INTERVIEW
LO NDON METAL MONTHLY SPEAKS WITH JO RGEN MUNKEBY Words: Dan J.G Mitchell
Genre: Blackjazz
How do you think people should expect when you’re on a headline performance instead of when you’re opening for another band?
I don’t think the older softer acoustic is ever coming back for us.”
“It’s longer! “We get to play longer than 35 minutes, and we also have some more time. We like to have improvisational transitions between songs, improvise more in our concerts than on our albums, so there’ll be more room for that; more time for those things. In a support slot, usually, you just cram in the catchiest songs and hope for the best.”
Before you started developing the blackjazz genre, did you have much knowledge of metal music before?
As ‘One One One’ shortened the style and track lengths from it’s predecessor ‘Blackjazz’, would you say that’s a forward progression, or do you think it might change with future material? “We have a new album that’s already ready [(“International Blackjazz Society”, Spinefarm Records)]. We’re just doing a couple of tweaks to the mixes next week, and then it’s being sent to mastering. I know how it’s gonna be, and sometimes my perception changes after a year, but still I know how the new album is going to be. “Some of the songs are a bit similar to ‘One One One’: as in, more focused than before - and then we also have some of a sinister energy and aggressiveness of ‘Blackjazz’ on some songs... arranged in a more industrial way, and then we also have a few songs that are purely instrumental, recorded live in the studio. So more of an improvisational jazz thing, which we also did on Blackjazz. I think it’s the best parts of ‘One One One’ and the best parts of ‘Blackjazz’ anyway. “We also actually have a ballad on the new album, which is the first time, at least since Blackjazz, so it’s gonna be a very varied album. Also you’ve become heavier since starting as an acoustic jazz band, would you say you would ever explore the softer elements of your more distant past again in your new music? “Well I mean we have this ballad, but it’s not a jazz thing, it’s a vocal-driven thing... but I think it does have a little link to the stuff we did in 2005 and 2007, like a more melodic thing. But it’s not a lot of that. “I don’t think that will be a prominent feature in our future music. I think Blackjazz was supposed to be heavy and hard and aggressive: even if we have a ballad, all the other stuff will be aggressive and heavy.
“Yeah, I grew up with heavy music, so that’s the first type of music I listened to, except my parents’ music. I listened to Entombed and Pantera and Sepultura and Death and those kind of things. I was born in 1980, so I’m talking about from when I was 10 years old or 8 years old, for about 10 years, from that point on I only listened to metal music. “And then, I started playing the sax when I was 9 years old, still listening to metal music. After a while, I started studying jazz music, getting into jazz music, and then some contemporary classical: I studied that kind of stuff. And then, I started getting interested in metal music again, listening to new things like Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah; I discovered Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson and industrial things. “I wanted to bring these two things that I love the most together, jazz and metal.”
When you’re writing music, what kind of input do the other band members have? “It depends on who’s in the band. The lineup changes from time to time; it depends on how eager they are, sometimes they’re super involved, sometimes they might be in a situation in life where they are not that involved in the band. So things change. In general, in the last 5 years I’ve been writing all of the music and making the demos. “Well, I’ve been doing that the whole time, but in the old days I didn’t make demos because we played acoustically. Since we started playing studio stuff I’ve made demos, premixed them, sent them out to the guys and they’ve added their feedback to the demos; maybe we rehearse it, change around stuff.
Hometown: Oslo, Norway
Sometimes it’s more of the band way of working after the initial demo, other times we just go to the studio and record. Maybe I even play most of the instruments. But in general, I make a demo, we work at it with the band and record it, and I take it back to edit and work on the sonic qualities, then I send it my producer in Los Angeles to mix it. “The last two albums, he’s also been involved as a co-producer, so I sent demos to him to and he gets to give feedback, ideas for changes. we’re using the guy again for this new album. He put his stamp on Blackjazz, so I have chosen to stick with him.” You’ve done collaborations with Enslaved and Marty Friedman before. Have you ever thought of doing any others, got any others in the works? “I haven’t really thought of it. They usually come to me or to us, because I seldom think in those terms. “No actually, we asked Enslaved! But a festival asked us first if we’d to headline, and asked us if we had any ideas of people we could work with, so again it was our idea to do it with Enslaved, but it was the festival’s idea to do a collaboration. “Also, I played on Devin Townsend’s album Casualties Of Cool. Again, he asked me, so that’s usually how it goes. Ihsahn the same, he asked me. “I think I probably have too much to think of already.”
Shining
“Blackjazz Society” October 16th 2015 Spinefarm Records
I N T E RV I EW T OM I J OU T SE N
Words: Dan J.G Mitchell Esa Holopainen (Lead Guitarist) previously commented that the new album is probably going to be one of his top three albums of Amorphis. Would you agree? “I really like the two first albums, ‘The Karelian Isthmus’ and ‘Tales From The Thousand Lakes’. Those will be always in my top three list. “Of course, this is the new album and I’m not too familiar with it. It’s really fresh to me, I haven’t listened to [it] that much so at this point I think it’s number one of course, but I don’t know what’s the situation next year, if I’m too bored of it! *laughs*” What was the recording experience like this time with Jens Bogren? “It was different, in a good way of course. This was the first time we did a real, proper pre-production with a producer. For example with Peter Tägtgren, he didn’t want to hear anything when we started to record the album, and I totally understand it because he’s really busy, and there’s so much things happening around him all the time. He’s recording and touring and stuff. But with Jens it was great that he really wanted to hear the songs beforehand and he even came to Finland; spent six days in Helsinki, and we did some pre-production, and of course worked with arrangements and tempos a lot. “I actually did some pre-production with some Finnish guy called Jonas Olsson, I did a six-day studio session with him so for me, personally, it was a totally different experience. But in the studio, when I was recording the vocals, I think it wasn’t *that* different. Jens is really sharp with timing and rhythms, and pronouncing, and that was a really great thing, as I always have problems with pronouncing [in English], because I’m from Finland. So he was a really big help for me, and really wanted to put some emotions on the singing, wanted to have groovy things on rhythms, and that was really a new thing for me.”
Genre: Progressive Metal Hometown: Helsinki, Finland I’d say that this album as well as predecessor Circle had quite a lot of harsh vocals, compared to some of the other recent albums. Would you agree? “Yeah, I think there’s actually only one song on the album that doesn’t have any growls! In that way, it’s a really heavy album. When we did the pre-production with this Finnish guy we already had some growls here and there, but with Jens he actually wanted to add some growls, and I think it was great. I really feel comfortable with growls. I started my singing career in a death metal band in my home town, so I’ve been doing this many years, and I think it’s a great way to express yourself. “I think if you have growls in your music, it gives more space to some other melodies, and in our band there’s shitloads of melodies everywhere: keyboard and guitar melodies; and sometimes as a singer, it’s really hard to compose a great vocal melody because there’s already so many melodies going on at the same time. Using growls, it gives more space for other instruments.” When you perform live, do you do any kind of vocal warmup, or do you go straight into it? “Yeah, I mean it takes like an hour to do my warmup. For me, it’s more like a ritual. *laughs* I do some push ups and stretching, I’m trying to warm my whole body and I do some warming also for my throat and voice. “Mainly it’s trying to warm up my whole body, get into the right emotion, getting ready to go onstage. That’s really important for me. If I don’t do it, it feels like I’m not ready for the stage, because my style is very physical, lots of headbanging and moving, and I’m an older guy y’know? I’m 40, so I really need to warm up a little bit. *laughs*”
Have you had any favourite shows of this year so far? “I think one of the greatest shows was at Tuska Festival. We played the ‘Tales From The Thousand Lakes’ album, and it was at Helsinki, which is like a hometown for the band. There were lots of headbangers and lots of fans, of course mostly from Finland, but some came from outside Finland. And yeah, it was a great moment, great to share the same atmosphere with the audience. “We also played a couple of rock festivals in Finland, and I think most of the audience just didn’t know that we were going to play this really old Amorphis album. They were waiting for a hits setlist, but we played a really oldschool set, and some people were really like “whoa, what is happening here?” *laughs* But at Tuska, it was perfect. “I’m really looking forward to Wacken, because we’re gonna play ‘Tales From The Thousand Lakes’ again there, and I know there are lots of fans who really love the album, so it’s going to be fantastic as well.” Anything else you want to mention? “There’s a big tour coming, we’re coming to play at Wembley Arena, which is going to be a *huge* thing for us as a band, of course. It’s a Nightwish tour, but still, it’s a great honour to play there, and I really hope that we will get some new fans.”
Amorphis “Under The Red Cloud” OUT NOW via Nuclear Blast
We spoke to guitarist: Brody Uttley Interview
Monarchy Out Now!
Words: Dan J.G Mitchell Adam Biggs in “the making of Monarchy” video talked about always having had an inner desire to create difficult to play music. Would you say that you follow this mind-set, and overall what is your own primal musical urge when playing? “I think that Biggs was implying that we used to be that way. Now I think we take a much more musical approach to our writing. If a part feels like it would serve the greater good of the song by being a more technical part, then that’s what we do.” “When I am writing for this band my goal is usually to create something that will stick in the listeners head. I’m a big melody guy and a huge fan of the post rock genre, so huge orchestral guitar lines are something that I always like to try to bring into my writing. I think its really cool when a band can have a solid song structure going on in the foreground, but that you listen carefully you can also hear a completely different story going on in the background, with atmospheric guitars, bass, etc. It’s really awesome to me when each band member can tell a different musical story, but still have the song feel cohesive. This is what we have strived to do on Monarchy, and it seems like a lot of people are liking it! “ Do you have a favourite song or songs from the new album, Monarchy? “My favorite songs on Monarchy are definitely the last three. For a long time now I have wanted to start incorporating our more progressive influences into our sound. ‘Terrestrial II: Thrive’, ‘Circles in the Sky’, and ‘Suntold’ all do a very good job of demonstrating our love for bands like King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Steven Wilson, Jade Warrior, etc.”
Genre: Death Metal
Hometown: Reading, PA - USA
Metal Blade
“I have always been a fan of instrumental music and I think that progressive music has a lot in common with the style of Instrumentalism. Progressive rock bands have never been afraid to display their ability to play their instruments, while still considering the greater good of the musical body of work. We wanted to do exactly this with these last three songs, and I really enjoy how it turned out. These songs are technically challenging, but still musically pleasing and, very easy to sing along to with the listener.”“For me I really just like writing songs that are emotionally heavy, not necessarily BRUTAL like you might expect. I like to write parts that might make a listener feel like they are watching a beautiful sunset, or maybe going insane...”
“I have never really cared much about lyrical content of music. I have always felt that lyrics take away from music, because they force the listener to associate the song with specific things as opposed to if the music were just instrumental; they could then create their own idea of what the writer was thinking while the wrote the music.”
What is your day job outside of the band? How do you balance work with music, and have you ever had traditional career based aspirations?
Do you continue to write your music with an narrative, similarly linked up directly with future material?
“I work with my father servicing telephone lines in the Washington D.C. area. It is by no means a glorious job, but it pays for the things that I need, and it allows me to play in this band without too much trouble. I can pretty much make my own schedule so it is pretty cool as far as having time to play music goes.”
“All four albums that we are going to be releasing through Metal Blade are going to have a theme of a season.”
“I would love to one day produce bands professionally. Playing in a signed band is a great doorway to other opportunities in the music industry, production being one of them. I record bands at home, and being in Rivers of Nihil has definitely helped me get my name out there to people that might not have cared to record with me before.” Biggs also said that all the lyrics on the album are quite personal to the writing members. What songs hold the most significance to you in that regard? “I honestly can’t say. I didn’t write any of the lyrics so I don’t really know what they are about.”
“I know I am widely outvoted, but its just how I feel.” There is some continuum across the two LPs that you have released so far, most prominently between Terrestria I and II.
“The first one was spring, this one was summer, the next one will be fall, and the last one will be winter. Each album will have an instrumental ‘Terrestria’ track on it to coincide with the current season. The first one was “thaw” to match the thawing of the ground that occurs during the spring, Monarchy contained Terrestria II: Thrive which refers to the thriving of life during the summer months. From what I understand each album will contain various themes that match up with the current seasonal concept.” “This will continue for the next two albums. After that I can’t say what will happen. Maybe we will break up and never talk to each other again? That would be the 1970’s thing to do right?”
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REVIEWS MYRKUR – M
FEAR FACTORY - GENEXUS
Myrkur are causing a stir in the black metal world. Being a female, and marketed expressly by Relapse Records, the Dane inhabiting New York unleashes her debut full-length ‘M’ with Ulver’s Garm co-producing, bass and additional guitars from Teloch of Mayhem, and drums provided by Øyvind Myrvoll of Nidingr and Dødheimsgard.
When you pick up a record that says ‘Fear Factory’ on the front, and you know exactly what it is you’re going to get. Machines, meaty, rapid-fire staccato riffs, precision drumming; Burton C. Bell swinging from vicious barks to a soothing croon: the whole shebang.
Perhaps the most unorthodox attribute of Myrkur’s music is her angelic clean vocals – entirely atypical for black metal. However, they fit the ethereal image she wishes to portray: adhering to the atmospheric black metal with tinges of folk influence not a universe away from early Ulver. No two tracks sound similar, endowing the music with a solid amount of variation; folk influences are recurrent on ‘Skøgen skulle dø’, ‘Dybt i skoven’ is thin on black metal, utilising only melodies familiar in the genre with the remainder of the composition attempting pop, whilst ‘Mordet’ kicks off as rhythmic aggression before morphing into an atmospheric curiosity. ‘M’ is an album that insecure black metallers who undoubtedly enjoyed the likes of Alcest, Weaking and Ulver will decry but those keen to hear more atmospheric black metal may find some value in Mykur’s album. WORDS: ELENA FRANCIS
It’s a tried and trusted formula that has served them well for decades, and it serves them well once again on their latest offering. Opener ‘Autonomous Combat System’ packs a considerable punch, with some meaty riffs, whilst ‘ProtoMech’ roars with aggression before soaring into one of the best choruses on the album Even djent-influenced tracks like ‘Soul Hacker’ and ‘Church Of Execution’ still hit hard with Fear Factory weight, though industrial-pop closer ‘Expiration Date’ brings the curtain down in rather an anti-climatic fashion. Awkward finale aside, ‘Genexus’ is every bit a Fear Factory record as their classics. It’s bulky, hard-hitting and filled with enough mech to allow the paranoia to set in, and get you looking shiftily at your tech.
WORDS: LEE CARTER
AHAB – THE BOATS OF GLEN CARRIG
Unlike the futile efforts of their namesake, Ahab’s particular quest to become the world’s leading proponents of “Nautik Funeral Doom” seems well on its way towards fruition, and with aplomb. This is because their fourth album, The Boats of Glen Carrig, is yet another utterly stellar entry in the band’s steadily expanding back-catalogue. One which, depending on your position, either maintains the Germans’ unstoppable upwards trajectory or simply continues to cement their position at the very top of their game. This is an album that comprehensively offers pretty much anything you could ask for; drifting ambience and liquid melodies, monstrous growls, monolithic, doom-laden riffs, dragging whirlpools of funereal menace, clean vocals that actually live up to the descriptor of “haunting. It’s all there, and all tied together by a masterful sense of storytelling flow and musical dynamic that suggests these ancient mariners know exactly where they’re going.
WORDS: ANDY CARTER
C.R.O.W.N. – NATRON Natron, the band’s second album, sees the group flirting with a serious electronica fetish, augmenting their groaning, droning, Post-Sludge sound with some major industrial elements and hints of angular, blackened dissonance, producing something that’s not quite like anything else out there that I can think of. There’s also a surprising variety of mood and style on display, showcasing a band confidently spreading their wings without ever losing sight of their core sound and identity. Whether it’s the atmospheric industrialised stomp of “The Words You Speak Are Not Your Own”, the Bowie-tinged melody of “Fossils”, or the doomy, Cult of Luna-gone-Goth lurch of “Apnea”: C.R.O.W.N. take whatever they can lay their hands on and turn it into gold. WORDS: ANDY CARTER