Decibel #198 - April 2021

MY DYING BRIDE GATECREEPER REALITY BITES BACK

THE ANGEL AND THE DARK RIVER HALL OF FAME

REFUSE/RESIST

SPECIAL REPORT

and Why

HOPE Lies Ahead

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APRIL 2021 // No. 198

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April 2021 [R 198] decibelmagazine.com

upfront 8 metal muthas Jotunlove

14 wolf king Wrath hand path

10 low culture Antisocial social club

16 pounder Album-oriented rock 'til you drop

11 no corporate beer Party animals 12 in the studio:

khemmis

Not even a pandemic can stop the magic

18 the crown Once again the rightful heirs 20 sarin Only moving forward 22 the ruins of beverast Least likely candidate for Oprah’s Book Club 24 evergrey Power dozen 26 thron Into the woods

features

reviews

28 melvins Fuck around and find out

61 lead review Genghis Tron return from the dead mountain mouth with a synth-heavy arsenal on Dream Weapon

30 gatecreeper Very fine music on both sides 32 q&a: eyehategod Third time’s the charm for Mike IX Williams 36 the decibel

hall of fame My Dying Bride’s goth metal masterpiece, The Angel and the Dark River, finds itself in the arms of metal’s fairest Maiden

62 album reviews Releases from bands that are looking up the price of stocks for Tower Records, including Coffins, Enforced and Sanguisugabogg 80 damage ink He came from the land of ice and snow

The Silence is Deafening COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY GENE SMIRNOV Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, paid at Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia PA 19107. © 2021 by Red Flag Media, Inc. ISSN 1557-2137 | USPS 023142 All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited.

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D E L U D RESCHE AIN …AG

April 2021 [T198] PUBLISHER

Alex Mulcahy

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Albert Mudrian

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In late January, we announced the latest postponement of our Philly edition of Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest—this time rescheduling it for late September 2021. A few people wondered aloud if it wouldn’t have been a better idea to just completely give up on 2021 and move the event to the following year. From a financial perspective, rescheduling an event takes countless hours and coordination, so there’s a pretty good argument to be made for taking the 2022 approach. Though we’ve been negatively impacted by the lack of traditional live events, Decibel has other revenue streams to help us navigate pandemic times. Virtually every member of the fragile live music ecosystem—detailed eloquently by Sean Frasier in this month’s cover story—aren’t nearly as fortunate.

So, while the possibility for live shows in the fall of 2021 still exists, we’ll focus on responsibly executing Metal & Beer Fest in the hopes of partially relieving the financial burden for our friends in the live music industry. And for the rest of us, we’ll plan with the aim of relieving some of the mental effects that a year without shows has brought upon us.

While we wait and hope, Decibel will donate 100 percent of the profits for individual sales of this issue to PIVOT (Philadelphia Independent Venues Organizing Together)’s campaign targeted specifically towards independent music industry gig workers in our hometown.

There are plenty of other worthwhile charities that are helping indie (and less-than-indie) venues and their staffs, as well as the crew and live music gig workers who remain out of work. So, if you can contribute, please consider these worthy options: MusiCares: Founded by the Recording Academy in 1989, MusiCares primarily helps out-of-work musicians and industry folks in crisis, but the Grammys’ charitable organization also gets money in the hands of unemployed production crew members.

Crew Nation: Live Nation’s global relief fund raised millions of

dollars for displaced crew and gig workers at the pandemic’s onset last March, but it certainly could use more donations a full year after its launch.

NIVA (National Independent Venue Association): Famously helped draft the Save Our Stages Act, which passed as part of the latest COVID-19 relief bill, NIVA continues to raise money to assist the venues at greatest risk of permanently going under as we wait for the grants to find their way to venues.

albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

REFUSE/RESIST

Patty Moran

CUSTOMER SERVICE

patty@decibelmagazine.com

COPY EDITOR

Andrew Bonazelli

BOOKCREEPER

Tim Mulcahy

tim@redflagmedia.com

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Chuck BB, Ed Luce Mark Rudolph

Online DECIBEL

WEB EDITOR

Albert Mudrian

DECIBEL

WEB AD SALES

James Lewis

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Vince Bellino Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Dean Brown Louise Brown Chris Chantler Richard Christy Liz Ciavarella-Brenner Chris Dick Chris Dodge Sean Frasier Nick Green Raoul Hernandez Jonathan Horsley Courtney Iseman Neill Jameson Sarah Kitteringham Scott Koerber Daniel Lake Andrew Lee Shawn Macomber Shane Mehling Justin M. Norton Andy O'Connor Dutch Pearce Forrest Pitts Greg Pratt Jon Rosenthal Joseph Schafer Rod Smith Matt Solis Kevin Stewart-Panko Eugene S. Robinson Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel J Andrew Zalucky Bradley Zorgdrager CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

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READER OF THE

MONTH Obviously, you’ve seen some metal history. Any Hall of Fame-eligible albums we’re blowing it on by not including? (Don’t say Iron Maiden because we’ve been working on that for 17 years.)

I’ve always respected the rule you’ve had regarding records where you can’t interview the entire band that played on the record, so most of what I would want to see that hasn’t been covered can’t be covered, but I think the magazine has done a great job covering a lot of the classics. I was most bummed that Neurosis wasn’t into doing it, but then you fixed that with that special issue covering three of their classics! I would like to see Sacred Reich’s Ignorance; that was a favorite when I was in high school.

Marc Jaeger Newburgh, NY

You’ve been a Decibel reader since the start.

How did you discover the magazine?

I actually saw it on the rack at my local record store here, Rock Fantasy (operating since the mid-’80s and still going strong!).

It was a magazine title I hadn’t seen before, and it had the Dillinger Escape Plan on the cover, so I figured it was worth a shot.

Turns out I was right!

You saw Metallica, W.A.S.P. and Armored Saint on tour in 1985. Tell us what you can remember about that show.

That was a music-changing show for me. I had only heard a snippet of Metallica the

6 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

previous summer and I wasn’t too into it, but my friends and I were die-hard W.A.S.P fans, so we shelled out the 10 bucks. Turns out it was a co-headlining gig and Metallica went on last, so (unlike a lot of others that night) we decided to stick around and check them out. When they hit the stage, it changed the way I thought about heavy music forever. Cliff’s bass solo, the stripped-down way they performed and the sheer ferocity of their set (they even played “The Call of Ktulu”!) opened me up to this whole new style that was coming up, and led to the discovery of so many other amazing bands. Hard to believe I was only 14 years old at the time!

The cover story of this issue is a piece on the ramifications of a year without live music and why there’s hope on the horizon. What’s the first thing you’re doing when you can responsibly attend a live show?

Seeing bands has been a large part of my life for the past 30 years, so I’m definitely looking forward to getting back to it; but most importantly, seeing the people whose lives depend on it—the bands, the venue owners and staffs, studios— getting back to work, so hopefully things start getting back to normal soon. The Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest has been rescheduled to the weekend before my birthday this year, so let’s hope that happens!

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

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

Well, here are the records that we spun most while thinking about how insane it is that the joke we made last month about wanting to find 11,780 votes for that last Ulcerate album wasn’t even relevant three days later.

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

This Month's Mutha: Sunneva Østrem Peersen Mutha of Ivar Bjørnson of Enslaved

Tell us a little about yourself.

A few months ago, I retired from my job as a psychologist at the University Hospital in Bergen. I loved my job, but I also love to spend more time now with my grandchildren and family. A few days a week, I work as a volunteer for the Red Cross. I also like to be outdoors walking and bicycling and swimming during the summer.

We learn in Enslaved’s new documentary series Heimvegen (The Way Home) that Ivar lived with you in Etne when he was growing up. Did he appreciate the incredible sprawling landscape?

From about 3 years of age, Ivar went with his family on trips in the hills and mountains surrounding Etne. He loved skiing and swimming in the fjord when he was a child. There was very little internet and no mobile telephones those days, so he and his friends spent time cycling and playing football. I am afraid our family, like many Norwegians, took the marvelous landscape more or less for granted!

Ivar says he attempted to start bands with classmates on his earliest days of school, but they exhibited disdain for heavy metal. How did you feel about his interest in the genre at the time?

When I understood that Ivar really was dedicated to heavy metal, I became very worried. The newspapers and television were telling us about violence and church burnings linked to persons playing this music. For some time, I hoped that Ivar would choose another kind of music. But as I told him about my worries, we had many 8 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

positive conversations about important values in society. Ivar explained to me that the Enslaved band members dissociated from violence, racism and church burning. After this turbulent period, I have always been very proud of Ivar and Enslaved and the hard work they are doing to create new music!

What are your memories of him playing in his school band?

He was rehearsing every week with the band, and they used to play at quite a few events during the year. Most important to me was their playing on our [Constitution Day], the 17th of May. In Norway, this is perhaps the most important day of the year, when everybody is out marching and singing in the streets with flags and balloons, and are dressed in their finest clothes. The school bands have a crucial role this day, playing the national anthems. So, I used to be very proud of Ivar in the school band.

What is something most people don’t know about Ivar?

Perhaps most people do not know that Ivar’s skilled and patient wife Tonje is a program director for Bergen International Festival, which is the biggest and most important festival in Scandinavia when it comes to classical music. Ivar’s two daughters, Inger Sunneva (9) and Sonja Elisabeth (6), are his most dedicated fans! As a contrast, the oldest loves dancing ballet, and the youngest loves playing football.

—ANDREW BONAZELLI

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Amorphis, Elegy  Sentenced, Amok  Xsyma, Yeah  My Dying Bride, The Angel and the Dark River  Black Sabbath, Mob Rules ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  10,000 Russos, Kompromat  Farflung, When Science Fails  Mass, Mass  Viagra Boys, Welfare Jazz  Dead Vibrations, Dead Vibrations ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  The Crown, Royal Destroyer  Vader, Blood  My Dying Bride, The Angel and the Dark River  Blut Aus Nord, MoRT  Sorrow, Hatred and Disgust ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  Run the Jewels, RTJ3  Run the Jewels, RTJ4  Spectral Wound, A Diabolic Thirst  Rippikoulu, Musta Seremonia  Phlegethon, Neutral Forest ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  Yautja/ Chepang, Split 7-inch  Gatecreeper, An Unexpected Reality  Horrendous, The Chills  Ripped to Shreds, 亂 (Luan)  Isis, Celestial

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Jaime Gomez Arellano : s e p t i c ta n k

 Morbid Angel, Domination  Thundercat, Drunk  Jaga Jazzist, One-Armed Bandit  The Mars Volta, Amputechture  Grave Pleasures, Motherblood

TRAPPIST FRONTMAN

Here’s How Trump Can Still Win was in Arlington, VA the week of

January 6, training for my new job, which, unless you have the memory retention of dried dogshit, was a pretty interesting time to be near the capitol. The next day, I was sitting outside of a sandwich place called Earl’s (totally recommend it if you’re ever in the area), and a dude in full Trump regalia (hat, scarf, shirt, patches—no mask, of course) shambled up to my table like someone’s lost fucking child. He told me my sandwich looked good, which it was, and asked me what I thought he should order, almost like he was looking for permission.

About a decade or so back, I ended up at someone’s place who I was interested in. After spending all night talking, I was invited into the bedroom, where she took off her clothes, got under the covers and wished me good night. About 10 minutes later, while she was softly snoring, she let out a long, sad sleeping fart. This man was that fart personified, and once again, I was questioning what my past lives must have been like to deserve such absurd scenarios.

I told him to try the Mexican dishes, but I’m sure it went over his head and I left him forlorn, gazing at the menu, probably coming to terms with how difficult life was since he couldn’t read.

That’s not really the theme of this month’s column, even if I am writing it on Inauguration Day. I’m certain that, much like New Year’s Day solved most of 2020’s problems, the new administration is going to fix everything by the time this goes to print and it’ll seem dated.

I’ve been trying to take as much time away from social media as possible. You constantly see walking clichés explaining what a world of good it does them (ironically posted on a social media platform), but those are generally followed by hiking pictures or a story about some IPA, so I tend to ignore them. That said, this is the last 10 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

dozen or so weeks before I become a father, meaning I don’t have a hell of a lot of time left to myself, for myself. So, I decided to give it a try and minimize my time reading the dumb shit other people pretend to care about. I would occasionally pop in to say something asinine or post a link to a record, but I mostly managed to focus on other nonsense that didn’t involve some idiot defending Iced Earth, who, a year ago, would have called Iced Earth fans “pussies.”

So, what am I wasting my time with, then?

Thanks for asking, I’m glad you’ve taken such an interest in the subject. I’ve been taking an unbiased journey through music, using algorithms and other fancy shit to kind of hop around YouTube, checking out various things that I’ve missed over the last few years. Mostly because I was too busy dicking around on Facebook because someone from a faraway country wrote me to send threats because they didn’t like that I’d become an “SJW” or whatever horseshit they committed to (digital) paper. I tried to remember to find music I’d always meant to check out, or things that I paid attention to years ago that kind of slipped away. Just things that aided in a mental reset as I shifted my priorities to a new job and impending fatherhood.

There isn’t any kind of grand moral at the end of this. Just a simple one: Taking time away from the toxic cesspool that is your Facebook, Twitter and whatever other asinine social time-sinks you scroll through once in a while can help guide you to other, less toxic (but still asinine) time-sinks, like following the breadcrumb trail through dozens of Japanese proto-ambient records on YouTube to discover genres and artists you had no fucking idea even existed. That helps clear some of the shit out of your brain—at least temporarily—and reminds you that not every fucking moment in life is about politics or heavy issues. Fucking breathe.

crafts a monthly journey through

MORBID ALES

BY CHRIS DODGE

Fuck Off, Spuds MacKenzie

M

ost of us would say big box lagers aren’t fit for a dog, so the irony was not lost when Busch recently released Dog Brew, their first beer made specifically for pups. I assumed they were grasping for the lowest common denominator and admitting to the low quality of their suds, but looking closer, this pooch brau is non-alcoholic. It’s just pork broth (which I’m sure is vastly superior to the output of Anheuser-Busch) with a price higher than their average beer, more akin to craft brew pricing. While the canine craft concept can be chalked up as “cute,” as a serious caveat, the reality of allowing your dog to drink a real beer is fucking dangerous. If any of your party bros do it as a joke, stop them immediately—and give their asses a serious trouncing while you’re at it.

Even a small amount of hooch can cause ethanol toxicosis, geek-speak for “severe poisoning” of your pooch or any other domestic critters—cats, birds, ferrets. I read a point of comparison where a 20-pound dog drinking one beer in five minutes is equal to a 200-pound man drinking 10 beers in five minutes. I don’t know any man who can recover from that.

If that’s not bad enough, hops alone are

absolutely toxic. If you’re a home brewer, don’t leave hop flowers or pellets within chomping range of your pets.

There is a flipside to the doom and gloom, which is the apparently common practice of serving brews to barnyard animals. I found a number of articles citing dark beer as a go-to remedy for goats, cows and pigs, aiding everything from sluggishness to killing off nasty intestinal worms. The saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast used in many braus is the same one found in probiotic supplements. Unlike canines, when it comes to livestock, hops supposedly aid their digestion and work as antiinflammatory antioxidants. Malted barley from the darkest brews supplies iron, copper, manganese and B vitamins. Some farmers claim to give their sows a six-pack after giving birth so their mother’s milk will flow freely; plus, the plastered porkers will more likely refrain from pummeling their piglets.

Beer is served to horses on an even more regular basis. Horses suffering from anhidrosis—a condition that prevents them from sweating—are treated to brews as a source of yeast and B vitamins to keep them from overheating. The liver of a horse actually metabolizes alcohol way quicker than humans, so

drunk equines are not a problem… think of the previous 200-pound man analogy, but now compare him to an 1,800-pound horse.

And don’t forget the wagyu cattle in Japan who are fed copious amounts of beer by their handlers. The prevailing theory is that yeast from beer aids the cow’s digestion and enhances the flavor and texture of their meat. Despite the obvious drawback of, oh, being slaughtered for consumption, at least they do enjoy a baller lifestyle up to that point; one of healthy, natural foods, endless massages and ever-flowing brews.

Captive creatures aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the revelry. The Audubon Society confirms the existence of drunk birds in the wild. When leftover berries and fruit freeze over the winter, the cold weather concentrates the natural sugars, which ferment in the spring thaws. Birds feast on the fermented fruit, which has converted to booze, and fly away wobbly or end up beakdown until they sober up. In Africa, common tales are passed along of marula fruit falling from the trees and fermenting on the ground, leading to sightings of drunken gatherings of avian, apes and elephants. (Insert standard “party animal” dad joke here.)

Not a drop to drink  Our columnist’s pup Donnie is nailed to the X

DECIBEL : A PRIL 2 0 21 : 11

KHEMMIS

STUDIO REPORT

KHEMMIS

“We were in a fundamentally ALBUM TITLE fourth LP—the band’s Nuclear Blast debut—is among our most anticipated different headspace when creatTBA albums of 2021. So, we took note of a shared image of Khemmis drummer ing these songs than we were on PRODUCER Zach Coleman with his sticks victoriously raised. It turns out we all have previous albums,” Hutcherson Dave Otero reason to celebrate: Coleman completed recording drums with frequent collaboraacknowledges. “We recognized STUDIOS tor Dave Otero in the spacious confines of the Band Cave. early on that this record was Flatline Audio “The big, roomy drum sound serves as a metaphor for what we all wanted for born of a unique heaviness of and the Band Cave; this record—open, organic and powerful,” shares guitarist and supporting vocalheart that required a more Denver, CO ist Ben Hutcherson. “Dave understands our collective ethos, and serendipitously varied sonic palette.”

RELEASE DATE came into the studio with similar ideas about how best to capture the essence of “We all feel this is a more Summer 2021 these songs after he heard the pre-production demos. More than with any previous dynamic record than we have LABEL Khemmis record, the album needed to be a raw, authentic reflection of the time we made before,” add vocalist/ Nuclear Blast spent creating it. guitarist Phil Pendergast, “and “The initial framework for these songs was written remotely while we were all so it has been important for quarantined,” Hutcherson continues. “Being able to remain productive while the world was burning us to capture a wider array of tones to highlight was crucial for our sanity, but it also meant we had to figure out how these songs actually felt when that. Sometimes that means tuning drums differwe played them together. There was a lot of paring down and reshaping of material once we were ently for certain parts, introducing more acousable to safely be in a room together.” tic guitars or having a grimier guitar tone to fit Khemmis’ Rocky Mountain doom shape-shifted most obviously between 2015’s Absolution and the mood of a given song section. It’s not all or Decibel's 2016 album of the year Hunted. But each album has its own vitality, and the unique essence of nothing—there is a wide spectrum of heaviness the impending (currently untitled) LP emerged when the writing process was young. across the record.” —SEAN FRASIER

LEFT PHOTO BY MITCH KLINE

C

olorado riff wizards Khemmis are Decibel favorites, and their upcoming

FULL OF HELL TURN CLAUSTROPHOBIC TIMES INTO CLAUSTROPHOBIC MUSIC ON LP #5 With live music at a standstill, any band that would normally be van-huffing each other’s farts for monthlong stretches is now doing its huffing during extended recording sessions. This includes distortion-loving noisemakers Full of Hell, who are taking a princely two weeks at Pawtucket, RI’s Machines With Magnets to capture their fifth album.

“We had so much time to sit at home and mull on this record,” says vocalist

12 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

Dylan Walker. “In 10 years, we’ve never had this much time because we’re always on tour or had a tour coming up. It’s the same with the studio—for most bands, two weeks is normal or nothing. We normally record an album in four days.”

Guitarist Spencer Hazard chimes in with a preemptive description of the yetto-be-named album: “As the writing went on, I wanted fewer dark-sounding riffs and a bit less metal. I went back to our early hardcore-influenced stuff, was listening to more noise rock and doing extra stuff with the guitar and, all that’s come out on this recording.”

“Everyone is performing at their peak,” adds Walker. “It feels claustrophobic, unrelenting and psychotic.” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PHOTO BY DYLAN WALKER

STUDIO SHORT SHOTS

WOLF KING

WOLF KING

California crushers are some more black on sophomore LP

L

ike a column of white rapids speeding down a jagged canyon after distant rains, a surge is coming. No, I don’t mean another rush of COVID-19 cases (with any luck)—instead, I’m referring to the glut of records that enterprising bands intended to be released in 2020, yet were pushed back to this year. One of the first through the waterway is The Path of Wrath, the sophomore album by Bay Area metallic hardcore outfit Wolf King. ¶ “By the time the pandemic had started, we were already finished writing and recording the record,” says guitarist/vocalist Jake Broughton. “Just like every band surviving this virus, we have definitely been affected, if not changed forever as people.

The thing that has affected us the most is the separation from our friends and fans.” Broughton and Wolf King hoped to be able to return to the road by the time these 12 songs hit the street (hadn’t we all?), but the time at home allowed the band to further sharpen their claws with their new rhythm section: bassist Brian Mojica and drummer Connor White. ¶ Granted, “new” is a relative term. White and Mojica have been playing with Wolf King since the release of their first record, 2018’s Loyal to the Soil.

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According to Broughton, “they brought a totally new element to the band using their collective past experiences from their individual musical careers and interests that helped to shape the sound and atmosphere of The Path of Wrath.”

That newly shaped sound and atmosphere includes a whole lot more of the already-present black metal influence on Wolf King’s sound. “[The album] definitely has more of that black metal feel,” Broughton agrees. “A lot of that was influenced by bringing on Brian and Connor to the band, and just a general increased interest in the style throughout all members over the time of writing the album.”

“All four of us listen to a lot of black metal,” adds White, who co-wrote most of these tunes. “It was inevitable that we started to use some of those elements to create a grimmer atmosphere. We don’t consider ourselves a purely

black metal band, but we wanted to weave some of those elements into the personality of Wolf King. We feel like it’s a natural fit with our existing sound.”

That natural fit manifested as an increased focus on melody and dynamics. On songs like “The Oath” and “Grief Portrait,” the band uses plaintive introductory passages fit for Watain or Dissection, and more melodic riffs to offset the benchpressing brutality they honed on their debut and its preceding EP. “We like the idea of having a dose of melody in between the more aggressive riffs, to keep things feeling fresh and to keep the songs flowing well from one into the other,” says White. “Using a lot of changes in dynamics felt necessary to convey how we wanted this album to feel.”

Pending a successful vaccination effort, Wolf King will be conveying those feelings nationwide as soon as possible. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

POUNDER

POUNDER

Cali trio’s commercial heavy metal approach is ballsy to the wall

C

alifornian heavy metallers pounder haven’t met the b-side of a Tank LP they didn’t like. Formed out of an imaginary band that frontman/rhythm master Matt Harvey dreamed up to occupy time while on tour with his death metal act Exhumed, Pounder—also featuring lead guitarist Tom Draper (Carcass) and bassist Alejandro Corredor (Nausea)—is now all-too-real. To wit, the American tour de force has already completed two full-lengths—Uncivilized (2019) and forthcoming sophomore effort Breaking the World—and are already eyeing a third. ¶ “Between the three of us, we have a good, easy working relationship,” says Harvey from the control room of Pounder HQ. “Also, Tom and Alejandro aren’t too far away from me. We’re always pinging material back and forth. Alejandro is also our engineer, so that makes things very easy for us. Last year, we built a studio using the recording budget instead of hiring someone else to record us. The fact that we have a studio and Alejandro is an engineer removes a lot of the speed bumps we’ve had in the past.” ¶ Breaking the World, a title that goes back years, was initially meant to be an EP, but the transition from 16 : A PRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

Hells Headbangers to the vaunted Shadow Kingdom turned the wouldbe short-player into a seven-song fist-pumping, denim ‘n’ leatherwearing full-length. Of course, when heavy metal—with a hearty shot of hard rock and AOR—is this good, three more songs are like six more beers. Or, to paraphrase Malmsteen, “more is more.”

“We’re heavily into rock or hard rock,” Harvey says. “I think that’s what sets us apart from the other bands like us. We’re totally into Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Triumph and Y&T. We’re not a Cirith Ungol or Manowar-only band. I mean, I like those bands, but we try to get out of the D&D realm for tonality. This widens the color palette a little bit.

Heavy metal is an old form of music, so it’s easy to fall into the trap of regurgitating the same three chords that comprise Iron Maiden solos.”

Indeed, from the speed metal attack of “Spoils of War” and the

Jake E. Lee-ified “Hard City” to the melodic gang choruses of “Never Forever” and the loincloth battles of the title track, Breaking the World has all the spirit and intent of metal throughout the “Me Decade” that’s bereft of the musical mediocrity and try-hard attitude that permeates throwback attempts today. In short, it rules because it’s good.

“We lived through this stuff,” says Harvey. “I was probably 7 or 8 when Quiet Riot’s Metal Health was topping the charts. I think it’s great that kids are just discovering this stuff—I don’t want to piss on anyone’s party—but we’re going to have a different take on it because we’ve lived through it. I think our approach is also a bit different.

Tom plays in Carcass, and I’ve played in death metal bands for a long time, so we can turn things up that the genre doesn’t call for.”

—CHRIS DICK

THE CROWN

THE CROWN

Heavy bangs the death thrash head that can process constructive criticism

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don’t care what people say when they [claim] that they don’t care about reviews and stuff like that. I think they’re all lying.” ¶ Guitarist Marko Tervonen formed Crown of Thorns in 1990, and has steered the band—which changed their name to the Crown in 1998—through two name changes, 11 members and 10 studio albums. The melodic death metal/Gothenburg sound-emulating institution was long celebrated for their ample solos and addictive integration of walloping thrash until 2015’s uncharacteristically weak Death Is Not Dead. Robustly derided, it could have marked the end for the project. Instead, Tervonen and company reflected on the “really, really, really strange experience… [that] became a mess.” They beefed up their lineup, focused on their instruments, took careful note of the criticism and unleashed Cobra Speed Venom in 2018. It hit the national charts and was hailed as a triumphant return to form, dubbed by fans as a comeback-that-wasn’t-really-a-comeback album.

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“It was fucking inspiring because that means that people give a shit,” says Tervonen. Further buoyed by tours in Japan and Europe, the Crown began writing the followup in earnest, preparing to hit the studio to record Royal Destroyer with infamous recording engineer Fredrik Nordström in May 2020.

Then the global COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced everyone in the band (and world) into isolation.

“This album would have turned out a bit differently if we would have recorded in May,” reflects Tervonen, who reveals that morose and varied highlights “Devoid of Light” and “We Drift On” were late additions to Royal Destroyer. “There was a lot of late nights in your pajama pants when you sort of think through the album.

A lot of those. And late decisions. In the end, it became a better album.”

Royal Destroyer picks up where Cobra Speed Venom left off, complete with the Crown’s blazing, traditional metal-oriented solos and uniquely diverse sonic landscape.

Vocalist Johan Lindstrand sounds absolutely ferocious against the backdrop of Henrik Axelsson’s battering drums. Coupled with Magnus Olsfelt’s throbbing basslines and the dueling guitars of Tervonen and Robin Sörqvist, it’s clear that the Crown are back as a full band, with each member contributing.

“The roles became very naturally clear and obvious,” says Tervonen of the Crown’s three-year winning streak. “Instead of someone going in like a dictator and taking over it. Because then it’s not a band anymore, you know?”

—SARAH KITTERINGHAM

AVAILABLE MARCH 5TH, 2021

AVAILABLE FEBRUARY 26TH, 2021

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SARIN

SARIN

Post-metallers deconstruct in the absence of influence

M

usically, “leaving your body,” the final song on You Can’t Go Back, Sarin’s third full-length (and first for Prosthetic), is a stunning combination of curb-stomping post-metal heaviness and contagious mellifluousness. As such, it also happens to be one of the finest slices of sonic architecture to invade this particular hack’s ears in 2020. That we’re speaking with guitarist/vocalist David Wilson on New Year’s Eve of The Year of Nowhere to Go and Nothing to Do™ speaks to the track’s power as a chest-caving earworm. Wilson informs us that the song is about “leaving an old identity behind,” which also matches the song’s creative philosophy. ¶ “It also extends to the sonic character of the record as well,” he explains. “When recording, it became an issue of, ‘How far are we pushing things?

Can we be this upbeat and this inspirational?’ That was the last song written and it gave us the most trouble. At first, I was a little afraid to show it to the band because it’s hyper-melodic and a relentless dedication to melody, even if it came out of 20 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

listening to a lot of Deathspell Omega and how they always seem to finish absolutely head-fucking whirlwind records with really beautifully melodic fretboard dancing.”

Founded in 2012, the Torontobased band initially established itself as fawning students of Isis’ Escape Artist EPs and Celestial album with their early releases. Heck, the cover of their self-titled debut EP unashamedly uses a moth wing in mimicking The Mosquito Control.

“I was around 19, living at my parents’ place and we started in the garage after I put out an ad saying, ‘I like bands like Isis, Refused and Radiohead, and if you like those bands, let’s try to do something,’” Wilson remembers.

“A couple people responded, we’ve had a bunch of lineup changes along the way, and here we are now. When we started, it was very much an attempt to sound as close to Isis as possible, but as

more people came in, the scale was tipped in different directions.

The way this record came to be was with me fiddling around on an acoustic guitar trying to write what I thought were The Bends-era Radiohead melodies. I realized I could apply distortion, do some growling and it could sound cool.

The rest of the record just followed that train into the station.

“Branching out with our tastes and listening habits over the last three or four years has necessitated a change in the writing style,” he says about Sarin’s expanding artistic palette. “For a while, there was a little bit of resistance about how happy or ‘poppy’ we could get. And philosophically, there was always the question about wanting to do something that’s been done to death not only by Isis, but every other band that heard them and thought, ‘That sounds like a good idea?’”

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

THE RUINS OF BEVERAST

THE RUINS OF BEVERAST German solo artist takes the ultimate blackened doom trip

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lexander von meilenwald is the Ruins of Beverast.

The Ruins of Beverast is Alexander von Meilenwald. Just as with previous efforts—from debut LP Unlock the Shrine to splits with Mourning Beloveth and Almyrkvia—new album The Thule Grimoires explicitly follows and extends outward from the path of its creator. Apart from studio guru/live guitarist Michael Zech’s contributions to “Ropes Into Eden” and “Mammothpolis,” The Thule Grimoires was conceived, written and executed (in the studio) by von Meilenwald. So, contrary to rumor, the theme of ownership remains true. But one thing has changed: The Thule Grimoires isn’t merely a follow-up to 2017’s Exuvia. It’s a new tome entirely. And the revolution that brought about that change got its auspicious start many years ago. ¶ “During and after the (hardly existing) songwriting sessions for Exuvia, which almost entirely consisted of impulsivity and instinct, I became widely aware of what I would attempt to change in future times,” von Meilenwald tells Decibel. “Personally and musically.

For the first time ever, I extensively invested in guitar gear to widen my possibilities, and I started writing songs from the melody top to the rhythmic bottom, something I never did before.

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This is somewhat symbolic for the whole album, which is so much more musical, so much more of a guitar album, running through actual songs.”

While The Thule Grimoires is representative of the Ruins of Beverast’s previous oeuvre, von Meilenwald’s guitar-first approach evinces a forward advance throughout. The subterranean churn and lead spikes in “Polar Hiss Hysteria,” the Syd Barrett-like psych intro to “Ropes Into Eden” and the yawning filmic void of “Mammothpolis” are a constellation of artistic, guitardriven virtuosity. With this, his visual style is even more prevalent.

Von Meilenwald imbues the concept of “Thule”—diverging, in a sense, from Greek geographer Pytheas—across The Thule Grimoires as locales undiscoverable that harbor seven scrolls inscribed by authors unknown in languages antediluvian and long indecipherable. The story: anthropogenic extinction by the primeval forces of nature.

“That is what ‘Thule’ represents in the title: a place without location,” von Meilenwald says. “It stands as a symbol for the seven un-locatable places that constitute the seven songs on the album, each of which tells its own story about man’s physical or mental (or maybe both) deletion from Earth, forced by natural spirits and/or demons.

These stories again are written down in seven scrolls, found sub-surface in the seven unknown places, writer and circumstances also unknown, composed in unknown tongues (therefore referred to as ‘grimoires.’)

The idea of the foreign tongues is indicated at several points in the songs, inspired by the magic words of ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian defixion or magic spells, respectively. I adopted them (for the most part) from the Papyri Graecae Magicae, the magical papyri collection of ancient spells, emerging in the late Middle Ages. That’s what the concept is mainly about, and how it was conducted.” —CHRIS DICK

SWAMPBEAST

SEVEN EVILS SEVEN HEADS SPAWNED OF

Los Angeles, CA’s SWAMPBEAST present their devastating debut full length entitled “Seven Evils Spawned of Seven Heads”!

Eleven cripplingly brutal yet expansive Blackened Death journeys embracing the evil and disgust of mankind.

SWAMPBEAST has awakened and blazes a path to chaos!

Produced by Erol Ulug (Teeth, Our Place of Worship is Silence).

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EVERGREY

EVERGREY

Revered Swedish prog power metallers sneak album No. 12 under the apocalyptic wire

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e’ve been lucky to have scheduled the recording of the new album way before coronavirus happened, so that has helped us a lot,” says Jonas Ekdahl. That’s good news for Evergrey fans, as the Swedish progressive metal band is set to release their impressive 12th album, Escape of the Phoenix. ¶ “Since we write a lot apart from each other anyway, we don’t meet up until later on when we have something to present, like a riff, melody, section or an idea of a whole song,” the drummer continues. “Me and Tom [Englund, vocals/guitar] start meeting up once or twice a week to find a vibe for the album, elaborate the demos and ideas. The whole band gets together a bit later on, the other members give us feedback and input, and we start working on the ideas they have brought as well. So, there’s not that much hanging out together; we’re distancing, COVID or not.” [Laughs] ¶ Evergrey have become one of the more consistently strong bands in the prog/power scene, expertly balancing heaviness and melody in a way that echoes the great Katatonia, 24 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

and the new record is easily one of their best efforts. One big highlight is “The Beholder,” which features a guest appearance by Dream Theater frontman James LaBrie. “Dream Theater has had an influence on Evergrey since the band started,” Ekdahl enthuses. “We toured together with James LaBrie, and in 2015 we opened up for Dream Theater in Italy, so we are familiar with each other by now. Tom emailed James and asked him if he was interested, and when he heard the track we sent him, he was up for doing it. Tom wrote the lyrics and melody he had in mind for the duet part, and James just nailed it and did some super tasty ad-libs at the end of the song. It’s very humbling to have him on the song.”

Like any other band during these unprecedented times, Ekdahl and

his bandmates had to get creative when promoting their material.

“We showed our fans that we are still alive through social media by doing livestreams almost every day from the studio,” he says. “So, despite the quarantine situation that is happening around the world, the fans could still see us and interact.

We also did a livestreamed concert in June from Gothenburg at a nice venue called Pustervik. People bought tickets and watched it online, and we were able to invite 40 hardcore fans that, with restrictions, could come to the venue, sit at a table having a beer and enjoy the show. I’m not worried, though—we’ll stay busy one way or another. Can’t wait to get out on the road, though, and play these awesome new songs live for people.”

—ADRIEN BEGRAND

THRON

THRON

Black/death soul-reapers lead a pilgrimage to inner demons

W

hen german black/death torch-bearers Thron formed in 2015, the goal was to write songs that could have emerged from Sweden 20 years earlier. Their eponymous debut captured flashes of time-warping black magic, but a lot has changed since: The band expanded to a quintet and ditched the executioner hoods donned earlier in their reign. With the members now visually unmasked—they retained their aliases—their upcoming album Pilgrim is a journey lit by a blood-red sky. ¶ “[On Pilgrim] I wanted to improve the sound, making it more raw and dirty, but transparent at the same time,” shares Thron guitarist PVIII. “And I wanted to expand the range of emotions and atmosphere. It should be heavier and darker, but also quieter and more melancholic.

But I see it as a natural and organic progression. It wasn’t a forced change of style.” ¶ “The Prophet” begins with dual-guitar soul-reaping descended from Storm of the Light’s Bane. But Pilgrim isn’t some sharply executed homage to Dissection and Unanimated. Grandiose centerpiece “The Reverence” boldly blends 26 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

shadowy post-punk and black metal balladry. Even when it comes to the head-turning guitar leads, there’s a classic Mercyful Fate aura as much as The Somberlain.

“I always wanted to combine a sophisticated approach with pure savagery,” PVIII explains. “Dissection in that case were pioneers in mixing classic heavy metal à la Maiden and Priest with the pure rage of Darkthrone and Mayhem.”

The cover painting adds to that classic atmosphere with a visceral representation of the album’s themes. Like the seminal gothic novel The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis, the lyrical narrative provocatively wrestles with religion and morality.

“Pilgrim is the tale of a man on a journey to his inner self,” PVIII continues. “He’s a man of faith, and during his pilgrimage, he faces his inner demons.

He struggles with self-doubt; he’s plagued by visions and nightmares,

and can’t distinguish reality from fiction. He’s committing terrible crimes in the name of a god. In the end, it’s a metaphoric view on human nature.”

The members all live near Germany’s Black Forest, named because of the density and darkness of the woodland’s pines. As the only member who doesn’t live in a city, PVIII writes his licks in a tranquil town near the Rhine where he grows fruits and vegetables.

“I’m sure that nature has some kind of impact on me, as well as the music I write,” PVIII admits. “It doesn’t matter the style, but sometimes I think of music as ‘urban’ and ‘rural.’ Ulver, for example— who I love—started very rural and developed into a very urban-sounding band. A band like Neurosis feels rural, while a band like Cult of Luna feels urban. Long story short: Thron sounds very rural to me, and part of it is that I’m a rather rural person.” —SEAN FRASIER

High School

DAZE

Melvins REVISIT THEIR FORMATIVE YEARS ON Working witH god

T

STORY BY

J. BENNETT

PHOTO BY

DALE CROVER

hanks for coming down!” ¶ Buzz Osborne is wearing one of those black industrial-looking facemasks that wraps around the back of the neck—rather than over the ears—and is held in place with Velcro. Decibel is wearing a yellow bandana over our nose and mouth. We’re at Melvins’ own Sound of Sirens Studios just outside Los Angeles. We’re maintaining proper social distance.

“We used to record at our rehearsal space downtown, and it seemed like every time we hit record, there’d be police sirens,” Osborne says of the studio’s name.

“So, it just stuck.” ¶ It’s late December when we meet Osborne, and the pandemic is in full swing. Drummer Dale Crover’s drum kit is set up in front of a makeshift green screen for the band’s upcoming livestream event on New Year’s Eve. Outside the control room door, there’s a poster for the excellent 2005 Australian western The Proposition. Inside, the Melvins’ longtime engineer Toshi Kasai sits at the soundboard surrounded by Dodgers memorabilia, Homer Simpson toys, and a multi-tiered rack of guitar pedals in all shapes, colors and sizes. A red ballcap emblazoned with the phrase “Make Japan Great Again” hangs over one of the rack’s front posts. ¶ Sound of Sirens has been in this location—undisclosed, that is— for roughly seven years. “I did both of my acoustic records and countless Melvins albums here,” Osborne says. “Our new album was done here, too.”

That would be Working With God, the second LP from the reincarnation of the band’s 1983 lineup: Osborne on guitar and vocals, Crover on bass and Mike Dillard on drums. The trio previously reconvened for 2013’s Tres Cabrones, but their mutual history goes back to their high school days in late-’70s/early-’80s rural Washington. “As you can imagine, it was very redneck,” Osborne says of time at Montesano High, where he met Dillard, future Melvins bassist Matt Lukin and some kid named Kurt Cobain. “It was seventh through 12th grade all in one school, so you had seventh and eighth grade girls going out with seniors—which is the reason they separate junior highs and high schools. It wasn’t good.”

Meanwhile, Crover and future Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic were about 12 miles away at 28 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

Aberdeen High. “It might as well have been a million miles,” Osborne says. “I went to school with people whose parents had gone to high school together. People who had never been to Seattle, and whose parents had never been to Seattle—which was less than two hours away. It was really odd, in hindsight.”

The nearby Black Hills, which separate Montesano from the I-5 freeway that runs the length of the West Coast, acted as a cultural barrier. “It was like the Iron Curtain,” Osborne says. “Not a lot got through.”

Of course, Montesano didn’t have a record store. “I discovered everything on my own,” Osborne explains. “Not from the radio, but from magazines like Creem and Hit Parader. I’d mailorder records based off the way they looked

in the magazines. I’d give my mom money and she’d write a check so I could order these records. And then I’d wait. It was six to eight weeks for delivery.”

A steady diet of Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and KISS greased him up for the Sex Pistols, Stooges and MC5. But David Bowie was the lodestar.

“Bowie was the game-changer. Listening to Hunky Dory and a song like ‘Quicksand’ was like, ‘What is this?’ His records really made an impact on me.”

No one else in Montesano was listening to this stuff. “The kids around me liked REO Speedwagon and Foreigner and Supertramp,” Osborne says. “That wasn’t music that spoke to me. They liked some of the bands I liked, like Led Zeppelin, but most of the stuff they liked I wasn’t into. I was in my own world of music that no one around me knew about.”

Then he did something that would change history: He introduced all this music to the future members of the Melvins and Nirvana. “I didn’t have a lot of musical pals, but then Dillard and Cobain and Novoselic—Lukin to some degree—they were receptive to this stuff. But I was on my own for a long time.”

Osborne graduated in ’82. Melvins started shortly thereafter. Which brings us back to Working With God. “Making this record totally brings me back to that time,” Osborne enthuses.

“Dillard and I have a long history together, so it’s like returning to the scene of the crime. He’s married to the woman that he was going out with when I met him. He lives one mile from the house he came home to from the hospital when he was born. He was not destined to leave that area, but I was never gonna stay.”

As for the album’s oh-so-pious title? “I knew I wanted something that had ‘with god,’ in it, and Working With God seemed really good,” Osborne explains. “The LP comes with a poster that just says ‘God’ on it. It’s big—suitable for framing.”

Lest any readers be misguided enough to think our man is born again or some such bullshittery, think again. The record opens with Melvins’ version of the Beach Boys’ doowop chestnut “I Get Around”—put through the band’s satire filter as “I Fuck Around.” “We used to sing that at soundcheck for years,” Osborne explains. “I always wondered why no one thought of changing the lyrics in that way—it seems so obvious. When we started playing with Mike again, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to record it.”

There are also songs called “Caddy Daddy,” “Brian The Horse-Faced Goon” (based on a real person, we’re told), “Bouncing Rick” (maybe not a real person) and a cover of Harry Nilsson’s acidic 1972 kiss-off “You’re Breakin’ My Heart”—retitled as “Fuck You.” What does it all sound like? The Melvins, dummy. That part hasn’t changed.

“Music gave me something I could immerse myself in,” Osborne concludes. “No other art form has moved me like that since. Movies to some degree, but you’re not gonna put a painting in front of me that’s gonna get me out of bed.”

MUSIC GAVE ME SOMETHING I COULD IMMERSE MYSELF IN. NO OTHER ART FORM HAS MOVED ME LIKE THAT SINCE.

YOU’RE NOT GONNA PUT A PAINTING IN FRONT OF ME THAT’S GONNA GET ME OUT OF BED.

Buzz Osborne

DECIBEL : APRIL 2021 : 29

STORY BY

JONATHAN HORSLEY PHOTO BY

HALEY RIPPY

REAL TIME WI T H HOW DEATH METAL TRADITIONALISTS pare a thought for the death metal artists tasked with writing and

composing macabre distractions for our listening pleasure during the midst of a goddamn plague. Like the satirists circa 2015, events have outstripped them, death metal’s macabre distractions have become our everyday reality, and thanks to technology, we are all mainlining from this eight-ball of doom 24/7, hemmed in, surrounded by disease and death. Once upon a time, death metal’s brain trust had to imagine all this stuff, and we’re living a timeline in which conspiracy theorists share a Boss Metal Zone circuit online and say it’s a 5G control chip that’ll be administered via a COVID vaccine. Where does that leave death metal?

Chase Mason, frontman of Arizona death metal quintet Gatecreeper, is first to acknowledge that our present moment has put the zap on everyone, but what’s the point of this noble art if you can’t take that torment and turn it into verse? Gatecreeper’s new EP/mini-album, An Unexpected Reality (released through Closed Casket Activities with little warning save the occasional online clue and a cryptic ad in Decibel) does just that. Mason—who looks like a hesher deathhead from central casting with a Magnum P.I. moustache—says the time to try new things is when everything is turned inside out.

30 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

“We are in Arizona, and around the time this record was written, the time that we were recording it, we had the highest cases of COVID in the entire world,” he says. “It was the epicenter. As far as the music is concerned, we went into this wanting to do something different. I also took that into the lyrics, things that I have been feeling over the past year. A lot of that is sadness, frustration, anger, heartbreak. For the most part, it is not your typical death metal lyrics, like the slash ’n’ gash, B-horror movie, blood-and-gore stuff.

It is personal.”

BROKE WITH TRADITION While Mason’s lyrics turn the lens inward in search of inspiration, a dark night of the soul as good as a Tobe Hooper movie for turning the light on in his head, this idea—cutting an album with a super-fast Side A and a low ‘n’ slow, doom-a-thon Side B—meant all bets were off. Take “Superspreader”—if that’s not from the Alex Webster school of narrative DM songwriting, what is?

“That song in particular is written in the first person, through the eyes of someone who is spreading the disease,” says Mason. “It’s through the eyes of someone who is anti-mask, like, ‘I have this disease and I am spreading it to everyone, and I don’t care.’ It wasn’t written in a sarcastic way, as if I am poking fun at it, or that there is any sort of political standpoint in it. It is a dramatization.”

Then we turn our attention to “Emptiness,” an 11-minute death-doom epic that occupies Side B, fleshing out an aesthetic that Gatecreeper were building towards on Deserted’s “Absence of Light.” This suggests a Mournful Congregation influence writ large—“I love doomy death metal and funeral doom,” says Mason. “I always try to incorporate that in Gatecreeper.” Perhaps it

is because it comes on the back of a fistful of premium throw-and-go bludgeon that long-form misery plants its hooks in you.

An Unexpected Reality came together as it always does, with Mason and guitarist Eric Wagner sharing ideas across the ether, everyone getting in a room only once it was necessary. With Gatecreeper perched out in the palm of the Sonoran Desert (some in Phoenix, others in Tucson), isolation is the watchword. They tracked the album at Homewrecker Studios with as few bodies in the control room as possible. And yet, throughout this whole time, with Mason writing a fast song a day, it is all for a day when the neologism “socially distant” describes a mindset, not a public health measure.

When Mason sat down with Decibel for the November 2019 cover story, there was a lot of horizon planning about taking their “stadium death metal” sound out to the masses, a sound by its very nature infectious, spiked with songcraft and an audiophile’s attention to detail that not all HM-2 junkies share. Gatecreeper were to hit the road on the 2020 Decibel Tour, sharing the stage

with Mayhem, Abbath and Unto Others. Then it was Europe, a summer festival run, club shows between dates. “At the beginning of 2020, we were in a position where everybody was going to quit our jobs,” Mason says. “Everybody was in. I guess, luckily, the trigger wasn’t pulled.”

Having been burnt once by the future, Mason isn’t about to second-guess it here.

But the lesson that 2020 and An Unexpected Reality taught him is that the future is not yet written, and in the music business, in wider society, change is inevitable. Why, indeed, persist with a three-month hype train before an album’s release? “Do people have the attention to have a crumb, a song at a time, then wait for the actual record to come out?” asks Mason.

“We are just being overloaded on things— whether it is the media we choose to consume or the news. Every day there is bad news, and we are being barraged.

I don’t think people have the emotional or attention capacity for us to do this the traditional way. We announced that it was coming out at midnight, and people bought the record.”

Do people have the attention to have a crumb, a song at a time, then wait for the actual record to come out?

WE ARE JUST BEING OVERLOADED ON THINGS— whether it is the media we choose to consume or the news.

DECIBEL : APRIL 2021 : 31

interview by

j. bennett

QA MIKE

IX W I T H

WILLIAMS The EYEHATEGOD frontman discusses his liver transplant, cheating death and the band’s new album 32 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

I

t’s not often that a band has two comeback records, much less back- just Eyehategod—that’s all there is. They wrote

to-back, but that’s exactly the position Eyehategod are in today. Their first comeback record—their self-titled 2014 album—appeared 14 years after its predecessor. The extended period between releases made it a comeback by default. This time, the comeback is from a showdown with mortality. The first battle was a tragic loss: Drummer Joey LaCaze passed in 2013, before the self-titled album was even released. Then, after decades of hard living, vocalist Mike IX Williams was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. He spent six months at death’s door, rotting on a donor list. In late 2016, he had a successful transplant. Hence the second comeback album: A History of Nomadic Behavior. ¶ When we catch up with Williams in mid-January, he hasn’t seen his bandmates since March. That’s when he and guitarist Jimmy Bower, bassist Gary Mader and drummer Aaron Hill were finishing up a European tour. It’s also, of course, when the pandemic hit. With shows canceled, international borders slamming shut and the price of U.S.-bound flights skyrocketing, the band barely made it home to New Orleans. ¶ Like many folks, Williams has already worked through Phase 1 of the pandemic mood board and moved on to Phase 2 or 10 or wherever it is we are now. “At the beginning, I had a depression and anxiety thing going, but people were saying it was gonna be over in June,” our man recalls. “Then it was November, and here we are now in January and it’s worse than ever. But you get through that and you’ve got to keep thriving.”

Tell us about your narrow escape from Europe when the pandemic hit.

We went out with Napalm Death at the end of January through February, and then we stupidly booked six headline shows after that because we don’t know when to quit, apparently. We did two of those, and then we flew to Kiev, Ukraine, and at like 3 in the morning, Jimmy comes banging on the door of the room me and Aaron were in yelling, “We gotta go—now!” The stupid president was on TV saying the borders were shutting. We didn’t know whether that was true or not, but we didn’t wanna get stuck, so we had to just go. We hadn’t even played in Kiev yet. We flew in at like 8 [p.m.], went to bed, and then this happened.

We get to the airport, and the price of tickets was escalating. We had to eat the other flights home—we couldn’t even get that [money] back.

Luckily, this lady there helped us out with getting flights home. There were fewer connections and places you could land to go back. I ended up flying home through Turkey, and those guys went through Canada or something. We all had different flights home, but we made it. I got home March 12th, which was pretty much the day everything shut down.

But you guys already had the music done for the album before you flew to Europe.

Yeah, the music was completely done, except for P H O T O B Y T R AV I S S H I N N

a few overdubs here and there. For the vocals, I just waited to see what was gonna happen. A lot of studios were closed. I wanted to go somewhere cool—you wanna be comfortable in the studio—so around May I got the idea to go see Sanford [Parker] in Chicago. I knew I would have to fly, which was scary, but it was actually pretty safe—a lot of social distance, hardly anyone on the flights. One of the flights was like seven dollars. The whole thing was like 58 bucks, roundtrip. I was a little wary of flying, but I did it.

Sanford’s great—we’re in Corrections House together, so it was super-comfortable. I got an Airbnb and just stayed by myself, didn’t see anybody, and just went to the studio everyday—just me and him. We got it done in like seven days, and we did that Devo cover, too. We have a split 7-inch out with Sheer Terror. They do a Depeche Mode cover, and we do “Gates of Steel.”

A History of Nomadic Behavior seems like a pretty spot-on title for an Eyehategod album…

Yeah, of course. It certainly fits us—that’s why we picked it. What could describe the last few years, you know? That’s definitely it.

The song “High Risk Trigger” is already out as a pre-release track. What’s the inspiration behind that one?

Oh, man—we don’t plan anything. We don’t go into the studio and say, “Let’s do this.” We’re

the music, and I sat with it for a long time before I went to Chicago. Some of the lyrics were newer; some were older. I just see what fits, and it ended up coming out perfect. But I don’t sit and write songs about a subject. I like that cut-up style, the cerebral, hallucinogenic way of writing. But later on, it kinda comes out to be something, which is kinda cool. People will say, “This song is about this,” and I’ll say, “Yeah, maybe it is.”

Did you get the cut-up style from William S. Burroughs?

That’s the likely comparison, I guess, but he used to physically cut blocks of words up and rearrange them. I don’t do that. I do it in my head, or on paper. I just like words that look good together and sound good together in a song.

Words are great, man. I love them. Putting them together is like a puzzle.

I especially like the song title “Three Black Eyes,” because in order to have three black eyes, you need at least two people.

Exactly. [Laughs] I don’t know, man—it just came to me. I ended up Googling that title, and there’s another song called that by someone else. So, two people had that idea. But again, it just sounded good. We recorded that song for Adult Swim two years before, but this is a re-recording because I wanted to do the vocals a little better.

My other favorite is “The Trial of Johnny Cancer,” which goes into the instrumental “Smoker’s Piece.” So, there’s a theme there…

[Laughs] I didn’t even think of “Smoker’s Piece”—I don’t know who did. Jimmy maybe. But the “The Trial of Johnny Cancer”… I don’t know, man. I don’t know where these things come from.

You’d have to ask my psychiatrist or something.

Like I said, words just come to me. It sounded like the title of a book, like an old 1930s book.

Which is funny because you wrote a book called Cancer as a Social Activity many years ago.

That’s true. I didn’t even think of that, man.

So, yeah, I guess there’s a theme.

This new album is like a second comeback record for you guys. Not many bands have two, much less back-to-back.

[Laughs] Yeah, it’s pretty strange, right? But the whole existence of this band has been weird from the beginning. We’re a bunch of weird people, for one thing, but the band itself is not normal, so I guess maybe that fits. Maybe we’ll do a third comeback album.

DECIBEL : APRIL 2021 : 33

U (no)mad, bro?  (clockwise from top l) Williams, Jimmy Bower, Gary Mader and Aaron Hill are ready to give living a second third chance

Still—what an ordeal, man.

I decided that it was kinda cool being alive. There’s a lot to enjoy besides alcohol and drugs. There’s other things.

So, I decided I like living.

No, no—okay. I’m done with all that. But yeah, after the last album, Joey passed away. And then in 2015, I was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, so that sucked. It is what it is, though. When you first hear something like that, what are you supposed to do? It’s not something you can fix immediately. At first, I guess I really didn’t care when I heard because I’d been… I guess in the past, the desire to live hasn’t been one of my main things. So, I didn’t really care, honestly. But as it went on, I started thinking about it and… getting well was an eyeopener, I would say.

I can only imagine that the experience of being on a donor list is terrifying because you don’t know if you’re going to live long enough to get a transplant. How long were you in limbo like that?

From the time that it got really bad, maybe five or six months. But then I was in the hospital for three months waiting, plus [dealing with] every other complication that comes with it.

But like I said, it wasn’t scary. I wasn’t sitting there biting my nails the whole time. If I die, I die. What can you do at that point? I don’t worry about things a lot in life. I try not to—I mean, obviously, humans worry. You kinda just have to go with it and hope for the best. But if that is your last few months, you don’t wanna waste your time worrying. You just have to 34 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

I think it’s crazier to other people than it is to me, because I was there and I experienced it. That’s what human beings are, though—they’re resilient. Sometimes you have to try to survive. You have to stay positive about staying alive. It helps. But the fact that doctors and medicine can do that— that’s the crazy part to me. It’s strange to think that at one point, my insides were out and my rib cage was showing. But they can do all that.

Since I got the transplant at the end of 2016, I’ve felt healthier than I ever did.

trust in these scientists and doctors. That’s why science is the best. And they got it done—they helped me. After that, I decided that it was kinda cool being alive. There’s a lot to enjoy besides alcohol and drugs. There’s other things.

So, I decided I like living.

So, you’re done with all that stuff? You can’t do it anymore?

I mean, I can. I have a brand new liver. I can do anything I want, man. But I wouldn’t damage it like that. It took a long time to destroy the first one I had. [Laughs] I might have a glass of wine here and there. The doctors said that’s fine. But I was doing a lot of hard stuff from the ’90s up through the 2000s—plus drinking two bottles of vodka a day. I’d tour with Corrections House, come home for a few days, go out with Eyehategod, come home, go out with Corrections House—that was at least a year that happened. And I was just swimming in vodka that whole time.

But it’s not like you just wake up feeling great, right? I mean, they sliced you open and replaced a major organ.

I did wake up feeling better, in terms of my overall well-being, but I had 72 staples and other stitches inside. I got the transplant in December 2016, and we were back onstage by April. So it was only four months later. [Laughs] Obviously, I wasn’t a hundred percent, but it’s better than sitting somewhere trying to recover. So, as soon as the staples were out and I was healing, we booked shows immediately. I mean, that’s what keeps me alive—playing shows. That’s my whole life.

Were you in pain when you were in the hospital?

Eyehategod started in 1988. It’s now 2021. Did you think you’d make it this far?

No, there was no real physical pain. You get swelling and stuff, but… yeah.

Yeah, 30-something years, man. [Laughs] It’s fuckin’ wild.

PHOTO BY TRAVIS SHINN

But that would mean something else horrible would have to happen…

the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

story by

chris dick

Black Water Rising the making of My Dying Bride’s The Angel and the Dark River

F

rom the outside looking in, My Andrew Craighan and Calvin Robertshaw Dying Bride were underground had twisted their exposure to alternahopefuls with the ability and tive music—like Hybryds and Dead Can momentum to cross over to the Dance—into a monolithic, yet diaphamainstream. Previous album Turn nous force. Indeed, the rhythm section Loose the Swans had captured not just of Rick Miah and Adrian “Ade” Jackson our black hearts and cemetery eyes, but the afforded the rest of the band the anorwider, deeper gaze of the upper echelons of thosite foundation on which to build, but a different era. In Europe, the press was it was the violin and keyboard work of absolutely fervent about MDB, pen and Martin Powell that expertly stitched sadlimbs thrashing adoringly to “The Songless ness, longing and nostalgia throughout.

Bird” and “The Crown of Sympathy,” while Collectively, however, My Dying Bride here in America, Rolling Stone unexpectedly were doing what they always had done on (yet famously) called it, “Bram Stoker’s The Angel and the Dark River, so the oncomDBHOF196 Dracula for the ears,” a quote that still ing deluge of praise (mostly off-island), positively haunts the Brits. At the time, fanfare and opportunity—a legendary My Dying Bride’s gothic metal proclivities gig at the Dynamo Festival and surprisappeared to cast larger and longer shading invite to tour with Iron Fucking ows. Even fledgling At the Gates, when the Maiden—had yet to materialize.

The Angel and the Dark River Swedes synched up with the Yorkshiremen The Angel and the Dark River was probPE ACE V ILLE to tour Europe, had expected more. Indeed, ably never as loved in England as it was M AY 22, 1 9 9 5 by the time The Angel and the Dark River had everywhere else. Perhaps that’s cultural. dropped in the spring of 1995 on Peaceville, Or maybe the Brits, with their inveterate You can’t expect to read this and survive fortune had finally paid a visit. mentality, simply thought that My Dying But in West Yorkshire, the glint of sucBride were too “European,” an ornate cess wasn’t quite as bright. My Dying Bride folderol too obtuse to praise outright, had spent the better portion of 1994 writing but vexedly on the upswing nonetheless. the follow-up to Turn Loose the Swans. The six-piece toiled away in a dark, Yet, here at Decibel, some 26 years later, The Angel and the Dark River resonates oven-like rehearsal space, answering to no one but the limits of their as strongly as ever—the understated white cover art a beacon of MDB’s own creativity. They had but one goal, really: Above all else, top Swans. unwitting unorthodoxy. The triumph of six twentysomethings with three Rehearsal after sweaty, smoky rehearsal, they crafted. Songs like “From quid between them unfurls across “A Sea to Suffer In,” “Your Shameful Darkest Skies,” “Two Winters Only” and “Black Voyage” appeared, wrought Heaven” and opening keystone “The Cry of Mankind” like a black velvet with deathly iron of yesteryear and crowned with the seductive lace of counterpane. For this reason (and many others), we hereby welcome The betterment. To wit, vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe eschewed his trademark Angel and the Dark River and the creative endeavor behind it into the Hall of death growl for an unmistakable, yet mournful squall. Likewise, guitarists Fame. Fish and chips are across the street, boys.

MY DYING BRIDE

DECIBEL : 37 : APRIL 2021

DBHOF196

MY DYING BRIDE the angel and the dark river We were naturals, Andrew.

[Laughs] We didn’t need a plan. We weren’t trying too hard to move away from our comfort zone, really. So, we didn’t need to structure our thoughts. We fell into everything because it felt right to do. People would bring things into the band, and if we all nodded our heads, then it worked for us. We were confident in working like that. Mags had an impact there, too. We trusted him completely.

CALVIN ROBERTSHAW: I think you can hear the progression of the band’s songwriting, particularly through the previous EPs, as we used them to soundboard new and experimental work.

When it came to the writing of Angel, our normal process changed. Lyrics had always come first, and we would use these to inspire the initial writing process. This time, the music came STAINTHORPE:

Two years separate Turn Loose the Swans from The Angel and the Dark River. What do you remember about the lead-up? I seem to recall a small summer European tour and the release of the I Am the Bloody Earth EP. AARON STAINTHORPE: Turn Loose wasn’t as successful then as it is now, seemingly. We knew it went down well, so we were kind of buzzing from that a little bit. There was momentum, and we felt a bit more elevated. By no means did it go to our heads. It’s not like we went, “Christ! We’ve written the best album ever! Aren’t we brilliant?!”

[Laughs] The Angel and the Dark River was us writing as we normally did as good we possibly could.

Any feedback we got for Turn Loose was in the form of letters. People used to write us letters.

We listened to those letters a bit and took the best parts of Turn Loose for The Angel and the Dark River. We put 100 percent effort into The Angel and the Dark River. We concentrated really hard on bettering ourselves from the previous album. We call it “topping yourself.” That was our mindset at the time. I think it paid off. [Laughs] ANDREW CRAIGHAN: Everything Aaron said was correct. So, going into The Angel and the Dark River, writing and recording sessions were quite normal to us. Looking back, we didn’t have a plan. If we did, I’ve forgotten what it was. That took years for that album to become what it eventually became. Mainly, because nobody did or had done anything like it. It stood so far out.

Thankfully, I think what worked for us, in the end, was a confident naiveté, particularly with the song “The Cry of Mankind.” Even when we try to write a song like that now, it’s not possible. Yet, we wrote that song without thinking.

We didn’t think going into The Angel and the Dark River that it would become anything.

Was there a sense that The Angel and the Dark River was going to take a different route?

CRAIGHAN: We had not fully grasped that we were all that different or groundbreaking in any way.

I think the violin usage on Angel was improved, as we realized how best to employ it. Plus, Martin [Powell] was a more comfortable player by that point, and had got his head around what we were all doing and how he fit in on keys and violin. Mags [Robert Magoolagan], on this one though, was key. Looking back, he was literally instrumental in places. I remember building the rhythm line to “The Cry of Mankind” with him, going through each cycle over and over, ensuring we had what we wanted. The clean vocals were not such a leap on this one, I thought, as Turn Loose had pretty much announced we were now like that. I would have thought Angel was more of a continuation of building what My Dying Bride were, even though we ourselves really didn’t know what that was.

“Most people thought we were idiotic, but we liked it.

They come over to see what we were doing, and when they opened the door, here we are in the dark with candles burning with T-shirts on our heads ’cause it was so fucking hot.

We looked like pink naked nuns.”

A N D REW CRA IG HA N first, which could in some ways explain the diversity among the tracks. Nothing tying us to a particular feeling or mood, given free reins to express ourselves musically for the first time.

This obviously had an effect on Aaron, as he then proceeded to find his voice and brought back a full album’s worth of haunting and delightfully emotional clean vocals.

MARTIN POWELL: I’m never quite sure of any overt decision to take any path that diverged from the My Dying Bride ethos, as it were, as we never really felt constricted in the first place. The music the band made showed that we weren’t afraid to approach songwriting or arrangements differently, so whilst I suspect the decision to avoid any harsh vocals was a definite choice, the other aspects of the music and its presentation came naturally. I had definitely APRIL 2021 : 38 : DECIBEL

gained more confidence in the use of the violin over the years, and listening back to the album, it does seem to take somewhat of a more lead instrument role. The melodic lines were composed by myself organically whilst jamming in band rehearsals, but I do recall that I had written parts of “Black Voyage” as a guitar and violin piece (the sections that contain both), so that came pre-packed, so to speak.

RICK MIAH: I will say, I’m no professional drummer. I can hit things hard and hit things accurately. I mean, I learned to play drums on a couch. I had drumsticks, a couch and Rush’s 2112. I learned to play drums to 2112 on a couch over the course of 12 months. By the time we got to Angel, I was, admittedly, somewhat proficient at drumming, so this notion of progression— which I think we did progress—between albums isn’t lost on me.

What were the songwriting sessions like?

CRAIGHAN: For me, they were just rehearsals. I used to walk to Calvin’s house, and I remember it being really hot—believe it or not, a lot of the riffs were written when it was quite summery.

But I do think we were trying to be absolutely heavy. The melodic side of it came later. We were trying to balance out the heaviness, really. We didn’t realize how melodic we had become until later. I will say we rehearsed in the dark—a carryover from the Turn Loose days. Most people thought we were idiotic, but we liked it. Actually, we had Virgin Mary statue candles burning.

That used to freak people out. They come over to see what we were doing, and when they opened the door, here we are in the dark with candles burning with T-shirts on our heads ’cause it was so fucking hot. We looked like pink naked nuns.

[Laughs] STAINTHORPE: It was baking hot in that rehearsal room. They’re soundproof, but there’s no breeze at all. We’d have the lights switched off. Candles, the whole bit. It worked for us. We looked like a weird cult. [Laughs] If somebody had opened the door, they would’ve thought we were off our heads, but we weren’t.

ADRIAN “ADE” JACKSON: As with the previous question, there was never a plan; writing was always an organic process. Ideas and riffs were brought to rehearsal, played with, and songs made that way. Sometimes Aaron had lyrics first, and sometimes they were written after some song structure was put in place. With regards to the violin, Martin had his input on that along with the keys and things were somewhat in flux until we had “finished” the song in the studio.

MIAH: I just wanted to hear what Andy and Vinny [Robertshaw] were writing. I wanted to play drums to what they were doing. I loved the drums. I did help write a little bit of “From Darkest Skies.” That heavy chuggy bit was inspired by Life of Agony. I played the drum pattern and asked Andy and Vinny to follow me.

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DBHOF196

MY DYING BRIDE the angel and the dark river

This is a weary hour  MDB mid-black voyage around the backstage areas of Europe

They just chugged away, the heavier the better.

The organ was added later. You can hear our progression as songwriters and musicians, though.

Listen to “The Sexuality of Bereavement” and “The Cry of Mankind.” It’s like chalk and cheese.

Do you remember which songs were first and which were last?

I have no idea which songs came first. Obviously, “The Cry of Mankind” was last.

That means most of the other songs were already finished. Or at least 90 percent finished. We always left a bit to add on while we were in the studio. Of course, time is money in the studio, so it’s always good to have most of the songs finished while they’re free. The studio’s good for adding bits.

CRAIGHAN: This is more based on a feeling than anything, but I think “A Sea to Suffer In” was mostly complete before the studio. There’s a violin section towards the end, though, that changed. We got Martin to do a solo, and I remember Mags saying, “Get more ‘gypsy’ with it!” We used to mock Martin for various things, so that phrase stuck for a while, but the point is, Mags was deeply involved in our music. He wasn’t just recording us. If you listen to that violin part now, the idea was to give the song a more rustic, Romany-type feel.

POWELL: My recollection is that “The Cry of Mankind” was the last song to be finished, as it was largely written and arranged in stages in the STAINTHORPE:

studio. We had Calvin’s finger-tapped motif and some other elements, but it was added in separate stages in the studio, with guitar lines, the general arrangement and the little keyboard motif added one by one. If you listen to the song at 8:30 to 9:00, you’ll hear what sounds like a reverberant ship’s horn that iterates a few times. In fact, that was Aaron, playing the bottom string of my fivestring violin, so technically, I think that means there was another string player on the record!

Do you recall what the label interactions were like with Peaceville founder Paul “Hammy” Halmshaw and his wife Lisa at this point?

In 1994, they signed a licensing deal with Fierce Recordings, which would allow The Angel and the Dark River to be released domestically a year later.

I knew Hammy probably before My Dying Bride had even formed. We used to go to the Frog & Toad [bar] together because we lived in the same town. The Peaceville office was only a couple of miles from my home, so I could just go down to the office any time I liked. I remember playing Doom on their computers most of all because they had a really good network for the time. Yeah, anyway, we used to go through the artwork, go through lyrics and all that together.

It was fantastic! I remember when The Angel and the Dark River showed up. Hammy gave me a call—of course, there was no email—and I drove down to look at the vinyl, the CDs and the tapes.

STAINTHORPE:

APRIL 2021 : 4 0 : DECIBEL

It was great to have a label like that on my doorstep. I mean, any issue or misunderstanding—of which there were few—was sorted out so quickly with Peaceville. When we’d go meet the press in Europe, we’d go in Hammy’s car with another guy called “Dinger” [Shaun Crabtree]. Not sure what “Dinger”’s job was at Peaceville, apart from rolling Hammy’s spliffs.

The Angel and the Dark River was recorded between December 1994 and January 1995.

What do you remember about your time at Academy Studios?

CRAIGHAN: For us, it wasn’t like recording an album. It was just great fun. The studio itself was as high-tech as we had ever seen. Academy Studios had all the stuff you’d expect a proper studio to have in those days. There were some odd sessions where you started to think the place was haunted, though. Things would just happen unexplained. So, we’re recording at midnight and we’ve got fucking ghosts to contend with.

Just great! [Laughs] The setup of the studio was different from most studios, I think. The control room was upstairs and the recording room was downstairs. I guess it was the ground floor, but it was eerie. I never felt comfortable recording down there by myself. The actual recordings on The Angel and the Dark River were a bit different from before. Mags, more than anyone, wanted to separate the instruments more than ever before.

This was new to us for sure.

DBHOF196

MY DYING BRIDE the angel and the dark river sample of a double-barrel shotgun. It was triggered so whenever I hit the tom, it’d make that “boom” sound.

Haunted? I remember staying the night there a few times with Martin. We slept like babies! [Laughs] Academy had this quite famous mysticism about it. The reality is very different. It was originally two houses.

[Owner] Keith [Appleton] bought the two houses and knocked down the walls to make a studio.

From the outside, you’d have no idea there was a studio inside. No sign. Nothing at all. It was near a school. Also, opposite to a fish and chips shop. It was closer to my house than the Peaceville offices. I used to walk up the hill to the studio from my house. It was a really nice place to be. We had endless coffee, tea, snacks and computer games. When you did want to sit in the mixing room, there was a huge leather sofa, the lighting always dim and the music was loud. I remember we’d set up our PCs in the kitchen area, linking them up to play each other on Doom. I remember Mags yelling at me, “Hey, Aaron, it’s your turn!” I said to him, “Fuck off a minute! I’m in the middle of something important here! Pick someone else!” [Laughs] ROBERTSHAW: Our first ventures into Academy Studio, we’d used the owner, Keith, as I think Peaceville wanted the older reliable engineer to work on our initial recordings. It was actually Keith who recommended we use Mags, as he felt he was more in tune with what we were trying to achieve. An excellent taskmaster, Mags made us work and hone our recording skills. Tightened our performances and got the best recordings of the material. We had the opportunity to work with someone who was interested in the scene and understood what we were trying to encapsulate in our recordings, from then and for many years to come.

Learnt a lot through the studio time with Mags; certainly allowed me to increase my input into future recordings.

POWELL: I think for Angel we weren’t always present in the studio en masse, and we’d come and go as necessary, which was a little change from previous recordings. Maybe we all trusted our own individual abilities a little more…

Academy had a reputation that preceded it, as somewhere where respected artists in the genre recorded due to Peaceville’s patronage, and despite its budget appearance, it was a place where records were made well, and usually on limited budgets.

MIAH: Mags was always great, but I do remember recording Angel was a bit of a bind for me. For some reason, we recorded the rhythms separately from the drum rolls. Mags thought it was a fantastic idea to record the toms separate from the beat. That way he could apply loads of effects on the toms. If you listen to “From Darkest Skies,” you can hear a tom hit that sounds really low [around 4:02]. Well, that’s a STAINTHORPE:

Tell us about the cover art. It’s stark and feminine. More 4AD/Beggars Banquet in style than heavy metal.

We just wanted artwork that would make people do a double-take. With the artwork and the title, it makes people think.

Who is the angel? What is the dark river? And who is this mysterious person on the cover?

People started asking us questions. The last thing we wanted is for people to stare at our artwork and then immediately move on. We didn’t want people to look at the cover at face value. I wanted the cover to be like a lure. If you offer intrigue, people will devour it. I wanted our artwork to look like nothing else in our genre.

So, you’re right—there is a 4AD look to it—but, at the time, I had no idea what 4AD meant until I went to Germany. [Laughs] The cover stood out.

People loved it.

STAINTHORPE:

Lyrically, where were you coming from and what specifically was informing your prose, Aaron?

They were a progression from Turn Loose the Swans and the records before it. When I was at school, I was terrible at mathematics, but I really loved English literature. It was the stuff that we read at school that had the most impact.

The dead poets, I’m specifically talking about— Byron, Keats. A bit of Shakespeare, too. I loved their material. I had no idea that the stuff I was reading in school would carry further down the line. When we started My Dying Bride, I couldn’t play a single instrument, so I knew I’d be doing the vocals, and therefore, hopefully, the lyrics.

STAINTHORPE:

“I remember we wanted to get a few beers, so me, Aaron, Martin and Calvin decided to go to the supermarket.

Aaron had a nappy on and his crown of thorns.

So, here we are walking through a council estate with Jesus tagging along.”

RICK MIA H That poetry I had learned at school started to come together for me. I thought, “Rather than write about the typical heavy metal subjects— the devil, blood, guts and mistreating women— why don’t I write about something more thought-provoking?” It really worked. I’m sure some people thought my lyrics were shit and not very heavy metal, but I think they helped draw in more females than usual. My lyrics had something that appealed to women more than something from Scream Bloody Gore—actually, an LP I love. I mean, an axe through the head isn’t going to impact too many people, but losing somebody you love is massive. I wanted to write about powerfully emotive subjects. There’s nothing in The Angel and the Dark River lyrics that point to me reading a specific book, though. Also, there are personal things in there, but you’d need to know me and be able to read between the lines.

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Describe the circumstances of the video for “The Cry of Mankind.”

The director, David Palser, kind of told me what was coming. He said to me, “We’re going to put you in this loincloth.” All I could think was, “I hope I have clean underpants on.” [Laughs] David had worked in the theatre, and had designed stages for operas. Really topend stuff. When he suggested the ideas for the video, he had them all storyboarded out. We never had a storyboard before. He also made the crown of thorns you see in the video. I still have that, actually, though I think my head might’ve shrunk. Anyway, we felt like we had moved up a level by working with this guy. He had all the lights, cameras and gear. It felt good. I don’t want to take anything away from our earlier videos—yes, they were done on the cheap—but this was up a level. The fact that we were in London was a major deal for us. We had left Yorkshire and had arrived in the big city! We knew it would cost a fortune—and it did—but it was money well spent. There was some controversy around the way I portrayed Christ. Some TV channels thought it was too controversial to show, and I think when MTV aired it, there was a statement before the video that stated, “Perhaps not suitable for everybody.” I quite liked that. We were never a controversial band, but the video got people talking—even rattled some people to complain. [Laughs] POWELL: The location was a large warehouse facility somewhere in the outskirts of London, I believe. My abiding memory of the shoot is Aaron, between takes, sat in the Christ costume on a large crate of beer, drinking one himself, when an interested member of the public wandered in to ask what the event was. Sadly, I don’t remember Aaron’s reply, but I do recall the gent’s incredulity. I believe the girl in the video was a neighbor or vague associate of Dave’s, and he’d asked her to be in the video— her first.

STAINTHORPE:

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MIAH: We were in a warehouse near council housing. East London, I think. I remember we wanted to get a few beers, so me, Aaron, Martin and Calvin decided to go to the supermarket. Aaron had a nappy on and his crown of thorns. So, here we are walking through a council estate with Jesus tagging along. [Laughs] We had a bunch of funny looks, some blokes shouting god-knowswhat at us, but we got the beer and made it safely back to the set. The video turned out all right, I think.

You toured Europe after the spring release of The Angel and the Dark River. You also hit Dynamo in June, which, at the time, was one of the biggest music festivals in Europe. What were those shows like?

CRAIGHAN: Touring back then was rough. I think Dynamo was our first tour bus, actually. Prior to that, it was all vans with all the equipment under mattresses. I will say we were continually surprised at how many people were showing up.

I won’t pretend to say that it was all My Dying Bride. The scene was fueling itself. People just went to shows in Europe. All the time. Dynamo was another thing entirely. We weren’t ready for that. When I walked out onstage, I didn’t realize that many people existed. I was in shock. For some weird reason, I had not looked at the stage at all. We were so busy backstage. I was suddenly faced with a situation where I couldn’t back out.

The crowd really took to us, and that’s something I’ll never forget. I learned a lesson that day.

STAINTHORPE: That was the 10th anniversary of Dynamo. After it was over, they had the biggest fireworks display I had ever seen. I was terrified!

The show was a knee-trembler, though. [Laughs] Even in small clubs I get nervous. I remember looking around the curtain and thinking not, “Fuck yes!” but rather, “Holy shit! This is going to be terrifying!” I could barely stand up walking out on that stage. We eventually warmed to it, but at no point did we “rock star” it, with fistpumping and shouting. I remember thinking, I would rather walk down my local High Street naked than perform in front of a crowd like that again. Looking back, we were quite privileged to have performed at Dynamo in front of so many people. Most people will never experience that.

JACKSON: Dynamo was our first real big festival, I think, so it was quite the experience. Aaron drove a van with all the equipment in, but it kind of broke down once we got there and had to be bump-started. We also had to park it on a ramp on the ferry home so he could start it there and couldn’t stop ’til he got back. [Laughs] MIAH: Dynamo. Are we playing in a tent, man?

[Laughs] That’s no fucking ordinary tent. There’s a city of people inside that thing. We were on really late at night. The gig itself was legendary.

The roar when we walked onstage was deafening.

When Aaron said, “Hello, Eindhoven, we’re My Dying Bride,” the roar shook the stage. The energy of that crowd was unlike anything I’ve ever felt.

I would say that’s one of the top gigs ever.

My Dying Bride were personally chosen by Steve Harris as support for Iron Maiden’s The X Factor.

What are your memories of that tour?

Steve was very nice to us. They all were. We played three football matches with Iron Maiden on that tour. Imagine that! As youngsters, we had read in Kerrang! that Steve Harris was a big football fan. We had seen photographs of him wearing his West Ham United kit with the Iron Maiden logo on the front. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be wearing that shirt, playing football with Steve Harris! Before the first show in Finland, Steve comes into our dressing room and says, “You’re here because I like your album, but more importantly, who plays football?” Myself, Andrew and Rick put our hands up, and said, “Yes! We like a good kick-around.” The three of us used to play every Sunday near Andrew’s house. Steve says, “Tomorrow, we’ll be in Sweden. We’ll have a kick-around.” We were in shock. We really didn’t anticipate this at all, and of course didn’t have football boots or kits. Steve said to us, “Don’t you worry about that, boys. I’ve got you all covered.”

In his tour bus, he had boxes and boxes of football boots. And full kits. I remember putting on that kit, seeing Andy and Rick standing there in full-on Iron Maiden kits. That was fucking amazing! Andy and Rick even scored goals, and that really blew Steve away. [Laughs] CRAIGHAN: We played three matches with Iron Maiden on that tour. We lost by six each time.

6-2, 6-1, and 6-0. That’s 666. I don’t know about you, but losing like that makes it kind of worthwhile. [Laughs] I will say the teams we played were actual teams. We were just a bunch of rockers in Iron Maiden kits.

ROBERTSHAW: Yeah, the power of a song on a sampler CD. That’s how we got the gig. What an experience to tour with a band you’ve admired for years. Just being in that touring environment and witnessing the way in which all the parts work together was a great opportunity. We were finally able to get to territories we’d previously not been to; that for me was brilliant. It gave our fans the possibility to see us, as well as converting some— probably not many—Maiden fans to our sound.

POWELL: There are quite a few. It was an honor to be asked by Steve, so despite racking up a huge debt with the record company for tour support, we were elated to join the tour. I recall one evening on a day off where Steve invited us to a pub in Sweden and proceeded to inform us that he’d paid for everyone’s drinks for the night.

That’s a surefire way to capture an Englishman’s heart. I recall playing darts—very badly—with Steve, and over quite a few beers all-round, him STAINTHORPE:

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mentioning that he’d loved to have written “The Cry of Mankind.” I think we countered with the statement that there were one or two Maiden songs that we’d loved to have written.

MIAH: When we toured Angel with Maiden, Nicko [McBrain]’s drum tech [Steve Gadd] had an accident and basically ruined his knee for a few days. I think he fell off the back of the stage. Anyhow, I was on our bus smoking hash.

It was my birthday, too—December 13th. One of Maiden’s crew came banging on the door: “Where’s Rick?! We need a big favor. Steve has fucked his knee. Can you do the soundcheck?”

I remember saying, “Can I do the soundcheck?!

Happy fucking birthday to me, man! Of course!

I would love to beat the shit out of Nicko’s drum kit, thank you very much.” So, I got to be Maiden’s soundcheck guy for a couple of days, which, for me, was the best thing ever to happen to me. From 10-11 years old, that was one of my dreams. And, boy, did it come true.

What are some of your favorite parts on The Angel and the Dark River? I’ve always loved when the gothic keyboards come in on “From Darkest Skies.” And, of course, the entirety of “The Cry of Mankind.”

“The Cry of Mankind” will always be a standout. The extended or ethereal outro— which is more an ambient bit—was great fun to do in the studio. We were probably inebriated at that point.

CRAIGHAN: I like the part in “Black Voyage” after the vocal drone crescendo. The snare drum takes you out of the trance with a right crack, and a classic doom riff tumbles down amongst it.

ROBERTSHAW: Yes, the church organ and the shotgun sample on the drums, quite possibly my favorite moment as well. Although the intimacy of “Two Winters [Only]” still pulls at my heartstrings. They truly are some of the sweetest and morose clean guitars I’ve ever heard.

JACKSON: Favorite moments would have to be “Cry of Mankind,” as you’ve mentioned. I lost my father to cancer in ’97, and for some reason, that song always made me think of him. So, he had a part every time we played it.

POWELL: There are parts that I had no affinity with at the time, but now having listened to the record again after so many intervening years, I enjoy them. The middle drone section in “Black Voyage,” for example, is something I enjoy now, but never really did before. “A Sea to Suffer In” was always a favorite to play given that I wrote a lengthy violin part and it’s quite a fluid one that’s interesting—for me, if no one else. The bombastic entry in “Two Winters Only” at 7:35 always gets the hairs standing on end, even after all these years. “The Cry of Mankind” is always a joy to listen to, though I had somewhat forgotten the lengthy outro until now! I think it has a combination of a lot of interesting aspects: rhythm, melody, harmony, vocal lines and some very STAINTHORPE:

PURE. NORTHERN. MISERY. NO CELEBRATION T he Official Story of by d av i d e . g e h l k e

foreword by k arl willetts

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MY DYING BRIDE the angel and the dark river

The Bride and the Maiden  Jackson (l) and Craighan pose outside of their tour bus while on the road with Iron Maiden RIGHT: Stainthorpe finds a stage to suffer on during the same tour LEFT :

catchy motifs, not to mention that outro. It’s still crazy to think we created that ending on the opening song of an album.

MIAH: It’s equal parts devastatingly beautiful, and yet crushingly heavy! To that end, I enjoy “From Darkest Skies” and “Black Voyage,” especially the trippy bit. I remember I was in the recording room, in the pitch dark, stoned out of my head, working the cymbals on that part.

Pretty proud of that, actually.

What was the sentiment in the band after the release of the record? Onward and upward? Or, were things still very grounded? I remember Greg Mackintosh from Paradise Lost said good spirits (or indications of success) would summarily get trampled by the Halifax/Bradford locals.

CRAIGHAN: That definitely exists. There’s a “shields up” type of thing in these parts. I remember I disarmed a guy by telling him I still worked for a living. Once he understood I worked for a living, his entire demeanor towards me changed. Before that, I was in a band and making money from it. There was a [standoffishness] to me making a living off the band I was in. I actually lied to him. I told him I drove a forklift. [Laughs] I know what Greg’s talking about, and I’ve been at the receiving end of that animosity. It’s at this point when you realize who your friends actually are.

STAINTHORPE: I remember we headlined the Damnation Fest in Leeds. There’s a VIP section in the balcony, and old friends of ours were yelling up to me, “Aaron! What are you doing up there?!

You should be down here with us, you fucking

rock star!” I had only just fucking arrived, and I wanted to see the lay of the land. They’re looking at you and they want to talk to you, but when you go talk to them, they’re not really interested in you. There’s definitely a better-than-us attitude here. I mean, two days after we’re headlining the fest, and after all the crowd-roaring and autograph-signing, we’re back at work. That’s a massive comedown. That’s a hard emotional journey. Fuck, I’d love to be a rock star and strut around in leather pants. [Laughs] JACKSON: As I’ve alluded to, we were always pretty grounded and appreciative of the opportunities we’d had and where we had got to. All our mates were supportive and treated us the same, too, so we were no different. I remember being in a hotel in New Jersey when we toured the U.S. with Dio in ’97, looking over the balcony to Manhattan and seeing the World Trade Center and Empire State Building. And wondering how an idiot like me could have got there!

Is there anything that you’d change about The Angel and the Dark River?

CRAIGHAN: No. It was pure, and there was a magic to that time that has since been erased.

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Everything about this album was because of the time it was created. Sadly, days like that are now gone, and that time has only proven to be more precious than we could have ever imagined. Man, if only we’d have paid more attention, but who knew that was to be the highlight of our career?

STAINTHORPE: I haven’t listened to the album in years. I’ll get back to you later. [Laughs] JACKSON: No, I don’t think so. I’m not really one for regret, and everything that has happened has got me where I am, and all the experiences in between. I have been very lucky and I’m very happy.

POWELL: Looking back with hindsight and changing anything just pollutes the artifact.

Certainly, there are little flaws and moments that I hear, but to change those would be interfering with the original work, and I’d be reticent going down that road.

MIAH: Yes! If someone were to ask me to go back and re-record Angel, I’d do it for free! [Laughs] If I could turn back time, I would’ve told Mags, “No, I’m recording the toms and drums together!” I also think it’s slightly too slow, deliberately. I’d change up the tempo, too. It needs more energy, overall faster.

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2020 WAS THE YEAR LIVE MUSIC DIED.

BUT WITH COVID-19 VACCINATIONS ON THE WAY, THERE’S REASON FOR OPTIMISM.

HERE’S WHAT WE LEARNED FROM 365 DAYS WITHOUT CONCERTS.

BY SEAN FRASIER • PHOTOS BY GENE SMIRNOV

THIS IS NOT A PIECE ABOUT COVID-19.

It’s about human connection and isolation. Ambition and disappointment. Struggle and resilience. It’s about acknowledging what we miss, so we can celebrate what we’ll regain once heshers flood back into beloved venues. While the virus will be mentioned throughout, we’re not extending a microphone to that little asshole. This is about the absence of live music, and how we can welcome it back into our lives.

The calendar has turned to 2021, and for many that symbolism feels like an exhale. But the curse of 2020 won’t dissipate overnight. The pandemic revealed fault lines and fragility in almost every major industry. Let’s face it, if you’re not Jeff Bezos or a pharmaceutical company the pandemic probably hammer-smashed your bank account. With streaming music supplanting

the purchase of physical copies for most casual fans, the loss of concerts meant the dissolution of music’s most lucrative commodity. Countless livelihoods were impacted. And let’s not discount the social distress of losing those opportunities to convene.

Some band members haven’t seen each other for in-person rehearsals in a year. But the relentDECIBEL

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less ripple effect of the pandemic on the live music industry transcends the bands and the fans. Tours and festivals have been cancelled, rebooked, and cancelled again. The venues that haven’t shuttered are on financial respirators.

As those venues close, with them go jobs. Record labels working on razor-thin margins scale back their support. There’s a symbiotic connection between the musicians and all the people who help amplify their music’s reach.

But there’s also more reason to be optimistic today than there was at any other point during the pandemic: Vaccines are rolling out to frontline medical personnel. Legislation has finally been passed to support independent venues. The back half of the 2021 event calendar is starting to repopulate. But it’s important to reflect on the past 365 days before we can plug into our amps and blast COVID away for good.

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 First light Voltage Lounge (Philadelphia, PA) sees potential for a bright future after an incredibly dark year

EVERYTHING VANISHED

In January 2020, COVID was still a whisper in

the United States. But for those overseas, dire public health warnings loomed over tour plans in the Pacific Rim. Jason “Lupe” Lupeituu has managed tours for Municipal Waste and Sleep, but doesn’t exclusively work with metal bands these days. He was with an artist in Australia and New Zealand when grim reports of a dangerous, contagious virus started circulating.

“It was raging on already in China, and we had travel advisories and were getting screened,” Lupeituu shares. “It was weird, because at first I don’t think anybody took it too seriously, and then it erupted.

“When I got home from the tours, my wife was pregnant and we had our son on February 29th—leap-year day,” Lupeituu continues. “I was supposed to go back out for a number of festivals.

But by March 10th everything was locked down.

I think it was the 7th of March that Coachella and South by Southwest locked down. These are mega events that bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Shelving those events lost months of work—people work on those events year-round. Everything vanished. The e-mails, the phone calls, it all just stopped. When you’re tour managing, the messages are usually nonstop. Everybody said the same thing, it was like The Twilight Zone. Life came to a halt.”

As co-founder of Maryland Deathfest—and the related festivals in California, London, Québec and the Netherlands—part of Ryan Taylor’s job is anticipating unplanned fuckery.

You can’t have that many moving parts without an occasional visa snafu. But even Taylor

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couldn’t fathom the magnitude of the harm headed for Charm City.

“I had flown back from Asia right when it was getting out of hand in China in the second half of February,” Taylor recalls. “I was kind of on edge, and I was supposed to fly through China as a connection, but I decided to switch and fly through Japan.

“I had thoughts like, ‘Oh crap, what’s coming?’

But I never would have expected a month later that it would get to the point where there wouldn’t be shows for a whole year. It just happened so quickly from the 10th of March or so. By the third week of March, I knew we were screwed.”

Maryland Deathfest was soon postponed in a sleepless flurry of cancellations for Taylor and co-founder Evan Harting. Their other events soon suffered the same fate.

On March 3rd of 2020, booking agent Nick Storch was in Mexico City assisting with a Ghost tour. Before the show started, he and his team perused the bootleg market. They spotted some knock-off cloth masks boasting Ghost logos and jokingly purchased them.

“We weren’t laughing at the virus, just no one was taking it seriously at the time,” says Storch.

“When I got home, I ended up wearing that mask for the whole first month; I didn’t have anything else. It was wild, and feels like years ago now.

“Someone unfortunately ended up passing away who attended the show,” Storch solemnly mentions. “One attendee had it and recovered, but another person didn’t make it.”

“Shit got real mid-March,” recalls Scotty Heath, label boss at Tankcrimes. “There was that day when Tom Hanks got it and they shut down APR 2021

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the NBA. That was the last time I shared a joint with anyone. That weekend Necrot was down in Mexico City playing Total Death Over Mexico Fest, and they returned to a shut-down city.”

As mounting casualties became public knowledge in early March, Decibel had to face the music. Our Necrot cover story was delayed with an unknown timeline as Mortal’s release date was pushed back. The Decibel Magazine Tour was about to shred across the country as infections started spiking. The tour’s opening Californian dates were axed as a Grand Princess cruise ship docked at San Francisco, quarantining over 3,000 passengers on board. On March 13, 2020 the tour was officially called off.

“As some of you know, we were already in Chicago doing two days of pre-production with Tony Laureano because of Hellhammer’s shoulder injury,” shares Mayhem guitarist Teloch. “All our crew, gear and merch were there together with our tour bus and everything worked out as planned until we got close to the first show on our five-week North America tour.

“I think our night-liner was two or three hours from the first venue when the Norwegian government recommended we get the fuck outta there and get home,” Teloch continues. “Being the good boys we are, we listened to Norway and got some last minute flights out of there, just before the borders closed and all hell broke loose.”

Gatecreeper’s members are scattered across the country, and had already congregated in the home of founding vocalist Chase Mason.

It was the first smack of disappointment in a year where bad news surged like an everflowing stream.

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“We were kind of defeated, and the people who could drive home did that,” says Gatecreeper’s Chase Mason. “Two of the members are from Texas, and I immediately bought their flights back. I was frustrated and annoyed and just wanted everyone out of here. Everything here in Arizona was open for another week or so. But the tour being cancelled was the beginning of things happening really fast, leading to the country shutting down.”

Unto Others—known at the time as Idle Hands—were already in their van and on the way to Colorado for the Denver show that night.

After receiving news of the tour’s cancellation, Unto Others pulled off the road and regrouped over a spread of Mexican food.

“It’s funny,” starts Unto Others vocalist/guitarist Gabe Franco, “I kept telling the guys, for a week or two prior, that I felt like I was standing on the edge of something, I just couldn’t figure out if that something was greatness or complete annihilation. I felt the same way sitting there drinking my horchata; I couldn’t figure it out.

But it turns out I was wrong about both. I was standing on the threshold of another trial, rather than a tribulation.

“This year has been a great test of mental strength and dedication,” Franco continues.

“It has not been inspiring, it has not been a great suffering. Worse than both, it has been utterly milquetoast. I think the reason most people get into the arts is for a sense of purpose and action and vivacity—those are all a bit in the shadows this year.

“The actual week in March itself was kind of like the van breaking down and not making a show; a hard right turn,” Franco expands. “It’s happened to me so many times that I was kind of like, “Okay, well let’s roll with the punches.”

The punches just kept coming. By the time I got home I was just happy to be back before things got any worse. Now almost a year later I feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but also again like I am standing at the threshold of some great vindicating event. Or, I don’t know, a repeat of my earlier situation.”

GIMME SHELTER

The 400-capacity venue Voltage Lounge hosted some of my favorite shows during my Philadelphia days. I saw Eyehategod lovingly antagonize the crowd. I interviewed Haunt’s Trevor William Church on a Beastmaker tour. I brought dates there for goth night. Asked for his proudest moments as the space’s talent buyer, Sean Salm goes straight to reshaping the venue’s identity.

“When I first came to Voltage in 2014 there was an identity crisis,” Salm concedes. “It was a weird hookah lounge and night club. They needed a new identity and brand. So, I came in and started introducing concerts and all ages shows, which are a rarity in Philadelphia right now.”

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AS A TALENT BUYER, I THINK EVEN I TOOK [LIVE MUSIC] FOR GRANTED. NOW I’D BE PUMPED TO SIT IN THE BACK CORNER OF THE ROOM WITH A DRINK AND WATCH AN ENTIRE

NINE-BAND BILL. SEAN SALM VOLTAGE LOUNGE

Instead of filling the venue’s upcoming calendar with potential shows, now Salm’s fighting for the Voltage Lounge’s survival. The venue is behind on rent after their income was slashed by the pandemic. They’ve hosted a few acoustic shows at their outside loading dock, but indoor events are non-existent. That has strained their relationship with their landlord, who has so far resisted resigning a lease. Salm authored a petition to raise awareness of the venue’s struggles and over 7,700 people have lent signatures. While the venue is closed that means their contracted employees are also out of work.

“When the pandemic first struck a lot of [the contractors] had a hard time getting unemployment benefits,” shares Salm. “Luckily we were able to raise about $5,000 to help our employees out while they were waiting to receive unemployment assistance. So, you have bartenders, security guards, sound techs; there were a lot of people out of work who had to adapt.”

Count Baltimore Soundstage among those doing their best to coexist with the pandemic by remaining creative and flexible. The venue has 15 years of clamoring memories; I personally value watching Repulsion with editor-inchief Albert Mudrian and legendary artist Dan Seagrave in 2016. While they’re unable to host indoor shows, general manager Dave Adams Jr. is doing his best to adapt. And he knows he’s not the only one searching for answers.

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“I have seen many venues trying to pivot anyway they can,” Adams admits. “Merch drives and crowdfunding were major avenues.

Livestreams and recording were another approach, but hard to monetize in many cases.

Venues with outdoor capabilities attempted to provide smaller outdoor events and food and beverage services. Promoters taking their shows to drive-in’s were another unique idea.

Soundstage tried all these approaches, but it was hard to keep pace with the crushing overhead cost of a large space in a high-rent district. In many cases, new businesses models required investment that was hard to come by with a worsening COVID situation.”

Dan Rozenblum—founding partner of Los Angeles-based agency 33 and West—relays a story of how Decibel favs Napalm Death rallied to help Brooklyn metal mecca Saint Vitus. After the shows were cancelled, the British death/ grind trail-blazers helped alleviate the venue’s financial injury by collaborating on some exclusive shirts. Personally, I’m not surprised that perennial good-guys Napalm Death helped friends in need. I’m just awe-struck that the government assistance pales in comparison.

“I think the federal government did a good job for our venue in the short term, but utterly failed to scale up their support as the crisis grew,” Adams fires. “By the end of summer almost all of the programs designed to help small businesses and out of work employees had

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hundreds of thousands of dollars in ticket sales.

I legitimately felt sick; it was like someone just took a vacuum cleaner to our bank account and sucked out all the money that we had saved up over the last nine years.”

THE ECOSYSTEM

Sole sacrifice  A closed Boot & Saddle (Philadelphia, PA) remains dark, its neon sign lit only by streetlight

expired, while our industry shutdown had no end in sight. This was really disheartening. But for a few grassroots movements—such as NIVA (National Independent Venue Association)—I really felt like we were a forgotten industry on the public’s radar.”

Black Circle is the heavy metal hub of Indianapolis; a brewery and community event space where drag shows and funeral doom share the same stage. Owner Jesse Rice and event booker Dustin Boltjes—ex-drummer of Skeletonwitch— planned an eventual expansion of the venue’s outdoor property. But at the time of writing this piece, revenue is down 73% for the year. So, the pandemic pressed fast-forward on those plans.

“There is a bike and walking trail being developed next to our venue, so we had plans to install an outdoor stage and fence in 2021,” shares Boltjes. “We had to pivot and move those plans forward in a hurry. We completed the outdoor stage and fence in June, and began having shows on the lawn right away. At least two other venues in town also developed an outdoor event schedule this year, but shows were being cancelled left and right. Tours were definitely on hold, so most of our shows were heavily local or regional bands.”

The story is the same with each venue: There has been insufficient government assistance, and rent moratoriums don’t extend to commercial properties in most states. While NIVA have been amazing advocates for venues, the message can get lost in the deafening roar of communal misery.

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But the economic impact of losing a venue can be devastating. Rescuing them—like NIVA explicitly wants to do with the Save Our Stages Act—is fiscally responsible. Without using the exact phrase, Jason Lupeituu explains how live music improves what economists call “the velocity of the dollar.” That refers to how quickly money exchanges hands to pay for services.

Higher velocity means the money is a healthier stimulant for the economy, instead of just sitting in Scrooge McDuck’s silo of hoarded dubloons.

“It’s something like for every dollar spent it brings 12 dollars back,” says Lupeituu. “People travel, they get gas, they go out to dinner near the venue or get some drinks, they pay for parking. Live music is a huge economic engine.”

For Sean Agnew of R5 Productions, the engine has stalled on his two Philadelphia venues. Boot and Saddle has closed, and the prognosis is grim.

By closing its doors, Agnew hopes that resources can go straight to his other venue, Union Transfer. I’ve watched Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein bash out thick riffs front and center in the latter space, packed with exuberant headbangers.

When the cancellations started in March they steamrolled Agnew’s entire event calendar.

“It was total insanity,” Agnew describes.

“Once a few shows started canceling and moving to later dates, everyone piled on. Over the course of three weeks, we lost 138 confirmed shows just like that. Not only losing future shows, but canceling and refunding tickets for the spring.

It wasn’t just a few here and there—it was APR 2021

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“We’re seeing how fragile our ecosystem is from this experience.”

That comment from booking agent Nick Storch encapsulates the ugly realization of how a year barren of concerts could raze the musical landscape. The relationships between bands, their managers, and local promoters rely on everyone being rewarded for their contributions.

But when the financial well starts running dry and survival mode kicks into gear, it’s natural to consider your own interests.

When touring returns, most people expect payment guarantees to nosedive for the bands.

There’s simply less risk in paying the band a percentage of the money received at the door instead of rolling the dice on unpredictable audience turnout. But changing the parameters of an existing agreement is a quick way to ruffle feathers. Partnerships can wither when there’s conflict over what’s fair in a world where the pandemic moves the goal posts every day.

“There’s two sides to the story,” Storch explains. “There’s the human side, where everyone is hurting. And then there’s the business side. The two sides aren’t mutually exclusive, but you need to balance the two. So, we have to protect our clients on the business side.”

For Storch, that means guarding the interests of the bands he represents. In a business that’s all about leverage, the future’s incalculability doesn’t deal bands a strong hand. Agent Dan Rozenblum understands why tension boiled up on the business side of music. But he keeps perspective by boiling the music industry down to this elevator-pitch: “It’s about bands and fans.” While the tug-of-war of business interests is understandable, it’s important that it doesn’t interfere with the experience of performing and sharing music.

“A lot of promoters took the stance that since they were losing months and months of income that they were entitled to using touring acts as a way of recouping their own losses first before the artists,” Rozenblum comments. “Thankfully it didn’t end up that way, and this pandemic really created a sense of unity across the entire music and live touring industry. Promoters and agents and artists hand-in-hand are each making their own sacrifices. We’re making sure that the relationships we’ve had for years with promoter partners remain intact.”

“I think a lot of bands realize that they will have to take a pay cut when touring starts up again,” adds Daniel DeForce of Continental Booking. “We all see these music venues

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struggling and we are still not sure which ones will be left standing when touring starts again.

We all need to make sure that these music venues make money at any future shows in order for them to stay open. I think that is the one thing everyone realizes. I hope at least. I've had these talks with some bands and they get it.”

The symbiotic relationships in the music business are numerous. Storch mentions that a venue closing in one city might remove that market from consideration for future tours, and could reroute long-term touring logistics. While Live Nation’s partnership with AEG has been maligned by some independent venue owners, the hierarchy is logical. Bands that fill arenas and larger venues owned by Live Nation aren’t generally playing an independently owned brewery or event space.

Live Nation tour buyer Joseph Ferree worked with Sean Agnew and R5 Productions until taking a gig with Live Nation in Los Angeles. Ferree started booking metalcore shows at local colleges when he was 16. Two decades later, he assists with making Decibel’s Metal & Beer Fest a reality. You can increase the budgets, but DIY never dies.

“I was a local buyer until September [2019], so I still think on that level,” shares Ferree. “So, as I’ve been watching friends’ venues close, I’ve been hurting because it takes a full ecosystem. It’s also important to be yourself and perform your daily duties ethically. So, whether I’m dealing with a show in a 200-cap room or I’m working on an amphitheater tour, I have the same approach.”

Independent venue owners have every right to be wary of the leverage Live Nation enjoys due to their wealth and influence. But Ferree isn’t some sinister puppeteer pulling the strings to siphon away a band’s beer money. When live music roars back into our lives it’s going to require the financial health of small businesses and larger entities. When one corner of the music business is poisoned, the infection doesn’t just impact CEOs. From tour buyers and promoters to venue and record label personnel, each role supports the music we love. Like this piece noted earlier, the web of jobs is vast. But currently it’s on fire.

“Sound engineers, production people, stage guys;” lists Ryan Taylor, “parking attendants, sanitation workers, box office people, security guards, loaders. There are so many jobs that are part of this industry, and it’s a ripple effect.

“They’re out of work, deemed non-essential, and I don’t like that term so much,” Taylor continues. “Any job that’s paying your bills is essential. And when you lose it, you need some sort of guidance and help from somewhere.”

LIFE FINDS A WAY

It’s not heavy metal’s nature to stay quiet. For

musicians who get their kicks out of bashing out riffs, the pandemic has slowed life down

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without stages to occupy. Some artists turned to livestreams as a way to stay stage-ready and share the live experience. Bands like Behemoth, Imperial Triumphant and Vile Creature elevated livestreams with their creativity and grandiose designs. Obituary’s Trevor Peres even co-launched Dark Forces Live, a livestreaming event platform who hosted slam legends Internal Bleeding for their inaugural event.

Livestreaming may not be a dead ringer for in-the-flesh socialization, but it created opportunities to connect artists and their fanbases.

Dan Rozenblum mentions Municipal Waste’s Dave Witte sharing his “drum beat of the week” posts. Down in Nawlins, Goatwhore’s Sammy Duet adoringly discussed his cats during his “Sammy Sundays.” Time will tell if livestreaming will be integrated into band plans long-term as a way to connect with fans off the usual beaten tour-paths.

With the disappointment of the cancelled Decibel Magazine Tour still relatively fresh, Gatecreeper booked another tour for autumn of 2020. You can guess how that went: another rash of cancellations. With touring no longer possible and infection rates soaring in Arizona, Chase Mason and his Sonoran death fiends plugged into their socially-distanced amps.

“I’ve had this idea of doing an EP or mini-LP, where the A side is seven short fast songs, and the B side is one long death/doom song,” Mason shares. “So, it’s exploring things we’ve experimented with, but on both sides of the tempo spectrum. That’s an idea I’ve put off because we didn’t have time with touring. So once that was out of the picture I said, ‘Okay let’s do it, we’ve got time.’”

Fittingly titled An Unexpected Reality—which should be tattooed on 2020’s forehead—the album was surprise-released from Closed Casket Activities without a long promotional roll-out. By the time you’re reading this, Gatecreeper will be sand-blasting you with their barbaric pleasures.

They’ve also started planning for shows in 2021.

But Mason’s understandably gun-shy about celebrating shows being back on the calendar.

“I’ve been kind of in a weird place being optimistic about them happening,” admits Mason.

“For my own sanity, I’ve sort of blocked out the whole playing live thing for a while. I’m hoping it happens, but I’m not putting any emotional or mental investment into it. New touring opportunities have been popping up, and that’s cool. But I can’t be too invested and get let down again.”

In a year replete with identity-shaking events, 2020 was also the year Idle Hands became Unto Others. Apart from the Decibel Magazine Tour, the band planned to focus on writing for a duration of the year. But during this period of rampant uncertainty, planning for life after COVID has lined up some tasty opportunities for Unto Others.

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“We have a show August 6th at Beyond the Gates festival in Bergen, Norway with Mercyful Fate, Candlemass and Tribulation—so pretty much a dream line-up,” Gabe Franco glows. “I am currently 50/50 on that happening, but it’s not over ‘til it’s over. Other than that, we have the Behemoth, Arch Enemy and Carcass tour in Europe next fall. You need to plan, the alternative is twiddling thumbs.”

Instead of twiddling thumbs, Mayhem’s Teloch released a synthwave album (Miami Murder) as Bergeton. He has been growing his YouTube, Twitch and Discord channels with guitar playthroughs and demo reviews. He also sells his own Lucifær merch as a side hustle.

Since Mayhem’s members are scattered across three countries the band hasn’t been as active during the pandemic. That has opened up time for Teloch to reconnect with gaming in his idle time. But none of those interests are nearly as lucrative as touring.

“None of them are exactly a money machine,” Teloch deadpans, “so I’m hoping to get back out soon. That, or hoping my gaming aim gets 1000 times better. Then pro gaming will be my new job. Although my aiming skills for a 47-year-old man wrecked by excessive alcohol abuse is not working out.”

When live shows commence, they may not resemble the concerts we knew and loved for a while. Dr. René Najera is a Doctor of Public Health and an epidemiologist who has worked for the CDC and multiple city and state health departments. Dr. Najera may not recognize any of the albums on Decibel’s top 40 list, but he’s an expert on ways to guard us from conditions that threaten humanity’s well-being. Most of Dr. Najera’s suggestions are common-sense CDC recommendations: wear masks, socially distance, and get vaccinated. Because of the physicality and exertion involved, there’s even extra reason for caution at metal shows.

“Physical activity leads to heavy breathing, and that heavy breathing leads to launching the virus farther, even if you’re wearing a mask,” Dr. Najera explains. “Masks are not hermetically sealed around your nose and mouth. Air still gets out. So, you would be theoretically launching more virus if you're infected and participating in any physical activity. That’s why the recommendation to gyms is 10 feet of distancing, not just six feet.”

Dr. Najera has heard all of the reasons and excuses people offer for not getting vaccinated.

He explains that because of stringent testing, the public won’t be “guinea pigs” for the vaccine.

The tech used to create the vaccines has existed for years, and helped develop cancer treatments.

Tens of thousands of people have already participated in successful trials, including Dr. Najera’s own wife. Vaccinations are simply the fastest

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Distant friends  Agnew (l) and Joseph Ferree come closer to the goal of live music in 2021 by remaining socially distant

I AM

TOTALLY OVERWHELMED

BY THE THOUGHT OF WHAT IT’S GOING TO FEEL LIKE TO BE SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE ALL SHARING A FUN EXPERIENCE

TOGETHER.

SEAN AGNEW, R5 PRODUCTIONS

and safest way to get back to normal so we can blast each other with particles while screaming and raging past midnight.

“I look at it this way,” Dr. Najera begins, “there always have to be pioneers. In 1954, parents lined up for hours in the hot summer sun to give their children either the polio vaccine or a placebo in one of the largest community trials of a vaccine ever done. They didn't see their children as subjects in an experiment. They saw their children as pioneers in a trial that would lead to ending the yearly epidemics of polio that would paralyze many of their children's peers.

The people getting the vaccine today will be remembered in history as pioneers in putting a stop to a pandemic in record time.”

S.O.S.

While this piece was being written, the Save Our Stages Act was successfully passed. After being championed by NIVA, it was included in legislation with the December 2020 spending bill. That means there will be 15 billion bucks funneled into local venues. There’s every reason to be skeptical about political gestures.

But this amount of financial support—despite its tardy arrival—will rescue numerous venues from closure.

“When a check comes through and we get this funding it immediately and literally saves Union Transfer from closing,” Sean Agnew says of his venue’s future health. “That’s not hyperbole.

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Union Transfer without assistance would have likely closed. This funding gives us the support and backing so we can immediately stop wondering, “What if we close?” On a personal level it’s a huge relief. Our room’s not going to close. We can worry about what an opening day would look like. Not spend that time wondering if our room is going to open again.”

While Union Transfer’s fate seems to be salvaged, Agnew’s Boot and Saddle venue didn’t survive the pandemic’s financial apocalypse.

Its iconic cowboy boot neon sign unfortunately remains unlit. Because they were able to host outdoor concerts, Indianapolis venue Black Circle will be pushed towards the back of the line for assistance, despite their staggering income loss. But NIVA’s advocacy has saved many venues dreading the financial ramifications of a year without live events. The Voltage Lounge will hopefully be one of those when the smoke clears.

“As a talent buyer, I think even I took [live music] for granted,” Sean Salm admits. “I booked shows seven days a week, and I didn’t get tired of it, but it was just expected. Now I’d be pumped to sit in the back corner of the room with a drink and watch an entire nine-band bill.”

Over half of this story’s collaborators express concern that there will be oversaturation when touring resumes. Calendars will be brimming with options, and bands will be eager to pack their vans and road-dog to neighboring cities.

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Time will tell if the enthusiasm and demand will be able to monetarily sustain increased concert activity in 2021. But cautious optimism reigns supreme, especially as we mercifully leave 2020 in the rearview.

“I think this year has taught us all in some way or another to appreciate all the things we may have taken for granted in the past,” suggests Victoria Zanghi, tour manager for Baroness and Enslaved. “2020 has given me a lot of time to reflect on the last 15 years of my career, and I can’t even put into words how grateful I am for the memories and experiences I have from working in live music. I can only imagine that the fans will only feel this same appreciation, if not more. Concerts are such a great escape from our day to day lives. After a year like 2020 these feelings of gratitude will only be heightened to the max.”

“I think the first six months are going to be wild,” Agnew concurs. “I can see people crying at shows. There’s going to be a huge emotional response from everyone for those first few months. I am totally overwhelmed by the thought of what it’s going to feel like to be surrounded by people all sharing a fun experience together. I tend to not get my hopes up, but I have been daydreaming about summer shows and it makes me so happy. It’s been an awful, awful, awful year. Not only for shows, but just for this country in general. It’s been a saving grace to have one thing to look forward to.”

PHOTO BY SHANE McCAULEY

STONE-AGE PIONEERS’ FRESH, HOT-BLOODED SHOT TO THE VEINS OF ROCK AND ROLL

HUGO CONIM

SONNY VINCENT

BOBBY LIEBLING

JIMMY RECCA

JOÃO PEDRO VENTURA

(DAWNRIDER)

(TESTORS)

(PENTAGRAM)

(THE STOOGES)

(DAWNRIDER)

THE LIMIT

THE LIMIT

CAVEMAN LOGIC O U T A P R I L 2 0 2 1 CAVEMAN LOGIC

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INSIDE ≥

62 COFFINS Buried treasures 68 INFLABITAN But I've been working out!

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

70 MOONSPELL The great goth escape 70 PARANORM I'll get her. Oh...!

72 SANGUISUGABOGG Tortured hole

Force Majeure

APRIL

Beloved synth grinders GENGHIS TRON return from hiatus with a lot more synth, a lot less grind

3

Old-schol NYC genuflection references

2

Brendan Fraser interjection references

1 0

Don Dokken erection reference Jon Schaffer insurrection references

I

t’s been a decade since Genghis Tron boarded up the house and went into hibernation in that geodesic yurt thing on the cover of Dead Mountain Mouth. They’ve been GENGHIS sorely missed—their brazen combination of synth atmospherTRON ics and spastic grindcore won them plaudits not only from the Dream Weapon metal press, but even the venerated New York Times (in characRELAPSE teristically backhanded fashion). Now they’ve awakened from their big sleep in search of Hades, sans founding member (and former Decibel columnist) Mookie Singerman. He appears to have taken the “Genghis” part of their sound with him. Their third full-length, Dream Weapon, is mostly Tron, very little Genghis— and all great. ¶ It’s no mistake that the cover looks like a Tangerine Dream album jacket. The title is likely a reference to their 2006 one-off track “Relaunch the Dream Weapon” (which in turn may be a reference to Spacemen 3’s psychedelic drone classic Dreamweapon), and they’ve certainly made changes to the propulsion system

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

8

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in the intervening years. Their latest work would fit more comfortably (mis)filed between Neu! and Nine Inch Nails than anywhere near Napalm Death or Atari Teenage Riot.

There are a lot of touchstones here—Trans Am’s Futureworld, Zombi’s recent output, Maserati. Many of the changes come courtesy of new vocalist Tony Wolski and non-machine drummer Nick Yacyshyn, who join returning cyborg Khans Michael Sochynsky and Hamilton Jordan.

Yacyshyn’s motorik-inspired drumming brings more of a proggy touch to songs like the title track (probably the most relatively vicious track on here). Wolski, meanwhile, gazes at his shoes through most of it. His subdued approach fits mesmeric melodies like “Alone in the Heart of Light” much better than Singerman’s scorchedearth screeches, or even the former singer’s attempts at clean vocals. They feel like more of a part of the overall tapestry rather than the flames licking at the cloth.

It’s, yes, a more mature work, filled with more ambitious compositions like the 10-minute “Ritual Circle.” The grind time comes as a natural trade-off, and that’s probably gonna disappoint a lot of old-school fans who have been waiting a while for this. Still, the band’s approach doesn’t differ as much as it may initially appear—after all, their initial thrill came from the unexpected juxtaposition of elements.

Rather than the dynamics coming from the obvious clash between different genres, here it derives organically from the songwriting itself.

Like the best post-rock/metal acts, Genghis Tron have mastered the art of building excitement based on the interplay of tensions between both the unique instrumentation and the constant evolution of the songs’ structural elements.

It’s compulsively listenable. In their arms race between dreams and nightmares, the listener wins. —JEFF TREPPEL

BRAND OF SACRIFICE

7

Lifeblood

B LO O D B L A S T

Boom! Pow! Chug! Squeal!

I came to Lifeblood cold, without any previous exposure to Brand of Sacrifice. My initial take was that the album was weirdly reminiscent of one of those hyper-stylized movies leavened with frenetic editing and ultra-saturated, otherworldly color palettes—a kind of deathcore Saw, or Crank at its primordial moments; a tech-death Run Lola Run, or Requiem for a Dream during its more soaring, ambitious movements. Then I did some research and learned that the Toronto quintet is actually anchored aesthetically and 62 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

lyrically in a manga/anime called Berserk—the “badass champion of adult fantasy manga” according to a presumably laudatory blurb accompanying a 2019 reissue of the original book series—which, okay, I only watched half of Akira that one time in high school before getting some of the best sleep of my life, but, sure, sounds like it probably works as well.

Point is, Lifeblood unspools in a completely different dimension than most records, i.e., more like an avant-garde story or series of scenes than a traditional collection of songs. And, while the arrangement of polyrhythmic chugs, squeals and gargles—though executed with admirable and metronomic viciousness—is not all that novel, the sprawling, epic tapestry the band unfurls as a kind of Devin Townsend-at-his-wildest background is unique and frequently stunning. Symphonic. Orchestral. Industrial. Techno-tinged soundscapes. If it’s got an empyrean vibe, the band probably tries to incorporate it here—not as extraneous flair or connective tissue, but as, well... Lifeblood. At times, it’s like a full orchestra performing “O Fortuna” got dropped into a Summer Slaughter mosh pit.

If tech-y deathcore ain’t your jam, neither is this. But if it is, this is likely the most interesting, adventurous record the subgenre can offer you. —SHAWN MACOMBER

COFFINS

7

Defilements H O R R O R P A I N G O R E D E AT H

Catching up with Coffins

Coffins’ unapproachable reign of endless Japanese death slaughter began, officially, in 2005 with their third (but “first official”) release, the Sacrifice to Evil Spirit compilation, which featured their 2003 demo plus three live tracks, including a cover of Venom’s “Warhead.” Within weeks, the Tokyo butchers followed up with their debut album, Mortuary in Darkness (released on Razorback during the label’s heyday). As death metal, death-doom, death/crust and all the other nasty subgenres that Coffins have come to exploit/expound/expurgate throughout their two-decades-plus career continued to flourish throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Uchino and friends maintained their reputation for delivering prolific carnage at a rate that audiences could only try to keep pace with.

Which is why compilations like this one are so crucial where a band like Coffins is concerned. Unlike some bloated collection of songs that never should have been in the first place, or barebones versions of already wornout tracks, Coffins compilations give fans a chance to catch up on typically five or six recent

releases at a time. Because Coffins are mandatory, releases like these are simply economically intelligent. Defilements compiles their two Hammerheart EPs from 2012 and 2015, March of Despair and Craving to Eternal Slumber; the two tracks from their Noise Room Sessions 2014 7-inch; Sewage Sludgecore Treatment, their all-sludge covers album from 2012; plus all their tracks from the Live at Asakusa Deathfest 2016 four-way split. In short, Defilements represents a lot of Coffins for your buck. So, support a stateside label on the level and cough it up. —DUTCH PEARCE

CORONARY

7

Sinbad

CRUZ DEL SUR

Back for the (heart) attack

It wasn’t that long ago that fans of music forged in steel looked to the land of a thousand lakes for their regular dose of iron. The collision of vodka, 24-hour darkness and world-beating music education gave the 2000s a revolving door of metallic maestros, and so it’s no shock that bands like Coronary are continuing to be annoyingly proficient at their craft. We’ve moved on, though, and since most Finnish bands fell into two camps—show-offs and, well, just camp—the new breed of Suomi axe-slingers must bring a little more to the table.

Thankfully, Sinbad does just that. They may have one of Korpiklaani in their ranks, but Coronary are no gimmicky metal mob. Instead, Sinbad is a heavy serving of hard rock energy.

Every crotch-thrusted Oooh, yeah! or breathy You know what I’m talking about is straight outta the Poison playbook. Just the mere mention of a wrecking ball in the lyrics is all you need to know about the influences sewn onto these faded denims. You gotta give it up for a small band with big ambitions of hearing a packed stadium join in on their choruses, let alone one that gives us not one, but two ballads that would give Don Dokken a semi. But the reason why it’s so worth giving Coronary a punt is they do what Steel Panther failed at—they take this seriously. Heavy metal to them is no fad.

This is, as their name suggests, from the heart, and they get the blood pumping in all the right ways. —LOUISE BROWN

DEATHBLOW

8

Insect Politics SEWER MOUTH

Welcome, insect overlords!

When a dude who’s transforming into a creepy human-fly hybrid—Seth Brundle, as played by

DECIBEL : APRIL 2021 : 63

Jeff Goldblum, in The Fly—tells you to clear the hell out because, “I’ll hurt you if you stay,” you best exit stage left. And Brundle’s reason for the threat of bodily harm? Well, it’s simple: insect politics (or the lack thereof). “Insects don’t have politics,” Brundlefly intones. “They’re very brutal. No compassion, no compromise.” Great inspiration for a thrash album, no?

Insect Politics is Salt Lake quartet Deathblow’s second full-length, and first since 2014 debut Prognosis Negative. Though it doesn’t seem to be a concept album per se, both insects and politics (and religion) are well-represented in the eight expertly crafted tracks. Deathblow definitely lean heavily toward the punk side of the thrash spectrum in a similar way as Municipal Waste—especially vocally—but they also utilize more complicated song structures and throw in abundant shredding solos. There are hooks and strong choruses in all the right places, and solid thrash riffs for days.

Deathblow offer an excellent example of how old-school thrash can be relevant in 2021.

Having a clear mastery of the mechanics of the genre, they use that as a foundation for creating material injected with touches of death metal, some progressive elements and plenty of shred.

All this is done within the confines of fairly concise tunes. The seven-year gap between albums no doubt helped the band whip everything into shape, but let’s hope there’s not a similarly long gap until Deathblow’s next release. Because, like insects, these guys are “very brutal… with no compromise.” —ADEM TEPEDELEN

ECCLESIA

7

De Ecclesiæ Universalis AURAL MUSIC

Catech ’em all

Like all good midwestern Catholics, I was subjected to catechism, a weekly dose of ecclesiastic education that—though intended to prepare me for a lifetime in the church—instilled an almost reflexive distaste for organized religion. Maybe Sunday school made me a metalhead. The silver lining to those hours of stiff desks and cheap pamphlets? Lessons in the history of the Catholic church, crusades, inquisitions and more.

Catechism might also have predisposed me in favor of Ecclesia, whose debut record fixates on papal zeal and the Vatican’s historical excesses.

Like their close American analogues Crypt Sermon, this French outfit takes the template laid down by epic doom progenitors Candlemass and dials up the musical intensity—hints of Nevermore and modern Ghost linger in their communion wine. The formula works as well 64 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

INTERNET: 2021. Here are some albums that scratch the same itch as Cyberpunk 2077, but without the frequent crashes and floating ghost dildos. —JEFF TREPPEL

J

OHN CARPENTER has, historically, not been great at sequels, and Lost Themes II kinda felt like the musical equivalent of Escape From L.A. Thankfully, Lost Themes III: Alive After Death [ SAC R ED B O N ES] feels more like Halloween (2018)—a worthy follow-up to the excellent first entry in the series (yes, I know Carpenter didn’t direct the 2018 installment, shut up). Evocative score snippets like “Weeping Ghost” and “Skeleton” practically beg for full films to properly express their grandeur. Alas, we’ll never get them, but Carpenter (with the help of collaborators Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies) proves a master of atmosphere in any medium.

Mick Gordon’s soundtracks for Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal make for some bone-snapping goodness. If you’re looking for that same vibe, but with slightly less nü-metal, GÖR FLSH got you covered on Forgotten Rites [ J ET SET TR A SH ] . This collection of reworked b-sides and unreleased material will make you want to leap off a cliff onto a Hell Knight’s shoulders and tear off its malformed head with your bare hands. Or maybe that’s just me.

Electric guitar has also been a part of JUDGE BITCH’s arsenal, but Adam Burke lets his inner Vai fly on Temple Serpent [ N EWR ETR OWAVE] . This fantasy-themed (concept?) record lines the stone walls of the dungeon with neon tubing and sends electric warriors into battle in the hot pink glow. If you’re looking for a soundtrack for the most bodacious AD&D session ever (or you’re burned out on the Naoto Shibata Project’s Castlevania: Perfect Selection Dracula Battle reworkings), let this serpent sink its fangs into you.

OCCAMS LASER mastermind Tom Stuart specializes in multi-album conceptual suites, and after covering Dante’s Inferno, ’80s Satanic panic and Tron, he’s ready to make the move into fantasy with his Odyssey of Noise series. The latest, Vol. II [ SEL F REL EAS ED] uses some appropriate harpsichord settings on Stuart’s keyboard array, but it never quite descends into Dutch Pearce dungeon synth territory. Instead, the futuristic laser swooshes capture the desolation of this Dark Tower-esque world.

in Bordeaux country as it does in the City of Brotherly Love. Jesus, Mary and Joseph—these guys know how to write a hook. Songs like “Deus Vult” and “Behold the Heretic Burning” leaven bold, classic-sounding riffs and choruses with tasteful organ accompaniment and the occasional growl to great effect.

However, blind devotion has its drawbacks, even for those wearing the Inquisitor’s cloak—Ecclesia wear their influences prominently, from Vincent Price film samples (from

Witchfinder General, of course) to a well-executed cover of Venom’s “Burn the Witch.” And of course, thanks to Iron Maiden, they’ll never be the first band to appear on a Spotify search for “Montségur.” Eccelsia’s devoted study of their forebears has graced them with a great first record commensurate with their tasteful songwriting, but it would be interesting to hear them explore the progressive elements lurking in the undercroft on their second LP. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

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EINHERJER

7

North Star N A PA L M

Children of Odin

With Odin on their side since the mid-’90s, Norway’s Einherjer (along with fellow countrymen in Enslaved and Helheim) were one of the first bands outside of the legendary Bathory to imbue black metal with Viking lore. Released postHammerheart (1990), Einherjer’s demo and first EP—’94 and ’95, respectively—led to their fulllength debut Dragons of the North in 1996, a BM release with symphonic undertones and plenty of Scandinavian folk/traditional heavy metal in the mix. Such genre blurring was pretty novel at the time, but Einherjer’s take on it displayed the same instinctual skill as Enslaved did on their groundbreaking Frost LP two years prior.

From that moment on—and across a number of strong to middling albums, some lineup/ label shifts and a four-year hiatus—Einherjer’s surviving founding members, Gerhard Storesund (drums, keyboards) and Frode Glesnes (vocals, guitars, bass), have played around with their folk-laden, yet black/heavy metal-rooted sound, and continued to fly the flag towards Valhalla. New album North Star maintains the creative resurgence and compositional quality evident on 2018’s Norrøne spor, albeit with more bombastic production qualities and an even greater affinity for AC/DC and Black Album-era Metallica stomp ‘n’ prowl. “The Blood and the Iron,” “Echoes in Blood” and “Listen to the Graves” are all blackened heavy metal anthems in that vein, and these tracks in particular really play to the Norse band’s strengths of battle-ready musical drama and axe-sharp snarled vocal hooks. —DEAN BROWN

ENFORCED

7

Kill Grid

CENTURY MEDIA

Trippin’ the thrash fantastic

Like their fellow Richmondites in Municipal Waste, Enforced operate in the crossover arena of the thrash realm. Unlike the Waste, however, these dudes don’t seem like they want to have a beer and a chuckle on their second album (and first for Century Media), Kill Grid.

Nope, this nine-track beatdown gives off more of a don’t-fuck-with-me vibe, and has the precise, Slayer-influenced riffage and barked/growled hardcore vocals to back it up. Forget The Art of Partying—this is more like the Art of Marauding.

Enforced’s battering impact on Kill Grid is aided substantially by the vicious recording and mix job of producer Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, 66 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

Cro-Mags, Cavalera Conspiracy). There is so much attack on literally every element—without creating an oversaturated mess—that it has the effect of a physical presence in the room. Rizk’s audio magic doesn’t just capture Enforced’s nastiness; it is a crucial element of the listening experience. This same album recorded by someone else couldn’t possibly have captured this same feel.

Not to sell Enforced short, however: The songs and performances are all theirs, and they have found that sweet spot between angry NYC hardcore and menacing West Coast thrash— not too dissimilar to what Power Trip made a possibly cut-short career out of. Riffs are king here, with guitarists Will Wagstaff and Zach Monahan punctuating their alternatingly frisky and grinding Hanneman-esque fretwork with squealy dives and short, piercing solos. Vocalist Knox Colby’s roar—with a definite nod to Max Cavalera—and the occasional gang vocals on choruses provide the crossover link to bring it all together. Maybe not as fun as their party-happy Richmond brethren, but the band’s intensity and execution nonetheless provide a powerful adrenaline-boosting thrill. —ADEM TEPEDELEN

FORHIST

7

Forhist

DEBEMUR MORTI PRODUCTIONS

The numbers of the beast

2020’s relentless dread spiral catalyzed collective nostalgia, as many of us sought films, TV shows and music from less unpredictable times. This may not have compelled Blut Aus Nord mastermind Vindsval to embrace formative Norwegian black metal—a scene the French musician had previously distanced himself from—with his latest project, Forhist. The result, however, could achieve that whole comforting thing for black metal fans.

Blut Aus Nord purposefully cast themselves out of the strict black metal net both in sound and ideology, rejecting common principles of Satanism and nationalism, and pulling in industrial, symphonic and avant-garde elements. With this debut eponymous album, Forhist is a more comfortable bedfellow with black metal’s roots.

Throughout Forhist’s eight tracks, Vindsval demonstrates the restraint that Blut Aus Nord listeners came to expect—he weaves in different sonic influences and techniques, but doesn’t stray too far from a recognizable core. (Imperial Triumphant, this is not.) Unlike Blut Aus Nord efforts, though, Forhist more fully captures early black metal in both sound and theme.

“I” stomps in with the familiar rush of blast beats and a racing-riff wall of sound. Cue the

haunted demon howls and it becomes reminiscent of Gorgoroth’s Pentagram. Symphonic synth swells, charging the track with Tolkien-esque energy. Vindsval maintains a cinematic mood throughout the next seven songs: “IV” and “VII” are thrashier, but quiet to acoustic guitar, taking references back to Bathory’s “A Fine Day to Die.” All in all, Forhist doesn’t challenge or push black metal forward in any revolutionary way, but is a powerful new chapter in the genre that’s solid and reliable. You know what you’re getting, and with an overall arc of orchestral drama tempered by frenzied riffs, you know you’ll probably like it. —COURTNEY ISEMAN

GRAVESEND

8

Methods of Human Disposal 20 BUCK SPIN

Signs of the times

Methods of Human Disposal is 27 minutes of grimy grindcore mixed with explicitly East Coast black-death violence, bookended and occasionally split up by night stalker dark ambient and thoroughly riddled with gaping craters of war metal beatdowns, like the all the best parts of every Revenge record. The trio behind Gravesend, like hitmen, go only by a single letter; S, G and A wasted no time in following up their 2020 demo tape, Preparations for Human Disposal to make good on their initial threat and pulverize eight more tracks of “old New York”-inspired mayhem—the New York you can sometimes read about in Damage Ink. As the aural bludgeonings pile up, it becomes obvious that Gravesend are not some squeamish first-timers trying to work a body through a wood-chipper.

They commit the heinous violence that is Methods with a calloused efficiency that never betrays the grisly content.

Fours tracks from the Preparations demo see a much beefed-up reprisal, including their “For Whom the Bell Tolls”-esque banger “Verrazano Floater.” The three synth-driven ambient tracks, no less heavy, psychologically speaking, emanate a late-’80s decline feeling, recalling the overall post-apocalyptic vibes of movies like The Warriors and Escape From New York.

Named after the Old Gravesend Cemetery in Brooklyn, the trio behind Methods of Human Disposal may not swing the most original barbed wire-wrapped bat, but there are dirty needles poking out, and they’ve set it ablaze. Whether it’s Autopsy-meets-Blasphemy moments like “Unclaimed Remains” or the absolute life-taker “Scum Breeds Scum,” the painfully real themes or the crude aesthetics, Gravesend’s debut album offers a much needed dose of brutality.

—DUTCH PEARCE

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IMMORTAL GUARDIAN

8

Psychosomatic M-THEORY AUDIO

Not blind, but immortal.

Big difference

Toss Symphony X, Kamelot and Witherfall into an Erlenmeyer flask, stir profusely, and pour onto bare chest with fists outstretched and mouth agape while atop a Tolkien-esque mountain. Or, if you’re into the Euro flair, replace with Lost Horizon, Rhapsody (before the “of Fire” split) and Pagan’s Mind. Same histrionic, nipples-erect result. That’s crosscontinental outfit Immortal Guardian, to be absolutely hyperbolic.

While they call their brand of orchestrated, hyper-charged power metal “super metal,” let’s just settle on the facts on display across Psychosomatic, the group’s second full-length on the M-Theory label. Fans of Immortal Guardian are already well-aware of what to expect, but for the unfamiliar amongst Decibel’s readership, there’s an insane amount of ridiculously skilled interplay between guitars (Gabriel Guardian is a new American hero), drums (by Justin Piedimonte) and bass (by producer Josh Lopez).

As with any of the aforementioned bands, the musicianship is top-tier, and the group’s compositional ability is unheard of for a band this young. But the real kicker? The vocals of Brazilian master Carlos Zema, who, like Daniel Heiman, Roy Khan and Joseph Michael, embodies the top qualities of a genuine heavy metal frontman. Throughout Psychosomatic, Zema goes above and beyond, hitting highs and hooks like he’s Ronnie Fucking Dio reanimated (no holograms needed).

While most contemporary heavy metal bands sound like battle-charge music for World of Warcraft, Immortal Guardian aren’t afraid to write songs. From “Read Between the Lines” and “Clocks” to “Lockdown” and “Goodbye to Farewells,” Psychosomatic celebrates sophisticated heavy metal that still has ample portions of red meat. —CHRIS DICK

INFLABITAN

7

Intrinsic

SOULSELLER

Blast from the past, sans Brendan Fraser

To discuss Inflabitan correctly, we first need to discuss context and timing. First started in the early ’90s, the eponymous artist crafted minimal, droning black metal, pastoral and full of longing. Featuring Ved Buens Ende’s Carl-Michael “Czral” Eide on drums, the two Inflabitan demos, released 68 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

in 1993 and 1994, were spoken with a whisper.

Inflabitan’s carefully crafted black metal was secretive, only really known by those who investigated, until a 2010 release on Kyrck Productions compiled both demos for a wider audience. Now a member of depressive black metal pioneers Strid, Inflabitan faces the public once again, and, having resurrected his solo project, the world can witness the revealing of a decadesold mystery.

The polished Intrinsic doesn’t follow the path set by Inflabitan’s early demos, though. In fact, this takes an entirely different approach to black metal. Thrashing and staccato, Intrinsic follows a path once defined by his former bandmate Czral, the pioneer of the modern black/thrash metal sound via Aura Noir, and he does the style justice. Inflabitan’s riffwork flails and gnashes with the rabidity of youth, but also the practiced hand of someone who has been a part of the black metal scene for three decades.

It would be incorrect to discuss this album without also making mention of those who helped make it happen. Ever the collaborator (having once played with avant-garde masters Dødheimsgard), Inflabitan makes sure Intrinsic is star-studded. Featuring lyrics from former Dødheimsgard/current Urarv frontman Aldrahn and percussion from Tsjuder’s AntiChristian, distant ends of the black metal spectrum become one with Inflabitan’s tentacular reach. —JON ROSENTHAL

JARHEAD FERTILIZER

7

Product of My Environment C LO S E D CA S K E T

Stuck in the middle

With a band name as weird as Jarhead Fertilizer, you might expect a pretty off-the-wall oddball record. Then, when you realize it’s just a Dystopia song, you might expect some derivative crust punk. But Product of My Environment turns out to just be its own cool thing.

Sure, this falls pretty squarely into the deathgrind genre, and isn’t doing anything particularly new. But the band seamlessly combines the best elements of both, fitting in multiple styles with all the trimmings, and all in about 20 minutes. You have the slow, churning DM, mid-tempo double kick sections and a few meathead parts (along with pinch harmonics). Then you also get grind’s vicious blasting, hideous bass tone and a liberal use of samples (including nods to their home state with quotes from The Wire). It’s a marriage of catchy riffs and outright bombardment.

The only genuine issue is the vocals. The frontman’s deep, reverbed gutturals are without a doubt impressive, but there are enough dynamics here that the constant one-note delivery gets a little boring, and certainly doesn’t elevate the music. No one’s looking for Mike Patton to grab the mic, but even if one of the other band members added some highs or anything above “low” or “low as fuck,” that would really go a long way.

That is not an insignificant issue, but it’s certainly not enough to besmirch all the good on Product of My Environment. Whatever Jarhead Fertilizer could be doing, there’s no reason to not keep doing this. —SHANE MEHLING

NIGHTFALL

8

At Night We Prey SEASON OF MIST

Inside you there are two wolves

Eight years have passed since Greek duskbringers Nightfall released new music. Thirty years ago, they defined Greek metallic extremity along with Rotting Christ and Septicflesh. But after their Parade Into Centuries debut, Nightfall’s vision of blackened death metal leaned deeper into the shadows of gothic aesthetics. Once they creeped into the late ’90s, the blast beats and growls slowly tamed. Now Nightfall emerge from the silent darkness to prowl old hunting grounds with At Night We Prey.

Beginning with a delicate piano motif, the album soon erupts under the baleful luminance of “Killing Moon.” The song boasts the disparate elements from Nightfall’s long career, now connected with scorched sinew. A heart-wrenching chorus adorned with lachrymose leads. Blackened blasts that foreshadow the deadly declarations of “Darkness Forever.” Unlike the distracting keyboards of 1993’s Macabre Sunsets, the gothic elements serve the metallic components. Nightfall’s revitalization coincides with the return of guitarist Michalis Galiatsos, who helped define the band’s first eight years with his rapturous riffs.

The shivering tremolos and dungeon-crawling doom of “Witches” and “Meteor Gods” revel in slow-burn menace and misery. The moody “Giants of Anger” reverberates with desperate snarls and tear-drinking whispers. “Wolves in Thy Head” closes the record with a sky-punching anthem that feels like a victory howl. A few of the songs linger and run overlong (“Temenos” and the title track) while indulging the band’s wild whims.

But the bristling creativity is also a welcome symptom of founding vocalist Efthimis Karadimas’ triumphant battle with depression. After rekindling their old pyre, At Night We Prey is a welcome return instead of a sunset. —SEAN FRASIER

PARANORM

8

Empyrean

REDEFINING DARKNESS

Par-a-norm! (Sing it like David Lee Roth)

In addition to being winded following five minutes of physical activity, an indicator of my advanced age comes with the excitement I expressed about this quartet of relative youngsters, and the fact that they refined and workshopped their progressive thrash for a decade before issuing Empyrean, their full-length debut. Also highlighting my pubic graying is having to direct my millennial neighbor (middle name Lee, surname Roth, has one of the Van Halen brothers’ first names—it’s a 50/50 guess) towards Wikipedia so he might understand the hilarity surrounding his handle. That my jab about not naming his firstborn Sammy went over like a fart in church goes to show that we’re all playing on different chronological courts.

If there’s a more dynamic bridge between old and new, it’s this erudite powerhouse from

Uppsala, Sweden. Instead of making four shirt designs and three types of beer koozies available on Bandcamp after writing two songs, they polished their craft on a demo and two indie EPs. The result is pulsating and skittish technical thrash with spiritual connections to Piggy, Ron Jarzombek and the guy from Vektor with the shitty sci-fi tattoos smoothed out by sleek Swedish melodeath.

Paranorm seem hell-bent on having the listener hum along while whipping manes as they showcase the power of prodigious musical skill to punch a hole in the fabric of the space-metal continuum. The mid-range slicing and staccato artistry of the peppy riffs in “Critical Mass,” “Intelligence Explosion” and “The Immortal Generation” embrace slinky early-’90s, Metal Blade brain-metal grooves topped by Megadeth/Testament-quality leads. On the flip is the imagining of Vio-lence and Death Angel galloping around the Bay Area with Swedish meatballs and DLR’s glam rock tube socks stuffed behind a codpiece autographed by Emperor in “Cannibal” and “Lost Cause.”

MOONSPELL, Hermitage

8

Doomsday for the receiver | N A PA L M

The follow-up to 2017’s warmly received concept album 1755 finds Moonspell slipping into the twilight of their 32-year career (first as Morbid God, then as the namesake we’re all familiar with). Whether that means we only have a few years left of the Portuguese stars or they’re merely communicating the need to change up their gothic metal formula on subsequent endeavors remains to be seen.

What is apparent is that this is Moonspell, but the attack angle—guitarist Ricardo Amorim is one of the finer lead players out there—has been adjusted.

70 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

After several spins, Hermitage eschews the theatrics/fireworks of its predecessors. The life in say, Extinct, breathes different air here. Instead of pontificating and exuding confidence, the Lisbonbased quintet is funereal and tempered. Tracks like “All or Nothing,” “Entitlement,” “Solitarian” and “Without Rule” remind of Tiamat’s thunderbolt A Deeper Kind of Slumber. The DNA is there and familiar connective tissue is exposed with serious forethought, but the vision observes from a different horizon. Indeed, Hermitage ponders darkness—in fact, it’s drenched in it— but to metal fans this might not be the clamor

It all adds up to one of the most exciting albums of this young year, and a demonstration of the dividends of taking one’s time and knowing your old-school Van Halen.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

REGIONAL JUSTICE CENTER

9

Crime and Punishment

C LO S E D CA S K E T ACTIVITIES

Tonight, there’s gonna be a jailbreak

We always talk about the concept of restorative versus retributive justice from the perspective of the set of collective hands currently gripping the cage door keys. On the feral, incandescent Crime and Punishment, powerviolence-plus provocateurs Regional Justice Center flip that script, seeking restoration for the burdened, the persecuted and the let-down through retribution from the searing opening salvo “Taught to Steal” (“Innocence

they’re accustomed to. Moonspell have taken a filmic route, where everything—yes, even Fernando Ribeiro’s vocals—is lacquered with a Lynchian veneer. The album’s lead single, “The Greater Good,” supports the overall concept. From introspective space and Ribeiro’s distinct roar to hushed voiceover passages and strident swatches, this is the swansong of night. Companion song “Common Prayers,” while more simplistic/ rhythmic in its rock-based format, acts as hot wax and seal on the dead letter.

Just as the one-two punch of Sin/Pecado and The Butterfly Effect stupefied fans in the late ’90s, Hermitage might just have the same effect now. This time the stakes have changed. —CHRIS DICK

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Blue Grape Merch catalog spring 2021 | C E N T U R Y M E D I A

There’s an intentional level of absurdity to Sanguisugabogg, Century Media’s latest steal from the Maggot Stomp label. The selfdescribed “downtuned drug death” band from Ohio has more T-shirt designs than songs, a ludicrous name that equates to a toilet that sucks the blood from your ass and a logo that’s beyond illegible. Plus, the goreloaded NSFW video accompanying first single “Menstrual Envy” is pretty humorous in a perverse low-budget horror kind of way.

Outside of all that, what we are left with is pretty solid death metal that draws heavily from Chris Barnes-era Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, early Exhumed or Devourment circa Molesting the Decapitated. What you can expect on Sanguisugabogg’s first full-length

robbed too young / Now I take what I want”) straight through the kinetic martial batter/burst of “…and Punishment” (“Down and out is a way of life / A pact with yourself to stay the same”).

As a lyrical call-to-arms, it is as harrowing as it is darkly inspiring—a reimagining of the gutter as a trench in a war we cannot afford to lose. As a collection of musical compositions, it’s a helluva lot more enlivening than a tin pulled across some bars, deftly fusing together the nastiest, most abrasive elements of grind, punk, hardcore, sludge and even occasional groove into a slashing, stabbing sonic shiv, elegant and sinister ingenuity supercharged with mortal lethality and nasty intentions. There are moments here that raise the hallowed specters of Infest, Nasum, His Hero Is Gone and Cursed, but also Crowbar-esque brick-laying riffs, razorsharp nuances in the maelstrom à la Nails, and a use and abuse of feedback ‘n’ lurch worthy of early Eyehategod. Though considerably shorter than the Dostoevsky classic of the same name— 72 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

are gross, chugging riffs with more squeals than an abattoir at rush hour; pounding drums that are more about blunt-end impact than finesse; and guttural belches akin to the sound of a 10-pound shit in a five-pound bag being flushed down the toilet in a serial killer’s grotty basement.

If you, in your faded Been Caught Buttering longsleeve, like the sound of that, then these guys might be your newest crush. But despite putrid merits, there’s still room for improvement regarding songwriting if this increasingly hyped band is going to stick around, since quite a few of these songs are too uniform in sequence, the pinging snare sound (a grindcore nod) becomes St. Anger-irritating on repeat spins, and the synth-terludes do more damage than good to the flow of the record as a whole. —DEAN BROWN

13 minutes rather than 625 pages—Crime and Punishment nevertheless explores existential and moral quandaries with a similar unflinching honesty and true subversiveness. Hard to ask for more from an extreme release in these trying, fraying days. —SHAWN MACOMBER

STASS

7

Songs of Flesh and Decay E M A N Z I P AT I O N PRODUCTIONS

The Rogga-izer Bunny

Rogga Johansson. Yes, he of innumerable/oneoff death metal bands returns to the STASS fold with new album Songs of Flesh and Decay. Formed

by Johansson and Crematory’s Felix Stass (the German iteration) after a meet-up at a show, STASS take all the Sunlight Studio things (Entombed, Dismember, et al.) and all the Abyss Studio things (Amon Amarth, Fleshcrawl, et al.) and mash

SUMMONING THE LICH

7

United in Chaos PROSTHETIC

Dungeon Masters of their domain

Dust off your monster codex and your midnightblack D20, because death metal dungeon masters Summoning the Lich are officially starting their crushing campaign. The St. Louis quartet ain’t ashamed of nerdy proclivities, and infuse their tech-death compositions with creatures and kingdoms in crisis. United in Chaos is their debut LP, and it’s the first chapter of a planned trilogy featuring their central undead lich character.

From the first notes of United in Chaos, there’s a sense of narrative grandeur. You can picture lightning strikes illuminating the face of the lich as his reign of terror slashes through the Kingdom Rodor. First single “Cult of the Ophidian” introduces an arsenal of vocal weaponry from lead growler David Bruno. “The Gatekeeper” balances ominous atmosphere with blood-letting breakdowns before the death-thrash riff-blizzard of “ Demon of the Snow.” The deathcore elements of “Acid Reign” and “Temple of the Bone” may repel genre gatekeepers, but despite some contemporary of-the-times flourishes, United in Chaos honors melodic death metal’s history from At the Gates to Skeletonwitch.

By championing their fantasy references, Summoning the Lich authentically make death

PHOTO BY CHONGRIPPER 2021

SANGUISUGABOGG, Tortured Whole

them into a nasty rectangular burial vault, the likes of which we’ve heard—from Johansson and others—over and over again, but still can’t seem to slake our thirst for. Death metal grubs, of the Swedish-sounding variety, must be habit-forming.

Anyway, Songs of Flesh and Decay grinds HM2-sounding riffs and rudimentary percussion into our collective face. There’s no apology or remorse (or innovation). Just an endless facefuck by all parties involved. Now, that is probably what’s expected here, but STASS do have other tricks at the bottom of their myopic grave.

Take “Beneath a Darkened Moon,” “Sounds of Terror” or “Fear of the Living Dead,” for example. Between Stass’ guttural (yet decipherable) bawls and the static-buzzsaw tone/riffs of Johansson and lead-man Kjetil Lynghaug, STASS throw in atmospheric sections and solos that are at times unusual and at others funereal. The coda to “As the Seasons Bleach Your Bones” also features that sonic trait.

Songs of Flesh and Decay won’t jump out of your prized collection of Swedish-born/inspired death metal, but in isolation or out of context (like on “Skin That Peels Away”), it’s one fucking ripper of an album. That cover, too! —CHRIS DICK

metal more accessible. But it’s not with lyrical content alone. Some of the guttural choruses are unexpectedly contagious, and the title track has a scream-along hook that bellows from a fog of discordant distortion. Echoes of Gothenburg melodeath smooth out the jagged technicality.

There’s an exuberance to United in Chaos that betrays the album’s dark overtones. This is an album for those who relish the sadistic twists in Game of Thrones, and don’t mind Summoning the Lich pumping fresh blood into the genre. The (Magic: The Gathering) cards have been dealt. You have been summoned. —SEAN FRASIER

TERMINAL BLISS

8

Brute Err/ata RELAPSE

Deaf in half the time

I’m a staunch defender of short records, but Terminal Bliss aim to test that resolve. With 10 songs in 11 minutes, Brute Err/ata is a challenging review when half of it’s over before I even get the right formatting on Microsoft Word. But honestly, there’s enough intensity crammed into this package that it’s all for the better.

Featuring an impressive pedigree that includes members of Pg. 99, Iron Reagan and City of Caterpillar, this is punk and noise at its core, and it doesn’t skimp on either. It opens with jolting, shuddering electronics that immediately mix with distorted screams, and by the time you get your bearings, they’re onto a D-beat part and the song’s almost over. The riffs are pretty faithful to classic hardcore, as are the drums and vocals. But it’s presented with so much vitriol, blown-out production and chaos that it never really feels like a throwback—more like some new, different kind of whirling menace.

There may be some issues with the similarity of the songs, and the first few times it can be hard to pick them apart. If you totaled up everything that sounds significantly different, you’re probably somewhere in the sub-two-minute range. But tossing out diversity for this kind of corrosive experience feels like a worthy sacrifice. The point is, if you’re going to listen to one record this year that you can get through twice before your frozen pizza’s ready, Brute Err/ata needs to be that record. —SHANE MEHLING

TOXAEMIA

4

Where Paths Divide E M A N Z I PAT I O N PRODUCTIONS

You were supposed to rot

Toxaemia belonged to that peculiar guild of Swedish death metal bands in 74 : A P R I L 2 0 2 1 : D E C I B E L

which membership dues include releasing your debut demo in ’89 and breaking up before ever recording a full-length (Nirvana 2002, Macrodex, Crematory, Abhoth—sorry, Nihilist, we said ’89, and if we bend the rules for you, we have to do the same thing for Mastication, and then it just becomes a whole thing.)

For Toxaemia to emerge from that exclusive fraternity after roughly three decades of silence is one thing, and doubtlessly, Encino Man levels of hilarity are inbound. The real head-scratcher lies in the band’s current approach to death metal given the abominable crucible in which they were forged. No, there’s no highfalutin, experimental frippery here. Zero electronic noise or ham-fisted jazz improvisations to be found.

Indeed, Where Paths Divide spins out like a quasiauthentic, old-school DM record.

But during the course of their hibernation, they’ve somehow completely lost their Swedish accent. Today, Toxaemia sound like a band blundering onto the wrong end of the ’90s American DM surge, precisely when Columbia Records began to really start sweating its ROI. Thankfully, Dan Swanö’s bright, roomy production doesn’t abridge these tracks into ungainly slabs of compression. The songs all lunge like beasts of prey towards their ruthless conclusions and, you know, nostalgia.

Sadly, no matter what stylistic well they happen to draw from, Toxaemia have never been savvy composers or even especially good riff-writers. Lacking that veil of underground allure, most of these tunes buckle under undivided scrutiny, and the sugar high wears off far too quickly. As the adage goes, some music was meant to stay underground. —FORREST PITTS

VESSEL OF LIGHT

8

Last Ride

NOMAD EEL

In a tomb… in bloom

If you’re the sort of person who likes an abundance of hangtime (say, Moss, by way of an ancient and extreme example) in your doom metal, Vessel of Light probably aren’t the vehicle for you—and Last Ride is definitely not where you wanna hop aboard. Even more so than on 2019’s Thy Serpent Rise, the Jersey-based doom metal unit’s third full-length churns in a way mostly familiar only to people who have been fist-fucked by Amish widows with extensive buttermaking experience, and/or Alice in Chains fans who drink way too much on the regular (crossovers emphatically included).

Not that guitarist Dan Lorenzo (Hades), vocalist Nathan Opposition (Ancient VVisdom), bassist Jimmy Schulman and drummer Ron

Lipnicki usually sound like (or emulate) anyone else. The most pervasive trait they share with AIC—and at least a dozen other grunge luminaries, past and present—is the kind of aversion to arbitrary changes that enables the band to embrace melody vigorously without sacrificing even half an iota of badassedness. The few appropriated mannerisms that poke through from time to time—the Staley/Cantrell-style vocal harmonies on “Disappearing Pact” (along with Opposition’s penchant for using serious self-examination as a counterweight to their chosen genre’s staple diet of gratuitous violence and despair)—only serve to add depth and flavor to the album’s surprisingly short 10 tracks. (Only “Torture King” inches past the five-minute mark,) As with their unusually tight focus, the band wields its bent for brevity like the weapon of seduction it is. —ROD SMITH

WHITE WARD

6

Origins

DEBEMUR MORTI PRODUCTIONS

Sax Maniak

I must admit to not being super into White Ward’s more recent output.

Don’t get me wrong—I like jazz, I like black metal. You’d think maybe mixing two cool things would be a good thing, but, alas, it wasn’t for me. But we aren’t here to talk about Love Exchange Failure, modern-day saxophone-led White Ward. No, today we look into the past and find White Ward's roots.

Initially released on the band’s Bandcamp page in late 2016, Origins sums White Ward’s preFutility Report existence in a compact, hour-long listen. Now being released by the band’s new home label Debemur Morti, Origins offers new (or at least more recent) fans a glimpse into what led to the band they now enjoy.

Origins is interesting in the sense that it offers a strong glimpse into how White Ward evolved into a more progressive being. Essentially a collection of post-rock-inflected black metal songs, pre-Futility Report White Ward’s composition style was pretty unilateral. It’s atmospheric black metal in a post-Deafheaven world, and there isn’t anything intrinsically wrong with that... there’s just so much of it that a band needs some sort of selling point to make them different.

This compilation exists expressly for the existing fans who want to hear more White Ward, and that’s really about it. It isn’t a bad release, nor has White Ward ever really been a bad band, but there really isn’t anything new to be found here. If you want forward-thinking material, you already have it, but if you want to know more about this band, enjoy. —JON ROSENTHAL

A R e volu tion of identit y in A mer ic A n Bl Ack M e ta l

by DA N I E L L A K E foreword by TOM G A BR I E L WA R R IOR

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I N W H I C H W E R E V I E W V I N Y L I N A N D O F T H E H E AV I E S T R O TAT I O N S

BY SHANE MEHLING

CHAT PILE

This Dungeon Earth/ Remove Your Skin Please 12-inch [REPTILIAN]

These guys kind of came out of nowhere and mashed their two tape EPs onto one big record, and what a great idea. This is sludge, industrial, noise rock and (let’s face it) nümetal all in a frothy soup, with a frontman who rants and yells and mostly acts like a doomsday prepper who got shithoused and grabbed the wedding toast mic. It’s very weird and unnerving, and likely to elicit a strong reaction. I personally think it’s fantastic and that they’ll wind up being huge.

GAYTHEIST

How Long Have I Been on Fire? 12-inch [HEX]

Speaking of blowing up, I always expect that to happen whenever Gaytheist put out a record, and maybe when the dust settles and we start looking back on 2020, some lucky people will find this fifth full-length amongst the rubble. The power trio’s pop/hardcore/noise rock thing is exuberant and diverse, and no one else is doing this. It’d be the perfect music for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade if all the floats were covered in rusted junk and crashing into the buildings.

And while the musicianship all around is top quality, Nick Parks is one of the most relentlessly creative and heavy-hitting drummers out there. It’s really good shit. Listen to it.

INISANS/SEPULCHRAL FROST

Death Fire Darkness split 10-inch [ H E LT E R S K E LT E R / R E G A I N ]

On the flip side of exuberance, here’s some death metal. Inisans, with two songs, are old-school, but faster and more brutal, with some shredding solos. No new ground being broken, but for what they want to do, they do it well.

Sepulchral Frost’s single track is a little grimier and solid enough until the two-minute mark when they get doomy, and it just really goes on for a long time and loses steam. Then they finish with a D-beat part that feels like they were just looking for some way to end the thing. I appreciate their attempt at some diversity, but I think this is really just worth it for Inisans.

DEAD

Raving Drooling 12-inch

[ W A N TA G E U S A ]

This Australian two-piece has overcome both a terrible band name and one of the ugliest record

76 : A PRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

covers I’ve seen in years to create a really good collection of sludge rock jams very much in the vein of Big Business. Creston Spiers (Harvey Milk) and Joe Preston (Thrones, Melvins, a million other things) were also clearly taken in by the outback charm and have guest appearances on here, helping create a dense, rhythmically hypnotic affair that is, again, very much for fans of Big Business and stuff like Big Business.

HERON

Time Immemorial 12-inch

[ S LU D G E LO R D ]

This is post-metal sludge with great harsh vocals, but those vocals are pretty much the only thing rising above the usual fare. The playing is fine, but the parts very much just go and do the same things we all know—long, drawn-out stuff building from quiet to heavy—and there are just many others who are doing this better. The end of “Boiling Ancient Light” is quite good, but that’s only about 90 seconds. In fact, even though their “Wolverine Blues” cover is really incongruous in relation to the rest of the songs, it’s also probably the best thing on here.

BAS ROTTEN

Surge 12-inch

[TO LIVE A LIE]

Unless it’s a typo, there are three guys in this five-piece band named Joao, and two of them play guitar. That’s gotta be frustrating as hell, but it hasn’t kept them from putting out this thrashing, grinding D-beat rager of 17 songs in about 20 minutes. There are a surprising amount of gang vocals, an unsurprising amount of movie samples (including the old standby Reservoir Dogs), and overall this is a pretty catchy, raucous kind of party record. It’s a great soundtrack for a drunken power hour, ’cause you can just listen to it three times.

INSIGHT

Reflection 12-inch [ M I S S I O N T W O E N T E R TA I N M E N T ]

The members of this late ’80s/early ’90s hardcore band went on to be in Iceburn and Handsome, both incredible bands. Of course, this does not sound like a combination of those bands. It’s more like old Sick of It All, and this is a collection of their EP, compilation songs, four new ones and a live set. If you’re into late ’80s/early ’90s hardcore, you’re set, and it’s nice that those guys found a way to get this out. But if this isn’t your thing, you should go listen to Iceburn and that Handsome record again.

DO YOU KNOW THE NAME OF THESE TWO BANDS?

Bitches and Bastards is a series of re-photographs made by artist Richard Prince featuring rockers from ’80s hair bands / glam metal bands released in 1985. Prince gives no credit to the bands whatsoever. After over a year of research, we are looking for assistance to identify the last two bands featured in the work.

If you know the name of the bands missing please write us to niconsuegra@gmail.com or contact Alison at 774-200-6974.

DECIBEL : APRIL 2021 : 77

• P I RAT E S PR ESS •

CUSTOM VINYL RECORD MANUFACTURING

DECIBEL : APRIL 2021 : 79

by

EUGENE S. ROBINSON

DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER

LAUGHTER? L

et’s start here: I loved Led Zeppelin. Being exposed to the mythology of, say, the Rolling Stones before really hearing the Rolling Stones made it easier to buy into them absent the glaring problems with the Stones. Well, this and endless AM radio.

But with Zeppelin, the magic was immediate. No one, even the people they ripped off, had managed to sound like them, so I was in. And when I say in, I mean up to and including writing every lyric of theirs on every desktop I could in high school.

Flash forward to years later, and Oxbow are playing a festival in Bristol, England. With Robert Plant. No matter how cool you’d like to imagine you’d be—and yeah, I’m sure Plant puts his pants on one leg at a time like all of the rest of us—you can’t account for what it’s going to be like to meet someone who you never needed any mythology to get. If you’re smart, 80 : APRIL 2021 : DECIBEL

you allow that you might totally freak out, and you take precautions to make sure you don’t.

Like, maybe, drink a little wine.

Yeah, that’s a good idea. A little wine. And maybe a little whiskey, too. I mean, that was all backstage.

And a little more. Just to round the edges off. I wasn’t going to fanboy out no matter how much I wanted to.

Then the call came for Oxbow to hit the stage and we did. Robert Plant was going to play after us, and I wasn’t sure when he was going to show up, but it could be at any moment during our set. And it would be great.

The events of the evening from here on out were a skosh hazy. I remember a passel of women up front grabbing my thighs. I remember not wearing pants, but truth be told, that wouldn’t have narrowed things down for me. Then I remember a searing pain in my groin.

Someone had reached up from the crowd and squeezed my kibbles

and bits in a decidedly unfriendly fashion. I grabbed the offending hand and looked down to see it belonging to a man who looked as confused as I was. Confused and then unconscious. I didn’t fly 6,000 miles to knock a fool out, but my groin had requested I knock him out, and so it went.

Robert Plant didn’t need to see all of this.

Anyway, they carried him out, we finished the show and I rushed backstage, finding some stagehand.

“Hey, where’s Robert?” I asked.

He looked at me strangely, looked around and then pointed.

“That’s probably him now.”

I looked to see a helicopter landing off in the field. We had to sit in festival traffic for 30 minutes to get to the stage. When you used to sing for Led Zeppelin? You helicopter to the stage right before you play.

Hotel to helicopter to stage.

Of course. I’d been in Rusty Van Land way too long. When you had

airplanes with your name on them, a helicopter is definitely freaking down-market.

And he had seen none of our show.

But that wouldn’t stop me from watching his, and so I do. He plays mostly his solo stuff, but then a surprise: “Going to California.”

Now, we were at the end of a particularly long tour—about four weeks out. And when you’re four weeks out? You get strange. Or at least I felt strange, and as I stood there and he sang about going to California with an aching in his heart, I started to cry. Like an old schoolmarm. Or a small child.

He finished the song. They finished their set. He got back in the helicopter and rose above the Bristol night, and I got back in the van with the rest of Oxbow and headed off to the promoter’s house where I would sleep in a displaced child’s room with movie posters on the wall.

What a perfect day.

ILLUSTRATION BY ED LUCE

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