Reaper’s Consecration consists of five tracks of gruesome death rattling rotting flesh from bone, and the killer riffs ooze forth like hot pus from infected wounds.  References to Dismember and Entombed are pretty obvious but not completely overt.  With music of this ilk, though, it’s hard not to hear classic influences.

Dirty and downtuned, the tracks of Reaper’s Consecration grind in gloriously fast yet groovy buzzsaw fashion.  Quick attack riffs rip forth from songs like “Deathrides” and “We Stand Alone,” while slow and evil grooves emanate from “Dead Today, Dust Tomorrow” and “Necrohell.”  The contrast is good and each track sounds just as gnarly as the rest.

With the recent resurgence of traditionally styled and transplanted Swedeath groups, the existence of Zombiefication is not surprising.  Many of these bands sound like uninspired shit.  Fortunately Zombiefication doesn’t, and they’re pretty good at what they do.  Certainly no reinvention of the wheel here, but good for a quick and filthy fix of gruesome goodness.

Jeremy GoldenI started the label sometime in 2007, can’t really nail a specific date. Things just began; I never had any preconceived plans to start a record label. I was running a small mail-order at the time just to make a few dollars to support my own CD collecting habit.

I have always worked with music in one way or another; I sang on and off in bands for years, did the college DJ thing, put on a couple of small shows, roadied years ago, and of course always been a huge fan of music ever since that Peter, Paul, and Mary song hooked me when I was four. But no, it wasn’t planned out it just kind of naturally evolved.

I took a few pointers from my friend Matt at Tribunal records and gave it a go. I remember him telling me that since I was working with metal it was going to be much more difficult than what he did, and well, he was right. (laughs)

Who was the first band signed and first  album released? How did that come about?

J. Golden: While I was just doing the small mail-order I had some connections at the time with a couple of distributors. Well, I also knew Chris Hathcock, the main man behind The Reticent, and he was about to self-release his second album. I pitched an idea to Chris that I wanted to see if I could help get this CD into some distribution and move some units. So, we struck a deal then I came up with the label name and Heaven and Hell Records was born.

The release came out and it did pretty badly. But this had nothing to do with the quality of the album at all, it was simply the fact that I was green and never thought things would be as difficult as they were. I got the title out to the few distributors I knew but I could not get any attention for it. I begged some pretty “reputable” distributors to take it; of course three years later would have to argue with them to finally get paid. (laughs)

The next year was Praetorius and Hellrazor and that is when the label would begin to become a heavy metal label focusing more on the “traditional” metal scene. More European attention picked up with those two releases and things started to do a little bit better. With those two releases some distributors were in place but now the press and media outlets were the new obstacle to overcome. I sent out so many CDs for review and barely got anything. I would send out press releases and they would be ignored. If I would re-write the press release and name drop in it then suddenly news sites would pay attention. So my advice, always connect the band somehow to Iron Maiden and people will pay attention.

The re-issues of the first two Twisted Tower Dire albums came next and suddenly raised the bar on everything. It was a big project, the packaging was nicer than anything before and suddenly our presence doubled. I think those two releases made a lot of people take notice. 

How do day-to-day operations run? You do the bulk (or all) of the work yourself?

J. Golden: I have learned to give into and accept the chaos that surrounds me. There is no set formulated way of going about things because there is just so much involved that it is often difficult to get to everything as it needs to be done. I try to squeeze twenty five hours into a twenty four hour day. Sometimes I go a couple of days straight nonstop at trying to keep this boat afloat and still it is difficult.

The day begins with a shot of orange juice, walking the dog and then it is onto checking emails. By the evening it’s onto coffee and too many cigarettes as I’m struggling through filling orders, placing orders, working out what needs to be done with the bands, updating networking sites, typing up and sending out press releases; the list just goes on and never seems to end.

Honestly I don’t know how I do it. My vision and health issues slow me down a lot that is way I have to put so much time in, and there is never enough time to stop and think about it.

Most of it I do myself. I have a wonderful girlfriend named Jamie who has been with me from the beginning and she helps out when she can. She is a career woman, a scientist or something like that. So there is only so much time she can put in. And in the past year a really good friend I have known for many years has come onboard and does as much as he can to help out. Over the years I have had a few different people help out but nothing was ever lasting, just no one was really interested or into metal. You really have to have a passion for this to do it or either be insane. I think my passion has driven me insane.

What do you look for when signing bands or re-releasing albums? How do you become involved in the re-releasing process?

J. Golden: Well, first of all it has to appeal to me of course. I really don’t care if anyone else likes it, if it works for me then I’ll do it. I once had a guy who runs a distro/label tell me that I need to be specific with what I release and stick with one genre; well, I’ll never do that simply because several genres appeal to me. I will continue to do things on my own terms and will never settle into mediocrity. He said I would not last with that attitude; well, I have not seen him put out a release in years.

The things I look for in bands [are] different with each band I think. However, with more current and newer bands I look for a band that is willing to help themselves, or at least try. Bands have to do just as much as every party involved to get their name out there. Unfortunately this practice is not all the time executed. Over the years I have started to look into bands a bit differently with a more scrutinizing eye. Situations where the release comes out and the band immediately splits up, or band will not play out to support the release and bullshit like that just got old really quick. Even in some cases bands were too damn lazy to even update their MySpace and Facebook pages. There have been cases when I have gotten interviews for bands and they would just blow it off. Maybe I should not be telling you these things but that is how it goes and it is damn frustrating at times.

The re-issues are entirely different. I understand that in a lot of cases these bands are no longer active and haven’t been for years. Blacksmith wasn’t a band at the time we started on that project. In some cases members of these bands are no longer even living. I just reach out to a member or members of the band and we go from there. Most of these guys are overjoyed with the idea of putting this stuff back out or in some cases out for the first time. And in most cases it gets more attention for the bands then the first time around and I love to see that.

I came up with the idea of the Lost Relics series because I was a big collector of obscure rock and metal bands, especially circuit riders, and I wanted to see these things out officially and looking good. We started with Demontuary, a black metal band from Texas, Ritual from New Jersey who had made some noise in the mid-80s, and Overlord from Canada, which has been noted to have put out one of the rarest pieces of metal vinyl out there. I had no idea how well this would work but it snagged some attention. The Thunderstick came out which was a little different since the material was more akin to new wave than rock or metal but damn it, it looks cool. (laughs) So it was working and the fans seemed to really like them and I figured they would because I am one of them. But there were also naysayers; this one jerk made the comment to me “all you do is release demos of obscure bands that no one knows or cares about.” Well, according to all the emails that came in from all over the world after the Overlorde SR was announced, that person was certainly mistaken. Within the first month of that release being out half of the pressing has already moved.

The disappointing part of doing the re-issues is some of the bands that I pursue turn out to be difficult over things, and it is not over what you would first think like rights or whatever. They tend to be all about the idea until it comes down to them scanning some pictures to send in for the inlay, or giving you a history of the band and little things like that. When I am trying to move the project ahead to make it the best it can possibly be some of these guys will say “I don’t have much time to open a box in my basement and get out pictures” or something like that. Then you see them on Facebook on Sunday posting about their lazy day lounging on the couch watching TV. (laughs) And I’m thinking, “Seriously man, do you want this to happen or not?” Those situations happen all the time. I tell you the metal fans would be amazed at the things I have to go through to get this stuff done, it can be frustrating. It’s not an issue that these guys don’t want it to happen; they just don’t want to have to put any effort into it. Makes one think that maybe this was the reason they did not make it the first go round.

When we started working on the Blacksmith it was perfect and they way it should always be. That guy David Smith sent me a large priority box full of pictures, demos, old press kits, nine VHS tapes of live material; I was like a kid on Christmas opening that box. But it is not like that with most other bands.

What’s been your favorite/proudest signing and/or re-release moment since the inception of Heaven & Hell?

J. Golden: That is a difficult question to answer. Each release has its appeal and unique place. The Reticent was first and certainly musically different, so that will always be special to me. Hellrazor and Praetorius were in there from the beginning and will always be dear to me as well. With the Twisted Tower Dire releases, well, that was certainly our best packaging job thus far. Thunderstick has certainly been the strangest release, and Ancient Creation and Core Device are just good solid albums. I really liked doing the Overlorde SR since they are North Carolina’s first heavy metal band and it just seemed proper that it was under this moniker for that reason.

One of our current bands, Dogbane has proven to be some of the best guys I have ever worked with. Everything in that situation is working out extremely well. The album is doing well, it is getting great reviews, and I just like hanging out with those guys. And should I mention that they are fuckin’ heavy too, we bonded in doom. I do have to admit that I cannot express what the Blacksmith project has meant to me. This was a band I listened to when I was a kid. To me I could not have cared less for bands like Metallica and Megadeth, it was bands like Sanctuary and Blacksmith for me. So being able to re-issue that material was awesome. But it was not only putting out the CD, I also managed to resurrect a band and get them recording again. To top it off we have become pretty good friends as well.

I sat outside of the ProgPower venue with guitarist David Smith and he said to me, “The greatest thing to come out of this is that I’m with those guys again and you made it all happen.” I just thought, yeah I guess I did. So it actually could very well be my proudest moment; hell I can’t think of a prouder moment in my life actually. (laughs)

Things aren’t over yet. There is some really good stuff coming up with this great thrash band called Eugenic Death. The next Witches Mark featuring guest appearances from Jack Starr, Jason McMaster, and Ross the Boss will be out soon. We [recently] released the elusive second Blacksmith album Time Out of Mind that was recorded back in 1990 and never released. And the new album Le Temps Detruit Tout from The Reticent has recently been released and it is simply amazing. So who knows what the future will hold, but one thing is for sure and that is Heaven and Hell Records will continue until it burns out or either I decide to quit and pursue my dream of becoming a shepherd.

http://www.heavenandhellrecords.com/blog/

For those who don’t know, Heaven and Hell has an awfully cool habit of picking out and signing up-and-coming bands and re-releasing true heavy metal classics, and what you’ll get with this review is a little bit of both.

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Core Device bring forth their contribution to Heaven and Hell Records, What I’ve Become.  This was actually self-released in 2010 and later picked up by Heaven and Hell.  Being previously unfamiliar with these guys, I can’t speak to their timeline aside from that info which some gracious being has provided to the great and mighty internet metal research site Encyclopaedia Metallum (www.metal-archives.com), but their 2004 debut full-length was produced by fellow Jersey boy Michael Romeo (yes, that Michael Romeo), so that should say something.

What I’ve Become is at times progressive, at times thrashy, and at times close to straight-up trad metal.  There are a lot of cool riffs contained within this album, specifically with the shreddy “Revelations,” the thrashy “Confront the Serpent,” and the galloping “Sixth Sense” (which features some haunting vocals that evoke Nevermore’s Warrel Dane).  Of course, to leave descriptions at that would do those tracks no justice, as What I’ve Become is definitely a multi-faceted fucker.  Crunchy riffs of odd time signatures give way to traditional melodic passages, which in turn give way to chunky modern sections, all overlaid with efficient but not overly flashy drumming and gruff vocals.  The end result sounds as though it could be the by-product of a massive Iced Earth/Fates Warning/Alice in Chains meet-up.  Core Device could stand a bit more growth, but they’ve got a solid foundation upon which to build.

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Next is Blacksmith’s Strike While the Iron’s Hot, a compilation of the band’s as-of-now only two previously released albums, an EP and a full-length from ’86 and ’89, respectively.  Blacksmith has recently reformed, boasting a “resurrection” lineup (for the most part), and they recently released their long-lost full-length Time Out of Mind (scheduled to hit stores in 1990 but never made it) over the summer.  So this compilation is a good refresher/teaser and a good starting point for newbies.

To put it bluntly, Blacksmith kicked all sorts of ass back in their heyday.  They were rowdy, ballsy, and had a wicked spitfire named Heidi Black belting out vox for them (at least until 1989 or so, when Malcolm “Mania” Lovegrove stepped in).  They titled tracks “Rock Hard,” “Louder than Hell,” and “Black Attack”…and were cool enough to back those names up.  A strong bass back line learned from the Steve Harris School and rockin’, heavy riffs kicked their tunes into a place in metal songwriting greatness which many strove for but few achieved.  Think of a cross between Bitch and Tygers of Pan Tang with some hint of (but not overt) Maiden influence and you’ve got an idea of what Blacksmith brought to the table.

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Overlorde SR (the SR, I’ll have you know, was added to the name recently thanks to a bunch of assholes in another band named Overlorde who claimed they’d used the moniker first) is a group of metallers from North Carolina who originally formed in 1979.  They did a couple of demos in the 80s and then apparently faded into obscurity before being rescued by Heaven and Hell and coerced into releasing a proper album, entitled Medieval Metal Too.

Make no mistakes; this is the stuff that sweaty, leathery NWOBHM wet dreams are made of.  You dig Manilla Road and Blue Oyster Cult?  Then you’re gonna like Overlorde SR.  Their style is definitely a bit morose while simultaneously being catchy and proto-metal tinged.  Smooth, almost medieval crooning vocals sit nicely above a galloping rhythm section and decidedly tasty riffing.  Yes, Medieval Metal Too is chock-full of early (not fruity) power metal in its finest form.

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This paragraph won’t serve as some summary of what was written above it.  Instead, it’ll just be used to say this:  Check out Blacksmith, Core Device and Overlorde SR.  Support Heaven and Hell Records.  If you’re into real heavy metal, chances are that you’ll find a gem or two in their catalog that’s worth uncovering.

Let’s address this doom issue for a minute before leaving it and never returning (probably).  Though Grand Magus are widely known for starting out their career in a doomier frame of mind, that direction has shifted over the course of the past few albums, and The Hunt is their most straightforward traditional album to date.  You gonna be okay with that?  Trust me…it’s good, and the lack of doom is made up for in other ways.

Grand Magus are clearly adept at writing albums.  It’s my guess that no matter which route they took musically, the ultimate outcome would always be good and would always retain the Grand Magus vibe.  So it’s no surprise that The Hunt, while branching off into more traditional territory, remains true to GM ideals.  The songs are hefty without cheese, with solid structure and just a touch of mysticism.  Ones to check out include opener “Starlight Slaughter,” the tune that instantly showcases The Hunt‘s classic vibe, with powerful riffs and a killer chorus featuring the true intensity of JB Christoffersson’s vocals.  “Valhalla Rising” is a chugger from start to finish (again with an awesomely memorable chorus), and “Silver Moon” comes through in true classic rock fashion with more of those monolithic riffs and a laid-back feel overall.

Another track worth mentioning that’s different from the rest is “Son of the Last Breath,” an expertly composed folk tune featuring acoustic guitars and violins.  The lightness of the tune when compared to warmth and heaviness of the vocals reminds of a cold winter day (in a good way).  The tune revs back up to Grand Magus speed and heaviness around the halfway point, with the two sections tying together flawlessly.

So, the verdict is that The Hunt is killer regardless of its genre tags.  Finding an album as solid as this one is no easy task these days, but most familiar with Grand Magus have come to expect that from them.  And you see, although change is inevitable, it doesn’t have to be painful.  Grand Magus have proven this.

Opener “Damnation” begins in good fashion, using a placid instrumental intro to reel listeners in.  After a minute or so things begin to heat up and the pace quickens, with fast blasting and guttural vocals taking over.  Then…wait, what?  A breakdown?  This must be a joke.  Oh, it’s not…it leads into more deathcore grunt-grunt-grunt-chugga-chugga action.  Okay.  This is the part of the review where I have to detail that it’s hard for me to take anything -core related seriously, but a fair review will still be given.

Morok is described as “atmospheric black/death metal.”  That’s semi-accurate.  It’s kind of atmospheric, and it has brief, fleeting moments of black metal influence, but for the most part, this is a death metal album.  Most times it seems the attempted black metal moments fall more in line with deathcore, especially since plenty of them end with the accursed breakdown.  To be true, there are certainly some cool moments within the tunes from Agruss‘s first album.  Some of the more atmospheric sections are effective (case in point: the beginning of “Ashes of the Future”), the level of musicianship heard is nothing to scoff at, and “Under the Snow” is a black metal-ish track that seems to truly fit with the theme of the album.  But the overall amalgam of Dying Fetus meets post-whatever just doesn’t seem to fit.

Kudos to Agruss for reaching out from Ukraine and tying horrors from their homeland into the extreme metal category.  That alone is worth a commendation.  While it’s not exactly this reviewer’s cup of tea, Morok is a solid release, though there seems to be a bit of an identity crisis going on within.  Hopefully after some time and progression, Agruss will find a true niche in which to hold on.

Out of the proverbial gates, replete with air raid sirens and bullets flying, rips opener “Decaying Monument.” This track quickly sets the pace for the remainder of the album. Fast riffs, machine gun drumming and the aforementioned intense vocals of Wedel sear like the blazes charring Colorado. On to “Undetermined Supplication,” another fast-as-fuck scorcher featuring plenty of time changes and a slow groove section.  It’s shit like this that makes Nexhymn better than that boring, dragging death metal that saturates the internet these days.

Title track “Black Horizon” is a good focal point; it’s got dissonant, evil guitars, double bass-blasting galore and an excellent mix-up between the fast and nasty and the slow and twisted.  It’s a good representation of what Black Horizon is: a journey through the scale of brutality through melody, consistently vile yet varied.  Like the quick death but can’t stand being bored to death by monotony?  Listen to Nexhymn.  Like groovy melodic sections in your DM but need those ferocious heat blasts?  Listen to Nexhymn.  Like Epica and Within Temptation?  Fuck off.

Holly Wedel: Well, what happened was Ivan Alcala is basically the original member from Throcult, and so when Throcult disbanded, he started Nexhymn.  So this is just how it all came to be.  Every member is from different bands, you know, that we were in before just locally in Colorado and we all knew Ivan from Throcult and Serberus days.

Okay, cool.  You released the Black Horizon EP recently…

Yeah, at the end of March.

Okay.  And that’s been your first EP.  So what kind of response have you heard back from that?

We’ve been getting a lot of positive response back from it.  A lot of the negative stuff we’re taking and making better on the new album we’re writing right now.  But most of it’s been really good and positive and it’s getting our hopes up for our future as a band, and touring and doing shows and making more albums, you know.  So it’s just positive, good review, super positive.

Excellent.  Most of the reviews that I’ve read were positive, and it seems like the ones that were negative, those were mostly written by people who don’t like death metal or can’t stand death metal vocals or they have no clue.

Yeah [laughs].  Most of it’s been pretty positive, so the negative ones we just kind of, whatever, take it with a grain of salt.  You have to; you’ve got to read them anyway.

Right.  Obviously your vocals get a lot of attention within the band, I would imagine at least.  How did you even get started doing that?  How long have you been doing the death metal vocals?

I’ve been doing death metal vocals for about eight years now.

Okay.

I started, I was married at one time and my ex-husband was real big into death metal.  He wanted to start a band, and he found more members and they started jamming, and they were like, ‘We need a singer.’  Then he turned around and gave me as a gift a mic and a little amp to practice through and he just showed me how to do it.  From then on it just progressed and got better since day one to now, and it keeps getting better as I go along.  But it’s been a while I’ve been singing death metal and I like doing it.  I want to do it forever [laughs].

[Laughs] Sweet.  I think a lot of times when you hear a woman doing death metal vocals, growly vocals, whatever you want to call them, you can still hear that feminine element in the voice.  And you’ve got a couple parts on the EP where you do some scream-type things, and then you can kind of tell it’s a woman doing vocals, but for the most part…they’re just insane.  That’s so cool.  Your vocals are some of the best that I’ve heard a woman do.

Wow, thank you.  That’s awesome.  Yeah, we’ve been getting that a lot lately.  I guess out in Mexico we’ve been getting a lot of positive responses just to having a female singer.  It’s pretty cool.  Everyone’s liking it.

Cool.  I’m glad to hear that.  Another thing that’s really cool about Nexhymn is that you guys are not the typical brutal death metal, or technical death, because [the music is] really intense and harsh but there’s a lot of groove and melody and it’s not just mindless blasting.  I mean, I like Hate Eternal and everything, but you guys don’t sound like that and it’s cool.  There are a lot of change-ups and it’s appreciated.

Yeah, the faster and slower riffs, we’re writing a lot more of that.  The new song that we just finished, it’s totally awesome.  I can’t wait ‘til we debut it.  It’s got a lot of that melodic death and black metal element to it, you know, so we’re pretty excited about what’s coming up and what we’re writing now.  Ivan’s been working really hard on writing riffs and I’ve been busy writing lyrics and everybody’s doing their part in the band, which is pretty awesome.

Excellent.  So how much of the new album have you guys gotten written?

So far we have one song down and another one in progress.

Okay, cool.

Yeah.  We should be out with a full-length or be in the studio by December with a full-length.

Wow, that’s cool.  And you guys are still independent at this point, right?

Yeah, we’re still independent so we’re still putting pennies away, money away to mix and master and record.  We’ll record through this guy here locally in town and then we’ll mix and master with Flatline Audio, Dave Otero, which he does a lot of the bigger metal bands, Cattle Decapitation, etc.  He’s the one who did the mix and mastering of our EP, so we’re going to pretty much stick with him doing our stuff.

Right on.  Well, I will be anxious to hear the new stuff.  I like the EP quite a bit.  I’ve kind of been out of death metal for a while; so much of it is so monotonous.

Yeah.

So it’s cool to listen to you guys.  The EP is pretty short and to the point and it’s not just complete monotony – the same fast riff, the same blast beats over and over again.

Yeah, that gets boring.  I hate that, when you hear bands where it’s all just blast or double bass or just speed picking.  It’s like, come on now [laughs].  We like what we’re doing and we’re going to continue doing it.

I always think it’s cool to go through reviews and read the comparisons, even though it’s funny that a lot of times they’re off base (in my opinion).  If you had to list influences for Nexhymn, who would they be?

Definitely Immolation, Suffocation and I’m trying to think.  Dissection maybe and some Pestilence, some old Hypocrisy.  Just a lot of the older, greater black and death metal bands that influence bands today.

Cool.  And for you personally, your vocal style, is that completely your own or is there anyone else you’ve tried to emulate?  There’s no way to put that nicely [laughs].

[Laughs] No, not really, I just do what comes out of me, what I sound like.  But I do look up to David Vincent, like in older Morbid Angel.  His new album, I just don’t really care for his vocals.  It’s like, oh my god, what happened?

I know. [laughs]

And Peter Tägtgren from Hypocrisy, and Dave from Immolation is pretty bad-ass.  But other than that, I just do what I feel that I’m comfortable with.  So what I feel, to me, that’s what I do.

Right on.  What’s the metal scene like there in Denver?

It’s pretty good.  It’s really killer; the death and black and thrash scene here is really big.  You’ve got the metalcore bands that are trying to intertwine with us [laughs] and it’s just, no.  But the underground metal scene here is just really awesome.  A local promoter, Amanda with Obsidian Fog, she’s bringing Nachymystium out here, so we’re pretty stoked about that.

Sweet.

She got us on the show with Nightbringer and Weapon too, so we’re excited to do that one.

That’s cool.  I see that you’re a mom.  How many kids do you have?

I have two teenage boys.

Yeah, what do they think about metal mom?

My oldest doesn’t really care for it, but my youngest is crazy about it.  ‘My mom’s a brutal death metal singer!’  They both love it.  They take CDs to school and pass them out to their friends and stuff.

Sweet.

So it’s pretty rad.

That is pretty rad [laughs].

[Laughs]

Well, I guess that about covers it.  Is there anything you would like to add?

Thank you for your interview and your time.  It was awesome.

Oh, sure.  Thank you very much.

www.reverbnation.com/nexhymn
www.facebook.com/nexhymn

Where to begin describing this? Well, the resounding vibe is a huge thing for Astra. A mood is quickly set and though it fluctuates, it’s a constant stream that flows through from beginning to end of the album. A steady combination of grandiose melodies, time signature and pattern shifts, and extended prog jams keeps the giant hot ball that is The Black Chord hurtling through inner space. The album is at times intense, at others relaxed, but consistently radical and consistently moving.

Opener “Cocoon” ushers The Black Chord in with spacey sounds and an Indian-sounding guitar section that leads into signature Astra material — lush riffs layered with dramatic organs and various other keys all wrapped up in warm tone, spiraling upward, upward until bursting into a Kansas-esque prog jam-out. A hell of a start to the album. The nice thing about The Black Chord is that where The Weirding‘s tunes were sprawling, this time around the tracks are more concise, more closely-shaven (yet without trimming any of the meat).

The title track is the longest on the album, clocking in at just under 15 minutes. For those susceptible to entanglement in the addictive web that Astra creates, it’s a non-issue. The lush environment created through guitar, voice, mellotron, organ, Moog, etc. is easy to traverse and flow along with — never does “The Black Chord” become monotonous or tiring. A journey through various soundscapes leads into the interestingly titled “Quake Meat,” a groovy affair which ebbs just as much as it flows. It’s replete with some of the smoothest riffing/soloing on the album, some truly far-out instrumental work that includes a flute, and psychedelic vocals. From there, we float along to “Drift,” a mellowed-out and almost somber tune that relies heavily on soft vocals and soft melodies. “Bull Torpis,” on the other hand, is more of a prog freak-out/jam session (as you may have guessed by the name). If any tune from The Black Chord could be transported back to the ’70s without a question raised, it’d be this one. Closer “Barefoot in the Head” is about as close as Astra come to straight-out Pink Floyd worship, and it’s a good thing without feeling ripped off. A cool doom riffing section three-quarters of the way through the tune reaffirms the coolness of the whole thing.

Astra has proven their ability to put out solid prog/psych rock albums with both the stellar The Weirding and now The Black Chord. Honestly, it’d be easy to dismiss their work as retro rehash based on appearances, but don’t go that route. The Black Chord is definitely a great album that requires only your ears and your mind for appreciation; highly recommended for fans of prog and classic rock.

For the Love of Thugs and Fools is Bible of the Devil’s seventh studio album (and third with Cruz Del Sur). The awesome thing about this band is that after more than a decade of writing and playing ripping octane-charged metal (most of that time with the same lineup), none of their tenacity has dissipated. The raw energy you heard on Tight Empire is still with them, only honed and more focused these days. And you can bet your ass that their songwriting has only gotten tighter over the years.

BOTD albums have always been rife with killer guitar rhythms and dual leads, and thankfully For the Love of Thugs and Fools is no exception. In our recent interview, drummer Greg Spalding mentioned that For the Love… is maybe a bit more vocally than guitar driven than previous records, which rings true. Mark Hoffmann and Nate Perry have come close to perfecting their respective whiskey-soaked and smoke-racked vox, which do wonders on this album. But those sweet ass riffs keep coming, so it’s impossible not to identify BOTD with big loud guitars.

Right out of the gates you get the best of both worlds with For the Love… : the smooth organ-perforated intro of “Sexual Overture” (or “Sexual Torture,” if you ask Scott Alisoglu) warming up into the stellar and guitar-heavy “While You Were Away.” It’s a colossal combination of ass-kicking rock and roll energy and essential heavy metal elements. Other notable stand-outs include the angry and anthemic “Raw and Order,” the positively rockin’ Thin Lizzy-esque “Anytime,” the gnarly, dirty “Can’t Turn off the Sun,” and of course the funky, groovy, and atypically wacky “I Know What is Right (In the Night),” Bible of the Devil‘s quintessential lovemakin’ song (complete with a sax solo from Yakuza‘s Bruce Lamont). This one in particular was totally unexpected, popping up out of nowhere in the middle of the album, but it’s infectious as all get out and crucial live. Of course, the whole damn album’s good, and you won’t find yourself skipping tracks here.

For the Love of Thugs and Fools may not be as immediate an album to grab onto as 2008’s Freedom Metal, but it’s sure as hell just as good and just as hard-hitting. It shows a maturity that can only be built with a slew of releases under your belt and tours behind your back. Bible of the Devil doesn’t recycle, though, and that’s important to note. They’ve always got a place to go and a story to tell, but it’ll never be the same. You can put money on that.

Jodi Michael: Yes.

We got so burnt from interviews the last album, which was great, ‘cause I’m glad that people paid attention, but then you get a lot of burnout.  Plus you get a lot of people interviewing you that don’t really have any kind of excitement about anything, and it’s just, I don’t know, McDonald’s drive-thru interviews.

[Laughs] I listened to some interview that you guys had done on YouTube, and it was the most boring thing I have ever heard [though not on the part of the BOTD boys – jm].

Oh yeah.  Yeah, it was probably pretty dry.

Oh my god.

It was like watching paint dry or something.

Yeah, pretty much.

But sometimes you have those.

Okay, so you guys just started the tour…how’s it going so far?

Tour’s been awesome.  I mean, Madison was a little slow.  We typically do really well there, but it was kind of one of those shows, and you have those sometimes, where people come in and they’re there but you don’t really know if it’s registering with them or not.  But then we still sell a bunch of stuff, we still get paid guarantees, but Minneapolis and Rapid City – totally packed, awesome.  Omaha was at The Waiting Room, which is a great bar; played with Bloodcow.  They’re pretty awesome.  I’ve known them since I was in college, you know, 15 years ago.  It’s kind of weird.  It’s a little more stoner rock influenced, which I typically don’t get into, but they really started as a weird, almost Faith No More, Mr. Bungle kind of band, but theirs is a great live show, so having them on the bill helped a lot too.  Tonight could be the worst night of the tour so far [laughs].

Let’s hope not.

The thing with us, though, is I think at least you’re walking into a place where you’re always gonna have somebody in there that’s into the band, where before you really had to hope.  Once we got Freedom Metal out, you could start to tell, like okay, you’re consistently having people at your shows, but it’s still hard.  I mean, even some of the best underground bands, yeah, they’re still gonna play for five people on any given night.  There’s not enough good local bands in certain scenes to support what goes on.  But we’re looking forward to Wichita because that’s always packed.  We do really well in merch there.  We played with Manilla Road once six years ago too, and that kind of started a whole thing.  Down from there, Denver and Albuquerque we’re with Leeches of Lore; they’re from Albuquerque.

Right on.

It’s about as good a tour as you can do.  It is difficult.  We did it last year, east coast with High Spirits, which was a great double billing, but some of those shows were really slow.  It’s just kind of a crapshoot.  You’re never gonna get anything you really want unless you’re on some big packaged bill, like you’re touring with High on Fire or Saviours or some other band that is maybe more nationally recognized; you’re still gonna battle some nights.  I love being out here, though.  Tell you what, we used to do two or three months of touring a year, and now we’re down to just trying to do the best tours we can, but I wish we were out more.  You know, you get older and you want to try to maintain some semblance of a life without imploding.  We’ve amazingly survived this long, so we’ll keep doing it.

Right on.  You guys are kind of playing here on an unfortunate night because literally right across the street, Kittie is playing with Warbringer and god knows who else.

You wish every town you play you could be the only show going on.

Right.  Put that in your rider.

We’ve had that happen sometimes where you go in there like, ahh, it’s gonna be great.  ‘Well, guys, just want to tell you somebody’s playing right across the street.’  You know, we’ve even done things where we’ve walked across the street to try to get on that show, just be like, ‘Can we just open up and sell merch?  Because otherwise this is really gonna suck.’

Has it worked?

Um, no, I don’t think so.

[Laughs]

We haven’t done it in a long time.  But I think we were in Ohio somewhere, I forget who was playing, but it was clearly going to be obvious that nobody was gonna show up, you know?  So we tried to get on whatever bill it was.  But we can’t complain as long as you’re doing what you’re doing.  When you keep putting out records, keep everything going, it’s, there are still people who are really into our stuff, so you get another PayPal in, another email, another show request, another play here and we’ll pay you this much money…you’re like, okay.  It’s not dead like nobody gives a shit, but it can sure seem like that sometimes, depending on any given night.

Right.  Okay, so the new album came out yesterday, For the Love of Thugs and Fools.  What kind of feedback have you guys heard thus far?

I think it’s been good, thanks to [Clawhammer PR].  I mean, there’s always going to be the naysayers out there that are gonna be like, ‘Oh, this isn’t metal enough’ or ‘this production sucks,’ or this and that.  We’ve faced it all, but I think when you get down to it, it’s kind of like any rock and roll band.  When you get down to the core of your audience, they’re always gonna be interested in what you’re doing.  So it was a little bit of a stretch for us in terms of, most of the stuff is kind of based on real situations the last three years, and it’s been really intense to even hold everything together.  And we kind of made a really conscious attempt to make the songs as catchy as possible, like make sure everything has the hook in there, the chorus in there.  I always get back to I think people want to see that.  I want to see that when I’m playing, that somebody remembers the songs that you do.  I mean, how many shows have you been to where you’re like, ‘Ah, this is okay, but I’m not gonna remember anything’?  And if people can leave even remembering one song, it’s great.

So I think it’s still early, you know, with the album just being out and we’ve done about a month of pre-promotion stuff.  But still, you’re always battling.  We don’t think we’ve actually gotten big or anything like that, because I don’t even know what that means anymore, but you would at least hope that the awareness has raised in each record.  It’s hard sometimes, because you think people at least know the band whether they’ve listened to you or not, but you still just run into all these knuckleheads that are still asking, ‘What does the band name mean?’  It’s like, all lame interview questions, and it’s like, if you were interested, you’d probably know a little bit more about it.  ‘Why’d you name your band that?’  It’s nothing really to do with music or the band, you know, it’s just kind of empty questions.

Because you’re Satanists.

[Laughs] Yeah, we’re Satanists.  We had to fend that off.  I mean, you kind of do it to yourselves too.  Basically, it’s just a euphemism for rock and roll.  When Strom Thurmond saw Elvis play in the ‘50s, he said, ‘That guy is the bible of the devil.’  When you explain it like that, it’s cool.  But you’re not gonna be able to tell a 15-year-old vegan hardcore kid otherwise, you know what I mean?  So for years we battled bad bills before we finally got around enough and people were like, okay, this is a rock band.  And then you start getting on better shows.  But I mean, it was a nightmare in the beginning, because there’s nothing worse than going in to play a show and you’re going in to play with them, they’ve got corpse paint on…it’s like, this isn’t gonna go well.  You know what I mean?  But we did this metal fest in Manhattan, Kansas a couple years ago.  It was just this odd billing, but we sold a lot of merch and there were kids into it, so you can’t really disregard that.  But yeah, you just kind of take it for what it is.

Each record you do, you hope that people are getting into it as much as you had fun making it.  And sometimes it always doesn’t translate.  There are songs on there that I thought were really gonna be nailing it to the wall, like yeah, people are gonna like this, and then they gravitated toward the other ones.  Like the response that we had for “Anytime,” Nate [Perry] didn’t even want to put that on the album, and I was like, ‘No, I think we should put that on there,’ and that has gotten a lot of great response so far.  So yeah, hopefully it keeps going positively, you know?

Was there anything you guys did this time around that you intentionally tried to do different from the writing period for Freedom Metal?

Well, definitely, whether we knew it or not, we set out to create the most direct, to-the-point, memorable songs, where Freedom Metal was kind of the bridge for that.  That was kind of maybe more of a watershed record for us, because before that we had the concept album with The Diabolic Procession, and Brutality [Majesty Eternity] was the more epic thing, and then Freedom Metal kind of went back in the really, for lack of a better word, almost like solid pop metal of the ‘70s.  I think we sat down with that in mind.  I mean, I’ve always had that in my head, to do that, but whether it really…with our band it’s kind of weird.  I don’t think we ever really sit down and say, ‘This is how it’s going to happen.’  It usually comes from snippets from somebody.  I mean, everybody does contribute stuff.  There’s really no dominant songwriter.  Nate did a few more of the kind of structured song stuff on this one, but I think we kind of stretched it out a little bit where we were doing a few different things.  I mean, even “I Know What is Right (in the Night),” I mean, that’s kind of a Van Halen little guitar-drum beat start, but just that kind of thing, we’re melding it into a more kind of pop song.  And I think that people are really going to remember that.  And I think it’s just kind of about trimming the fat at this point.  You can have all these ideas, but if you don’t synthesize it into a cool song, it can get real lost on people.  And I always want to have each record from start to finish, whether you like all the songs or not, you at least will remember them, whether you like it or hate it. Who knows for the next one, but I can see that becoming more of a theme.  I think we all have kind of had that since we were, you know, young kids.  You go see shows, you see the bands that are anthemic bands – you see Slayer when you’re 14 years old in 1990, and you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna remember everything from that show.’  Or you see Cheap Trick, or you see another band that you’re just gonna remember the songs, and you feel lucky to be growing up in that time.  Now, it’s like there are so many bands, some are good, some are not so good, that where you draw that line to keep your band going and to keep everything in a metal fashion it kind of gets more difficult as you keep getting older.  Then it’s also a lot more fun because you get to that point where you kind of see what’s worked and what hasn’t, and then you can kind of just be like, ‘Yeah!’ and really ram it up everyone’s ass [laughs].

[Laughs]

But yeah, the record, it was definitely was definitely a big labor to get it all done.  I mean, it was like eight months, a lot of budget issues, just getting studio time and stuff.  I would love to be able to just sit down for one month and do nothing but that, but when you’re working a job…I don’t think a lot of bands have that luxury anymore.  Even the best ones are, you know, they still have to try to make ends meet, no matter how great they are.

Right.

I think that’s really only the main difference [with the album], is that it’s still kind of BOTD’s style, but we set out to, like, ‘Okay, this one’s got to be a little more memorable than the last one.’  But we’ll see if people grab onto it or not.  There are always gonna be the likers and the haters out there, you know?

Right.

We need more likers, but I think there’s a lot of bands that because they have that fear that maybe they’ll be hated, maybe they play it a little more safe, whereas we never really worried about that.  Because I think that as long as there are people that are interested in music, even like a record label or band, that is enough validation, just one or two people.  It’s like, if you get a hundred people that say that they hate it, so what.  You’ve got two people that are into it, so keep doing it.

One thing that’s cool about Bible of the Devil is that it seems like each album you do something a little bit different, or try a different theme or something like that, but you never do anything that’s completely out of the way – you never do a Metallica; it’s always Bible of the Devil.  It’s recognizable.

Right, kind of more, you’re almost developing your sound.  I hate to even use that word, but there’s a reason why bands like Metallica and Megadeth, Led Zeppelin, I mean, they started out, maybe they didn’t have that thought, but you can just instantly identify it, and that’s what I want.  And I think that’s what we all want too, is where people say, ‘Oh yeah, it’s Bible of the Devil,’ whether it takes another two records or what.  But I think that’s the ultimate kind of praise you can get, is that you’ve really kind of carved out a so-called sound, even though it’s heavy with kind of retro influences, but that’s all the kind of stuff we like.  It’s not trying to be something it’s not, and that’s what gets hard.  I think the tendency is to stand out more now.  I think people really try to make their bands something that it’s not, and some achieve some degree of success, some don’t.  But you can just kind of tell sometimes, there’s no good feel.  I think we all operate like in rock and roll and metal, there’s always a feel, and some are more precise than others, but you still always got to have a basic feel in there.

The gap between Freedom Metal and the new album, that’s the longest period that you guys have had between full-lengths.  Is there a reason for that?  Of course you guys did a bunch of splits in between, too.

I think the main thing, one and two, is with Freedom Metal, we did quite a bit of touring, and we did a lot of shows in support of that.  Number two, I think we had a few things happen that kind of stalled a lot of progress on it.  I mean, you can point to a thousand reasons why it didn’t happen faster, but I think it was also a time where it took a little more time to cultivate all these songs.  And then you’re always, always worried about financial constraints.  You never have enough to get done, and you’re trying to figure out how to get all that done.  So yeah, we used to be a band that every two years, we’d have an album out.  But sometimes it’s okay that you’re sitting back and maybe reflecting a little bit more on what you’re doing rather than just kind of gunning it full force, which we like to do that too.  Hopefully the next one won’t be as long, but if it is, it’ll probably still be worth it in the end.

Oh, sure, yeah.  And you guys have still remained active, though.

Yeah.  It’s different if you just kind of hang out and take four years off.

Right.

And I think that none of us, first of all, would want to do that, and number two, I think if we did, this band kind of has weird rhythms how we move to everything, just the pace of the band, like, okay, we’re doing this here, we’re doing this here.  And if you stop that, you really lose that momentum.  Otherwise you just become a Chicago bar band.  And we have a lot of peers that are really talented too, where they’ve, it’s too easy to just hang out, not really do anything, and despite whether it’s for better or worse, going out and doing shows, maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do, but you still got to keep the idea of being active.  Because not everything’s going to be the perfect show or the greatest experience all the time, and the fact that you’re still doing it, I think even the best bands in the world, I mean, even Motorhead has not really stopped, you know what I mean, for better or worse.  They’ve got tons of albums and maybe you don’t like everything and stuff, but I don’t think you would sit there and have Lemmy take ten years off [laughs].  I think we’re all so used to it now it’s just second nature to us.  If it gets to the point where we are physically unable to do it or, you know, had something weird happen it’d be different.  But if you’re in a band, do it all the time.  I mean, we have often been accused of maybe we play too much locally or we do too many things.  We even had someone in New York say, ‘You guys put out your releases too fast.  I barely had this time to listen to this one and I got another one.’  But it’s always funny when you see where the criticism comes from and how people, what angle they take.  It’s like, huh, I always thought the point of being a band is to make music, for people to want to but it [laughs].  I mean, Thin Lizzy in the ‘70s, they put out about ten albums in six years, so I think we have a little bit of that kind of old school, old line of thought, if where budgets allowed and we could focus more on it, you might see the same result.  But I think we’re doing pretty good for 12 years with six records and a bunch of seven-inches and, I don’t know, about 25 tours and no one’s died.  There’s still time for that, though.

[Laughs]  So what’s your favorite track, or tracks, from the new album?

Um, I think I really like “The Parcher” a lot.  That was kind of, I always just think of more the metal gods, Priest, we kind of center it around that.  Nate came up with kind of this “Eye of the Tiger” riff, but we kind of turned it into a cool song.  To me, it’s one of the more memorable ones.  I think there’s also something from each song you can take.  I really like “Night Street,” because that was the first song we came up with for the new album, and I like them all.  But it’s always weird when you’re done with an album, you’ve spent so much time with it, and you’re playing these songs ad nauseam, it almost takes you a few years to sort of sit back and reflect, you know, ‘Do I really like that song?’  I think that’s with any band, you go back and try to listen to your records; it’s really hard.  But those two are good standouts.  I think the response for playing those live have been pretty good, because that’s something you’ve probably always got to take into consideration too.  You know, we don’t really care what an audience thinks, but if they totally hate it, maybe you’re like, wow, maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree here.  But I don’t think that ever really happens.  There’s always people out there watching it, and some people may say ‘fuck this’ and leave, but I think once you see the heads moving, you’re in the right mode.  As long as people aren’t standing there like this [bored posture], we get a lot of heads moving and that’s cool.  You know you’re hitting it on the head, that means they’re gonna take it home or ‘Play this one, play that one,’ and they start figuring out the words.  We have a lot of younger kid fan base that comes to our shows in Chicago and they know all the words and they’re yelling out, like, ‘Play this,’ shit we haven’t played in years.  But it’s better than ‘you suck’ or ‘fuck off,’ which is what I do with some bands [laughs].

[Laughs]  So when you’re playing live and somebody requests something, what is the most requested song?  Do you have one?

[Bassist Darren Amaya has sauntered on into the green room to join in on the convo.]

Darren Amaya: Maybe “Ol’ Girl…”

GS: “Ol’ Girl.”

DA: “Coke Years, Coke Tears.”

GS: Yeah.

DA: “Ships” sometimes, used to be “Flee” all the time, but we haven’t played that one in a while.

GS: “Ol’ Girl” is pretty standard because that’s, you know, you can kind of tell if you get a few more girls at your show and they really like that song.  That’s kind of cool.  But I think everybody remembers “Turning Stone,” “Night Oath,” “Hijack the Night,” stuff like that.  But I think maybe “Ol’ Girl” the most?

DA: Yeah.  We noticed in Rapid City recently, it almost depends on location.  Sometimes we’ll hit a place for the past ten years and those people in that place will remember something from an old album, all the way back to Tight Empire or before, you know.  People are calling out for “Victory Bringer” or something like that, you know, a song that we maybe played at a ten-year anniversary but we never play live anymore.  It’s kind of a testament of how many places we’ve been, where it’s like these people really like the song because we’ve been going there for that long and there’s some kid that knows that song.  But definitely “Ol’ Girl” gets a lot of requests.

GS: Yeah, I tend to agree with that.  Depending on where you go you get more suggested favorites, but that’s cool, at least it’s not like, oh, this band only has this one song and the rest of it sucks [laughs].  We’ll see what people request tonight, if there’s more than just you out there.

I do have a request – I want to hear “Orphans of Doom” tonight.

GS: Oh wow.  You want to shout it out?

DA: Yeah, just shout it out during our set.

Two more beers and I’ll do it.

GS: [Laughs]

Darren, what’s your favorite track from the new album?  Do you have one?

DA: The new album…I really like “Out for Blood,” just because I like the energy of it.  It has a really crazy Maiden thing and the reason why I like it is it was really spontaneous when we wrote it, which is something we’ve done a lot in the past right when I joined the band.  We were just jamming around on riffs and kind of throwing stuff out there, but the essential skeleton for that song just kind of came together at one practice, and then we remembered it, we recorded it, I think we demoed it that day a little bit so we could remember it.  That song came together pretty quick.  I mean, the lyrics might not have; the lyrics came a little bit later, but that raw energy of that was just so much what I like about playing in Bible of the Devil.  So that was really cool.  I really like playing “…Away;” it definitely has that sort of “Flee” feel where it’s like chugging like that.  I like the fact that we have an intro kind of thing into it and we’re doing it live it now.  I think it’s a good opener.  I mean, the album, there’s a lot of good songs on it.  I think we probably could have written more songs even for the record but we really wanted to get it out, and the songs that we put on it, we put a lot of work into.  We spent a lot of time making sure that they were the best we could do them at that point in time, the way we were playing them, you know.

GS: Yeah, like I said, you almost have to have like a cutoff point.

DA: Yeah.

GS: Because you would keep forever going over stuff or ‘maybe we should do this more, or this.’  And you do start, what Darren was saying, you do start losing a little bit of the spontaneity…I mean, a lot of times, the best songs come out in ten minutes.

Really?

GS: I think.

DA: Yeah.

GS: At least, if you spend six months on something it may turn out to be awesome, but we’re not making “Aqualung” or something, you know what I mean?

[Laughs]

GS: If you have something that you really kind of lock into, it just feels better.  Then when you go back and play it again, you’re still excited about it.  It’s not like you put together The Black Album or something where, putting it together in a year and a half and you’re like, wow, is there anything left to feel after that?  It’s still awesome; I like the record still.

DA: It’s never an exact science with songwriting, you know.  Sometimes it can feel like pulling teeth with certain things; you’re like, why is this not coming together right, or I don’t know what do with this.  When we first started to play “Raw and Order,” I was having trouble getting my head around the, it’s a groove song.

GS: Yeah.

DA: You really have to, it was a weird song for us.  It was a big thing to jump into, and it has a certain feel to it, and it took me a while.  I didn’t wrap my head around it until right when we were recording it and almost after, and that happens, you know, when you’re in a rock band that’s just kind of doing, we do a lot of stuff ourselves and we’re all living and working all the time.  So sometimes you just, okay, we’ve got this song, it’s coming together, we have the arrangement, and then it kind of comes together in the right organic way whereas I might have been not so hot on this song, but after we did it, hearing what it sounded like as a complete piece outside of the practice space and recorded, I was like, ‘Oh, this is kind of cool, I like the sound of this.’  And we did some fun stuff with production; we put some sounds on it that I thought were pretty cool.

GS: Yeah, in that case, sometimes it’s not the spontaneity thing but even with the last album, with “Ol’ Girl,” it was almost so popular we were like, ‘Man, should this really go on there?’  And then that kind of became a signature song.  I guess you never really know.  People are ultimately going to decide for you I guess, but it’s pretty nerve wracking when you’re trying to get it all together, you know?

I’m sure, yeah.  Well, you guys have obviously had a pretty good relationship with Cruz Del Sur because this is your third full-length with them.  Can you talk about that a little bit?

GS: Yeah.  Enrico [Leccese] is a great guy. I think he, in the beginning, we got turned onto him by Slough Feg, because they had just put out the Atavism record.  The first time I met Mike [Scalzi] was when Hammers of Misfortune played in Chicago, and he watched us play and he came up to me and was like, ‘I think you’d really like my other band a lot.  I really like what you guys are doing.’  You know how that conversation goes – like, ‘I think you’d really like my band!  We kind of sound like you guys!’  And you listen to it and you don’t sound anything like it.  Mike sent me all the Slough Feg CDs and it was, what, overnight it became one of my favorite bands.  It’s hard to believe some of that stuff comes out of just him, and he’s just so intense about it.

So we kind of got started with [Cruz Del Sur], but you have to give Enrico the credit because I think he did take a chance on us at first.  Diabolic… was a fun record, it was cool, it was really weird.  I don’t think a lot of people really grabbed onto it, but I think he saw an avenue with us where he could embrace a little more of the rock part of the metal, and I think things really started developing from there.  He’s always been supportive.  As with any label, you wish you had more money, but for what he’s given us – to go to Europe, and someone who’s still giving us studio budgets, which is a rare thing these days, it’s really cool.  Meet, meet, sign, and we’re down [laughs].  He [pointing to Darren] went over there to Rome in January with his girlfriend and hung out with Enrico.  He’s just such a nice dude, an exceptional guy, that somehow has managed to keep a label going and pretty successful at it.  I don’t think he’s making a killing off of it, but he’s certainly able to keep doing it.  And a lot of bands on there are pretty decent, you know.  He’s really kind of honed the roster where it’s — you know, there really aren’t a lot of metal labels at all, or labels in general…

DA: I just want to add this.  Enrico’s a guy that I respect in a lot of ways because he’s doing it out of the love of it, and he’s obviously a big hard rock/metal fan for a lot of his life, and that helps because when you talk to him, he understands the history of it.  So it’s not like we have to explain why we’re doing something, or he’s not asking us some weird question about what direction that we’re going with anything, because he just understands and he trusts us enough.  He’s literally someone we’ll hang out with when we get to.  I mean, he lives in Rome, but anytime I see that guy, I can see him and have a conversation just like any other person that I think is cool.  So it’s really nice because dealing with that from a business sense, because they call it the “music business,” you know, we all want to sell our records and he wants to, and we all want to make money.  But it helps take a lot of the crap away to be dealing with someone that is coming from the same place we are, which is a love for the music and stuff that’s cool.

GS: That’s key with us.  We’ve had people or labels or agents or show people approach us and I don’t think they really had any kind of idea about the band.  That doesn’t really go far with us; they kind of have to know what’s happening.  They have to have a little bit of a background on what you’re doing or else it just falls on deaf ears.  So it’s about as good as a band-label relationship can get in this day and age.

What all are you guys doing after this tour?  What is coming up for Bible of the Devil?  I know that you said you guys were going to Greece.

GS: Yeah, we’re going to do a pretty long European tour in October, start maybe on the 17^th and then on the 5^th of November, do some Italian shows, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Greece, Austria, maybe Czech Republic.  Just trying to make that really good, it’s a lot of work.  This will be our fourth time over there but now that we have the support of High Roller Records with the vinyl release, we have a really good lock-in with a lot of German stuff now, and they have put out so much stuff, a lot of it awesome stuff too.  Those are great guys too, by the way.  I mean, if I would have known they were interested in the last record, I would have had them put it out [on vinyl].  But you never really know ‘til you keep beating down doors.  But they’ve been interested for a long time, which is really cool.  You know, that’s such expensive stuff to put out that it’s nice that you don’t have to worry about that, and they actually want to do it.  Like Darren was saying with Enrico, they actually have a background in music and they’re excited about it.  I kind of miss that in a lot of music these days.  I think labels just get in that mode of just putting out stuff because it’s gonna sell; gonna throw it, see what sticks on the wall.  But if you find out how many label guys or label heads are actually invested in the bands that they really cared about, I think you’d find that it’s a pretty small number.

So we’re doing that, and then usually the constant barrage of local shows or out of town weekend shows.  I don’t know what the contention will be, but we’re going to try to do a ten-inch with them [Slough Feg] and do a couple songs on that and hopefully get that put out, but it just depends if we can muster up the rights to songs and basically do everything, you know?  It’s gonna be a busy rest of the year too.

DA: Alehorn too.

GS: Alehorn of Power VI is gonna go on with Dawnbringer this year, The Skull, July 14^th, it’s a Saturday.  With Alehorn, we try to keep it manageable.  Some of those other metal fests can get really crazy with the amount of bands they have, but we always try to find at least the most interesting five or six bands for that year.  Dawnbringer said they would do it this year, which is awesome because they have their new album out I think in May, another Chris Black [High Spirits, Pharaoh, Superchrist,] band.

That last one [of Dawnbringer’s] was great.

GS: Oh yeah, that was a good one.  It’s kind of a synthesis of a lot of different styles still in like, a catchy form, I guess.  It’s hard to do.  And Superchrist was great at the release show.

That’s right; you guys did that dual release show.

DA: And incidentally he said that like Züül, they’ll probably, are they still coming to Europe with us?

GS: Oh yeah, they’re coming to Europe.

DA: I mean, some of those guys have been to Europe before, but we’re going to kind of join forces with them.  They got their label that they’ve started.  That’s cool to have friends that are doing that stuff.  It’s the least annoying thing to put out a record with those guys, Onslaught of Steel.

GS: Yeah, they’ve done the last two splits – the Winterhawk split and the one with Züül, so it’s kind of nice.  Bob and Mike, who do the label, you know, it’s good to see people motivated to put out records again.  They put out good stuff – they did that Superchrist one, they did two of ours, they did the Stallion CD, which is a good record.  They’re doing a Hookers split, Züül and The Hookers.  They kind of know the bands that you’d want to see put stuff out, and a lot of those bands are getting active again too.  If anything, it’s kind of getting more back to what rock and metal was in the ‘80s for America, where it’s a lot of underground things moving up, but it’s still a small world.  All the right people kind of know each other but the stuff that comes out of everybody is awesome, they’re records that you want to hear and not just so much stuff that’s garbage all the time.  The amount of demos when I worked for the booking agency, at Tone Deaf, was just insane.  It’s so much stuff and I just think that’s hard when there’s so many bands.  There’s probably some stuff that’s good out there, but it takes so long to sift through it, because everybody’s in a band.  Especially in Chicago, there’s probably every other person [who’s in a band].

Do you guys have anything to add?

GS: Do you have enough material?

Yeah.  This was a great interview.

GS: We kind of go for more of that relaxed vibe too.  I can imagine some of your other interviews are a little more uptight with some stuff.

DA: We haven’t drank away all of our interesting discussion yet.

GS: We still have a brain in our head.  We have not imploded with our drug and alcohol abuse yet.

DA: …which is amazing, you know.

GS: Thanks for the interview.

Thanks, guys.

Original band photo at the top by Kickass Photography.

A Celebration of Death is, indeed, an homage to the extinguishing of life’s flame, though in not such an overt manner as initially thought. It seems that Fester, living up to their namesake, take a unique and uneasy approach to layering, building, and ultimately burrowing under the skin of their listeners. Unsettling elements of distortion, feedback, gritty vocals and industrial sections grate and squeal over melancholy and oft dissonant guitar work, creating a dark, hazy atmosphere likened to a macabre stroll through a glossy mausoleum.

To fully appreciate (or abhor) the poison that Fester dishes out, it must be taken in its full dose. Listen to A Celebration of Death in its entirety and allow yourself to become absorbed by its ambiance…anything less would be futile. Tracks like the intoxicating and bleak “The Black Tower” and the crunchy and battle-torn “Jeg spytter på deg (I spit on you)” help to construct the palpable sense of dread which permeates the album. Continue on with “Last Day of Battle,” parts I and II, a solemn and somber two-part affair that marches through thrashy blackness with the subtlety of a tank. Of note is closer “Rites of Mortiis,” an industrial remix of opening track “Rites of Ceres” by fellow Norwegian Mortiis. It’s an appropriate come-down from an album’s worth of weird, atmospheric filth.

A Celebration of Death is not for the queasy or closed-minded. Its liberal fusion of elements from various genres, metal and non, make it a mixed bag that many metal purists may turn their noses up at, but Fester have certainly created a unique atmospheric beast in it that leaves an undeniably new and odd-shaped dent on the landscape of extreme metal.

Question: What do you get when you combine sinister Black Sabbath-style grooving with NWOBHM ‘tude and then top it with dusky, sultry female vocals? The answer: Christian Mistress’ Possession. This record (from Relapse) is pretty damn close to a time warp back to the budding metal era of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, where mysticism frequently collided with sweaty energy to create colossal bursts of heavy sound. Such is the way of Possession.

The material contained within Possession, while decidedly unfiltered on its own, is gently nudged into classic territory with an earthy tone, and of course the smoky and seductive vocals of Christine Davis. Depending on the tune, her voice is either coy or commanding, evoking images of tortured, buxom heroines in dank dungeons or cruel warrior queens exacting revenge. The back and forth between Davis’ vocals and the heavy, high energy guitars of Oscar Sparbel and Ryan McClain — along with the aged feel of the record — makes for a raucous cult vibe.

Some of Possession’s tracks hit like sledgehammers, others slink in subtlety. Oftentimes both of these occur in the course of one track’s spin. “The Way Beyond” is a perfect example of that duality, creeping out of the gates with a somber, bluesy acoustic line that blossoms into an all-out rock eruption. Charged riffs come roaring out of the speakers, the bass gallops, the drums hold the groove together…and then Christian Mistress pulls back on the reins, with Davis’ hypnotic cry of ‘Are you alive?’ controlling the mass. Hard rock and heavy metal bliss!

Other noteworthy tracks are “Pentagram and Crucifix,” a hard-charging, chug-laden tune for which the band did a video; title track “Possession,” a haunting and ritualistic Faith cover; and of course the revved-up Di’Anno-era Maiden-esque “Black to Gold.” Each track from Possession has its own unique traits, but these really exemplify what makes Christian Mistress’ scheme work: warm, well-structured tunes that embrace the true grit of heavy metal.

It’s been quite a while since anything of this ilk has crossed my desk for review, and in preparation I dug out some Morbid Saint and Noia to get me in the right mind frame. With the addition of a bleak-as-fuck day and the tail end of the stomach flu, it worked. After that, I was prepared for war, or at least one of an aural kind.

The Doomsayer’s Call is the third full-length from Swedes Coldworker. Much like their previous efforts, it’s essentially a fucking frigid slab of twisting, heart-ripping death grind. However, its tunes border the line between filth and calculation effortlessly, roiling with as much dirty recklessness as they do punctuated groove. Thanks to that, the appeal of The Doomsayer’s Call should be wide in the ever-more-genre-riddled death metal world.

You’ve got tracks like opener “A New Era,” which isn’t, thank goat, a lame spoken word or weak instrumental intro, but a sick ‘n’ slow prologue foreshadowing that which is to come. It leads right into the dissonant and disturbing “The Reprobate,” a gnarly tune that cuts with the subtlety and finesse of a rusty, pitted blade. The grind really comes forth and shows itself here, with a Napalm Death influence stabbing through.

Also of note from The Doomsayer’s Call are tracks like the groovy “Flesh World” and its love-it-or-fucking-abhor-it breakdown section; the angular and hate-fueled “Pessimist” and “The Walls of Eryx;” the balls-out grinding madness of “Violent Society;” and the cutely titled technical hymn “Becoming the Stench.” I could continue, but you hopefully get the point.

The Doomsayer’s Call is overall pummeling, yet sharp enough to keep things churning as they should: a solid chunk of viscera, fury and nails being forced down your throat by a jackhammer fist. This is Coldworker’s specialty. Don’t forget your goddamn antacids.

I used to write for Metal Maniacs.  Do you remember that magazine?

Of course, yeah.

One time I was doing an interview with Pain of Salvation, and I did the entire interview, and we were wrapping up and saying goodbye, and then I realized that my recorder hadn’t recorded anything.

Oh god.

I had to ask him, “Do you mind if we do the interview again?”  It was Daniel Gildenlow, and he graciously said yes.  But it actually worked out really well because I couldn’t bear to just, you know, read off the question list again, so I had to make up an entirely new half hour’s worth of questions…

Oh…

Which took me into, you know, completely different territory.  So it ended up being a very cool interview, but it was pretty embarrassing at the end of a 30 or 40 minute chat to have to go, “Uh, can we do this again please?”

[Laughs]  Well, I’m glad it worked out for the best.  That’s the important thing.  But yeah, that would kind of suck.

Yeah.

How long did you write for Metal Maniacs?

I started in ’98, I guess, and I wrote for the magazine until it ended, although near the end I wasn’t doing that much, a few pieces a year.  It gets to the point — I also do a fanzine — it got to the point where I’d reviewed like, 1500 or 2000 CDs and done hundreds of interviews and, you know, it all starts, you start saying the same things about completely different albums and it sort of loses some of the fun.

Yeah, I completely understand.  1,500, wow, that’s insane.

Yeah.  In each issue of my zine, I would review like, 200 CDs or something like this.  I mean, they only came out once a year or something; this is a print ‘zine, old fashioned, and yeah.  They pile up.

Yes, they do, good god.  I know for a fact then that I’ve read your writing, because I used to read Metal Maniacs pretty religiously when it was still around in the print version, so that’s pretty excellent.

Those were the days.

Indeed.  Well, anyway, let’s talk about Pharaoh. 

Indeed.

Bury the Light is coming out in the US in March.  Now, I have to tell you that personally, to me, Be Gone has been the best metal album of the past five years, and that’s not any sort of exaggeration.  So I was really anticipating, you know, hearing the new material.

Great.  And we let you down.

[Laughs]  You know, I have to be 100 percent honest.  Initially, Bury the Light did not hit me the same way that Be Gone did, but after I listened to it a few more times, it’s totally on the same level now.  Uh, that didn’t come out very well. 

No, I understand.  It’s definitely not as immediate an album as Be Gone, and well, for that matter, Be Gone wasn’t as immediate as the album before it, so pretty soon it’s gonna take decades to appreciate a new Pharaoh album.

[Laughs]

Hopefully it’s linear and not logarithmic.  We’ll be completely unlistenable in the space of, like, three or four years.

I highly doubt that will be the case.

Yeah.

But no, Bury the Light is just as excellent if not better than Be Gone, and I’m still in the initial phases of listening to it.  I’ve probably gone through it five times [make that closer to 20 now – JM], but it takes a little bit longer to kind of wrap your head around everything.  It’s more complex, it’s more layered, more progressive, so can you tell me, was that a conscious effort to make that jump?

It was.  The whole band, I think, is pretty conscious about what we’re doing and where we’re going.  It’s not like we’re just following divine inspiration, letting the muse take us where it will, you know?  It’s like, we’re all pretty critical consumers of music, and we’re all aware of what happens to bands that just coast on a good idea.  There’s a lot of bands, and they put out a good album, and then they pretty much put out that album over and over and over again.  You know, some of those retreads can be good; there are bands like that that they’re okay.  I mean, there’s a number of good Running Wild albums, and they didn’t progress after the third album or something like that.  It’s certainly possible, but that’s not something that Pharaoh would really want to [do].  We do want to move forward with each release, but the problem is, it’s getting harder, you know?  The move from After the Fire to The Longest Night, that was a pretty big jump, because we were going from being pretty young, pretty inexperienced, doing our first album, we just got the feel for things.  We got comfortable writing for Pharaoh for The Longest Night, and I think that was a fairly mature album, and then we pushed that even farther for Be Gone.  But it’s gotten to the point where we’re not likely to push the musicianship much farther because, you know, we’re not kids.  We don’t have 10 hours a day to practice.  This is about as shreddy as I’m gonna get [laughs].  So we have to think of new ways to, I don’t know if improve upon is the phrase, but to modify the Pharaoh sound in a way that’s enjoyable, unexpected, and still, in some way, conforming to the expectations of people who like Pharaoh.  There’s not many bands in the world that can get away with, you know, an Ulver  move and just completely reinvent themselves every album or two, or Devin Townsend or something.  It’s like, if we want to keep putting out Pharaoh albums, they have to appeal to Pharaoh fans.  And I guess kind of our mission with that is to slowly draw them along with us as we explore different sounds and not just the usual Iron Maiden, power metal type riffs that we started with.

Right.

So yeah, when we were writing this album, at least when I was writing my parts, I was definitely trying to increase the complexity, increase the density of the harmony, and I guess the sophistication of the arrangements.  I think overall it worked out.  We’re not really trying to prog band; we’re not trying to push the envelope in terms of how many key changes or time changes we can do in one song.  They’re still basically following the pop mode; they still have, for the most part, verses and choruses, and there’s only so much you can do there.  But yeah, we definitely wanted to make things a little less conventional this time around.

Right.  Well, I think you guys have done an excellent job.  And with the 10 Years EP, you guys did some—I hesitate to use the word typical, so we’ll just skip over that word—but you guys did some pretty cool Pharaoh stuff and then you did some covers too, which were obviously a little different from what you guys would normally do, but they still, I thought they fit in perfectly.

Yeah, with the 10 Years EP, it takes some explaining now.  All of the songs were recorded basically at the same time as Be Gone; they were written at the same time.  And in fact, before we started recording, we weren’t even sure which songs were going to go on the album, which were going on the EP.  What happened was we got to a point in the songwriting where [we were] like, there’s too many songs.  We can’t put these all out, but they’re good, so why don’t we just record a couple extra covers while we’re there, and then we’ll figure out which songs go on the album, which songs fit better, you know, isolated, and we’ll do it like that.  And really, 10 Years should have come out a year or so after Be Gone, and it ended up coming two or three years later for a variety of stupid reasons.

But with the covers…the Slayer cover is actually something that as a band, we were talking about doing very early on.  We all love that first Slayer album because, I mean, it’s almost like a New Wave of British Heavy Metal type album.  It’s completely unlike everything else Slayer did; it’s roughly melodic, you know.  It’s very song oriented.  And we thought it would be a cool thing to do, to inject some melody into Slayer, because you’ll hear plenty of death metal bands, and they’ll pick an Iron Maiden or Judas Priest song and essentially denude it of its melody, insofar as they replace its melodic vocals with death vocals.  We thought it would be kind of a funny experiment to go in the other direction and take something that’s not melodic and make it more so.  So we accomplished that with the Slayer cover by adding mountains of guitar harmonies.  I took the rhythm parts, which are just a single guitar part, and made three part harmonies out of almost the entire song, and then we added on that really corny outro, which was in fact an interpretation of the original ending of the song.  Our drummer had a bootleg from, like, 1983, from before Show No Mercy came out, and the song ended with a completely different, I mean, had another riff with vocals.  We couldn’t make out the vocals, unfortunately, so we didn’t know what to sing there.  So we just arranged it instrumentally, and it’s easily the worst riff that Slayer has ever recorded.  And they have had riffs, but this riff was just so monumentally stupid, and we thought that it would be great to just take that and to tart it up in the most Blind Guardian way possible.  You know, we sort of hope that someday Kerry King would hear it and get pissed.  I don’t know if that’s happened.  It might be too much to ask, but, you know, one must dare to dream.

[Laughs]

So yeah, that’s the Slayer.  And then the Coroner song that we did as a seven inch was basically an experiment, only more extreme because, I mean, we really crafted melodies and harmonies for the vocals in that one.  And as for New Model Army, they’re just one of my all-time favorite bands, and I discovered them through other metal bands.  Anacrusis covered “I Love the World,” and Sepultura covered “The Hunt,” and that’s how I got into that band, so I thought it would be a cool thing to do, to try to expose some new people to what I consider one of the greatest rock groups of all time.

Excellent.  And I think that the covers have worked out very well for you guys.  Obviously the new, original material is very good too.  One question I had was…aren’t you guys all pretty much spread out throughout the place?

Yes, although we’re slowly getting less spread out, I suppose.  When we started the band, we were all based in Pennsylvania.  So Tim was in Pittsburgh and we were all the way on the other side of the state, so there was a five hour drive between us.  But Chris Black and I, we only lived, at the time, maybe 20, 30 minutes apart.  Our bassist, Chris Kerns, lives upstate Pennsylvania, so he’s a couple hours away.  But then I guess before we finished The Longest Night, Chris Black moved to Chicago, and then shortly after that album, Tim moved to Florida.  So for Be Gone and the early parts of the Bury the Light cycle, Tim was down there.  But he’s since moved back to Pennsylvania, back to Pittsburgh again.  So we’re a little closer, but yeah, we’re not the sort of band that gets together and jams, you know.  We’ve never rehearsed — well, that’s not true — we rehearsed one time to write songs for After the Fire.  That was the last time we did that.

Wow.

But the Chrises didn’t even meet Tim until a year after After the Fire came out.  Yeah, we don’t see one another very often.

Wow.  I’m sure that probably creates some unique challenges in getting material written and all compiled and put together and everything.

Yes and no.  It’s pretty easy these days.  We all have recording software on our computers, so we write our songs or our riffs or whatever and we can send them to everybody else over the internet, and everybody can work on it that way.  You know, I joke that I think one of the secrets to Pharaoh’s success is that we don’t see one another very often [laughs].  Think about all these bands that they’re practically living with one another, and eventually they start driving one another crazy.  We don’t really have that problem.  I don’t know if we would if we saw one another even once a week, but seeing each other a couple times a year, that seems to work out for us.

That may explain why you guys have been together as a solid unit for as long as you have.

Exactly.  And at this point, because everybody in Pharaoh writes, it wouldn’t even be Pharaoh if we changed even a single member.  So I think that if somebody decided they didn’t want to do it anymore or the guys decided they couldn’t stand this one dude, I think that we would probably retire Pharaoh.  Maybe two or three of us would continue in something else, but it wouldn’t feel the same, and I think that we’ve all agreed that we wouldn’t call it Pharaoh if we did have a lineup change at all.

I see.  Now, when it came time to start writing for Bury the Light, was there some sort of theme…I don’t want to use the word theme.

Sure.

Was there any sort of idea that you guys wanted to come together around?

No, not really.  There’s a theme to Be Gone [that] sort of arose after the fact.  Because the way we write generally starts with the riffs and the arrangements instrumentally.  Lyrics happen sometimes long after the other stuff is completely recorded.  But with Be Gone, we were maybe, we were pretty close to actually recording the album and we had a sense of what these songs were going to be about, and a theme did arise.  That was kind of one of the ways we windowed out one track to go to the EP, because they just didn’t really fit with the overall tone of Be Gone.  With this album we never planned on doing that.  I think that that might have been just a little too much pressure on us to try to do something like that again, so we just wrote the songs and let the chips fall where they may.  But when we start writing, we do have some sort of high level discussions about kind of where we want the music to go and the sorts of things that we want to do.  You know, say we want to have more unique transitions from one riff to the next, more riffs that only appear once, fewer fadeouts, things like that.  And then we’ll sort of generally agree that we do want to make things a little more complicated, a little more dense, and we’ll take it from there.  We already started talking about the kinds of things we want to do the next time because…it’s hard for me to appraise at this point how different Bury the Light is from Be Gone, but my feeling is that it’s not as huge a jump as you got from The Longest Night to Be Gone.  I think that we’re definitely going to try some different things next time and maybe some of the experiments will work and maybe some of them won’t.  But we definitely need to do something to make things a little different next time.  So, we’ll see.

I think regardless of what it is that you guys come up with the next time around, I think Pharaoh has set a bar.

Yeah.

So I think that anything that you release from this point on, it’s going to be at or above that place, and I think you guys have really gotten to a good point now where we don’t really know what to expect, but we know it’s gonna be good, if that makes sense.

Yeah, but that can be a trap too.  The band I always allude to when we get to this kind of discussion is Into Eternity, who are a band that I dearly love.  But when you listen to their albums through the first three, it’s just this straight line up.  The first album is very good, the second album is great, the third album is just, it’s incredible.  It’s, to me, a landmark release.  And then the fourth and the fifth albums are kind of just like the third one.  It’s not to say that they’re bad albums — they’re not.  They’re good, they’re catchy, and I enjoy them.  You can hear that this is a band that’s looking for something, that’s trying to find a sound and identity, and then in retrospect we realize that they have completely discovered that on Buried in Oblivion.  And then they just kind of rode it out thereafter.  And, you know, like I said, there’s bands that can get away with that.  At least their albums are enjoyable.  I guess they’re not going to be as fulfilling.  But that’s the problem we have now.  We could probably pretty easily crank out more albums that were very similar to Be Gone or Bury the Light, and I don’t know that that’s something we want to do.  It would be fun, it would be easy, but it might not be very satisfying.  And like I said, we’re kind of beyond the point where we can count on the improvement coming from just our skill as musicians.  We might get a little better, but we’re not going to get a lot better.  So now’s the time that we really have to start thinking about what it is that we can do to move the ball forward.  We’ll see.

Right.  With all the albums you guys have had some guest soloists, and you’ve got some this time as well.  So can you talk about how those came about and that sort of thing?

Sure.  The guest soloist actually started before After the Fire, when we recorded our demo.  We recorded four songs before we did After the Fire, and we did that at a little studio, you know, we were paying by the hour.  I had never recorded before and we’re doing these songs and I realize I could use a little help in the solo department [laughs], because otherwise I wasn’t going to get it all done in time.  So we had some friends who were around, and Chris Kerns, our bass player, actually played a solo for one of the songs on our demo, and then our friend Bill Palko, who’s to this day in Dawnbringer with Chris Black, he played the final solo in the song “Solar Flight.”  But when we recorded the album, Bill had sort of mysteriously disappeared.  He was MIA, and I didn’t want to do another solo.  We thought it was cool that there were two very distinct solo sections in that song, so I asked my good friend Jim Dofka, and he did this very cool thing.  And he actually, since he was out in Pittsburgh with Tim, he got Tim to sing over this solo.  It was really a very neat thing.  For the second album, when I wrote the song “Sunrise,” I wrote this clean guitar part for a solo and it immediately sounded to me like something from an Ohm album or one of Chris Poland’s solo albums and I thought, this will be really cool for Chris to play here, and I had interviewed him before so I was acquainted with him, so I knew I could get in touch with him and was pretty hopeful that he would do it.  So I called him, and sure enough, he did.  And that kind of, that’s where the guest soloist really took root.  Originally Jim Dofka was not going to do a solo on that album, another friend of mine was going to, but he wasn’t able to at the last minute.  I had to call Jim somewhat desperately, “Hey, can you do a solo this weekend?”  And he did, and that song, that solo is in “Fighting.”  So at that point Jim was on two albums, and two points is a line, so we decided to just keep going with that.  So he’s been on every CD we’ve done, but once we go to Be Gone, we thought, you know, we had Chris Poland last time, let’s see who we can get this time.  We got the guys from Riot.  It was not even a point of discussion that we would have a guest soloist this time, it was just a matter of who it was, and we had a few names that we were sort of banding about.  Then I suggested Mike Wead.  Everybody’s a big fan of Memento Mori and King Diamond and all the shit that he does, so we thought it was a good idea, and I thought it wouldn’t be that hard.  I know a lot of Swedish and Scandinavian writers and musicians, and I figured that it would take me a couple days to track this guy down.  It took a while [laughs].  I had to burn through a lot of contacts before I was finally able to get in touch with him, and when I did, it was my friend Teddy Möller, who’s in the band Loch Vostok and a bunch of other bands, he gave me Mike’s cell phone.  And I’m like, Christ, I’ve got to call a Swedish dude out of the blue?  Say, “Hey, I’m this guy you never heard of, will you play a solo on my album?”  Unfortunately I was never able to get through to his cell phone.  I don’t know if I left a message or if it was just the Swedish phone system telling me that the number had been disconnected.  I had to go back to Teddy and say, “Look, man, cell phone didn’t work.  Email the guy or something; make an introduction.”  And he did, and I sent the stuff to Mike, and he was like, “Wow, I do a lot of guest solos and usually I charge people, but your shit’s cool so I’ll do it for free” [laughs].

Sweet!

So there you go.  I sent him actually two songs; we sent him “Castles in the Sky” and “Burn With Me” and said, pick which one you like, and he said, “I think Castles will suit my style better,” so there you go.  So it was that simple.  You know, we never get to see these guys when we record; we just send them the tracks, they go to their local studio, they record, they send them back.

Right.

So it’s not like we were sitting there watching him do his work, but it’s always a thrilling thing, because, particularly for “Castles in the Sky,” when I wrote that solo section, I kind of labored over it to modulate the keys because I thought that would be a very fun thing to solo over and I had something kind of worked out for it.  And then we decided to give it to Mike.  So it was like I had sort of a preconceived notion of what the solo there should be, which of course is nothing like what he did, so it took me a little while to wrap my head around it.  It’s kind of a thrilling thing in that sense, because it makes it possible for me to experience my own music sort of the same way someone not in the band would, you know?  There was at least that tiny thrill of discovery in hearing what this other guy did to the song that I wrote.  It was really cool.  And again, we got Jim to come back just a killer solo in “Year of the Blizzard.”  I think it’s actually the best solo he’s done for us and very atypical of him.  I don’t know if you’re familiar with Jim Dofka’s stuff, but most of his solos tend to be entirely harmonized, front to back, and they have sort of familiar patterns and sounds.  And this one, it’s nothing like that.  It’s hardly harmonized; it’s played on a single coil guitar, it’s a great lead.  We’ll keep bugging him every time we do an album and who knows who we’ll do for the next thing, but since we’ve had 100% success, I’m starting to think I should aim big.

You should. 

Maybe I can get Andy Summers from The Police to do it.

There you go.

They’re my favorite band, and that seems about as inaccessible as I can imagine, but you never know.  Without Sting he’s just some boring jazz guy [laughs].  Are you familiar with the guitarist Ron Jarzombek [Watchtower, Blotted Science, etc.]?

Yes.

He’s one of my favorite guitarists and he’s actually a friend of mine.  So I could get him to play a guest solo at any time, but the problem is I haven’t written something that’s really worthy of him.  Because that guy, he’s like a mad genius, you know?  He can cycle through keys like, every half a bar, and I’ve yet to write something that’s maniacal enough, that’s really deserving of his attention.  So every album I think, this is the one, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna write the crazy, spastic tech part for Ron to play over; hasn’t happened yet but my fingers are crossed.  One of these days I’ll have Ron.

Since you guys have kind of gotten a little closer together, everybody’s moving back toward the same area, what does that mean as far as live performances for Pharaoh in the near future?

Well, we’ve moved into a bold new era as concerns that.  I actually rented a rehearsal space, and some semblance of Pharaoh is rehearsing once a week at this point.

Excellent!

Now, it being Pharaoh, it’s never as simple as that.  The way it works in Pharaoh is thusly: Chris Kerns is really not available to do live stuff.  The nature of his job and I guess his home life, who knows, he doesn’t want to commit to touring and playing out.  So sure, no problem, we’ll just find a bassist.  That would be the easy thing, not the Pharaoh thing.  Now, Chris Black, who is a bassist in like, five other bands, says, ‘I’ll play bass and we’ll find another drummer!’  Okay, you know, that seems harder, but we’ll do it.  That’s in fact what we did in 2008, when we played two shows.  But now that the drummer we worked with then, he’s no longer really available, I’ve got to get somebody else.  So this time we’re using our friend James Goetz, who is from the band Division, who are based out of Virginia.  James lives in Baltimore.  And for Pharaoh to play live, we also need a second guitarist, and for that purpose we use Matt Crooks, the guy who owns the studio we use, who produces our stuff.  So he lives down in D.C., so I rented rehearsal space in Baltimore.  It’s like an hour and a half for me, it’s an hour and a half for Matt, James lives right there, so once a week the three of us get together and we’re working up.  I mean, by the time we’re done, we’ll have close to an hour and a half of material ready to go, and we’ll bring Tim out occasionally, and a little less occasionally, Chris Black.  And there’s the band.  And we’re playing a festival in Chicago in May, and that’s really all we have on the calendar right now, but we’re going to so much trouble that I think it’s very likely we will do other shows as well.  I don’t know if we’ll just do some sort of local shows, meaning D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, that sort of thing, maybe some other Chicago shows.  I know that Enrico at the label would love for us to do some sort of European tour, so that’s a possibility as well.  Who knows?  We were actually considering doing a ten-day run late last year with Twisted Tower Dire, and it didn’t work out; Tim couldn’t get the time off, so we had to scrap those plans.  So it is actually kind of looking like Pharaoh might become something kind of, sort of like a real live band, but I don’t want to jinx it.  I feel like at Pinocchio at this point.  I want to be a real little boy, so we’ll see.

[Laughs]

Yeah, baby steps.  Well, the thing with Pharaoh, we don’t need to make money in Pharaoh.  That’s not on the agenda.  But one of the goals is to not lose money being in Pharaoh.  And a lot of times we do get contacted by smaller regional festivals and stuff and we would love to do it, but this isn’t our job to play live, particularly because we don’t live near one another.  Just to rehearse involves people taking vacation days, and there’s the travel, so it can end up doing a festival halfway across the country ends up costing nearly a week of vacation days, and those things are precious [laughs].

Oh, yeah.

The festivals we’ve played so far have all pretty graciously covered our expenses, or at least enough that our label would meet them halfway.  Far be it for me to sound ungrateful; I appreciate every offer that we get.  But that’s the sort of sad reality of it.  Younger bands can say, ‘Fuck it,’ you know, quit their job, hop in the van and drive to wherever, but that’s unfortunately not an option for us at this stage in our lives.

That’s completely understandable.  Now, one last question, and I really apologize if my internet research has failed me.  All the albums that Pharaoh has put out, you guys have got this stone, the gemstone-type thing on the cover.  What is the meaning behind this?

The gem’s like our mascot.  We have a crystalline Eddie, man.  I don’t know.  What happened with the gem is when we did the cover for After the Fire, I don’t even know who it was who found J.P. Fournier to do the painting, but we found this guy and his work was really good, and we came up with this concept.  We pitched it to him pretty much exactly like it looks.  The idea was a sort of post-apocalyptic phoenix kind of thing.  It was supposed to be something like a phoenix, the rebirth of civilization after destruction.  J.P. was the one who sort of fashioned it into this gem-like thing.  We didn’t give that much instruction, and it looked cool and we were happy.  When we gave him the cover concept for the next album, I don’t think that it included the gem; I think that again, he did that on his own.  I could be wrong about that; it’s possible that Chris could have had the gem in mind.  But it wasn’t until the second album cover was painted that the gem really solidified.  It wasn’t like our thing from the beginning, it just sort of happened the way that our tradition of guest soloists happened.  We did it twice and that was okay.  The gem doesn’t actually represent a single thing, but it is sort of a metaphorical construct on every cover, which is to say you can build some meaning into the gem, that it can represent something symbolic in every cover, but it would be different from album to album.  So that’s the deal with the gem.  It just sort of adds to that package, in the same way that you expect Eddie on every Iron Maiden, or Vic Rattlehead on every Megadeth album.  I can’t really think of anybody else who does something…well, I guess Judas Priest does that little symbol that they have on a lot of the album covers.  Queensryche, they have a little symbol.  It’s one of those things that I think used to happen a little bit more than it does, and we just thought that it was a cool way to add some continuity to all the albums.  It’s also a fun thing to challenge J.P. because a lot of times we give this sort of vague description of how the gem is supposed to fit into the overall composition, and then we can just wipe our hands and entrust it to his expertise.  He’s really good.  We’ve really built up this cool extended family in Pharaoh, because like you said, we’ve never had a lineup change, we’ve had Jim Dofka with us every time, we’ve had Matt Crooks for all the albums for the first one, we’ve had J.P., Enrico at the label.  Since the second album, we’ve had this guy named Scott Hoffman do the layout for us.  So we’ve had this big stamp on every album, and it brings a consistency to the Pharaoh experience and I think it adds something.  What that something is, who could say.  But it’s just a lot of heavy metal goodness.

I think I have exhausted my questioning abilities, and I’m sure you have stuff you have to get to this evening…

Just some reading [laughs].

Well, thank you very much for your time, Matt.  I appreciate it.

No, thank you.  I know it takes a long time to type that shit up…that’s the worst part of the interview.

God, yes it is, but this has been a great interview.  So thank you for that.

Take care.

Though Mike Scalzi (Slough Feg) hasn’t been in the picture for quite a while now, he still leaves a noticeable hole. 17th Street of course showcases the kind of music that Hammers of Misfortune have always written — that which is emotive, powerful, and gracefully gritty. But the departure of a musician as prolific as Scalzi is bound to leave a scar. Joe Hutton (who even sounds a bit like Scalzi) and John Cobbett do a fairly stand-up job of filling that hole, though it’ll never be quite the same.

Nevertheless, 17th Street offers an eclectic palette of songs fused with NWOBHM, doom, prog, folk, rock and then some. Some are wrapped in mellow packaging, with yet others being more electrically charged. The title track presents a healthy smattering of both ends of the spectrum, what with equal parts flashy guitar solos, bottom-heavy rhythms, and accentuating organs throughout. “The Grain,” a simultaneously groovy and somber affair, boasts an excellent pop-soaked chorus, along with “Summer Tears,” an overall non-metal/rock ballad of sorts with lots of layered vocals and piano. Closer “Going Somewhere” is the ultimate end-of-album glue, cementing the theme of 17th Street with a reprise of previously presented musical notions, a sweet balance between the heavy and the bittersweet.

The hypnotic and emotionally charged music created by Hammers of Misfortune may be a bit of an acquired taste initially, but after time it begins to make sense. It reminds us that we’re not alone in facing the world with a smile splashed over unrest. 17th Street, with all its glorious sugary melodies and moments of pure metal bliss, also shows that no matter how much effort is put into concealing agony and inner turmoil, it’s bound to seep through the seams at some point.

Creating a sound that’s older and crustier than the panties King Diamond’s granny wore to her grave is no simple feat, yet Tormented have done it with flying colors.  Not really surprising considering the pedigrees of some of Tormented’s members though (time spent in Edge of Sanity, Pan.Thy.Monium, and Marduk).  So it should come as no shock to discover that the tunes of Rotten Death are appropriately filthy and buzzing with flies.

Opener “Rotting Death” gets the coagulated blood flowing, using evil movie samples as an intro layer before lurching into a full-on pummeling of the ears.  It’s here that the listener begins to be sucked down into the putrid, whirling vortex that Tormented create so expertly.  The sick, haunting guitar melody in “Blood of the Undead” complements the underlying audial filth behind it — a thick, rank wall of distorted and buzzing guitars, hellish drum assaults, and painfully gruff vocals.  The commanding, torturous chant of “Come back from the dead!” and solo blitz of (you guessed it) “Come Back from the Dead” keep up with the theme of rotten death that pervades throughout Rotten Death.

Along with newer groups the likes of Death Breath and Entrails, Tormented hold the deteriorating, puke-soaked flag of old school Swedish death metal high, waving it furiously in the faces of their enemies (purveyors of deathcore, perhaps?) before swiftly kicking their proverbial teeth down their breakdown-mangled throats.  Long live the sounds of decay!

I’m sorry, SerpentCult.  I tried to like you; I really did.  I played Raised by Wolves in a variety of settings: in the car while driving, in the car while not driving, in the car idling and half asleep and staring mindlessly out the window, at home doing laundry, at home drinking a beer and looking at LOLcats, in the office on shitty headphones, in the office (cautiously) without headphones when everybody left for lunch, chasing around a screaming two-year-old, even while doing things I’d blush to say (like suckling from the supple teat of a mother wolf…I was raised by wolves too, you know).  Sometimes you accentuated the extreme awesomeness of whatever it was I was doing at the time, but five out of six times you were just boring background noise.  And not even well-planned out or executed boring background noise (ex: elevator muzak), just boring music that’s boring enough to make everything else I’m experiencing seem more bland.  And you’ve never really incited my imagination, which saddens me.  I’ve tried so hard to like you.

With a name like SerpentCult, I expected some wicked awesome black metal, or blackened thrash, or some hideously bludgeoning death metal.  Really something, anything, other than what you’ve delivered, which is sludge.  Okay, I can deal with that.  Generally not my cup of tea but there’s good to be found in anything if it’s well done. If I had to guess, I’d say you like The Melvins and Neurosis  and that’s cool too. Whatever it is, you seem to be trying hard to give this music some depth, which is commendable.  But to these ears, Raised by Wolves is superficial.  I mean, with four tracks approaching 10 minutes each, it’s reasonable to expect some substance to surface…otherwise, what’s the point, right?  But I’m not getting it.  These nearly 10 minute passages (especially with “Crippled and Frozen,” which is sadly a kick-ass title that sadly doesn’t translate to your music) are — I hesitate to word the word excruciating — really too much.  You gotta know when to throw in the towel.

Now, it’s not all boring.  “Growth of the Soil,” your closer, has some killer moments of dissonance and anger.  The intro of the tune building, growing like a cancer, exploding into a full-on black metal rage assault with ties back to the roots of the song…fuck yeah.  That is what the kids call METAL.  This sort of thing is what you should be doing the whole album, in my humble opinion.  It saddens me that I have to skip the first three-fourths of the album to get to this.  Why do you do this to me?  I could listen to that shit on repeat…well, if it wasn’t so damned long.

So, SerpentCult, where does this leave us?  You’ll mail me a postcard; I won’t respond.  Phone calls are out of the question.  All joking aside, though, anyone with a sense of musical integrity should be respected.  I’ve got respect for Raised by Wolves.  I just don’t want to listen to it.  Sorry if I’m just an asshole who’s missed the point, but this one will probably not get repeated plays from me.

Michael Romeo: Oh yeah, it’s all good.

How did your last American and European tours go over?

With these tours, we wanted to do a lot of the Paradise Lost material and, you know, I mean, we tried to pull out a couple older songs that we had, and, you know, get a little mix.  We didn’t want to do too many new songs just because no one [had] heard the material, but I think we tried to, we rehearsed like four songs we tried to get into the set, and you know, we would play maybe two on a certain night and then maybe a different two.  We kind of mixed it up a little.  You know, on the new record, there’s some longer songs, and we do some more complex songs, but then there’s a lot of just, like, you know, straight and to-the-point kind of songs, you know?  A lot of shorter songs, it’s just like with a good riff and a good hook and, you know, that kind of thing.

So we pretty much gravitated to doing those, because we figured, you know, at first listen, they’re probably pretty easy to grasp.  We didn’t want to do anything too crazy, and when we started the tour in Europe, you know, we tried a couple, and it seemed that the songs “End of Innocence” and “Dehumanized” were the ones that always went over, you know, really good.  And I was probably the one guy who was like, you know, ‘Aww man, I hope this goes over, it’s gonna be so different just playing these songs cold when no one’s heard the album.’  And you know, I was a little concerned about it, but the first couple nights, man, you know, we’re playing and the reaction was really good.  The response was really good.  And then with YouTube and everything else, the next couple shows, you know, people are singing words and know the lyrics, and they know what part’s coming up, so yeah, that was great to see.  I think with the songs we picked, it worked out well.  And then once the record [was] out, the fans were more familiar with the material and we could bust out some of the different songs on the record. It was definitely cool trying to get some of these new songs in there and see how they went over.

I’m glad to hear that; I figured that would probably be the case.  So let’s discuss Iconoclast, which came out in June.  While all Symphony X albums are expertly composed in my opinion, you guys have gone above and beyond this time in creating probably I would say the best album of your career compositionally and musically.  All the classic Symphony X elements are still there, but this one’s a little more…

Modern.

Yes, exactly.  It’s a little more modern.  It’s not a continuation of Paradise Lost; it’s a progression from it, but it’s a little more direct than some of your earlier stuff.

You know, I totally agree.  I totally agree.  It’s like, yeah, everything that you said, that’s definitely, I think with the last couple records, me being a guitar player, I think a lot more of the stuff I grew up with is kind of coming out; you know, kind of getting back to my roots.  I mean, I grew up with Sabbath and Priest and Maiden, and you know, all the classic metal stuff, so I think around the time of The Odyssey now, it’s just kind of getting back to that stuff and letting that come out more in the music.  So I think, especially Paradise Lost too, it’s definitely way more guitar driven, and it’s a little heavier, a little more aggressive, and the new album, same thing.  It’s like you said, it has elements of everything, you know.  There is a lot of the heavier stuff, and you know, there’s some progressive elements and some symphonic elements, but with this one, it was really about the songs. You know, everybody knows we can play, yeah, we can do this, we can do that, but you know, this is now at the point where its’ like, you know, we’ll put the track up and we’ll demo it, we’ll listen back, and it’s like, you know, does this song kick ass?  Is it keeping our interest?  You know, I mean, is it doing something?  And that’s where we’re at now, I think, it’s just trying to have a good variety of songs, and each song, you know, really getting in there and tweaking it and keeping it interesting.  And also with this record, too, you know, every record we try to do something a little different or try to find some underlying theme or something, and usually it starts with the music.

With The Odyssey, I remember us talking about maybe getting back to more guitar-driven kind of riffs but still have that epic thing, you know, or these orchestral things, and so, like The Odyssey is very epic and that kind of thing.  And then Paradise Lost, just by working with the Milton poem, you know, getting that heaven and hell, that ‘universe is evil’ [theme], the music is a little darker, the riffs were a little more dark and any kind of orchestral elements were a little more ominous, you know, the male choirs and things.  So I mean, I think each album has its own kind of personality.  And with this one, we decided to with this more man versus machine thing, or a technology kind of idea, and it kind of started with the music.  A lot of the early material was similar to Paradise Lost or The Odyssey, you know, the big riffs and some big choruses.  But it kind of came about, I think I had maybe four songs pretty much written early on, and you know, it was kind of typical of maybe Paradise Lost kind of sound, and I was just hanging out in my studio one day and listening to a bunch of different stuff, just kind of cleaning up or whatever the hell I was doing, and I kind of noticed some cool things in some soundtrack music I kind of was listening to.  And I think it was from the movie 300 and The Matrix too.  And especially with the 300, man, some electric guitars in there, it’s pretty gritty, man, it’s pretty mean.  And there is a lot of this modern kind of synth textures and these very distorted percussion elements and stuff, and that kind of got the wheels turning.  I started to think, yeah, we could do may be more of a mechanical kind of an idea.  So the next day, I came up with some of these original song ideas and just tried experimenting with some different textures and different things, you know, some maybe grittier guitar layering or some kind of really mechanical synth playing underneath the music.  And then it started to come, everything started to flow from there.  I thought it was pretty cool.  It was like, yeah, it sounds us, but there’s definitely more of a fresh, cool element, you know?

And that’s pretty much how this whole album all came into play.  And then from there, it was  just like, okay, let’s go with this, let’s do it.

I was going to ask you how difficult it was to work that mechanized sound into the music, but obviously it just came naturally to you.

Yeah, and I mean, it’s subtle too.  You know, I don’t want to say industrial or throw out any kind of terms, because it’s not really that; it’s still us.  It’s still Symphony X, but we used maybe subtle little textures and the whole vibe of the record has that thing and it’s something we never really did before, so we were all pretty excited too.  We could have some fun with this, you know, we could really do something different.  And just, you know, the songs progressed as we were writing and recording; we were always adding things to the music and just trying to build this record.  It was definitely a lot of fun, definitely cool.  And I think, yeah, this is what I think of the record, without question: I think every song, you know, usually on past records there’s a song or two that’s like, ‘yeah, that’s not my favorite,’ but with this record, I mean, just by the fact that we do it at my studio so I’m there 24-7 for a year, listening to this stuff, I found myself not really getting sick of it.  Every song, it was like to me, wow, that’s solid.  These songs are freaking solid.  So yeah, we’re definitely happy with this one.

One thing that I noticed when I was listening to Iconoclast, and I’ve been a Symphony X fan for about 10 years now, it was pretty exciting to hear all these little nuances, little pieces from the past albums, which is always cool for the fans to hear.  You guys have done this in the past to some extent, but it’s incredible, especially with this album, to see how much history you’ve woven into the songs, yet every song is still original.

That’s totally a cool observation, because there is some parts that maybe are reminiscent of, maybe a section from “The Accolade” from the third record.  And in the past, we might have put that idea aside, or thought it’s a little bit too much like that, but this one, it was like, we can do it.  We can have some of these different elements from all the things we’ve done, but just by incorporating some of these different sounds and making it up to date, it still sounds new.  And I think the fans who kind of are familiar, they get it.  They’re like, ‘Oh wow, it’s kind of like this but it’s not.’  Yeah, that’s definitely something we noticed too.  I think that’s just kind of letting the music happen.  If it was a section that maybe sounded like something we’ve done earlier, not exactly a copy or anything like that, but maybe had a feel of certain things, it’s like, you know, whatever, it’s us.  Let this happen and we’ll just make it cool.  We’ll make this record.

So let me ask you this.  Was the album in any way inspired by “Church of the Machine” from Twilight in Olympus?

Not really, but that was an idea for maybe the record title.  That definitely came up.  As soon as we started talking, as soon as this whole machine kind of thing came up, yeah, I mean, we were like, ‘Oh yeah, Church of the Machine, maybe that we could be the record, or maybe we could do part two’ or something like that.  But we’re like, ahh, let’s just keep it all new.  Let’s just let it be its own thing.  But yes, it’s funny that you said that, because that was out there.  That was definitely discussed a little bit.

The first time I looked through the song lyrics and I saw “Bastards of the Machine,” I wondered if that was connected.  I had to ask.

Yeah, like I said, we looked at “Church of the Machine” and thought maybe we could do that or a part two or something, but just by the nature of the whole machine thing, it’s out there, but this album is its own thing.

That’s cool.  You have “The Accolade,” which was from The Divine Wings of Tragedy, and then on The Odyssey you had “The Accolade II,” and then on this one, you’ve got “When All is Lost,” which has got some of the same elements.  Is that meant to be part of a series or just its own entity?

I think “When All is Lost,” I mean, we had so much heavy material for this record that we thought just to balance it out a little bit, to kind of have a song that was along the lines of “The Accolade,” or something a little bit more piano against the guitar, maybe a little bit more proggy, but still trying to get a really big chorus and a very full kind of sound and incorporating a little bit of some of these things we’re talking about with the production.  But yeah, I think all the records kind of always have that one or two songs that are kind of like that, and I think it kind of breaks the album up.  It kind of gives the album a little more direction.  You try to break it up and have a  song like that.

Going back to the, I hesitate to use the word theme, but the theme of Iconoclast, what are your feelings about this digital age that we’re living in?  How does that affect Symphony X and your processes, yourself as a musician?

Well, when we kind of started talking about doing this whole machine thing, man versus machine, it all started with the music.  So I think really, most of the ideas start from there.  I think doing the writing, for me, it’s like once you kind of find that thing that you think you can work with, that gives you a little bit of inspiration, and you kind of have a goal and a direction.  That really is one of the most important parts.  And then the lyrics, of course, you do the best to work in the confines of that idea or theme, which is equal.  It’s more about what you can do with the music, and you know, just kind of getting inspired.  We weren’t really thinking too crazy about any kind of method or taking it too serious or anything, just more creative ideas, you know, what can we do lyrically?  Musically, yeah, once that was set and incorporating some of those textures and things, then that was a no-brainer, man.  It just came out.  And with the lyrics, it was like pretty much anything we can find that feels like technology or machine or man, there was just so much we could do that we thought would be cool.  The song “Iconoclast” is definitely maybe more of a sci-fi or futuristic man versus machine war or battle, you know, that kind of song.  “Children of a Faceless God” kind of looks at how we worship our devices, you know, how fast these kids can text now, and how everybody interacts socially through their machines, and just kind of making observations like that.  And I mean, we thought there was a lot of different avenues to take for that.  But for us, you were saying, you know, how does it affect us, I mean, for me, we couldn’t really do a record like this one without some of this technology.  I mean, all these orchestral sections and texturing, it’s all software, and all the recording stuff nowadays too, it’s all computer-based.  It’s definitely an important part of the music production process, so yeah, it’s like anything.  There’s good things and bad things, you know?  The internet and piracy, it’s like, yeah, it’s definitely a bad thing, but at the same time, you know, being able to be creative with almost no limitations is, for me, it’s great.  And some of the software out there now is just so friggin’ state of the art.  I’m always trying to keep my studio up to date with all the latest gadgets and software.  I always try to make the orchestra sound as realistic as possible and the choirs, and all these textures, it’s kind of cool and modern.  You know, there’s just so much to do.  There are so many different things, it’s definitely a lot of fun.  And that’s a positive with this whole technology thing.  Like I said, there’s always good and bad things about everything.

Yep, it’s a blessing and it’s a curse sometimes.

Yep.

I’m going to shift gears a little bit and ask you some non-important, non-album questions.  What are you listening to these days?

Oh, man, so much.  Usually when I’m just kind of at home hanging out, I’ll listen to random stuff.  I have so much, so many different kinds of music in my player, but it’s all this stuff I grew up with: the old Sabbath, and Priest and old Ozzy, Randy Rhoads, god, so much shit.  Pantera, a lot of classical music.  I listen to so many different things.  I like a lot of film music, you know.  Jeez, there’s just so much.  So I can’t even narrow it down, because I just have so much stuff and I love it all.  But usually I go back the stuff that man, that’s close to me.  The stuff that got me, like guitar playing, the old classic metal stuff.

Right on.  And here’s my last and completely silly question: how difficult is it to be in a band with two other guys who have the same first name?

[Laughs]  It actually is easy, because we have little waves of, you know, I’ve always just been Mike.  And then Pinnella has always been P, just P.  And LePond is just LePond, so it’s easy, you know?

[Laughs]  That works.

Everybody, they just know.  Everybody around us knows the deal so there’s never any confusion.  It’s like, ‘Hey, what’s up P?’  So we know they’re talking to Pinnella.  So that’s just the way that it is; it’s never an issue.

I always wondered that.  Like I said, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.  I got to see you guys once, back in 2003, you played in Omaha at this weird place called the Ranch Bowl.

Oh god, I don’t remember.

Well, it was a very, very odd place.  They had a bowling alley in the same venue.

Oh, wait, were we with Devin Townsend?

Yeah, with Devin Townsend.

I do remember that place.  Yeah, that was kind of unusual [laughs].

It was unusual, but I’m glad I got to see you guys and meet you all afterwards.  Hopefully I can meet up with you again sometime.

Oh definitely.  We’ll be back in the States.  We’ll be around.  Hopefully we’ll see you.

Right on.  Thanks again.

Thank you.

www.symphonyx.com
www.nuclearblast.de

At times, when listening to Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae, you’d swear you were hearing Andy LaRocque on guitar, playing something crisp yet sinister over King Diamond‘s unmistakable wailing vocals. The overall production and tone of the album is familiarly shrouded, and the material is nearly as haunting as that from the likes of Don’t Break the Oath or Them. But Portrait‘s approach to this style of music is not a complete ripoff of the King’s ideals; instead, they’ve used the blueprint of classic heavy metal and manipulated it to their liking, in the process creating something familiar yet still unique. Or something like that.

Ripping riffs are prevalent on this album — see “Beast of Fire,” “Bloodbath” or “The Passion” for examples. There are also plenty of moments of charged, ominous rhythm, such as that heard in “Darkness Forever” and “Der Todesking.” Per Karlsson’s vocal style is definitely one learned from the school of the King, though his range isn’t quite as impressive. Still, it doesn’t deter from the overall sound of Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae, and actually complements it fairly well. Also worth noting about the album is the subtle inference of melancholy within, felt especially in “The Wilderness Beyond,” an instrumental piece that chills to the bone.

Alright, so the gist of the sound put forth by Portrait has hopefully been established here: non-formulaic, honest-to-goat heavy metal purity with a twinge of evil tucked in for good measure, brimming with enough good guitar work to give you eargasms for hours. If that doesn’t sound appealing, then kindly FOAD. The end.

For those unfamiliar with this group (which could possibly be most of you reading this review), allow a brief description of what they bring to the table: hefty, prog-tinged traditional power metal, authentic and uncompromising.  Having followed Ancient Creation for years, I knew they were masters of the riff, and experts at penning solid, bone-shaking metal tunes.  But they’ve upped the ante with the songs of Moonlight Monument, which is without a doubt the group’s most cohesive and ass-kicking record to date.

Immediately out of the gates, Ancient Creation make known their penchant for melding the dark with the light fluidly, with elements of each playing off of one another in the tracks from Moonlight Monument.  “Profane Destiny” showcases this initially, teasing listeners with quick, soaring melodies from guitarists Peter Nisenkier and Maxx Christopher that gallop high over a thunderous background.  Steve Bentley’s vocals, which run a weaving path between angelic and insane, play a large part in the duality of Moonlight Monument‘s material, with “Black Reflection” being a good example of this.  His voice weaves in out of dark and complex elements, pulling the heavy plod of Andy Critz’s bass and the methodical beating of Kevin Keeton’s drums together tightly with sweeping, neoclassical guitar sections.  Personal favorite “With Anguish” displays a darker side to Bentley’s voice, and Ancient Creation‘s overall sound, with a more sinister vibe and a bevy of heavier elements, including loads of double bass and powerful, anguished (no pun intended) riffing and vocals.

If this review even remotely piques your interest in what Ancient Creation has to offer, I’d encourage you to give Moonlight Monument a listen.  The band’s evident dedication to their craft and ability to construct concrete metal movements warrant at least that much of your time and effort, and probably a whole hell of a lot more.

Vanlade

It’s possible that the promoters expected a better turnout for legendary thrashers Forbidden, and the fact that the show started early and on a Monday certainly didn’t help. But the lack of people inside The Beaumont made it seem hollowed out. Openers and local true metal lads Vanlade began playing to literally no one…at least none in front of the decently large stage and the barrier erected (that’s right, I said erected) in front of it. A solid minute or two of playing changed that, however, as the young dudes busted out the right riffs, charisma and talent to draw people forward. Vanlade even got a nod of approval from Steve Smyth (Forbidden), who came out from backstage to watch the band before darting back into the darkness.

Colorado thrash-mongers Havok were next to hit the stage, still to an embarrassment of a crowd, but that was no matter to them. These guys rip Kansas City to shreds every time they play here, regardless of how many people show up to watch them, and their opening slot for Forbidden was no different. Their crunchy, high intensity set included some of the band’s early material in addition to the killer Destruction-meets¬-Metallica stuff from recently released Time is Up. “D.O.A.” in particular, a massive headbanger of a tune with an insane “Angel of Death” scream from David Sanchez, was a highlight. Havok did an excellent job of inciting the little audience — so much so, in fact, that they should have probably been pushed back in the lineup. Just an opinion.

Revocation

With more people trickling in the door, White Wizzard began their set. Now, there have been all sorts of nasty things said over the internet about this band and their ever-revolving lineup, especially in regards to vocalists. Here’s my comment to this: who gives a fuck? The vocalist is not the group’s end-all-be-all (unless, of course, it’s a one-man project, which would just be silly). Fucking Van Halen did just fine with both Roth and Hagar, and nobody died over it. (It should be noted that while it’s my opinion that Roth was superior to Hagar, each person is entitled to his or her own tastes. Also, in no way am I comparing White Wizzard to Van Halen, merely stating an example.) Anyway, Michael Gremio, formerly of Cellador, did vocal duties for WW in Kansas City, and he did a stand-up job. He breezed through sugary-sweet tunes like “Celestina” and “High Speed GTO,” the latter of which is probably the only White Wizzard song anybody will remember five years from now. Regardless of the band’s kitsch and overall squeaky-clean sound, they’re hellaciously good musicians and that should be respected.

On to Revocation, the immediate openers to Forbidden. These guys are insanely talented, and while they garnered the most crowd reaction up to that point in the show’s timeline (all 35 people or so who were in attendance), they didn’t do it for me. To me, their positioning in the lineup was odd, considering the thrash of Havok and traditional metal of White Wizzard would have been better suited for the prime spot in front of the headliners. But I digress. They played extremely modern, progressive tech death, and as previously mentioned, they’re talented and played their tunes precisely. But it felt a bit too mechanized and heartless. Their emotive moments were fleeting and everything ended up sounding like a wall of noise.

And finally, the moment that most people inside of The Beaumont Club had been waiting for all night — Forbidden took the stage. They immediately ripped into “Forsaken At the Gates” (if memory serves me correctly) from Omega Wave. Craig Locicero and Steve Smyth viciously tore through newbies and old stuff alike, including “Twisted Into Form.” Vocalist Russ Anderson wailed. At some point, members from the night’s previous bands carried a birthday cake onstage for Locicero, who was celebrating his birthday the day of the show. Toward the end of the set, Forbidden did a killer cover of Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Sea” in honor of Ronnie James Dio and closed out the night with a rousing and much needed “Chalice of Blood.”

While it’s sad to see such a great show shunned by so many in such a large city, there’s also something exciting and very personal about being close enough to a band as energetic as Forbidden or Havok to feel their sweat. And though the Kansas City crowd was small, its passion for thrash was evident that night.

The tracks from Requiem could stand to be cut down a bit, as they tend to ramble, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. The whole affair gets off to a rocky start with an intro smoothly titled “Intro To…,” which then leads into the mostly lackluster “A Godless World.” Thankfully “12-Steps” is better, and it’s at roughly the midsection of the song that Stillife clearly begins to hit their stride. They take some old school melodic plodding and dash in some subtle melancholy, shifting the mood of the tune and ultimately the rest of the album to come. From then on out, Requiem coasts on a highway through peaks of fast crunchy bits, low, eerie gloom-outs and the gray matter in between. In fact, if Requiem had color, gray would definitely be it.

It is at the midway point of the album that the fruition of Stillife‘s efforts become evident, so keep listening. “Directive Four” is progressive, doomy, and the most cohesive from Requiem thus far in its rotation. “Hypocriticism/The Becoming” hits a bit of a lull, but with the “Requiem” trilogy closing out the record, some of Stillife‘s best songwriting and creepiest moments come out and shine. Emotive passages collide with thunderous, engaging moments, and thrashing waves tangle with jagged progressive chunks, making the entire listening experience worthwhile.

Requiem has its moments of both mediocrity and genius, most housed together side by side within the same song. While the vocals grate on the ears at times, and some sections don’t mesh as they should, there are enough good things going on within Requiem to make amends for its shortfalls. Sure, they may be a bit amateur, but Stillife has a solid foundation in Requiem and plenty of room to grow.

Maturation is inevitable with any long running band, and it’s apparent upon listening to Iconoclast that Symphony X has made aggression a staple in their repertoire. 2002’s The Odyssey was the beginning of the band’s journey into darker, more muscular territory, which they expanded upon with 2007’s Paradise Lost. But with Iconoclast, they’ve constructed even more of a precise, heavy hitting sound than ever heard before, while still maintaining the classic emotive sensibilities unique to Symphony X tunes.

“Iconoclast” is the quintessential modern Symphony X song, replete with a maze of clean riffs, commanding vocals, and a killer chorus. It’s also the point where listeners begin to hear subtle nuances from past albums creeping in, borrowing a bit from “Evolution (The Grand Design),” a masterfully crafted track from V: The New Mythology Suite. Likewise, “The End of Innocence” brings in Michael Romeo’s signature neoclassical guitar work, but blends it with an overall more straightforward vibe and, yet again, a powerful, soaring chorus.

Personal favorite “Bastards of the Machine” rips with a quick gallop and guitar/keyboard face-offs that hearken back to the days of Twilight in Olympus, where listeners got their first taste of man-meets-mechanism in “Church of the Machine.” The less quick but equally intense “Children of a Faceless God” leans on a groovier, heavier note, one that’s at times a bit more sinister than one would expect from Symphony X. And “When All is Lost,” Iconoclast’s version of the Symphony X opus, balances emotion, melody and intensity effortlessly, nodding to epics from The Divine Wings of Tragedy.

Always evolving as musicians and songwriters, the members of Symphony X continue to push themselves and the bounds of the group’s material, constantly seeking to create passionately crafted and uniquely intelligent music, and Iconoclast is their crowning glory. It is the band’s boldest, most fleshed out release to date, one that’s bound to grace year end lists and become a favorite in Symphony X’s impressive catalog. Symphony X have definitely hit their stride and seem incapable of writing sub-par material.

On Entity, everything’s tighter, heavier, and the pressure contained within is closer than ever to combustion. It’s still an album bursting with insanely quick, hateful, technical death metal that the Kansans have come to be known for, but it’s also flecked with progressive dissonance and a furious hate-groove comparable to what Skinless or Dying Fetus have done. Rather than a rip from other sources, though, the album takes on the form of an expansion upon the new sounds brought to light in Antithesis.

Entity is the first Origin album since the departure of James Lee on vocals, but guitarist Paul Ryan and bassist Mike Flores (both of whom previously did Origin’s backing vocals) do a fine job of recreating the extremes in vocal range and intensity needed to properly complement such relentless material. They, along with guitarist Jeremy Turner, also push the limits of human capabilities in terms of playing stringed instruments. Listen to “Conceiving Death,” “Swarm,” or “Fornever,” all of which are mind-warpingly rapid and vicious, yet still remarkably clean and calculated. Then there’s “Consequence of Solution,” an amorphous tune that runs the gamut from hyperfast blasting by John Longstreth — which is so quick a machine couldn’t do it — to serious death groove, and “Evolution of Extinction,” a nonstop onslaught of riffs, double bass and rage until its dying notes, which carry the listener out in a head-nodding gallop. Each track is unmistakably Origin, yet stands out hugely from its predecessor, unlike older material from the likes of Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas.

Entity will leave an imprint on your brain more permanent than death. If it doesn’t, you aren’t hearing it. Origin have always been hailed as leaders of the extreme metal scene, but now more than ever, their creative output has expanded and swallowed whole their competitors, spitting out bones of weaker entities along the path to infinity.

Peter T ägtgren: I don’t know.  I mean, I definitely think this album compared to the last one is definitely much more heavier and darker, you know, and it’s more guitar driven than ever before, I think, you know?

Yep, I would agree.  You also said in an interview that you felt like it was more organic than Cynic Paradise.  How do you feel that way?

Yeah, for sure, because now David [Wallin] is playing drums on the whole album.  He puts in his finesse in there, and normally on Pain albums, there’s 50% program and 50% me playing drums, but on this one, he puts his touch on it, I think, and it gives it an extra flavor.  And plus, you know, the bass I’ve put on there, sometimes there’s 50% keyboard bass, but now it’s 100% real bass that I played.  The whole thing just makes it more alive I think, not so stiff, you know?

I agree.  I would say that it has more of a straightforward kind of vibe than Cynic Paradise.  You’ve still got the electronic and industrial elements, but it seems a little more stripped down, I guess you could say.

Yeah.  I think it feels like it’s not taking over the song, it’s more, you know, guitars are taking over the song instead of the keyboards, which was the opposite maybe on the last album, or the last six albums, you know?  [Laughs]  So I mean, definitely the industrial sound and the techno keyboards are there, but not in that same way.  It’s more like a flavor.

Right.  Now, was that something that you did intentionally, or was that just kind of how it came out when you were writing?

It kind of came out like that, and also I kind of wanted to tone down the keyboards and just use the distortion and the craziness and [not] build the song around the keyboards.  You know, this time, the whole song is built around the guitars and the vocals.  I spent shitloads of time on the vocals, because I think every song has a different kind of vocal style in there.  It’s not the same style all the way through the album.  There’s always parts here and there that are different, or the whole songs are like, different kind of vocal styles.  I just wanted to put a lot of thought into it, and a lot of finesse, or whatever you want to say, also on the vocals, not just going in a straight line, you know?

Right.  And that was one thing I was going to comment on, that the vocal styles, they’re so much different, there’s so much variety between the songs.  It’s almost hard to believe that’s all you.  That’s really cool.

Oh, cool.  Thanks.

What’s the meaning behind the album title?

Well, there’s no meaning.  I mean, there’s an illusion.  The song is about envy of others, and also being disappointed about life, how it turned out to be, stuff like that.  And you’re kind of banging your head against the wall, you know, kind of regretting things, a few steps that went the wrong way.  So it’s more of a crying out for a second chance, you know, to redo your mistakes—not to redo your mistakes, but you know what I mean—to undo your mistakes on the past, growing up, kind of.

And since I’m a woman, let me ask you about “Dirty Woman.”  What was your inspiration behind that song?

Basically us men, you know.  I mean, when the blood goes from the one head down to the other, the IQ really shrinks, and we become these cattle that women just whip around.  In a sense, we become mongrels around good-looking women.  So it’s actually about guys; I’m just singing about how stupid we are.

[Laughs] Okay, cool.  Now I’m going to head back in time a little bit since I’m a little more familiar with Hypocrisy’s background than Pain’s.  The debut album, Pain, came out in ’97.

Yes.

And around that same time, Hypocrisy’s sound was kind of shifting as well.  What was the cause for that?

A need of change in life and in patterns.  Sometimes when you get too comfortable with a certain pattern…you know, I think the Hypocrisy sound changed even before that, in, what was that, ’94, when The Fourth Dimension came out.  It changed there and then it changed a second time to Abducted, and I think it changed another time to Final Chapter as well, you know?  So it was constantly changing, and constantly progressing and really trying new things all the time.  But there were still things missing for me, I guess, in that period, you know, for me to try to sing clean and also to get more into recording with computers and recording with samplers and drum machines and all that shit.  For me, as a producer, it just came…I needed to do something else as well.  Back then I already recorded at least a hundred albums with the same formula, you know—guitar, bass and vocals.  I just needed to develop as a producer, but there was no bands around that I could really progress as a producer, so I had to create my own band.  And that’s really how Pain started.

Did Pain ever become an inspiration for Hypocrisy material, or to you, have they always been completely separate?

It’s hard to separate things since you’re the same person, you know, and do both things.  But nowadays, I really try to separate them.  Even though the new Pain album sounds a little, yeah, it’s got some Hypocrisy in there, that doesn’t mean that Hypocrisy is going to stay the same way as it did on the last album.  I don’t know.  I just can’t stand in one place and do the same thing twice.  That’s impossible for me.  I don’t care.  Even if it would make me rich, you know, to just do new songs with the same kind of formula, I would say fuck no, I can’t, because I would hate myself.  So I’m constantly trying to come up with new things all the time, and you win some and you lose some, I guess.  But that’s how I am, and I can’t really help it.

You know, I reviewed A Taste of Extreme Divinity when it came out in 2009, and that was one of the things that I mentioned in the review, that Hypocrisy’s sound has always been changing and evolving, and really everything you’ve done, it’s always evolving and growing, yet there’s always something that kind of pulls back to the beginning.  I mean, you always know it’s going to be Hypocrisy or it’s going to be Pain.

Yeah.  You try to go forward even though, you know, I guess you come back to old stuff, but at the moment when you do it, it was a long time ago since you did something from the past, kind of, and so you mix your back catalogue Herron:   in your head with new stuff, I think, and that’s how I think you can progress.  I mean, I don’t want to make Hypocrisy sound like Meshuggah the next album.  That would be totally weird, you know?  [Laughs]  Even if we could play that kind of music, I don’t think we could, or change it into something else, do a totally 180 thing, you know?  It’s always going to have a foot in what you’re doing, I think, [but you] still want to go forward.

Sure.  So keeping on the topic of Hypocrisy, what’s going on with Hypocrisy right now?  Are you guys working on a new album?

No, not right now.  We have no plans.  I don’t even know if Mikael [Hedlund] wrote anything.  I definitely have [some things] stored away in the computer, stuff like that, you know, but it’s not enough to start booking the studio and start putting the songs together.  That’s way too early.  I mean, I only have a few festivals this summer and a few productions, so there will be some time to sit and write, and I don’t know if it’s going to be Pain songs I’m writing or Hypocrisy songs I’m writing.  The day will tell, you know, when I’m sitting there, what it’s going to be.

I see.  Well, you’re obviously a workhorse when it comes to your projects, and it seems like you’ve always got something going on with a project, or you’re in the studio, so what are you currently working on right now, and what do you see coming up in the future?

Nothing [laughs].  It’s like Seinfeld; it’s a show about nothing.  No, but right now, it’s just been full power on promoting it, and I’ve been doing over a hundred interviews so far.  And I’m just really preparing for the shows with Pain right now, and that takes a while to get everything worked out, and also with the tour we’re going to do in Europe, we’re setting out this really cool stage set and stuff like that, and it takes a lot of time and planning and shit.  I’ve basically been really involved in that stuff right now.  But it’s going to cool down a little bit, and then I have a few things that I’m going to mix and one thing that I’m going to produce, and then in September, the tour starts.  It’s not going to end until mid-November, and hopefully after that, we can have a tour in America, you know.  But we’ve got to find a band that would fit for us, you know, because we can’t really go out on and headline, because we’re too small for that.  Then we’re going to have to play pizzerias and gas stations, you know?

[Laughs]  Okay.  So I have to ask this inevitable question: What kind of music are you listening to nowadays?

Shit, that’s a good question.  All kinds of stuff.  Anything from Shania Twain to, ooh…it’s really hard to say.  I don’t know.  I usually always go back to the ‘60s and ‘50s and stuff like that.  I don’t know.  Right now, what’s in my car?  I’ve got to think here.  Fuck, that’s really tricky.  AC/DC, I’m listening to right now. T he old shit.

The old shit.

With Bon Scott.

Right on.  I know you’re a busy man, so thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

Yeah, no problem at all.

www.nuclearblast.de

www.painworldwide.com

www.hypocrisy.tv

Wooden Stake is adept at merging horror and metal for a myriad of reasons, but it is undoubtedly the atmosphere created within and hovering around Dungeon Prayers and Tombyard Serenades that gives its songs credibility. Images of candlelit corridors laced with ancient webs, black mass candle wax curdled on warped mantelpieces, and shackled skeletons rotting against dripping dungeon walls are conjured. Yes, the common horror themes (witches, vampires, etc.) are portrayed here, but they’re put forth in such a way that their tendrils actually reach and sink into the pulp of their subject matter. In other words, the tunes of Dungeon Prayers and Tombyard Serenades are not merely shallow vessels shellacked with horror imagery — they are genuine creations of creepiness, the embodiment of terror, and evidence of total immersion in the macabre.

Tracks are brought to life (or back from the dead) by warm, ominous guitar tones, the eerily sultry voice of Nocera (whose vocals run the gamut from Stevie Nicks possessed to vomit-sputtering demons), and a pervading sense of dread that’s subtly masked by electric mysticism. “Salem, 1692,” with its groovy, grainy quality and mesmerizing vocals, effectively conveys the lurking fear probably felt by outcasts of the Salem witch trial era. “Tortured Into Eternal Repose” and “Die Rache Der Hexen” both truly emanate an air of oppression with ritualistic vibes and bass lines strong as Frankenstein’s crushing footfalls. And it feels safe to say that the origin of “Anguished Atonement” could be the result of some dark marriage of the sensually evil musical presence behind 1970s Christopher Lee vampire flicks and a pound of weed.

Those in the mood for hack-and-slash goregrind need not wander here, for the work of Wooden Stake is far more sinister and serious. Dungeon Prayers and Tombyard Serenades is the soundtrack of bloodletting under the full moon, muffled shrieks in the mist, and a thousand terrors only briefly glimpsed in the dark recesses of a madman’s thoughts. Its beauty is both inviting and terrifying. So take it all in, exhale deeply, and let your mind traipse about in the abyss that Wooden Stake has created.