So of course it was going to take more than a few spins of To the Frontlines to make a conclusive decision to its worth as an album with staying power. Interestingly enough, initial spins had me saying “yep, this is Züülalright,” which by itself would have been enough to dub it a mandatory purchase. But as the nostalgia curse wore off it became more and more apparent that To the Frontlines is a superior album, mainly because it is a more consistent one from front to back. Even better is that the new album takes everything that made Out of Time great and adds just enough diversity and a whole lot of consistency to make it worthy of being called an improvement.

Along with the same recording warmth and the indefinable feeling one gets from an album when it just “feels right,” come a slew of the kind of powerful ‘n classy head-banging anthems that mad Out of Time such a killer. It’s all about the galloping rhythms, the twin leads, the punch, and hooks on this sucker! Most representative are “Show No Mercy,” “Smoldering Nights” (the soloing here is just plain incendiary), and the battlefield glory and blood ‘n guts metal of what has become my favorite cut, “Skullsplitter,” which in some ways recalls the right stuff that made Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper” so magnificent. “Guillotine” and “In the Cellar” are knockouts as well, but what makes “Heavy Lover” another highlight are the 70’s hard rock vibes and an arrangement that at times is like a heavy metal filtering of the blazes set by everyone from Ram Jam to Pat Travers (not blatant, but it’s in there).

What ends up setting To the Frontlines most apart from its predecessor is the closing trio of tunes, starting with a damn fine instrumental called “Of the Fallen.” Even more so are the twin towers that follow: “Bounty Land” and “Waste of Time,” which clock in at a just-epic-enough eight and seven minutes, respectively. The former sports a mildly majestic mid-tempo gallop before the hammer is brought down with the Thor-like force. A little dreaminess coexists nicely with the higher voltage moments on “Bountyland,” the song also ramping up with glorious heavy metal power toward the end.

All of this boils down to To the Frontlines being a phenomenal album made by one of America’s best heavy metal bands. In the end, when taken as whole, I’d have to give it the nod over Out of Time. What is most needed is for Züül to achieve the widespread notoriety it so justly deserves. Do your part: buy the album and spread the word. Züül rules! It’s as simple as that.

Right off the bat the tone of the riff on opener “Modern Roman Circus” told me that Somewhere in the Circle had an edge, rather than a polish so bright you’d be seeing those uncatchable black spots. That particular song turned out to be a leading indicator of the more than respectable songwriting involved. Straddling the line between the newer school power metal of later years and the classic metal of golden-era Judas Priest and Dio what Helker offers on Somewhere in the Circle is an album that should in fact appeal to fans of the aforementioned heavyweights. It appeals to me, doesn’t it?

The upsides are several. That includes a vocalist in Diego Valder who pays respectful tribute (intentional or otherwise) to the late Ronnie James Dio or in what is probably a more apt modern-era comparison, Nils Patrik Johansson (Lions Share, Wuthering Heights, Astral Doors). That Helker relies first and foremost on a stout rhythmic backbone and thick/crunchy riffs, a sizeable hook delivered with power by Valder as the collective basis for the music speaks to the quality of the songwriting. Let’s face it; anything else is accent and window dressing. The band does however have a firm grasp of the compositional “little things,” whether it is a certain melodic guitar flourish or a splash of electronics (e.g. “At the End of the Journey”).

The quintet also manages to keep one’s attention pretty much the entire way thanks to some well-placed changeups. Take the appearance of Scheepers and Owens on the classy “Begging to be Reborn” and a chorus melody on “Ghosts from the Past” that is a pinch different from the norm for the album. In fact, the brief up-tempo shift on “Begging…” during which Scheepers takes the mic is a real attention-grabber. The ballad-esque “Flying” with its acoustic guitar, harmony vocals, and keys is well done, even if it didn’t result in an audible ringing of my personal bell.

What most of the above really means is that on Somewhere in the Circle Helker succeeds in striking the right balance between balls and beauty. That’s never as easy as it seems, folks. Hey, it’s not like you’ll find any future classics here nor be bowled over by originality, but you’ll not come across any outright duds either. Well, “Dreams” does come off a tad ill-fitting, but that’s probably why it’s included as a bonus track on this limited edition version, which also comes with videos for “Wake Up” and “Flying.” Bang for the buck, right? In short, it’s hard to go too wrong with this one unless you’re a trad-metal punter of overbearing pickiness. You can check out the video for “Wake Up” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY4ndVUUAFI&feature=player_embedded

Thank you so much, man. We really appreciate that.

Let’s go back a bit, before you released the first album Murder.Death.Kill on Horror Pain Gore Death Productions. You began by self-releasing an EP.

Yeah, it’s a self-titled album. It was never actually meant to be a CD for sale. We actually went in to record a few songs to have on Myspace or whatever and eventually when it came to us playing our first few shows we wanted to have something for sale, so we said hey, why not? It’s not the best recording; it was done in a basement, live on the floor. But it did really well and people seemed to like it. It was a good early start for the band.

How did you hook up with Horror Pain Gore Death Productions for the release of the first album?

Actually, they had worked with another band that Cara [McCutchen], our vocalist, was in a band called Minax. They had some very DIY stuff and decided to put out an album, and Mike Juliano from Horror Pain Gore Death helped them out. I’m not sure what all that involved, but they got into contact. Once that relationship was established Mike found out about Mortillery; that we were new and doing our own thing separate from what Minax was doing. He wanted to help us out, so once we were ready to release Murder.Death.Kill in 2011, although it was re-released later by Napalm Records in 2012, he put the album out. It definitely helped us out a lot to get the name out there. Really what we wanted was some connections with other places. We know how to take care of ourselves in Canada, or at least here in Western Canada, but it definitely helps a lot to have that connection across the border, especially with someone like Mike who clearly knows what he’s doing and has a lot of connections.

I was surprised to see the Napalm reissue, although not for any specific reason; I certainly wasn’t surprised that you made the jump to a bigger label.

I definitely hear you. You can go to the website and look at the thrash metal section and it’s pretty small; it’s only like three bands right now or something. I think what they’re trying to do is expand more. Napalm Records has really done well for themselves and they know what they’re doing. They’ve had over 15 years of experience doing this. It would be dumb to deny that thrash metal has made a pretty big comeback and the female-fronted bands have gotten much more popular too, so we had what they were looking for. And we’re going to take it of course [laughs].

Napalm contacted you out of the blue then?

After the album was released by Horror Pain Gore Death we sent out a bunch of copies to record labels, just to kind of put it out there that we wanted to keep moving forward. Maybe like six months after we sent the album they sent us an e-mail and it was pretty straight forward, saying “Hey, we’re Napalm Records and we want to sign you; this is what’s up.” You can imagine how excited we were. Of course we had to get some help from some people to decipher exactly what that contract meant [laughs]. We couldn’t be happier with how everything turned out.

Were you the one that read the e-mail when it came in?

Yeah, I was the first one to read it [laughs]. I immediately texted everybody and said “You’re not gonna believe this, get over here! [Laughs].

Did you let out a yell when it arrived?

Yeah [laugh], it was pretty intense. At the time I wasn’t working and I was just bumming around, sitting at home doing nothing all day long. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Edmonton, Canada; it’s a pretty boring city and not much is going on. That was like the biggest news of the year when we got that e-mail [laughs]!

After you had the deal in hand and you had the task of completing a new album ahead of you, were you feeling any pressure?

We had like half the album already written, so there was no pressure at all. The only pressure was on ourselves to take this opportunity seriously and do what we can with it. Regardless of whether we got signed or not we were going to make more music and release more albums. The Napalm deal just gave us that extra boost of confidence that we needed to keep moving forward. So we just said let’s take advantage of this and go for it.

The Origin of Extinction is certainly the same band sound-wise, but you’ve tightened everything up and the songs hit with more immediacy and stay with you longer. The songs stand out more, while the music is just as aggressive, if not more so, than Murder.Death.Kill.

Yeah, that’s how we feel. We’re definitely way more comfortable with the songs; they seem to be closer to the type of songwriting we want to do. You can tell. Even with our live shows we’ve been watching videos of us from early on and videos from more recent shows and we can see how we’ve developed the sound that we feel most comfortable creating, and we’re really happy about that.

Cara is one of the better pure, raging metal vocalists I’ve heard in a while. She can actually sing during the parts that call for it too, yet she retains that raw edge.

It is very natural. The way that we write the songs and the way that our sound comes out, it is just us being ourselves. We have many, many different influences and we’re not afraid to show them in any way, shape, or form. Our type of music, and thrash in general, is composed of many different types of influences. You’ve got punk rock, power metal, and you’ve got traditional metal, and we’re ok with that; we like to explore all of those. It really all depends on what mood we’re feeling. Some songs lean more toward one style than others, and it all depends on what we’re feeling at that time.

The guitar tone and playing kills. It’s cutting.

I really appreciate that, man. It’s cool to work with Alex Scott, the lead guitar player too. I’ve had lots of different bands in the past, but I’ve never been able to connect with somebody so closely. We weren’t even friends before we got in the band together. We met through the band. He joined when our original guitar player decided to leave, so we just put an ad out saying hey this is who we are and we don’t have any albums out or anything, just the demo. And he found it and the first time he came to play with us he had already learned that demo. When we sit together and write on the guitars it’s just so comfortable. He reads my mind and I do the same with him; we each know exactly where the other one is going.

With the instrumental that opens the album, “Battle March,” there is no question where things are going to go with the album. It’s a great way to kick things off.

That’s all Alex Scott too, man, while we’re on the topic of him. He showed us that piece and I think originally it was just going to become a regular song with vocals, but there was just something about it on its own. We only had three or four songs written for the album when he wrote that and it was automatic to us that it was the way the album was going to start. It was already shaping the way this album was going to sound. I really dig that piece too.

I’m sure you get asked about this song quite a bit, but the fact of the matter is that “F.O.A.D.” is a fantastic song. It’s real attention-getter. What’s the story behind it?

It’s awesome that you feel that way. It’s so cool to hear what everyone chooses as a favorite song from the album. We all have difference choices for favorite songs on the album. It’s weird; that one just came out on its own. It’s funny because in the early years of the band I was helping out quite a bit with the lyrics; me and Cara would do them together. In my style of writing I would use a lot of swearing and things like that. But when the band started she wasn’t really into that. She would use my lyrics, but she would take out my swearing [laughs]. She came out of nowhere with that song. We had the song written, but didn’t have lyrics written. She told us to just play it and let her do her thing and then we could tell her what we thought about it. That’s the first time we heard what she was singing about and we thought wow, this is perfect [laughs].

That’s the one you’ve chosen for the video too.

Napalm decided that it is a song that we should focus on with some of the promotion, so it’s going to be our first time doing a music video. Since they think it’s such a strong song, and so do you I guess [laughs], we agreed to doing the video for that one. We’ve got to keep busy, we’ve got to stay out there doing things.

What other songs have critics been highlighting in reviews or interviews?

“Maniac” is probably the other one and “No Way Out” is one as well. We have “Battle March” that starts the album and goes for two minutes and then it’s two minutes of instrumental music when “No Way Out” starts. It wasn’t our intent to have four minutes of instrumental stuff to begin the album before the lyrics start, but it flows really well and sounds like it was all meant to be together. That song seems to grab peoples’ attention. “Maniac” is really fun for us to play. It is really simple and straight forward. It’s pretty close to the punk rock style of playing when the lyrics kick in and all of that. The topic of the song is just about things that we are into; everything that we do, the way that we play, or what we sing about.

The vinyl packages for this album are very appealing.

Yeah, and Napalm surprised us with the poster idea; we didn’t even think of it. When they released Murder.Death.Kill on vinyl we wanted to have the toxic green color, but it didn’t work out. This time around for The Origin of Extinction we were able to go for it and we’re excited about it.

What about touring? Is Europe on the horizon?

That’s the plan right now. We’ve been trying to get some connections through booking companies to take us to Europe. We’re still a fairly new band and there is still a lot of work to be done, so we can’t just jump right up and get out there. We need to make sure everything is all planned out correctly. I think the release of The Origin of Extinction will give us the credibility we need to make things like that happen. So hopefully we can get this tour going sooner rather than later.

And the States?

You would think it would be easier to tour in the States because it is so much closer to us, but most of the response to the music, and maybe because of where the label is located, has come from Europe. Don’t get me wrong; we’re still getting really strong support from the States and here in Canada, and a lot in South America. But going to play in Europe has been a dream of everyone in the band for a long time. At this point if we can jump on something that is fun and exciting we’ll do that too; we’re not saying “no” to anything.

On a closing note, you can hear the varying influences in Mortillery’s sound, but there is also a – for lack of a better way of describing it – distinctively Canadian metal streak in the music, whether it is Sacrifice or Razor for instance. That’s never a bad thing, as far as I’m concerned.

Yeah, there must be something natural that comes from your environment in the sense that you can tell Canadian metal or rock ‘n roll when you hear it. You can immediately tell, but I’m not sure what it is exactly because I’m from here. We are the kind of band that is very proud of our influences and we’re not afraid to show it. We understand that rock ‘n roll really is just a re-creation of itself and we like that. Why not? For metalheads and fans of rock ‘n roll in general the bands that you listen to mean a lot to you. We’re the same way and we respect that, and we want to do our part and keep the ball rolling so future bands can do the same. And if we happen to influence any band in the future, then that’s a job well done.

http://www.mortillery.com/

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You’ve heard it all before and little on Burn and Suffer will make the muscles around your mouth stretch to capacity from your dropped jaw, none of which means a damn thing in the context of listening enjoyment. In other words, Burn and Suffer is well played and rock solid as a death metal album in the grand Brazilian tradition. Throaty mid-range growls combine with organic Gatling-gun blasts and razor riffing (ala Krisiun), and more than a modicum of memorable cuts.

The songwriting on display sticks to the fundamentals, generally meaning vocal patterns that follow the guitar lines and a philosophy to that screams: ‘We’ve got a great riff here, so why would we keep departing from it?” That’s oversimplifying things a bit, but the central point remains: the arrangements on this album are fundamentally sound.

Those fundamentals are put to good use since there are several songs of note here and not a single one that isn’t worth your time. “Behold the Desecration” sets apart for its appealing Hades-gallop and a great hook. Hell, it’s even got a certain swing to it. “Abnegating Legacies of Supremacy” is one of the cuts representative of the album as a whole since the balance of teeth-rattling blasts, gallops, grooves, and stabbing riffs is heard front and center. And you’ve got to love the break into a stone cold groove amidst the blasting warfare on “Slaves of Faith,” while “Desolation of the Religion” just kills, the topmost cherry the threat conveyed by that ascending guitar line.

Burn and Suffer does a marvelous job of providing the old school death metal fan that prefers the Brazilian model a means to get his/her DM groove on without having to think so darn hard about it. Mortificy’s newest work is free of self-aggrandizement and full of glorious Death. Nicely done.

An examination of the album’s innards reveals three gnarly and knurled cuts from Fenriz (“torn from the wombs of the riders of rohan of metal, safely cradled in 1985 style,” as he puts it) and three Nocturno nuggets on which the classic metal of yesteryear reverberates in epic form (or as Fenriz put it: “Ted’s are flown from the universe of metal”). As a matter of fact, good ‘ole Ted just happens to turn in one of his best performances on what is an album highlight, “Valkyrie.” A few times through the album and the chorus of that particular track sinks its claws in deep at which point you can banish from your mind any thoughts of dislodgement. Even Nocturno’s pronunciation/inflection is unforgettably endearing. The cut is also one on which the Manilla Road influence is unmistakable, although Darkthrone has churned out more than a few songs this century in which the sounds of that storied Wichita, KS can be heard to varying degrees.

With as much great riffing and quirky-cult coolness going on here, it is not like any one of these six tracks soars miles above any of the others. That said; if I had to pick another highlight, then album-closer “Leave No Cross Unturned” would have to be it. It is destined to be considered a Darkthrone anthem par excellence, right in line with some of the better material from the band’s 21^st century output. That simple repetitive chorus is so catchy it’s ridiculous, yet in a way that is far more primal and quintessentially Darkthrone than “Valkyrie.”

While I can’t quite dub The Underground Resistance a product superior to Circle the Wagons yet, the former is moving in that direction. That’s no surprise since Darkthrone albums always end up growers, the mark of a long player with lasting appeal. More importantly, Darkthrone albums like The Underground Resistance are a joy to devour from the first track to the last and are always a great deal of fun, a point that too often gets lost in the analysis of a metal album’s worth. On The Underground Resistance the band demonstrates yet again that they are Darkthrone, and they play fuckin’ metal! Get some! 

It’s hard to mention a band or a few that would be responsible for the whole Finnish sound. I might just list all of them. I don’t think that the Finnish scene was that much driven by one pioneer that others followed. When talking about Swedish sound, people associate it with the “sunlight “™ guitar sound. The Finnish sound is more about the dark feel. Where that comes from, I don’t know. Maybe it’s one reflection of the Finnish mental landscape.

Along those same lines, how important is feeling/atmosphere in the music of Desecresy and how much consideration do you give to it when recording an album? Or is it simply that it is just what comes out of you when you record?

There is a great amount of consideration of the atmosphere in Desecresy songs. Not so much to sound as Finnish as possible, but just to have the right kind of atmosphere for Desecresy. Many riffs and even whole songs have been abandoned because of this. If they don’t fit the overall feeling they must go, no matter how good they are otherwise. The undeniable Finnish-ness comes quite unintentionally. I would say most of our influence comes from somewhere else than just Finnish Death Metal, but I believe your surroundings (cultural/geographical etc.) leave a mark in your music too, want it or not.

How would you compare The Doom Skeptron to 2011’s Arches of Entropy to someone that had either not heard the album or who was only familiar with the earlier release? I personally think you’ve kept all the darkness/evil of the first album, but actually made the songs somewhat more varied and memorable this time.

You sum up the comparison pretty well there. I’d say the atmosphere in Desecresy songs are dark, but less evil and sick as in many other death metal albums and perhaps more mystical and hypnotic. This is what we aimed for from the beginning and took it further on the second album, as well as making better composition in the songs. We have got much better reception for The Doom Skeptron than what the first album had, so I think we are on a right direction.

Are you ever concerned about “repeating” yourself musically from one album to the next? And yet it would seem important to continuing making albums that still sound like Desecresy.

After two albums and on the way to recording the third one I’m not yet that worried about albums sounding too similar. Within the tracks of an album this can be a problem and something challenging to balance with the atmosphere: To have consistency without getting too generic. Sometimes reading reviews of some established bands it seems to me that the critics are too demanding when they accuse a band being unable to renew their selves. It is not that often when a band creates a unique style. If a band manages to achieve that, it is most likely a once in a lifetime thing. Yet some people think that they should be able to pull it off on every album! Any way it’s important for a band to find their own sound and to keep developing it throughout their existence.

Talk about the process of writing and recording with you being responsible for all the instruments and Jarno the vocals Are vocals often written after the music, the other way around, or both?

The vocals are arranged after the music. Hard for me to see it done the other way around in Death Metal where the vocals don’t form a melody like in some more conventional styles of music, but I guess it could be possible. After all the vocals are one of the instruments too. The opening track of Arches of Entropy was first made with the drums and coming up with guitars on top of them. Maybe we will try to do the same starting with vocals someday.

That makes sense. What about the lyrics?

Giving thought to it, the lyrics are always done after the music. Never in the order of making the song based on pre-existing lyrics. That would be a more challenging way to compose for me, but it could be interesting too. In some songs on our forthcoming album I have used musical elements that support the theme of the song so that the lyrics and music are being constructed as an entity from the beginning.

What is the story behind your choice of naming the album The Doom Skeptron? Does it in some way tie the lyrical matter of the songs to together?

The album has varied lyrical themes so it’s not a concept album or anything, but The Doom Skeptron fits well for a title to put over the album. In the cover art you can see the cracks that fill the whole artwork in all the sheets starting from this skull-headed sceptre or Skeptron in the centre. Another presentation of this is the black sun over the obscured landscape in the centerfold also being the starting point of the shattering.

You kept the album art rather bleak and uncomplicated, which happens to fit the sound of the album quite well. Of course, when someone that is actually in the band is also responsible for the artwork it would seem to make connect of music to the artwork a seamless process.

I think it would be impossible for us to have the same correlation between music, lyrics, all the thought we put into them and with the artwork if we should rely on an artist outside the band. In the CD booklet each song’s lyrics are placed on its own page and each page has an artwork in the theme of the lyrics. It was important for me that the artwork is part of the album and not just some random decorative pictures to fill the sheets.

You mentioned the vocals being another instrument earlier. What is most important to get across to the listener with the vocals of Desecresy? Is it just one more element that gives the music its feel?

If you can define a band Death Metal by just hearing one instrument, I would say most likely it is the vocals. It is also the instrument that gives a character to a band. If you listen to Serpent Ascending, which is Jarno’s solo projection, you will hear his vocal approach is somewhat different.

Do you think being a two-person band makes things easier, whether it is writing, recording, business decisions, etc?

Honestly I think it makes everything a hell of a lot easier! The more there are people with their own likes, dislikes, ambitions, frustrations, etc. the more difficult everything is. It is also possible that I myself am so difficult to deal with that a full scaled band would have a hard time working with me. Writing and recording is much easier when there are fewer people who have to learn and practice things properly. Also there are fewer people wanting to put their stamp on and having their way with things. There isn’t that many business decisions to make with an underground Death Metal band but yeah, I think dealing with the label for example is easier too.

Speaking of the label, how did your association with Xtreem Music begin and are you satisfied with how things have gone and continue to go? Are you on any other labels in different territories and/or will you be releasing a vinyl version?

The Doom Skeptron is out in vinyl too. The debut has not been released on vinyl, but that may happen someday. I heard someone wanted to get the license to release ‘Arches of Entropy on vinyl in South America, but the rights are owned by Xtreem. There are no other labels putting out Desecresy in other territories or formats. I contacted Xtreem about releasing Arches of Entropy. That was honestly the first label I thought about and I was happy to sign the deal with Dave Rotten. Things have been going swell and we are signed for two more albums.

It certainly wasn’t difficult to find the CD in the States, as I purchased my copy from the Dark Descent distro. I would imagine that’s the kind of thing you like to see.

I’m glad to hear that Desecresy can be found relatively easy. There’s no reason why the band should be kept hidden and to be revealed only for the few chosen right people, whoever those would be. One reason I wanted us to sign with Xtreem is that their releases can actually be found somewhere. Obviously Desecresy is and will be a small band, but to be signed to some guy we happen to know who happens to keep some sort of label and to have those albums bought only by some other people we know, all within some small circles wouldn’t make any sense! We could just as well keep it to ourselves.

By the way, how did you come up with the name Desecresy and what does it mean?

I think of the word “desecresy” as an revelation. The word has the kind of sound that I think fits this for a band playing this kind of music

Have you ever enlisted other musicians to play live and/or would you ever consider doing so?

We haven’t and it seems unlikely. We see that as a possibility, but thus far we haven’t given much thought to live appearances. We want to bring out our Death Metal in the form of records and unlike for many others the idea of live playing is not that important for Desecresy.

When you aren’t writing and recording the music of Desecresy, what kinds of work and play activities fill your time?

I work in a warehouse. The time and energy I have in my free time from all the mandatory mundane dullness, I don’t have that many activities worth mentioning besides Desecresy, which does consume much of my time. Jarno is a librarian and interested in literature, plus of course he has all this other Metal activity going on too.

Thanks so much for your time. This last spot is reserved for pure Desecresy promotion, so feel free to commence promoting!

I use this opportunity to ruthlessly forge our next release into your awareness. Beware of the third Desecresy album! It should be out during 2013 if all goes as planned. That’s all from me. Thank you for the interview!

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And that brings us to sophomore Atkins May Project album Valley of Shadows, which is no major departure from its predecessor, but is nevertheless a more cohesive, better produced (also the work of Paul May) effort. Much like the act’s name would imply it is the mid-range, rough ‘n crusty Akins vocal approach and some pretty versatile, goddamn electric riffs and leads from May that constitute the guts of the new long player. Atkins’ vocals are somewhat of acquired taste, although I happen to find his gritty approach a much-needed point of distinction, not to mention soulful in a broad sort of way.

What you get musically is a combination of mid and up-tempo classic heavy metal tunes, flecked with classy melodies and rife with blazing solos for the lion’s share of the disc. “Welcome to the Nightmare” and “Stronger than Grace” are the meat and potatoes up-tempo numbers, while mid-paced groovers like “Harder they Fall” and “Not Ready to Die” are more memorable from the standpoint of melody. Then you get a quartet of cuts that give the album its variety. “No Ordinary Man” benefits from a more pronounced hard rockin’ blues-basis, as does “Bitter Waters,” which works well with the integration of swampy acoustic guitar. May’s wah-wah work on “Enslaved to Love” is a primary reason the track tends to stand out with repeat spins. The far mellower and rather dark/dreary title track is solid. Pairing it with closer “The Shallowing (Return)” offers the listener an effective comedown and fade-out after the metallic muscle of the preceding tracks. The latter song is connected to “The Shallowing” that appeared on the debut, which moves in a direction most metallic and muscular.

Valley of Shadows probably won’t change your life. It would however be a fine addition to the collection of most fans of traditional heavy metal, especially those with a broader base of knowledge of and appreciation for the beloved genre. I’d give it one-and-a-half thumbs up if it were it not for the necessity of disfigurement to make such a rating reality. It’s a pretty good record. How’s that?

Honky injects 421 with loads of big guitar firepower and lathers much of it with some fierce blues chops. Opener “WFO” (as in “Wide Fuckin’ Open”) is the album’s blistering pedal-to-the-metal highlight and one of a few examples that reminds of the raucousness of bands like Lecherous Gaze. It also happens to be most demonstrative of Honky’s lead guitar prowess; in this case highlighted by dueling channel-to-channel soloing. Fuzzed out stonerisms and a rhythm section that features fat, pulsating bass and tempo-commanding drums give 421 its oomph, as exemplified by the aforementioned “WFO,” as well as “Just a Man,” “Handful of Nails,” “Riddle Cap,” “Erson,” the bumpin’ Clutch-esque “Walton County” (inclusive of a thunderous bass/drum break), and the bluesy rock steadiness of “Woke up Dead.”

Variety is the spice of life though, and on 421 Honky drives that point home. The sleazy, flame engulfed blues of “Over Easy” is one example, as is “All for Nothin,’” which offers more than a hint of potential commercial appeal in the form of a straight ahead rock number that wouldn’t be out of a place on a Brand New Sin record. Along similar lines, “Black Joe’s Bitch” could be a rock radio gem, assuming that a chorus of “Bitch, you know I love you” wouldn’t ruffle any corporate feathers. Finally, a little slide guitar goes a long way on mid-tempo instrumental “4:21.”

Given all of the above, few would be shocked to know that 421 was recorded at Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Studio. Even fewer would find it surprising that Honky runs hotter than a two-peckered goat and that 421 is highly recommended for fans that just can’t enough of the loud, the righteous, and the boogieing.

The not so secret ingredient of Shoot ‘em Up is Mortör ’s skilled approach to songwriting, one that that concentrates solely on a rock solid combination of great riffs, bangin’ cadences, and no-frills choruses that are immediately memorable. Add to that the intelligible death- rasps of vocalist Yolin Lafrenière and some super cool lock-step syncopation and what you are hearing soon becomes recognizable as the sound of a complete package. “Under the Flag,” the title track, and a cut in “Clusterfuck” that is impossible to dislodge from memory (try not to smile ‘n bang during that refrain – you’ll fail every time) could be considered the highlights, but in all honesty Shoot ‘em Up is a mandatory front-to-back listen devoid of anything resembling dud. That includes “Days of our Knives,” mentioned here specifically because of its righteous title. This is just too damn much fun.

Just check out some of the links below and you’ll soon understand why Shoot ‘em Up is without a doubt one of the best self-released metal albums of 2012.  Seek out the album and buy it. It’s as simple as that.

I never thought about whether or not I’m still going to be here because 2012 and 1985 seemed like an eternity apart [laughs]. You know what I mean? On the other hand, I feel very privileged that I am actually still here and still able to do shows and tour the world and release albums that people still like. It’s very rare since I think we are one of the few extreme metal bands where a lot of our fans still like the new albums when they are released. Some bands from back in the day, their new records are ok, but they tour so much that they don’t put a lot of time into writing stuff; that’s the impression I get sometimes. We take time off in between tours. We take at least a year or a year and a half off where we play not many shows or no shows at all, and instead just write the album. And I think a lot of bands forget about that. They go straight from the road into the studio, and that can’t work.

And they may be forcing things.

Yes, exactly.

What about you contemporaries? Would you say Destruction and Sodom have maintained that album quality to which you refer?

Yeah, they do to a certain extent. But I’m not here to judge their albums. I love the guys and we are good friends and I think they work very hard, especially Destruction who are out on the road all the time. Sodom release quality albums still. So yeah, they’ve maintained it; the power and energy for sure.

Accept and Kreator touring America as a tandem in 2012… That’s a pretty big deal; a force of German metal invading the U.S. How has the tour gone so far?

Very good! You’ll see tonight that the crowd is very different. Kreator is more extreme. The night begins with Swallow the Sun who have the doom and are a very slow kind of band. Then Accept comes in and it goes a little faster. I mean Accept are Accept; they’re a classic metal band and everyone knows them. Every metalhead has heard of them. They have “Balls to the Wall” and “Fast as a Shark,” I mean those are classic metal songs. And then we come out and we’re more extreme [laughs]. It’s not like when we play with Vader or Exodus or Napalm Death. When we go out with those bands the crowd is getting an extreme band before we even go on. This tour is a little different. So a lot of the people that only came to see Accept sometimes are a little taken aback [laughs]. Because when we play there is a mosh pit and everything. For Accept people are head banging and singing the songs. So it’s working quite well.

It’s not like Accept and Kreator are so far apart as to be an odd pairing either. It’s not like it is Accept and Nile or something.

Oh no, no… Exactly. To me Accept is one of those bands that also had these last two albums that they put out that are really good and they proved… I mean they’ve been around since I was a kid. One of my first concerts ever was Accept. They’re just a classic heavy metal band and we’re really, really happy to be out with them. It might not be the same style that we play, but it works. The song “Fast as a Shark,” every time I hear this song I think that this is the roots of thrash metal. It’s the first time ever that a band used double-bass the whole time through, even before Metallica did it. Accept are the inventors of this genre without even knowing it.

I recall on one of the Art of Noise tours when you were touring with Vader how much it seemed to mean to Peter, as a huge Kreator fan now and growing up, to be touring with you guys. He mentioned it on stage in fact. Just like you’re talking about Accept in terms of influence; he was talking about Kreator.

Yeah, this is the great thing about metal. We all like each other’s bands [laughs]. In theory I could be in there right now watching the whole Accept show. It’s a show I would go see myself.

Any highlights of the tour thus far?

Oh yeah, and we’re almost in the middle of the tour now. New York was amazing, Montreal was great… Yesterday we played in Joliet, IL; that was an amazing show too. Many of the shows were good actually. Some of the shows were a little slow, but most of them were great. The kickoff wasn’t really what we expected it to be, the one in Washington, D.C. [at the Howard Theater]. But it was a new club that had just opened and there had never been metal shows there before, so we were the first metal show. But it was good because that way we could try out things [laughs]. We definitely want to come back to the States within a year to support this album because we have working visas and we want to use them. Because on this tour we haven’t hit certain parts of the country that we still want to play, so the next tour we will hit those places.

The new album may be one of the best ones you’ve recorded, and I say that with the utmost sincerity. What you’ve really nailed on this one is the retention of the patented aggression/extremity whilst so deftly incorporating a better melodic sense. The dynamics at play are notable as well; you cannot say that one song sounds just like the next.

That was the trick for us. When we were going into the songwriting we had that in mind because we felt that the previous three [Hordes of Chaos, Enemy of God, and Violent Revolution] were great albums, but they sounded like they were taken from the same songwriting session in a way. So we were thinking about what was going to be the next step for us without changing the sound and still being Kreator.

That’s tough!

I know [laughs]. Basically, if you listen closely you’ll find a lot of influences from traditional metal, which is what we grew up with. You hear a lot of Judas Priest, even some Iron Maiden; that was the thing that we wanted to do.

Especially with the twin leads…

Yeah, exactly! A lot of those twin leads are tributes to the bands that we grew up with, which were Judas Priest, Saxon, Iron Maiden… That was even before the thrash thing came on. I mean we were teenagers and when I was 12 years old I listened to Iron Maiden for the first time and I was blown away. It was the first Iron Maiden album actually. They opened up for Kiss in Germany and I became an Iron Maiden fan. And from thereon I got into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and then I found out that there were tons and tons of bands like that in Europe and America, and then during that second generation in like ’82 or ’83 was when Metallica came out and that changed the whole thing.

Aside from being a great song, “Phantom Antichrist” is the title track. Talk about the meaning of the song.

“Phantom Antichrist” talks about media manipulation. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I heard this radio show in Germany where they were talking about the dead body of Osama Bin Laden; that they made it disappear. And I thought wait a minute, that guy was responsible for one of the most fucked up tragedies in the world. And all of a sudden after they kill the guy they throw him into the water for religious reasons, even though there is no Muslim tradition for water burial? That was so strange because I thought they would keep him alive and ask him questions about the details of the September 11^th thing. That kind of got me thinking. It was just very strange that this icon of terror was just gone and nobody talked about it. It inspired me to write the song “Phantom Antichrist,” which as I said is about media manipulation. The media makes you think certain things that you shouldn’t believe so the government can do whatever they want. So it’s sort of connected; mass media is a tool of the government. It’s kind of like a metaphor also. It’s like an invisible force kind of. It’s hard to explain the lyrics in details and I don’t really want to spoil it by explaining everything.

Right, I get it; you want people to make their own interpretations.

Exactly, and that is more important. Like what I just told you was just the idea of the song, but if you read the lyrics and you get something else out of it that’s fine. You can get inspiration out of your own thoughts and make it whatever you want it to be.

“The Few, The Proud, The Broken” is a great title and an even better song.

Thank you very much. I got online a lot to read blogs and that title was the headline in some American newspaper talking about people coming back from war. The promise the government makes when sending soldiers to war is that it’s all going to be so glorious, and these people come back with only one leg or something and their minds are all fucked up. I had seen something on television about this company that makes prosthetic legs and there were people that came back from Iraq missing legs or a bomb took their arm and they were proud of being able to get them because there was a select group of people who could go there and get these fake arms or robot legs or whatever. Instead of being pissed off at the government because their fucking leg or arm is gone they were proud that they were chosen for that program! It’s that whole brainwashing thing that this song is about. If you go to war you should think about it twice. It might not be what you think it will be. There is no such thing as a clean war. War is brutal and it’s the worst thing on earth.

The production on Phantom Antichrist is fantastic too!

We went to Sweden at the beginning of the year, which was a great experience. It was the coldest thing I’ve ever experienced too [laughs]. We went there to record with Jens Bogren. He is a very famous producer in Europe and he has worked with our friends in Amon Amarth, and he worked with Katatonia and many bands that are not really in our genre. I think we may be the first real thrash band he has ever produced. He is just one of these guys that looks at metal as an art form and he respects it. He really, really takes it seriously. We spent like six weeks there to record it and we’re happy with the results. He did a good job.

A couple of other songs come to mind when I think about this album. You’ve got “Death to the World,” which has a straight forward chorus, yet as a complete song offers some dynamics as well. The wellbeing of “mother earth” about which you sing makes it one of the more memorable tracks as well.

I wrote a song in 1988 called “Toxic Trace” and this is almost like Part II. When I was writing that song back in the day it was more about chemical pollution of the planet. “Death to the World” is more about the consequences and the way we treat the planet. All the resources will be gone in 50 or 100 years and we need to think about the alternatives. In my opinion, that time will come and there will be a whole new thing happening on this planet, a whole new form of awareness. In my opinion, “Death to the World” is a very graphic title, but it definitely talks about that planet earth is not going to die; it’s just maybe most of the human race will disappear. It doesn’t mean the entire human race will die, but maybe many people will die and something new comes up.

Whether you want to call it a conspiracy at the hands of certain corporate interests, like the oil companies, or not, if we don’t take much more seriously the development of alternative or renewable energy sources we may be in serious trouble. But there is so much money in oil…

The fact is that there are alternative energy sources, but they won’t be used as long as the oil industry controls things. That won’t happen under them because they won’t make money if it did. If everyone starts using alternative energy sources then the oil companies won’t make their big profits. That’s what can lead to destroying the earth; it fucks up a lot of things actually. It fucks up your health and it makes people sick in the minds. The people can try to change things, but the industries have to react on a bigger level or nothing will change.

Germany seems to do a better job within the realm of environmental health.

Ah maybe, in some parts yes. They use a lot more plastics here in the States I’ve seen. I look for vegan restaurants here when I’m on the road in the States and sometimes the food comes with plastic cutlery and it comes with a plastic bag. It’s an oxymoron if you know what I mean. There is way too much plastic on this planet anyway. But what are you going to do? Most of the things we are using every day are made of plastic. I don’t know. Maybe we will not experience in our lifetime the big catastrophe, but maybe our children will. We’ll see.

“United in Hate” is also a good example of the depth of songwriting on this album too.

I got the title from a book. There was this right wing guy that was saying that certain groups in the left wing are uniting with the terrorists or something like that. Like people are supporting the terrorists in a certain way if they don’t be more anti-terrorist and be stricter against them and don’t do whatever the right wing thinks should be done. That was just the inspiration, but the song itself is about when I was a kid and got into metal and people would say I was going to grow out of it.

…and here we are on this bus at our ages [laughs].

[Laughs] yeah! But a lot of people have grown out of it, like during the 90s and they’ve never made it back. But if you really like something… The song is not just about metal, but whatever you believe in. It could be metal or something else, but metal is one thing we can all relate to in some way. It’s a lifetime thing. It won’t disappear and we will also go back to it. Even though you can enjoy other forms of music, you can always go back to this. Some people when they get into metal they will die being a metalhead. I see this happening with our generation because we will never not be into metal in this lifetime. Even in 20 years if a new Slayer album is released we will check it out. So the song is about being united in things like this form of music.

Actually, the “united” part goes even deeper if you think about it since metal seems to be one of the few things that transcend race and nationality.

Absolutely. You know what? This is something that I don’t have to explain to people. When I’m taking to you here in Kansas City and then I talk to some guy in Poland or some guy in Japan it’s all connected. You can be conservative, you can be liberal; it’s this music that gets everyone together. To me it’s a very peaceful form of expression.

It’s the great unifier.

Yeah, exactly. You have all kinds of metalheads. You have your melodic guys or your extreme metal people. It’s fun to see that at the end of the day everyone in metal tolerates each other’s views on life because the metal community is a reflection of society in a way. It is about people getting together for a certain reason and they are very dedicated.

So maybe it’s time the rest of the world looks to metal.

[laughs] Exactly. But the thing is many of those people are so ignorant. We have this in Germany right now where the mass media is talking about these underground cultures and they talk about metal all the time because they think it’s a cultural phenomenon. They think it’s like the modern day jazz, which is the only other form of music that has fans just like the fans in metal. People that are into jazz are also nerdy and fanatical. I think metal has survived so many ups and downs, but it was always there and still is, and it will be 50 years from now too.

http://kreator-terrorzone.de/

https://www.facebook.com/KreatorOfficial

www.nuclearblastusa.com

The incendiary tracks here recall the heavier/darker end of the spectrum with nods primarily to Bay Area acts like (early) Metallica, Exodus, and Death Angel, but with a healthy dose of the Teutonic (mainly Destruction) too. It is convincing from the standpoint of pure thrash energy and its pretty friggin’ heavy, thanks to the riffing/speed, drummer Simone Verre’s brutal approach to his kit, and guitarist Loris Castiglia’s aggressive vocals (his enunciation needs some work though). All of those qualities make songs such as the title track and “Frustration of Soul” pleasingly violent. Not overdoing the gang shouts and injected a few penetrating changeups also helps.

The issue of note is that the choruses aren’t quite there yet. We’re not talking the need for bright, shining hooks or anything of the sort. Hell, Dark Angel was about as far from happy ‘n hooky as you can get, but you could still grab on to a refrain like that heard on “Merciless Death.”  But when the blueprints on which you based your songwriting were assembled using material from Destruction, Testament, Death Angel, Metallica, and Exodus, you’ve can’t ignore the song-centric fundamentals at which all of these bands excelled.

That all sounds harsher than it is intended, as this is not intended to be an outright indictment of Ultra-Violence’s compositional skills by any means. It just means that the youngsters need more work in the chorus area. In all fairness, Ultra-Violence is farther along in their musical development than some bands that have been around a decade longer. Wildcrash is still a bit better-than-average, especially considering the youth of Ultra-Violence’s membership. But the potential here is enormous. Most of the pieces are already in place and when those last few songwriting kinks are worked out, then you better watch out!

That it is brutal is a given, considering Contaminating the Hive Mind was released on Sevared Records. But typical for the label it is not, at least in terms of the entrails-tangled, slamming USDM often heard from the New York outfit.  It is brutal like a Hate Eternal album is brutal. In fact, the HE sound can be heard throughout the album; in some places more pronounced than others. The style of vocalist Mallika Sundaramurthy – a competent growler in her own right – is similar in many respects to the throat-shredding ways of Erik Rutan too.  In other words, there is no lack of intensity here, not by a longshot.

But Abnormality is no Hate Eternal clone, thanks to obvious efforts in the song structures to keep the album from bogging down into a blur of one-dimensional blasting.  “Fabrication of the Enemy” – the standout cut – is the definitive case in point. In the simplest of terms, it is a great modern death metal song. The guitars, a super sweet shift to a Morbid Angel dirge over pummeling kick-drums, and the overall structuring of the track will command your attention every single time. As it turns out, the album’s other Morbid Angel nod (purposeful or otherwise) occurs during the first part of “Taste of Despair,” which also happens to be another album highlight, before the band flips the speed switch to the “on” position and renews its merciless attack.

Contaminating the Hive Mind may not be a breaker of new ground, but it’s far from an exercise in staid emulation. What Contaminating the Hive Mind is more than anything else is a fine example of 21^st century USDM and an easy one to recommend to fans. Abnormality is a band to watch.

Well basically, Dave Connolly, the band’s vocalist, was chewing my ear for quite some time about starting up a new band. He was convinced that together we could do something pretty powerful as we both had a lot of experience and we were basically the band leaders in our other and previous bands.I was, and still am, playing in another death metal band called Overoth so at the time I was concerned that I wouldn’t have enough time to fully commit to another project. In saying that though I had known Dave for quite a few years as we gigged together a few times in other bands and I was a big fan of what he done. He’s a superb front man and had I decided to start a new band he would have been on the top of my list for vocal duties without a doubt. Eventually I caved in to the idea so we got together and had a chat about what we’d like to do over a few polite beers, if such a thing exists [laughs].

The initial idea was to put a death metal outfit together,but incorporate some more ‘punky’ ideas into the music with d-beats and such. I asked Jay Rogers, the drummer from Overoth, if he’d like to join us and he jumped at the idea. Then we got in touch with bass player Eddie West and guitarist Jonathan Francis who both played in a band called Sadisture. Conveniently, that band had just split up so they were available and ready to sink their teeth into something new. We got together in the practice room one day; nothing was prepared so we just started jamming out riffs and everything we came up with was sounding very old school. Even if we tried to,there was nothing really ‘punky’ about what we were writing. We figured if this was the music that was naturally flowing then why change it? There’s no point cornering ourselves and trying to be something that wasn’t natural to us so we just carried on.

Overall I’m really happy with everything we’ve written together so far, and ok, it might not be exactly original, but who really is original these days? Don’t get me wrong that’s not an excuse but in the end this is the musical style we love, it’s natural to us and we have to be happy with what we’re doing otherwise what’s the point?

The mission? Cracking skulls of course, but in the beginning we didn’t really have a set goal, it was more a case of ‘let’s get some guys together and play some cool music’. Now that we’ve got the EP recorded and ready for release the mission would be to spread the word as far and wide as we can, play some shows and have some fun. We’re still a young band so there’s no long-term goal set, we just need to settle as a unit and find our own space in the death metal realm first.

Fair enough. And what of this name Rex Shachath? What does it mean?

It’s funny actually; we didn’t have a band name for ages. We were practicing and writing songs together but never had a name until maybe one month before we went to the studio. We all came in with ideas every time we got together, but nothing really stuck to the wall. There were some ok names and some dreadfully bad ones where we all just looked at whoever suggested it in disgust [laughs]. Then one day Dave said, ‘how about Rex Shachath?’ We all loved it and I think part of it was the curiosity of not knowing what it meant. It’s actually a mix of two languages. Rex, (pronounced rex) is a Latin word and it means the reigning king. Shachath, (pronounced shack- ath) is a Hebrew word and it means to destroy, decay, ruin, corrupt…I personally think it really suits the music we play.

Indeed it does. What I heard immediately in listening to the EP is twofold: (1) great riffs; and (2) songs in which a music degree is unnecessary for absorption. In other words, I’m hearing traditional death metal and conventional song structuring that makes memory retention a cinch.

I agree and it’s really cool you think that. It’s undoubtedly very traditional. As I mentioned, everything we wrote came out naturally so it wasn’t necessarily planned to be that way but in hindsight I couldn’t have expected anything else to happen really because old school death metal is what everyone in the band has a passion for. Death metal has come a long way but personally speaking it’s never been as good as the first wave of bands that pioneered the genre like Morbid Angel, Vader, Immolation, Cannibal Corpse, etc. These days a lot of death metal bands are playing real technical stuff with crazy song structures and albeit they’re amazing musicians the actual song is often lost. I think the true talent is being able to write ‘a song’ rather than ‘a riff’. Obviously riff writing is essential and it needs to be catchy so the listener can grasp hold of it but it’s the song as a whole that’s the main thing. When I walk away from a practice session if I’m humming stuff that we wrote or played that day then I know it’s a keeper. If I can’t remember a riff without thinking hard about it then there’s a reason for it, it doesn’t need to be there. In the end, if I can write a riff that makes people say, ‘wow that’s cool, he’s a really good guitarist’ I’ll be happy, but if I can write a riff that someone will be humming on their way home after hearing it I’d be far happier because they actually remembered it and that means more than a passing comment on my skill as a guitarist. I think I could speak for everyone in the band on that one. I hope that makes sense [laughs].

So you’re basically saying that too many bands strive for technicality and speed at the sake of the fundamentals inherent in a memorable song.

Definitely. I think some bands tend to lose sight of ‘the song’ over their technical ability. At the same time that’s a personal preference. You and I are obviously on the same wavelength, but some bands might make technicality and speed their goal and some people no doubt really dig that. It’s all preference but personally it’s not what I’m really into. That goes beyond death metal as well. I mean look at Joe Satriani, he’s one of the most talented guitarists in the world and he has some crazy stuff, but listen to his last couple of albums and it’s obvious what he’s done is that every song was written to be a song rather than ‘hey look, I can play guitar’ and because of it those albums are some of my favorite Satriani records.

Based on the references about first wave bands you made earlier, is it safe to say that the music of Shachath is rooted in bands from the U.S. side of the Atlantic? The Asphyx comparisons I’ve read do seem accurate, but I’m hearing more USDM than anything else.

I think you’d be right. We can rule out any major Swedish death metal influence or at least on my part, so aside from that you’ve really only got bands like Vader, Asphyx, Pestilence, etc on the European side and all of whom I’m really into but there’s a lot more bands from the U.S. Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Morbid Angel, Death, Obituary, Incantation, Autopsy…

That said, parts of the EP reminded me of Vomitory as well, at least in terms of that mass-carnage vibe that describes the guitar style in the case of both bands.

I’m gonna go back on my word now [laughs]. I ruled out Swedish death metal, but I did have a massive Vomitory phase a few years ago. I listened to Blood Rapture non-stop for a while. I can remember actually taking the CD out with me on more than one occasion so I could show it to friends and tell them to get it.

Well, and Vomitory’s style is more in league with the USDM style than what in a broad sense is considered “Swedish Death Metal.” In any case, if I had to pick a highlight from the EP, I’d probably go with “Follow the Bastard Prophet,” mainly because it incorporates the memorable chorus, the killer riffs, and the cool mid-tempo changeup. Would you agree or consider a different song to be most representative of the Shachath style?

Yeah… either that one or the finishing song “Statues of Death.” I really love the intro riff to that [latter] one and the outro passage; it’s so much fun to play. I think ‘Follow The Bastard Prophet’ is probably the catchiest song on the EP and yeah, it has a little bit of everything so I guess it would be a good representation of where we stand right now as a band. Jonathan, or ‘Frankie’ as we call him, was telling us over the phone or when we seen him ‘oh I’ve got a real cool song for you all’, then when we got together and he played the first few riffs we all knew we had a winner. I think he wrote all of that one; we made a few changes structurally as a band, but that was one of the songs that just fell together really quick. Also, as far as I recall the guitars were all done in one take in the studio when were recording it for the EP.

Talk about the process of writing and recording this batch of songs? Quick and painless or long and grueling?

Well, we didn’t have much choice on the timescale; it had to be quick because we didn’t have much money [laughs]. We had three days to record everything and one day mixing and mastering. We knew it would be tight, so we practiced quite a lot so that we were well prepared or as prepared as we could be. Frankie and I did some pre-production work a few days before so we had a head start and I suppose you could call it a practice run on the guitars. It went pretty well considering the time constraints we had. We also managed to record the intro, which is just some samples the producer John came up with. We wanted to mimic the sound of a tomb closing so we tested a few things out, dragging bricks across each other and stones, etc. but it turned out dragging a flowerpot across the ground sounded the best. We just added a load of bass and reverb to give it a better effect. First death metal band to use a flowerpot on record?

I’m guessing that’s the case. But along the same lines, that time frame was a main reason for going with an EP rather than a full-length then?

I think time and money was the big factor. It would have taken longer to write and gather funds to record a full length. We decided it would be quicker getting an EP out first so we had something that people could listen to. We also had to take into consideration we’d need to buy other things like merchandise, T-shirts and stage props. We recently got a backdrop, some lighting, and a smoke machine. It’s expensive business being in a band, especially at the beginning but it’s a labor of love. The plan is to record a second EP at the end of this year or very early next year and then start putting plans together for a full length. By that stage we should be a little more settled as a band and in a way more comfortable writing and recording with each other, which should benefit the recording.

If Rex Shachath is any indication of the quality of death metal found in Northern Ireland, then fans across the globe had better start paying attention. Are there other bands worth mentioning in Northern Ireland, or at least in your vicinity, deserving of said attention?

There’s not a massive death metal scene in Northern Ireland. I’d definitely recommend Zombified for one anyway. There’s more death metal bands in the South. Warpath have been doing some damage the last few years. Also check out Coldwar, Abaddon Incarnate, Guttrench and Vile Regression.

Based on that album art alone I’m hoping there are plans for a 7” vinyl version. Are there?

We have talked about it and personally I’d love to see the artwork blown up on vinyl, but there’s nothing set in stone right now. Juanjo Castellano done the art for us, He also worked on the latest Revel in Flesh record; check that one out, as it’s a really cool piece of art and really cool music. We had a basic concept in mind with someone’s soul being tortured in a tomb and I think he captured it very well.

Where does Rex Shachath go from here? Full-length? International tours? Crimes against humanity?

Next on the agenda for us are some live shows. We’ve our debut live show next week in Dublin then the following week we’ll play a release show for Sepulchral Torment in our hometown, Belfast. After that we’ve just over two weeks touring on mainland UK. We’ve also got plans to hit mainland Europe in 2013, but nothing we’re allowed to release yet, so keep an eye on our websites, Facebook, etc. Also, as I mentioned, we’re hoping to record a second EP later this year or beginning of 2013. We’ve written most of the material already it’s more just finding the free time outside our touring plans to squeeze it in.

Anything else worth nothing as we bring this one to a close?

The EP will be released via Hostile Media in UK & Europe. We have a label releasing it in North America as well, but I haven’t got the all clear to announce it yet. I’ll send you an e-mail as soon as I get the go ahead, as it is probably of interest to your U.S. readers.

www.rexshachath.com

www.facebook.com/rexshachath

www.twitter.com/rexshachath

www.myspace.com/rexshachath

www.youtube.com/rexshachath

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Getting to the point then, Sepulchral Torment is a mighty fine EP of right-down-the-middle, song-based traditional death metal of the U.S. variety that rumbles, crunches, and grooves with blood ‘n guts spirit. A little Slayer does work its way into the mix, much like one hears in the work of Vomitory (Swedish yes, but the template is USDM) on the title track. The momentum is kept at a high level right on through to the quick tempo and rapid-fire vocal cadence of closing cut “Statues of Death.”

It’s true; the five proper tracks (the track “Into” is cleverly used as an, um, introduction to the EP) are of FDA (Food and Death Administration) approved quality. In terms of standouts, the title track runs neck-and-neck with the complexly metaphorical (just kidding) “Follow the Bastard Prophet,” which not only feeds the DM hungry with a monstrous chorus rumble and a mid-tempo foray into Cannibal Corpse territory, but also sports one of the better blood-curdling screams I’ve heard in recent Death Metal history (it reappears during “Blind from Birth”).

Yeah, I needed that. On Sepulchral Torment, Rex Shachath pisses all over pretension and just plain gets the job done. Nice one, boys!

I’ll even go so far as to say that it is one of the best albums Grave has ever released. The grotesque grooves and putrid pummeling more often than not are delivered at breakneck speeds. Just as engrossing though is when the pace slows to make way for some fantastic grooves and Autopsy-esque journeys into dread. On the groovy end of the spectrum, the cases in point are numerous, not the least of which include the mid-paced parts of “Encountering the Divine,” the down-tempo moments of “Disembodied Steps” and the chorus of “Passion of the Weak” (one of the more memorable cuts). In other words, the speeding-romp-to-grinding-groove change up factor here cannot be overstated. It is only iniquitous closer “Epos” on which the band never floors it, opting instead for a sickening plod, which moves past the mid-tempo point. As it turns out, the seven-and-a-half minute cut is one of the album’s finest moments, not unlike how Grave wrapped up Dominion VIII with “8th Dominion.”

The fact is that everything Grave has done so well over the years has been poured into Endless Procession of Souls. Any comparison to the youthful primitivism of all-time-classic Into the Grave is a meaningless exercise (and has been for years now); you just don’t reproduce that sort of thing. Instead, what is vital to note here is that Grave doesn’t just locate the sweet spot; it stomps the ever living shit out of it! Endless Procession of Souls again finds Grave tromping about in all that grit ‘n gristle and showing the youngsters what effective tempo and riff variation is all about. Don’t forget about Ola either. When you add Lindgren’s malevolent death-roar into this mix, you end up with straight-A marks and 90th percentile placement.

Endless Procession of Souls is pure Grave magnificence. I’m not prepared to say it is Grave’s finest moment, especially considering the existence of personal favorites like As Rapture Comes, Dominion VIII, and yes, Into the Grave. It is however right up there with those albums. One thing is for certain; Endless Procession of Souls is guaranteed to be included in my 2012 top-10 list, if not the top-5. Ain’t love grand?

We rehearsed today and we’ve been hitting it pretty hard for the last two weeks, but we’ve been kind of warming up for it quite a bit longer than that. It’s going well. We decided we wanted to do a pretty different set list compared to last time just because we assume it’s going to be a lot of the same people; we don’t want to give them the same show. I mean there is some stuff that we’re playing that we played two years ago also, but I’d say overall the set is about 50 percent different. We’re playing some stuff from the new album and we had a lot of other stuff that we didn’t do then.

Enlighten those otherwise unfamiliar with Alehorn of Power.

Every year it’s been different. This is the sixth one. It’s usually at a different venue, although there are certain ones it’s been at two or three times. The venue is never a given nor is the direction the lineup is going to go. The lineup last year was kind of all over the place. You had Orange Goblin and Nachtmystium and Zuul; it was really going in a lot of different directions musically last year. The place was packed and they did it at the Double Door. Other years have been a little more low-key, like the one that Superchrist played. Bible of the Devil is of course a constant; it’s their drummer Greg that puts it on. As a credit to Greg, it always runs smoothly and there is never any bullshit. It’s always kinda cool and there is always a band or two that you might not otherwise find yourself watching. For example, one year they had Argus and I think a lot people know the band now because they made that second record, which was really big for them. But back then there probably weren’t a lot of people in Chicago who knew about the band and were there to see the other bands. Then they see Argus and people were totally psyched about them after that show. Greg does a good job of putting bands that he likes in front of crowds and giving them a shot. It’s always a quality show and it’s always worth checking out.

What players are in the live version of Dawnbringer?

The live band is a little bit different from the studio band. The drummer is Ian [“Viper” Sugierski] who is sort of my left hand man of drummers; he’s in Superchrist and High Spirits. Scott Hoffman is playing guitar and he’s also in the High Spirits band, so there is always an overlap in the family of musicians that are working together. The other guitar is played by a guy named Matt Altieri who is a long-time friend of mine; we have a lot of mutual friends too. He was in Deceased for a while as their touring guitarist for two or three years. He was in the Deceased lineup that toured with Superchrist in 2010. I was watching him play the Deceased sets night after night and I knew he had the chops and thought that he might have the interest for Dawnbringer. And sure enough he was all for it when I asked him two years ago. He lives in New England, so we don’t get to rehearse with him obviously as much as we’d like to, but we’re doing the same thing we did last time where we fly him out and we rehearse with the full lineup all weekend. Now that he’s back home we’re continuing to practice and Matt is practicing on his own.

Recap the players on the album for us then.

The album is the same lineup as the last album minus the acoustic guitar player because there is no acoustic guitar on the album. It’s myself on bass, drums, and vocals; Scott Hoffman plays all the guitar tracks; and there are two guitar players that play the solos, which are Matt Johnsen [Pharaoh] and Bill Palko.

I loved the last Dawnbringer album, Nucleus, and many others did as well.

I think it was going to be a hard one to beat in a lot of peoples’ eyes.

Any time you receive the follow-up to an album that you considered excellent it always takes a few listens to begin fully appreciating the new one. But after those few spins I can without hesitation say it’s on par with Nucleus, if not better.

I think this new album takes a few listens regardless.

True, but after those few spins it became apparent that Into the Lair of the Sun God has a better overall flow and perhaps a more cohesive quality, which I suppose isn’t surprising when one considers that it’s concept album.

Yeah, the edges on this one are smoothed out a little more. You can chalk the mix up to Sanford [Parker] too. It’s got a different character. The last one was more of a blasting and blaring album, while this one is a little more tempered maybe.

You really kept the actual written content included in the packaging to the bare minimum, including using only track sequence numerals in place of song titles. You’re making people work for it.

Yeah and that was by design obviously. We thought about different approaches to take with the presentation and ultimately I wanted to make people use their imaginations a little bit. I think it’s that kind of album where the listener has to do a little bit of the work. With the layout we didn’t want to give too much away. There isn’t much in the packaging, other than nine lines of lyrics from the first song that kind of sum up the premise of the story. If you’re watching a movie and you know the language it’s in you don’t want to have subtitles on at the same time; you want to get the inflection of the words and maybe not catch everything the first time or even the second time. It gives the album a little more longevity. Some people won’t have the patience for it and won’t like it for whatever reason, and that never bothers me.

What can you say broadly about the concept?

Broadly, it’s a story about an assassin who sets this quest for himself and it turns out to not be at all what he thought he was getting into. And it ends tragically of course. It’s a story of failure. If you go to the Profound Lore website the lyrics are up there though. I don’t mind people having the lyrics at all, but I didn’t want the lyrics to be attached to the record in the way that they would be if they were printed out in a booklet.

The opening two tracks are fantastic. It’s interesting the way the melodies are written because it is not necessarily the case that it’s a “chorus” that grabs you; it may be something as simple as the way a particular line is sung. Currently, it’s the line “Silence you bastard!” that has been sticking with me.

That’s cool, thanks. It seems like a lot of people have kind of picked up on that line in particular. Profound Lore sent me a review from a zine and the review was actually titled “Silence you bastard.” It’s just part of the story; the warrior being that cocky and mouthing off to the sun like that [laughs].

Track “II” is one of the best up-tempo ass-kickers you’ve written.

Oh thanks. Track two on any album is important and in the live set too. What goes in the track two position can make or break the album; or at least the sequence of an album, which can also make or break an album. Luckily, we didn’t really have to think about that too much with this one since they were already pretty much in order.

Another one that caught my attention was the closing segment of track “III” with that vocal treatment used when uttering “In the Lair of the Sun God.” Then on track “IV” the bass is so important to the centrality of the song, although the bass on much of what you do seems to play an important role.

Yes, especially in that song, you’re right. The bass is pretty much pounding the whole way through. “VI” is another one that’s pretty busy on the bass. Trying to learn that one for the live show took some time; it’s a lot going on, especially for Dawnbringer.

And that old school organ sound in there! It’s like Uriah Heep or something.

Or Deep Purple, yeah. It’s not a vintage instrument or anything though.

How has the response to the album been so far?

As far as I can tell it’s been good. A lot of people were saying that Nucleus was a big album to beat and it did get a big response and opened up a lot of things for Dawnbringer in terms of exposure. The response has been great. Some people are getting into the story a little more than others, some people are into the riffs, and whatever; that’s why it has both.

Jumping to the new Superchrist album now, Holy Shit may have the best complete-album feel to it of the bunch. It’s one you want to listen to in its entirety every time it begins playing.

It came together really quickly; it was very much just pounded out. There is a lot of spontaneous stuff on there.

You know what to expect from Superchrist and it’s not like this is any major departure from the previous albums, but for whatever reason these songs just hang together really well.

We got a really good studio sound this time too and we haven’t always had that. It’s always kind of worked for what it was, but this time we spent a little bit of money and having Sanford mix it made a huge difference with the power and the amount of ass that it kicks sonically. That just makes the songs sound that much better. Whether it’s our best batch of songs I don’t know; time will tell I guess. But it’s definitely the best we’ve sounded.

It seems like I was talking to you at one point and your plan was to self-release it, but it ended up getting released on Hells Headbangers.

Yeah, that was the plan for a long time. The record was actually done and mastered. I don’t know what the moment of inspiration was, but I figured it never hurts to ask and I sent an e-mail to Hells Headbangers stating that the record was done and included a couple of songs. And sure enough they released it. But the plan up until that point was to put it out myself and then try to get a vinyl release out as well, and Hells Headbangers has done both .It was the best case scenario really and I don’t think that’s putting it too strongly. I don’t think there would be a more appropriate or better label for this band. They do a great job. They have a great reputation and they’ve earned it by just working hard. They always carried our catalogue titles, so I’ve been dealing with them for a while and they’ve been supporting the band for quite a while. Hopefully it lasts longer than some of our label relationships have lasted.

You’ve been up to your neck in metal or rock for a long time; it’s truly a way of life for you on many levels. It’s a got to be a true labor of love. You’re 24/7 and there is a real discipline involved in what you do.

I like what I’m doing and I like the people I’m working with. It’s great having a team of people you can count on for certain things. There are some people I count on for multiple things and people I work really closely with. This is what I want to do professionally and obviously it’s very fulfilling personally in a lot of ways. I hope the good years outweigh the bad years and I can make a somewhat long-term thing out of it. It takes discipline for sure, it takes good planning and again it takes a good team of people to work with and who communicate well with each other and are always ready to go. I stack the deck. If I’m looking for a guitar player I’m not looking at a posting over at the music store; I’m looking through my phone contacts to see who might be around [laughs] and feels like playing. I try to keep as many of my friends around as I can. That’s the extra bonus that makes it so fucking rewarding.

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As far the established, blues-informed boogie, metal-edged, and struttin’ hard rock of American Dog is concerned, Poison Smile follows in the footsteps of both Mean and Hard, but ends up even better because of the songwriting consistency involved. It’s got the best flow from beginning to end of any American Dog album released to date. Steve Theado’s Gonzo guitar riffs and solos sound better than ever too, while the bottom end provided by bassist (and lead vocalist) Michael Hannon and drummer Michael “Hazard” Harris packs one hell of a punch.

In the simplest of terms, this is one tough collection of tunes and there isn’t a throwaway ne in the bunch. Tracks such as “Devil Dog” (a hard puncher dedicated to the U.S.M.C…Semper Fi!”), “Old Dog, New Tricks” (The Four Horsemen just came to mind), the über catchy “The Real Nitty Gritty,” the Nugent-esque “Splinterin’ Sally,” and immediate American Dog classic “Just Like Charlie Sheen” are ballsy, toe-tappin’ rockers. Then again, it’s not like there is anything on here that isn’t big, ballsy, and rocking, except for classy ‘n cool instrumental “2012 A.D.” The title track offers a righteous, mid-tempo groove that burns hotter than the sun. “Bathroom Romance” is something along the lines of American Dog channeling (and toughening up) Faster Pussycat. The boogie-woogie keyboards of guest player Nate Hollman provide the key ingredient to the song’s ass-shakin’ qualities. Speaking of Hollman, he also lends his talents to the outrageous cover of The Cramps’ “Does your Pussy Do the Dog?” which American Dog makes its bitch by, among other things, launching into a section of Ted Nugent’s “Wango Tango” at one point. Yeah, it is so fitting that it’s ridiculous.

Well slap my ass and call me sweet, sweet Sally, I do believe I’ve already praised nine of the eleven tracks here. So what’s keeping me from praising “Lust and Greed” and “Off the Chain” then? Not a goddamned thing! I just hadn’t gotten to ‘em yet. Both are straight-to-the-point, devoid of the shit of bulls, and authentic in their asskickery. Are you with me out there? I said are you with me out there, baby!? You know what I like; you know what I like! Are you getting it now? Poison Smile is a great album, American Dog is a great band, and I’ve yet to run out of Motor City Madman references. Those who already know will just keep on’ knowin’ and those who don’t can turn around and get the fuck outta here!

Ace Frehley’s No Regrets: A Rock N Roll Memoir.Enjoyed every word written. Ace always held a special place in the hearts of a certain segment of the Kiss Army, as well as one hell of a lot of guitarists of some repute. He was the substance-abusing, fun loving, ADD rocker (along with drummer Peter Criss) to the OCD Arrows of Straightness that were (and still are) Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. While he pulls no punches, Ace doesn’t sling mud and always gives credit where credit is due. As much a life story about his own personality traits and lifelong struggles with addiction as a rock biography, No Regrets is one of the best, sincerest rock biographies I’ve ever read. I respect Ace more now than has ever been the case. Rather than perpetually point outward, the Space Man’s fingers are more often than not pointed inward. So I’ve gone on longer than I intended. Let’s just say I loved the book and Ace is now a hero of mine on more than just a musical level.

Sammy Hagar’s Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock. A longer, more detailed account of Hagar’s enormously successful career as both a musician (Montrose, Van Halen, solo artist, etc) and a businessman, Red was just as good a read as No Regrets, but the topics covered were decidedly different. Say what you want about Hagar, but since coming out of an impoverished childhood, he is one smart guy and a thoroughly decent human being who got his shit together from day one and continues to keep said shit intact to this day. A more upbeat guy you’ll never meet.

Tony Iommi’s Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath. Probably the best inside (and seemingly factual) accounts of Black Sabbath ever written. It is a fascinating autobiography as well. The writing is more succinct than either of the two books above, as well as a little choppy at times, but that’s due to the fact that Iommi actually wrote it himself with no assistance. Of course, if you’re a devout Sabbath follower (such as myself), then you’ll already be familiar with a chunk of it. And to Iommi’s credit he does a lot of setting the record straight. Though he admits that these are just the way he saw/interpreted events (e.g. Ronnie James Dio supposedly turning up his vocals on the Live Evil album in the middle of the night during the recording), he offers very fair assessments, is well aware of his idiosyncrasies, and is anything but self-righteous. What has tended to get lost in the four decades of Sabbath gossip is that Iommi wasn’t just difficult or controlling for the sake of being difficult or controlling; he was the leader, chief songwriter, and the guy that everyone sought out when there were problems (or crises), so he had no choice but to be the “control freak” of the bunch. It wasn’t going to be Geezer and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Bill Ward or Ozzy. Also of interest was that Iommi has a long history of being one tough, street fightin’ son of a bitch and cleaned many a clock in his day. Bet ya didn’t know that, did ya? That’s why it’s a cool book, provided you can deal with reading “Bloody Hell” at least 250 times.

Jerry Shirley’s Best Seat in the House: Drumming in the 70s with Marriott, Frampton, and Humble Pie. As in the legendary, over the top, soul-voiced performance artist/guitarist/vocalist extraordinaire Steve Marriott and lead guitarist Peter Frampton (yes, I realize you’ve heard of Frampton Comes Alive – get on with your life!), both of whom were members of the hot, the nasty, and the stone cold feverin’ Humble motherfuckin’ Pie. You do realize he drummed on the first Fastway album, right? Just started this one and I’m already hooked. Shirley is a writer of some depth and wit too; easily the most well written book of the bunch.

Abominant – Battlescarred These guys have been popping up in these playlists a lot lately, haven’t they? This one is a four-song EP of two strong originals and two covers (Pestilence’s “Out of the Body” and Black Sabbath’s “The Mob Rules”). Ya can’t go wrong with it.

Coathanger Abortion – Dying Breed My significant other cringes more when I utter this Tennessee band’s name even more than she does when I bring up Sexcrement in polite conversation. This 9-tracker was purchased for $5 from the band at the Manhattan, KS stop of the ComaTour 2012, which also featured Norway’s Kraanium and North Carolina’s Atrocious Abnormality. Of course it’s brutal death metal! But you’d be surprised at the quality of the compositions. Great CD and great live band.

Uriah Heep – Look at Yourself. Diggin’ deep and gettin’ trippy. Ken Hensley was no slouch. Ain’t no “Sweet Lorraine,” “Easy Livin,” or “Stealin” though, is there? I prefer Into the Wild. Screw your nostalgia!

Dying Fetus – Reign Supreme. The new one and it’s pretty darn good. Still techin’ out like the last couple, but there really are some similarities to the more groove-peppered material of Destroy the Opposition.

UFO – The Chrysalis Years (1980 – 1986)Having already devoured The Chrysalis Years(1973-1979) I was ready for another 5-disc UFO set. I’m always ready in fact. Too much is never enough.

Black Sabbath – Master of Reality Phenomenal. That tone, that vibe… “Sweet Leaf” (that’s Tony Iommi’s cough by the way), “After Forever, “Children the Grave,” “Lord of this World,” “Into the Void.” Are you kidding me? Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope? Is there a better lyric?

Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath Very creative, very cool, and one of Tony Iommi’s proudest achievements (hey, that’s what he said in his autobiography).

Black Sabbath – Sabotage. I’m actually fonder of this album than Sabbath Bloody Sabbath; it’s close though. Heavier guitar sound too. I mean come on, “Hole in the Sky” and “Symptom of the Universe” alone are enough to blow the balls off a charging rhino.

Grave – Into the Grave. Absurdly limited green vinyl.

Monster Magnet – Spine of God. Best album they’ve even recorded and I like most of ‘em. Saw them touring on this album as openers for Soundgarden (Badmotorfinger tour) and Swervedriver in Detroit way back in the damn day.

Monster Magnet – Dopes to Infinity. Christmas is dead and dead is Christmas.

Dawnbringer – Into the Lair of the Sun God. Another masterpiece. Chris Black is Back and on the Attack. He gets it. You should too.

Superchrist – Holy Shit. See above.

Wrapping up now, are we? Let the randomness flow like a polluted river, baby! How much music have you stolen off the Internet in a demented quest to ensure your favorite band never makes enough money to record another album? None of my business? Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night…Bollocks!

We just wanted to get back in the studio. In our nearly 20-year history, we’ve always recorded full length albums. The only time since our demos that we have went in and recorded less than eight songs were for the Dwell tributes to other bands, and they paid for those. We were looking for someone to release this on vinyl, but as usual got impatient with that and kinda just decided to press it ourselves. It’s two originals and two covers , so I really didn’t want it pressed to 1,000 and didn’t really want anyone, like Deathgasm Records, to have to worry about promotion and all on really just two new songs. I’m pretty sure the title track will appear on the next record, so this will just be a limited thing. Nothing cooler than that. I still would have liked to see it on wax, even though I don’t own a turntable.

You need to get a turn table immediately. How did you decide on the cover songs? Were there others you were considering?

We’ve always played around with cover songs. We used to do covers of the Misfits, Celtic Frost, Slayer, Morbid Angel and others live and besides the Metallica and Destruction Dwell tributes, we also recorded Bloodfeast, Sacrifice and Nuclear Assault songs on older albums. We’d been wanting to do a Pestilence song for a while and of course the Black Sabbath song came from a long emotional hardship we all experienced with the loss of Ronnie James Dio. We were also playing around with Asphyx’s “Diabolical Existence,” Hypocrisy’s “Left to Rot” and I think a Mayhem and Terrorizer track as well. Hopefully in the future we can do something with any of those. It is always a big debate when covers come up. Everyone has their ideas. I tend to lean away from death metal bands, as I think it’s more fun to beef up a traditional song than record something that is already pretty brutal. There is always a list of at least 10 we’d like to attempt. Some interesting ones I think from Exciter, Accept, Merciless, Incubus, and Infernal Majesty. Any of those would be fun.

Talk about any lineup changes you may have experienced over the years and how it has affected the band’s sound. It’s been pretty stable with you, Timmie, and Mike Barnes being in the band since 93-94.

We’ve really only had two changes in the lineup since the beginning. Buck [Wiedeman] was here at the beginning and had to leave about one year in to join the Air Force. He came back in 2000 and stayed about seven years (four albums) and then finally quit for good. I think we booted Craig [Netto] around 2005 which was I’d say about four years later then we should have. He was there since the beginning, but really was only about half dedicated for the majority of that time. Both are great players, but also around four years younger than the current lineup (never a bad thing to have a young drummer). Since Warblast or I guess since Jim joined we all have a kinship or brotherhood I guess, of coming of age around the same time. Jim definitely has a more black metal influence not only to his playing but also in his taste and songwriting goals. That’s fine because Tim does too, and really Craig or Buck never really gravitated towards that.

In the way of catalogue overview, how would you describe the music over the course of all your albums? Are there ones you like better than others?

It’s kinda hard, as I really like all the records and they can show not only how we matured, but also the kinds of things we were into at the time. The ones I listen to least these days are In Darkness Embrace (mainly because of the production) and Triumph of the Kill (just a difficult and dark time in our history). I really don’t listen to our stuff too much, but when I do I get a little sentimental, but also pretty impressed with what we’ve accomplished.

What about the production of In Darkness Embrace exactly?

I guess you haven’t heard it [laughs]. It was done in two different sessions at a shit studio by some pot smoking fools. I didn’t help that we were probably the most drunk we’ve ever been in the studio. Some of the guitar tones are cool, and Mike has a few moments of greatness on the mic, but the level is just so low, shitty for even a demo.

And can you discuss the difficult and dark time in your history during which Triumph of the Kill was recorded?

We booted Craig out with seven of the eight songs on there ready to go, so we had to take about an extra six months to get Jim familiar with the songs we had. I think a lot of the songs there Craig had little to do with the writing of; we just pretty much told him what to play. By the time we got that all ready to go and wanted to write another tune with Jim I think Buck started to lose interest in the band. I think his writing style had a little more in common with Craig’s style and I don’t think he and Jim ever really connected as songwriters. There was a little bit of backlash from the traditional metal elements and “King Diamond” vocals Mike did on “Conquest,” so as you hear he mostly tries to pull off some Alex Krull [Atrocity, Leaves Eyes] style vocals here, which I’m not sure totally works, and kinda like Entombed Clandestine vocals as well. I guess it’s more transitional than dark, but kinda the end of Craig and the beginning of the end for Buck.

Along those same lines, I noticed a somewhat distinct change from Warblast to Where Demons Dwell, the former being more traditionally death-oriented and the latter being more blackened.

I don’t think it’s a real dramatic change. I mean I could see songs off of Ungodly appearing on our current albums, but I guess I’m biased from an inner perspective.

Well, I don’t think it’s a dramatic change either, but I did find some of the guitar work on Where Demons Dwell to have more of a blackened shade I guess.

As I said, it’s hard for me to notice, but I guess as we go along there may have been more black influence coming into the front. Both Tim and Jim, who are the songwriting core of the band, are huge into stuff like Marduk, Tsjuder, Dark Funeral and whatnot, so we’ll embrace that aspect as well. I really hope that every album sounds a least a little different than the previous ones as we’re not really Bolt Thrower or AC/DC and get bored playing the same stuff for too long.

Themes of war and battle are omnipresent in the artwork and music of Abominant, although it’s not like those would be unusual topics for death metal. Still, is there a certain fascination the members have with the battle scarred and war torn?

I guess maybe it ties in to the blackened thing a little. Since we’ve upped the blasting and tremolo picked stuff since Jim has joined I think lyrics/imagery of war/destruction fit the mood a lot better. We’ve never really had Satanic or gory lyrics in the past. We tried to keep things in the darkness/death realm, but I think the war theme helps us to match up with the music and we also have some ideas that come from actual real life history.

How much does Abominant play live in a typical year and have you done any actual tours?

We normally do about 8 – 10 shows a year. We’ve done a couple weekend outings, but I wouldn’t call that a tour. In 2008 we topped out at 18 shows and actually that was pretty amazing, but for the most part we’re home bodies. Plus too many shows slow down the songwriting process, which we are already pretty slow at.

Kentucky doesn’t get mentioned as a death metal hotbed, which may mean absolutely nothing. How is the “scene” there and are there other bands we should know about?

It pretty much sucks here and always has. Lately, it has been worse than average, as you can only get people to come out to shows for a package tour. There are a few good bands, but usually they come and go. Right now Tombstalker is kicking ass and my buddy Austin from Panopticon is doing some cool music. Astrum is doing a cool Venom/Amebix thing too, but I think most of the guys I mention would agree about the “scene.”

For a band with such a sizeable output of quality USDM, Abominant has never seemed to get the same level of recognition as even lesser bands. To what do you attribute that lower level of exposure?

Well, in reality I don’t think we are the most original or groundbreaking band out there. Also, we’re pretty lazy (to our detriment) so honestly, I don’t think we really deserve a big contract with a label that would put us to tour and promote and whatnot. At the end of the day we’re just four friends who write metal songs and have been lucky enough to stay together and find each other. Still, to this day, I really don’t see us breaking up anytime soon, so hopefully we will be around for a while. We’ve been lucky enough to release some records, get some good press from people like you, and share the stage with some of our favorite bands. That’s about as much, if not more, success that I expect from playing the kind of music that we do.

Looking back on you career, is there anything you would have changed or done differently?

You know what? Nothing at all. I think we should have booted Craig out a few years earlier, but even those last albums with him are killer. I’m pretty much just a death metal loving headbanger, so it’s not like I would change our style or have rock star delusions. I’m pretty happy with what we’ve done so far, and very grateful that others have put up with my drunken asshole mouth all these years.

And finally, when the hell are you going to buy a turntable?

[Laughs] Probably never I gave all of my old vinyl to Mike and Jim and even it was in horrible shape. Right now my CD player in my car is jacked so I mainly listen to everything via my Zune. Yes, I have a Zune. Seems fitting I guess ‘cause Zunes are kkuuuult!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Abominant/152430868173200

Though some have for whatever reason have refused to give Abominant credit for output that may not be inventive (and is that really so damn important in DM?), but is well written and unequivocally murderous, the rest of us have welcomed with open arms the unrelenting assaults of albums like Warblast and Where Demons Dwell (the last two releases on Deathgasm Records). The Abominant sound does in fact bring with it a recognizable identity, often defined by a white-hot guitar tone and riffing style (seriously, you can actually “hear” the hotness); a blast-beaten (though not one-dimensionally so) drumming style that is terrifyingly calamitous without being sloppy; and a vocal approach from Mike Barnes that is rooted in a demonic growl, yet moves into a ghastly BM screech as necessary. All of those elements are present on the new songs, “Pile of Flesh” and the title track, both of which are pretty much dyed-in-the-wool Abominant (USDM with blackened shades), albeit more similar to the sound of Where Demons Dwell than the more traditionally (and somewhat Floridian) Warblast. Timmie Ball busts out some harshly melodic (it’s not an oxymoron) riffs and stout solos too.

The 17-minute EP then moves into the realm of the cover song for which these kinds of EPs are best suited. Pestilence’s “Out of the Body” is a good choice since the original is death metal to be sure, yet not Abominant’s style of death metal, which is why it works. But far more surprising and just plain fun is a cover of Black Sabbath’s “The Mob Rules” from 1981’s Dio-led Mob Rules (I still own the original vinyl pressing, suckers!) on which the band pretty much sticks to the original song format, although Barnes does put his own stamp on the vocal patterns without veering off course. The song intro is different too, retaining only a bit of the original bubbling-cauldron effects and a “Death to all who oppose us!” sample. And with a riff like that one how can any metal band possibly go wrong covering “The Mob Rules.” I take that back .Quite a few would have butchered it. Fortunately, Abominant did not.

That’s the size of it; no “about” about it. If you are an Abominant fan, then Battlescarred is a mandatory purchase. If you are a fan of death metal (the U.S. variety in particular) that is not familiar with the group’s body of work, then it is high time you took the Abominant plunge. Picking up a copy of Battlescarred from the band wouldn’t be a bad way to begin.

* * *

How was the Overkill tour?

It was a good tour, man. I don’t think it was our exact audience, but I think there was enough common ground with where we come from and what they’re about to make it work. So we had a really good time. We hadn’t toured in a while, so it was getting our road legs back and kind of getting back in a groove. Anyone can play for people that already like them, but a live band that is really worth their salt can go into a room of people that don’t know them and really take the room. That really takes some time, so it took about half the tour to really tighten it up and hone in. It was a solid tour to kick off the album. Overkill is a great band!

You’re both Jersey acts too.

Yeah and any time you put a couple of bands from the East coast on tour together they’re going to get along. We share that certain type of attitude and way of speaking. We all got along great; there was a lot of mutual respect. And the opening bands I think they were really professional, talented, and just a lot of potential. Suidakra from Germany were great; the style they play is doing well right well so they can make a lot of headway there. And Diamond Plate is good too.

It was also the first time that you had a new member on stage that wasn’t part of the original lineup, guitarist Matt Wicklund (ex-Himsa, ex-Warrel Dane). That’s crazy; you just don’t see that kind of lineup stability in bands that have been around as long as God Forbid.

Yeah, we’ve been together for such a long time and we’ve just developed that certain sound over a long period of time. It’s unfortunate that Dallas had to leave, but I think it made sense for both parties. He was ready to move on and we were ready to move on. Matt brought a lot of energy and music to the table. His skill level as a guitar player is really high. He really made the lead guitar playing dynamic on this album and he brought a different flavor musically. I really like what he’s brought to the band. Anything that keeps it fresh is always a good thing.

He was in Himsa, a great band, but the God Forbid material is quite a bit more varied, even with the thrash foundation present in both acts.

It was pretty aggressive all the way through and he’s a good songwriter and could kind of blend in. But I think the God Forbid stuff is more in line with his instincts and he brought a couple of songs to the table and I at first I didn’t know if it was really right for God Forbid. It was a little bit more chord-oriented, the pace was a little bit slower, but it ended up working up, so we said let’s try it and it ended up working out. We’ve never been too rigid about what the parameters of the band should be.

I thought what you did on Earthsblood was brilliant, a great piece of progressive, melodic metal. Equilibrium is unmistakably God Forbid. It’s a little rawer maybe and somewhat less complex, but that’s only because Earthsblood was so over the top, progressively speaking. I think you got a great mix of the dynamics from the last album, some nods to the earlier releases, and just enough newer elements to keep it fresh. That opening cut, “Don’t Tell me What to Dream,”kind of threw me because it’s so different from anything else you’ve done and even from the rest of the album.

We worked the longest on this album than any other album. The main reason was because we didn’t have a record deal, so there were a lot of demos being made. So we really got a chance to do pre-production on everything and got a chance to really hone in on all the details. And specifically with the vocal kinds of things and the lyrics; really getting into the words and the meanings behind them and tinkering with it. We got to work with [producer] Jason Suecof who is really brilliant with melodies and harmonies. He gets great tones and gets great work out of Byron; that was really important. We talked about every detail this time. A lot of thought even went into things like the order of the songs. It’s a catchy, accessible metal album. We didn’t make an extreme record, but it’s heavy and it’s still got that adrenaline factor and that was important. Starting off with “Don’t Tell me what to Dream” I think was counterintuitive to the way we started off our other records. If it was like one of our other records we probably would have started off a thrash song like maybe “Cornered,” which would have been fine and had people going “Fuck yeah, this is awesome” or whatever, but we said let’s do the opposite of what we’d done on our other albums. Let’s start out with a song that sets a different kind of tone so it gets a reaction of “oh, this is something different.” That was the idea. And “Don’t Tell me What to Dream” is a killer live song and a great one to start the set with too. And then ending the album with “Where we come from” is also something we never do. That song could have been like the second track if we did it like we did on previous album.

Yes! You rarely hear an album on which the last track is one of the standouts.

Yeah and that was purposeful too. Let’s bookend the album. That kind of put a stamp on it. We did that instead of ending with something that was a little more proggy or with an outro or whatever. Even putting “My Rebirth” second, a very melodic song, was a way to let people know what this album was about; it s going to be heavy, it’s going to be melodic, and it’s going to be everything in between. And you kind of get that right from the first three songs and everything after that was a mix of everything else. We could have ordered it so that we just kind of lured people into it, but we didn’t want to do that. This is what the album is and you either like it or you don’t, and that’s cool. It’s interesting to be in a position to make an album that you personally would like to listen to. I don’t listen to a whole lot of extreme stuff that much anymore. I listen to The Black Dahlia Murder or The Acacia Strain or whatever if I’m kind of vibin’ on something extreme at a particular time, but it’s definitely not something I’m spending a great deal of time with or garnering influence from.

And regardless of the actual track sequence, the fact of that matter is that God Forbid has always been an “album band” anyway, so to me it didn’t really matter what song was chosen as an opener.

And I’m an album guy. I want to hear whole albums from a band. I don’t want to hear just one song or a couple of songs. I guess it’s possible that the craft of making albums like that might be kind of lost in the future; we’ll see how it develops. But I still like the long-play record [laughs].

The two definitive God Forbid songs, or at least two highlights, on this album are “Rebirth” and the title track.

Ironically, musically “Equilibrium” was one that Matt wrote. In terms of the melodic nature of the song it’s a bit of a departure and us stretching out, but to us the real success of that song is that the hook is really, really strong. That was something that we really wanted to do better on this album. I felt like “To the Fallen Hero” [from IV: Constitution of Treason] was our most popular kind of melodic song that really struck a chord with certain people; that had an impact. But I felt like we were kind of hit and miss as a melodic kind of band with the choruses. I think it was really important to realize that people don’t really mind singing in heavy metal or extreme music; they just want you to do it well. No one gets pissed off at Opeth for singing because they do it well. No one gets pissed off at Killswitch Engage for it because they do it well. As long as you do it well, then people are pretty cool with it. That was something we spent a lot of time on and I think we did do a good job.

Talk about the transition from Century Media, the label you were on for something like a decade, to Victory Records.

We had about a year when we didn’t have a label. After the first six months or so there wasn’t really much going on with the label and Century Media really wasn’t going to expend much resources on the band, so we were really kind of on the outside even before our contact expired. The difficult part of the transition was during that period when we didn’t have a record label because you’re on your own, you have to foot the bill, you have to self-motivate and set your own schedule… And that was a difficult time. Luckily, our live sound guy ended up producing a demo for us that we shopped to labels and that was a lot of work. But once we started shopping Victory was head and shoulders above everyone else and the most enthusiastic about working with us. Their offer was strong. Once we signed up and booked the studio time it’s been great. They’re a highly mobilized group of people. The way they work is quick and energetic and they have a really young staff, which is cool. [Head honcho] Tony [Brummel] is older and has a dynamic personality and has that energy, which was really refreshing. And not that Century Media didn’t have any of that. It’s just that when you’re on a label for a long time it’s hard to maintain that enthusiasm. They’ve had so much staff turnover over there, so most of the people that were there when we got signed and were part of the initial push are gone. New bands come along and they become the priorities. To me it’s just part of the business. Century Media did a lot of great things for us and that era was an important part of our career and our lives. But it was time for us to make a new start; so far so good.

What does the remainder of the year hold for God Forbid?

We are starting the Trespass America Festival in July and that’s with Five Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, and Pop Evil, Emmure, and Battlecross. It’s a huge arena tour and one of the biggest tours we’ve ever done. It’s really the perfect tour for this album. It was the tour that we wanted more than any other tour for the summer. We’re really good friends with the Five Finger Death Punch guys and they really pulled for us. And obviously we go way back with Killswitch Engage and Trivium. It’s a long tour, about seven weeks and it covers a lot of ground. It’s really exciting and I think it’s going to open a lot of doors. From there we’re looking at some European touring for the end of the year and we’re weighing our options for the fall. Our bass player John is getting married in the fall, so that kind of upsets our touring plans. This whole kind of album cycle is exploratory in a lot of ways, trying to figure out where God Forbid fits in this world. It’s about searching and also building. There is a whole new group of people that don’t know the band, so it’s an opportunity. Hopefully, people that dig the album will tell their friends to get it. That’s what we’re hoping for.

http://www.facebook.com/officialgodforbid

http://trespassamerica.com/

So what’s the big difference with this Coffins album? With the possible exception of a more commanding, bordering-on-intelligible vocal approach from drummer Ryo Yamada (a successful switch), there really isn’t a “big” one. The Autopsy influence is there, the muck is still thick and stinky, the distortion is turned up to “Absurd,” and the buzzing kicks your tinnitus’ ass. But the death part of doom/death is more pronounced than usual on this one, including quicker tempos, and the songs just seem to be catchier.

The tone is set right from the start. “Till Dawn of the Dooms Day” is more than just mid-tempo and polka-beaten; it is damn peppy in its ugliness. Even those precious few seconds of fuzzed-out lead guitar are worthy of note. The tempo is even quicker on the uglier “Grotesque Messiah” (well, of course it’s uglier) before the growls turn to screams and the pace is slowed for the final moments.

But wait, it gets better. You had to know that a song titled “Carpet of Bones” was going to rule your world. A more traditionally recognizable Coffins mix of death and doom, the groove reaches its pinnacle here and the mid-tempo swirl is lordly, just like the bass lines are so ominous and the feedback so necessary. Now here comes the funny part. The award for catchiest track on the album is none other than “In Bloody Sewage.” It’s a two-beaten bout of bludgeon to die for (and you will do just that). If you can’t sing along with glee to a chorus of “Melted bodies prowl in bloody sewage / blood and flesh for the new mankind,” then more than likely you are clinically depressed and require a good ole price-gouging from the pharmaceutical whores. You already knew the Death cover was going to work since Coffins hasn’t met a cover yet it couldn’t mangle to perfection, so I’ll spare you the unnecessary dissection.

It’s not like going wrong with a Coffins album was ever in the cards anyway. All I’m saying is that for as much despair as would seem inherent in this march, March of Despair comes with an extra hot shot of bacterial good times. Coffins is one of the few bands that understand the benefits of being beaten with the proverbial ugly stick. Get some!

Nick: Stonehaven was formed in 2003 in Kansas. The founding members are myself, Michael Van Walleghem, S., and J. Ferris. Shortly after that C. May joined the band. There have been two been two bassists since the parting of Michael. Our first release is known as the Hoarfrost EP. The release itself was very amateur, less than 100 copies exist, and it will not be printed again. Following that, Of Oak and Iron was self-released in 2010 and was limited to 200 copies. It is more or less a culmination of a few years of songwriting.

The title of the new album – Concerning Old-Strife and Man-Banes – is a kenning, which is something along the lines of a compound expression in Norse poetry, right?

Stephen: Yes, a kenning is essentially a compound word that both replaces and describes a noun, lots of times being a metaphor. Some kennings are easily understandable, like “sword-meeting,” which isn’t hard to translate into a battle or fight. Other times you must look through several layers before it is clear. Kennings allow the author put a number of unsaid descriptors together by forcing the connection between the two or so words of the kenning.

The costumes and corpse paint you guys wear on stage is quite powerful in terms of image with a look more nature based and pagan than some traditional black metal bands. And what is the fur being worn over the shoulders? 

Stephen: What we wear on stage is meant to give the audience a window into the time period that our music takes place in. Contrary to many other ‘viking,’ ‘folk,’ and ‘pagan’ bands that attempt capture the same setting, our attire is not just fantasy and romantic pomp; no, when the viewer watches us, they get the opportunity to see men dressed and armed in the very same fashion as the characters in our songs over 1,000 years ago. It might be surprising to some that an American band would be immersed in something so strictly non-American, but I feel we handle our topics and dress with more care and diligence than our European peers. You often will find bands with similar themes dressed in absolutely ridiculous fantasy attire, looking more like a high schooler’s Conan drawing than anything else. I can proudly separate us from them.

Did you all have an idea of the kind of black metal band you wanted to be and the music you wanted to play when you formed?

Nick.   Not necessarily. We had our favorite bands at the time, but none of which we intended to wholly mimic. Our motivation was, and is most of all, ourancestors. Stonehaven is a collective of ancestral spirits, its music is theaudible essence of the horrors which they portrayed and experienced.

I was very impressed at the tightness of your live performance at the CD release show at the Riot Room in Kansas City. Not an ounce of slop anywhere to be found! How often do you rehearse?

Stephen. We have a large amount of pride in our stage show. It is equally important to be physically and musically imposing when preforming live. In an age when practically any CD can be downloaded in minutes, listeners need to be able to take away something intimate when they become viewers. We must remember we are as much entertainers as we are musicians.

Nick. Thank you. We try to practice a several times a week; at times it could be more than that, and at others less. The quality of our live outings is very important to us.

Who would you say are the biggest influences impacting the music of Stonehaven, both as a band and you individually?

Nick.  The first song Stephen and I covered together in our early teens was Darkthrone’s “Transylvanian Hunger.” With that being said, the early Norwegian scene has been a great influence on the mode of our songwriting. Einherjar (NO), and Enslaved (NO) are perhaps the greatest of our early influences. Without being influenced by these bands early on, Stonehaven would currently be very different. As for my personal influences, I listen to a slew of different types of music, and each genre in which that music is categorized I could credit in sparking an idea in my songwriting. Those influences range from Russian Black Metal’s Walknut to Jean Sibelius.

How is Horror Pain Gore Death Productions treating you so far?

Stephen: I have to say that Mike Juliano at HPGD has been a pleasure to work with. So far everything has gone smoothly where they’ve been concerned.

Stephen, tell us about the lyrics you write. You really have a way with words and what you write/sing conjures images in the mind of the listener. For example, “I pulled back a molded cloth and whispered into his ear / I asked him what have you for me in there?” Great stuff!

Stephen: Thank you. When I write my lyrics I draw from many influences. I take care to capture the tone of many 12th century writers, as well as add my own horrible twist. I want to focus on the flaws of men; obsession, pride, greed, and lust all overcoming will and turning into monsters. It just so happens that all these real, human flaws are staged in 10th century Europe. Every one of my songs is a story. Each one is like the music that accompanies it, with multiple parts, perspectives, and in the end, each one ends in hopelessness. My words should be read in the same light that a saga must be read to truly tie together the pieces. At some point, I will release my notes, painting the entire picture for the listener.

Talk about the writing and recording process for this album. Nick, you are listed as “initiating” all the songs but the band is credited with writing the music.

Nick: The term “initiated” was used to signify that I set certain parameters and wrote the majority of the guitar work for the album. Now, I didn’t sit down and with J. and tell him each cymbal or drum that needed to be hit at each second of each song, so thusly, claiming to have “written” each song would be unfair to everyone else. Writing a song in our band doesn’t consist of sitting with feather and ink by candlelight and notating each note upon paper and calling it good. It is defined as conversing agreeing or disagreeing about the direction in which each riff that I write steers us to. Had I recorded all instruments myself with no input from the others, the album would be – as I say with other things – very different. Recording the album was done with some amount of ease in comparison to our first album. The studio we booked had it together in almost every aspect. Not a single moment of the album was recorded without a click track, and I think we’re all satisfied.

These are long songs with multiple movements, yet none of it ever gets boring. Talk about the band’s songwriting philosophy in this regard, especially as it pertains to music without conventional song structures.

Nick: Some of the songs’ lengths are intentional from the start. Others are completely random. The scale of each song and even the song’s mood isn’t realized until it is complete, usually. On the other hand, the formats of some of our songs are planned before the music is even written. Overall, our music normally is characterized by movements as one would see in a piece of classical music.

The album cover fits so well with the music and lyrics. Who is responsible for it and what is the story behind it?

Stephen: Some time ago we had decided we wanted to use the scene of the martyrdom of Raud the Strong as an image for use in the band. We’re very happy with how it manifested through our own C. May. It’s based off a style of art developed by a series of Norwegian artists for an 1800’s printing of Heimskringla. It’s very worth mentioning that scene shown; while a picture of Christianity triumphing over native culture is not a political or religious representation of our beliefs. Our theme is not about the forced conversion of Scandinavia. What the cover represents, as it pertains to us, is the sinister human nature present in our music; a spotlight on the odd cruelties exemplified in our songs.

Is Stonehaven the first purely black metal band to release an album on a label in the Kansas City area? I can’t recall any others, but I could be wrong.

Stephen: As far as I know, we’re the first strictly black metal act to come from our area to get any attention. It’s worth pointing out that both Order from Chaos and Samothrace have also come out of this region with record deals, and have been a ‘black’ band at one point or another.

Where has Stonehaven performed outside of the Kansas City metro area? Any band with whom you’d like to perform?

Stephen: We’ve made two tours in the Western half of the United States, up and down the coast, and in our neighboring states. Practically every city along the coast gave us great response. I’ve always particularly enjoyed our shows in Los Angeles, Portland, and Denver. In the next year, we have our sights set on a complete national tour. At some point I’d love to tour with another band, namely Valdur or Ritual Combat.

How would you describe the KC metal scene to those that haven’t experienced it? Any bands we should know about?

Nick. Since we have been familiar with it, it has been unstable. It is filled with bureaucracy, and is a revolving door. There are great bands that we have developed great friendships with, and they would all agree.

Who in your opinion are some of the most underrated black metal bands playing today?

Nick: It’s hard to distinguish between the term underrated and unknown in this genre that was intended by its creators to remain underground and somewhat clandestine on all planes of its existence. To call a band underrated in Black Metal is to suggest that it deserves more positive attention than it already has, which in most cases to the best of my knowledge, isn’t something that is regularly desired. A few of the best bands that I don’t hear about too often are ones like Walknut, Folkvang, and Tukaaria or anything from the Rhinocervs label for that matter.

What are some of your favorite black metal albums and why?

Nick: The number one for me would be Taake’s Dodskvad.There are riffs on that album that make mountains crash out from the Earth upon each listen. Track IV.

Are you fine with being called a black metal band or is it important to use terms like “Viking” or “pagan” as well when discussing the music of Stonehaven?

Stephen: While I am the theme’s main progenitor, I often worry that with our “Viking” mantle we will get lumped in with a whole group of misfits and fantasy, hipster-hammer wielding bros that seem to permeate that theme. As Nick points out, I think it’s important to brand us firstly as a Black Metal band, and secondly that our theme is “historically” oriented. While our characters in our songs are all typically Vikings, many are simply downtrodden men trying to survive at the end of the Dark Ages. It’s not the childish, swords-to-the-gods, honor and monsters fairytales and drinking songs that other bands typify. It is about the real horror and real emotions felt 1,000 years ago. People often detach themselves when they talk about Vikings and heroic tales…we want them to be very much involved. They are meant to realize that facing your death in battle can be far from glorious, that sometimes men crumple in a ball and scream like children in their death-cries for their wives and mothers. Yes, we sing of battles and war, but the true focus is on the nature inside those long-dead men, about how terrifying men can be when they lose control.

Nick: I find it to be quite important to be regarded as Pagan Black Metal. Although our music is, and is much more than just that, by being categorized as such we are likened to other artists of a similar caliber, as for years it has been a legitimate sub-genre of Black Metal. To any BM enthusiast it will be important to know whether or not a band speaks of the Devil and goat rituals, rather than Heathen mysticism and battle lore.

When does work on the next album begin and what might we expect to see and hear in Stonehaven’s future?

Nick: I never stop to take breaks from writing music. So for all we know it may have already begun. There is no schedule at this point however.

Purchase Concerning Old-Strife and Man-Banes at this location: http://hpgd.comoj.com/store/hpgd043.html

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stonehaven/274695922642

Avenger – Joy of Anger / Feast of Despair (Deathgasm). Great Czech band. Underappreciated and under recognized. Start paying attention.

Overkill – The Electric Age (eOne). Righteous as always and a worthy follow-up to the brilliant Ironbound.

Overkill – Feel the Fire (Megaforce). Well yeah, it’s a classic and I just saw Overkill. What did you expect?

Overkill – Bloodletting (SPV). How come nobody every talks about this one? I love the hell of out of it and “Thunderhead” is a great, great song!

Necrophobic – Spawned by Evil (Hammerheart). Old stuff, cover stuff…raw stuff, good stuff.

Black Breath – Sentenced to Life (Southern Lord). Goddamn, when these guys hit it really fucking hurts! And all they do is hit. You do the math.

Iron Man – Black Night (Shadow Kingdom). The Night is Black. So is the Sabbath.

American Dog – Poison Smile (Colonial Canine). Easily one of the best, no-bullshit, kick-ass, beer-swilling, riff-dealing, good-goddamn-time American hard rock bands out there and the new album is further proof!

Superchrist – Holy Shit (Hells Headbangers). Superchrist does no wrong; never have and never will. This may be the best one yet. I bought the CD/vinyl combo for $20; HHR always serves it up right.

Coffins – March of Despair (Hammerheart). Five-song EP, including a sick cover of Death’s “Corpsegrinder,” from Japan’s Coffins. Expect more of the doom/death muck, just a pinch better produced and with vocals only marginally more intelligible, and more commanding. This is a very good thing.

High on Fire – De Vermis Mysterus (eOne). You gotta hand it to ‘em. High on Fire never skimps on BALLS!

Sleepy Hollow – Skull 13 (Pure Steel). Good ‘ole U.S. Heavy Metal forged in the fires of Accept, Metal Church and Judas Priest. One of my favorites of the style thus far in 2012.

Marilyn Manson – Born Villain (Cooking Vinyl). Always far more talented and musically relevant than they’re given credit for, on Born Villain Marilyn Manson still sounds pretty damn solid and comes with a hard punch.

Overkill – Horrorscope (Atlantic). “Blood money!”

Judas Priest – Ram it Down (Columbia). I seem to recall some dismissing this album as somehow not up to snuff with I can’t quite agree, even if it is not one of their very best. “Come and Get,” “Heavy Metal,” “Hard as Iron,” and yes, the cover of “Johnny B. Goode” are all white hot and metal as fuck. And yes, “Blood Red Skies” is great too….jeez, give it a rest!

Accept – Stalingrad (Nuclear Blast). Great follow up to Blood of the Nations; not a better one, but certainly on par with it.

Kaos – Validated in Blood (Malevolence Records). Long time Bay Area thrashers that have been doing it DIY for some time now. I finally got around to listening to them after realizing I’d been ignoring their past albums for no reason whatsoever. Quality thrash metal and worthy of your attention. Check ‘em out www.kaosamongus.com

Venrez – Sell the Lie (Monarch Music Group). Solid modern hard rock band with influences both old and new. Not too shabby. Includes dudes that played with Juliette Lewis and The Licks, Life, Sex, and Death, and Marky Ramone.

God Forbid – Equilibrium (Victory). First album on Victory after all those years and the first one without the Dallas Coyle. Always had a soft spot for these guys and felt their creativity was too often overlooked. Good songwriters and hard workers too. A good album that sort of harkens back to earlier material without abandoning the progressive leanings of the last release. I like it.

Unsane – Wreck (Alternative Tentacles). Noisy lot, aren’t they?

Abnormality – Contaminating the Hive Mind (Sevared). This one caught me by surprise. Damn good traditional USDM with just the right amount of technicality and groove – well written, well produced, louder than bombs, and heavier than a really heavy thing.

Pyrexia – Age of the Wicked (Unique Leader). Love this kind of stuff! USDM that’s mean as hell!

Judas Priest – Sad Wings of Destiny (Gull). “Victim of Changes,” “Genocide, “Tyrant,” “Ripper,” some ace cuts on here, even though I find “Epitaph” to be totally out of place. The tune always seems to disorient me when I’m listening to the album. Oh and I prefer the version of “Genocide” on Unleashed in the East.

Mecca – Undeniable (Frontiers) – Way too 80s, way too positive, and way too catchy for you. Not for me though; well, when just the right mood strikes anyway. Otherwise, bring on the negativity and violence! See Pyrexia entry.

Judas Priest – Stained Class (Columbia). An album ahead of its time in terms of pure heavy metal firepower. In my opinion, Stained Class is the album on which Judas Priest really found its footing. Sin after Sin had its moments, but this one smoked from start to finish.

Judas Priest – Angel of Retribution (Epic). Yep, still making my way through that 17-disc box set. It’s been a few years since I’d spun this one and I must say it’s making a much better impression on me than it did originally, but that could due do to any number of factors, not the least of which include periods of mental instability and unexplainable synaptic misfires.

Aborted – Global Flatline (Century Media). This one was on a previous list. I like it better than Cannibal Corpse’s Torture and I like Cannibal Corpse’s Torture, although I sometimes wonder about some of these reviews calling it one of the best albums they’ve ever recorded.

Mpire of Evil – Hell to the Holy (Scarlet). This one was on a previous list too, mainly because the folks at Scarlet Records were kind enough to send me a retail copy. Man cannot live on MP3s alone. Boys can; men cannot. Just kidding…sort of.

Wolfbane – Wolfbane (Shadow Kingdom). Three tunes recorded in 1981, three recorded in 1982, and released in 2012 on Shadow Kingdom Records. Any guesses as to musical style?

Manilla Road – Gates of Fire (Battlecry). Released in 2005. Epic, man…epic.

Abominant – Warblast (Deathgasm). Yep, still rockin’ that Kentucky Death Metal.

Stonehaven – Concerning Old-Strife and Man-Banes(HPGD). Can’t get enough lately. The live show kills! This is USBM that means business; serious business.

Taake – Multiple YouTube plays one fine morning. That is all.

Dark Angel – Leave Scars (Under One Flag). It’s not just thrash metal; it’s brutal thrash metal! And Gene Hoglan’s drumming sounds like a continuous series of the loudest thunder booms and cracks you’ve ever heard.

Primal Fear – Unbreakable (Frontiers). Straight forward heavy metal; pretty good, but that’s about it. It really grew on me and in the final analysis I liked it; just not as much as some earlier releases.

Judas Priest – Turbo (Columbia). Ah yes, the much maligned album from ’86. I’m ok with it, but that probably has as much to do with it coming out during my, ahem, coming of age and seeing JP live on the 1986 tour in support of the album (Krokus opened).

Now get out there and support the underground, kids! Buy a goddamned CD or a shirt, attend a show, and stop stealing music from the bands and labels that barely make enough money to get by as it is. Well, not you, but those other Pirate Assholes of the Assholiest.

Lyrically, Neurotic Necrotic tells the story (in the words of A.Death) “of a man who starts to hear voices he cannot see [and] they tell him things and he can’t make them stop and starts to dig up graves from where the voices come.” Are you with us so far? He goes on to state “to make the voice stop he injects the dead with various fluids that make them come alive [and] then the dead starts to walk and try to make their way home to the land of pharoes [sic], etc.” In other words, H.P. Lovecraft inspires yet another warrior of death!

Now for the music. Falling on the groovy, sometimes thrashy side of the death metal line, the songwriting format is of a somewhat conventional variety, although most of the songs are rather short (often in the one to two-minute-plus range). Considering everything connects to create a story, individual track lengths become less relevant. That said, one occasionally gets the feeling that a song would have benefited from a longer duration; maybe not sounding “unfinished,” but coming close to that in a couple of cases.

Think and pummeling, A.Death offers a fair bit of variety too, moving from the compositionally diverse “They Speak” (complete with some ominous Slayer-esque licks) to the 50 seconds of savagery that is “Havoc” to the doomy, southern metal edged “A Chamber of Breath” to the minute-and-a-half of 90s Swede-death called “Behold the Butchered.” Also notable for their death-grooves are the endearingly titled “Temple of Vomit” and the mid-tempo “The Land of the Pharaohs.” Marching instrumental “Await the Slaughter” gets its groove on as well; all 1:16 of it. The dude covers a lot of ground without venturing much outside of extreme realms. A sharp guitar tone and A.Death’s deep, roaring vocal style add value to the mix.

Overall, I like what A.Death has done with Putrified’s Neurotic Necrotic, both musically and conceptually. His attempts at avoiding the one-trick-pony pitfall have for the most part succeeded. While there is no chance of my falling in love with the album; remaining friends is a pretty good bet.