Endless Disappoint 14 - Letters to Time Allen

Would you believe me if I said I didn’t plan on making this issue?

Probably not, I swear that only 1 out of the last 3 or 4 issues was planned in any real capacity.

Still, an interview I really wanted to feature in last month’s issue didn’t come in until after it went to print; I didn’t want to just discard it and thus here we are, Issue 14.

By the time this comes out, Endless Disappointment Zine will have reached its 2nd Birthday give-or-take, so that’s pretty cool, I guess. I suppose I should take this moment and give a shout-out to Becky and the PR Team at Prosthetic Records, and Simon at For the Lost PR, for being the source of the majority of some of the cooler interviews that have graced this feeble excuse for a publication.

Anyway, shows are being booked again; better yet, shows are being booked again and may bloody-well actually take place on the prescribed date. Weird Right? Months upon Months of promoters hyping up rescheduled shows and now they get to make good on them. Which bands have died off during Lockdown? Which bands are coming out on the cusp of excellence? Mysteries, so many mysteries.

I’m probably going to take a break after this one; I know I say that to myself most issues, but I think this one could actually work out that way.

Anyway, you know the score, you’ve bought it now, you can’t return it, so enjoy the read.

No Proof-reads // No Spell-checks // No Mercy

1 - Pupil Slicer Their debut album is one of the standout UK releases of the year so far; on a side-note, my least favourite parts of horror films are scenes of torture focusing around either eyes or teeth... just saying.

5 - Dawn Rayd An interview 14 issues in the making; they have a 7” out that has since sold out but it was still a pretty rad opportunity to interview them.

17 - Defod Welsh Atmospheric Black Metal from the more active members of Merciless Savage (if your memory of UK Extreme Metal goes back far enough, they were pretty decent) 25 - Underdark We’ve interviewed them before last year before everything went to shit; fast-forward 15 months and they’ve got a new album coming out soon, are probably doing more interviews and are likely sick and tired of the same questions coming up; will it reflect in their interview? Read on to find out.....

29 - Oil Spill Texas Black Metal; stereotypes dictate that at least one reference to Oil being in any works emanating from Texas, and at least one member wearing a Cowboy Hat at all times. That’s correct right?

33 - 5 Death Metal bands that need to get in the Bin What better way to determine which Death Metal bands need to get in the Bin by getting a Guitarist in a Death Metal band to decide? Michael Brodsky from Vacuous and Thundering Hooves throws a rock at the Hornet’s Nest by listing bands who arguably need to stop it.

35 - Mastiff Northern Sludge/Hardcore rising stars talk about their favourite studios, appearing in a video game and playing bigger stages, also something about a new album out soon.

40- Would you Rather w/ James from Mastiff After months of putting it off, I finally feature a bit where I make musicians answer really stupid-ass “Would you rather” scenarios.

43 - Puzzle Corner What better way to round off an issue with two more stupid-ass Puzzles that are as difficult as they are obscure in nature?

If you told me last year that that over 15 major retailers would leave Cardiff Centre in the next 12 months, yet the two American Sweetshops would remain unscathed, I straight-up wouldn’t have believed you.. Lesson learnt: The impact of the pandemic is as inconsistent as it is devastating.

The same can be said for bands; some have fallen by the wayside having had difficulty adapting to a distanced and virtual environment, yet at the same time a few bands have sprung out the mire and achieved great stuff within the exact same timeframe, some of which never had much chance to build up much momentum pre-pandemic.

London’s Pupil Slicer very much fit in the latter; having already made some headway by gigging relatively frequently around the UK prior to the world going to shit, their debut album “Mirrors” has put them in a position where they will leave Lockdown in a far better position than they went in.

I had a chat with Katie to see how they’ve all adjusted to all this new-found attention.

Given my earlier memories of Pupil Slicer as a band, it’s not entirely unreasonable to say that the band has undergone a bit of a transformation; how do you perceive yourselves to have changed over the last 3 or so years?

Not much has changed in the last 3 years really, we finished writing the album about 3 years ago, I would say the change is in the music that we have released as we've always been behind with releasing stuff that actually reflects where we're at with writing. Some of the tracks like Husk, Wounds and Worthless have been in our live set for around 3 years as well.

Given the assumptions a band name like “Pupil Slicer” may bring up in terms of the music played, did you ever consider changing it?

I think it's a pretty funny and catchy name so even if we wanted to move away from heavier stuff one day we'd keep it.

To the Left: The older, less jazzier version of the Pupil Slicer logo.

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Your debut album “Mirrors” has been out for close to a month now, released via Prosthetic Records (who we always tend to feature a lot as their press operation is a lot more embracing than others). It seemed like things blew up overnight, and over the last few months I’ve been seeing Pupil Slicer featured in media avenues that typically wouldn’t touch such music with a barge-pole; were you ever ready or prepared for such an increase in not only attention / visibility, but also expectation as a band on the cusp of releasing something a bit special?

We didn't expect the response we got at all, we thought a couple friends in the mathcore scene would care but we didn't expect the more widespread attention we got, it's been quite overwhelming but really cool.

Let’s talk more about the album, which stands out above all-else during a time where there isn’t much to get excited about. Could you break the tracks down for us?

Thanks! I'm glad you like our album that much, personally I really enjoyed The Armed, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Knoll, Black Sheep Wall, Cult of Luna, Dreamwell and Genghis Tron's new albums this year and a bunch others that I'm probably forgetting. I think we tried to go for a pretty wide range of things just by not restricting ourselves and just writing what we wanted, it was cool to experiment with more sassy whitebelt kinda things on songs like Interlocutor, more conventional songs like Wounds and Husk and then going a bit more out of the box on tracks like Mirrors and Collective Unconscious.

With a lot of personal experiences and emotion being thrown into the mix for each song, and a lot of the band members’ identities finding their way into the record, was there ever any overwhelming emotions about how the record would be ultimately be received?

I guess when writing lyrics I was worried how things would come across and that I didn't want people to really read them but then I thought no-one would listen to the album anyway so sort of didn't care too much. Once it came out the response was really positive to everything so I didn't really get a chance to worry about how it would be received.

Mirrors, released earlier this year via Prosthetic Records Pro-Tip: If you insist on doing a “Top albums of 2021” post in December, start a draft now and just form the list around whether it’s better or worse than this.

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With a sudden surge in popularity / visbility, there comes the surge of media outlets who aren’t 100% au fait with the music; do you see a point where you grow tired of people comparing you to The Dillinger Escape Plan and Converge?

I'm not sure, I really love those bands so I appreciate the comparisons but I don't feel we're anywhere near the level to warrant those comparisons haha. I also hope in future we can form more of a distinctive and unique sound ourselves as we do draw pretty heavily from those as influences at the moment.

Whilst outlets such as Metal Hammer, Kerrang!, and Zero Tolerance are still highly regarded, I’ve begun to notice a lot more artists achieving great things without the backing of such outlets, reaching landmark events in a band’s history that typically wouldn’t be obtainable without visibility in the printed medium or on particular websites. Given being featured in such outlets these days seems to be more down to what your PR budget is, rather than the music being offered, where do you think the mainstream music press fits into a band’s development these days?

I don't know, it's been cool getting all the press and Becky (our publicist) has been an angel with getting us all the coverage and attention, I don't have anything to measure that up against to see what effect it has but surely it's a positive one.

The Pandemic has definitely been a transformative period for the band. Prior to the Pandemic, you were making a name for yourselves slowly and steadily through opening/supporting at various shows around the UK; by comparison, by the time shows start returning you’ll be an entity on the cusp of seizing different opportunities and arguably being on a better calibre of show.

I’m pretty certain you have a booking agent now too; how do you envision your return to the live scene, and more pertinent to my requirements to what extent are you open to playing a really sweaty rehearsal space show in Cardiff?

Yeah it'll be really cool to get out gigging again and I think things will probably be different to they were before seeing as we were pretty much entirely unknown even when we played our last show. It'd be really cool if we had fans come out to see us, we really love playing intimate basement kinda shows so I don't think the capacity of a show really translates to it being "better" or not, it's the experience and energy in the room that makes a show memorable. We do have an agent now and we're looking at a tour for early next year which we're really excited for.

We would play tiny DIY shows where we can, I mean that's the only thing we've ever played so far.

Prior to gigs no longer being a thing, Pupil Slicer found themselves playing with a fairly diverse range of bands across the UK; now that we’re edging ever-so closer to the return of shows again, which bands do you think we should look out for?

At the moment I'd really like to see Loathe, Static Dress, 156/Silence and The Armed, they all seem like they'd have fantastic live shows.

3

Word on the street is that there’s already preliminary works towards Album Number 2?

The word would be correct.

“Mirrors” is out now via Prosthetic Records; I think Trepanation Recordings released the album on Tape too, but I imagine that’s sold out now https://www.facebook.com/pupilslicer https://pupilslicer.bigcartel.com/ https://pupilslicer.bandcamp.com/album/mirrors

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So when I set this up, I had a list of bands I could interview easily, a list of bands that it would be dead-cool to speak to once I got a few issues done and dusted; the former list was cleared through at an alarming rate and, in restrospect, I should have rationed out between issues. The latter list however, I’ve worked through the names slowly and steadily, with Dawn Rayd being one of the last on the list.

Why Dawn Rayd? Well, I love interviews where people won’t stop talking; the Feminazgul interview from Issue 7 was a cool example of that, the Wallowing Interview from Issue 10 was another brilliant example, and more recently I swear Shayan from Trivax would far sooner have had Issue 12 solely been about him; if you’re going to take part in an interview, don’t squander it with one-line-wonder responses. I don’t know if Dawn Rayd are going to in the 8 page club, but wearing their heart on their sleeves in respect to their beliefs raises the likelihood they’ll dig deep with their answers.

Also, they have a new 7” out, that too. I’ve gone off on a tangent now, here’s there interview.

So your latest release, Wild Fire, came out on 7” not long ago. Perhaps what caught my attention first and foremost is that it’s one song that’s delivered in two separate styles, one taking the form of the Black Metal sound fans will be more familiar with, the other taking a more folkish turn (reminding me somewhat of Darken the Door off your first album). What was the driving force behind wanting to deliver one song in two styles, as opposed to your previous albums where the two styles are present but in different songs?

We wanted to do a short release to make up for not being able to tour, and this just seemed like a way to make it a bit more interesting that the standard 7” single. Also I like the idea of the angrier side and the more beautiful sides of anarchism, these ideas are both angry but also righteous and compassionate, and I felt like this reflected that.

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Wild Fire: released a few weeks back on 7” and Cassette. Pretty certain it’s already sold out. Typical.

What are the themes around Wild Fire as a song?

The song is about fascism in the music scene, specifically the black metal bands that use the imagery and ideas of the far right, but then deny being nazis when questioned. The main bands that would spring to mind here have all done this, and it always surprises me how disingenuous they all are!

In a music industry where 7” can be seen as somewhat impractical, and bands are incentivised somewhat towards working towards an album’s worth of material (either due to production/ promotion costs involved, or simply albums being more lucrative), what made you not only single out that one song, but ultimately have it released on its own?

I guess we are more interested in the creative side of it than the business side of things! We are never going to get rich from anarchist-folk-black-metal anyway, so we may as well do what we want! Ha! We would usually be on tour at the moment, so we find ourselves at a loose end, and this kept us busy and kept us in controversy's spotlight!

Was the temptation there just to nestle it away for the next album?

I think we will record a different version again for the next record, but nothing is set in stone yet.

Speaking of which..... would it be impatient to enquire into whether steps are being made towards a new album?

We are writing at the moment and have probably half a record done, but no dates or anything set yet. We are trying not to rush it.

Looking to your last album, Behold Sedition Plainsong, released in 2019. Listening to it, it was almost as if something had snapped, it was still the same Dawn Rayd, but angrier; if it was a friend I’d be dropping them a message to check if they were ok. Am I mistaken in thinking your last album seemed a lot more targeted and angry?

Yeah I wanted it to be more unhinged and angry. Less friendly and atmospheric! Things dont look any better outside of my window, so there is no shortage of things to be angry about! I am always keen not to repeat myself in any way.

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The release sees your relationship with Prosthetic Records continue; in the past I’ve seen you generally speak positively of your relationship with them; as many readers may not be aware, could you tell us about Prosthetic’s support when you were looking to raise money last year for Refugee support?

Prosthetic Records have been awesome with us. We deliver records on time and tour really hard, and they see that and reciprocate the effort. I think a lot of bands believe once they get signed to a big label it will just fall into place and they will be famous all of a sudden, but if your band doesnt work hard then the label wont work hard for you either. It's simple enough I think, if you sell records the label will be stoked. If you don't you will get dropped.

It was actually their idea, they wanted to do more special one off records, so we suggested a fundraiser for Refugee Rescue. In the end they covered all the postage costs themselves, so every penny people spent went to Refugee Rescue. They donated hundreds of dollars of their own money on top of what the sales raised, so yeah can't fault them. Everyone that works for them that we have met has been awesome too.

The folk element of your music is undoubtedly aided by the presence of the violin. With there being plenty of weird and wonderful folk instruments out there, has the temptation been out there to diversify the instruments used when factoring folk elements into your music? Pretty certain Feminazgul are in the process of writing music around all kinds of weird and wonderful folk instruments.

I would only record an instrument I can play competently. There are lots of weird instruments out there, but they are real instruments which people know how to play well, so I think it would be a bit naive to record something I wasn't properly proficient at. We do have some more synth moments on our new songs which has been cool to do, but again I wouldn't presume to just try my hand at anything.

On the subject of the Violin; I’m to understand you started from a young age. I was in a similar position and played the violin when I was younger but found myself drifting away from the instrument as I couldn’t seem to find a way for it to mesh with the music I was into at the time.

Did you ever have this problem? Were there any pieces/artists in particular that aided implementing the violin into WeCameOutLikeTigers, and subsequently carrying the work into Dawn Rayd?

Yeah that's right, I guess I've always been into folk and traditional music so violin never felt like a weird choice or anything.

Bands like I Would Set Myself On Fire For You and Godspeed You! Black Emperor were two big influences outside of folk music. Me and Fabian have been playing guitar and violin together for a while now so I guess it just feels pretty natural after a while.

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First going-off-tangent of the interview, by the time I got into Agelessness and Lack by WeCameoutLikeTigers, it wasn’t long before the band called it a day.

Given the core of WCOLT ultimately formed the framework of Dawn Rayd as we know it today, and musically the evolution between the two bands is relatively seamless, what spurred you to form a new band under an entirely different name?

Ollie, the other original member of WCOLT (that isn't me or Fabian) had to leave because he had had some other stuff going on, and we decided it wouldn't be the same band without him.

Plus no one wants to be that band that keeps limping along with fewer and fewer original members! I do feel like Dawn Ray'd is a very different band, but they both come from the same place.

WeCameOutLikeTigers - Agelessness and Lack Absolute stunner of an album and definitely worth your time. Also, that waterfall looks refreshing as fuck.

Whilst I know artists inherently favour one or the other, have you ever thought of using a viola, the sombre and heavier sibling of the Violin, for recording?

Never really, I feel like anything I could do on a viola I can also do on violin. I can pitch shift my violin, or play the same melodies just on different octaves. If I did something like that the only benefit I think would be the novelty factor. I think a good melody is the key, rather than trying to use different stuff for the sake of it. I suppose maybe I could use one for the harmonies, but I've never felt there is a viola shaped hole in the songs!

Whilst folk music in its purest form is arguably not necessarily at the forefront of many people’s minds on a regular basis, as an element in a song it can be as striking as it emotive. What do you think makes folk music so potent when blended into other genres?

I think at the time in history we are at now, so many music genres are actually quite well established, so its now quite exciting trying to mix different genres to come up with something new and exciting. We have a few elements of synth and electronica on this new record too which serves a similar purpose I think.

I think the appeal specifically of folk music though is how human it is, clean vocals and acoustic instruments are very literal, imperfect, and human, which is incredibly relatable i think, and also gives a really nice contrast to the metal side of things. There is something very simple and pure about folk I guess, that is awesome.

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I feel kind of bad wading into the Politics so soon into the interview, but I’m not one to refute Aristotle’s assertion that we are mere Political Animals, so here we are. The band’s early days unfolded during a time of widespread economic instability, and a surge of rightwing populism that can always be found sniffing at the proverbial butt of any depression/downturn. Fairly soon after you formed, the various music outlets seemed to almost lionize you as the face of music’s vocal refuting of right-wing ideology, the vocal face that seemed to embody the general mood of disdain within the metal community for right-wing ideology. How prepared were you for the increased attention?

Honestly we sought it out! We have tried to be as vocal and confrontational as possible in every situation, to make the most of the platform we have, while we have it. We were the first black metal band to pose with an antifascist action flag in a photo, the first black metal band to play Blitz in Oslo, surely the first metal band to do a feature in Kerrang with an AFA flag... we have tried to cause as much trouble as possible I guess!

Ha. Pretty soon after we started doing this in the press and at more high profile shows bands like Neckbeard Deathcamp and other antifascist bands started popping up, and a scene has pretty quickly grown.

Dawn Rayd’s feature in Kerrang, using a title from a Sepultura song from when people didn’t get pissy about politics encroaching into music. Oh how things change.

With your profile now at the point where festivals like Damnation are suitable stages for a band like Dawn Rayd, have you ever given thought to the increased likelihood of being on lineups with bands that may potentially go against your beliefs as a band?

Yes, and Damnation was a case in point. The year we played, Mgła also played, and they have had Miko Aspa sing for them, who is a known piece of shit. We thought very carefully about this, and while I don't know the politics of Mgła, it felt like it wasn't a line up of antifascist bands to say the least... Mayhem also played actually. We decided it was tactically better to play that show and talk about these ideas from the stage as we usually do, to give out literature about anarchism, and be a visible radical presence at the festival, even though there were potential nazis at the fest. If we had pulled out due to the presence of possible nazi musicians the fest would have happened regardless, and there wouldn't then be a band talking publically about radical ideas. We think it is crucial to go into spaces that these ideas dont usually permeate and provide a radical presence, I genuinely believe a radical presence at show makes the space safer for everyone who would be threatened by the ideas of the far right.

We are honestly hoping for more opportunities to be a counter to right wing bands at events like that.

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Damnation 2019: I couldn’t go, but a few mates said the atmosphere was dead weird that year. Nice that Venom Prison headlined the 2nd Stage mind

Of course, anti-fascism is not the start and end of what Dawn Rayd stands for, having made your feelings on issues such as Capitalism, the environment, migration and Police brutality. Have you ever found yourself at odds with outlets and people within the scene that relegate you to solely being an anti-fascist band?

Yeah it is slightly irksome to be labelled as only that, we are an anarchist band first and foremost, and antifascism is just a part of anarchism as far as I am concerned. But hell, whatever upsets the nazis, incels and edge lords is fine by me.

Throughout your time as a band you’ve shared a stage with a wide-array of bands that share your ideals and form as part of a network of politically-charged bands that have ultimately emboldened resistance against far-right rhetoric. In the past Endless Disappointment Zine has interviewed the likes of Ancst, Feminazgul and Underdark and discussed their ideals at length, which other bands would you want to direct our readers’ attention to?

I guess there are loads of awesome anarchist bands now, there definitely seems to be a new wave of resistance building. One of my favourite current political albums is Boltcutter by Moscow Death Brigade, they give me goose bumps and make me cry live!

In the flyer you include with your orders and have on the merchtable at shows, there is a small blurb giving guidance on further reading surrounding Anarchism. Fiction or non-fiction, are there any books you urge our readers to check out?

Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos is the best introduction to anarchism I've read, its super readable and is all about real world examples of anarchic, anti hierarchical and horizontal organising. Just real world examples of anarchism working.

For anyone flirting with the more authoritarian side of communism I would urge you to read The Kronstadt Uprising by Ida Mett.

Extra-curricular reading material time: The story of the Kronstadt Sailors is a massive downer by the way

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Dawn Rayd advocates Anarchism in place of Capitalism, which lately does feel somewhat of a dying star that will absorb everything around it before eventually imploding. Whilst I’m not looking for you to explain Anarchism to readers, or even change their minds, what misconceptions do you face most often when Anarchism is discussed against people maybe less supportive of the concept?

I think a lot of people think anything other than capitalism is unrealistic. We have been told by soil scientists that if we continue on this path we have 60 harvests left before the Earth's soil is exhausted and will struggle to support food crops. We have already seen fires, floods, droughts and extreme cold caused by climate change which is going to accelerate year on year. The amount of land that will be desert within 50 years is terrifying. We are set to lose hundreds of cities to extreme heat and desertification. The death toll is going to be unlike anything humans have seen before. You don't have to take my word on this, this information is readily available and widely supported by the scientific community.

The gap between the rich and the poor is so gross now that we have people in full time work whilst also homeless. We have seen how badly capitalist governments respond to disasters with Covid19. Capitalism is entirely unrealistic and unsustainable, it is on track to destroy every living thing on this planet. Capitalism is currently the worst possible option for us, and anarchism is the best, no authoritarian government will save us from this, as we have seen time and time again throughout history. If you think capitalism will solve anything at this point you are sorely mistaken.

Whilst some of the Anarchist collectives/networks worldwide are incredibly well-organised entities given the limited resources and expertise they have to work with, their reach and influence doesn’t go far beyond those within their collective; do you think there is anything internally that is hindering the Anarchist movement?

I think the state is incredibly fearful of autonomous groups, it is terrified of class solidarity, it is worried about the prospect of the working class abandoning racism and focusing their efforts against their true enemy, the ruling class.

In Liverpool in 1911 there was a transport strike organised by Syndicalists that brought the country to its knees, and the government sent gunboats up the Mersey with the guns pointed at the city to break the strike. If you look at the prison sentences for environmental activists compared to the prison sentences for sex offenders you will see who the state is truly worried about.

I do believe anarchists always need to reevaluate our tactics, but if you look at what the state does to green movements, or how it uses undercover cops, or how they killed the Black Panthers, what they did to anarchists during the Spanish Civil War, or Ukraine, or Kronstadt, you realise the state will use every terrible weapon it has to destroy anarchism as quickly as it can.

That said, it is not the fringe movement people think it is, the Zapatistas in Mexico are anarchists and control their own territory, Ukraine was anarchist in the 1920s, the wave of 'propaganda of the deed' anarchism was huge at the start of the 1900s, but yeah, we have been relentlessly cracked down upon by the state. Regardless, we have to keep building, and new ideas are always important!

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To derail any serious sentiment in this interview, did you ever see that interview where Tim Allen (from Home Improvement and the voice of Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story) identified himself as an Anarchist because he “doesn’t like being told what to do”?

Ha, I mean, maybe it's a start?! The idea of no laws, no rules and total selfish freedom is something that is reserved for the rich under capitalism though, anarchism means organisation, co-operation and accountability.

Tim Allen: Self-professed Anarchist. endorsed Donald Trump, Doesn’t like being told what to do, unless being told what to do involves voicing Buzz Lightyear or pleading guilty to Drug Trafficking charges.

I'll have to send him some flyers...

Going off a bit of a tangent, following the ultra-toxic events of Brexit, mention of Scottish Independence is popping up again, to the point even Welsh Independence has gained more traction in the last 5 years than it has done the 20 years prior. Such a breakup of the Union would ultimately harden borders in a way unseen for centuries, yet also a lot of the frustrations both the Scottish and Welsh face aren’t necessarily without merit. I know it’s not a binary question, and that in many ways it shares very similar parallels to the Brexit debate, but I’d be keen to hear you weigh in on the subject all the same (given F H E D resides in Wales).

I support independence struggles definitely, but I guess in a critical way; in the face of oppression I will always side with oppressed. I dont want to see any capitalist government in power, but to see the British Empire disrupted is always satisfying... If Wales could be an autonomous zone then i would totally be on board!

The last few years have seen a promising amount of activism in the UK and overseas, the most noteworthy I suppose in the UK’s minds being BLM’s activity over the last year, as well as campaigns towards trans-rights making progress, all on top of various causes that may be in the public eye at any given time. With a lot of these campaigns looking to draw their support from roughly the same supporter-base, do you grow concerned that people may get burnt-out from it all and potentially disconnect as a result?

Burn out is important to be aware of, but these big flash points bring in huge amounts of people into movements, and young people are more radical at the moment than the generations that have preceded them. School kids are more aware of trans rights than their teachers often are, I am really hopeful for the future and do believe revolutionary movements are growing rapidly as the world gets worse.

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To look at the situation from another perspective, one point that draws criticism (especially from those who denounce the tactics as a means of denouncing the message itself) is when people become over-reliant on internet-activism, which does risk cultivating an echo-chamber on any given matter. Whilst sharing the message online is definitely a way of mitigating burnout, to what extent do you think it hinders the message being spread?

I think getting information out is important, and the internet has made that a lot easier, but it has to translate into real world action. This information is useless if we don't do anything with it.

Whilst your stance on politicians is one I’m sure is clear to all readers of this articles, and ultimately the public’s overall distrust of politicians isn’t without virtue, one of Labour’s MPs recently took a dig at “social media warriors” on the basis the causes they advocate have in turn detached them from issues that are of immediate concern to the working-class. Discuss.

I do think class solidarity is ultimately one of the most important things to focus on.

Understanding privilege is important, but the aim of identity politics shouldn't be to have more marginalised people in the Board Room, but to help us burn the board room down together!

The Black Panthers realised that we are all so much stronger when we are all united, which is why they built the Rainbow Coalition. The material interests of working class white people and working class people of colour are the same, and by working class I mean anyone who is forced to work for a wage to survive. The more we are divided by race and gender the more easy we are to subjugate. Capitalism seeks to isolate us, we just fight that with solidarity!

Left-wing ideology can house a wide range of beliefs, some of which I have found have been bickering amongst themselves for a few years now. To what extent do you think that left-wing ideology is hindered somewhat by in-fighting over what issues take priority?

Man, this is always a weird question. When I see tankies (Stalinists and authoritarian communists) killing anarchists I dont see that as infighting, it is just the state trying to crush resistance.

When we see The Labour party call for more deportations, more police, increased privatisation of public services, aggressive interventionist wars in the middle east, I don't see that as a division within 'the left' because I dont see myself on the same side as the Labour Party. The campaign promises of Corbyn's Labour party promised to reduce the amount of migrants who could come to this country from what the Tories had set it at; they are not on our side. I am an anarchist, not a leftist, not a communist, not a liberal. If there are disputes between these ideas it is because they are not all on the same side. I have nothing in common people who will enforce a border, run a jail, control the police. It's not infighting if you were never on the same side.

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Whilst there are countless instances of working-class solidarity over the years, it seems almost as if the last decade has seen the working class weaponised to reinforce a right-wing agenda; do you see a way of rectifying that?

I honestly think Labour has had a huge hand in that. It claimed to represent the working class, then sold them out time and time again, pushing them into the welcoming arms of the right wing.

We have to build strong communities; look at what happened in Glasgow last week when people stopped the immigration van from deporting refugees! It was so inspiring to see. It is easy to be condemnatory of the working class, but there are so many examples of solidarity, resistance and struggle, we just don't see that in the right wing press!

Dawn Rayd at the plaque commemorating the Battle of Lewisham; one of many Working Class resistances against right-wing ideology the Daily Mail doesn’t like to bring up

This interview I concede has been a lot of doom and gloom, so to end it on a positive note is there anything you’re optimistic about for the future?

I am so optimistic about the future. Younger generations are more radical than ever before, and history shows that the harder you push people, the harder they fight back. The BLM movement at one point was calling for the abolition of the police, unfortunately liberals managed to derail it by turning it into 'defund the police', then 'vote Democrat', but what can you expect from liberals! But to think that was a huge, televised, mainstream demand at one point is amazing!

What progress! And every time left wing parties sell is out they only consolidate the resolve of revolutionaries, they push people further from capitalism into revolutionary politics. There have been some amazing acts of antifascism this year, some heart warming refugee solidarity work, we have so much power, so much potential, and we are foolish to think its all doom and gloom. The day we realise how strong we are, the day we realise we don't need a government to provide our basic needs, is the day the government can no ignore the banging at their palace gates. I sincerely believe we can win, because I really dont think we have any choice.

Dawn Rayd’s latest 7” Wild Fire is out now via Prosthetic Records Pretty certain it’s sold out now, but it’s still a good listen whether you have it in physical form or not.

Previously in the interview I mentioned their flyer they hand out at shows and with merch orders; if you haven’t seen it, it’s over the page in a very patchy scanned-form https://www.facebook.com/dawnrayd/ dawnrayd.bandcamp.com

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You’re not going to see a more appropriate time than the last year and a half to set up a one-man project or studio project, the abundance of free-time and freedom from some of life’s more consuming commitments making for a perfect environment to air out the various riffs and concepts you jotted down a few years back (only to immediately cringe when reading them and start afresh).

Of course there is no safer harbour for one-man projects than the Black Metal scene, where solo-projects are the norm for a menagerie of reasons ranging from inability to find appropriate band-members, to the lead member being fundamentally unlikeable. Wales has seen a few of their own pop up lately, the handful of projects starting up being sufficient to effectively double Wales’ Black Metal output over the lockdown period.

Entrenched in myth and legend, Defod speaks less of Welsh identity and is more driven by the landscapes and monuments that adorn Wales’ hills and Valleys (so long as you know where to look for them). Their latest recordings were also pretty agreeable, so it was only really a matter of time before I either released something by them or featured them in the zine.... turns out in this case I did both.

So Defod came about off the back of your original project Merciless Savage being brought to an end. Despite being active with a few releases in the last few years, the band itself hadn’t played live for quite some years and this was cited in your final post for the band. What factors contributed to you bringing the band to a close and were there any frustrations in the run-up regarding the activity of the band?

I made the decision to pack up Merciless after a very long spell of public inactivity, with regards to playing live, however there had been considerable ongoing efforts to get the band moving again, trying out different members, having rehearsals ect. but these ultimately led to nowhere. It was difficult in some ways because I’d written tracks, recorded, self released then I’d even tab everything out, but there was always something else in the way, or a lack of enthusiasm.

I’d become completely drained and frustrated with the effort, and felt like the band had died a long time ago, and I was just lying to myself that it would eventually get going again. It became a question that I hated hearing “when will Merciless play again” or “have you found a drummer yet” and it just felt like I needed to get away from it and start fresh with something else.

Looking to more present times, what did you look to accomplish with Defod that Merciless Savage couldn’t provide?

I wanted to have a new project that had no expectations, where I could enjoy the creative process again. Choosing to write an EP and record it all myself gave me that creative freedom, where I wasn’t working to anyone else’s limitations or tastes. I also wanted a bit of a thematic change from Merciless, so I was able to turn my focus to our history, heritage and landscapes, and draw on the immense and deep influence and inspiration that flows into me from certain sites of archaeological significance in our land.

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I recall when we first started talking you learnt to play drums from scratch rather than rely on a proficient drummer making themselves known. Bravo.

Thanks, it’s certainly been a challenge to get to where I wanted to be with my drumming. I’ve always played a bit, but I was never proficient. I actually did a couple of test recordings about six months ago, and there’s a massive difference between playing along to something, or just messing around, and actually sitting down, trying to play consistently and well, and then recording it. I was disappointed with those results, which spurred me on to keep up the practising when I could, and I eventually got to the point where I am now. I’ve still got a long way to go; my foot speed isn’t where I would like it to be for example, but I’m glad to be at a point where I can, to a greater or lesser degree, play what I want to play.

With your work strongly influenced by the landscapes and ancient monuments of North Wales, what sets it apart from anywhere else in the UK that has natural beauty?

We have a massive range of environments in North Wales, from long sandy beaches, dramatic mountains, to rolling hill ranges and rich and deep forests, and in amongst these we have sites of significant archaeological interest, such as Neolithic burial chambers, bronze age copper mines, iron age hillforts or even medieval towns and castles. It’s also much less densely populated. Right now the population of Wales is approximately a third of that of the Greater London area alone, or looking more broadly, it’s less than five percent of the population of the UK. This means that it’s not hard to get away from civilisation and find yourself surrounded by wild and untamed, undeveloped land.

For a more specific example, there’s a beautiful tenth century carved stone cross in a field that’s a few miles away from where I live, that is clearly inspired by Norse patterns and designs, and it’s stood there for a thousand years. There aren’t many places in the world like that, and that’s one of the reasons why I find it so powerful and inspiring.

Out of curiosity, which ancient monuments do you refer to?

Some of the places that I draw the most inspiration from are the Neolithic sites, such as Capel Garmon burial chamber, which features on the cover of the ‘Cerryg Hynafol’ EP, or the various dolmens on Anglsey; Bodowyr, Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres burial chambers are the most prominent in my mind. Bryn Celli Ddu is a very special site to visit, as it still has it’s mound, so you can move through the chamber as it was originally built. Barclodiad y Gawres has a modern rebuilt mound, but the passage tomb below is in it’s original format, and houses some incredible Neolithic carved rock art. I do enjoy visiting sites from other periods, but these are the places that really resonate with me the most.

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To what extent is a sense of Welsh identity interwoven into Defod’s work?

It’s definitely a big part of it; the name Defod is the Welsh word for ritual or ceremony, ‘Cerrig Hynafol’ translates to ancient stones, and there are a few track titles in Welsh also.

Unfortunately, especially within black metal, celebrating one’s culture and heritage can often be mistaken for the wrong kind of national pride, however I think it’s important to celebrate your cultural heritage, and this can be done constructively, without having to shit on other people’s culture in the process. Globalisation has levelled a culturally diverse world, and concreted over it, just to build more Mc Donald’s and Amazon warehouses. Now more than ever, it’s vital to learn about your cultural heritage and celebrate it, keep it alive, and share it.

Your latest release “Cerrig Hynafol” came out a few months back, and I’ve since had the privilege of re-releasing it in physical format. For those who don’t know, could you break down the EP for us track-by-track?

‘Heneb’ means monument, and this song is about the building of a burial chamber. It’s pretty straightforward, and I feel it sets the tone and intention of the EP. I tried to create two complimentary parts to this to reflect the union of life and death, the building and the purpose of the funerary monument. One half is vivid and alive, the other is much darker and subtle.

‘Olwyn’ translates to wheel. With this track I wanted to explore my feelings about the cycles of life, and how these are reflected in our daily lives. ‘Life upon life/ like stone upon stone/ built on the past/ foundations of home/ Flesh is the mortar/ holding together/ sacred stone monuments/ lasting forever’. These lyrics reflect how I see the connection between building these burial chambers or stone circles, and how societies and cutures develop and grow. Also it explains my thoughts about connections between individuals, laid together like bricks, side by side, with the past below us and the future yet to be laid down on top of us. It also touches on the strength found in unified culture and purpose ‘One footstep alone cannot carve very deep/ but the sides of the valley of many are steep’ ‘Raising the Monolith’, ‘Cau’r Bedd’ and Portal form a triptych. Starting with ‘Monolith’, this instrumental is meant to inspire visions from the past, of the toil and cooperation to cut, move and place megaliths. It’s very rigid in it’s structure and form musically, which ties in with the theme of the piece. ‘Cau’r Bedd’ means closing the grave, and it’s a period of reflection; once the grave has been built and the ceremonies performed, the grave is closed. ‘Portal’ is more of a cosmic view on the post-life experience, and I leave it up to the listener to take from it what they will. Whether or not you believe in life or consciousness after death, the atoms that made up the person will persist in other forms and in other places, so the grave is a portal to the infinite.

‘Llwybr Hynafol’ means ancient paths. If you go to certain places in the hills and mountains you can see where stone has been worn down by generations and generations of people walking those same pathways. Just like lightning will work its way from cloud to earth, or a river will cut it’s way from peak to sea, these human pathways we see now are like a reflection of nature in man, and to walk these paths is to connect to those who have walked before and to persist for those who have yet to walk them.

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The Welsh language is a strange entity, even in Wales; whilst not commonly used in most of Wales, many hold a historical connection to the language in light of the UK’s historical attempts to undermine and eliminate the language. As a very poetic and romantic language, what are your feelings towards the Welsh language and it’s role in modern-day Wales?

Dwi’n dal dysgu, a mae dal gen i llawer o ymarfer i wneud, ond dwi’n trio defnyddio Cymraeg yn fy cerddoriaeth, achos dwi’n meddwl bod mae’n bwysig i gwybod am eiwch hanes a diwylliant chi.

It’s definitely more common in North Wales, and it’s certainly enjoying a resurgence in popularity. Like I’ve already said, cultural identity is important, especially now in a globalised west, and I think more people are choosing to connect with their heritage by learning the language, which is really encouraging for the future of cultural identity in Wales.

Speaking of modern-day Wales, I’ve already asked one other band in this zine about their thoughts on it: Welsh Independence. Discuss.

Firstly, I will stress that this is a very political question, and Defod is not a political entity.

Speaking as an individual, I am hopeful for an independent Wales in future, as I believe that governance works best from a more localised point. Looking back to those figures I mentioned earlier about population proportions, Wales is never going to be a high priority in Westminster.

Some of the Welsh myths and legends are downright excellent too, don’t suppose you’re familiar with any of them?

Absolutely! It’s a shame that there aren’t more surviving from pre-Roman Britain, however an invading force bent on eradicating a native population tends to have the effect of eliminating stories from an oral tradition. I have read the Mabinogion a few times, and have considered doing some work based on it, but it’s a very difficult subject to translate into something I’d be happy with, so that one’s still firmly in the ‘maybe’ pile.

Arthurian legends are also linked strongly with Wales, and I’m very fond of those. In fact, the inner tray picture on the EP is a picture I took of Merlin’s Cave in Tintagel, Cornwall. This place also has links to the Tristan and Iseult myth too.

Another band that does extremely well with covering some of those topics is ‘The Wolves of Avalon’ (Featuring Metatron from Meads of Asphodel), definitely worth checking out if you have an interest in that kind of stuff.

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Word is you’ve started preliminary efforts to form a live version of the band, recruiting a member of Hecate Enthroned, a band with a wealth of experience and contributions to UK Black Metal spanning decades. Whilst such experience inherently brings value to any situation, how have you found it most beneficial?

Nige played with me in Merciless Savage, and we always had a great time. He’s an incredible guitarist and musician, and I’d be happy to play with him again in Defod if it all worked for everyone. His success with HE was never a factor in us playing together, and everything we ever did was from the perspective of what we were doing as a band at that time, so it was never used to open any doors or anything like that. Both Nige and Dylan have given me good advice, especially after being approached by a few labels regarding Defod, so it’s definitely handy to have friends who know a lot more about the music industry than you do!

Realistically, when can we expect to see Defod as a live entity? Have there been any discussions or any you happy to make the most of the time as a studio project for now?

Right now it’s just me, and I’m happy with that. I don’t want to get bogged down with trying to make things work, or having to have the enthusiasm for four people. It’s really easy for me to collect my thoughts and write something, then start making demos, and I’m not sure I’m ready to give that up just yet. That being said, if the right people came along, with the same enthusiasm and vision, then I’d absolutely be up for playing some gigs.

What else does the future hold for Defod?

There is a new single that was just released, called ‘Efydd’ (Bronze) that’s available on Bandcamp right now (name your own price), which will feature on a full album that’s in the works.

It’s due out this summer on CD with Cavernous Records. I also have something in line for a cassette release, but this hasn’t been announced yet, so you’ll have to wait for that.

Diolch yn fawr iawn am yr questions!

Defod’s latest single “Efydd” is now available via their Bandcamp Page https://defod.bandcamp.com/ The reissue of “Cerrig Hynafol” is out now via F H E D on CD and Cassette form via the below link www.FHED.Bandcamp.com For more information about Defod and upcoming recordings follow the links below https://www.facebook.com/Defod IG: DefodBand

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Thundering Hooves - Vestiges “A welcome reminder of why we all fell in love with the darker side of Metal in the first place” NoCleanSinging.com

“This is the real deal” ScreamBlastRepeat.com

“an unholy Satanic inner sanctum worthy of multiple pilgrimages” extremeundergroundmetal.com

Out now on CD and Cassette exclusively via F H E D Available via www.FHED.Bandcamp.com

Vacuous - Katabasis

Crushing Death/Doom Metal FFO: spectral voice, Autopsy, Incantation, Of Feather and Bone

“Disgustingly Awful and needs to be heard by all” Cvlt Nation

“A Thundering Onslaught on the listener’s ears” Cavedweller Music

an unadulterated blast of nasty death metal Screamblastrepeat.com

Still available in limited quantities on 12” Black Vinyl Available via www.fhed.bandcamp.com and the following distributors

Extremely Rotten Productions (Europe) Rotted Life (North America) Dry Cough Records (UK / Europe) Bitter Loss Records (Australia) Me Saco Un Ojo (UK/Europe) Crypt of The Wizard (london)

So we’ve already got the UK’s best example of Black Metal fighting back against right-wing idealogy featured in this issue, so let’s go all-in and get another superb instance of Black Metal in the UK resisting the shittier elements of Black Metal.

I interviewed them last year before, a lot has changed has since then. Not only have they released their first new material in several years at the tail-end of 2020, they have a new release out soon, a proper booking agent AND a proper PR agent overseeing their next release. We’ve got Abi, Underdark’s vocalist, on hand to check in with Underdark related business.

So our last interview took place around February last year; despite the general backdrop of futility around the time the interview took place, there was a quiet sense of optimism for the future as promoters/labels/bands all pushed forward against the odds. Fast-forward a year and we are in a pandemic-induced Hellscape that we see no immediate end for; what’s changed in the Underdark camp since last year and what’s stayed the same?

That’s tough to say. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes, but due to the pandemic it also feels like it’s been in suspended animation a little. We’ve started writing some new songs, that’s something.

Whilst Underdark hail from Nottingham; one thing that seems to be consistent over the last year is that each city in the UK has experienced their own unique impact over lockdown, how has Nottingham and the surrounding communities been hit by lockdown?

I live in Leicester personally, and it fucking sucked to be honest. We got hit by the pandemic worse than most cities, and so the lockdown was relentless. For me personally, it’s not been so bad because I don’t like leaving the house much anyway, but it’s even started to stress me out.

What music has sustained you over the last year?

New records from Dessa, City Morgue, and Jesu. I’ve been checking out a lot of folk music too, especially songs about the mines.

Aside from the prospect of returning to a more-manageable Hellscape like we saw in 2019, what keeps you optimistic for the future aside from Gigs happening again?

I miss art galleries so fucking much. I was lucky enough to get to a Kristof Kintera exhibition last year when things eased up a bit but it’s not nearly as much as I’d have liked. My partner is an artist, so that’s something we really enjoy together.

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On the subject of gigs happening again, your return to the live-sphere could happen as early as late-July; is there any uncertainty or apprehension in terms of returning to live-shows?

Blowing my voice out. I always go too hard at gigs and it’s usually fine but after mostly a year on the shelf..... I’m worried. Gimme the vocalzone.

Over the last year in the UK we’ve seen shows being booked and rebooked repeatedly, even in the absence of any assurance that the shows would actually go ahead, or that if the shows went ahead that people wouldn’t be put in harm’s way unnecessarily. To what extent do you think the conduct of promoters/festival organisers has somewhat exacerbated the burnout fans have faced?

The cynic in me says that they want to keep their names in the public mind, and this is their way of doing that. More charitably, I can understand the optimism, wanting to hit the ground running as soon as possible. To answer the question, I could definitely see it making the burnout worse. I know I got pretty fed up with seeing a sick gig announced and then get cancelled.

Taking into account the bottleneck formed as a result of shows not happening for over a year, and a lot of high-profile tours/events being booked within a relatively short window of time that will draw consumer’s attentions closer to higher-profile events, how long do you think it will be before we see local scenes rebuilding again?

Fuck knows. There’s not really a roadmap for this, it's kind of unprecedented. I think a lot of people are very loyal to their scenes, to an extent where they might eschew bigger gigs in lieu of going to something local, although that might just be my optimism talking.

Of course we can’t carry out an interview with Underdark without getting a little bit political; a lot has gone on the last year, instead of posing it as a question I’m just going to straight-up ask you to rant on what’s been shit and what gives you hope?

What can you say about the state of affairs that hasn’t already been said? It seems like every week something else shit happens and people just let it wash over them. It’s a major bummer, but what gives me hope is how good the digital infrastructure turned out to be - how much working can be done remotely. Somewhere amid the deluge of shit that was 2020, there’s a blueprint for a more environmentally sound way of working, with less stress placed on the workforces, and with the commute eliminated for so many, that’s free time that can be dedicated to artistic pursuit, activism, or something else that each person deems worthy. A better world is possible.

Anyway, enough speculation, this is a music-zine not an opinion Podcast. Towards the tail-end of last year you put out your first EP in close to 2 years, which featured a re-recording of “With Bruised and Bloody Feet” off your debut EP “Mourning Cloak”, as well as a cover of Plainsong by The Cure. Were there any key factors that influenced revisiting an old song from Underdark’s early days, as opposed to releasing a new song?

Honestly, writing new songs takes ages and I was anxious to have *something* out that had me singing on it. The lads probably have better thought-out reasons than me to be fair.

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The Cure’s back-catalogue is loaded with bangers, who picked out Plainsong specifically as a cover-track?

I was the one who pushed for Plainsong.

Disintegration was the first Cure album I bought and for ages I didn’t listen to all of it, I just rinsed Plainsong on repeat for like a month because it was so beautiful to me. I also thought it’d sound great in our style, which is why I suggested it when we talked about doing a cover.

To the Right: Plainsong / With Bruised and Bloody Feet, Underdark’s first new material since their split with Antre in 2008

In an unexpected turn, Underdark recently confirmed the release of your debut full-length “Our Bodies Burned Bright on Re-Entry”. Whilst most fans will appreciate this release has been a few years in the making, when did work finish-up on the album? Have you been sitting on it long?

The album was finished in 2019, but then remastered again in 2020. They band did have a version ready to go with the previous singer before they parted ways, and when I came on board we had to go back into the studio to record my vocals, and I wrote new lyrics for it all. All told, we haven’t been sitting on this incarnation of it very long, but there have been several times since about late 2018 (I think) when there was a finished album that could have been released.

In our last interview you alluded to the songs being more intricate with the intention of driving a narrative through your sounds; are we in for any surprises?

In terms of writing the music, you’re best off asking the musicians. I will say, as someone who joined the band with all the arrangements and music for the album written, the way the parts flow together do tend to lead a listener, it made writing lyrics to fit them a real joy, all my favourite lyricists are storytellers, I try to be one myself.

With the album not being out for another few months, aside from being more experienced, how do you think it compares to your original EP (aside from having a new vocalist, of course).

Much more intricate guitar work. It’s a lot harder too. The dreamy parts are still there but there’s a lot more intensity to the sound. This is the one where we blow the doors off.

To the Right: Our Bodies Burned Bright on Re-entry It’s probably going to be rather good.

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Whilst “Coyotes” is available as a teaser track, the album itself doesn’t drop for another month or so; in anticipation for its release could you break down the tracks individually for readers?

In short Qeres is a dramatic retelling of a night when a close friend of mine attempted suicide. It’s about seeing someone you love at such a low point and trying to find anything that will convince them that it’s worth it to get up and fight.

The title track, Our Bodies Burned Bright On Reentry, is another story of a song, this is about when someone very dear to me visited from Canada while I was in the middle of an opiate withdrawal - shaking hands, itching, the whole nine yards. It’s the most personal song on the record, and probably the most vulnerable writing that I’ve released to the public. In case you’re worried, everything is fine now, I don’t do that stuff anymore.

Coyotes is about the unremitting misery going on at the Mexico/US border. Some stuff I mention in it that hasn’t really gone to press is how Americans will often border hop for affordable medicine and healthcare treatments in Tijuana and smaller border towns. You can walk down the street in Juarez or Nogales and there’s just rows and rows of pharmacies. I just thing it’s quite hypocritical to denigrate and decry Mexican migrants to the US, only to turn around and engage in medical tourism.

With Ashen Hands Around Our Throats was inspired by the Grenfell tower fire in 2017. By the time I wrote the song it was a two year old issue, and the fact that it’s now been four years and there’s still so much up in the air is disgusting to me. It’s also, in a broader sense, about the way that property laws mean that landlords can get away with putting unsafe properties on the market. It’s my opinion that the applicable laws are weighted far too heavily in favour of the landlord, and it only serves to strangle social mobility and trap people in poverty.

Skeleton Queen is about burnout. In my life I’m the singer of Underdark, a novelist, a writer-for-hire, and I work full time. This doesn’t leave a lot of time for me to do social things or be a human, and the question I explore in the song is “do I burn myself out chasing my creative goals, or do I accept a compromise that leaves me artistically unfulfilled”. La reina de los huesos (ie, the “queen of bones”) is a character I invented who had destroyed herself trying to answer this. I hope it’s a fate I can avoid in real life.

Most importantly: Does it have Riffs though?

Fuck yeah man.

Whilst even the best laid schemes of Mice and Men often fall short, it’s always nice to have a general view of how you want the future to play out long-term; aside from the usual goals of playing more shows, what’s the band looking to achieve now that normality is in eye’s reach?

Play shows further afield - I’ve never played anywhere outside of western Europe, it’d be really amazing if we could play all over the world. I’m also really interested in multimedia, so it would be fun to make videos, maybe even write a novella or something to accompany the next album.

“Our Bodies Burned Bright on Re-Entry” will be released July 30th via Surviving Sounds (UK), #Through Love Records (Europe) and Tridoid Records (USA / Canada). https://underdark.bandcamp.com/

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There is no real competition between US and European Black Metal; that being said, they are two very different entities and artists like Pan-Amerikan Native Front, Wolves in the Throne Room, Abigail Williams and Spectral Voice are classic examples of how Black Metal can be really interested when removed from it’s cold and dreary European sources.

Oil Spill, who I came across by utter accident, are probably one of my preferred US Black Metal spottings as of late; sure it’s Black Metal, but the Sludge and Psychadelic elements made their debut EP “Ashlands” a very spicy offering.

Did I want to speak to them as a result?

You’re damn right I did.

Despite nearing your 2nd Anniversary as a band, I suppose it’s been a hard time to be a new band the last year or so. How much has it sucked that you’ve not really been able to play shows, or for that matter partake in a lot of activities that are integral to a band finding themselves and getting themselves out there.

Patrick: We were playing upwards of three shows a week in Denton and Dallas prior to the pandemic.

We also had two tours booked. One in Texas, and one up to the East coast of the US. The pandemic caused us to cancel both tours, which we were upset about. It definitely put a halt to the momentum we had been building at home.

Charles: It was pretty soul-sucking, honestly. I felt like we were riding high and really had something going as a band, but I’d like to think some day we’ll be able to gain that momentum again.

Maybe it’s the British stereotyping of Texas, but am I to assume there’s a subtle jab at your home-state in the name Oil Spill?

Patrick: It crossed our minds! The industry is ubiquitous where we’re from. Guess it kinda rubs off on you!

Charles: Yeah, I mean it’s never really been something we’ve been vocal about, but I don’t think we would have even thought to name out band Oil Spill if we weren’t Texas-based.

Cards on the table: I saw the artwork for your debut EP Ashlands and immediately assumed it was a straight-up US Black Metal release. I think it was about 1:24 of first track “The Great Black Pit” that I realised the extent to which I was wrong, there’s sludge riffs and psychadelic elements in there too that make for a really intriguing listening experience. I don’t think many people have interviewed you yet as a band so I can get in there before the question is done to death, but what artists did you draw influence from when putting together the Oil Spill sound.

Patrick: We pull influence from metal bands, but from other genres as well. The band’s members actively play and/or have played in groups of different genres including doom metal, synth punk, no wave, power violence, industrial, IDM, free improv, experimental, shoegaze, folk rock, Cajun music, soundtrack music, and classical, among others.

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Imran: I find myself frequently thinking of Darkthrone, Hellhammer, Aluk Todolo, Oranssi Pazuzu and Blut aus Nord in our current songs, but yes, I think that everything you absorb through listening subtly influences your sound in ways that can’t easily be defined.

Charles: Personally when I’m co-writing riffs for Oil Spill I’m not consciously thinking about other artists or guitarists, but more so considering what could make each track or performance more enjoyable or interesting for me as well as the listener. Just piggy-backing off of what Patrick said, our multi-genre background has made it fun for us to bring different ideas to the table.

Patrick: Yeah a lot of times the music writing process feels a lot more visceral rather than something consciously done to "be metal". Tremolo picking, blast beats, distortion, and screeching lyrics, for example, are just one of many possible tools to create a soundscape or communicate a feeling or idea.

With the genre becoming more broadly acceptable as a genre, there are instances of artists who utilise Black Metal influences without really holding much regard for the origins of the genre; I suppose it draws similarities to the waves of Punk Rock bands who hold little to no regard for the Sex Pistols.

What’s your relationship with Black Metal? Are there any releases or bands that got you into the genre?

Mik: I started listening to black metal around 2001. Actually, Cradle of Filth was the gateway and then I found all the Norwegian bands shortly afterwards. Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse, Mayhem's De Misteriis Dom Sathanas, Enslaved's Bloodhemn, and a few others were some of the first albums that really got me into the genre. A couple of years later I started college in the city I was living in (Barcelona/Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela) and met my two friends Mariana and Nataly there, who were both in a symphonic black metal band called Cerberoth, for whom I ended up being "roadie" at local shows and hung out with them often. I didn't get to play in a black metal band myself until 2006 when I was living in Bryan, TX, with a band called Casuist (playing guitar).

Patrick: I first started listening to black metal via Headbanger’s Ball circa 2004 when they played the music video Dimmu Borgir’s “Progenies of the Great Apocalypse”. I was listening to lots of metal around that time, both extreme and otherwise. Once I started finding out more about psych, jazz, prog, 20th century classical music, and shades of rock music (and music in general) that included elements of these styles, I didn't deep dive into the more genre-bending sides of extreme metal until maybe a few years later starting with bands like Mr. Bungle.

Elaine: I grew up listening to black metal via my mom!

Imran: I would’ve found black metal in the early stages exploring the various branches of “heavy” music online in 2010 or so, probably starting with Dimmu Borgir, Celtic Frost, Mayhem and the like.

The forward-thinking edge I found in bands like Enslaved, Ulver, and Blut aus Nord (especially the “777” Trilogy) and Krallice over the next year were a huge revelation and deeply influenced my listening habits.

Looking at Black Metal in the USA compared to the output in Europe, whilst Europe tends to have a broad range of bands and takes on Black Metal overall, by comparison the USA has spawned some of the most captivating artists in the genre, including the likes of Wolves In the Throne Room, Liturgy and Abigail Williams. Not wanting to make this a big-old territorial pissing contest, but how would you compare the two? Can you even compare the two?

Imran: It's funny you say this; while of course you’ll find incredible and boundary-breaking artists anywhere if you dig deep enough, I’ve always thought that European bands were more likely to push that envelope. Come to think of it, I suppose there’s a constant ebb and flow of ideas and inspiration flowing between the continents as of the turn of the millennia (thanks, Internet!). At this point, things seem broken down more into regional “scenes” that serve as a way for certain styles to develop and (usually) bring new influences and ideas to the global table; the atmospheric Cascadian scene, dissonant and progressive French scene, and psychedelia/dark wave-influenced Polish & Finnish scenes being good examples of this. It’s just one big global melting pot of sounds and influences, otherwise.

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With not much being known about you necessarily as a band, could you break down the tracks for your debut EP Ashlands?

Great Black Pit Imran: until we numbered and then named the songs, this one was “the punk one” - the most straightahead song of the three with the contrast of having our longest fully improvised section.

Patrick: I feel like when people have called us "punky" black metal, that this is the one they are thinking of, but that sound also breaks pretty quick and suddenly after the second repetition of the first couple of sections.

Bloodshed Obsession Imran: this started out as the “space one” but over time became the longest and most multifaceted of the tracks - it contains the longest “ambient” section to date as well followed by a moshable midpaced stomp.

Patrick: The "ambient" section is a highly textured section that we embellish even more so when we play live and also add more elements of free improv.

Trepidation Imran: The first song we wrote together; a fear-inspired song that alternates between a frantic pace (read: average black metal) and a sludgy dirge before slowing to a crawl and concluding in a wall of drone.

Patrick: A couple of the riffs were also pulled from some jams I did with our friend Brandon (drummer; has played in local bands Cerulean Giallo, Visceral Cuts, among others) when we were jamming and trying to start a band. This was a few years before Oil Spill came together.

I read something about it being released in a small-amount on tapes in Sega-Genesis cases (or Mega Drive for European audiences). Please don’t tell me there are now 20-30 Genesis games that are missing a case now?

Patrick: Our friend at Left Hand Path Tapes who put out the tape acquired the boxes from a vintage video game store that had some extras laying around.

Charles: I can’t think of a single friend of mine that still plays Sega-Genesis games, but I can think of a few that listen to Oil Spill....

Miguel: I actually have a mini-Sega Genesis that plays regular cartridges… but I do believe those cases were game-less like Patrick said, ha.

Having seen them though, they do look awfully snazzy.

Thank you! Again, credit to LHPT. What do you think fuels our fascination with either implementing obsolete formats or leftfield gimmicks when it comes to physical releases of music these days?

Patrick: I love old formats. I think it’s part nostalgia for me, but also just something I grew up with and have continued to enjoy over the years. However, I don’t think any of these older mediums are truly “obsolete”. It all depends on what your intent is in the medium that you choose, be it cassette, vinyl, CD, digital files, laser disc, whatever.

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Left Hand Path Tapes: The True MVP of the Cassette Packaging Game. I don’t even know them, but I love them, whoever they are

Charles: Left Hand Path (Will Mecca) has always been really creative with packaging for releases, so if memory serves me right, he just kind of told us he was doing the Sega packs. I was on board from the start, thankfully he didn’t ask me to help him find the packages with him because I don’t know shit about where to find Sega cases. Sure, it’s a little gimmicky, but it’s fun to think a few folks are happy to have Ashlands in that “rare” packaging.

Miguel: I agree with the nostalgia factor Patrick mentioned. I grew up with a Sega Genesis and listening to tapes, so all of it for me has a special charm to it :)

With the EP getting some nice recognition, and Cvlt Nation thinking quite highly of you, where are you in the process with regards to follow-up recordings?

Patrick: We are currently working on new material. Some songs are in-progress, and others are being polished in practice. Some are just concepts, thoughts, or outlines and have not been written out or generally materialized yet. We are aiming to have these songs ready to be recorded for a full length album. Since our singer, Elaine, is moving out of Texas, we will be focusing on writing and trying to record for the rest of the year rather than trying to play more shows Imran: COVID slowed our writing process to halt so we only have a couple of unrecorded songs so far, but that will be starting up again along with the rest of the world. Ideas are always flowing...

Charles: It will be interesting from this point on as us instrumentalists write new material in Texas and send it over to Elaine in New York, but if nothing else I still believe it will be as genuine and unique (to me anyways) as Ashlands was. At the moment there is nothing but works-in-progresses recorded.

Looking to the future, what have you all got to be excited about? This doesn’t have to be band-related, literally anything you’re looking forward to, I’m trying to be more upbeat and optimistic in this zine.

Elaine: I’m excited about moving lol!

Imran: Admirable goal! I’m optimistic about seeing class consciousness grow to a point that we see major positive change to the average human’s standard of living by dismantling oppressive, apathetic and hateful systems that are the root of injustice and suffering in the near future (or at the very least within our lifetimes) - the upcoming generations give me hope on a nearly daily basis. Regardless, I’m always looking forward to hearing new & inspiring music from the ever-growing list of really incredible artists active today.

Charles: I’m excited to attend more shows, hug friends I haven’t seen in a while, write new music and drink a few beers in the summer sun.

Miguel: I highly agree with Imran and Charles. I'm also excited to see more people get vaccinated and hopefully see a light at the end of the tunnel. Personally, I'm starting to step away from pandemic depression and isolation of being in an apartment for a year and a half mostly living off my desk (I thank my cats for the company and support, it could have been much worse!), so that's definitely something to look forward to.

Patrick: I hope that we all have a renewed sense of togetherness and shared experience and remember that our time alive together is short and precious.

Oil Spill’s debut EP “Ashlands” is available via their Bandcamp; tapes are all sold out, but it’s still a cracking listen. https://oilspilltx.bandcamp.com https://www.facebook.com/oilspilltx/

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If you’ve gone and intentionally acquired this zine, you probably already know that death metal has an unhealthy obsession with all things rotten, fetid, and purulent. And that’s not a complaint. When a band gets it just right and allows those old familiar putrid elements to coalesce and gestate into something that is both pungent and vibrant, like a particularly dank French cheese, it can be pretty damn exciting.

Sadly, the bands I’m going to be talking about here are more akin to those half empty jars of random condiments you have cluttering up your fridge (don’t lie, we all do this) . They might be past their expiry date, they might still be OK? you don’t really know because you’re too lazy to go check and each time you accidentally lay eyes on them, you’re reminded of all the nice meals you could have used them for, if you just had your shit together and didn’t order Uber Eats so often...

Anyway, here I am to help you with some death metal housekeeping and to remind you that although it may seem tedious, painful, not to mention incredibly wasteful, sometimes the morbid riff lords you once worshipped now also deserve to be in the bin Memoriam Look, I get it. We all miss Bolt Thrower. We all wish they were still around. They were the ultimate badasses, with an incredible discography and a true sense of ethics and integrity, which are both hard things to come by in the metal scene. But forcing yourself to listen to Karl Willets and Andy Whale’s follow up band is no way to cope with this loss. I really hate to take a swing at these guys but there are no two ways about it: this is straight up bad death metal and we’re not doing anyone any favours by pretending otherwise. The riffs are non-existent, the songs are completely directionless and half-assed and having Russ Russell produce it and Dan Seagrave do the artwork will not cover this up. Everyone I’ve spoken to in person about this seems to agree. Yet, online, they are always showered with praise and are consistently being offered much coveted slots at various festivals, so it seems like we’re not being totally honest with each other. Let’s change that.

Go Ahead and Die I know this band pretty much just formed, but god dammit they might as well just Go Ahead and Break Up (yikes, I actually typed that). But seriously though, is anyone actually excited by the prospect of listening to Max Cavalera do more CBA power chord riffs and shout vague anti-authoritarian platitudes a la Refuse/Resist anymore? He’s pretty much got a different band with each of his family members at this point, which in all fairness, is very nice and wholesome but really…why are we still indulging this, especially given the alarming rate at which these projects churn out records? That being said, he’s one of the rare old timers who seems to keep an active interest in the underground and makes it his mission to shine a light on new extreme acts which, all things considered, is pretty commendable. So yeah, no ill will towards Max, I just wish he would look after himself, maybe practice guitar a bit more (is he even plugged in live at this point?) and not flood us with all these interchangeable releases.

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Bloodbath Ok, I think we can all agree this band has put out some out some bangers over the years and as I type this, I realise that you will most likely find me belting out “Eaten” and “Cancer of the Soul” whenever I inevitably run into them at some festival. So, colour me hypocrite but I just can’t shake the feeling that this band has become a very blatantly self-indulgent project that’s been coasting for quite a while now. While I did find “Grand Morbid Funeral” to be a pretty fun record, I can’t help but feel that Nick Holmes is wildly out of place in the band (and I say this as a HUGE Paradise Lost fan) and I thought their latest album was just plain tedious. Look, I get the point of this band is that these are established musicians just having fun playing some good old death metal like in their younger years, which is all well and good, but I do take issue with the extent to which this side project is being indulged and glorified by labels and promoters, when there are countless bands that would kill for just a fraction of the opportunities and resources that get thrown at Bloodbath (see Memoriam).

Entombed Just to be clear, I’m aiming this at the members who hold the rights to the name “Entombed” (so Nicke, Uffe, Alex) and not Entombed A.D, which LG Petrov fronted until his untimely passing this year. While I’m usually put off by acts that devolve into glorified cover bands, I genuinely had no issue with LG Petrov soldiering on with his own version of band, as he was such an authentic and loveable character. On the other hand, the remaining guys wrote the classic material, so I totally see why they would want to hold on to the name. But what have they done in the 7 years since the won the rights to it? An orchestral live album (who the fuck asked for that?), an Entombed branded beer and a bunch of classic merch reprints (I thought Earache Records was already flogging that dead horse for you?)…oh and a facemask, of course. I’m sure it was worth it for them, but it feels like a big waste to me. They made noises about doing some new stuff at some point, but that was already several years ago now. Perhaps I’m still sore over LG’s death (which “Entombed” have yet to publicly acknowledge) and I’m not being totally objective, but I just wish they wouldn’t bother. Let’s put Entombed to rest (in festering slime).

Morbid Angel Morbid Angel are (arguably) my favourite death metal and (again, arguably) I might be in a very different place, at least musically, if not for them. The reasons why this band belongs in the bin would take up an entire issue of Endless Disappointment if I listed them all, so I’ll cut to the chase.

First, I’ll start by saying I’m totally fine with David Vincent going all out with his steampunk gigolo cowboy thing at this point, so no need to dig there. I can live with that.

You all know about the horrendous album they did. Yes, that one. I think we all wish we could unhear David Vincent screaming about being Radikult and Too Extreme on top of sped up Ministry B-sides (and that’s putting it mildly). Why the band would want to write this stuff and why anyone agreed to release the album in the first place will always be beyond me. But as horrifically cringe as that album is, at least it’s a record that I can find things to talk about and discuss, whereas the follow up with Steve Tucker is just painfully devoid of well, just about anything. I’m honestly struggling to find a way to even describe it other than just saying sounds completely lifeless, stale, and incoherent could be passed off as just about any generic brutal(ish) tech (ish) death band.

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It’s grim up North; it probably isn’t even that grim, but the narrative seems to go hand-in-hand with the North producing some of the grimmest and bleakest music the UK has to offer.

Mastiff, hailing from Hull, found their Sludge-driven Hardcore to be good company with the burgeoning Northern Heavy Music scene from a few years back that was inundated with stoner/doom bands.

Initially striking up a partnership with APF Records for their “Bork” and “Plague” releases, Mastiff see themselves taking the next step with their release “Leave me The Ashes of The Earth” coming out via eOne Records, a label you probably recognise for being behind the latest HighOnFire and Crowbar releases (and also for being ruddy huge) Given some of their recent accomplishments, it’s fair to say Mastiff have a lot to be pleased about. I check in with Mastiff Guitarist James to chat shit about the last year and what the future holds for them.

So how has the last 18 months been treating you?

I mean, in many respects I suppose it’s been treating us the same way as everyone else in the world pretty badly! But on the flipside of the general apocalypse we’ve all had to live through, I did get four months paid off work last year, we got to make a new album, and all kinds of other generally great things happened for Mastiff, so even though there were a lot of rough patches, I guess the last 18 months haven’t been all that awful considering.

So your last album “Plague” became somewhat of a breakout LP for the band; not only did it seem to turn a lot of heads your way, but even your label (the Northern Powerhouse/exquisite gentleman that is APF) cites it as one of its most successful releases. Looking back at your previous releases “Wrank” and “Bork” were the aims/goals for “Plague” the same or had you positioned yourselves for a surge in momentum once Plague came out?

I think going into Plague we had a feeling that we were making something overall more coherent and artistically satisfying than either of the previous releases we’d put out, but I wouldn’t say that we went into it with any particularly lofty aspirations other than to push ourselves a bit harder and make an album we were happy with. Honestly I think the best any band can do is work on improving themselves and striving to be a better version of themselves with each successive release, and ultimately you have to do it for your own gratification because there’s never any guarantee that anyone outside of the band will latch onto it in any meaningful way. That said, we were and still are overwhelmed by how many people not only bought but were genuinely positive about Plague, and obviously it makes us happy knowing that it was profitable for Fieldy and APF, we’d hate to think he spunked a heap of cash on our nasty little record for nothing.

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Your song “Acid Breather” is included in the Soundtrack for Cyberpunk 2077, whose soundtrack also features UK Black/Death Metal outfit Antre. Cards of the Table: seeing that announcement really threw me off, you simply don’t see UK underground getting featured in places alongside the likes of RTJ and Converge, let alone featured in one of the most eagerly anticipated Video Games of 2020. How were the discussions with CD Projekt, did you get any insight into their selection process and why a handful of underground acts were thrown in alongside the likes of Grimes, A$AP Rocky and Miles Davis?

Honestly, the whole thing was as huge a surprise to us as it was anyone else! One day our other guitarist Phil sent a message into our group chat saying we’d got an email through Bandcamp from some game studio called CD Projekt Red asking if we’d be interested in contributing a song to the soundtrack of a game they were working on, and if it was something worth looking into, haha. I’m pretty much the only active ‘gamer’ in the band so I was already well aware of Cyberpunk 2077 and was all aboard the hype train, so I couldn’t type YES fast enough. For me personally this was a dream come true - aside from the fact that our song ended up on a game that 13 MILLION people bought in its first month of release, I’ve been a huge video game obsessive pretty much my whole life, so having an accolade like this on my CV is pretty huge. We didn’t really get a whole lot of info about the rest of the soundtrack pre-release, we’d go sometimes months at a time without hearing much back from CDPR - presumably they were quite busy on more important aspects of development - so we did spend a while on the edges of our seat wondering if it was ever really going to happen. I still only really believed it was real when I had the game in my Xbox and sat scrolling through the credits waiting to see our name, which thankfully was there! I even sat for an hour the first time I got into a car in the game just waiting for Acid Breather to come on the radio, which it eventually did to my continued befuddlement. But yeah, when CDPR announced the rest of the artists who would be in the game to the public I almost shit a brick, Converge particularly are one of my all-time Top 5 favourite bands so being on the same soundtrack as them - and on the same in-game radio station, no less - still blows my mind to this very second.

The game became notorious for the numerous delays and setbacks, how long were you sitting on that announcement for? Did you ever look at the delay announcements and just roll your eyes a tad?

Ah yes, the delays. The initial email we received from CDPR arrived in February 2019, almost two years before the game actually ended up coming out, and we recorded Acid Breather about a month later. We then got to sit with our mouths clamped shut for another 20 months, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it was absolute torture keeping news like that quiet from the public, particularly as Plague had only just come out at that point so we were doing quite a bit of press and had to bite our tongues a few times to stop ourselves from blurting it out. And then literally about two weeks before the game finally released and we could start talking about it, all the eOne stuff started happening, and we had a whole new massive secret to sit on! But we’ll get into that in a bit.

Anyway, onwards and upwards, you’ve got your new album “Leave me the Ashes of the Earth” out soon; how long have you been sitting on it?

We recorded Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth late October 2020, so by the time it comes out it will have existed for almost a full year. But I can happily say that even at this juncture we’re all still so excited about it, and we all still enjoy listening to it ourselves, which isn’t necessarily something we can say about all of our previous releases

“Leave Me the Ashes of The Earth” I know the artwork is meant to be an urn, but I keep being reminded of the artwork for Lamb of God’s Sacrement Album.

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For those familiar with Mastiff’s earlier work, is this more of the same or is there anything unexpected you plan to blow our socks off with? How do you think it weighs up to your earlier works (aside from being better, as I 10/10 appreciate nobody is going to poo-poo their latest album before it gets released) Yeah, I’m not going to sit here and say ‘Oh yeah, it’s basically just a carbon copy of Plague, there’s barely any point in you buying it’, haha. But genuinely, I’m being completely sincere when I say that we’ve upped our game in every respect on LMTAOTE. I don’t want to give the game away too much before it’s out because obviously we want people to hear it with as few expectations as possible, but I will say that it’s still recognisably the band that made Plague, but is as big a leap from that album as Plague was from Bork, probably more so. It’s maybe more of a ‘metal’ record than we’ve made before, but it’s still sludgy and horrible, and has very little you could really describe as melody on it. But I also think it’s a bit more nuanced and varied than Plague, there’s some stuff on there that a few years ago nobody would’ve believed Mastiff was capable of.

For a band who’ve opted for monosyllabic release names in the past, what made you go with the almost Leeched-esque lengthy album title?

We didn’t have a final title for it for a very long time, and I think we only decided on Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth a matter of days before we actually went to record it. Jim came up with that and it just immediately felt right, you know? We have typically been a lot more monosyllabic with our naming conventions in the past, and some of the songs on the album still have subtle-as-a-sledgehammer single-word titles. But this album feels a bit broader in scope than anything we’ve done before, and it just felt worthy of a more ominous, evocative title than any single word could conjure up.

You were particularly praising of Nø Studio, where you recorded it all; with most studios being fairly evenly-matched in terms of facilities/equipment/expertise, there are still that seem to sit on a pantheon above all else (i.e. Skyhammer, Vagrant etc.), Studios rarely get the praise they deserve, so feel free to take some time to big up the studio We started discussing our options for actually recording this album pretty early on, initially because Mikey Scott, who recorded Bork and Plague, closed his studio and moved to Canada, but also because the money we got from CD Projekt Red for Acid Breather meant that for the first time we could afford to spend more than a couple of days in the studio. We chatted to a couple of different people, but every internal discussion always ended up cycling back to Joe Clayton. We played quite a few shows with Leeched in 2019 and love those guys both as a band and just as people, and it was clear that we were kindred spirits in making oppressive and bleak heavy music, so it seemed to be a no-brainer that he was the right guy to really dig into our filth and bring out the best/worst in us.

We spent five whole days at Nø and that felt like an incredible luxury for us, even though that’s barely enough time to make demos for most bands. Joe was just the sweetest and most laid-back guy to work with - endlessly patient with our not-always-perfect playing, never pressuring us to chop and change anything, just listening to us and helping shape the album we wanted to make. There are plenty of reputable studios and producers out there, but I’m a firm believer that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, so I absolutely hope we get to make our next album with Joe too.

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With APF being your home for your last few releases, you see yourself represented now by eOne Heavy.

Whilst the prospect of access to larger resource and greater professional support makes these proposals more attractive, how did the discussions play out and were there any reservations or assurances you needed before jumping towards a label with such a large roster?

There’s a longer version of the story that I won’t bore anyone with, but the TL;DR version is that our mate Dan who plays bass in the band Calligram works for eOne as his day job, and told us a year or so ago that we should send him whatever we next record and he’d pass it up the chain and might be able to hook us up with some cool tours. After we finished LMTAOTE I sent it over to him and he did just that, except rather than offer us a cool tour they wanted to sign us! It kinda bowled us over and still does to this day, but since the first video call we had with the eOne Heavy team over in New York onwards they’ve been the most down to earth, easy-going people to work with and have shown us so much love and support that it was an easy decision for us to make as a band. As stupid as it sounds we believed wholeheartedly that they really loved the album, purely because we’re really not that well known outside of the UK scene, so they definitely werent signing us to capitalise on any trends, haha. Our only real reservations were how much would be expected from us as a touring band - for a “new” band, our average age is probably hovering around the 40-something mark, all of us have jobs and families and aren’t really able to just drop everything to hit the road for months at a time, particularly internationally. But they were very understanding and supportive, and basically just want us to do what we reasonably can to get out there and promote ourselves, which we obviously will.

Ultimately though it was hard to say no to a label that has some of the biggest and most respected bands in metal on their team, and bands who’ve stuck around for the long haul too. If it’s good enough for High On Fire and Crowbar, who are we to argue?

Such events do often spark ambitions for the future; when looking to make the jump were there any further achievements you were looking to accomplish beyond greater visibility/exposure?

Fieldy who runs/is APF Records will be the first person to tell you that, with all the love and passion he can offer his bands (which is nigh-on infinite), he has a ceiling regarding the financial support he can provide, and right from the start he told us that if his role in our career was to prop us up until we could make the jump to the big leagues then he’d consider it a job well done. And that’s essentially it, we’ve been offered the opportunity to have our album released worldwide both digitally and physically, with stuff like vinyl being manufactured in quantities that APF just couldn’t have managed, not to mention the expanded PR opportunities a label like eOne have at their disposal.

We’ve never been a careerist band per-se, but we all love playing in Mastiff and if we get to do that and be taken notice of by tens of thousands of people as opposed to hundreds, that’s just something we couldn’t pass up. If there was anything more that we’d love to get out of this, obviously the notion of touring internationally is a real proposition now - or at least will be once this pandemic business has been laid to rest - and the thought that we’ll likely get to go over to the USA and fling our aural muck at the transatlantic crowd is quite insane.

Whilst album prep has meant Mastiff hasn’t been slouching around the last year or so, recently you co-headlined Manchester Academy with Pist; to give readers further context it has to be considered that it was the largest room of the Manchester Academy, and in terms of socially-distanced shows it’s head-and-shoulders above the rest in terms of attendance/capacity. How did it play out? Playing big venues is always an experience, but did the reduced capacity make it sound cavernous or anything?

James: It was a very surreal experience for many reasons, not least of which that it was our first show in almost 18 months, so the fact that it was in such a huge room was almost secondary to the novelty of playing a show at all. But obviously the madness of being on such a huge stage in a venue that has hosted all kinds of legendary bands was not lost on us. I’d say that it was strange playing to people sat down in neatly spaced chairs too, but honestly the second we’re playing I don’t really see anything beyond the monitors, both literally because of the dark void in front of us, and because I kinda just disappear into the red mist and don’t really come to until we switch our amps off. But it was certainly a wonderful experience - we were a little rusty at times but I always think we notice stuff like that far more than anyone else ever does, and everything we’ve heard from people who were there suggests that it was a great show, and it definitely felt good from our end.

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Did you get the thirst for playing bigger venues, or do you still have a soft-spot for the claustrophobic sweatboxes you’re more familiar with?

James: I don’t think we’ll ever abandon the tiny sweatboxes. Playing the Academy was a great honour and there were certainly perks being in a venue that big - plenty of room onstage, the most crystal-clear monitor mix I think we’ve ever had, having an actual dressing room with a fridge full of drinks! But we’re a grimy, nasty band and though we obviously couldn’t experience what it was like hearing us in a room that big objectively, I’ve had plenty of instances seeing heavier bands in big rooms and feeling like something was a bit lost. I saw The Dillinger Escape Plan at Brixton Academy a few years ago supporting Mastodon and though they still gave the same incendiary performance they always do, the energy just dissipated a bit too much and dulled the impact somewhat, whereas I’d seen them in the Barfly in Camden a year or two prior and that was one of the most intense live music experiences I’ve ever had to this day. I think it’s the same for us, our particular brand of discordant and ugly noise works best in a compact space with as many bodies crammed in as possible, which is obviously something we’re hoping can happen again once the masses are fully vaccinated. But I would hope that moving forward we’ll get to mix it up a bit more and be able to see both sides of the coin on a more regular basis.

So in the ideal scenario, what is Mastiff’s roadmap for the next years? Also, saying “play more gigs” is illegal.

The next thing we have coming up is another video shoot for the next couple of singles from Leave Me The Ashes Of The Earth, which should be a lot of fun and games. We’ve got a couple of shows across July and August, and then of course the album comes out on September 10th, which is going to be a huge relief just getting it out there finally. We have a 6-date UK tour booked with Calligram in October which will, believe it or not, actually be our first proper tour. What with jobs and families and whatnot we’re generally pretty limited to being weekend warriors, so we’re all super pumped about actually going on the road for the week. We’ve got some pretty cool stuff coming together for early 2022 too, but that’s still classified information at the moment because apparently we can’t get enough of keeping secrets!

Leave Me The Ashes of The Earth is out September 10th via Entertainment One. For more information, see below. https://mastiffhchc.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/mastiffhchc Keep on reading and see James from Mastiff being subjected to all sorts of dumbass “would you rather” questions

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That’s right; in celebration of me not writing another zine for a while I’m throwing every concept that got lost in the fold into this one.

Me and my Wife lose whole evenings to debating stupid “would you rather” scenarios, it was only a matter of time until it permeated into the public sphere. The rules are simple, you are presented with two options and have to pick between one or t’other.

First victim: James, the Guitarist from Mastiff who is literally featured in the last few pages as well, only this time talking about his band is 100% illegal.

Get your Dick trapped in your neighbour’s letterbox (not a euphemism) or wake up shirtless and trapped in a kid’s climbing frame (for reference: see that episode of It’s always Sunny where Frank is trapped in one).

Trapped in the climbing frame, possibly as some form of distraction whilst acquiring a time-share vacation home behind my friends’ backs.

Poos for Shoes, or Shoes for Poos?

Do they have to be my shoes? Like, I’ll poo shoes if they’re toddler-sized ones. That’s toddler’s shoe size, not poos the size of a toddler. That would be infinitely worse than the size of an adult shoe.

A world without Burgers, or a world without Chips?

Chips can get in the bin. I love a good chip, but burgers are food of the gods.

Go a year where you can only urinate by pissing yourself, or a year where you can only poop in skips left on other people’s driveways?

I’m not a shy pooper, so I’ll go in a skip any day of the week.

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Accordions for Legs or Bassoons for arms?

Accordions for legs, can’t shred sweet riffs with bassoon arms.

For reference of what Bassoon Arms would look like, see a lifelike impression of if Stone Cold Steven Austin had Bassoon arms.

Would you rather a Beard of Wasps or a Wig made of Centipedes?

I have quite a nice, full head of hair but as a 36 year old man am still unable to grow any kind of convincing facial hair, so fuck it, I’ll take the wasp beard.

The ability to rewind time, or the ability to pause time?

Rewind time. I was recently asked what my ideal super power would be, and I genuinely chose the ability to rewind time. Pausing time just delays the inevitable. Rewinding would give you the chance to undo some of the more questionable decisions you’ve made.

Compliment the snare on St. Anger, or compliment Nicole Kidman’s expressionless face in that film “Australia” Listening to the snare on St Anger is an experience akin to watching Tommy Wiseau’s The Room unquestionably horrible but also endlessly entertaining.

Wash your hair with Toothpaste, or Brush your teeth with Shampoo?

I don’t think either would be much fun, but I have very little desire to put shampoo into my mouth, so let’s go with washing my hair with toothpaste.

A siren go off everytime you don’t like someone, or a klaxon go off everytime you lie?

I have a terrible poker face when it comes to hiding how little I care for some people anyway, so might as well have an obnoxious siren accompanying my grimace

Everytime you hear Manowar (be it intentional or accidental) your outfit switches to a loincloth and furry arm-braces, or everytime Van Halen is played your outfit changes to really uncomfortable spandex.

Van Halen are one of my all-time favourite bands, so I’d probably have to spend a lot of time in spandex. So I choose Manowar, because I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever heard their music more than three times in my life, intentionally or otherwise, so there’s very little chance of me ending up dressed as He-Man

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Listen to nothing but Blaze Bayley era Iron Maiden, or only ever watch Judas Priest with Tim Owens singing for them.

I never really got into Judas Priest if I’m honest, so I can happily take the hit on Ripper if it means I still get to listen to Bruce Dickinson.

Tim “Ripper” Owens (Right) Famous for playing in a Judas Priest tribute band before joining Judas Priest, and ultimately inspiring a really bad Mark Wahlberg film

Lee Dorian singing Napalm Death songs in a Cathedral style, or Barney singing Cathedral Songs in a Napalm Death style?

Are the songs themselves the same as the originals just with altered vocals? Because if that’s the case I’ll take Dorrian warbling over Napalm Death songs, because at least then I still get to listen to sick riffs and blastbeats.

Predator, but the Predator is allergic to Jungle-plants, or Alien but the Xenomorph has a nut allergy and a really bad stomach?

I don’t believe there’s a whole lot of nuts on LV-427 so I’m pretty sure the Xenomorph would be able to go about its business as usual, so I feel like that particular allergy would have very little detrimental consequence on the events of Alien.

Forever open the main stage of indoor festival, or forever headline the smallest stage of every outdoor festival?

Open the indoor main stage. My experience of festivals, particularly indoor ones like Damnation, is that people are already raring to go when the first band hits the stage. Plus I then wouldn’t need to ever worry about shitty weather.

Be the shitty Cat from Homeward Bound, or the Cool Boxer from Homeward Bound but Bears hate you.

I am a bona-fide Cat dad to six feline goblins, so of course I would be the “shitty” cat, as if there was such a thing.

The Cool Boxer (Left) and the Shitty Cat (Right), albeit really we all strive to be the wise Retriever who gets stuck in Mud at the end

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Puzzle corner Like a dying star that absorbs everything around it to sustain its expansion before ultimately imploding, Hellfest has booked every band imaginable for 2022. See if you can spot the bands that, as of writing, have yet to have been booked for Hellfest 2022.

Autopsy Emperor Neurosis Cult of Luna

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Sick of it All Full of Hell Deicide Magrudergrind

Imagine thinking you’re going to get your big break in wrestling, only to find you’re dressing up in a Turkey Suit and set to hatch from a giant Egg at Survivor Series. The Gobbledygooker (i.e. Hector Guerrero) was shrowded under a full-disguise, some weren’t so lucky; see if you can recall some of these borderline career-derailing characters from wrestling=past.

Across 2 - Ed Ferraro trying to make fun of Jim Ross’ Bells Paulsy.

Down 1- Kane, but a Dentist

6-Fell over on his debut, wore a glittery Stormtrooper Helmet

3 - WWF’s ever-sensitive approach to Neurodiversity. Apparently the Nephew of Eric Bischoff

8 - Some weird WWF Spaceman Shit

4 - WCW Midcarder pretending Disco didn’t suck

9 - Remember when they tried a reverse-Undertaker? Nope, thought not.

5 - Wore a huge Bull headpiece, Mooed at his opponents, his career never recovered

10 - The result of WCW buying an unused Mortal Kombat SubZero costume

7 - An Ice Hockey Enforcer character that appeared just before the Attitude Era took off

11- WCW co-brands with KISS, it sucks.

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Across: 2 - Oklahoma / 6 - The Shockmaster / 8 - Max Moon / 9 - Mordecai / 10 - Glacier / 11 - Kiss Demon /////// Down 1 - Isaac Yankem // 3 - Eugene / 4 - Disco Inferno / 5 - Mantaur / 7 - The Goon