BARONESS TRIBULATION OCEANS OF SLUMBER RED ALBUM HALL OF FAME
IN THE STUDIO
THE GREAT AWAKENING
MICHAEL
REFUSE/RESIST
NORTON 19 87 - 2 0 2 0
w i t h
PRIMITIVE MAN THE ACACIA STRAIN SKELETAL REMAINS PERSEKUTOR UNLEASH THE ARCHERS UMBRA VITAE
OCTOBER 2020 // No. 192
EXTREMELY EXTREME
October 2020 [R 192] decibelmagazine.com
upfront 8 metal muthas It runs in the family 10 low culture From the dungeons of Hyrule 11 no corporate beer What are you so afraid of? 12 in the studio:
tribulation
Thirsty for more
14 the glorious dead From the forest to the crypt
22 intoxicated Building walls to tear them down
16 persekutor Truly huffings success in the US and As yes
24 the acacia strain Future imperfect
18 primitive man Immersed in critical success
26 rebel wizard Is that a staff in your pocket or are you just happy to see us?
20 unleash the archers A new fantastical power
28 skeletal remains A lifetime of death
features
reviews
30 q&a:
51 lead review Napalm Death find yet another modern classic in their already stacked discography with Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism
oceans of slumber Cammie Gilbert won't let you sleep on her experiences
34 the decibel
hall of fame Baroness find widespread success in spite of their efforts with Red Album
52 album reviews Releases from bands who knew Taylor Swift was a huge Ihsahn fan all along, including the Ocean, Sumac and Spirit Possession 64 damage ink Ready to rumble
42
For I'm Eternal Night COVER STORY
COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY ADRIANA MICHIMA
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. © 2020 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. 2 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
www.decibelmagazine.com
REFUSE/RESIST
October 2020 [T192]
PUBLISHER
“I have Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
I’m supposed to be dead, but metal and beer keep me alive!” A few years ago, I received that message from a subscriber named Michael Norton, affectionately known to many in the metal scene as the “Heavy Metal Cripple.” Duchenne muscular dystrophy is an incurable degenerative muscular disease that severely restricts mobility, often resulting in wheelchair confinement. The average life expectancy is just 26. Despite his condition, Michael still accomplished more than most “able-bodied” people you will ever meet. That included the co-writing and co-directing of a documentary honoring his late brother T.J., simply titled Brothers. The trailer for the film is on YouTube. You should stop reading this for a few minutes and watch it now. Michael was defined more by the “Heavy Metal” part of his selfchristened nickname than the latter. A Decibel subscriber for well over a decade, a fairly recent Reader of the Month and an obsessive metalhead who regularly attended concerts in New England before the pandemic forced all of us to feign enthusiasm for live streams, he was pretty much just like you or me. Michael passed away a few days before this issue went to print. This morning, I took a moment to scroll through the comments in our memorial post about Michael on Decibel’s social media accounts. I rarely look at comments these days. If you’ve used the internet and are literate, I don’t think I need to explain why. What I read was a universal outpouring of love and support from friends and strangers alike. For a brief moment, it reaffirmed my faith in decent people—or, at the very least, the metal community. “I would like to be known as a hard worker and that I never give up,” Michael said in his Reader of the Month interview. “Remember me for being funny and creative with my art. I don’t want to be labeled as inspirational just because I have a disability and use a wheelchair.” Rest in power, Michael. Wherever you are, we hope you’re tearing shit up with your brother. This issue is for you. albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief
A few housekeeping items: • Deluxe subscribers will notice that there is no flexi disc in this issue. COVID-19 cases at the plant where the flexis are pressed halted all vinyl production. As a result, we were unable to press DB118 in time to be included in this issue. Issue No. 193 will include both DB118 and DB119. We apologize for the inconvenience. • After a nearly four-year run, we say farewell to Ed Luce’s Double Negative. But don’t worry, Ed is sticking around the back page to illustrate Eugene S. Robinson’s new column, which debuts this month. • This issue marks Decibel’s 16-year anniversary. There’s no party, obviously. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have cupcakes.
Alex Mulcahy
alex@redflagmedia.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Albert Mudrian
albert@decibelmagazine.com
AD SALES
James Lewis
james@decibelmagazine.com DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND SALES
ART DIRECTOR
Aaron Salsbury aaron@decibelmagazine.com
Michael Wohlberg
michael@redflagmedia.com
Patty Moran
CUSTOMER SERVICE
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COPY EDITOR
Andrew Bonazelli
BOOKKEEPER
Tim Mulcahy
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CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
Chuck BB, Ed Luce Mark Rudolph
Online DECIBEL WEB EDITOR
Albert Mudrian
DECIBEL WEB AD SALES
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albert@decibelmagazine.com james@decibelmagazine.com
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Vince Bellino Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Dean Brown Louise Brown Chris Chantler Richard Christy Liz Ciavarella-Brenner Chris Dick Chris Dodge Sean Frasier Nick Green Raoul Hernandez Jonathan Horsley Neill Jameson Sarah Kitteringham Scott Koerber Daniel Lake Shawn Macomber Shane Mehling Justin M. Norton Andy O'Connor Dutch Pearce Forrest Pitts Greg Pratt Jon Rosenthal Joseph Schafer Rod Smith Matt Solis Kevin Stewart-Panko Eugene S. Robinson Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel J Andrew Zalucky CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
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READER OF THE
MONTH
Mark Rohrer
Chestnut Hill, MA At 74, you’re likely one of our oldest subscribers. When did you first get into metal and what about it do you find most appealing now?
I have been into music—especially guitarbased music—since about the age of 6 or 7. My father loved honky-tonk and rhythm and blues, and I grew up with the wilder side of rock ‘n’ roll (Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis) as a pre-teenager in Southern California in the mid-to-late 1950s, turning 13 in 1959. I was drawn early on to rockabilly, and then in the mid-1960s to psychedelic music—the louder the better! I suppose I first got into metal or early metal-like bands with
6 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
groups such as Blue Cheer in 1966. The moment I heard the first great British bands such as Sabbath, Priest and Deep Purple, I was forever after a huge metal fan. What I really find appealing are several factors. First of all, most of the current great metal bands—no matter the genre they represent—remain true to what I would call the roots of metal-heavy, sometimes brutal, usually guitar-sourced and often very complex music. Secondly, the variety and quality of contemporary metal bands—especially death and thrash—are incredible! Decibel serves a great purpose in keeping me up to date, as I can find time for bands both old and new and their new recordings. I am equally impressed at the amount of metal on sites such as Amazon Music, which does a great job with new releases and many bands’ back catalogs. Believe it or not, I often do work in my home office listening to metal, which both energizes me as I work and seems to help deal with the stresses of my profession.
And finally, I have seen many incredible live performances from the early 1970s to literally the present day. It’s really kind of neat to be carded for proof of age and to be frisked when going to a concert such as the Palladium in Worcester where I am probably twice the age of a lot of the audience! You’re a geriatric medicine specialist. Are any other physicians in your field aware of your musical tastes? Do any share them?
Many of my colleagues are aware of my musical tastes … if [they’re] into metal at all, they usually are frozen in time just as thrash came in (everybody knows Metallica, for instance), but really have no clue regarding death metal, black metal, goth, etc. They do know that my lifetime goal is to go to Wacken for my birthday one August! What would you tell someone who doesn’t believe it’s important to wear a face covering when social distancing isn’t possible?
I have told numerous people—and will continue to do so—that cloth or surgical masks reduce by some 97 percent the chance of getting coronavirus infection from droplets, and likely from the less common airborne particles. I have shared stories with young people of my experience on the front lines, and they definitely do not want to experience what I have seen. Masks greatly reduce their chances for infection.
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
Another profound work from this shape-shifting musical collective. Feat. vocals from members Justin Greaves & Belinda Kordic + Vincent Cavanagh (Anathema) Kristian “Gaahl” Espedal (Gaahl's WYRD), Jonathan Hultén (Tribulation), Ryan Patterson (Coliseum/Fotocrime) & more Coming Oct. 9 on CD, Ltd. Ed. gatefold 2LP, digitally & more
Verily, the vital energy of the devils blood flows 'Through the Hollow' of MOLASSES' first evocation. Feat 4 members of THE DEVIL’S BLOOD incl Farida Lemouchi on vocals Coming Oct. 16 on 2CD, Ltd. Ed. gatefold 2LP, & digitally.
merch available at: season-of-mist.com
WHERE DEATH LIES g comin 5 2 t Sep
VENOMOUS CONCEPT Politics Versus the Erection
SEPTICFLESH Infernus Sinfonica MMXIX
These hardcore punk / grindcore A milestone live recording capturing their brutality and bombast in vets return with a full-length tandem with the Symphony frontal assault of short, sharp Experience Orchestra and Mexico blasts resonating with the Children’s & Youth Choir! worldwide chaos of today.
g comin 5 2 t Sep
VOUS AUTRES Sel de Pierre
OBSIDIAN KINGDOM Meat Machine
GAEREA Limbo
A sweeping and dramatic piece of work that shines like a dark constellation in the black heavens.
Meat Machine is a harsh sonic journey, abject and stentorian like a love letter from a school shooter.
'Limbo' devours the listener with misanthropic catharsis and cinematic agony.
MORA PROKAZA By Chance “It incorporates bizarre
textures…that surprisingly works in evocative ways. …make room for By Chance at the top your Weirdest Shit of 2020 list.”
NOW SLAYING Wonder what Decibel world HQ has been rocking for the past month? Well, here are the CDs that we spun most while booking David Solomon as a DJ for the next Metal & Beer Fest.
Because not all of us were spawned in the darkest recesses of hell
This Month's Mutha: Linda McKenzie Mutha of Mike “Gunface” McKenzie of Umbra Vitae/the Red Chord
Tell us a little about yourself.
I am a pastoral minister at a large independent retirement community just north of Boston. I have always lived in Massachusetts. I was born in Cambridge, grew up in Stoneham, and now live in Reading. I did spend one year living in Okinawa, Japan when my husband was stationed there with the Air Force. It was a wonderful experience living on the other side of the world and learning another culture. I am happy that I was able to be a stayat-home mom for my kids, Mike and Carolyn. I earned my college degrees while my kids were in middle school and high school, so we often spent time working together. From the Red Chord and Stomach Earth to Wear Your Wounds and now Umbra Vitae, your son has an extremely diverse c.v. How much influence did you have on his developing musical taste?
Yes, isn’t he amazing? I don’t know except that we always had music playing in the house and although they weren’t the types of music that Mike is working on, music was an important part of our household. Also, I think we encouraged our children to find their own types of music and gave them the room to enjoy music in their own spaces. I would hope that my influence on him encouraged him to allow his creativity to lead him. And hopefully it helps that he knows that I believe in him as he continues to develop each new project. 8 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
Which of Mike’s many projects is your favorite and why?
That’s a hard question. They’re all so good and unique to one another. If I had to choose one, it would be the Red Chord. The Red Chord was really fantastic and I loved seeing him perform with those guys who were so good together. How do you feel about your son having the nickname “Gunface”?
That’s funny: I forgot how he got that name. It was from a cable access TV show in Reading that he did. Later, they used the name to distinguish the two Mikes in the Red Chord. When you look at Mike’s work, you can see that he brings something from each project that he does into his latest project. Have you had the opportunity to see him much during the pandemic?
Zoom dinners! It’s the way we’re all doing it right now. Not the same. I sure could use a hug, but it won’t last forever. We can do hard things, right? What is something most people don’t know about Mike?
I am a little biased, but Mike has a remarkable ability to remember music and musicians from a huge variety of genres. And he has a great respect for all other musicians. That’s always evident when he speaks about them. In case you haven’t noticed, I am very proud of Mike. And something you might not know is that he doesn’t kill spiders. He captures them and releases them outside. Really. —ANDREW BONAZELLI
Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f Napalm Death, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism Uada, Djinn Night Demon, Vysteria Jesus Wept, Apartheid Redux Krieg, Transient ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e Catherine Wheel, Chrome The Kundalini Genie, You Are the Resurrection Emma Ruth Rundle, On Dark Horses Marissa Nadler & Stephen Brodsky, Droneflower My Bloody Valentine, Isn’t Anything ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s Uada, Djinn Necrot, Mortal Clutch, The Elephant Riders Lo-Pan, Subtle Yawning Man, Macedonian Lines ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r Various Artists, Katamari Damacy Original Soundtrack The Acacia Strain, Slow Decay Napalm Death, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism Gulch, Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress Akira Yamaoka, Silent Hill 2 Original Soundtrack ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s Greg Puciato, Child Soldier: Creator of God Napalm Death, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism SGURD, The Beginning of the End Combatwoundedveteran, I Know a Girl Who Develops Crime Scene Photos Supermachiner, Rise of the Great Machine
GUEST SLAYER
---------------------------------Colin Young : t w i t c h i n g t o n g u e s / g o d ’ s h at e Hans Zimmer, Live in Prague Lady Gaga, Chromatica Death Threat, Peace & Security Genesis, Wind & Wuthering Into Another, Omens
Summertime Hostility t goes without saying that the last few
months have been fucking aggravating for a mountain of reasons. I’m willing to bet if I asked why, I’d get two distinct sets of answers, largely depending on how you plan to vote this autumn (should there still be an office left for which to vote). There’s also the third group of you out there who listen to a washed-up supermodel for your medical advice, and frankly, I don’t know what the fuck to tell you. Either you’re right and you’ll be fine or you’ll die of some disease leftover from the fiefs. The optimist in me says both are winning outcomes. Anyway, when I’m not getting my cat an abortion or explaining the differences in the severity of petty versus grand larceny to the beach ball filled with vinegar that is my coworker (this is a real conversation that happened), I’ve been driven to escapism through excessive consumption of 16-bit video games, dungeon synth and Danish black metal. It’s like high school, only with less sex. And since the corpse of Henry VIII just quit to get a job where she has to move less—meaning I’m about to have a lengthy period without time off from work—I figured I’d take a moment to bitch about these hobbies while I can still remember what free time is. And if anyone brings up that fucking Rollins “there is no free time” quote, I hope you slip and fall asshole-first onto a fence post. It’s easy for him to pontificate with six figures sitting in his bank account. First thing is my journey into nostalgia with old video games. I picked up some of those mini systems that were marketed to assholes like me who had a miserable childhood made only worse by being unable to afford the fucking things when they were shot out during the holidays like reindeer shit. Took some time, but I got the NES, SNES and Genesis, and goddamn is that exciting. I mean, I don’t have any fucking time to play them, but I’ve got them modded with every 10 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
game I ever loved... and this is now the saddest fucking sentence I’ve ever typed. I figured I’d check out some videos and groups for retro gaming because I completely forgot what that scene was like over the years, and holy shit. I thought I’d find people talking about how cool shit like Faxanadu is (and I have), but also the amount of talking about wanting to fuck video game characters and the just overall awkward interaction makes me embarrassed to have a dick. You can just see the pulsing undertones of pent-up neediness, the objectification of women and the inability to socialize in what researchers would call a “human” manner. Christ. Dungeon synth should be better, right? With some of the artists and labels on these forums, it absolutely is. Until you realize there’s now hundreds of projects for every niche fetish possible, and if there isn’t, some guy is going to inquire, “Is there dungeon synth that’s perfect for LARPing in my mom’s backyard on March 12, but on a leap year?” The conversation occasionally includes the word “thee” and gets so specific it’s like the scene in Rain Man when Dustin Hoffman counts all the toothpicks. One guy actually took pictures of all the stickers, pins and shit (dungeon synth labels send a lot of extra odds and ends; please investigate the Hollow Myths Discogs page for proof), and asked what he was supposed to do with it all. It’s basically like the video game groups, only with way more self-fellatio involved if someone was quicker on a preorder than everyone else. I’m going to be 42 in a few weeks. This is what I spend my time doing. I also think more people should have me as a guest on their podcasts, and coffee companies should sponsor me. I hope this lottery ticket I bought is a winner. Regarding Danish black metal, I actually have nothing to bitch about. The Korpsånd acts, in particular, are all fucking excellent. Go listen to the new Fanebærer—it’s insanely good.
TRAPPIST FRONTMAN crafts a monthly journey through
MORBID ALES BY CHRIS DODGE
The Pandemic Creates a Cliffhanger at Dirk’s Terror Tavern
F
our days before our first soft opening—we were stocked with beer, kitchen was full, ready to go—my friend walked in and said, ‘They just shut down every restaurant!’” Dirk Rogers says of the anticlimactic unveiling of his horror-themed beer hall, Dirk’s Terror Tavern. Tragically scheduled to open the same week as the COVID-19 shutdown, this spot in Studio City, CA is a one-of-a-kind medieval dungeon, forged of suds and stone, packed with special FX props from legendary nightmarish cinema and TV. Where else could you sip a stellar saison next to the iconic bald, bloodied and flanneled zombie from Romero’s Dawn of the Dead? Rogers continues: “For a place like this, the restriction on indoor seating is devastating—you can’t even see the inside now.” Rogers entered the world of prop-building and special makeup FX directly out of high school in 1988, fulfilling his destiny early in life. “I had a conversation with my grandmother about 10 minutes before she died and she said, ‘How do you like being in the biz?’ I told her, ‘I love it, I’m doing the right thing.’ She said, ‘I’m so proud of you,’
This blood’s for you
Dirk Rogers (l) is eager to share his mischief brew with the undead masses
and then she died. So, I realized, ‘Well, now I’m fuckin’ stuck. I have to do this.’” He currently collaborates with a team at KNB EFX Group. “We do everything from The Walking Dead to the Watchmen TV series to the Evil Dead series to every Tarantino film… we’re always busy.” Just check Rogers’ IMDB page for evidence. Alongside endless credits are a growing list of acting roles, featuring character names like “Alien Bartender” in The Orville and “Skinny Devil” in the series Legion. Referencing his lanky build, Rogers confirms, “I’ve moved into ‘suit acting’ because I’m built for it, playing zombies and creatures.” For decades, Rogers has hosted annual Halloween bashes, which, in his words, are “immersive, adult and hedonistic,” drawing guests from around the globe. When L.A. indie beer impresario Tony Yanow attended one, a partnership was born with a proposal to create a destination taproom designed around Rogers’ FX expertise. After losing a few years to other false starts, they settled on a rehab of the existing Bluebird Brasserie. “All of the brick was already here,” Rogers recalls, “and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I already feel like I’m in the cellar of a European cavern, or under a cemetery.’” The room was aesthetically perfect, and it already contained a seven-barrel brew house for cranking out proprietary beers.
General Manager Sean Phagan adds, “All the beers we brew here we focus on superclean West Coast style.” I got to sample every house beer and goddamn they’re good—even the Showtime Blonde, which is a style I usually consider a throwaway. “The reason so many blondes are like that is because so many brewers are brewing without respect for the people drinking their beers,” Phagan continues. “We’re proving you can brew to style and you can brew quality.” Ales and apparitions are in place for the public, but the creepy virus had other plans for this creepy venue. “We fucking killed ourselves to get this done in a month and a half,” Rogers laments. “Then we took a huge hit.” Aside from a few outdoor tables and take-out offerings, Dirk’s Terror Tavern currently stands like a mausoleum, a time capsule taunting unviewable contents. As frontman for oddball grind unit Bad Acid Trip, Rogers has experienced his fair share of simultaneous celebrations and defeats in the past. System of a Down lead singer Serj Tankian signed BAT to his record label Serjical Strike, which led to a spot touring with Ozzfest in 2006. According to Rogers, “They told us, ‘Everyone will hate you—you will play in front of 10,000 people and only 10 will like you, but you will change the lives of those 10 people forever.’”
DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2 0 2 0 : 11
TRIBULATION
STUDIO REPORT
TRIBULATION
W
ALBUM TITLE
hen Decibel rings up Tribulation vocalist/bassist Johannes Andersson
Where the Gloom Becomes Sound
“The music is heavier this and guitarist Adam Zaars, the dynamic duo isn’t in Studio Ryssviken, time around,” Andersson LABEL where they’ve spent nearly 60 days recording the follow-up to Decibel’s offers. “But that has to do Metal Blade (U.S.) / No. 2 album of 2018, Down Below. They’re holed up somewhere else. They with the way the songs Century Media (rest of world) laugh a bit about being outside the Linus Björklund-owned studio for an “in-thewere written. Sound-wise, STUDIO studio report,” but quickly get to business, describing the sessions as “very relaxed” it’s even more luxurious. and “no pressure.” It’s polished. It’s bigger. Studio Ryssviken, Stockholm, Sweden “We didn’t really know what sound we were going for on this album,” admits Zaars. And it’s fatter. There’s a big PRODUCER “We were so open to trying stuff out. Like, open to going a new way if it seemed like a range, I think, to the songs good idea. When we entered the studio, we started talking about the drum sound. We themselves. So, there’s also Jamie Elton and Tribulation mentioned Nevermind by Nirvana. I’m not sure we got that sound, but that’s how we’ve a bit of change in there, too. RECORDING DATES always worked. We set up goals, but rarely reach them. I’m saying that as a positive I would hope by this point April 20 – thing. If a new way appears, we go down it. Change isn’t a negative for Tribulation.” people would be used to June 16, 2020 The code word “change” is brought up early in conversations with the twosome. change in Tribulation. I will RELEASE DATE For instance, the Tribs briefly thought about recording the album live—like the say the horror element is Early 2021 old days—but quickly shut down the idea as anti-process. Like Nevermind was a leap still and always will forward from Bleach, the production itself is a level or two up from Down Below’s be present.” Studio Cobra days. Musically, while the gothic element is still very much present—though, at press Early song titles: “In Remembrance,” “Hour time, “the vampire stuff” hadn’t entered the sonic or lyrical picture—the songs are heavier, much in of the Wolf,” “The Wilderness,” “Dirge of a the way a castle tapestry is compared to bat wings. Dying Soul” and “Elementals.” —CHRIS DICK
STUDIO SHORT SHOTS
OF FEATHER AND BONE COMPLETE NEW AURAL ACID BATH Denver-based ancient death excavation team Of Feather and Bone are currently holed up in Juggernaut Audio with Ben Romsdahl recording what will be their third album. Of Feather and Bone bassist/vocalist AS says that new LP Sulfuric Disintegration “is a more focused and honed [...] version of Bestial Hymns of Perversion,” the band’s most recent full-length, from 2018. “The songs have more dynamics,” he writes from the studio, cautioning that the material is “still very blast beat-heavy.”
12 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
At the time of our correspondence, with drums all finished and most of the guitars tracked, AS describes the coming Sulfuric Disintegration as “unrelenting.” He says the new record is something “people who know [the band] will always come to expect.” Continuing, he adds, “We don’t ever let off the gas and just keep pummeling the listener. But with that said, I think people will appreciate some more mid-paced parts that showcase we can do more than just blast.” Once finished, Sulfuric Disintegration is off for mixing and mastering by Arthur Rizk. “We are hoping to have the record out in November 2020,” says AS, who also confirms that they’re working with Profound Lore on this album as well. —DUTCH PEARCE
SELF-TITLED
OUT SEPTEMBER 4
THE ENTOMBMENT OF CHAOS OUT SEPTEMBER 11
NEW RELEASES FROM CENTURY MEDIA & INSIDEOUTMUSIC
VREDESVÄVD
OUT SEPTEMBER 18
DAWN OF THE DAMNED OUT OCTOBER 9
MENACE
OUT SEPTEMBER 25
VIRUS OUT NOW
THE GLORIOUS DEAD
THE GLORIOUS DEAD Black metal label founder enters death’s cold embrace
T
hough into lifeless shrines is their first album, Traverse City, MI death metal bruisers the Glorious Dead have dwelled in the shadows of Lake Michigan’s glorious cherry trees for years. Founded in 2006 by guitarists Marty Rytkonen and T.J. Humlinski, the band released a three-track demo in 2009, then succumbed to paralysis due to lack of members for nearly a decade. ¶ “Being a metal musician in Northern Michigan is difficult because drummers—other than classic rock guys—that can play something fast and heavy are rare,” says Rytkonen. The group finally solidified when Rytkonen and Humlinski picked up drummer Chris Fulton at a rare Northern Michigan Anthrax show, and fully gelled with the addition of bassist Chris Boris in 2018. At their first rehearsal, the Glorious Dead played one song from 2009 EP The Burdensome Ceremony of Interment, and then immediately began composing “The Noise of Gravediggers,” which made Into Lifeless Shrines. “For some reason, writing songs for the Glorious Dead seems to erupt out of us when the mood and necessity strikes,” Rytkonen notes.
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Shortly thereafter, the Glorious Dead began playing live, as well as recording a rehearsal demo and EP. “Material was written seemingly effortlessly and quickly,” Rytkonen says. “After years of toiling around with the idea for this band, it was happening and the songs seemed to write themselves.” Though he’s a veteran guitarist, Rytkonen is perhaps better known as the man behind Bindrune Recordings, the Traverse City-based label notorious for gorgeous, folkinflected black metal artists like Panopticon. Rytkonen released the Glorious Dead’s debut himself, but the project likely won’t be Bindrune’s lone death metal offering for long. Via email, Rytkonen fondly remembers coming up in the late-’80s thrash scene before being properly seduced by the first wave of death metal in the early ’90s. Each member of the Glorious Dead is old enough to remember death metal’s embryonic years, which
goes a long way toward explaining not only their authentic cryptdwelling sound, but their ability to switch from brutal thrash tempos to funereal crawls with ease. “It’s amazing how our tastes roll in phases and staying with one genre stylistically does nothing but burn us out,” Rytkonen marvels. “Because of this, for the last three years, black metal feels tired to me in a lot of ways. Myself and Austin Lunn [Panopticon] both love death metal, and when the Glorious Dead album was complete, it made sense to give it a try on Bindrune, as we have talked in the past about further diversifying the roster to also encompass more death-like bands.” Whatever the future holds for Bindrune’s roster, Rytkonen and the Glorious Dead will continue their rotting crawl toward the future when live shows become reality again, hopefully drawing more attention to the often-overlooked metal hotbed of Michigan in the process. —JOSEPH SCHAFER
SVALBARD
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PERSEKUTOR
Eastern European cultists take their grim, black and ugly talents to… Hollywood?
B
ack in 2006, an unholy black metal screech tore out of Târgu Mures, Romania in the form of Persekutor’s debut, Angels of Meth. Unfortunately, what the band, led by frontman Vladislav “Vlad the Inhaler” Bârladeanu, possessed in NWOBHM/Scandinavian ear-blasting ability, they lacked in promotional know-how, and despite it receiving a perfect score in this very magazine, the album is a rarity that has seldom been heard by anyone outside the Decibel masthead. ¶ After finding love with a California surfer gal—whom he quickly discovered was moonlighting as an international drug mule—Bârladeanu relocated to Los Angeles around 2010 and revived focus on Persekutor to issue a succession of EPs—2013’s Power Frost, 2014’s Arctic Cross and 2015’s Ice Wars. And while 2020 is proving to be an epic clusterfuck, one redeeming quality is their full-length debut, Permanent Winter. ¶ “Persekutor is existing no matter where I am living,” Bârladeanu stresses via email, “but I am feeling that Persekutor only existing like this here in US and A with these guys in lineup. Band is not having many opportunity for good equipment and professional concert in Romania. For Persekutor to be proper live band, I am coming here.”
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Vlad took two gigantic steps in the new album’s creation. First, he dispensed with the services of former members Iron Slasher and Doktor Impossible, enlisting a full band to back his endeavor. “Doktor Impossible is machine. Literally, is drum machine. Broken one, too, so is not making trip to Los Angeles,” our man reveals. “Iron Slasher is much complicated story involving drug binge, surprise pregnancy and angry relations of famous Romanian celebrity. I am not in contact with him for couple of years, but I am hearing he is in Romanian Navy these days. If they are not throwing him overboard yet. New band guys is awesome! On lead guitar we are having Inverted Chris Velez from Lightning Swords of Death band. On lead drums we are having Scott Batiste from Saviours and Ides of Gemini band. On lead bass we are having Adam Murray from Deth Crux and Ides of Gemini band. They are taking Persekutor musics to next level, yes. All musics is written by me,
but they are playing these things with much more skill than I am having with sausage fingers and caveman brain.” Second, the band entered a proper studio and hired a producer for the first time to help guide Permanent Winter’s melodic turn toward the NWOBHM. “Yes, first time with producer!” Bârladeanu enthuses. “Phil Vera is Rick Rubin of powerviolence, so we are knowing he can capture the Persekutor style.” Permanent Winter will be released on Finland’s Svart Records, and caps off a tremendous “starting from the bottom” story for the former Romanian farm boy. Though, many are wondering with a proper label in the mix, will there be a properly released and distributed Angels of Meth reissue? “Album master is destroyed many years ago, so this is not happening. Fenriz is allegedly having only copy that is existing, but cannot confirm. As US and A president is saying, ‘Sad!’” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO
PHOTO BY JESS GARTEN
PERSEKUTOR
PRIMITIVE MAN
Ethan Lee McCarthy’s doom lords continue to shine a light on everyday darkness
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uitarist/vocalist ethan lee mccarthy remembers years ago being asked if he ever thought one of his bands would get popular. “And I laughed,” he says. “I said, if this kind of music ever gets popular, it’ll be the end of the fucking world.” ¶ Well, here we are. A week into recording Primitive Man’s new album, COVID-19 hit. Ever since then, the doomsday clock continues ticking towards midnight as the Denver trio prepares to release their biggest LP yet, Immersion. ¶ “We wanted to write a bunch of ass-beaters instead of just being really depressing,” McCarthy says, explaining how the album’s relative brevity in part makes its sludge/doom more immediate. Think tidal wave instead of tsunami, and just as cataclysmic. But incredible record aside, there was more to talk about— namely the aforementioned end of the fucking world. ¶ “I’ve been working my whole life to be in a band that can sustain itself,” McCarthy says. “So, now that it’s all being taken away, I’ve been looking at myself thinking I’m 36. No other skills. 18 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
I put all my eggs into this art shit. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. And everyone else in my band, same boat. I’m 18 all over again. With a virus outside.” And along with the maddening unknowns of touring and financial stability, McCarthy has re-evaluated what it means to be an artist during times like these. “I was feeling guilty about putting a record out,” he admits. “I was like, You should be doing other things for the revolution, for the cause. But when you’re not busy, there are periods of extreme darkness where you’re by yourself. And having records really helps with that.” Speaking of the revolution, while many are just now confronting America’s racist past and present, this is nothing new for McCarthy. As a musician of color, with many firsthand experiences of how the metal scene ignores or outright
encourages racism, he’s watching it slowly reckon with its ugliness and try to atone. “Some people are totally full of shit,” he says. “But it’s a positive step, even if they don’t believe it. There’s less tolerance for it now. If people are doing it to grow their brand, at least it’s by doing the right fucking thing.” Regardless of how well Immersion succeeds, or where Primitive Man find themselves in the near future, McCarthy will continue speaking out, if only because he still believes the metal community can be for everyone. “I appreciate that I can do something positive for people in the future. I have young black men and women and people of all types reaching out to me, telling me I’ve inspired them. And I love that shit because there was nobody there for me.” —SHANE MEHLING
PHOTO BY ALVINO SALCEDO
PRIMITIVE MAN
UNLEASH THE ARCHERS
Canadian power slayers aim for the heart of the ’80s
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hese victoria, bc power metal wunderkinds unexpectedly released one of the genre’s best records when they shed their metalcore roots and embraced long-form storytelling on 2017’s Apex. The record immediately raised the band’s profile and was recently named one of the 25 greatest power metal albums of all time on Reddit (the only album from the past decade to make the list). “The success of Apex was such a welcome surprise for us,” enthuses vocalist Brittney Slayes, “and we have been blown away by how far the record has reached.” ¶ Naturally, expectations for its impending follow-up, Abyss, are running high. “I can tell you a lot more people have expectations for Abyss than we are comfortable with,” Slayes continues. “I think that has definitely encouraged us to take our time with this one and make each track the best it can be. We had to prove that we still had something new and exciting in us!” ¶ Unleash the Archers maintain their songwriting acumen on Abyss, but have delivered a very different record, one featuring seven-string guitars, ballads, a vocal duet and also some of the band’s fastest, 20 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
most dexterous songs. Like a great entry in a film franchise, it ups the ante on its predecessor’s ideas without sacrificing its core appeal. Narratively, Abyss is a direct sequel to Apex, and feels of a piece with its predecessor thanks to a cohesive, planned-out writing process. “Writing a record around a story is definitely difficult, but I think it provides focus and direction and keeps the tracks cohesive,” Slayes notes. “We knew from the start that these albums were going to be a story in two parts, spread over two records. Whenever a riff didn’t fit in with the emotional or musical direction of Apex, we would put it aside for Abyss.” Slayes describes the album as an “emotional roller coaster,” drawing influences from the band’s touchstone influence, Iron Maiden, as well as classic power and progressive metal greats like Queensrÿche and Angra, not to mention more
contemporary influences like synthwave and Ghost. Abyss skirts full ’80s retro worship, but does tastefully incorporate synthesizers, culminating in a digital symphony (partially credited to Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Francesco Ferrini) on album closer “Afterlife.” “The riff that really started it all was the tapping riff that opens the title track, and this ended up being the first track we wrote when we actually sat down to focus solely on Abyss in 2019,” Slayes explains. That riff became a recurring motif that bookends the album and—along with its narrative—keeps the band on track while they push their own musical boundaries. If Apex is Unleash the Archers’ Powerslave, then Abyss is their Somewhere in Time, from its sci-fi theme to its catchier-thanhell opening track and ambitious finale. What more could anyone want from the summer’s big sequel? —JOSEPH SCHAFER
PHOTO BY SHIMON KARMEL
UNLEASH THE ARCHERS
INTOXICATED
INTOXICATED
Florida old-schoolers made a sacrifice and now they get to take your life
T
he debut release from Orlando’s Intoxicated opens and closes on a triumphant note, and all six songs are absolute bangers. Tracks like “Smash the Line” and “Grab the Rope” are almost pure muscle and sinew, etched with the precision of a master artisan. And all of the songs have a real “lived-in” quality, offering a bridge to the classic era of American thrash metal. That’s because the Walled EP is literally 28 years in the making. That’s a long time to be waiting in the wings, for sure, but Intoxicated singer/guitarist Erik Payne is an exceptionally patient man. To borrow a phrase from Payne’s pal Chuck Schuldiner, this is the sound of perseverance. ¶ The first incarnation of Intoxicated was primarily active between 19922000 and featured, at various times, three-fifths of the current Obituary lineup—Donald Tardy, Trevor Peres and Kenny Andrews. “We had bands in the Orlando/Tampa area that were incredibly influential, so the bar was set high,” explains Payne. 22 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
“We did four back-to-back EPs and started getting on a lot of national shows. After recording our third EP with Chuck Schuldiner, he was convinced that Roadrunner was going to put us on the roster. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. We weren’t really sure how to proceed, but our mindset was to just keep playing and getting better.” And that’s what Payne and bass player Gregg Roberts have been up to for the last two decades, just in a slightly different context; both have been playing with Andrew W.K. consistently since Donald Tardy assembled the I Get Wet lineup. The first nine months of 2000 was especially productive: Payne and Roberts moved into Tardy’s one-bedroom apartment and the trio would alternate between working on the W.K. tracks and jamming on Intoxicated songs. “I did not ever intend to give up
on Intoxicated,” notes Payne. “But it was a confusing time. The first year we toured with Andrew W.K., we were only home for about 12 days, and the following year wasn’t much different.” A few years ago, Payne and Roberts resolved to pull Intoxicated out of stasis and recruited a new drummer with serious chops, Mike Radford. The trio initially jammed on the “demo era” Intoxicated material, then started writing the songs that would become the Walled EP. “Writing with these dudes has been a pure pleasure—no bullshit and everyone has a thick skin,” says Payne, hinting at the sense of urgency that unites all of the members of Intoxicated. “The process didn’t necessarily come easy. I mean, we made every mistake possible twice. But we’re super proud of the result, and we are just getting started.” —NICK GREEN
THE ACACIA STRAIN
Frontman Vincent Bennett has seen the future, and it also sucks
I
don’t think we’ll be ever able to release an album normally again!” ¶ The Acacia Strain vocalist Vincent Bennett knows the residual effect of upping the ante with something unheralded and unique is that the bar of future expectations gets raised. The founding/lone original member of the coruscating metalcore heavyweights lamentably laughs, knowing that the manner in which latest album Slow Decay has been rolled out—via a series of EPs titled D, E, C, A and Y—has dug a proverbial grave. Adding to the quandary is the fact that Slow Decay is the band’s strongest and most adventurous work in their 19year history. ¶ “The whole process was very stressful,” Bennett admits. “We’re signed to Rise, but they allowed us to do [2019 EP] It Comes in Waves with Closed Casket under the stipulation that we’d have a full-length ready to go for the first quarter of 2020. We had planned on releasing the EP way sooner, but it didn’t happen and we’d jumped right into Slow Decay. There was pressure, but we had so much fun writing It Comes in Waves that we just kept going. The plan was to release the songs two-by-two, 24 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
but we didn’t want to stress ourselves and the label by recording two songs every month, so we recorded everything at the same time. “In Comes in Waves was also selfproduced—we did whatever we wanted and wanted to keep going with that. We had stuck to a formula before that, not wanting to let people down by not being the Acacia Strain, but we couldn’t keep writing the same record. We wanted to go beyond what people expected.” The Acacia Strain, like all touring musicians, have found themselves grounded by coronavirus. Not only did they abandon a tour partway through back in March, but a month-long summer celebration of the Wormwood album’s 10th anniversary was also shelved. To add insult to injury, because members are spread across the country, they haven’t seen each other since being sent home in the spring, and don’t know when they will next. Ironically, shortly before
the world went haywire, Bennett started looking beyond lyrics about “teenage angst and science fiction” in favor of dystopian/apocalyptic themes and humanity’s everyday idiocy. This has given Slow Decay an air of prescience. “Dude, it’s fucking bananas!” Bennett marvels. “The coincidence between what I wrote and what is going on right now is hard for me to deal with. I wrote a song about anti-vaxxers because I couldn’t believe people wouldn’t vaccinate their kids, potentially getting other people and members of their own family sick, and two weeks after the EP with that song came out, coronavirus shut everything down. The lyrics sort of mirrored what ended up happening and I was like, ‘How the fuck is that even possible?’ My girlfriend and some friends were like, ‘Is that what you’re doing, just predicting things? So, you’re just The Simpsons or Nostradamus now?’” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO
PHOTO BY MIKE WATSON
THE ACACIA STRAIN
REBEL WIZARD
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s a kid of the ’80s, [metal] was so mystical and magical; you developed yourself, your personal self, in that sacred little world. That’s really important with Rebel Wizard: There’s confusion, irony, contradiction and also the need to investigate. It looks silly if you’re not looking at it in a holistic context.” ¶ Bob Nekrasov (also known as NKSV), the multi-instrumentalist behind one-man “new wave of negative wizard metal” act Rebel Wizard, is refreshingly self-aware. Conceived in 2013, his project released its third studio album, Magickal Mystical Indifference, via Prosthetic Records this summer. The progressive and raw offering is relentlessly heavy courtesy of its compelling brew of black metal, krautrock, noise and classic metal. Interwoven throughout are shrieking, heavily delayed vocals, frequent solos and esoteric samples that project an avantgarde romanticizing of death. ¶ “That’s funny you picked up on that, as this album is the first album where I’ve weaved that into this, hoping it would be more subconscious than conscious,” says Nekrasov, who prefers to deliberately obscure his intentions because “ideas and concepts are so coercive to the audience.” 26 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
Meanwhile, the sentence-long song titles (such as “Heavy Negative Wizard Metal In-fucking-excelsis” and “White Light of Divine Awe Smelling of Sweat and Sex”) are representative of an inadvertently whimsical, deeply sexual and tonguein-cheek philosophical approach rarely seen within heavy metal. All told, Rebel Wizard is the musical equivalent of a Kurt Vonnegut novel: deeply serious, funny, tragic. “That’s the thing: I put my entire personality into the project,” continues Nekrasov, who plays all instruments in both Rebel Wizard and his other project, simply titled Nekrasov. “It’s all things that coexist within me. It’s really deeply personal and serious, but also it does have a sense of rigmarole.” He also does all recording, mixing, mastering and artwork for both projects; between the two, he’s unveiled an impressive 36 demos, EPs, albums and videos since 2007. “Everything that has somehow formed me is in there, everything
of massive importance. You have [BBC comedy series The] Young Ones, Beherit, Maiden, esoteric texts, weird philosophies—it all goes in,” adds Nekrasov, who dwells with his wife near a 26-million-yearold caldera in rural Australia that deeply informs his artistic output. Of the area, he says, “The walks are majestic—just mind-blowing. They are sacred, indigenous shamanic ritual spots everywhere. “Music, gardening, nature: If I don’t have those things, [my mental health] goes zoom,” admits Nekrasov, who repeatedly articulates his gratitude for his isolated lifestyle, particularly amidst a global pandemic, which has most recently resulted in a local outbreak thanks to a quarantine hotel sex scandal merely one hour from his home. “It’s an astral forcefield to survive in this world. Metal and music is such an incredible medium to immerse yourself in.” —SARAH KITTERINGHAM
PHOTO BY BOB NEKRASOV
REBEL WIZARD
Australian eccentric’s blackened heavy metal solo project comes pandemic-ready
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DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2020 : 27
SKELETAL REMAINS
SKELETAL REMAINS Blessed are the sick riffs that crawl from death metal war master Chris Monroy
1991.
the preeminent Year of our Lord. Dismember overtured on Like an Ever Flowing Stream, Suffocation split guts with Effigy of the Forgotten and Pestilence were a vector for infection with Testimony of the Ancients. There are too many more to mention, but the enthralling part of the story isn’t the classics we all devoutly worship thrice daily, but the fact that Skeletal Remains frontman Chris Monroy arrived the same year. While Monroy couldn’t have guessed he’d be severely entangled in the genre’s tentacled grip in his infancy, the frontman—now in his late 20s—is at the very tip of death metal’s grotesque spear. ¶ “It’s fucking awesome!” exclaims Monroy from his California home. “We are very happy to be a part of death metal.” ¶ Humility is an admirable trait in Monroy, but the maven now has four full-lengths under his bullet belt. The young gun knows what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. From debut Beyond the Flesh (2012) to new album The Entombment of Chaos, Skeletal Remains have quietly killed the competition, climbing one sentient (yet so obviously evil) tower of
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Dan Seagrave’s imagination after the other. Indeed, with tracks like “Illusive Divinity,” “Synthetic Impulse,” “Eternal Hatred” and the Dan Swanö-penned/played eerie intro “Cosmic Chasm,” The Entombment of Chaos recalls an era of death metal superiority when the good guzzled the ichor of Ereshkigal to become great! “There was definitely a lot of hard work and time put into the new songs,” Monroy says. “Although that can sometimes be endless because most times a song is never really done—you can keep picking at things and trying to perfect them as much as possible. And we sometimes caught ourselves doing that, so we tried to stop ourselves from trying to perfect the song or change stuff around too much.” Death metallers, like Team Decibel, will surely find solace in the non-throwback atavisms of The Entombment of Chaos. From the aforementioned intro “Cosmic Chasm” and the haunting instrumental
“Enshrined in Agony” to the punishing cover of Disincarnate’s “Stench of Paradise Burning” and Swanö’s perfect mix/master, Skeletal Remains thought of an old-schooler’s nearest and dearest for their fourth long-player. Even the lineup shift— VoidCeremony’s Charlie Koryn plays drums on The Entombment of Chaos— didn’t stop Monroy from stepping up his death metal game. “This album is a lot more aggressive and definitely has a lot more speed,” he promises. “We were able to achieve the speed we wanted for this record with Charlie on drums. I think it’s a lot heavier due to most of the album being written on sevenstring guitars. The lower tuning makes the songs sound a lot heavier with a darker vibe. I also really like the production of this album—it sounds fucking huge! Swanö did a really good job as usual, so that’s also a big improvement compared to our last album. Also, some of the riffs are more melodic, which gives the album a good twist.” —CHRIS DICK
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DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2020 : 29
interview by
QA j. bennett
WI T H
OCEANS OF SLUMBER’s vocalist on being a Black woman in the very white-male world of metal
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W
hen we speak with Cammie Gilbert in late June, it’s just two
weeks after George Floyd’s funeral was held in the hometown they share: Houston, TX. Still, the Oceans of Slumber frontwoman says that citywide protests over Floyd’s murder—at the hands of Minneapolis police—were relatively calm. “There wasn’t any largescale rioting or too much confrontation,” she offers. “Overall, I think it went successfully and peacefully.” ¶ Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases are exploding across Texas, a state that has consistently resisted social distancing and mask-wearing—much to its own detriment. As this issue goes to print—a few weeks after we speak with Gilbert—the situation has only worsened: Texas is giving Arizona a run for its global hotspot title while quickly running out of hospital beds and ventilators. But Gilbert and her partner, Oceans of Slumber drummer and main composer Dobber Beverly, are playing it safe. “We’re not going out, except to the grocery store,” she says. “Even after they opened everything up, we’ve been acting with the same precautions as we did in the beginning.” ¶ If there’s a bright spot for Gilbert in all this, it’s Oceans of Slumber’s new self-titled album. On it, she draws from her experiences as a Black woman in the American South (especially on the single “The Adorned Fathomless Creation”) while delivering a powerful, soul-stirring vocal performance. A lot of folks wanted to join the protests, but haven’t because of the pandemic. Is that something you struggled with, too?
Absolutely. We have a child and we’re trying to maintain visiting with her grandparents, so we definitely have to weigh the risk of going out during the pandemic and being involved in the protests. I felt, for my own mental health and physical health, that not going was [best], but that using my platform to reach out and share links and to be as involved with voting and online campaigns to write local politicians and things like that was just as useful. But now that we see the surges, it comes from a host of people obviously getting together. What a bizarre thing to have to weigh and deliberate. It’s also a weird time to be releasing an album, mostly because you have no idea when you’ll be able to tour. How are you feeling about that?
It’s definitely weird. But so much of the way people interact with music is online now, anyway. When you get out there and tour, it solidifies that interaction and community with your band, but I feel like people have been understanding and more zealous about showing support to the bands they like online. But it’s all a big question mark. We try to do as much as we can for promotion—answer all messages PHOTO BY DARRY BL AMPTON
and try to keep that real-time communication—but you can’t think about what it was supposed to be too much because it’s nothing like that now. There’s not a comparison you can really make. You’re kind of just at the whim of “We’ll see how it goes.” We’re hopeful, obviously, and we’ve got a lot of good placements on playlists and engagements there. I think with people spending so much more time online, the idea of something new in what they’re already surfing for is exciting. It’s sad that you can’t do it live and people can’t see it live, but I don’t think that’s subtracted from the excitement for the new music. Tell me about the lyrics on the new album. I understand that a lot of the songs are based on your own experiences.
Yeah, it’s definitely based on our own experiences. When we approached the new album and talked about what we wanted it to do lyrically, I wanted it to be more about external issues. But Dobber said, “You’re a Black woman in the South. Talk about that.” Obviously, these kinds of sentiments have been going on forever—they’re just more at the surface now. When we wrote the album, there were these lingering feelings and experiences I’ve had—but with how everyone’s emotions are now, it’s become music for the time.
I wanted to have a call to action and something grander that spoke to these shared experiences that everybody has. It’s been a common thread in what I do, speaking to these negative emotions and angsts, because I don’t feel like they’re validated enough—as we’re seeing now. And when you ignore these negative feelings, they only amplify [and] become internalized, and then they erupt later on, both within and without. So, lyrically, I wanted to talk about these issues and themes with metaphors of nature and society as a whole. You’re operating in a genre that has a severe lack of Black people and a severe lack of women. Before this album came along, was that informing what you do?
Not really. I can’t do or be anything other than what I am. My influences and where I come from as a vocalist are embedded in a more soulful, gospel-blues aesthetic. But I also love metal, so we put those things together. But there’s so many aesthetics of metal and doom that have the same essence of soulfulness that made my voice feel at home. Do you feel a push and pull between focusing on what you have in common with your audience—after all, they’re there to see you— and bringing attention to the very different life experiences that come with being a Black woman in this country?
There’s definitely a push and pull. Sometimes we get to a show—and more so here than overseas— and I’m the only Black person there. But it’s our show, so I have to remind myself of exactly that. They’re there to see me, so they don’t dislike me and there’s not gonna be a problem. But I have to remind myself. So, that element of “other” is there, and I go through these moments of vulnerability and insecurity. But I have to choose to focus on what we have in common. And when I meet people after the show, we can talk more about what we have in common and they explain why they like our music or they talk about how they love more soulful singers, and I feel more at ease. But it is there. I do notice. I have a friend who happens to be Black, and he fronts an all-white band that plays to mostly white audiences. When I’ve asked him about that dichotomy over the years, he’s weirdly dismissive of it. He says he’s not as obsessed with race as most people in this country DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2020 : 31
Sleepless in Houston Gilbert (center) gives doom metal a whole new soul
When we wrote the album, there were these lingering feelings and experiences I’ve had—but with how everyone’s emotions are now, it’s become music for the time. I’m not obsessed with color, but as a mechanism for my own safety growing up as an American Black woman in the South, I do have to be aware of my color and everybody else’s. Most of the time it’s not with an overwhelming sense of fear or apprehension, but it’s definitely at the forefront of my mind. I’m not gonna lie: I’m happier when I look out from the stage and see other people of color enjoying the show, too, because I want it to be for them as much as it is for everybody else. Sometimes it does feel isolating, like I’m not making music that other people like me are into or feel the capacity to be involved in. Those are things I’d like to change. I’d like metal to be as encompassing socially as it seems to be emotion32 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
ally. Metal is the most open genre when it comes to expressing emotions—I just wish it could be reflected in the people that contribute to it or are involved in the scene. But those two are not as fully aligned as they could be. You and Dobber are a couple. What do you see as the pros and cons of being in a band with your significant other?
I’d say it’s mostly pros. He’s my muse and I feel like I’m partially his. [Laughs] He surrounds my life with these elements that I couldn’t put into it on my own. I can also be a lot more unhealthy with how I channel things, so he helps me channel into the same places that he is, and he’s made me a far better musician and artist than I ever feel like I would’ve been on my own. I’d say the only con is his songwriting pace. He doesn’t stop. He’s like, “Are you done with that song?” And I’ll say, “I just heard that song yesterday.”
[Laughs] So, I retreat from that pace sometimes, but I think we’ve found a place with him knowing the capacity that I can take. Do you hold up well on the road together?
Nothing compares to how I feel being onstage with him—and being able to have that facet of my life understood so clearly by the person I’m with, because it can be so hard to explain to people and so hard for people who haven’t experienced it to understand. So, I appreciate being fully understood by him. It’s definitely an intense, amazing experience. I get overwhelmed on tour sometimes, because you’re hanging out 24/7. There’s a lot of conversations. There’s a lot of movement. There’s a lot of lighting changes. I’ll get to the point where I need it to stop, but it’s not going to for like six weeks. [Laughs] And then Dobber obviously takes the brunt of that and helps me navigate it.
PHOTO BY BRITTANY MILES
are, and he’s used to being surrounded by white people. I haven’t talked to him about this since George Floyd’s murder, but you’re obviously coming from a different place.
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the
definitive stories
behind extreme music’s
definitive albums
story by
andrew bonazelli
Crimson Dawn the making of Baroness’ Red Album
I
n the spring of 2006, our publisher Red Flag Media made the dubious decision to send Team Decibel to Austin’s annual industry schmoozefest South by Southwest. Game plan: 1) decimate our livers via as many free drink tickets as possible, 2) ?, 3) profit. In between careful avoidance of the usual interchangeable “indie” rock dross, the editor in chief and yours truly found ourselves in a basement bar watching four wild-eyed southern boys showcase their unhinged hybrid of His Hero Is Gone, Neurosis, Tragedy and the Fucking Champs. Being lifelong G.I. Joe fans, we appreciated their moniker— Baroness—almost as much as their unbound experimental energy. I had just enough cash for either a shirt or the CD pressings of the First and Second EPs, and chose the former. (Free tunes—immediate or eventual—is one of the best perks of this gig.) Fast-forward a year and a half, and you can imagine our excitement as that ferocious Savannah, GA four-piece—guitarist/vocalist John Baizley, bassist Summer Welch, drummer Allen Blickle and his brother, newish axeman Brian Blickle—were poised to make good on the promise of their debut full-length. Baroness’ Red Album did not live up to those EPs… the same way that every ensuing full-length did not “live up to” its predecessor. They didn’t have to. One of the most dynamic bands populating that hellacious Venn diagram DBHOF190 of sludge/prog/psych/alternative/southern rock, Baroness thrive upon almost evangelical repeated listens. And not in that “doing homework” way where you have to force yourself to like something acclaimed. From the ominous volume swells of Red Album “Rays on Pinion” and the shout-along swagger of RELA PSE “Isak” to the serpentine bridge of “Wanderlust” S EPT EMBE R 4 , 20 0 7 and the triumphant coda of “Grad,” Red Album established a blueprint that Baizley and a host of Psych-sludge dynamos collaborators would fearlessly refine, deconstruct color outside the lines and even outright smash over the ensuing 13 years. Color us impressed, and color it Hall-worthy. DECIBEL : 35 : OCTOBER 2020
PHOTO BY SCOTT KINKADE
BARONESS
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Not a lot of people know the Baroness origin story. What were you doing for a living when the band formed in 2003? SUMMER WELCH: I was doing some form of building/carpentry job and working in a restaurant waiting tables. JOHN BAIZLEY: In 2000, I was about to enter my senior year at Rhode Island School of Design and for a very serious list of reasons, I decided to drop out. Part of that process was moving back to the county that I grew up in, Rockbridge County in Lexington, Virginia. It was very much a hermetic thing. I was painting houses for a living. I owned a motorcycle and nothing else. No car, no cell phone, no TV, no nothing. ALLEN BLICKLE: Summer, John and I were actually in a band in high school, Johnny Welfare and the Paychecks, before we formed Baroness. Summer and I at the time were seniors in high school, so we were like 17. I went off to college in Virginia and John moved to Savannah. We didn’t really play together for a couple years while I was at school. John gave me a ring one day and said, “Hey, maybe we should start something up again.” I was 20 or 21 when we wrote the First EP.
What were the circumstances that led to Tim Loose’s departure and Brian Blickle joining? A. BLICKLE: Tim was based in Savannah because he had a military career. That was a whole other random thing: Oh, Tim lives here and he’s a badass guitarist. I think he wanted to have a career of his own and step back from the band. So, we parted ways, which was totally fine. B. BLICKLE: Tim ended up in Savannah because he was an Army Ranger. He joined the military right out of high school. I think he had three deployments under his belt. Furthermore, I think Pete [Adams, Baroness guitarist 2008-2017] was the original fourth member. He was stationed around Savannah because he was Army Recon. But what happened is Tim got out of the military and Pete got deployed. By the time Pete got back from deployment, he ended up going back to Lexington because he was wounded and needed family time. BAIZLEY: Due to the touring, due to the lack of security and the lack of finances and the amount of ridiculously dangerous situations we would get into on a very regular basis between 2003 and 2006, I think Tim was looking for something way more stable. A. BLICKLE: At the time, my brother was still living in Virginia. His band at the time was called Accursed Dawn; they were speed metal/ death metal kinda stuff. B. BLICKLE: I did [my] first tour with Baroness in probably 2005. My first two tours at least were prior to Tim exiting the band. The reason why they had me come in is because they got offered
a 10-day tour in England. Tim wasn’t going and I was already moving down to Savannah at that point. I was like, “Abso-fucking-lutely, I’m one of your biggest fans as it is.” Even for [third EP/Unpersons split Grey Sigh in a Flower Husk], Tim called me a week before the recording and was like, “Hey man, do you wanna do it?” I was like, “Shit, I only really know how to play one of the songs live. I don’t know, man—it should be your last recording because you helped write those songs.” BAIZLEY: Tim called Brian and just invited him to be the next guitar player. I was furious that he did it, just because I’m a control freak, just because I didn’t have a say in the matter. However, of course he asked the only guy we were gonna ask, you know? Like, it’s Allen’s brother. He knew all the songs. I’ll preface anything that I ever say about Brian by saying I don’t think he ever made a mistake musically. He never botched a note onstage. He showed up and he knew everything. Your first three EPs were extremely wellreceived in the underground. How did Baroness eventually hook up with Relapse? WELCH: Somebody at Relapse must have heard the EPs and liked them. They reached out to us for a couple years, as I recall, and finally some time after we recorded [the EPs], we all agreed to sit down and see what they had to offer. BAIZLEY: We played four shows at South by Southwest in 2006. We really, really didn’t want to play South by. We had no interest whatsoever in playing the game; we didn’t care about being discovered. But I think when you’re a young musician, your whole identity exists inside this false humility bubble… because we did play South by Southwest! [Laughs] I do remember that after [one of the shows] I met someone from Relapse; it’s almost definitely the reason we got signed. I think that was the first time I was exposed to, air quotes, the industry. It would be presumptuous of me to say it didn’t totally work because we had a record deal shortly thereafter. A. BLICKLE: We were working with a small label called Hyperrealist out of Savannah. Our buddy Pat [Mathis] ran that. We had a couple labels come to us just because of the EPs, and we started talking with Relapse. We had some other friends that were on [Relapse] at the time and we were like, “This might actually be kind of cool. These guys don’t seem like shitbags, you know?” They came down to Savannah and hung out for a weekend; I think it was Gordon [Conrad, vicepresident] and Rennie [Jaffe, label manager]. That was 2006. We ended up signing a threerecord deal with them. B. BLICKLE: We had a band meeting about getting a press pack together to send to Relapse, but Relapse got a hold of us before we could get a hold of them. OCTOBER 2020 : 36 : DECIBEL
One could make the case that Red Album is already more “mature” than First and Second. What did you want to accomplish on your first full-length that you felt you hadn’t on the EPs?
I think when Brian joined the band, we had our first opportunity to refine our mission statement. Throughout the EPs, we were chasing something original: Let’s be Neurosis/Tragedy/ His Hero [Is Gone] heavy, but let’s do the guitar stuff that the Fucking Champs do, the rhythmic stuff that Trans Am does. I was trying to develop something that I knew in my heart was unique. Because Brian was joining something that had established itself in the underground, there was an opportunity for me to explain a little bit about what I wanted to do. He and I were challenging one another. His school of thinking was more about theory and what made sense in music that had existed, and my idea was to screw that up so we could define something new. B. BLICKLE: John had an expression as I was coming in. He was like, “Brian, I really love you as an artist, but for a while you’re gonna have to play Kirk [Hammett] to my James [Hetfield].” Which makes sense. That’s how you move up in any business position: You learn their way and then everybody can incorporate who you are and [what you can add] to the table. A. BLICKLE: The first three tracks on Red, they were all coming from a similar kind of place. There were definitely some improvements on harmonies and vocals. We hadn’t quite touched on that yet. We had more time since we were living together. Brian, Summer and I lived in an apartment downstairs, and John and his wife lived upstairs. We were practicing mostly for the writing of Red in this club called the Jinx that was sort of our home base in Savannah. They let us use the basement there. B. BLICKLE: I wanted cleaner-sung vocals, not just growls. In Johnny Welfare and the Paychecks, John had a great fucking thrash metal voice. It was like, “Dude, why are you not using that? Man, get some note values in there. Even metalheads want to sing along!” WELCH: I’m not sure I was trying to accomplish anything other than getting the songs we had written since the last time we recorded down on some listenable format. I guess we had done two EPs, so the next batch of material felt as though it should be a little more. BAIZLEY:
Red Album would be the final time you recorded with Phillip Cope of Kylesa, who produced every previous release. What made him such an ideal repeat collaborator? WELCH: He was a friend, and he gave a shit about heavy music. BAIZLEY: The relationship between Baroness and Kylesa... it would be hard to undervalue it. They were like a big brother to us for many years. Before any of our other records were done, Phil and I were already talking about how we could
take music that had one foot in punk and one foot in whatever the bigger world was and somehow avoid being either one. We were trying to outdo each other creatively a lot of the time. I learned through Phil that it was really important for Baroness not to go with the known-knowns of recording and engineering and production. A. BLICKLE: What I can say is we were all big fans of Kylesa. We were super inspired by them. Phillip had pretty much produced all their records at the time, or had some hand in it. We hadn’t had immense experience in the studio atmosphere. It was someone we knew, someone we trusted. It just made sense. B. BLICKLE: It was my first time in a really professional studio. It’s not how TV presents it, that’s for goddamn sure. I like Phil. I’ve always gotten along with him. He’s got an ear and he’s just one of those people that a lot of the Baroness members can aspire to. It doesn’t matter if it’s “Raining Blood” or if it’s the Flaming Lips: If it’s well-written and well-produced, who gives a fuck? That positive attitude just works for everybody. Even though you’d recorded at Jam Room multiple times before, was the occasion of laying out your first album there any more intense or exciting? A. BLICKLE:
I would say it was a little more
intense. Like any writing process where you have four dudes in a room, you’re gonna have different opinions. You’re still fighting for things you want on the record, as other people are as well. There’s a little more pressure, I guess you could say, but we were all pretty stoked on the whole thing, so it didn’t feel like a negative pressure. B. BLICKLE: You know, at that time of my life, it’s what I wanted. So, I didn’t feel any pressure. Relapse was like, “We don’t tell bands what to write.” Gordon had a wonderful way of doing that: “You’re the one painting the picture. I can’t see it until it’s done.” He had a very objective point of view. What I wanted to do was tour more than what we were doing. I wanted to do bigger tours faster. It was like, “Guys, at some point we all gotta eat.” [Laughs] GORDON CONRAD (RELAPSE): They were super hands-on for Red Album. They controlled everything: art/design, recording, video. Even though they had agents and managers beating down their door, they remained self-managed through the entire record cycle, and even booked the North American and European album release tours themselves. BAIZLEY: With Red, Phil had us come in and play the whole album for him before we went to record it. At the end of it, he didn’t say a word. He was just sitting there, kind of soaking it in.
Then he said, “Man, I’ve had goosebumps for the last hour and a half.” It was so exciting to hear one person just immediately have a visceral reaction to what we did. It was everything I needed to feel justified to go into a studio with the budget Relapse gave us. What was it like to road-test the material in Europe before recording? Did any particular song change substantially from stage to studio? A. BLICKLE: [In] 2006, we went on a tour with Torche for like nine weeks in Europe. It was both bands in a Sprinter [van]. I think we were testing out some material because we were still writing it at the time. We had “The Birthing” and “Isak”; I don’t know if we had written “Wanderlust” yet. “Grad” was one of our ending songs forever. I think that song kinda grew as we played it more live and saw how it worked with audiences since it was our, like, “bow-out” song. Trying to make it this epic thing. [Laughs] WELCH: That’s how we always did things: Write stuff, then go play it live. So, I didn’t really think much differently about the songs before or after they were on a record. Europe is always cool, and yes, songs change. BAIZLEY: I think 75 percent of Red we had on that tour. On a night-by-night basis, I’d make up new melodies vocally.
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B. BLICKLE: “Wailing Wintry Wind” originally was like a 12-minute song, and it got cut in half. We only ended up playing that song live once. I believe it was because Allen felt like it dragged and the audience wasn’t into it. Which, I dunno, man... the Baroness fan base is really into… me being a Baroness fan walking into the band, the spacey shit is part of it, and that was a spacey song. But the road-testing went really well. I mean, “Isak,” come on.
In the ensuing 13 years, Baroness album titles have become notorious for their chromatic color themes. Did you know this was the path you were going to take from day one? A. BLICKLE: John and I have, I think, different recollections of how this happened. I remember distinctly, when we were gonna sign this threealbum deal with Relapse and we were trying to figure out what we were gonna do for the album names, I had a dream that they were all colors. I said to John, “What if it was just colors?” And he was like, “What if it was primary colors?” And there you go. I know it sounds cheesy and lame, but that idea—it’s simple enough, it’s easy to kind of step into. BAIZLEY: It may have been the day we got the Relapse offer. We were having a casual band meeting about what it meant to put out a record. [Allen said] “What if we just used the color wheel instead of numbers?” I was like, “That’s awesome.” And then he was like, “Well, just imagine what 10 years from now could look like if we get through it. Our merch table’s gonna be awesome: It’s gonna be a rainbow.” He wasn’t joking, and even though we were all laughing, we were like, “Hell yeah.” The most hilarious part of it is there’s no fucking way we will record that many records. The world does not want this band badly enough for six or seven records to come out.
From the EPs on, it was clear that Baroness took sequencing very seriously. Was that a group effort, or did any one member take the lead? WELCH: I guess that was a group effort. We all had some input in the way the songs flowed. However, the EPs were recorded live and we played them in that order when we played live, so they were written that way from the beginning. BAIZLEY: I love sequencing. I just draw this simple little shape every time we’re doing a record and make sure the arc, the vibe, the atmosphere, energy, intention of any record follows this curved line that I came up with. It’s like an X/Y graph where “up” means something good, something positive, and “down” means something more introspective, moodier, more bleak. I have to hear the record move in the exact same shape.
“In Johnny Welfare and the Paychecks, John [Baizley] had a great fucking thrash metal voice. It was like, ‘Dude, why are you not using that? Even metalheads want to sing along!’”
B RIA N B LICKLE B. BLICKLE: Oh my god, dude, that stretches prior to Red Album. First and Second, at least the first four or five songs, were written in order. They were put into an order with specificity. If you listen to Red Album, you can hear the classic rock influence, what we grew up listening to. Part of the record order is a big factor in that. A. BLICKLE: I remember John and I would go over and over that. I feel like everybody had their own input. I always took pride in that. It’s almost like... when you’re doing a painting, there’s something about the peaks and valleys of one holistic piece of art that it needs to have a flow.
The acoustic motive at the end of “Cockroach En Fleur” doubles as the main riff of “Grad.” Are there other Easter eggs like that on the record?
There’s one in every song! Part of the way I work is I put Easter eggs everywhere. When you’re obsessive-compulsive like I am, when you’re neurotic like I am, when everything’s about embellishing a core that doesn’t need it, you have a tendency to do things like that. There’s also, much like every Baroness record, a couple melodies that get chopped and screwed and redeciphered. I think [Red Album] was the first time I did it in such a bold-faced way that you were supposed to recognize. A. BLICKLE: In a sense, the guitar swells were sort of a thematic foreshadowing on “Rays of Pinion” into “Grad.” Those kinds of major third guitar swells. Sort of the idea of bookends. And maybe that’s not the same exact chords or notation, but I guess the production or the way you play it is gonna bookend it in a sense, too. BAIZLEY:
OCTOBER 2020 : 38 : DECIBEL
B. BLICKLE: That would have more to do with John and Allen thinking about that, but of course, that’s always intentional. It adds to the show, it adds to the pleasure of listening to the record. What kind of Baroness show would it be without volume swells?
Very ’90s move to have 11 minutes of silence at the end of the record, followed by a minute-long hidden track (a southern rock reprise of that “Grad” riff). What was the thinking behind that? A. BLICKLE: I think that was just John and I playing that riff. Just guitar and drums. I don’t think there’s bass on it. We played it once through and we were like, “Okay, that’s fun. Let’s put it on there.” I think Relapse was confused by it. They were like, “Well, then we’ve gotta change the track listing numbers…” And we didn’t want it listed at all. You shouldn’t know it exists unless you sit around for 11 minutes. But they were like, “No, we need to name it,” and we were like, “Fine, whatever, name it ‘Untitled.’” B. BLICKLE: We were ’90s kids. The English Dogs is what really tied us together, but we all had our ’90s influences. We all started off as a Nirvana cover band; we started playing music when we were fucking 12. A Baroness performance on a Baroness record is kind of a serious thing, but keeping a little bit of tongue-in-cheek at the end of it, we thought it’d be a fun idea. And it was. It was a total goofball move.
“Wanderlust” is almost entirely a narrative concept video, with a few blink-and-you’ll-missthem band appearances. What was the story behind that? A. BLICKLE:
That was a director friend of ours
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named Josh Green. He was one of our favorite people and had a really interesting vision of how he wanted to do a music video. I don’t even know if the storyline makes that much sense, but there’s all these themes that he wanted to bring in: the traveling journeyman, the stricken family, the glutton at the end. We all had to lay on this wooden, propped-up ramp, and they placed our instruments around it with these glowing lights that spun from motors underneath. So, we made this huge contraption. It seemed a little over the top, but it was kind of fun for the first video. WELCH: A bunch of friends making a music video. We had a pretty active role in the whole thing: props and set design and casting and all. B. BLICKLE: I think Summer with his construction experience cut out those cogs. I mean, they look like sperm, who are we kidding? [Laughs] The only reason the band is in there in the first place is Relapse required a certain amount of time for bands in videos to appear. CONRAD: [There was] no video policy at all where bands appearing are concerned. They knew Josh Green from SCAD [Savannah College of Art and Design], if memory serves, and wanted to keep the production centralized in Savannah to oversee everything and bring together their crew of artistic friends. BAIZLEY: I care so much about all of our songs. I’m one of those people: I really want everything on the record to be as good as everything else. It’s unrealistic, but I don’t have favorites out of the gate. I’m not like, “This is the good one, this is the focus track.” So, if the label’s ever like, “We should make a video for this song,” I’m like, “Yeah. I mean, it’s a song on the record.” Not counting the hidden track, this is a 10-song album with four instrumentals (and a considerable portion of “Wailing Wintry Wind” is instrumental). Was it a conscious decision to leave out vocals so often, or was that just how the writing process organically played out? A. BLICKLE: I think it played out this way. You know, if you listen to the EPs, half of each track didn’t have vocals at all. So, we were kind of used to heavy instrumentation in our writing up to this album anyway. I don’t think half the vocals were even written by the time we got to the studio. Half the melodies and vocals, we were just like, “Uh, we’ll get the vocals done later.” [Laughs] We wanted this record to be 10 songs and I think we only had nine the week before we went to the studio. I wrote [“Teeth of a Cogwheel”] on my computer with a beat that I just made up and programmed. And then I learned the beat and played it live with all the different instrumentation and bells and shit that kind of come in. I remember Summer was trying to learn the bassline and I was like,
“Let me just play it, man.” I felt bad, but it’d be quicker if I played it because I wrote it. BAIZLEY: When we were making Red, I wasn’t remotely comfortable writing [lyrics] from an unguarded stance. I really needed a framework built around all of my personal stories. B. BLICKLE: John is very smart at making sure you maintain the fan base that is there and give them something that they like, while also trying to incorporate more people that would be into this had we given them an element that they would be attached to, i.e., sung vocals. All I can say about why it’s 10 songs designed the way it was is there was one classic record that John modeled it after. I don’t know if he wants that information out there, so I don’t wanna step on toes. BAIZLEY: I thought it was [Led] Zeppelin IV, but I just checked and it’s eight tracks. I think it was Dark Side of the Moon. The intro to the record is just gonna be quiet and frustratingly long. That’s a move I definitely stole from Pink Floyd on every record. There’s one Pink Floyd reference and the same Neurosis reference on every single record we have. I steal the end of “Stones From the Sky” on every single Baroness record. B. BLICKLE: We were driving to SXSW and John was lying in the back and the van was all quiet, and we hear, “I got it! Led Zeppelin IV!” It scared the shit out of us. [But] he reminded us of the classic record-modeling idea and we were all like, “Oh yeah! Dude, you’re right!” Dark Side was more likely than not on the table, but pretty sure we went with IV and said, “Fuck it, we’ll add two songs!”
A. BLICKLE: I think my least favorite [genre tag] was “beardcore.” That shit annoyed the hell out of me. What the fuck are you talking about? Just because John has a beard?
Red Album came out at a time when the New Wave of American Heavy Metal was infiltrating the mainstream. How did you feel about comparisons to other “sludge metal” bands, particularly Mastodon?
How do you think the record holds up 13 years later?
A. BLICKLE: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s also because they’re from Georgia, so they lump all these bands in that maybe have some similar influences, but they’re also heavy. But there were other bands from the south that didn’t get lumped in, but were heavy to us. There’s Harvey Milk or Jucifer or these heavy, sludgy bands that I thought were sludgier than us because we were playing these fast metal riffs. To me, that didn’t seem “sludge.” WELCH: I usually took the compliment if said speaker was referring to a band I admired in some fashion. Ultimately, everything comes from the same place. BAIZLEY: If Kylesa was our big brother, we were the youngest of three and Mastodon was the older brother that had already been to college. They blew through DIY so quickly, and there was no question why. They were the most incredible live band to see on the floor in a basement. They deserved a bigger stage. Without their success, I don’t think Baroness would have experienced the same thing. OCTOBER 2020 : 40 : DECIBEL
Did you find audiences were immediately blown away by Red Album, or was it a slow burn? B. BLICKLE: Bit of both. It would be show to show, city to city, country to country. There could be extreme applause or there could be, “Whoa… I think I like it? I don’t know if I like it?” It really depended on what band we were opening up for or was opening up for us. It takes a particular type of person to like Municipal Waste and Baroness, whereas it takes a particular type of person to like Torche and Baroness or Minsk and Baroness. WELCH: Guess that depended on the town, and if we were playing our own shows or with some other bands. I felt like people were pretty stoked to see us play live. A. BLICKLE: I don’t know, man. It’s funny. I don’t feel like it was an immediate blown-away feeling. There was a turning point. We were doing smaller shows in clubs and basements, and then I think we did an East Coast tour and we were in Brooklyn playing, and it was a soldout show and we were like, “Holy shit, is this all for us?” [But] we didn’t really anticipate anything. I just wanted to play loud-ass music and be tight and sound good. If the fans came, then hell yeah. I think that became a little more pressure later on as we grew into different records.
Everybody that I talk to has a favorite Baroness record. It’s not just one. It’s evenly split, and that’s awesome. We don’t have a Reign in Blood or whatever. This band operates best when it’s instinctual, and Red was a really instinctual record. We did what we wanted to: We put an acoustic song on it, a single-microphone-in-theroom southern rock song at the end, which I totally forgot was on the CD. [Laughs] A. BLICKLE: I think I speed up a lot sometimes on my drums. That annoys me. I don’t know if any other people think about that when they hear it. On “Wailing Wintry Wind,” there are a couple fills where I hit one tom that I don’t like. Also, I was 24 at the time when I recorded these drums, so with my abilities, that’s what I was able to do. B. BLICKLE: I got sick of listening to it because I was looking for things I could change live, being a neurotic artist, but looking back at it… I don’t know, man. It defined a lot of people. I’ve met people and they’re like, “Man, you’re the reason I play guitar.” I wouldn’t fuck with that. I met a couple in Colorado that said they walked down the aisle and got married to “Grad” because they met at a Baroness show in Gainesville. The Red Album to me is perfectly imperfect. BAIZLEY:
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BLACK METAL BROTHERHOOD
UADA
FOLLOW THE MOON’S LIGHT AWAY FROM GENRE CONVENTIONS ON THEIR THIRD LP DJINN story by
photos by
sean frasier adriana michima formed in 2014 in the usnea-draped wilderness of America’s Pacific Northwest. For founder Jake Superchi, the goal was to create a new conduit for expressing his inward journey and external observations. He envisioned Uada as a brotherhood that would use his favorite genre to fill his creative goblet without drowning in the dark waters. ¶ 2016’s Devoid of Light debut immediately turned heads with its moonlit melodies and blistering blasts. Uada’s aesthetic also snared attention as they played shows as hooded silhouettes. Their hotly anticipated set at 2017’s Maryland Deathfest captivated the packed venue. By the time Uada released Cult of a Dying Sun, their buzz was reaching fever pitch. When this publication unveiled our favorite albums of 2018, Uada had claimed the No. 3 honor. Decibel writer James Lewis described the album’s triumphant sound as one of “not only victory, but of ripping, tearing, downright manic catharsis that makes the record unquestionably one of the year’s best.” LACK METAL MOON CULT UADA
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But acclaim is rarely bestowed without detractors as well. Translated from Latin, Uada means haunted. The project has certainly seemed cursed with mild controversies during their ascent. There were charges that Uada thieved riffs from Polish fog-conjurers Mgła. Others painted them as a Dissection homage. After Uada posted about the harsh playing conditions at the sun-scorched México Metal Fest, some fans derided their comments as the whining of shrouded divas. With a glut of other bands usings hoods and masks, others expressed anonymity fatigue. But dismissing Uada as a gimmick band is an exercise in futility. Reducing their music to hero worship discounts the singular solemnity and lyrical complexity they bring to black metal. For their most stubborn critics, the psychedelic whims of Uada’s third album, Djinn, should bury the false plagiarism rumors. DECIBEL : SEPTEMBER 2020 : 43
Uada’s intent was never to make a few bucks preaching to the choir about the world’s bleakness. Uada are about eclipsing the ego and wandering your own path through external and internal darkness. As Anaïs Nin wrote before the Apollo 11 lunar landing, “We are going to the moon—that is not very far. Man has so much farther to go within himself.”
natus eclipsum
UADA’S GENESIS WAS a humble rehearsal in
the Washington state wilderness to test-run their chemistry and compatibility. Guitarist James Sloan traveled across the Columbia River from Portland to Superchi’s home as Earth’s shadow cloaked the moon’s pale glow. As soon as Superchi and Sloan fired up their amps, their guitars sang harmoniously. They had both fortuitously tuned a full step down without prior consultation. Beneath a lunar eclipse and surrounded by hemlock trees, that first serendipitous omen spawned the creative core of Uada. “We were playing in separate bands, but played a lot of shows together in Portland and in the outskirts of Oregon,” Superchi recalls. “James was someone I knew, but didn’t really know. He seemed like a cool guy, and I liked his style. But when I wanted a lead guitar player, he felt like a no-brainer. Now there’s a strong connection and a brotherhood, and an understanding about what this means to us.” With over a dozen releases under Superchi’s bullet belt from previous projects, black metal’s corpsepainted sensationalism had lost its devilish charm. Uada was devised as a project that would fulfill more personal pursuits while stretching black metal into a wider canvas. Part of that would be implementing a dualguitar attack that appealed as much to their Mercyful Fate and Judas Priest fandom as any Dissection soul-reaping. “Jake and I have similar musical taste, and we were both inspired by a lot of the same bands,” Sloan reveals. “The early ’90s Swedish black metal scene was huge for us, because we really appreciated that they incorporated a lot more melodicism to the black metal ecosystem that some of the regions weren’t. American stuff was a little bit more thrashy and chaotic. The Norwegians were, of course, very cold and grim. And I like all of that stuff. But there was this sort of baroque, classical melodicism and energy in the Swedish bands like Dissection or Dawn or Unanimated.” Comparisons to Dissection and Mgła were immediate and understandable from new listeners. But the early allegations of riff plagiarism exist in a world where Superchi and Sloan weren’t creating similar compositions long before donning their Uada hoods. Uada may have formed overnight, but their story’s prologue includes over two decades of songwriting and experience. “We all have influences, especially in a derivative genre,” Superchi posits. “Everything is going to sound like something else. 44 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL
Comparisons don’t bother me—if anything, they probably help. I do think we’ve taken a harsher criticism than most bands. I’ve heard terms like plagiarists and rip-offs, and that’s okay—that’s their right to believe. “I think a lot of people think Uada came out of nowhere,” Superchi continues, “and maybe that’s because James and I didn’t really advertise our past. We were trying to create a separate entity. Uada is Uada, and that’s it. People might have assumed we were jumping on a bandwagon and riding whatever new wave of black metal was emerging at the time.” “Those [allegations] have existed since the beginning of the band, and I wondered where it came from for a while,” mentions Sloan. “There was the Mgła comparison, because we chose to wear hoods and conceal ourselves. That’s something we’re not doing exclusively, of course. Musically, we’ve never tried to sound like another band, and we’ve never said to each other something like, ‘Hey, now let’s do a Dissection riff.’” Uada was never intended to be an homage project. Djinn makes that clear as a cloudless sky from the smokeless fire of its very first notes. It was intended as a brotherhood of like-minded musicians who would use black metal as momentum to start their journey. But with Djinn, Uada are ready to blaze their own trail through the ethereal forest. “Black metal is the music I gave my heart to,” Superchi declares. “I feel like when people take a path and get into black metal, they close the door behind them. And I understand the impulse to dedicate yourself to something like that. But if it has rules, then it’s no different than extreme religion or political bullshit. You’re being herded, and I can’t live like that. “I get it, I love all those ’90s classics,” he continues. “But it’s been done, and done to death. I wanted to allow them to influence me, but not force me to stay within the genre’s lines.”
eclipsing the self
WE’RE JUST A FEW HOURS AWAY from the New
Moon when Superchi and I first speak, on the eve of the summer solstice. To many, the beginning of a new lunar cycle represents rebirth. Superchi and Sloan both embrace that symbolism and feel deeply bonded to the Earth’s largest satellite. “I’ve always felt most comfortable when it’s dark outside,” Sloan explains. “Even when I was younger, I liked the feeling of the night because most people are at home sleeping. Even at a young age, I’d walk around in the middle of the night all by myself, and it felt like the entire world was mine in that moment. “To me, the moon represents what the rising sun means for a lot of people,” Sloan continues. “It represents the light at the end of the tunnel. Something I can reflect and meditate on at night, and see a path forward.” OCT 2020 :
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The moon has been revered by numerous cultures for as long as humanity has sought answers to life’s most elusive questions. While lunar imagery has been co-opted by horror films as a harbinger of terror, to Uada it’s a symbol of duality. The moon is both illumination and shadow. A lunar eclipse—painted by brilliant longtime Superchi collaborator Kris Verwimp—is central to each of Uada’s album covers. But you don’t need to know the difference between a waning crescent and a waxing gibbous to appreciate the moon’s historical significance and metaphoric meaning. Like lycanthropes change forms with a full moon, Superchi seized the opportunity to redefine his musical identity with Uada. While Superchi released music as the pseudonym the Witcher in his prolific Ceremonial Castings project, his attachment to the pageantry and flamboyance of the genre’s performative aspects were waning. “When I was coming out of Ceremonial Castings, I didn’t want to do corpsepaint anymore,” Superchi admits “I was over that shit. My connection to it was gone, and at the end of the day I felt like a guy in his 30s putting makeup on before I went onstage to get stared at. It just seemed fake and weird. I do understand the aesthetics of warpaint; when I’m in my garb, I can shut off and transcend, and there’s a part of you that becomes more aware and focused. It just didn’t feel natural to be a face-paint band.” Sloan was similarly interested in straying from both stage makeup and aliases like he employed in Infernus. Neither musician intends their change of heart as a slight to black metal’s past, present or future. (Try putting together a comprehensive history of black metal without referring to someone’s sinister alias by the first paragraph’s end.) But Superchi and Sloan agreed on Uada’s approach to identity and performance during their earliest woodland walks. “Because the music was coming from a very personal perspective and a very internal point of worldview,” Sloan explains, “the thought of creating some sort of alter ego name seemed unnatural. It didn’t fit into the path that we had tried to lay out for ourselves. We wanted to be more realistic, and we thought that there’s no way to be more realistic than to use your own name and identity to be yourself. To be accountable and representative of the art that you’re making.” Agreeing to use their civilian names, Uada still wanted a way to remove the human ego from the perception of their music. By wearing hoods, they could obscure their facial features and remove what Sloan calls “the mundane, human side of the art.” The intent was to remove the ostentatious rock star impulses and focus on the music’s presentation. While they now perform in matching oversized hoods that conjure a ritualistic and cult-like atmosphere, Uada originally performed in their street clothes. Due to the Pacific Northwest’s abundance of rainfall, wearing a hood was customary for drizzly hikes.
“I live in a hood every day,” says Superchi. “It gets hot in the summertime, but it’s raining all the time and I’m not the type of person who carries a fucking umbrella. If I’m going to a show, I put my hood and my leather jacket on. “I also don’t like being seen,” he adds. “I think that’s part of being an intuitive empath. When I walk into a room, I can feel other people’s energy, and when my wife comes home from a bad day at work, I can feel it. So, being in a public, crowded place, I think covering myself allows me to cut myself from it. It’s nice to feel the energy, but it’s also chasing the dragon. I noticed there was a wave of people adopting this hidden look and not revealing their identities when we started. But to me, it just made sense to wear my street clothes, do that, be myself and hide myself at the same time.” By unmasking themselves, but remaining in the shadows, Uada was able to “eclipse the self,” as Superchi describes. That means the music maintains primacy over the individual contributions of each collaborator. While it’s tough to tell because of concealed faces onstage, each Uada album has had a different lineup. Continuity is usually a boon for a musical project since it develops chemistry and makes touring considerably easier. But Superchi’s search for brotherhood runs deeper than the convenience of continuity. That said, the band’s founder is excited about the assemblage of minds and talents currently in Uada, and what the lineup is capable of in the future. Bassist Nate Verschoor has been friends with Superchi since touring together in 2008, and is currently waiting out the pandemic in Philadelphia. His pulsing bass is a key component of Djinn’s searing soundscape. After drummer Josiah Babcock departed Uada earlier this year, they recruited Elijah Losch. Losch assisted Uada as they toured with 1349, and impressed them with his demeanor and what Sloan calls “an unquestionable thirst for progress as a musician.” When Losch is able to demonstrate his talents when touring is once again permissible, it will be as a faceless blur of limbs propelling the songs onward. “When you’re allowed to see the realistic and human side of another person, you fill in a lot of blanks yourself,” Sloan adds. “You make assumptions for the worse. You stop paying attention to the music and energy that’s being presented. We found it was very important to just be shadows, basically. To be the vessel of the energy and the music and the message that we wanted to present.”
But like the album cover’s illustration or the band’s promo photos taken in Oregon’s Alvord Desert, there’s a sun-beaten weariness to Djinn. Stifle your most reactionary concerns: There’s no shortage of blast beats and scorched tremolos. But Djinn expands Uada’s blackened melodicism to include psychedelic, goth and post-punk influences coated with a layer of desert dust. “From the early days when Jake and I got together, fitting into a mold wasn’t really something we were interested in doing,” states Sloan. “We had a vision that was based around two aspects: Musically, it was an homage to the music we fell in love with growing up [that] influenced us deeply. “There’s also the more personal side,” Sloan continues, “lyrically and ideologically, about wanting to shed old skin. Some things became very stagnant and frustrating for us in other endeavors and life in general. So, the new album is a culmination of those things: stepping outside the boundaries and pushing forward with the music and mood we envisioned for this record.” “I think when we released the initial track [‘Djinn’], we already had the sense that it was going to be polarizing in a way, because it’s different,” Superchi admits. “We’ve said since the beginning that we weren’t going to commit to any rulebooks for certain genres. It was just about creating what we want to create. [Djinn] has a lot of influences from the ’90s, when I grew up in my teen years.” While Superchi discusses discovering Nirvana as his earliest gateway into heavier music, Sloan’s path began when he heard Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced?. After embracing
djinn
THE FIRST SMOLDERING NOTES of Djinn’s title
track imply that the album lives on a different musical continent than its predecessors. Uada’s first two records sound like they dwell in expansive rainstorms, with just a large enough crack in the storm clouds for the moon’s glow. DECIBEL :
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LSD and rock ‘n’ roll in Southern California in the ’60s, Sloan’s father later turned to religion during parenthood. As we aptly speak on Father’s Day, Sloan chronicles how he resisted his father’s influence with organized religion. Instead, he bonded with his father by listening to his old vinyl collection. “The sounds of rock ‘n’ roll guitar completely changed the way I heard music and the way music hit me,” Sloan shares. “We would listen to Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin and the Who and Pink Floyd, and a lot of that sort of stuff. Rock ‘n’ roll music was high-energy, but also had this really sorrowful and almost dark feeling in these songs. Real human emotion that I felt the music on the radio at the time didn’t, which felt sugarcoated and positive.” Those influences bloom like desert blossoms on the title track and “The Great Mirage.” While Oranssi Pazuzu channel hypnotic space-psych for their blackened compositions, Uada lean on organic instrumentation throughout Djinn. It’s more akin to how Chapel of Disease channeled death metal by way of southern-fried prog on ...And as We Have Seen the Storm, We Have Embraced the Eye. Along with Superchi’s more diverse vocals, a major component of Uada’s stylistic shift leans on Sloan’s soloing and lead work. When Sloan’s passion for guitar was just a youthful ember, he used to record solos from the radio on a tape deck. He created mixtapes of the disembodied solos and spliced them together for all-killer-no-filler cassettes. He listened to those solo-packed tapes on a cheap Sony headset as he went to sleep. Mentioning Stevie Ray Vaughan as a notable inspiration, Sloan is drawn to guitar playing that feels like it’s singing to you. As sole guitar player on his previous projects, Superchi’s collaboration with Sloan meant inviting those influences and blending their guitar voices. “I could tell that James was eager to express more through his solos and lead work,” Superchi comments. “We’d get together to present riffs and you could see solos exploding out of him.” Clocking in at a clean and precise hour, Djinn’s journey is both demanding and exhilarating. “The Great Mirage” thrives with a dichotomy of Moonspell gothicism and sweltering solos. The first 10 minutes of “No Place Here” is a breathless sprint before the despondent musing of the song’s third act. The ornate leads of “In the Absence of Matter” and “Forestless” feel like flower stems that deftly grow and retract their thorns. At nearly 14 minutes long, “Between Two Worlds” is a complex and contemptuous finale. It feels like a purging fire where elegant flourishes shimmer around a central passage of discordant death. “I mean, ‘Between Two Worlds’ is where I feel at all times, man,” Superchi comments. “Metaphysically, but also in the music world: between black metal and the goth rock Fields of the Nephilim, the Cult and Danzig influences that are coming through.” DECIBEL : SEPTEMBER 2020 : 45
While Uada’s past records were mastered by external talent like Joel Grind and Arthur Rizk, Superchi handled the entire recording and mastering process for Djinn. That decision wasn’t an ego-driven desire to shield the music from outside tampering. From recording and mixing to mastering, Superchi wanted full accountability and responsibility. He wanted the album to demand as much from him as he could deliver. “I wouldn’t mind delegating to other people to do the album,” says Superchi, “but it’s something I enjoy and want to get better at. The time for that was now. The album as a concept is possession, in all forms: physical, mental, spiritual. Things that take our time; what possesses us to do the things we do. So, I let the record possess me as much as I physically could. It was almost like a social experiment to raise demons and permit demons to come in. I wanted the album to take every single part of me to complete.” Superchi’s discussion of demons is largely metaphorical. But Djinn’s final seconds contain an audio clip of what Superchi and his wife think might be a nefarious entity. Superchi did not volunteer that information until directly requested. With casual curiosity at the interview’s end, I asked what that hellish sound was at the album’s close. Superchi believes that because of his wife’s proximity to death as a veterinarian, an entity has been drawn to her for years. “When we were working on Djinn, it became more prominent,” Superchi explains. “One night we were sitting on the couch having dinner, and she picked up her phone to check something. Before she could do anything, it rang and this sound started. It kept going. She’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, but she was shook. She knew something wasn’t right. “She put it on speaker,” he continues, “and this thing was going off. Finally, I grab my phone to record it, but as soon as I start to record, it stops. So, I stop, and it starts again. This violent, evil sound. I tried recording again; it stopped again. So, I held my phone over her phone and finally got about 20 or 30 seconds of it. “Whether it’s a smart idea to unleash something like that into the world or not, I’m not sure,” Superchi laughs.
possessed
IN PAGAN PRE-ISLAMIC MYTHS AND TEXTS,
the djinn were a species of humanoid beings who could exist outside human detection with shapeshifting and invisibility. Like humans, they were flawed and neither inherently benevolent nor sinister. But in Western culture, the djinn are reduced to malignant demons and horror fodder. Those interpretations lose the metaphoric context of the djinn, where the morality spectrum’s gray area is most conducive to teaching and learning. “We wanted to capture emotional duality in the sound within Djinn,” says Superchi. 46 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL
“On the [album] cover, there’s a male and female. They’re both good and evil. Similarly, we wanted our music to be on that line of not sounding good or evil.”
Even when I was younger, I liked the feeling of the night because most people are at home sleeping. I’d walk around in the middle of the night all by myself, and it felt like
the entire world was mine in that moment. james sloan
Superchi maps out the themes of their current trilogy of albums like so: Devoid of Light was about transition, an eclipse of the self for a new beginning. Cult of a Dying Sun encouraged reflection and taking stock of our true convictions. But Djinn’s theme of possession is not the spectral reference some may assume. Like Uada’s haunted moniker, Djinn’s themes are more about metaphor than encounters with the paranormal—although Superchi has had his share of those as well. People can be possessed by any number of influences. Religion. Political ideology. Addiction. Superchi’s writing encourages taking ownership of your own time and beliefs, and restricting outside forces from monopolizing your energy. When Superchi was a child, he was informed that his family lineage included Salem magistrate John Hathorne, one of the notorious judges who unrepentantly sentenced innocent civilians to hang as witches. Superchi knew early OCT 2020 :
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that he sided with the supposed witches and renounced his ancestor. “In Massachusetts, the Salem witch trials are a huge thing, and it’s taught there at a very young age,” Superchi explains. “I immediately connected to it, considering I had a family aspect. Nathaniel Hawthorne—who was famous for writing The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables and others—was the grandson of the judge. He added the W into [his last] name in opposition, because he didn’t want to be affiliated with the judge. That’s always been an inspiration to take the path I did.” Like Sloan, Superchi rejected his father’s Roman Catholic upbringing. His Hathorne lineage was a document of religious zealotry’s violence and destruction. Instead, Superchi carved his own winding path towards enlightenment. Part of that journey involves unlearning what Superchi once assumed as fact. “Humans are a strange breed, man,” laughs Superchi. “We’re somewhat intelligent, but we’re not intelligent. We don’t really know anything. We don’t use much of our brains, we only see in three dimensions and we’re wrapped up in our own personal greed. We are an arrogant species, that’s for sure. A big part of Uada is erasing that ego and forgetting what we think we know. It’s not about personal gain; it’s about sharing energy.” For Sloan, Djinn’s possession theme resonates in two ways. The first is possession in the material sense. Around the time he joined Uada, Sloan had decided to purge most of his material belongings. Picture Marie Kondo in a black hood, keeping guitars that spark joy. Sloan wanted to give himself completely to his new musical project, and that meant focusing on creativity and freedom instead of creature comforts like structure and stability. “In the United States, those things are sort of integral to the quote-unquote ‘American Dream,’ or whatever they’re selling it as these days,” Sloan comments. “You have to work your ass to the bone, be a slave to the grind, and create some small pocket of wealth and stability. Work towards your retirement; kill yourself in the present, so you can take care of yourself as an old person. Even though it was somewhat terrifying to stop trying to advance in a company or have a house or work towards those goals, I found a lot of beautiful meaning and memories I wouldn’t have without shedding those earthly possessions. “The second part is much more simplistic,” Sloan continues. “Not like a demonic possession, but the idea of a spiritual entity being an internalized human ideal. I think the element we call god is an internal voice inside all of us. There’s an untapped potential to achieve things beyond what we think is achievable. I think that we’re all capable of possessing ourselves and influencing ourselves to achieve anything within the realm of physical possibility.”
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a lightless night’s silver lining
BEFORE SUPERCHI DISCUSSES his lyrical
approach in Uada, he describes his mountainbase home, overlooking a tree-filled valley and swampland. His lawn buzzes with hummingbirds while falcons high above scan the grounds for prey. A new stray cat has started frequenting their porch, nibbling the food left out for local raccoons. Superchi and his wife have even fed Oreo cookies to their raccoon squatters by hand. Suddenly, a military helicopter swoops overhead, cutting his sentence in half. The chopper is a startling reminder that even a remote refuge like Superchi’s idyllic home is under siege, a feeling that inspired the song “Forestless.” “[That song] is about going on tour to do what I absolutely love to do, only to come back and see the land around my home that I adore cut and burned down over and over,” Superchi explains. “Every time I’d come back, there’d be a summer fire or they’re destroying my walking trails and cutting down the forest.” Superchi’s lyrics chronicle humanity’s plight as alpha predators inclined to self-sabotage. Part of humanity’s hubris is the illusion that we have tamed nature and conquered the planet. But oldfashioned avarice and short-sighted arrogance are the truest threats to humanity’s reign. Whether it’s deforestation or too many pipeline disasters to accurately count, humanity is on nature’s shit list. “Nature will always win, and we’ll all die,” he continues. “I accepted that a long time ago. I think that’s another reason our music is on the hopeful-sounding side. I don’t fear death. I don’t worry about it. It will take me, and there’s nothing I can do. But I also think there’s so much beyond we can’t see. Growing up rural, away from city lights and mass confusion and consumerism and signs, you can go into nature and slow down and pay attention. You get back the energy you put out into the world.”
When I first mention Uada’s “hopeful” qualities, Superchi politely asks for an explanation. After all, his lyrics are packed with accounts of species-wide folly and malice. But there’s also a glimmer of light, a silver lining on the blackest of clouds. As Superchi writes in “Between Two Worlds”: “Beyond the dark of night, is where we transcend pursuing lures of light, let us begin again.” Sure, Uada’s modest shred of hope often feels like a plea on the precipice of doom, but this is black metal after all. Superchi’s lyrics were written well before the devastation of the pandemic emerged. George Floyd’s murder, the resulting activism and the consequential Capitol Hill Organized Protest in Superchi’s adopted home base of Seattle were all looming on the future horizon. Considering when they were written, Uada’s lyrical themes of division and disarray seem clairvoyant. “When I was in the mixing process, I heard these songs thousands of times over and over, but I was hearing words back and shaking my head,” Superchi recalls. “Because even though these lyrics were written at the end of last year, it ties to the world’s situation even more now.” There’s an urgency to Superchi’s language; a desperate petition to diverge from humanity’s self-destructive and soulless course. It’s that hope for change that lends Uada an elusive shimmer of positivity. But change is difficult. First you need vision and determination. But change also means time and energy and sacrifice. “I think that when humans go through historic moments of catastrophe and peril, we really yearn to return as soon as possible to a feeling of comfort,” Sloan ponders. “We want to pretend that things are fine so we can forget and move on without changing things. I think that
a lot of times when uprisings happen to really radically change the norm or get past those things, a lot of times the opposite side tries to drastically squash that. Because the thought of removing a small amount of comfort in a short life seems counterproductive to one’s sanity. It’s a sacrifice to accomplish true change in yourself and in the world. You have to give up comfort and familiarity—or sometimes your whole life, depending on the situation. Real change is often very destructive and painful, I think.” It’s no wonder that change feels so grueling and tortuous. History is filled with humanity clawing forward for progress, and it’s rarely an unobstructed path. But Uada’s songs suggest that change begins with an internal battle. Look at their trilogy of albums in reverse as a blueprint. Fight what possesses you. Reflect on the disconnect between your beliefs and actions. Then make the needed changes and transition. “We never set out to be a positive black metal band—that phrase alone is weird to think about,” laughs Superchi. “[Uada is] positive as much as it is negative. But that’s the yin and the yang, and the emotional core of the music. I loved nihilism, and grew up reading Nietzsche; I’ve lived that all my life. But it’s too easy, because all you have to do is look at the world and say, ‘Fuck everybody, fuck everything,’ and not give a shit. I’ve lived that, and I’ve been there. “But through my learnings and experiences,” he adds, “our inner dialogue and everything we say or write leaves us and comes back to us. So, if you’re going to put something out there, make sure you want it out there. I’m not saying people writing nihilistic black metal don’t want it out there; I’m sure they do. But for me to be able to live in my world and do what I need to do, I just have to be free. “My thoughts are not to necessarily be positive or bring people hope. But if people can find hope in themselves instead of finding it in the world, they could realize how easy it is to enjoy life.”
I get it, I love all those ’90s classics. But it’s been done, and done to death. I wanted to allow them to influence me,
but not force me to stay within the genre’s lines. 48 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL
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INSIDE ≥
52 THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX Monolithic, baby! 54 DROPDEAD Still under Siege 54 EN MINOR Proud to be not too loud 60 SPRAIN An unexpected turn 62 VENOMOUS CONCEPT Because, yes, more Shane Embury
Instinct of Survival
OCTOBER
11
Ready for rhinocharge
9
chuffed
4
weakened
1
chuffed and weakened at the same time
ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS
Extreme music legends NAPALM DEATH return with the unintended soundtrack to the cruelest summer
O
ur current global malaise makes approaching a new Napalm Death album a confounding proposition. From the days of Scum and FETO to their last album, 2015’s Apex NAPALM Predator – Easy Meat, Napalm have offered warnings via polemic. DEATH Change course, they suggested broadly, or face the inevitable blowThroes of Joy back that comes from an unjust economic system, climate change in the Jaws and a host of other social ills. Here we are in the age of COVID-19 of Defeatism and the proverbial chickens have come to roost—or run amok if CENTURY MEDIA you happen to be an American. The disease marches throughout countries that now openly embrace autocracy, disproportionately affecting the poorest among us. But even the wealthy can’t escape the haunting specter of death and social collapse; they can just postpone it a bit. ¶ That we have Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism, Napalm Death’s 16th album, is one of the rare things to celebrate during this pandemic summer. Throes might be Napalm’s most unrepentantly fast album since the band shook off the mid-paced metal trappings and embraced grind with Enemy of the Music Business
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]
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a shocking two decades ago. Napalm must have had an inkling that things were about to get a lot worse for everyone because Throes is a singlemindedly furious album that, like Cro-Mags’ The Age of Quarrel, Suicidal Tendencies’ debut and Black Flag’s My War, leaves scorched earth after each listen. While it has little in common musically with those hardcore masterpieces, what it does share is an unwavering commitment to purification via rage. It’s no surprise that Napalm have broadened their sonic palette in the past decade, but Throes is where these experiments are best integrated into their music. On Apex, the “noise” element was an ambient introduction; on Throes, it’s “Joie De Ne Pas Vivre,” a bastard amalgamation of Big Black, Author & Punisher and Napalm with vocals that croak a bit like black metal. “Amoral” has a Killing Joke swing and swagger. There are also straight-ahead ragers like “Fuck the Factoid” that adhere to the winning Napalm formula. They are by no means paint-by-numbers songs, but rather the sharpening of an already deadly spear. While Napalm have always worked as a collective, you have to salute the phenomenal individual efforts from each performer here. Barney Greenway continues to diversify his vocal approach while never losing sight of his Bamm-Bamm side. Shane Embury’s songwriting (he penned every track on the LP) is uncannily fluid. But in some ways, this album belongs to drummer Danny Herrera—the unsung hero of Napalm Death. Whether he’s playing in the pocket on “Invigorating Clutch” or blasting like an alien metronome on “Zero Gravitas Chamber,” his work breathes life and propulsion into the otherworldly textures laid down here. Listen, life is full of uncertainties lately, and waking up to the worst news in our lifetimes can feel like being tossed in the ocean with an anchor tied to your leg. While it was in no way recorded to help us get through this historical low, there is a topical lesson to Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism: Find something that brings you happiness and push forward, even in the face of overwhelming odds. We’re alive. We still have electricity. And there is a spectacular new Napalm Death album out. Perhaps that’s enough. —JUSTIN M. NORTON
ASEITAS
5
False Peace T R A N S L AT I O N L O S S
Capacity issues
False Peace begins with its title track, which sounds like a feedback-belchin’ industrial washing machine on a spin cycle, crammed to the tits with the guys from Endon. It’s a sonic scarecrow—an attempt to frighten off the weak. It’s 52 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
also completely pointless. Unfortunately, this 71-minute album is unmercifully overrun with conflicting ideas; some cogent and exciting, some irritating due to their sheer worthlessness. That said, Aseitas have the technical chops to rival Gorguts or the slithery Finns in Demilich. Throughout the album, tech-death is often reframed through Botchian angularity and metallic hardcore hostility. When this works, as on “Scalded” and the twisted syncopations of “Impermanence,” Aseitas excel in the same manner as Pyrrhon—their masterful obliqueness knocks you right off your axis and onto your noise-rocked ass. There’s also juddering Meshuggahisms aplenty, mechanizing the gonzo-chugs of “Chrism” and the sporadic and spasmodic robo-lurches of “Spite/Sermon.” The latter, however, is another example of where Aseitas go wrong, and proceed to go wrong as this draining LP progresses. The moments of disquiet during this sprawler and “Blood Into Oil” are momentum-destroying rather adding the eerie dynamism intended. See also: disposable segue “Crucible,” time-wasting noise-splatter “The Value in Degradation” and the post-rock bongo-bore finale “Pieces.” Cut the multitude of superfluous bullshit and hone the most menacing aspects of the 16-minute-plus “Behemoth’s Dance” (the LP’s high point and home to a stunning, crystalline guitar solo crescendo) and Aseitas’ progressive extremity could really become something truly exceptional. —DEAN BROWN
THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX
8
Scorpio TEE PEE
Rocking out with their appendages out
We all know this music thing is subjective, and arguing over what’s better than who and who’s better than what is ultimately pointless (as fun as it may be). Even when a seemingly solid truth is established (Master of Puppets), some joker comes along and says “Nope” (Reign in Blood). Allow yours truly to nudge into potential objective truth territory by declaring the Atomic Bitchwax as the finest wailin’ ‘n’ screamin’, rippin’ ‘n’ tearin’ rockers out there. Their 28-year, eight-album career has consistently melded biker bar fight rock and flaming sideburn tempos with guitar hero madness and a rhythm section that drops swinging groove into stoner metal’s lava pit. Scorpio doesn’t slow down on the hot-rodding, ease up on the hip-shaking or pay any less attention to musical intricacy. It all adds up to the heart and soul of ’70s rock power being energized by the pace of modern life. “Betting Man” is the sound of fleet-fingered lifer dudes staying true in the face of hustle
culture; “Hope You Die” speaks to the push and pull of knowing how to channel experience without the swagger turning towards jaded arrogance; and “Energy” lives up to its title while avoiding self-parody. Instrumentals “Ninja,” “Crash” and “Instant Death” highlight the ability of each member’s fine-form chops to confidently fill both dance floors and tablature books. The crowning achievement? While the Atomic Bitchwax are rocking out with their appendages out and impressing fret-watchers, all songs are superbly constructed with riffs that make perfect adjacent sense. TAB remain vital and vigorous as they take a well-worn blueprint to create an elation that evokes the first time ears were exposed to rock. How many others are taking a 70-year-old art form and fostering virginal excitement with it? Not many. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO
ATRAMENTUS
8
Stygian
20 BUCK SPIN
Fixation on the darkness
Although their name is likely new to you, this Montréal funeral doom quintet claims to have been working on Stygian (a popular word in doom currently, with Bell Witch/Aerial Ruin’s Stygian Bough making such a splash) since 2012. Not devotedly, mind you; vocalist/guitarist Phil Tougas is one of Quebec’s busiest metalheads, sharing his six-string talents among at least seven active groups. But this slow-release work rate is wholly appropriate given the album’s predominating snail’s pace, as well as its concept of an immortal warrior journeying across a black, frozen Earth after the death of the sun. Fortuitously, despite its midsummer release date, the arrival of Stygian has coincided with a severe drop in temperature, darkened skies and heavy rain up north; but although both band and album are named after synonyms for impenetrable darkness, there are notes of color and ethereal radiance here, courtesy of François Bilodeau’s piano, synths and “dark ambient elements,” enriching and enlightening the gloomy canvas. Said dark ambient elements wholly comprise five-minute interlude “In Ageless Slumber (As I Dream in the Doleful Embrace of the Howling Black Winds),” acting as a creepy narrative bridge between the crushing 16-minute opener and plaintive 23-minute closer (both also ornamented with Bal-Sagoth-esque word countbaiting titles). The note patterns prove somnolently hypnotic—achingly simple, but innately satisfying for any keen doomhound—and while the distant, mumbled, wheezing vocals feel like a bit of an afterthought, they’re giving voice
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to an exhausted, lonely, tortured protagonist, so it’s a justifiable artistic decision. As is the surprise burst of hyper-speed right at the end, neatly acting as the album’s cadaveric spasm. —CHRIS CHANTLER
BLACK MAGNET
7
Hallucination Scene 20 BUCK SPIN
a.k.a. the entirety of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
’90s nostalgia doesn’t just apply to old-school death metal or noise rock—a bunch of throwback musicians also rage against the machine by raging with machines. Shit, industrial metal titans like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails are classic rock now. That doesn’t stop groups (or individuals) like Uniform, Author & Punisher, Health and Blanck Mass from breaking out the samplers, megaphones and drum machines to channel their rage at technological dehumanization. It’s almost like things haven’t gotten any better in the past 30 years. Black Magnet’s debut full-length, Hallucination Scene, was recorded in Chicago, home of legendary rivethead label Wax Trax, by Sanford Parker, who’s had more than his share of experience with the genre. While James Hammontree did everything else himself, his predecessors’ spirits loom heavily over his work. “Anubis” could’ve come out of White Zombie’s electric heads; “Punishment Map” follows the way to succeed and the way to suck eggs; and you don’t have to go very far into the downward spiral to recognize the origins of “Trustfucker.” Still, like OSDM, originality isn’t necessarily high on the list of priorities—it’s all about the visceral impact. And boy, does Hammontree hammer the listener hard over these 26 minutes. This mechanistic assault satisfies on a neck-snapping level, even if it sometimes feels like a tribute album more than a unique expression. The potential is there, though— Black Magnet just needs to change its polarity and start pulling in some fresh ideas. —JEFF TREPPEL
DROPDEAD
8
Dropdead
ARMAGEDDON
Dropfuckingdead
There’s a reason that Rhode Island punk/grind/crusties Dropdead made it into our Hall of Fame with their 1993 self-titled debut, and the band has once again reminded us why with this absolutely killer new full-length. Don’t sweat that they’re 54 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
just relentlessly confusing everyone by now putting out three full-lengths that are all either self-titled or untitled—what you need to be focusing on is the grinding chaos of tracks like “The Black Mask,” Dropdead once again managing to lay all their peers to waste through their concise yet powerful songs. But it’s not all simple—this is easily the band’s most diverse-sounding record yet. The vocals of Bob Otis are different this time around. He still screams and shouts, but at other points delivers a more restrained punk snarl, which manages to have even more attitude. It all works perfectly with the raucous hardcore of songs like the excellent “Book of Hate” (the band’s catchiest this side of “At the Cost of an Animal”) or the 16-second grindcore killer “Bodies.” “Hatred Burning” brings the ragged and loose grind. Make no mistake— this is a very special album, one that is pure momentum, pure emotion and pure extremity. Then there’s “Hail to the Emperor,” all buzzsaw bass work and Otis’ screaming, and holy crap, that’s a catchy tune. Meanwhile, cuts like the short grinder “United States of Corruption” take punk singalong energy and pure grindcore blasting to places few bands do so well. The production, courtesy of Kurt Ballou, is huge: It’s noisy, it’s chaotic and it suits Dropdead perfectly. The world always needs new Dropdead material, but here in a very dodgy 2020, with the band stepping things up on Dropdead (stop that), it’s never been more vital. —GREG PRATT
EN MINOR
7
When the Cold Truth Has Worn Its Miserable Welcome Out HOUSECORE
The great southern buzzkill
Most of us have had days or months or more where we feel stuck in a monochromatic haze. En Minor’s debut LP, When the Cold Truth Has Worn Its Miserable Welcome Out, appeals to those morose moods with a project band that founder Phil Anselmo has called “depression-core” and “kill the party music.” Precipitated from informal jams and recording sessions spanning decades, En Minor’s downcast, rootsy neofolk compositions have emerged as a chance for Anselmo to stray from heavy metal with a collective of trusted collaborators. To earn the “rootsy” tag, music should feel entangled with the mud and history of a specific place. From the first despondent acoustic strums of “Mausoleums,” En Minor’s debut feels like it dwells in a forgotten, unmarked cemetery outside New Orleans. “Love Needs Love” and “This Is Not Your Day” reimagine
Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds if they were hatched in the French Quarter. “Dead Can’t Dance” invokes late-era Leonard Cohen and his raw-throated, haunted balladry. The ghost-town melancholia of “On the Floor” is affectingly claustrophobic before a late-song eruption of Skynyrd licks. While neither “Warm Sharp Bath Sleep” or “Hats Off” feel fully realized, “Disposable for You” is a lush finale layered with rainy-day textures and Steve Bernal’s anxious cello. Many will note En Minor as a stylistic departure for Anselmo and his Down/Superjoint conspirators. But that discounts the numerous introspective passages from the rest of his discography. (See: “Suicide Note Pt. I” or “Jail.”) En Minor’s debut achieves its atmosphere of Southern Gothic self-loathing with the gravel of Anselmo’s sullen voice and concentrated gloom. These are pensive songs for bruised souls seeking catharsis. —SEAN FRASIER
HEATHEN
8
Empire of the Blind NUCLEAR BLAST
Sight adjustment
Ten years ago, I reviewed Heathen’s previous release, The Evolution of Chaos, for this very magazine. Holy hell, where did the damn decade go? Ten years between releases is not an insignificant span, but then there was a 19-year gap between Chaos and its predecessor, so a decade in the Heathen universe is no biggie, apparently. And, hey, in the intervening years they signed a deal with Nuclear Blast, so maybe protracted negotiations held things up (har-har). By the band’s own account, Empire of the Blind has been in the works since 2012, when writing began. However, these early efforts were back-burnered thanks to a domino effect that started with Jeff Hanneman’s absence from Slayer (and eventual passing) early in the last decade. As we know, Exodus guitarist Gary Holt was enlisted to fill in for/replace Hanneman, which created an opening in Exodus for Heathen guitarist Kragen Lum, who joined his Heathen bandmate (and Heather founder) guitarist Lee Altus for touring commitments while Holt was busy with Slayer. Did you catch all that? Anything thrash-related on the West Coast apparently goes through Exodus. While Heathen started life in the Bay Area as a more melodic thrash quintet in the mid-’80s, the 2020 version, featuring only Altus and vocalist David White from the early incarnation, is not too dissimilar from the chunky, hooky thrash of their SF-area peers. They mix up the tempos, but always find their way to a solid chorus. Empire of the Blind features a fat Zeuss production job (the production is fat, not the producer) with a significant amount of thick crunch. Altus and
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Lum’s ample skills are showcased here—from riffs to the many, many impressive solos—as the guitars fairly dominate the mix, almost to a fault. The band did, however, wisely pare back song lengths (compared to Chaos’ epics), making this an eminently digestible and raucous offering of anthemic SF thrash. —ADEM TEPEDELEN
HIGH SPIRITS
8
Hard to Stop HIGH ROLLER
It was he who set our spirits free
The metal scene is always better off when Chris Black is making new music, and if there was ever a time for a new High Spirits album, it’s now. Change can be a good thing. It’s stupid for people to be averse to it, and goodness knows there’s been a lot of change to deal with in 2020: socially, politically, environmentally, etc. There’s no sign of that change stopping, and one cool thing that helps us ride that perpetually cresting wave is, ironically, a band that refuses to change. When the world crumbles around you, traditional music can keep a person grounded as they adapt, and the upbeat, uplifting traditional metal of High Spirits is a perfect balm for heshers everywhere. Unlike the epic, doomy sounds of the muchloved Dawnbringer, High Spirits are all about the energetic, major-key sounds of early-’80s heavy metal, when there were no subgenres and just a bunch of kids enjoying fun, powerful music. Hard to Stop continues right where 2016’s effervescent Motivator left off, mining the sounds of everything from Thin Lizzy and Dokken to Scorpions and Tokyo Blade. “Restless,” “Midnight Sun” and the irresistible “Voice in the Wind” are fabulous examples of how well Black can arrange a simple song. A simple riff, a great hook, flashy, melodic solos and anthemic lyrics are sometimes all you need, and the familiar, formulaic sounds on this album instantly draw in the listener. It’s all in the band name. Black is out to lift your spirits, and as always, he succeeds mightily. —ADRIEN BEGRAND
HINAYANA
8
Death of the Cosmic N A PA L M
Forever weeping
Hinayana mainman Casey Hurd had the vision to bring the scorching sun of Austin to the coldest reaches of Jyväskylä. To wit, the Nordic touch—think Insomnium, Wolfheart, Omnium Gatherum—was present on Hurd’s self-released debut, 2018’s Order Divine. Still, he’s widening the 56 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
field and deepening the void on Hinayana’s first outing on the Napalm label. That is to say, there’s more personality and uniqueness at play here. Tracks like “Death of the Cosmic,” “Cold Conception” (featuring the late Nature Ganganbaigal of Tengger Cavalry) and “In Sacred Delusion” (featuring Toni Toivonen of Hanging Garden) have that heavy, full-bodied sound, as perfected by the likes of Peter Tägtgren and Tuomas Saukkonen, but there’s a deftness—melodic, textural—running through Hinayana’s oeuvre that contrasts nicely. The songs never feel dead. There’s movement, the warmth of the Texan sun, the briskness of a fall Helsinki evening and an overall melancholy as if it’s all fucking fleeting. Of course, all of this wouldn’t have been possible without the band itself—Hurd, sideman Erik Shtaygrud, drummer Daniel Vieira, keyboardist Michael Anstice and bassist Matt Bius—functioning highly. Hinayana have a cohesiveness and considered compositional mentality that’s often missing in neophytes. This is evident on the cool on/off harmony and acoustic guitar blend of the title track, as well as the bona fide Lonestar sisu imbued into EP capper “Pitch Black Noise.” RIYL: Nordic-informed melodic death metal with American confidence and resilience. And it’s just an EP… —CHRIS DICK
LIONHEART
5
The Reality of Miracles M E TA LV I L L E
Look what the cat dragged in
Past and future refugees of Iron Maiden, McAuley Schenker Group and UFO, English five-piece Lionheart recorded their 1984 CBS debut in Los Angeles four years through a run that ceased the following year. Preserved on YouTube, Hot Tonight enters a Les Paul and Korg tryst, KISS gone Asia circa Astra. Remember Giuffria? Or maybe Cutting Crew, whose Tony Moore occupied the keyboard slot in a one-night-only Maiden lineup in 1977? The Outfield also originated in London, although in metalese, ’80s references such as Autograph, Helix and Y&T’s “Summertime Girls” might make more sense than Starship. Where on that metric do Joe Lynn Turner solo albums fall? A 2016 Lionheart reunion led to Second Nature the following year, its go at Chris de Burgh’s “Don’t Pay the Ferryman” possibly improving on the original. Dave Murray’s guitar foil on the first Maiden LP, Dennis Stratton, plus original bandmates Steve Mann and Rocky Newton (both ex-Schenker), and Clive Edwards (Uli Roth) all return to a fold rounded out by singer Lee Small. Behind the synth-porn intro
to The Reality of Miracles, you’re then whiplashed back to the future faster than 220 pounds of cocaine in a DeLorean time machine—crashing through MTV’s first decade of late-night hair metal nachos and Löwenbräu. Highlight “High Plains Drifter” kicks up Europe or White Lion or Survivor? Wait—.38 Special. Solos roll Schenkerian and Rothian, with the Eastern accents on “Kingdom of the East” blending perfectly Scorps. “All I Want Is You” could be that time Whitesnake dusted off some old songs and went to town. Only make it Journey’s Frontiers, the crunchy one—no, no, Loverboy covering Cuts Like a Knife. —RAOUL HERNANDEZ
MERCYLESS
8
The Mother of All Plagues XENOKORP
1992 is calling… Hello, yes, this is Chris
Mulhouse-based death metal legends Mercyless return with the presciently titled The Mother of All Plagues, their first since Pathetic Divinity ravaged all of Francia (and Wallonia) four years ago. Frontman Max Otero is the sole remaining member from the band’s halcyon days, but that doesn’t mean the Frenchman has settled into complacency over the course of three decades. Indeed, one of death metal’s greatest vocalists and riffmasters (that you’ve probably never heard of) remains in tip-top slaying shape. A good friend called Mercyless’ debut stunner, 1992’s Abject Offerings, a blend of then-Obituary/ Pestilence, and to this day, the comparison is right on. But the quartet isn’t merely aping that which Florida and Enschede wrought. There’s an otherworldly quality to the way Otero and sideman Gautier Merklen raise ancient slabs of slimy marble with their powerful and commanding riffs and alien/oblique solos. This is also true when Otero invokes his unparalleled caveman incantations to things unseen, yet felt. Songs like “Rival of the Nazarene,” “Bring Me His Head,” “Laqueum Diaboli” (featuring exguitarist Stéphane Viard) and the riveting title track reveal how much of the past Mercyless are unearthing for Plagues. At the same time, Otero isn’t pandering to old glories. While there are no jump-jump motifs (or Meshuggah math problems)—thank Huwawa’s heinous breath!—“Inherit the Kingdom of Horus,” “Banished From Heaven” and closing slow-motion riff mountain “Litany of Supplication” have a contemporary bent. Death metal faithful, don’t sleep on Mercyless again. Your loss, ultimately, but I will utter, “Usella Mituti Ikkalu Baltuti,” in your general direction if you revere some other worthless act with an unreadable logo instead. —CHRIS DICK
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NARROW HEAD
8
12th House Rock RUN FOR COVER
Gimme Head ’til I’m dead
If I were to insist to you, devoted Decibel reader, that you need to drop everything and devour the sophomore album from five kids who administer lethal doses of Gish and Dirty riffalin behind the borderline “pitchy” drawl of the Lone Star State’s answer to Liam Gallagher, you might respond, “LOL, IDC, GFY Alt-Rock Andrew, is Tripping Daisy the next dB Hall of Fame?” Except (Clint Eastwood In the Line of Fire voice) that’s not gonna happen, because a) devoted Decibel readers are too cool to communicate acronyms, and b) your interest level will spike upon learning that Narrow Head stan just as hard for Helmet and Godflesh, i.e., a healthy swath of this magazine’s bread and butter, which is spread liberally on the fan-fucking-tastic 12th House Rock. There are way more (criminally) prominent bands who pan-fry Narrow Head’s primary ingredients—grunge, shoegaze, noise rock—and do pretty much nothing of interest with it. This band is almost always moving, eager to kick you in the throat with a sick distorted bass lead (“Bulma,” first single “Night Tryst”) or second-wave AmRep ape-walk (“Hard to Swallow,” “Emmadazey”). They also rep drugged-out long-form Swervedriver worship (“Yer’ Song”) and delightfully offbeat golden age Merge experimentation (left turn “Delano Door,” largely fronted by Erica Miller of fellow post-grungers Big Bite). And lest you think Jacob Duarte’s abrasive vocals are worth bagging on, absolutely not: While a bit of an acquired taste, they possess a sneering self-assurance that complements the deceptively tight fever dreams that populate this record. Long story short, Nothing compares to them... but they’re also no comparison at all. —ANDREW BONAZELLI
THE OCEAN
8
Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic |Cenozoic M E TA L B L A D E
Very wet from the standpoint of water
With technology accelerating the speed of information and lowering the average attention span, it seems harder to keep ideas at the front of our minds, making long-form musical projects less likely to captivate an audience. Case in point: When I received the Ocean’s Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic |Cenozoic, I’d forgotten that they’d even released Phanerozoic I. (They did in 2018. I wrote about it in this magazine. It’s a good record.) Big thinking and grand timetables, though, are the Ocean’s sweet spot. These Germans like to drape their melodic-but-crushing sludge over 58 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
the rigging of big concepts. Not only are the Phanerozoic twins their second double-album series, but they complete a conceptual suite on geologic time that the Ocean started on their 2007 breakthrough, Precambrian. In the age of click-awaybrains, finishing a project so ambitious warrants admiration. But as every discerning prog snob can tell you, big ideas are small potatoes without good music. Fortunately, the Ocean are every bit as adept at this style as their more esteemed peers in Cult of Luna and Isis. Befitting a record covering pop-science fare like the age of the dinosaurs, it’s the Ocean’s most comprehensible suite. Phanerozoic II is slick and concise by the band’s standards, a concession to the truncated patience of today. And though it tucks a few moments of almost-Nordic black metal blasting in its crevasses, shimmering melody and rocking tempos are its comfort zone. Its frequent tonic leads and rim-hits occasionally bring Tool to mind a little too much. But the band proves its worth whenever founding guitarist Robin Staps breaks into a Tyrannosaurus-sized riff or vocalist Loïc Rossetti crafts a chorus as potent as the one on standout “Jurassic | Cretaceous.” —JOSEPH SCHAFER
PSYCHOSOMATIC
8
The Invisible Prison N E FA R I O U S I N D U S T R I E S
Unsung Cali thrash legends flex to great effect
It’s hard to imagine that Jeff Salgado didn’t plan for the long haul from the moment Psychosomatic were born. While 1988 might’ve seemed like an optimal year to launch a thrash metal band for somebody working from the premise that the subgenre was established but still full of danger, the Sacramento-based quartet’s bassist, vocalist and sole remaining founding member wisely steered his brainchild on a course that emphasized live gigs and kept recording to a minimum going into, through and ultimately well past the year grunge broke and the corresponding collapse of the metal bubble. By the time the band released Tales of the Unbelievably Cheap in 1999, metal stood on the brink of a big-ass growth spurt that raged until COVID-19 put it on hold. What Psychosomatic’s fifth album has in common with their first is pretty much everything but gravity: What started as a borderline crossover party band is now serious AF—to everyone's benefit. A few spookier asides excepted, The Invisible Prison’s lyrics emphasize self-reliance (including the cognitive kind) and self-determination, never losing sight of the fact that we live in a fucked-up world and it’s nobody’s fault but ours. The band also plays better than pretty much any 20th century thrash
metal entity. Despite the elevated chops, Psychosomatic still come off like a cross between a punk band embracing metal and a metal band embracing punk—and Salgado still sings like a skater. —ROD SMITH
REALIZE
6
Machine Violence RELAPSE
Rise of the copy machines
The objective for Realize’s 2017 debut album, Demolition, sounded thoroughly unvarnished: manufacture short, digestible interpretations of Fall of Because/fledgling Godflesh. (Or maybe these guys were just massive Pitchshifter fans; who knows?) The problem that tends to bedevil this sort of sycophantic labor lies in the artist’s fixation on merely mimicking form over the translation of their muse’s spirit. Demolition flounders in a lukewarm puddle of appropriated ideas. It’s the sonic equivalent of a video game escort mission, i.e., a gauntlet of functional tedium. On Machine Violence, the band seems to have found a new and far more effective muse. The early inspiration remains, but is beaten into a sludgier, much more caustic form. Hell, the gross sonic incivility of Machine Violence’s bass alone is strength enough for me to recommend this album, and when Realize capitalize upon a righteous riff (“Simulated World Down,” “Disappear” and the massive “Ghost in the Void”), all those old copycat ascriptions are completely forgotten. In fact, it’s that internal struggle between raucous, Noothgrush-y grime and industrial mechanomorphisms that animate Machine Violence and give it import. Unfortunately, when the album bends too far towards the latter, it also bends towards wearisome conventionality. Machine Violence sounds a tad out of step with the industrial tag in general. Though the vocals remain industrial metal copy-and-paste pabulum, nothing tangible would be sacrificed in replacing these programmed drums for live ones. The drum machine seems to function more as mascot than MVP. While it’s clear that industrial is an important part of Realize’s musical identity, it may play the least effective role in their actual sound at this point in their development. All in all, a mixed bag yes, but undeniably a huge step forward. —FOREST PITTS
SHEENJEK
6
Unclever
SEVENTH RULE
Good, but ungreat
There are some bands that seem to know exactly what you want, even if they can’t quite deliver it.
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Sheenjek are one of them; they can clearly see where all the real good stuff is. But Unclever is them not yet getting there. This band is in the melting pot of posthardcore/noise rock, reminiscent of the Jesus Lizard, Pissed Jeans and Drug Church. And there are some real high points. The end of “Lazy Boy” is a bashing, extended sing-along, whereas the languid, swaggering “Monkey Brains” is topped with Clutch-like barking and references to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Also, their cover of Magazine’s classic “The Light Pours Out of Me” strips out the original’s eeriness, while keeping its riff homage to Gary Glitter’s sports arena staple “Rock and Roll Part 2.” This creates a complete oddity, through somehow it manages to work. I think. But these highs are amongst quite a few mids. While all of this is generally successful, not enough stands out. Sheenjek rarely display the attacking fervor of the Jesus Lizard, the unabashed raunchiness of Pissed Jeans or the rich hooks of Drug Church. There are riffs here and there that live up to the influences, but there’s a lot that never gets past just feeling reminiscent. In other words, some of these parts have just been written too many times before. With Unclever, Sheenjek show that they have the ear for what’s good. And they have the capabilities to pull it off. They just need more songs that prove it. —SHANE MEHLING
SPIRIT POSSESSION
7
Spirit Possession P R O FO U N D LO R E
Welcome to the (riff) machine
If there is one word that could be attributed to Steve “Domignostika” Peacock, it is riffs. His various projects have literally thousands of them (hundreds can be found in a single Mastery song), and with each new project (there are many), this Bay Area black metal wizard shows no sign of losing momentum. Continuing this trend in Domignostika’s oeuvre is Spirit Possession, touted as black/ thrash metal, a far cry from the often avantgarde leanings of his other projects. (Watch a live video of Pandiscordian Necrogenesis and tell me this guy starting a black/thrash project isn’t the weirdest thing he can do.) Spirit Possession? This has riffs by the dozen, presented in a classic never-stop-moving-yourfingers fashion. Spirit Possession’s self-titled debut is pure riff-concrete, a riff-ganache, riff-iron—a dense, chaotic amalgam of so many moving parts that it becomes one big unmoving ball of mass. Therein lies this album’s greatest failure, but also its greatest success. On one hand, there aren’t really any dynamics to this. 60 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
It goes and goes and goes without any big hooks or climaxes—it just riffs. On the other hand, Domignostika’s riffs are class-A black metal guitar magic. Is it thrashy like the PR sheet says? Sort of, but what I hear is some killer first-wave worship. Spirit Possession aren’t blistering, but the snide, quick-moving character definitely speaks to this project’s roots. Either way, if you’re looking for something that’s mildly creative, but is mostly straightforward riffing, this is the album for you. Don't think too much about it. —JON ROSENTHAL
SPRAIN
8
As Lost Through Collision THE FLENSER
Life eternal
While it’s tempting to suggest that Sprain have evolved in mighty leaps and bounds since second single “True Norwegian Black Metal” earned them a place in the Ironic Title Hall of Fame, it’d probably be a lot more accurate to say that the Los Angelesbased duo-turned-quartet has simply recovered in part from the experiences that informed their early work in the first place. While As Lost Through Collision is every bit as depressive as the band’s first two singles and EP, it captures founding guitarist/vocalist Alex Kent and bassist/vocalist April Gerloff in a far less diminished state, approaching the making of their debut full-length with a readiness to stop rewinding and start kicking lyrical ass, even (if not especially) when contemplating suicide. With the help of guitarist Alex Simmons and drummer Max Pretzer, Kent and Gerloff have also recovered in part from being in a slowcore band. As Lost Through Collision is first and foremost a noise rock record—an extremely sophisticated one informed as much by the likes of composer Krzysztof Penderecki as, say, Slint, Metz or Dreamdecay. This isn’t to say that the band has completely dumped the dirge as a delivery system; it’s more like they now see extended reduced-tempo interludes like “My Way Out” as opportunities to broach harmonic possibilities on a mountain range where Swans and Glenn Branca are base camp outfitters. The past commences and vanishes in a neon flash at the end of every measure. —ROD SMITH
SUMAC
7
May You Be Held THRILL JOCKEY
Getting a grip
Sumac are masters of juxtaposing singular sonic paths
with intense creative unification, individual ingenuity melding into innate collective chemistry. Spanning a multitude of subgenres—postmetal, sludge and noise rock to progressive rock, krautrock and avant-garde experimentalism— they can instinctively channel reptilian-brained primitivism, then immediately switch to a higher level of consciousness within the same passage of free-form music. This enlightened, fluid dynamism marks the band—Aaron Turner (vocals, guitars), Brian Cook (bass) and Nick Yacyshyn (drums)—as one of the most daringly inventive, truly progressive acts operating in heavy music today. New LP May You Be Held sees the trio continuing the elaborate expressionistic stance of 2018’s adroit Love in Shadow; both releases are aesthetically tethered by complementary artwork. It’s a five-tracker constructed around two sprawling, jagged, acrid monstrosities: “May You Be Held” and “Consumed.” Each composition showcases Sumac’s seasoned ability to mercilessly bludgeon the listener with animalistic roars, time-twisting avant-sludge riffs and fill-frenzied, shape-shifting rhythms. The impact of which is heightened when the band pares back, collapses codas and restarts with different dimensions present. There is indeed a level of knowledge of experimental music required to fully appreciate the varied tonality, jazz-informed arrangements, grinding explosions of atonal skronk (“The Iron Chair” has some bizarro-grind wig-outs) and overall belligerence of Sumac’s often abstract and seemingly impenetrable music. Stick with it, however, and Sumac will open narrow minds to a wealth of incredible sounds and styles—and that’s something that all great progressive art should (indirectly) achieve. —DEAN BROWN
SVALBARD
8
When I Die, Will I Get Better? T R A N S L AT I O N L O S S
Death magnetic
Despite the fulminations of the more self-confident and messianic among us, no one can definitively answer the question posed in the title of Svalbard’s third full-length. Still, if it all ends tomorrow—whether by personal, political or environmental apocalypse; take your pick at this point—the Bristol, U.K. quartet can rest in peace knowing they didn’t merely make a better record than 2018’s solid It’s Hard to Have Hope, but delivered the first truly great album of their career. Which is to say, When I Die, Will I Get Better? finds the many various seeds of greatness germinating in the Svalbard back catalog at last fully, gorgeously blossoming. To torture the metaphor a bit more, it’s as if Alcest, post-Jane Doe Converge,
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Rainer Maria and Poison the Well started working overlapping plots in the same community garden—and the results are fucking awesome. There is just so much more nuance and texture here than in the past; a more fully evolved and expanded sense of grandeur and transcendence. On previous albums, the base of the band’s sound was well-executed, but a bit stock and buoyed by the exhalating flourishes and experimentations at the edge. Now those flourishes and that sense of adventure is the foundation, while guitarists/ vocalists Serena Cherry and Liam Phelan have become more adept at defining and intertwining their respective voices. If you’ve enjoyed Svalbard in the past, get ready to have your expectations subverted and mind blown. If you’ve been lukewarm previously, it’s time to give the band another spin. A most welcome surprise. —SHAWN MACOMBER
TOMORROW’S RAIN
5
Hollow AOP
Where’s Ke$ha?
With more guest spots than a Pitbull joint, you’d be forgiven for wondering if gloom metallers Tomorrow’s Rain have any permanent members. More fool you: Six folks comprise this Israel-based band! As if that wasn’t enough, they also enlist members of My Dying Bride, Rotting Christ, Arch Enemy, Moonspell, Paradise Lost, Swallow the Sun, Orphaned Land (duh) and probably the entirety of the Napalm Records roster as well. With so many line cooks in the kitchen, the big question is if Hollow acts as a good representation of the band’s culinary skills. The answer? A resounding “kinda.” As you may have surmised from the guest list, Tomorrow’s Rain have a definite gothic bent very much beholden to the Peaceville Three. That said, the geographical location works in their favor here—their Middle Eastern heritage means that they comfortably work in more exotic scales than their European counterparts. Songs like “Fear” (featuring Aaron Stainthorpe) and “Into the Mouth of Madness” create effectively downbeat moods. We’ve heard it all before, sure, but they do know how to craft some solid, slow-paced doom-death. It’s just not quite enough to make this stand out. While having so many guests acts is a great selling point for the record, it also works against them. It’s so easy to get distracted trying to play an audio version of Where’s Waldo? that you cease paying attention to the songs themselves. Tomorrow’s Rain simply lack memorable tunes—this downpour washes away all too quickly. —JEFF TREPPEL 62 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
VALKYRIE
8
Fear
RELAPSE
Rad wings of destiny
From a cloud of Steppenwolf-like feedback emerges a clean, deep, rich voice. The guitar punch-in occurs at 1:37. That’s the moment that Valkyrie’s fourth album begins—in a hard, brief, arc-welding flare. When Jake and Pete Adams’ guitars return at the three-minute mark for 120 seconds of molten interplay, opener “Feeling So Low” defines Fear in a song. Ringing post-rock melody, long cut “Afraid to Live” quickly gathers speed and girth until it begins rippling eternity tones. Stark, slapping vox recall Def American Danzig, so when tossed to the brothers/co-vocalists’ instrumental harmonics, Valkyrie truly slay. Dominant singing, centrifuge bass and drums from Alan Fary and Warren Hawkins, and a workingman’s songcraft all lay a red coal carpet for the six-string thriller pulled off by this Virginia quartet founded by Jake in 2002 (Baroness great Pete joined two years later). Every great band excels in the engine room, but in metal, your headsman’s axe better be as sharp as a guillotine... and equally swift. Valkyrie spewed sticky-icky resin on their eponymous 2006 debut—doom meets desert rock, begging for a Man’s Ruin 10-inch way back when we were all much thinner—but Fear pushes into an altogether higher strata. “Loveblind” puts a pre-millennial production hurt on an ’80s banger, but all in service of the Adams boys’ massive riff tangle, which batters and slams like someone riding timber down river. All glory to Valkyrie. —RAOUL HERNANDEZ
VENOMOUS CONCEPT
8
Politics Versus the Erection SEASON OF MIST
Hard music for hard times
For those possessing even the most cursory familiarity with Venomous Concept, Politics Versus the Erection isn’t exactly rife with surprises—the Catherine Wheel-on-amphetamines bridge of “Promise” notwithstanding—but there sure as hell is a lot to love. Cut this longrunning underground supergroup—currently staffed by ex-Brutal Truth frontman Kevin Sharp, Napalm Death lifers Shane Embury and Danny Herrera, and John Cooke (Napalm Death live/Corrupt Moral Altar), but also boasting living legends Buzz Osborne and Danny Lilker as alumni—and it’ll bleed geysers of verdant, ridiculously top-shelf metal and thrashing punk-grind crossover. Which is exactly you
get in these 13 concise, satire-drenched, ultracatchy, über-brutal tracks crafted by deft hands and visionary minds honed by literal decades of Hadron Collider-levels of extreme music atom-smashing. The album cover, featuring a portrait of Alfred E. Neuman morphing into that of President Donald J. Trump, is an almost surreal reminder of how much the world has shifted/devolved since Venomous Concept’s last full-length, Kick Me Silly—VC III dropped on January 8, 2016. As one might imagine, the quartet’s signature melding of absurdism and apocalyptic rage feels more relevant than ever. It is also uplifting in a strange and powerful way—a primal, soul-recharging catharsis beckoning us… well, not to paradise, but to a less depressing, more regenerative wreckage. So, go ahead—claw the blood from your ears as you wipe the tears from your eyes. It’s going to get a fuck-ton louder before it gets any better. Pick your noise wisely. —SHAWN MACOMBER
WHITE DOG
7
White Dog RISE ABOVE
Retro rock’s best friend
The great fraud of contemporary vintage music is that, ultimately, you can never be sure if you’re at the mercy of another rock ‘n’ roll swindle. Are you listening to the debut of the latest retroobsessed deadheads from Austin, TX, or something Lee Dorrian found in the back of someone’s garage? When it comes to regurgitated heavy metal, at least those bands have the decency to rock good hair and spandex, therefore separating themselves honestly from the originators who almost definitely had split ends and wore jeans from C&A. These fuzzed-out blues kids, with their authentic amps and Dodge Sportmans, are confusing as hell. Hey, but at least White Dog, the newest discovery of relic rock kingpins Rise Above, have the decency to be from the U.S., so sounding like Little Feat or James Gang with a hard ‘n’ heavy makeover is forgiven. These young pups have a bark in ’em, though. Sure, drop this Summer of Love-tinged debut when you’re having your socially-distanced psychedelic backyard sesh, but don’t be surprised if you get swept up when singer Joe Sterling gets all “Lucifer come take our hands” or the Carl Amoss/Clementine De Hoyos guitarmonies wig out like they’re the Allman Brothers Band. That Dozza Cathedral-era “ooh” on “Black Powder,” too—no wonder he snapped them up. White Dog might just be the most fun we’ll have in lockdown. When there’s no future, where else but to look but back, right? —LOUISE BROWN
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31/07/2020 16:04
by
EUGENE S. ROBINSON
GET (BACK) IN THE RING E ugene, you got to listen to
these guys!” We were at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu before the COVID collapse. At the end of about an hour of trying to choke each other to death. There’s one thing I’ve learned since I started doing music, though, first with the hardcore band Whipping Boy and then with OXBOW and a shitload of side projects: People are always trying to get me to listen to music. Now, I understand how this might make sense in the same way that you imagine a murderer might like to hear slaughter stories, but it gets exhausting for a very simple reason: Not a lot of it is good. “Who is it?” “Cattle Decapitation.” The snob in me was like, “Yeah, yeah.” The Jiu Jitsu brown belt in me said, “Yeah, yeah… gimme it.” It’s not so much that I thought they would suck, but much more 64 : OCTOBER 2020 : DECIBEL
that I thought with a name like Cattle Decapitation, I’d already encountered the most interesting part of what they had to offer. But I walked outside, put the CD in and started driving to work. Ten minutes later, in the parking lot, I couldn’t get out of the car. I listened to the whole record. The Anthropocene Extinction. Got to work late, but when I finally arrived, I started cornering people like I had discovered something: “Have you heard Cattle Decapitation?!” “Only since 1996,” one friend drawled. “What took you so long?"” I explained that I had gotten tired of how badly most metal bands treated their vocals. Most sounded like guitar players who became singers by default without realizing that there are only two players that can ruin ANY band: a bad drummer or a bad singer. But it just seems as long as something comes out of the mouth of the person standing
behind the microphone, everyone thinks it’s OK. Me? As a singer? Nah, fuck that. But Cattle Decapitation? “I don’t know, man. This cat Travis, his vocals...” I was reduced to just hand-waving and trying to explain and failing, and then I realized what had happened. Shit just got away from me. It happens. How many times have you listened to Led Zeppelin? How many times did you need to? With a finite number of hours in a day, you realize that you can’t listen to it all. Which is a shameful way to approach music, especially if you make goddamn music. I mean, sure, I listened, but I listened to friends’ bands. I listened to Neurosis, Sumac, High on Fire, Cro-Mags, Harvey Milk, Ides of Gemini, Russian Circles, Rosetta, Agnostic Front, Endon, Boris. I listened to dudes we played with before: Intronaut, the
Melvins, Daughters, Celtic Frost. I had to interview Phil Anselmo? I started listening to all of his stuff. I even listened to guys I got into fistfights and near-fistfights with: King Diamond, Amplified Heat and others who don’t need the past all dredged up now. But getting out of my ghetto of known associates like you do when you’re new? Nah. And to think it took another fighter to get me here. Then I started taking note of the fighters who have been holding it down for metal without ceasing— Josh Barnett, Harley Flanagan, David Grossman, Ray Cappo—and I realized I was home. Harsh, hard, unrelenting and fearless. That home. So, consider this that barroom where, if you’re lucky, you come out in one piece and, if you’re unlucky, you’ll learn some valuable life lessons. That’s the least/most you can expect/hope for.
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