Decibel Magazine #193 - November 2020

OCTOBER FILE DON'T YOU OF FAME PALLBEARER FORGET ABOUT THEM DIE KREUZEN HALL

REFUSE/RESIST

RILEY

GALE 1986-2020

DROPDEAD HAUNT

GENGHIS TRON SVALBARD ISENGARD UNDEATH WAYFARER CHROME WAVES

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NOVEMBER 2020 // No. 193

Soul Survivors

FLEXI DISC

E XT R E M ELY EXTREME

November 2020 [R 193] decibelmagazine.com

upfront 8 obituary:

riley gale The metal community loses a friend and ally

10 metal muthas Hopping proud 12 low culture Popular opinion 13 no corporate beer You ever try to drink a beer… on weed?

14 in the studio:

genghis tron

Taking a hiatus from hitaus

16 undeath Looking forward to uncanceling tours 18 chrome waves Live for the moment 20 svalbard All the small things 22 vatican shadow Burn, baby, burn 24 isengard From kvlt to cult 26 wayfarer Loved to death

reviews

30 haunt To the power of one

59 lead review Scott Ian and Dave Lombardo join Mr. Bungle to give their most straight-forward thrash offering yet on the re-recorded Revenge of the Easter Bunny Demo

34 q&a: pallbearer Brett Campbell won’t forget his touring days 38 the decibel

hall of fame Die Kreuzen lose their hardcore inclinations and early fanbase in favor of long-term appreciation and happiness with their sophomore effort October File

Let There Be Light COVER STORY

COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY DAVE CREANEY

28 draghkar Long-distance relationships

features 32 dropdead Action/reaction

48

60 album reviews Releases from bands that want it to stop, just please stop, including Carcass, Krallice and Satan 80 damage ink No Buzzkill

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REFUSE/RESIST

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within hours of word that Riley Gale passed away was as unprecedented as the depth of emotions many of them conveyed. You could have spent hours scrolling through online reactions as friends and fans processed disbelief and grief in real time. I did because after listening to Nightmare Logic repeatedly and reaching out to a few mutual friends of ours, I didn’t really know what else to do.

I won’t attempt to do Riley’s legacy justice here. Besides, our own Shawn Macomber, who authored our February 2019 Power Trip cover story—a favorite of Riley’s, actually—handles that eloquently elsewhere in this issue. But the impact that Power Trip and their fallen frontman have had on underground punk and metal in a relatively short period of time is both undeniable and extraordinary.

Time is the operative word, of course. We don’t have much, and Riley, in particular, got far less than he deserved. If these past six months of pandemic-enforced sacrifice have taught us anything, hopefully it’s a better appreciation for what we do have, when we have it.

Whether that’s the stability of a job, the ability to attend a show or something irreplaceable like the presence of a loved one, nothing is permanent. It’s easy to forget that. But it will be impossible to forget Riley Gale. Swing at the world.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

READER OF THE

MONTH band is jamming. Brisbane, Fortitude Valley and West End is where the metal action is at (about 100 kms/60 miles away). I’ve been gigless this year. Just missed out on Obituary and Wormrot in January—sold out super quick!

Spewing I didn’t get to see Wormrot (have seen Obituary twice before).

Matt Strickland

Mooloolah Valley, Queensland, Australia

You’re a psychologist who works with kids and families. Has being a lifelong metal fan prepared you in any way for such a challenging/rewarding profession?

You’re an Australian who has been subscribing since issue No. 114. First, thanks for the longtime support. Out of curiosity, just how long does it take for the magazine to get to you anyway?

Absolutely! Growing up, I always felt a bit different; and even though I didn’t recognize it at the time, metal acknowledged these feelings, told me that they were kinda normal and helped me to feel that I belonged to something.

My first metal show was Metallica on the …And Justice for All tour, and I remember feeling like I belonged. Lots of the kids and teenagers I see feel anxious and disconnected for some reason or another, and metal has helped me to understand this. Some of my clients have been headbangers, and so a brief chat about what’s on the stereo (or Spotify playlist these days) helps them to settle and feel and get connected. If it’s been a tough day, then a bit of Dreamarcher, Celtic Frost or Gatecreeper helps!

Hey, no problem! My wife bought some of my subscriptions, so it might even be earlier. I love the mag, man. I think you guys do an awesome job of expressing the passion, but being cerebral enough that I don’t feel like I’m treated like a dumb arse! I also love [the] Hall of Fame, Metal Muthas, the reviews—all of it, really! During COVID, there was definitely a delay, but normally about three to four weeks; worth the wait!

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Your city has a total population of just over 3,000. Based on that, we’re guessing— pre-pandemic—that not too many metal shows were rolling through town. Where would you travel to catch the nearest gig?

Not too many metal gigs in town unless my

We’re old, diSEMBOWELMENT are the defining Australian extreme metal band to us. What are some current Australian metal bands that Decibel is totally blowing it by not covering more?

Oh man, I feel like I’m letting the side down.

Being a family man, business owner and being in a band means I don’t get out to see local bands very often anymore. Metal is such an international thing these days, as I’m sure you guys know, that I listen to bands from everywhere. You know, you’ve got the obvious ones—Portal, King Parrot, Lo!, Misery.

Something that might need a Hall of Fame is Mortal Sin’s Face of Despair! It’s a super underrated album, panned by some critics, but I find myself going back to it and thinking it is totally awesome! Gee, I feel like I’m not repping hard enough for Australia here; those damn European, Nordic and U.S. bands are taking up my time!

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

OBITUARIES

RILEY

A

GALE 1986-2020

s the kinetic, fiery frontman and wildly imaginative lyricist for thrash

metal-revitalizing Texas supernova Power Trip, Riley Gale, who passed away on August 24 at the brutally young age of 34, often served as an enthusiastic guide to the darker, more nihilistic side of existence: For example, though searing Nightmare Logic (2017) album opener “Soul Sacrifice” spans a mere 10 lines, it manages to get “You falter in your judgment / Now your spirit is mine to break” in the first stanza and “I stand on your throat / To silence your life / Your punishment? Soul sacrifice!” in the last. The head-turning early Triple-B Records comp track “The Hammer of Doubt” (2010) warns, “Keep searching for the light / Waste your life hunting something that you’ll never find / You want the absolute? / There’s only one thing you got to do / Feel the barrel touch the front of your head… As the hammer strikes the pin / Ask yourself: “Is this how you thought it would end?” Manifest Decimation (2013) jam “Power Trip” strikes a similar sinister tone: “You want to double down? Well, I’ll break you twice / Buy into the bullshit with your head as the price.”

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Yet as Victor Hugo noted during an 1878 speech marking the centennial of Voltaire’s death: “There are good abysses: Such are the abysses in which evil is engulfed.”

And Riley Gale’s abyss was a very good, evil engulfing abyss. He was, much like the Voltaire of Hugo’s tribute, a man who “waged the splendid kind of warfare… the war of thought against matter, the war of reason against prejudice, the war of the just against the unjust, the war for the oppressed against the oppressor, the war of kindness.”

Yes, Gale’s vision and artistry had its malevolent twists and baleful turns—not to encourage despair, but, rather, by naming the unadulterated reality of our internal and external adversaries, to more effectively push on toward positive self-actualization, community and love.

PHOTO BY HRISTO SHINDOV

“As we struggle in the fight to survive,” Gale sings on Nightmare Logic’s title track, “Through strange domains and vicious ways / From the darkest depths we will arise / This realm will be their demise.” On the 2018 Adult Swim single “Hornet’s Nest” Gale extols, “Our united forces / Thousands of singular voices” hanging above the heads of oppressors and enforcers of conformity “like the Sword of Damocles.” He uses the anthemic grinder “Crossbreaker” as an opportunity to ask, “Are you caught up in the storm?” before unfurling a map to self-liberation: “A warrior reborn; with the knowledge to guide him home / Become the center of the void and let go.”

It is a message that clearly resonated deeply, as anyone who basked in the transcendent ferocity and synergistic unity of a Power Trip performance well knows. The circle pits may have ground to a halt (on this plane of existence, anyway), but mark these words: There are metalheads yet unborn who Gale will inspire and raise up; souls will continue to be stirred, ambitions stoked, and lives changed across decades to come for those seekers compelled to hit play on Manifest Decimation or Nightmare Logic. Not because Power Trip is on Prince Harry’s iPod or that Gale was eulogized by everyone from Fox News to Ice-T to Obituary to Kreator to Virginia House of

Delegates member Danica Roem to comic book artist Becky Cloonan—though that degree of cultural bridging is certainly its own remarkable testimony. Instead, dig just below the marquee mourners and you’ll find legions of salt-of-theearth members of the underground expressing deep, authentic grief and appreciation for the life, message, myriad kindnesses, unrelenting honesty and realness of Riley Gale.

“I want people to feel connected,” Gale told Decibel in a February 2019 Power Trip cover story.

“What I see in our crowd is [people] who understand how fucked up and cruel the world is, but despite it all, want to be good to each other and have an outlet to express their frustrations in a safe and cathartic way that doesn’t lead to real fights, or harming themselves, or bottling it up inside until it becomes poisonous. In that respect, they’re us and we’re them, and none of us have to fake shit with each other. If I ever want to be something I’m not, I’ll go into acting.

That’s not what Power Trip is for.”

As his friend and Dark Operative label head Brent Eyestone wrote shortly after Gale’s death, “If Riley meant anything to you artistically, personally or otherwise, please carry his spirit forward in all your creations and accomplishments. He was rooting for you, too.” To circle

back around to Hugo, “There is only one power, conscience in the service of justice; and there is only one glory, genius in the service of truth.”

Gale, as extreme in his constant conscientious self-reflection as he was onstage, checked both boxes indelibly.

So, how to sum up, for now, this short, but earth-shaking life? Franz Grillparzer’s 1827 eulogy for another genius—albeit one operating in a different subgenre—Ludwig Van Beethoven seems apropos: “As the behemoth storms through the seas, so he strained the boundaries of his art. From the cooing of the dove to the rolling of thunder, from the most intricately woven of idiosyncratic artistic devices to the terrifying point where achieved form becomes the lawless clashing forces of nature, he had reckoned everything, grasped everything… Until his death he retained a humane heart toward all people… devoted his talent and life to the whole world! So he was, so he died, so he shall live for all time. [G]overn your pain! You have not lost him, you have gained him. Not until the gates of our life close behind us do the gates to the temple of immortality spring open.”

Power Trip forever. Riley Gale forever.

Now, let’s fuck this shit up. —SHAWN MACOMBER

DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2020 : 9

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

Well, here are the records that we spun most while not giving a fuck about your Zoom cover jam sessions

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

This Month's Mutha: Mary Coleman Mutha of Zach Coleman of Khemmis

Tell us a little about yourself.

Hi, my name is Mary, and I am Zach’s mom. I am a nurse by profession. It has been difficult working in the hospital during this pandemic. Every day is like dodging a bullet, and I am grateful that I have. I am very family-oriented, and my best friend is Zach’s dad, Larry, my husband. I enjoy cooking and experimenting with new recipes. I am very proud that both of my sons have each grown into exceptional men.

What was Zach like as a young man?

Zach was an enjoyable child growing up. He never got into any real trouble. Zach was wellbehaved and has always been very respectful of others. He was a quiet child and a thinker.

He loved to play board games, video games and sports. He was a good student and athlete. He first started playing music in the middle school band. After Zach learned the saxophone, he wanted to play the drums and started lessons.

He had a natural talent for music and soon mastered the drums. Zach’s first band was with his brother and friends.

Khemmis’ Hunted was Decibel’s favorite album of 2016. Has Zach ever earned a comparable award?

Zach never really had anything big like Decibel’s favorite album award happen to him, though he did receive trophies for playing sports growing up. He also graduated magna cum laude from 10 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

college with his master’s degree. Zach has always been on the creative side. As a hobby out of college, Zach dabbled in homebrewing. Zach entered homebrewing contests and won awards for his homebrews. After the homebrewing awards, Zach decided to master microbrewing and left Texas for Colorado to pursue his dreams.

Your son is also head brewer at TRVE Brewing.

Do you have a favorite beverage that he’s responsible for?

Zach introduced me to his sours. I love them all and am always amazed at the different ingredients he uses, but I am partial to his cherry sour ales.

Have you had the opportunity to see him much during the pandemic?

I have not been able to see Zach since the pandemic, but I was fortunate enough to see him in February and the first week of March before the pandemic locked down. I talk with Zach weekly.

Zach amazes me because he can pretty much do anything he puts his mind to.

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Dropdead, Dropdead  Power Trip, Live in Seattle: 05.28.2018  Bad Religion, No Control  Carcass, Despicable  Celestial Season, The Secret Teachings ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Power Trip, Nightmare Logic  D.I., Ancient Artifacts  Idles, Brutalism  Metallica, Ride the Lightning  Soundtrack, Repo Man ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  Incantation, Sect of Vile Divinities  Napalm Death, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism  Uada, Djinn  Necrot, Mortal  Clutch, Run, John Barleycorn, Run (The Weathermaker Vault Series) ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  Power Trip, Nightmare Logic  Weakling, Dead As Dreams  Paysage d’Hiver, Im Wald  Leviathan, Verräter  Woe, Withdrawl ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  Model Prisoner, Piss Universe  Pig Destroyer, The Octagonal Stairway  Power Trip, Nightmare Logic  Paranoid, Destroy Future Less System  Necrot, Mortal

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Bobby Ferry : -(16) Agent Orange, Living Darkness (40th Anniversary Edition)  Primitive Man, Immersion  O Zorn!, Your Killer  Keverra, Keverra  Telepathy, Burn Embrace

We know Zach is an exceptional brewer and drummer. What are some of his hidden talents?

Since he bought a house, he has developed into a great carpenter and handyman. He is also pretty good at gardening and just pickled some of his veggies. Zach’s talent is whatever he sets his mind on. He knows no boundaries. —ANDREW BONAZELLI PHOTO BY CHAD KELCO

Halloween Hostility few weeks ago, I had a very vivid

dream where, upon waking up, I was convinced I wasn’t dreaming, but had actually visited hell. It was incredibly real, and the waves of loneliness I experienced— as well as the other anxiety-inducing emotions—felt like they would be perfect to write about since we’re gearing up for Halloween and I haven’t ever touched on anything like that in this column before.

Then someone asked Ozzy what he thought about Donald Trump and that tabloid heap-ofshit website hopped on it, and people started sharing it, and here we are. You were going to get a glimpse into the existential void that I envisioned hell to be, but instead I have to shift focus from that to bitch about this.

Ozzy—and I’m giving you the CliffsNotes since such an erudite mind obviously had lengthy insight into such matters—said Trump was a dunce. Because of such a brave stance, someone felt that this was somehow fucking news and they paid someone to write a story about it. And it started circulating because a lot of you apparently don’t have anything better to do with your time on a fucking weekend. And because this circulated, people started having opinions on it; some were even heroic enough to refer to him as “Drumpf,” while others burned their Ozzy records, forgetting that they already paid for the fucking things. But since life has no meaning anymore, neither do actions, I guess, unless they’re on Instagram.

This all comes at a time where every fucking thought that dribbles out of a musician’s mouth regarding the asshole with arms and legs that “leads” this country becomes a fucking 900-word thinkpiece. The drummer from System of a Down thinks Trump is pretty cool—better write half a dozen anal word squirts about it. Dude from Megadeth thinks the country is going in the wrong direction? Gotta check in and see what Scott fucking Ian thinks. After you’ve done that, see if the guy from Tool wants to leave an opinion, if you can get his dick out of his own mouth long enough to capture a coherent thought.

12 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

Music is obviously intertwined with politics, no matter what that asshole in a faded Slayer shirt who’s always chittering “it’s all metal, maaaan” thinks. And we’re in the most divisive time in American political history, unless you want to count the other times. So, there’s no getting away from this, no matter how detached and aloof and/ or stupid you may be. There’s obviously a lot of extremely intelligent artists out there with very insightful opinions who may be able to influence you to look into different paths of thinking. Ozzy fucking Osbourne is not one of them, and I really don’t give a shit what the drummer of a band that hasn’t been relevant in three Presidents has to say about how a fucking apple pie Kit Kat tastes, let alone his stance on the President.

Any celebrity should not be your compass for how you plan to vote. And a lot of the time it feels like they’re just inserting themselves into these things because they’re upset the attention isn’t directly on them. Headlines like “Shitty Musician Owns Politician Who’s Probably Never Heard of Him Anyway” should not even exist. And you’re not doing anything to move the conversation into a productive direction by sharing this drivel; you’re just putting money in the pockets of websites that hope this kind of shit continues because it’s paying off their court costs. Try to go about this like an adult, and educate yourself on the issues that matter to you—not just in the presidential election, but in all the down-ballot shit as well, the positions where things that actually impact your life occur. Not just because the guy who sang “War Pigs” back when your parents were still pulling out in time said something. I don’t like Trump at all but, Jesus Christ, what a sensational waste of fucking bandwidth.

When the door of the building opened and I walked out to the street, everything was covered in a thick fog as I watched previously unseen men shut every door in the complex, barring my re-entry. But the building was the only way home. And that’s the hell you missed instead of the one we’ve made. Wash your fucking hands and go vote.

TRAPPIST FRONTMAN crafts a monthly journey through

MORBID ALES

BY CHRIS DODGE

Reign in Bud: Cannabis-Infused Beer

T

hrashers far and wide have spent

years mixing beer and weed. In the process, cautionary tales have been told about the hazards of ending up “crossfaded,” that fabled crippling combo of beer and weed resulting in simultaneously getting drunk and high, but not in a good way. Scott E. Lukas, PhD studied the crossfading phenomenon at Harvard Medical School and concluded the sequence of consumption makes a difference. Alcohol increases absorption of THC—the compound in weed that makes you high—resulting in a brutal buzz that’ll give you the spins. If you drink first, then smoke, you could easily be laid out sweating on your back and gripping the carpet for stability. An easy mantra to remember the correct order: “Beer before bong, that’s just wrong. Bong before beer, you’re in the clear.”

But now every hesher’s dream has come true with a recent influx of cannabisinfused beer. Hops used in beer are genetically related to marijuana buds, as both are from the Cannabaceae family, so it makes perfect sense. But if brews with weed are a reality, how do you avoid the painful crossfade? A few years back, there was a hemp beer craze with New Belgium’s the

Loved and weeded out  Two of the “cannabis-infused hoppy sparkling waters” (wink) available from Lagunitas

Hemperor HPA, Humboldt Brewing’s Hemp Ale, and Lagunitas’ SuperCritical Ale being legit alcoholic libations with hemp extracts and additives. While some were marketed as cannabis grogs, these brews imbued weedy flavors, but lawfully could not include reefer’s true psychotropic THC or relaxing CBD elements. In other words, the weed element existed in taste only. Outside America, this is true as well. You would think the O.G. pot meccas overseas would be way ahead of us, but no. Amsterdam’s Multitrance brews a Haze Cannabis Beer, a proper 4.9% ABV ale, but even this is just a teaser containing hemp oil only, sans THC and its narcotic effects.

Enter the recent legalization of recreational marijuana in various states, opening the doors for chronic edibles and beverages for the first time ever. Including beer. Recent brewers like New Frontier, Ceria and High Style focus solely on these doobified bevies, while some legit old-school brewers like Lagunitas and Flying Dog are also trying their hand.

I’m not a stoner, not even an occasional one, but once I caught wind of this new brew avenue, I had to give it a spin. Turns out in Cali there are very few on the market, and they require tenacity and patience to find.

Kind of like the pre-internet days of trying to

find rare vinyl: You know it’s out there; you just don’t know how long it will take to find.

Online, I found several iterations—IPAs, a Pale Ale, Helles, Lager—but venturing out, I hit countless dead ends until I finally laid my hands on two variants of Hi-Fi Hops from Lagunitas. At $10 for a 12-ounce bottle, it’s not cheap, but any sort of weed dispensary visit is not meant for those light in the wallet. One version of Hi-Fi Hops is 18mg CBD and 2mg THC, meaning more body relaxation and less brain scrambling. Another with 10mg THC and 2mg CBD is the opposite, meaning more high, less therapeutic. Both were similar and practically interchangeable in appearance and taste.

Colorless and hazy like carbonated, soapy dishwater without the mouthfeel and viscosity of a true hazy beer. Both were light, but tasty and tropical like a watered-down IPA, and both made me feel silly, but not out of control.

But look closer at the label: “cannabisinfused hoppy sparkling water.” WTF? Yep, despite the relaxed herb laws, a true weed and beer marriage technically still does not exist. Aside from a handful of tinctures on the market, selling a blend of alcohol and pot is still illegal. At least it’s beer-ish and I’m glad I tried it. And I won’t get crossfaded. Needless to say, this is the only bud you’ll find me drinking.

DECIBEL : NOV EMBER 2020 : 13

GENGHIS TRON

I

STUDIO REPORT

t was a true hiatus,” asserts Genghis Tron guitarist/bassist

GENGHIS TRON

Hamilton Jordan. “We’d always intended to record another album; we just didn’t know it was going to take 13 years to do it!”

ALBUM TITLE After the release of 2008’s Board Up the House, the experi-metal TBA electro-grind band took to the road—their adventures hilariously PRODUCER documented at the time in a Decibel column by former frontman Genghis Tron and Mookie Singerman—and once the album cycle wound down in Kurt Ballou 2010, they mutually decided to take a break. But as keyboardist STUDIO Michael Sochynsky reports, “Life and being an adult got in the GodCity, Salem, MA way. We wanted to take a break from touring, but the years RECORDING DATES started creeping by and we were in different places in our lives.

August 2020 But we were sending each other tracks and ideas the whole time.”

RELEASE DATE One day in 2018, when the two former college roommates were “First half of 2021” visiting, Jordan showed Sochynsky some material he’d been LABEL working on. They began working on it together, and by the end of the day, the itch was back.

Relapse “It was like, ‘If we’re ever going to do this again, let’s do it now,’” says Sochynsky.

After Singerman politely declined his old position, the pair recruited Detroit native Tony Wolski and made the significant move of employing a live drummer in place of the various machines and software programs that had powered the band since their 2004 formation. Nick Yachysyn (Baptists, Sumac) was approached and immediately hopped on board, contributing to the creative process and

Genghis Tron’s new, refined sound, despite living in Vancouver and COVID-19 curtailing his ability to travel across the border for writing, rehearsal and studio sessions.

“The things that interest us have changed,” explains Sochynsky. “On this album, the songs are longer with a more hypnotic, psychedelic vibe. They’re still heavy with crazy moments, but there’s a lot more subtlety [and] layers, and it’s more synth-driven. We programmed drums when we were writing and had been going back and forth with Nick. We hashed out demos in great detail online and then he recorded live drums in Vancouver and sent us the tracks.

We’re working with Kurt now to mix the record with what he recorded.”

“The oversimplified version of our recording story is that we’ve spent three weeks at GodCity,” explains Jordan. “We showed up with a lot of tracks, spent four or five days on guitar and bass, and then two weeks mixing because our songs have upwards of 100 tracks, and it takes a long time to get that down.” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

STUDIO SHORT SHOTS

A NEW BEGINNING FOR EIGHT BELLS 14 : NOV EMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

Portland’s premier psych-doom caravan Eight Bells have landed at the Hallowed Halls recording studio with Billy Anderson to record what Decibel’s own Matt Solis, who joined Eight Bells last year, calls “a new chapter” for the band. Solis says, “After years of lineup changes, personal hardships and seemingly endless obstacles… we’re excited for the opportunity to finally bring these songs to life.”

Frontwoman Melynda Jackson admits that while the album has yet to be named, fans of the band’s dynamic sound can expect more “heartbreaking cruelty and devastating sadness of the modern world bearing down on you without respite. Or, if you’re feeling literal, doom metal with elements of black/death/progressive/ psychedelic metal.”

“These new songs are much more riff-oriented,” says Solis. “[We’re] including male/female harmonies and death metal-style growling for the first time.”

“There has been a lot of struggle to get this material ready for production,” explains Jackson. But now that they’ve made it to the studio, the guitarist/vocalist says, the rush is over. “We don’t know when, but no release date will be set until the physical version is actually in hand. I am hoping for Spring 2021.” —DUTCH PEARCE

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UNDEATH

Not even a pandemic can stop rising Rochester death dealers

L

ess than two years ago, a promising demo came out from an extremely talented and unique Rochester-based death metal trio calling themselves Undeath. Four months later, the band released their Sentient Autolysis EP, which displayed an astonishing evolution in their already remarkable style and captured the attention of death metal fans around the world. Few bands had ever struck on such charismatic and catchy, yet undeniably brutal and subtly technical death metal. Then the pandemic struck. ¶ “We actually were on tour right before the pandemic really started getting serious here,” guitarist Kyle Beam recalls.

“We were out with Sanguisugabogg for some shows, played two of them before our van broke down and ended up [dropping] off the remainder of the tour. A week later, shows everywhere were cancelled. It was definitely a big ‘well, I guess that’s that’ moment for us.” ¶ But Undeath were one step ahead all along.

Reflecting on the events leading up to the release of their debut full-length, Lesions of a Different Kind (out Sept. 23 on Prosthetic), 16 : NOV EMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

Beam says, “Pretty much immediately after [recording Sentient Autolysis] we started working on material for the LP.” He goes on to explain that a few months after the release of Sentient Autolysis, Prosthetic made an offer. “An excuse to keep making riffs is all we needed,” Beam affirms.

In January of this year, Undeath entered the studio to record their debut full-length. Undeath “had a good amount of touring scheduled, including a bunch of dates out west” before, as Beam puts it, “the world plunged into chaos.

“Unfortunately, there’s no blueprint,” he continues in regards to how they plan to promote the album in the new age of social distancing. “Fortunately, everyone and their mother is staring at their phone and probably hasn’t spent money on bars every weekend for four months.” Looking on the bright side, Beam adds, “We’re definitely

hoping to reschedule that and anything else we had to cancel as soon as shows can happen again.”

Featuring Trevor Strnad from the Black Dahlia Murder on guest vocals—not to mention the wildest artwork of the year, executed by Undeath’s own Matt Browning—Lesions of a Different Kind does a fine job of promoting itself. It’s a record so good, it almost doesn’t make sense.

So, what’s Undeath’s secret?

“Since the demo onward, we’ve practiced nearly every day for about two years,” Beam reveals. Even while working opposite shifts, Undeath still practiced daily. “Oftentimes we would meet up at 11 p.m. to work on music when [Matt] had to go to work at 7 a.m. and I had just finished a shift. We’re always trying to make the turns, twists and hooks [in our songs] tighter and tighter until eventually we have a diamond.” In this case, that’s 10 diamonds. —DUTCH PEARCE

PHOTO BY JARED WELCH

UNDEATH

CHROME WAVES Midwest post-black metallers continue prolific creative tear, outlive internal drama

J

eff wilson is acutely aware of how context and timing can change everything about an album release. Back in March, he was putting the finishing touches on Chrome Waves’ second full-length, Where We Live. It was the most positive and collaborative experience he’d had writing a record in a decade; given that the Chicago scene veteran’s musical résumé includes stints in Abigail Williams, Nachtmystium, Wolvhammer and Tombs, this was an invigorating and welcome shift. Then COVID-19 became a truly global pandemic, with cases multiplying on every continent save for Antarctica. ¶ “Towards the end, [the pandemic] had just started,” Wilson says. “[Lyricist, vocalist and guitarist] James [Benson] already had the title before, and I wasn’t really into it at first… But when everything started happening, it kinda felt like… this could really make sense. ¶ “The last record was about being down and depressed,” continues the guitarist, bassist, keyboardist and occasional vocalist for the project he’s spearheaded since 2010.

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He’s referring to the band’s longawaited debut, 2019’s A Grief Observed.

A depressive slab of atmospheric blackgaze, the record is marked by its poetic contemplations on death and depression.

“The lyrical content on this one is more about rising above that and being more positive,” Wilson continues. “So, you know, hopefully it all ties it together—this is where we live, but we have to be better for everyone else, not just ourselves.”

Sonically, that lifted weight resulted in an expansive and robust sound that is devoid of black metal.

While the vocals remain frequently harsh, the remainder of Where We Live holds more in common with progressive and atmospheric postmetal acts like Isis and Rosetta.

There’s also a strong twinge of latter-era Katatonia. Further heightened by a collaborative writing process that included the drum work of new addition Dustin Boltjes (Wretch, ex-Skeletonwitch),

the songs are movements that ebb and flow with quiet/loud dynamics.

Enhanced by mournful cello and clean vocals, Where We Live is selfreleased once more by Wilson’s own Disorder Recordings, named after the Joy Division track of the same name released in 1979. The entire package is indicative of a shift both sonically and personally away from heavy metal.

“The bands I was in previously, it seems like there was so much internal drama that I was just constantly weighed down,” explains Wilson.

“The last record was such a long time coming, there was a lot of emotion involved, a lot of anger and resentment. I think it really comes out in the songwriting. To have that weight off my shoulders when we started going into this one, it was a lot easier to do things in a different light and put a different color on the palette.

Everything before was all black and gray; on this one, we added more shades.” —SARAH KITTERINGHAM

PHOTO BY GUS MATRACIA

CHROME WAVES

SVALBARD

Bristol-based post-metallic hardcore act finds their center amid global grounding

I

n addition to not only ravaging lives and businesses, but demonstrating the shortcomings, lies and incompetency of some governments, the global COVID-19 pandemic has had a positive side: It has shaken people from the doldrums of routine and demonstrated what life could look like by forcing a step back. Like every band, Svalbard have been grounded, and it’s been additionally disappointing for the Bristol-based post-hardcore/post-black metal quartet, as 2020 initially had a stacked summer of festival appearances preceding the release of third album When I Die, Will I Get Better?. Vocalist/guitarist Serena Cherry is understandably frustrated and disappointed at plans being thwarted, but she’s also kind of digging the reduced pace. ¶ “The lockdown situation has really changed my perspective on a lot of things,” she admits. “It’s made me realize the hope of living a smaller life and focusing on the smaller details of the immediate world around me rather than constantly having to be busy doing this and that. It’s made me realize it’s actually OK to sit around and play PlayStation every night,

20 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

and it’s been nice to have an instance where things like staying home and staying away from people are legitimized!”

In some way, the band has welcomed the virus-imposed break.

A rigorous schedule followed the release of previous album, 2018’s It’s Hard to Have Hope that involved U.K., European and Japanese tours/ festival appearances. Still, creating When I Die, Will I Get Better? was on the minds of Cherry, fellow guitarist/vocalist Liam Phelan, bassist Alex Heffernan and drummer Mark Lilley as they interspersed writing sessions with live prep and duties.

“We were never focused on writing at all,” Cherry laughs. “Especially last year, when it was always ‘rehearse for a tour and write when we could.’ But we definitely crafted the album more this time around.

We had ideas from two years ago, but after we’d write more songs, we’d go back and change them so they’d fit more with what we were doing. There was a lot of back

and forth. It’s never the case with Svalbard that we write a song and finish it in a straight line.”

And despite When I Die sounding melodically brighter, with a fullbodied, elegant heaviness teeming with the dynamics that make live shows a holistic experience (as opposed to a start-to-finish monochromatic pummeling), Cherry defiantly compartmentalizes time on stage from time in the practice space.

“I can’t speak for my bandmates, but I’m a very selfish writer,” she says. “I liken it to being possessed, like there’s some weird spirit that tells me what to play, I play it and that’s it. I don’t ever sit there and think about what other people or the crowds want because I don’t want it to ever sound forced or clichéd. For me, the creative process is a spiritual one where I let whatever happens happen without paying it too much thought. I don’t think about anybody else when I’m writing; it’s all for me.”

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PHOTO BY TIM BIRKBECK

SVALBARD

VATICAN SHADOW

Ubiquitous American noise artist infiltrates extreme metal scene with religious militant industrial

W

ide and ever-reaching is the shadow cast by American-born, internationally renowned extreme sound polyglot Dominick Fernow. Amid his hyper-prolific and widely celebrated output of harsh noise, jungle ambient and much more, Fernow’s wartime industrial project known as Vatican Shadow is perhaps his best-known endeavor. ¶ “Vatican Shadow is driven by current events [...] analyzed through the gray lense of the past,” Fernow writes regarding how his latest album Persian Pillars of the Gasoline Era came together. ¶ Out now on 20 Buck Spin, Persian Pillars draws its inspiration from the redacted connections between the overthrow of the Iranian government, the Gulf War and 9/11. According to Fernow, “the hanging of Shahram Amiri, the Iranian nuclear physicist accused of espionage who lived in America,” stood out to him, but he “was never able to find a link connecting it back to the core Vatican Shadow inspiration, the Gulf War, and the ensuing response through foreign and domestic terrorism.” Then “the assassination of [Qasem] Soleimani [in January 2020],” Fernow says, “rekindled his desire to deal with Iranian political violence through the scope of Vatican Shadow.”

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Not only is Persian Pillars Vatican Shadow’s first album on a metal label, but it’s also Fernow’s heaviest album to date. According to Fernow, a self-described Luddite who’s “stubborn and intolerant towards tech” and still uses “free software from 20 years ago with outdated operating systems [...] and tapes, tape decks and Walkmans,” Persian Pillars “sounds better only because of what Justin Broadrick did on mastering.”

Opening with an uncanny cinematic intensity, Persian Pillars feels as much like some kind of immersive, interactive film as it does a dark ambient/industrial dance record. Fernow says, indeed, that the intro is crucial.

“I was always exhilarated by the intro to Deicide’s Once Upon the Cross,” he says. “Any good metal album has [to have] a compelling intro. People always talk about opening credits in movies, but personally I’ve always been more interested by the movie studio logos that come before the intros. Think Castle Rock Entertainment, Jerry Bruckheimer, the first

half of the Tri-Star, Orion, and the ultimate in darkness, Lakeshore Entertainment, with the kid jumping off the end of the dock into the water. They tend to be dark and existential and tap into the meaninglessness of what’s to come…”

He continues: “I wanted to apply that sense of doom based on VHS footage from Desert Storm that I received as a submission from the family of an Apache helicopter pilot. The mix of aerial desert abstraction with candid narration perfectly captures the human details in an inhuman story told mostly by machines. Remember, Desert Storm was the first war in history where a human being surrendered to a robot.”

Meanwhile, Persian Pillars of the Gasoline Era will surely represent a first for many intrepid metalheads.

Yes, it is dance music, but as the man behind the Shadow himself puts it, “It’s infiltration—industrial music in content and dance music in arena [...] Perhaps death dance music is better.” —DUTCH PEARCE

PHOTO BY SVEN MARQUARDT

VATICAN SHADOW

ISENGARD

ISENGARD

The return of Fenriz’s fabled folk metal project is surprising, but to him it just feels like waking up

M

emory is a fickle thing,” Fenriz reminisces. “I knew I had made a classic metal song back in ’92 or ’93 [...] It quickly got lost, though, and over the years, the memory of it became fainter and fainter; this spring, I cut back on my day job, which resulted in more time to ponder if I really made that track, because at this point it was starting to feel like it could all have been a dream.” ¶ The result of digging in “the vaults” and restoring memory, Isengard’s doom metal-inspired second album Vårjevndøgn is a departure to some, but Fenriz is quick to clarify that “Isengard was never just doom or just black metal.” To him, Isengard’s formula was scattered, a smattering of ideas based on things he liked, ranging from the Sisters of Mercy to the Morrisound sound, resulting in what he calls “Cult Metal.” ¶ But what is Cult Metal? Fenriz explains: “Definitions are up for debate! But basically it is something wonky that feels odd, or it can have too lo-fi sound (guilty). Like a really good band, but still with a weird or off-key vocalist, or some other instrument that is weird or off. Make mistakes! Or keep mistakes!”

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Some examples? “Probably [the] most famous bands that come to mind, and kind of also the best Cult Metal would be, for instance, Cirith Ungol or even Manilla Road, but these would be the Metallicas of Cult Metal,” he reckons. “Even bands that later become solid or conventional could be called Cult Metal for their first output—Hirax comes to mind—and so on.”

Does Vårjevndøgn fit under Fenriz’s idea of Cult Metal? Certainly—this is not a pristine album, but through that, it has character.

This is a young, teenage Fenriz adventuring through part of his taste. “[Vårjevndøgn] unearths more of my personality from that time,” our man says. “It’s a musical photo album from the days of ’89-’93.

“I found so much that I didn’t use, and that could feel slightly embarrassing, as I found a lot of recordings that I did for fun,” he continues. “I found lots of tapes where we had

just recorded us in Valhall partying, attempts at writing rock ballads and alternative rock, joke songs and a really weird version of this Vårjevndøgn album’s ‘[Floating With the] Ancient Tide,’ which made me see that the original is really good songwriting, and I kind of wish I would have included the weird version.

“I was always alone. So, nothing happened. HAHA!” Fenriz reminisces about the album sessions. “I do remember one time in 1990 when I had taken a long route home feeling I needed to make a totally crushing track, but with some impenetrable noise like a mix between Mayhem’s Deathcrush and that blue rehearsal tape by Dismember… but I couldn’t do it! I CAN’T CRUSH! I didn’t find this track, by the way.

Either I deleted it or it is still there in the array of tapes somewhere.”

Here’s hoping the world gets to hear more from Fenriz’s vault soon.

—JON ROSENTHAL

WAYFARER

WAYFARER

A history of Wild West violence is the backdrop for Colorado crew’s black metal stunner

I

t was bound to happen sooner or later. While the social distancing precautions needed to stymie COVID-19 stopped the music industry dead in its tracks, it was only a matter of time before bands began recording albums even during the age of the novel coronavirus. Lucky for us, one of the first bands to don masks and brave the studio was Colorado black metal desperados Wayfarer. ¶ The Denver quartet originally planned on returning to New York to work with Colin Marston, with whom they’d made their previous record, 2018’s World’s Blood. According to guitarist Shane McCarthy, “that was approaching right as shit really hit the fan here.” Like any outlaws worth their salt, Wayfarer improvised, donned their masks and recorded locally with Denver’s Pete DeBoer, who worked with drummer Isaac Faulk on last year’s Blood Incantation album. ¶ “We kept the operation small,” McCarthy says. “After a couple days, you didn’t really notice anymore. If anything, the album did actually benefit a bit from having the extra time. Because of the delays created, we were able to fine-tune some parts of the album that, in hindsight,

26 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

turned out far better than they could have previously.”

That fine-tuning only helped Wayfarer build a better locomotive.

“We definitely wanted to make something a bit more grandiose and cinematic, but also more pointed and vicious when it needed to be,” McCarthy says. “A Romance With Violence was intended from day one to be a big and bloody epic western film of a metal record.”

And though their masked recording session was uniquely modern, then the resulting record is particularly antiquated in its interests.

Like the literary works of Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry, A Romance With Violence reproduces the cowboy images of America frontier myth and strips them to their unsavory core.

As McCarthy explains, A Romance With Violence “looks at the idea of ‘The West’ as it exists in people’s minds and what’s been built around it in legend and cinema over the

years. This in turn is a representation of how that same romanticism and fixation on ultimately savage behavior is reflected across the history and legend of nearly every culture on earth.”

Wayfarer’s work is additionally poignant while the worst president in the history of America will only wear a face mask when it reminds him of the Lone Ranger. “A topic like human infatuation with violent acts is unfortunately always relevant,” McCarthy suggests, “and while these concepts and lyrics had been developed for some time, it certainly did resonate with us even further given the tragedy and tumult of the world while we were recording it. Making an album titled A Romance With Violence amidst a global pandemic and the increased visibility of police violence and racism with the protests was unintended, but entirely too fitting at the end of the day.”

—JOSEPH SCHAFER

DRAGHKAR

DRAGHKAR

American melodic death metal devotees find themselves at the crossroads of destiny

T

he story of At the Crossroads of Infinity, the debut album from America’s trend-slaying melodeath dark knights Draghkar, begins with—and entirely depends on—the perseverance and devotion of one man. Brandon Corsair, the quintet’s founding and lone remaining original member, describes his “main band” as his “taste in music distilled into a single band.” Despite numerous personnel shake-ups, Draghkar will grind on, according to Corsair, “because I love metal and I can’t see [this band] ever stopping. I make the music with Draghkar that I want to hear, and that I wish existed, so no matter what inconveniences pop up, I feel the endless drive to continue doing what I do.” ¶ After several attempts to work with both long-distance and local bandmates, Corsair once again finds himself in a “band [that’s] never set foot together in a room.” These days, making Draghkar a reality entails one guitarist in Irvine, CA, another in Seattle and a bassist in L.A. The album’s session drummer lives in Fort Wayne, IN. Vocalist Dan Butler (Vastum, Acephalix) lives in California, the same state as Corsair... roughly a seven-hour car drive down I-5.

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Corsair knows that “Draghkar has had so many pitfalls [because of his] devotion to a certain sound, aesthetic and ideals.” It’s nothing personal, he insists, stressing that he “remains friends with nearly every ex-member of the band.” These are simply the costs of fighting against the status quo to release something true, inspired and distinctly excellent.

“We don’t sound like any particular modern trend… hell, we don’t really sound like anyone from the old school either,” Corsair posits.

“Our influences are bands that never enjoyed much success back in the day, so they never inspired a wave of bands active today. Heavy metal, Swedish death, Finnish death, Greek black and death metal, and Italian black metal”—Corsair says these are all “equal parts” of Draghkar’s sound.

Through chronic wrist pain that continues to puzzle doctors and prevents him from playing guitar for too long in any one day, Corsair

melts down his eclectic influences and forges this new kind of razor-sharp, bluntly effective and instantly lethal metal of death.

Even after recruiting members of Drawn and Quartered, Desekryptor, Vastum, etc., to help him tame this beast in order to churn out 35 minutes of absolute audio lava, still his fight continued. Labels wanted nothing to do with a melodeath record in 2020. Corsair admits it was “a situation [he] fully expected from the second [he] knew the direction the album would follow.

“Fortunately, Unspeakable Axe really understood what we’re trying to do,” he says, “and decided to support us with a CD release in spite of how out-there it is from a lot of what the label puts out.”

Now, finally, it is here. While the genre nearly bursts at the seams, At the Crossroads has come along to prove that the best death metal comes from obsession and defiance.

—DUTCH PEARCE

TREVOR WILLIAM CHURCH TRIGGERS A CLASSIC ROCK FLASHBACK BY TRANSITIONING

TO A SOLO STUDIO PROJECT STORY BY

PHOTO BY

RAOUL HERNANDEZ

HRISTO SHINDOV

child of influence. Famously, Trevor William Church springs from bassist Bill “The Electric” Church of Montrose, whose supersonic 1973 debut produced a singular piece of rock candy (baby) as audibly and compositionally iconic as its LP artwork of four shirtless centurions from San Francisco. Turns out that accounts for only half of our man’s Montrose provenance. ¶ “My mom’s cousin is [drummer] Denny Carmassi of Montrose/Sammy Hagar/Heart,” reveals Church on FaceTime in mid-June, 8 a.m. Fresno time. “That’s how she and my dad met. My dad was looking for a room to rent while he was in Montrose, and my mom was a really successful hairdresser in the Bay Area.” ¶ Drying his long hair and seated at the console of his home studio, the caffeinated Californian estimates the initial group lasted a year and a half—long enough for its spring-action assault to inscribe the names Carmassi, Church, Hagar and Ronnie Montrose onto the great proto-metal pyramid.

Likewise, Decibel’s February cover quartet Haunt—Church, lead axe John Tucker, bassist Taylor Hollman and drummer Daniel Wilson—encore January’s Mind Freeze by turning over their own new leaf (scion: also a plant bud). Going forward, studiowise, Haunt have transitioned from they/them/theirs to he/him/his.

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“Come COVID-19,” begins Church, “I’m sitting here just back from a European tour thinking, ‘Even though I’m seeing more success with Mind Freeze, people like my songwriting more than my production.’ I haven’t been able to capture the sound, and I’ve spent $25,000 on gear. I had like two nervous breakdowns during Mind Freeze because we couldn’t get the drums right.”

Haunt’s fourth LP, Flashback, released almost exactly six months after Mind Freeze, nails the drums. And everything else, thawing its precursor, soaring past If Icarus Could Fly before that and outblazing Burst Into Flame two years ago. Clocking around 32 minutes like the classic album citation above and the first six Van Halen discs helmed by its producer, Ted Templeman, Flashback even blackens 2017 debut EP Luminous Eyes.

With the title track as trigger, the album lifts off immediately behind its entwined ascension of twin guitars, a tripping upbeat and Church’s imploring vocal, the solos both Lynchian and Lizzyish. Breathless moment, that, a beacon in the Haunt catalog for its crystal audio clarity, transparency of intent and baseline jumper execution. Lynott-esque attention to song composition, Megadeth speed, Grohilian anthemics: Save for select solos from Tucker, the bandleader executes all parts on the group’s most dynamic release.

“Once I got through one song, ‘Flashback’— because it’s the easiest; it’s Denny Carmassi

on drums, do-baw, do-baw, with massive gated reverb on the snare—I discovered the key to getting the drums to sound how I envisioned,” pinpoints Church.

From Carmassi and Danny Wilson (the late cousin who lured Church to Fresno, where most of his clan lives) to his dad’s brother Bob (who helped set up his first kit) and mom’s beat-keeping brother in Sunset Strip flash-in-the-pan glam band Cry Wolf, percussion consumes Church. Building an empire of songs requires a drummer on call, so his new best friend requires zero social distancing.

“I learned I could loop my pre-recorded Superior Drummer parts, make it one long loop for the verse,” Church explains. “I would play it for the room mic sound until I nailed it, cut the piece that worked, put it in that section of the song, then move to the next one. Having the drums done in five days, I was able to focus on my singing for a change, finding a good hook that people could sing along to. It also allowed me to focus on playing bass, which you can finally hear.

I finally figured out a way to make it all sonically improved to where when you listen to it and you go, ‘All right, Trevor’s finally on track now.’”

The first Haunt(ed) full-length on Church Recordings, Flashback precedes soon-to-be successor Beautiful Distraction. Then Church will start the sessions for new band Hysteria, wherein he mans the bass while engineering and producing,

his other great passions. (“I’m inspired by Ted Templemen and am always at my dad: ‘What did he have, what did he do?’”) Otherwise, expect a one-man Joel Grind and Athenar paradigm.

“Absolutely,” nods Church. “Joel especially.

Making this album, I was so questioning myself about whether to call him: ‘What does it take to get rid of the emotion of the band not being on the albums?’ That’s been my challenge through these last couple of records, so those guys are a big influence on me. What they’ve done, I envy. I want to be that.”

Fitting that all three dudes court a modern classicism—tomorrow’s Montroses today.

“My dad writes great basslines,” beams Church. “I feel like ‘Bad Motor Scooter’ without that [scats the low end] would be nothing. The bass lines on that shit are some of my dad’s best. The energy those guys had was great, because they were so thirsty for a successful band.”

Mission accomplished—as Ronnie Montrose (1947-2012) noted to me in 2005: “Recently, I’ve been going out and playing nothing but Montrose songs, and people come out of the woodwork to hear it. I had no idea, because I haven’t done it for... god, years. I’m not one of those guys that beats it into the ground, so whipping out what are classics to me, I found out they’re classics to a lot of people. People sing along. They love all those songs.”

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Dropdead’s

first new LP in 22 years further cements their status as DIY grind legends STORY BY NEILL JAMESON • PHOTO BY HILLARIE JASON

I

t’s pretty nuts that years of incremental progress in environmental preserva- on this release. The songs are intense and pum-

tion, human rights and civil rights have been eroded so quickly in the last three and a half years,” begins Ben Barnett, Dropdead’s guitarist and curator of Armageddon Shop and its record label. “Crazy conspiracy theories gaining traction, far-right nationalism and violence, a raging pandemic, shit on fire everywhere and polar regions melting faster than ever. There’s so much stuff happening all at once [that] it can be overwhelming. It’s some dark times. If people aren’t seeing it, they’re willfully ignoring things” ¶ Vocalist Bob Otis echoes the point: “[I feel] determined, motivated and instilled with a sense of urgency to try to stand against these things, whether through the band, my writing or an actual physical presence at protests. This is not a time to remain silent or inactive.”

Dropdead are not a band known for their silence. Formed in the late 1980s, they’ve crafted records that have become benchmarks in the powerviolence and grindcore scenes. In a year as fucked up as 2020, it’s appropriate that one of extreme music’s loudest voices would speak up, this time in the form of a new full-length, their third self-titled effort. But it’s been a few minutes since their last album. When I pose the question as to why, Otis laughs and explains, “Life, man! It wasn’t as though we didn’t put out a bunch of EPs and splits in the interim, and we were always active gig-wise. I think it just happened when it was meant to happen.

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With all that's going on in the world, it seemed like the perfect time for us to make a statement through our music again.”

Recorded with Kurt Ballou at GodCity this new LP shows a different side of Dropdead: Everything isn’t a million-mile-an-hour blur, the riffs have more room to breathe, the songs more time to develop. But most surprising to longtime fans are Otis’ vocals, which sound less like a young Nick Blinko lit on fire and more along the lines of the classic anarcho sounds of Icons of Filth’s much-missed Stig. Otis somewhat agrees: “Vocally, I made a conscious decision to be a little more thoughtful and a little less screamy

meling, but also catchy and memorable at the same time, and I wanted to sing them in a more anarcho-punk style of vocals. I really wanted the lyrics to be heard on this, as the subject matter is so urgent. I wanted the lyrics to really be felt. I think it sounds like Dropdead in 2020.”

Barnett echoes this point: “We never set out to have a ‘definitive’ style. It has always just been whatever comes out and we beat it into shape all together.”

Nearly everything surrounding Dropdead is done in-house à la the Crass model, culminating in their music being released through Barnett’s Armageddon label. “When we started, we did our own releases,” Barnett explains. “We did a few with friends here and there over the years.

Through trial and error, we found it just works best for us to do our own releases. If you put out your own music, you can make it exactly what you want. It’s more work, but way less bullshit than arguing with label people about stuff and chasing them down for shit. I never understand people ‘getting signed’ and being stoked about it. To me, it just means you have a lot of headaches to look forward to, and unless you’re licensing your music a release at a time, then someone else probably owns the rights to your music. Makes no sense.”

This brings us to the topic of Armageddon Shop, the brick-and-mortar record stores (in Providence and Boston) that Barnett and friends operate. How does he envision the future for record stores and labels amongst the shit cyclone that is 2020? “Man, I have no idea.

Armageddon Shop has been doing mail order and curbside pickup only since March. We’ve taken a substantial financial hit, but managed to keep everyone who wanted to keep working, so that’s six people, which feels like a success.

I’m not sure how other places are doing stuff, but we are definitely not into introducing too much risk considering people can’t even agree on simple shit like wearing a mask. I imagine a bunch of places will go out of business, but I also feel like people really love their local shops and are down to support as much as they can.”

Three decades in, Dropdead are very obviously more than just music for music’s sake.

Since their formation, their message has driven their identity just as much as their sound. But even that message evolves. “I think that it has changed in part to meet the times,” Otis suggests, “but the essential themes—from anti-racism to animal rights, human rights and oppression and the never-ending wars—are still plainly

represented. I also believe that we are trying to convey some sense of hope and that we can change things if we come together with some human decency and courage to act.”

Barnett continues this train of thought: “I think the message has always been pretty constant and consistent. If anything, as time has gone on, we live and believe what we say more seriously. Now more than ever. Considering how serious the things we sing about are, as a band, it’s what we want to present. Having the songs being about something instead of about bullshit stuff is what we always wanted to do.”

“Nothing is certain and we can’t take time for granted,” Otis concludes. “The world can go from bad to worse in a very short span, and we can’t continue to be complacent in our sitting on the sidelines if we want things to change. I believe that in between all the horrifying things happening, the steadfast conviction of good people’s resolve to stand up against the forces of corruption and oppression and challenge it for the chance of a better world is still there. That the majority of people want a world of equality with dignity for all, and are willing to rise up against tyranny to get it. That gives me a great sense of hope.”

I NEVER UNDERSTAND PEOPLE ‘GETTING SIGNED’ AND BEING STOKED ABOUT IT. TO ME, IT JUST MEANS

you have a lot of headaches to look forward to.

Ben Barnett

:B D E C I B ED L E: CNI B OE VL EM MEAY R 2 0 219 0 : 33

interview by

QA BRETT CAMPBELL j. bennett

WI T H

PALLBEARER’s vocalist/guitarist on the band’s new album, writing shorter songs and life during the pandemic

34 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

L

ike many of us living through the late stages of Donald Trump’s failed so why not put it out there? We’re hoping it’s

policies on pretty much everything, Brett Campbell is hunkered down at home, avoiding human contact and watching the politicization of the pandemic. “I don’t get this situation where like 50 percent of people are trying to kill everybody else,” Pallbearer’s vocalist/guitarist tells Decibel from his home in Little Rock, AR. “I was just under the impression that people understood how disease is spread. I guess I took that for granted.

But I think it’s just another example of how divided we are and what a dire situation the U.S. is in.” ¶ If there’s even a threadbare hint of a silver lining underneath all the death, disease and unemployment ravaging this country, it’s that many of us have more time to listen to music as we watch America circle the drain. And Pallbearer, with their predilection for mournful melodies and bleak subject matter, are about to release the perfect soundtrack with their new album, Forgotten Days. “People are starved for something to do,” Campbell says. “If they’ve got half a brain, they’re not going out and doing stuff with their friends, so they’re isolated and bored. It’s a great time to release a depressing album.”

good enough that people will still wanna hear the songs whenever that’s an option again. But the kicker is that the album was written with the intention of being played live, which isn’t going to happen for a while.

What inspired the title, Forgotten Days?

we gonna run out of money and have to work at Burger King or something? There’s no telling.

But you don’t necessarily have to have an end goal for music. We’ve always been goal-oriented, but now we’re just doing it for the hell of it, to have some sort of creative outlet besides hanging around the house and dicking around.

Much like all of our previous albums, there wasn’t a title going into it. We finished it and then decided on a title. It was one of the songs, and it seemed to kinda put a bow on the themes and concepts of the album. All of [bassist] Joe [Rowland]’s songs, as far as I know, deal with his mother’s illness and death in 2008 or so—whenever we started the band. He’s ruminating on that and how it may have affected or hindered his development as a person because he never dealt with it.

Which I felt was pretty interesting. Usually, we write songs about multiple subjects, but it seems like most of his are about that one thing, which I think is cool. And then a lot of my songs deal with the passage of time and the erosion of things you know, or think you know, as time goes on. It seems like the more time passes, the less you can be sure of. So, a lot of the songs have to do with who you are in relation to who you once were, and Forgotten Days seemed like an apt title.

Are there mask wars going on out there?

Did you always have an October release date in mind for Forgotten Days, or is that a result of the pandemic?

I would imagine there’s a lot of self-reflection involved in writing songs like that, which can’t be an easy process.

Oh yeah. Luckily, in the neighborhood I’m in, pretty much everyone wears a mask. But the only place I really go is the grocery store. When the mask controversy started and people maybe thought this virus was gonna blow over, it was like 50/50 between people wearing masks and people not wearing them, but now pretty much everyone is wearing them. I guess I should give people a little more credit than I typically do.

It was supposed to come out at the end of May or early June, but it was never fully set in stone because of the way the record plants are. But when the shit hit, pressing plants closed and nobody knew what touring was gonna look like, so it got pushed back. The original plan was to let it gestate for a month and then hit the road, but now it looks like we’re going to be letting it gestate for quite a while. [Laughs]

Are you guys getting together to practice at all?

Did you guys talk about the possibility of pushing it back even later?

Yeah. I think a lot of that [process] is trying to exorcise something. I can only speak for myself, but a lot of times that sort of thing is a good way to almost meditate on a subject and put it into words for yourself so you can understand it. Most of my songs aren’t really as referential to myself as they sometimes are. In some ways, they’re inspired by people in my life, in my family—so they’re not directly personal, but they are personal because they relate to people who I care about. Sometimes those feelings need examination as well, so a song is a good outlet for that.

How are you holding up on Planet Virus?

Oh, you know… losing my mind. [Laughs] I’m probably feeling the same as everyone else—a mixture of boredom and sheer horror. I’m in Little Rock, and it’s actually not too bad here compared to some places because, other than the heat and everything, there’s pretty places to go for a walk. But the human interaction level is at a bare minimum.

We do every once in a while. It really sucks because before all this started, we were going full steam gearing up for this album. And we were still working on new material, so we were constantly doing stuff. But when the pandemic started, we decided to be careful. There was a level of apocalyptic dread, like “Will any of us be alive in three months?” At first, it seemed like there was the potential to be like The Stand or something. [Laughs] So, we didn’t practice for a while.

I’d say we probably average like once or twice a month now, which is bad because I wanna do something. I’m bored out of my mind. I think we’re gonna get together this week, but who knows when we’re gonna be able to tour? Are P H O T O S B Y J A C O B S L AT O N A N D E B R U Y I L D I Z

What’s really fucked up is that we had this huge plan that I don’t wanna go into too much because we’re maybe still gonna do some of it.

In 2018 and ’19, we were going on all cylinders.

We were being really productive and it felt like we were hitting a creative peak as a band. So, we had all these plans, and now they’re gone—for now. The whole timeline is out the window now. When the record comes out, it’ll have been almost a year since we started recording it on the first of November last year. So, it’s been done for a while. It feels weird to release an album when we can’t tour to support it, and there’s no timeline for when anybody is gonna be playing music again. But it gives people something to listen to,

It’s interesting that Joe is revisiting his mother’s death on this record, because I know that was a big theme on the first Pallbearer album as well—and Forgotten Days reminds me of that album in some ways. It has a similar feeling.

Does it feel that way to you?

Sort of. When we formed the band and made that first album, I was suicidally depressed through that whole period. Joe was dealing with his mom dying while we were writing a lot of that stuff, so it was a very, very dark time. There’s a lot of genuine pathos on that record. But it’s hard for me to look at our albums in that way because for me they all kinda sound like one thread.

DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2020 : 35

Days gone bye-bye  Campbell (center l) and Pallbearer yearn for the days of live shows to return

The challenge became: Can we write an interesting Pallbearer song that isn’t seven minutes long?

I wanted to do it without feeling like the song is losing something.

It’s all just a continuous thing from my perspective. We don’t try to recapture things. It’s more about how we can resynthesize ideas in interesting ways. So, hopefully it does have shades of the first album, but also everything else we’ve done because we try to make each album sound interesting and new, but still like Pallbearer.

In the press release, you mention how you took some inspiration for Forgotten Days from the way many ’70s rock albums were assembled— with more compact “hits” alongside lengthier deep cuts. Why do you think you were drawn to that format?

Well, we were trying to focus on songs that would work live. When you have three albums with songs that average nine minutes and above, it starts to get hard to build a set list. [Laughs] You want to play the songs people wanna hear, but you can’t play them all. So, in that sense, it helps to have a few shorter songs. But at the same time, after this long of writing these epic songs—I mean, those are the kind of songs I’ve written since I was a teenager—it’s kind of challenging to write an interesting regular song.

But I’ve never really thought about it that way 36 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

because I’ve always thought that kind of thing was boring. So, the challenge became: Can we write an interesting Pallbearer song that isn’t seven minutes long? I wanted to do it without feeling like the song is losing something. Then I wrote “Stasis,” which just felt like it was done even though it’s only like four minutes long. It didn’t feel like it needed anything else.

Sometimes the song just tells you when it’s done.

I mean, I could add more, but would the song benefit in any way?

Other than writing some shorter songs, did you specifically approach this record differently than your last album, Heartless? Because it does seem different…

Not really. But Heartless sort of pushed our technical and compositional skills to the limit, and it didn’t seem really interesting to do that again. By the time we got through with [2019 single] “Atlantis,” which was the last song that we released at this point, it just felt to me like that was the punctuation mark for that era and that approach to songwriting. I think we were all ready to try something else, just like we were trying something else when we wrote Heartless.

Your drummer’s brother, Michael Lierly, did the artwork for Forgotten Days—as he did for Heartless—so there’s a family connection there that fits with the theme of the album. It’s a powerful piece of art, but what I also like about it is that it doesn’t look like the cover of a metal album at all.

Yeah, that was intentional. Aside from the fact that he’s an outstanding artist, his work kinda nails this perfect ground between surreal and emotional. It’s incredible because it’s the perfect expression of the feelings that we’re trying to put through in our music. Obviously, we’re a metal band and people look at us as one, but we also try to avoid a lot of the more stereotypical trappings of metal. Not that we’re rejecting them—it’s just that there’s a lot of bands that exist with a certain set of rules, and we try to make our own rules for ourselves and exist in our own little sphere. And we try to portray that visually as well, so I think Michael’s art is a great way of expressing our ethos as a band by helping to set us apart. Because if you saw that record and didn’t know who we are, you’d have no idea what kind of music was on it. It’s like, “What is this?” [Laughs]

the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

story by

nick green

Uncontrolled Passion the making of Die Kreuzen’s October File

October File demonstrates that Die Kreuzen’s only true peers at the time ’80s Midwest hardcore, and were SST bands like Hüsker Dü, the helped to coalesce a scene with Minutemen and the Meat Puppets. Well, regional outposts in Chicago, not when it came to overall prolificMinneapolis, Detroit and the ness, but definitely in terms of musical band’s own hometown of Milwaukee. With restlessness and a desire to subvert 21 songs splayed out in under 30 minutes, norms. To the uninitiated listener, the Die Kreuzen delivered short, sharp shocks, sonic difference between Die Kreuzen and punctuated by Dan Kubinski’s lacerating October File is likely as shocking as the vocals and frantic timekeeping from the sea change between the first two Meat rhythm section of bassist Keith Brammer DBHOF191 Puppets albums. It didn’t sit well with and drummer Erik Tunison. It was a powfans at the time; Tunison recalls that erful opening salvo, but perhaps its greatthe band returned to their van after est significance was that it influenced one gig to find “You suck now” scrawled the shape of everything else to come on the side, and Kubinski claims that October File from Die Kreuzen, including the quarhe still gets letters from fans, decades tet’s kaleidoscopic follow-up October File. later, who felt betrayed by October File.

TOUCH A ND GO By 1984, the members of Die Kreuzen But isn’t agitation the essence of M AY 1 9 8 6 were already bored with rote geometry punk rock? Die Kreuzen moved things Milwaukee’s beast of hardcore. October File was the sound forward in a big way on October File. of a band working out a more complex Putting aside their hardcore roots, musical equation designed to leave you it’s unbelievable that the same band equally ill at ease. The quartet’s second responsible for the downbeat gloom album includes a few concentrated and doom of “Hide and Seek” is also nuggets from their salad days (“Uncontrolled Passion,” “Hear and Feel,” the same band that wrote “Cool Breeze,” which kind of has a R.E.M. and “Conditioned”) that are very much in the vein of the debut, but the jangle to it. With October File, we welcome an album that influenced rest of October File allows for a lot more space, at times filled with oddball the likes of Soundgarden, Napalm Death and Voivod, all of whom took time signatures and creepy effects. It was also a coming-out party of sorts the spirit of Die Kreuzen and piloted unforeseen dimensions. Hats off for guitarist Brian Egeness, who finally got a chance to let his freak flag to a magical album that sounds like nothing else. October File sounds fly with his vertiginous guitar leads. only like Die Kreuzen.

DIE KREUZEN

DECIBEL : 39 : NOVEMBER 2020

PHOTO BY ALISON BRAUN

D

ie Kreuzen’s self-titled 1984 debut was a touchstone of mid-

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Die Kreuzen cut its teeth playing with bands like Necros, Negative Approach and Rights of the Accused. What was the Midwest hardcore scene in the early ’80s like?

There were bands popping up everywhere. We hit Chicago early at the invitation of the Effigies, but didn’t make it to Detroit until later. Hüsker Dü invited us up to Minneapolis, and Madison was on the radar right from the start. So, there were places to play, and I had a ’69 Catalina, which the entire band and a few friends could fit in to—if somebody didn’t mind riding for seven hours with the kick drum on their lap. For a while, there were so many great bands coming through town that we almost couldn’t help making friends. Right out of the box, we were playing gigs all over the place.

DAN KUBINSKI: I believe Chicago was very instrumental in Die Kreuzen’s development. We got to open for major headliners like Dead Kennedys and Corrosion of Conformity, plus cool local bands like the Effigies and Articles of Faith. We went down there so much that I think Chicago just started thinking of us as their own. The city always had our backs. Those early gigs were special and always fun, packed with people we would see over and over again at our gigs, and we’ve stayed friends with a lot of them. I remember there were kids there who were too young to be in bars; they were usually with a parent, a “punk rock” parent more often than not. There were a lot of people taking pictures and always kids with their zines who wanted to do an interview when we had time. We were all outcasts, society’s rejects or, in general, people that simply didn’t fit the norm. I was very happy in the company of all these people; it was a wonderful and magical time.

KEITH BRAMMER: In Milwaukee, there was one club that would book us. When that closed, we had to find our own places. We’d rent out VFW halls and put on our own shows. When it started out, it was a “one for all” kind of vibe, where people would help each other get shows.

There was a lot more networking back then, like all around the country. You’d call people on the phone, and they’d help you set up shows.

People were doing this because they loved it—it wasn’t something you’d do as a stepping stone to becoming famous. It was exciting to be able to go to Madison or Minneapolis and just play somewhere. I think not having money is something that kept us more grounded. We were used to loading our own vans and driving 14 hours just to play a show. A lot of the bands that we associated with were in the same boat, like the Minutemen or Hüsker Dü.

BRIAN EGENESS: It was a wild time to be alive and in a band! The DIY ethos was just beginning. And feeding that fire were bands coming through the ERIK TUNISON:

Ask a punk  Some of the many Die Kreuzen show fliers from the ’80s

Midwest with a whole new way of thinking and a new approach toward music. It was like meeting lost family members for the first time. There was energy, excitement and a sense that an alternative really was happening. We put bands on our floors whenever they needed a place to crash between shows, traded phone numbers and addresses, and kept in touch with them as often as possible, setting up as many shows as we could when they came through the area. It was such a blast! We had one club here in Milwaukee in the beginning of the ’80s that hosted new bands called the Starship. The owner, Kenny Baldwin, loved all kinds of music, so he afforded a venue to us and all the other hardcore, art-core and left-of-center bands that needed a place to play in the Midwest. Without his help, I don’t know where we would have ended up.

Die Kreuzen’s first album is almost exclusively short songs in a hardcore vein. What happened between recording your debut in April 1984 and October File in October 1985 to inspire such a radical sonic departure?

EGENESS: We just wanted to do something different. It was a conscious effort not to repeat.

While a few of the songs still harkened back to the earlier hardcore vein, we wanted there to be something more to all of it. We were experimenting with a bit more depth, in terms of song structures, tempo and time signatures. We didn’t restrict ourselves to any formula but our own.

NOVEMBER 2020 : 40 : DECIBEL

For us, it was always a case of writing songs together during rehearsal, and when we had enough for an album, we would record them. So, while an album might appear to be a cohesive collection of sounds and ideas, none of them reflects more than just what we were doing at that specific time. By the time we recorded the first album, we were thinking of making sounds that didn’t have to get sped up so much just to make a point. I think we were conscious of getting it all down on the first album as a statement, and then seeing what else we could do. I think we just started to understand that there should be some flow, or breathing room in a set of songs, especially as played live.

KUBINSKI: What a lot of folks do not realize is that Die Kreuzen had already amassed far more songs than just the ones we recorded for the first album. I guess we took the time to “age” the tunes, so that everything would be ready and every element would be in its place when it was time to record the next batch. We had played fast, brutally fast, faster than most; we wanted to try new things and not repeat ourselves musically.

So, as much as people want to say we changed or that we “sold out,” it simply isn’t true. What the fuck does that mean, anyway? We had already written about half of October File by the time we recorded the first album. October File was simply us taking our next steps and natural progression as a creative unit, and we had already begun taking those before the first album came out.

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DIE KREUZEN october file

We used everything we wrote because it took us forever to write songs. We’d spend weeks or months perfecting them. For every one part we decided to keep, we’d throw out three parts. A lot of these songs are wildly disparate parts, crammed together and polished into a song. We were very picky and we didn’t want to sound like any other band. We didn’t want to do the same thing over and over again. People could never understand that. For us, it didn’t seem like a real major tonal shift. In retrospect, October File is significantly different. By 1983, I was already done with hardcore. I liked the first Circle Jerks record and the first Germs record, and that’s it. I don’t count D.O.A. or Hüsker Dü. What hardcore turned into was something we did not want to be a part of. We did not endorse the shave-yourhead/beat-people-up jock mentality. By the time October File came out, we all had super long hair and we were playing really long, slow songs.

BRAMMER:

What do you remember about the writing sessions for October File?

TUNISON: We broke up immediately after coming off the road from our first tour. A few months later, we decided to get back together, and called Touch and Go to ask if they were still interested in doing an album with us. I think most of the material was ready to go for that recording, but we immediately started writing new material.

Again, it wasn’t with the thought of changing direction or getting ready for another album.

It was just the four of us jamming on a new riff or new beat or new part and putting all that together into a song. I do recall one event that gave us a lot of ideas and material for new songs: We played a benefit for a local fanzine called Head on a Post, and decided to do an entire set of improvisation. It went really well, and a tape of that set had a remarkable amount of good ideas we could mine for later songs.

EGENESS: All I can remember is how much fun it was experimenting with something totally different. With “Uncontrolled Passion,” the idea was a rapid punch of notes I just kind of saw in my head driving the verse. And “Conditioned,” it was all about an off-kilter time signature that fucked with natural rhythm. I find most of my inspiration in nature... the spacing of trees as I ride past them creates a visual rhythm, a bunch of rocks on the ground with a smaller rock between creates an accent, and how they sit in relation to each other creates the notes or chords on a staff. I just sort of see the music in nature, if that makes sense. Sure, a lot of it sounds odd, but all music is subjective at the end of the day, isn’t it? Throw some sticks on the floor, send me a picture of it, and I’ll show you what I mean.

KUBINSKI: We never really had “writing sessions,” but we would jam together four or five times a

week. We also rehearsed on our own. I would sit with my notebook and my boom box recordings from rehearsal and painstakingly work on lyrics.

Our songs would come from single parts that were hatched outside of rehearsal. We would take these single parts and jam on them, and maybe change them up a bit. Erik would add a drum beat that would alter the entire feel of the song, or Brian’s guitar part would help to unlock more ideas for the song. Anything could be introduced in rehearsal, but a lot of ideas we had were thrown out. We were very picky and anything that sounded like some other band or artist or maybe sounded similar to something we had already done landed on the scrap heap.

BRAMMER: For a while, we were all living in an ancient apartment building named the Norman. There was no way we could practice there because the apartments were all tiny, but the rent was super cheap and it was right down the street from the Starship club. We rented a house together after that in a not-so-great part of town, but we fixed up a practice room in the attic. Then we got another house after that one became unfeasible and we practiced in the basement there. It was always a similar set-up: You’d put egg cartons on the wall, set the equipment up on the concrete floor and just go for it.

Most of the songs were just us smashing parts together. It wasn’t easy for us to write songs, but it was rewarding—we knew that if we worked on things long enough, they’d turn out right. We were very serious about the band.

October File arrived during the heyday of crossover, and mainstream media outlets like The New York Times seemed to classify Die Kreuzen as a “metal” act. In 1986, what is someone listening to Master of Puppets going to think when they hear October File?

TUNISON: Metallica fans seemed to like us just fine, although by the time of Master of Puppets, we were pretty far away from playing all of our songs so fast.

EGENESS: I couldn’t tell you because I never really considered what they would think about our music. I would hope that if they had an opportunity to hear it, they would enjoy what they heard: something different.

BRAMMER: I thought it was strange. I couldn’t see it. October File doesn’t sound like metal in any way. It’s weird and arty. At times, it evokes the same feelings as a horror movie soundtrack. But it’s not metal. Definitely not stuff like what was coming up then, like Metallica or Trouble. There are people that I respect who are in metal bands that liked it, and that’s great. If people liked this band, that was enough for us. We didn’t care why they liked it. To me, it just got old when everyone would be like, “Oh, the first album is great, and everything else sucks!”

KUBINSKI: I have had people tell me that they loved the first Die Kreuzen album so much that NOVEMBER 2020 : 4 2 : DECIBEL

they were so bummed with October File when it came out. Most everyone was confused by the album. But that confusion also bred curiosity, and that’s what encouraged fans to listen to it and explore it. In doing so, they would inevitably find another song or sound that captured their ear or imagination, and another repeat listening would happen. We couldn’t seem to break free of the tight confines of hardcore. The punks wouldn’t listen to anything that wasn’t fast and unintelligible, and we weren’t into playing like that anymore. We were bored with all those rules. Anyone back then who could open their minds and ears enough for October File could hear that power can come from creativity, too—not just sheer speed or brutality.

Richard Kohl designed your early album covers.

Both have an industrial aesthetic and feature a cross, but are stylistically very different. What’s the story behind the album cover?

Richard is a very talented and interesting guy. He was always creating, painting and drawing. He designed most of our fliers when we were first starting out, and he put out his own magazine called End of the World. The magazine and the posters he did for us were all in his distinctive pen and ink, crosshatch style. It was very stark and brooding and, of course, black and white—that lent itself perfectly to our first album cover. When it came time for October File, we wanted Richard to do whatever he wanted. At that time, Richard had moved to San Francisco and he hadn’t heard what we had been up to as a band for about a year. We were surprised and delighted when his artwork showed up, and it was completely different from anything we might have imagined. It was perfect!

EGENESS: It’s the product of Richard’s mind. We gave him the music and told him he had free rein to create something based on what he heard.

BRAMMER: That’s all Richard. He is a friend of ours. We all lived in an apartment together. He was actually our manager very early on, even before the first 7-inch came out. He is a great artist. He used to do posters and fliers for us.

He did the art for the first 7-inch. Whenever we needed an album cover, we’d call him up. He’d send us stuff and it’d always be brilliant. We also took huge losses on the art. If you’ve ever seen a vinyl copy of October File, the red lettering is raised and has a tactile feel. [1988’s] Century Days was expensive, too, because we wanted a gatefold.

As a result, it took us a while to see royalties on either because the label was still recouping for the cost of the art. We just wanted the albums to look good. When I’m looking at records, I tend to focus on something that has an interesting cover. That’s a factor when you’re prioritizing purchases.

TUNISON: Richard contributed art and time and effort to Die Kreuzen right from the start. We are so lucky that he was willing and excited to help define our work visually. I always KUBINSKI:

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loved the crosshatching work he did for us and himself, right from the very beginning. He shared our interest in expanding and trying new things. October File was done with shadows and photographic film and, as such, is a completely different aesthetic than his previous work. But somehow, it is also directly in line with what he does and is obviously a Richard Kohl original.

In so many ways, we would be nowhere without him. Richard Kohl is clearly as much a member of the band as anyone else.

Is it true that Profile Records—Run-DMC’s label—contacted you about a recording contract before this album came out?

They did. But after giving it all some thought, we decided to stick with Touch and Go. We loved the Touch and Go way of operating, and we remain friends with them to this day.

BRAMMER: That was funny because it came out of the blue. We asked [Touch and Go owner] Corey Rusk about it and he said, “It’s not a good idea, but it’s your career.” We considered it enough to ask them to send a contract. We’d never even seen a contract, because we just had a handshake deal with Touch and Go. Corey is a scrupulous guy and the absolute antithesis of any record company person you’d ever encounter. So, Profile sent us a contract and Erik took it to a friend of his named Mark McCraw. Erik and Mark had gone to college together, and Mark had managed the band the BoDeans and helped them sign to a major. Mark described the contract as absolute nonsense—a deal where we’d have given away the rights to everything in perpetuity.

EGENESS: Gary Pini from Profile Records drew up a contract that was completely contrary to what he initially offered us. They would have basically owned all rights to our recordings, to do with whatever they wanted. Our lawyer laughed and asked if they knew we were taking the contract to a lawyer. If I recall, we sent a counterproposal that got only mild traction in the negotiating process. After a few months, we just said “no thanks.” We already had the best deal with Corey Rusk and Touch and Go. Corey was gracious enough to inform us of Profile’s interest and allowed us to pursue it and to find out for ourselves what they were all about—which was essentially self-interest and profit margins.

KUBINSKI: We even met a couple of the Profile label guys a few months later. They came to see us in New York City at the Peppermint Lounge and found their way into our dressing room somehow. They were cool enough in person, and I do remember one of them introducing himself and saying, “It’s okay, you don’t have to be nice.”

I always thought that was funny, because he was basically admitting that the label sent us an extraordinarily shitty deal. We’d simply put too TUNISON:

much work into the band, sleeping on floors and not eating just so we could afford gas to make it to the next town, to ever consider handing over complete creative control and rights to our music. Profile was not the only label that came calling, but we always stuck with Touch and Go.

The recording circumstances for October File appear to be similar to the self-titled debut: You recorded with Corey Rusk and Rick Canzano at Multi-Track Studios in Detroit. The major difference was that Die Kreuzen got a production credit for October File. Was this standard for early Touch and Go releases?

The album insert depicts the correct sequencing of the songs. Why does the tray card list the songs in a different—and incorrect—order?

TUNISON: We were a live band, really, so everything was geared towards getting that next new song ready for that next gig or weekend or tour that was coming up. One big upside of that approach is that by the time we got into the studio, we were quite well-rehearsed and prepared. There was very little that was left to chance during recording. I think Touch and Go had a volume discount at Multi-Track Studios. A lot of early releases were recorded there. It was a fine studio, and quite professional. I’m quite sure that Die Kreuzen was not exactly their cup of chowder, but they worked hard and did a fine job of recording us. I don’t recall how or why we asked for a co-production credit. We were certainly more comfortable in the studio by that time, but it is a stretch to say we were producers.

EGENESS: We put our fingers in the mix on October File, whereas our first record, we just let the mixes fall where they may. So, we took credit for messing it up!

BRAMMER: One thing I recall about Detroit was the sheer amount of abandoned cars on the freeway —like, hundreds of them—everywhere.

We stayed at Corey’s house. As far as the production credit, we had more of an idea of what we wanted to do. Corey was able to step in and be the voice of reason. This was important because the four of us spent a lot of time together and benefited from having a referee. He knew enough about the studio that he could be a good intermediary between us and Rick, the engineer.

He could translate a lot, since we knew what we wanted, but didn’t have the technical know-how to understand how to get it to that point. He had worked with Rick before and could make things legible to him. Corey’s main thing was running the business, though. By the time there were other people like Butch Vig or Steve Albini, Corey didn’t need to be there.

KUBINSKI: We’d all get up early in the morning and Corey would drive us over to the studio, where we would stay all day and work on the recording, getting a killer drum track first with the entire band playing, then overdubs would start for bass guitar, then guitar, and lastly the vocals. We did everything pretty much the same as the first time at Multi-Track, when we recorded the first album. At some point, I wanted a bit of delay on my vocals for “Man in the Trees,” which I later decided I would use on other songs, too. I think Corey got a bit put off by our taking control of the board and mixing in effects and doing things that he might not do as a producer. I remember him standing up and explaining that he had other things to look

TUNISON: Just a mistake. A dozen people can look at something a hundred times and the moment it comes back from the printer, the mistakes start to appear.

EGENESS: Oops.

“What hardcore turned into was something we did not want to be a part of.

We did not endorse the shave-your-head/ beat-people-up jock mentality.

By the time October File came out, we all had super long hair and we were playing really long, slow songs.”

KE IT H B RA MME R When we gave Richard Kohl the music and titles to listen to and work off of, they were not in the correct sequence that they would later appear in on the album. So, I believe this is the order that the artwork was completed in, and it’s probably the order in which we recorded the songs in the studio, which is to say: It was done in no particular order.

BRAMMER: I think what happened was that we had to get the artwork done well before the record went to press. It had to be ready to go.

We used to take forever to sequence albums, too.

When we were only considering things for formats like vinyl and cassette, we took great pains to have each side flow properly. There’s an art to it. It used to drive me insane when CDs came out and people would hit the “shuffle” button. With vinyl, the track order was always very specific.

So, I imagine we had an idea of all of the songs that would be on the record and we handed that over, but we probably weren’t done arguing about the track order.

KUBINSKI:

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DIE KREUZEN october file

after that day, then excusing himself from the mixing or producing. That’s really how we got the production credit.

Voivod have suggested that their evolution from a thrash to progressive act came from abandoning metal and listening to hardcore and crossover bands like Die Kreuzen instead.

What bands were inspirational while writing October File?

Listening to the Cure comes to mind.

Not in a direct sonic/musical way, but more in the way their albums sounded so different from each other when they came out. They went from Faith to Pornography to The Head on the Door in just a few years. I still find that inspirational.

BRAMMER: For me, it was the Birthday Party and the Stooges. At the same time, I was listening to Echo and the Bunnymen and stuff like the Fire Engines, a Scottish band from the 1980s.

They were kind of atonal, but had a really good pop sensibility. We all listened to so much stuff.

My tastes are wide-ranging. I always enjoyed the combination of melody and aggression in Die Kreuzen. Again, we never wanted to sound like any other band. We only wanted to sound like us.

EGENESS: At that time, I was listening to later Wire and Buzzcocks, Ravel and Debussy, a little dark metal... Metal Church and Exodus, the Cure, Cocteau Twins, Bad Brains. Some of it may have rubbed off in the recordings.

KUBINSKI: A lot of the Sisters of Mercy. Not the disco stuff that came later, but when they were a real band from the early 12-inch releases through First and Last and Always. I was also into Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex. R.E.M.’s Murmur and Chronic Town records were in high rotation.

I was also going somewhat backwards in time and rediscovering Led Zeppelin, who I had never listened to as a youngster. Of course, most of my fave bands at the time were local or underground stuff like Paul K and the Weathermen, Cherry Cake, the Appliances-SFB and Boy Dirt Car. Those were all an eye-, er, ear-opener for me.

TUNISON:

What is your favorite song on October File, and why?

TUNISON: I remain partial to “Man in the Trees.”

I think it works well as a song, and I dig playing the drum part.

BRAMMER: During that brief interval when we broke up, I moved down to Rockford, IL. I joined a band that I really liked, but their work ethic wasn’t the greatest. “Cool Breeze” was something I’d pretty much finished with that band. The lyrics were all Dan’s and the guitar parts were all Brian’s, but the structure of the song was there.

That’s one of the reasons I particularly like that song. Plus, it embodied the direction that I

“As much as people want to say we changed or that we ‘sold out,’ it simply isn’t true.

What the fuck does that mean, anyway?”

DA N KUB INSKI thought it would be interesting for Die Kreuzen to go in. I wanted us to get a little more melody in our music, something more than just loud guitars and pummeling. Dan’s vocals are great on that song. He had a way of making anything we brought in better.

KUBINSKI: My fave song on October File is “Among the Ruins.” I love Brian’s lonely guitar riff and the intro is magical—it builds up and draws the listener right in. The lyrics fit the mood of the song so well, and the lyrics spring from very real, life-changing circumstances. I had just been dumped by a very smart and beautiful woman who often told me that I was a “dreamer.” That song is about standing amid the debris of those dreams. It will always be a song that means a lot to me and it is filled with very real things. I let the barrier down for that one and was way more vulnerable than I had been with lyrics in the past.

EGENESS: “Imagine a Light,” because every time I hear it, I get goosebumps. I mean, fuck, it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before with all the little nuances within. Turn it up really loud and just listen. And then, do it again and listen closer... you’ll hear something new you didn’t hear the first time. The interplay of the vocals and guitar—Dan did an awesome job on the track.

It’s the song I am most proud of.

In hindsight, is there anything that you would change about this album?

TUNISON: October File was released on CD together with our first album. They are so different, and NOVEMBER 2020 : 4 6 : DECIBEL

would be much better served by having a separate release.

EGENESS: I wouldn’t change a thing! Thanks to all of you that listened to our music and came to our shows. It was a fun ride and one of the best times of my life! Much love!

KUBINSKI: It has been told to me over and over again by folks like Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, Voivod and even Neko Case that October File is a cherished and treasured part of their lives. So, no, there isn’t anything I’d change about that record or any other Die Kreuzen album, for that matter. I love what we did, and that will never change!

BRAMMER: When we went into the studio for this album, we decided to do different things with effects. There’s a lot of reverb on Dan’s vocals. I decided to use a harmonizer on all of my bass tracks. I thought it sounded so cool at the time, because it gave the bass this weird shimmery, ringing sound, but I think I overused it here and on Century Days. If I could have a do-over, I would go back and get a straight-up bass sound and lose all the effects and tricks.

October File sounds really thin to me, and really kind of clanky. But it doesn’t sound like anything else that I can name, so that’s a good thing. There’s a lot of space in this record—it’s not a powerhouse, blow-out-the-speakers kind of record. There’s a lot of impact you can have now simply by going back and remastering a record to put it in line with what stereos can handle now. But it’s a moot point. All of the master tapes are long gone.

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Darkness, Light OU T OF T H E

I N TO T H E

After a year of loss and hardship,

alchemize their pain into the most accessible, triumphant album of their career

I

story by MATT SOLIS

photos by DAVE CREANEY

t only took 2020 a few months

to cement its spot on the Mount Rushmore of “the most fucked-up time to exist in modern history,” but you don’t need us to tell you that—take a minute to text your friends, watch the news or scroll through Twitter and you’re bombarded by enough overwhelming negativity to last a lifetime. A global pandemic, centuries of racial injustice boiling over into the streets, rudderless leadership, the embryonic stages of a fascist police state, entire swaths of the population ignoring our collective plea to “wear your fucking mask”—it’s all just so much, and the worst part about it is that the finish line seems to be nowhere in sight. ¶ But despite the universe’s best efforts to snuff out the irksome bacteria known as humankind, we still find ways to push on. The same technology that perpetuates our social division also allows many of us to work from home, stay in touch with loved ones and, perhaps most significantly, create and consume art that gives us a meaningful respite from the bleak reality that exists just outside of our front doors.

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Spirit Adrift can certainly relate. Even though vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Nate Garrett and drummer Marcus Bryant completed work on their tremendous new album, Enlightened in Eternity, before shit really started popping off earlier this year, the process leading up to the recording was nonetheless emotionally and physically draining for everyone involved… so much so that it directly informed the band’s artistic direction and led to a stylistic shift that seems tailor-made for these trying times.

“When I started writing these songs, I only had one rule: They had to be fun,” explains Garrett, who founded Spirit Adrift as a one-man project in 2015. “Fun to play, fun to record and fun to listen to. Because [2019’s] Divided by Darkness wasn’t fun. Making that album was really shitty on me for a lot of reasons. I was pushing myself hard physically and mentally, dealing with

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Spirit Adrift my worst character defects and anger issues.

When we finished, I told myself I wasn’t gonna do another record for a while. I’ve thought that a couple of times [in the past], but this time I was really serious.”

As it turned out, Garrett’s unrelenting creative drive—which is responsible for four LPs, two EPs, and a slew of singles and splits in just a five-year span—had other plans. By the time Divided by Darkness was released to critical acclaim in May 2019, he’d already written eight new songs that propelled Spirit Adrift’s signature doom sound into new realms of sonic triumph.

“Before I knew it, I found myself demoing songs again,” he remembers. “I said, ‘OK, I guess this is happening… against my will!’”

Such high-level productivity might seem unattainable to even the most devoted musician, but it’s hardly a surprise to anyone who has spent time in Garrett’s artistic orbit. “I’ve been in bands with some great people, but I’ve never been in a band with someone who’s as obsessive about every aspect of the project as Nate,” declares Bryant. “The dude will never rest until

itself with its swelling guitar heroics and thunderous drum hits, it’s clear that the band’s fourth full-length is operating on an entirely different level than its predecessors. Whereas Chained to Oblivion, Curse of Conception and Divided by Darkness revel in the gloomiest elements of traditional doom, Enlightened in Eternity flips the script by worshipping at the altar of good old-fashioned heavy metal. It’s a subtle shift mostly characterized by tempo and performance choices, but beyond that, it’s a resounding statement of intent from a group that spent the previous year teetering on the brink of exhaustion.

“Making these records is a really taxing process—it’s not something I take lightly and it always has a profound impact on my life,” confides Garrett. “So, when I said, ‘This one has to be fun,’ that ended up being a great rule. If I hadn’t made this album uplifting and positive, I don’t know if I would’ve been able to get through the recording process. But it’s ironic because, for such a positive record, I had the worst things going on in my personal life of any album that I’ve ever made.”

It’s pretty typical for someone who beats a toxic, addictive behavior to pivot to something that’s

more constructive and positive.

NATE GARRETT

it’s done, and that’s also the way I am. We’re both super-organized neat freaks, and those personality traits serve us really well.”

“I’ve always been an obsessive person, and I think that trait is found in a lot of people who have addiction issues,” says Garrett, whose welldocumented struggle with alcoholism and consequent sobriety was one of the catalysts for Spirit Adrift’s formation. “When they finally take care of their substance abuse [problems], that void usually still needs to be filled. It’s pretty typical for someone who beats a toxic, addictive behavior to pivot to something that’s more constructive and positive.

“But I also think there’s more to it than that,” he continues. “It’s cool to be productive as a musician, but you can also be overproductive. I know I have a pretty high output, but that’s not actually one of my goals. I’m not interested in putting out a ton of records in a short amount of time—I’m way more concerned with good songs.

I think that’s what I’ve started getting good at in the last couple of years. I have a good gauge for [knowing] when I come up with something that sucks, and I’m OK with getting rid of that stuff.”

Let no one ever doubt the effectiveness of Garrett’s “suck gauge”—from bell to bell, Enlightened in Eternity is loaded with the most lively, enthralling Spirit Adrift tunes to date. As soon as opener “Ride Into the Light” introduces

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LOVE WILL NEVER DIE The trials and tribulations began right in the

middle of Spirit Adrift’s 2019 North American tour, when they received the heartbreaking news that a close friend of the band had suddenly passed away. A few months later, just days before embarking on a European tour, Bryant and his wife had to put down their beloved pit bull, Dawkins. Four months after that, with 2020 not even a week old and Enlightened in Eternity’s studio time fast approaching, Garrett and his wife had to say goodbye to their own pit bull, Lizzy. Such a tragic series of events would understandably create delays for many bands, but for Garrett and Bryant, taking a deep dive into the creation process was the best therapy they could have asked for.

“Nate and I both really loved our dogs, so some of these songs took on new meanings after they passed,” says Bryant. “Unfortunately, we both had that experience around the same time, but it was also nice because we could be there for each other not only as bandmates, but as friends.

It drew us even closer together.”

“It’s weird how life works out, because I set out to make an album that would hopefully lift people up and be nothing but perseverance and victory, and by the time we recorded it, that’s exactly what I needed for myself,” relates Garrett. “I had no way of knowing what was going to happen to

me and to the planet when I wrote these songs, but man, I’m glad I didn’t write some depressing, wannabe evil bullshit. I just hope [this record] can help other people the way it helped me, because it tangibly helped my mental state.”

The timing of Enlightened in Eternity’s October release also gave Garrett and Bryant the chance to immortalize their fallen companions on the album’s cover art, as both hounds (Lizzy is black and white, Dawkins is gray and white) are depicted in full stride as they gallop with a convoy of galactic marauders toward an unknown destination. “We’re also doing some vinyl variants that are based on their color schemes,” adds Garrett. “You have to find the silver linings in things, I guess. We just felt it was right to pay some kind of tribute.”

VOICES FROM THE OTHER SIDE The personal circumstances surrounding

Enlightened in Eternity’s creation may have been unprecedented for the band, but when it comes to the record’s musical structure, the process couldn’t have been more familiar. As with every Spirit Adrift release since the project’s inception, it all started with Garrett, his home studio, his guitar and the countless riffs that are perpetually bouncing around inside his head. After adding bass, vocals and simple drum ideas, he would collaborate with Bryant to compose and program the actual drum parts—a pragmatic approach that the duo first utilized during the Divided by Darkness writing sessions, one which Bryant has subsequently fallen in love with.

“Up until [Spirit Adrift], I was always the guy writing songs and working on arrangements with other bandmates, so it has been different, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” he says. “Nate is such an incredible songwriter and he knows heavy metal song structure so well. When he sends me demos, the drums have skeletons, but then we get together and talk about everything.

For me, it’s the most efficient way to write a song because I’m not constrained by my own physical habits. I get to sit there as an objective listener and say, ‘This is what feels right here.’ [We do] whatever serves the song, and that’s what is most important to me as a drummer.”

Spirit Adrift’s quest to “serve the song” goes beyond tasty riffs, raging guitar solos and wellplaced drum patterns—as anyone who’s heard their music can attest, Garrett is equally passionate about crafting compelling vocal melodies that make permanent nests in each listener’s psyche. And even though previous albums had numerous high points, Enlightened in Eternity features, without question, the most effective and memorable singing of the band’s entire catalog. Massive hooks abound on fist-pumpers like “Cosmic Conquest” and “Harmony of the Spheres,” as Garrett takes the plunge of confidence and reveals the depth of his vocal range for the very first time.

Spirit Adrift The first song he demoed vocals for was “Screaming From Beyond,” a mid-paced ripper that kicks off with a Scorpions-esque groove before descending into the doom bog with a dazzling cavalcade of twin guitar harmonies. Initially, he expected his vocals to follow the measured blueprint he’d set for himself since the Behind - Beyond days, but by drawing upon the influence of a certain golden-voiced rock god, he pried open a new musical gateway that ended up rocketing Spirit Adrift’s sound into an uncharted galaxy.

“I had been listening to a lot of Paul Rodgers stuff, like Free and Bad Company,” Garrett discloses. “One morning, I went into my closet and started singing ‘Screaming From Beyond,’ and my voice had completely transformed. I remember thinking, ‘What the fuck just happened?’ Melody- and performance-wise, it was pretty close to what ended up on the record.

I don’t know if it was because of a different mental focus or because I was really vibing with Paul Rodgers at the time, but the vocal melodies [came out] a lot more natural on these songs.”

which perfectly exemplifies Spirit Adrift’s “classic sound, modern fidelity” philosophy. Enter Ryan Bram, the Arizona-based engineer who first worked with the band on the Decibel Flexi Series single “Eyes Were Not Alive” and also helmed several recording sessions for Garrett’s former group, Gatecreeper.

Ultimately, it was Bram’s studio wizardry and comforting presence that persuaded Spirit Adrift to shake up the recording process they employed on their previous two LPs, which were engineered by renowned producer Sanford Parker. Bryant and Garrett are both quick to profess their love for Parker’s inimitable skills and meaningful friendship, but the allure of a similar experience that was a mere two-hour drive from their Phoenix headquarters was simply too good to pass up.

“We did the drums for Divided by Darkness at Electrical Audio in Chicago, which was amazing, but we only had four days there, so we had to get it done or else,” explains Bryant. “Doing this record with Ryan was unbelievable because we would drive down to his studio in Tucson, work

I thought to myself,

‘Sooner or later, this band will be huge if there’s any justice left in the world.’

DAVE ADELSON, 20 BUCK SPIN “Nate had clearly been busting his ass on his vocal practice leading up to the studio,” adds Bryant. “That first day when he started recording vocals, I was like, ‘Holy shit, here’s Nate!

Here’s his voice!’ I mean, it’s always been his voice, but I feel like he really settled in as a singer on this album.”

Garrett’s path to vocal mastery wasn’t without its share of self-imposed roadblocks, though.

While his powerful singing is now one of Spirit Adrift’s hallmarks, he spent many years despising the sound of his recorded voice—a feeling that only started to dissipate on last year’s Divided by Darkness.

“There are some songs on that album where I don’t mind my singing, like ‘Tortured by Time’ and the title track,” he laughs. “But this is the record where I really found my voice. Not that the old stuff isn’t good; it just wasn’t quite me.

I was searching. All of my favorite singers talk about that. Waylon Jennings said the hardest thing in the world is to find your own voice.

Now, I can put this record on and not cringe once, which is a first!”

SEEK THE ANSWER IN EXPRESSION Garrett’s commanding vocals and the top-notch

musicianship/songwriting on display are more than enough to make Enlightened in Eternity stand out, but special considerations must also be given to the album’s absolutely stellar production,

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for five days, and take the weekends off to hang out with our wives and give our ears a rest. Then when we came back on Monday, we had a fresh perspective. When you’re [recording] every day, you can get kind of lost in the sauce, so having those little breaks made all the difference.”

“Ryan is just cool, man,” adds Garrett. “We stay at his house when we’re there, so there’s a family vibe. His dad, Gary, is a super cool guy. One time he was listening to some playback and said, ‘That reminds me of Robin Trower… I saw him back in 1970!’ When we left that night, I played ‘Bridge of Sighs’ for Marcus. I actually hadn’t heard that song in a while, and I picked up a couple of guitar tricks and incorporated them into my solos, which I might not have done otherwise.”

For Bram, working with two dedicated musicians who share his meticulous sensibilities was an equally fulfilling experience. “I love those dudes,” he enthuses. “We seem to be on the same wavelength in the studio. We definitely worked hard on the small details, but we have the same threshold for what is too much and when we need to move on from something. It sounds minor, but it really makes a difference in terms of energy and enthusiasm when you’re not trying to fit a square peg into a round hole for hours. Technically, we ended up working a lot on the record, but I don’t think any of us left feeling exhausted or drained. We were consistently proud of what we accomplished each day and were excited to go back the next day.”

AT LAST, THE WISDOM IS MINE Bram’s crushing, dynamic mix is further bol-

stered by the robust mastering skills of industry icon Howie Weinberg, the 15-time Grammy Award winner whose enormous list of credits includes multi-platinum classics like Nirvana’s Nevermind and the Cure’s Disintegration. Originally, Garrett and Bryant had another mastering engineer in mind, but when veteran Century Media Records A&R rep Mike Gitter mentioned Weinberg as a possible option, they knew they had to take advantage of the opportunity.

“When Howie’s name came up, I was like, ‘Holy shit, really?’” remembers Bryant. “That guy is a rock star [who has] done everything, so I was really excited when he got involved. And I have never heard a jump from mix to master like this before. Don’t get me wrong—Ryan’s mix is phenomenal—but I’ve never had an album be improved so much by the mastering process.”

“One of my touchstones for Enlightened to Eternity was Rick Rubin—I would listen to those old Slayer and Danzig albums and try to find common idiosyncrasies so I could figure out some of his tricks,” shares Garrett. “I already knew Howie’s name, but when I looked him up, I saw that he worked on all of those Rick Rubin records! I was like, ‘Wow, what are the odds?’ Also, I was listening to Def Leppard’s High ’n’ Dry a lot, and sure enough, Howie mastered that record. I was a little spooked, to be honest.

Immediately, I was like, ‘Yep, that’s our guy.’”

“It’s still pretty surreal to think about,” says Bram about having his mix polished by such a legendary engineer. “Howie has done a monumental amount of albums that are influential to both myself and the band, so we felt extremely comfortable that he’d know exactly what we were going for, and I think the final product speaks to that.”

FRAGMENTS WILL UNITE Being able to implicitly trust collaborators has

always been crucial to Spirit Adrift’s existence, as Garrett had to place his faith in numerous outside parties from the jump in order to bring the project into the physical realm. His reason for putting together a live act in the first place was purely practical—when Chained to Oblivion started turning heads in 2016, one of those heads happened to be Roadburn founder and organizer Walter Hoeijmakers, who promptly extended Garrett an invitation to play the lauded international festival. “He asked if I had a band, and I’m going to apologize to Walter here, because I lied and said, ‘Yeah, I do, and we sound good!’” he laughs. “But that’s how I operate, man. It’s not like I can’t do it; I just haven’t done it yet.”

With his sights set on the Netherlands, Garrett began searching for like-minded musicians to bring into his fold. Luckily, the greater Phoenix metal scene was well-stocked with exceptional players, some of whom were already top-of-mind.

Spirit Adrift “I wanted Jeff [Owens] from Goya as a guitarist from the get-go,” he says. “We’re still really good friends; I love him with all my heart. Marcus was also on the radar. Our old bands had played together and I loved his drumming, but I could also tell that he was running the ship. He was really organized about everything.”

Bryant and Garrett are hazy about the specifics of who approached whom first, but one detail is consistent in both of their memories: There was mutual admiration for each other’s talents from the very beginning. “When I heard the [Behind - Beyond] EP, I said, ‘Damn, this guy gets it,’” recalls Bryant. “I sent him a message on Facebook and told him I loved what he was doing, and he replied with, ‘Thank you so much.

Maybe someday you’ll be playing drums on it.’”

An important seed was planted during that initial exchange, but it would take one more serendipitous encounter to permanently bring the two musicians together. “I bought an Ampeg SS-150 from a guy, but I only wanted the head, and when I put the cabinet up for sale, the first guy to hit me up was Marcus,” explains Garrett.

“When I took it to his house, I looked around and was like, ‘OK, he has a pit bull and a bunch of [music] gear… this dude is exactly like me!’

We’re not clones or anything, but we tend to agree on most things and we have a lot of the same interests, so I could tell right away that he was the guy.”

“We both happened to be obsessed with music, so it seemed like a good fit,” affirms Bryant. “He had received the Roadburn offer at that point, so he shot over some songs for what would have been our set list. Unfortunately, the Roadburn thing didn’t end up happening, but we just kept jamming and it gradually turned into a band.

Spirit Adrift songs are a lot of fun to play, so I’m sure it felt great for Nate to get them out with some other people.”

Spirit Adrift’s live lineup has seen a handful of shake-ups since those formative jam sessions, but Bryant has remained a reliable constant— a kindred spirit whom Garrett can trust with his creative vision. As of this writing, there hasn’t been an official announcement about the group’s forthcoming stage incarnation, but we do know that Bryant’s younger brother, Preston (who some may know as the longtime guitarist/ keyboardist of folk-punk mainstays AJJ), will be involved in some capacity.

“Preston played keyboards and synthesizers on the last two records,” notes Garrett. “He’s the only person other than Marcus and myself who has played on more than one album, so he’s basically already a member of the band. He’s one of the most gifted musicians I’ve ever worked with.

He can play all of our songs on guitar, bass or keyboards, so I guess we’ll see what we need.”

“When Nate started talking about putting keyboards on Divided by Darkness, I immediately said, ‘I have the guy,’” adds Bryant, who honed his drumming chops playing Black Sabbath

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covers alongside his brother. “Preston plays a lot of instruments, but he’s a fucking synth lord. He says playing in Spirit Adrift is a great experience because he gets to marry his first love, which is heavy metal, with his biggest love, which is synthesizer.”

ENTANGLED IN A DREAM Undoubtedly, Garrett and Bryant’s artistic chem-

istry, musical prowess and relentless drive are the principal reasons for Spirit Adrift’s speedy ascent to the upper echelon of the heavy music scene, but ask either man who deserves the lion’s share of the credit and they’ll point to the same person: 20 Buck Spin founder/owner David Adelson. Since signing the band in 2017 for the release of Curse of Conception, Adelson has been a tireless advocate for all things Spirit Adrift, doing everything in his power to push them toward the accolades he has always felt they deserve.

“There are a few people who have believed in us almost more than is logical, and Dave is the ultimate crusader of that,” says Garrett.

“Literally anything I’ve ever asked him for, he has done it without hesitation, whether it’s financial or a creative decision or just giving me advice. Those kinds of people are rare, man.

I hit him up at the beginning [of Spirit Adrift] because I always wanted to be on 20 Buck Spin.”

Adelson didn’t become a true believer overnight, though. “I’d heard of Spirit Adrift prior to Nate contacting me, but I had never actually listened to them before, [even though] they had released a split EP with Khemmis, who I was two albums deep with at the time,” he admits.

“When Nate sent me demos for Curse of Conception, I really had no expectations. [But] even in that rough and unfinished form, I was instantly convinced that he was on to something different.

His incredible songwriting ability could be heard right away, and I thought to myself, ‘Sooner or later, this band will be huge if there’s any justice left in the world.’”

“I remember flipping out,” says Garrett about receiving word that Adelson was interested in hearing his new material. “I was in Florida at the time, and I rushed back to Arizona, went to our practice space, mic’d up a drum kit, smashed out the drums in one night and threw together a really shitty mix. I told Dave, ‘Don’t be too judgmental—this is bad sound quality, but you should get the idea.’ He responded right away and said, ‘Yeah, I’ll put this out for sure.’”

Curse of Conception was the beginning of a fruitful partnership, as Adelson and the band worked closely together for the next three years to bring Spirit Adrift’s music to as many ears as possible.

Steady touring and another superlative album in Divided by Darkness kept affording them larger opportunities, like the 2019 Aftershock Festival in Sacramento, where they shared the bill with high-profile acts like Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson. But in a tale as old as time, Spirit Adrift’s momentum was also hurtling them

toward a milestone that Adelson believed was unavoidable from the moment he heard those early demos: the call from the big leagues… or, more specifically, Century Media’s charismatic Vice President of A&R. “When we toured Europe, I would sit and talk to our booking agent, Bruno, while he was driving, and he had a lot of good things to say about Century Media,” Garrett divulges. “During that tour, Blood Incantation’s Hidden History of the Human Race was announced and I saw that Century Media was handling it in Europe. I emailed their European office, but didn’t hear anything back. Later, when we played Aftershock, Mike Gitter came up and started talking to me like 20 minutes before we went onstage. I said, ‘This is so weird—I just emailed your guys in Europe, but I haven’t heard anything.’ He was like, ‘You emailed who? I’ll text them right now!’

We started negotiating after that.”

SEPARATING FUTURE AND FATE As a show of respect to his friend and mentor,

one of Garrett’s caveats for signing with Century Media was keeping Enlightened in Eternity as a 20 Buck Spin release in North America. Eventually, both sides agreed to the stipulation, and in February 2020, the deal became official. It was a bittersweet decision for everyone involved, but Adelson says he was well-prepared for such a predictable outcome. “When Curse of Conception came out, I told Nate that bigger labels would come knocking before long. He said he never wanted to be on a label other than 20 Buck Spin, and I said, ‘I appreciate that, man, but forget about that.’ That’s like your kid saying they never want to move out. Part of you is like, ‘That would be great!’ but the other part is like, ‘You need to take [these] opportunities and see where they lead for your own good.’

“Once I convinced him why it eventually might be a good move, he was more on board with trying it,” continues Adelson. “And that was well before Century Media came calling, so we’ve talked about it and even planned for it for quite some time. [There’s] no animosity whatsoever. If I’m doing my job, this is the inevitable result, and I take it as a confirmation that I was right about their potential.”

“Dave and I are basically family at this point, so we both knew the day was coming,” confirms Garrett. “He big-brothered my ass a little bit and made sure I knew what I was doing. I mean, this shit ain’t glitz and glamour, man. A lot of these fools think your life is going to change and people are going to start caring about you overnight, and that’s just not the case. But every decision that I make with this band is based on what’s best for all parties. I’m just glad we got to do one more record with Dave.”

“We wouldn’t be here without him,” asserts Bryant. “20 Buck Spin is as legit as a label comes in my book, and Dave will always be in our

VILELP876

Isengard - Vårjevndøgn

Side A 1. Cult Metal 2. Dragon Fly (Proceed Upon The Journey) 3. Floating With The Ancient Tide 4. The Fright 5. A Shape In The Dark Side B 1. Slash At The Sun 2. Rockemillion 3. The Light 4. The Solar Winds Mantra

In memory of all “CULT METAL”, new or lost, like RIGID DOMAIN from Denmark.

Vocals - FENRIZ Drums - FENRIZ Guitars - FENRIZ Bass - FENRIZ Engineer - FENRIZ Recorded by - FENRIZ Thanks to K.S. and O.K. for lending me the bass.

All songs written & recorded 1989-1993.

Peaceville Records

Layout Matthew Vickerstaff

Vårjevndøgn

www.peaceville.com p 2020 Peaceville Records c 2020 Peaceville Records.

VILELP876. Peaceville is a Snapper Music Label. All rights reserved.

Unauthorised duplication is a violation of applicable laws. Made in the E.U. LC01702

AUTOPSY LIVE IN CHICAGO

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DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2020 : 55

Spirit Adrift

Heavy metal albums have always been the most important thing in my life, and the fact that I get to make them in a very pure sense in Spirit Adrift…

I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

MARCUS BRYANT

immediate circle. It was hard [to leave], but it was necessary for our growth. We’re just excited to see how this all plays out. And I get to be on a roster with some of my favorite bands, on both labels, so it’s pretty awesome!”

TWILIGHT LANGUAGE Enthusiastic anticipation of future plans, mature

business dealings, grounded friendships in a notoriously slimy industry… Spirit Adrift could very well be the poster children for “How to Succeed in Metal Without Being an Asshole.” To that end, Enlightened in Eternity’s lyrical themes of inner strength (“Stronger Than Your Pain”), positive affirmation (“Astral Levitation”) and unwavering resolve (“Reunited in the Void”) carry even more weight when you consider that they’re coming from a very real place of self-reflection.

“I was living like a maniac for like 15 years, and I had to get into some ideas I wasn’t comfortable with in order to [survive], like life being more about helping people and leaving the world better than when I came in,” says Garrett about his troubled past. “It may be that [my] incessant creative drive is still backed up from all those years that I was destroying my mind, body, soul and artistic spirit. People have to change from when they first get sober—they don’t just stay the same. Now, I’m a much more developed person in every possible way.”

Of course, Garrett couldn’t have foreseen that his lyrics about coping with addiction, trauma and loss by tapping into the immeasurable power of the human spirit would land so presciently in

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a society that’s struggling to cope with the grim realities of COVID-19, but both he and Bryant are grateful for the opportunity to provide their fans with 46 minutes of heavy metal distraction.

“I believe good, responsible art is a reflection of what those people were going through [when they made it], but landing on these optimistic themes… we never could’ve planned this shit,” Bryant muses. “Nate and I were talking about it recently and we said, ‘Man, this is the record that we need right now.’ So, if it’s the record that we need, maybe it’ll resonate with other people in the same way, and that is the happiest goddamn accident of all.”

“I could never have seen all of this [coronavirus] stuff coming, but for whatever reason, there was something driving me to make an uplifting album,” says Garrett. “I’m fascinated by the things humans have to do mentally to survive life intact. For me, the concept of being ‘enlightened in eternity’ is idealism at its most hyperbolic—a fantastical yearning for a day when the human race can live in harmony forever. Sadly, I don’t think that day will ever come, but it’s that sort of thinking… what if we could all get along?”

SOURCE OF POWER NEVER ENDING Ultimately, it’s that mentality that makes

Enlightened in Eternity—and Spirit Adrift as a whole—stand out as a powerful example of what heavy music can accomplish when it comes straight from the heart. Garrett and Bryant

certainly aren’t the first to do it, but their talent and ambition make them more than capable of carrying the torch that was first set ablaze by their heroes Black Sabbath and subsequently passed to the likes of Metallica and Pantera. As far as Bryant is concerned, there could be no higher honor.

“Heavy metal albums have always been the most important thing in my life, and the fact that I get to make them in a very pure sense in Spirit Adrift… I feel like the luckiest guy in the world,” he says. “I get to play the purest form of my favorite style of music with someone who is as obsessed with it as I am. We’re very different people and we come at it from different places, but the love is exactly the same.”

For Garrett, Spirit Adrift will always be an integral part of his life, but after conquering his personal demons and seizing control of his own sovereignty, he has finally reached a point where he doesn’t need the conventional trappings of a successful music career to be happy.

For once and for all, the journey is the only thing that matters.

“I’m not clinging to this music like a life raft anymore,” he acknowledges. “If this is the last album we ever put out, that’s OK with me.

I’ve found a purpose that’s beyond any sort of materialistic aspirations. I’m really happy that we’re getting recognized for what we’ve done, but beyond that, I don’t need anything from anybody. I don’t even need the band to succeed.

If it does, awesome, but if it doesn’t, I don’t give a fuck because I don’t hate myself.”

of sunless realms AVAILABLE 10.09.20

“OF SUNLESS REALMS CONTINUES THE BAND’S WELL-ESTABLISHED SOUND STEEPED IN CATCHY MELODIES, ORCHESTRAL GRANDEUR, AND HIGH-OCTANE AGGRESSION, DELIVERED IN A BOMBASTIC AND ELEGANT WAY ALL THEIR OWN.” - NEW NOISE MAGIZINE “THE BAND’S PACE IS PAR FOR THE COURSE, EVEN IF THE DENSELY DARK SYMPHONICS AND INTRICATE TECHNICALITY SUGGEST DOING SO IS PRACTICALLY INHUMAN.” - DECIBEL MAGIZINE

CDS, VINYL & MERCHANDISE

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NEOCONCEPTION AVAILABLE NOW “THE MUSIC ITSELF PRODUCES MENTAL QUIVERING AND TWITCHING, AND A HIGH-VOLTAGE STIMULATION OF THE ENTIRE NERVOUS SYSTEM, BUT THE EFFECT IS SUBLIME IN ADDITION TO ELECTRIFYING.”

- NO CLEAN SINGING

INSIDE ≥

60 CARCASS Appetizer of destruction 60 CARNATION You're gonna love it in an instant

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

62 CYSTGURGLE Let me clear my throat 70 NONEXIST Might as well 70 PLAGUE YEARS 541, 1347, 1894, 1918, 2020

Down the Rabbit Hole

NOVEMBER

MR. BUNGLE find the thrash metal fountain of youth, energizes age-old demo re-recordings

15

Better uses of Marco Pitruzzella’s drumming

11

Better uses of Jack Owen’s riffs

4

Better uses of Metal Blade budgets

0

Better uses of Chris Barnes’ talents

F

ull disclosure: While your intrepid hack will forever count Mr. Bungle’s 1991 self-titled debut as one of the greatest albums of all time, I’d be lying through my chiclets if I MR. BUNGLE told you my initial knowledge of the band ran any deeper than The Raging “the new singer from Faith No More’s other band” and “John Zorn Wrath of the produced and played on the album.” But looking backwards with Easter Bunny a combination of curiosity and reverence is deeply ingrained in Demo extreme music’s spirit, so yeah, at some point after 1999’s California, IPECAC the limitless band’s final album and twisted nod to Don Ho and the Beach Boys, a mining of the past was in order. For whatever reason, however, of the four demos preceding their Warner Bros. signing, I only ever bothered with 1989’s OU818. In hindsight, this made no sense considering The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny is the band at their most thrashing and acerbically noisiest before ska, funk, disco, country, jazz and every other musical genre chipped away at their teenaged musical prejudices.

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

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DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2020 : 59

Given Mike Patton, Trey Spruance and Trevor Dunn’s 35 years of experimental proclivities, it’s surprising that Raging Wrath is what’s been revisited. Aside from the “La Cucaracha” break in “Hypocrites,” there’s virtually zilch in the way of avant-garde genre-splicing. With Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian providing lightning-quick precision picking, fleet-footed double kicks and fills that sound like they’re tripping down a sidewalk, there’s thrash metal legitimacy to spit in the face of the inevitable backlash about Bungle’s trend-jumping (despite the thrash revival killing itself off a decade ago). Everyone involved may be chronologically north of 50, but over 185 years of collective musical experience (seriously!) and a nagging urge to let loose effectively channels the spirit, speed and testosterone levels of their garage band youth, making Raging Wrath ground zero for a nod to days gone by at Reign in Blood pace.

“Bungle Grind” is the sonic manifestation of picking arm tendinitis and giddy-up’ed two-beats; “Raping Your Mind” references—inadvertent or otherwise—familiar thrash sequences; while “Methematics” includes the riff from “Love Is a Fist,” one of the debut’s heaviest moments.

Keeping the topsy-turvy spirit alive is a cover of C.O.C.’s “Loss for Words” and “Habla Español O Muere,” a rejigging of S.O.D.’s “Speak English or Die” into an entertaining statement about American government/policy. Performed with the experience and vigor of today, yesterday’s songs are ripping Slayer and Anthrax-tinged ragers (which makes one wonder if Lombardo and Ian’s involvement runs deeper than their “being available”) powered by Patton’s always-otherworldly vocalization and Spruance’s combustible leads that spit venom like a coherent Kerry King.

Raging Wrath won’t elevate Mr. Bungle to a spot in the “pentagonal Big Five,” but it’s both telling and damning that one of the best thrash albums of the year comes in the form of re-recordings of 34-year-old songs. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

BLACK CROWN INITIATE

6

Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape CENTURY MEDIA

Knowing and not knowing when to quit

A problem plaguing all artistic fields is the fact that prodigious ability doesn’t always translate into excellent output. An architect pal of mine once commented how three of the top five students in her graduating class would be better off erecting circus tents or a single-room shack for Ted Kaczynski. Think about how many album covers are made for 60 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

an emoji of Frank Frazetta holding a gun to his head. And while the membership of Black Crown Initiate can play circles around you, me, him and her, they’ve yet to create an unequivocal tech-death touchstone.

But they’re definitely getting better.

Considering their Teflon-slick guitar tones, ’70s prog excursions, djent/metalcore rhythmic passages and clean singing, old-school bile-chuggers will take issue with BCI being tagged as death metal in the slightest. But a multidimensional even keel is the band’s hallmark, and as much as opener “Invitation” synthesizes creepy riffs with penetrable polyrhythms and a beautiful solo, and as much as “Sun of War” bleeds Voivod color into Enslaved whites, and as much as “Trauma Bonds” sports an Eric Johnson influence and clean vocal efficacy (ironically, courtesy of guitarist Andy Thomas), miscues do stand out.

“Death Comes in Reverse” plods along unsatisfactorily with the track’s face-saving denouement inexplicably clipped; “Holy Silence” is a half-time race to nowhere; and in an attempt to circularly link opener and closer, the album finishes about as anticlimactically as one could imagine. However, noticeable streamlining progress has been made, as hasty, disparate juxtapositions and drastic changes are fewer and further in between, with almost Foley-like layers of sound and consistently killer solos aiding in the smoothing-out process and overall impact.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

CARCASS

9

Despicable NUCLEAR BLAST

Oops, they did it again

Seven years ago, Carcass unleashed Surgical Steel, a record that proved as divisive as its controversial 1996 predecessor Swansong, though in a vastly different context: Rather than bickering over whether it was a sly metamorphosis or a lost plot as we had nearly two decades previous, the 2013 discussion raged over whether Surgical Steel was merely great or, as I argued in the Decibel special issue The Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums of the Decade: 2010-2019, a heavy metal comeback record with “vanishingly few peers”—melodic death metal’s “Heaven and Hell, its Back in Black, its Monotheist.” Time and distance has only strengthened the case for the latter, in part because what Carcass accomplished was nothing so reductive as a “return to form.” Yes, Surgical Steel was more Heartwork than Swansong, but it also cohered the band’s disparate sonic eras in a way no other Carcass release yet had, while simultaneously incorporating enough new twists and elements to make the 17 intervening

years suddenly appear less like wildernesswandering than vision-questing.

The new EP, Despicable, revels in, further explores and frequently expands upon the Surgical Steel alchemy/sound. As such, for anyone not still tediously insisting the band should’ve packed it in after their album covers stopped making record store clerks puke, it is some of the best Carcass material, period. The 2019 Decibel Flexi Series track “Under the Scalpel Blade,” is a first-rate swaggering death metal anthem.

“The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue” and “The Long and Winding Bier Road” are two of the band’s most multidimensional, deftly constructed epics ever. “Slaughtered in Soho” is a marvel of heavy groove, uplifting melody and dissonant attack. Nearly 35 years in, Jeff Walker and Bill Steer are still (half-hearted apologies to Adam Ant) the true kings of the wild frontier, redefining outer borders for extreme metal writ large. Bring on the fulllength stat, please. —SHAWN MACOMBER

CARNATION

7

Where Death Lies SEASON OF MIST

Flower power

Carnation are not from Stockholm, but goddamn do they want to sound like they are. Their sophomore LP, Where Death Lies, was not recorded in 1991, but goddamn does it want to sound like it was. Instead, Carnation are from Belgium, and Where Death Lies is brand-spanking new.

It’s also fresh out of original ideas, though that seems to be a) sort of the point, and b) a mark in its favor. Carnation’s slavish dedication to the Sunlight Sound and laser-focus on the songwriting sweet spot between Carnage and Dismember yields better results than most bands dropping their bottom dollars on boutique HM-2 clone pedals.

Whereas most chainsaw death metal revivalists can’t help but out themselves as trendchasers more interested in finding an audience than loving what they’re doing, Carnation pretty earnestly feel like they’ve worn through double-digit numbers of Left Hand Path tapes.

The album’s middle three-song run from “Spirit Excision” through “Napalm Ascension” and ending with “Serpent’s Breath” reaches an almost platonic death metal ideal—catchy as hell, with just enough punk attitude to convey charisma, but riff turnarounds just sophisticated enough to count as buttered bread, not crust. Vocalist Simon Duson in particular screeches and squeals with vein-popping mania.

Duson is the only curveball Carnation can throw, though.

Henrik Palm

Poverty Metal |

LP / CD / Digital | 16.10.2020

Sophomore album from eclectic Swedish multi-instrumentalist Henrik Palm (In Solitude, Ghost). A rare explosion of outlandish and captivating songs, Voivodian riffs, Prog excursions and heavypop sonic contortions. For fans of everything from Killing Joke, Psychic TV, Trouble, Celtic Frost and My Bloody Valentine.

Kairon; IRSE!

Polysomn |

2 LP / CD / Digital | 11.9.2020

A treasure-trove of glitching, elated sounds, that takes psychedelia into a new dimension, Polysomn brings to mind the melodic lightning of bands like Dungen, the chainsawing alternative guitar fuzz of My Bloody Valentine, the sparkle and dreamscape of Slowdive, and the technological envelope-pushing of Radiohead’s outsider works. With members of Oranssi Pazuzu.

Aleah |

Aleah

2 LP / 2 CD / Digital

The posthumous album to celebrate the life and work of Aleah Starbridge (Trees of Eternity), compiled and produced by Juha Raivio (Swallow The Sun).

E NTER THE WEBSH OP w w w . s v a r t r e c o r d s . c o m DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2020 : 61

Look, I totally understand why someone would want to be in and also listen to a band like this: Like an Ever Flowing Stream still gets my blood pumping, too. I just think that anyone who loves Swedish death metal with this much conviction is obligated to try and expand on its template, not just reinforce it.

That said, as far as reinforcements go, Carnation are pure steel rebar. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

CORRUPT MORAL ALTAR

8

Man, all the cyberpunk novels were about computer viruses bringing humanity to a grinding halt, not an actual virus. Sure makes you long for megacorps, urban sprawl and omnipresent surveillance, doesn’t it? Oh well. Here’s some synth music to play in your isolation tanks. —JEFF TREPPEL

Patiently Waiting for Wonderful Things APF RECORDS

Brothers of no mercy

June 29. Four months into the global pandemic quarantine. A communique from Corrupt Moral Altar appears on Facebook, a popular social media website which itself is a (lowercase) corrupt moral altar (with uppercase ambitions).

“2020 sucks so far,” it read. “We thought we’d make it suck even more and release some new music…” Upping the brutal ante on 2020 was a tall order then; it has only grown taller in the intervening months. And yet, if you’ve been praying behind your mask for a soundtrack powerful enough to inspire and drive the slaying, lumbering, moronic giant that is this moment, it is hard to imagine a more effective or appropriate one than the dizzyingly diverse, deftly constructed grind-sludge attack of Patiently Waiting for Wonderful Things—not only easily the absolute best, most galvanizing material Corrupt Moral Altar have recorded in a nearly decade-long career of insanely top-shelf (if underappreciated) extreme output, but also totally unbridled, as song titles such as “Maximum Bastardry,” “Spirit Breaker” and “You Smell Expensive” clearly attest.

Contrary to the aforementioned Facebook post, Patiently Waiting doesn’t suck—these will undoubtedly be some of the best heavy metal tracks you hear this year, period—but it holds out the promise of making life suck for the preening weenies who were a plague unto themselves before our current circumstances, and have only proven more of a liability in the interim. (We’re definitely in “small victories” territory.) Here’s hoping guitarist John Cooke’s rising profile—he’s a current member of Venomous Concept, longtime live guitarist for Napalm Death and current live bassist for Anaal Nathrakh—translates to more muchdeserved attention and love for Corrupt Moral Altar’s feral brand of hate. —SHAWN MACOMBER 62 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

E

VERYONE WHO THOUGHT CARPENTER BRUT would do a great job scoring an actual film, here you go! Blood Machines [ N O QUA R TER ] is actually the soundtrack to a neon-drenched retro sci-fi miniseries by their “Turbo Killer” video director Seth Ickerman, but who’s counting? It rules exactly as much as you’d hope. The creepy future-shock ambience will please those listeners who thought the French darksynth legends went too AOR on Leather Teeth.

MASERATI fuse together parts from the electronic post-rock of Trans Am, the hypnotically repetitious krautrock of Kraftwerk and the classically influenced synthpop of To Live and Die in L.A.-era Wang Chung to build their own high-powered machine, all gleaming chrome and smooth lines. Enter the Mirror [ TEMP O R A R Y R ESIDEN C E LTD.] finds the band emerging from a five-year slumber as hungry for souls as fellow sentient roadster Christine.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include prolific synth-metaller MASTER BOOT RECORD’s Metal Blade debut here. As befits his new label, Floppy Disk Overdrive contains some of his most brutal compositions to date. MBR takes overdriven electric guitar shredding and melts it in digital hellfire to create some of the gnarliest tones ever vomited out by a computer. That’s not even mentioning the drum machines—those straight-up want to kill you. It’s enough to make an AI want to mosh.

Heavy synth-prog progenitors ZOMBI are to darksynth as Iron Maiden are to power metal—they don’t necessarily belong to the genre, but the stuff sure wouldn’t exist without them. Although “Breakthrough & Conquer” and “XYZT” wouldn’t be out of place on an Outrun-themed mix, 2020 [ R EL A P SE] mostly fits the year it’s named after: harsh, hard-edged and bleak. The desolate cover art tells you what to expect. It’s worth the journey across the wasteland to the shimmering tower, but it’s a challenging trek.

CYSTGURGLE

8

Ubi pus, ibi fermento SELF-RELEASED

Choke on ’em!

Attempting to recapture the magic of Dutch legends Last Days of Humanity on Putrefaction in Progress is a foolhardy endeavor. It was the final statement in extremity. But Thai gorenoise band Cystgurgle summit the insurmountable with their new offering Ubi pus, ibi fermento.

The first thing you’ll notice on Ubi pus is the lack of guitar. The second is that all the high frequencies are blown the fuck out, exploding in hissing static with every strike of the cymbals or high-pitched pinging snare. The last thing you may notice (or not, as your brain should be slowly oozing out of your ears) is the inhuman stuttering of a drum machine cranked to ludicrous speed. But that’s no drum machine—that’s Polwach Beokhaimook, human master blaster extraordinaire.

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RUMBLY RU MBLY THROUGH A SPEAKER THROUGH

Cystgurgle began as a conventional two-piece goregrind band. Early splits tastefully mixed D-beats, hyperblasts and mince tupas with distorted bass grooves. On Ubi pus, ibi fermento, they completely discard any pretense of musical subtlety. Once the first coroner’s report sample ends, Cystgurgle begin blasting and never stops for 19 minutes. Taking cues from early gorenoise pioneer Anal Birth, every microsong is a whirlwind of atonal distortion and pitchshifted toilet gurgles, with Beokhaimook’s drums structuring each snippet of harsh noise into discrete songs. Occasionally, a massive stereo wall of frantic contact mic-mashing peeks through, or the drums slow down for a brief moment to reveal a bass riff, but then it’s right back grinding your face into paste.

Cystgurgle certainly aren’t for everyone.

But for the discerning noise enthusiast or basement-dwelling gore-grinder, they’re the new standard by which all gorenoise will be judged.

—ANDREW LEE

DEVILDRIVER

6

Dealing With Demons N A PA L M

Adopting Highway 666

Seventeen years ago, DevilDriver were notable as being the new band from Coal Chamber vocalist Dez Fafara. But at this point, Fafara has spent more time behind the wheel with DevilDriver, abandoning downtuned nü-heaviness for radioready groove metal. On their ninth LP Dealing With Demons—billed as the first installment of a two-part concept—DevilDriver invoke malignant forces both supernatural and metaphoric.

An appropriate title for the social distancing era, “Keep Away From Me” sheds the album’s gentle intro 53 seconds in. DevilDriver then steamroll through 10 tracks of sonic road rage, none of them crossing a duration of four and a half minutes. The runtime uniformity is not an indictment of sameness; it’s more of a testament to succinct songwriting. Like a poltergeist varies its haunting techniques, DevilDriver’s spellbook is full of eclectic hexes.

“Vengeance Is Clear” reimagines deathcore as a mutagen of Napalm Death’s Diatribes. The blistering riffage of “Nest of Vipers” embodies Pantera’s sunburnt groove without thieving their cowboy hats. Bruising standout “Iona” draws blood with shards of Deadguy and ’90s metalcore. DevilDriver do possess an evocative emotional core (most present in “Wishing”) that most groove metal bands fail to establish.

The hooks aren’t as sharp in the album’s final third, but the stylistic shapeshifting keeps Dealing With Demons an uneven, yet engaging listen.

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Altar of Tape Hiss

BY DUTCH PEARCE

BOREAL

FLESHDRIVER

REALM AND RITUAL

REDEFINING DARKNESS

The Battle of VOSAD The Battle of VOSAD has respawned in 2020, bigger and bassier than ever. Originally released on Eternal Warfare in 2009, VOSAD returns now not only reissued, but completely re-recorded. With some help from his consistently helpful friends, the cult demo penned solely by Ash Fox becomes a fully realized, immersive world of atmospheric, synth-laden black metal.

Equal parts epic dungeon synth and melodic black metal, it’s no wonder the tapes sold out instantly.

BLACK CANDLE WAX Crematorium ODD MEMORY

Crematorium is mysterious USBM act Black Candle Wax’s third tape revealed to the public and the only one that remains available—if you know where to look. Released by Odd Memory, a label owned by illustrator Droll Meadow, Crematorium once again features Droll Meadow’s obscure artwork as its cover. Concealed beneath a fungal-infected production, Crematorium presents 20 minutes of murky, mid-paced black metal punk weirdly luminescent with musty, psychedelic synths. Nearly impenetrable, but repeated listens prove there’s definitely something dangerous lurking underneath.

PALLID BLOOD

Flesh Eviction AT T I C S H R I N E S

Who knows how Pallid Blood produces their death ambient decay, but it sounds like this mysterious American artist takes field recordings on forsaken grounds via undisclosed methods and captures much more than mere noise. The fact that these pieces were dubbed onto worn, old tapes only serves to heighten the otherworldly experience brought on by Pallid Blood’s simultaneously arching and crumbling sonic disturbances. Nowhere in the Attic Shrines’ universe is it safe to tread unawares, but Pallid Blood’s Flesh Eviction marks the label’s darkest hollow yet.

Leech

On their demo Leech, Tallahassee, FL-based duo Fleshdriver dole out 12 straight minutes of beatdown death metal punishment. There may only be two of them, but Fleshdriver sound like a perfectly synchronized army of guitarists and drummers crushing these tight and highly explosive numbers. That’s not to say Leech is without its nuances. For all its Grave vs.

Xibalba-level brutality, there are some rare moments of Acid Bath-ian sincerity and Swedeath guitar glory that will hit you with precious life amid the relentless pummeling.

CRYPTIC HATRED

Free From the Grave DESERT WASTELANDS

Four Finnish teenagers hung up on early ’90s brutal U.S. death metal stand responsible for this 30-minute assault on the senses dubbed Free From the Grave. If the first four Cannibal Corpse full-lengths are starting to wear a little thin for you, Cryptic Hatred’s got your back with eight appreciably meaty, thoroughly rotten counts of butchery to satisfy that gore-dependent part of your depraved mind. Minus the offensive song titles, this is as close as you’re going (to want) to get to what was festering in the gutters of the death metal scene 30 years ago.

MARTHE

Sisters of Darkness CALIGARI

Marthe, doomy and blackened heavy metal from Italy, exists because Marzia, the woman and sole musician behind the band, loves metal (especially Bathory) and has always wanted to drum for a metal band. The bedroomforged sound of Marthe’s debut EP Sisters of Darkness both amplifies and belies the frequent moments of shining genius that adorn this album like rough-cut gems on a barbarian queen’s crown. Composed of four epic-length tracks that soar by at godly, timebending pace, the sanguine spirit of Blood Fire Death is alive and bewitching on Sisters of Darkness, one of the most fascinating debuts in recent metal history.

Uniform: Shame September 11, 2020

V/A: What Is This That Stands Before Me? (Black Sabbath Covers Compilation) September 18, 2020

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou: May Our Chambers Be Full OctOber 30, 2020

SacredbOneSrecOrdS.cOm

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The staccato vocalizations of “Witches” feel like an unwelcome time warp to the late ’90s. The haunted atmospheres intended on the title track and closing catharsis “Scars Me Forever” don’t fully manifest before each song’s end. But despite the album’s missed targets in the final act, the thematic arc of Fafara’s lyrics help unite Dealing With Demons’ disparate tracks. —SEAN FRASIER

DIESEL MACHINE

6

Evolve

M E TA LV I L L E

Ripper Van Winkles shouldn’t wait another 20 years

Anyone who digs turn-of-the-millennium groove metal (Machine Head make a handy point of comparison) is pretty much bound to love Diesel Machine’s second album. As for the rest of us?

Maybe yes? But it’s a throw of the dice. The Los Angeles-based quartet’s first release since 2000’s Torture Test is less throwback than time capsule, simultaneously a testimonial to the band’s determination in the face of hardship and the musical equivalent of a woolly mammoth trapped for thousands of years in some glacial crevice, freed by the big Anthropocene thaw. Not that the record is particularly smelly: vocalist A.J. Cavalier, guitarist Patrick Lachman, bassist Rich Gonzales and drummer Shane Gaalaas all do exactly what anyone making a groove metal record is/ was supposed to do circa whenever—especially the parts that involve making grooves.

They’re strong on textural elements, too, and while their riffs often conjure images of Voivod as a slam metal band that also relies heavily on breakdowns, the band’s chorded sections (per the chorus of opener “Death March”) reveal a ton of personality and real creative flair. The problem—if you wanna perceive it as such—is that there’s more of the former than the latter, which sometimes makes the album as a whole seem more formulaic than if you take it song by song. The band (and album’s) strongest link ends up being Cavalier, who consistently makes his regular-guy-in-the-end-times lyrics easily understood whether barking, growling, roaring or just yelling conversationally like a neighbor whose yard you’ve just invaded. —ROD SMITH

DUNWICH

7

Tail-tied Hearts CALIGARI

Witching rock

Unreal and deeply charming as it may be, there is decidedly no sub-aural chicanery afoot on Moscow trio Dunwich’s debut, Tail-tied Hearts. Rather Dunwich 66 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

are literally a dream band. When one dreams, does the subconscious not construct this living collage complete with an unpredictable and wildly entertaining narrative for the dreamer to experience? It’s the same for Tail-tied Hearts.

After a few listens of T-tH, the jarring effect of “what are they even doing?!” diminishes and gives way to a proper respect for what Dunwich are actually doing. These Russians aren’t the first band to employ many and varying western rock genres to convey their sound, but no other bands sound like Dunwich. And trying to explain their sound is like telling someone about a dream.

“Through the Dense Woods,” begins with tom drums pounding out a smoldering beat, staccato chugs from a subterranean-sounding guitar. A woman’s voice, alluring but somehow ominous, predatorial, weaves through the rhythm like a phantom through the trees. A sudden chorus of female vocals floods in, cut in half by crimsonstained black metal howls and the band swings with something like doomy Satanic gospel folk.

Overall, Tail-tied Hearts feels more like a pop album for metal people than anything else.

Therein lies its one major flaw as well. For all its varied influences, ingenious combinations and compositions, if you separate any part from the whole, you’ll find it rather contrived unto itself.

In this way, the album is also dream-like as it resembles a collage of previously heard stimuli firing in novel ways. No doubt Dunwich have crafted a wonderful and unique approach to getting our attention, but now that they have it…

Let’s see what they can really do. —DUTCH PEARCE

EMMA RUTH RUNDLE & THOU

8

May Our Chambers Be Full SACRED BONES

None dare call it “slunge”

One big danger of collaborative releases is their potential for turning into accidental display vessels for the kinds of habits participants view as elements of style. So, it is with Thou and the Body. Thanks to Chip King and Bryan Funck being two of the least chameleonic vocalists ever to engage with a mic (along with their penchant for straight-up duets), the work of two otherwise worthy entities often ends up coming off as redundant to any listener experiencing more than one track in a row.

Such is very much not the case with May Our Chambers Be Full. Funck wisely covers the outfield for the better part of Thou’s first collaboration with Emma Ruth Rundle, and in doing so helps create a flurry of opportunities for the guitarist/vocalist to demonstrate her power,

versatility and range in ways that none of her other vehicles (Nocturnes, Red Sparowes, Marriages) have allowed for. Thou’s capacity for generating the instrumental equivalent of mile-deep lava parfaits decorated with electrical storms and massive convocations of ghostly harmonics helps make May Our Chambers not only the heaviest record Rundle’s been involved with to date, but a showcase for an intensity she’s only hinted at in the past. The latter’s command of nuance and color helps finally manifest the inner melodic powerhouse that’s pushed Thou to do so many Nirvana covers. The whole ends up being greater than the sum of its parts to an extent that calls for at least a couple sequels. —ROD SMITH

EXGENESIS

8

Solve et Coagula RAIN WITHOUT END

The good kind of brutal oppression

Jari Lindholm is the man!

Formerly of Swedish brills Slumber and Atoma (and currently with Enshine and post-rock outfit Seas of Years), the Stockholm musician, along with frontman Alejandro Lotero and drummer Christian Netzell (ex-In Mourning), has put all his talents over the last year into Exgenesis, a brutal melodic doom-death metal act cut from the same divine cloth as October Tide, Rapture and, in places, Swallow the Sun. Now, the four keywords that are inclusive of the previous sentence are placed in a specific order to help my fellow fans of mid-paced doom, gloom and desperation understand Exgenesis’ music more deeply.

Solve et Coagula—Latin for “dissolve and coagulate”—is massively oppressive. Over the course of the album’s eight immaculate tracks, it breaks down the listener, riff by riff, low vocal (growl) line by high vocal (scream) line, movement by movement. Tracks like “Where the Hope Ends,” “Intracosmos” and “Truth” border on funeral doom, in fact. But with Lindholm at the helm, Exgenesis’ music is also super-melodic. Not in the jolly In Flames way, but the our world is ending, and it’s really unfortunate to see our collective contributions to humankind burn to ash way. Tracks like “Hollowness,” “Coagula” and the heart-wrenching instrumental “Solve” ride what’s left of our collapsing firmament hard, as if to say death is eternal and that’s just fine.

Now, a good vocalist fronting a band like Exgenesis is a rarity, but Lotero is a magnificent beast. He’s part Henri Villberg, part Mikael Åkerfeldt, and there’s not one clean note in his fantastic arsenal. Whatever shit this guy went through in life must’ve really hammered his constitution, ’cause he lays it all

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out there, from “Hollowness” to “Stasis.” Exgenesis are proof that from tiny roots (like their label) can things monumental and significant emerge. —CHRIS DICK

EYES

7

Underperformer INDISCIPLINARIAN

You’re too hard on yourself, son

KRALLICE

8

Mass Cathexis SELF-RELEASED

What Cuomo should be taking credit for

As is routine for any Krallice release, the first gauntlet-run through Mass Cathexis is intimidating. Each and every measure 68 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

MOLASSESS, Through the Hollow

9

Come, reap | S E A S O N O F M I S T

The magic of Dutch occult prog pioneers the Devil’s Blood was not so much in their recorded output—which nonetheless obliterated all peers—but what happened when they locked in live: namely, hypnotically dragging the audience into a sonic vortex.

Their alchemy left fans mesmerized, and when the band ended in 2013, it left them cruelly devoid. Molassess are not a return—that would be impossible with the group’s key component, Selim Lemouchi, having left this mortal coil in 2014—but in Through the Hollow, they have raised a new temple.

Four of the original cavalcades of misfits are joined by jazz aficionados Bob Hogenelst (drums) and Matthijs Stronks (keys), and the resulting album is a potent and damningly cathartic outpouring of grief and restoration

is meticulously sculpted like individual frames within a Kubrick film. Interpreting the offensive on first blush simply requires too much CPU. Mercifully, guitarist/keyboardist and producer Colin Marston has given the band their most balanced recording to date, complementing the crisp legibility of 2016’s Prelapsarian with the grime and sonic depth of their preliminary catalogue. The listener isn’t forced to excavate for meaning here; the goods all lie up top. The nattering guitars are as articulate as they are athletic, and the bass—once again pushed up into the mix’s nosebleed-section—tethers each kaleidoscopic pattern to earth while slyly generating endless melodic tributaries of its own.

Multiple listens untangle Mass Cathexis’ disharmonic snarl like a candle flame divulging the loops and whorls of a message scrawled in invisible ink. Once discerned, the cunning and generosity of the album’s songcraft is stagger-

through the melting pot of hard rock, doom, prog and an unclassifiable otherness. Their impenetrable energy drenches the album with the gluelike substance from which they take their name. Whether vocalist Farida Lemouchi is flitting from destructive to introspective in seconds, or the unholy trio of Oeds Beydals, Ron van Herpen and Job van de Zande are working through that unspoken vacuum with palpable fury, or the new collaborators are given space to make each incredible composition break, like coming up for much-needed air, this album is their best work. It had to be.

“How does it feel?” Farida snarls on the closing track. Like Selim is in every note and smirking proudly. If you were a fan of the Devil’s Blood, this is their eulogy, and their evolution.

This is the light at the end of the tunnel.

—LOUISE BROWN

ing. Opener “Feed on the Blood of Rats” lifts off via a series of nervous, almost mechanical fugues, settles into a dramatic, tension-riddled procession and finally dissolves into wild, Spiral Architect-like contretemps. Following track “Set” is electric with ambivalence before alighting on a brief passage of muscular death metal, only to melt once again into a suite of furtive, textural sheets of sound. The title track curiously alludes to Dorrian-era Napalm Death, forgoing all the typical filigree for smeary, atavistic polemics, while the flanged-out Project Records-meets-Animals as Leaders vibe of “The Form” is wickedly occult.

And so it goes. The album consistently reinterprets the band’s black/death-through-the-looking-glass approach without ever actually betraying it. With this revelatory work and Alphaville in tow, NYC black metal has officially run the table on any worthy best-of-2020 list. —FORREST PITTS

PHOTO BY RYANNEVAN DORST

Hopefully separating the album title from the artist isn’t as difficult for some people as separating the art from the artist has proven to be, ’cause if you go into Eyes’ sophomore full-length assuming the Danish quintet will actually underperform, chances are you’ll stumble out of the listening experience somewhere between feral album opener “Verge” and its rousing epic art-metal/grind/post-hardcore closer “Crutches” looking like Bluto after eating a couple dozen of Popeye’s spinach-powered knuckle sandwiches.

To ride that allusive bus a couple stops further, it is a sonic pounding fueled by high-quality extremely extreme nutrition. Eyes are straight cross-the-streams killers, tossing everything from Botch, early-ish Daughters and Drowningman to Disfear, Cursed and circa Manic Compression Quicksand into their heavy metal juicer. (Probably spinach, too, considering the high iron content.)

As you might imagine, given such varied touchstones, the record is a bit busy—but in a good way. The band has stitched all of this together in a way that feels pure and kinetic, never contrived or paint-by-numbers. The production is fantastic—a huge wall of sound that nevertheless creates space for nuance, melodies and gargantuan grooves—and across that solid foundation Eyes just raise one nasty, multidimensional, catchy, memorable track after another.

Aside from a couple “gathering storm” intros/ interludes, the attack never loses its magnitude or vehemence. Underperformer admirably embodies the spirit of the mid-to-late-’90s metallic hardcore revolution while placing its own unique, mutinous stamp on that highly influential, enduring subgenre—which is very rarely as thrillingly or interestingly reinterpreted as it is here. —SHAWN MACOMBER

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NONEXIST

5

Like the Fearless Hunter MIGHTY MUSIC

Far below the weeping world

Nonexist have the chops, as the brainchild of guitar maestro Johan Reinholdz, to really break out from the glut of other Swedish acts. But as with debut Deus Deceptor and its successors, Reinholdz’s “lightning in a bottle” is rare. This is also true of new album Like the Fearless Hunter, the sixstring prodigy’s first without frontman Johan Liiva (Black Earth, ex-Arch Enemy). Cases in point: opening single “Strictly Sadistic Intent,” “Together We Shall Burn” and instrumental track “Fear Corrodes the Soul.” On these tracks, Reinholdz’s channeling of death and progressive metal is unique to Nonexist. The sound is quite unlike anything out there, if we’re forgetting the legacy Edge of Sanity left behind.

Where Nonexist go pear-shaped is the actual songwriting itself. The fast, Swedish hardcoreinfused “Dark Satanic Mills” doesn’t belong here.

It feels absolutely confused in its direct-attack first half and booty-groove middle-eight, which flows jarringly into the motif of the first half.

Similarly, “Emerging From a World Below” has a cool intro, but Reinholdz isn’t quite strong enough as a singer to piece in Dark Tranquillitylike voices. “A Meditation Upon Death” does something that’s also baffling: The first and last parts are aggressive death metal—the blast beats of drummer Joakim Strandberg-Nilsson (In Mourning) are quite the feat to behold—but the middle and third are these brilliant atmosphericprogressive runs that sound like something Crypt of Kerberos would do today had they survived World of Myths intact. Essentially, “A Meditation Upon Death” is two songs pieced together with flimsy transition work.

While most death metal is a patchwork of influences and sounds these days, for some reason, the Reinholdz-crafted smorgasbord that is Like the Fearless Hunter needs fewer whiplashinducing options, not more. —CHRIS DICK

OVERDOSE

7

Two Wheels and Gone S P L AT T E R E D !

Lemmy take a wild guess what this sounds like…

At its purest, rock ‘n’ roll’s most enduring and endearing quality lies in its instant gratification, that jolt of electricity and the illusory sense that everything is getting faster. Think “Maybellene,” “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” “Suffer the Children”… well, you get the 70 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

picture. It’s all one continuum, and the principle of instantaneous payoff has been proven time and time again, used to devastating effect by the likes of Motörhead, whose devastating brand of British beat has been adopted and augmented by NYC’s Overdose.

The personnel behind their speed-punk rock ‘n’ roll sound should be familiar to anyone with a passing interest in Brooklyn’s black metal scene, with Mutilation Rites’ George Paul and Michael Dimmitt manning drums and lead guitar respectively, Joe Merolla of Pyrolatrous on bass and Reed Bruemmer (formerly of Speedwolf) on guitars and vocals. The sound should be familiar to anyone reading this magazine.

Amphetamines have gone out of style for all but the nation’s truck drivers, but that sort of antsin-the-pants energy really juices this one, even if Overdose are disciplined enough to keep the tempo manageable.

Tracks such as “Hit the Road” and “On the Run” are all monochrome bitumen grooves, anthems for fast living, hard dying and hellraising. Throughout, the guitars are dimed. You can picture a constellation of red on the mixing desk. Paul sure can smack ’em, and Bruemmer’s voice is made for this. In 2020, this is just what we need: a fuck-it-all screed harkening back to a more innocent era when we could shorten our time on this cursed rock on our own damn terms. —JONATHAN HORSLEY

PANZERFAUST

7

The Suns of Perdition— Chapter II: Render Unto Eden EISENWALD

Tiptoe through the end times

Over their 15-year history, Panzerfaust have gifted our genteel world with albums titled The Dark Age of Militant Paganism and song titles like “The Men of No Man’s Land” from last year’s The Suns of Perdition—Chapter I: War, Horrid, War. The cumulative point to all of the above is that there’s some mighty worrisome bleakness in operation here.

It’s of the sort where they probably christen tours with titles like “No One Gets Out Alive 2020,” even if they spend their free time on the road miserably consuming Mission of Burma, the Pop Group and Gang of Four while drummer Alexander Kartashov beats out Therapy? rhythms on a practice pad instead of hunting down members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Render Unto Eden is the second installment of a planned four-album opus, and leaps from the speakers with “Promethean Fire” swirling

Swedish black metal penetration around the darkest post-punk to emerge from ’80s U.K. coal mines.

“The Faustian Pact” beautifully combines a precise drum armada and searing cymbals with guitars that bend and curl like Middle Eastern banshee ululations, all the while maintaining a hummable classic metal character. On the other hand, “Areopagitica” has Below the Lights-era Enslaved taking on a rhythmic folk-punk undercurrent.

The definitive winning piece to the puzzle that is the band’s fifth album is the manner in which the wide melodic wingspan maintains a sinister air on par with the chilly Orwellian dystopia of the lyrics. Panzerfaust know that the devil and her warmongering army have the best tunes, and are proud to be leading the charge as humanity taps its toes, air-guitars, fist-pumps and headbangs towards collapse. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PLAGUE YEARS

7

Circle of Darkness EONE

Two out of three ain’t bad

The best crossover thrash bands are those who can— that’s right—cross over effortlessly into hardcore. Plague Years have no problem doing that, though they make some interesting, if somewhat uneven, detours on Circle of Darkness.

First off, the thrash side is tight as a fucking drum. Like Plague Years’ best contemporaries in this full-fledged revival, the riffs are utilitarian, stripped of flash and delivered with the speed of a group prison-shanking. And when the pit opens up, they produce rumbling, brutal hardcore bordering on death metal that retains its severity without hiccups. This core is pretty unshakeable, but the band clearly loves its early-to-mid-’90s groove metal, or whatever you wanna call it, and that doesn’t always work.

There’s nothing wrong with winks towards that beloved wave, and when it’s played against the other genres, it’s a pleasing symbiosis. After all, this was the logical evolution for so many thrash and crossover veterans. But songs like “NRFTL” are a full embracing of that sound, aided by a frontman who sounds like he grew up mainlining Roadrunner Records and Blue Grape Merchandise. When that whisper on “Eternal Fire” may as well be Phil Anselmo himself, instead of nostalgic, it unfortunately feels somewhat dated.

By the end of Circle of Darkness, it seems the only misstep from Plague Years is a shaky balancing of elements. As crossover thrashers know, you can shotgun your beer and slam your whiskey, but then you need to take it a little easier on the bong. —SHANE MEHLING

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GREG PUCIATO

6

Child Soldier: Creator of God

FEDERAL PRISONER

Option paralysis

Greg Puciato’s first solo record—after having fronted the Dillinger Escape Plan for five albums and the Black Queen for two—seems custom-crafted to befuddle and evade its audience. With 15 rock-radio-length songs totaling over an hour of music, Child Soldier: Creator of God certainly appears to have a lot to say, all of which is a gift for Puciato’s fans. Each song is an interesting artifact that functions brilliantly in isolation.

Taken together, though, the record feels unfocused, alternately indulgent and pandering, as if Puciato wanted to gather all facets of his musical personality in one place, but couldn’t get the balance quite right.

Take, for instance, the singles he released months in advance of the album. “Fire for Water” teases Dillinger-style, simmer-to-boil-andback aggression, without all of Ben Weinman’s discordant guitar pointillism that has so often buoyed Puciato’s rage. He follows it with the NIN/Melvins brute menace of “Deep Set,” “Do You Need Me to Remind You” and “Roach Hiss,” all of which feint toward a gritty bruiser of an album. Child Soldier is not that album.

What those singles all omit (or at least obfuscate) is Puciato’s sleek electropop sensibilities that shine through the Black Queen’s records and hold sway over at least half of Child Soldier. Then there are the eye-widening Dashboard Confessionals of “Heaven of Stone” and “Through the Walls.” Each of these ideas works on its own merits, but anyone enticed by the pulsing neck veins in “Fire for Water” might struggle to connect. We’re left wondering if something uniquely exciting lives in some blend of these approaches (like “September City” maybe?) that hasn’t yet been fully realized on this debut. —DANIEL LAKE

SATAN

7

Early Rituals LISTENABLE

The conjuring

Satan’s reemergence—after a 26-year hiatus—has been truly astounding. Arriving back on the scene in 2013 with the same lineup responsible for recording the Decibel Hall of Famer Court in the Act, the band has arguably done some of its finest work, recording three new fulllengths for Listenable and Metal Blade over the last seven years. So, it’s understandable that 72 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

the former would want to capitalize on this momentum and reissue early material from the NWOBHM days via this new compilation.

Early Rituals features 14 tracks recorded in three sessions between 1981 and 1986—before and after Court in the Act, which came out in 1983. Some of these are, in fact, early versions of songs from Court, like “Trial by Fire,” “Blades of Steel,” “No Turning Back” and “The Ritual.” The main difference here is that vocalist Brian Ross doesn’t appear on any of this material. Without delving into the confusing details, let’s just say that Ross’s first go-’round with Satan in the NWOBHM era was brief, but eventful.

The first two songs on Early Rituals—“Kiss of Death” and “Heads Will Roll’—appeared on Satan’s debut single in 1982 and featured vocalist Trevor Robinson. Robinson actually provides vocals on the first 10 tracks, which constitute the two demos the band issued prior to Ross joining and the recording of Court. Though you can hear the nascence of Satan’s squalling two-guitar fury and pre-thrash tempos, Robinson’s vocals are merely adequate and sound very similar to dozens of other frontmen of that era. Same can be said of vocalist Michael Jackson (seriously), who mans the mic for the last four tracks, which were actually issued by Steamhammer in 1986 as the Into the Future EP. The music’s tight and fast, but it’s hard not to imagine what Ross could have done with them had he stuck around. —ADEM TEPEDELEN

SILVER KNIFE

7

Unyielding/Unseeing A M O R FAT I P R O D U C T I O N S / ENTROPIC

Cuts you up

Featuring prominent members of the atmospheric black metal underground (their roster includes N. from Laster/ Nusquama, H. from Hypothermia, D. from Yhdarl/Acathexis/Wolvennest/Cult of Erinyes/ you get the idea and P. from Paramnesia), Silver Knife’s surprising debut beefs up the oft-listless and meandering atmospheric black metal (isn’t black metal atmospheric anyway?). In the case of bands like Silver Knife, which inhabit a more atmospheric side of black metal, I like to think of an underground black metal Reese’s commercial: “Hey, you got your aggression in my atmosphere!”

“Your atmosphere? Look at my aggression!”

Though they maintain the hallmarks of their roots—long, flowing progressions, obscured melodies and a verdant, morose ambiance— Silver Knife’s true success is in their (aforementioned) aggression; and that’s something generally missing from atmospheric black metal.

Living up to their name, Silver Knife’s Unyielding/Unseeing is sharp and uncompromising.

Relying not only on atmosphere—which is displayed on a Herculean scale throughout the album—there is a ferocity found here, deep within the boundless horizons this international unit boasts, which makes their sky-gazing bittersweet. This is hostile music, no doubt, but there is a larger tenderness found within Unyielding/Unseeing, and these dualities define what kind of listen Silver Knife offers.

Turbulent and calming, dense and wistful, heavy and subdued, Silver Knife’s debut album— or at least what is touted as their “first public outing”—shows a band masterfully balancing on the apex, deftly leaning from one side to another without falling prey to full definition.

—JON ROSENTHAL

SIX FEET UNDER

3

Nightmares of the Decomposed M E TA L B L A D E

Stop digging

There is the rare band that no longer contains any original members.

Even rarer is a band that contains one original member who is in disguise. That specimen is Six Feet Under on their latest full-length, Nightmares of the Decomposed.

Here’s the bottom line: Chris Barnes’ voice is all blown to shit. His iconic gutturals are no more, replaced with a strained, gravelly, powerless vocal that’s closer to spoken word than screaming. This is coupled with a (mercifully) limited pig squeal that sounds like a stuffed animal running low on batteries.

The band now features former Cannibal Corpse guitarist/founding member Jack Owen, who brings with him a smattering of genuinely good riffs that make you wish he had found a more hospitable place for them. After all, this is a project that’s existed for 27 years in service of highlighting its frontman. There’s a reason why the band’s most popular song on Spotify, by far, is their bordering-on-parody cover of “TNT.” Even when the music has potential, it’s tough to enjoy when there is an 800-pound gorilla in the room who can’t sing.

There are obviously people out there who have never much liked Barnes’ vocal approach, but it’s unlikely they were ever listening to Six Feet Under in the first place. And despite some bright spots, there is nothing on here that would logically bring any new fans into the fold. Instead, Nightmares of the Decomposed delivers what it promises: the terrifying experience of a man who’s falling apart. —SHANE MEHLING

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SPELLBOOK

7

Magick and Mischief CRUZ DEL SUR

Every witch way

If Pennsylvania quartet SpellBook’s debut album sounds a little too tight to be a band’s first outing—that’s because it’s actually their fourth.

These proto-metal revivalists released three previous albums under the unfortunate moniker of Witch Hazel. I say “unfortunate” not because it’s a bad name—it isn’t—but because there happens to be another band with the all-too-similar name Wytch Hazel that plays a similar style of late ’70s heavy rock (and happened to gain a bit of a following).

As far as soft resets, though, a band could do a hell of a lot worse than Magick and Mischief. It’s a mostly great introduction to their sound, as muscular and groovy as Coverdale-era Deep Purple, but with a narrative lyrical bent that skews more toward what Alice Cooper was doing at the same time. SpellBook also prove themselves equally adept at hooky rockers (“Wands to the Sky”) as they do extended melodic fare (“Amulet – Fare Thee Well”).

I say “mostly great” because, while the first six songs totally deliver the goods, SpellBook fumble on 11-minute album closer “Dead Detectives,” a circular, meandering slog that sounds like one jam session spliced in with dialogue from a bad crime novel delivered by local repertory theater actors. Much of what was lost in the golden years of LP-oriented heavy rock deserves to be resuscitated, but these long navel-gazing experiments rightfully went the way of the dinosaur. Magick and Mischief would have been impeccable without it. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

TOUCHÉ AMORÉ

7

Lament E P I TA P H

Rejoice

No offense to producer Ross Robinson—a lovely gentleman, I’m sure, and one who has absolutely done work much more varied than his preceding reputation—but as a heavy music devotee of a certain advancing age, when a band I love talks about wanting to “break out of their comfort zone” and hires him… well, I hear alarm bells that sound suspiciously like a DJ scratching while a crabwalking bass player drags his strings along a concrete floor.

So, it’s truly a relief that the Robinson-produced fifth full-length from Touché Amoré is deft evolution, not metamorphosis. The Los Angeles quintet does not get the Roots, Burning Red or even 74 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0 : D E C I B E L

Hard to Swallow treatment here, thankfully. To be a bit reductive, if 2013’s Is Survived By—very likely the single best post-hardcore record of its era—and 2016’s Stage Four—among the most powerful, raw extended meditations on grief ever recorded—often roughly resembled a sharperedged take on mid-’90s melodic indie rock with a hardcore-steeped vocalist shouting over it (a more refined/intricate, less screamo version of what, say, Atlanta’s Inkwell were laying down in ’95), then a good deal of Lament roughly resembles the version of the sound that early Muse and Snow Patrol cleaned up and dragged into stadiums… only, you know, with a hardcore-steeped vocalist shouting over it. (Actually, said vocalist, Jeremy Bolm, does spread his wings both in terms of multilayered cadences and ultra-catchy creep-upon-you melodies, but remains admirably loyal to his—mercifully unbloodied—roots.)

In this respect, Lament is a perfect addition to an already soul-stirring, unfuckwithable discography: It’s everything you loved (or hated) about Touché Amoré magnified, expanded and cranked. —SHAWN MACOMBER

TRIDENT

8

North

NON SERVIAM

Ex-Dissection, ex-Decameron, ex-Soulreaper

Certainly, the above review deck of Trident’s second album has intensely piqued the interest of melodic death-black metal votaries. Unlike the other Dissection alumni—mostly John Zwetsloot and Peter Palmdahl, but to a lesser extent Tobias Kellgren and Ole Öhman—guitarist Johan Norman hasn’t sat idle, carrying the torch onwards into dark and darker hollows.

With Trident, he has and is continuing the legacy he helped write—like “Unhallowed,” “Thorns of Crimson Death” and “Soulreaper”— into the sunless future. Previous EP Shadows showcased Norman’s songwriting quality, where he and guitarist Per-Owe Solvelius lunged through the genre’s clichés to come out the other side with some seriously unheralded (and sorely missed) Swedish metal. North presents the next chapter of that vision.

To wit, they’re quoted as saying this of North: “We envisioned ourselves to create something that was lost after the ’90s era.” Indeed, that’s what North is: a companion to Storm of the Light’s Bane, Ancient God of Evil and Welcome to My Last Chapter. While it’s the undulating mid-paced charm of “Pallbearers Hymn” that immediately stands out, tracks like “Death,” “Possession,” “Schaman” and “Imperium Romanum” roll out

the layered tremolo guitars/blasting with devastating efficiency. True, Trident are veterans, but they’re exhibiting unprecedented fire with their music. North is no water-tread. Newcomer vocalist Henri Heikkinen is both relentlessly vicious and experimental with his calls to the grave (see “Final War” and the title track, respectively).

Trident aren’t breaking boundaries on North, but that’s not what is expected. They are, however, paying respect to and advancing the power of melodic Swedish death-black metal. Tusen takk! —CHRIS DICK

VARG

6

Zeichen N A PA L M

Rune tunes

The sound of gulls surveying the seascape as foamy waves whips against crags and cliffs. Delicate guitars strum to the lunar tide before they’re bludgeoned by distortion. While Pagan melodeath tribe Varg were formed in the landlocked German city of Coburg, the songs on Zeichen are an ode to Vikings occupying northern waters.

Fifteen years into the band’s expedition, Varg’s Viking aesthetic remains an integral part of their musical impact. While the stage torches and war paint relate most closely to black metal’s theatricality, their sound remains ingrained in melodic death metal with pagan flourishes on Zeichen.

With their triumphant axework and big hooks, “Schildwall” and “Auf die Götter” are ready to incite sky-punching from open-air festival audiences. The album’s textures soon veer into rustic passages as the processional drums of “Rán” bleed into “Fara Til Ránar.” Although the dichotomy of Fylgja’s clean vocals and Freki’s bestial snarls aren’t new or novel, it’s still a welcome segue between wolf-pelted bangers.

With its mid-tempo dramatics and contemplative patience, “Verräter” assumes the role of the album’s epic at seven-plus minutes. The singalong chorus of the closing title track feels suitably grandiose, but concludes the record with a glossy finish.

Despite the band’s stage presence and battle themes, Zeichen lacks the grit of mud and blood.

The shadowy prowls of “Wildes Heer” and “Wanderer” come close. Outside a few brief pagan world-building embellishments, the songs are notably crisp and clean. Ultimately, the album’s polished sheen conjures images of painstaking studio hours instead of bonfires and post-combat revelry. By the time Zeichen closes—bookended by acoustic guitars—it feels like we’ve attended this pagan celebration before. —SEAN FRASIER

DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2020 : 75

Messah Messah The 24-hour entertainment-as-news cycle says there’s an election happening later this year and that the Russians already know the outcome. Spies and interlopers are running interference here, there and everywhere, even in underground metal. Case in point: this lot trying to convince the world that Isis broke up when it’s obvious they’re alive and well and living in Voronezh, which doesn’t even sound like a real place.

Night Sweats We Exist to Resist That this Greensboro, NC crossover band tags itself as “call-to-action hardcore punk” and donates a portion of sales to a local family justice center should be an indicator they’ve interrupted their regular steady diet of classic NYHC and LAHC to attend BLM rallies.

Nithing Dark Triad This future sound of this Cincinnati band is at a fork in the road. Dark Triad is raw, loose, varied and eclectic in how it mangles black metal before firing it out of a confetti cannon. But if a producer smoothed the edges and gave them a focus, all the fun and individuality might be sheared away. Enjoy this present-day snapshot before the professionals “professional” it up.

So, what have you been doing since March?

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

Brain Stem Symptoms of Annihilation Stage 2 A good chunk of my lockdown time has been spent spinning albums I haven’t spun in a long while. From the sounds of things, these Edmontonians have taken the time afforded them to loop the discographies of Cannibal Corpse and Misery Index. And I know I’m totally hearing things, but the drummer could be the sprog of Drexell’s Eye’s Mark Karpinski mimicking his pops behind the kit. A thousand scene points if you know the reference.

Façade The Eternal Dance Six dudes make up this aristocratic Dutch doom crew.

That’s a lot of smoking-jacket-wearing, raised-pinky-teadrinking, Zoloft-skipping, online-philosophy-debating and virtual-museum-visiting to accompany time spent pondering the ins and outs of Evoken and Spectral Voice.

Gévaudan Iter “Six feet apart? That’s still too close! Wear a mask? Not enough! How about more substantial coverage, like a hooded monk’s robe? Your reopening can suck an egg.

I’m gonna retire to the darkness and hug a pillow while Iter’s stratospheric sound massages my loneliness and caresses my depression. Fuck you, the world—hope to never see you again.”

Hopekiller Children of a Dead Future In lieu of live shows, A&R and management folk have likely been relegated to courting and grooming future clients online. Industry types would be well-advised to keep as hawkish an eye on this Virginia band as they do the schedule of their favorite PornHubLive performers. Hopekiller are onto something with a unique collision of crossover thrash, black metal and Midwest noise-punk. With the right guidance, this could develop into something huge.

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Sarpa Solivagus The one-man force behind Sarpa, Austin, TX’s David Baxter, doesn’t so much feel hemmed in by current travel restrictions as he sounds frustrated by the lack of advancement in the field of time travel. How else is he going to get back to the days when Borknagar and Quorthon proudly wore longboats for shoes and Sigh first discovered mushrooms? All else fails, he could hightail it up I-35 to hang with the more-bored-than-usual ex-Absu members.

Suffering’s the Price Misanthropic Manifest Beatdown hardcore from Serbia is a thing! Funnily, Serbian beatdown hardcore has much more in common with thrashing holy terror hardcore and slamming death metal than a bunch of doofuses with FSU calf tats playing a Thursday night “showcase” at a Boston sports bar. Another reason to be all in? They nailed the punctuation!

Vestigial Crown of Serpents I’ve read so many books and watched so many documentaries since locking the doors and drawing the drapes that there’s a lack of clarity to the amount of information that’s been poured into my cluttered head.

Vestigial sound like a band that took that mental hodgepodge and tried to make it passable under the auspices of “melodic death metal.”

You Suffer You Suffer That this is self-titled, not called “But Why?” and not a violent volley of micro-length ragers makes me sad.

That it’s a tired trudge through breakdown-heavy, melodic U.S. metalcore has me concerned for the youth of today, and not because their partying ways have led to greater coronavirus infection rates.

Check out all of the above on Bandcamp and Facebook.

DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2020 : 77

DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2020 : 79

by

EUGENE S. ROBINSON

LET’S TALK ABOUT

THE MELVINS I

t was a show in some shitty club in San Francisco. No idea who was opening, but Oxbow was playing support for the Melvins. A band we had been big fans of since being there that day Tom Flynn, who ran Boner Records, got a cease and desist letter from the folks at Lysol, who somehow thought people would confuse the Melvins record of the same name with their toilet bowl cleaner.

Backstage in what barely passed muster as a green room, our drummer at the time was holding forth, as was his habit. It was a way to deal with anxiety, shit-talking, and at least some of the time it was amusing: “And what the fuck up is with Buzz’s hair?! It’s like Romper Room or Sesame Street shit.”

Of course, on the word “shit,” Buzz walked in, having heard the whole speech. But, you know, I’m a kid of divorce, and what I like to do after all of that early-life discomfort of trying to “fix” everything is just let everything not be fixed. I mean, it wasn’t me who was saying shit.

80 : NOVEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

So, in walks Buzz, and out walks Buzz, and Oxbow have never played with them again.

Fast forward to a TV show on VIVA TV in Germany. Oxbow and the Melvins again. Recorded remotely, we had the first half of the show, they had the second. It was great, and again the honor was ours.

Flash to Hustler magazine’s 20th anniversary party. I was there taking the piss out of Tommy Lee—“I don’t care what anybody says, man: Generation Swine is a good record”— and I turn and there’s Buzz. I’m excited to see him since I work for Larry Flynt and, well, never expected Buzz to be there.

I remind him who I am. He says, “Yeah. You’re the guy from Whipping Boy!” I laugh and say, “Well, that was my old hardcore band, but we played together more recently with Oxbow, and did that TV show in Germany together.”

Buzz grins and starts telling all and sundry about Whipping Boy. Then I get it. Buzz is taking the piss out of me and I love it. I’m cracking

up and giving him lots of opportunity to continue. I mean, it was funny.

I later end up writing something for Shrinebuilder, Dale Crover’s side project with Wino, Scott Kelly and Al Cisneros. I also did some animated show where, weirdly enough, I had to talk about a dream I had that also involved Dale. Which all makes sense. I mean, I still dig the Melvins.

But today, I see a 2018 clip of Buzz on noted Proud Boy Gavin McInnes’ show. Of course, people online are culture-canceling the Melvins, bringing up past statements he’s made, all pointing to a narrative of “Buzz’s politics suck and therefore his music must suck.”

Which reminded me of my friend Pete in a rage at a hardcore show at CB’s back in the day. Pete’s father used to sing for the Coasters, but he was another Black punk rocker from Brooklyn. He was pissed because he heard some other hardcore kid call one of the Black homeless guys who used to hang around CB’s a name that you’d expect from a working class kid from Bay Ridge.

“I don’t need these guys to be smart or racially sensitive,” I told Pete. “In fact, I don’t need them for anything.” He looked at me, I looked at him, and we headed back into a Bad Brains show.

Which is to say I’m not a fan of Skrewdriver, but I’m not a fan of Skrewdriver because the music is boring. Burzum, after the first record—murder and racism notwithstanding—also boring. To me.

So, I don’t go to the Melvins for politics. You’d be an idiot to do so. I go to the Melvins for music, which they deliver quite nicely.

Whether or not you listen to them.

Are there lines that are irredeemable? Sure. Child rapists, for example, are greatly unwelcome. But Buzz being pro-abortion, pro-death penalty and shitting on left-leaning protesters? Not my worldview, but also not a worldview that’s all that surprising.

But we got to live with ourselves. Me? I’m off to listen to whatever moves me. Suggest you do the same.

ILLUSTRATION BY ED LUCE

30th Anniversary Remixed, Remastered, Perfected Available Oct 30th lnk.to/scumdogs GWAR.netÂ

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