New(er) bands need TLC. Actually, they need more tender loving care than veteran bands – they’ve been coddled, celebrated, and loved enough. Hence, our need for a new column called “Now You Know,” where we’ll take a relatively fresh band, extract all of the unnecessary information (because it gets old hearing how an album was written), and present it in slim and tip-top shape. Considering a new band is born basically every minute in metal (someone should chart this), such journalistic tactics are necessary.
First up: Philadelphia post-black metal brigade Averse Concept, who just released their quite good Symbols of Loss EP. Here’s the scoop:
Factoids
Formation: 2010
Locale: Philadelphia, or Los Angeles. Or maybe “Phillyangeles”
Personnel: A Farace (vocals, guitars, bass), Patrick Lujan (drums)
Style: Post-black metal, but not Cascadian. Hard to find a forest in Philly; even harder to find a proper promotional picture of the duo, hence us using their album cover as the featured image.
According to Farace, Averse Concept is black metal, but will shrug upon being asked the question, but he’s cool with post-black metal. “I truly think some of the newer black metal bands have been pushing boundaries. From experimenting more musical ideas to exploring more human themes then just trying to be evil. To me at least it makes the music much easier to connect and relate to. I don’t think the U.S is the only place to do it but does have quite a few big names. It’s not for everyone but its all opinions.”
Drummer Patrick Lujan is the only other member in Averse Concept, and finding the sticksman turned out to be a real catch. “We started in the Philadelphia area since I grew up around here, and formed the band originally with the drummer from Astral Throne since we recently called it quits. We never released the EP but it was completely written. Fast forward a year later with it on the back burner and I somehow got so lucky to meet Patrick in LA. How amazing is it to find someone into such a specific genre of music who was an awesome drummer? I lucked out and decided to finally release the EP. I’m now back in Philly and we keep in touch and plan on meeting up to record another.”
Farace might have all his attention on Averse Concept, but that doesn’t mean he tends to it every day (“Sometimes I don’t touch it for weeks at a time”). He’s also working on the follow-up to Symbols. “Yes, at an incredibly slow rate. I’m super picky about what I write most of the time. And have to be in a very particular mood to write which only comes around so often. If I had to say what it sounded like, I’d say more or less mostly the same ideas, but a little more polished.”
Surprising fact about the band? Not even Farace can provide a straight answer: “I’m seriously blanking on this question. I guess the long distance thing most people don’t know about. Half the info about us on the web says were LA-based; the other says Philly-based. I really never know where to tell people.”
Farace will spend the rest of the year working on the follow-up to Symbols (no live shows), so in the meantime, you can check out the aforementioned Symbols of Loss on the band’s Bandcamp page.