…different, because on Final Day it’s a collection of songs when they were ready, they were released, compared to this new album telling a bit of a story. Mäenpää: We have to record separately because the drummer, singer, and the other guitar player live in different cities. We only have six months to write the songs, because the deadline was the end of last year. We didn’t have that much time, so we had to record the album quickly. Dead Rhetoric:…
…ere, and we haven’t toured here yet. Getting our foot in the door with our market, getting on tours is super tough. It’s an over-saturated market, there are so many bands fighting for all the same slots on some of these tours. Hopefully with this album this will help us get some momentum. Next year, and the next couple of years we can do some North American touring and another European tour, some festivals in Europe. That’s the aspect that’s reall…
…black metal elements forming the skeleton that holds everything together structurally. What’s glaringly obvious is that one won’t come across an album that is this intentionally different often, and the creative risks taken most certainly pay off. There’s plenty to digest within Xibalba – from the folk characteristics, various vocal cadences, and film score level vivacity, to the downright nasty and direct black metal onslaughts. This won’t hit wi…
…come a big, well-known personality,” concludes Himari with a large smile. Truth be told, she already has the big personality she needs, it’s just a matter of getting it exposed to the rest of the world for all to see. All live photos courtesy of Jonathan Lane Jonathan Lane official website Jonathan Lane on Instagram Jonathan on Twitter/X https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Xybqz6cEE&pp=ygUHaXNpbGllbA%3D%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMICdxaG0wY…
…nd’s arsenal – but it’s evident throughout that the addictive guitar riffs/runs plus singalong choruses should hammer home the universal appeal for those who love classic heavy metal. The dual guitar attack as well as proficient bass spots create a magnitude of memories around influences like Mercyful Fate, Angel Witch, Iron Maiden, all the way into classic Riot – especially prevalent in tracks like “Apocalypse” and the harmony-fueled “Return of t…
…d in A Dark Reborn song, coming from a very melodic death part to a pop chorus, or from a breakdown to a drum and bass rhythm. We like to not close ourselves off to experiment with the music and that makes us create our own melodic death metal (sound). And all the songs have had their process of maturation and composition more or less equally, if there is a chorus that came to us very clear, or a verse, but all were cooked more of less at the same…
…see the differences between newer artists creating melodic hard rock/metal today versus those older acts – do you believe the recording methods/technology have made things easier for you to achieve what you want at an affordable price today? Catton: Yeah, that’s a two-sided blade, I guess. It’s so easy to record now – I could do it in my room if I wanted to. If I had my walls insulated a bit more than I could do a record here, maybe not a professi…
…in the metal realm Sepultura was really the first one. The openers of this market, the storm of many other future bands to come. And with the Brazilian rhythms and style they incorporated, they really valued our Brazilian roots around the world. That was very nice, and very rich. Dead Rhetoric: How did you feel about Kiko stepping away from the band to join Megadeth back in 2015? Do you still try to keep in touch with him on a regular basis when p…
…n when you hear the main hooks and higher melodies of “Angel Rising”, the drumming from Pae steady with interesting power moves which line up to the energetic guitar runs. The longest track “Twilight of the Black Rose” concludes the record, a six-minute plus outing that contains a calmer intro, choir/ orchestration components, dazzling neoclassical keyboard/guitar break tradeoffs and some operatic melodies to showcases the multi-genre influences a…
…y beautiful and monstrous album made by two of the most prolific and soul-crushing bands today. My only slight gripe about this record is that we didn’t get a Dylan Walker-Domenic Palermo vocal match-up. I wouldn’t miss a potentially harmonic pairing of Full of Hell’s Gollum shrieks and Nothing’s depressed whispers for the world. Here’s hoping that both bands have more to say together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVNXSuIhs4w https://www.youtub…
…are your plans for 2024? Benson: One of our songs is going to radio in February, and we are playing at Happens in Las Vegas in the end of February. We have tours coming up – we will be playing on the main stage at Lifest in Wisconsin, and also at Loud & Proud Festival in Germany next September. There is also City on the Hill. Some of it is on the website, and the rest will be updated soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19hkaOe6UR8&pp=ygUJaWduZX…
…This album began back in 2019, the year after our previous record Goodbye Cruel World came out. At the time… there had an always been an empty checkmark next to concept album in our list of things that we’ve done over the years, but we did not set out to do a concept album. Some of the songs in the early going started to take on more of a fantasy realm vibe. It was definitely an organic progression. The first song was done, and it was more of a st…
…arena these days. Are you impressed with how bands like Orbit Culture are breaking worldwide? Batres: For sure, and I think it’s related to the internet, streaming. A lot of bands still release stuff independently in Australia, because they don’t have the ability to tour as often. There are so many great bands out here, some you may never hear in your life because they are local. It’s impressive, I grew up with bands like Dungeon and Mortal Sin,…
…e started shouting for an encore, and the band happily obliged, giving us “Ready to Ride” to sing along with and strut about for a few more minutes before the band took a final bow. Bonus: Cheki Part II Not entirely surprising, but not a guarantee after the day before’s meet & greet, the band did a cheki once again after the performance. I left the night before about an hour after the meet & greet started, but today I decided to stick around long…
…driving chord progressions that whip hair in the wind on a hot summer day cruising at max speeds, a rock solid bass/drum foundation that sticks those hooks into the ground, topped off by a charismatic vocalist who reaches for the stars while having sinister attitude / personality in lower registers, the gang-unison background vocals hammering home key lines for future audience magnification. Initial passes get toes tapping, hands clapping, and air…
…with the lyrics and try to create stories that are of course based on the truth of history, and also you can read, think, and feel something that you can transfer to current times. It’s one thing to be interested in history, but we also have listeners who are not. Even if we tell them that Albrecht Dürer is an important person in human history, they may not care, but they feel something with a song we write. In general, Georg knows more – we’ve ha…
…, Gates to Hell, and Omerta. Then we are on the Headbangers Boat – it’s a cruise. I’ve never been on a cruise so it will be interesting. We are on that for five days. Then the rest of the tour with Boundaries, Foreign Hands, and Roman Candle starts in Tampa. Then we are covering the rest of the US and it takes us into December. Then we are going to rest, because we have a lot planned for 2024! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRLTXZBgzlI&pp=ygUKZHl…
…ow he’s always going to do a killer job, so why mess with a good thing? I trust him, he’s a cool guy. Ronnie has always been there from the beginning. We trust that he will come up with a great sound, he’s so easy to work with. He keeps raising the bar with his mix. With Simon and Mike, they’ve been involved with the drum recordings for the last three albums. Brilliant musicians, both of them. With their skills and knowledge, they can come up with…
…ou”, where Marika’s smooth register that contains gothic/operatic aspects truly gets the spotlight, the organ/acoustic foundation as well as restrained rhythm section parts assuring a pleasant outcome. Never forgetting the driving power chords that made 80’s hard rock/metal so quintessential, “Refuge” possesses a bit of that early Dokken/Skid Row street cred in its main parts, the symphonic/galloping keyboards allowing Giacomo to service the song…
…you still need to be able to turn out albums to be considered relevant in today’s world. It used to be every three or four years was normal, but now it feels like you have to put out a new album every year to a year and a half, which I think is unsustainable. Emotionally, mentally, and no longer authentic. I hope that the trend isn’t super great, because your favorite musicians won’t be doing this for very much longer. Also, what’s been really co…
…meet last song on the set with this song or “Breaking the Law”. We did a “Breaking the Law” duet already, it was with Udo Dirkschneider on my album Classic Diamonds, he thought it would be awesome. He had a wish as well – I said what is it? There was a song he always wanted to do with me for many, many years. He said, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. I said, wow, that’s totally unusual. It was the last song we recorded, mixed, and I will go into a s…
…r as this descent into the devolution of humanity. That’s another common thread that runs through our music, how unsuccessful we’ve been as a species for just existing. Dead Rhetoric: How much of a challenge is it as a legacy band to remain fresh and relevant with new material while hopefully not stepping on what’s already been accepted through your classic work of the 80’s/early 90’s? Garven: Yeah, that’s funny. Someone just asked me something si…
…We did a thrash record, now what? We went groove metal, industrial metal. Rude Awakening is the origin of nu-metal, and it’s amazing how many people weren’t ready for that. Nu-metal is not one of my favorite(genres) because I don’t enjoy the rap element of it. The staccato guitars, some programming, the groove metal was the basis for a lot of that. I don’t think anybody was doing that before us, five years later this band Static-X comes about. Ge…
…th Metal Blade in 2020. Here we are in 2023 and the record is just getting ready to come out. Clearly it wasn’t rushed. Part of that is we couldn’t get into a studio, a lot of the studios were closed down. Once the depression and anger of the whole 2020 situation and the tours we lost started to blow over, I had nothing to do but write songs, write riffs. Blaine and I spent countless hours just holed up in his house working on new songs, working o…
…et with “Dawn of the Militant” off of their latest album The Wretched; The Ruinous got things off to an intense start, with the crowd almost immediately opening up a large pit in response. The band launched into some of their classic tracks from The Oncoming Storm in “Endless” and “This Dying World” to escalate the insanity further. The nostalgia was real, hearing those songs that we’ve enjoyed live many years previous, definitely bringing back me…
Vindsval is a busy guy; probably the least shocking thing you’ve heard today, but it must be said. One of the most productive musicians in extreme music, Blut Aus Nord has been on quite the hot streak since, well, 1994. This project doesn’t disappoint, and is never predictable, resulting in a massive discography of which any lover of macabre, avant-garde, ambient blackened insanity swears by. Vindsval is also a man who enjoys working in trilogies…
…h the official statement on May 17th citing “scheduling conflicts,” this struck many as odd. Turns out 2 days earlier, it was announced by Feffarkhorn – an Italian Folk/Celtic festival – that they would be playing there instead. Not a good look, to say the least. Thankfully, Battle Beast heeded the call, stepped up to the plate, and definitely hit a home run with the crowd. I was initially bummed I wouldn’t get to see them, since their Florida sho…
…eriences definitely makes me feel vulnerable, in a lot of ways. Anyone can read the lyrics to The Weight of the Mask and it’s like they read my diary from the last two years. It provides a very intimate look at some of my darkest thoughts. It’s scary. It’s scary for people to be able to so plainly see things that you have been suffering with. Also, if you write a song about a negative experience, there is transformative power in it, in the sense o…
…y is helpful. Dead Rhetoric: Where do you see the state of the heavy music marketplace in the UK compared to other parts of the world? What changes (if any) would you like to see made for the greater good of all parties involved? Middleton: Interesting one. It feels like we’ve got a really good scene going on at the moment – especially particular for that sort of metal scene I was talking about previously. You have Sylosis, you have Bleed From Wit…
…was to add all of those nuke shots in there and show the environmental destruction. Instead of having it already having happened, like we initially had the idea of, show it in progress with the nuke shots. And I thought that was genius because it didn’t even register with me to do stuff like that. But that was a really good artistic, creative thing that he brought to the table. Gallop: For sure, and it fits that part of the story in the album so a…
