Decibel #216 - October 2022

UNHOLY CULT HALL OF FAME

CANCELATION POLICY

ANCIENT HORRORS

CONCEPTUALLY SPEAKING

REFUSE/RESIST

NORTHWEST

TERROR FEST R E V IE W E D

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INCLUDED OCTOBER 2022 // No. 216

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October 2022 [R 216] decibelmagazine.com

upfront 10 metal muthas Home movies

18 razor Sharpening the blade

12 northwest terror fest

20 innumerable forms An eruption of emotion

2022 review

Ludicrasly heavy 14 low culture Memoirs from the mosh retirement home 15 no corporate beer Sometimes selling out is waking up 16 in the studio:

godthrymm A great artist

22 end it Harm city charmers 24 këkht aräkh Come on get happy 26 escuela grind It was a graveyard blast 28 phobophilic Hope for the hopeless 30 hive No justice, no peace of mind 32 conan What is best in life

features

reviews

34 bloodbath The tape is red... long live the tape

71 lead review Gaerea explore the vastness of isolation to craft an album that exists in a dimension between beauty and brutality on their third album Mirage

36 sumerlands Modern-day classic 38 behemoth The blackest sheep

72 album reviews Records from bands that already bought front-row tickets to see Journey to Hell, including City of Caterpillar, Megadeth and Revocation

40 machine head The blackening parade 42 q&a: venom inc.

Cat lover (and guitarist) Mantas is open to going back to black 46 the decibel

hall of fame In the shadow of one of the darkest eras for both America and metal, Immolation overcome adversity to keep the old-school spirit alive with Unholy Cult

88 damage ink He’s a Barbie girl

58 Out from the Void COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY SHIMON KARMEL

Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., P.O. Box 36818, 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, P.O. Box 36818, Philadelphia, PA 19107. © 2022 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

ISSN 1557-2137 | USPS 023142 Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited.

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THE ICONIC KRAMER NIGHTSWAN AVAILABLE IN JET BLACK METALLIC, AZTEC MARBLE AND BLACK WITH BLUE POLKA DOT

albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

www.decibelmagazine.com

REFUSE/RESIST

October 2022 [T216] PUBLISHER

Alex Mulcahy

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

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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.

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In the spring of 2020—you know where this is going, but please bear with me— we pulled Decibel from all newsstands.

This decision was ultimately made for us, of course, with virtually all “non-essential” retail being shuttered indefinitely during the onset of the pandemic. It wasn’t until 2021 that we returned to book and record stores, but by then, something changed for me—I completely stopped giving a fuck about newsstand sales.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m flattered by the notion that someone anywhere believes that they can sell copies of this magazine and actually make money doing so! But I’m no longer interested in helping them accomplish that.

Around 150 years ago—when this magazine first started—newsstand sales were a contributing factor in my cover artist selection. Go too obscure, and Barnes & Noble sales likely plummet. If that happens a few times, the distributors cut your draw, torpedoing your circulation.

Soon, customers can’t find your magazine as easily as before, advertisers jump ship, and then, before you know it, it’s time to “pivot to video.” Or just print, like, five different covers each month—whatever looks less desperate.

Of course, as Decibel grew more established in the late aughts, I became more comfortable taking chances with cover choices and hedged my bets, by mixing in the occasional Metallica or Iron Maiden front page to balance things out. But when the pandemic descended, that calculus changed. I didn’t have to worry about the wider commercial viability of Necrot, Uada or Spirit Adrift cover stories in consecutive months. Instead, we could consistently provide our subscribers with deep dives on emerging artists making the most exciting records of a fucked-up year. The process was so liberating that I was emboldened to put no one on the cover of our April 2021 issue [A Year Without Shows]!

We’ve been back on the newsstands for over a year now, and I’m not sure I would have had the stones to run this month’s KEN mode cover story before we were all regularly jamming Q-tips into our brains. That’s not because our noisy friends to the north were ever-undeserving. On the contrary—and as Shane Mehling’s excellent profile on the perpetually Juno-nominated noise rockers’ long-gestating eighth album Null reveals— their latest LP is very much a recording directly impacted by events of the past few years. As we all continue to search for silver linings amidst the wreckage, the most abrasive KEN mode record ever and the promise of more cover stories like this from Decibel are two pretty good ones.

READER OF THE

MONTH

William Gioia Coopersburg, PA

Your Facebook handle is TheMostMetalHeartSurgeon. We are unaware of any official contest to determine you as the most metal heart surgeon, so please state your bonafides here so we can verify your status.

I’ve been a metalhead since a friend let me hear Metallica before 10th grade chemistry class. My first metal festival was Ozzfest 2004.

I have over 100 band shirts, sweatshirts and hats, and a growing collection of vinyl and CDs. I love to read, watch documentaries and learn about the history of metal. I am a winner of Into the Trivia Pit on Liquid Metal, and a regular contributor and question writer.

Jose Mangin asked me to be on the board of

8 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

directors for his charity, Headbang for Science, which will provide scholarships for metalheads going into science and healthcare careers.

Last but not least, I listen to metal while I operate. Do you know any other heart surgeons who do that?

If you do, I’d love to meet them.

You sustained a gnarly injury at last year’s Metal & Beer Fest: Philly.

Can you tell us what happened and were you equipped to perform first aid on yourself?

My last show before the pandemic was Mastodon in Manhattan, while I was still a fellow.

At that show, I decided I would retire from the pit. When things started opening back up, I bought tickets to see Megadeth in New Jersey.

I was so amped to be at a show that I decided to come out of retirement and get back in the pit. Fast forward to Metal & Beer, and during Municipal Waste (you know what they say about Municipal Waste), my friend got shoved into me and his head slammed into my left eye.

As soon as I felt warmth on the side of my face, I knew something was up. I had a pretty nice

gash on my left eyebrow. If I had a mirror and no other choice, I probably could have stitched myself up. Luckily, the on-hand medical staff were excellent and they took me to Jefferson to get fixed up, where a very nervous intern did a great job. I told his boss to hire him. The only thing I was upset about that night was missing Napalm Death.

Pick one: General Surgery, Autopsy or the County Medical Examiners?

I don’t like that sequence—surgery, autopsy, medical examiner. Seems like things didn’t go according to plan. I trained in general surgery before cardiac surgery fellowship, and even though I’m a huge Carcass fan, I’d have to go with Autopsy on this one. Not only is Chris Reifert an amazingly talented death metal legend, but he’s also pretty hilarious with his stage banter (I saw them at MDF, but I wasn’t anywhere near THAT particular pit-related activity). I’m looking forward to hearing their new album in September.

Please give our readers three tips to stay heart-healthy so they get to meet you at a show and not on an operating table.

If you smoke cigarettes (or vape), quit; maintain a healthy diet consisting of lean protein and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables; and exercise at least 30 minutes three times a week so you can stay agile in the pit.

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

ddrumusa www.ddrum.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 giving zero fucks about anyone’s take on the Pantera reunion.

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

This Month's Mutha: Peggy Earle Mutha of music video director Zev Deans

Tell us a little about yourself.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, went to public schools, and then majored in fine arts at CCNY. I dreamed of becoming a professional artist, but the closest I came was inking and painting in a big NYC animation studio. In 1980, I married Zev’s dad, who was a drummer in a rock band, and later became a chef. We divorced, and while I was a single mother, I went to grad school part-time and got my master’s degree, after which I worked at a newspaper for 22 years. I began as a research librarian, but then started writing and illustrating, and became a book review editor. I’m happily retired now in rural Connecticut, where I spend much of my time making arty embroideries, playing the fiddle and feeding wildlife.

When did your son start exhibiting an interest in film? Did you have any influence on his passion?

I’ve been a movie fanatic all my life, so the love of film is obviously in Zev’s blood. He was the rare toddler who could sit quietly in a movie theater for an entire feature. He and I must have watched hundreds of films together.

Zev was a visual artist before he was a filmmaker. What do you recall about his work back then?

When he was around 4 or 5 and was supposed to be going to sleep, I’d often see a light shining under his door. He’d be sprawled on the floor, intently drawing something. I rarely had the heart to stop him. During his college days, he became interested in graphic art and 10 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

printmaking. His work was always very detailed and meticulous, and either funny and satirical or very dark—or all three.

Zev has directed videos for the likes of Mayhem, Gojira, Mastodon and Ghost. Are you a fan of any of the heavier bands that he’s worked with?

Nope, not a fan, especially of those bands whose sound resembles small animals being tortured.

But from your list, I can certainly listen to (and even occasionally enjoy) music by Ghost or Gojira.

Zev has now directed a whopping 70 music videos. What is your favorite and why?

Seventy?! Yikes! I think my favorite would have to be the “Sphinx” video he did for Gojira. It’s gorgeous, meshes perfectly with the music and has the feel of a short film—and I love the powerful environmental message. It also reminds me of one of my all-time favorite apocalypse movies: Peter Weir’s The Last Wave.

Tell us something that we’d be surprised to learn about him.

Without telling me he was going to do it (because he knew I’d be worried to death), Zev found some people to share driving down to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. They spent a few days helping distribute food, water and supplies to storm victims. He’s also volunteered to make exquisitely decorated cookies for fundraiser bake sales, for worthy causes like Ukraine and reproductive rights. He’s given his mother a lot of reasons to be proud. —ANDREW BONAZELLI

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Daeva, Through Sheer Will and Black Magic…  KEN mode, NULL  Suicidal Tendencies, Lights…Camera…Revolution  Suicidal Tendencies, How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today  Immolation, Unholy Cult ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Sepultura, Arise  Metallica, …And Justice for All  Crucifix, Dehumanization  Reagan Youth, A Collection of Pop Classics  7 Seconds, The Crew ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  Immolation, Unholy Cult  Phobophilic, Enveloping Absurdity  Strapping Young Lad, The New Black  Gorod, A Perfect Absolution  Nobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy VI Original Sound Version ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  KEN mode, NULL  Sumerlands, Dreamkiller  Pig Destroyer, Head Cage  Trash Talk, “Awake” 7-inch  Metallica, Ride the Lightning ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  Municipal Waste, Electrified Brain  L.O.T.I.O.N., W.A.R. in the Digital Realm  Tomb Sentinel, Perpetual Vice  Reversal of Man, Nothing More Nothing Less  Rainbow of Death, Rainbow of Death

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Carolina Pérez : c a s t r at o r / h y p o x i a  Immolation, Acts of God  Castrator, Defiled in Oblivion (of course)  Faith No More, The Real Thing  Dying Fetus, Reign Supreme  Judas Priest, Painkiller

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE GENTRY

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NORTHWEST TERROR FEST

NORTHWEST TERROR FEST

A

fter two years of pandemic-imposed delays and lineup shuffles, the fourth WHEN: June 30-July 2, 2022 installment of Northwest Terror Fest PHOTOS BY GGOUDEY PHOTO finally went down at Neumos/Barboza in Seattle’s First Hill district, bringing three days of eclectic summer heaviness to show-starved headbangers from near and far. A trio of Decibel scribes report from the frontlines.

WHERE:

Seattle, WA (Neumos and Barboza)

THURSDAY Locals Izthmi started the midweek proceedings

with their distinctive brand of progressive black metal, blending energetic blast sections with down-tuned doom. Up next on the downstairs Barboza stage was darkwave duo Hallows, who captivated the crowd with their Sisters of Mercyinspired dance tunes and even managed to start a cheeky circle pit.

The festival’s staggered schedule immediately led to the crushing funeral doom of Un, whose melancholic guitar leads and subterranean vocals sounded immense beneath Neumos’ blue stage lights. Texas duo Deep Cross followed with a varied set that hit upon elements of Neurosisstyle ambience and diabolically unhinged noise.

The Tchornobog-replacing “secret set” turned out to be death metal rising stars Mortiferum, who pummeled the audience with an onslaught of windmill-inducing riffs that culminated with “Incubus of Bloodstained Visions” from Preserved 12 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

in Torment. Rat King were another last-minute addition, and they made the most of their fortuitous spot by leveling Barboza with frenetic deathgrind mixed with Sepultura grooves.

Upstairs, Mizmor dragged the vibes back into the abyss with a hypnotizing set comprised of the first half of 2019’s Cairn. Frontman A.L.N. put on an extreme vocal clinic, at times nearly swallowing the mic to expel his inhuman howl.

Squalus stirred up the crowd with their Jaws-themed sludge metal, utilizing two bass guitars and a synthesizer to peel off a boisterous collection of earworm riffs. The catchiness continued upstairs, where “castle metal” favorites Obsequiae employed a triple guitar lineup to get heads bobbing with robust renditions of “Autumnal Pyre” and “Ceres in Emerald Streams.”

Grayceon closed out Barboza’s portion of the festival with a spirited set that showcased some of the best songs of their classical prog/thrash/ doom repertoire, including “Let It Go” and the

 Down and dirty Filth is Eternal vocalist Lisa Mungo shows their brand of hardcore crust is anything but green

singularly epic “Shellmounds,” before Virginia’s Windhand dispensed their fuzzy traditional

doom to a packed room of riff-worshippers who were mesmerized by the swaying energy of singer Dorthia Cottrell.

For all of Day 1’s compelling moments, the night ultimately belonged to Ludicra. As soon as it was announced that the legendary Bay Area black metal band would reunite after 11 years for a special headlining performance, all eyes were on Thursday evening, and the audience was nearly vibrating with anticipation by the time they hit the stage, even erupting in applause at the mere sight of a soundcheck. Soon, the familiar pulse of The Tenant’s “Stagnant Pond” kicked off an incredible 75-minute set that featured perennial favorites like “Userpent,” “Why Conquer?” (with Grayceon’s Jackie Perez Gratz on cello/vocals) and “In Fever.”

Vocalist Laurie Sue Shanaman looked to be having the time of her life, hopping around the stage while her bandmates ripped through classic after classic. For their encore, Ludicra unleashed a cathartic performance of “Walk the Path of Ash” before ending the night with “Veils,” one of their signature tracks. For a band that seemed destined to remain interred in the annals of underground metal history, it was a powerful return to form and a welcome portent of good times to come. —MATT SOLIS

Hotter heads prevail  (from l) Death metal legends Suffocation, reactivated USBM practitioners Ludicra and speed metal freaks Midnight each headline Washington’s three-day festivities

FRIDAY Omakase is a Japanese dining style in which the

customer leaves the course selection entirely up to the chef. It’s a high-end experience sans menu, a transaction of trust. Attending Northwest Terror Fest is somewhat like that. Sure, the fest has headliners meant to draw the eye and attendance.

But the organizers pride themselves on booking underappreciated bands—the value stocks of heavy music, if you will—so the full experience is more about the journey than the destination.

Day 2 featured the most bands that I didn’t know, which was quite freeing. Without the option paralysis that often accompanies larger festivals—NWTF has no overlapping set times— I was content to take each band as it came, approaching the day as a learning experience instead of an agenda.

Undercard highlights included the grind/ noise rock alloy of Turian, the unadulterated slams of Eyes of Perdition and the straight-up hardcore of Filth Is Eternal, which yielded a rather joyful pit. Ripped to Shreds burst out of the gate ready to kill, leveling the place and answering the question of what Dismember would sound like as a grind band. Haunter’s skronky black/death metal seemingly tunneled to the center of the earth, while Theories’ blistering deathgrind took no prisoners. Oryx provided my favorite set of the day, a mesmerizing ritual of cathartic doom that beautifully meshed texture with rhythm.

The day finished with delightfully opposite headliners. Panopticon bathed the room in blue light and layer upon layer of sound. It was likely the only metal show where one heard calls for more violin. The band’s trance-y black metal got bodies swaying and heartstrings fluttering, but when the maelstrom broke down to a bona fide country hoedown, it was one of those loss-forwords memories one cherishes for a while.

Midnight was a last-minute replacement for Cryptic Slaughter, who dropped off due to medical issues. The move had fest organizer Leah Solomon scrambling (successfully) to find a bullet belt for vocalist/bassist Athenar. (It’s not exactly

a TSA-approved item to travel with.) After Panopticon’s six-person extravaganza, Midnight’s trio proved no less powerful, whipping out anthems with precision, attitude and humor. (Seattleites Geoff Tate and Jimi Hendrix got shout-outs.)

During the day, the fest got to a point where it wasn’t odd to see a female/nonbinary/person of color onstage. When’s the last time you saw two female drummers in a row at a heavy music fest? Such diverse representation was tangibly reflected in the crowd. Says fest organizer—and Decibel’s own—Joseph Schafer, “The thing that makes me happiest after this fest is every so often, we’ll get a comment, like, ‘Hey, I am ______, I don’t usually go to metal shows because I don’t feel welcome. I felt welcome here. I saw someone who looked like me onstage and now I want to go start a band.’ That is what makes the preposterous amount of work that goes into these things worthwhile.” —COSMO LEE

SATURDAY “What’s old is new again” says Herb Burke, the singer and bassist of Drawn and Quartered, to

introduce the song “Age of Ignorance.” Burke would know. In an era when reheated ’90s death metal is en vogue, Drawn and Quartered are the genuine article, still kicking and kicking ass three decades on. But if you needed to see it for yourself, Day 3 of Northwest Terror Fest had plenty of evidence that the old ways are still going strong.

Hell, start right at the top of the poster.

Between Suffocation and their lesser-known West Coast contemporaries in D&Q—both bands that have long studied at death metal’s old school—a discerning ear finds a multitude of modern trends accounted for. Drawn and Quartered’s swirling pestilence-themed chaos presaged the contemporary love for all things cavernous, while any death metal band looking to ignite a mosh pit has Suffocation to thank for many of their best moves. In fact, Suffocation’s bludgeoning technicality has remained so vital that it has even outlasted most of the musicians that originally recorded it. With a little help

from an avalanche of beach balls and pool floats, a Northwest Terror Fest tradition for the last set of the weekend, Suffo blew the roof of Neumos, playing 30-year-old songs like they came out yesterday. Have you ever seen someone straddle an inflatable orca while crowd-surfing to the tune of “Entrails of You”? Pinnacle of Bedlam, indeed.

The younger bands on the bill also benefited via drawing from the past. Cloak, who headlined the smaller Barboza stage, whipped up one of the giddiest pits of the night by mixing black metal intensity with bare-chested rock ‘n’ roll swagger, moving as many hips as heads in the process. Earlier in the day, SpiritWorld took the stage looking like 1971 (cowboy hats and rhinestone jackets) and sounding like 1986 (one great Slayer riff after another), breathing new life into age-old Las Vegas showmanship. And if there’s anything older than the spiritual terror and awe invoked by Lelia Abdul-Rauf’s earlyevening ambient set, then buddy, I don’t want to know about it.

Still, Northwest Terror Fest is hardly the nostalgia circuit, so let’s give the new its due.

While the most glaringly 2022 parts of the festival manifested in last-minute band cancellations and the uneasy dance of drinking while masked, the modern black clouds still had their silver linings. If it weren’t for Creeping Death dropping off, Seattle wouldn’t have gotten an early look at SpiritWorld before their rhinestones glitter under bigger, brighter lights in the near future.

Further down the bill, the fresh-faced Vale and Succumb added new twists to black metal and death metal. Succumb eschewed subgenres in favor of omnidirectional aggression, jumping from chunky breakdowns to disorienting dissonance with no concern for the audience’s ability to follow along. Vale went a step further, playing mostly new material, confident that their precise and unfussy take on black metal would win over new fans and satisfy old ones on its own merits. Both bands bet right. Even shrouded in a sea of black T-shirts, the future looks bright for Northwest Terror Fest and extreme metal at large. —IAN CORY DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2022 : 13

Y ISEMAN

TNE

BY COUR

Notes From the Old Guy at the Back of the Club turned 44 this month, which is something I’m still having difficulty grasping since I feel like I haven’t figured out what I want to do with my life. I can look back on nearly 30 years of making music and a solid decade of being able to call myself a “writer,” and can feel a sense of accomplishment. Then I watch some dickhead omit me from a USBM history video on YouTube, and that’s out the window.

But this isn’t about that (yet); it’s more that I wonder what happened to the thousands of people who committed themselves to their music or their art that one day just said “fuck it” and vanished into the normalcies of society.

Think about it for a minute. For every Napalm Death that’s stayed active their whole adult lives, there are hundreds—probably thousands—of bands that just gave up and walked away; not just from their own music, but from metal/punk in general. Just started fresh with some job that turned into a career and family, looking back on their days in a band as either a fond memory or an embarrassing part of growing up. Are they any happier than those of us who stayed in the trenches and dedicated everything to this lifestyle? I don’t have an answer for that because it’s something I’ve never experienced.

I think besides nearing the age where I legally have to surrender my dick and balls to the government so they can safely discard them, I also had a lot of memories stir with the announcement that Milwaukee Metalfest will be returning under new ownership. I have some great memories from the years I went. But most of the people I spent my time with at those fests are gone now, lost to normal lives. It made me think about all the people who’ve come and gone over the years, and not just the dead ones. The flowing transience of the “scene” (yuck) and how time has made its presence known to me 14 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

through the shifting of crowds and the changing faces I’ve spent large and important parts of my life with really brings home the concept of time moving unforgivably forward. It also makes me wonder if I’m now the “old guy at the show” that we mocked when we were young.

That’s mostly metaphorical; I rarely go out anymore.

I also wonder what life would have been like if I made any of those same “responsible” decisions.

I mean, I’m 20 years on from the most popular record I’ll ever make, yet I’m still plugging away at shit like I’m eternally in my 20s—save the drinking and drugs—plus I have a reasonable bedtime now. It’s no longer about “making it” or proving any kind of point; more that it’s just become a part of me the way some guys get a hard-on about mowing the grass and watching the game every weekend. I guess we all get satisfaction out of life somehow, and what I potentially view as mundane you could see as sublime.

I don’t really have regrets with how I’ve decided to run things—just some minor gripes and changes I’d make—but in the grand scheme of things, I’m pretty satisfied with where I’ve been and where I am. It’s where I’m going— that’s questionable. This entire column is basically me putting into words for myself (and you, I suppose) that I’m now beyond the median “middle age” of Americans, and I’m still here.

And I should probably document it somewhere besides here and the other places kind enough to publish my writing. So, in a way to motivate myself to make it real, I’m challenging myself that, within 12 months, I’ll have a memoir written. No idea if anyone will publish it, but that’s not the point. The point is now I can be held accountable if I don’t stick to the plan. And it’ll give me something to do until I can formally shit on the new Milwaukee Metalfest.

Sellouts: The More Craft Breweries Sell to Big Beer, the Less Drinkers Seem to Mind

T

his July, Sapporo purchased Stone

Brewing Company for $165 million.

The 26-year-old California brewery helped shape American craft beer.

Co-founder Greg Koch enjoyed hero worship from early craft fans, and many craft drinkers today point to Stone as their gateway craft beer. For years, Stone embodied all the piss and vinegar that fueled people shunning corporate beer and shelling out extra bucks for craft. The uproar in 2011 when AnheuserBusch InBev bought another seminal brewery, Chicago’s Goose Island, was deafening.

Ditto that in 2015, when AB InBev snatched up Seattle’s Elysian Brewing—in Elysian taprooms, people bought beer to performatively dump it. Beer bloggers denounced these “sellouts”; craft beer bars refused to stock them. But just a handful of years later, the Stone news was met not with jeers nor intentionally spilled beers, but with… silence. What changed?

In covering the culture and business of beverage alcohol, journalist Dave Infante has written about these mergers and acquisitions—and their reverberations—for outlets like VinePair and his own newsletter, Fingers.

He describes the beginning of this trend, of Big Beer buying craft breweries, and how those breweries’ fans felt personally betrayed. By the start of the 2010s, Big Beer

wanted the success craft had been enjoying for the last 20 years. It was cheaper and faster to just buy the little guy doing all that innovating, Infante explains.

“I think that felt very personal to people who organized their personalities around craft brewing,” he says. “It was not just that they were losing a brand, but it felt like they were losing a part of their selves.”

He adds that craft consumers viewed this “selling out” as a slap in the face to all craft was built on. “[These acquisitions] revealed a central tension: you can’t pitch yourself as super local, more than just a business, anticorporate—and then turn around and sell off to a corporation. It makes people feel like they’ve been bilked.”

As to why that reaction has fizzled more recently, Infante reasons the typical craft beer fan has matured—and younger, more zealous fans aren’t replenishing them. Many craft drinkers have been at this for at least a decade; they’ve seen enough acquisitions to feel fatigued and jaded. They’ve also learned more about the industry. Consumers understand how difficult survival is for craft breweries in a saturated marketplace where hard seltzer and canned cocktails steal thunder.

They realize, Infante says, that independent breweries might need to sell when owners don’t have successors lined up or enough

PHOTO BY ISTOCK.COM/FXQUADRO

capital. As these craft fans grow, learn, find other interests and just get too tired for outrage at every sale, a younger guard with fresh passion isn’t stepping in.

“The Brewers Association tried to evangelize to engage a newer generation and convince them independence matters,” Infante says. “But I don’t think [it] ever materialized, especially as hard seltzer hit its stride in 2019.”

The concept of “selling out” and the contempt for those who do is something that once bound music and craft beer, but now that correlation splinters. Mainstream music mirrors beverage alcohol in that people just want what tastes or sounds good to them, however corporate it is—fruity hard seltzers and manufactured pop music are dopamine hits, no further thought required. But arguably in genres like metal, more people still feel betrayed by bands selling out than craft fans by breweries. While bands also obviously need to make money, metal is an art form, built on certain attitudes; craft beer is, at the end of the day, a product. It would be nice to maintain its founding principles, but if breweries don’t sell beer, they don’t exist. It’s not uncool to care—if a band you love compromises its sound, or if an independent brewery sells. But unfortunately, this is the way the beer industry is going, so we can all remember there are more important things to get fired up about, and drink what we like.

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2022 : 15

GODTHRYMM

STUDIO REPORT

GODTHRYMM ALBUM TITLE

TBD

THE

last time epic doom curse-casters

Godthrymm released new music was STUDIO December 2020. The Vastness Silent was a wintry two-track EP featuring the talents of The Nave Recording Studios, two ex-members of My Dying Bride and Solstice. But Godthrymm Leeds, U.K. disrupted their 2022 silence with “Chasms,” a standalone single RECORDING DATES that brings a glacial chill to summer’s swelter. The song was the June and first new material the band recorded with producer Andy Hawkins, September 2022 and they considered it a trial run for their collaborative chemistry.

PRODUCER Consider the haunting song a premonition of music to come.

Andy Hawkins “In my mind—if we equated it to visual art, for instance—our LABEL first EPs were the preliminary sketches on the back of a napkin,” Profound Lore shares vocalist/guitarist Hamish Glencross. “Then our first RELEASE DATE album [Reflections] was progressing to color and using felt-tips and Early 2023 pens. The Vastness Silent felt like using a better canvas. And now at this point of time it’s like painting with vivid watercolors, and oils, and—dare I say—my own blood.

“The contrast is way more vibrant and dramatic,” he continues. “The epic doom is way more epic than before. There are grand, multi-layered harmonies. But we also have those crushing lows of doom and sorrow, and some total slab-heavy riffs and songs as well.”

In June, Godthrymm completed their first phase of recording at the Nave Recording Studios, a converted church in Leeds, U.K. That included capturing the best possible takes from drummer Shaun Taylor-Steels—Glencross’ ex-bandmate in My Dying Bride. They’ll return in September to record the remainder of the currently untitled upcoming LP, tentatively scheduled for early 2023 via Profound Lore Records. The songs are already meticulously demoed, refined and ready for the studio. Glencross even refers to the material as his favorite and most personal in his career.

“I think there’s more confidence in what we do in some ways,” he notes. “But there’s also the experience of what life has brought in a small period of time. Obviously, there have been challenges we have all seen and faced. Having a creative outlet like this, having this catharsis available and working through these emotions, has been a wonderful thing.” —SEAN FRASIER

STUDIO SHORT SHOTS

MELODIC U.S. BLACK METALLERS NECROFIER SULLY RECORD PRODUCER ROYALTY FOR SOPHOMORE SACRILEGE 16 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

Houston-based black metallers Necrofier have literally just stepped into Studio G Brooklyn when Decibel calls. The rampaging four-piece are laying down tracks for the follow-up to debut Prophecies of Eternal Darkness with producer Joel Hamilton (Oceans of Slumber, Danny Elfman) in what drummer Dobber Beverly calls an “absolute step up in darkness and barbarity” with single-foot blasts, punk, heavy metal, and obligatory salutations to Dissection and Rotting Christ.

“I truly want to bring bigger-than-life professional recordings into the black metal world,” says Beverly. “I know it’s a world of either heavily produced modern production or very lo-fi traditional-sounding records for the most part, but I want to see what is truly possible with one of the biggest names in American recording circles.”

Beverly’s talking about Grammy- and Latin Grammy-nominated Hamilton, who’s now tasked with preserving black metal’s storied production precepts, while also having the difficult job of edging beyond them.

“It just needs to sound violent and real,” Beverly says. “That’s truly the only thing I’m concerned about. I want the drum rooms to breathe life back into fast records instead of being dominated with completely replaced drums and shrill overheads.” —CHRIS DICK

RAZOR

RAZOR

Old-school Canadian thrashers cut a new path with comeback album

T

hirty years ago, Razor lead guitarist and founding member Dave Carlo was sure he was done playing music. The Canadian thrashers had had a good run—seven albums in as many years—but he felt like the writing was on the wall that the music they were playing didn’t have a future. “I retired in 1992,” he tells us. “I was done with the music business. At that time, people were moving on to alternative and to death metal more than the high-speed thrash metal. I just felt like sticking with that style of music wasn’t going to be productive. I moved on and wasn’t planning to bring Razor back.” ¶ What Carlo couldn’t know in ’92, however, was that he and his bandmates had established a legacy with those seven seminal albums that would ensure future generations would know and appreciate the band’s frantic, aggressive and vengeful thrash style. The rise of the internet in the late ’90s helped spread the word. ¶ “It just seemed like since the internet started there were more and more people interested in Razor,” Carlo says, “and it got to a point where we started getting offers [to reunite and play shows], and I kept turning them down because I wasn’t really interested 18 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

in going back to it. That carried on until about 2010, when the offers started getting good enough that I had to start being serious about maybe doing them. And then by 2015 it was clear that maybe we should go full force onto this.”

Relapse reissued Violent Restitution (1988), Shotgun Justice (1990) and Open Hostility (1991) that year, and Carlo assembled a working lineup that included original bassist Mike Campagnolo, vocalist Bob Reid (circa Shotgun Justice and Open Hostility era) and new drummer Rider Johnson.

Carlo was amazed to learn that not only were younger fans discovering Razor’s back catalog, they were clamoring for fresh material.

Finally Razor were ready to oblige, though it had been decades since they’d written (or recorded) anything. The result is Cycle of Contempt, the band’s first batch of new material for Relapse, and an album that will most certainly please core fans.

“It probably draws from the albums Violent Restitution, Shotgun Justice and Open Hostility,” Carlo suggests when asked for a comparison.

“I always liked that style the best. I think fans of those records will love this album. It’s pretty aggressive.”

It sounds like classic Razor because, even though he felt like the music industry was telling him otherwise in ’92, Carlo always believed in thrash. “I thought [this] style of music wouldn’t just come and go,” he says. “So, to see the younger generation that has discovered not just Razor, but other bands of the style is very gratifying. And if we don’t find a way to blow up the planet, 50 or 100 years from now, people will still want to hear this music and they’ll always be interested in that period, the ’80s, where the music was developed. Razor are lucky enough to be grouped in with the originators of the style.” —ADEM TEPEDELEN

INNUMERABLE FORMS

INNUMERABLE FORMS Death/doom dealers fill out their sound, not endless paperwork

THE

audience scarcely gets a chance to breathe before being swallowed whole by the Innumerable Forms riff vortex, but amid the sensorial overload of the band’s sophomore album, Philosophical Collapse, frontman Justin DeTore hopes we still make time to appreciate the guitar solos. The band’s founder, its sole member until 2016, insists on it. DeTore was weaned on Van Halen and is a true believer that Chris Ulsh’s solos—which traffic in Gregor Mackintosh-esque grandeur and vintage thrash squeal—map out the aesthetic contours of Innumerable Forms’ sound, establishing the atmosphere. ¶ “Eddie Van Halen is my favorite guitar player of all time and, to me, the guitar solos are the most important part of the record,” he says. “They are like the essence of the record. I can hear some Greg in there for sure, like you said. I think that is a big influence on Chris Ulsh’s playing. I hear Trouble as well. But I think Chris has his own identity. Like, I can hear a solo that he plays and I can tell immediately that that’s him.”

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Innumerable Forms give their influences a shallow burial. You needn’t dig far to hear canonical Finnish death metal, the melodic gradient of the Peaceville Three’s seminal audio misery. DeTore uses the word “derivative,” but that’s overdoing it; their conviction sees to that. There’s an emotional gravity to Philosophical Collapse that you might not find elsewhere. The horror they map out in sound is largely mined from adulthood.

This is death metal about the many tiny deaths of the self we encounter as we grow, certainties lost.

It is about grief, too.

“It is about dealing with those things,” DeTore confirms. “It is hard to articulate those feelings because they are intense and they are complicated. But just becoming a different person, maybe a better person, maybe not, and just dealing

with those things in life—and that essentially is what the lyrics are about on this album.”

Production comes by way of Arthur Rizk, whom DeTore credits for giving Philosophical Collapse a sound that sets the band apart. Against all odds, too. Much of this was tracked remotely. Jensen Ward laid guitars down in Seattle and wired the files. Getting Innumerable Forms together to tour isn’t easy. Drummer Connor Donnegan lives in D.C., while Ulsh is in Philly. DeTore and bassist Doug Cho reside in Boston.

The material binds them together.

“There is a lot of emotion on this record, a lot of anger, a lot of anguish,” DeTore says. “That is missing in a lot of death metal. I hear a lot of bands who are really good, but they lack that emotional depth. If I am being honest, I think we have that.” —JONATHAN HORSLEY

END IT

T

here’s something in the water in Baltimore, and I don’t just mean delicious crab. Rather, over the course of the last decade or so, the city’s established itself as a hotbed for expressive and forward-thinking hardcore music. Yes, the scene’s roots extend to the ’80s and earlier, but it’s tough to imagine the crossover success of Turnstile coming from anywhere else right now. ¶ That said, hardcore breeds and breathes not on the late-night show circuit, but at street level. Enter End It, whose new EP, Unpleasant Living, delivers six short, sharp shocks to the system, beginning with “BCHC.” ¶ “BCHC on the record means Baltimore City Hate Crew, while also nodding to the obvious Baltimore City Hardcore,” explains guitarist Ray Lee. “We wanted to put a twist on the familiar while paying homage to the history. All Baltimore City hardcore bands are different apart from their time spent within the city limits. BCHC is a state of mind, usually induced by a bag. ¶ “Baltimore is dope right now, and the scene is very tight-knit,” he continues.

22 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

“Everyone is out supporting each other and showing love. Bands seem to be dropping new material and touring way more often than in the past, which is great. As far as Turnstile, the energy that they bring on an international level is the same energy kids are bringing to the Baltimore scene right now. It’s infectious, and they’ve always represented Baltimore hardcore proper.”

But End It bring their own unique, infectious energy. Unpleasant Living puts up a strong argument that classic, rock-oriented highspeed punk is a worthwhile exercise, despite being well-trod ground.

Lee and Co.’s songs remain heavy, but also hooky, without relying on extreme production choices.

“The hardest thing about writing a hardcore song for me is trying to make sure it sounds at least somewhat original,” Lee admits. “I wanted us to have our own sound and kind of laid some ground rules

for myself in the early days to streamline that sound. The lyrics come from reality as we have experienced it collectively, as well as individually. Life gets hectic and songs get written; shit works.”

Part of End It’s appeal to Decibel readers may be the strong dash of crossover thrash in its attack. Songs like “L’Appel Du Vide” and “The Comeback” make a strong case for the band’s metallic bona fides in both guitar tone and vocal style.

“We are big thrash fans,” Lee admits. “‘The Comeback’ was actually written earlier on and revisited—it definitely pushes the hardcore-thrash envelope. The vocals at the beginning of ‘L’Appel’ were 100 percent inspired by Maximum Penalty and Life of Agony.

Those kinds of sound elements are intentional for sure. We always try to mix it up and plan to keep experimenting with where our sound can go.” —JOSEPH SCHAFER

PHOTO BY KENNY SAVERCOOL

END IT

It’s Baltimore’s other fast-rising hardcore act that should be on your radar

KËKHT ARÄKH

Ukrainian black metaller rejects murder/arson, embraces cloud rap/fun

I

want to give my listeners that feeling of being close to me,” Këkht Aräkh mainman Crying Orc says quietly over a latenight video chat. “I try to be close to my audience. I try to talk to people and answer messages as often as possible. It feels less underground. There are musicians like Sanguine Relic who don’t have any social media because they’re trying to be anonymous and stuff, and then there are those who want to be closer to the listeners who do social media. It isn’t often appreciated. I remember having a comment that black metal artists shouldn’t have an Instagram, which is funny. These days, all artists have their pages, especially hip-hop artists. This is why people love these artists—because they feel close to them.” ¶ Ukraine’s Këkht Aräkh, having recently made a surprise signing to Sacred Bones, is bringing a new type of black metal to the foreground. Representing a “new underground,” artists like Crying Orc prefer positivity and making a genuine connection with their fans to black metal’s canonical misanthropy.

24 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

“I think everything is different now, even though we’re doing the same music,” he says, “but we have a different approach. We’re no longer trying to be edgy. Back when those kids from Norway were making black metal, they were aggressive. Our community is more about having fun and coming up with something new. We’re just trying to break the rules to do something new. When you talk to elder musicians of the genre, they have a different mindset and approach.

You don’t understand them and they don’t understand you.”

It’s important to remember that Këkht Aräkh is more than a social approach; it is a powerful and uniquely emotive project. Drawing from unexpected sources, Crying Orc’s stylistic fusion and differing sources of inspiration result in a calmer, more understated type of black metal.

“I wanted Këkht Aräkh to be quite far from the metal community;

not only metal, but other styles of music itself,” he explains. “I’m just taking some inspiration from black metal artists that I really like, like Darkthrone and Ulver, but I don’t really listen to any other black metal. It’s a rare occasion [that] I’d rather listen to the same old stuff.

I wanted it to be more calm and listener-friendly, so to say. I find this similar to emo or gothic stuff, but also I am influenced a lot by the hip-hop scene; for example, a collective called Drain Gang (Yung Lean, Bladee). I was really into cloud rap, and I wanted to make something that would consist of the black metal and cloud rap. I am also inspired by my personal experience and visions on life. The music represents my temper, and that’s it. Black metal is either too aggressive to me or was lacking something, and at some point, I decided to make my version of black metal that would suit me.”

—JON ROSENTHAL

PHOTO BY VASYL MAIDYBOR

KËKHT ARÄKH

ESCUELA GRIND

ESCUELA GRIND New England extremists still blast, but with dance moves in mind

T

hings are heating up for New England crew Escuela Grind. Following a handful of EPs and splits, plus an LP, the now-quartet are seeing the fruits of their labor. Last September, they entered the renowned GodCity Studio with Converge’s Kurt Ballou to track their second album, Memory Theater. It was the first time the band worked with someone of Ballou’s stature, but after a reassurance from Full of Hell frontman Dylan Walker—who assured the band that the engineer makes things “idiot-proof”—drummer Jesse Fuentes says the process was simple. ¶ He attributes part of that to the band’s use of at-home recording, which allowed Escuela Grind to really refine their songs for the first time. ¶ “It afforded us the ability to hear how we sound live, and we were able to analyze and rewrite if we wanted to,” Fuentes says from the band’s recent European tour. “We heard so many different versions of these songs, and even grafted a couple of songs into one [mid-album crusher ‘All Is Forgiven.’]” ¶ Memory Theater heavily features Escuela Grind’s increased flirtations with slower hardcore breakdowns.

26 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

Fuentes says it was a conscious choice as a result of the band’s pandemic entertainment, not to mention a desire for the members to reconnect with their roots in heavy music.

“Over the pandemic, we religiously watched a bunch of videos from Hate5six and IDB Fest, and just love the dance element,” he enthuses. “Everyone in the band is a hardcore kid at heart, so we just decided that we wanted to create a fun environment for people to dance however they feel.”

Ballou’s burly, metallic production complements the change in direction, putting a weight behind the music that the band has never had before. In the case of Escuela Grind, slowing down forced them to become more thoughtful about their songwriting. Songs like “Forced Collective Introspection” and “Strange Creature of Nothingness” feature some of the quartet’s most memorable riffs, even if they only last for

a second before being swallowed by a raging blast.

Escuela Grind’s second album came together over the pandemic when the members were unemployed or sporadically hustling, affording them the time to build slowly. That doesn’t mean the band will slow down—they’ve already got a new EP called Ddeeaatthhmmeettaall in the can, and Fuentes is already thinking toward its release.

After coming off of a tour with sludge institution Eyehategod, Escuela immediately embarked on their first European tour, including a slot on heavy-weirdo fest Obscene Extreme, and have plans in the books for a U.S. tour to support Memory Theater. Amidst the chaos, they don’t forget to take time to dream. The ultimate goal?

In Fuentes’ own words: “Sell. The. Fuck. Out.” Followed by a world tour, of course. —VINCE BELLINO

PHOBOPHILIC

PHOBOPHILIC

Midwest death metallers fight darkness with darkness

D

eath metal isn’t exactly a style of music known for its optimism. Sure, stage-diving is fun, but records like Slowly We Rot and Altars of Madness don’t exactly scream “positive mental outlook.” ¶ Fargo, ND death metallers Phobophilic are flipping that script on their first album, Enveloping Absurdity, which embraces existentialist philosophy in its lyrics while at the same time embracing the churningbut-groovy side of old-school death metal. ¶ “I rejected religion at a young age and was searching for hope and purpose outside of dogma. That’s how I came across existentialism,” says drummer Vincent Tweten. “I hope to set us apart by using these themes not just to address the terror, but also to inspire some hope.” ¶ Which isn’t to say that Phobophilic sound particularly major-key. Murk and mayhem are still the order of the day. “I would definitely describe the message of the album as uplifting, but I don’t expect everyone to get that from it,” he continues. “In order to be uplifting, you must first address the very real problems that come with being alive and self-aware.

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I think death metal can be an incredible tool to highlight the depths of despair and pain, but we can’t be satisfied with it ending there.”

The most inspiring thing about Enveloping Absurdity, though, is how musically accomplished it is.

Though the band formed six years ago and has released two demos, an EP and a split single with Canadians Sedimentum, Phobophilic’s longgestating debut showcases a band with a fully formed identity.

“We come from a hardcore background, so to write for this band was quite a shift,” says guitarist Josh Poer. “There’s been a recurring theme with all our releases that the material is always a little bit beyond our playing capabilities at the time of writing it. With each release, we’ve been able to improve our songwriting and approach. I think in that way it’s been beneficial

that it’s taken so long to write our first full-length. We’ve had plenty of time to really find a sound that we like and refine it.”

According to Poer, Enveloping Absurdity also proves that he and his bandmates are just beginning to spread their tentacles in terms of sound: “There was a lot of focus on expanding elements we’d already introduced in our previous releases and taking them further, especially in regard to the use of melody and dynamics. We also wanted to make sure that what we wrote was satisfying as an album and not just a collection of songs that didn’t have much to do with each other.

This was our first real attempt at incorporating influences outside of metal, and I want this album to set the musical precedent that we aren’t beholden to any particular influence.” —JOSEPH SCHAFER

HIVE

HIVE

Minneapolis metallic punk blasters are unironically in the eye of every storm

S

ummer is a special beast. A time of year where the planet reminds us that we’ve been fucking with it a little too much and rewards us with unrelenting heat and violent weather. Recent summers have also been fraught with other man-made storms through some of the largest societal and cultural upheavals we’ve seen in generations. Being geographically in the middle of one of the most pivotal moments, Minneapolis’ Hive were moved to speak out, both sonically and verbally. ¶ “Hive has always been a ‘political’ band, though, lyrically, many of the themes end up wrapped in metaphor, as I believe art is most interesting when it takes some work to fully understand,” says vocalist/guitarist Morgan Carpenter. “As people, we all stand with the fight for racial equality and in the wake of [George] Floyd’s killing, Minneapolis had a global spotlight put on it. I felt that the world looked at our city for its reaction—both legally and judicially, but also in how the arts community reacted. While I would never pander to an audience or want to be interpreted as insincere, 30 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

I felt that as a band in Minneapolis, it was important to make our stance clear that we stood with our community.”

Hive’s third album (and first for Translation Loss), Spiritual Poverty, helps capture the bleakness that a lot of us have felt the last few years.

Writes Carpenter, “In a nutshell, the overarching theme is mental illness. There are several perspectives I take in the lyrics to the songs— these being personal (both as the sufferer, and the support of the sufferer), political (the financial industry created and propped up by the medical industry to treat it) and historical (songs which are merely historical accounts of the conditions in which mental illness was treated in the 1700-1900s, and the many now disproven methods thought to remedy it). In all regards, no song is meant to be seen as a ‘solution’ to anything—plainly because there isn’t one. The songs are merely collections of experiences and a

way to artistically shit them out.

There is so much bullshit in the world in the last several years that it seems like I can’t not write about it, but also am completely unable to solve it either.”

Spiritual Poverty is a nine-song metallic hardcore rager in the tradition of Cursed (whose vocalist, Chris Colohan, recorded with Carpenter as Oxygen Tank last year), later Integrity and the Banner. Delivering D-beats aplenty (mixed with crushing guitars and caustic vocals) since 2014, Hive have stood tall with their peers, and have created a fucking monster of a record.

Bassist/vocalist Jim Adolphson sums it up beautifully: “I just want people to know that we mean it. We collectively poured 100 percent of ourselves into this record both on a creative level and an emotional level, and it was something we needed to make for ourselves. It is a true collaboration between four best friends.” —NEILL JAMESON

A BHOR R E N T OB SE S SION

CONAN

CONAN

Liverpool earthshakers regain their rhythm

S

ome musicians relished the forced slowdown of the early pandemic lockdowns, reveling in the chance to dive deeper into their creative practices to see what they might find. You can put Conan’s Jon Davis in the other group. ¶ “It drove me ’round the bend, honestly. I hated it,” the guitarist and vocalist for the U.K. doom brigade says of the break. “We’ve always got ideas. It’s quite a natural thing for us to come up with an album quickly. Writing and releasing an album every couple of years has been a nice rhythm for us. So, to be knocked out of that rhythm was just maddening.” ¶ Indeed, the fifth Conan LP, Evidence of Immortality, comes after a four-year layoff—twice as long as any other gap in the band’s discography. Conan are a stridently live-in-the-room kind of band, but the U.K.’s travel bans kept drummer Johnny King, who lives in Dublin, away from Davis and bassist Chris Fielding. That led to very un-Conan experiments, like Davis writing riffs to a programmed drum track and Fielding emailing ideas he recorded on an electronic drumkit.

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, Evidence of Immortality has a bit of a different feel than 2018’s rushed-by-design Existential Void Guardian.

“Existential Void Guardian, we’d just been on tour in Europe,” Davis says.

“Johnny stayed with us, and we went straight into the studio and recorded them there and then. We basically went from having a riff or two to having the album recorded in basic form in a couple of weeks.

So, the songs are more lived-in on Evidence of Immortality, for sure.”

A sterling illustration of that lived-in quality can be found in the 14-minute album closer, “Grief Sequence.” It’s the first Conan song of its kind, a meandering, psychedelic instrumental that augments Davis’ doom riffs with Floydian planetarium synths and Goblin-esque horrorscore atmosphere, all courtesy of friend and collaborator Dave Perry.

For Davis, it was the most fun he had during the recording process.

“I was in the live room with a full stack and a half, everything blisteringly loud, and it was just like, ‘Yeah, this is amazing,’” he says.

“That for me was really cathartic, just playing super loud in the sterile environment that you have when you’re recording an album. Being able to bathe in this feedback and noise felt like a real release for me.”

More typical Conan-isms abound elsewhere on the album, and they’re also in fine form. Opening track “A Cleaved Head No Longer Plots,” titled after a Norse proverb, sets the album on its warpath of slow, heavy doom riffage. “Equilibrium of Mankind” is a slightly off-kilter crusher, while the pitopening “Ritual of Anonymity” sets their nasty sludge to a pummeling D-beat pattern. Davis may have hated waiting four years to release Evidence of Immortality, but he came back with the most satisfying Conan album to date. —BRAD SANDERS

DISSECTION – THE SOMBERLAIN. RECORDED AT UNISOUND STUDIOS IN 1993, NOW RE-MASTERED BY DAN SWANÖ.

VINTERLAND WELCOME MY LAST CHAPTER

STRÖM STRÖM

ENTOMBED – DCLXVI TO RIDE, SHOOT STRAIGHT AND SPEAK THE TRUTH

ENTOMBED MORNING STAR

ORDER FROM: SOUNDPOLLUTION.SE

of March 2020, the number of sourdough loaves that have been baked, podcasts started, cover versions remotely collaborated on and Zoom meetings held have been more than anyone could have ever imagined (or wanted). Bloodbath vocalist Ol’ Nick looks at that landscape and laughs both ironically and in frustration. That’s because the man you know best as Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes had his entry to the How Did You Spend the Pandemic? guestbook involve as many doctor’s visits as loaves baked, podcasts casted, songs covered and pants-less team meetings chaired. ¶ “I was lifting this heavy box into my cellar and heard something pop,” he begins. “I thought, ‘What the fuck was that?!’ The next day it was very obvious I’d fucked my back. So, I’ve spent the last year and a half trying to figure out what’s wrong. Whenever I could go out of the house, I’ve been in and out of doctor’s offices, doing scans and seeing specialists. I’m usually very much into fitness—cycling and running—and I’ve had to slow that down almost to a halt, and that’s pissed me off. It’s a bit of an old man complaint, but I’m still fucked.

“Between 14 and 21 years old were probably the best times of my life, and it hasn’t really gotten any better since then, and it’s unlikely to at this point,” Holmes laughs, although his cynical statement isn’t solely about his lumbar mystery. He’s more so referring to the 34 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

discovery of death metal, how it shaped his life and how, even as a half-century-aged gent, he keeps coming back to holler, bellow and growl about a “Zombie Inferno,” “Putrefying Corpse” and “Tales of Melting Flesh,” as on latest fulllength, Survival of the Sickest.

“During that period, we were all massive fans of death metal, which was a new thing,” Holmes explains. “It blew our minds and had a massive impact, and with such a passion for it, even if you walk away, it’s going to come back and get you at some point. That’s what happens with people as they get older: They start thinking about when they were most happiest and start going to gigs again,” He laughs again: “It’s just about the old-school sound. With death metal now, the younger bands have had and use a lot of different influences than what we had. There are a million bands now—when we were young, there were like seven bands—and there’s a classic nostalgia to the sound of old Sepultura, old Death, the old Florida bands. Bloodbath is a tipping of a hat to that and why it formed in the first place.”

Survival of the Sickest is album number six, a remarkable feat for a band that started as a side project of members of Opeth, Katatonia and Edge of Sanity, and, as such, was quickly tagged as a supergroup. Supergroup status has been maintained over the years even as members have come and gone (including Mikael Åkerfeldt, Dan Swanö

and Peter Tägtgren, amongst other Swedish luminaries), with the second guitar position now held down by Tomas Åkvik from up-and-coming HM-2 abusers Lik. The geographically astute amongst you will note that Holmes is the lone non-Swede at Bloodbath & Beyond. Despite drummer Martin Axenrot’s spot being filled by Paradise Lost’s Waltteri Väyrynen at recent festival dates (and his absence from promo photos), Holmes assures us that “Axe” is still a member, even if he hasn’t personally seen him in three years—which bodes complicated when you’re putting an album together during a global shutdown.

“COVID just dragged the process out and added two years to everything,” he says. “The drums were recorded a year before I did the vocals. I was supposed to go to Sweden a couple times, but I couldn’t until I managed to get over in November ’21. The bulk of [guitarist] Anders’ [Nyström, Katatonia] songs were done with him writing the music and him and I working on the vocals by firing versions back and forth and editing the vocals until they fit. [Bassist] Jonas [Renkse, Katatonia] wrote three or four on this one, and with him you get complete songs: vocals, lyrics,

music, everything’s done, and when I get in the studio, I just sing it how he’s done it with very little difference. Tomas came in and wrote the first song and single, ‘Zombie Inferno,’ and it’s quite a good introduction to the band.”

“The only explanation is because we’re applying for visas from different countries, at one go, under one hood,” Holmes reasons.

“Also, it used to be that you could get a visa for a year and just go at it. Like, I would get my

That’s what happens with people as they get older: They start thinking about when they were most happiest

AND START GOING TO GIGS AGAIN. – NICK HOLMES

In addition to dragging out the creative process, Holmes suspects being surrounded by Swedes is responsible for the complicated relationship between Bloodbath and U.S. bureaucracy. Most recently, this led to the band being unable to secure visas for an American tour last spring, and it has been the cause of the cancellation of two previously planned North American runs dating back to 2017.

visa through Paradise Lost and do Bloodbath stuff off that visa. But now, I’ve been told, you have to itemize and reapply for each trip separately, which makes things a little trickier.

[This time] the visas just didn’t come back in time, and we applied super early as well. But we’re going to try again, keep trying and get there eventually, even if I have to go and get Swedish citizenship!”

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2022 : 35

DESPITE LONG DELAYS, THE HEAVY ROCK SOUNDS OF

SUMERLANDS’

SOPHOMORE LP ARE TIMELESS

A

STORY BY ADRIEN BEGRAND // PHOTO BY JACLYN WOOLLARD

rthur Rizk is name familiar to Decibel readers as one of the finest and most prolific producers in underground metal, but the Phillybased artist is quickly building a résumé that includes such higherprofile acts as Soulfly, Kreator and industrial rap phenom Ghostemane.

The more work he’s gotten, the more he’s been able to hone his skills, which in turn improves the sound of his own band Sumerlands. “My technical skills over the course of the last four years got a lot sharper from being put with bigger and bigger bands as time went on,” he says. “When it came time to make a record that I wanted to be more album-oriented rock, like a Foreigner record, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish that in 2015.”

Six years in the making, Dreamkiller is the follow-up to 2016’s self-titled debut, and is a quantum leap, jumping back to ’70s AOR and early-’80s metal and bouncing forward to present day, yielding a pitch-perfect celebration of the sounds that not only feels current, but

CR TO EE C ILB E L 36 : O AP I LB 2E0R2 21 0:2D2 E:CDI B

would also fit like a studded leather gauntlet alongside anything on the Stranger Things soundtrack. “If I was going to put stuff up on the vision board, it would’ve been Lionel Richie, [the] Miami Vice soundtrack, Blue Öyster Cult, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Dionne Warwick,

Earth Wind & Fire, Elton John [and] Funkadelic,” Rizk says. “Also, Warlord is one of my favorite bands of all time, and earlier this year we covered my favorite song of all time, ‘Lost and Lonely Days.’ Bill Tsamis was a fucking genius, and there would be no Sumerlands if it wasn’t for Warlord.

“Those were the sounds that I was pulling from,” he adds. “A mixture of ’70s and ’80s rock, soft R&B, synth stuff. I’m metal-obsessed, but sometimes when I’m recording aggressive music 100 hours a week, I want to listen to something mellow. The Bee Gees are one of my favorite bands of all time. But I didn’t want this to be a ‘retro’ rock record. I still wanted to take those influences and put it through the Sumerlands meat grinder: buzzsaw guitars, simple song structures, but with more technical guitar parts.”

You hear Rizk’s uncanny talent for ’80s metal subtlety and ambience throughout Dreamkiller.

As he says, “A lot of bands don’t go beyond the influence of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Back then people were more influenced by baroque things. Even [Giorgio] Moroder and ABBA were influenced by classical music. It’s darker than the average pop stuff.”

Four decades ago, bands offset upbeat moments with melancholy, brooding atmosphere, whether Dokken (“Unchain the Night”), Metallica (“Call of Ktulu”) or even Ratt (“Lay It Down”), and Rizk’s use of keyboards and vocal

melodies give the album a sonic depth that few bands in the current “traditional metal” revival are capable of.

As for why it took so long to come out, Rizk says it’s a combination of logistics, the real world and massive tragedy. “It was mostly written by the end of 2018” he explains. “We were starting to demo with Phil [Swanson, vocalist] and then Phil quit, and at first, I didn’t think we should continue, as me and Phil had started the band as a project by two friends. But then Brendan Radigan came in the mix. The new record was mostly done, and then the pandemic hit.

“While I was putting the finishing touches on it, one of my best friends ever, Riley [Gale] from Power Trip, passed away. I received the phone call while I was doing the solos for the record, and afterwards every time I went back to work on it, I kept getting a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’d get anxious, and I stayed away from it for a while. We wrapped up the album probably a year after that happened, and then there were the pressing plant delays that everyone’s been experiencing, because we all need three million more copies of Bat Out of Hell.

So, we’re about three years late.” [Laughs] Radigan’s formidable tenor, which dominated some stellar records by doom stalwarts Magic Circle, is perfectly suited to Dreamkiller’s aesthetic. “We’d been friends for over a decade at that point, says Rizk. “Every time we would

play with Magic Circle, I would be in awe of how crazy good a singer he is. I asked Phil what he thought, and he was psyched. He said, ‘I’m more like Paul Di’Anno and Brendan would be our Bruce Dickinson.’”

Dreamkiller is so strong that it’s difficult to avoid clamoring for more new music from Rizk and Sumerlands, but Rizk is at a point in his life and career to take things as they come. Eager as listeners can be—especially metal nerds—folks will just have to be patient. Based on how strong this album is, and how much it outclasses an

already accomplished debut, the next one could be something even more special.

“If shit pops off, we’re open to doing stuff,” he says, “but everybody knows that my heart is in producing, and the band is for us to do because we fucking love doing it. We’re not competitive; we just wanted to make the record happen. Just chillin’. With Sumerlands, I can’t set a schedule.

Whenever the next moment of inspiration happens, I’ll write the record in a couple weeks. It could be later this year; it could be four years from now.”

I DIDN’T WANT THIS TO BE A ‘RETRO’ ROCK RECORD. I STILL WANTED TO TAKE THOSE INFLUENCES AND PUT IT THROUGH THE SUMERLANDS MEAT GRINDER:

BUZZSAW GUITARS, SIMPLE SONG STRUCTURES, BUT WITH MORE TECHNICAL GUITAR PARTS. ARTHUR RIZK

D E CDI B EE C ILB:EOL C: TAOPBREIR L 2022 1 : 37

for the

BEHEMOTH’s

own Neo-Spartacus, NERGAL, forever wields Satan as his shield story by DEAN BROWN photo by OSCAR SZRAMKA

OP CR TO EE C ILB E L 38 : A I LB 2E0R2 21 0:2D2 E:CDI B

P

eople must realize that it’s fucking nuts for art to have rules. There’s no rules, absolutely. Plus, if it makes your life painful—I’m talking about art— if it fucking cuts your ear, bleeds your heart out and rapes your thoughts or mind, and you’re having a hard time dealing with it or it just gives you those sleepless nights or nightmares... bang! Raison d’être. This is why we live.” ¶ The pandemic certainly did not quell Adam “Nergal” Darski’s infernal flame. Today, the Behemoth black/death metal maestro is as animated an artist as ever—a singular, provocative force in contemporary heavy music. ¶ “I’m not here to fucking make everyone happy and smiley,” a defiant Nergal states. “No, I’m here to beat the fuck out of you, man. I’m here to make you think. And at the end of the day, you’re gonna hate me or you’re gonna question things. Very good. Do it. Do it! But fucking use your brain! Think for yourself! Don’t go with the current, you know?”

While Nergal’s signature ire against herd mentality will come as no surprise to the devoted Behemoth congregation, the Polish polymath admits that prior to the 2020 lockdown cage closing around him, his relentless spark had left him near burnout. At the beginning, pandemic respite helped recovery, but since he’s such a restless creative, the relaxation eventually started to feel like a period of stagnation.

“That started bothering me more and more,” Nergal confirms. “It came to the point that I wasn’t feeling well; probably was on the verge of some depressive episode. I went to a psychologist, started working on my mental state and found peace. I needed to survive those times and come out of it alive and still motivated, and still ready to fucking go.”

An internally recalibrated Nergal put his focus into Behemoth’s exquisitely cinematic livestream events and, in tandem with his longstanding co-conspirators, crafted the fittingly titled Opvs Contra Natvram. From “Post-God Nirvana”’s aphotic opening ceremonialism to the blackened punk of “Malaria Vvlgata,” bombastic Luciferian hymn “The Deathless Sun,” anthem of rebellion “Neo-Spartacvs” and the post-punk thrust of “Once Upon a Pale Horse” (an arenashaker that now stands beside “Bartzabel” as the

band’s catchiest song), Behemoth’s 12th studio LP presents 10 distinctive tracks that form a dynamic yet cohesive whole, with its sequencing studiously deliberated and its production organically resounding.

According to Nergal, however, doom-laden first single “Ov My Herculean Exile” received some criticism from “fans”—you know, the ones that don’t buy any records, merch or tickets to shows, but instead spit bile down their double-chins online 24/7? “There were voices going, ‘Oh, someone cut their balls! Where’s the Behemoth we know? Where’s Evangelion? Where’s this, where’s that?’ I was [thinking] like, ‘Hold on, kids. Just wait for the record. This record is frantic, it’s berzerk. Just wait and see.’ Of course, there’s parts that are big and epic and monumental, and I wanted them to be that, but I think it’s a more extreme and radical record than I Loved You at Your Darkest, which is cool because it’s different.”

Further online furor has bled into the new album’s themes, with the grandiose closing power of “Versvs Christvs” being a prime example. “When you pay attention to the lyrics on ‘Versvs Christvs,’ when I scream out the words, ‘Stone Shakespeare for the heresy of his crimes.’

Okay, so what does that mean?” he asks.

“I heard that there were modern kids in university somewhere that refused to read Shakespeare because he’s passé. That he should be canceled culturally. Because he was a misogynist.

He was brutal. When I heard that I was like, ‘That’s not real. That’s not happening.’ Yes, it is happening. There’s hardly any space for nuances in literature, in art, in anything—everything is fucking black and white now. There’s hardly any space for satire anymore. Everything should be labeled. There is no in-between. There is no gray spot, you know? ‘Hey, guys, how about I just made a mistake?’ ‘We don’t care. Canceled! Boom!

Delete.’ That’s how it works these days.”

In addition to “Versvs Christvs”’s condemnation of perceived cancel culture, the nonconformist themes underpinning the aforementioned “Neo-Spartacvs” also speak to the presentday, universal and more direct lyricism at play throughout this record. “[‘Neo-Spartacvs’] exists to spark rebellion, to trigger your creativity, your deep inner senses, and to just put you in motion,” Nergal passionately explains. “Don’t stagnate—fucking run for your life, fight for your freedoms.

“And there’s many things these days that we must be vocal about. And I do that at Behemoth shows: I shout out to women’s rights. And I know there’s people out there who go, ‘What the fuck? He’s supposed to growl and scream about Satan while raping angels.’ Raping angels is fun, man—abso-fucking-lutely! I’m the biggest fan of that, no question, and I’ll certainly do it again.” [Laughs] “But we are in this together,” he says on a more serious note, “and that is very important to make people alert to [women’s rights] problems. You know, these are basic freedoms that are being taken away from us, from our wives, daughters and mothers. And I use this platform to [raise these issues] because I think it’s worth it—I think it’s needed. And because my balls are telling me to shout out to women’s rights!” [Laughs]

There is no in-between. There is no gray spot, you know?

‘Hey, guys, how about I just made a mistake?’

‘WE DON’T CARE. CANCELED! BOOM! DELETE.’ That’s how it works these days.

Nergal

D E CDI B EE C ILB:EOL C: TAOPBREIR L 2022 1 : 39

MACHINE HEAD

get their groove back on their first concept record story by

J E F F T R E P P E L //

ONE

photo by

T R AV I S S H I N N

and

of the hazards of writing music reviews is that the

band you’re critiquing may read the thing. It especially sucks when the review is: a) negative, and b) for a band you love. My review in these very pages for Machine Head’s 2018 release Catharsis incensed founding vocalist/guitarist Robb Flynn so much that he posted the text on the band’s social media along with a few choice obscenities aimed at me. “You blasted us, so I had to blast you back,” Flynn laughs, four years and some water under the bridge later. ¶ Admittedly, my write-up contained some factual screw-ups (for some reason I remembered their 1999 nü-metal move being called The Bleeding Red, not The Burning Red), an attempted joke about the song “Triple Beam” that fell flat and a mean-spirited tone that I regret. A revisit shows that my “shrug emoji” rating may have been overly harsh, but at the time the album felt like a letdown after their triumphant three-album renaissance that began with 2007’s The Blackening. Thankfully, Flynn’s 10th outing with his legendary groove metal act, Øf Kingdøm and Crøwn, feels like a band refreshed.

The key pieces to the album’s success came from some unusual places, however.

40 : O AP CR TO I LB 2E0R2 21 0:2D2 E:CDI B EE C ILB E L

PA U L H A R R I E S Soon after the release of Catharsis, longtime guitarist Phil Demmel and drummer Dave McClain exited the picture. A brief 25th anniversary reunion with Burn My Eyes musicians Logan Mader and Chris Kontos got scuttled by the pandemic, but reminded Flynn of the appeal of simpler, more direct vocal lines. Due to lockdown restrictions, Flynn tapped session drummer Navene Koperweis (ex-Animals as Leaders, Whitechapel) to sit behind the kit; MH drum tech Matt Alston will handle permanent duties. His choice for his guitar partner, however, proved much more surprising: Wacław “Vogg” Kiełtyka, the head of Polish death metal act Decapitated. Who lives in Poland. Combined with COVID restrictions, that necessitated a new way of working.

“When the pandemic hit, it was pretty strict in California, so I was the only person allowed in

[Decibel] blasted us,

SO I HAD TO BLAST YOU BACK. R O B B F LY N N

the studio,” Flynn explains. “The building owner would let me in because it was mine. I would just come down here and write, then email stuff to Jared [McElhearn, bassist]. Vogg and Matt live elsewhere, so I would just send them ideas. With Vogg, I’d be like, ‘I don’t know what to do with this song, just finish it,’ and he’d send something back. We did a lot of that. Which is kind of unusual; I did miss jamming, but I know a lot of younger death metal bands, that’s what they do. They just email riffs around. So, we would do that and then the songs started coming together, and the next thing you know, we started having the beginnings of a record.”

That record turned out to be the first concept album in the group’s career. Flynn’s always had a soft spot for concept albums. Over our Zoom call, he mentions how he used to take acid and listen to Pink Floyd’s The Wall—but it was a different chemical that sparked Øf Kingdøm And Crøwn. My Chemical Romance, actually.

“The concept came a little bit later, I want to say around the time of the pandemic,” he says.

“My wife and I got hammered one night and we were listening to My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, which is a record that we love. She always makes fun of me because I’m the worst lyric listener ever. I always fuck up the lyrics when I’m singing along to a song. She’s like, ‘You’re a singer, how do you fuck up the lyrics?’

So, she sang a bunch of the words—the correct lyrics—from their record. Then she was like, ‘You should do a concept record.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. It sounds very lofty.’ But she broke

down the story behind each song for me, and I was like, ‘That’s really cool—I’ll give it a shot.’”

Meanwhile, the concept itself—a post-apocalyptic piece set in a world with crimson skies, which chronicles the intersecting lives of two men dealing with violent losses by perpetuating more violence—came together because of Flynn reconnecting with an old love.

“It’s not about Attack on Titan, but it was inspired by the series in that I started watching that series with my sons—they got crazy about anime over the pandemic—and I used to be a super anime nerd,” he notes. “The part that was fascinating to me about Attack on Titan was that there was no good guy or bad guy. When I originally started writing this, it was a very American story arc: good guy, bad guy, good guy wins. And I was struggling with it. I didn’t like it. It just sounded corny to me.

“The idea that both of them could believe that they were good, but both be evil was fascinating,” he continues. “And trying to get into each person’s mind, it was liberating. It didn’t have to be my thoughts. I’m not writing about things that are happening now. I’m writing about things that are in the future that’s a story. From a creative standpoint, it was awesome.”

With devastating songs like “Slaughter the Martyr” (which Flynn describes as the linchpin that allowed the rest of the album to click into place) and “Kill Thy Enemies,” his creative rejuvenation shines through on Øf Kingdøm and Crøwn.

Whatever you may think of its predecessor, this record restores Machine Head to the throne.

A musical experience never heard before, somewhere between classic, industrial & extreme metal.

Frankfurt Ensemble Moderne performs „Oozing Earth“ by Austrian composer Bernhard Gander (pictured) with Attila Csihar (Mayhem) on vocals and Flo Mounier (Cryptopsy) on drums.

Will be available as heavy double vinyl and digipak CD.

PERISH „The Decline“ 90s area Scandinavian black/death metal transported to current time.

Ultra heavy deluxe box set.

For fans of Watain, Dissection or Wolves In The Throne Room.

Highly acclaimed debut album!

Video „Joyless“ now on youtube.com/supremechaos Preorder at supremechaos.de

DISTRIBUTED BY

PROMOTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY

supreme chaos records ∞ unique underground music supremechaos.de

D E CDI B EE C ILB:EOL C: TAOPBREIR L 2022 1 : 41

interview by

QA j. bennett

WI T H

MANTAS VENOM INC. guitarist on his autobiography, former bandmates and new album

42 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

I’LL

never move back to the U.K. That place is fucked.”

Have you set a deadline for yourself?

So says Venom Inc. guitarist Jeff “Mantas” Dunn when we ask him if he misses his old stomping grounds. As a former member of Venom, the legendary Newcastle trio that singlehandedly invented black metal—and coined the term on their legendary 1982 album, Black Metal—Mantas and his former mates Conrad “Cronos” Lant and Anthony “Abaddon” Bray took Motörhead’s punk-metal power trio brashness, injected a nearly fatal dose of satanic posturing and cranked it all up to about a thousand. And it was fucking awesome. Of course, the classic lineup went tits up in ’86 after the mixed bag that was 1985’s Possessed. ¶ But like all true heavy metal warriors, Mantas soldiers on. He’s been living in Portugal for the last eight years, making music and—no shit—running a cat sanctuary out of his home. His current band, Venom Inc., released their debut Avé in 2017. Abaddon was in the band until 2018, though he didn’t play on the album. That same year, Mantas suffered a massive coronary and was pronounced dead for five minutes. Today, he and vocalist/ bassist Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan (from Venom’s short-lived Prime Evil lineup) are back with American drummer Jeramie “War Machine” Kling and a new album called There’s Only Black. Did we mention that he’s been working on his autobiography? Well, he totally is. We recently caught up with our man via video chat from his home studio.

I’m always setting myself deadlines. With music, I hit deadlines all the time. But this is a completely different animal. A few people have suggested I get a ghost writer, but if I do that, it’s not me. I plan to do an audio version, which I’ll probably add even more information to, because that’s the way I am. Sometimes I don’t know when to put a fork in it. My girlfriend is always saying, “For fuck’s sake, will you just stop?” [Laughs] At the end of the day, I think it’ll be a good read. But I know two people who won’t like it at all.

What’s up with the cat sanctuary?

Speaking of these two guys who aren’t gonna like your book, it’s the 40th anniversary of Black Metal this year. You did a Facebook Live chat a few months back in which you said that the three of you should put your differences aside and reunite the classic lineup to play shows in celebration. Has any progress been made on that?

I’ve had cats since I was a kid, so I’m a cat person. Not long after my girlfriend and I arrived in Portugal, we were sitting at a local café at about 1 in the morning, chatting to some of the younger locals. One of them said that a friend’s cats just had kittens. He made a phone call, and at 1:15 we had a kitten. It’s grown from there—we’ve found them in the streets. There are cat lovers here, but a lot of people here see cats as vermin. If their cat has kittens, they end up thrown in the fucking dumpster or left to fend for themselves. So, we’ve taken in quite a few. We’ve got 21 at the moment. I do a Patreon every month, with a guitar playthrough of a song, a piece of artwork and some videos of memorabilia. Or I’ll read a chapter from the book I’m writing. Part of the proceeds go to another local cat sanctuary.

What’s the status of the book?

A lot of times I get asked to do interviews about Venom—not Venom Inc.—and the journalists tell me they’re not speaking to the other guy because he thinks he invented oxygen and shoes and all kinds of things. Honestly, mate, the pair of them have created an alternate reality. Years ago, I was in Japan doing a few shows, and I went out for a meal with an English journalist who was there. He made me promise to do the book so people can get the truth. I’ve made a PHOTO BY FERNANDO SER ANI

start, and honestly, it’s the hardest and most time-consuming thing I’ve ever done. It’s way harder than writing, mixing and mastering an album, like I’ve done with the new one. But I’ve got a few chapters done.

What can we expect?

I’ve made the book about my life’s journey, really. There’s a couple things that people will be surprised by. Of course, when I had a heart attack and died in the back of an ambulance— that’s a chapter. But at the end of the day, it’s all life experience and my thoughts on life.

And obviously, yes, it’s gonna have the Venom stories. And it’s gonna be the complete truth. A lot of Venom fans won’t like the book because of what I’m gonna say about other individuals. When you’re reading some of it, you might think, “Wow, this guy’s bitter.” But it’s not bitterness. It’s anger, sadness and disappointment. I actually say at one point in the book, “We had the world at our feet and we fucked it up.”

But the reason I’m taking so long is that I want it to be definitive. I think it’ll be an interesting read, I’ll put it that way. The chapters I’ve read on the Patreon, people seem to really like.

One of the best chapters is called “Legions of Iron and Steel,” and it’s completely written by the fans. The stories are incredible, some even involving military conflict.

What’s your main gripe with them?

It comes down to people believing their own press and not leaving their stage personas onstage. If you saw Arnold Schwarzenegger on the street dressed like the Terminator and carrying a gun, you’d think, nutcase. He’s playing a part, right? As musicians, that’s what we do. You wouldn’t know it, but I’m actually quite shy. Put me in a room full of people I don’t know and I’m useless. I’m an introvert at the end of the day.

But onstage I can let all that go. It’s a release.

But I couldn’t be like that 24/7. It’d drive me up the wall. You gotta separate it.

None. The thing with that statement was, it wasn’t an invitation to them. Venom Inc. are doing a lot of 40th anniversary shows, and we’re gonna do the songs justice. We’re doing the Alcatraz festival, Bloodstock, Keep It True and all these others. Keep It True is gonna be a Hammersmith Odeon show with the whole nine yards. The promoters are pulling out all the stops to recreate the stage from 1984. But what I had said was that every single motherfucker who’s been a part of this circus—the original lineup, the Prime Evil lineup with Tony Dolan, the Calm Before the Storm lineup with James Clare and Mike Hickey, the current lineup, Venom Inc.—if we all just put everything aside and got together to do a few songs from our era, culminating with the original lineup playing the classics, it would be a complete celebration of the band throughout the years. I said, “If you’ve got the fucking balls, get in touch with me.

You’ll get no apologies, but surely we could do something with this band that everyone says has been so influential.”

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2022 : 43

Company men  For Mantas (c) and the rest of Venom Inc., heavy metal isn’t just business, it’s personal

When I was a kid, I wrote some tunes in my room— in my mum’s house. And those tunes became Welcome to Hell and then Black Metal. I could barely play guitar at that point!

To have that much impact and not be able to celebrate the glorious chaos that was Venom is very sad. And chaos really is what it was. We didn’t have a clue what we were doing in those days. We were young guys who went from zero to hero overnight. We didn’t have to slog ’round the clubs or anything like that. It was like, make a single—that was received well! Make an album—fucking hell! We’re rehearsing in a shit church in the west end of Newcastle on a Saturday afternoon. The following Saturday, we’re in a sports hall in Belgium in front of 3,000 kids. Where the fuck did that come from?

Next thing we know, we’re going to America and there’s this little Bay Area band called Metallica coming down to support us. Then we took that little Bay Area band to Europe in 1984.

Then the Slayer and Exodus tour in ’85. And the amount of current bands that are like, “All hail Venom,” it still blows my mind. I can’t get my head ’round it. When I was a kid, I wrote some tunes in my room—in my mum’s house.

And those tunes became Welcome to Hell and then Black Metal. I could barely play guitar at that point!

In the past, you’ve said that people wouldn’t give Venom a second look if you came out today, because no one is shocked by anything anymore.

How does that attitude translate to Venom Inc.?

Do you have a sense that you need to deliver something different than the original Venom?

Well, let’s put it this way: The new album, There’s Only Black, speaks of man’s darkness. I honestly think that the days of people being shocked by devils and demons are long gone. The human 44 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

race is desensitized to every form of violence and horror. You can put CNN on and watch the most horrific scenes unfolding before your eyes.

Just last night I watched the footage that was released from the shooting in a school that you just had over there [in Uvalde, TX], and that was fucking horrible.

My favorite movie of all time is The Exorcist.

That shocked people in 1973. All the religious people were out against it and all that. But now we’ve got some idiot walking into a school with a fucking machine gun and killing kids. That’s far more evil than any demons and devils.

Unlike the first Venom Inc. album, you’ve got real drums on this one.

With Avé, we put Abaddon into the studio in Newcastle. I was in Portugal, so I sent all the files and stems and demos. He couldn’t even open the fucking emails. This is the absolute truth. I had the engineer send me everything from the end of each day. The first song he sent over was the title track, and honestly, I couldn’t recognize the song. My German colleague, who was editing the drums for us, got the same recordings.

He called me and said, “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” It went from that to worse, so we used programmed drums.

If he was sitting beside me right now, I’d tell you the same thing. I was writing the drum parts for him, using the same patterns from “Too Loud (for the Crowd)” and “Live Like an Angel” because I figured he could play that stuff. But no, he said the songs were too complicated and we’d never be able to play them live. Even [late Megaforce Records co-founder] Jon Zazula said it sounded like some 16-year-old kid having his first drum lesson. I’m not joking. So, you wanna know why he’s not in the band anymore? That’s

why. The other reason? Look at what he’s doing now. I shall say no more.

Seems fair to say you’re much happier with Jeramie Kling in the band, then.

It’s been an absolute joy having Jeramie in the band. When we came back after the pandemic, the first show we played was in France. We hadn’t even seen each other for nearly three years. We decided to put five new songs in the set without any rehearsals. One of the songs was the first single off the new album, “How Many Can Die.” The first time we played it was live, in front of an audience. Because everybody learned their parts. There’s a concept!

There’s some old-school-sounding stuff on There’s Only Black as well. Was that intentional?

There’s a track called “Inferno,” which I deliberately wrote to hark back to the old Venom style of writing. It’s a bit of a cross, musically, between “In League With Satan” and “The Seven Gates of Hell.” Lyrically, it’s very oldschool Venom. There’s even snippets of lyrics taken from old songs and tons of old references.

There’s also a song called “Tyrant,” which was written well before what’s happening now in the Ukraine, but it basically speaks about what has happened—the tyrannical warmongering. But it’s an anthem for the world. When we play it live, I’d love to see everybody’s hands in the air, but everyone’s hands joined.

I’m proud of the whole album. Tony and I have each written six songs, music and lyrics.

Tony’s stuff on this album is some of the finest he’s ever presented. I can’t wait for it to be out. There’s some stuff on there that you won’t expect, but there’s no ballads, so don’t worry about that!

PHOTO BY FERNANDO SERANI

You guys influenced Metallica and Slayer back in the ’80s, and Venom seems to have even wider influence these days. What’s your take on that?

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the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

Cult Classic the making of Immolation’s Unholy Cult OCTOBER 2022 : 4 6 : DECIBEL

by

chris dick

N

ew York death metal legends Immolation

are unbowed. Since their inception in 1988 (after a two-year stint as Rigor Mortis), the Yonkers-based outfit plied a baleful path to present that was defiantly distinct. Helmed by the ineffable yet affable twosome of Ross Dolan (vocals/bass) and Robert Vigna (guitars), Immolation have released 11 consummate fulllengths, with 1991’s Dawn of Possession serving as their ruthless yet storied first volley. Indeed, there are several albums in Immolation’s extremum corpus operis that are Hall of Fame contenders. Still, the herculean scales of the universe have (for now) centered on the group’s fifth full-length, Unholy Cult.

Released a year after the September 11th attacks on new label paradigm Olympic Records in North America and Listenable Records in Europe, Unholy Cult signaled shifts in Immolation’s tectonic death metal.

True, full-lengths like the aforementioned Dawn of Possession and follow-up malice Here in After (1996) were bellwethers for Unholy Cult, but it’s after the New Yorkers had settled into their scorched-wing ascent that they prevailed out of their early-career crucible positively resolute, creatively fecund and gravely heavy. Just as Immolation’s outlook on the world had changed, so too did the lineup. Longstanding guitarist Tom Wilkinson was out; replacing him was ex-Angelcorpse string-burner Bill Taylor. Taylor complemented riff fiend Vigna in style, sound and organization. He was the missing link. With the gifts of drummer Alex Hernandez, the newly re-edified Immolation pivoted artfully into the next chapter on Unholy Cult.

“Of Martyrs and Men,” “Sinful Nature,” “Bring Them Down” and the baronial, eight-minute title track were Immolation’s post-millennium advance.

The old had informed and inspired Unholy Cult, but the next chapter had begun. Dolan, Vigna, Taylor and Hernandez set out to show the world that death metal hadn’t diluted or wavered from its original potency.

Instead, under Immolation’s watch, the genre spawned tentacles nuanced, complex and flinty. Paul Orofino had also dialed in the production. After two stints with Failures for Gods (1999) and Close to a World Below (2000), the New Yorker found the right toolsets to capture Immolation as they crested the sonic wave. Decibel writer Shawn Bosler described Unholy Cult thusly in our 2012 special issue, Top 100 Death Metal Albums of All Time: “With Unholy Cult, there was a muchneeded sense of order and space—all the demonic forces that were spiraling through the previous few albums, sometimes in an overly clogged and semi-disorganized manner, were tethered and brought under the control of Dolan and Vigna’s grand dark visions.”

When Unholy Cult was released on October 28, 2002, Immolation’s esurient cadre was first greeted by Andreas Marschall’s provocative yet thought-provoking cover piece. Menacing yet expansive, the depth and detail of the painting mirrored Immolation’s death metal praxis. Between the struggle of light and dark, evil and good, Decibel welcomes New York’s finest into the Hall of Fame.

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IMMOLATION Unholy Cult

OLYMPIC/L IS T ENABL E OCTOBER 28, 2002

Wolves among the flock

D E C I B E L : 47 : O C T O B E R 2 0 2 2

D B H O F 2 14

IMMOLATION unholy cult

Unholy Cult was released 20 years ago. What thoughts come to mind?

Tell me how the September 11th attacks affected Immolation personally.

9/11 happened on a Tuesday afternoon.

Bob and I were down there by Thursday evening,

DOLAN:

“I knew the material I had written, but explaining it to others was always a bit of a challenge.

I remember having to tell Ross [Dolan] how certain parts would go over the phone.”

RO B E RT VIG NA donating stuff—flashlights, water—to the rescue workers and their dogs. Our story isn’t unique, though. When we went down there, the West Side Highway was completely lined up with ambulances from almost every state. The Javits Center was the drop zone for donations. That’s where we were, but we did try to get closer to the site to see what had happened, and there were people on every corner offering to help with anything. People thought we were police. Bob had an old Cutlass that looked like an unmarked car.

They were cheering us. The number of people that came together was unreal. So, we got within a block or two of the site. We saw it smoldering with all the lights on it. There was no power in lower Manhattan. I’ll never forget the image of that night. It affected my perception of everything—life, the world, you name it!

VIGNA: Seeing it for yourself so soon after it happened is something I’ll never forget.

TAYLOR: The last show for the Close to a World Below cycle was at the Wetlands in NYC, only two weeks before. I imagine it would be hard not to be influenced by something so unfathomable, especially in your backyard. So yeah, I always felt that there was a bit of a mournful tone in some of the riffs on that record because of that.

OCTOBER 2022 : 4 8 : DECIBEL

At the same time, you had the usual commentary on the shortcomings of humanity, which provoked some rather sharp and cutting moments.

But that’s just fuel for the beast.

HERNANDEZ: September 11th was an impactful day and a turning point in my life. We all knew someone who was there, in the buildings or the immediate area that day. The events of September 11th affected us all and absolutely showed up in the music. “Of Martyrs and Men” is a good example of that.

Describe the songwriting sessions.

VIGNA: Back then, I didn’t have a computer, so it was an interesting time. I didn’t start writing music on the computer until [2010’s] Majesty and Decay. I was later to the game than most. To me, writing on the computer was an eye-opening, amazing thing. It made things 1,000 times easier in every way possible. But back to Unholy Cult, I’d have to present ideas—especially the drum ideas with Alex—in real time. I knew the material I had written, but explaining it to others was always a bit of a challenge. I was always waving my hands. [Laughs] I remember having to tell Ross how certain parts would go over the phone.

Imagine that now! That said, we played the

PHOTO BY FRANK WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY

ROSS DOLAN: Unholy Cult came after 9/11. Much of what you see lyrically on that record shows a noticeable shift from previous records. There’s a shift lyrically because of 9/11. We were consumed with it at the time. That dictated the path we took lyrically and, I think, musically. I think it was the start of a new era—or turning point— for us. We had finished our contractual obligations with Metal Blade. Unholy Cult was the first time we had split our contracts with different labels. We signed with Olympic Records in the U.S. Then, we signed with Listenable for Europe.

Eventually, Olympic got absorbed into Century Media, so we became a Century Media act.

Marco Barbieri, who was at Century Media at the time and Metal Blade before that, was with us since the beginning. He was super-accommodating to us. Back in the day, he did the No Glam Fags [later Ill Literature] zine. His zine always supported us. He was one of the good ones you met along the way. I think on Unholy Cult we took different steps in different directions—lyrically, musically and on the business side. We had some lineup changes that were part of all that, too.

ROBERT VIGNA: The events of 9/11 definitely had a big effect on us. I will say, musically, everything affects me, though. There’s a bit more aggression, and some of the ideas are more twisted than before. It’s very dark and heavy, and it’s how I felt then.

BILL TAYLOR: I think that this is the moment where Immolation became more refined in purpose and design. By the end of the album cycle, the band had a stronger lineup, a more potent vision and a more militant vibe than ever before.

In a lot of ways, the Immolation you see today is a result of that period.

ALEX HERNANDEZ: My first thought is how pleased I am that Unholy Cult is still remembered and valued 20 years later. Looking back on the record, I recall how the writing and recording process was organic and fluent. Bob, Ross and I were on the same wavelength and locked into the production of the record. Bob would bring riffs and ideas, and we would start from there.

As we went along, each song brought more momentum, and they grew in intensity. For hours, days and weeks, [we were] sculpting and refining each riff with the goal of creating music we would like to hear as fans of death metal.

By this point, I had developed my style, and my chops toolbox was strong. We were able to create without limits collectively.

D B H O F 2 14

IMMOLATION unholy cult

songs until we got them down. Pretty sure they were jammed the way I had written them, but we did record on a boombox so I could relisten and adjust where I needed to. It was very handson back then.

DOLAN: We’d rehearse at Tom [Wilkinson]’s old house. We had a little room there. We’d meet Alex every night after work. He’d take the train station from the city, and we’d meet up around 7 o’clock at night. This was pre-Ableton Live [digital audio workstation]. It was very tedious.

We’d constantly have to go over the material.

Every few days, we’d have to revisit it to make sure we had it down, or if we needed to change something, we could do so. Musically, though, I would say Unholy Cult is a mash-up of Close and Failures. It’s got the weirdness and trippiness of Failures, but it’s more together than Failures. It’s got the heaviness of Close. Unholy Cult is slightly more streamlined.

TAYLOR: Sometimes it can take a bit for Bob to get rolling, but once that happens, some pretty wild shit comes out. It took years of playing with him to understand where those riffs come from, the shape of them, and whatnot. He’s got a pretty different approach to things, so he comes up with some really interesting stuff.

Were the songs written expressly for Unholy Cult?

Never, ever leftover material! [Laughs] Agreed, Ross. I write until we have a record. That’s it. Everything I wrote for Unholy Cult was for Unholy Cult. I need a break when I’m done writing an Immolation album. Unholy Cult was no different. [Laughs] HERNANDEZ: We would have a set date for studio time with no songs written, but always between the booking of the studio and entering the recording sessions, we would bust ass and make it happen. In my tenure with Immolation, that was the way it worked. We never failed to deliver. It would be a stressful and exhausting process, but it always worked. If I could say anything about Immolation, it’s that we had the resilience to make things happen no matter what obstacles or adversities were in front of us. I believe that it is still their method and is a testament to hard work, commitment and passion for what they do.

DOLAN: VIGNA:

I remember the superlatives Bob used to describe it: darkest, heaviest, most dynamic Immolation material yet. Tell me about what separated Unholy Cult from Close to a World Below. It’s definitely direct.

VIGNA: With what we do, it’s hard to articulate it.

We’re still like 13 years old. We get very excited about what we do. When I get a song done, I’ll send it over to Ross. Then, it’s like a back-and-

forth between us—“Oh, this is fuckin’ dark!”; “No, it’s this part that’s fuckin’ heavy, man!”

We’re like kids. [Laughs] We’re always trying to be new and fresh, but it has to have a dark vibe. If I say anything about our music, it’s that it’s always going to be darker and heavier. That holds today.

TAYLOR: Well, isn’t that a fairly accurate assessment of every Immolation album? Artists should try to outdo themselves every time, not become complacent or contented with formula. So yes, it’s bigger, more bombastic and dripping with scorn, as it should be.

HERNANDEZ: Unholy Cult was the consistent next step in the evolution process that is Immolation.

It was a punch in the gut, intense, complex, and just as melodic as [it was] dissonant. The production was the best yet. Close to a World Below had many of the same elements, but with a touch more of a hypnotic effect from some of the more atmospheric riffs. Again, we were always searching for the music we wanted to hear.

The single “Of Martyrs and Men” was the focus track. What specifically stood out to you and the labels?

We recorded “Of Martyrs and Men” during the recording for the Bringing Down the World DVD on the Cradle of Filth European tour. We just edited the live footage to make a video—it made sense to release that song first for that reason. The song release was our choice, as it almost always is. Of course, the labels have their ideas, but I’m pretty sure for Unholy Cult, we were all on the same page. Not sure, but we don’t operate like most bands. We don’t hear the whole thing until it’s finished. This means I’m writing lyrics in the studio, and the outcome is still undecided, so we don’t have a lot of advanced marketing in our minds.

VIGNA: That’s right. We’re constantly making adjustments, layering and rewriting things in the studio. So, we hear things for the first time when it’s all done. That said, I think we probably had that song in mind as one of the first songs off Unholy Cult.

DOLAN:

Tell me more about the atmospheric aspects of Unholy Cult. I think the end of the title track is specifically moody and dark, but not bludgeoning.

Well, I’m always going for an ominous feel. That’s my style. Honestly, I’ll sit down with the guitar and play. When I hit something that strikes me, I’ll work on it. If it has an atmosphere, I’ll run with it if it’s dark. The title track is a good example of that, I think. “Unholy Cult” has many atmosphere-like things on it: the opening riff, the up/down build-up to the crescendo and the big ending. I probably knew it’d be the epic, the title track.

HERNANDEZ: The atmospheric aspects lent themselves to the complexity of the record overall.

Bob was the creator of the songs and we were the nurturers. We would jam for hours on each song VIGNA:

OCTOBER 2022 : 50 : DECIBEL

until it matured. Jamming with your bandmates creates the chemistry between the musicians that creates the soul of the songs. The soul of a song is the sum of all involved in its creation. It takes a village.

When did Bill Taylor come into the picture?

Bill did the record release show for Close at CBGB in 2000. Then, everything else after that for Close. I will say he was the right guy immediately after we played with him. The fit was right. Bill was also roommates with another close friend of ours, Robin Mazen, who plays bass in Gruesome and Castrator. She’s been around for a while and is just awesome! We saw her—at Milwaukee Metalfest, I think—as a three-piece.

We did the Euro tour with [John] McEntee and then a full U.S. tour. I remember Robin said to us, “You know, Bill’s got nothing going on?”

[Laughs] I think Bill was at the fest, and I think that was the first time we talked to him about it. So, Bill’s joining was about friends talking to friends about other friends. Bill was the real deal. He could play, and he was very organized.

He’s the reason we’re still playing a lot of older songs. He tabbed out everything!

TAYLOR: I came in back at Close to a World Below.

Angelcorpse had unceremoniously halted in May of 2000. After holding down the couch for a couple of months, the Mazen One [a.k.a. Robin Mazen] kinda picked me up and threw me at them. Who knew that it would stick? Anyway, I flew up to New York and tried out—which was sometime around the album’s release date— and somehow managed to be ready for the record release show on January 14, 2001. On tour, though, these were different times, so instantaneous information was not the norm, and most folks didn’t seem to notice that it was a different guy onstage than the guy in the CD booklet. I guess I had a similar vibe to Tom, so some people thought I was him. It was kinda funny. We’re only talking about like 80 shows for that album, but it gave me a lot of experience attempting to assimilate that Immolation style.

DOLAN:

Let’s go back to the lyrics. Tell me more about what was fueling the fire on Unholy Cult.

As I explained earlier, 9/11 was a major deal for us. Of course, we touched on topics we had dealt with in the past, but there was a whole new element to them on Unholy Cult. “Of Martyrs and Men” and “Unholy Cult” specifically came out of the 9/11 mindset. They were written because of what was happening in the world and what we saw down in the city. Those songs were part of the time. Not every song is the direct result of that—like “Reluctant Messiah” and “Rival the Eminent.” They do touch on religious themes. “Sinful Nature” is more a general topic.

“Bring Them Down” was inspired by a little prayer meeting the table next to us had at a diner outside Millbrook. They were holding

DOLAN:

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2022 : 51

D B H O F 2 14

IMMOLATION unholy cult Unholy Cult was Paul Orofino’s third Immolation production. What do you think Paul wanted to do differently from Failures for Gods and Close to a World Below?

 The Devil’s in the details

Initial sketches for what would become the cover illustration for Unholy Cult

hands and praying. We were like, “What the hell is going on here?!” [Laughs] I want to say that we’re not writing Satanic lyrics. If you look at the lyrics to Dawn, we were pretty clear we weren’t a Satanic band. Satan was almost always a metaphor or personification, an anti-hero.

We’re always about the struggle between dark and light, good and evil. Of course, we pinpoint the darker aspects of that struggle.

VIGNA: The lyrics are intentionally broad. There are themes, but the lyrics can be read in ways that the same readers will come to different conclusions.

TAYLOR: Take a look around. There’s always bogusness in the world, and that pisses everyone off. I mean, purveyors of deception and manipulation are all around us; they always have been.

Corruption is merely a byproduct of progress, so it worms its way into so many aspects of our existence that we scarcely notice it. So yeah, a lot of ugly shit has been associated with religion and cults, so there is no shortage of criticism there.

Unholy Cult was the fifth Andreas Marschall cover.

There’s not an ounce of joy in that painting.

VIGNA:

We presented the idea to him. The church

is a symbol of religion in general. The church casts a shadow over the world, and to relay that in a painting is a bit difficult. He articulated that idea. The wolf in the shadow is an idea taken from “Wolf Among the Flock.” The wolf is coming out of the dark that’s laid across the landscape. The cover came out amazing!

DOLAN: It wasn’t easy to articulate. [Laughs] If you look at the church, it’s made up of souls and bodies. The shadow reflects the shadow that religion—the fundamentalist side of it—casts over the planet. That’s the gist. I think he nailed it, too.

ANDREAS MARSCHALL: I painted it after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York had happened. There was a sense of apocalypse at the time. Of course, I knew Immolation’s music, but I hadn’t heard the new album yet. So, I went off of what they described to me in email.

The cover is painted with acrylic using very fine brushes designed for retouching photos. That’s why my paintings are very detailed. The landscape on the cover has a lot of detail. I also used an airbrush, of course, and I use the airbrush for sky and clouds. If I remember the canvas for the cover was 45 x 45 centimeters [17.8 x 17.8 inches].

OCTOBER 2022 : 5 2 : DECIBEL

VIGNA: Paul isn’t into death metal at all. When we came in with Failures for Gods, he was like, “What is this stuff?!” I think he did a fantastic job on Failures for Gods, and even better on Close to a World Below. By the third album, we all knew what we wanted and better ways to achieve that. We wanted Unholy Cult to sound bigger and more articulate. We’re a busy band musically.

I do think Paul went into the production with Immolation in mind. The guitars are cleaner. I think he used a Kettner and a Soldano amp on a few of the songs. If you listen to Unholy Cult, you might be able to hear that one amp will go out to make a part clearer and then come back in later during the heavier sections. He changes the sound to bring out parts, whether it’s an overlay or vocal. That’s one thing about that album that I recall. Every album he records with us is a learning experience. We were there at Millbrook for like three weeks, two and a half weeks recording, and the rest of the time mixing and mastering. In hindsight, that wasn’t the best thing. We should’ve given our ears a break.

PAUL OROFINO: I was a rock ‘n’ roll producer— like hard rock—before I heard Immolation. I initially declined their offer [for Failures for Gods]. I had no idea what death metal was, so it took me a little by surprise. By Unholy Cult, we had become good friends. The sessions were no-stress/no-tension. The days were long, but not grueling. Each evening, we had a sense of accomplishment.

Good times! I believe this was the third record with the boys that featured Alex on drums. The drums are real—you hear and feel Alex playing his heart out in every song. Alex was in a groove, at the top of his game. The boys held the drums in high regard. They were the key, the foundation for everything. Bob took a long time to create all the little parts, write every pattern, program the tempo changes, and work out the final details with Ross and Alex. What I’ve found out only recently—and of course, had no idea when we did these early recordings—[was that] we were developing a sound. Something that the fans would come to love. Who knew?

HERNANDEZ: The recording process for Unholy Cult for me was great. I had the confidence and was ready for it. I think Paul had the same feelings, as this was our third time in his studio. By then, we knew each other well enough to know exactly what needed to be done. As the relationship progressed, so did our recording and production relationship. You can hear the difference in the better quality of the production of Unholy Cult compared to Close to a World Below and Failures for Gods. Again, I find the collective effort was how we were focused on making the best record we could, and Paul was great at bringing that out in us. By this time, Paul knew what we needed,

D B H O F 2 14

IMMOLATION unholy cult Tour de force  All participating members of the Immolation, Grave, Goatwhore and Crematorium 2003 U.S. Tour pose for a photo on the final night

and we knew what he needed.

For example, I used smaller tom drums that worked better at cutting through all the music’s low-end frequencies. What stood out was our distinct approach toward developing a clearer and crisper sound so that each instrument equally cut through.

TAYLOR: I think that the material was a significant factor in that.

The songs were a bit less hectic and had more open space to allow for more breathing room, which probably made it easier for Paul to push things further. Failures sounded like it did because those songs are a tornado, and Close to a World Below was more deliberate, yet still destructive, reflected in the production.

So, Unholy Cult being a bit more focused and driven would naturally impact the overall tone.

Tell me about the tours for Unholy Cult. There was a full U.S. tour, the X-Mass Festivals in Europe in 2002, and then the U.S. and Europe Bringing Down the World tours in 2003.

X-Mas Festivals were crazy. What a killer package. The Cradle of Filth tour was in 2003.

Cradle of Filth treated us like gold. They went out of their way to accommodate us. We have a lot of respect for them. Right after that, we went out with Marduk and Malevolent Creation. We knew Marduk from touring with them years before.

Malevolent Creation had Kyle [Symons] on vocals.

When we came back, we had a week off before we were slated to go out with Grave, Goatwhore and Crematorium. That’s when Alex dropped off due to illness, and Steve jumped in last-minute.

TAYLOR: Over nine months [October 2002 to June 2003], we embarked upon five tours across North America and Europe—through 16 countries and 27 states—for a total of 119 shows. It was a pretty tight and busy schedule. The first two months were the U.S. Vader tour and the X-Mass Fest, which ran back-to-back. A few months later, we went back to Europe and did the Cradle of Filth tour, immediately followed by a tour with Malevolent Creation and Marduk, so we were over there for nearly two months. We were initially only supposed to have about a week off before returning to the U.S. for the final tour with Grave and Goatwhore, but it turned into 12 days while we scrambled to find a drummer.

HERNANDEZ: The tours for Unholy Cult were great.

We were playing larger venues in the U.S. Our previous record was well regarded, and we had DOLAN:

“In retrospect, I wish ‘Unholy Cult’ was shorter.

It’d be so much more enjoyable to play live.”

RO SS D O LA N great merch sales. We had a similar experience in Europe; the X-Mass Festivals were well attended, and we received great reviews. I met many other great musicians and fans along the way. It was a community of people who were all supportive of each other. It felt like all our hard work paid off and was very rewarding. The first half of the tour went smoothly, but as we were set to continue the tours with Cradle of Filth and Marduk, I felt physically off, and it was hard to keep up with the level of intensity my playing required. We finished the European tour and had a couple of weeks at home before the next U.S. tour. I was hoping to rest and regain my strength to continue, but I had to sit this one out due to medical concerns.

At what point did Steve Shalaty take over for Alex Hernandez?

Well, I think it started on the European tour with Cradle of Filth, after which we did a two-week run supporting Marduk. Malevolent Creation was also on that. So, that was six weeks in Europe. We had a week off when we came home. Right after that, we went out with Grave, Goatwhore and Crematorium in the U.S. During the Cradle of Filth tour—leading into the Marduk tour—Alex got sick. He had a hernia. He wasn’t in a good place physically and mentally.

Alex’s decision not to do the U.S. tour came around that time, right when we returned.

DOLAN:

OCTOBER 2022 : 5 4 : DECIBEL

We had to scramble. Steve wasn’t the first drummer we considered. We had very prominent drummers from our scene who we knew, but none of them felt confident in the timeframe—less than five days—that they had to learn most of Unholy Cult and a bunch of our old material. As it turned out, our good friends recommended Steve Shalaty, who was with Odious Sanction. Within a day of me reaching out to him, he flew out to New York from Ohio to begin rehearsals in my garage in Yonkers.

Steve had the right personality, talent and drive—he clicked right away with us. He did an amazing job on really short notice. That’s how he got the spot.

TAYLOR: Partway through the Cradle tour, Alex had expressed to me some reservations he had regarding the upcoming U.S. dates. He can speak for himself about his reasons; it wasn’t my concern at the time. Again, we had a pretty tight schedule, so my concern was about having enough time to find a substitute should Alex choose to sit out the U.S. tour. I suggested that he talk to Bob and Ross about it—we had about a month at that point to sort things out—but he said he wasn’t sure yet. Fine, whatever. If you want to step off, step off. Just don’t fuck us by waiting until the last minute. Figure yourself out. I pretty much left it in his hands and figured he would let me know one way or

D B H O F 2 14

IMMOLATION unholy cult

another, but it never came up again. I assumed he was maybe just venting and he was over it, no cause for concern.

Weeks later, as the Malevolent tour was winding down, he claimed to have some issues, which caused him to have a hernia. He says he needs surgery and can’t do the U.S. tour. Sure, okay, shit happens, sounds suspect—whatever.

Strangely, and I forget how it came about, Alex ended up playing the first date in NYC. It didn’t make any sense to me, all things considered, but it happened. So, it was the second night—May 28, 2003—that Steve took over. The whole situation was an eye-opening experience, and as the tour progressed, Steve made more sense in terms of what Immolation needs as a drummer and as a bandmate. And that was that.

HERNANDEZ: Steve Shalaty came in to take over on drums for the second leg of the U.S. tour. The circumstances of the switch were basically due to my health being compromised and not having the stamina to keep up with touring. It was hard to back down, but in the end I had to do what was best for me.

STEVE SHALATY: Ross called me at work in the summer of 2003. He got my number from Erik Lindmark of Deeds of Flesh and Unique Leader Records, who had signed my band at the time, Odious Sanction. Ross got straight to business, explaining their current drummer needed surgery and wouldn’t be able to play on the upcoming U.S. tour. They needed a fill-in for a month of shows that started in five days, and they were out of options. It was a strange time for death metal back then. There were tons of bands, but not enough drummers to go around, and bands were borrowing, stealing and sharing drummers quite a bit. I had received offers from a handful of touring bands at that point and had declined because Odious Sanction was doing very well, but I got the sense that Immolation was in a real spot. I’m a huge fan and was very familiar with their earlier material, so I said yes.

Ross gave me a song list and said they’d fly me from Ohio to New York the next morning to start getting ready. That would give me three days to rehearse before the tour began. It was huge pressure, and I was extremely excited. Most of the song list was from Unholy Cult, which I had only heard in passing at that point, and I had to buy it right after work. As soon as I could get it out of the package, it was in my Walkman CD player, and I started to memorize the songs. I was immediately struck by the technicality and speed of the drumming. This was way beyond Dawn of Possession-style drum parts. Especially shocking was the double bass. There were tons of fast endurance runs, and very precise starts and stops. I was very impressed and also hell-bent on nailing those tunes.

I pretty much listened to the songs non-stop until Ross and Bob picked me up at the airport in New York. I hopped in the car and we were cracking jokes within minutes. It was a good vibe. I liked those guys immediately. I had the time of my life, and at the end, fully expecting Alex to take back the helm and for me to go back to my old band, I told the guys that if they ever needed me, call. That call came a couple of months later, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“Jamming with your bandmates creates the chemistry between the musicians that creates the soul of the songs.

The soul of a song is the sum of all involved in its creation.

It takes a village.”

A L EX HE RNA ND EZ Unholy Cult is a template for death metal as it figured out its post-millennium right of way.

I know there’s a fair bit of humbleness to your views on things, but the album has influenced two generations of death metallers. That must feel wild.

VIGNA: Well, I remember we had some people come up to us on the Cradle tour—and we’re playing pretty big venues in Europe—telling us that this was their first time seeing Immolation.

Unholy Cult was their first Immolation album.

Granted, that’s a timing thing, but we might’ve not appealed to fans like that had we not been on that Cradle tour. Every time we go to Europe now, people mention that Cradle tour to us.

Fortunately, we get that a lot on many of our albums. Fans have favorites from different eras, and that’s cool. Every single album we do has a different vibe. Over the years, Unholy Cult has come up a lot, though. That’s not a bad problem to have. [Laughs] TAYLOR: Agreed. We have fans that are all over the place with our music. Whenever fans jump into a band’s catalog, the album they start with usually has the most effect. I think the Cradle tour exposed a lot of people to Immolation, and OCTOBER 2022 : 5 6 : DECIBEL

it just happened to be when we were doing the Unholy Cult album.

HERNANDEZ: It feels great and wild. At the time, we were just doing what we loved to do. The thought of it being influential never crossed my mind. I think Immolation is a genuine band. We weren’t trying to be anything but ourselves, which shows in the music. I think it is amazing that death metal keeps on delivering, but not surprising because, in my opinion, it is the hardest, heaviest, darkest and most extreme genre of music. People inherently want to do hard things. It’s how we move forward.

Whether it’s music or anything else, doing difficult things makes you grow. I’m so proud to be a part of something influential. Keep up the great work, death metallers! I’m still a fan and always will be. The thought of driving in my car at the age of 80 and listening to death metal puts a smile on my face.

TAYLOR: I don’t know about wild, but it does make me feel old. We fleshy beings may not last very long, but it is always interesting to see how some music can reach across time. It is pretty cool to be a part of that.

Hindsight is unforgiving. That said, anything you’d change on Unholy Cult?

VIGNA: That’s true for every Immolation album.

[Laughs] I recently listened to it and was unfamiliar with some of the songs. Of course, we still play some of the songs live, but there’s a lot of it that I don’t remember. Yes, there’s always something I’d change. We constantly critique ourselves, and that’s how we grow and become better as we go. Would I change anything now?

No. Absolutely not.

DOLAN: If I remember right, we were pretty pleased when we came out of the studio with Unholy Cult. I thought everything was great—the songs, the production was clearer, the cover art

by Andreas. In retrospect, I wish “Unholy Cult” was shorter. It’d be so much more enjoyable to play live. [Laughs] HERNANDEZ: Hindsight is tricky. Thinking I should have done this or that different is a rabbit hole I avoid because I wouldn’t change a thing. I live a fulfilling and rewarding life. I did then, and I do now. I had an amazing experience playing with Immolation. To make records and tour was what I wanted to do when I first started to “chase the dream.” I was 23 years old and went in not knowing much other than hitting drums hard and fast, but as we went along, I learned I was capable of a lot more and put in the work to improve my drumming ability, style and technique greatly. Seeing the world, meeting people from different cultures and communicating through the language of music was an experience I will always look back on fondly.

I’m filled with joy, pride and vindication that this record is still recognized and remembered all this time.

MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH When new student David (Derrel Maury) arrives at Central High, he discovers bullies who rule the school with intimidation and violence.

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58 : NOVEMBER 2021 : DECIBEL

decibel :

: oct 2022

DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2021 : 59

hen I first talk to Jesse Matthewson, singer/guitarist

of KEN mode, it’s two days before their first full band practice since the fall of last year. The plan is a long weekend to kick off the rust, do some promo work and prepare for a modest string of Canadian shows. But these shows carry a little more weight than usual. ¶ First off, the opening date is in their hometown of Winnipeg, a release show for their eighth incredible fulllength, Null. On top of that, it’ll be their debut as an official quartet thanks to newest member and multi-instrumentalist Kathryn Kerr. And finally, these will be the first shows since celebrating their 20th anniversary as a band, a gap that will amount to over three years since they were in front of an audience. ¶ It’s weird. There are some nerves. No one is quite sure how it’s going to go. And Matthewson makes it clear that, “I don’t want to turn this into a fucking pandemic interview.” To be fair, right now every interview is a pandemic interview, and the more the band talks about Null and what shaped it, the clearer it becomes that the fallout from the last couple years has infected the roots of almost everything. ¶ But let’s not start there. Let’s not even start with KEN mode. : D E C I B:Edecibel 6 0 : N O V E:Moctober B E R 2 0 2 1 2022 L

Winnipeg, Manitoba is cold. Frigid. This ain’t National Geographic, but one stat says the city is below freezing roughly 113 days a year. Maybe not the best weather for snow angels, but it seems conducive for other, less obvious things.

“You freeze your ass off and try to make whatever dream you can make,” says artist, friend and longtime KEN mode collaborator Randy Ortiz. “Maybe it helps with creativity. You can’t go outside, so you’re stuck indoors, miserable, and maybe that’s why we create our shit.”

What made Jesse Matthewson want to create— really create—was seeing local noise rock legends Kittens play when he was 15 years old.

“I had started playing an instrument,” he says. “[Nirvana’s] In Utero kind of broke the mold when I was 12. Something snapped that never repaired itself. That opened up Touch and Go, SST, all that underground stuff. But seeing Kittens live, I thought, ‘I have to do this. I have to.’”

After graduating from acoustic guitar, his parents got him a bass, but the drums are what really made the difference.

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2022 : 61

“When I was nearing 16, I cut a deal with my parents,” Jesse says. “They gave me an entire summer’s worth of yard work to do for a drum set. I spent all summer ripping their backyard to pieces, digging up trees and all kinds of crazy stuff to get it. And I think it was a pretty good deal considering how everything played out.”

While the teenage timeline is pretty convoluted, what’s important is that Jesse’s brother Shane—exactly two years younger—saw that same band and eventually—after Jesse spent time trying to get something going and writing music alone on a four-track—became the drummer.

“Jesse was better at drums, but we had to pick positions,” Shane says, remembering that at first it was Jesse on guitar, him on bass and a drummer who bailed on them to go play in a pop-punk band. Within three months, Shane had moved behind the kit, they recruited a bassist and were out playing shows.

“That’s what really kickstarted KEN mode,” Jesse says. “It was spite.”

“Everyone went crazy,” Jesse says of you know what, “and didn’t stop being crazy.”

Canada’s COVID restrictions were unsurprisingly stricter than its southern neighbors, and though right before lockdown the band had begun to make serious headway towards a new record, that headway didn’t just stop— it collapsed.

“There were 10-15 songs that we had starts on,” Jesse says, “and at some point, I said I don’t feel anything for any of this anymore and threw it all in the garbage.”

That left the band isolated from each other, their jobs crippled and their mental states fragile.

“I lasted a couple weeks dealing with the terror,” he says. “A lot of my life has been trying to keep depression from destroying me, and I’ve built a very good system of music and Muay Thai [boxing] to keep that at bay for the most part.

The pandemic stripped both of those away from me. I needed something that felt meaningful to keep myself from completely falling apart. So,

KEN mode sometimes sounds like chaos— kathrynKERR

Here’s the TL;DR of KEN mode, 1999-2019:

The Matthewson brothers put out a few incredible noise rock records, do some touring and go through a handful of bassists. In 2009, they decide to make a real go of the band and start touring consistently. Then they release their breakout record, Venerable, in 2011, which happens to win a goddamn Juno Award the next year. They continue touring, go through some more bass players and finally land on Saskatoon resident Skot Hamilton, the “new guy” that’s been in the band since 2014. In late 2015/early 2016, the “full-time” part of KEN mode ceases, possibly related to Jesse describing it as a “horrible thing that beats the shit out of people and chews them up and spits them out and leaves them broken horrible people.” The brothers start their own business, a management services company for bands that includes handling taxes and grants and other stuff musicians don’t want to do or even understand. They continue to do smaller tours and release Loved in 2018, arguably their most intense record up to that point. Then comes the aforementioned 20th anniversary show of 2019, where the band plays a raucous, career-spanning set in their hometown (with special guest appearances by many of those former bass players), before entering the next chapter of their lives.

And about six months later, the world tried to kill itself. : D E C I B:Edecibel 6 2 : N O V E:Moctober B E R 2 0 2 1 2022 L

I did what a lot of musicians did, which was try and record at home.”

This wasn’t the inspirational montage you might be imagining, though—at least at first.

“I’d go through different layers of depression,” Jesse continues. “I would be incapable of doing anything, and then I’d get a little glimmer and write three or four things and then get beaten down again. And so I had these pockets of extreme creativity, and then nothing.”

What fundamentally changed things was Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou. Sort of.

“The Kurt Ballou MIDI drums were the stimulus,” he says, referencing drum library software that replicates drum sounds from Ballou’s GodCity Studio. “It gave me access to drums that I could write riffs to. And Shane had this electronic kit he had for years. The ability to plug that into a computer and have it come out sounding like Kurt Ballou-produced drums was gigantic. And that was the beginning of me starting to get stuff done.”

“A lot of this record was the Jesse show,” Shane says, “which was new for me because he had fully fleshed-out songs with drumbeats. And he’s not a drummer. So, what I had to do in a lot of cases was first think, ‘Can I play this?’ He’s sending me shit in the heart of the pandemic, and I wasn’t even able to play drums. I’m listening to these demos and slapping on my knees and trying to figure if I could even do it. And if it wasn’t my style, trying to figure out how to try and adapt it.”

As for the musician’s pride part of it, Shane admits it definitely could have been an issue.

“If we weren’t brothers and hadn’t been playing together for 20 years, I would have maybe felt threatened,” he says, “but under the circumstances, I was all for it. In some cases, I just left the drums as-is, which was fun for me, because you definitely fall into the traps of your old tricks.

With this I was like, ‘That is weird, but it really suits the song,’ so I just had to bite the bullet and figure it out and get myself up to speed physically. A lot of stuff I wouldn’t have thought to do because, at first, I was gassing out 30 seconds in.”

And for Jesse, the system he figured out really began paying off.

“I felt like I was writing riffs with an urgency I hadn’t felt since probably our Venerable record,” he says. “I’ve been trying to collaborate more with the rest of the band for the last 10 years.

And this forced me to not react to anyone. I had to spontaneously be creating stuff on my own or else nothing would happen. It was almost a reawakening for me, bringing me back to when I was in high school, recording on a four-track when I played all the instruments. I was playing drums again for the first time in 20 years.”

It was also a chance to push himself into less comfortable territory.

“With a band like us who plays what we do, and having been around for so long, whether people know it or not, I kind of feel like the act of repeating oneself is the ultimate poison.

I want to keep myself engaged, and if I’m not engaged, I might as well not do it anymore. I don’t want to become one of those hardcore noisy cliché bands doing the same thing over and over and over again. You’re supposed to be creating art. It’s not like this is a day job for us. We’re not Slayer. Nobody fucking cares. It’s all just me stroking my ego, so if I’m not at least accomplishing that, then what’s the fucking point?

All through the pandemic, that’s all it was.

Shane said at the beginning maybe we’ll never tour again. Because if people stopped coming to shows and a band like us lost 50 percent of their audience, that makes a tour where we would have broken even turn into something that is no longer worth doing. I just wanted to create what made me feel something as I kept delving into that stage of depression where not much was making me feel anything.”

Noting earlier that bassist Skot Hamilton is a

Saskatonian probably didn’t mean a lot to those outside the Great White North. But there’s a reason why full band practices aren’t a common occurrence for KEN mode.

“The ride has actually gotten to be on the therapeutic side,” Hamilton says, downplaying the eight-hour drive between Saskatoon and Winnipeg.

“I make playlists. I go out of my way to make plans. I value the drive, if I’m being honest.”

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You’re supposed to be creating art. It’s not like this is a day job for us. jesseMATTHEWSON That kind of measured patience seems particularly helpful considering the band’s usual writing routine, which Hamilton at first compares to sculpting before getting a little more colorful.

“A bunch of heinous nothing and beating your head against the wall. Sitting in a room playing the same note for two hours until something forms.”

This time was different, though. After restrictions eased up long enough for him to make the trip, Hamilton was facing a different dynamic.

“It felt a little sensitive stepping into it,” he says. “All the struggles Jesse had working on that material. It was a heavy load. And to all of a sudden try and put your voice into the mix was pretty daunting. I didn’t want to muddy the water or lose a sense of the narrative he’d been putting together. And I don’t think we did.”

As far as the collection of songs, including bass parts that were already written, he considered everything a part of the journey.

“I try to be good on the assist,” he says. “I don’t always have to be the loudest artistic voice in the room, and I’m working with people I respect an awful lot. Some songs I know flat-out are good because I didn’t write a note of them. I did what I could to respect Jesse’s initial vision.”

This vision is also what led to the inclusion of additional instrumentation and new band member Kathryn Kerr.

“I’d heard of KEN mode since my late teens, early 20s,” says Kerr, who had left Winnipeg to attend a music university for seven years before coming home. “I’ve always been a consumer of all genres of music, but I wasn’t part of the heavy scene exclusively at all. I actually met them when I asked to intern at their company.” : D E C I B:Edecibel 6 4 : N O V E:Moctober B E R 2 0 2 12022 L

“She was looking to get into the business side of the industry, and we suggested she get some accounting education,” Jesse says, noting that Kerr now does bookkeeping for musicians. “A little after, we were looking for a saxophonist for the Loved record. I feel like saxophone is one of the most violent instruments you can play, more than guitar, more than most metal vocalists. It feels more unhinged than most things in extreme music. It’s such a strong, punctuated instrument, and it cuts well through guitars. I put out a call on Facebook and she went, ‘Guys, I actually have a degree in music as a saxophonist.’”

“I hadn’t touched my sax since I graduated,” Kerr says. “I also play guitar and sing and play keys, so after five years of jazz school I was kind of disheartened with sax. For there to be this major session, it was totally different than what I was taught in school. I was super excited to play an instrument I fell out of love with, and then to come back to it at a completely different angle.”

She guested on three songs (which are all spectacular), and while she did join them to play at that record’s release show, it wasn’t practical to take her on the road, with the sax being sampled for subsequent live sets.

“But as much as it filled the sonic void,” Jesse says, “the sample couldn’t compare to someone belting it out. And we got along very well with her. I had the idea that we could start integrating more stuff into songs. Before, we always approached this like an afterthought, and by the time we got into the studio to record the parts, they never really fit well. Our tone and riffs always were very three-piece-centric. It just felt like a failed attempt every time we went there.

So, at home I wanted to make sure things worked during the generation of these songs, which I could do because I was recording everything riff by riff and piece by piece. A lot of the new material, there are all kinds of layers going on.”

In fact, moving from a trio to a quartet after over 20 years went about as smoothly as possible.

“I have a really good time collaborating with her,” Hamilton says. “I have no musical background. So, it’s preposterous that I get to go in and tell her what to play on saxophone, an instrument I don’t understand whatsoever. I like going in and saying, ‘This take needs to sound like you’re dragging a rusty railway spike across the back of a skinned cat,’ or whatever, but I also like her so much as a human, and I think she’s really good for the mix in the band.”

And sax is only part of Kerr’s contributions now, as she plays synths and piano and contributes back-up vocals, while feeling like a genuine member of the band.

“The joke is that I’ve infiltrated so hard by playing multiple instruments that they can’t get rid of me,” she says. “I was worried in the beginning, like, am I allowed to have input? It is their ship, and they know the sound they want from it. So, I do appreciate that I’m allowed to have my own opinions and write my own parts, and I think one reason it works is because I agree with them a lot. It was never difficult and it’s getting easier.”

With an enhanced lineup and enough material for a record, the band had booked time to head into the studio. The pandemic went and fucked that up, too, but for once it did them a favor.

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2022 : 65

KEN mode have a history of working with some

of the best engineers out there—Ballou, Matt Bayles, Steve Albini—but Andrew Schneider, who engineered Loved, was the man they wanted again. So, it was set for July of 2021, Schneider expecting to fly up to Private Ear Recording in Winnipeg. The band had enough for an album, with possibly some extra, and decided they’d record it all and figure out what they had when the time came.

When another lockdown happened, and chances of recording dwindled, the session was pushed back to the fall. But instead of obsessively honing the material they had, they kept writing.

“We just didn’t stop,” Jesse says. “And as the time drew closer, we realized we had about 75 minutes of music.”

All of a sudden, one record became two.

“It was an ambitious thing to do, but this is organized company,” he continues, referring in part to the two accountants in his band. “It was more daunting on paper.”

Oddly enough, recording two albums seemed less daunting than figuring out what to do with them when they were done.

“We wanted to record all the songs and see how it felt,” Jesse says, “and while we were recording, Andrew kept asking what we were going to do with everything, and we were like, ‘We don’t know!’”

“We didn’t really have that moment until we sequenced it,” Shane says. “Once it was all mixed, we had to figure out what songs went together and then we had to decide which one comes first. So, it was very get-it-all-out-thereand-see-what-you-got.”

One of the biggest issues: Despite the disjointed writing process, and with most of the collaborative material on the second album, the band agrees that there’s an undeniable cohesion between Null and its not-yet-scheduled-forrelease follow-up, Void.

“All of the material across both records, they do feel like one body of work,” Hamilton says.

“They feel like one large project. They require one another in a lot of ways. They stand alone, but I’m curious what people will think when they’ve had a chance to dig into both. The throughline is so definitive. I don’t think we could have done it any other way.”

And while it was unlikely the band would have ever released an album the length of the Who’s Tommy, Hamilton sees the dual LPs as the best artistic choice as well.

“It’s the most intelligent way to do it for the listener,” he says. “I struggle to imagine how it could have come together as a single listening piece. I hope there is a lot about the first record that is allowed to gestate before moving on. The breather was absolutely necessary.” : D E C I B:Edecibel 6 6 : N O V E:Moctober B E R 2 0 2 1 2022 L

He’s right. Void is said to elicit feelings of disappointment and failure, but Null is bloodied, raging wrath.

Whether it’s the frantic attacks of “Throw Your Phone in the River” and “The Desperate Search for an Enemy,” the painfully drawn-out anti-ballad “Lost Grip” or the pulsing, horrid, industrial “The Tie,” the band walks the finest line of incorporating a wide range of dynamics that all maintain a seething and vicious bitterness. It’s true that there are layers to these songs, but none of them have a shred of hope.

I was 15 when we started, so I can’t really imagine not doing it.

During the pandemic, I should have noticed that not playing drums and feeling really bad were connected.

strange. It’s a longstanding thing, but it went buck wild when Skot joined. It was a known thing in his friend group; when they would say something and he would perk up and pull out his phone, they’d say, ‘Oh, you’re sending that to Winnipeg.’ A good portion of Success and Loved were statements cobbled together.

“But the newest stuff, taking stuff from the list felt less honest to me,” he continues. “So, I just started writing more stream-of-consciousness, where I was emotionally. There was maybe a pretentiousness on the earlier records that isn’t on these. I didn’t want to pretend. I didn’t want to seem smart. It had to feel raw and vulnerable. It’s me losing my mind. ‘Lost Grip’ is very much an angry and sad reflection on us as a species and its disregard for everything but itself. This band has never leaned into politics ever, but stuff like global warming, I don’t feel like that should even be a political thing.”

There are also lyrics on Null and Void that were contributed by Hamilton.

“I’ve always submitted stuff, and he picks and chooses,” he says. “A lot of stuff that gets hacked away and stuffed into a gutter may have meant a lot to me, but I’m entering a preexisting band’s process, so I can’t be too precious. And if I’m precious enough about something, I’ll keep it at home. But Jesse had established enough of a tone that l looked through to see what I had that complemented that tone, and I thought there was some writing that seemed to work. I was shocked that he took entire pieces I gave him. It is a little disembodying to hear someone else using really horrible experiences of mine, but I appreciated [that] he saw them in a light that made him able to put them to music.”

Of course, once music and lyrics are all done, all that’s left for a record is the art.

“Jesse would put on shows, and I’d do the gig

shaneMATTHEWSON And Jesse’s kerosene-soaked rants have never felt more genuinely distraught. On opener “A Love Letter,” he cries out, “Something is broken, something is fucked.” On “Not My Fault,” he simply asks, “What have we left?” And on the closing track, “Unresponsive,” he starts with the line, “I’m unraveling so much faster than I used to,” and ends by repeating the same five words over and over: Forgotten. Erased. Unresponsive.

Replaced. Abandoned.

“The last couple records were more collaborative lyrically,” he says. “We have a list on my phone titled ‘Song Names/Lyrics’ and it’s mostly just collections of phrases that are just mean or

posters.” Randy Ortiz says. “It was my first foray into anything music-related. It was just a hobby and I never thought I could make a career out of it. But he was one of the first guys to give me a shot and pay me.”

Ortiz graduated from local show posters long ago, and now professionally creates some of the most striking and gorgeously disturbing art in North America. He’s also produced a significant portion of KEN mode art, including the “Smiling Man” that adorns the Loved record, which even the artist admits has been one of his most popular pieces ever. And there seems to be a kinship there that few bands are lucky enough to have with someone who can draw like a motherfucker.

“It seems like we’re always in sync, and when they release an album their themes seem to mix with what’s going on with me,” he says. “We understand each other’s processes. Sometimes it’s hard to be trusted to make the art. When

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it comes to a client relationship, it’s rare to have that much freedom and trust. It’s tough to find, and I think they feel the same way as well. It just works.”

Well, it usually works. But with Null, it wasn’t so easy.

“That was kind of shitty,” Ortiz admits. “It was such a shitty time to do anything. I was depressed and burnt out and going through some grief. My cat passed away and I had watched it decline. And that’s the worst time to do art.

Sometimes I thrive on that stuff, but other times it gets so bad it’s crippling. I can’t even work.

There were months where I wasn’t making any money because I wasn’t creating anything, and it was spiraling. I know Jesse was going through the same thing, and this was when we’re trying to figure out the artwork for the record.

“One time I invited the band over to my place to sit down, like, let’s fucking come up with an idea,” he continues. “We’re sitting in my dark living room, no music or TV, just silence, trying to come up with something, and it was so funny and really sad and depressing. We came up with some ideas that went nowhere, and it still took months after that. It was really brutal.”

Like with so much art, though, Ortiz just needed to do something, anything.

“I was drawing these faces, trying to shake something loose creatively. I tried some 3-D animation and that went nowhere and so I went back to my roots, grabbed some charcoal, and I think just getting my hands moving again helped, drawing faces that made me feel how I felt in that moment. Happy faces, but they’re clearly not happy. They were these masks that I was wearing throughout the pandemic. I’m not doing well and it’s obvious to everyone I’m not doing well, but I have to put this face on.”

The cover of Null features a close-up of a redfaced man grinning. He isn’t missing his eyes as much as skin has grown over the sockets, like a blindness induced by the body itself. And in a way that is what Ortiz and the band felt, their own bodies revolting no matter how much they tried to make the best of it. But looking back, Ortiz still finds something small to be thankful for.

“It can be rough and rocky when trying to create, but even in that moment, I’m struggling with my friends who are in the same mud as I am. So, it made me not feel so alone at a time when everyone felt so alone.” : D E C I B:Edecibel 6 8 : N O V E:Moctober B E R 2 0 2 1 2022 L

Null is ready, and Void is waiting in the wings.

And the band’s focus during this long weekend is that modest string of shows, the first priority a preparation of earlier songs, now reimagined to include Kerr’s multi-instrumental talents.

“I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes sonically,” she says. “My ear is trained to listen really well, so I know if it needs space or needs another sound. We decided early I wasn’t going to play something just for the sake of playing something, but the guys are so creative that there’s almost always something we can find.

And even the simple more straight-ahead ones are complex enough that I can find something to add. KEN mode sometimes sounds like chaos— it’s very intentional chaos.”

“We’ve seen bands go back and revise songs people could never imagine being messed with,” Hamilton says. “But I think that especially people who have been digging the more unortho-

used to it, but hopefully I’ll let them see it in a new light. I think it’ll be like family bonding.”

“For people like us, doing something creative like this, it’s all we really know,” Shane says. “I was 15 when we started, so I can’t really imagine not doing it. During the pandemic, I should have noticed that not playing drums and feeling really bad were connected. You don’t have to be Columbo to figure this shit out.”

Jesse shares that sentiment, saying, “We’d been so consistent for years that I didn’t really realize it until 2016. I had gone two years of being creatively stagnant, and at the end of that year I was horribly depressed. In terms of other things, it was going really well. There was no reason I should have felt as terrible as I felt. And then it dawned on me: I’m not doing the thing.

The thing that has given my life meaning. And then when we started writing again, I was on top of the world. And then we stopped writing again in 2019, where I had arguably one of the better

We may be at our skotHAMILTON dox ways we’ve tried to create tension will dig it.

We may be at our most abrasive right now, and if the old material was going to stack up to the new material, it needed a facelift.”

Everyone is now trying to enter that next chapter of their lives, thinking next steps, whether that means playing more or continuing to feel that high from creating.

“I feel much more regulated when I’m playing, when I have that equilibrium,” Hamilton says. “It’s a stabilizing factor in my life. I don’t view myself as an entertainer, but that’s not the function. It’s very selfish and directed towards making myself breathe easier. This is what keeps me going. I’m not the best at what I do, but this is what I am best at doing.”

Kerr is looking forward to what she says will be, “a whole new tour experience for me. I’ve never toured as long as they have, and I’ll be playing with bands from genres I don’t play with, which is really exciting. Those guys are

years of my life. But I was getting depressed because, once again, I hadn’t written in two years. So, I realized it was time to start doing that. So, we started. And then the pandemic hit.”

Yes, all interviews right now are pandemic interviews. And Jesse Matthewson acknowledges this, seeing Null as the Part One of KEN mode expressing what too many of us have felt for too long, unraveling so much faster than we’re used to.

“I put all this goddamn work into the last 10 years trying to chill the fuck out and become a better and more well-rounded person,” he says, “only to have everyone’s shitty behavior over the last two years strip that all away and leave me in a state where I’m just as angry and filled with hate as I was in my early 20s, but with a body in its 40s that can’t take the stress. I’m pissed and I’m injured all the time and it sucks. And I’m gonna take it out on everyone else.”

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INSIDE ≥

74 BEHEMOTH Leggo your ego 76 MAMALEEK This coffee ain't black

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

78 MEGADETH This is music!

78 REVOCATION Beats overworld hell 80 STRIGOI Blood and chaos

The Improbable Made Possible

OCTOBER

GAEREA ’s black metal Mirage is a journey into a wondrous land of imagination

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Wolf Hoffmann’s thoughts on Pantera reunion

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Justin Hawkins' thoughts on Pantera reunion

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M Shadows' thoughts on Pantera reunion

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Corey Taylor's thoughts on Pantera reunion

A

iring on october 2, 1959, “Where is Everybody?” was the debut episode of The Twilight Zone, its plot concernGAEREA ing the deleterious and hallucinatory effects of isolaMirage tion and sensory deprivation. Mirage, the third full-length from SEASON OF MIST these enigmatic, tendonitis-inducing Portuguese black metallers, explores similar subject matter as it dives into how human isolation and solitude can push our fragility to where we question our own sensory reporting, and how that reveals who we are. As the quote in the band’s bio reads, “Nobody is truly real until they are alone.” ¶ The masked and shrouded Porto-based quintet draws parallels to the classic television series in other ways. There’s the inherent mystery that comes with identity obfuscation and the sigil under which they’re unified. There’s wry, (un) intended humor at play, given that previous album Limbo was released during the early days of the pandemic when the world was in limbo, uncertainty reigned and

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

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people were still bleach-wiping their porchdropped deliveries. And while Gaerea’s look and sound screeches isolation and menace, they’re still incongruously peddling logo trucker hats and booty-enhancing tights via Facebook and Bandcamp. Indeed, “People Are Alike All Over” as Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling posited in season one, episode 25 (aired March 25, 1960).

In season five, episode 25 (aired March 20, 1964)—appropriately titled “The Masks”—a man forces family members to don hideous masks that he feels are representative of their true personalities. Keeping on theme, Gaerea’s garb is entirely in tune with the complex beauty of the sigil printed on their masks (and merch). This manifestation comes in the band’s extraordinary talent and ability at keeping groove, swing and melody reigning triumphant during the battle for sonic space against tempo.

“Salve” twins hummingbird-wing-blasting with a two-part harmony riff and a hooky baritone bellow, whereas “Deluge” mines doom and post-metal, placing math rock and epic Brooklyn black metal atop their drummer’s gravitation between molasses-covered hammering and jumps to hyperspace. These moving contradictions give Mirage dynamic capital, turning the delicate plink that launches “Arson” into a full-on Braveheart battle between Rotting Christ and Behemoth, while “Ebb” travels from Norway to NOLA to Nagoya on a horse bridled by Naglfar. In all cases, dissonant guitar layers offering explicitly hummable melodies drive the point home.

In “A World of His Own,” The Twilight Zone’s first season finale (aired July 1, 1960), a man is able to bring to life anything he describes into a tape recorder. With Mirage, this cryptic crew has done the modern equivalent: creating and capturing their own musically incendiary and topically exploratory world. They’ve birthed an album that’s simultaneously tender and beastly in both sound and substance, and one that expands and redefines black metal’s capabilities while retaining all the requisite barbarity.

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

156/SILENCE

6

Narrative

SHARPTONE

A final goodbye to 2005

Remember when metalcore was getting the stink eye from everyone—elitists, outsiders, even itself— as it moved from the power of Earth Crisis, Deadguy and Judge to shitty rewrites of Slaughter of the Soul? After Code Orange’s success, everyone seemed to start wearing longsleeves (in part to hide the elbow star tattoos), stop visiting barber shops, discover Meshuggah and rediscover Korn.

72 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

This timeline might be off, but after the past two years, time has become a blurry illusion. It’s also led to an increase of denser, more dynamic musical works because what else does a band do but write, record and tinker when there’s little else to do?

With previous album Irrational Pull, this PA metalcore crew—does their moniker mean “156 divided by Silence”?—offered up a record “intended to be enjoyed in a mosh pit of a packed sweaty room.” With no sweaty rooms or mosh pits available, they retreated into rehearsal rooms (and themselves), with the result being Narrative’s broader scope.

Supplementing the sort of beatdown/breakdown-heavy thing you’d expect from a band mentioned alongside Knocked Loose, Vein and the Acacia Strain is epic melodi-post-doom (“A Past Embrace,” “To Take Your Place”), elegant gossamer effects mixed with lunkhead chug ‘n’ scream (“Stay Away,” “For All to Blame”), and even a point where it sounds like keyboard/ sample wizard John Bechdel (Ministry, ex-Prong, Fear Factory) is sitting in (“The Rodents Race”) With horizons broadened by time, however, comes overextension, a trap Narrative falls into during the album’s final quarter, as 156/Silence shoot for the cosmos, but lose power somewhere in the mesosphere. Jack Murray’s sandpaper howl rarely gels with the clean parts, and the random hip-hop cadences are questionable at best, though they knock it out of the park with closer “Live to See a Darker Day,” a marvelous ode to both Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” and Cult of Luna. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

A-Z

7

A-Z

M E TA L B L A D E

Not to be confused with AIIZ

Before we get into the music, we need to address the elephant (well, zebra) in the room—that is some Z-grade cover art. Yep, we get it: The band is called A-Z, there’s a zebra deep-throating an apple. It’s still an aggravated assault on the eyeballs. It’s courtesy of Hugh Syme, the man responsible for every single pun-tastic prog rock album cover from Rush to Dream Theater. And I hate it.

It’s a shame, because A-Z deliver exactly what you want from a comfort food-heavy prog band featuring current and former members of Fates Warning with a logo that looks suspiciously like Asia’s. If you don’t own at least one Genesis record on vinyl, this probably won’t be for you. Ray Alder provides the “A” and the soulful singing; Mark Zonder provides the “Z” and the timekeeping; and while longtime Steve

Vai bassist Philip Bynoe, Dutch fusion guitarist Joop Wolters and second-generation prog rock keyboardist Vivien Lalu don’t get their initials in the band name, they sure contribute a lot of notes. Nothing here will feel unfamiliar to fans of King’s X or the Parallels/Inside Out era of Fates Warning, but it’s pleasant enough— basically the hard rock/prog fusion version of adult contemporary.

Considering the virtuosic musicianship on crunchy rockers and heartfelt power ballads like “The Far Side of the Horizon” and “Run Away,” A-Z’s debut scratches that pop-oriented prog itch perfectly. Not for everyone, but it’s a damn sight better than the cover’s promised horse halitosis. —JEFF TREPPEL

ACEPHALIX

7

Theothanatology 20 BUCK SPIN

Across the open reprise

Bay Area death metallers Acephalix won’t win plaudits for their ingenuity, but what they lack in that area, they make up for in conviction. At least, that’s how it rings after their two previous workaday efforts in Deathless Master (2011) and Decreation (2017). Theothanatology ups the game sparingly, the group’s penchant for Autopsy gallops, Unleashed pounds and Bolt Thrower grooves conspicuous, but not unnecessary. Songs like “Godheads,” “Postmortem Punishment,” “Defecated Spirit” and “Theothanatologist” heavily appeal to our collective lizard brains. They knuckle-drag, mouth-breathe and wonder at the simplest of things, but their charming naiveté recalls Banished’s “Cast Out the Flesh” or Gutted’s “Nailed to the Cross.” This is death metal unvarnished and vehemently provincial; rotten over eons, yet still inexplicably alive.

The Earhammer Studios (Decrepisy, Fetid) production suits Acephalix well. Adam Camara and Adam Walker’s guitars are upfront and meaty, while Erika Osterhout’s bass booms unclinically. Drummer David Benson achieved a particularly 1991 drum sound, too. Daniel Butler, also of Vastum fame, grunts and voices (think Dismember’s “In Death’s Sleep”) as if he’s from Somewheresville, Ohio (or upstate New York). Together, the quintet forms a competent death metal varlet.

There are times when Acephalix break the Cro-Magnon cycle on Theothanatology. The eerie codas in “Abyssal” and “Postmortem Punishment” and the chapel haunt solo in “Pristine Scum” are prime examples. If Johnny Deaf were around, he’d be chuffed to bits with Theothanatology. The rest of us, however, proceed with atavistic caution. —CHRIS DICK

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BEHEMOTH

8

Opvs Contra Natvram NUCLEAR BLAST

Devil’s advocates

There aren’t many celebrities in extreme metal, but Behemoth mastermind Nergal—a.k.a. Adam Darski—certainly qualifies. Borne from a genre known for provocation and confrontation, the self-described Satanist’s comments on cancel culture and religious oppression add to an evergrowing choir of denouncers. Never shy with his values, Darski has used Behemoth as the primary vessel for his music and messaging since the early ’90s. Unfazed by detractors, the Polish black/death battalion double down on devilry on their dozenth album, Opvs Contra Natvram.

After the three-minute glorified intro of “Post-God Nirvana,” “Malaria Vvlgata” rips from the godless cacophony. The drum mixing immediately emerges as a highlight, as Inferno blasts between precise and punchy rolls. But there’s also a renewed focus on lead guitars retaining razor sharpness, like in midalbum masher “Disinheritance.” Renowned engineer Joe Barresi helmed albums by numerous bands in Decibel’s Hall of Fame, including Melvins, Monster Magnet and Enslaved. The result is an album that sounds more aggressive and riff-driven than any Behemoth record since Evangelion.

Behemoth vary their compositional structures, allowing the album’s final three tracks to feel more epic than their modest runtimes.

Synths overstay their welcome and bloat “Thy Becoming Eternal,” but it’s still a satisfying bridge between the superb “Once Upon a Pale Horse” and the album’s finale. Commencing with piano and seething whispers, “Versvs Christvs” is the record’s de facto climax with its slow-burn crescendo. Unfortunately, the song’s closing sprint loses too much blood before the album’s final breath.

History suggests that Nergal and Behemoth will remain polarizing artists. But the uneven elements of Opvs Contra Natvram originate from ambition and a splash of ego, not redundancy.

Darski continues pushing black/death boundaries—and pushing buttons—with demonic glee.

—SEAN FRASIER

BLACK MAGNET

8

Body Prophecy 20 BUCK SPIN

Sex music for sex people

It’s fitting that, as global temperatures soar, human rights are stripped and trust in the 74 : O C T O B E R 2 0 2 2 : D E C I B E L

establishment erodes completely, 2022 will be soundtracked by a filthy EBM revival. Leading the rubber-clad vanguard, Oklahoma rivethead James Hammontree, a.k.a. Black Magnet, follows Black Magnet’s 2020 debut with an 11-track onslaught of four-on-the-floor industrial punk manifestos that suit society’s general collapse.

Dirtier than the disco-driven doyens of the ’80s, Body Prophecy respects the path of Skinny Puppy, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb and, of course, Godflesh— for whom one Justin K. Broadrick lends a hand remixing the snarling “Incubate,” drowning it in layers of putrid sludge.

However, this corrosive metal assault also makes happy bedfellows with Author & Punisher, the Body and Uniform. There’s little nuance on this album of beat-driven bedlam; every track is punishing and standouts like ‘Body World’ will become firm floor-fillers. The only let-up is the seething “Sold Me Sad,” which takes things down a notch or two reminiscent of Alessandro Cortini or even his pal Trent Reznor. If you can make it to the white noise mayhem of final track “Dowsing” with your wits about you, then you’re made of sterner stuff and are likely to survive the coming apocalypse. —LOUISE BROWN

CITY OF CATERPILLAR

8

Mystic Sisters RELAPSE

Scream dream

It’s no longer a novelty when an extreme music band faces indifference early in their career, only to find demand and interest in their music years—if not decades— later. It’s a storyline we see week after week. A perfect example is Dazzling Killmen; our recent HOF inductee was misunderstood and ignored in the ’90s when they made breakthrough music.

The Killmen arrive in 2022 to discover everyone gives a shit. Richmond’s City of Caterpillar owns this paradox upfront in the promo materials for their comeback album, where they say they once played in “small venues to modest crowds,” but “their legend has grown.”

The question always is: Does a legend deserve to grow, and is there anything left in the tank?

With many metal bands making the rounds on the festival circuit, the answer is a resounding no. But with screamo outliers City of Caterpillar, the answer is a resounding yes. The band’s comeback album, Mystic Sisters, is a seamless blend of noise, darkwave and screamo. Like many bands that get back together, their reunion was sparked by a few shows. But the other COC proves that in the years since their last album, they have grown as players and conceptualists.

The title track is filled with nuance and texture and rolls over a listener like a weighted blanket, while “Decider” swaps Refused groove and Converge bite. What makes this album special is that it has as much to offer in the quiet moments as it does when it’s painfully loud.

There are universes in dynamics, and City of Caterpillar mine this eternity of expression.

The band says their comeback is not a retro thing. Their new album, which packs an emotional wallop and reveals layers with careful listening, proves they are telling the truth. This is a band making the best music of any point of their career. —JUSTIN M. NORTON

FALLUJAH

7

Empyrean

NUCLEAR BLAST

Destroying, erasing, improving

Fallujah have been criticized countless times since forming roughly 15 years ago. The Bay Area prog/technical DM band has had anime-avatared online drones label their moniker choice as “distasteful” (somewhere below, Seth Putnam is probably giggling); claim that their vocals suck; dub their evolution of sound as contrived trend-hopping; and moan that the constant lineup shifts have left the band without identity. Sure, some of those critiques are close to accurate, but to their credit, the core Fallujah duo of founding members Scott Carstairs (guitars) and Andrew Baird (drums) have taken a lot of the negativity onboard and constantly pushed to progress—albeit with mixed results.

Over time, out went deathcore in favor of Cynic-like instrumental classiness; the one-note growls were curtailed as the music became more crystalline and multi-dimensional; and the lineup challenges were handled in good faith, with stylistic expansion in mind. The current Fallujah includes Evan Brewer (the Faceless) on bass—a fantastic player—and relative unknown Kyle Schaefer on vocals. Both have added positively to album number five, Empyrean.

Slick prog and modern tech-death have melded in striking symmetrical motions here, with Fallujah’s melodic, precise and often futuristic metal edging closer to that of current genre heavyweights Rivers of Nihil. There’s still refinement required should the lineup remain stable, however, as all remaining Meshuggahisms need to be eradicated and the clean vocals need to be more incisive (see: “Soulbreaker”).

But if Fallujah continue on this upward trajectory, the next album could well prove to be their most definitive. —DEAN BROWN

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DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2022 : 75

I AM

6

Eternal Steel M N R K H E AV Y

What I yam

By mid-July, the Texas heat index averaged between 110114 degrees. As climate change seesaws extreme temperatures, the Lone Star State’s power grid verges on overload and ultimately failure, which led to 246 deaths during last year’s snowstorm (two-thirds from hypothermia). If the power shuts off this summer, barbecued Texans will become the new soylent green.

Consider Dallas-hatched deathcore five-piece I Am part of the problem.

Eleven years in, frontman/founder Andrew Hileman, guitarists Tom Reyes and Chris Burgess, bassist Erik Rodriguez and drummer Ian Scott retain a mostly unwavering tempo over the course of three full-lengths that feels like sunstroke. Eternal Steel, their initial release for MNRK Heavy (formerly eOne) nixes any thirdtime’s-the-charm paradigm following Hard 2 Kill (2018) and Life Through Torment (2017). Added thrash populates the mix, but it’s largely indistinguishable from what came before.

“The Primal Wave” begins at a Bay Area pace, but soon drops into the band’s default cadence: flat, splat, static. Headbanging, absolutely, until one becomes the Republic’s metallic Republican Tom Araya and they either bolt those 11 pounds to your neck or simply lop them off. Hileman’s roar packs a wallop on downtempo crusher “The Iron Gate,” whose brief uptempo tick proves one of the album’s highlights.

That bleeds nicely into the title track, which also alternates velocity, as well as “Vicious Instinct,” another stop/start neck-snapper. Yet, rather than simply ripping, the flip-flop of time signatures sounds like your turntable fluctuating from 45rpm to 33 and back again without discrimination. Directly afterward, the album’s two longest tracks, “Infernal Panther” and “Queen Incarnate,” repeat the process, and it’s lights out for Eternal Steel. —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

LABYRINTH OF STARS

8

Spectrum Xenomorph T R A N S L AT I O N L O S S

Soul of a new catecholamine

Labyrinth of Stars are the byproduct of Christian Kolf (Valborg, Owl), Markus Siegenhort (Lantlôs) and newcomer Dirk Stark. Given the trio’s fulltime musical oeuvre, Spectrum Xenomorph could’ve transited innumerable paths. Least expected is what’s on offer here. There’s a distinct Morbid Angel (Domination era) vibe, but imagine if 76 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

Azagthoth’s dizzying, sinuous visions had somehow found the center of the universe in Morgoth’s oft-underappreciated Odium. Certainly, the spectrum upon which Morbid Angel and Morgoth reside isn’t that wide, but the sentiment is.

Of course, this isn’t mere genuflection.

Spectrum Xenomorph plays a wicked game of flowing tenets we’re all familiar with through a new, future-primitive filter, something Kolf knows and employs well under the Valborg flag. Cold blasts meet unhinged fragments of songs that groove oddly and voice dissonantly. Stark amplifies the inhuman racket with reverb-soaked caterwauling—think Burton C. Bell on Fear Factory’s “lost debut” Concrete.

Spectrum Xenomorph’s strength is in its directness, but what transforms this monochromatic beast into the beyond is its mysteriously brief song lengths. Apart from the dark ambient closer “Transmission Delta – Exile,” Labyrinth of Stars proffer three-minute songs on average. This isn’t a commercial ploy—rather an economical device. The slimy “Ancient Machines in Authority” is only 2:27, but feels like 30 seconds. From opener “Star Pervertor” and album highlight “Vacuum” to “Aethereal Solitude” and “Galactic Ritual,” the sub-terrestrial mazes the trio spit forth are shockingly manducatable. Eyes to hear, ears to see, indeed! —CHRIS DICK

LOCRIAN

8

New Catastrophism P R O FO U N D LO R E

A forward-thinking step into the past

Locrian have been around a long time now, long enough that their discography can be divided into epochs. In the beginning, you have this noise-inflected, metal-influenced tech-drone, featuring deep rumblings and oddly technical guitar playing for such a minimal style. And then, starting with 2010’s Territories and coming to a head with the addition of Haptic and Cleared drummer Steven Hess, the band moved in a more droneinfluenced metal direction, rife with blast beats and blackened riffs alike.

Why bring up Locrian’s two halves? There are a few reasons, but the most important to consider is the thread of experimental freedom that underpins this trio’s signature sound. No matter what, Locrian sound like Locrian, and, for that matter, Locrian sound futuristic no matter what medium, sound or album. Why? Well, on their new album (their first in a long, long time), New Catastrophism, Locrian have changed once again… sort of.

With many elements hearkening back to the olden days of Terence Hannum and André Foisy’s

power drone/ambient duo, New Catastrophism feels like a long-awaited answer to Drenched Lands’ tension. Lengthy synthesizer tones and crackling ambiance are the name of the game here, and Locrian’s world-building—now with drummer Hess’s expert help—is even more overwhelming and textured. This is a step into the past, for certain, but one that boasts over a decade of experience since Locrian’s first era ended. Though future material will feature more overt metalisms (New Catastrophism being a more spontaneous pandemic album), Locrian’s reverence for their older material is admirable, especially with a new editor’s touch. Any artist could have made better artistic decisions in the past—Locrian’s self-revision is powerful and unexpected. —JON ROSENTHAL

MAMALEEK

7

Diner Coffee THE FLENSER

Lying in bed, just like Brian Wilson did

Look… Bay Area lounge dub punk is just not a thing. Or, I guess it is for 36 minutes on Mamaleek’s ninth recording, but let’s not actually name it or allow anyone else to traffic in this kind of Twin Peaks-as-spaghettiwestern acid trip. Promotional materials suggest that “laughter pervades Diner Coffee,” but it’s the laughter of an embittered clown whose mildly toxic face makeup has run into his eyes, momentarily derailing his glass-strewn back alley magic show (for no one) using props dug up from the Chernobyl disaster site.

These guys are tired of music, and in its place they’ve created an art piece on airwaves. If ’80s New York painter Jean-Michel Basquiat was right that “art is how we decorate space; music is how we decorate time,” then Diner Coffee is a gallery installation that won’t stay put, tweaking your brain chemistry while it hangs in the air and then fucking off to some dingy corner, muttering to itself. It might feel like Mamaleek’s Pet Sounds, if their prior music hadn’t already been an experimental cacophony in its own right.

It’s infuriating, it’s flawed and it’s pretty amazing.

“Libations to Sacred Clowns” retches to life like Oxbow with untreated tumors. “Badtimers” sounds like early Grails wrestling Wreck & Reference in a smoky basement bar. “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage” is a Morricone joint co-opted

by Jim Thirlwell and Pat Metheny for nefarious ends, and “Wharf Rats in the Moonlight” douses all these ideas in kerosene and lights everything on fire. The dB masthead and I would never agree on a score for this monstrosity, so let’s say… 10? —DANIEL LAKE

DECIBEL : OCTOBER 2022 : 77

MEGADETH

8

The Sick, The Dying… and the Dead!

UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP

Munson loved Megadeth

This summer, Metallica’s “Master of Puppets,” released in 1986, entered the Billboard charts for the first time. The reason: Resident Stranger Things metalhead Eddie Munson played the “Master” solo in a climactic scene. This development speaks to the secret sauce of Metallica’s career. There is so much (deserved) goodwill towards their first three albums that it continues to carry them to celebrity and riches nearly four decades after those records were released.

Metallica haven’t recorded something special since …And Justice for All (which was a slight drop from Master). Dave Mustaine? He’s on album 16 and, except for a few clunkers like Cryptic Writings, continues to dazzle. Dave’s insane desire to prove himself—first hatched on a long bus ride from New York to California—is a metal goldmine.

So, while Metallica take over the world again in 2022 via pop culture, their former bandmate Mustaine is still getting shit done. And metalheads are the better for it. Megadeth’s new album The Sick, The Dying… and the Dead! is a bona fide buffet of the riff magic we’ve expected from Dave since he first wrote “The Mechanix.”

Let’s be fair: Metallica’s songs are part of the fabric of our lives. It’s hard to argue with that staying power. But Kirk and James have never touched Mustaine as a player, and some of the best material on one of those first three Metallica albums has Mustaine DNA all over it. Sick is packed with the same breed of high-wattage Mustaine riffs, snarling vocals and energy. The record barks and lunges and commands attention; the battleground gallop of “Night Stalkers” rolls effortlessly into the sneer of “Dogs of Chernobyl.” Dave’s solos are expansive yet purposeful, and always serve the song. If there is any drawback to Sick, it’s that the big studio clean production is a bit much. But if you can play like Dave, fuck it; make sure listeners can hear everything.

While Stranger Things nailed what it was like to be a kid in the ’80s, they messed up one thing big time: Any riff lover was a Mustaine fan. When Eddie climbed on a roof in the Upside Down, he should have played a solo from Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good. —JUSTIN M. NORTON

POWER FROM HELL 8 Shadows Devouring Light DEBEMUR MORTI PRODUCTIONS

Hairy Palm Sunday

Power From Hell have spent the bulk of their…

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sure, let’s call it a career as lunkheaded, pitstained, black-thrash perverts. If there was one perfect cynosure to encapsulate their sound/ aesthetic, it’d be that old clip of the dudes from Venom treating a handle of whiskey to a double blowjob. I’m talking poopy-adult-diaper-in-aWalmart-changing-room, ratchet-ass, proto black metal; that was their sole angle until 2019’s unfathomably far-sighted Profound Evil Presence dropped. Now, that was an out-of-the-blue, purple-nurple eye-opener. Picture the Murder Junkies circa Feed My Sleaze suddenly getting very into Mörk Gryning and Code; the shift—not so much in tone, but in ambition—was remarkable even though the band was jumping a little ahead of themselves. Naturally, the execution of these more high-minded compositions was bound to be a trifle gangly fresh out the gate.

Thankfully, Shadows Devouring Light doesn’t make yet another leap into some even wilder creative hinterland that PFH aren’t ready to properly realize. This is a practical refinement of their new digs, and it is immensely satisfying.

The record finds balance without yielding ground on its cvlt identity. I do feel that PFH would benefit from a slightly more individualized production on future outings. Though I’m sure Shadows achieves exactly what the band aimed for production-wise, it naturally tends to veil the quality of its riffs within its abyssal (read: reverb-y) murk, and they unquestionably deserve the clarity of a specifically tailored production.

The Immortal-experiencing-severe-sideeffects-of-antipsychotics “Wings of Perdition,” the freezer-burned fusillade of “Eve’s Holy Vulva” (oh, shut up) and the ceremonial, Dead Can Dance-ish whorl of the title track are all feverishly worthy; but genuinely, every track on this record is well-considered and magnetic.

I’m convinced—the perverts have won.

—FORREST PITTS

REVOCATION

7

Netherheaven M E TA L B L A D E

Slayer have a timeshare there

Apparently I wrote a positive review of Revocation’s previous album, The Outer Ones, for this magazine back in 2018 and have absolutely no memory of doing so. I’ll grant that 2018 was a busy year for me (home renovations and wedding planning take a lot out of you). That’s still a bad sign. Thankfully, stripping back down to a three-piece (rhythm guitarist Dan Gargiulo exited in 2020) seems to have shaken up the chemistry once more and resulted in songs that might stick around for longer than my lead time.

It helps that demons in this Netherheaven take on a very familiar form. Their last album dealt with Lovecraftian horrors. This time, opener “Diabolical Majesty” aims directly at the hypocrisy of the Christian right. It’s a straightforward death metal scorcher, especially compared to their usual technical approach, but it stands up to any song spawned by the current wave of OSDM favorites. They still know how to twist guitar necks with the best of them—“Lessons in Occult Theft” and “The Intervening Abyss of Untold Aeons” prove that. It’s just refreshing to hear Dave Davidson, Brett Bamberger and Ash Pearson (exceptional musicians all) throw in some more visceral pleasures.

Ultimately, Revocation’s biggest weakness as a collective remains their inability to connect the artistic wizardry with the emotional impact.

And it’s not like they need to resort to bonehead death metal to do so—plenty of progressive death metal bands succeed at that. It’s just that the best songs on Netherheaven show that they’re strongest at their simplest. —JEFF TREPPEL

SEDIMENTUM

8

Suppuration Morphogénésiaque M E S AC O U N OJ O / MEMENTO MORI

Seule la mort est réelle

With their calloused hands reeking of dank, overturned burial dirt, Sedimentum have now clawed out from deep underground on full-length debut Suppuration Morphogénésiaque.

“Krypto Chronique II” wastes no time acclimatizing to light; rapid-fire snare cracks usher in McEntee’d death-riffs, throttling blasts and wretched gutturals that blare forth with the kind of force that makes your eyeballs rattle.

Incantation/Immolation worship the last few years may have reached the saturation point for some DM heads, but Sedimentum’s animalistic intent—which borders on bestial war metal with actual riff-writing ability—distances this band from any erroneous claims of being copyists.

“Excrétions Basaltiques” powders the bones of Blasphemy and Bolt Thrower into a vital potion, the song’s squealing lead guitars arching out of the sheer miasmic boom.

The title track is a masterclass of death/doom sonic signifiers because of how Sedimentum arrange vertebrae-shattering tempo changes; evil slow-lurches shift rapidly into all-out blasting mania. It’s the kind of songwriting acumen that took Grave Miasma years to grasp, and these guys have nailed it after only a couple of demos.

“Nécromasse” conducts a mental funeral worthy of summoning a mass (dead) congregation, while later, “Supplice” displays further stylistic reach,

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SPIRITUS MORTIS

7

The Great Seal S VA R T

SPECTRUM MORTIS 6 Bit Meseri – The Incantation LISTENABLE

Mortis/doom vs doom-mortis

Say what you will about the Romans—they were awfully fond of public torture as entertainment, fair enough—they did come up with a pretty good language. Take mortis, the Latin word for “death.”

From mortis, we got rigor mortis, livor mortis,

the planet Mortis in Star Wars, Mortiis and his immortal prosthetics and, according to Encyclopedia Metallum, 154 metal bands with “Mortis” in their name. Two of those, the long-running Finnish band Spiritus Mortis and Spanish newcomers Spectrum Mortis, have new albums that evoke very different sides of the doom metal coin.

Spiritus Mortis formed in 1987 as Rigor Mortis, but quickly changed their name to avoid being confused with the cult Texan thrashers. They needn’t have worried; it took the rechristened band until 2004 to release a debut album, following a string of demos that never quite escaped the underground. The Great Seal is their fifth LP since then, and it finds the band’s elegant, epic doom in peak form.

They aren’t reinventing anything with their Candlemass-meets-Cathedral stomp, but nobody asked them to. The searing melodic leads and post-Iommi dirges of “Death’s Charioteer” and “Feast of the Lord” scratch a primal itch that’s deep in every doom lover’s bones.

Spectrum Mortis aren’t quite as graceful, though that’s not entirely a bad thing. The Madrid natives play a hellish interpretation of death/doom that’s much heavier on the death than the doom—think Encoffination, or even

STRIGOI, Viscera

7

Fresh blood and darker shadows | S E A S O N O F M I S T

British death crust kings Vallenfyre were Decibel favorites, and the project’s 2018 demise left many fans feeling fragile and eager for more. Thankfully, Vallenfyre vocalist/ guitarist Greg Mackintosh (Paradise Lost) and bassist Chris Casket immediately focused their iniquitous rage into a new project.

They emerged from Vallenfyre’s burial with Strigoi, named after Romanian spirits with vampiric tendencies. The first half of Strigoi’s Abandon All Faith debut shares some skeletal similarities with Vallenfyre. But their collision of buzzsaw crust and old-school deathgrind

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took a doomier, abyssal turn on the album’s B-side.

Strigoi explore even murkier depths on their sophomore record, Viscera. That’s immediately evident in the bleak, lumbering opener “United in Viscera.” While “King of all Terror” employs some of the D-beat thrust that drummer Guido Zima unleashes with the Secret, it concludes with a doomed denouement. This is an album that largely foregoes crust and poisonous punk for an atmosphere steeped in deeper and darker shadows.

A blackened shroud envelopes “An Ocean of Blood” and the cursed blasting of “A Begotten

Incantation. Bit Meseri – The Incantation, their debut album, opens with a bit of misdirection in the form of a gorgeously played Spanish guitar. After that, things get ugly quick, as the band throws itself into a chasm of pitch-black dissonance. Their scene is a crowded one, and there’s not much here to separate them from the glut of similarly dark, atmospheric, evilsounding death metal bands. Still, they do it reasonably well, and if that’s your sound of choice, they’ll be worth tracking in the years to come. —BRAD SANDERS

TEETHGRINDER

7

Dystopia

LIFEFORCE

Dental, records

It’s a good time to grind right now. The rebellious anti-authoritarian lyrics oft present in the genre have been relevant since Napalm Death asked why we’re all suffering, but they seem to carry a little more charge every time I roll over, turn off my alarm clock and open my News app.

Desperate times call for disgusting riffs, and on that front, Dutch grind outfit Teethgrinder

Son.” Strigoi expel some apocalyptic adrenaline with rippers “Napalm Frost” and “Redeemer.”

But despite the band’s death metal pedigree and the viscous grooves throughout, Viscera feels closer to Triptykon than any Bolt Thrower or Asphyx record. Three of the album’s final four tracks adopt the familiar churning, industrialized approach to blackened doom that motored Melana Chasmata.

The album’s wealthy in grandeur, but short on memorable hooks. However, the intent here is not frothing fury like Vallenfyre. Like the title implies, Viscera is more concerned with the innards of metal than surface-level extremity.

Strigoi’s unlit horrorscapes cut to the heart of what makes something feel heavy, prioritizing mood over might. —SEAN FRASIER

PHOTO BY HAL SINDEN

with its funeral doom acting as Lovecraftian track bookends.

The vibrant surrealism of Brad Moore artwork might be too similar in execution to his work for Tomb Mold, Gatecreeper or Worm, yet, based on the quality of this debut, Sedimentum are certainly on the level of those contemporary acts, and also a worthy addition to the esteemed legacy of Québécois extreme metal. —DEAN BROWN

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deliver. Dystopia is their first release since Obama was in office, and the interim years have done nothing to dull their bite.

In fact, the quartet’s standout feature is the sharpness in their musicianship. All due respect to vocalist Jonathan Edwards, whose howling is ferocious but rote; it’s his bandmates who crust ‘n’ roll with more chops than the songs demand.

Drummer Wieger Jan Scheper especially throws tricky fills into the music when guitarist Mart Wjinjolds and bassist Jabe Piter Faber lay off the hammer-ons and settle into a big power chord section. It’s easy to imagine the invigorating vamping of “Birthed Into Suffering” exploding into mathematical mayhem à la the Red Chord or Discordance Axis. Instead, Teethgrinder are content with a prerequisite tremolo-and-blasting climax—albeit a superbly executed one.

If there’s one critique grind can’t shake, it’s that the songs and bands can feel interchangeable. Bands like Teethgrinder feel extra relevant now, but also equally relevant. As good as Dystopia is, I could get an equivalent fix of righteous indignation from lesser musicians. As an album, it’s furious, fun and makes me feel good, but I’d appreciate bolder choices from a band this savvy in the future. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

TOXIK

8

Dis Morta MASSACRE

Think harder

Think This, the second album from Peekskill, NY’s hairiest, fastest and most misunderstood sons, was an underrated gem that bridged metals of thrash, heavy and progressive under a media manipulation concept that rings truer today than when it was released in 1992. For a variety of reasons, Think This never got its due, and the band dissolved at the hand of disinterest, frustration and changing trends. Following a series of compilations, re-recordings and new EPs beginning in the late aughts, the less hairy, much faster and just as misunderstood fellas are back.

In the hands of folks not nearly as dedicated to melody as guitarist Josh Christian and vocalist Ron Iglesias, the technical wizardry of Toxik would land like a wet fart at a funeral. But with the pair—along with guitarist Eric van Druten, bassist Shane Boulos and drummer James DeMaria (Heathen, ex-Merauder, Demolition Hammer)—determined to hook listeners in, Toxik’s formula of highlighting the cohabitation of the spellbinding and mind-melting with toetapping contagiousness works like a charm.

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The ridiculously fluid, classically inspired guitar runs in “Feeding Frenzy,” “Power” and “Straight Razor” are astonishingly catchy given their 128th-note blasting, as any musicians-only impenetrability gets tamed by Iglesias’ ability to carve vocal hooks from the flurry. On the other hand, more standard—well, standard for a band gorging on the collected works of Watchtower, Atheist and Nitro—offerings like “The Radical” and “Hyper Reality” are about linearity, albeit backed by revved-up, glittery platform-boot riffs, cloud-massaging vocal insanity and baroque guitars weaved together by outlandishly fantastic singalong choruses.

Jaw-dropping performances abound on Dis Morta, but rarely, if anywhere else, will you hear earworms so effectively working their magic at lightspeeds. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

TURIAN

8

No Longer Human W I S E B LO O D

The most extreme body collaboration

Punk and metal’s Big Four bugaboos—politics, religion, ecology and the brazen, willful idiocy of mankind—remain obvious targets. Meanwhile, meaningful dialogue continues taking a back seat to war and gore. Not for Turian on No Longer Human, perhaps a first in the latter genre.

“Unmemorable blur hiding my identity / Falling between the cracks of society / Neuro-cognitive deficit / Outsider degenerate.”

So screams the first verse of “Slow Death,” opening salvo of the Seattle quartet’s fourth LP. Adding dedicated larynx Veronica “Vern” Metzli, the “crust- and grind-infused melodic death metal” (according to a dB track premiere) trio of Ryan Moon, Cris Sanchez and Andrew Nyte unleashes an unforgettable account of the singer’s transitioning. This debut for Indianapolis imprint Wise Blood Records, founded by benevolent dB word whiz Sean Frasier, No Longer Human shireks a “[David] Cronenberg body horror angle,” summates the label head.

“Ten misfortunes trapped inside me / Dreadful child, brink of lunacy / Evil took command, shudder in distaste / Mine has been a life of shame.”

2020 punisher Turian streamlined the beefy, progressive grind of 2018 predecessor The Near Room and the raw angularity of 2017 bow Voiceless, almost all track times reduced to under two minutes. Here, the group manages a sleeker delivery while bulking up its compositional acumen tenfold. Gone is the shared, standard-

issue death bellow of previous releases for the ripe, crying throat shred of Metzli, whose hollow-point vocals ride sludgy, noisey, hardcore string-bending.

“Snakehead” hisses a galvanizing gallop. Riff rocket “Judas Tree” synthesizes its shred into a pulse-pouncing DIY Painkiller. Blunt force trauma “Malfunction” etches a spidery, Voivod-like sonic filigree. And NLH’s longest cut, the rabid “American Dog,” puts our crumbling empire in its place: euthanasia. —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

VALBORG

7

Der Alte

PROPHECY PRODUCTIONS/ LU P U S LO U N G E

Weird is as weird does

Valborg are weird, but weirdness is part of their pedigree. An offshoot of the Christian Kolf-fronted Zeitgeister circle, this German trio’s lineage dates back to bizarro sludge Woburn House’s birth yawns in the early 2000s. Zeitgeister’s outings as Klabautamann, Owl, Island, Ekpyrosis and, of course, Valborg, were always challenging, and Kolf has always situated himself at the center of the collective’s strange musings and progressive tendencies.

Pairing himself with fellow oddball Florian Toyka (ex-Klabautamann) and bassist Jan Buckard (Absolutum), Kolf’s Valborg concentrates on angular visuals and harsh, brutal color palettes.

To understand Der Alte, an understanding has to be made concerning Valborg’s timeline.

At first (and for a long time), Valborg were a progressive death/doom metal band, before they made an abrupt shift into modernist and nearindustrial territory, concentrating on the harshness of brutal architecture and art. But now? We find a return to previously covered territory… sort of. Der Alte is definitely a doom metal album, and it does have harsh vocals reminiscent of the throaty yells found on older material, but Valborg gained some heft along the way, which truly adds to their doom side.

All that being said, this album is, as stated earlier, weird. Like Tom G. Warrior playing guitar with Television weird. Somehow death and doom metal, but with these catchy gothic rock tendencies (without falling prey to any dairy), Der Alte is a monumental album that, at the same time, is difficult to really digest as a result. As difficult to comprehend as its art, Valborg’s dedication to their own craft is admirable and enjoyable, but the 37 minutes that comprise Der Alte seem equally as impenetrable.

—JON ROSENTHAL

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Erik Larson Red Lines If the name sounds familiar, you probably own albums

by Alabama Thunderpussy, Hail! Hornet, Backwoods Payback, Birds of Prey, Avail and/or the 950 other Richmond bands Larson is/was in. Because creativity doesn’t stop once the van door closes, he creates solo albums to keep busy when busy isn’t busy enough. Red Lines isn’t a surprise in that it offers up rawkin’ down-home stoner-doom, with forays into acoustic pensiveness. What is surprising is that Larson isn’t wearing a pair of Vans with all-over print sheet music.

Pander Break the Oath

Years ago, I started wearing slip-on Vans to ease the hassle of going through airport security. They’ve since become my go-to footwear for all occasions, with classic black, formallooking leather, pinstriped, checkerboard and Star Warsthemed pairs all in my closet. Add to that this playlist of new bands. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

The Ancient Dark The Ancient Dark In the case of this Irish lot, outfitting them in pairs of Vans’ Anchor Decks—deck shoe-style with anchor graphics and supposedly no-slip rubber soles—seems natural, as they cross doom metal with yacht rock.

Let’s take an additional waterproofing step to protect from the tears (of joy? sadness?) destined to be shed following exposure to this quizzical combination.

Final Summon Paralyzed Reality Hailing from L.A. and playing thrash the way even people who don’t know thrash understand thrash, Final Summon should be decked out in any of the limited-edition Slayer Vans hi-top/slip-on canvas or leather designs from 2008.

If not, it’s only because they’re smart enough to not pay the $500+ being asked online.

HÄXÄN Postmortem Engorgement With a title like Postmortem Engorgement and influences including Mortician, Obituary, Exhumed and Broken Hope, if there’s a band to squeeze into a pair of Friday the 13th/House of Terror slip-ons with “J. Voorhees” printed on the midsole… well, HÄXÄN are one of hundreds. These Ohio dudes may be the latest in that line, but at least they’re not the last in line.

Intimidation Display Pulverizing Inferiority Back in July 2019, Vans offered something called the Heavy Metal Pack. These were a series of shoes wrapped in black-and-white, Mark Riddick-looking “angered skeletons and scattered rib cages.” I picture these as the shoe of choice for these Baltimore-based purveyors of brutal deathgrind as they stomp their feet in protest and demand that, when Maryland Deathfest returns in 2024, it “gets back to the roots and original spirit” of the festival.

84 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

Should you stumble across a trio of dudes wandering the streets of the northern Netherlands in matching pairs of orange slip-ons, it might be the stoner-rocking gents of Pander lamenting about the time they smoked a bowl and tried to custom-order pairs of hi-top Vans with the Orange amp logo printed on them. But that’s what happens when the keywords are “orange,” “shoes” and “high.”

Phantom Lung Demo Classic grind in the vein of Terrorizer, Nasum and Insect Warfare always makes me feel warm and fuzzy; and, as such, they deserve footwear as comfortable. In the case of Phantom Lung, the classic Vans skate shoe seems appropriate, though definitely worn without socks and held together by strips of duct tape.

Trunk Eternal Vacation Listening to this is like watching the scene from the “Bark at the Moon” video with the Ozzy werewolf running down the fogged-out hallway. On a loop. Tuned to B and underwater. Did you know Ozzy did a limitededition hi-top “Wank for Peace” collab with Vans back in 2007? Finding and listening to Eternal Vacation and seeing Trunk will be much easier than scoring a pair of those, or waiting for the return of quality metal from ol’ John Michael.

Unaligned Inner Dimensions For better or worse, new-school tech-death bands have been assaulting everyone’s eyes with bright, multi-colored, all-over print shirts for longer than I care to remember. The mental image here is of Florida’s Unaligned gathering up some day-glo paint; a design heavy on interplanetary landscapes; godheads and creatures of indeterminate origins; and gussying up blank white canvas slip-ons to complete the ensemble.

Waste Cult Waste Cult Imagine that buddy of yours who’s perpetually wired on speed-laced spliffs stops by to visit. He kicks his feet up on the coffee table, and staring back at you are a pair of custom Vans featuring the bald and bearded head of Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein. The Waste Cult dudes have already rolled that dude and sent him, barefoot and with pockets empty, back to his dealer.

All of the above can be found seeking fame, fortune and free beer on Bandcamp and Facebook.

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

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KEN MODE

A LA MODE T

he Fucking Idiots. Or rather,

“The Fucking Idiots.”

It was the first of many discussions with the nascent group I had started in a swelter of hardcore mania that attempted to solve the riddle of what we’d be called. Steve Ballinger—guitarist and principal songwriter—screwed up his face.

“I don’t want to go through life having people call me a fucking idiot,” he sniffed.

But he hadn’t been steeped on the whole Ramones approach to punk rock, which I was all about emulating in 1981. Part Sid Vicious, part Zippy the Pinhead, part gluesniffing nihilist, it seemed to make a lot of sense to me where I hailed from (New York). But I was 19 and wasn’t seeing too far beyond 19, and was just thinking of how bitchin’ it’d look on a marquee with the Circle Jerks.

“I’m thinking we should call ourselves Whipping Boy.” And once he explained to me, over my syllabic resistance, that it was the prince’s friend who was often beaten in the prince’s stead in royal courts, I was sold. Sort of.

88 : OCTOBER 2022 : DECIBEL

Just arch enough to impress pointyheaded intellectuals, as well as having the downmarket sex appeal for the degenerates.

But KEN mode?

I’m unsure of how they fell into my purview, very possibly through the agency of this very mag, and a request to interview them. But I was hung up on the name.

“KEN mode? Like Ken and Barbie Mode?”

It was explained to me that they were heavy. Or rather, HEAVY. So, I tentatively agreed and tracked them down to a show that they were playing in San Francisco at the Great American Music Hall, at the conclusion of which I was most certainly assured that they were every measure of heavy. So, bullying my way downstairs to the backstage area, I cornered them. I mean, they knew I was going to be there, but now I came with much less casual and much more aggressive intent.

Because I had seen something.

The something I had seen I had only ever seen before when seeing that trip-hop Brit Tricky. He, for eyes that could see, moved in a certain way, a way that Jesse

Matthewson was moving, and that you only moved if you had much more than a passing familiarity with Muay Thai, the deadly martial art of eight limbs.

“So, where are you training and for how long?”

And what ensued was a deep geek dive into all things martial arts, where I was of two minds. On the one hand, I knew it was totally off topic and of interest to only two of us (and, very possibly, only ONE of us). On the other hand, I am powerless to stop this. Ask Matt Pike. Harley Flanagan. Ray Cappo.

Or anyone else standing in the blast zone of my addiction.

But Jesse was game, and so it wasn’t nearly as crappy as it seemed when I asked them about the provenance of their name. And I did throw in the Ken and Barbie bit.

Because I’m a fucking idiot.

“Well, it’s like part of the Black Flag legacy: Kill Everything Now Mode.” And as Jesse was saying it, I was remembering it. Black Flag and early SST bands had their own glossary for almost everything, and you either got it or you didn’t (something perfectly captured in Jim

Ruland’s just released Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise and Fall of SST Records).

I had gotten it, but I had forgotten it. However, in the first blush of explanation, I understood, and KEN mode was transformed for me. To the point of obsession. An obsession so enduring that, perhaps, to help me/shut me up, they asked me to sing on a song called “Blessed” from their Success album, also recorded by the guy who knew his way around an OXBOW record or two, Steve Albini.

And sing I did. My ass off. In the years since then, in other moments with either Jesse or Skot Hamilton, we’ve wandered well beyond martial arts. If memory serves, Hamilton even showed up at my day job’s office building one day for the most pleasant of surprises.

While over the years I was still ambivalent about the suitability of Whipping Boy, never for a minute have I been uncertain, after my initial burst of doubt, that the men in KEN mode were evenly slightly ambivalent in their desire to kill everything now.

So yes: KEN mode.

You can believe that.

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