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March seemed to be the month where great bands who haven’t released anything in a while started to promise comebacks. Karnivool claims they’re “many, many months” into crafting their first new album since 2013, Dredg promises a very rock-oriented comeback after the lukewarm bore-fest that was 2011’s Chuckles And Mr. Squeezy, and Refused says their follow-up to Freedom will make people who love 1998’s The Shape of Punk to Come say “oh yeah, this makes a bit more sense.” Then there’s the mysterious 90 seconds of new Vildhjarta music called “Kaos 2” — I really want to get excited about a potential new Vildhjarta record, but this is the second bit of contextless music they’ve dropped since 2016. So I remain cautiously curious, though their appearances at festivals makes me believe they’re forging a slow return.
I’d also really like to see a Liquid Tension Experiment reunion. Guitarist John Petrucci said this month he’d be down a reunion, while drummer Mike Portnoy had keyboardist Jordan Rudess come on stage to play some Liquid Tension Experiment tracks at a show in February. If this happens, it’ll be the first music Petrucci, Portnoy, and Rudess put out together since Dream Theater’s 2009 record Black Clouds & Silver Linings (bonus: check out our full review of Dream Theater’s latest album).
In more concrete news, Baroness announced they’re wrapping up the color-themed albums with one more called Gold & Gray. Baroness promises the new record will be adventurously experimental, and considering that it’s 17 songs long, I’m inclined to believe that. I also still can’t decide if I’m more blown away by the debut single “Borderlines” or the artwork.
At The Gates recently teased studio time, and there’s a lot to unpack there depending on how you want to look at it. The photos revealing their studio presence had hashtags like #neworold? and #whatif, and their upcoming performance at Roadburn 2019 is mysteriously being billed as: “Details are still being finalized regarding exactly what the set list will comprise of, and just how those songs will be presented, but what we can tell you is that it’s going to be a must-see part of Roadburn 2019.” So my guess is that these two things are connected. Maybe it’s reimagining of old material? Or maybe they’re playing with an orchestra.
Finally, let’s talk about the upcoming Black Sabbath covers project Magnetic Eye Records has going on. Magnetic Eye Records recruited bands like Whores, Thou, Haunt, Spirit Adrift, and The Obsessed to each cover a track from Black Sabbath’s 1972 album Vol. 4. The crowdfunding raised around $25,000 of the $5,000 the label needed, so now they’re doing a companion record. That one is called Best of Black Sabbath Redux, which sees bands Summoner, Earthless, Rwake, and Year of the Cobra tackle Black Sabbath songs from their whole catalog. Given the participants and source material, I’m excited for both. Magnetic Eye Records is also putting out a covers album of Alice In Chains’ Dirt in 2020, which features Khemmis, 16, Bell Witch, and High Priest among other great artists.
Now let’s get to some albums we can listen to in full.
— Greg Kennelty
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Devil Master
Satan Spits on Children of Light
March 1, 2019
G.I.S.M.-influenced blackened hardcore crust punk imbued with Bathory-styled vocals and sent to another dimension with one guitar that won’t stop using a chorus pedal: Devil Master evokes the sonic equivalent of jumpy, flickering horror movies like the original Nosferatu in that there’s an inherently terrifying quality about its simplicity. There’s a recognizable humanness to the monsters. There’s a summoning circle in the basement. There’s a man in a cheap robe standing in the shadows with his face painted white, whose hands are too gaunt to be natural. There is a Satan, and his master calls his name from Philadelphia.
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Hell Fire
Mania
March 29, 2019
Hell Fire is clearly a 1980s heavy metal band that, just having opened for Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, figured they’d make a name for themselves by going back to before those artists existed. Hell Fire constructed a time machine in their practice space, got drunk, screwed up the math, and appeared in 2016. Luckily, the modern heavy metal scene was taking off at the time, so nobody questioned their presence. Hell Fire has continued to keep that retro spirit alive on their new album with such fervor and conviction that it’s pretty difficult to refute the preceding theory.
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Magic Circle
Departed Souls
March 29, 2019
Departed Souls explores trippy mellotrons, electric piano, and acoustic guitar in conjunction with more engaging instrumental melodies than Magic Circle previously conjured. The band perfectly sums up their first two records worth of doom-tinged rock, which combined the raw power of Led Zeppelin with the sinister evil Black Sabbath, with vast experimentation to achieve more than they could’ve just by sticking to their original sound. This album is effectively Magic Circle cementing themselves as undeniable masters of their craft all while getting very stuck in your head.
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Moon Tooth
Crux
March 29, 2019
Moon Tooth pitches electrifying, bluesy, and highly original progressive metal at your head faster than you can duck. Walking the line between challenging and accessible, Crux appeals to musicians as much as casual listeners — and Moon Tooth is a modern powerhouse who could not exist outside its four current members, each of whose participation is an immovable cornerstone to the band’s clear infallibility. This album is emotional and fed up, yet willing to cast aside misery with a boisterous “fuck it” to move on to something else. This is one of the best progressive records of the decade. Get on it.
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Ripped to Shreds
Eight Immortals Feast
March 23, 2019
Fall into the mouth of dull, gnashing blades and become unidentifiable fragments of the body you once inhabited. The Eight Immortals Feast demo is grinding, tumultuous death metal that fearlessly barrels into the realms of grindcore and doom as the seemingly logical conclusion of its songs’ building speed and fury. Ripped to Shreds immediately set a new quality standard for new-old school death metal on their debut record 埋葬 in 2018, and this new one is a warning shot that everyone will need to up their game again likely soon. The blades only get faster. The endless viscera never satisfies the emptiness. All becomes a mist of blood and bones.
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Whitechapel
The Valley
March 29, 2019
Reinvention is tricky, though Whitechapel sure doesn’t make it seem that difficult. Whitechapel’s new album The Valley deals lyrically with the suffering endured by vocalist Phil Bozeman as a child growing up in Hardin Valley, Tennessee. Bozeman’s intense vocal delivery, both growled and cleanly sung, mixed with Whitechapel’s next-level songwriting makes for an album that will likely go down as their best yet. What sets this one apart from Whitechapel’s discography is that it doesn’t feel like a deathcore-type band throwing in other styles just to say they branched out. The Valley is suffering, sorrow and pain incarnate, and channeled flawlessly into ten tracks.
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Woe
A Violent Dread EP
March 15, 2019
Woe returns to the world two years after their fantastic 2017 album Hope Attrition with one new song and a cover of Dawn’s “The Knell and the World.” The A Violent Dread EP is 19 minutes of hollow, sorrowful black metal whose emptiness will radiate slowly through your body like steel hammers striking the outside of a bell. Woe’s ability to craft melodies that weave themselves around Chris Grigg’s bleak lyrics is unrelenting through the title track, while the cover song has even a colder edge than the atomic original.
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Here are the new (and recent) metal releases for the week of March 24th to March 30th, 2019. Release reflect proposed North American scheduling, if available. Expect to see most of these albums on shelves or distros on Fridays.
See something we missed or have any thoughts? Let us know in the comments. Plus, as always, feel free to post your own shopping lists. Happy digging.
Send us your promos (streaming links preferred) to: [email protected]. Do not send us promo material via social media.
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Falaise — A Place I Don’t Belong To | ATMF Records | Atmospheric Black Metal | Italy
This Italian atmo-black metal duo returns with their third full-length, a melodic and melancholic inward reflection of an album. A Place I Don’t Belong To bursts with blast beat ascents and doomy/ambient descents across its runtime; constantly shifting upward and downward, this album journeys itself through dense emotion and heartfelt riffing. Definitely a “softer” listen compared to the glut of eviscerating black metal out there, it’s nice to be soothed every once in a while.
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East of the Wall — NP Complete | Translation Loss Records | Post-Metal | United States (New Jersey)
East of the Wall have been at it for a while now, and the band has seen much in the way of musical evolution. The latest iteration of their sound bleeds true on NP Complete, an obtusely jammy and subtly technical delight. The band maintain an artistically off-kilter feeling, adding robust amounts of tension and anxiety to otherwise smooth, sometimes jazz-infused musicianship. Under a broad definition of post-metal, East of the Wall would surely fit, but that would discount the rock-‘n’-roll which lives at NP Complete‘s core.
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Whitechapel — The Valley | Metal Blade Records | Deathcore | United States (Tennessee)
One of deathcore’s most effective and enduring groups, Whitechapel have been bursting eardrums and stomping faces with unfailing consistency since 2006. On their latest album The Valley, Whitechapel have elected to stick with the mid-tempo, breakdown-heavy approach of their last two records, but with a few decided twists. The primary difference in their sound comes from the addition of clean vocals, the first ever use of such by the band. One track on the album is accompanied solely by extremely heartfelt melodies from Phil Bozeman (whose singing voice is surprisingly refined) providing a melancholy interlude to the album’s crushing brutality. While The Valley is not Whitechapel’s most compelling release to date, it does succeed in contrasting heavily against their older material without abandoning their long-established style.
— Thomas Hinds
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Magic Circle — Departed Souls | 20 Buck Spin | Doom Metal | United States (Massachusetts)
Presenting the same Sabbathian vintage heavy metal sound of their first two albums but with a newly expanded musical scope, Massachusetts doom warriors Magic Circle have returned again with their hard-rocking third album Departed Souls. Infusing a broadened range of musical influences including prog, 1980s speed metal, and even some slower funereal moments, the record marks a major progression in the group’s sound and is undoubtedly their most eclectic release to date. With soaring tenor vocals, chunky riffs, and moments of lush psychedelia provided by Fender Rhodes, tablas, and acoustic 12-string guitars, Departed Souls is a timeless work of heavy music that will win over fans of both modern doom metal and 1970s classic rock.
— Thomas Hinds
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Devin Townsend — Empath | HevyDevy | Progressive | Canada
Feature-writing extraordinare Langdon Hickman nailed it with his Devin Townsend coverage over the last few weeks leading up to the release of Empath — check out his thorough analysis covering three eras of Townsend music: early work, Strapping Young Lad, and later work. Later this week, we’ll be launching our interview with Townsend himself, plus Langdon’s full review of Empath — by now, Devin Townsend is a household heavy metal name, and this album could be signaling in a new direction for the Canadian mad musical scientist.
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Sutekh Hexen — Sutekh Hexen | Sentient Ruin | Blast Metal, Noise | United States (California)
Celebrating a decade since inception, raw-as-fuck black metal project Sutekh Hexen releases its self-titled effort. This is the first full-length since 2012 (fourth overall), meaning a whole lot probably went into this effort. And indeed, Sutekh Hexen screams with all the abstract horror and indefinable noise the outfit is known for. From anything between absolutely deafening jet-engine noise to near-silent ambiance, this album takes to challenge many musical tenets with a sprawling reach into the void.
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Ellende — Lebensnehmer | Art of Propaganda | Black Metal | Austria
From Jenna’s full album premiere of Lebensnehmer:
Lebensnehmer carries on Todbringer’s legacy by mastering the art of the gradual build. The album’s intro features piano strokes that blossom into orchestral-like grace into until the rip of guitar begins to cut through like a slow-motion arrow through fog. Blast beats are introduced, but they refrain from building a soundwall; rather, mid-tempo drumming serves as the palatable backdrop for gripping guitar contributions. “Liebkosung des Eiswinds,” the sixth installment in the eight-track journey, is ripe with starry synth marked with arrhythmic chimes. Ellende has taken us one step further into the astral plane, but unlike other dark expressions who have led us down such a path, this one doesn’t end in a sinister place. A vaguely trap-style beat is interjected to solidify Ellende’s place as a progressive-minded project that isn’t afraid to wander into different realms, which are ultimate left with the polite piano strokes with which it came.
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Totaled — Lament | Profound Lore | Blackened Hardcore
Combining the unadulterated hatred of brutal atmospheric black metal with the misanthropic no-fucks-given attitude of hardcore punk, newcomers Totaled, formed in 2017, have finally unleashed their unforgiving debut record Lament. Like a hailstorm of warbling and erratic electricity, the album’s static chaos abruptly shifts between blast beats and d-beats, rapidfire tremolo picking, and slow, grimy breakdowns. Ceaselessly pulverizing throughout its eight tracks, Lament’s journey into abject nihilism stands as a remarkably refined first release from this impressive new group.
— Thomas Hinds
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Applaud the Impaler — Ov Apocalypse Incarnate | Unique Leader | Technical Death Metal, Deathcore | United States (Virginia)
Totally eviscerating, hyper-produced death metal you’d expect Unique Leader to sign. Ov Apocalypse Incarnate won’t win any awards, but damn, it’s a blast — there’s a lot of tech-death out there flowing in the same vein, but Applaud the Impaler excel with technicality and the infusion of deathcore for distinctive twists. Also, the vocals steer away from traditional death metal growls, too, edging on hardcore territory even. Worth a listen if deathcore isn’t your thing, but you’ve always loved the intensity anyway.
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Vltimas — Something Wicked Marches In | Season of Mist | Death Metal | Portugal
A strikingly high-profile supergroup comprised of David Vincent (ex-Morbid Angel), Rune “Blasphemer” Eriksen (ex-Mayhem) and Flo Monier (Cryptopsy), Vltimas have come together from remote corners of the extreme metal world to craft a fresh presentation of classic blackened death on their debut album Something Wicked This Way Comes. Utilizing the most effective elements from each member’s previous work, Vltimas presents a sound that perfectly balances the raw savagery of 1990s black metal with the grotesque, technical stylings of first-wave technical death metal. Though its members possess nearly 90 years of combined experience in the realm of metal, Something Wicked This Way Comes is not in the least bit stale or derivative, but rather every bit as contemporary as any of today’s old-school inspired groups.
— Thomas Hinds
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West of Hell — Blood of the Infidel | Reversed Records | Metal | Canada
Formed in West Auckland in 2002, power-thrashers West of Hell have since released only one studio album, 2012’s Spiral Empire. After seven years of silence, the high-energy, 1980s style group will present their second full-length Blood of the Infidel, a faithful successor to their debut and an expansion of their nostalgically enthralling sound. With blistering progressive thrash riffs, whirlwind volcanic guitar solos, and soaring falsetto from Chris “The Heathen” Valagao, West of Hell holds nothing back on their latest record, delivering a sound that is novel and relevant despite its thoroughly old-school structure.
— Thomas Hinds
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Few bands retain underground appeal once they make it aboveground. It’s less a matter of taste and style, more a matter of scene relevancy. Popularity, for whatever reason, degrades our notion of novelty and destroys the element of surprise. That said, there’s no real rule for this matter, only observations made by individuals; exceptions abound wherever you look. And you don’t even have to look hard: above and beneath the water’s turbulent surface, The Black Dahlia Murder has reigned true and strong for over a decade, championing straightforward yet technical, familiar yet distinctive death metal with a special blackened twist.
The magic to their formula is as complicated as you want to make it, though one key element must be taken into consideration: that of fun. The Black Dahlia Murder is, bottom line, a fun metal band. This means they’re a blast to watch, exciting to listen to, and, as it turns out, pretty damn easy to talk to. They’re big on entertainment value, they own their stage; this band has never sold out or taken a cheap-and-easy route. Throughout lineup changes and all the trials/tribulations a band undergoes when they “make it big,” The Black Dahlia Murder has stayed true to its promise: to champion the music and the experience of consuming it above all else.
By no means is The Black Dahlia Murder oblivious or single-minded, though. They understand the importance of nuance, the importance of their position in the metal scene. The band is self-aware when it comes to platform and stature, fanship and devotion. On these topics and more, now-legendary frontman Trevor Strnad was kind enough to chat with us before their set in Chicago on Friday, the very first on a month-long US tour celebrating the release of their latest album Nightbringers. On this tour, they’ll be playing the album front-to-back.
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Well [laughs], how’s the tour been going so far?
Well, it’s day one, and it looks pretty exciting! We’re pretty close to the set, I’m hoping a few stragglers will show up yet. I’ve been excited for this, man, it’s gonna be really big.
Yeah, you guys bring out the masses, and so does Whitechapel and Fleshgod, man, they’re on right now.
Yeah, we’re playing our new record in its entirety, and a couple more tracks. And Whitechapel is playing for their tenth anniversary of, I think, their second record? So kids are coming out in droves for that, too. Good combo, man, good combo!
Woo! Let’s take an immediate left turn and just get deep. Nightbringers is a fun, upbeat kind of get-you-pumpin’ album, but there’s a darkness to it, and a power to it, and an emotionality to it. What have you put behind that album, like what comes out of you in terms of the “spoken inside” coming out to the world?
Since the very first parts of song came to life in demos and shit, it just seemed like a special album. From the ground up, it was really exciting to make. And Brandon coming into the fold was a big part of that — you know, new blood. And he’s a super-talented guy.
But, yeah, I feel like we’re getting closer to adulthood with each album. It’s a weird thing to say, it probably sounds lame on paper, but I feel like the band has been maturing over the years. Making music that has more of an emotive quality to it, so I’m kind of responding to that in a way.
Even when I’m writing some fantastic shit, full of characters and fiction, I try to put myself into it. I really try to embody whatever villain I’m trying to bring forth there. I enjoy writing for the band immensely — I take it really seriously, but you know it’s tongue-in-cheek too, you know what I mean? It’s death metal.
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You guys go up there and you have fun — that’s what draws me to your music specifically. A lot of guys don’t look like they’re having fun — they may put on a good show, they might have great atmosphere, great drama…
I love all those bands, too.
Me too, and I like it. But sometimes you just wanna go up there and watch dudes have a ball. Every time you play a show, you have that energy. Where does that come from?
It’s fun! But also, you know, the it’s the success of the band. I can’t look the gift horse in the mouth… every day, I look out there and see those people and it’s like fuck. I get touched!
Yeah, there’s people out there, they connect with it on such a level that brings them out and all the want is to cheer you on. It’s the coolest thing.
Having people coming more than once, you know, that’s fucking awesome. I see a lot of repeat offenders, and I love that. That’s a huge compliment, you know?
But, it’s just fun, man. I can’t… well, we never “looked cool,” you know what I mean? I think even less so when we first came out, like total nerds with Wranglers [laughs]. We wanted to be accepted as just a death metal band and go down the typical road of playing death metal. We were just perceived as so many different things…
You guys carved out this really unusual sound, a definite The Black Dahlia Murder sound, pretty early on.
The look of the band too, and the live energy. We grew up cutting our teeth playing all these hardcore shows. Basically there was no tangible death metal scene in Michigan, that I could find anyway. So, at the time, the “metalcore” that was huge… the beginning of all those At The Gates banana riffs coming into every single band. There was your Seven Day Curse, your Unearth, shit like that.
There was a lot of really metallic bands in the hardcore scene at the time, that was kind of our angle. We’re playing with like, Throwdown, at these local Michigan shows, and they’re playing three chords and jumping around fucking everywhere and looks amazing, and it’s just so high energy. We were trying to compete with those bands — having a high-intensity show even though the music was more complicated, you know?
It’s always been a punk thing, too. We have roots in punk. The weirdest thing ever: Rollins’s book about how shot tour[ing] is made me want to tour more than anything. As a kid, Get in the Van was kind of that awakening I had. If you want to get shit done, you want to be on a label, you want to do all this stuff… do it yourself! I was the last person to come into the band — they were just missing the singer — and I think that’s what attracted them to me the most. It was that I wanted to tour, I wanted the band to be more than just a fucking local band from day one. I came in with a mission, and I think I kind of excited everybody, you know what I mean?
Yeah, you’re comin’ in, you’re gonna do this…
Yeah, we’re gonna get out there, we’re gonna sell a CD to some person we don’t know! And they’re gonna like it, and we’re gonna come visit them and play those songs to them [laughs]!
Like, that’s the dream man. We were the biggest nerds in the scene, kind of a small, tight-knit hardcore scene. We didn’t really have any success in those early years at home, like three years just kind of kicking around Michigan, being dumbasses. But, once we got this EP out on Lovelost records… and then that was the goal, to get something really pressed so that we could get reviews, then use the reviews so we could make a rap sheet that we would pitch to bigger labels.
It’s always been kind of a punk thing, and we’ve always been trying to break down the fourth wall in that way. That’s to say, we’re all equals. That’s the way I see it. There’s no show without them [fans], you know what I mean?
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Do you feel like there’s a synergy between your personality and the metal scene surrounding The Black Dahlia Murder? These DIY feelings/spirit you have inside, do you feel connected and at one? There may be some separation there, too, with a lot of drama and politics going on [in general].
I’m always staying grounded in at least checking out the underground still, keeping my finger to the pulse. One of the most rewarding things in my life, still. And now that I have a pedestal where people will listen to me about what bands to check out, I fucking love doing that. I feel like I’m giving back to the thing that made my whole life.
Yeah, you spend time and curate and find the things that you…
Yeah, that’s what I was doing before anyway, you know what I mean [laughs]? I was doing it for my own satisfaction. Doing the column with Metal Injection has been a really good look for us, even though we’re a bigger band, it’s like, “these guys do care about the underground, they did come from the underground.”
Hell [laughs], everyone from the underground loves you anyway!
I don’t know [laughs].
Well, you got all the loud people online and shit, whatever. Everyone I know at least likes The Black Dahlia Murder, at least in some capacity, whether [the band] makes them feel happy, whether they like the guitarwork, whatever reason really.
Works for me!
You know, people are always trying to define who we are, musically, different genres. Every time we appear online, it’s like a 50-comment genre battle afterwards. It’s been like that since day one, and I used to be kind of embittered about it — I just wanted to be seen as a death metal guy, and not a wannabe or some shit like that, know what I mean [laughs]? Being kind of a hard-to-pin-down thing has given this whole thing its immense life.
I think that’s kind of the point: people have a hard time trying to pin down what you guys are doing… they like it, but they can’t put a clear label on it. And, that’s the art, I think.
I didn’t see how that was going to play out to our advantage, and it really has. So, I look out in the crowd and see all walks of people. I feel like the leather-clad, longhaired conglomerate… we’re slowly chipping away at them with every album. As we get better chops, and more hair or whatever! I think as long as we can get in their ears and get one chance.
I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about the band, too. We’re lucky to be in the press next to all those big metalcore bands when that was the big thing. Really, I never predicted any of this, I never thought I’d play a fucking traveling festival, I had no idea. Then, once Metal Blade was like, “yo, we want to put you on Ozzfest” right as the second album was coming out…
You guys probably shit your pants.
We did. It’s debatable whether we were good enough to be up there, really. We were pretty young, still. But the exposure and the awareness, that was a massive turning point that started this snowball that just hasn’t stopped, or at least doesn’t feel like it.
We’ve been very fortunate and try to make good decisions, keep[ing] the band “friendship first” — we’ve had a fuckton of people through the band, but it’s hard. Our schedule is so demanding. It’s slowed down a lot — we can afford to step back a little bit — but there was a time we were gone ten months. It was gnarly, three tours butt-to-butt, we wouldn’t even go home. Just straight one to another.
People dream of that lifestyle, but there’s probably also hardships.
Ugh, it’s so grueling, you know? That’s what people don’t understand about why members leave. The brotherhood is still there, for the most part, with everyone we’ve parted with.
It taxes and asks for so much, right?
So much sacrifice. But there’s been no question in my mind, as soon as we got signed, we were going to take this thing to the hills, and we’re not going to say “no.” We don’t say “no.” If there’s a time to tour, we’re doing it. If there’s an opportunity, we’re doing it. When you come into the band, that’s the kind of credo: you’re not going to stop us from doing anything. You have to be gung-ho, ready to go, everything.
I understand how people’s priorities can change… I used to be really bitter about the people who left in the very first couple lineups, you know? And it got ugly. But I get it now, I’ve been out here so long now. Especially, just Brian and I doing this forever, the dream hasn’t changed for us. All I wanted was to make one record and have it received. And now, it’s gotten so much more exciting and big.
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Leads me to my last question: how self-critical are you? Do you pick out mistakes you make during the process of writing and criticize yourself, or do you take things in flight and flow through?
It goes both ways. Sometimes it’s so natural, I can sit down and write one song in one go. To me, that’s the key. It’s to write it and when hearing it you’re so excited about it. You’re like, “wow, this is the shit!” You just try to capitalize on that kind of… I don’t want to say beginner’s luck, but your first “go” at things.
Initial burst of creative juices?
Right, right. Every time I come back and I hear there guys and what they’ve done, it’s more exciting for me as a writer. Then there are some times when it gets dark for me, dude. Usually the beginning of an album where I’ll have a block. And it’s gotten worse with more success of the band, I feel like it’s more pressure, you know?
It’s a good pressure to have too, though — people have their eyes on you, and that’s awesome. They are waiting, hopefully, for the next piece of the puzzle. That’s so exciting. But then there’s times where it’s like, “I’ve written every terrible thing you can write, there’s nothing horrible I could say anymore, I’m going to flee to Canada and join the witness protection so my band can’t find me and kill me!”
I am very self-critical. I do a lot of re-writing, more so now than ever before. Anything I think is done, like a demo, I’ll just sit with it a lot.
So you have an intense kind of proofing process, then?
Yeah, it’s not anything like a checklist, I just do it to myself. There’s a few songs I rewrote from the new [album] because they just weren’t grizzly enough. Abysmal had a lot of really emotive… it was a cathartic album for me in a lot of ways. A lot of depressive lyrics coming from my own life; this time, I was headed that way with some songs, but then was like, “nope, blood and guts.” Tales from the Crypt, dude [laughs].
I think those are the most successful songs we have, fan-wise. I guess [they’re the] ones I like the most, too. Necrophilia, werewolves, all the staples and cliche shit. I love that shit. To me, metal is something… I love it, I respect it, I think it’s great, but I can also laugh it at it. It’s corny, there’s funny shit everywhere!
I think that’s important in life in general.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a duality to it. There’s shit I’m writing… I know it’s corny as fuck, but that’s what metal is. That’s just like, par for the course.
I enjoy trying to stay a certain course of realizing we have so many young people being into the band, and we can be the gateway to the extreme. So I kind of accept that responsibility and I try to embody what I always look for in death metal with what we do. Visually, with the album covers and shit (that’s all my department), thematically and lyrically, you know, just the stuff which excited me at 15 [years old]: definitely blood and guts. Lyrics where you read them and go fuck, dude.
And I’m so desensitized from that, now, from having my nose in death metal [for so long]. Maybe the world is more violent and more terrible than… well, maybe it’s not, maybe we’re just more aware of it because of the Internet. It’s kind of taken the piss out of death metal… now, the Internet generation is old enough that they’ve been raised on the web, they’ve seen shit porn by the time they were five. It’s a different world than getting Butchered at Birth and being like, “this is contraband, what the fuck, how can this even exist?” That was my first gory, offensive death metal record which made me feel that way.
It’s the attraction to the macabre.
Right, it’s the same reason why people like scary movies or haunted houses, it’s a healthy thing.
That’s an interesting take: the way the world is going, horror is — and essentially, death metal — less extreme.
Totally. On that note, there’s no shortage of inspiration when you look to the real world for lyrics. I think the average kid… I think they’re way more desensitized than I was, just coming up in the Internet era. It’s a Pandora’s box that everyone opens.
Well, I hope the world’s not fucked.
Ah, I think it is!
But in the meantime, I’m going to listen to good music.
Oh yeah. That’s the only thing I care about, man. I’m not a political guy. I have views and shit, but I don’t think that’s what our band is a vehicle for at all. If anything, it’s for music, it’s for an escape from reality (for me), and that’s what music is for me as a fan, too. It’s awesome, and I love it.
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Follow Strnad on Twitter and check out some pics from Friday’s tour kick-off Chicago show:
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You see a lot of these semi-lame hard rock festivals announced all the time, and here’s the lineup for a particularly interesting one. The annual Chicago Open Air festival returns from July 14-16 at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, IL, and the headliners include KISS, Korn and Ozzy Osbourne. Additionally, there’s Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, Meshuggah, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Pig Destroyer, Rob Zombie, Body Count, Lamb of God, Amon Amarth, Behemoth, Clutch, Metal Church, Code Orange and more (plus some real avoidable stuff like Falling In Reverse).
Tickets for Chicago Open Air go on sale Friday (1/20) at noon. Full lineup below.
To play a little catchup in hard rock festival world, Wisconsin’s Rock Fest goes down from 7/13-7/15 with Korn, Slayer, Rob Zombie, Megadeth, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Clutch, Ratt, Cinderella’s Tom Keifer, Lita Ford, Lit (!!), and more. Rocklahoma goes down in — you guessed it — Oklahoma from 5/26-5/28 with Def Leppard, Soundgarden, The Offspring, The Cult, Ratt, Taking Back Sunday, Zakk Sabbath, In Flames, Suicidal Tendencies, Diamond Head, and more.
Chicago Open Air — 2017 Lineup
FRIDAY, JULY 14
Kiss
Rob Zombie
Megadeth
Anthrax
Meshuggah
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Falling In Reverse
Vimic
Suicide Silence
Whitechapel
Crobot
Code Orange
Hell Or Highwater
Failure Anthem
SATURDAY, JULY 15
Korn
Godsmack
Seether
Clutch
Steel Panther
Body Count
Avatar
Mushroomhead
Metal Church
Pig Destroyer
Dragonforce
Cane Hill
Night Verses
Black Map
SUNDAY, JULY 16
Ozzy Osbourne
Slayer
Stone Sour
Lamb of God
Amon Amarth
Behemoth
Hellyeah
Demon Hunter
Kyng
Devildriver
Norma Jean
Whores
Ded
You’ve seen Ozzfest. You’ve seen Knotfest. But are you ready for… OZZFEST MEETS KNOTFEST???
That’s right. Ozzy Osbourne teams with mall-metal giants Slipknot (who have played various Ozzfests) for a joint festival this year at San Bernardino, CA’s San Manuel Amphitheater and Festival Grounds on September 24 & 25. Day 1 is Ozzfest day, with Black Sabbath headlining, plus thrash vets Megadeth, prog-metal greats Opeth, metalcore vets Hatebreed, Dave Lombardo’s new band with Locust members Dead Cross, NOLA metal vets Goatwhore, neo-thrashers Municipal Waste, Canadian death metallers Kataklysm, metallic hardcore band Nails and more.
Day 2 is Knotfest day with Slipknot headlining, Dave Lombardo’s former bandmates Slayer, Slayer’s upcoming tourmates Anthrax and Death Angel (yes, that means Metaliica is the only Big Four band not playing this weekend), more veteran thrash from Overkill, Swedish melodeath dudes Amon Amarth, and more.
Both days honor Lemmy with a Lemmy Stage. Tickets go on sale May 20 at 10 AM PST. Full lineup below.
In related news, we mentioned earlier today that you can get a deal this week through next on $20 Black Sabbath tickets at certain stops of their “final” tour.
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Ozzfest Meets Knotfest — 2016 Tour Dates
OZZFEST Line-up
Saturday, September 24
MAIN STAGE
Black Sabbath
Disturbed
Megadeth
Opeth
Black Label Society
Rival Sons
LEMMY STAGE
Children of Bodom
Hatebreed
DevilDriver
Goatwhore
Huntress
Dead Cross
NUCLEAR BLAST STAGE
Municipal Waste
Kataklysm
Nails
The Shrine
Still Rebel
KNOTFEST Line-up
Sunday, September 25
MAIN STAGE
Slipknot
Slayer
Amon Amarth
Anthrax
Trivium
LEMMY STAGE
Sabaton
Suicide Silence
Overkill
Emmure
Butcher Babies
Man with A Mission
NUCLEAR BLAST STAGE
Whitechapel
Combichrist
Death Angel
SIM
ONI