Decibel #191 - September 2020

SLINT STEVE VON TILL SÓLSTAFIR IN THE STUDIO SPIDERLAND DOOM POETS SOCIETY

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INCLUDED SEPTEMBER 2020 // No. 191

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MIKEY COLLECTOR’S EDITION

He’s seen the future... Now he has to kill it. He’ll need bigger guns.

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DEAD PIT When the dead start to walk, you better start running.

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DAHMER COLLECTOR’S EDITION Jeffrey Dahmer. One man. 17 bodies. His story is finally told.

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AN EVIL TALE This family is cursed.

VAMPIRE WAR The ultimate battle begins.

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September 2020 [R 191] decibelmagazine.com

upfront 10 metal muthas Grinding for grades

16 oranssi pazuzu The claw is the law

12 low culture Essential employees

18 drouth A dying artform

13 no corporate beer Black to the front

20 carach angren A blackened reimagining of an occult classic

14 in the studio:

sólstafir

Home is where the hært is

22 vile creature Glory obsessed 24 year of the knife Straight edge as a life sentence

features

reviews

28 q&a: steve von till The Neurosis guitarist would like to read you some of his poetry

53 lead review Primitive Man say what they will about the tenets of nihilism on their latest crusher Immersion

32 the decibel

hall of fame Slint turn out to be a group of sad boys in search of the leadership of a sad girl on their final LP Spiderland

26 onslaught Live dangerously

42

54 album reviews Releases from bands who aren't too chicken shit to wear a mask, including Imperial Triumphant, Incantation and Dee Snider 64 double negative Watch the throne

No Mere Mortals COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY CHRIS JOHNSTON

Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19107. Annual subscription price is $29.95. Periodical postage, paid at Philadelphia, PA, and other mailing offices. Submission of manuscripts, illustrations and/or photographs must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Postmaster send changes of address for Decibel to Red Flag Media, 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia PA 19107. © 2020 by Red Flag Media, Inc. ISSN 1557-2137 | USPS 023142 All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited.

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NIGHTMARES OF THE WEST VIOLENT GRIEF: ACOUSTIC SELECTIONS

NEW E.P. OUT NOW

NEW E.P. OUT JULY 31, 2020

www.decibelmagazine.com

Somewhere in the four weeks between

finishing this issue and Decibel No. 190, we managed to send another book to print. If you were quick on the pre-order draw, The Decibel Hall of Fame Anthology: Volume III might even be in your leathery hands by the time you read this. While approximately 5,000 of you started a new podcast when the pandemic first took hold, we thought we’d try something a bit different.

OK, maybe it’s not that different for us. We’ve been documenting the definitive stories behind the makings of your favorite albums since issue No. 2 in the fall of 2004. Those monthly entries piled up quickly. In 2009, Da Capo published our first HOF collection, the less-than-succinctly-titled Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces, before we took control and published The Decibel Hall of Fame Anthology: Volume II via Decibel Books seven years later. Clearly, the Hall of Fame series has resonated with our community. In fact, some punishers have drunkenly informed me that it’s the only reason they read the magazine, to which I say, “Um… thanks?”

For many, the Hall of Fame has provided a brief respite in these dark times. A number of our contributors who spent months home from their day job—or in the case of Kevin Stewart-Panko, quarantined for weeks in a hotel after returning home to Canada from tour—had some unscheduled free time on their hands. Combine that with the postponement of every artist’s touring schedule and you’ve got a recipe for completing multiple long-simmering Hall of Fame stories. Soon HOFs I once thought impossible to finish were sitting in my inbox. Some are stories on universally recognized titans of the genre, while several others are on undisputed classics more on the periphery of what Decibel does. It’s too early to reveal some of the former, but Nick Green’s excellent story on Slint’s Spiderland this month is an example of the latter. As of today, there are 15 Hall of Fames that are completed or are about to be finished in the next few weeks—a stockpile even the most deranged toilet paper-hoarder could appreciate.

So, no, the new Hall of Fame book wasn’t on the calendar when this year started, but since no one’s 2020 has clearly gone as planned, the appearance of a new anthology—as well as a head start on Volume IV—feels like a potential 2020 highlight. Thanks, as always, for empowering us. albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

REFUSE/RESIST

September 2020 [T191]

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Vince Bellino Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Dean Brown Louise Brown Chris Chantler Richard Christy Liz Ciavarella-Brenner Chris Dick Chris Dodge Sean Frasier Nick Green Raoul Hernandez Jonathan Horsley Neill Jameson Sarah Kitteringham Scott Koerber Daniel Lake Shawn Macomber Shane Mehling Justin M. Norton Andy O'Connor Dutch Pearce Forrest Pitts Greg Pratt Jon Rosenthal Joseph Schafer Rod Smith Matt Solis Kevin Stewart-Panko Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel J Andrew Zalucky CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

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READER OF THE

MONTH

Eric Fisher Secane, PA

You’re a frontline healthcare worker at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Please tell us what we can do to make your life easier right now.

Simply behaving ourselves and following the direction of our doctors and scientists will make all our lives easier, not just those in healthcare. Somehow wearing a mask has become political, and it’s a shame.

We’re not taking away your rights. We’re keeping you alive.

You’ve been a Decibel subscriber since issue No. 25. That’s 14 years! What’s kept you around?

Content, integrity and extremely intelligent contributors. Reviews you can [take] stock in

8 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

and finding something new in every issue also keeps you coming back.

Finding Decibel was like finding refuge at a likeminded lunch table in high school. Simply having an alternative that spoke to me. I’ll have zero interest in the magazine with Slipknot on the cover, but Imperial Triumphant?

Sign me up!

You were Vallenfyre’s driver for the 2015 Decibel Tour. How did that come about and what was that experience like?

At one point, my band [Tapping the Vein] was signed to Nuclear Blast. They treated us very well, as did [manager] Gunter Ford, who put us on a few really excellent tours. One of which was with Opeth and Paradise Lost in the States in early 2003. We bonded pretty quickly, as they’re all wonderful people, and PL asked us to continue on to Europe with them. My vocalist married Greg Mackintosh, and he and I have remained close ever since. So, honestly, it was a super-cool opportunity to spend a few weeks together. I’m not going to lie: There were quite a few stressful and unexpected moments. But anyone that has toured knows that’s just par for

the course. Getting to see At the Gates, Converge and Pallbearer every night did have a way of making it all okay, though.

I’ll have zero interest in the magazine with Slipknot on the cover, but Imperial Triumphant?

Sign me up!

This issue features dB faves Necrot on the cover.

What are your favorite death metal albums of 2020 so far?

Well, if the two songs I’ve heard are any indication, the upcoming Mortal will easily be a top contender for (death) metal album of the year.

Ulcerate’s Stare Into Death and Be Still is simply brilliant, and Temple of Void’s The World That Was has definitely been on heavy rotation. Paradise Lost’s Obsidian is a definite creative high, and I’m loving the return of the death/doom/goth mix they have always done so well.

Chuck BB is the illustrator of the graphic novels Black Metal, Vol. 1, 2 and 3 For more info and art, head over to chuckbb.com

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NOW SLAYING Wonder what Decibel world HQ has been rocking for the past month?

Well, here are the records that we spun most while promising to never normalize nü-metal.

Because not all of us were spawned in the darkest recesses of hell

This Month's Mutha: Kim Brenner Mutha of Dave Brenner of Gridfailure

Tell us a little about yourself.

I was born and raised in Lancaster County, PA. I have lived here all my life. My husband and I were high school sweethearts. We lived on the same street and were in the same high school class. We have been married 43 years. All of our children went to the same elementary school, middle school and high school that we went to.

I worked in an office, but I quit working before David was born. I wanted to be home with him forever! I knew the moment he was born that I made the right decision. I loved being able to stay home and watch my son grow up.

When did your son first begin to exhibit an interest in music?

He’s always loved music! He took saxophone lessons in elementary school, and then bass guitar in high school. He formed a punk band in high school called the Militamen. They practiced regularly in our garage in our very small and quiet neighborhood! I never heard of any complaints about the noise, and it was loud. They played for the school’s spring break concert and many other shows.

Dave is a publicist to countless extreme music bands, which requires tenacity, creativity and great organizational skills. Did he possess those qualities growing up?

David was organized about the things he loved: his scouting. his band… his CDs were always organized. He worked the lights in middle school and high school for the school plays. He served meals in a retirement home after school and weekends. So, he had to be organized because he was so busy.

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I remember that he did get a progress report from school for typing class. He hated it. He said the teacher put tacks under his wrists, so he had to hold them up. I told him that he picked his classes, so he needed to do better or I would take his music away. He had quite a sound system in his bedroom that he loved. Anyway, he got the D on his report card and I took the music away for a whole semester. I believe he got a B the next semester and got his music back!

Dave’s main musical project Gridfailure is incredibly prolific. How much of his catalog have you heard and what do you think?

David sends all his music for me to listen to. I listen to everything he sends me. His music is very different, and I have come to appreciate the artistic nature of it. I really love knowing about all his projects.

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Spirit Adrift, Enlightened In Eternity  Ludicra, The Tenant  Agalloch, Marrow of the Spirit  Uada, Djinn  Haunt, Flashback ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Tales of Murder and Dust, Fragile Absolutes  Dead Skeletons, Dead Magick  Carla Dal Forno, Look Up Sharp  Pixies, Bossanova  Sqürl, EP #260 ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  Necrot, Mortal  Incantation, Sect of Vile Divinities  Clutch, Jam Room  Lo-Pan, Subtle  Sorge, Sorge ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  Paradise Lost, Obsidian  The Red Chord, Fused Together in Revolving Doors  Ripped to Shreds, 亂 (Luan)  Uada, Djinn  Haunt, Flashback ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  An Albatross, Return of the Lazer Viking  Cop Problem, Buried Beneath White Noise  Azusa, Loops of Yesterdays  Botch, An Anthology of Dead Ends  Phalanx, Golden Horde

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Vlad the Inhaler : persekutor

Have you had the opportunity to see him perform live?

Yes! My husband and I went to Harrisburg, PA, when he was performing one night. I was amazed at how much energy it took for his performance. It was so interesting to watch him perform solo and to see others watch him and their reactions. We thoroughly enjoyed the show!

What is something most people don’t know about your son?

David is an Eagle Scout. He started out as a Tiger Cub in the first grade and stayed in for 18 years.

Anyone who knows him very well knows how much he loves hiking and camping to this day!

—ANDREW BONAZELLI

 Ice-T, O.G. Original Gangster  Leather Nunn, Take the Night  I, Between Two Worlds  Dealer, Boogie, Booze & Birds  TSA, Heavy Metal World

Wash Your Fucking Mask, Too he last few weeks have been his-

toric. There’s been massive civil unrest, the resurgence of the coronavirus (and the subsequent cry of “meh” by a bored American public) and, most importantly, I learned that you can get a cat an abortion. I wonder if this is how people felt during the Summer of Love?

At this point in the game, you don’t need me telling you that you’re a dolt for not wearing a mask in public; you’re already well aware. So, let me tell you about some other stupid shit to take your mind off the collapse of the world, which is already fully in motion around us.

As you may have ascertained, I have shit for free time and spend the majority of my life at a job that I’m incredibly dissatisfied with; yet, for whatever fucking reason, I keep showing up to work. (That sentence makes me acutely aware how every girl I’ve ever dated has felt.)

But rather than writing the letter that will eventually be found with my body, this month I’m going to discuss with you, friends, the single worst person I think I’ve ever worked with.

The first thing you’ll notice about this woman is that she’s in a room well before you see her, thanks to the use of two of your senses: smell and hearing. She has an odor orbiting her like a humid bubble, which, like our friend the coronavirus, sticks to surfaces upon making slightly drippy contact. It’s a repugnantly sour smell, like someone emptied a bottle of apple cider vinegar onto a pile of dirty laundry and then baked it in front of a fan. My store is fucking enormous and I can smell her anywhere in the place. Even wearing a mask, I get blasted in the face with the scent of a burning paper mill that someone is trying to put out with vinegar and canned parmesan. She breathes so heavily that I can hear her coming to find me about 40 seconds before I see her (by this point, I’ve gone nose-blind).

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She is almost always wearing a shirt with at least one largely visible stain on it, but visually that’s not even the worst thing: She refuses to wear a bra. I’m not going to have that conversation with her or human resources, but if you’ve ever seen a floppy-eared dog stick its head out a moving car window, that’s kind of what it looks like. She’s constantly pulling up her pants in front of customers, but does so in a manner where she looks like she’s getting into position to wrestle, which helps spread the odor more evenly, in case I haven’t mentioned killing myself enough lately. The other day she was especially yeasty and decided to take a break from working to walk out and stand in the rain “to cool off” like a fucking animal. You can probably figure out how that affected the store environment when she decided to wander back in.

But her worst feature is her personality. When she greets customers, it sounds like a mixture of a deflating balloon and a hamster at the moment it realizes it’s about to be shoved up someone’s ass. She’s constantly telling me she’s going to quit, but I no longer get my hopes up. And she’s dumb as a fucking brick. We sell small fish. One of them was sick, so she asked if she should flush it—not to put it out of its misery, mind you, but because she thought it would be happier in the ocean. Watching her go through the stages of grief as I told her—a woman near 30—that we live a hundred miles from the ocean, it’s a freshwater fish and it would end up tangled up in shitty wipes you aren’t supposed to flush was enough to make me want to blissfully skip into traffic. This was magnified later as the fish started swimming around, she ran over to pick up the container it was in, and it fucking died in her hands. Only then, at that point, was I comfortable flushing the fucking thing.

So, keep washing your fucking hands, wear a fucking mask and (for another month) feel good that you don’t have my life.

TRAPPIST FRONTMAN crafts a monthly journey through

MORBID ALES

BY CHRIS DODGE

Black Lives and Black-Owned Breweries Matter

T

he grim and brutal events of the past few months have shifted the spotlight from a communicable virus to the more deeply rooted plague of bigotry. While COVID-19 will eventually prove manageable in coming years by way of vaccines, racism is a behavior that can immediately be stopped—“cured,” if you will. And yet, the willingness to choose a culture of hatred persists.

In the past, it hasn’t consciously registered to me which breweries were Blackowned businesses. Initially, it was just that I didn’t think about it either way. But it was also due to lacking self-awareness of my own privilege. To simply not be racist is not enough. This month, I actively searched for Black-owned breweries and found more than 60 across the States, primed to expand diversity in the independent beer world.

And it’s about time.

Weathered Souls Brewing out of San Antonio recently kicked off a “Black Is Beautiful” initiative, inviting brewers to create their own version of a shared, collaborative imperial stout recipe. This high-ABV dark beer is meant to highlight “different shades of black.” All participating breweries have agreed to donate proceeds to local

 Black is brew-tiful

Teo Hunter (l) and Beny Ashburn of Crowns & Hops Brewing Co. are here to stay

reform organizations addressing police brutality, while also contributing to legal defenses for victims.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, brewmaster Chris Reeves spent the last decade honing his skills to open Down Home Brewing, “Georgia’s first African American-owned-and-operated craft brewery.” The artwork on their cans depicts a dark-skinned mascot enjoying a brew and giving a thumbs-up, but according to Reeves, the great irony is, even with being a Black-owned brewery, “people have not taken us seriously and feel that our packaging is too racist, and have turned us down based solely on the controversy that it may bring.”

In Southern California, Teo Hunter and Beny Ashburn of Crowns & Hops Brewing Co., have spent the past five years launching their “Black People Love Beer” campaign, which can be found proudly emblazoned on their canned brews, as well as across merch from their Dope & Dank clothing line. Their initial following was built organically by hosting craft beer tastings with hip-hop DJs. Some gatherings were standard tap takeovers, but many were word-of-mouth events at non-traditional spots like back rooms of barbershops. Total underground DIY. Crowns & Hops’ tap room was set to launch in Inglewood this year, but the coronavirus derailed those plans until 2021, so for the moment they’re sticking with contract brewing and collabs with pals around the country. The Crowns & Hops vision, according to Hunter, “represents the community that has been severely underrepresented in craft beer—the Black community. Our mission is to preserve culture, expand the palate and build community.”

I bluntly asked Hunter the single most important fact white America needs to understand about supporting Black-owned businesses. “White American business owners should understand that support is not charity,” he replied. “White business owners need to consider if [they] have directly or indirectly benefited from never having to deal with this country’s history of racism. Not just in business, but throughout their lives and their families’ lives. Once those truths are acknowledged, direction on what support is will become intrinsic; not because someone told you that it is needed.”

And when asked about discrimination they have faced as both brewers and as business owners, Hunter laid it all on the table: “More than discrimination, there has been the refusal to truly see the Black community as a part of the whole community. For years, some breweries treated diversity as a political issue rather than a community opportunity. Clearly, our industry is beginning to understand the significance of that today.”

DECIBEL : SEP TEMBER 2020 : 13

SÓLSTAFIR

A

STUDIO REPORT it was a lot of fun playing that newborn daughter when Decibel rings him on Skype. The affable Icelander album—so I think that influemits zero stress from his Reykjavík home. Almost as if he’s not entirely enced this album. Of course, ALBUM TITLE ensconced in two life-affirming situations, but rather just back from a there are strings and piano on TBA casual stroll through Laugardalur. But in reality, for the past two months, he and the new album, but Köld defithe rest of Sólstafir—along with longtime producer extraordinaire Birgir Jón nitely influenced this album.”

LABEL Birgisson—have been working on the follow-up to 2017’s Berdreyminn.

As for Sólstafir retaining Season of Mist “This is the fourth album we’ve done at Sundlaugin,” Tryggvason beams. their distinct top-of-the-world/ STUDIOS “It’s better known as the ‘swimming pool.’ It’s located like 10-15 minutes outside island fingerprint, well, Sundlaugin Studio (Mosfellsbær, Reykjavík. It’s an old swimming pool that was closed down in the 1960s. It was Tryggvason feels they’re more Iceland) and a storage room for a wool factory for 20-30 years. Then Sigur Rós bought it in Icelandic than ever.

Sólstafir’s 2000. They owned it for like 10 years or so. Then it was sold to Birgir and Kjartan “The more we become a rehearsal space [Sveinsson], who used to be in Sigur Rós.” traveling band,” he notes, “the PRODUCER Whereas Berdreyminn relied heavily on piano and keyboard, Sólstafir’s untitled more we travel the world. The Birgir Jón Birgisson new album is neck-deep in screaming ‘n’ soft guitars. Perhaps it’s not a return to more we become aware that RECORDING DATES “Fjara”—a track Tryggvason likens to the band’s version of “Enter Sandman” and we’re Icelandic. We’re weirdos.

April - May 2020 “Nothing Else Matters”—but the guitar-driven songs are patently obvious, as is the It’s kind of in our blood to RELEASE DATE rock ‘n’ roll swagger/grit that penetrated tracks like “Ljós í Stormi,” “Pale Rider” mix different styles. I mean, Late 2020 and “I Myself the Visionary Head.”

I’ll listen to Autopsy’s Mental “We’re the same four guys in the same rehearsal room,” says Tryggvason. “This Funeral and then play After the time around, it’s more guitar-based. This time last year, we played [2009’s] whole Köld album— Gold Rush by Neil Young.” —CHRIS DICK

ðalbjörn Tryggvason is between mastering sessions and caring for his

SÓLSTAFIR

STUDIO SHORT SHOTS

DENVER ATMOSPHERIC BLACK METALLERS WAYFARER COMPLETE “BIG AND BLOODY” LP AT HOME 14 : SEP TEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

“I would never wish this COVID scenario on anyone, but it gave us extra time and the record became better because of it.” When the world locked down back in March, Wayfarer guitarist Shane McCarthy originally rolled with the coronavirus TKO to catch up on some sleep and reading. But frustration and boredom quickly set in, especially since isolation orders and

travel restrictions nixed the Denver quartet’s plan to record their latest album of atmospheric and blackened Americana, A Romance With Violence, with Colin Marston at Thousand Caves Studio in Queens.

Stuck at home, Wayfarer decided to reschedule locally with Pete deBoer at World Famous Studio and use the extra time to tidy up the songwriting. While Marston will still be contributing via the mix—Triptykon’s V. Santura will be mastering—working with deBoer allowed the band to record onto two-inch tape, which, according to McCarthy, “really contributes to capturing the feel of the ‘big and bloody western film of an album’ we are pursuing.” A Romance With Violence will be set for fall release via Profound Lore. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

ORANSSI PAZUZU

Psychedelic black metal cult continually claws through the cosmos

F

rom the impact crater of 2009 debut Muukalainen Puhuu to the roaring maelstrom of Värähtelijä seven years later, Oranssi Pazuzu’s astral projection through psychedelic black metal hurtles the Finnish five-piece toward some ultimate sonic event. Syntheosis breached that dimension last year with fellow countrymen Dark Buddha Rising as Waste of Space Orchestra, and now OP are dropping their fifth sound wave Mestarin Kynsi, another quantum leap. ¶ “WOSO was huge for us in every sense,” emails bassist Toni Hietamäki. “We poured all the creativity we had into that album and found new musical possibilities. After the recording, we were exhausted since it was such a multilayered and grandiose thing to write and record.

So, when we started writing new stuff for OP, we wanted to go exactly the other way: smaller spaces, less elements, more focused, aggressive and in-your-face. ¶ “In the end, the album did not end up being as minimalistic as we fantasized,” he reckons, “but that was the overall ethos, anyway.” ¶ Six volcano balls crystallizing air pockets of prismic beauty, Mestarin Kynsi (“The Master’s Claw”) discharges maximum majesty, but

16 : SEP TEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

its electronic detailing and the inner space of digital expressionism flip a switch reminiscent of Radiohead’s crossover from OK Computer to Kid A. Hietamäki cites the arctic circle field recordings of Norwegian modulator Geir Jenssen, to which mesmeric vocal demon Juho Vanhanen responds, “We didn’t want to only take sounds that sound ‘electronic’ and leave the influences to that, but rather … take influences further into the songs, album structure and dramatic curve.”

Floydian ambiance and burbling symphonics (“Tyhjyyden Sakramentti”), percussive keyboard warp (“Oikeamielisten Sali”) and a burring, vibrating, almost Dead-like crossover into existential momentum (“Kuulen Ääniä Maan Alta”) make Mestarin Kynsi peak Pazuzu. Lashing centerpiece “Uusi Teknokratia” helicopters 10 minutes of spellbinding narrative fission.

“It translates as ‘New Technocracy,’

and it’s a nightmarish song about surveillance and where it could lead,” Vanhanen explains of the latter. “I wanted the guitars to have this crazy, loopy, precise-yet groovy feel. Kind of like some Killing Joke.

A big part of this song builds from EviL [keyboardist Ville Leppilahti].”

“There is a certain alchemy in the band that always puts its mark on the sound and guides us,” offers Hietamäki. “Many times, when we jam a new song, at some point there is just this feeling of ‘it’ happening; something one cannot fully grasp and analyze that makes the music somehow transcendent and magical to us.

“I think many bands who improvise are familiar with that feeling,” he continues. “We like to combine those unexpected parts with composed stuff. At best, the two melt into one so that you can’t tell anymore what’s planned and what is just pouring from another dimension.” —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

PHOTO BY TEKLA VALY

ORANSSI PAZUZU

DROUTH

U

nless this is your first day here, you’re undoubtedly aware of heavy metal’s ongoing obsession with death.

The topic has been explored every which way imaginable, from band monikers and entire subgenre descriptors to concept albums and Tom Warrior’s popularization of the succinctly obvious “Only Death Is Real.” So, it shouldn’t be surprising when Drouth’s Matt Stikker remarks, “The theme of all our art is death. It’s the grand unifier, what gives our lives purpose and the focal point for our relationship to the universe,” in noting the Portland-based black metal upstarts’ focus on the various facets of life’s finish line. ¶ Of course, recent viral events sweeping across the globe have given the vocalist/ guitarist a chance for reflection and expansion on his favorite subject matter. “What we try to project through the music and lyrical content is the general transience of human existence,” Stikker explains. “Not dwelling so much on human failure as the absurdity of the world we have constructed; the way we’re connected to our universe and the way we deliberately wall ourselves off from it. While our new record isn’t political,

18 : SEP TEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

its content is a reflection of current events. I do think the pandemic illuminates the fragility of our constructed existence and our ability to deny its fragility until we are shown exactly how small and transient our institutions are.”

Formed in 2014 by Stikker and drummer Pat Fiorentino after previous outfit Contempt disbanded, Drouth didn’t kick into high gear until the end of 2017 when bassist Tyler Wolfe and guitarist/vocalist John Edwards jumped on board, abandoning their Lone Star State roots to contribute to the diversity and existentialism displayed on new sophomore album, Excerpts From a Dread Liturgy.

“When they joined, things immediately clicked on a deeper level artistically, personally and with respect to shared goals,” Stikker says. “This album is the first thing in our current iteration, and is the foremost representation of what we’ve been trying to accomplish over the last two years.”

While rooted in black metal’s traditional chromatic iciness, Excerpts From a Dread Liturgy breaks the surface plane by including minimalist darkness, notes of thrashing punk and dueling suspended chords that generate melody without falling into the shoegaze trap. All this emerges from behind an enormous, powerfully sharp (but still sinister) wall of sound.

“Drouth has given us a freedom that, as we’ve matured and developed our ideas about the kind of band we want to be in, allows us to be less conscious about genre and less contrived about crafting our sound,” Stikker concludes. “It’s a mixture of all of our influences that’s congealed so that the seams are a little less visible.

We’ve all been in a variety of extreme metal bands over the years, and I’d like to think this is the culmination and the band we’ve wanted to be in and the music we’ve wanted to write all along.”

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PHOTO BY RAYA JADE PHOTOGRAPHY

DROUTH

Existence is futile, but NWBM crew is happy to make some noise while they still can

CARACH ANGREN

CARACH ANGREN

D

on’t let carach angren’s visuals deter you. Don’t let the Dutchmen’s vivid lyrics repel. Definitely don’t let the duo’s high-flying blackened metal theatrics prompt a run for the vomitorium. For the longer the iron jaws of Carach Angren (vocalist/guitarist Seregor and keyboardist/ composer Ardek) have clamped down with their pitiless hold, the more influence they exert. It’s easy to dismiss new album Franckensteina Strataemontanus on sight alone, but that would be a disservice to rock ‘n’ roll’s actorly progenitors, the likes of which include everyone from Mercyful Fate to Alice Cooper.

But still, the jeers persist, mainly from black metal’s straitlaced third estate. ¶ “Especially in Europe, people have certain ideas of what black metal is, what it should sound and look like,” Ardek says. “We have never really identified with any of that. We like to make the music we create. From the moment we started the band, we felt the urge to develop things and see if we could come up with something original. We started writing conceptual horror stories from the beginning, and this has grown into our identity. With every release, we have gradually expanded both the music and visuals in all kinds of directions.”

20 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

On Carach Angren’s sixth album, the story of German physician, alchemist and Protestant firebrand Johann Conrad Dippel (based on fact and horrified by fiction) has indeed informed the crafty, novelette expression. The group’s amplification, perversion of and attachment to Dippel’s fascinating (if abhorrent) past is cleverly patched onto other anachronistic, yet related stories— look up the odious fragrance of and inhuman use for “bone oil”—to form a single narrative under which “Scourged Ghoul Undead,” “Operation Compass,” “Monster” and closing epic “Like a Conscious Parasite I Roam” operate singularly.

“We allowed ourselves the freedom to explore every possible connection to Dippel,” Ardek says. “I felt that a purely linear story about his life would appear pale and dull, or even predictable. The fascinating thing about Dippel is that he had this extreme longing to live forever and, in a way, he did through some of his inventions. One of his inventions

was advised to be used as a rudimentary chemical weapon in World War II. ‘Der Vampir von Nürnberg’ is also a fascinating story that took place just decades ago. The connection is the obsession with death.”

Laymen often precariously cite Morbid Angel and Cradle of Filth in their assessment of Carach Angren.

In a way, the generalizations aren’t far off, but the twosome offers far deeper excursions—spirited from Stravinsky, Bach, John Williams and Christopher Young—into their fiendish creative process throughout Franckensteina Strataemontanus.

“We really like to create contrasts,” says Ardek. “You can, for example, hear this in the title track.

We go from industrial heaviness into death metal into more melodic and orchestral material and back.

It is interesting because the death metal parts always feel like the perfect way to resolve orchestral madness into plain old mosh-pitting and headbanging. The simplest of riffs work amazingly.” —CHRIS DICK

PHOTO BY STEFAN HEILEMANN

Symphonic black metal duo scores the monstrous soundtrack to your mundane life’s escape

VILE CREATURE

VILE CREATURE

Witness the power and glory of Ontario doom duo

A

pained shriek breaks the silence, soon joined by lumbering doom riffs and punctuated by sharp drumming. It is a rerecording of doom-laden single “Harbinger of Nothing,” released last year as part of Adult Swim’s Metal Swim 2 series and reimagined as the first track on Vile Creature’s third album, Glory! Glory! Apathy Took Helm! ¶ “Once we were most of the way through writing the record, we really realized it’s a great song as-is, but we wanted it to be the start of the record,” guitarist/vocalist KW Campol explains. ¶ A tangible sense of dread permeates every moment on Glory! Glory!, released in mid-June on Prosthetic. It is not a fast album (though it features the two fastest songs of Vile Creature’s career), yet the feeling of urgency never goes away. ¶ “The lyrical content of Glory! Glory! Apathy Took Helm! is very much based in reflecting on [previous album concepts] and combating the ideas of apathy and nihilism taking over your life,” Campol says. “And finding ways to maneuver through that both personally and politically.

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There’s very little divide between the two of those.”

It’s all doom, but there are respites from the gloom, like the partially titular “Apathy! Apathy!”

The duo is joined by Bismuth’s Tanya Byrne on piano and organ, as well as Laura Minnes and her choir, Minuscule. The gentle, choral arrangements stand in stark contrast to the gnarly doom that precedes and follows. Minuscule’s contributions extend to the other title track, “Glory Took Helm!” where their vocals do battle with Campol and drummer/vocalist Vic Creature’s screams.

Vile Creature have also found themselves in the world of tabletop gaming, collaborating again with Byrne to record vocals for “In Tenebris Lux,” the theme song for the second edition of the game Torchbearer (for which she wrote and recorded the music).

When it rains, it pours—a lesson that has been hammered home for artists since March. Vile Creature and Byrne were scheduled to join forces and perform a commissioned piece at the 2020 edition of Roadburn (since rescheduled for 2021), as well as tackle festivals like Austin’s Oblivion Access and their first West Coast shows. They’re taking the delays in stride and are still eager for the world to hear their new album.

“It feels really wonderful to be getting the record because we’re not used to sitting on things and we like to be able to move on,” Campol admits. “And it’s hard to move on when you’re just sitting on a thing that you love and people can’t hear.”

“It would just feel wrong to sit on it for the sake of saving a whole tour cycle,” Creature adds. “To wait until next year to do what we were supposed to do.” —VINCE BELLINO

Excerpts From a Dread Liturgy

Portland, OR’s DROUTH present their encapsulating sophomore effort and Translation Loss debut “Excerpts From a Dread Liturgy”.

Five songs of intricate and enthralling black metal. Produced by Fester (Knelt Rote, Ritual Necromancy) and featuring the stunning artwork of DROUTH guitarist & vocalist Matt Stikker (Outer Heaven, Power Trip, Witch Vomit).

Out July 31st V I N Y L / DIGI TA L

O U T N O W

BLOODLET

VIPER IN HAND

C TRIP A

OZZY NIGHTS

10 ” W/ E T CHING / DIGI TA L

V IN Y L / DIGI TA L

The band’s first new material to surface in 17 years.

Forward thinking hip hop featuring guest appearances

by Alap Momin (ex-dälek) and Colin Marston (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia).

TEETH

THE CURSE OF ENTROPY

V IN Y L / L IMI T ED EDI T ION CD W/ BONUS T R ACKS / DIGI TA L

Crushing death metal featuring a guest appearance from Luc Lemay (Gorguts).

TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION

...TO BE ALIVE AT THE END OF THE WORLD V IN Y L / DIGI TA L

Catchy and infectious art grind led by Brutal Truth’s Richard Hoak.

WAKE

INTRONAUT

DEVOURING RUIN

THE CHALLENGER

9 out of 10

Made available on vinyl for first time ever.

V IN Y L / CD/ DIGI TA L

-

V IN Y L /CD/ DIGI TA L

PURCHASE OUR TITLES AND MERCHANDISE FROM OUR BANDS ONLINE, 24 HOURS A DAY! | TRANSLATIONLOSS.COM | FACEBOOK.COM/TRANSLATIONLOSSRECORDS | TRANSLATIONLOSS.BANDCAMP.COM

YEAR OF THE KNIFE

YEAR OF THE KNIFE Delaware metallic hardcore crushers find God(City)

O

n internal incarceration, Year of the Knife don’t merely deliver one of the most expansive, interesting and deft extreme music fusions of the year—though the rising Delaware straight-edge quintet certainly accomplishes that, marrying Phil Spector-esque “Wall of Sound” to an amalgamation of burly noise rock, metallic hardcore and classic death-groove elements. They also build a formidable refuge for themselves and other once-lost souls failed by community, family, youth culture, schools or social lubricants that supercharge slippery slopes. ¶ “From the outside looking in, hardcore can seem chaotic and crazy and violent,” bassist Madison Watkins tells Decibel, “but in reality, that aggression is positive aggression—it’s about release and expression and finding your own path and creation, not destruction—which actually makes it an incredible source of very real peace and empowerment for a lot of people, myself included.” ¶ “I never saw hardcore or straight-edge as some kind of elitist thing or a hierarchy of purity,” vocalist Tyler Mullen adds.

24 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

“Around the time I started going to shows, there were a lot of terrible things connected to substance abuse going on around me, and suddenly here was this escape hatch from a life I didn’t want to live. I wanted to be a sober, conscientious, mentally strong person, and this was a community that supported that; a place where I could really belong.”

That sort of affecting authenticity and vulnerability—not to mention will to overcome—is a perfect match for the equally fiery, intelligent songwriting on Internal Incarceration, a debut full-length captured with stunning scope and range by Converge guitarist/ producer Kurt Ballou. “We have all been inspired by Kurt’s work for a long time, so it was an amazing experience to record with him,” Mullen says. “He’d listen to us play a song once and instantly offer all

these incisive thoughts and suggestions on how to take the sound even further. His perspective, generosity and presence really helped make the record what it is.”

In the end, Year of the Knife had no agenda other than to progress on their own terms and continue to transform the band organically into what it is meant to be. “We’re careful not to box ourselves in with a lot of talk,” Watkins says. “We work hard on the songs, but we don’t force anything. We’re just here to write fast, heavy, dynamic shit that we’re happy with, and that is meaningful to us. Because if we’re not writing fast, heavy, dynamic shit that we’re happy with and that is meaningful to us, then what would be the point?

That wouldn’t be cathartic for us in the way this record is—and as it hopefully will be for those who listen to it.” —SHAWN MACOMBER

ONSLAUGHT

ONSLAUGHT

Old-school U.K. thrash heroes have more exciting stories than you

T

hrash metal is best enjoyed with the safety off, and the safety was surely off in the ’80s when Onslaught emerged on the scene. Weaned at the Xeroxed teat of British hardcore punk, they came out of Bristol, southwest England, in 1982, specializing in a kinetic thrash sound whose venom is undiminished some four decades on. ¶ “I was a punk from 13 years old,” says guitarist Nige Rockett. “The aggression was really upped by bands like Discharge, G.B.H. and the Exploited.

I was 16, and me and [former bassist] Paul Hill used to follow Discharge and G.B.H. around England, watching shows, sleeping rough. We formed Onslaught because of that.” ¶ Onslaught’s story is one of savage live shows, terrorists, Mafiosi, riots in Chile and near-death experiences. Staring down the barrel of a .44 Magnum in NYC? “That was our own fault,” admits Rockett. “We were recording and mixing [1989’s In Search of] Sanity and had been out drinking in a bar one night, got drunk, and one of the guys had gone home because he was out of it.

26 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

He locks himself in the room and we didn’t have the keys. So, we are kicking on the door, trying to wake him up. All of a sudden, we turn ’round and there’s this geezer with a Magnum.” It was cool, though; it was just the janitor. “It’s a bit hairy when you see a Magnum,” laughs Rockett.

Onslaught got their break playing support slots at punk shows rolling through Bristol’s Trinity Hall; Tim Bennett eventually signed them to C.O.R. Records and released their debut LP, Power From Hell, in 1985.

Have things changed much? The lineup has. On Generation Antichrist, new vocalist David Garnett’s debut, Rockett remains the sole original member. But the song remains the same—write music that’ll make the live show insane.

“I still believe thrash is still the most aggressive form of metal

there is,” stresses Rockett. “With this album, we’ve tried to take it to the limits, to the maximum, strip everything back for the most aggressive record we could make.” Just like the old days, right? As in when their limb-wrecking shows were so hectic they hired their own F.O.H. security to secure safe passage for stage divers? “No security guys had ever seen the mass stage invasions, people constantly streaming off the stage, off the PA, off the balconies,” says Rockett. “The only way they knew how to deal with it was violence against the kids.”

Nowadays, says Rockett, you’ve got to go to South America if you want an authentic thrash experience (“It’s my favorite place in the world. It’s back-in-the day stuff. It’s mad, crazy.”) Safety off, thrash as it ever was. Danger is a hard drug to kick. —JONATHAN HORSLEY

interview by

QA j. bennett

STEVE VON TILL WIT H

NEUROSIS luminary discusses life during the pandemic and making a solo album with no guitars

28 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

S

omewhere in rural Idaho, Steve Von Till peers into a laptop camera, I was the only one awake, driving, and I remem-

his face flickering across the screen over a Skype connection with Decibel’s L.A. Bureau. He’s sitting in a barn that doubles as his home studio and the office of Neurot Recordings, the label he owns with the other members of Neurosis. We’re here to talk about his new solo album, No Wilderness Deep Enough, and his book Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics, both of which mark significant firsts for Von Till. No Wilderness Deep Enough is his first solo album without a guitar on it. Instead, Von Till intones powerful and thought-provoking lyrics over piano, cello and other classical instruments. Meanwhile, Harvestman is both his first book and his first collection of poetry. As if that weren’t enough, COVID-19 is still raging and protests have risen up across the globe after four (now ex-) Minneapolis cops murdered George Floyd in cold blood. We spoke with our man about all of it in our wide-ranging conversation.

How are you holding up on Planet Virus?

Out here where I’m at, life hasn’t been much different. We live on 12 acres of forest, but even when we went into town when everything was shut down, I think our county had 75 cases at its peak. Which went both ways—we were far enough from the hot zones that it was pretty good, but on the other hand, some local folks haven’t been taking it as seriously as they might have. But it hasn’t really ripped through here yet.

How has lockdown affected your day-to-day as a fourth grade teacher?

I love my job and I’m happy to have a paycheck, but since lockdown I’ve been pulling 12- to 14-hour days on the computer trying to find resources that aren’t horrible for my students to interface with. Going from pencil and paper and some technology in the classroom to only technology meant trying to make sure kids had devices and working with the schools to get them devices if they didn’t; getting internet hotspots in rural areas; teaching families that aren’t super computer-literate to help their kids; and helping kids that are home alone while their parents are at work. Between that and the record label and setting up the release of my new record, I’ve been on this stupid computer way too fucking long.

Is there any friction in your area between people who are taking the pandemic seriously and people who aren’t?

Yeah. My wife and I go out to the grocery store here in our small town wearing masks, and we get some dirty looks like we’re some of those sheep that fell for it, you know? “You’re not gonna get it!” Well, actually, it’s not about me.

I’m not afraid. I’m doing it as a courtesy to other people in the community because it’s not up PHOTO BY BOBBY COCHR AN

to me to dictate their level of comfort. This is unprecedented territory, so better safe than sorry.

What’s the protest situation up there in the wake of George Floyd’s murder?

You cannot compare it to the metropolitan areas, but I was proud that Coeur d’Alene, Spokane and even Sandpoint, a small town north of us, did have people out with signs. For the most part, it was good, but we do live in one of those communities where some people bought into the whole “Antifa is going to show up in your town to destroy your storefronts” thing. And the typical Idaho response is a bunch of dudes with big rifles across the streets from the protests. There was no conflict between the armed folks and the protesters, but one side of the street looked like a Second Amendment rally for sure.

Neurosis started in the Bay Area, and your early solo stuff came out while you were still living there. How has the move to Idaho affected you?

The main reason I ended up out here is that I needed some room to breathe. As a young man, I loved city life. I loved being walking distance from my favorite bars and restaurants and record stores. But after my first daughter was born, I couldn’t see those things anymore. I could only see the needles in the street, the dude pissing in my doorway when I’ve got four sacks of groceries and a baby, the human turds on the sidewalk. I knew I would become angry if I didn’t give myself some space. So, I went back to the ’burbs while I tried to figure out where to go and get my teaching credential so I could pretty much pick where I want to live.

How did you decide on Idaho?

I remember driving through here on a Neurosis tour from Missoula to Seattle in winter at dawn.

ber coming across the Fourth of July Pass down into Lake Coeur d’Alene, and it looked like the fjords of Norway. It was beautiful. So, I came back and checked it out, and for the price of rent in a city, I could afford to buy property. It definitely has its cultural compromises, but I needed nature. I needed space. I thought it was going to be like Timbuktu, but it’s not—I can be at the Spokane airport in an hour. And Spokane is one of those weird Northwest cities that’s starving for culture. The underground community is hungry, as opposed to saturated. If the Melvins roll through up here, it’s the best day of the year.

How do you think that environment has seeped into your music over the years? From an outsider’s perspective, it seems like you’re talking about nature more than ever.

I’ve definitely always leaned heavily on the natural metaphors in my writing, and I think that came from a longing to be more connected.

If you look back to before I left the city, it was an aching to be where I’m at now. And that aching hasn’t changed—it’s just shifted. I’ve moved my bell curve over a little bit. So now, as opposed to being in California where you don’t even have to buy a jacket—you can live your whole life with a hoodie or maybe a windbreaker—up here, living on a country road, weather changes your life decisions for the day.

That never happens in California unless you’re up in the Sierras or something. If you get 20 inches of snow out of nowhere, that determines what your day is gonna be.

And it’s gonna start with shoveling…

[Laughs] Shoveling, plowing—and they don’t cancel school up here, so you better get your ass up and take care of that stuff so you can get out.

Spring and fall are gone before you know it up here, but I appreciate having all four seasons.

Being a person that’s always looked to ancient cultures and earth-based spirituality, having all four seasons does me well. Watching the moon phases, looking at the sky every night, you can smell the seasons changing and recognize which wild plants are gonna pop first once the snow is gone; watching the different birds come and go with the seasons. I love all that stuff.

So, all of those things have spoken to me in a way that now those metaphors become more experience-based as opposed to longing-based— and I have more of them. [Laughs] I’ve spent days in the woods and the mountains. I’m not a mountain man or anything—I don’t go that balls-out—but I think having a more peaceful place to live has allowed me to become a more centered person, to peel through my own DECIBEL : SEPTEMBER 2020 : 29

Howling for vengeance  Steve von Till (l) is already training for the comments from the peanut gallery

You’ve described your new album as a “beautiful accident.” What do you mean by that?

It started when we were visiting my wife’s family in a small rural community near Bremen in the north of Germany. Her family has lived there for over 500 years on the exact same house site, which—even by European standards—is a long time. So, whenever I visit there—of course it’s kind and warm and everyone is great, but there’s a weight there that’s hard to explain. It’s not dark or anything, but it’s heavy. You look at the fields and you think about how long those people have plowed them.

I was suffering from horrible jet lag, worse than normal, so I had to get up. I had this laptop and a little keyboard controller and some headphones, so I figured I’d teach myself a new audio software. I couldn’t figure it out because I was so sleepless, but I did stumble into this beautifulsounding sampled upright piano. Even with the crappy controller, it was very expressive. I think the sleeplessness and the energy of the place started turning into these very simple chord progressions. I’m not a piano player, but I kept recording them without any thought of making anything. I was just messing around. But they kept flowing and even though they were simple, they were very harmonically rich and suggested other things. So, over the week I was there, I added some Mellotron strings and sampled French horn and it started to take some kind of shape.

At some point, you figured you were making an ambient record.

When I got home, I kept adding more stuff and it started to take a unique shape and started echoing back stuff that I love, like the Icelandic and German minimalist composers, a lot of Brian Eno’s ambient music—I think On Land is probably my most-listened to album of my entire life—and Stars of the Lid; things like that. So, it was reminding me of that without sounding like it because it was more active than ambient music, and I’m not accomplished enough to call it neoclassical, so I didn’t know where it fit. Was it Harvestman?

Should I grab my guitar and a fuzz pedal and do some psychedelic leads on this thing? Am I making ambient music now? What am I doing?

Which is where Randall Dunn comes in…

So, I played it for Randall, who did my last record, and said I wanted to go into the studio and replace some of the sampled instruments 30 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

When you say, ‘I’m putting out a book of poetry’— especially in our heavy music world— you almost wanna swallow it before you say it. You can see people just kinda going, ‘Oh, god…’ with real instruments and add some breath to it.

And he said, “Yeah, we should totally do that. But you should also sing on it and make it your next solo record.” And I totally disagreed. [Laughs] I thought the last thing this music needed was my raspy croak on top of it, but I said I’d think about it. That happened to be winter break, and my wife went to visit her parents, so I was alone in the house. I set up a condenser mic in the middle of our living room and just improvised vocal patterns every morning. I tore through old notes and poems and grabbed any words that made sense or would fit. By the end of that week, I had it. So, I called Randall and said, “You were right.”

Your lyrics have consistently had an environmentally conscious theme over the years, but it seems especially pronounced on this record. Does it seem that way to you?

[Long pause] I don’t know. Perhaps. As you said, environmental things have always run through the lyrics, but the social dialogue about the end of the planet is definitely ramped up. But we’ve always been addressing that—not from a specific political point of view, but from an earth-based situation. As much as we can be loving and thoughtful and artistic beings, if you zoomed out, we can easily be seen as a giant devouring monster that is determined to take everything with it. So, perhaps that all seeps in—and like you said earlier, that might have to do with me living closer to nature now. But the metaphor of the Wilderness in the title is the wilderness inside, which is a treacherous place for a lot of folks.

You’ve got a book of poems and collected lyrics coming out on the same day as the album.

Are they related in some way?

Initially, I was going to self-publish the book— before it got picked up by Astrophil Press, which is tied to the University of South Dakota—so it was feeling a bit like a vanity piece. I had challenged myself to sit and work on these poems just for poetry’s sake at the same time as these songs were taking place, and I realized that I’d only ever written for myself, so these poems kind of live and die in my notebooks, and occasionally get a line or two stripped out for lyrics. So, I thought maybe I’d let them live on their own and make a chapbook to sell on the website—maybe print them at Kinko’s and make a fanzine or something. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it proper and make a nice piece. And maybe bundling it with the record will make people more interested than not.

Did you agonize over the decision to publish your poetry?

When you say, “I’m putting out a book of poetry”—especially in our heavy music world— you almost wanna swallow it before you say it.

You can see people just kinda going, “Oh, god…”

So, the old skeptical punk rocker in me combined with the imposter syndrome insecurity is weighing heavy. But again, I thought maybe I was supposed to own it. Maybe this is one of those things that I’m supposed to be following because it feels right. Maybe this is another path I’m supposed to be on.

PHOTO BY BOBBY COCHRAN

layers and get through my own stuff easier.

Hopefully, that opportunity will be there my entire life so I never stop learning and growing and becoming a better version of myself.

the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

story by

nick green

Don’t Be Afraid the making of Slint’s Spiderland

B

y the time Spiderland was released Spiderland is meticulously sequenced in 1991, the college-aged members and, in any format, makes for a proof Slint were practically grizzled foundly uncomfortable listening experiveterans of a small, but concenence. Side A opens in a warm, triumtrated Louisville, KY music scene phant fashion with the major chords that was about to hit critical of “Breadcrumb Trail,” segues into the mass. Drummer Britt Walford and guitaralbum’s most straightforward “rock” ist Brian McMahan had both spent time, song (“Nosferatu Man”) and closes with separately, playing in the Hüsker Dü-esque Walford’s 11th hour addition “Don, hardcore band Squirrel Bait. Walford and Aman.” Side B, by contrast, is all about McMahan (later replaced by guitarist David abstraction: Slint keep things (relatively) DBHOF189 Pajo) then formed an aggressive heavy loose on “Washer” and “For Dinner…,” metal act named Maurice that played with then build towards a maximum crescendo Samhain, before splitting into Slint and on “Good Morning, Captain.” Everything Kinghorse. Elements of hardcore and metal about Spiderland—from McMahan’s filtered into Slint’s music, but even by the plaintive vocals to the extremely iconic Spiderland 1989 debut Tweez, the band was vibrating on album art—still comes across as deeply TOUCH A ND GO another frequency entirely. shrouded in mystery.

M A R CH 27 , 1 9 9 1 The idea that Slint remain part of the According to bassist Todd Brashear, cultural conversation is mind-blowing.

Spiderland only sold around 1,000 copies Black and white and rad all over Admittedly, Spiderland was a crucial linchthe year it was released. Before Slint pin in the genre that eventually became reconvened in 2005 and 2007 for a series “post-rock,” and its loud-quiet-loud dynaof reunion shows, the band had only permism continues to reverberate in the work formed in front of a live audience about of bands like Mogwai, Explosions in the 30 times. It’s a minor miracle that anyone Sky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. However, back in the early ’90s, heard it, but ardent fans held the album up as a talisman over the years, the only guy who had any sense of the importance of what Slint had creusing it to contemplate the mysteries of the universe. There are only ated was Steve Albini, who awarded Spiderland “ten fucking stars” in an six songs here, but each is a fancifully wrapped treasure; together, they eerily prescient review in Melody Maker, suggesting, “Play this record and convey a palpable sense of dread over the death of adolescence. The band kick yourself if you never got to see them live. In 10 years, you’ll lie like couldn’t survive that, but the bleak, singular, uncompromising vision of the cocksucker you are and say you did anyway.”

Spiderland has endured.

SLINT

PHOTO BY WILL OLDHAM

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Original copies of Tweez had an insert teasing a 12-inch that included another version of “Rhoda” and a song called “Glenn,” which was ultimately released in 1994 after the band broke up. Why were the master tapes shelved before Spiderland was released?

Why did Ethan Buckler leave after Tweez, and how did Todd Brashear come to replace him?

MCMAHAN: We recorded Tweez in the fall of ’87 and most of us went off to college. We didn’t meet up again until [the] spring of ’88. I think that Ethan decided that he did not want to be involved

“We had broken up by the time the record came out, so we never had a chance to sit back and listen to it in an objective way.”

TO D D B RASHEA R really quickly after the recording of Tweez. He didn’t like the way it sounded, and he had his own ideas, and he had no problems realizing his vision without us. When we heard the mixes for Tweez, he was like, “I don’t even know what this is about. This is something I’m not into.” Todd basically came in right away. There was a sixmonth interval, at most, between when Ethan left and when Todd started playing in the band.

PAJO: I do remember having a lot of long conversations with Ethan after we recorded and mixed Tweez. It was mostly just him ranting about how Steve Albini destroyed the album. The difference in production between Tweez and Spiderland is huge. But the songs themselves on Tweez aren’t all that different from Spiderland; just a little sludgier. Ethan hated everything about it. He complained about the lack of mid-range. But Albini did all of the things we asked him to do. We wanted to sound like Big Black. Ethan wanted a more natural sound. He wanted those songs to sound the way they did at practice. I don’t remember Ethan formally quitting; I just remember him being incredibly pissed off.

WALFORD: I think Ethan left in large part because we wanted to do different stuff than he wanted to do. When we were working on the material for Tweez, he and I were both interested in something more organic-sounding, with clean guitars. But Ethan was really unhappy with the recording of Tweez. I think he felt like his ideas had been overrun, and that we were heading in a direction he didn’t like. It wasn’t personal, from SEPTEMBER 2020 : 3 4 : DECIBEL

my point of view. He was probably right that the band was kind of blown away and enthralled by Big Black and Steve Albini, and perhaps overly influenced by that sound on Tweez.

BRASHEAR: I was in a punk rock band with Dave called Solution Unknown. I wasn’t an original member of that band, either. I had been a fan of Maurice, which was a pre-Slint band headed

by Britt. I became a fan of Slint in the same way. When Ethan resigned, I probably put a bug in Dave’s ear that I was interested, even though I hadn’t really played bass before. I guess I let it be known that I’d like to try out. I knew Dave well. I didn’t know Brian. I had met Britt before, because he and Will Oldham came into the pet shop I worked at and I waited on them.

I don’t think it was a super-formal tryout, but I guess I did OK. What do you recall from the “Spiderland summer,” when all four members of the band decided to take the year off from school and work through the songs as much as possible before entering the studio and, eventually, touring?

What actually happened was that we came home from school and we worked out all of the songs for Spiderland that summer. Then we recorded it. We took a year off with the intention to record Spiderland and eventually go on tour. It was a really great and productive summer. We were practicing five days a week for three to five hours every day. That part totally happened. The tour didn’t.

WALFORD:

PHOTO BY WILL OLDHAM

BRITT WALFORD: I think it was because we didn’t have a label.

Jennifer Hartman was a friend of ours, and she put out Tweez on her own label. I don’t remember if she didn’t want to put out any more records or if we had other designs.

At some point, Corey Rusk saw us play live and indicated that he would be interested in doing a Slint record for Touch and Go. BRIAN MCMAHAN: There’s a couple reasons.

By the time Tweez was released, we were already working on the material for Spiderland. The recordings in question had been made already, and had—at least aesthetically speaking—lost their relevance to us at that moment. We had talked to Jennifer Hartman about putting those two tracks out as an EP or a cassingle. By the time we got into writing Spiderland, we were like, “Ah, we should probably just sit on that stuff for now.”

DAVID PAJO: Probably because we wanted to do a full album. At the time, we weren’t on Touch and Go. We basically put Tweez out ourselves, through our friend Jennifer Hartman. So, it’s not that we didn’t want to put out that record before Spiderland; we just didn’t have a label. The recording was totally a last-minute thing. Steve Albini said he had some studio time available for one night. Todd drove up from Louisville and I came in from Evansville, Indiana, where I was in college at the time. We just met and played the two kind-of-newish songs we had. We recorded and mixed them in one night. After that, we went back to trying to write an album.

TODD BRASHEAR: You know, I have a copy of that and I didn’t remember that being in there. My memory of that was that Albini was going to put it out on his own Ruthless label, because he recorded it. I don’t even know how many things that label ever put out, to tell you the truth—an Urge Overkill EP and the early Big Black records.

We weren’t super-thrilled by the original mix, which is why it was remixed before Touch and Go eventually put it out as a 10-inch in 1994..

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SLINT spiderland We were there on two consecutive weekends. It was definitely an after-hours arrangement, because Brian worked at the studio.

Brian seems to remember that there was a separate session a couple of months later, where he and I returned to remix the opening and closing tracks. Spiderland was recorded and mixed in two weekends. I think that’s how a lot of records were made in Chicago at that time. Of course, it was challenging to put something on tape. Overall, though, it was a super-fun time. We borrowed a rhythm mic from Steve Albini to record guitars, and it sounded so great. I do remember the rest of the guys getting exasperated while we recorded “Don, Aman,” but I had a very specific idea in my head of how it should sound.

PAJO: I felt that Britt spent a lot of time tuning his drums when we recorded “For Dinner...” The song ends on an A-major chord, but everything is in G-minor before that. He wanted one of his drums tuned exactly to A to be in pitch with the chord. I remember just looking at the clock and thinking, “Fuck, we’re paying for all of this.” I am glad that he took that much time to do that, because I can hear the impact now. Of course, when Britt was driving up to Chicago for the session, he also decided to buy all-new cymbals, so that was another unexpected thing we had to deal with. I also remember that when Brian was doing the vocals for “Good Morning, Captain,” he kept asking for the lights to be turned down in the studio. Finally, all of the lights were turned off and we couldn’t see him at all. He may have thrown up after he was done. I’m not sure if it was nerves. For some reason, that song was especially hard for him to do.

BRASHEAR: It was fun, to a degree. But we were all pretty stressed out. We had the material down, but I’m sure we were all feeling pressure to complete the recording because we knew that time was so limited. When we played live, Brian did do vocals, but it didn’t really gel until the recording. With some of the songs, the lyrics weren’t really done until the end—“Breadcrumb Trail” was one of those. There are still plenty of records made now where people don’t use pitch correction tools and click tracks, but it’s cool to me that we just went in there and played the songs with just a little bit of overdubbing.

That’s one of the reasons it has the vibe it has.

Sometimes things are better when you’re forced to rush, because then you can’t obsess over every little detail. If we’d had an unlimited budget, we probably never would’ve finished it.

WALFORD:

MCMAHAN: I recall a lot of beer drinking. Probably a fair amount of psychedelic drug usage. I recall some very, very long rehearsals and time spent in that practice space in Britt’s parents’ basement.

There was a lot of heavy-duty male bonding. We were all 19-20 at the time. We’d stay up super-late and watch European art films, then go into work the next day completely hung over. When we listened to music, it was with a ferocious intensity.

We all took music really, really seriously—not only our own, but just in general.

BRASHEAR: We worked pretty hard. Britt had a job at a music store, but I’m not sure if he was still there at the time. Brian was delivering pizzas. I had this job that my dad helped me get, where I worked in a plant that produced high-end wallpaper made out of wood. I was there from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. every day. I’d go home and take a nap, then wake up and eat dinner with my family, then go to band practice after that. We must not have practiced for more than two or three hours every evening; I don’t think Britt’s parents would’ve let us play past 10 o’clock. We were on that schedule, like, five days a week. Most bands I know don’t practice that much.

PAJO: We held Touch and Go in such high regard that we wanted to make this album really good.

One thing I do remember is that we worked really hard on every single element of the songs. We all took turns trying to come up with parts for songs.

Once the riffs became arrangements, we would spend hours trying to figure out a three-second transition. It was hard for all of us to agree upon something. If we didn’t all like the idea, it didn’t work. A lot of songs came together through us waiting until we got to a point where we had consensus. It was pretty detail-oriented. There was no concept of time in that basement. We knew we had a deadline, but it seemed endlessly far away.

Spiderland was tracked and mixed over the course of two weekends at River North Recorders in August 1990. What do you remember from the studio?

MCMAHAN: River North Recorders was predominantly a high-end studio for recording jingles.

They’d do the audio for big ad campaigns, like scoring Miller Lite commercials for airing during the Super Bowl or whatever. Back then, they were still recording full orchestras—although that was the tail end of that era. The studio was in River North, which was a high-rent district in Chicago. The guy that started the studio was really into the idea of cutting records. They had some gold records on the wall for Billy Idol and Survivor. Because I worked there, I got a heavily discounted rate on the studio time. Budgets for Touch and Go releases were tiny, so that’s all we could afford. We basically worked around the clock for both of those weekends.

Given the amount of time that the band spent on working through the material before entering the studio, did you consider Spiderland to be a definitive statement when you were done recording?

MCMAHAN: Well, yeah, by default. We didn’t have any more money! If I had been left to my own devices, I probably would’ve wanted to spend a SEPTEMBER 2020 : 36 : DECIBEL

couple of months on the record. But that wasn’t even a possibility that entered into our heads.

We went over budget to remix two of the tracks.

We pulled that money from our promotional budget, which essentially meant that there was no promotion for the record. We were all kind of exhausted by the end, honestly. We had worked on it so intently for such a long time. It was probably good that we came into the studio prepared.

BRASHEAR: Once it was remixed, yeah. We went back and remixed “Breadcrumb Trail” and “Good Morning, Captain.” We felt like they needed a little more presence. I don’t think we made major alterations; we just went back and brightened them up a little. I think we thought it was all squared away at that point. I don’t remember any of us kicking back and saying, “It’s perfect!”

I don’t remember what it felt like when it was done; I just remember that we all had to get back to what we were doing. We had broken up by the time the record came out, so we never had a chance to sit back and listen to it in an objective way. I didn’t spend much time thinking about it after the record came out—it probably wasn’t until we started working on the reissue that I had to listen to it a lot. That allowed me to step back a little bit, and I think I got some insight into why people connected with it.

WALFORD: Yes—absolutely, yes. I instantly liked how it sounded. I could’ve sworn that we EQ’d almost nothing, and it was just about setting levels in the studio. That’s pretty cool.

PAJO: At the time, I didn’t think it was weird that we spent so much time writing and practicing the songs, and so little time actually recording them. In hindsight, it seems crazy. I actually didn’t like the record for about 10 years after it came out. I couldn’t even listen to it—all I could hear were the mistakes and all of the things I wanted to change. We all knew where the mistakes were. I had an ideal version of Spiderland in my head. Now I can appreciate it for what it is.

According to the documentary Breadcrumb Trail, Slint reconvened briefly in 1992 and 1994, and at least one song from that era (“King’s Approach”) made it into the band’s live set. Why didn’t things with the band gel during those attempts?

I was involved the first time, but not the second. The first time was during a summer home from college. We practiced at this place called the Urban Alternative Homestead. A guy we knew, who was the original drummer for King Kong, lived there. It was incredibly hot inside and the people who lived next door called the cops on us a bunch of times because we were too loud. I guess there’s only one song that we recorded then that’s on the reissue. We recorded bits of a song on a four-track and Britt compiled them into a tape. He found that tape when we were collecting bonus tracks and outtakes for the reissue. The label of the cassette said “Todd’s Song,” so we kept that as the title. It was a

BRASHEAR:

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SLINT spiderland I don’t know what it’s about. I don’t know about the theme of the captain and the ship and the setting. I do see some parallels between the song and what Brian was going through at the time. There’s a four-track version of the song that Brian did before we recorded it that was included on the box set. It’s very similar to the version we did together. He had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted to do with that song, especially in regards to the phrasing and delivery. There is an improvised part right before he says, “I miss you.” He wanted to try that again and record over it, which would have made it lost forever. I remember saying, “No, no, you should come into the control room and listen to it first.” Brian made himself very vulnerable with those lyrics and his performance. We will never be as vulnerable as we were on that song. I don’t know if any of us want to, either.

PAJO:

song where I’d written riffs and we were working on developing the rest. We never finished it.

PAJO: That was a really weird time. Things just fell apart. We had “King’s Approach” and maybe two other songs that we were working on. They were all really cool-sounding. I would like to hear those two other songs again. With Tweez, it was a big deal that we had tuned our E string down to a D for some songs. For the postSpiderland songs, we tuned our E string up to F-sharp. It still sounded like Slint, but it was in a different vein.

WALFORD: In 1994, Brian issued an ultimatum about how we should all go live together in a cabin in the woods and dedicate ourselves to writing music. I didn’t want to do that.

MCMAHAN: I could cite the standard “creative differences,” but the better question to ask would be: Why did the collective will emerge when it did? We got back together to work on stuff because we had the time and we thought it might be fun—there was nothing to lose. But we didn’t have a go-getter attitude during those years. Any recognition that we had received at that point really hadn’t filtered into our frame of reference.

One popular theory is that the lyrics of “Good Morning, Captain” are based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

It definitely fits the mold of a Victorian haunting story. What is that song about?

I’m not a big lyrics guy. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them. It all came from Brian’s head. Once people mentioned “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” I thought it was an interesting perspective. I don’t know how old you are, but do you remember the kids’ show Captain Kangaroo? They started episodes by saying “Good morning, Captain.” I’ve always wondered if Brian named it that to be funny. That’s what the title brings to mind. Humor is something that brought us all together, especially jokes that other people didn’t find funny.

MCMAHAN: I can tell you that it was not a formal exercise, or an attempt to reference a famous work. For me, the idea of songwriting, and a record being a narrative, is really interesting. It was something that I held in importance. I was not thinking about that poem. I was thinking about Hank Williams records and Young Marble Giants songs and the Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas and its soundtrack. The inspiration was probably non-traditional folk songs. Any folk or blues song worth its salt has that creepy, existential angst. That’s something I connected with when listening to music—that idea of being misplaced or feeling at sea with circumstances I encountered. I thought that if I expressed it in simple terms, it could maybe reach more people.

BRASHEAR:

“Brian [McMahan] was doing the vocals for ‘Good Morning, Captain.’

He kept asking for the lights to be turned down in the studio.

Finally, all of the lights were turned off and we couldn’t see him at all.

He may have thrown up after he was done.

That song was especially hard for him to do.”

DAVID PAJO Putting together the packaging for the album appears to be the last major thing the band decided to do before breaking up. How did you get the idea to shoot at the Utica Quarry for this now extremely iconic cover?

We hung out there a lot. It was a heavy, meaningful place. It’s not very far from Louisville—just across the river in Indiana.

That’s probably where the idea came from. Brian was the one who selected that picture and had the idea to use it on the cover.

MCMAHAN: It was our haunt—that was where we went to hang out. We could get off of a shift at work and that’s where we wanted to be. It seemed like such a primitive, instinctual drive that brought us there. Will Oldham was included fully in all of that. The image itself, honestly, belongs entirely to Will’s vision. It was his eye, WALFORD:

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and his sense of how we would best be engaged as a group. We started off with him taking photos of us, with him standing on the bank. The photo that was used on the cover of Spiderland was the frame that he shot within seconds of jumping into the water with us with his camera overhead. I was looking someplace else and I heard a splash and I turned around, and I’m not even sure that I saw Will’s face, but I heard the shutter click on his camera.

PAJO: After the record came out, we were supposed to go on tour in Europe. We asked Will Oldham to take some photos of us and he shot two rolls of film. One roll was shot at this famous Louisville hotel called the Galt House, and the other roll was at the Utica Quarry. For the image that became the cover, we’d all jumped in and Will did, too. He had a manual camera, so he was trying to focus and swim at the same time. That’s why we’re all kind of laughing in that shot— because he was drowning! Brian and I worked on laying out the sleeve together. The way I remember it is that the album art started with a lot of information and we kept removing unnecessary elements. We spent a long time getting it to look the way it did, even though the end result is very simple. I think we’d overspent our budget on the recording, so we could only afford one color, which is why the album cover is black and white and the song titles on the back are in green.

The back cover of the album invites female vocalists to write to the band at Britt’s parents’ house. What was the genesis of that idea?

It was a serious thing. It may have been written in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, but I think Brian was just done with being the singer. He and I were both really into the Julee Cruise record when it came out. I remember talking to him about what Slint would sound like with female vocals. I think that’s why he wanted that added on there. It wasn’t a ploy to pick up chicks.

MCMAHAN: It seemed like we should do something different after making this super-white, maleprivileged wuss-rock record. The idea of having two or three female persons in the audience when Slint performed was entirely alien. There was a weird, super-nerdy machismo to all of it.

I was also really dissatisfied with doing vocals for Slint. I never imagined myself to be singing in front of one person, let alone an audience. It didn’t satisfy any sort of deep-seated longing; it’s just what was required. I would’ve been glad to pass that baton to someone else. We wouldn’t have made a record like Spiderland again anyway.

BRASHEAR: I think Brian was serious about it, for sure. He was never that comfortable being the singer. I don’t remember us having deep discussions about it. But in his mind, that was what was needed. I wasn’t dissatisfied with having Brian as a vocalist. It would’ve been funny if we started to audition other people. Britt’s parents have gotten tons of letters over the years.

PAJO:

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I still live about five minutes away from that house, but it wasn’t until fairly recently that I realized exactly how many letters had come in over the years. They kept them all, too. There’s a big box full of ’em.

WALFORD: We’ve read through those letters over the years. I think I showed them to the other guys on occasions when they would come around. I know I looked at all of them, including the letter from PJ Harvey. I think the idea to have a female vocalist and change the tone of Slint was something we were serious about.

Brian was the one who had the ideas about that. I think he just had it mapped out in his head. We did record “Pam” and “Glenn,” too. So, maybe he figured it out on the fly in the studio. I think he was the one who argued that Spiderland made more sense without those songs.

BRASHEAR: I don’t remember being really concerned with it, myself. That’s the kind of thing that Brian would excel at, because he’s more of a detail-oriented person. I bet that he thought about it a lot. I know we recorded a version of “Glenn” for the album, but that got left off. We also recorded a song called “Pam” that never made it past the rough mix stage. Those are my parents’ names, by the way, which followed the song-naming convention from Tweez. I think the album works well the way it is sequenced.

PAJO: We had a couple different sequences in consideration—no one’s ever asked about this.

I remember that the sequence I made up started with the songs on side two, and my side two started with “Breadcrumb Trail.” So, I thought Brian’s sequence was weird at the time. But I understand what he was going for now—it’s sort of a record that gets deeper as it goes on. I felt like “Washer” and “Good Morning, Captain” were the most direct songs, and I thought the album should start with them, but I’m glad Brian had the insight not to. Neil Young’s On the Beach is the template of a great record, and to me, it’s all about building towards the second side. Not that Spiderland was modeled on that, but I think Brian was going for something along those lines.

WALFORD:

How was Spiderland received upon its release?

When did you start to get the sense of the record’s impact and the growing cult of Spiderland?

It didn’t get much reception at all.

There might have been a couple favorable reviews here and there, but it’s not something that I spent a lot of time thinking about. It’s awesome and humbling to hear that anyone is into it.

WALFORD:

“I was also really dissatisfied with doing vocals for Slint.

I never imagined myself to be singing in front of one person, let alone an audience.”

B RIA N MCMA HA N Revisiting Spiderland when we did the various reunion tours and put out the box set in 2014 has been a fun opportunity to do stuff again, and just hang out and reacquaint ourselves with each other. We had a lot of fun back then, too. It wasn’t always a super-serious endeavor.

BRASHEAR: People will say that it was totally ignored at the time, but it did get a little attention. It was on Touch and Go, so it was going to get more press than if we had just put it out ourselves, you know? I’m sure that Steve Albini writing about it in Melody Maker did make a difference. That was a major endorsement; people valued his opinion, and they still do. Did it sell a whole lot in a short amount of time?

No. But this was pre-Nevermind, so this kind of stuff wasn’t on people’s radars as much. Corey Rusk has noted that it kept selling steadily, and that was a sign of the power of word of mouth.

The fact that we didn’t exist as a band for so long likely contributed to the mystique. In a lot of people’s minds, we just disappeared. At the end of the day, it’s just cool that I had something to do with something that people enjoy.

Part of me is still kind of surprised—and reconciling with the fact—that people are passionate about Spiderland.

MCMAHAN: The initial release was sort of a vacuum. Steve Albini was the only one talking it up in the beginning. We were really glad that he liked the record, and it was awesome that he was enthusiastic enough to write that review. To say that sales were sluggish would pretty much miss the point—it didn’t really sell at all. People just didn’t hear it. I’m not slighting Touch and SEPTEMBER 2020 : 40 : DECIBEL

Go. We weren’t touring, because we had already broken up. And when we were touring, we weren’t really much of a live band. I guess by ’93, the label had recouped the initial expense of making the record. After that, we started getting royalty checks. They were small, but they increased incrementally each year. By the mid’90s, we could count on getting decent checks. It was super weird, because bands that were more established and had a deeper catalog were like, “Wow, you’re still making money off of that?”

By that point, there was a sort of mythology that had developed around the record, thanks in part to music journalists—even that took a while to translate to any sort of fanbase.

PAJO: I don’t even remember hearing a test pressing. We were already broken up by that time. Honestly, we’d already moved on to other things, like playing with Will Oldham in an earlier version of Palace Brothers called Palace Flophouse. Ethan had King Kong, and we were helping him make his singles. We were playing with people that traveled in the same Louisville circles, but not doing anything with Slint. To me, Spiderland kind of came and went. We were basically an ’80s band. We wrote almost all of the songs in 1989 and the first part of 1990, then broke up at the end of 1990. Spiderland is a black and white album image. There was no promotion, no information about the band. There were even rumors that we had all lost our minds in the process of making it. I guess that’s what added to the mystique. The reason Spiderland has currency now is because of word of mouth. If the music is good, people will find it.

PHOTO BY WILL OLDHAM

How much consideration was given to the sequence of the songs on Spiderland?

Not even a pandemic can stop the rise of Bay Area death metal trio and their new skin-flaying opus, MORTAL

IT’S ALL PART OF THE PLAN. Story by

SEAN FRASIER

Photos by

CHRIS JOHNSTON

That phrase (or a similar substitute) is uttered over a half-dozen times by the members of Oakland trio Necrot as they discuss their history.

Spawned in 2011 as a hybrid of old-school death metal and crust punk, founding vocalist/bassist Luca Indrio developed a blueprint for the band’s ascent with young dynamo drummer Chad Gailey in the project’s earliest days. ¶ The goal was three separate demos, linked by cover illustrations that form a larger image when placed side by side. Those demos would then be released as a compilation, with a proper LP to follow. They would also focus on becoming road warriors; cue the training montage of relentless touring and converting the blessed sick. Last year, Necrot were selected to join the Decibel Magazine Tour with genre stalwarts Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Immolation. Along with friends and allies Blood Incantation, Necrot represented the new guard protecting the tenets of the old school.

E PTTEEMMBBEER R 22 00 2200 :: DE E LE L 4 2 : S: ES P D ECCI BI B

42

But Necrot’s inclusion in a short list of death metal’s most promising bands isn’t churned from the cogs of some overnight hype machine. To paraphrase a parable, if you give Necrot six hours to decapitate late-stage capitalism, they’ll spend the first four hours sharpening the guillotine blade.

Necrot have earned their reputation as one of death metal’s hardest-working bands with a balance of preparation, patience and opportunism. It has made them perfect ambassadors for Oakland’s notable extreme metal scene, and demanded the attention of Tankcrimes label boss Scotty Heath.

“I was watching them win over every crowd they got out in front of—and I wasn’t the only promoter paying attention,” Heath recounts. “I saw them play a bunch, and we would always hang out at these and other shows. I loved their approach to death metal that seemed dragged through a mud puddle of crusty thrash and punk attitude.

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“Plus, a huge factor for me—these are nice, cool guys,” he continues. “Helpful, friendly, thoughtful. That said, I can’t just team up with every band I can have a beer with. Necrot has serious, memorable riffs. I started waking up the next day from their shows with riffs stuck in my head—so sick that they cure a hangover. I’m also looking for bands that understand they can take their craft extremely seriously without taking themselves too seriously at all. Necrot gets that.”

With their dedication and perseverance, not much could obstruct Necrot’s resolute charge.

But 2020 has been kind to few of us. The harrowing spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has claimed over 526,000 lives as of the writing of this piece. In the United States alone, the number of virus victims who lost their fight has reached the unfathomable six-digit mark.

Shelter-in-place orders have obliterated tour plans. For now, social distancing safety reduces moshing to a relic of the past. And that’s all before the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota sparked waves of protests and fiery dissent.

With record-high unemployment in the U.S., the music industry faces a steep burial mound to climb. Album release dates have been delayed or paused, and Mortal is no exception. Faced with the reality of rolling out an album without the benefit of touring support, Tankcrimes wisely postponed unveiling Mortal for a few months.

It took a goddamn pandemic to slow Necrot’s momentum. But that still won’t burn the tread from the band’s tires.

INTO THE LABYRINTH

When Luca Indrio first emigrated from Italy in 2008, he naively assumed that Oakland was just a neighborhood within the more renowned city of San Francisco. A short bridge drive or subway ride away, Oakland’s status at the Bay Area’s little brother betrays the unique tough-as-nails PT LL 4 4 : S: ESPE T E EMMBBEERR 2200 22 00 :: DE D ECCIIBBEE

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identity the city has established. That applies to its rich death metal scene as well. After snagging an apartment from Craigslist with the help of his uncle—an Oakland resident himself for 30 years—Indrio explored his new home.

“I thought [Oakland] was nuts; I liked it,” Indrio recalls. “It was so trashy. You could go out in your pajamas drinking a beer and nobody gave a shit. It’s a very friendly place, too. I always lived in super-shitty parts of town, and here I was dressed like a punk kid, broke all the time.

The weather here is nice, and everybody’s laid back, and people smoke tons of weed. Life was so easy and cheap and fun.”

That doesn’t mean it was a cinch immersing himself in the local scene. An active and spirited musician in Tuscany, Indrio notes numerous social differences between his homeland and new American stomping grounds. He bicycled to basement and warehouse shows as often as possible, eager to swiftly shift from outsider to participant.

He embraced being the new weirdo in a misfit city and made himself visible. But socializing seemed more formal and partitioned in the States.

“In Italy or Spain, the southern part of Europe, you’re constantly hanging out,” Indrio describes.

“There are so many people involved in your life, and people will just go out and meet in a square with a backpack of beers. Here, people go to businesses to socialize, like a bar or club. The relationships are very different. And initially, I couldn’t always understand everyone. I was trying to make friends, but the social life is complicated.

“But what I like about here,” he continues, “is that you can have projects with people who can collaborate and actually get shit done. They’ll be talented and have that drive.”

Indrio was willing to sacrifice familiar social structures for a place where his musical endeavors would have better odds of gaining traction.

While he’s a breezy conversationalist who’s

candid and quick to laugh, Indrio approaches his goals with grim determination. After cutting his teeth as a bassist and vocalist in Italy, Indrio joined Acephalix as their low end. After a few releases, he also joined Vastum. But Indrio was interested in starting a project where he could write as the primary composer; a more personal outlet for expressing aggression.

“I wanted to write without compromises,” Indrio confirms. “I wanted Necrot to sound like what I like the most: old-school classic stuff.

Initially, we were destroying Immolation and Nihilist records with how much we were listening to them. Early Sepultura, Morbid Angel, all that great stuff.”

While Indrio formed Necrot with Acephalix guitarist Kyle House, the fledgling project needed an appropriate drummer for the band’s crusty propulsion. Wunderkind drummer Chad Gailey— only 19 at the time—was the percussive backbone of Bruxers, a new band that had recently shared a bill with Acephalix. When Acephalix auditioned drummers for an upcoming European tour, Gailey took a stab at the gig. While Gailey didn’t land the touring job, Indrio asked him to audition for his new death metal side project. The second time was more charm than harm, and Gailey emerged from the audition as the drummer of Necrot.

“For a month, we recorded the first four Necrot songs, two written by Luca and two by Kyle,” Gailey mentions. “But Kyle left right after the Acephalix and Undergang tour, so Luca and I kept going by ourselves. Ultimately, I joined Necrot from failing that one audition, so it worked out. It’s all part of the plan.”

“Chad was a really good drummer for his age and had so much potential,” comments Indrio.

“He was hitting hard as fuck, and he had the same mentality I had. He said music was going to be his life no matter what. His goal was to work hard and pursue opportunities and play all the time. You can listen to death metal albums when you’re younger and wonder, ‘How did they get so fucking good at playing?’ We both said we wanted to be like that, be at that level.”

After House’s departure, the duo recorded their eponymous demo. It was the exact primal combination of punk ethos and old-school death grime the duo imagined when the project was just a daydream. The caveman crunch of “Consume Control” revealed both their musical inclinations and lyrical intentions to question authority and capitalist complicity. Armed with a bag of gifted marijuana and a jolt of youthful exuberance, Necrot worked on their follow-up demo, Into the Labyrinth, in a smog of ganja smoke.

“Holy shit, we were smoking so much fucking weed,” Indrio laughs. “That time period is a full-on blur. If you listen, [Into the Labyrinth] is insane. I remember when we finished it, we were so stoked, we listened to it a million times. We were trying to play as fast as possible; it was so much fun.”

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Into the Labyrinth’s cover art was a continuation of their first demo’s cover illustration, just as the music was a natural progression. The demo’s title track is a harrowing, yet contagious ripper that was even recently re-recorded for the Decibel Flexi Series. While the demos were pressed in limited quantities—150 of their selftitled and 333 of Into the Labyrinth—word soon spread about the duo’s throwback death metal.

One of those tapes ended up in the clutches of Blood Incantation vocalist/guitarist Paul Riedl.

“I first got the Into the Labyrinth demo sometime in 2012 or ’13, in a care package from our mutual friend Erika Osterhout from Scolex,” Riedl recalls.

“Even in Necrot’s rudimentary stages, I instantly recognized their clever arrangements and penchant for catchy riffs and memorable songwriting, which they have only improved upon.”

RISING FROM THE ABYSS While Indrio wrote and played the guitar parts

for their first two demos, if the band was going to realize their potential as touring artists, they would need a full-time guitarist. There’s no shortage of six-string free agents; throw a demo cassette in any direction at a basement show and you’ll hit a willing axeman. But finding someone with the stamina and dependability for touring requires a whole separate résumé.

“We didn’t want to rush into a situation and just take anyone,” insists Indrio. “Especially after my situations with past bands; you get screwed if someone isn’t as invested in the band as you are. But me and Chad knew we were true to it, and we were going to make our lives about the band. We wanted to find someone else like that. After the first demo, people offered, but we said no. We needed someone willing to tour, with a decent job situation, who doesn’t have a kid.”

As guitarist of Saviours, Sonny Reinhardt’s melodic shredding elevated the surrounding savagery. Reinhardt shared mutual friends with Indrio, including Vastum and Scolex members.

While Gailey didn’t personally know Reinhardt, he was already a fan of the Saviours record Accelerated Living.

“One day Luca hit me up and asked if I wanted to play guitar in a new death metal band he was in with Chad,” Reinhardt recalls.

“I think he asked me once or twice, but I said I was too busy with Saviours. But eventually those guys moved to Los Angeles, and Luca said, ‘At least take a tape and listen.’ So, I took it home, popped it in and thought, Fuck yeah, this is sick, I want to do this.”

They crushed out their third demo with their trio assembled, a three-song cassette titled The Abyss. While the bagged-beer punk aesthetic was prominent in opening track “Scattered,” the demo introduced the band’s more prominent retooled death metal assault. As planned, the drawings of the three demos combine to form a composite image: a landscape of Lovecraftian

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menace ripe for the apocalypse. With the image completed, it was time to combine the demos into a single release.

As founder of local Oakland label Tankcrimes, Scotty Heath kept tabs on Necrot’s ascent and released their compilation The Labyrinth in 2016.

The agreement was appropriately proposed at a show at the DNA Lounge, during a rare quiet moment between blasting sets. When asked what distinguished Necrot from other bands as a potential collaborator, the Tankcrimes boss narrows it down to three traits: 1) Patience 2) Preparedness 3) Willingness to say yes to opportunities “Necrot recorded three demos over two years’ time, then spent the next three years playing as many shows as possible before beginning to work on their debut album,” Heath summarizes. “Six years from formation to the debut album; not many bands are taking that approach in 2020.

After the debut, they spent two and a half years playing another 300 shows before sitting down to work on the second album. They have a clear vision and the perseverance to achieve it.”

Having already recorded two of their demos, Greg Wilkinson was aware of the band’s promise well before their debut LP, Blood Offerings. The founder of Oakland sludge titans Brainoil and owner of Earhammer Studios, Wilkinson first heard Necrot while relaxing at a neighborhood soirée.

“Luca showed me some tracks on his phone at a backyard BBQ,” reminisces Wilkinson. “Chad and Luca were pretty young back then and I was already a fan of their respective bands at the time—Bruxers and Acephalix. I knew it was going to be super-sick. Luca laid out that this band was to be a touring machine after writing and releasing three demos. I believed him.

“I never doubted them, as Necrot did exactly what they planned throughout every step,”

Wilkinson continues. “Once the band started playing live, I was thinking, ‘Holy fuck! This is going to be huge!’”

After recording Blood Offerings, Wilkinson’s prophecies were soon proven accurate. Blood Offerings was ranked as Decibel’s fourth favorite record of 2017. Tour offers rolled in, including a spot on the Decibel Magazine Tour with buds Blood Incantation and genre heavyweights Immolation, Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse.

From playing basement shows to sharing backstage real estate with their idols, it’s enticing to describe the shift as some overnight sensation.

But as Heath described, Necrot were ready for the opportunity through a carefully planned long game for a sustained reign. Still, the thrill of watching Steve Tucker bash the brains out of audiences with hall-of-fame riffs night after night was a surreal triumph.

“Touring with Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Immolation at the same time?” Gailey repeats a portion of my question to express his own disbelief. “I never would have thought that would happen to me in a million years.

Maybe one band at a time, if I was lucky. But all three? And then tour with our friends in Blood Incantation, who we’ve known for years as well?

It was the ultimate buddy tour. Every night was a dream almost.”

IMMORTALIZED

It has been a weird, unfortunate sequence of delays and postponements for Necrot to release their eagerly anticipated successor to Blood Offerings. But the initial delays were in character for Necrot: They hopped on loaded tour lineups with the Black Dahlia Murder, Exhumed, Gatecreeper and more. While Indrio was able to write lyrics in a notebook on tour, hectic pacing and long drives aren’t usually conducive to composing new material. Once the band decompressed from touring, they started writing the songs that would coalesce before entering the studio with Wilkinson. With only a month to

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rehearse before hitting the studio for four weeks, the (doomsday) clock was ticking.

Well, the clock has struck midnight. Mortal is here, and Necrot’s sophomore record is a fanged and foam-mouthed beast. After opening with the swirling inferno of “Your Hell,” the album’s feral pulse rarely slows to anything less than a predator’s mid-hunt heartbeat. Mortal’s focus on subtle improvement rather than reinvention will delight anyone worried that Necrot’s gnarly edge would soften from critical acclaim.

“I have heard Mortal and can assure you it is absolutely the sickest Necrot recording to date,” raves Riedl. “Everything has been stepped up: There are more solos, the vocals are more dynamic, the riffs are both catchier and heavier, and the drumming is just incredible.”

“I’m absolutely in love with this album; it feels like my baby as well,” shares Heath.

“Sonically, this record is a beast that I’d say is for fans of Necrot. The sound that they had nailed down by the second demo and sharpened to deadly effectiveness on Blood Offerings is continued on Mortal. The thing I notice is the vocals; the 300-plus shows they’ve played since Blood Offerings have exercised Luca’s throat into something much more vicious.”

Indrio’s amicable speaking voice shapeshifts into a hulking roar on Mortal. The dissonance between someone’s onstage snarls and their speaking voice is often entertaining when experienced live with between-song banter. But it’s rarely as stark as with Indrio. His sunny pleasantry disintegrates as he growls into the void on Mortal. The words drip with crimson mucus, like they were expectorated from some barnacled sea beast.

“We just wanted Mortal to sound like Blood Offerings, but better,” Indrio confirms. “This time we went for hearing the drums a little better, and the guitars have a slightly different sound. We used only Marshall amps this time, instead of mixing Marshall and Peavy. Marshall has more of a crunchy high-end, but warmer sound. It sort of sounds like if a Motörhead album sounded really good.”

Indrio acknowledges what fans want because his band reflects his own fandom. And that means more solos. Reinhardt obliges the request with an arsenal of serrated solos that have made Wilkinson an advocate for his top-shelf shred skills. Listen to the knockout solos in “Asleep Forever” and “Sinister Will” and you’ll be floored

by Reinhardt’s performance as well. “[Reindardt’s] style is extremely unique for [old-school death metal],” Wilkinson describes.

“First off, he uses a hardtail. Second, he is arguably the best guitar player I know. And that is saying a lot, trust me.

“Third,” he continues, “having played so many styles of music and having such a deep knowledge in theory, he adds flavors from many genres back into Necrot’s solos. It puts a classy sheen PT LL 4 8 : S: ESPE T E EMMBBEERR 2200 22 00 :: DE D ECCIIBBEE

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back over the brutality.” “[I was] definitely inspired by classic stuff like Priest and Maiden, even like old Metallica,” Reinhardt lists. “I was listening to a lot of Death and Chuck Schuldiner to mix with my classic influences. Also Autopsy and Scorpions and Motörhead and Thin Lizzy; some of that creeps into my vibrato and my bends. Plus, there’s shreddy stuff like Yngwie [Malmsteen] and Steve Vai. But also [Pink Floyd’s] David Gilmour is one of my favorites. He does a solo so you can sing it; you can’t imagine the song without it. I try to keep that in mind idealistically; it has to be memorable. So, I keep that in mind even if it doesn’t sound like Gilmour.”

Mortal sounds even more cohesive than Blood Offerings, and there are plenty of reasons for that: increased chemistry between band members, tour seasoning, tighter songwriting. But there’s also the continuity of working with a trusted collaborator like Wilkinson. It sure doesn’t hurt that Earhammer Studios is a five-minute drive from the band’s rehearsal space; a shorter commute than a few of Necrot’s song durations. Wilkinson’s studio is a highly sought-after recording destination. Because of a packed calendar, Blood Offerings was recorded a week at a time scattered across several months. For Mortal, Necrot prioritized having an immersive recording experience and were able to book a full month, using the weekends to recuperate. Being able to set up and just soak in the ectoplasmic riffs for a month was a major bonus, according to the band and Wilkinson.

“Think of it this way: You are at a job,” Wilkinson begins. “Imagine major distractions occurring every hour or so to where you have to leave and deal with something unrelated. You return to a new crew working and your tools are scattered. Your boss changes his mind on a few details, so you have to readjust how to get from point A to point B. You reassemble the tools, get your head back in the game, continue from there and begin to acquire some momentum. Then a new distraction presents itself.

Rinse and repeat.

“When documenting a place and time for a straightforward band where you are celebrating their riffs, playing capabilities and songwriting, it’s best to not leave the post ’til it’s done,” he continues. “If Necrot were an abstract noise doom band, I may feel different, as space can generate more ideas to decorate the songs and add new angles. Necrot is just trying to rip your face off with riffs. My job was to capture that.”

Consider the job triumphantly completed.

While the punk element of their music has largely faded during their gradual metamorphosis, Necrot still manage to balance brainstomping brawn and malignant melodicism. Intended as a band you experience live, Necrot are itching to get back out on the road to play their new brood of songs. But until it’s deemed safe to do that, Mortal will satiate the appetites of their ravenous fans.

ESSENTIAL SACRIFICES

“No one will see the end of the war against ourselves.”

—NECROT, “Stench of Decay”

Necrot released their first Mortal single, “Stench of Decay,” on May 27, two days after George Floyd died in police custody. While the killing sparked immediate outrage, the largest-scale protests were still looming. Peaceful demonstrations spread from a local to national and global response. In a time of racial and political tension, Necrot were zero-percent cryptic about their stance.

“Necrot stands with the black/brown community in their struggle against racist, fascist, oppressive government,” the band posted on social media. They then added a photo of their financial contribution to the Black Lives Matter Global Network.

In “Stench of Decay,” Indrio describes collapsing cities and a capitalist doomsday. While their album art has featured creatures and supernatural cults, Indrio’s lyrics have long focused on the true horror and repercussions of a country that works itself to the bone for the profit of few.

“I’m pissed off, and the human condition is awful,” Indrio laments. “You can try to view being alive as positively as you can, but sometimes it’s a maze of torment.”

Indrio laughs after saying “torment.” Not because it’s a punchline, but because there is no punchline. Although he’s a vibrant and enthusiastic speaker who has worked diligently to communicate in English, a shadow falls across our conversation. The frontman requesting circle pits with a smile fades, and the exhausted observer of suffering and injustice emerges.

“It’s complicated, but I never really had a positive view of the human condition,” Indrio reveals. “I think that’s why music is so important, because it transcends reality. “[The pandemic] is, of course, terrible because so many people are dying,” he continues, “but hopefully it’s a chance for people to start fresh and new. Because the way we’re living is wrong. One hundred percent wrong.

It’s all just a big machine, a big corporation, and people are working too much. Human life is never worth as much as money, and it has been like that too long. Now they’re stopping the economy, and it’s the first time the government has given a shit if people die because we’re the workforce that create the profits. They can’t make money if we all die. The machine is broken, and they have to realize the importance of the people who work those jobs. But it’s an interesting time because society’s rules are being broken. The wealthy are all mourning the money they’re losing; meanwhile, the rest of us don’t have shit to lose. Good luck, man. I’m used to being poor.”

All three members of Necrot have deep roots in punk, and that influence emerges most notably in Indrio’s lyrics. The frontman mentions

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Chuck Schuldiner as someone who had a sharp satiric instinct, and grew from screaming bloody gore to illuminating societal ills.

“There are so many bands that talk about horror and gore and shit like that,” Gailey comments. “Not nearly as many are talking about what people have to go through every day just to survive on this fucking planet. So, I think it’s unique and cool that we talk about that. Because everything that happens affects somebody somewhere. To be conscious of that, you have to do some self-reflection. I don’t think people do that as much now because there’s an obsession with consuming media and being materialistic, and a lot of soul is lost with those activities. It’s not like it’s terrible in and of itself. But I think a lot of people are suffering from that.

“Why don’t you talk about something affecting people in reality?” Gailey rhetorically asks.

“Shit happens to you every day and you can confront it or live in denial in the abyss. You know what’s really scary? It’s not monsters—it’s paying rent.”

Consider Oakland a microcosm of the country’s continuing urban gentrification and housing affordability crisis. Being a neighbor to San Francisco makes Oakland an ideal escape for those who can’t pony up the exorbitant rent across the Bay. But Silicon Valley’s expansion has been pushing families and young professionals out of Gailey’s home of San Jose as well.

It’s not unusual for multiple bands to share a rehearsal space due to tight finances. But in San Francisco—where Necrot share a space with Vastum, Mortuous and Cartilage—it’s a necessity for any cash-strapped band. With DIY spaces dying and market prices forcing music venues to permanently shutter, Oakland’s extreme metal scene is under siege. But labels like Tankcrimes or Gailey’s own Carbonized Records continue to soldier on with a love for creating and sharing music. They support and invest in local artists and businesses. It’s not always easy, and the obstacles are plenty. But operating with integEM DE 5 0 : S: ESPE TP T EM BBEERR 220022 00 :: D E CCIIBBEEL L

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PLAGUE LANDS

rity and a big-picture mentality has helped keep their scene thriving.

When Indrio and I first speak, he’s sheltering in place in a studio apartment surrounded by South American plants, animal bones and taxidermy.

The apartment is maybe 10 steps in one direction, and no more than four steps wide. Normal dimensions for an urban studio apartment; likely suffocating for someone from the ’burbs. To Indrio, it’s a goddamn luxury palace compared to being in their tour van. But while Indrio appreciates the opportunity to rest and stretch his limbs, the cabin fever and call of the road are real.

“For me, it’s hard to be in one place for this long,” Indrio admits. “Usually, I’m not in the same city this long, let alone a studio apartment. I travel a lot, and sometimes after tours I’ll go to Italy or Mexico. So, now I’m stuck, and it’s weird adjusting to it. It feels like I’m on an airplane going somewhere, but we never get there. Because when you’re on the plane, you can watch movies, eat some snacks, take a shit, whatever. And life feels like that right now, but we’re not landing.”

For those chronically inclined, it’s a chance to blaze up and leisurely pass time. But Gailey has moved on from the haze of the band’s earliest days, focusing instead on productivity and delivering the best possible drum performances he can achieve. He has dedicated himself to a fitness routine, and spends his days working on Necrot’s merch sales and running Carbonized.

As the drummer for Vastum and Mortuous as well, this is Gailey’s first chance to exhale and spend some extended quality time with his family in three years.

“It’s my own doing; I did it to myself,” Gailey concedes. “I joined a bunch of sick bands and started a record label. But I like being productive and staying busy. I like hustling, and that feeling when people like your stuff. If you waste that opportunity and don’t stay humble,

you’re not going to be ready if things change, because nothing lasts forever. Who knows if people will like another type of music overnight? So, I want to work hard and seize the opportunity while it’s here.”

Since social distancing requirements have reduced concert gatherings to memories, Reinhardt’s job running sound in Bay Area venues has been decimated. He’s as eager as his bandmates to get back on the road and bring some new songs to entertain the hordes.

“I miss having a group of friends on the road, the whole social aspect of it,” admits Reinhardt.

“I can’t wait to play new songs, especially the solos. We’ve been playing the same set of songs for years.”

Being forced away from touring feels like Necrot are missing a piece of themselves. The road dog mentality is so ingrained in their DNA at this point that the restlessness is understandable.

After all, if Necrot were content to just release bedroom recordings as a duo, they may never have recruited Reinhardt and his sinister solos.

“If you want to be in a band, you have to be willing to do tours and spend a lot of time hammering on the road and playing shows,” Reinhardt argues. “Unless you’re Darkthrone, who make records for 30 years, you gotta tour.

But now with the virus, who knows? Maybe we’ll get a new wave of at-home recording wizardry or something.”

Riedl mentions that the timing of the pandemic is particularly cruel to the music industry after legendary L.A.-based vinyl manufacturer Rainbo Records closed shop. Only a week later, the Apollo Masters plant in California burned down.

Apollo was one of only two locations worldwide that produce the lacquer discs needed to create master plates and press vinyl records. The absence of those companies has greatly diminished vinyl production capabilities in the U.S. But the world isn’t just pestilence and disarray, a continuum of bad news breaking worse.

While Italy was one of the countries hit hardest by infection, Indrio’s family has been safe. His mother runs an herb store deemed essential because of her medicinal inventory. His father is an artist, so working from home isn’t disruptive. And romance is alive: Tankcrimes honcho Scotty Heath is also now engaged to his longtime girlfriend.

“We met at my festival, the Tankcrimes Brainsqueeze, six years ago, and our first kiss was on a backstage balcony watching Ghoul perform below,” Heath shares. “I’m her ride-or-die, man.”

The ebb and flow of oppression and resistance will subsist, as it always has. But the tear gas will eventually dissipate. When it does, the world will hopefully be a more just place. Work on a COVID-19 vaccine continues as we yearn for some semblance of social normalcy. When the time is right, Necrot will be there to greet us and lovingly skin us alive with riffs and a smile.

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INSIDE ≥

54 BEDSORE Ulcer-ating 54 CRYPTWORM Gunk in their trunks

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

58 INCANTATION Welcome to spells 60 DEE SNIDER Still hungry 62 WINO Clutch performance

Enthrone Nihilism Triumphant

SEPTEMBER 2010

On their third full-length, PRIMITIVE MAN evolve into an even more potent, esoteric killing machine

20 17 2 1

labels that still exist

labels that no longer exist labels that still owe us money labels we wish no longer existed

W

hen great abolitionist orator Wendell Phillips arrived at Harvard University on June 30, 1881 to address PRIMITIVE the centennial celebration of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, MAN he did not come to play. No, rather than serve up a heaping helping Immersion of easy flattery and bromides to an organization that was, by its own RELAPSE prim and proper estimation, “America’s most prestigious academic honor society,” Phillips chose to give a full-throated endorsement of… nihilism. “Nihilism is evidence of life,” he began, adding, “Nihilism is the last weapon of victims choked and manacled beyond all other resistance. It is crushed humanity’s only means of making the oppressor tremble… I honor Nihilism, since it redeems human nature from the suspicion of being utterly vile, made up only of heartless oppressors and contented slaves… We cannot but pity the suffering of any human being, however richly deserved. But such pity must not confuse our moral sense. Humanity gains.” ¶ I bring this up not merely to note that attempts to grapple with nihilism actually predate two lines of The Big Lebowski dialogue,

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

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but also because Phillips’ reconsideration/ defense of this much-maligned philosophy feels particularly relevant when discussing the death, noise and sludge-infused doom metal of Primitive Man—the Denver band that, in addition to frequently being tagged with the descriptor in features and interviews, self-identifies on their official Bandcamp page as a “nihilistic trio.” Which is to say, the dark and gloriously primeval maelstrom that Primitive Man create is not in any sense nihilum. It is, rather, a very pure, extraordinarily brutal “evidence of life”— particularly on the unsettling and enlivening Immersion, an appropriately titled six-track follow-up to the 12-track 2017 offering Caustic. Do not, however, assume such a winnowing translates to an even relatively condensed and/or traditional set of songs. If anything, Immersion raises the band’s sound to ever more esoteric, transcendent levels. It is expansive harshness— hypnotic and defiant.

In this way, Immersion is an album perfectly suited to our uncertain, volatile moment—a soundtrack not to your escape, to borrow an old In Flames album title, but to dissonant subversion and transformational confrontation. A connection to an antediluvian power source transmitted via distortion, riffs, foundational blasts and grooves, not to mention shoals of feedback. And not a moment too soon.

Was there ever a more apropos time for the “last weapon of victims choked and manacled beyond all other resistance” to be unsheathed?

For trembling oppressors? For human nature to be redeemed “from the suspicion of being utterly vile”? For clarity to be returned to our moral sense?

Immersion places a very heavy, status quoconvulsing heavy metal bet on this brand of nihilism. The result? Primitive Man slays. Humanity gains. —SHAWN MACOMBER

BEDSORE

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Hypnagogic Hallucinations 20 BUCK SPIN

Reapers in the rift

The dream of forming a band like Bedsore, a duo consisting of Jacopo Gianmaria Pepe (guitars/synth/vocals) and Stefano Allegretti (guitars/organs and keys/ vocals), was realized in 2017. Later that year, with the help of (fretless) session bassist R. Ciuffo, the Roman duo +1 cut their two-song selftitled demo. In hindsight, that demo—with its original logo, programmed drums, Lovecraftian artwork and references—has proven to be a true diamond in the rough.

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At some point between their demo and debut full-length Hypnagogic Hallucinations, Bedsore welcomed Giulio Rimoli on bass and Davide Itri on drums. Both veterans of their local death metal scene, Itri and Rimoli provide a solid, but fluidly capable foundation for Bedsore’s interstitial forays into Italo progressive death.

Whether they’re drifting through atmospheric intervals or buffeting minds with psychedelic avant-garde death metal, these four players are locked in like they were all carved from the same slab of marble.

Hypnagogic Hallucinations creeps open with an instrumental track that shows influences from Dark Quarterer and Goblin, among numerous others. It’s one of the strongest openers in years, and it’s only the beginning. By the time Bedsore reach anything resembling familiar territory, i.e., the re-recording of demo track “At the Mountains of Madness,” the listener has already heard 11 minutes of mind-obliterating, giallo-spirited death-prog.

A worthy addition to the genre, and a powerful debut into an otherwise saturated scene, Hypnagogic Hallucinations demonstrates the band’s wild abilities and sprawling imagination. But even as Bedsore break the modern mold, they seldom break a sweat. Here’s hoping these Italians are only getting started.

—DUTCH PEARCE

CRYPTIC SHIFT

8

Visitations From Enceladus B LO O D H A R V E S T

Meaningful movements

Holy shit! Who knew an extraterrestrial spacecraft crashed down in Leeds, England, of all places, in 2012? It seems as though the intelligence onboard subliminally transferred complex codes for DM’s most elaborate cosmic artefacts—Atheist’s Unquestionable Presence, Cynic’s Focus, Gorguts’ Obscura, etc.—and the chemical makeup of thrash metal’s greatest advanced species (Voivod, Coroner, Anacrusis, etc.) to a group of local heshers for the purposes of future cohesive integration. Alien intervention is the only explanation for the musical magnitude of Cryptic Shift’s first voyage, Visitations From Enceladus. It’s a fully realized debut that opens in ludicrously audacious fashion, with the near-26-minute “Moonbelt Immolator.”

This progressive DM/thrash odyssey is composed of multiple brain-scrambling suites that burn brighter than the tail of a comet.

Outside of many warped hyperdrives rivaling VHÖL or Vektor’s vast intergalactic trajectories, however, there’s sublime control over

the variance of tempo for each flowing coda and the sci-fi atmospherics absorbed—the latter elevated by a convoluted concept that seemingly requires a doctorate in space fiction nerdism to decipher. Cryptic Shift’s four members—Xander Bradley (guitars/croaks and jabbering screams), Joe Bradley (guitars), John Riley (bass) and Ryan Sheperson (drums)—are supreme players who, in addition to boasting expert extreme metal chops, are clearly well-versed in prog rock’s prime instrumental grandstanding. The lead role fluidly cycles between them during this heady expression of sharp, complex artistry. Blood Incantation, Tomb Mold, Horrendous—you can now add Cryptic Shift to that elite roll call of contemporary bands at the vanguard of DM. —DEAN BROWN

CRYPTWORM

9

Reeking Gunk of Abhorrence M E S AC O U N OJ O / P U LV E R I S E D

a + b + c = 666!

On the topic of pizza, a wise man once said, “Really, it’s just bread, tomato sauce and cheese. In theory, it’s an easy recipe, but it’s so easy to fuck up!” That even a lifelong teetotaler like myself knows that Schlitz and Budweiser are better used as foot rinse after a half-marathon than beverages of taste means the same thing can probably be said for the genesis of beer. There’s a similar theoretical ease behind the creation of pizza and beer’s natural brotherin-arms, death metal; but considering there’s a lot of death metal out there that doesn’t need to be out there, we all know making this racket ain’t easy.

Bristol, England duo Cryptworm know filthy old-school death metal’s ingredients and recipes like the back of their cemetery-dirtstained hands. The result is a four-track EP that revels in riffing that sounds like waterboarded lungs, illegal midnight exhumations and wartime scorched-earth policies molded into thick grooved chunks. It’s all topped by a voice muffled by strips of bloody animal fur and propelled by an uppity, punk-patterned Nihilist/Entombed approach—to say nothing of a dazzling cymbal clang that answers the What If no one’s ever dared to ask: What would Mick Harris joining a jam band sound like? Even though everything from the muted production and the bottom-heavy guitar tone to vocalist/ guitarist/bassist Tibor Hanyi’s penchant for hocking loogies points to an association with the sewer death scene so popular these days

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with death metal separatists, there’s no denying that a pair of skillful minds are at work here (Hanyi and drummer Joe Knight). But their sense of swing, groove and restraint amid the pandemonium is top-notch, elevating them above most of the rest.

There is no more fitting a title for this short, virulent collection than Reeking Gunk of Abhorrence, though any of the song titles would have worked. (“Festering Maggot Infestation” anyone?) It may have seemed like Faith No More/Album of the Year arrogance for them to go whole hog and name their second EP This Is Bloody Awesome or We Fucking Rule, so we’ll do the honors instead. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

DESTROYED IN SECONDS

8

Divide and Devour SELF-RELEASED

If you don’t blink, you won’t miss it

As a part-time band that doesn’t tour extensively and has a release history with more gaps than a Tennessee dentist’s office, Destroyed in Seconds’ lack of profile is understandable. With the band’s third album and first since 2012’s Becoming Wrath, the quintet is taking another step back from the broader public consciousness by axing their association with Deep Six Records for the wonderful world of independence and in-house control. However, after being blown away by Divide and Devour’s cramming of Excel and Septic Death into the pitterpatter of Swedish D-beat history from Anti Cimex and Wolfbrigade to Disfear and Totalitär, we can only hope that going the indie route doesn’t result in only a select few enterprising ears wrapping around this.

Right out of the gate, it’s no secret what the influences are, but a prickly and engaging Mentos-and-Coke explosiveness powers songs like the title track and “The Tower.” Check the snappy way Sean Vahle approaches those rollicking tom patterns (and his addition of double bass as tasty inflection), the evil bounce of Kyle Hertz’s bass, and how guitarists Bruce Reeves and Christian La Rocca know how and when to make solos scream, bringing a potent energy to the very familiar fret-lurching, palmmuting and thorny melodic riffing. Marry all that with a production that’s all at once crisp, raw and devastating, and the melodic geyser of “The Badge,” the old-school chord progression powering “Disarm” and the furious flurry of “World War When” contribute to make this one helluva listen—one that deserves to be heard by more people than are probably going to hear it. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO 56 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

EXECUTIONER’S MASK

7

Despair Anthems P R O FO U N D LO R E

Some time to cry

Bats are getting a bad rap at the moment. The little pointy-eared blighters have happily avoided the spotlight since their fallen comrade was dearly beheaded by one Mr. Osbourne and yet, again, in 2020 they’re getting blamed for an awful lot. Luckily Executioner’s Mask are on a one-band mission to right the wrongs of the maligned flittermice through some old-fashioned, throwback synth-goth renaissance tactics.

Following last year’s foray into gloomy deathrock through the True Blue EP, Jay Gambit, Ryan Wilson and Craig Mickle—all themselves guilty of previous noisemaking mayhem in Texas and Philadelphia—have summoned Samus Clintonov on actual drums (eat that, Sisters of Mercy!), Joshua Bosarge and Jim Reed for a full album of Anglophile misery via Profound Lore.

The past few years have seen a rising number of extreme metal cronies come out to bat (no pun) for the genre most would assign to the doldrums of those who wore floor-length leather coats and painted Warhammer. Truth is, most goths were having way better sex that any of the baggy trouser crew in the main room of your local ’90s rock club, and painting Warhammer is hella cool!

Despair Anthems, despite its straightforward moniker, is surprisingly more upbeat than the EP, and while Jay croons like Messrs. N. Cave and R. Williams, the band get your ghoulies grooving in a Rosetta Stone, Bauhaus, Hacienda circa 1988 wild abandon. Give in to synth; it’s always better in the dark. —LOUISE BROWN

GAEREA

7

Limbo

SEASON OF MIST

Limbonic art forms

Gaerea allude to the sort of frowny-faced dissonance familiar to the likes of Throane/Deathspell Omega, while civilizing/tempering those tones into a quasi-metronomic gallop. Where the band truly distinguishes themselves is in their facility to embed small melodic concessions within the fabric of all the sonic discord. Those fleeting wisps of harmony coupled with the band’s clever use of key modulation suggest a level of professional acumen that seems at odds with their relative youth.

Opener “To Ain” showcases Gaerea most comprehensively: ambulance-wailing dissonance collapsing into stirring grandeur, buttressed by

hooks that, while not overt, are suggestive enough to whet the appetite. The chaos is always held just at arm’s length; the bass is permitted a generous sonic pocket to strut around within; and the drums are EQ-ed so that they possess an unusual, stadium-rock-like pomp. It all works successfully, as do similar patterns—featuring some subtle choral arrangements—on the following tracks.

However, a comprehensive playthrough of Limbo disappoints due to the repetition of those same tropes. Other than the thrash metal subtext found on “Urge,” no surprises emerge from the record’s remaining structures to challenge the listener, and the effectiveness of the template begins to loosen its grip. Frustratingly, every track manages to shine individually, but their collective impact becomes a little edgeless via those overbearing commonalities. I can easily recommend the album to those that wish Winterfylleth were more cabalistic, or Blut Aus Nord were, frankly, more terrestrial. In any event, Gaerea are quite the score for Season of Mist, as these hooded Cossacks are a mere few tweaks away from a modern classic. Keep your eyes peeled. —FORREST PITTS

IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT

9

Alphaville

CENTURY MEDIA

Empire state of mind

Imperial Triumphant are getting better. If you’re looking for the bottom line on whether or not the band’s fourth fulllength, Alphaville, is their best record, the answer is an unqualified yes. Let’s talk about why.

It only took two years for the NYC avant/ death/black trio to release a follow-up to breakout album Vile Luxury, but nothing here feels rushed or impulsive. Instead, it sounds like the band finally had the resources necessary to faithfully demonstrate their very particular interests in brutality, jazz, haunting quiet, tense melodies, clips of old-timey songs and technical interplay. And with tracks like “Atomic Age,” you get all of that in one sitting.

Probably the most impressive aspect of the album, though, is how easy of a listen it is.

The seven original tracks aren’t in any sense conventional—they’re long and incredibly dense. They’re dissonant and digressive and just fucking weird. An earmark of all IT’s previous albums is that, at times, they were fairly challenging. But this time the band maintains enough momentum (and wanders through such a varied and interesting landscape) that many former critics won’t find themselves being overly worn down or restlessly waiting for the next part.

DECIBEL : SEPTEMBER 2020 : 57

RUMBLY RU MBLY THROUGH A SPEAKER THROUGH

Alphaville is weighty enough that the two covers at the end aren’t really necessary. But by including their takes on songs by Voivod and the Residents, Imperial Triumphant probably explain themselves better than almost anyone else could. These are the sounds of uniquely transformative bands, fused and perverted into something wholly original. —SHANE MEHLING

The Return...

BY DUTCH PEARCE

INCANTATION

8

Sect of Vile Divinities RELAPSE

Demonic incarnate

Unlike releases by some metal elders, a new Incantation album isn’t a contrived attempt to remain on a touring circuit. (Remember those, housebound heathens of 2020?) Lifer John McEntee cares too much about the coagulated monstrosity of death he created during the dying days of the 1980s to produce mediocre DM as a means of future band promotion. Like their peers in Cannibal Corpse, Incantation went from sounding as though they played their instruments using gnarled femur bones while recording at the bottom of a gore-sodden subterranean pit to a more precise (yet equally dominant) version of themselves decades on.

On Sect of Vile Divinities, Incantation’s 12th fulllength, the production is expectedly massivesounding, and clarity is key—a sonic aesthetic in keeping with the previous three LPs released during the last decade by these veteran blasphemers. And yet, you’ll still find Golgothian disciples deriding such stylistic choices while cradling their Mortal Throne of Nazarene LPs like hideously deformed offspring. Hell, there have been enough modern DM acts bastardizing Incantation’s ancient capacious murkiness to keep even the most embittered satisfied, so that argument is moot by now.

But none write riffs as evil as McEntee; that dude still has Baphomet at his fingertips. Every track on the new record is a case in point. From the maniacal, blunt charges of “Ritual Impurity (Seven of the Sky Is One)” to the funereal deathdoom declarations of “Propitiation” and “Unborn Ambrosia” (and as pyrexia is stoked to a frenzy by “Black Fathom’s Fire”), Incantation’s relevance remains absolute. —DEAN BROWN

INTER ARMA

Garbers Days Revisited RELAPSE

It’s no Graveyard Classics, but...

If you couldn’t tell by the title’s play on the 58 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

8

DEPLETED

PAINGIVER

GREYSUN

DESERT WASTELANDS

Wretched Decay Wretched Decay comes as the second release from Portland, OR’s one-man, death-filled, funeral doom chasm Depleted. Picking up where their first tape left off, Depleted steer their massive carrion barge through the tranquil, but miasmic waters of melodic funeral doom and the noxious swamps of death-doom, all the while preferring slow, interwoven leads over speed, and atmosphere over energy. The pace picks up a few times for excellent results; otherwise, Wretched Decay is doomed to death four times over.

DØDSKVAD Krønike I CALIGARI

Featuring members of Obliteration, Desolation Realm and the below-reviewed Sovereign, Dødskvad’s demo makes for a most welcome surprise from a new name in the always interesting Norwegian death metal scene. With a focused and almost ritualistic, upbeat groove similar to Howls of Ebb, Dødskvad plow through three lengthy, mind-blowing tracks of parallel dimension death metal with chaotic explosions of solos, two kinds of sick and inventive vocals, and compositions that seem dug up from ancient, once-blood-soaked battlegrounds. It’s hard to tell what exactly we’re hearing on Krønike I, but we understand enough to need more.

Deorum Mortis Paingiver’s demo, Deorum Mortis, presents four tracks of beatdown-influenced death metal that hits hard enough to knock whatever shit you were about to talk right back down your throat and leave you dazed and something like headbanging. Track after track, riff after riff of unrelenting, punishing Texas-style death metal, slayed by a band that understands how to get the most out of primitive ideas. On Deorum Mortis, Paingiver demonstrate the eternal power of crushing death metal and well-placed breakdowns.

NOKTURHN

Death, Destroyer of All Worlds As Above, So Below NEBULAE AETERNA

Nokturhn is a one-man black metal band from Pennsylvania whose black sorcery wraps drawn-out, darkly somber melodies and high-pitched witch-like screams around the listener’s head like a thick, hallucinogenic gauze. The intoxicating effect helps to turn this exhaustive twodemo compilation into a bewildering journey through cold, atmospheric realms inspired by a love for ’90s black metal magic. A rather surprising debut from a hitherto unknown name. Black metal fans should not hesitate.

SOVEREIGN

LIFVSLEDA

REDEFINING DARKNESS

LES FLEURS DU MAL

Neurotic

Sovereign play death/thrash in the Norwegian tradition. That is to say, they take the primordial nature of death metal and pump it full of primitive thrash energy. Although they frequently take a slower approach than peers Obliteration or Nekromantheon, Sovereign are by no means doomy. These guys rip, and frequently, but they like Demolition Hammer, too. As every track makes clear, there’s a strong emphasis on groove at work here.

Whether racing or moshing, Neurotic is a short and catchy cassette you’ll wanna set the deck on loop for.

Manifest MMXIX Like a wall of pestilence, poison-tipped daggers, malignant hexes and Swedish black metal of the filthiest order, Manifest MMXIX represents one of the most powerful demos to escape the European underground in years. Manifest is possessed by a demonic sound more unhinged than raw, but this demo is by no means polished.

The sound is layered and chaotic. In less capable hands, these songs, for all their volatile energy, sound like they would turn against their masters. Instead they sound like caged hell. Here’s hoping for more.

DECIBEL : SEPTEMBER 2020 : 59

legendary Metallica EP, what we have here is a covers album—always a dicey proposition. The last one of those Albert had me cover was Danzig’s Skeletons, so, uh... Thankfully, Inter Arma’s take on their favorite moldy oldies clears that (admittedly very low) bar easily and sets new standards for how this stuff should be done.

Not only does Garbers Days Revisited inform you about where the Richmond post-whatever luminaries came from, it also offers new insights on the original recordings. The huge Bonham beats on industrial icons Ministry’s “Scarecrow” reveals Al Jourgensen’s unexpected debt to Led Zeppelin. A performance of Venom’s “In League With Satan” by competent musicians shows that the black metal progenitors were actually in league with the Osmonds and their psych rave-up hit “Crazy Horses.” IA’s blackened take on Neil Young’s “Southern Man” (probably the apex of the whole album) highlights the rage lurking underneath Young’s laid-back delivery. One might expect a band this crushing to rewire the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Runnin’ Down a Dream” as a dirge—instead, their straightforward approach shows that the classic’s infectious exuberance can’t (and shouldn’t) be denied.

The only cover that doesn’t quite work?

“Purple Rain,” but that’s Prince. Nobody can match Prince. Otherwise, this does everything it should: It puts the band’s unique spin on the songs while showing why the originals rule. It’s the rare covers album you’ll want to revisit.

—JEFF TREPPEL

LIVING GATE

7

Deathlust RELAPSE

Dead by brawn

Belgians from Amenra, Oathbreaker and Wiegedood team up on YOB bassist Aaron Rieseberg to form a “not quite” old-school death metal band. The musically adept four-stringer is getting some grub at Midpoint Gourmet Burgers in Ghent, and between bites of his Can’t Believe It’s Not Meat and a triple fromage hand grenade, the YOB man says yes to the Stroppendragers, and the rest is history. The quartet form what is to be Living Gate in a back alley garage while the choicest cuts from Suffocation, Atheist, Atrocity and Cynic (only Demo 1991, natch) blast from a Bluetooth speaker—carefully curated by progenitor Levy Seynaeve.

Rieseberg, Seynaeve, Lennart Bossu and Wim Coppers have weighty discussions over Scott Burns or Randy Burns (and their respective legacies), whether NYDM is stronger (overall) 60 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

than the Tampa scene, Atrocity’s unsung gem Todessehnsucht and how the Resurrection record— you know the one—would’ve been stratospheric had they not used those silly spoken-word interstitials. Eventually, they decide their brand of old-but-not-too-old-school death metal needs a name. All the Tolkien names are taken. They crack open Untold Adventures and find what they’re looking for, while guitarist Bossu and Seynaeve tune their axes to kill.

The first riff out is a keeper. Feels like a Suffocation deal without the Paul Bagin baggage.

The group half-smiles, Coppers hops on his kit and does a superior Alex Marquez exercise. At the same time, Rieseberg sucks down a Gruut Inferno, and between Coppers’ Marquez-isms posits a one-handed groove that’s an octave lower than Bossu and Seynaeve’s crabwalk-worthy riffs. Two hours later, they have five songs and an emailed contract from Relapse. —CHRIS DICK

SELBST

8

Relatos de Angustia DEBEMUR MORTI

Unleash the power of the Self

Under the German word for “self,” and in the South American underground, Venezuelan solo artist N. has worked with their own intense blend of doom, death and black metal since 2011. But it was three years ago, on their self-titled debut album, that Selbst introduced the world to their startling and deathdoomed approach to DSBM. Now the greatness that was hinted at on their debut—however mist-shrouded and mired in gravedirt—is on full display throughout sophomore album Relatos de Angustia.

Was it simply a matter of finding the right balance between their various influences? For a band so concerned with the darkness that lies within, it seems significant that this maturation occurred around the same time, if not as a result of N’s relocating to Chile and continuing their work in solitude. In turn, each of the seven songs that compose Selbst’s new album bear a sincerity almost entirely unheard of in any of its parent genres.

Throughout the album, especially on tracks like “Silent Soul Throes” and “The Weight of Breathing,” riffs from various genres are used with grave intent. Frequently, though not formulaically, incisions are made with blazing, European-inspired black metal, while black/ death’s cruelty pulls back the flesh and deathdoom gazes deep into the rotten wound until the dopamine-hit leads of post-metal wash over the pain. Still more headbang-inducing than disarming, Selbst nevertheless display a vulnerability

seldom witnessed in extreme metal, without sacrificing any of their potency or force. From start to finish, Relatos de Angustia is a captivating and unique record. —DUTCH PEARCE

DEE SNIDER

8

For the Love of Metal (Live!)

N A PA L M

One dirtbag to rule them all

Despite being inarguably one of the greatest lead singers in heavy metal history, Dee Snider has been careful when and how he picks his moments to return with new music. After putting the beloved Twisted Sister to bed in 2016, he set his eyes on the present and future, and 2018’s For the Love of Metal was a rousing solo comeback, combining contemporary metal influences with the classic ’70s and ’80s sounds he played a significant role in developing. Backed by members of Toxic Holocaust, Jasta and more, For the Love of Metal was a prime example of the music matching Snider’s high-energy, confrontational persona step for step.

Our man continued his solo renaissance with a festival tour in support of the record, and the aptly titled For the Love of Metal (Live!) is a terrific snapshot of Snider and his band. The bulk of the record focuses on a rousing, 14-song set at Bloodstock 2019 in Derbyshire, England, in which Snider commands the stage in a way that kids a third his age can’t pull off. Hearing new tracks like “Lies Are a Business” and “American Made” side by side with such Twisted faves as “Under the Blade,” “The Beast” and “Burn in Hell,” it’s remarkable how well the newer material holds up with songs from the early ’80s, which is a testament to the backing band led by guitarist Charlie Bellmore. If that’s not enough, exuberant studio track “Prove Me Wrong” shows Snider is set to continue the forward momentum well into the 2020s. —DUTCH PEARCE

TERMINAL NATION

7

Holocene Extinction 20 BUCK SPIN

Death becomes them

For a band that adopted the word “terminal” as part of their moniker and put “extinction” front and center in the title of their full-length debut, this Little Rock, AR quintet is paradoxically extremely fucking adept at breathing new resurrecting life into flatlined sub-subgenres. Holocene Extinction marries a tectonic late-’90s metallic hardcore pummeling—think Acme’s towering

comp To Reduce the Choir to One Soloist (1996), His Hero Is Gone’s Fifteen Counts of Arson (1997) and Catharsis’ Samsara (1997)—to a nasty attack that calls to mind Napalm Death, Entombed and Obituary, with a few requisite-yet-tastefully-executed circa South of Heaven Slayer-isms tossed in for good measure.

The album, in other words, delivers on the promise of the promo photo featuring Terminal Nation members in All Out War, Earth Crisis and Immolation gear. Which is to say, it’s easily one of the best, most interesting metal/hardcore hybrids of the last several years. I mean, the opening track has a breakdown where it sounds as if Todd Burdette of Tragedy/His Hero Is Gone is trading vocals with Steve “Zetro” Souza of Exodus—you really gotta try to not love that!

Holocene Extinction may not be perfect—across 13 songs, there are a few repeated ideas that could’ve probably been distilled and condensed—but for those who do not feel the same nostalgia for nü-metal that the current rising crop of metallic hardcore bands clearly do, this vibrant, vital offering will be a thrilling (and

welcome) corrective to a lot of the posturing and self-indulgent meandering/ hammering going on in the scene right now. —ADRIEN BEGRAND

TITAN TO TACHYONS

8

Cactides

N E FA R I O U S I N D U S T R I E S

Master musicians shoot for maximum mindfuck, score

When it comes to tone, Sally Gates refuses to settle down. The Orbweaver and Gigan veteran rides her guitar sound constantly on Titan to Tachyons’ debut full-length, endowing the band’s sonic presence with range and tonal color far beyond the vision or abilities of most power trios. Drummer Kenny Grohowski (Secret Chiefs 3, Brand X) and bassist Matt Hollenberg (Cleric, John Zorn) more than do their part, constantly adding the layers of depth and nuance that help propel Cactides beyond the boundaries of both post-jazz and post-metal into a world of cine-

matic post-jazz/post-metal fusion that often feels like virgin terrain.

Not completely—T2T’s apparent antecedents range from Massacre (not surprising, especially given Hollenberg’s involvement) to woefully underrecognized Belgian post-whateverists Briqueville by way of Dysrhythmia (again, not surprising—especially given that Colin Marston recorded the album at his Menegroth Studios). Astute trainspotters could probably also point out correspondences with the likes of Last Exit and Mahavishnu Orchestra, too (Growhowski’s playing is easily as fluid as Tony Williams’—no mean feat), but the bulk of the album’s success still rides on those points (more like huge, spreading spots) where the band’s unique vision and considerable chops converge to optimal effect. “Morphing Machineminds” gets most of its allure from the contrast between lowkey sections dominated by Gates’ sneaky chordwork and the lumbering saurian waltzes that fill in for choruses. While much of the album relies less on melody, the band’s instrumental prowess is such that even the most demanding jazzbos aren’t likely to complain. —ROD SMITH

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TYRANT

5

Hereafter SHADOW KINGDOM

All new Lowe

Arguably the all-time greatest band called Tyrant, these Pasadena hellrats distinguished themselves as a madly raucous, bloodthirsty epic metal unit in the mid-’80s, with a full-throttle sound gloriously of their time. This may be why few noticed their attempted comeback in 1996, surely the worst year for regrouping a cult ’80s heavy metal band.

News of Tyrant’s second comeback packed an extra punch with the revelation of Robert Lowe’s involvement; the ex-Solitude Aeturnus/ Candlemass singer comes with decades of experience, bucketloads of punter approval and, of course, a magnetically powerful, versatile and distinctive voice, ranging from earthy, gut-felt snarls to ethereal, mystical high notes. With these twin pedigrees, how could Hereafter fail?

Maybe if they cribbed a load of glaringly overfamiliar riffs and stuffed them into overlong song structures while underutilizing one of metal’s finest voices…?

Affectionate homages are fun, but Tyrant sail close to the wind with some of these tracks— not so much on the nose as through the nose and out the back of the head. “Fire Burns” simplifies Black Sabbath’s “Into the Void” riff; “Hereafter” speeds up Candlemass’ “Darkness in Paradise” for eight minutes; “Pieces of Mine” is virtually a medley, slowing down Judas Priest’s “The Hellion” before embarking on a well-worn NWOBHM gallop, broken up with the bridge from “Children of the Grave.” Few of Tyrant’s own riffs here are likely to linger long in the memory (although some choruses will), and unusually, the last few songs feel the strongest.

Lowe’s voice stays in mid-range, getting the job done in fine style, but his celestial pipes do seem rather wasted here, like using the Hadron Collider to warm up a curry.

Disconnect the brain and the head will bang, but there is something a little disappointingly half-assed about Hereafter, especially given its long gestation. —CHRIS CHANTLER

UNDERER

6

The Code

N E FA R I O U S I N D U S T R I E S

Without a little help from his friends

Solo side projects aren’t usually long for this world. The band member who goes on their artistic walkabout often just 62 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL

needs to clear their head before eventually returning to the fold. That seems in line with The Code, an album by Cleric frontman Nick Shellenberger under the moniker Underer. The album was supposedly created in a relatively short burst a few years ago. That’s impressive and not completely surprising.

All the elements here are fantastic. The drum machine is an industrial cyclone with frantic, off-time beats that expand into more freeform sections that most people wouldn’t dream of programming. The riffs themselves are often reminiscent of late-’90s noisecore, which rules, and there’s a bevy of additional instrumentation that makes this seem like a one-man musical army. But it is still just one man.

With songs ranging from under a minute to over seven minutes, this feels like a fevered bout of blind inspiration that ended up eschewing some of the needed editing and refining that would usually follow. Certain ideas feel half-finished, while others could have benefited from a significant trim. In other words, it’s missing the kind of reframing and honing that we tend to look to fellow band members to help out with.

This project is packed with creativity and talent, but needs a little more time to get its bearings. Maybe The Code will be the last we ever hear from a solo Shellenberger, but there’s a strong case for Underer to come out of retirement. —SHANE MEHLING

WINO

8

Forever Gone RIPPLE MUSIC

Aged like a fine Wino

If every 10 years, Scott “Wino” Weinrich blesses us with an acoustic solo album, we can count ourselves lucky. For as prolific as the singer/guitarist has been in his 40-year career playing mostly doom-informed rock and metal (the Obsessed, Saint Vitus, etc.), these solo outings offer something that much of the rest of his catalog doesn’t. Both the soft, worn-in creases and the rough textures of Wino’s unique leathery vocals are laid bare here, augmented primarily by an acoustic guitar and shading from occasional washes of electric guitar. Wino’s ample skills as a songwriter, guitarist and storyteller are allowed to shine without the thunder and distortion of a full band behind him. Forever Gone’s sparseness, rather than revealing weaknesses—as some of these loud-dudes-go-soft efforts do—reinforces the man’s strengths.

Forever Gone follows up 2010’s solo acoustic Adrift, and like that album, Wino has enlisted Clutch drummer Jean-Paul Gaster to add a little thump to tracks like “Dark Ravine” and “Isolation.” But mostly it’s just a solid collection of dark, soulful acoustic music recorded in a simple, clear fashion to give the songs the room to breathe. Though Wino’s voice is obviously a prominent feature, his sturdy acoustic work is an equal partner. The 11 tunes don’t feel like electric songs adapted for the acoustic format; they draw their character and power from Wino’s nimble, tasteful picking, and not a wah-wah pedal in sight. —ADEM TEPEDELEN

WITHERING SURFACE

8

Meet Your Maker MIGHTY MUSIC

Can we stay at your place?

Over 15 years on the lam.

Nearly half a lifetime since Force the Pace vanished the instant it came out on Milan-based indie Scarlet Records. Well, Meet Your Maker brings fortysomethings Michael H. Andersen (vocals), Allan Tvedebrink (guitarist) and Jakob Gundel (drums) back together for another shot at the melodic death metal stars.

Much in the same way Withering Surface’s late-’90s material—Scarlet Silhouettes (1997) and The Nude Ballet (1998)—offered a Danish view on what was happening over in Sweden, Meet Your Maker offers an updated, smoothed-out, more mature handle on what Withering Surface were doing ages ago, where wind-sailing guitars and Kreator drums handsomely meet Andersen’s pained caws and keyboard-laced atmospheric backdrops. While most bands go all-out—aggression or melody— Withering Surface hit the subtle button, plying aggression with passages that foster reflection.

Songs like “Raised Right,” “Alone,” “I’ll Soon Be Gone,” “Mourning Light” and the title track aren’t instantaneous listens. They don’t even emerge after several, in fact, but they have a way of worming into your ear with time. Indeed, single “Leaves in the Stream” is likely the early highlight, but it’s the slow-burning, vocal-hook heavy “I’ll Soon Be Gone” that will earn Maker accolades months (and years) from now; the opening and mid-song solo are gems of emotion.

Melodic death metal—or “melodeath,” a term I’m not fond of—is slowly making a noticeable comeback. With Meet Your Maker, Withering Surface are vying for a leadership position, and it’s a place that’s much deserved after all these years. —CHRIS DICK

Tail-Tied Hearts

www.caligarirecords.com

DECIBEL : SEPTEMBER 2020 : 63

64 : SEPTEMBER 2020 : DECIBEL ANSWERS: 1. The flayed skin flag in the background has long hair 2. All the skinned figures around the throne have deeper, darker eye orifices 3. The baby has thicker, curlier hair 4. The bottom left corner of the frame is broken 5. The figure at the bottom right has more skin on its shoulder 6. The scythe at the bottom middle has fresh gore on it 7. There’s a cohesive strand of melty gold dripping down from underneath the Corpse King’s robe 8. The middle left skinned figure has XL ears 9. The Corpse King has some sweet Birks on his feet 9. The middle right figure beside the throne has skin on its leg 10. The figure at the bottom left of the Corpse King threw on some skivvies for modesty’s sake 11. There’s no rock texture behind the quartet of flayed figures at the bottom 12. On the right, the second figure from the top is totally flipping off that baby 13. The topmost flayed figure on the left has a larger nose hole 14. The figure doing the flaying at the bottom has no teeth 15. The baby’s binky has fallen onto a ledge at the bottom right of the throne

There are 15 differences in these pictures.

How many can you find?

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