a Domination-style ending.

ARKOUZIS

The Kingdom of Heaven/ The Kingdom of God AT R O C I T Y A LTA R

Arkouzis is death ambient from Australia, another project from the artist behind the dungeon synth projects Varvadoss and Corrupted Temple of Moss.

The Kingdom of Heaven/The Kingdom of God is two lengthy tracks of subtle psychological warfare in the vein of Brighter Death Now. Nearly 20 minutes of slightly pitch-shifted samples regarding the impending apocalypse over cerebral-scraping drone, all to give you that sinking feeling that things aren’t going to be all right after all.

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Exhorder-y. More like a southern-fried amalgamation of Down, Thomas’ work with Trouble and ultra-polished modern thrash à la latter-day Overkill. Cool shit, for sure—dig the swaggering blues shred at the end of the seven-minute “Yesterday’s Bones”—but it’s hard not to occasionally miss the wild-eyed abandon of yore.

Exhorder still can’t drive 55. These days it’s often just in a different direction. —SHAWN MACOMBER

HAUNTER

9

Sacramental Death Qualia I, VOIDHANGER

The apostle in triumph

For a band that is cited as an influence by so many, there are few who have actually tried to pull off “Opeth metal” in the now-waning decade. Which isn’t to say that Texas trio Haunter’s second album is this type of music in entirety, but there are elements found within Sacramental Death Qualia that make the Opeth fanboy in me raise a fist and pump it to Martin Lopez’s signature Afro-Cuban Bembe beat.

Following 2016’s much more black metalinspired Thrinodίa and a handful of splits, Sacramental Death Qualia can be seen as a bit of a left turn. Though there were brief passages of progressive death metal-inspired mania found within their debut’s swirling cataclysm, this sophomore effort turns that paradigm on its head, suddenly so much more death metal than black metal—and all the more progressive and spellbinding in comparison. This type of music— so familiar, but still presented in a new, creative fashion—is meant to be epic and large in gait, and Sacramental Death Qualia’s own stride is heroic, a blackened visage of their own predecessors.

Of course, there isn't just “Opeth” to this album, even though the massive progressive metal is dealt in spades. No, Sacramental Death Qualia is a venture into the murky black depths of the strange and peculiar. The musical heroics found herein set Haunter far apart from their inspirations, and their second album will ideally cement them in the higher halls of underground music history. —JON ROSENTHAL

IMPURE

7

Satan’s Eclipse CHAOS

Welcome to the new school, kind of like the old school

Few black metal bands nowadays can be described as “unadulterated.” So many “follow the money trail” and sacrifice their own identity for those of the more successful 7 6 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

flash-in-the-pan styles (looking at you, every single post-rock-with-blast-beats band).

Impure, however, do not. Impure don’t even know what selling out is. Impure… likely haven’t heard any riffs post-1993. Following a handful of demos, Impure’s debut fulllength is the embodiment of evil, old-school black metal (some might call it black/death metal, but try and tell me Beherit are death metal and you will be met with laughter).

The brainchild of Spite’s Salpsan (here known as HORNED FATHER OF DESECREATION—what a name) and comrade SATYRANNICAL LORD OF ASSAULT, Impure’s classically-minded black metal looks to a time before the pomp and circumstance of melody and dynamics. This is pure caveman music, not too dissimilar to that put forth by a young Marko Laiho in the early ’90s, but the simplicity found on Satan’s Eclipse is merely a front. The knuckle-dragging abyss found within Impure’s music belies a hidden complexity and progressive technicality rarely found in this kind of music.

The horned, satyrannical duo feed off of each other in tandem, pushing innovative limits in primitive clothing, sometimes even resembling the Horned Father’s own bizarre solo work as Spite. This strange sort of forward-looking, hyper-old-school black metal reads like a hypocrisy on paper, but Impure pull it off with flying colors. The Horned One would be proud.

—JON ROSENTHAL

ISOLE

8

Dystopia HAMMERHEART

Tristitia’s still around?

Swedish doom metallers Isole are probably the best trad doom metal outfit you’ve never heard.

The spotlight’s on Spirit Adrift, Pallbearer and Khemmis, which is cool, but the Gävle-based quartet has all the heart and soul. Starting with 2006’s Throne of Void—replete with its 1994-style cover art—Isole began their glacial ascent to the lower-middle of doom metal’s admittedly small heap; they parlayed the slow, the heavy and the mournful into dirges so desolate, so unhip that they’ve barely managed to find a modicum of success, let alone awareness.

Well, Dystopia—Isole’s seventh plaintive platter—is gonna change that. No, really. Armed with three vocalists, each stupendous and full of conviction from the Candlemass/While Heaven Wept/Solstice school, and two very capable guitarists in the forms of Daniel Bryntse and Crister Olsson, the Swedes have no issues reminding that true trad doom metal has its origins (and its badassery) in the Land of Moderation.

Tracks like “Beyond the Horizon,” “Written in the Sand,” “You Went Away” and closing monster “Nothingness” are proudly hewn from the marble floor of a mausoleum, topped with the tears of sad angels. The rock-solid songs, with some of the weepiest solos and solemnest riff marches that side of the Atlantic, pull you down, make you reflect and tear into your inner softie with poise. Dystopia is far from funny or jolly.

Across its near-hour long expanse, Isole never relent. Certainly, denizens of doom will be able to handle the sheer gloom of Dystopia’s multiple six-plus-minute odes to heartbreak, while casuals will find the protracted tempos and too-sluggish style a bit much to shoulder. But who cares about the latter? —CHRIS DICK

MARS RED SKY

7

The Task Eternal LISTENABLE

Don’t ghost me

Mars Red Sky’s running m.o. has been to couple contemporary doom with late-’60s psychedelia (the Zombies, Caravan, Love), and they’ve managed to affect that ungainly superimposition in a surprisingly lucid fashion. Sure, on the surface, they’ve entrusted their weight to the waterlogged expressions of Sleep and Maryland’s Revelation, but their charming—and acutely nasal—vocals (think Ghost) and wildly prismatic melodicism have landed them far flung of the gloomy herd. On The Task Eternal, MRS indulge their poppier impulses more purposefully than ever, while also broadening the scope and elaboration of their songcraft. At its best, the album expresses itself in a weird brogue that’s both hooky and clever.

Unfortunately, The Task Eternal is a bit too fussily touched up and overgroomed. A tune like “Crazy Hearth” demonstrates a general imbalance between sweet and sour that MRS have already struck, which leaves a less enduring impression than it might have if just a pinch more of their old acerbity had been included in the broth. Again, comparisons to Ghost—a band that wandered from their germinal ABBA-meetsMercyful Fate motif to ABBA-meets-kabuki-Rodgers and Hammerstein—are apt. It’s still good, just way less intimate in tone.

But those truly great moments win the day.

The unsettling, cinematic melodies of ‘Soldier On” and stalwart instrumental “Reacts” couldn’t be penned by any other outfit. A psilocybinsotted take on My Dying Bride’s 34.788%...

Complete (“Recast”) jovially frustrates while remaining, against all odds, obliquely pleasant.

Wayward as ever, the eternal task lies in predicting MRS’s next maneuver. —FORREST PITTS

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MEATWOUND

8

Culero

FINANCIAL RUIN

The new flesh

Meatwound make the kind of noise rock that, like their name, is an acquired taste. It’s ugly, unpleasant—essentially a mudslide funneled directly into your ear. It’s pretty stellar for anyone looking for that exact kind of thing, but not everyone is gonna be looking exactly for what’s on Culero.

This is a bass-and-drums band, even if it’s not. The guitar doesn’t play riffs as much as it’s pumped into the songs like a poisonous gas, filling the corners and wherever else there’s room.

But aside from a few instances, the focus here is the blown-out low-end and manic percussion.

Even the vocalist is a dull knife, and it all adds up to a barrage of soiled rhythms.

Unless you are really down with this, it’s a lot. Even the biggest fans will have to admit that one sacrifice of this approach is a smaller spectrum of what your songs can sound like, and that whole spectrum is pretty punishing. Over the course of 10 tracks, the band tries to add in their own kinds of variation—some D-beat, a noise track and this long, psychedelic, instrumental jam featuring an organ—but it doesn’t do much to dilute the suffocating density through the remainder of the album.

In other words, Culero may not be your thing, or it may work only in small doses. But if you’re someone who really loves rolling around in this kind of filth, Meatwound are doing it better than almost anyone. —SHANE MEHLING

MIND POWER

7

Q3

SELF-RELEASED

A life once regained

According to the four-EPsin-one-year release schedule of Mind Power, we’re now in the third quarter of 2019, yet Q3 feels like a report—thankfully not TPS, if we want to ring the Office Space bell— dug up from the bottom of the mid-aughts file cabinet. Which is to say this quintet fronted by ex-A Life Once Lost vocalist Robert Meadows and featuring members of Dead End Path, Ligeia and Bring the Heat sounds… a helluva lot like the Pantera-meets-Meshuggah-meets-Converge metallic groovecore (?) heyday of A Life Once Lost.

That’s not a complaint—A Great Artist (2003) and Hunter (2005) in particular are driving, nasty, vivifying, delightfully weird records, the sonics of which slid over Meadows’ A-plus feral roar like a sweater made of stainless-steel scouring pads. In short, that shit was rad, never 7 8 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

should’ve been buried in that goddamn filing cabinet in the first place, and now we have a variation on that theme with the man himself bringing that old fire to burn down some new eardrums. Oh, and to sweeten the pot, there’s also a solo by ex-ALOL/Vexes guitarist Bob Carpenter on “Frail.” For those keeping score, that makes Mind Power a win-win-win.

Does Q3 have any major differentiating characteristics from its predecessors? Aside from guest appearances, not really. (Q1 features the great Rob Fusco of One King Down/Most Precious Blood and John Henry of Darkest Hour; Q3 has Cory Brandan of Norma Jean, Chad Kapper of Frontierer and Chris Margarite of Kill Verona/ Shark Attack.) Each song possesses a unique vibe, sure, but when all four EPs are combined onto a double LP in December, it’s going to be all coherence and flow, not sore thumbs. So, here’s to resurrections, reimaginings and hearing Meadows slaying his way back out onto the killing floor. —SHAWN MACOMBER

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE DEAD THINK

8

No One Knows What the Dead Think W I L L LOW T I P

Redux bullet grind version 2.0 Pikachu, or something

Jon Chang has always taken grindcore to a higher level, and No One Knows What the Dead Think continue along the intellectual-grind path laid down by Discordance Axis and laid to waste by Gridlink. Here, Chang—going batshit bonkers behind the mic, as always—is backed up by exDiscordance Axis guitarist Rob Marton on guitar and bass, and ex-Cohol drummer Kyosuke Nakano.

They rip through these 10 songs (in 19 minutes, natch) with a precise chaos. The amazing “Cinder” feels like a million razor blades dancing across your skin in a maniacal march of despair; the drum intro to “Stars Hide Your Fires” sounds like the last avalanche you’ll ever hear.

It’s “Sayaka” that really keeps the Discordance Axis legacy alive, incorporating the same offkilter melodies and labyrinthine playing that made that band so unique. But there’s not a dud in the bunch, from “Dagger Before Me”’s herkyjerkiness to “Rakuyo”’s to-the-finish-and-beyond hyper-grind attack, and it all sounds very much like the beating heart of Discordance Axis, tortured and too smart for its own good, alive and well after all these years.

This album features Chang and Marton circling back to their own past and doing a cover of Discordance Axis’ “Dominion” (from 1995’s Ulterior). It’s bittersweet, and I fear it’s the final chapter: This

album is being billed as “the definitive ending to the piloted bullet hell grind album series started in 1992.” To humans, that means that it’s Chang and Marton returning (hopefully not for the last time, although Chang basically retired from grind after the last Gridlink record and Marton has battled bad tinnitus, so who knows?) to a take on grindcore they created, perfected and will forever be remembered for. —GREG PRATT

THE NUMBER TWELVE LOOKS LIKE YOU

6

Wild Gods

OV E R LO R D M U S I C

“Send them back!

Send them back!”

Here’s a name most of us thought went the way of the dodo nine years ago when the kitchen sink alchemists called it a day. It should be noted that their moniker should have gone the way of the dodo 17 years ago when the band first formed in the swamps of Dirty Jersey. But that’s neither here nor there, as #12 have been back for a couple years already with a new rhythm section (Downfall of Gaia’s Michael Kadnar and Dead Empires’ D.J. Scully) backing founding guitarist Alexis Pareja and vocalist Jesse Korman. They’ve already toured a couple times, including a run to a faraway location whose government is going to decide the 2020 election (that would be Russia, not Wisconsin). And before you get all indignantly “MAGA” about that comment, know that, in a roundabout way, this is part of the new album’s theme.

Korman fashions himself not just a disciple of Greg Puciato, but also a conduit to aliens circling the globe, inviting them to come shake their heads at the horrific shitshow our world has become. Songs like “Gallery of Thrills” and “Ease My Siamese” speak P.T. Barnum-like to the aliens: “Come and see the wild gods,” to quote their bio. We’re thinking, however, about the reaction of those outer space dwellers to the music of Wild Gods. The dizzying twists, quickchange turns and inability to sit still that sees 90-degree turns taken from noisecore to indie, metal to jazz, electronica to psychedelia, choral church music to new wave… you get what I’m saying. Would the aliens get it, or would E.T., ALF and pals hop on the next rocket ship home?

Wild Gods is an album in which you could drop the needle anywhere and not know where you are. It’ll capture the attention of fans of progover-everything and unnecessary complication, but it ultimately collapses under the weight of its own cleverness. However, the combination of a world lighting the fuse to its own socio-environmental powder keg and hearing this sort of

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musical chaos could actually be an effective form of defense from aliens that don’t want to deal with earthly insanity. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

OPETH

8

In Cauda Venenum MODERBOLAGET/ NUCLEAR BLAST

Deliverance from damnation

Four albums into Opeth’s mid-career pivot away from death metal, the Swedish prog giants are finding their footing again. The band’s past few releases have been boneless. Alternating between pastoral prog and metallic growling wasn’t just a gimmick; it gave vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt’s protracted songs structure. The best-case scenario for a non-growling Opeth was always a similar approach, except with all clean singing. The band’s 13th record, In Cauda Venenum, approaches that ideal.

Opeth haven’t sounded this metallic in a decade, and they’re better for it. Songs like “Svekets Prins,” “Hjärtat vet vad handen gör” and “Kontinuerlig Drift” once again juxtapose immaculately-toned chugging with gentle passages. They don’t sound exactly like classic Opeth, but they’re in the same galaxy as ornate clean-singing extreme music such as Madder Mortem and A Forest of Stars.

The approach especially pays off because it makes the parts that Åkerfeldt clearly cares about—his gorgeous voice, the classic rock ballads—more significant overall. Softer and more subtle affairs like “Banemannen” and “Minnets Yta” aren’t heavy, but demand more attention than the weak fare on Pale Communion and Sorceress. No matter the song, his clean vocals and solo abilities are at their all-time peak here. It’s not just Åkerfeldt, either. Drummer Martin Axenrot and keyboardist Joakim Svalberg, who did not participate in classics like Blackwater Park, finally sound indispensable.

It’s natural to hear these songs and wonder if they’d be better with a throaty roar propelling them. That said, for the first time in a long time, an Opeth record feels exciting again, and for that we should all be grateful. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

OXX

6

The Skeleton Is Just a Coat Hanger; These Are the Black Strings That Make You Dance N E FA R I O U S I N D U S T R I E S

Fixation on a bunch of other bands

When you run into a title like The Skeleton Is Just 8 0 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

a Coat Hanger; These Are the Black Strings That Make You Dance, you really hope the music will be good enough to justify writing that whole thing out.

But listening to Oxx, well...

From their opening metalcore riff, it’s clear that these Danes are recreating their favorite music from 20-25 years ago. They tend to operate in that period and hang out quite a bit in one state: You could toss a chunk of this record into three New Jerseyian buckets labeled “Deadguy,” Dillinger” and “Human Remains.” That doesn’t mean there aren’t other bands from the Hydra Head/Ferret glory days kicking around (and, in keeping with heavy music’s recent fascination with the saxophone, a preponderance of that particular woodwind), but if you like those three bands, you at least won’t hate this. But will you really love it?

If sounding like a bunch of old bands was grounds for disqualification, you’d have to throw out half the metal records released every year, so this isn’t the trio’s greatest fault. This just seems to be very much a haphazard collage, random pieces of things taped together, mini-homages that never feel connected beyond the era they originated from. To be fair, I just copy-pasted The Skeleton Is Just a Coat Hanger, so this didn’t need to be that great. And the title does work as a nice illustration of what Oxx end up sounding like: a husk that’s dependent on the actions of others.

—SHANE MEHLING

PANIC

8

Rotten Church WYLN

Mandatory history

Released 32 years ago on Brazilian label Woodstock Discos, Rotten Church is the Brazilian deaththrash band Panic’s debut album. Rotten Church was reissued once before on CD back in 2008 by another Brazilian label, Marquee Records, but despite being one of the very best-sounding records of the late ’80s Sudamerican reign of terror, it remains an overlooked, would-be classic in extreme metal history. Stateside label WYLN hopes to change that with their recent reissue of Rotten Church on 12-inch vinyl.

Panic slay riff-driven death-thrash, but in that especially beastly way that the Brazilian scene was once known for. What seems at first like a too-thin guitar tone turns out to be perfectly suited for these songs, packed as they are with nonstop soloing action and plenty of other six-string hijinks that demand a clear, sharp tone. Meanwhile, Panic’s rhythm section handles the heavy lifting. The thick-cut, almost too-loud bass sound gives these songs a legendary strength, while the drums hit so hard it’s

just ridiculous. Songs like “Satan Shall Return” and “Empire of Violence”—really, all of these tracks—charge and strike with so much speed and force, it’s a wonder Rotten Church ever came to be forgotten in the first place.

There are bands less than six months old out there trying to recreate this exact sound, but this is your rare chance to get the genuine article. It’s a record both obscure and killer; a reissue that makes you realize how vast, rich and still undiscovered the extreme metal underground really is. Rotten Church is history worth learning and repeating. —DUTCH PEARCE

REIGN IN BLOOD

7

Missa Pro Defunctis IRON BONEHEAD

Return to power draws near

Missa Pro Defunctis (read: Mass for the Dead) stands as yet another modern album that Iron Bonehead has called forth seemingly from the past. Much like Disharmony’s debut full-length that finally happened in 2017, there’s cause to believe that Iron Bonehead Rex also had a bit of a hidden hand in bringing Reign in Blood’s long-overdue sophomore album to fruition.

However the record came to be, Reign in Blood write some riffs. Evil riffs that are rendered all the more powerful by their execution. And Missa Pro Defunctis is all about the riffs. Which makes sense considering both members are guitarists. Neither member is a drummer, though. Most of the time you can’t tell, but there are a few moments on MPD when the inhuman percussion lets you down.

But a killer riff is always around the corner ready to incisively separate your head from your neck.

The percussion on MPD also testifies to Reign in Blood’s dedication to becoming a band again.

Rebirth by any means necessary. Because this is black metal, where the end results mystify the means (dumb band name and programmed drums included). Tracks like “Dawn of a Dying Soul,” “Domus Mortuorum” and the incidentally Integrity-esque “Wolfhour” simply sound like nothing else in the underground right now.

The closest comparison being something like BHL mixed with Agatus. There’s a heavy metal foundation beneath these melodic black metal riffs, and leads that makes for an irresistible and fun listening experience.

When black metal bands are just the right amount of campy, but still take themselves seriously, there are few things better in the extreme metal world. Reign in Blood achieve that balance perfectly. —DUTCH PEARCE

D E C I B E L : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 8 1

RETURN FIRE

7

Return Fire

SELF-RELEASED

Eye for an eye…

While there’s no word yet on the extent of Marc Rizzo’s ongoing involvement with Return Fire, the underlying vibe behind the promotional effort for the Chicagoan quartet’s first full-length suggests that drummer Joe Nuñez is kinda betting the farm on it—which might or might not be an effective strategy for launching a new band that sounds pretty much nothing like the famous one he left in 2011. Even just tapping his old Soulfly bandmate to remotely record all the solos on Return Fire reeks of weird flex and mysterious motives.

Not that Rizzo makes a single misstep—from the first time he slips back and forth between liquid shredding and sustained melodic work on opener “Desert Sun” to the last time he does it on closer “Massive Collapse,” the guitarist delivers pretty much exactly the flash-rich payload you’d expect from a lifelong genre-hopper acting on an invitation to regularly take the spotlight on a straight thrash metal/crossover album. Nunez comports himself just as admirably, albeit minus the kind of variety Rizzo generates with apparent flick-of-the-wrist nonchalance.

Likewise, the other members of Return Fire— vocalist Kevin James, bassist Vince Salvador and second guitarist Scott Cohen—do exactly what men recording a thrash album are supposed to do, with James bringing a pronounced hardcorefueled intensity that the album would otherwise lack. Realistically, there’s not a damn thing wrong with Return Fire—there’s just nothing about it that stands out all that much, even with Rizzo’s gifts smeared all over it. —ROD SMITH

TOOL

7

Fear Inoculum RCA

The pieces still fit

Nearly 4,700 days after 10,000 Days, Tool have finally delivered six songs and three interludes totaling 85 minutes of music, thus ending a wait rivaling the one for Chinese Democracy and robbing a few metal websites of one of their main clickbait engines. Nothing could possibly live up to the anticipation surrounding the Los Angeles altmetal quartet’s fifth studio album. Rather than try, Tool do their own ambitious, idiosyncratic thing on Fear Inoculum.

The first sounds on the album appear to be electronic strings, followed by tribal drums 8 2 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

and sitar. It’s a clear indication that they intend to continue in a more organic, almostjammy direction. Which isn’t to say they don’t get their prog on—“Pneuma” has parts that sound like Rush covering “Planet Caravan” (Danny Carey’s drum fills feel especially Peartlike). They go heavy on synth sounds, lean into drone and noise collages, do a very convincing Nine Inch Nails impression on “Chocolate Chip Trip.” Most of the songs follow their “slow build to explosion” structure. It’s a lot to take in—sometimes too much. For the first hour, it’s an impeccably performed, gorgeously produced collection of songs that often outstay their welcome.

Then “7empest” hits like a goddamn bomb.

It’s the culmination of the dreamier early tracks, turning the planet caravan into a planet destroyer. It embodies everything great about the band over 16 captivating minutes of tensionrelease dynamics. It probably wouldn’t be as effective without the build-up, but it makes the listener wish the album had more like it and a little less of everything else (especially runtime).

—JEFF TREPPEL

UNIFORM & THE BODY

8

Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back SACRED BONES

Experimental mainstays reliably fail to repeat themselves, again

The Body almost surely hold the current decade’s record for collaborative releases by a noise/pop/metal fusion duo—as in 10-plus, so far. (The year isn’t over and they do tend to run a little prolific.) Their aversion to singlesession hookups has worked wonders for their output. From touring with the Assembly of Light Choir behind 2010’s All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood to multiple full-lengths with the likes of Thou and Full of Hell, not to mention their multidimensional relationship with Lingua Ignota/Kristin Hayter (see this year’s magisterial Caligula), Lee Buford and Chip King never fail to shoot for maximum depth and duration, and almost inevitably harvest remarkable outcomes. Hence, it’s not surprising that the follow-up to Mental Wounds Not Healing—their 2018 collaboration with Brooklyn-based industrial punk duo Uniform— consistently shuns redundancies.

Buford’s never-ending search for the perfect beat commences right out of the gate on “Gallows in Heaven”; his minimalist dumpster electrothuds and vocalist Michael Berdan’s plangent

holler dominate the verses, while King’s bloodcurdling yelps and guitarist Ben Greenberg’s pointillist melodies enrich the song’s finale.

Vocal constants aside, the song is a one-time deal. The double duo changes up texture constantly in ways that conjure vague whiffs of Ministry (more like Lead Into Gold, actually), Whitehouse, Depeche Mode, SPK, Hunting Lodge, Public Enemy, Wold and a panoply of other historically insurrectionist entities, but ends up coming off like any number of things that haven’t happened before. —ROD SMITH

WAR OF AGES

6

Void

FA C E D O W N

Slam crusade

“This is the first war that started everything,” War of Ages frontman Leroy Hamp snarls to start their new record, Void. Formed in Pennsylvania back in 2002, the band is now on their ninth full-length battle and the mission remains the same: Use technical heaviness to deliver sermons of Christian faith and resilience.

Since their 2006 Facedown debut, Pride of the Wicked, War of Ages have added more dynamic tone shifts and complexity to their compositions. Void is packed with sharp turns between its heaviest moments (the thrashing “Greed”) and radio-friendly accessibility (the heaven-flung chorus of “Sulphur and Salt”). At first listen Void sounds like an amalgamation of heavy prog, alternative metal and glossy deathcore for P.O.D. fans. But I also hear Faith No More’s prickly pop curiosities pushed to extremes. Between their prominent keyboards (“The Watchers”) and propensity for hiphop (“Jezebel”), War of Ages are battle-worn enough to fearlessly mash up genres—with admittedly mixed results. While he doesn’t aim for Mike Patton’s unhinged arsenal, Hamp attacks the crisp croons with the same go-forbroke tenacity as his growled contributions.

There’s no shortage of ideas in Void; “Blood of the Earth” is as dense as 214 seconds can feel, and remains engaging with each hairpin deviation. “Miles Apart” wraps itself around a memorable breakdown. Although some choruses flourish, the riffs largely hint at hooks and restlessly dart to the next objective. On Void, War of Ages rely on drummer Kaleb Luebchow for the groove while the guitars abruptly stop and start like lightning strikes around his thunder. But if you prefer Californian Carnifex over the Finnish death-dealers of the same name, Void may fill the vacancy in your soul.

—SEAN FRASIER

D E C I B E L : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 8 3

WITCH VOMIT

8

Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave 20 BUCK SPIN

I think some got in my mouth

Witch Vomit’s sophomore record, Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave, opens with a single dirge-y synth note. Seconds later, the guitar reaps in with a razor-sharp decapitator of a riff, only to halt for the other guitar (in the left-side speaker) to finish said riff, which is punctuated by a snare roll like a quick squeeze of an automatic’s trigger. This all happens in a matter of seconds, and just like that, opener “From Rotten Guts” has taken off. Witch Vomit spend the next 28 minutes at pummeling top speed.

Granted, instrumental “Squirming in Misery” is more of a gloomy, doom-paced take on their style of death metal, but Witch Vomit do well not to close the album with this anomaly. Instead, they close with “Fumes of Dying Bodies,” whose bell patterns, out-of-nowhere skank part and dive-bombing solos make it one of the most interesting songs on an album made up entirely of killer tracks. Then it all ends with a held-out throaty growl. Who’s done that before? That’s awesome! That’s how you start and end an album. With a buzzing brown note and a gurgling death croak, respectively.

There’s a plethora of amazing death metal albums that have come out this year, and most of them through 20 Buck Spin, to be honest, but Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave stands out as a focused achievement of melodic yet brutal, atmospheric yet demonically aggressive, evil death metal. It’s not something you hear every day, least of all nowadays. —DUTCH PEARCE

WIZARD RIFLE

8

Wizard Rifle S VA R T

Shoot shoot it, boy

Doing the math on the running time for Wizard Rifle’s third album—five songs in 45 minutes—one can only come to the conclusion that the songs are long. Real long. The length of the tracks herein, surprisingly, does not turn out to be the defining feature of this fairly insane album. No, what’s far more interesting is, a) the depth of tonal range that two people (guitarist Max Dameron and drummer Sam Ford, who share vocals) are capable of creating together, and b) the fact that the duo successfully integrates and references so many extreme styles without sounding completely schizophrenic.

8 4 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L

One minute, it’s AmRep noise viciously clattering away; the next, it’s sludgy doom followed by a black metal freeze-out. There’s psychedelia, a splash of indie pop and even proggy flirtations. The long, long songs are relentless, hardcharging and constantly creating dramatic tension, which inevitably finds a suitable release.

Dameron and Ford tap into some shared mental playlist of weird and varied styles/sounds to create a cohesive sound all their own. It’s no wonder we only see new Wizard Rifle releases every three or four years. Making this all sound intentional and coherent must be exhausting.

For the listener, it’s revelatory. There’s a lot packed into Wizard Rifle, and the impulse is to gobble a pot brownie (in states where such things are legal) and put it on repeat to see where it’ll take you. Probably no place you’ll be expecting. And if you did the math and determined that, yes, these five songs average nine minutes in length, you’ll ultimately appreciate the journey you get taken on along the way.

—ADEM TEPEDELEN

CHELSEA WOLFE

8

Birth of Violence SARGENT HOUSE

As heavy as acoustic music can get

The way Chelsea Wolfe’s music was progressing over this decade, it was inevitable that she would drift toward the louder, more viscerally powerful side of her oeuvre. After all, going back to when she was recording acoustic covers of Burzum songs (and her now-legendary performance at Roadburn 2012), the metal influence was bound to creep in sooner or later. It all came to a head on the revelatory 2015 album Abyss, which saw Wolfe’s hybrid of confessional singersongwriter fare, gothic atmosphere and her imposing-yet-mysterious persona coalesce on a career-best opus.

Strangely, the magic of Abyss was missing on much of the 2017 follow-up, Hiss Spun. Not that it was a bad record per se, but despite Wolfe’s supreme songwriting, the band arrangement sounded too skewed towards the doom metal side. Perhaps Wolfe sensed that as well, because her latest full-length smartly hits the reset button, returning to the more minimalist approach of her wondrous first two albums, 2010’s The Grime and the Glow and 2011’s Apokalypsis.

What makes Birth of Violence superior to those albums, though, is how masterful Wolfe sounds nearly a decade later.

Backed primarily by a setup of Wolfe’s acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, droning synths

and brushed drums, it mines the darker side of Americana, the type of haunting music that you’d hear at the Bang Bang Bar on Twin Peaks.

On such brooding stunners as “American Darkness,” “Highway,” “Deranged for Rock & Roll” and the astonishing “The Mother Road,” Wolfe reasserts herself as one of the finest balladeers, arrangers and singers of her generation.

—ADRIEN BEGRAND

WORMED

7

Metaportal SEASON OF MIST

In space, no one can hear that screaming sweep-picked arpeggio

There’s a point in “Remote Void”—the opener of this four-song stopgap, which follows previous full-length Krighsu and the tragic passing of drummer Guillermo Calera—in which Wormed suddenly make sense to long-confounded ears.

This isn’t something one can very often say about this ultra-technical, cosmos-obsessed Spanish brigade unless you have a degree from the Musicians Institute, know how to operate the Hubble Telescope and can make sense of Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi works. There’s a part in said song where the combination of technique, groove and wiry slip-and-slide guitars becomes reminiscent of Human Remains, and not just impenetrable tech-death for the sake of impenetrable tech-death (a trap Wormed have fallen into regularly over the years).

There’s also the final song, “E-Xystem,” which makes liberal use of an eerie, yet compact melody and Voivod-like dissonance. This conciseness might also be the result of paring down the lineup to a single guitar and not having two tech-obsessed dervishes trying to out-flash-bomb each other. Either way, Metaportal seems to be a transitional release in which the lineup has been revamped, both by tragic necessity and successful experiment, and the result is more digestible.

Sure, the story portrayed in the lyrics is still a head-scratcher about a battle-hardened human protagonist named Krighsu—whatever happened to names like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon that were simple, cool and had ties to gay porn actors?—battling with nanotechnology predators across a series of galaxies only for things to come to head during a collision at the lip of a black hole or something.

Don’t know where this is going as this untethered band moves forward, but the little bits of straightforwardness and the voluntary expansion of their own palate are encouraging hints.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

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B A R C A D E . C O M / B O O K-A -P A RT Y

D E C I B E L : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : 8 7

8 8 : O C T O B E R 2 0 19 : D E C I B E L ANSWERS: 1. The peacock’s feather pattern has flipped... no, for real 2. One of the feather “eyes” on the extreme left is an avocado 3. Also, one has a teeny tiny Pac-Man in its center, on the far right 4. And a pair toward the bottom left have become bloodshot cartoon eyes 5. Flames are coming from the windows in the house on the hill... 6. ...and the wooden muntin brackets have all become inverted crosses 7. The peacock’s talons are covered in gore 8. The blood roots are much more veiny 9. One of the trees on the left has been replaced by a skinnier, sparser one 10. Just below the house, the mud path breaks off in two places to form an “8” 11. There’s a significant amount of peacock poop on those human remains 12. Three of the trees on the left horizon have turned into telephone poles... no wait, sorry... those are crucified people 13. The peacock’s wings have been plucked... jumbo-sized Buffalo wings, anyone? 14. The soil is much less rocky 15. There are three extra ribs just to the left of the peacock’s feet

There are 15 differences in these pictures.

How many can you find?