Decibel #215 - September 2022

Special REPORT

AMON AMARTH SUMMER FEST ROUNDUP MEGADETH PLAGUE SOUNDSCAPES A WARRIOR’S SPIRIT MARYLAND DEATHFEST + METAL & BEER FEST: PHILLY REVIEWED

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SEPTEMBER 2022 // No. 215

JONATHAN DONAIS GETS HIS WINGS

Dean Guitars proudly introduces

Jonathan Donais of Anthrax & Shadows Fall

and his new Dean JD Signature Exile.

Now is the Time. Get Your Wings at

w w w.D e ANGUITA R S.c OM

Photo: Evil Robb

G R EG T RI B B E T T GETS HIS WINGS

Dean Guitars proudly introduces

Greg Tribbett of Mudvayne

and his new Dean GT Signature V.

Now is the Time. Get Your Wings at

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E XT RE M ELY EXTREME

September 2022 [R 215] decibelmagazine.com

upfront 10 metal muthas A classical upbringing

22 dreadnought Less ending, more playing

12 maryland deathfest

24 panzerfaust No heroes

xviii review

Though this may be over...

14 exclusive:

metal & beer fest: philly 2022 review ...We’ve only just begun

26 castrator He was asking for it 28 the halo effect The jester retrace

18 low culture Team building exercises

30 northless All roads lead home

19 no corporate beer Are you afraid of the dark?

32 hulder Blowing her own horn

20 in the studio:

34 frayle They liked Kate Bush before it was cool

enslaved

Intimate slavery

36 psycroptic Misters worldwide

features

reviews

38 wake Breaking free from the grind

75 lead review Oceans of Slumber continue to progress past the need for genre classification on their latest offering Starlight and Ash

40 megadeth Historical significance 42 amon amarth Ready to fight 44 imperial triumphant Live is pain 46 q&a: arch enemy Riffmaster Michael Amott is still excited about extreme metal, no lie 50 the decibel

hall of fame Poised to break out beyond their Brazilian borders, Sepultura abandon their Satanic beginning to explore the true evil of their surroundings on Schizophrenia

76 album reviews Records from bands that weren't casually dropping Stranger Things spoilers on Twitter, including Conan, Machine Head and Spirit Adrift

62 MAX CAVALERA &

SOULFLY

88 damage ink Ass hypnosis

Family Matters COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY SHANE GARDNER ADDITIONAL COVER DESIGN BY ESTER SEGARRA

Decibel (ISSN 1557-2137) is published monthly by Red Flag Media, Inc., P.O. Box 36818, 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, P.O. Box 36818, Philadelphia, PA 19107. © 2022 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

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4 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

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Few albums were more pivotal in

my youth than Sepultura’s Arise and Beneath the Remains. If you’re my age (don’t forget to schedule your annual colonoscopy), both records likely laid the foundation for a lifetime spent with extreme metal, leading you indirectly to this very magazine. And if you’re like me (you should really get that weird shoulder pain checked out), you likely moved on from Sepultura upon the release of their more grooveladen follow-up records. And if you are me (I’m sorry), you lamented Sepultura’s split with Max Cavalera, not just because it adversely impacted the band, but because it allowed Max to have complete control over a new project where he could doink out nü-metal riffs while screaming about Hootie & the Blowfish.

I spent the better part of the next two decades actively avoiding Soulfly. In fact, it wasn’t until a longtime friend at Nuclear Blast insisted that I listen to the band’s 2015 album Archangel that things changed. Of course, I still had to be a dick about it.

SMART FRIEND: “Max finally got back to his, um, roots—the record’s actually really good.”

DUMB ME: “Dude, c’mon, I hear the same shit every time a legacy artist releases a new album. I don’t have time to listen to it. There’s no way a new Soulfly album is good.”

SMART FRIEND: “How do you know if you don’t actually listen to it?”

DUMB ME: “I just know.”

I felt like I had a solid case. (As I was writing this, I revisited a track from Archangel and Apple Music’s robo-curated auto-play function selected Obituary’s “Chopped in Half,” immediately followed by—I swear—Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie.”) Fortunately, my pal doing his job convinced me to do mine. While I wasn’t exactly compelled to jumpdafuckup, the record elicited more than a few head nods of approval. The follow-up, 2018’s Ritual, displayed further improvement, but the new LP, Totem, might be the best—and thrashiest—record Max has performed on since Roots.

Justin M. Norton’s excellent cover story—amazingly, our first featuring Max—dives deep into Soulfly’s late-career surge with numerous assists from musicians who owe a massive debt to the earlier entries on our man’s equally immense résumé. And for those of you even older than me (I’m really sorry) who can’t get on board with anything that’s happened in the last 35 years, our Hall of Fame induction on Sepultura’s Schizophrenia should ease your old-school pain, if not your lower back tightness. albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

REFUSE/RESIST

September 2022 [T215] PUBLISHER

Alex Mulcahy

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

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DAVE MUSTAINE TA K E N O P R I S O N E R S

READER OF THE

MONTH hobbies of staying out late and watching grown adults yell into microphones, collecting records, and [buying] the occasional sick King Diamond action figure.

Bob Deutsch

Minneapolis, MN You worked at a prominent metal label years ago. Why did you make the switch to civilian life?

There were a lot of things that happened, but I ended up moving back to Minnesota after living in L.A. for several years. Along with moving back, I ended up getting sober (eventually), and that’s one of the biggest changes and best things to happen to me. Along the way, I kept going to shows, ended up meeting a wonderful person who consumes music much differently, and getting married!

Thankfully, Ashley puts up with my ridiculous

8 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

Your Instagram profile largely consists of photos of metal albums, horror movie stills and beautiful nature shots. Are these your three major interests or are there others yet to be revealed on social media?

Those are the big ones, but I also love reading and am obsessed with everything Stephen King.

I’ll talk your ear off about all his novels and will go down the rabbit hole to connect the Dark Tower mythos with his other works. One of my buddies found an awesome Stephen King pin that uses the old Death logo. My wife and I also just got done putting together coffin-shaped raised garden beds in the backyard. [Since] we only get six months of decent weather in Minnesota, we try to spend all the time outside in the summer.

I’ve gone to all the state parks in Minnesota and completed that scavenger hunt.

You’ve been a subscriber since issue No. 52.

Why have you stuck with us for 160-plus issues?

I used to read Decibel years ago and dragged my feet on actually subscribing, but the flexi discs are something cool to collect (that FOMO is real), and every issue successfully talks about the stuff I already am a fan of [and] highlights some bands I don’t know; and the Hall of Fame inductees inevitably poke holes in my concept of knowing a lot about metal. It’s pretty good for peeking behind the curtain to see how those records actually happened, but also great for pointing out glaring holes in my collection or knowledge. I got a journalism degree in college and still get the newspaper, too, so I guess you’ve got your claws in me.

Max Cavalera is on the cover of this issue.

And Sepultura are now the first band to have four records inducted into the Decibel Hall of Fame with Schizophrenia. What’s your go-to Max release?

I usually tend to reach for Beneath the Remains as a go-to, but this is a friendly reminder to revisit Schizophrenia, because it’s been a while. I got exposed to Soulfly in high school at a show and then worked back from there. Seeing the Cavalera Brothers at Maryland Deathfest this year was pretty sick, and all those fast thrash songs were a pretty awesome surprise to catch that whole set!

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

OUT gu Au st 12th

Ex-Moonspell drummer Mike Gaspar returns with his stormy new band! Melancholic metal with thunderous riffs and depth

40 YEARS OF GERMAN THRASH

OUT: September 30 2022

CD Digipak I Colored Vinyl I Digital with 3 bonustracks!

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Primal Fear Sinner is back! 12 great hardrock-hymns, with guests from Eclipse, Evergrey, Rainbow, Benediction and more!

New edition of this classic. Deluxe edition with enhanced booklet, rare photos, linernotes and three bonustracks. A must-have!

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CD Digipak I Colored Vinyl I Digital Limited edition box with vinyl and CD Exclusive editions and merchandise:

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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 knowing things would have gone better if Eddie played something from Ride the Lightning.

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

This Month's Mutha: Connie Skildum Mutha of Carl Skildum of Inexorum

Tell us a little about yourself.

I grew up in a small college town in Northern Minnesota, surrounded by beautiful lakes, pines, birch and maples. My degree from the University of Minnesota in Art Education/Humanities— and eventually a Master’s Degree in Human Development and Psychology—led to a perfect career. I taught in public schools, museum studios and post-secondary while I traveled internationally with HS students, family and friends (51 countries). My greatest joy and accomplishment was raising my two incredible kids, Carl and his sister Sara.

When did Carl start to express an interest in singing and performing?

Carl was a character when he was little. He wanted to learn how to play the violin and signed up to take Suzuki lessons at the local college where I worked in the Fine Arts Department. Finding a small enough instrument for him was an ordeal. And so, after the first lesson, he stated, “Well, now that I know how to play the violin, I want to learn the drums!” He was hooked on music!

Did you influence his passion for metal when he was growing up?

HA! Me “influence his passion for metal”? Only if growing up in a home filled with classical music drove him to go the opposite direction!

Carl mentioned in a recent Decibel profile that his mailman, of all people, recognized him from Inexorum. Is he the most famous member of your immediate family?

Yes, I would say so. My older sister was well known in the Cultural Anthropology world (Margaret Mead was her Doctoral Advisor, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded 10 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

much of her international work), but that work was below the radar for most.

Carl has written in the past about persistence through a variety of hardships. Have you ever discussed his lyrics with him?

In my mind, Carl has always been the wisest one in the room. Even as a little boy, he had questions far beyond the norm: “Why is there evil in the world?” “Why don’t you adults DO something?” He didn’t hesitate to ask the hard, tough questions, and he was a deep thinker. So, it is no surprise that his grown-up lyrics would deal with dark issues. His father and I were divorced when he was 10 and we moved away from his close friends when he was 13. That was difficult! Playing the guitar became a relentless refuge. He essentially taught himself by listening to Van Halen, Scorpions, Devo, Metallica and Prince.

From Krakatoa and Antiverse to now Inexorum, Carl has been a vital part of the Minneapolis metal scene for almost 30 years. How do you feel watching him onstage?

Today is far from his kindergarten music debut when, singing a duet, he reached into his waistband and plucked the rhythm on the elastic band of his underwear. He brought the house down before he fell backwards off the riser. Today I am in awe! Such complexity, so much passion.

Where does all that talent come from? And then I realize it comes from deep down—always persisting, working, problem-solving.

What’s something that most people wouldn’t know about your son?

That he hasn’t always been bald! It started thinning when he was 21 and was rough to begin with, but he got over it. —ANDREW BONAZELLI

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Oceans of Slumber, Starlight and Ash  KEN mode, NULL  Moribund Dawn, Dark Mysteries of Time & Eternity  Sepultura, Schizophrenia  Innumerable Forms, Philosophical Collapse ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Teen Idles, Minor Disturbance  Sin 34, Do You Feel Safe?  JFA, Blatant Localism  Eddie and the Subtitles, Fuck You Eddie!  Fu Manchu, No One Rides for Free ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  Sepultura, Schizophrenia  Moribund Dawn, Dark Mysteries of Time & Eternity  Esoctrilihum, Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh  Blut Aus Nord, Disharmonium Undreamable Abysses  Scuzzball, Reality’s Flux ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  Sigh, Shiki  Craven Idol, Forked Tongues  Tomb Mold, Aperture of Body  KEN mode, NULL  Jesus Wept, Psychedelic Degeneracy ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  Barrio Slam, Rest Easy  Wake, Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow  Sanguisugabogg, The Devil’s Eyes  Deadguy, Buyer’s Remorse  XUI, Demo 2022

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Shane McCarthy : w a y fa r e r / s t o r m k e e p / ly k o t o n o n  Havukruunu, Uinuos Syömein Sota  Satyricon, Rebel Extravaganza  Dreadnought, The Endless  Siouxsie and the Banshees, Juju  George Cessna, Lucky Rider PHOTO BY ELIZABETH MARSH

MARYLAND DEATHFEST

Triumph of Deathfest  The Tom G. Warrior-fronted Triumph of Death runs through Hellhammer classics in front of an appreciative outdoor audience

MARYLAND DEATHFEST XVIII

IF

this is indeed the final Maryland Deathfest—co-founders Evan Harting WHEN: May 26-29, 2022 and Ryan Taylor announced that they PHOTOS BY JOSH SISK are taking 2023 off and have no return date set for the event—what a way to go out. Despite late high-profile cancellations from Bloodbath (visa problems) and Dismember (afraid of needles), torrential downpours and the occasional mosh pit cunnilingus, MDF’s potential swan song boasted 91 bands, a resurrected Edison Lot and a surprise appearance from the Oriole Bird. ¶ We waited three years for this. We can wait three more for the next one if that’s what it takes, dudes. —ALBERT MUDRIAN WHERE:

Baltimore, MD

MORTIFERUM

OBITUARY

You know how some bands light candles onstage

Originally headlining outdoors, Obituary got

to create atmosphere? Mortiferum got that atmosphere going all by themselves, with no need to flout fire code. The presentation at Soundstage was bare—it’s usually where MDF puts hardcore and grindcore bands—but a few songs in, one could practically smell smoke.

Mortiferum’s death/doom fusion both pulverized and entranced, whipping the crowd into rolling waves. Even when the band flubbed a song and had to regroup, the interruption was compelling.

For a moment, the band exposed its skeleton— guitar left, guitar right, bass rumbling with fearsome electricity. When it reconstituted and became one again, none could withstand the onslaught. —COSMO LEE

moved (due to the threat of lightning) to a smaller venue that was open-air, but partially covered. This resulted in a headliner-size crowd trying to fit into a decidedly unheadliner-like space. Those who couldn’t get in stood in the rain, the stage tantalizingly within sight and earshot. If the masses want shelter and death metal enough, they will get it. People started pushing, the barrier failed, and the hordes swept past security into the warm (and dry) embrace of Florida’s finest. Obituary didn’t blink, thundering out the hits like it was the early ’90s again. “Slowly We Rot” was the perfect soundtrack for the humid, near-riot conditions, as bedraggled hessians zombie-stomped the night away. —COSMO LEE

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CARCASS While Friday’s threatening, iron-gray cloud cover

kept the temperature at Edison from climbing to its normal late-May highs, it also heralded worse weather on the way. When evening thunderstorms went from likely to definite, MDF organizers scrambled for alternative venues. The new plan: Allow as many ticketholders as possible to cram under the roof at the Power Plant Live stage to see Carcass tear arteries with surgical steel.

Sheets of rain crashed overhead and into the Baltimore streets just before the returning champions of English death metal delivered the goods to a virtual sardine can of adoring fans. The sound was somewhat compromised, the circumstances non-optimal, but the party was all the more raucous and heartfelt for it. —DANIEL LAKE

THE RUINS OF BEVERAST Transcendent. There’s no other way to put it.

Germany’s the Ruins of Beverast’s elongated sermons of madness and death have moved mountains before. The final act at Rams Head Live ensured that the last likely Friday of Maryland Deathfest was outright religious. Some were barely conscious after enduring the sweat lodge rafters during the Ruins of Beverast’s numinous set. Indeed, prime mover Alexander von Meilenwald offered the late-night super-spreader event godly tastes of “Ropes Into Eden,” “Daemon”

No stronger than eight  Jeff Walker (l) and Max Cavalera rip and tear through Carcass and Sepultura classics using their collective eight strings

and “Anchoress in Furs,” during which phrases like “Oh my God!” were exuberantly uttered. Von Meilenwald’s backing band—culled from Dark Fortress, Ascension, Kathaaria and Drowned— were faultless, projecting abyssal energy to an enraptured audience. —CHRIS DICK

ENFORCED The Virginia thrash/death thunderwielders

used their midday half-hour slot to chop heads and chew brains. Full disclosure: Most classic thrash, speed and heavy metal doesn’t do much to stoke my fires. Enforced plowed right through that bullshit barrier with a walloping dollop of death metal dynamism and turned me into an absolute believer. The band captured audience attention and adoration with their massive energy and unwavering commitment to the performance. Most of the crowd had already soaked in a full day (or more) of metal by Saturday afternoon; Enforced blasted off any film of ennui that might have begun to settle, reminding us all how this music feels when it’s done right. —DANIEL LAKE

CAVALERA Following the Cavalera brothers’ (bolstered by

Possessed guitarist Daniel Gonzalez and Soulfly/ ex-Havok/the Absence bassist Mike Leon) unleashing of most of Beneath the Remains and the lion’s share of Arise, there were rumblings from curmudgeonly segments of the underground about how “this is Sepultura, not whatever’s been going on the past 25 years!” While it’s a brusque airing of grievance, it is a compelling argument propped up by this explosive rendering of classics, illustrating that Iggor hasn’t lost a beat on

the drums and roto-toms—“Inner Self” oozed with double-time adrenaline—and Max is howling “Dead Embryonic Cells” and “Murder” like 30 years ago was yesterday. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

TRIPTYKON

which reverberated against Necrophobic’s steely death like nails into cross. —CHRIS DICK

DEMILICH Antti Boman is hilarious. Maybe the band’s other

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

members are, too, but he gets the microphone, so he drives the conversation. “We are Demilich, and we… play,” he commented in a voice booming with pseudo-self-importance. Later, when the crowd of sun-beaten devotees responded “YEAH!” when asked how they were feeling, Boman nodded: “I am yeah also!” Demilich’s long-beloved brew of doom-darkened death metal was the perfect follow-up to relative new kids Blood Incantation. They shredded and growled through songs with overly verbose titles, both from Nespithe proper and from non-album demos.

But really, half the fun was chatting with the band at their merch table while buying one of their pink, green, white or red T-shirts (or beer koozies). —DANIEL LAKE

NECROPHOBIC

DEICIDE

The Great Lord Satan bestowed Necrophobic

Deicide gigs sort of live or die on how vocal-

with a closing slot—almost unfairly after a magical Uada ritual—on their return to Charm City. No more blinding and blistering sun sets in studs and leather for the Swedes this time.

Known for high proficiency and sonic dominance, Necrophobic onstage are as lethal as they are on record. Even without a second guitarist— Sebastian Ramstedt dutifully filled both roles— Necrophobic split the vernal moon with tracks from Dawn of the Damned, Mark of the Necrogram, Hrimthursum, Darkside and classic The Nocturnal Silence. Frontman Anders Strokirk spat his way through a grimoire of iniquitous lyrics, all of

ist/bassist Glen Benton is feeling. This night, Grumpy Glen seemed delightfully… neutral. As in, he seemed to actually appreciate the crowd, which was more than stoked to see Deicide run through Legion. While much of the fest felt weighty and momentous, you could tell that for Deicide, folks just wanted to get their “aargh” on.

They got their wish, as people were moving— moshing, headbanging, dancing, generally letting loose. I realize old bands still kicking ass is a thing, but it was startling to be leveled by Legion in 3D, as drummer Steve Asheim channeled his inner Dave Lombardo with vehemence. —COSMO LEE

Earlier in the day, in this very literal heavy

metal parking lot, a couple engaged in a bout of public water sports and cunnilingus. Truly a sign that the end is nigh and everything is crumbling. But the biggest sign that the jig is up? Tom Warrior peppering Triptykon’s crushing set with sunshine and humor. Who was that smiling man eschewing morose perfection, playfully swatting at Vanja Šlajh’s bass strings mid-song and riding a wave of self-deprecating between-song banter?

So much fun was being had that most paid no heed to the suuuper slowed-down “Procreation of the Wicked” and how they concluded a festival set with 19-minute wrist-slitter “The Prolonging.”

DECIBEL : SEP TEMBER 2022 : 13

DECIBEL MAGAZINE METAL & BEER FEST: PHILLY 2022

New high score  Danny Lilker and Nuclear Assault bid America farewell with a megaton payload of Game Over in Philadelphia

Y

ear five of Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest: Philly felt less like a concert and more like a citywide takeover. CountWHEN: June 10-11, 2022 ing the Thursday night Pre-Fest and a pair of afterparties, 24 bands and 20 breweries descended upon the Foundry, Ortlieb’s, Brooklyn Bowl and event epicenter Fillmore Philly. Word count limits us to only recapping what transpired at the latter, but with over 80 different beers available for sampling throughout the weekend, it’s a minor miracle that we remembered this much. —ALBERT MUDRIAN

quartet certainly appears to have taken inspiration from the violent drama for their Metal & Beer Fest appearance (and top-off to their first U.S. tour). If you had told me Craven Idol weren’t mainlining uncut adrenaline, I wouldn’t have believed you, as they unleashed mythological vitriol and pub brawl havoc on their instruments, early arrivals and each other. Still can’t tell one expulsion of their blackened wind-tunnel thrash from another, but they were a treat to watch even as sounds blended into one another. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

THE SILVER

DERKÉTA

The Fillmore Philly, Philadelphia, PA

WHERE:

Two parts Horrendous, one part Crypt Sermon

and one part screamer Nick Duchemin, the Silver are both dB event shoo-ins and scrappy newcomers with chops to prove and an audience to win. Their time slot—opening Friday’s festivities a solid three hours before the brandname bands took the stage—ensured that their afternoon crowd was a little sparse, but the band played a spotless set that leaned into their melodic, blackened and progressive strengths.

14 : SEP TEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

Matt and Jamie Knox brought all the muscular musical agility from their other band to bear on this performance, backed by Enrique Sagarnaga’s intelligent and intuitive drum attack. These songs, while flashy on record, really burst into brilliant flame on the stage. —DANIEL LAKE

CRAVEN IDOL

What’s that classic line from Romper Stomper? “We came to wreck everything and ruin your life.” And while God may not have sent them, the London

Has it already been a full decade since Derkéta released their first (and still only) full-length, In Death We Meet? All of these songs, much like the members of the Pittsburgh-based quartet, seem to be aging in reverse—“Rest in Peace” is a fine specimen of epicus death-doomicus metallicus. As per usual, Derkéta’s set provided a bridge between “new” and old-school material with titanic renditions of demo-era chestnuts like “Premature Burial.” Which would be your fate if you sampled PHOTO BY HILL ARIE JA SON

more than three ounces of the band’s collaboration with Todd Haug’s new home, Mocama, the 12% ABV Belgian Quad “Belgian Blood Cult.” Now get to work on the next album so we can keep this love affair going. —NICK GREEN

SOUL GLO

Midway through Soul Glo’s set, Pierce Jordan polled the audience to find out who was hearing the band for the first time. Half of the crowd raised their hands. At least half of the rest were totally lying. But by the end of the Philly hardcore quartet’s blistering performance, everyone was primed for an encore. Tracks from Soul Glo’s 2022 full-length Diaspora Problems actually proved to be a little more digestible in a live setting, aided by the additional context of seeing how the programming fit in, and Jordan’s alternately wry and harrowing storytelling. No band covered more real estate on stage or rocked the crowd harder at dBMBF Philly; definitely epic, but more like bearing witness to an actual epoch. —NICK GREEN

VOIVOD

Voivod are that rare old-school band that, 40 (!)

years into their career, can still look forward.

Their DNA almost guaranteed this, with early Mad Max stylings proving prophetic as the world slides towards atavism. As their set ran through the catalog, with Angel Rat’s “The Prow” sparking a Proustian vivid memory—teenaged me coming home with the new cassette tape from the bookstore (all those things now endangered species)—time stood still. Actually, it stood tall; I looked over and saw Nuclear Assault bassist Danny Lilker also channeling his inner teenager, singing along and pumping his fist. Recent material held its own with the classics, and the band was rewarded with chants for every one of its members. —COSMO LEE

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM

Nestled between scene heroes Voivod and

Candlemass, the Weavers and company had a gargantuan duty to perform, and they nailed it.

The visual presentation marked a distinct separation from the rest of the evening—the mic stands festooned with ferns and skulls, the ornate knot-and-antler backdrop design, the corpsepainted guitarists—but the best way to experience most of that hour was with eyes closed and soul wide open. Yes, there was a brief technical interruption early in the set, and yes, some enthusiastic drunk continually shouted “FUCK YEAH” over my right shoulder in an apparent effort to ruin the most meditative moments, but the band played from deep within their own spiritual pocket, and Jessika Kenney’s passages were momentarily transformative. —DANIEL LAKE

CANDLEMASS

June 10, 1986. Black Dragon Records released

Epicus Doomicus Metallicus. June 10, 2022.

Candlemass—with frontman Johan Längquist— performed their Hall of Fame-worthy debut (and then some) to close out Friday. Thirty-six years to the day—that’s cosmically epic! The storied DECIBEL : SEP TEMBER 2022 : 15

CANDLEMASS PHOTO BY SCOTT KINKADE • SOUL GLO PHOTO BY HILLARIE JASON

 Alone together Candlemass (l) and Soul Glo masterfully display just how powerful the range of extreme music remains in 2022

DECIBEL MAGAZINE METAL & BEER FEST: PHILLY 2022

Swedes have an underdog history, but Mappe, Lars, Leif, Jan and Längquist shook poor William Penn off his ironclad City Hall perch with stunningly gargantuan renditions of “Demons Gate,” “Crystal Ball,” “Black Stone Wielder” and crowd favorite “Solitude.” The very origins of modernday doom steamrolled elated faces on the floor and above, with higherlights coming as encores in the form of “The Well of Souls,” “Dark Are the Veils of Death” and fucking “Mirror Mirror.” The City of Brotherly Love will never be the same.

Hail Candlemass! —CHRIS DICK

DEATHEVOKATION

The jolly alte schule (that’s old-school) dudes in

“Deathonvacation” hadn’t taken a whiff of their fantastic debut album, The Chalice of Ages, for the better of 15 years. Many had thought the Californians-turned-North Carolinians were long-gone worm food. Turns out chief bomber Götz Vogelsang (vocals/guitars) had plotted Deathevokation’s return as a matter of when, not if. Heeding the Decibel call, Vogelsang summoned his troops of doom—Steve Nelson (bass), Brian Shuff (guitars) and newcomer Adam Walker (drums)— from the Hills of Chapel to appear as Saturday’s opener. Nerve-wracked and humbled by the Fill16 : SEP TEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

more roar, the old-schoolers rifled through “Rites of Desecration,” “Acherontic Epitaph,” “The Monument,” “Embers of a Dying World” and a wicked nod to Dutch lost boys Antropomorphia with “Chunks of Meat.” —CHRIS DICK

SANGUISUGABOGG

Jokes aside about their mouthful moniker— and, to a lesser extent, their lack of a bass player—these tongue-twisting Ohio ear-manglers went more than the distance to demonstrate the power of groove and provide redemption for the backwards baseball cap. In Cody Davidson, they have a drummer so deep in the pocket he smells like glove oil; which is to say, less like the corpses and sewers that vocalist Devin Swank recounts while stalking the stage as guitarists Ced Davis and Drew Arnold balance on a gore-soaked high wire between death metal’s caveman thud and operating theater smarts. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

ALL ELSE FAILED

Chances are, unless you reside in the greater southeastern Pennsylvania region, All Else Failed may be an unknown quantity. Contemporaries to the likes of the Dillinger Escape Plan and Deadguy, their frenetic blend of aggression and

vulnerability earned them a die-hard local following that showed up in kind at Decibel’s latest festivities. Given their earlier time slot, the band wasted no time in swinging absolute haymakers, including fan favorites “Burster,” “Did You Think of Me?” and “To Whom It May Concern,” culminating in vocalist Luke Muir jumping into the crowd for set closer “Route 1,” turning the massive Fillmore into the chaotic house show of your fondest memories. If you don’t know, now you know. —MICHAEL WOHLBERG

FULL OF HELL

The floor was packed for Full of Hell, a testa-

ment to their hard work over the years. For how expansive their records have gotten, live they are a tight, focused grindcore band with occasional death metal heft, upper register skronk and interesting noise interludes. The old quote from famous Ohio State coach Woody Hayes comes to mind: “Three yards and a cloud of dust.” Here, the cloud of dust was a world in itself, with vocalist Dylan Walker triggering drones, harsh ambience and delightfully confrontational vocal snippets. It’s telling how showgoers act between songs.

Here, people paid attention, slightly off-balance, with the inevitable blast beat punishment coming almost as somewhat of a relief. —COSMO LEE

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM PHOTO BY ALYSSA LORENZON • THE RED CHORD PHOTO BY A.J. KINNEY

 Black and red all over Wolves in the Throne Room (l) and the Red Chord deliver a pair of unforgettable sets with their full-album performances of Two Hunters and Clients, respectfully

Some Matrix shit went down midway through

night two. Or at least that’s one explanation for how the Red Chord—a band that hadn’t performed in a dog year—seemed to turn back the clock to the mid-to-late aughts. The Massholes kept the banter (other than a heartfelt thank you from vocalist Guy Kozowyk) and shenanigans to a minimum as they ripped through Clients and everything else in their wake. When the frontman walked offstage for the album’s instrumental closer, it appeared he might not get a proper send-off, but fortunately he returned for two more songs that left a frothy crowd wondering if it had been dreaming. —ZACH SMITH

NUCLEAR ASSAULT

Who knew the atomic apocalypse could be so much fun? It helps when a band doesn’t take themselves too seriously, especially when the music involves total annihilation. Nuclear Assault brought their top-tier thrash energy to the fest with a rousing rendition of Game Over.

While the album is more than 30 years old, singer John Connelly’s voice hasn’t aged a day, and the band brought the full force of “Sin” and “Radiation Sickness” down on the crowd.

Though for my part, the real highlight was seeing Handle With Care’s “New Song” and “Critical Mass” played during the encore. Regardless, the band’s set was a rowdy and brutal good time—everything a thrash performance should be. —J. ANDREW ZALUCKY

CANNIBAL CORPSE

Cannibal Corpse are at that tier of maturity and

professionalism where, like, say, Elton John or Beyoncé, you just won’t get a bad show. Every song elicited celebrations—invisible oranges, sing-alongs, European-style buddy headbanging.

I saw this happen across the venue; people compelled by the power of Corpse. The set presented a master class in pacing, shifting gears through slow and fast with cunning and intention. Even old standby “Hammer Smashed Face” felt fresh, stirring the pit into a whirlwind, reflecting vocalist “Corpsegrinder” Fisher’s windmilling hair. As the band’s sixth man, it was on fire. “'Show me your neck?!'” he replied to a heckler.

“What do you think I’m doing here all night?”

—COSMO LEE

FULL OF

HELLES W

ith 80+ pours from 20 different breweries, the spread at this year’s dBMBF Philly presented a challenge worthy of King Gambrinus. Gone are the days of fading into the shadowy back corners of the venue’s ground floor for a refill—for the second straight year, the Decibel and Fillmore crews turned the venue’s balcony into a bustling beer marketplace. With this many beers to conquer, you can’t refuse to choose, so here are a few strategies we tried out. —DANIEL LAKE & NICK GREEN

Only Band Collaboration Brews For the first time at any iteration of Metal & Beer Fest, every single band on the lineup had its own beer. In honor of its jaw-dropping Two Hunters set, Wolves in the Throne Room had a mixed berry melomel (Astral Blood) from Brimming Horn Meadery and a fruited hazy IPA (Eyes of Gold) from Wake Brewing. Even Pre-Fest headliners Primitive Man netted a commemorative brew, suggesting that this year’s collaboration lineup will be hard to top.

Only Drink Stouts Most of the ticketed pours were stouts and all of them slayed, especially the epic Russian Imperial Stout Dark Lord from 3 Floyds. The king of funeral face-melters had special Fridayand Saturday-only pours, including a barrel-aged version and the cinnamon-enhanced Dark Lord Chemtrailmix. Presenting brewery Broken Goblet got in on the action here, too, with Wasteland Warrior, a pleasantly boozy rendition of an ice cream sundae in stout form.

Only Drink Weird Shit Who flew the freak flag harder? The Bolero Snort guys had a great time chatting with everyone who came by their table to try the crushable Juicy Pebbulls breakfast IPA and their pair of Evil Water hard fruit juices (a vanilla mimosa and a sublimely tasty blackberry passion fruit). But Sabbath Brewing trotted out three different smoked sours, highlighted by the Sanguisugabogg collabo Permanently Buzzed, a wild and wooly smoked dark gose.

Only Drink Local Shout-out to dBMBF stalwarts Yards and Victory, whose Golden Monkey ale has long been a gateway for people on the East Coast who are starting to explore the world of craft beer.

Ditto for returnees Love City Brewing, who fucking crushed it with their Soul Glo collaboration, the ultra-smooth hazy IPA Driponomics. These guys represent Philly as hard as a group of Phillies fans throwing batteries at Eagles fans booing Santa Claus.

Low Gravity Warrior We would have been perfectly happy to drink only Broken Goblet’s Candlemass-inspired Doom Lager, alternating with any of Cosmic Eye’s easy-drinking brews, particularly the Deathevokation collaboration Alte Schule, an altbier with a clean finish. Athletic’s dry-hopped pale ale Free Wave made for a perfect N/A chaser. Hello lagers and pilsners, goodbye hangovers!

Alternately, you could just try one of everything, in which case: It was cool to know you. Sorry you won’t be able to join us at next year’s fest. We’re ready to rage! Enjoy the afterlife?

DECIBEL : SEP TEMBER 2022 : 17

PHOTO BY A.J. KINNEY

THE RED CHORD

Y ISEMAN

TNE

BY COUR

Hey, Is Burzum on Spotify? order to somehow hold down a professional job that pays well enough and has benefits, I figured it would be in my best interest to keep my personal life (i.e., music, writing, history of mental illness and drug abuse, record collection, etc.) to myself in order to create the appearance of being trustworthy and employable. I understood that the tattoos were going to throw a bit of a wrench into it, but I could just tell them they were intricate birthmarks—something I’d figure out once I got to that bridge.

It’s not just that I was concerned because any internet search with my name attached brings up a litany of shit I constantly must atone for, but because I loathe discussing any of this nonsense from the last three decades of my life with anyone. I can hardly stand talking about it with people who are actually non-gender-specific genitals deep into the subculture, so the idea of having to explain it to “normal” people fills me with worse anxiety than having my porn searches made public.

I know I’m not the only one who despises trying to hold a conversation about being a musician with their coworkers. There’s plenty of memes out there about the people you spend more time with than your friends and fucking family wanting to know when your next “rock concert” is. Jesus Christ, what an awkward mess.

You can’t be rude to them because there’s entire departments in your company filled with shills waiting to give you lectures on basic decency.

Plus, like I said, you spend the most of your waking hours with them, whether you like them or not. I’d almost rather read an internet thread of women whose time I’ve wasted over the years describing in detail how small my dick is than 18 : SEP TEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

tell Bonnie up in the front end that, “Yes, it is kind of like KISS, I guess, and, no, I don’t kill small animals, and wow, it’s really cool your 72-year-old husband once was in a room with someone who blew a guy that played on a Dave Brubeck record.”

In the years since Decibel made the mistake of telling me I could write for them, I often get this conversation about “being a writer,” though it’s in a slightly different shape. Mostly it’s people drizzling shit out of the asshole beneath their nose in the guise of an “idea” they think I should write about. Nine times out of 10, I’d rather ask my doctor to take off the glove when he gives me a prostate exam in hopes that he has a hangnail than write about whatever the fuck the person talking at me thinks is interesting.

It’s not even the cliché of thinking I’m somehow superior to people who aren’t creative or involved in this shit; it’s just that it’s an uncomfortable conversation because it already takes an excess of emotional capital just existing and trying to continue to keep above the rising tide of misery that is America 2022. We don’t all have to share every aspect of our lives with every person who asks. I understand that some of you want the world to know what a special flower you are, but I doubt your 57-year-old coworker is really your target demographic unless I’ve really missed the mark here.

It’s difficult enough to find people who share your common interests and might give a fuck about the thing you put so much of yourself into and created; at least they might be somewhat receptive to it. But in general, for every interested coworker, you might find there’s 10 more that are going to offer to play the triangle in your rock band as they make some kind of noisy defecation out of their face that passes for laughter in their family.

Yes, You Can Drink— and Enjoy— Dark Beers When It’s Hot

IT’S

hot as hell,

and for many beer drinkers, dark beers are persona non grata until at least November.

Dark beer = heavy and warming, right?

However, a rise in appreciation for traditional European styles among American craft brewers is creating more variety in dark beer (read: not just stouts and porters). The result is all the flavors you love about dark beers in a light, easygoing form. These styles stand to beckon even the most ardent summer pilsner drinker to the dark side.

TROPICAL STOUTS Tropical stouts derive from foreign export stouts, a substyle born in the 18th century when English and Irish brewers made boozier, more highly hopped stouts to weather the ship journeys to the colonies. People in Africa and the Caribbean began making their own versions with indigenous ingredients like maize and sorghum. Tropical stouts are sweeter and fruitier than foreign export stouts, without the potential lactose cloyingness of milk stouts or pastry stouts.

With scales tipped away from bitterness and booziness and toward fruitiness and sweetness, subtly roasty tropical stouts are still quite popular in those warm-climate

New dark ages  Just because these beers are dark doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy them during this hellish season

regions; people even drink them at room temperature. They might not be refreshing, per se, but they’re satisfying, won’t weigh you down and capture summery fruit flavors in a darker beer. Dragon Stout from Jamaica’s Desnoes & Geddes Limited is the best-known example; tropical stouts are hard to find in the States, but it’s worth seeking out current examples from New Hampshire’s Throwback Brewery and Kentucky’s Braxton Brewing.

SCHWARZBIERS If it pains you to feel like you can’t drink beer as dark as your soul all year, you haven’t met Germany’s trve kvlt black beer, a.k.a. schwarzbier. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that in some form, this style has been brewed for 3,000 years. Kegerator.com writes that the first documented evidence of schwarzbier as its own style comes from 1390, and it would have evolved into what we know today in the 16th century thanks to lager yeast plus actual lagering. That clean yeast strain and cool maturation period helps this subtly roasty, bittersweet-chocolatey beer finish clean and dry, maintaining a light body. Brooklyn’s KCBC collaborates with metal bar Saint Vitus and The Six Most Metal Breweries on their perennial schwarzbier-style Morbid Hour; Salt Lake City’s Uinta Brewing makes Baba Organic Black Lager (American breweries often call their schwarzbiers black lagers); or you can go old-school with a German Köstritzer Schwarzbier.

CZECH-STYLE DARK LAGERS American craft beer is having a real Czech moment, embracing the time-honored simplicity of Czech-style lagers as both a brewing flex and a counter to the chaos of adjunct-laden IPAs and sours. LUKR faucets, Czech sidepull taps for authentic pours, are springing up in taprooms nationwide. There’s a dark side: tmavé pivo is the Czech Republic’s dark lager, predating the Czech pilsner. It’s like a schwarzbier, but a little maltier and smoother.

Expect less bitterness, and to get your hint of roast in an easy-drinking format. Explore the best of American iterations with Modernism from New Hampshire’s Schilling Beer Co. or Tmavy 13° from Human Robot in Philly.

ENGLISH MILDS It took American craft breweries far too long to come around to what’s been a staple in English pubs for generations. Milds are, like tropical stouts, not refreshing in the way cold lagers are, but they’re a sessionable way to satisfy your need for full flavor without heaviness or high booze. You can sip on these all day, regardless of weather. Milds clock in at 3.2 to 4% ABV, boasting a balanced character of caramel, toast, licorice and maybe some dark, dried fruit in a light-medium body. If you can’t get a traditional English example like Theakston Traditional Mild, track down Backways from Brooklyn’s Threes Brewing or one from Minnesota’s Surly Brewing.

DECIBEL : SEP TEMBER 2022 : 19

ENSLAVED

STUDIO REPORT

N

ENSLAVED

ALBUM TITLE layers and layers of things in Heimdal low-up to 2020’s Spellemannprisen-nominated Utgard at Solslottet Studio, the music. They’re so much fun STUDIOS where drummer, producer and engineer Iver Sandøy is presiding over to play. I think it’s our most the sessions. The same team that brought Utgard to life has returned—by challenging album, and we’ve Duper Studio, Solslottet Studio, design—to realize Enslaved’s 16th studio album. been around for 30 years.

Overlook Hotel “We recorded the drums first,” asserts guitarist/riff wizard Ivar Bjørnson.

That’s refreshing.”

RECORDING DATES “It’s a cool thing for a nerd like me to watch Iver do that. His assistant—Vegard Enslaved cite the “easygoMarch – April 2022 Lemme—helps him set up, but Iver is the studio technician, drummer and proing” nature of the multi-studio PRODUCERS ducer simultaneously. I really value this rule-by-effort thing. The guy playing the event as the product of familIver Sandøy, instrument ultimately has the last word. I’m always available in the studio for iarity. The lineup of Bjørnson, Ivar Bjørnson, Iver, but I’m usually asleep on the couch.”

Kjellson, Arve Isdal, Håkon Grutle Kjellson Heavy-eyed isn’t one of the traits that describes what Enslaved have in store Vinje and Sandøy have enjoyed LABEL as they’ve edged past three decades. The Norwegians have, in a way, found their not just consecutive albums Nuclear Blast youth again, where riffs and drums cycle on seemingly endless repeat—a nod to together, but arrived at the RELEASE DATE the Hordanes Land EP—only to explode at the last minute. There’s stoic yet vibrant same thought process: that a February 17, 2023 energy at play, something Grutle Kjellson calls “static, yet dynamic.” From a provigorous rehearsal schedule— duction standpoint, he name-drops the opposites in the ether between Mayhem’s namely jam sessions—benefits De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and King Crimson’s Red. not only production readiness, but also ideation.

“The songs are more challenging this time,” he says. “There’s constant changes. It’s pretty subtle, If anything, Enslaved have shown that they’re though. It sounds pretty simple, but when we play it, it’s like, ‘OK, I need to pay attention!’ There’s never short of sonic upheaval. —CHRIS DICK

orwegian bravehearts Enslaved are midway through recording the fol-

STUDIO SHORT SHOTS

FUGITIVE PREPARE DEBUT OF LAWLESS TEXAN THRASH As guitarist of Power Trip, Blake Ibanez has motored the thrash outfit with riffs for 14 years. But with so much physical distance between members, Ibanez sought an additional local-focused project. For his new band Fugitive, he hand-selected some of the nastiest thrash, death and D-beat talent from the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. The band’s debut EP, Maniac, features Skourge vocalist Seth Gilmore, Creeping Death drummer Lincoln Mullins, A.N.S. bassist Andy Messer and Impalers shredder Victor Gutierrez.

20 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

“It’s definitely up a similar alley of what I’ve written over the years in Power Trip,” says Ibanez, “but probably a little more in the Venom and Motörhead camp in terms of speed, and some heavier elements here and there. I leaned more into the sleazier and ‘dirtier’ stuff I’ve been influenced by, like Repulsion, Bathory and Sacrilege.

“The lyrical content is generally based around first-hand experiences of being from our area,” Ibanez adds. “Drug addiction, run-ins with the law, and living in a city with little opportunity and even fewer resources.”

After recording locally at the Vine (Austin) and Cloudland (Fort Worth), the album is scheduled for a late summer release from 20 Buck Spin. —SEAN FRASIER

DREADNOUGHT

DREADNOUGHT Colorado quartet shrugs off finality, stalks eternity on post-pandemic return

E

ndless. for us tragically mortal, but imaginatively endowed creatures, gravity-chained to a few square miles of livable space and flanked by frailty, transience and finitude on all sides, that word taunts and tantalizes. We imagine it in our art with the unbounded tessellations and infinite stairways of M.C. Escher; we gesture toward it in music when we let recorded songs fade into repetition rather than rudely cutting them off; we write it into stories of time travel and immortal beings. The progressive Denver band Dreadnought found themselves pondering just such a story while composing their most recent output, which they then wove into the lyrical content of their fifth full-length stunner. ¶ “Our album The Endless represents the cycle of light and shadow,” explains guitarist/vocalist Kelly Schilling. “The gap between what we are, the tools and the brains we have, the darkness within us and what we could be. At the time of writing the record, I was reading a lot of Berserk, Halo Jones and Sandman. It wasn’t an intentional reference, but when we came up with the album title, 22 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

I was excited about how it relates to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman characters The Endless—Death, Despair, Delirium [Desire, Destiny, Destruction and, of course, Dream]. They are all family, all complex aspects of human life. I think they all play into this [album] as well, so I think it’s a fun connection to make.”

The jarring discontinuity we all experienced over the past few years played its own role in Dreadnought’s creative contemplation.

“Due to the pandemic,” Schilling reminds us, “we had some challenges to overcome with writing in isolation. Instead of all being together in a room, we learned to record and share our ideas over DAWs [digital audio workstations]. I would send riffs and vocal ideas, they would respond, and as we piled our ideas together, we slowly pieced together a song. We like to have the full skeletal structure of a song complete so

we know all the general movements and feelings it will go through, and then we go back to make adjustments on anything that doesn’t sit well. This was the first time we fully demoed our album by tracking and mixing ourselves. It was incredibly helpful listening to and fixing details before studio time.”

Dreadnought irrigate their judicious moments of heaviness with carefully crafted passages of delicacy, though sometimes the two collide spectacularly, as on “Worlds Break,” the album’s eight-minute opener, when galloping distortion and guttural screams swirl around piano leads and clean-sung melodies. “It has taken a lot of years in the studio to learn about what frequencies will pop through where,” Schilling says. “We’re finally learning to turn down a bit to give vocals more room, but there is always more to learn!” —DANIEL LAKE

PANZERFAUST

Canadian black metal philosophers turn nihilist gaze towards the collective human condition

WE

have a tendency to imagine the sins of the fathers as abstract and removed from the thoughtful considerations of our modern, enlightened society,” begins Brock Van Dijk, guitarist of Canadian black/ death world-destroyers Panzerfaust, when asked for insight into the thematic thread weaved by Chapter III of The Suns of Perdition tetralogy. ¶ In a contemplative mood, he continues: “I would argue that to find the devils that have historically walked the earth, you need only look around you. Everyone believes themselves [to be] the type who would, in the face of certain death, have the moral courage to stand against injustice and cruelty; to stand up to the malignant actors of the past. The truth could not be more the opposite. Human history shows this to be true, time and time again. If Chapter III is to provide any function, it is to be a mirror to this hideous reality.” ¶ So conceptually, then, Chapter III takes an introspective approach following Chapter I: War, Horrid War (2019) and Chapter II: Render Unto Eden (2020), which, respectively, examined the ravages of war and the motivations 24 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

behind such human destruction.

Sonically, there are changes afoot, too, as much more space envelopes the music of Chapter III when compared to its two cataclysmic predecessors, with notable reliance on punishing Cult of Luna-esque post-metal and varied vocals that are intensely dramatic and increasingly authoritative.

“There was a concerted effort to deconstruct the music in a way that all of the musical elements would be allowed to radiate through to the forefront when appropriate,” Van Dijk confirms. “Musically, Panzerfaust is a three-piece power trio: guitar, bass and drums. This being said, given the consummate sound of the album, it permitted an opportune space for us to capitalize on a very expressive vocal approach this time around.”

As an entire artistic concern, Panzerfaust clearly excel at shining a spotlight on the past failings

of humanity. From the current dire geopolitical circumstances in Ukraine at the hands of the Russian military, it seems as though we will not learn from past atrocities, and power and greed—not to mention religious fanaticism and the degradation of the planet (which ties into power and greed)—will ultimately be our downfall. Due to his historical and philosophical research and knowledge, we ask Van Dijk if he believes that we are closer to the precipice this time more so than ever before? Or is it just the same sad tale, different decade?

“There is a tendency for every generation to believe that they are, unlike any other generation before, at a crisis like no other,” he notes astutely. “With every war, every plague, every plight of famine, it is just another way of the universe telling us that we don’t deserve this place.

John the Revelator may have been on to something…” —DEAN BROWN

PHOTO BY SAMANTHA CARCASOLE

PANZERFAUST

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CASTRATOR You’d be nuts to overlook these death metallers’ slicing debut

WE

tried to push it more towards old-school death metal. That’s been our main thing. The demo, the EP, was us trying to find our sound and who we are.

But we love Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Suffocation. I’m from Colombia, but I migrated to New York. When I landed in New York as a teenager, old New York death metal was all I wanted to hear and play. That’s really rooted in me, that blast beat, that Suffocation style.” ¶ Drummer Carolina Perez of U.S.-based death metal outfit Castrator has a clear vision for the future of the band that she and bassist Robin Mazen (Gruesome, Derkéta) have helmed since 2013. Originally conceptualized as an international death metal band with explicitly feminist, script-flipping lyrics, Castrator have changed substantially since their headline-grabbing demo and EP days in the mid-teens.

26 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

Their lineup is now entirely based in the United States (“we really want to tour,” they promise), and is rounded out by guitarist Kimberly Orellana and vocalist Clarissa Badini.

While their earliest releases were more brutal death metal-oriented, their debut album, Defiled in Oblivion, is more in line with classic New York and Florida death metal.

That’s no surprise, given that the writing core of the band is Perez and Mazen, who hails from Tampa, FL. Conceptually, they’ve also somewhat shifted from a gendered perspective to a globalized one.

“We do want to emasculate rapists and people that do wrong to other people. Unfortunately, women do wrong, too,” explains Perez, who penned the lyrics alongside Mazen. For their Dark Descent

debut, the duo focused on a diverse range of topics, including American serial killer Aileen Wuornos; Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist who was shot in the head at age 15 for advocating for women’s education (“Dawa of Yousafzai”); and the Castrato (“Voices of Evirato”). It’s all set to the backdrop of incessant blasting, guttural growls, squealing guitar and low-end battering.

“That [latter] song is about young kids that used to be castrated by the church to keep a virgin voice,” explains Perez. The track is perhaps the creepiest of the album, opening with a choir of sweet, high voices before transforming into a vicious melee. “They would keep that voice through adulthood. Yeah, it was a real issue and it happened for centuries. The mutilation was brutal.”

—SARAH KITTERINGHAM

PHOTO BY STEPHANIE GENTRY

CASTRATOR

THE HALO EFFECT

THE HALO EFFECT

THE

halo effect are a supergroup. Comprised of current and former members of Dark Tranquillity, In Flames and Gardenian, the Gothenburgbased quintet could be viewed as a label product.

The pro-produced videos for “The Needless End,” “Days of the Lost,” “Feel What I Believe” and breakaway hit “Shadowminds” are one thing. Still, the incontestable New Wave of Swedish (Melodic) Death Metal permeating the Halo Effect’s debut album, Days of the Lost, is quite another. Yet, that’s not at all what’s happening here. The Swedes formed their new group out of a simple need: to bring friends together to play the music they love. There were no expectations and certainly no ambitions outside of recording a few demos. The needle of fate, however, pointed in a different direction. ¶ “Three years ago, I decided to quit my job fully to focus on writing [Dark Tranquillity’s] Moment album,” says vocalist Mikael Stanne, who also fronts lauded throwbackers Grand Cadaver. “I got a call from Niclas [Engelin].

He asked me, ‘Do you wanna sing on some of the stuff I’m writing?’ I was like, ‘Sure, what are you writing?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, but I’m bursting with creativity. I want to do something!’”

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That vague but spirited phone call resulted in bassist Peter Iwers and drummer Daniel Svensson teaming up with Engelin and Stanne, with famed axe-slayer Jesper Strömblad joining not long after. All five members had been In Flames, but had never jammed (or written) together. Indeed, the pandemic played a significant role in the Halo Effect’s formation, but what ultimately sealed the deal was the overwhelmingly positive feedback from close friends on “Shadowminds” and “Gateways.” “‘Gateways’ was one of the first songs we wrote,” Stanne recalls.

“Me and Niclas wanted something groovy and heavy. Almost stoner rock-style, but not. I remember playing it for a few friends—out of the two six-song demos we did—and half of them really liked ‘Gateways.’ The other half really liked ‘Shadowminds.’ Overall, the songwriting was really about combining everything we like about the genre—epic melodies, heaviness,

dual vocals, aggression. It all had to gel, though. There had to be a good flow to it.”

There’s no question that Days of the Lost smacks of Gothenburg’s heyday. All the hallmarks are there, conspicuous and unclouded.

But the Halo Effect are more than simple nostalgia, even if, at first blush, it looks, feels and sounds that way. There’s modern-day darkness and disquiet machined into the brightness. Tracks like “In Broken Trust,” “Gateways” and “Last of Our Kind” have rhythmic punch, the kind more associated with Grotesque and Mefisto.

“The band was never about breaking new ground, playing by the rules or reinventing the wheel,” Stanne notes. “Our focus was each other—what we’re good at and what we know. We wanted to make the best melodic death metal we could at this stage of our careers. It was all very spontaneous—pure instinct and nothing else!” —CHRIS DICK

PHOTO BY LUCAS ENGLUND

Melodic Swedish death metal legends circle back on a classic sound

NORTHLESS

NORTHLESS

Milwaukee crushers’ songwriting continues to move anywhere but south

I’VE

pretty much been listening to the same 10-20 bands for the last 30 years,” laughs Northless guitarist/vocalist Erik Stenglein. “There might be times I’m more into death metal or when I just want to hear some slow doom and that can impact my writing.

But there are the bands I always gravitate back towards: Crowbar, Morbid Angel, Khanate… what I try to do from there is develop my own voice and make the songs better. That’s what separates Northless 2022 from Northless 2007.” ¶ It was in 2007, after stints in a variety of bands ranging from math rock and crusty D-beat to spazzy grind and chug-a-lug metalcore, that Stenglein caught the slow ’n’ low bug after spending more time spinning long-term regulars like Neurosis, Cult of Luna and Kylesa. ¶ “I was playing in different bands from different extremes and always wanted to have my own project that was slow and heavy,” he explains. “Originally, Northless was a place for the heaviest music I could make, but also where I could put the heaviest emotions out there. The focus on heavy emotion hasn’t changed, 30 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

but these days the musical focus is more about songwriting. I’ll always write heavy riffs, but now I’m thinking more about what’s best for the song, what I can convey and what’s going to keep my attention.”

Northless 2022 sees Stenglein joined by drummer/vocalist Jeff Nicholas, bassist James Becker and guitarist Dan Lee, though the band remains primarily his baby.

And even if he actively attempts to downplay extensively intertwining his personal and creative lives to avoid becoming known solely as “the Northless guy,” there was no avoiding pouring his all into album number four, A Path Beyond Grief. It’s a crafty and dynamic mood-wrencher with an overarching theme described in the band’s bio as “… an album dedicated to all those whom I have lost over the last several years. Too many loved ones have exited this wretched

existence, and this record is to honor and preserve their memory … The last several years have been insanely fucked-up for our species.

If you’re reading this, then you’re a survivor, and you’re also bearing witness to the horrors of our time.

This album is the soundtrack for those who have endured, but still carry a remnant of the painful journey with them wherever they go.”

“At the end of the day, why does anyone do music?” Stenglein reasons. “I hope most people start bands because they want to take their emotion and put it into something they have a direct personal connection with. That’s why I do it.

If I did it for any other reason, I’d be a complete failure. It’s not like I make money or am looking for notoriety or fame. This is clearly not the right band to be doing that!”

—KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

NITE-V

MODERN COLLECTION

PRIKA AMARAL OF NERVOSA

HULDER

Eponymous black metaller’s prolific pace is only matched by her creative ascent

IN

a constellation of black metal bands dedicated to the sounds of the dark past, Hulder’s star is one of the brightest. Last year’s Godslastering: Hymns of a Forlorn Peasantry was a triumph, one which pulled the various threads of Hulder’s demo work into a tapestry of demonic majesty. This author witnessed Hulder perform earlier this year with Spectral Wound, and it was thrilling to hear songs like “Sown in Barren Soil” and “Bestial Form of Humanity” in a live setting.

This summer, black metal devotees will have the pleasure of hearing a new EP courtesy of 20 Buck Spin, The Eternal Fanfare. ¶ According to Hulder, the project’s eponymous creative force, it all started “in late 2017 after I made the move to the Pacific Northwest. Before that, I had been playing in a few bands, but wasn’t able to share my creative vision with others.” Apparently, by taking time to herself in, “the solitude of my first winter in a new environment, I chose to finally make my vision a reality.”

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She set to work on 2018’s demo, Ascending the Raven Stone, and the whispering darkness has continued to gather ever since.

For the new EP, Hulder says writing it was “a very different process than Godslastering … a concept album of sorts” in which “the songs worked well in a linear fashion.”

For The Eternal Fanfare, Hulder’s “intention was to create something that would step outside of the realm previously established” and “to display influences and capabilities not previously shown. Much of the inspiration was drawn from my own experiences within nature.”

To translate this inspiration into music, Hulder sometimes starts with “a solitary melody,” whereas “other times the entirety of the song’s structure can seem to flow from out of the ether.” For this release, Hulder says that deadlines

helped spur the creative process. (“It was a positive experience for me, as it was beneficial for me to push myself to write.”) For the setting, she chose a fitting natural location: “I spent a few days at a cabin in the Cascade Mountains to finalize the lyrical content.”

Hulder is well aware of her place in black metal’s artistic universe, as her first album “was my way of paying homage to all of my influences at the time.” She declares (correctly) that “morbidity, mysticism and the macabre have always been an integral part of human nature. Black metal caters to those who wish to explore the depths.” At the same time, however, she stresses that her “intention has never been to play music that is just a carbon copy of others’ work, and I intend to move forward and craft my own style as much as possible.” —J. ANDREW ZALUCKY

PHOTO BY LIANA RAKIJIAN

HULDER

FRAYLE

FRAYLE

R

unning up that hill” is currently enjoying an unexpected revival in popularity. The Robert Eggers-esque video for the title track from Frayle’s upcoming Skin and Sorrow fulllength has a strange parallel despite being shot back in November—only in their version, singer Gwyn Strang slowly drags a chair up a slope in the desolate Ohio countryside. No running in their world. And unlike Kate Bush’s ethereal art-pop persona, Strang sports a Puritan hat and a nose appliance that the Puritans definitely would not have approved of. Although Frayle’s music goes way more doom than Bush’s, Strang’s voice embraces a similar versatility and vulnerability. ¶ “Writing lyrics and melodies are very personal,” she explains. “I just exorcise my demons. This album is an expression of where I was mentally and emotionally at that point. Of course, with COVID, I’m sure we all had some losses over the last few years, and for me it was just an expression of that. My goal was to get it out and express it. Once I express it using music, the pain dissipates a bit.

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Some of it is angry, some of it is just a lot of watching someone you love die. It’s all very painful, and writing music is my way of getting it out and working through it.”

“Treacle & Revenge,” which Strang identifies as her favorite track on the album, seems to fall very much in the “anger” category with its mechanistic sludge approach, while her other favorite, “All the Things I Was,” uses E-bow swelling to create an uncanny atmosphere for its tale of loss. Both of those made it into the set list for their recent tour opening for Cradle of Filth. There is one song that fans shouldn’t expect to hear live, however. “‘Perfect Wound’ is probably my most painful song, and I don’t think I’ll ever sing that live because it’s just too much and I can’t get through without crying,” Strang

admits. “That was not written, but torn from my soul when everything was going on. It was just very difficult, but I had to get it out. I had to do many, many takes to actually record it because it was still so fresh and painful.”

Despite the agony involved in its creation, her partner in life and music, Sean Bilovecky, feels that the record moves them further up that hill. “I guess we consider ourselves a doom band,” he reasons. “I don’t know if that’s 100 percent accurate, but I don’t know what else to call us—but I think we are really starting to push the definition of what that is. So, I’m excited about a lot of the songs because I think it’s pushing beyond what I would consider to be a normal doom record, and we are continuing to grow musically, aesthetically and with our lyrics.” —JEFF TREPPEL

PHOTO BY FRAYLE

Cleveland doom crew elevates their music through pain

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RAMMSTEIN.COM

DECIBEL : SEPTEMBER 2022 : 35

PSYCROPTIC

International tech-death kings re-reconfigure for world domination

S

ometimes you just gotta say fuck it. Especially after a 23-year extreme music career. Australian blenderabusers Psycroptic have been giving the ol’ middle finger to the straight and narrow for a while now via their musical sling-shotting between dense/technical and spacious/ experimental; they’ve looked to the other side of the planet in 2018 (instead of down the street or even their own homeland) to Todd Stern (Tombs, Hammer Fight) to handle bass duties, and had a variety of fill-in musicians join original members Joe and Dave Haley (guitars and drums, respectively) on tours. ¶ This includes Origin’s Jason Keyser (another resident of the other side of the planet) when vocalist Jason Peppiatt is unable to get away from life at home. The irreverence continues on the band’s latest and eighth album, Divine Council, with the appearance of clean vocals, extensive synth work, orchestrated parts, Joe’s wife Amy contributing choral vocals and Keyser taking his rage from the stage to the recording booth.

36 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

“It got to the point where, for a while, every tour we went on, Jason was either working for one of the other bands, working for us or filling in for us,” laughs Peppiatt.

“We’d been hanging out all the time and felt we were at the point where we could do whatever we want. I thought, ‘Fuck it! Let’s throw him in and see how it goes.’ He was on [2020’s] The Watcher of All EP and now the album. The whole thing made sense to us.”

Peppiatt assures us that having members spread out over 10,000plus miles and 14 time zones—not to mention the fact that he and Joe live on the island state of Tasmania, separate from Dave, who lives in Melbourne on the mainland—and recording in different studios isn’t the assumed logistical nightmare.

Given that Joe is a studio owner and engineering whiz, it was actually easier to put an album together, including Keyser’s parts after he was handed a rough mix, lyrics and

instructions to “copy” what Peppiatt did and go for it.

“We got him to do the whole lot, then trimmed in the bits we wanted afterwards,” Peppiatt explains.

“Having a studio at our disposal meant we were able to do more trial-and-error, but we’ve always been a band that builds things up in the studio.”

Divine Council may be Frankensteined together, but it’s not like anyone can tell. The riffing and performances are baroquely fluid, and seamless song structures make it a laudable addition to the band’s natural and deliberate evolution.

“We experimented more on this album because there wasn’t any time pressure,” Peppiatt says.

“Things were stripped back. There are songs with a lot more atmosphere, and we’ve really built on big choruses. We just took what we loved with [2018 predecessor] As the Kingdom Drowns and pushed it a bit further.” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

PHOTO BY MICHAEL RANKINE

PSYCROPTIC

WAKE’s

riveting Thought Form Descent journeys into melody—and philosophy

W

by JUSTIN

M. NORTON

hen millions die in a killer pandemic, it’s easy to forget all the

other things the plague stole from us. Wake know this all too well. The Canadian band released their then-career-best album Devouring Ruin in March 2020 right before the world shut down.

Every opportunity that opened up after years of hard work was scuttled. Tours ended and potential new audiences stayed home. Trips abroad were canceled. ¶ “We’d been building this thing for 10 years, and we spent so much time on it,” guitarist Rob LaChance says. “It seemed like a lot of people were stoked. We had a lot of stuff planned for the year and a busy touring season. [The shutdowns] were hard to take and we had all this free time, so we just thought we’ll start writing again.” ¶ When much of your success depends on a relentless look inward, more isolation might not be a bad thing. Wake’s entire career has built expansiveness out of austerity, and it was no different for their new album Thought Form Descent, their first on the benchmark Metal Blade label. When touring opportunities dwindled, Wake shut the world out like they had for past albums and got to work. While their earlier albums were portraits of personal pain, Thought Form Descent is something different: an exploration of deeper purpose, and an effort to find meaning in an indifferent universe.

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“We love what we’re doing, so COVID didn’t slow us down—in some ways, it pushed us ahead,” LaChance says. “I don’t know how long we would have toured Devouring if COVID hadn’t stopped us. We probably would have fucked around for two years and we wouldn’t have done [2020 EP] Confluence. It pushed us to write all of this music that normally would take years.”

Thought Form Descent, which features contributions from Dysrhythmia/Gorguts guitar visionary Kevin Hufnagel, is a work of breathtaking musicality and bold musical choices that never loses the propulsive quality of both Devouring Ruin and 2018’s Misery Rites. LaChance calls the new album an “unconventional musical journey” that touches on psychedelia while winking at the band’s grindcore roots. “Devouring Ruin and Confluence were more monolithic,” LaChance says. “I find this album psychedelic, but not in a psychedelic rock way. Each riff has an emotional context. I find that every riff has a certain feel whether that is melancholic or brutal. All of them were written with emotional intent.”

The story and lyrics have as much of a psychedelic vibe as the music. Vocalist Kyle Ball’s narrative draws on Aldous Huxley, Carl Jung and Timothy Leary, and might even remind some readers of Carlos Castenada’s psychedelic classic

SilentPendulumRecords.Bandcamp.com

We could have kept writing the same grind shit we did 10 years ago,

and we didn’t.

— K Y L E

The Teachings of Don Juan. Thought Form Descent’s story is about a narrator faced with his own insignificance who finds purpose in lucid dreaming, meditation and psychedelics, and travels to alternate realities. Ball says the lyrics consciously shifted away from depressing realism to metaphor—in part to preserve his sanity as the world came unglued.

“After I put myself out there on Misery Rites, I regretted it,” Ball admits. “It made me feel very vulnerable. People were trying to press into my life, and it felt like TMZ. I hated it. Devouring Ruin was sort of a mix of my worldview and my own personal shit. The idea for this album came during lockdown and isolation when everything was looking grim. I was already dealing with my own depression and everything outside and on the Internet seemed terrible. Everything was awful. When the guys sent the songs, I started writing, but I couldn’t focus on all of the negatives. I needed some sort of escapism, so I said I’m going to write a story.

“It felt a lot better to drench all of my personal stuff in allegories,” he continues. “I usually don’t have fun when I write lyrics, and it’s almost like I need to be in a shit situation to write. This was more about escaping and going into this world I created.”

B A L L —

Another big change in Thought Form Descent is the conscious focus on melody; the riffs and songs continue to live in a listener’s brain. “We liked the melodic stuff on our earlier albums and we wanted to interweave Devouring and Confluence into something with more of a melodic presence,” LaChance says. “We wanted to create something that was big and expansive that doesn’t rely on brutality. We wanted to focus on our songwriting, and we don’t want to be considered a rerun machine.”

Somehow, Wake have ended the worst twoplus years in modern history with greater strength. The band has navigated two long 2022 tours without setbacks from illness, and is looking forward to reaping the rewards of hard work dating back to 2019. “We have a catalog of two hours of music we haven’t been able to play for people,” LaChance says. “So, it’s been cool to see people’s reactions. Some people even said Devouring Ruin helped them get through the COVID period while they were at home or on the computer. It came at the right time. This record is a perfect continuation of that. It’s like Devouring, with a lot more melody.”

“We’re hungry man,” vocalist Ball adds.

“We want to do this. We could have kept writing the same grind shit we did 10 years ago, and we didn’t.”

SilentPendulumRecords.Bandcamp.com

DECIBE DLE C: ISBEEPLT:EAMPBREIR L 2022 1 : 39

IN

WE TRUST

DAVE MUSTAINE

’S PANDEMIC ALBUM IS THE SICKEST

MEGADETH RECORD YET

by ADEM TEPEDELEN

T

rust and the truth seem to be scarce commodities in 2022. As we write

this, hearings regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection are happening on a nearly daily basis. Would the atrocity of that day have happened were it not for the persistent lies of one very powerful person? A certain segment of the population trusted a known liar who claimed fraud, while dozens of election officials and judges spanning multiple states who stated otherwise were, apparently, not to be believed. Is anyone trustworthy, and how can we assess that? ¶ We get the sense in advance of our interview that the Megadeth camp doesn’t really trust journalists. Perhaps they feel Dave Mustaine’s been burned too many times; we can’t really speak to the reasons why. But before we connect with Mustaine for our Zoom chat (which his publicist records), it’s suggested that we need to stick to discussing the new album, The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead. Which is fine, because that was the intention all along. ¶ If only Mustaine got the same memo.

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We’re sympathetic to lifers like Mustaine, who, when they are working and actively promoting their latest release, have to sit for a lot of interviews. Multiply that times 37 years, and it must all become mind-numbing. Same questions asked with maybe a different accent. So, while we stuck to our handful of questions, Mustaine would frequently go further afield, which is kind of what one hopes for rather than rote answers a subject has spouted a million times before.

HE BOP

There’s no doubt that Mustaine is proud of/ pleased with the new full-length. It follows an album, 2016’s Dystopia, that was highly regarded

by fans and critics alike. Despite the six-year gap what they’re not,” he says. “People could look at these lyrics [on the new album] and say, ‘The between it and The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead, Sick, the Dying… and the Dead’ is about COVID, we wonder if some of the momentum from that great album carried over? “I think so,” Mustaine but it’s not. If you listen to the goddamn lyrics, says. “I think Dystopia was a great launching pad. it says it’s about rats and fleas, which were responsible for the [bubonic] plague. If you listen I don’t know that any album was an incentive even closer, it tells you the whole story, how they for the following album. I think that the feeling came over on boats to Sicily; it tells you all that that it elicits—Did I feel like I got something done stuff. With a lot of the stuff on the record, it’s last time or do I feel like I have something to prove?— meant to be blunt, but don’t read something into certainly is responsible. It’s more about how I felt after it was done. We believe we’ve delivered it that it’s not.”

And “Dogs of Chernobyl,” the moody, mida great record.”

By all accounts, it wasn’t an easy one to make tempo cruncher? Not specifically about the abanfor a number of different reasons: the pandemic, doned dogs left behind after the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant; it’s more of an another new lineup (drummer Dirk Verbeuren allegory, says Mustaine. joined after Dystopia) and “It’s a love song. It talks the dismissal of founding about this guy getting left Megadeth member Dave behind and not having Ellefson, whose parts a flipping clue why they were rerecorded by curbroke up. She’s gone and rent Testament bassist he’s as dumbfounded as Steve DiGiorgio. these pets [that were left “When we went into behind in the aftermath the studio, we were lookof Chernobyl].” ing for certain things Somehow, however— from certain players,” if we can circle back Mustaine explains. “When around to the subject we had the situation when of trust—this discusbassist Steve DiGiorgio sion of lyrics and not came in, that mixed reading too much into things up a lot. Steve’s a them leads to Mustaine great player and he has discussing his discovery his own style, but I’d of the conspiracy-laden already, in my mind’s eye, book, Behold a Pale Horse by heard the songs the way I Milton William Cooper, thought they were going an anti-government tome to be. So, when Dirk and that Oklahoma bomber [guitarist] Kiko [Loureiro] Timothy McVeigh found came in, I found those inspiring. Mustaine’s guys took me back to that interest in it seems place where I was the mostly in regard to its most comfortable at in theories that the govmy career, which was in DAVE MUSTAINE ernment is covering up the very beginning [of aliens living amongst us.

Megadeth] when I would “[Behold a Pale Horse] just write and it wasn’t had stories that people are now having revealed hard to express that part to [drummer Gar Samuelson and guitarist Chris Poland]. When we as real,” he says, “because the federal acts are all saying that classified stuff is no longer clasgot to some of the periods [making this album] sified, like Area 51, all that stuff. I haven’t folwhen we were writing stuff in the studio with lowed that for a very, very long time, so I have Dirk and Kiko, it was super, super exciting.” no idea what’s getting declassified or not, but it’s funny to just see a lot of stuff that I sing about ... you hear about it and people denounce By the way, we didn’t ask (because honestly, it, and it’ll be on a TV show and people are we’re tired of the topic), but the title track—a making fun of it, in order to soften the blow for melodic thrasher rife with guitar solos—isn’t the public. You know, X-Files wasn’t a bullshit about what you might assume. According to program; that’s gonna end up going down like it Mustaine, it’s about a plague… just not the was 60 Minutes.” most recent one. “I think there’s so much about That show’s slogan: “Trust no one.” people looking into things and making them

WITH A LOT OF THE STUFF ON THE RECORD, IT’S MEANT TO BE BLUNT, BUT

DON’T READ SOMETHING INTO IT THAT IT’S NOT.

SICK OF IT ALL

DECIBE DLE C: ISBEEPLT:EAMPBREIR L 2022 1 : 41

BATTLES i n

the

NORTH Swedish melodic death metal berserkers

AMON AMARTH sense a smell of retribution in the air

J

by S A R AH KI T T E RI N GHAM

ohan Hegg, the vocalist of melodic death metal heavyweights Amon

Amarth, is extremely affable when we ask the new interview icebreaker: Just how was your experience with COVID? ¶ He laughs before shooing away his dog Jari Kurri (so named after the Finnish five-time Stanley Cup champion). He’s been asked about COVID in every interview, he relays. ¶ Of course Hegg has. It’s an important question because musicians, no matter how big or small their projects, have been uniquely devastated by the global pandemic.

Of course, Amon Amarth are one of the bigger names in heavy metal, so they were lucky. That’s despite the fact that travel bans came crashing down among them while they were on tour in South America and they played only “one day ahead” of country closures in Chile and Peru before everything came to a grinding halt, effectively canceling Columbia, Ecuador and Japan. After an “insane” experience and the nightmare of getting home, the pandemic meant one huge occurrence they hadn’t really experienced in years, if not decades: downtime.

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Eventually, that interruption turned into unusually ample studio time: “every day for four or five weeks, Monday through Sunday, and then like 9 o’clock or 10 in the morning ’til 10 or 11 in the evening,” with producer Andy Sneap. Thus, we have The Great Heathen Army, Amon Amarth’s 12th studio album. It’s thematically focused on a coalition of Scandinavian Vikings (modern estimates peg the size of the group between 500 and 1,000) who invaded England in 865 A.D. Hegg calls it his “favorite” album the band has released in a long time. “We all wanted to make something a bit more brutal. A bit more back to the roots,” he says. “The last album [2019’s Berserker] was much more heavy metaloriented… I think now where we had the time to really develop the ideas that we had for more

You know those classic albums where the band members are portrayed on the album cover. What do you call it,

a winking tribute to KISS’s Destroyer?

JOHAN HEGG

aggressive and brutal songs, we really could make that journey.”

The first track premiered was album opener and fist-pumping death metal anthem “Get in the Ring.” The accompanying video features All Elite Wrestling pro Joseph Rudd (a.k.a. Erick Redbeard) and the band in a Mad Max-style apocalyptic wasteland.

“Joseph asked us a couple years ago if we could write a walk-in song for him when he walks into the fight,” explains Hegg. “So, we said, ‘Sure, we’ll do that!’

“Lyrically, what I wanted to do was I wanted to portray the Viking traditional Holmgang, which is a Viking duel,” he continues. “The rules would be that if someone slanders you or does something against you, you can challenge them to Holmgang. If they don’t accept and are cowards, you get all their land and all their stuff. If you do accept and you win, you also get all that stuff. I wanted to create this story with two antagonists.”

Struggling to properly compose a compelling story in song form, further inspiration struck when Hegg and his wife Maria were driving to northern Sweden to hike in the mountains.

“She [asked], ‘Just what do you want to do?’ [I replied] ‘I want to have this… you know [scenario where someone is], talking shit,’” he says, laughing. “[She responded] ‘Let’s do it!’ So, we’re in the car driving and we’re just slamming each other with fucking weird comments.”

The Great Heathen Army’s seventh track, “Saxons and Vikings,” similarly came about from a longgestating idea that was never truly fleshed out until now.

“This is the end battle,” says Hegg. Lyrically, it takes place at the Battle of Edington, where Alfred the Great’s army defeated the Great Heathen Army, who were helmed by Dane Guthrum.

“It is basically the final battle where England wins over the Vikings,” he explains. “An uneasy truce [the Treaty of Wedmore] is formed where England is [divided]. So, you have a southern

part, which is Saxon England, and then you have the northern part, which is the Danelaw.”

The bigger victory for Hegg personally was guest appearances from not one, but three members of the mighty Saxon. Iconic vocalist Biff Byford and guitarists Doug Scarratt and Paul Quinn all make appearances.

“It’s one of those songs,” enthuses Hegg. “When I listen to the album, I still get goosebumps. I think it’s brilliant. I love that song. When I was very young, one of the first true metal bands we listened to would be Saxon. So, it’s insane to have to have them on the album now.”

The entire procession is topped off with arguably silly—but genuinely tongue-in-cheek— cover art that depicts the five members of Amon Amarth as members of The Great Heathen Army.

“This is the first time we did that. And it’s not super serious. You know those classic albums where the band members are portrayed on the album cover. What do you call it, a winking tribute to KISS’s Destroyer?”

DECIBE DLE C: ISBEEPLT:EAMPBREIR L 2022 1 : 43

AVANT-GARDE METROPOLITANS

imperial triumphant SAY, FUCK IT, WE’LL DO IT LIVE

W

STORY BY JONATHAN HORSLEY • PHOTO BY ALEX KRAUSS

hen we call Imperial Triumphant’s sound experimental metal, it’s lean on; everything rests on knowing their parts

often inferred that it is the band experimenting on the music. But what if they’ve got the music on lock and what they’re really doing is experimenting on us, just to see what kind of condition they can leave us in by the time it’s over? ¶ The New York trio’s fifth studio album, Spirit of Ecstasy, can feel like that. It is a head-spinning tour de force of sonic frontiersmanship and worldbuilding. Recorded live with the trio all in the room together, Colin Marston shepherding each take onto tape, it has a sound that is alive with all kinds of antic energy. There’s the apocalyptic effervescence of black metal, the muscle of death metal, the vision of prog. The protean impulses of jazz abound. Imperial Triumphant come over all stately when they’re picking melodies, like the one that introduces—then insinuates—itself throughout “Merkurius Gilded” like a decades-late echo of Bernard Herrmann’s magisterial film scores. ¶ Imperial Triumphant traffic in melodic motifs that can verge upon the Baroque. As Kenny Grohowski explains—the drummer dialing in with the band over a Zoom connection hours before showtime in Bucharest, Romania—all this and more is nested within the superstructure, inviting the audience to go deeper.

“Bernard Herrmann is one of the greats of the greats of the greats,” he says. “I mean, his bookends are Citizen Kane and Taxi Driver. Talk about a career. I have only been listening to Wanda Landowska recordings of J.S. Bach for the past six months straight. Bach wrote some cool shit, and a lot of it.”

Zachary Ilya Ezrin, Imperial Triumphant’s founding vocalist/guitarist, says of late he has been on a bossa kick, ’70s Brazilian samba.

“Bernard Herrmann and Baroque composers such as Henry Purcell are heavy influences on us,” he says.

It takes multitudes to assemble Imperial Triumphant’s sound. Spirit of Ecstasy welcomes a number of guests to the studio, some more surprising than others. Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick was “a simple call,” a fellow New Yorker and bandmate of Grohowski’s in their avantgarde project PAKT. As was Voivod vocalist Denis “Snake” Bélanger, who makes a cameo on the exhilarating “Maximalist Scream.” Kenny G, the doyen of smooth jazz saxophone, however? He came out of left field—turns out Ezrin had an in.

“Kenny G is actually the father of my business partner, Max Gorelick, who was for one year a second guitar player of Imperial Triumphant, and a monster player,” says Ezrin. “We have been jamming together for years, played a lot of Gypsy jazz and that sort of thing. He has a band called the 44 : S AE PP R TI LE M 2 0B2E1R: 2D0E2C2I B :E DLE C I B E L

Mantle, which is a fantastic group as well, and I had this idea for a part in ‘Merkurious Gilded,’ and so I asked him, ‘Hey, would you want to do a dueling solo with your father on this track?’

Luckily, everyone seemed down with the idea.”

The far-out ideas take care of themselves, like father-and-son soprano sax and guitar set-pieces, or riffs like those on the beyond gnarly “Tower of Glory, City of Shame,” which is another guest spot, with Mr Bungle’s Trey Spruance doubling Ezrin’s guitar on an eastern stringed instrument that’s like a plucked dulcimer. There’s a theremin in there, too, ancillary percussion from Marston, while returning guests J. Walter Hawkes and Ben Hankle play trombone and trumpet, respectively. All this is arranged and performed with an audacity that would please Ornette Coleman.

“Hooks are important in any form of music, but I would say for us it is more themes or motifs, like establishing an idea for people to latch onto,” says Ezrin. “With this kind of music, it is very, very intense, and it can be very overwhelming at times, so it is important to provide the listener with some ground to stand on.”

Ezrin promises that Imperial Triumphant will grant the audience just enough purchase on what’s going on musically, but no more. The band has no safety net either. When they take to the stage in masks, they don’t have visual cues to

or intuiting where there is flex in the arrangement. Grohowski says this aptitude for improv sets them apart from other metal bands. “It’s a different way of playing,” he argues. “It is a way of communicating and it is a language that not a lot of musicians—especially in metal—have a grasp of. For us to kind of get on a stage and just, ‘All right, make something up right now!’—that is in our wheelhouse.”

But it doesn’t take the fear away. Performing this material and letting it breathe and flex invites the risk that it will all come apart. “I don’t know if it happens to these guys, but it happens to me; sometimes, in the middle of a tune I’ll be like, ‘What the fuck am I playing?’” says bassist/keys player Steve Blanco.

It’s about surviving, bar by bar, note to note.

And when it comes together, it sounds so much better because there’s no disguising that sense of danger.

“Yeah, survive that bar and onto the next one!” laughs Ezrin. “But you’re right, it does feel great.

And it also sounds great. [Pauses] Like, when we nail a part and we all come in on the right chord at the right time, it does hit heavier.”

i don’t know if it happens to these guys, but it happens to me; sometimes, in the middle of a tune i’ll be like,

‘what the fuck am i playing?’ playing?’”

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DLE C: ISBEEPLT:EAMPBREIR L 2022 1 : 45 DECIBE

interview by

QA j. bennett

WI T H

MICHAEL

AMOTT ARCH ENEMY’s shred lord architect on Scandinavian darkness, heavy metal’s family tree and the band’s new album 46 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

Y

ou might think that after all the gigs Michael Amott has played over Her roots are totally different, and I think that’s

the last 30-plus years—with Arch Enemy, Carcass, Spiritual Beggars, his old band Carnage and Arch Enemy spinoff Black Earth—the last thing he’d want to do is hit a show. And yet, after Arch Enemy’s last North American tour concluded in Los Angeles in May, the amiable Swedish shredder stayed in town and caught gigs by his old friends in Destruction and Rotting Christ. “I love going to shows,” he tells Decibel matter-of-factly. “I’m excited onstage or in the audience.” ¶ Chances are, Amott and his Arch Enemy bandmates—vocalist Alissa White-Gluz, bassist Sharlee D’Angelo, drummer Daniel Erlandsson and guitarist Jeff Loomis—will be spending more time onstage for the foreseeable future. With the release of their 11th album, Deceivers, the melodic death metal squad is bigger than ever. Which is no easy feat, considering that White-Gluz is their third vocalist since Arch Enemy’s inception in 1995. Then again, Amott has been the band’s driving force and main songwriter since the beginning, and his creative process hasn’t changed much. “I’ll pour myself a glass of wine—or three—and try to enter what I call ‘the metal zone,’” our man tells us. “I just go into my own world and let the music speak to me.”

What’s the story behind the title of the new Arch Enemy album, Deceivers?

There’s a few different things. We have a song called “Deceiver, Deceiver” that I wrote the lyrics for, but then there were a few songs that Alissa brought to the table that had to do with deceit and things going on in the world that aren’t what they seem, perhaps—and people are wearing masks. It seemed like a nice album title to wrap it all up. We never make concept records, but sometimes you find a thread that runs through a few of the songs.

Are there any other themes?

Well, I think we managed to avoid making a COVID album. But, of course, it did influence us in some ways. I know “House of Mirrors,” which Alissa wrote the lyrics for, deals with isolation, the idea of the mirror as your only company. I mean, it was a unique time in history, wasn’t it? Everybody was sort of going through the same thing at the same time, which is kind of unusual. So, it’s in there, but you don’t want to date your album too much, you know? We tried to make it broader so someone can listen to it 20 years from now and still relate to it.

There’s some sociopolitical commentary on the album as well, which is something it seems like Arch Enemy have done more of as time has gone on.

Yes. I’m not really vocal about that stuff in my private life, but whatever’s on my mind tends to come out when I start writing. That’s why it’s difficult to talk about songs, in a way. I write them because I don’t like to talk about that stuff.

P H O T O B Y P AT R I C U L L A E U S

But yeah, some things on the album are obvious.

Some are a bit more cryptic, I guess. People are so divided now; especially in North America, it seems. But I do think that metal has this beautiful thing where you can come together for a few hours and forget all that stuff and just enjoy the power of the riff. That’s important.

In the past, you’ve said that you feel a responsibility to the tradition of heavy metal.

What does that mean to you?

I’ve noticed when we’ve toured with some younger bands, they don’t really feel like they’re a part of the heavy metal family tree. But I do feel I’m a part of that. In that way, Arch Enemy is a very traditional band—but maybe we’re not perceived as that. You have the roots of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and all that heavy rock that turned into heavy metal, and then all these branches of subgenres, and I view Arch Enemy as being on one of those branches.

I just want to continue the legacy—and the feeling that I had when I got into this type of music. The quality guitar parts, the melodies, the atmosphere—everything from Judas Priest and Iron Maiden to hearing Slayer for the first time. A lot of the bands that come up now are influenced by EDM music with a little bit of Meshuggah and Muse added in—and that’s called metal. We’re the opposite of that.

You and the other instrument-playing members of Arch Enemy are of a different generation than Alissa. How does that play out in the songwriting?

I grew up on U.K. ’82 punk, raw Swedish D-beat stuff and the heavy metal that became thrash.

fucking great. Otherwise, we’d sound very derivative maybe. So, I do like fusions, but I’m kind of picky about the ingredients that we put into this cocktail. Not everything works. If you mix laundry detergent with gin, it’s not that great.

Melody has always been a big part of Arch Enemy, and I assume that’s because of you. Why is that important to include?

When I got involved in death metal in the late ’80s, I had my own band before I joined Carcass from ’90 to ’93. The Carcass guys introduced me to a lot of music—they had much broader tastes than I did at the time. I had actually become quite narrow-minded by the end of the ’80s. I was focusing only on speed, brutality and heaviness because that’s what was exciting at the time. This new style of music was developing right in front of my eyes.

Carcass listened to a wider variety of music, which opened me back up again. And actually, I was becoming a little bit tired of the brutality and lack of melody. [Carcass guitarist] Bill Steer mentored me a lot in those early days, and we started writing more melodically within Carcass.

We stumbled across something there with the Heartwork album, and I just thought that combination was interesting. When I came out of Carcass and started with Arch Enemy, I wanted even more melody and harmonies, but to keep the speed, aggression and heaviness of what I’d been doing in the past. And I’ve just kind of continued on that path. I’ve found my style as a lead guitar player and a little bit of a songwriter, and I’ve developed it.

When you and Bill Steer went your separate ways, you both started doing stoner-type hard rock bands as well—you with Spiritual Beggars and him with Firebird. Why do you think that was a mutual impulse?

Speaking personally, I found that I had to go all the way to the other side in order to come back.

I wanted to play something that was less rigid, maybe, a bit more loose than what I had been doing. And I was still developing as a guitarist then. I was still learning a lot about music.

I was opening my mind and my ears to a lot of new sounds. I think that was just a part of the journey.

Extreme metal has changed so much and become so much more popular than when you started out in the ’80s. Has your perspective on it changed?

Of course. It was so underground when I got into it that there were maybe 100 people—if that—in Sweden who even knew what death D E C I B E L : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 : 47

 These riffs don’t lie Amott (second from r) and Arch Enemy are proud of their well-rounded metal family

A lot of the bands that come up now are influenced by EDM music with a little bit of Meshuggah and Muse added in— and that’s called metal. We’re the opposite of that.

AC/DC and Iron Maiden famously changed singers in the early ’80s and became even more successful than they had been before.

Arch Enemy have now done that twice, which is unheard of. You’re on your third singer and the band is bigger than ever in Europe.

That’s true—much, much bigger. It is weird.

48 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

If I knew how that happened, I’d charge other people to teach them how. [Laughs] I think it’s just a combination of things. We have the history, the pedigree, the musicianship and the songwriting—and we’ve added a very exciting element with Alissa. She’s very creative and very talented and very cool. There are bands where the new singer has not worked out, like Judas Priest or some Black Sabbath lineups. Obviously, it worked for Maiden when they brought in Bruce Dickinson to replace Paul Di’Anno, but then it didn’t work with the other guy [Blaze Bayley] when Bruce left. So, it’s a bit hit-andmiss, isn’t it? I guess we just got lucky. Then again, we’ve never been really massive as a band.

We’re still growing. It’s been a slow build for us.

We just had our 25th anniversary as a group last year, which was quite an achievement, really.

But we’ve not yet reached our peak.

Alissa did some clean vocals on the last album, and she brought them back on Deceivers for songs like “Handshake With Hell.” Do you think that’s an important step forward for Arch Enemy?

I don’t know. It’s not really that calculated. We like it, and she can do it. My favorite singers are people like Ronnie James Dio and Geoff Tate and Rob Halford, you know? But I like the David Vincents and Chuck Schuldiners of the world as well. For me, it’s just a different style. I understand that this particular Arch Enemy cake is maybe a little bit too sweet and too successful for the people that wanna be very “true” and underground, but that’s just how it worked out. We didn’t plan it this way. But we’re playing exactly the music we want to play. Some people love it,

and for that we’re very thankful. But you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

We were talking about the heavy metal tradition earlier, but do you feel a connection to the Swedish musical tradition? Carcass are from the U.K., and Arch Enemy are very much an international band these days, so I’m curious about your take on that.

I think there’s a sense of melancholic melody that comes from Swedish folk music and Swedish pop. ABBA shaped us a lot, actually.

[Laughs] That really inspired a lot of us. Even a band like Europe, who had a huge worldwide hit on their third album, their first two albums were harder metal with a lot of great guitar playing and that kind of melancholic melody I was talking about. That was definitely an influence in the early days.

Coincidentally, I’ve been listening to those first two Europe albums quite a bit lately. I can definitely hear that guitar style in your playing.

Oh, yeah. When I heard “Seven Doors Hotel” and things like that, those were very important songs. Gary Moore was very popular in Sweden as well, and he had a hard rock, almost metal career for a while there in the ’80s. Michael Schenker Group was another big one. Those kinds of melodies are important to me. But as far as being part of a Swedish scene now? Only one of us actually lives in Sweden these days.

I’ve been living in Asia for the last few years, but I grew up in Sweden, so it’s always a part of you. And we bring the Scandinavian darkness with us in our hearts and souls everywhere we go.

PHOTO BY PATRIC ULLAEUS

metal was. It was such a small club, and all those people were in bands. There wasn’t a real scene to speak of, but then it just sort of exploded. I thought it was great, but then it went away for a while, and I just kept doing it.

Now it seems so well-established, you can even hear the extreme vocal style on the radio sometimes—and the low tunings as well. It was completely experimental and out-of-this-world when I joined Carcass and Bill was tuned to low B. I knew that bands like Sabbath and Trouble tuned down a bit, but never that low. I think maybe Bill Steer was the first one to ever do it in the recorded form in metal. Now there’s seven-string guitars tuned to B. And obviously there was no internet, so all this stuff makes me sound like I’m 100 years old.

But it was being shaped right there, and I was in the middle of it. It was super exciting.

There are so many boxes now. You’re death metal or you’re black-thrash or you’re this or that. A lot of it just kinda sounds the same to me.

A lot of people use the same production values, and it just sounds cookie-cutter. But there are exceptions. There are some great bands out there. It’s just changed a lot. Back then, you’d go to a studio for recording and just hope for the best. Of course, the engineer had never heard of this music and didn’t really respect it. Now there are great metal producers. It’s so different.

by

kevin stewart-panko

Escape From the Void the making of Sepultura’s Schizophrenia

U

ntil the release of their 1989

Everything about the band’s third breakthrough album, Beneath the release, christened Schizophrenia, was differRemains, Sepultura’s profile outent. Sonically, it heralded a maturing take side of Brazil was limited to the on the members’ interpretation of metal. heartiest of tape-traders and most Visually, it broke with the past by pulling dedicated import-buying hounds. a 180-degree turn, both in regard to subject But throughout the mid-’80s, at home on matter and the color wheel. Thematically, the mean streets of Belo Horizonte and in the band was bidding a slow adieu to their the growing underground scenes of Rio de lambasting of religion and praise of Ol’ Janeiro and São Paulo, the young band was Nick in order to explore their own minds, on the cusp of small-c celebrity. Thanks to experiences and surroundings. Overall, backing from the folks at local record shop/ Schizophrenia was the album that allowed label Cogumelo, the quartet of rhythm guiSepultura to transition from local blackened tarist/vocalist Max Cavalera, his drumdeath metal prodigies to a multifaceted DBHOF213 ming brother Iggor, bassist Paulo Pinto Jr. metallic national force to be reckoned with. and lead guitarist Jairo Guedz, Sepultura Everything that almost anyone living were riding high on a wave of recognition outside of Brazil knows about Sepultura for 1985’s Bestial Devastation EP (split with begins with Schizophrenia. Following nonSchizophrenia Overdose) and first full-length Morbid Visions stop championing of the band by the New a year later.

York-based triumvirate of Violent Noise COG UM E LO Shortly after unleashing that debut, editor/Metal Maniacs contributor Borivoj OCTOBE R 30 , 1 9 8 7 however, Guedz had a musical change Krgin, Kerrang!’s U.S. correspondent Don Resting in power of heart, which forced the band to draft Kaye and Roadrunner A&R man Monte in someone both closer to their age and Conner—who took it upon themselves to on the same page as the remaining trio expose the first world metal scene to the as far as creativity and goals were conthird world posse—the band landed a concerned. Enter São Paulo-based axe-slinger tract with Roadrunner, which eventually Andreas Kisser, who, after unsuccessfully navigating the frustrations of led to them becoming an international proposition and, a few years later, his own band, packed up and moved 375 miles southwest to join forces with arguably one of the biggest bands in metal. the Cavalera brothers and Pinto Jr. Schizophrenia is the album that lit the flame, evolving a once tunnelStraight out of the gate, the quartet took broad steps and made expanvisioned underground band familiar to a few thousand Brazilian bangers sive moves away from the limiting black/death metal sounds of their first into a diverse and forward-thinking outfit with hordes of worldwide pair of releases. Sepultura began to think outside of the box and beyond supporters. And for this and all of the other reasons above—and because themselves, daring to add elements of thrash, heavy metal proper and clas- tracks like “From the Past Comes the Storms,” “To the Wall,” “Escape to the sical. These ran in conjunction with a melodic injection that followed the Void,” “Inquisition Symphony” and “R.I.P. (Rest in Pain)” remain sparkskill improvement and technical advancement that emerged after daily plugs of awesomeness to this day—we corralled its creators to reminisce practice sessions in a roofless bunker under the blazing sunshine. and welcome Schizophrenia into our own vaunted abyss.

SEPULTURA

DECIBEL : 51 : SEPTEMBER 2022

DBHOF213

SEPULTURA schizophrenia

What was the mood like in Sepultura coming out of Morbid Visions and going into Schizophrenia?

PAULO PINTO JR: Everything was new and exciting. We were 15-16 years old, and we already had a record-and-a-half, and it was amazing. Even for us to have a chance to have an album release was great. Everyone was excited about moving forward until Jairo decided to leave, but it was the confluence of the universe that around the same time we met Andreas and went into a totally different approach with Schizophrenia.

MAX CAVALERA: We were really close. The families were very supportive. Paulo’s family let us play at their house, and his dad would drive us around. My mom was supersupportive in letting Andreas live at our house and be like our third brother. At the time the scene was super-cool and happening.

It was kind of like the death metal scene in Florida. You had all these cool bands—Mutilator, Sarcófago, Holocausto, Chakal and us—all from the same scene, and it was cool to be part of something bigger than yourself. We thought the Belo Horizonte scene was cooler than the São Paulo scene and the Rio scene. We were superstoked because our little city had a cooler metal scene than the rest of Brazil.

How did Andreas come to be a member of the band?

Jairo was our guitar player who we worked with on Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions, and out of the blue he decided he liked glam metal. It was like that. He showed up one day and said, “Sorry, guys, I’m into glam now and I don’t want to hurt the band because I don’t want to go in that direction. My thing is full-on Poison and Cinderella.” We were like, “What the fuck are you talking about?!” We were all in shock because he was older than us and we kind of looked up to him as kind of like the band uncle. I thought it was cool that he didn’t want to hurt Sepultura and wouldn’t stay playing music he wasn’t feeling. It was at the height of glam metal—you couldn’t escape it, but it was everything we were against. For us, it was like, “Anything but that, man!”

About a year before that, we played a show in São Paulo and Andreas ended up being my crew guy for that show. We knew about him, knew he was a good player and knew his band Pestilence.

When the thing with Jairo happened, he was the first guy we thought of. It’s funny, but my first impression of Andreas wasn’t positive. I was hanging around in a São Paulo record shop and he showed up driving a sports car, wearing RayBan sunglasses and had two hot-looking chicks with him. It was like, “Who is this poser rock MAX CAVALERA:

“I broke a string at practice and then another one, and a friend who was hanging out said, ‘Max, we could go buy a pack of strings or we could buy some booze. Just play with the four strings.

You don’t even use those other ones, do you?’”

MAX CAVA LE RA star wannabe, man?” It was the total opposite of what we were: dirty, clothes in rags, fucked-uplooking dudes. But we heard his demo and a lot of people were saying he was solid and would be good for Sepultura.

IGGOR CAVALERA: It was pretty weird because after we finished Morbid Visions, Jairo decided to leave, and that caught us really by surprise. We weren’t expecting that because there was no negativity with Jairo. We had already started to work on a few tracks for Schizophrenia, so when Andreas came in, he brought the right connection between black and death metal and thrash. I think he’s responsible for bringing a lot of the thrash metal influence to Schizophrenia in the guitar riffs and the leads, and it makes that album a bit more of a thrash record. When we asked him to join the band, he moved into an extra room in our house.

At first, he was even trying to finish school in Belo, but that didn’t last long. [Laughs] ANDREAS KISSER: São Paulo, Rio and Belo Horizonte, which are the three main cities of the southeast of Brazil, had a very strong connection between bands, with people really communicating with each other. We all had our bands and I had a band at the time called Pestilence, which was very much influenced by Pleasure to Kill-era Kreator and Bay Area thrash. There was quite an underground scene, and Cogumelo Records was SEPTEMBER 2022 : 5 2 : DECIBEL

the store in Belo Horizonte that really supported and invested in Sepultura. I met them around that time. Mutilator came to São Paulo, where I was living, for the first time, and Max and Iggor came with them. About that time my band wasn’t doing very well, and Jairo, Sepultura’s first guitar player, was already thinking about different styles of music. He wanted to play stuff like Bon Jovi, Yngwie Malmsteen and stuff more connected to glam or pop rock/metal. I came in at the right time and at the right place.

I went on vacation to Belo Horizonte and met them at their rehearsal place. I picked up the guitar, played some Kreator and Slayer with Iggor, and we had an instant musical connection. A month later I was in the band because I didn’t have anything going on in São Paulo.

My bandmates didn’t care too much about being musicians and being serious about being in a band, and Sepultura were ready to do that.

How much of the record was completed when Andreas joined?

PINTO: According to Jairo, he taught Andreas the songs. [Laughs] IGGOR CAVALERA: There were a few things, but nothing substantial. There were a few ideas we had started to mess about with, but the bulk of the record was written with us and Andreas.

DBHOF213

SEPULTURA schizophrenia

MAX CAVALERA: We already had a lot of the material for “Rest in Pain”; we had a lot of the parts of “Inquisition Symphony” and “To the Wall,” which I think we were already playing live. When Andreas came in, he had riffs for “Escape to the Void,” and we finished the record with him. I remember the first demo we did had “From the Past Comes the Storms” as the first track, and it was called “From the Past Reborn the Storms,” which we didn’t know was incorrect English.

I was writing a lot of stuff in Portuguese and having a friend translate it, and sometimes the lyrics made no sense, but the demo was bitching and ripping, especially that song. I actually like the demo version better than the album.

KISSER: When I joined, they had a few demos from rehearsals and a few pieces and the structural ideas for “Rest in Pain,” “Screams Behind the Shadows” and “Escape to the Void.” There were just little pieces of the songs, and they weren’t complete. It was the starting of a process of something new. In those three songs, the death metal theme and approach [were] still there, and I remember bringing in lyrics for what became “Escape to the Void,” which had that schizophrenic vibe about the anxiety of living in a big city like São Paulo and was very much influenced by “Madhouse” from Anthrax’s Spreading the Disease.

We were going away from the death metal, evil, Antichrist type of vibe. We wanted to explore something a little smarter, and stuff we could develop with our own experiences and translate into the music. “From the Past Comes the Storms” had more of a historical approach.

That was the first song we wrote together and it was our attempt to do something like “Chemical Warfare,” with one guitar starting on one side, then the second guitar comes in, then the drums and then the riff. That was the idea; we started from there, and after that we had no limits. We tried anything we wanted. I brought my acoustic stuff and did “The Abyss,” which was very much influenced by Randy Rhoads. There was the instrumental “Inquisition Symphony,” which was something we developed in practices and was influenced by Maiden and Metallica.

What were the practice and writing sessions like?

We practiced every day. We didn’t have anything else to do. We would go to Paulo’s house and he had a setup there for us to practice. It wasn’t a studio, don’t get me wrong. [Laughs] It was a really fucked-up place, but we had a room there with all our equipment and the time to develop the ideas, and that’s what we did.

IGGOR CAVALERA: It wasn’t quite a garage; it was almost like a shed in a way. That was the place we rehearsed for many years, and it didn’t have a proper ceiling, but it served its purpose. At KISSER:

the time, when a lot of kids at our age were out drinking and getting into trouble, we were locked in that room playing for hours and hours, and I think that’s something that I really appreciate looking back: that we had that space that was necessary for us to go in and do our thing nonstop. Paulo’s parents worked and weren’t home, so they didn’t have to deal with a lot of the noise. That was a big advantage, even if the neighbors hated us.

PINTO: My parents would have rather had us making a bunch of noise and disturbing the neighborhood than being on the street doing stupid shit. Their idea was to give us a little environment for us to have our own time to do our own stuff. On the weekends, when everybody was off school, a bunch of people would come to my house and it was great. The other parents would call looking for their kids, and my parents would be like, “They can stay here and we can watch them for you.” There were a lot of regular private shows and rehearsals for 20 or so kids.

MAX CAVALERA: The place looked like a wartime bomb shelter and didn’t have a roof. So, if it rained there was no practice. [Laughs] His place became like a metal hangout. When Andreas moved from São Paulo, I convinced my mom to let him stay with us to save money. We gave him a room in our house and he lived with us for a couple years. It was cool because we would walk from my house to Paulo’s house, and on the way we would have to go through this plaza where the samba drummers would rehearse for carnival. We would stop and watch in awe because samba drumming is so brutal. I think the seeds for Roots were planted back then.

Our ritual was that we would wake up, my mom would make us breakfast, we would hang out, then head over to Paulo’s house and jam all day and late into the night. We went hard. A lot of people our age were out partying and getting wasted, but we would rather go make music and only get a little wasted. [Laughs] We were heavily involved in practicing and spent a lot of hours crafting those songs. That was around the time when I started playing on four strings. It was one of those accidents where I broke a string at practice and then another one, and a friend who was hanging out said, “Max, we could go buy a pack of strings or we could buy some booze. Just play with the four strings. You don’t even use those other ones, do you?” I was like, “Dude, go to the store and get some booze. I’ll roll with four strings. It’s cooler and more punk rock anyway!”

What was recording Schizophrenia like, and how was it different from your previous studio experiences?

As far as I remember, we had a new contract with Cogumelo and we wanted to do the best album ever, or at least the best that we could. So, we invested everything we could in

KISSER:

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the best studio and the best equipment we could get, but everything was very expensive and it was difficult. Also, the producer didn’t have any clue how to work with distortion and screaming vocals, so we had a lot of CDs for him to listen to as a reference and to get some direction, but he was open-minded about trying to get the best [out of us]. He was really helpful and on it to make things happen.

Things happened really quickly. I joined the band in April; a month later, we recorded a demo; and a few weeks later, we recorded the album. The recording was a solid week, but there were a lot of friends around. It was like a small party, but we liked that because we were trying to get the best of everything and everyone who was there helped with getting us cables, pedals and a bass. Paulo didn’t record the bass. I had to do it because he had some sort of block in the studio and we didn’t have time to spare.

PINTO: Yeah, it was very fast. Back then we didn’t have time to really develop anything inside the studio. We had to pretty much be ready to go because everything was very expensive.

MAX CAVALERA: We recorded in Belo, in our hometown. For Morbid Visions, we ended up recording in São Paulo at a big studio, one of the biggest in the city, but we weren’t really happy with the final result. The sound on Morbid Visions kind of sucks. We were still new to the studio, didn’t know what we were doing and I think my guitar is out of tune for most of it, which is why a lot of black metal guys love that record. [Laughs] For Schizophrenia, we went back to the same studio we did Bestial Devastation. They had updated the studio and the sound we got was a lot better. A lot of Schizophrenia was done on borrowed gear. We shared a lot of gear with Mutilator, so we would share amps. Iggor still didn’t have a full drum kit, so he recorded using our friend Osvaldo [Ferreira, ex-Pestilence]’s killer Yamaha kit.

IGGOR CAVALERA: The first two experiences we had with Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions were very disappointing in translating what the band was, and they ended up not sounding like we wanted. They have a special thing about them, but they weren’t an accurate representation of us. We went to the same studio that we recorded Bestial Devastation, but the difference was that some engineers had started working there. It was an amazing studio with nice equipment, but the problem was always engineering.

We would work with people who didn’t understand what we wanted, and us having no experience and not knowing how to communicate what we wanted. This time at the studio there was an engineer who was working there who had been doing a lot of the cool metal bands from Belo Horizonte, and he was getting some really cool results. That was the first time we were super happy with how we sounded. We were also experimenting with some cool stuff.

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I’m going to guess that you didn’t officially clear the samples you used from Psycho and “O Fortuna.”

Actually, those weren’t samples. We did that at the studio with a friend of ours who played the actual parts on violin and recorded them. He was an amazing musician who transcribed all the parts, wrote them out and played them in an afternoon. I don’t remember his name. Paulo, do you?

PINTO: It was Paulo. [Laughs] He was another Paulo.

I remember we used to call him “Paulo Violin,” and he was in the same class as me at school.

KISSER:

What can you tell us about the album’s cover art and design and how that came to be?

MAX CAVALERA: I was really into the Scorpions’ Blackout album, and I remember watching A Clockwork Orange and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest a bunch of times, and that gave inspiration for the idea of a patient in a mental facility. It was designed to make him look a little bit more like a metalhead, but I really like the airbrushed sky, the colors, the two eyes behind and definitely the glass, which is full-on Scorpions. We were looking for something different for the cover.

Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions were a little bit darker and more blacks and reds. When you go into a blue, it’s a different vibe and it really jumps out at you. I still think it really looks cool and it stands out from afar. The guy who did it was connected to Cogumelo somehow; I think he was either the owner’s son or cousin, but he was really good with airbrushing and he did it with our instruction. The inside picture of us where the lyrics are is actually a picture of us standing in a dog pound! The font we used is a little bit futuristic, and the lettering of Schizophrenia itself looks a little bit like AC/DC’s High Voltage. It’s a mix of things that we grabbed from here and there.

IGGOR CAVALERA: We wanted to do something tied into the title, something that was less demonic than the first two records, which was very blasphemous. The devil is still there on Schizophrenia, but more in a psychological way with someone looking into a mirror, the mirror breaking and all that. It’s almost like a bad acid trip or something. There was the influence from the Scorpions’ Blackout; there was inspiration from a hardcore band from Finland called Riistetyt, who had a demo called Skitsofrenia; and the song titles were influenced by titles of band we loved, and we would mix and match and make new titles. The picture of us that’s in the gatefold, the one of us on the road, is one we took in São Paulo, which was the most polluted city in the world at the time, so it’s very foggy and hazy.

Our dream was to have an album you could open up and have something inside, because we grew up with records by Sabbath and they always had

the double cover with stuff inside and a cool picture, even if it was a single record. That was a big achievement for us because it looked like something we would buy.

KISSER: We hated the cover, but in the end we didn’t have time to change it. The idea was there to have the schizophrenic guy in the front and the broken mirror like Blackout with more colorful colors like Bonded by Blood. In the end, it turned out to be a really cool cover, but I think we were expecting something a little more evil.

PINTO: The artist [Ibsen De Maria] was the brother of the owner of Cogumelo [Patti Creusa Pereira De Faria] and didn’t get the idea right.

Everybody was like, “Fuck!” when we saw it.

“Me and Max used the same guitar.

The Ibanez that I’m playing in the photo on the back of the album is the guitar we both used to record the album.

We even used the same pick!”

A N D REAS KISSE R The history between Cogumelo and Sepultura is something of legend that people have heard about for years. In what ways did Cogumelo invest in and support the band at the time?

MAX CAVALERA: Because of the success of Morbid Visions and Bestial Devastation in Brazil, Cogumelo came to the discovery that, “This is our band.”

At first, they were banking more on Overdose, the other band from the Bestial Devastation split, but we became the darlings of Cogumelo and the band they were going to bank on. So, they gave us a gatefold cover, awesome pictures, a color sleeve. All of that was unheard of in Brazil at that time. We were tripping out and we used Black Sabbath’s Paranoid as a reference for how we wanted it to look when you opened it up with a picture of the band. They put a lot of money into the band. We even did a TV commercial where we were wearing our double-A battery fake bullet belts and a bunch of chains and announcing the release of the album. I was trying to look it up on YouTube the other day, but I couldn’t find it.

IGGOR CAVALERA: We always had loose deadlines with Cogumelo. They were pretty cool with us letting us have complete freedom. But when you’re that age—15, 16, 17—certain limits are good as long as they make sense. Those limits worked for us when Cogumelo would say, “Look, SEPTEMBER 2022 : 5 6 : DECIBEL

we’re looking at booking you into the studio in four months.” And that would give us some responsibility as far as finishing things, but it’s not like we weren’t ready, were struggling or ended up in the studio because they booked the time and we had to be there.

KISSER: There was some help from Cogumelo, but most of it came out of our own pockets and we had a lot of help from friends. The drummer from my old band in São Paulo had a beautiful Yamaha kit; very professional, amazing drums, all black. We borrowed and used that drum set, which was probably the best drum set in Brazil at the time, and Iggor eventually bought it. We borrowed a Marshall amp from Cláudio [David], the guitar player from Overdose. Me and Max used the same guitar. The Ibanez that I’m playing in the photo on the back of the album is the guitar we both used to record the album. We even used the same pick! It was a Fender pick, I remember. [Laughs] How long was the wait between when you finished recording and the album coming out?

I don’t remember, but it was pretty quick because Cogumelo was very small, but very independent and growing fast on the underground scene.

IGGOR CAVALERA: It was only a few months, nothing crazy. Cogumelo didn’t have any crazy plans; they didn’t have to wait too long to get it manufactured and only sent copies to a few magazines. It’s not like nowadays when we talk about press campaigns and stuff like that. It was more like, “OK, we have a mailing list of three magazines and a few radio stations that will play this.” The rest was us tape-trading and doing interviews in fanzines.

KISSER:

What do you remember about the reactions to the album when it was released?

MAX CAVALERA: It was really well-received, especially in the underground. There definitely was an evolution from Morbid Visions. It was an upgrade on all levels. We became a more mature band, and you could see that the band was developing and growing. I think we opened up to more ideas. The riffs became more complicated and intricate. It’s a bitch of a record to play; it’s not easy. It’s super fast, there are lots of time signatures, tempo changes and super fast picking. There were black, death and thrash metal elements, and we started doing things outside the box.

“Inquisition Symphony” is still one of my favorite songs because it’s cool and like a classical piece. I remember there was a guy who used to live next to Paulo who was a classical composer and he used to hear us practicing “Inquisition Symphony,” and he would come over and be super-excited about it, telling us how we were writing classical music. We were like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.

We’re playing metal.” [Laughs]

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“We even did a TV commercial where we were wearing our double-A battery fake bullet belts and a bunch of chains and announcing the release of the album. I was trying to look it up on YouTube the other day, but I couldn’t find it.”

M AX CAVA LE RA One of the craziest things that happened is that somehow Schizophrenia charted above New Order on the U.K. indie charts! That freaked the Brazilian press out. They couldn’t understand how, or believe, that a Brazilian metal band was above New Order on a U.K. chart. All of a sudden, all the big Brazilian rock press wanted to talk to us and know who we were.

IGGOR CAVALERA: It was crazy, man! Because there was a bit of a change in the band with Andreas coming in, people were already expecting something a little different, but it was very positive.

A lot of things were getting better in Brazil itself at the time, and we were doing more and more gigs and going to different places in Brazil and South America in general. All those things were very positive, and Schizophrenia played a big part in that because it came out right when Brazil was starting to develop more of a scene.

KISSER: The album sold really well when it came out and it had a very positive impact on the business because of the quality of the album.

Max used to exchange letters with many people outside of Brazil and other bands like Mille [Petrozza] from Kreator and the guys in Morbid Angel. Sepulutra was starting to create interest in the underground scene and in fanzines and stuff.

A vibe was building around the band for sure.

Did you do much touring in support of Schizophrenia?

MAX CAVALERA: I think we only played in Brazil, but we did a lot of Brazilian shows. We played out in the rainforest in Manaus where Iggor passed out during the fifth song of our set because of the heat and humidity of the jungle. I remember the drums stopping, looking over, and Iggor’s on the ground with white foam coming out of his mouth! I remember Andreas’ first show, which was funny because we took a bus from Belo to Recife, which is 75 hours [closer to 40—ed.], and we were on the bus with regular people and villagers with their chickens. We spent the whole time just getting wasted on whiskey, but it was beautiful traveling the countryside of Brazil.

We arrived there and the promoter, who was the son of a politician, didn’t have a PA, so we had to force this kid to go find one. We toured a lot in Brazil and did a lot of shows, but we didn’t get out of Brazil until Beneath the Remains.

IGGOR CAVALERA: We toured, but only in South America. We played a lot of gigs in Brazil, I believe a few in Argentina and maybe one in Chile, but that was pretty much the Schizophrenia tour. There were some cool gigs; we played with Nasty Savage and Exumer from Germany in São Paulo, and that was quite cool to open for SEPTEMBER 2022 : 58 : DECIBEL

those bands. We were doing anything we could to organize gigs and tours. We had our address and phone number on the back of the record, so people would show up at our house, we’d have other bands and promoters getting in touch.

People would call our house and my mom would answer the phone. Everyone helped; we didn’t have a manager, so it was just friends who would help out. If someone wanted us to play and they sent us tickets or money, we would go, but there was no guarantee of anything, and there were a lot of times that we didn’t get paid and the only thing you could do was mention it on your next record. You’d have a thanks list and a no-thanks list, and you’d put all the “promoters” who screwed you on the no-thanks list.

KISSER: That was one important thing that happened right away, that we started touring. We played in Brazil a lot. It was the first time we went north, to the south, we went to Manaus.

[Metal journalist] Borivoj Krgin came to Brazil as a special envoy of [former Roadrunner Records A&R] Monte Connor to follow us to some shows, and came to Manaus with us in the middle of the rainforest. He was filming everything and wanted to give impressions of us back to Monte and [metal journalist] Don Kaye back in the U.S., and that’s how we kind of signed with Roadrunner.

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DBHOF213

SEPULTURA schizophrenia

Tell us about Max’s New York trip and how that also helped in signing with Roadrunner.

Schizophrenia became like a business card to get signed. I went to New York for two days with a bunch of records and I went to Combat, Roadrunner [and] Noise, and dropped them everywhere. I think Borivoj arranged an autograph session, which was a horrible idea because nobody knew who the fuck I was. It was at Slipped Disc Records on Long Island, and I think two people showed up and one of them was the owner’s son. [Laughs] A couple months after I got back, Monte Conner called from Roadrunner wanting to sign us, which was an amazing moment in our lives.

IGGOR CAVALERA: Max got a box of records from Cogumelo and we had a friend who worked at Pan-Am, the old airline, who could fly with a companion for free. He went to New York and was just giving the album to different labels and people. There was a lot of help from Borivoj, who had a fanzine and a radio show at the time; Don Kaye, who wrote for Kerrang! and had a radio show; and of course, Monte Conner, who became Roadrunner A&R. Those guys took Max under their wing and showed him around, and he came MAX CAVALERA:

back with Roadrunner being the most interested.

Before that, a label called Shark Records in Europe bootlegged the album, and that was our first time being released outside of Brazil. Before that, it was what we could send out ourselves.

KISSER: We played a show in São Paulo and Max left for the airport right after. He put on a suit and tie because he was saying he was traveling as a member of some company and went to the States for two days and left Schizophrenia albums everywhere. Borivoj and Don Kaye helped him out and took him to all the right places, and Roadrunner came back with a contract, which we signed at the end of 1988. They weren’t really interested in putting out Schizophrenia; they were more into having us record a new album and start from scratch for them. It was later that they re-released Schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia showed that we were ready to try something bigger and put out an album worldwide. It was the album that created that spark.

It was released as a bootleg in Europe on a label called Shark Records, and we never saw a penny from that, but the Sepultura name was spread around the underground scene, and it prepared that terrain for when Beneath the Remains came out. As soon as we signed to Roadrunner, we used some of the advance money to make improvements on the rehearsal space at Paulo’s house

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and we started working on Beneath the Remains.

Things started to improve when Roadrunner came into the picture.

What are your thoughts on Schizophrenia’s legacy, its place in the Sepultura discography and how it changed your lives?

Just for the simple fact that we’re here talking about that album is a victory, and shows that we did something special. It’s a weird and unique album in the sense that there’s nothing like it before or after in our career. It was the beginning of the four of us working together, trying to find a new identity. Schizophrenia was the root of everything and the beginning of it all. We really wanted to make it, to get a deal, to travel and play outside of Brazil and do this right. We worked as a band and everyone was really excited, and it was a new step forward for Sepultura, musically and visually, and the whole thing made the contract with Roadrunner possible.

MAX CAVALERA: Schizophrenia is the record that got us signed. Without Schizophrenia we wouldn’t have come to the attention of Roadrunner, even though there were a lot of reviews in the underground about Bestial Devastation and Morbid Visions. I think it shows that we weren’t afraid to introduce new technical stuff without losing the aggression. I think Schizophrenia is pure aggression throughout, but you add the technical element, better playing and better musicians on top of that, and it’s a record I love a lot and am super proud of.

Without it, nothing would have happened for Sepultura. If we had made a weaker or cheesier record, we would have been dropped from Cogumelo and that would have been the end of it.

It’s definitely a pivotal album for our careers.

IGGOR CAVALERA: It’s definitely a groundbreaking record and a huge step towards Beneath the Remains.

Schizophrenia was the perfect move; otherwise it would have been too much of a jump from Morbid Visions to Beneath the Remains. Schizophrenia was vital in our growth as musicians. It’s funny—I even have a few friends who say it’s their favorite record and think it’s the best thing we ever did.

PINTO: It’s also back into the set list for our [current] Quadra tour. I think it was the very beginning of the new path of the band and our international career. That was the record that caught attention from the world outside of Brazil, and from there everything else is history.

KISSER:

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story by

JUSTIN M. NORTON

photos by

SHANE GARDNER

Family and metal lineage intertwine in

SOULFLY

’s career standout Totem

Z

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”

G E O R G E B E R N A R D S H AW

yon Cavalera’s childhood is the stuff of storybooks. He spent much

of his time on the road as his father toured worldwide, and slept on drum cases while Ozzy walked around backstage. While the settings changed, there were perennials, including the unrelenting Cavalera beat—the driving tribal rhythm that powers both Sepultura and Soulfly. Long before Zyon picked up a pair of drumsticks, the beat was as much a part of his family tradition as an heirloom or historic home. It was the sound of his upbringing and his birthright. ¶ “I learned how to play simple drumbeats before I was even aware of anything else,” Zyon Cavalera, 29, says from his home in Phoenix. “When it came time to perform these songs, it almost felt like breathing. It was like a dream—from the earliest I can remember, it was normal to be somewhere and have Ozzy walking around. I remember my dad having a conversation with Dimebag backstage, thinking, Who is this badass guy my dad is talking to? I was so young, but it was like living a story. I was around it so much that I went away when I was a teenager and focused on other things like basketball and skateboarding. I did take a step away. But once I picked up the sticks, it affected how I made music and played drums in general.”

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Zyon never wishes he had a more conventional upbringing. “I’m thankful my parents did all that, because otherwise, I’d just be a normal guy in Phoenix,” he laughs. “Because I was around all that stuff, it’s rooted in me. I listen to other stuff outside of metal, but the feeling of making metal with my dad is a deep-rooted thing. I also listen to my uncle’s stuff, and I’m still blown away by it. There is a high standard to uphold, but I will keep working and developing what I do as a drummer.”

Family has always been integral to Max Cavalera’s music. It’s unsurprising then that Zyon is the backbone of his father’s late-career resurgence. Max’s bond with brother/drummer Iggor fueled the watershed Sepultura material like Beneath the Remains, Arise, Chaos A.D. and Roots. And his bond with Zyon—strengthened with long, sweaty garage sessions during pandemic lockdowns—is what makes the 12th Soulfly album, Totem, so powerful. While Totem doesn’t completely walk back two decades of nü and groove, it is in many ways a return to the style and delivery that made Max Cavalera a metal icon. It’s the DECIBEL : NOVEMBER 2021 : 63

CAVALERA ESSENTIAL

Max Cavalera has touched almost every branch of the heavy metal tree: black metal, thrash metal, death metal and nü metal. Sometimes he combines all of them.

Cavalera’s discography includes more than two dozen albums and multiple genre classics. It would be difficult to find another metal artist that has released such a huge and consistently strong body of work. The spine of this magazine even says “Refuse/Resist.”

Max’s recorded story starts with Sepultura’s bestial early work, and takes many twists and turns over four decades before arriving at Totem in 2022. Decibel asked various musicians and authors to write about the highlights of Max’s brilliant and still evolving career. —JUSTIN M. NORTON

SEPULTURA

Bestial Devastation C O G U M E LO ( 1 9 8 5 )

A common argument amongst heshers is whether Death or Possessed formed what we know and love as death metal, but Sepultura certainly deserves to be in discussion with this EP (originally a split), released a few months after Seven Churches. The EP is more impressive considering the band had almost no money to record and could barely speak English at the time as 15-year-old Brazilians.

“Antichrist” is still a classic and features some of the first blasts in metal. Brutal, evil and malicious, this is what death metal is all about. —KYLE SHAW, OBSCENE

SEPULTURA

Morbid Visions C O G U M E LO ( 1 9 8 6 )

When you think of the great snare drum sounds in heavy metal, you think of Sepultura Morbid Visions , correct? Maybe not, but when you think of Morbid Visions, you do think of pure raw-assed South American black/death/noise/trash/thrash?

It was the first album I bought by them, and my purchase was mainly influenced by the review of Don Kaye in Metal Forces magazine (I think it was Metal Forces). You could hear the “Symptom of the Universe” riff on “Troops of Doom” and all the Slayer/ Celtic Frost riffs that they ripped off, but that didn’t matter and still doesn’t. What matters is the “going for it” factor. They were kids just fucking going for it, and that was the beauty of it. The scream of “WAAAAARRRR!” is so very believable.

Growing up in a city where machine guns are being held by the police on the street corners makes it pretty authentic. No dragons, kings or wizards were sung of; those are best to be sung by vocalists of the Cortland, NY 64 : NOVEMBER 2021 : DECIBEL

I’ve never done a record this close to a drummer as a two-piece.

WE WERE LIKE DARKTHRONE— just two of us in a practice room going after it.

MAX CAVALERA

thrashiest metal album in Soulfly’s two-decadeplus history and some of the most incendiary music Cavalera has made since he decided to go his own way in the late ’90s after Roots.

“This record was a two-year journey during COVID,” Max says from the road, where he is performing Sepultura classics with Iggor to sellout crowds. “I got to hang out and jam with Zyon, and we built the whole structure of the record together. I’ve never done a record this close to a drummer as a two-piece. We were like Darkthrone—just two of us in a practice room going after it. I wanted to capture the energy and freedom music had in the old days. That’s what is cool about this record—nothing was set in stone. A lot of times we weren’t even sure where to go with a song, and I’d just throw a riff in. It was kind of like building a pyramid or a puzzle. It was liberating.”

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Totem might be the bridge that brings vintage Sepultura fans back into the Cavalera fold. Many listeners know every lyric, riff and drum fill on Sepultura albums from the mid-’80s until the band fractured. But some listeners drifted from Max’s output once he formed Soulfly (one could also argue an entirely new kind of fan got into his music with Soulfly’s advent). Totem has a decidedly old-school feel with its vintage Sep sounds, and even a contribution from Obituary’s John Tardy (on “Scouring the Vile”). Both Max and Zyon say Totem will win back those fans without alienating Soulfly loyalists. “My Dad has a serious fire lit under his ass right now,” Zyon says. “We were listening to a lot of Sepultura writing this, and you will see the same aggressive parts in the new album. That sound will forever live with my dad, so we are trying to take it there, and even further.”

area where things like that actually exist.

So, if you’re not familiar with this album, be prepared to be smothered in utter nastiness and true innocence at the same time. It’s a lethal combo platter! —ATHENAR, MIDNIGHT

SEPULTURA Schizophrenia

C O G U M E LO ( 1 9 8 7 )

I was 9 or 10 when I discovered Beneath the Remains and Arise, and immediately became obsessed with the music and the band. The next thing I did was start collecting their back catalog. Schizophrenia remains a huge influence. It is such a solid album: relentless, fast and aggressive. The opening riff of “From the Past Comes the Storms” is still one of my favorite riffs ever with those super-fast triplets, and then the drums come in and it gets slightly faster—face-melting stuff.

Every song has a very creative structure, but is always fast and heavy. Max’s vocals are aggressive on this album. To this day, I not only play this regularly, but I play these songs because they are a guitar workout.

I toured a few years ago with drummer extraordinaire Nick Barker, also a fan of this album. We soundchecked every single day with songs from Schizophrenia. (Ed: Dan Gonzalez wrote this while on tour with Max and Iggor Cavalera playing classic Sepultura).

—DANIEL GONZALEZ, POSSESSED/GRUESOME

SEPULTURA

Beneath the Remains ROADRUNNER (1989)

Loud. Fast. Rules. That’s the only phrase that comes to mind when describing Iggor Cavalera’s drumming on Beneath the Remains.

His performance stands as the crucial crux between thrash metal and the then-burgeoning death metal scene. Iggor’s percussive force is so intense that, at any moment, you get the feeling he’s ready to plow through his kit and blow a hole in the wall of the studio. I challenge anyone to find a drummer who hits as hard. The mixing of this percussive urgency with start-and-stopon-a-dime precision, speedy punk skank beats and powerful groove is undeniable.

“Inner Self” encompasses all of these perfectly. On “Sarcastic Existence,” Iggor makes intricate hi-hat work integral to a song’s intensity. Double bass? How about that insane intro to “Lobotomy”? Almost every eventual death metal drumming trope is on this record and has been imitated (but not quite matched). —MIKE MICZEK, BROKEN HOPE/BLACK CROSS HOTEL

SEPULTURA Arise

ROADRUNNER (1991)

I’d say that five different albums changed my life after the first listen. One is 66 : NOVEMBER 2021 : DECIBEL

“Max says Totem represents not just his roots, but touches on all of the different styles he’s dabbled in over the course of Soulfly’s career,” says Monte Conner, president of Nuclear Blast Entertainment. “Max is like many other veteran artists who return to their roots later in their careers. Artists always like to grow and progress and try new things, but they almost always return to the familiar ground of their roots, as their roots represent the style of music they fell in love with in their youth. So, Max may be returning to those roots, but make no mistake: Even the last two records still move him forward and have new angles and elements. That sense of adventure and experimentation is always with Max. Totem brings back a lot of speed and aggression from Sepultura’s classic works, but you can say the same about mid-period Soulfly albums like Dark Ages and Conquer.”

Totem is the result of many conversations Max and producer/lead guitarist Arthur Rizk had dating back to 2017 about Max’s past and present. Rizk produced Cavalera Conspiracy’s critically successful Psychosis in 2017. That album’s sound was so talked about that it vaulted Rizk to A-list producer status and landed him a job producing Kreator’s 2022 LP Hate Über Alles. The plan was to search for a middle ground between Max’s output dating back to the mid-’80s and his Soulfly work. “We talked extensively about making parallels between early Soulfly and the Cavalera Conspiracy stuff we worked on in 2017,” Rizk says. “Many discussions involved talking about other records, producers’ processes and what other musicians added over the years. The conversations weren’t like a research paper, but more fun anecdotes that were inspirational.

What inspired him to do Soulfly in the first place was a need for something different. We wanted to go farther outside the box.”

As it turns out, going outside the box meant returning to some of the Cavalera fundamentals that countless other metal musicians since the ’80s have used as building blocks. “We didn’t talk much about the overall sounds,” Rizk says. “We trust each other. We’ve worked so much together that it was like a moment-by-moment thing.

Everything just naturally fell into place.”

Soulfly bassist Mike Leon, who joined the band for the 2018 album Ritual, calls Totem a “turning point” for the band initiated by soulsearching during the COVID-19 pandemic. One thing that worked was embracing the classic Cavalera sound. One thing that no longer worked was longtime Soulfly guitarist Marc Rizzo. Rizzo left the band in the summer of 2021 and later said he received “no support” from the group during the pandemic, and had to work a day job.

Rizk played leads on Totem. Cavalera doesn’t want to get into specifics of the breakup, but does say Rizzo had been drifting from Soulfly.

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“The pandemic affected everyone in their way, and maybe some self-reflection was happening.

Maybe he realized the situation didn’t work anymore,” Leon says of Rizzo’s departure. “I feel like him stepping out and not being a part of this didn’t affect us negatively. I didn’t feel like we missed one beat, losing someone who’d been in the band 20 years.”

While family is essential to Max Cavalera, families can sometimes fracture and grow apart.

“Years ago, I chilled with Willie Nelson for a few hours,” says Gloria Cavalera, Max’s wife, Zyon’s mother and the matriarch of the Cavalera musical empire. “I loved how he had family and a gray-haired crew who had been with him for years. It was a mix of loyalty, trust and a family vibe. Max and I wanted that environment.

Through the years, a couple of people didn’t get it for one reason or another. They just didn’t fit, and we moved on without them.”

There is little doubt that family—as well as Max’s eternal love of the riff—is what drives Soulfly and all of his musical endeavors forward.

“Max is the most creative natural artist I’ve ever worked with,” Gloria says. “His love of music is a quest. Many artists release the same record over and over again, only adding a new spice. Max is fearless and confident, with no borders. You could line up all the LPs from Bestial Devastation through Totem and hear the growth of the Max touch. Early on, he told me he wakes up with riffs in his head. Music is his fate.”

“Totem was done with no rules,” Max adds. “I threw everything out of the window. It’s kind of back to the most primitive way of writing music: jumping off a cliff without knowing what will happen. To me, the most freedom you can have is when you do that. So, we did that and just kept building on top of it.”

GARAGE DAYS REVISITED In spring 2020, Max was booked for eight solid months of shows. All were canceled. Gloria’s thoughts turned to what she could do to ensure the Cavaleras remained in touch with their loyal fan base and preserve their mental health. She didn’t need to worry. Liberated from the road and free to jam like teenagers discovering metal for the first time, Max and Zyon started making night trips to a practice space in Phoenix. Mind you, this is no mere practice space. It’s the same space Max has used since Sepultura’s Arise tour.

The jam pad is still littered with gear and memorabilia from Sepultura’s early days. It’s a sacred space in metal history, much like the Hellhammer bunker in Switzerland. There isn’t air conditioning—ensuring that any jam session is as taxing as being on a stage bathed in lights.

“The jam pad allowed Max and Zyon to turn the frustration of the lockdown into art,” Gloria says. “They were happy to go there and push

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Sepultura’s Arise. In 1998, I was introduced to the band at a local punk house.

Somewhere between the Disrupt, Japanese hardcore and bad Oi! Records, one of the residents of said shithole got a copy of Arise and slid it into the CD deck. When the ferocious title track came on, a bombshell went off. The precision of the players, the deathinjected thrash riffs and the grim yet poetic lyrics opened our minds. This was a gateway to a different world, and would alter my musical path. Before I knew it, we were attempting cover versions of “Desperate Cry” and “Dead Embryonic Cells,” and falling deeper down the Sepultura rabbit hole. An album that holds up 30 years after release and still sounds fresh is rare. Arise is one of the true classics of the genre. The first five Sepultura records remain some of my favorite records, and I can still air-drum every fill on Arise. —ROB LACHANCE, WAKE

SEPULTURA Chaos A.D.

EPIC/ROADRUNNER (1993)

I first heard Sepultura when I saw the

“Inner Self” video on MTV. It was hard to deny the hooks. I became a fan right there.

I got the tape of Beneath the Remains—the version with no lyrics—and later got the CD. I was all over Beneath and Arise like a cheap suit, and, at some point, dug back into Schizophrenia and Morbid Visions. In my local music scene, there was much hating on Chaos A.D., but years later, I grew to understand and appreciate what Sepultura was going for—making a mean record instead of a fast one. I think you can hear that in particular with the track “Propaganda.” While side A is better than side B, the second side has “The Hunt” going for it (the band was always good at covers).

Let me bottom-line it: I play in a Sepultura tribute band, and we know what time it is—the live set leans heavily on Chaos A.D. P.S., “Chaos B.C.” rules. —RICHARD JOHNSON, AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED

NAILBOMB Point Blank

ROADRUNNER (1994)

The early ’90s were a breeding ground for powerful, dark music. Heavy metal was peaking, and the seedy underbelly of industrial was creeping into the mainstream.

Driving beats, big guitars and unpolished production gave industrial a much-needed edge. What do you do after you record one of the best metal albums of 1993, tour nonstop and assault audiences worldwide like they stole your lunch money? If you’re Max Cavalera, you take all of your favorite genres, throw them in a blender, and team up with your new best friend and tourmate, 68 : NOVEMBER 2021 : DECIBEL

through the boundaries COVID was demanding.

Music is a medication—a cure-all.”

Max and Zyon didn’t have any firm plans, even if they had a set work style. When Max records with Zyon, they go to the jam pad and work together from the beginning. Max has riff ideas, and they build tracks together. It’s different when the Cavalera brothers make music.

When Max records with Iggor, he records riffs on CDs. He sends his favorites to Iggor. When they get together, Iggor brings fresh ideas and then adds parts to the riffs.

The Zyon sessions often started with a ’60s-style jam—two musicians finding a groove and going for it for up to 30 minutes. Even after over four decades into his career, Max is still the golden goose of heavy riffs; they flow from his fingers like amber. “His ability to write riffs you can build a song around is the most important element of what we do,” Zyon says. “It would be hard to write a song around a drum beat or a lead.

So, when I add drums to it, it’s to add body to the song.”

Max says that while there are differences in working methods, there is still much in common with his work with both his son and brother. “Iggor is a huge fan of Zyon’s drumming,” he says. “[Zyon] was drumming on his chest when he was four. So, in many ways, it’s similar to the relationship I have with my brother. When Iggor and I did these early records, it was similar to what I do with Zyon. Only time can build those connections. They can’t be forced and have to happen naturally. And the more time you spend on it, the better you get at it. But, yes, it’s very similar to how Iggor did stuff—even stuff like Bestial Devastation. That was all about us getting together and going after it, and now we’re doing the same thing.”

Zyon says the musical bond he has with his father is so strong that sometimes they look at each other when something sounds just right. “When we’re making songs, there are these moments when he’ll do something with his guitar,” Zyon says. “He’ll play something, and I’ll just jam and do what feels right. It’s all about feeling. When we do that, we almost look at each other and laugh because we know

the energy we feel is going to translate to a live audience. I’ve done a few albums now, but more than any album I’ve done, Totem has those moments and energy.”

SPIRIT ANIMAL Sepultura’s music was decades ahead of many social justice issues at the heart of metal circa 2022. Max and Iggor’s music started with ham-handed Satanism and quickly evolved to critiques of racism, war, colonialism and biotechnology. Given this, it’s surprising that it’s taken roughly four decades for Max to focus an album on the natural world. Totem, however, isn’t a clarion call for climate change action or a dispiriting look at environmental problems, but rather presents the natural world as a spiritual entity.

Much of it was based on Max’s experiences in the Arizona mountains.

“Nature is so special in our life, and we take it for granted,” Max says. “The direction was spiritual, almost like nature as a god.

If you mix nature with metal, it’s a cool territory because it’s about how things are connected. Nature is a powerful thing, and it’s a mysterious force, and sometimes we don’t even comprehend it, But I’m always in awe of it and wanted to capture that spirit.” In particular, the 10-minute album closer “Spirit Animal” was influenced by something Max read by a music psychologist that said primitive tribes need at least six minutes of music to get into a trance. The closer goes for the same ballpark feel as the Neurosis mindmelter “Through Silver in Blood.” “The song is about nine minutes long,” Max says. “So, I was kind of trying to induce a trance in that song. I don’t know if I did it or not.” [Laughs] Zyon says that his father seemed preoccupied with the natural world from the get-go—perhaps due to the unusual stillness in much of the world with cars off the roads during lockdowns. The more Zyon worked on the music, the more he felt the same vibe. “There was a time I was driving around Phoenix, and I saw these two bobcats early in the morning when it was raining and musty,” Zyon says. “It gave me this feeling I carried through the day. In the studio, these bobcats kept running around in the backyard,

He’s been like a family member the past few years.

His relationship with my dad has grown.

ARTHUR [RIZK] IS THE GUY BRINGING MY DAD INTO THE MODERN WORLD. ZYON CAVALERA

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Alex Newport from Fudge Tunnel (the grimiest sludge band England has to offer), and make some groundbreaking shit.

Nailbomb was everything Max was digging into at the time. It’s metal riffs, driving industrial beats, disturbing samples with electronic soundscapes and a fuck-the-world punk attitude in the delivery. It’s metal. It’s industrial. It’s punk as fuck. When I heard it the first time, it blew my eyes wide open. I didn’t pay much attention to industrial or electronic music back then, but I damn sure did after hearing Point Blank. It still holds all that unbridled power it did in 1994. It doesn’t just stand the test of time. It’s a weapon against it. —CHAMP MORGAN, BLK OPS/EX-KILL THE CLIENT

SEPULTURA Roots

ROADRUNNER (1996)

The adage “metal isn’t political” or

“politics has no place in metal” is inaccurate. But to be fair, the definition of “political” differs depending on who you ask. I thought about this when finding a comment from former Sepultura vocalist/ guitarist Max Cavalera, who explained the initial resistance to his plan to collaborate with the Xavante tribe in Brazil on Roots.

Cees Wessels, the owner of Roadrunner Records, wasn’t fond of the idea.

According to Cavalera, Wessels said, “OK, so you’re going to do an album that sounds like a reggae compilation and record it with a bunch of naked Indians? You’ve lost your mind!’”

The combination of metal and metaphorical lyrics—centered on how the country’s violent history led to the extinction of Brazilian indigenous tribes and mass killings, creating a legacy that still exists through fascist politics, classism, racism and divisive colorism—educated metal listeners. Roots explored these divisions, transitioning the band from another white-presenting thrash metal band by incorporating deep, rhythmic groove patterns (that, I argue, kicked off the nü-metal phenomenon). Roots might have made Sepultura more vulnerable to criticism, but it was one of their most important albums. —LAINA DAWES, ETHNOMUSICOLOGIST AND AUTHOR

SOULFLY Soulfly

ROADRUNNER (1998)

I came across the first Soulfly album in the old Tower Records in London. I enjoyed the prior Sepultura album (Roots), and had no idea they were having band issues. I spotted Soulfly and thought at first it was just a Max solo album, so I bought it out 70 : NOVEMBER 2021 : DECIBEL

which is rare. We write the songs before deciding what they would be about, so it just kind of came about. Phoenix has all these crazy animals, and I’m staring at this crazy dragonfly now. It’s almost like you feed off that.”

Totem was assembled both in the Platinum Underground studio outside of Phoenix and remotely. The studio shut down for Soulfly’s exclusive use, and Rizk stayed in a room on the premises. Max and Zyon’s iPhone sound sketches eventually turned into full tracks.

Leon tracked his bass parts in Tampa and was never in the studio. “We got the skeletons of the songs after they hashed them out,” Leon says.

“Max gave me free rein to do what I wanted.

I went song by song in my own home over the course of a week. We sent it to Arthur, who put it in some fucking magical machine and made it what it was. I know 200 of Max’s songs—it was cool to have that trust. The first time I heard it, I was blown away.”

Zyon says that producer/session guitarist Rizk has become an honorary Cavalera in the past half-decade and was invaluable to the album. “I didn’t even know Arthur was capable of everything he ended up doing,” Zyon says.

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“He’s been like a family member the past few years. His relationship with my dad has grown.

Arthur is the guy bringing my dad into the modern world. [Laughs] He brings all the things we were missing and more.”

ANCESTORS Family and tribe are afterthoughts in our 21st century world. It’s easy to find reasons why.

When people get old enough, they usually leave home and move elsewhere, sometimes to another part of the country or even abroad. America has also turned the concept of individualism into such a myth that communal bonds are an afterthought. This fixation on the individual can sometimes turn toxic, like when lone wolf shooters open fire on crowds or a lack of meaningful connection leads to depression or suicide.

Humans need connection and shared purpose to thrive. Sebastian Junger’s book Tribe highlights the many reasons this lack of both family and cultural connection—tribes based on not just blood, but shared values and spirit—contributes to our larger cultural malaise.

The Cavaleras are perhaps one of the best examples of the innate power of family bonds

DECIBEL : SEPTEMBER 2022 : 71

of curiosity. From the moment I began to listen, I fell in love with it. It seemed like an extension of Roots, but felt exciting and new, and not just like a Sepultura album.

I had it on rotation for years. After being asked to write about how I discovered the album, I returned to it. After a week of rotation, it stands up now like when they released it. There’s nothing on it I don’t like in some way. —TONY “DEMOLITION MAN” DOLAN, VENOM INC.

SOULFLY Dark Ages

ROADRUNNER (2005)

After four albums and eight years that

seemed to clearly define the oeuvre of Soulfly (bouncing nü-metal riffs and grooves, Brazilian tribal rhythms, world music traits and jumping da fuck up)—as well as see Max Cavalera firmly, publicly, vehemently departing his previous life in Sepultura—Max fans writ large were not exactly expecting the sheer heaviness and thrash of Dark Ages.

Grieving the then-recent, sudden death of his infant grandson Moses and the senseless murder of his dear friend Dimebag, Max turned that heartbreak and pain into some of the most pummeling Cavalera riffs since Beneath the Remains, Arise and Chaos A.D. While the album is still in the realm of Soulfly’s nü-metal/world music body of work, there is a decided viciousness and desperate-panic urgency in so much of the record’s content (“Carved Inside,” “Arise Again,” “Corrosion Creeps”), handily recalling classic-era Sepultura riffs of ’89-’93 in a decidedly uglier mood. Throw in a Godflesh easter egg here (“Like Rats”!), cameos from Billy Milano and Junior Ellefson there— and Dark Ages ultimately became the Soulfly record that all classic-trilogy-era Sepultura fans had been hoping Max would finally make. —KYLE HARCOTT, DIRTY VICAR

CAVALERA CONSPIRACY Psychosis

N A PA L M ( 2 0 1 7 )

This record took me a bit off guard, if I’m honest. Max has consistently put out solid records, but this was the first time I heard him go back to balls-to-the-wall death/ thrash. The songs are super aggressive, the drumming is great and Max sounds pissed! I also liked the production ideas and effects that went into it, something that I know Arthur [Rizk, producer] and the band worked on. It gave the album a unique twist. I toured with Arthur before he worked on the record and was happy to see him work on such a killer album.

This album led to just a streak of stellar modern Max records—great stuff.

and tribes. Those relationships are at the heart of every note of music played by the Cavaleras over their lifetimes. “I’ve loved all the different drummers we’ve had, but it doesn’t come close to what I have with my brother and now my son,” Max says. “It’s one of a kind, and I’m blessed to be able to do it with them. You can’t let it go to waste. It makes us different from other bands.

It’s like how we brought the kids up in the world is similar to MMA. The dad trains the kids and makes them fight bears. In a weird way, we did the same thing. We showed them this lifestyle since they were 3 sleeping on drum cases. They were born into this. I love that now that they are older and are good, we can seriously jam. It was my wish that one day I could jam with them, and that came true.”

Outside of the bonds, there is also Max’s uncanny longevity and relentless work ethic.

“I can’t think of anyone in extreme metal who has been doing it as long and as consistently on point,” Nuclear Blast’s Conner says. “When you

I’ve loved all the different drummers we’ve had, but it doesn’t come close to what I have with my brother and now my son.

IT’S ONE OF A KIND, AND I’M BLESSED TO BE ABLE TO DO IT WITH THEM. You can’t let it go to waste.

MAX CAVALERA

—CHARLES ELLIOTT, ABYSMAL DAWN 72 : NOVEMBER 2021 : DECIBEL

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add in all the bands he has been part of, his level of output is simply unmatched. Like with any artist with a large volume of output, some of the records are classic and transcendent; some are great, though not quite classic; and some are just good. Not a single one has been bad. Over the years, his voice has not lost one ounce of its power or personality. With his huge catalog of music, and the frequency of new music he releases across his various projects, it can be easy to take Max for granted, but let’s never forget that his face would be carved on the totem pole of extreme metal history.”

“COVID made everyone a little pent-up inside, and we had to let all those feelings out,” Max says. “Because we decided to make the record the way we did, it was like we surrendered ourselves to metal. It’s great when you do it. I wasn’t sure where I was going with it, and Totem captured that energy. We tapped into something aggressive and powerful, and we’re going to run with this.”

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INSIDE ≥

76 CONAN What is steel compared to the hand that wields it?

ALL THE NOISE THAT FITS

78 DEATHBRINGER > Controlldeniedbringer 82 MORIBUND DAWN Welcome their next chapter 82 NICOLAS CAGE FIGHTER Despite all my rage, I am still just...

84 REEKING AURA The stench of burning death/doom

The Great Southern Gothic Trendkill

SEPTEMBER

OCEANS OF SLUMBER once again shift the tide of

progressive metal

2

Creation of insane rul(ing)

9

Watch us freak

9

Looking inside, your future uncertain

3

What is this shit?

H

ouston-based oceans of slumber have struggled to find a broader audience in many respects. Not for lack of OCEANS OF trying either. Across four long-players, the band expertly SLUMBER plied multi-stage progressive metal with flourishes of doom, death, Starlight and Ash indie rock and other accoutrements conspicuously woven throughCENTURY MEDIA out. Covers of the Moody Blues, Candlemass and Type O Negative bravely illustrated that Oceans of Slumber have always been greater than the sum of their respective parts. Resonance has eluded the heart, passion and soul that the musically adept outfit has poured into their vessel. Perhaps that’s all about to change with Starlight and Ash. ¶ Rather than tether their ambitions to a style or genre, Oceans of Slumber—fronted by the inimitable Cammie Gilbert and backed by Jessie Santos (guitars), Alexander Lucian (guitars), Dobber Beverly (drums), Semir Özerkan (bass) and Mat V. Aleman (keyboards)—have finally embraced who and what they are completely.

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

9

DECIBEL : SEPTEMBER 2022 : 75

Starlight and Ash may be progressive metal, but isolating it as such is not only myopic, but somewhat cynical. Labels are easy. Starlight and Ash, in all its explorative, unfeigned artistry, isn’t.

Oceans of Slumber have emerged as something other than what they were. Certainly, they tried before, but what transpired before is quite unlike “The Waters Rising,” “The Hanging Tree,” “The Shipbuilder’s Son” and their insanely beautiful take on the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun.” Musically, for the faint of heart, Starlight and Ash transits the space between Anneke van Giersbergen-era the Gathering, Anathema midflight on A Fine Day to Exit, and the Third and the Mortal before they discovered Portishead. There, comparisons for comparison’s sake.

Actually, Starlight and Ash is none of that at all.

Gilbert commands every second of the album’s sweltering, piquant breadth. Positioned to awe with a gift uncommon, Oceans of Slumber’s fierce yet vulnerable raconteuse is sorcery. She pulls in, coerces, lets go, caresses and etches effortlessly. Tracks like “Star Altar,” “Hearts of Stone” and “The Lighthouse” show that pomp and circumstance are meaningless (and frankly useless) in front of true power. That she’s backed by a band so good it hurts only highlights Gilbert’s natural virtuosity. Indeed, what is Starlight and Ash if not undeniably great music—classification, in a way, be absolutely damned! The album’s story, Joel Hamilton’s wow-inducing production, the palpable presence of the American South and Eliran Kantor’s riveting cover art square the circle.

Starlight and Ash owes nothing to anything. It’s unto itself. There are precious few things like it these days, and while all this flattery may be viewed as overkill, it’s scrawled with all the seriousness a jaded reviewer can muster as twilight nears. —CHRIS DICK

ANTIGAMA

8

Whiteout

SELFMADEGOD

Back in white

Despite putting out some splits, an EP and a compilation, Polish grind stalwarts Antigama haven’t released a full-length since 2015. Not sure why, but considering that the band isn’t breaking any new ground, is Whiteout really worth a sevenyear wait? Honestly, it kind of is.

As mentioned, there is nothing here that will surprise anyone familiar with the band or familiar with grindcore, especially since their dalliances with experimentation don’t make much of an appearance, save some chaotic saxophone on the closing track. This is pretty straightforward, dropping 11 tracks in under a half hour with 76 : SEP TEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

minimal fucking around. And thank goodness, because they continue to write some of the most left-field and hooky riffs out there, which still manage to fit firmly within the genre.

But while the riffs are the worthy focus of the record (with an honorable mention to Łukasz Myszkowski’s savage dueling vocals), a band like this wouldn’t be able to do what they do without a merciless machine of a drummer behind the kit. Paweł Jaroszewicz has been taking care of that for a decade now in nearly inhuman fashion, but there is more to him than power and endurance. He injects plenty of precise, nuanced cymbal work to add his own rhythmic hooks.

Antigama probably didn’t need this long to put out a record like Whiteout, but that time clearly wasn’t spent writing substandard grind.

They are back, doing what they do best, and there’s nothing left to do but air-blast along.

—SHANE MEHLING

THE BEARER

7

Chained to a Tree SILENT PENDULUM

A tree grows in Austin

Back in 2016, noisemaking phenoms the Bearer formed in Austin. Referring to themselves as “technical hardcore,” they quickly bashed out their eponymous debut EP in the throes of a Texan summer. Six years and three EPs after their debut’s initial snarl, the Bearer release their first LP, Chained to a Tree.

“Pushed Back In” immediately conjures the chaos of genre forefathers Coalesce and Botch.

The opening measures of first single “Jagged Lines” feel like a time portal to 1998. On the precipice of greatness, that’s the year Dillinger Escape Plan released their Under the Running Board EP. Meanwhile, Converge unleashed the predecessor to their landmark Jane Doe record.

The Bearer were born from that (Molotov) cocktail of rabid hardcore with a metallic edge, and carry that torch with them on Chained to a Tree.

While the sludgy underbelly of their Adapt | Adjust EP has faded, they replaced the prickly abrasiveness with quirkier unpredictability.

“In the Sty” slithers through its verses between hammer-drop choruses. On a record where no track exceeds four minutes, the flashbang midalbum duo of “Sympathy Pains” and “Jury of Oppressors” embodies the band’s hardcore and punk elements, respectively. The title track offers the best of both worlds while highlighting their riff-forward approach to the genre.

“Gleam” and “Axes” chew on grooves and deviate from the album’s default wild-eyed propulsion.

Albums like this hinge on capturing raw energy like it was bottled from a sweat-slick

stage. With the help of engineer Andrew Hernandez, the Bearer nailed that aspect of the recording. While vocalist/drummer Colton Siegmund adeptly guides the band to each new bludgeoning breakdown, his vocal delivery has room for variety and growth. “Holy Water” offers a glimpse of that potential in a truly head-turning offering. —SEAN FRASIER

CONAN

8

Evidence of Immortality N A PA L M

A.K.A. The Quickening

Already the heaviest thing on four hooves, Conan emerge from their fouryear Hyperborean hibernation somehow even heavier. These British bruisers don’t write about current events—hell, they mostly write about events that never even happened, or if they did, they happened in a fictional past that predated all known history—but the cold, slimy hands of the pandemic are all over Evidence of Immortality.

The rage and despair that have always fueled their barbarian doom seem like palpable, living things on this fifth full-length.

In case you thought they lost their edge, the trio kicks off this Cimmerian crusher with an epic track called “A Cleaved Head No Longer Plots.” Their approach to this attempted usurpation reveals an almost progressive leaning to their songwriting as the tempo lumbers slower and slower over the course of the epic, like a wounded warrior dragging a bloody axe across a stone floor. Then they follow that with “Levitation Hoax,” one of the most satisfying slabs of meat they’ve ever carved. Fans of High on Fire’s hung, drawn and quartered days take note.

The album continues in that (excellent) vein until the astonishing closer, “Grief Sequence,” a 15-minute funeral procession with psychedelic organ that makes you feel like you’re carrying a casket through skull-covered catacombs in the tombs of the Blind Dead.

At this point, doom metal is about as old as the ancient temples and prehistoric battles that Conan sing about. Leave it to such an atavistic band to prove that this immortal sound can still fill the blood with righteous fury. —JEFF TREPPEL

CRITICAL DEFIANCE

9

No Life Forms UNSPEAKABLE AXE

Thrashing like a maniac

Good-goddamn-opolis, this is fucking brilliant chaos! In the opening 1:52 of

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this Chilean band’s second full-length they’ve dusted off, twisted and spat out an impressive list of influences from thrash metal’s golden age: Testament, Vio-lence, Slayer, Exodus, Forbidden and Holy Terror, all thrown into a bubbling mosh cauldron at Violator’s hometown shows in Brasilia. That 1:52 is actually a song called “A World Crumbling Apart,” and in addition to the above, its leads veer towards the oddball techprog angle taken on Realm’s Suiciety, Toxik’s Think This and Chris Poland’s Return to Metalopolis.

Once skin has been appropriately peeled from faces, song two, “The Last Crusaders…

Bringers of Death!” corrals Sepultura, demo-era Cynic and Atheist into a punishing blur that imagines war metal with a modicum of knowledge of how to write a melody or hold down a groove. Next up, “Altering the Senses” delivers proof in the titular pudding with seamless shifts from vicious streetwise thrash to Sunshine State death metal to solos that rock more cock than the stalls at the Rainbow Room after hair metal night at the Whisky lets out.

Following that… well, you get it: infectious, rocket-powered thrash teetering on the brink of collapse stitched together with melodic and rhythmic musical acrobatics rooted in the late ’80s/early ’90s. Actually, make that “some of the best infectious, rocket-powered thrash teetering on the brink of collapse stitched together with melodic and rhythmic musical acrobatics rooted in the late ’80s/early ’90s that you’ll hear this year.” —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

DEATHBRINGER

8

IT

UNIQUE LEADER

Floating in a cosmic sea

Belarusian death metal project Deathbringer was formed by guitarist Artem Serdyuk in 2001. That was the same year Chuck Schuldiner left this mortal realm. Deathbringer proudly shared their affinity for Death throughout their early recordings with tribute EPs dedicated to Evil Chuck. Their debut LP, Homo Divisus, even had a bonus cover of “Flesh and the Power It Holds.”

Unfortunately, Deathbringer lulled into silence after their 2007 debut. Fifteen years later, the band surges from the shadows of the cosmos with a comeback concept record, IT. The narrative centers on an unfathomably large entity who can create and destroy worlds. Think Galactus, Marvel Comics’ devourer of planets.

But the album strikes a solemn chord like the apocalyptic melodrama of Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia. Despite the fireworks from Serdyuk’s fretboard, the end times aren’t treated like disaster film fodder.

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Instead, IT is a tech-death triumph that invites emotion into a genre known for cold, clinical precision. The songs are dense and vast, with guitar hooks that mutate and shapeshift.

Deathbringer don’t hail from the same leprous wasteland as an homage act like Gruesome.

Instead, Deathbringer imagine Schuldiner’s progressive leanings projected deeper into space and the 21st century he only briefly glimpsed.

Some of IT’s songs entertain the simplistic sensibilities of slam and deathcore (“Impartial Beholder”). But the album is never stagnant.

From synth-driven trip-hop interludes to riffs that will satiate Origin and Meshuggah fans alike, IT is an evolving lifeform. But some things thankfully never change: Symbolic guitarist Bobby Koelble contributes a solo to “Nihil Messiah,” and cover artist Travis Smith also created art for The Sound of Perseverance. But IT brings a lot more than Death worship with this riveting return.

—SEAN FRASIER

FALSE GODS

8

Neurotopia SEEING RED

False idol worship ain’t so bad

If you’ve struggled with full-fledged support of legendary musical and social miscreants Eyehategod because you find them too loose, too swampy and dripping with too much down-home humidity to sync with your preference for crosshair precision, Long Island’s False Gods might make a suitable proxy.

The press and handlers are sensibly calling what they do “doom-core,” though what we’re hearing is southern-fried sizzle ‘n’ gristle being replaced by abrupt violence, accurate back-beating and tightly wound Northern anxiety.

The riffing plied by Greg March and Nick Luisi gathers legions of Pete Steele-led CBGB’s matinee attendees and those able to look beyond Sorrow’s Hatred and Disgust band photo as they wild through NYC, coldcocking and midget-tossing vagrants from prime bro-down session and boombox headbanging spots. The spirit in opener “Peloquin” is the discharge of pent-up anger and stress via multi-hued vocals and the collision of classic, post-, doom and death metals with back-to-basics metallic hardcore. Imagine Dream Death liberated Weedeater’s weed and traded it for a bunch of Carnivore reissues? That’s where you’d find the swinging ominousness of “I, Cemetery” and the delightfully named “Phantasmawhoria” spitting nails at hearts and throwing hooks at ears.

Mike Stack’s voice terrorizes for the duration. The manner in which he spills heart, soul, anger and despondency into his gravelly craft

makes the little matter of staying in key an afterthought, especially during the celebratory pulsating that is “Your Thoughts Are Void” and “Ghost Story”’s oozing post-punk clatter. Take as needed for pain, my friends. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

FUNERAL CHIC

7

Roman Candle PROSTHETIC

Album of this year

Asheville, NC metalpunks Funeral Chic’s second LP, Superstition, was one of my favorite albums of 2018. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the damn thing until 2019, so I couldn’t put it on my album of the year ballot. Their follow-up, Roman Candle, is a hell of a redemption shot—a bonfire of chainsaw guitar chugs and tough-guy beats that occasionally blooms into progressive experimentation. Songs like “Spit and Crawl” and “Born to Kill” deliver meat-and-potatoes two-steps and D-beats that party like it’s 2010 in the best possible way.

But Funeral Chic have more going on upstairs than your average barbarians wearing backwards baseball hats. Lyrically, Roman Candle undercuts the same uniquely American sleaze in which vocalist Dustin Carpenter trades. He deflates the puffed-up testosterone that typifies this music like so much swamp gas, points out just how bad it stinks, then lights it on fire. The band even manages to take an otherwise perfunctory cover of Roky Erickson’s “Two Headed Dog” into a necessary part of the whole, thanks to clever wordplay in earlier songs.

Funeral Chic reach their apex on “Satisfaction,” a rollicking pit-starter that metamorphoses into industrial pounding à la Fear Factory, then sheds its skin again into a psychedelic saxophone dirge reminiscent of Nachtmystium’s Assassins. It’s mandatory listening, but much of the rest of the album sounds somewhat pedestrian next to it. For that reason, as rollicking as Roman Candle is, it still makes me crave an even more outré outing from Funeral Chic in the future. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

GRAVE DIGGER

6

Symbol of Eternity ROCK OF ANGELS

No music for old men

Symbol of Eternity is the perfect title for a Grave Digger album in 2022; if anything is a symbol of eternity, it’s this German band, which recorded at Noise Records around the same time as Hellhammer and has never quit. Grave Digger looks nothing like it did in the ’80s; the only survivor

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of the old order is vocalist and founder Chris Boltendahl, proof of longevity in a young man’s art if there ever was one.

Grave Digger has a lot in common with the Great Courses company; both never stop producing material and have an affinity for European history. In their career, Grave Digger have written albums about the Middle Ages and Arthur myths (a trilogy!), Scottish highlanders and clans, and now a second album about the Crusades and Templars. We haven’t even considered albums about traditional metal topics like headbanging, witch hunting and nuclear war. I'll spare you the fine print—this is a metal magazine, not a college class—but Boltendahl and company have spent ample downtime on the History Channel.

Symbol of Eternity is Grave Digger’s 21st album.

I'm not going to lie and tell you it’s as good as their essential early-’80s albums like Heavy Metal Breakdown or War Games, or even mid-period Digger like Excalibur. But the Diggers put so much conviction and elbow grease into each album that it’s hard not to like each effort, even if it’s far from life-changing and the songs aren’t memorable. Symbol has the big Wacken sing-along sections we expect from Grave Digger from their mid-period on, lots of earnest melodic power metal and Boltendahl’s midlife growl, which replaced his ’80s falsetto ages ago.

Symbol of Eternity is not a great album. Not many people can pull that off after nearly two dozen records. At the same time, it’s hard not to cheer for any new material from a band that’s been doing this metal thing for multiple lifetimes. To borrow a phrase from Raiders of the Lost Ark: Some people pass through history. Grave Digger are history. —JUSTIN M. NORTON

HEXIS

8

Aeturnum DEBEMUR MORTI PRODUCTIONS

Latin diphthong songs

Hexis hover between All Pigs Must Die-esque metalcore and early Aeturnus black metal—the sort of amalgam that felt wildly novel in the early aughts. Aeturnum manages to successfully refine the band’s approach without compromising their forte, leaning more heavily into black metal’s synth-soaked, melodramatic tendencies than it does BM’s shrill causticity. Given that the band’s “core” aspect is already plenty corrosive, this slight recalibration provides Hexis with more dimension than they’ve previously exhibited, ultimately situating the listener within an orbit equivalent to that of Tombs or the sadly defunct Castevet.

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After a fine, but somewhat routine opening, Hexis trot out “Exhaurie,” a staggering early album highlight saturated with sluggish stateliness and concentrated cruelty. At the fourminute mark, vocalist Filip Andersen executes a brutal hook complemented by subtly developing choral undertones that evoke not only the best of the bands cited above, but also the holy Silent Enigma and Monotheist records. Surprisingly, Hexis follow up this seven-plus-minute monolith with a series of metalcore conniptions; and, unfortunately, at a waifish 1:28, “Interitus” suffers not only by treading directly on the heels of “Exhaurie”’s dour excellence, but also by sounding remarkably underdeveloped (a small blemish in the grand scheme, but the pacing does feel a trifle cattywampus.) “Vulnera”’s funereal intro and simmering majesty resituates Hexis on its despotic throne, and the record’s final third makes fuck-all missteps as it ruthlessly drives towards its pit-and-the-pendulum, creepozoid finale.

If Aeternum’s opening track were a bit more distinctive—and/or a bit of the record’s dead weight had been jettisoned—I might’ve mustered up the chutzpah to label it a metalcore Mona Lisa. But as it stands, it’s an easy recommendation and a high-water mark for these Københavner ghouls. —FORREST PITTS

IATT

4

Magnum Opus BLACK LION

Will you love me now?

It takes either inhuman testicular fortitude or mounds of misguided self-importance to title a record Magnum Opus. Talk about a statement of intent! Metalcore-turned-black/death metal band IATT and their many experimental flourishes may have—solely in the context of their discography, mind you—created their most important work yet. But in the grand scheme of things, this record tries to be too clever for its own good, and the many embellishments across each track are clearly used to mask woeful foundational ideas—it’s the songwriting equivalent of someone applying lipstick to a dead rat.

For example, a song like “Ouroboros” stinks of Ihsahn-baiting pretentiousness with its jarring saxophone section and bloated symphonics over 10th-rate BM riffs. The piano tinkling of “Prima Materia” gives way to a section that tries to mimic prime Opeth, but has zero weight or originality behind its riffs. IATT then stumble wildly into trying to mesh influences from Enslaved and Dimmu Borgir as passages progress, which

is even more of a clusterfuck in practice than it is on paper—and we’re only highlighting the song’s first half.

The term “progressive” has been bastardized beyond belief at this stage. No, tossing random instrument cameos into songs in ill-fitting ways, combining random-sounding sections without smooth cohesion, adding a bunch of plastic screams and growls, and leaving the listener swivel-eyed from playing spot-theinfluence does not make your music “experimental” or in any way interesting. In reality, it creates a stylistic mess almost entirely devoid of merit. —DEAN BROWN

MACHINE HEAD

7

Of Kingdom and Crown

NUCLEAR BLAST

Now I can feel your catharsis

Four years after releasing an album so ignominious that it warranted a rating of a shrug emoji, and following that weird and kind of depressing “Farewell to Half the Band” tour, Robb Flynn has licked his wounds, assembled a new crew and worked hard at figuring out just where the hell his mojo vanished to. Especially crucial was Machine Head’s YouTube pandemic series Electric Happy Hour, in which Flynn and pals had fun playing music for their devoted fanbase, and especially themselves. Machine Head were in desperate need of a reset, and that renewed passion is palpable on their 10th album.

Compared to the ramshackle, hellishly overlong Catharsis, Of Kingdom and Crown is more focused, combining elements of the band’s two most important albums—1994’s searing debut Burn My Eyes and 2007’s masterful The Blackening—into an often exciting, surprisingly affecting concept album. Presenting a story involving two antiheroic protagonists, the album benefits greatly from the clear focus of a well-executed story arc, as Flynn and crew— bassist Jared MacEachern, drummer Matt Alston, Decapitated (but not decapitated) guitarist Wacław “Vogg” Kiełtyka—show tremendous chemistry on such standouts as “Choke on the Ashes of Your Hate” and “Become the Firestorm.” “Unhallowed” boasts a groovy rhythm riff that ’90s Metallica would’ve killed for, while the emotional “Arrows in Words From the Sky” and the epic “Slaughter the Martyr” offer some of Flynn’s best songwriting in the last 15 years. Forget the last record; some honest catharsis can be heard here.

—ADRIEN BEGRAND

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MORIBUND DAWN

7

Dark Mysteries of Time & Eternity CARBONIZED

Hey, 1998, can I copy your homework?

There are two sides to the “worship” blade. On one side, if you balance things just right, you become not just a perfect recreation of history, but a beacon of hope for a style that went dormant a decade or so ago. On the other, why listen to your brand new album when I can just as easily listen to one of the albums you’re trying to emulate? It’s hard to decide; you can’t make some blanket statement about emulatory (“worship”) bands. With Moribund Dawn, as it is with every band of their level of inspiration, we must take this on a case-by-case basis.

So, right away, I think this album is good— or at least a good performance of the melodic, keyboardy, purple-or-blue-covered style that came about in the mid-to-late-’90s. The hallmarks are all there, be it the deep appreciation for melody or even the “spokels” utilized by vocalist and guitarist Andrew Ferris. One listen and, hey, it’s 1998 again. Pretty sweet, right?

Well, yes, but also—when you’re in 1998, you have some dangerous company. Though Moribund Dawn rule, it’s really up to you. Do you want to listen to something that sounds just like your favorite melodic black metal record and expand your repertoire? Or do you want to stick to your guns and have your favorite remain untainted?

I end up in the “let’s keep listening to this” boat, if just because I’m a mark for anything resembling that era of black metal, even beyond the classics, but that doesn’t make it perfect. Due to this uncertainty, it’s hard to tell whether or not Dark Mysteries of Time & Eternity is good on its own. Context is absolutely key here, and only time will tell whether or not Moribund Dawn have the staying power they desire.

—JON ROSENTHAL

NICOLAS CAGE FIGHTER

5

The Bones That Grew From Pain M E TA L B L A D E

Metalcore mixology

Burger King Diamond. Flat Earth Crisis. Toxic Masculinity Holocaust. Clint Black Lives Matter.

Merzbowel. These (and many, many more!) are potential “band names” that myself and my circle of fellow dumbasses have conjured up in various conversations and text/email chains.

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to christen your goofy side project, because that’s what they’re there for. And while it appears these Aussies would have made welcome additions to our group chats, they failed to realize that actually using something of the sort means they will perpetually be facing an uphill battle in the Wanting to Be Taken Seriously Sweepstakes.

In lieu of potentially being seen as wisenheimers from the off, what do they go ahead and do? Deliver the sort of metalcore pounding that would be at home alongside Hatebreed, All Out War and the city of Cleveland circa 2003.

The Bones That Grew From Pain offers up the sounds that folks who regularly skip leg day have coursing through their earbuds while they work on achieving Schwarzenegger’s ’70s biceps and Corpsegrinder’s present-day neck. There are brief spells where frontman Nicholas Moriarty and drummer Matt Davenport steer the leaden ship towards post-2001 Slayer and Roots-era Sepultura, and no doubt the stammering and fanboying would be redlining were guitarist Justin Ellis ever to meet Walls of Jericho in person. Trouble is, picturing those combinations and meetings is where the fun begins and ends, as it’s all rather ordinary with very little on which to shine the spotlight of excitement on in the same way one would their moniker. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

ORGANECTOMY

5

Nail Below Nail UNIQUE LEADER

This ain’t brain surgery

When it comes to slam music, many point to Devourment (and the simpler parts of Suffocation) as the template for the meathead genre.

But I personally think it’s more like if you took a mid-’90s band who wore Sepultura/Biohazard/ Pantera shirts in their promo photos and made them play death metal. I don’t have a PhD in this stuff, so I could be wrong, but that’s what Organectomy sound like to me on their third full-length, Nail Below Nail.

Now, if you judge the band purely on whether they successfully pull off the above description, I’d say they do. The New Zealanders set their sites on mid-paced groove metal with gurgling growls and rarely veer from that path. And some of these riffs really hit the spot. Whether you’re a slam acolyte or simply a one-time owner of a too-large Machine Head “Let Freedom Ring with a Shotgun Blast” T-shirt, you’re gonna find genuine bright spots. The problem is that by the time you get about halfway through this record, you never want to hear another fucking slam riff ever fucking again.

Even the band slightly understands this, as the record tries to break it up with some more traditional solos and an acoustic passage. But they still go back to their true love, and by the end, you feel as worn down as the first five frets of their guitars. Nail Below Nail shows that Organectomy are no worse than many of their contemporaries. Unfortunately, they’re not much better. —SHANE MEHLING

RED ROT

6

Mal de Vivre S VA R T

Still hot for the green one

M&M’s’ metaphoric Little Boy and Fat Man, their milk chocolate and peanut bombshells, dropped in 1941 and 1954 respectively, after which the Mars Wrigley Confectionery introduced nü flavors consistently. (Dulce de leche, anyone?) Pandemically undeterred, Fudge Brownie posted up in 2020, while Peanut Butter received a makeover. Both proved a wash.

Naturally, Hershey’s pioneered the nut butter/cocoa hard candy fusion, so maybe it comes as zero surprise that an M&M’s knockoff fails to resolve an age-old human conundrum: MF, you got peanut butter in my chocolate.

Done right (Reese’s Pieces), no line exists between ingredients. Frankensteined (M&M’s Peanut Butter), the two halves detach down the middle. Mal de Vivre integrates better, but never erases that seam.

Italian duo Luciano Lorusso George and Davide Tiso, fleshed out by drummer Ron Bertrand and Ian Baker on bass, debut as Red Rot with a full-length whose French title translates as “sick of life.” Leading off 17 songs in 38 minutes, “Ashes” makes a first impression from which the LP never recovers. Post-punk pulse thick with four-string throb, its introductory clean singing precedes prog-splayed metallurgy.

Extremity diluted by indiecore? Fie! Power roar shot through with a second vocal—this one pinched, nasally— “Undeceased” also goes there. “Near Disaster” batters and beats enough to get antihistamines up until a clean vocal insertion proves the Baby Ruth in the pool. Bellowed straight, “Behind the Secret,” 57 seconds of “Dualism,” and 1:05 of “Emotional Neglect” raise elbowraining twisters, but the cleansed intonation in “Greatest Failure” borders on fey, and sweet ‘n’ sour line-trading for “Conversation with the Demon” grates senselessly.

Red Rot melts in your mouth, not your ear.

—RAOUL HERNANDEZ

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REEKING AURA

8

Blood & Bonemeal P R O FO U N D LO R E

Death before doom

With an unearthly tranceinducing undertow courtesy of metal journeyman Ryan Lipynsky meeting the extremity brought by three members of the grindin’ Buckshot Facelift, death-doom’s latest disciples come with a helluva pedigree. Add in toptier vocalist Will Smith (Afterbirth, ex-Artificial Brain)—whose subterranean bellows appear born from the low-hanging scrot of Demilich’s Antti Boman—and the circle is complete.

The NY/NJ-based band’s full-length debut, Blood & Bonemeal, does not fuck around, as opener “Remnant of Obstinate Rank (Flooding Ratholes)” goes straight for the gullet sans atmospheric fanfare. The first thought that manifests while this song pummels: Perhaps the album’s title also doubles as an insight into the primary diet of those behind the music. And yet, by the time the brain-gouging central riff of the title track connects immediately on first spin, no way could the songwriting here be crafted by mere femur-wielding primates—the simplicity in effect is conceived in a cerebral manner.

Also, there are no gothic trappings contained within. Instead, for increased dynamism, Reeking Aura break the mauling (which crosses the narrow, blood-sodden Autopsy/Obituary/Asphyx/ Incantation divide) with moments of folk-laden grace. The primary focus, however, is on memorable riff-craft punctuated by fittingly loose, but impactful rhythms, and the added percussion of Smith’s array of gutturals, which tonally range from nasty-low to lower-than-Hades. This overall approach is concise in execution, and when leads waft in Azagthothian patterns on “PyramidShaped Plow / The Caretaker,” while later matching the cascading melodic note-falls of Mournful Congregation, the scope for future experimentation is tantalizing. —DEAN BROWN

KARL SANDERS

8

Saurian Apocalypse N A PA L M

Return of the lizard king

In 2017, Karl Sanders visited Egypt for the first time.

As the founding guitarist and sole consistent member of Nile, Sanders has been death metal’s premier amateur Egyptologist since 1993, but it took an invitation to collaborate with Cairo-born vocalist Nader Sadek to finally get him to the country he’s obsessed over for decades. Sadek’s The Serapeum and Nile’s Vile Nilotic Rites were the first releases to bear the mark of Sanders’ long-overdue trip, but it’s his latest (mostly) 84 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

instrumental solo record where the influence of his travels is most deeply felt.

Like its predecessors, 2004’s Saurian Meditation and 2009’s Saurian Exorcisms, Saurian Apocalypse utilizes the musical modes and acoustic instrumentation of the ancient Middle East to soundtrack a harrowing, Lovecraftian narrative—in this case, one of humanity’s last survivors goes insane after witness the unspeakable acts of violence committed by the mythical Saurian Masters. It’s the rich attention to detail and meticulous world-building of Apocalypse that sets it apart from Sanders’ previous entries in the Saurian series. His compositions are staggeringly complex without feeling academic, and the traditional Egyptian sounds feel more comfortably and fully incorporated than ever before.

The Karl Sanders who plays brutal technical death metal at his day job isn’t entirely absent, either. “The Evil Inherent in Us All” sounds like an outtake from Nile’s long-lost Unplugged session, and that’s before it transposes a distinctly “Raining Blood”-inspired riff into the melee.

“Skull Fuck Ritual” leans hard into the gruesome imagery of its title with pounding, claustrophobic drumming and an unsettling crescendo.

When Sanders plugs his guitar in for a shredding, metallic solo late in “Divergence: The Long Awaited Third Primordial Ascension,” you can almost hear the scholar of Middle Eastern music and the death metal dude from South Carolina merging into a single being—erudite, enlightened and fuckin’ sick as shit. —BRAD SANDERS

SCARCITY

8

Aveilut

THE FLENSER

Children of God

Someday when COVID19 becomes endemic and recedes to background noise in daily life, our culture might be able to assess the collective trauma caused by the plague. Even though the demand for mental health services is high and everyone has a friend or family who cracked under the weight of perpetual grief, we are still so caught trying to prevent further illness or harm that we retreat from introspection. It’s too painful to look back and see how close we were to the abyss.

Think of Scarcity’s debut Aveilut (Hebrew for mourning) as an early reckoning and account of just what the past two-plus years have done to our psyches. The often-brilliant album, composed by Brendon Randall-Myers and death metal vocalist Doug Moore, was written while Moore watched the funeral home next door to his apartment in Queen load bodies of COVID victims, and RandallMyers mourned the deaths of two friends. It’s a fascinating study of repetition and noise in heavy

music. It shows how the simplest sounds can be played, played again, and modified until they hypnotize and overwhelm in the right hands.

While comparisons to black metal have been made, those seem to be of convenience and miss the mark. Randall-Myers and Moore studied at the school of Michael Gira, perhaps the best musician working when it comes to building movements around repetition and noise. Parts of Aveilut brought me back to The Great Annihilator and Cop, deeply pessimistic works that mine the dark side of our psyche. Like early Swans, Scarcity forces listeners to fix their gaze inward.

But unlike Swans, there seems to be a willingness to persevere and assimilate trauma rather than let it run roughshod.

Aveilut is a haunting, often spellbinding album that offers much to attentive listeners; a mutated musical where grief becomes art.

—JUSTIN M. NORTON

SIGH

8

Shiki

PEACEVILLE

Deep breadth

Japanese black metal pioneers Sigh rose to international infamy on Euronymous imprint Deathlike Silence Records astride 1993 debut LP Scorn Defeat, a scrappy Kabuki gem of audio drama. Essential follow-up Infidel Art upped the integration of East Asian instrumentation, as well as ambition, production and composition. Imaginary Sonicscape (2001) rips a retro-futuristic funhouse of sonic theater, while Scenes From Hell (2010) began the act’s most extreme decade—harder, atmospheric, never rote—concluding with experimental 2018 heresy Heir to Despair.

Twelfth album Shiki produces another marvel of unbound cohesion, an uninhibited freedom fighter of sound and fury that always sticks the unexpected landing. Instrumental Mt. Fuji and founder Mirai Kawashima and reed-whispering spouse Mika (a.k.a. Dr. Mikannibal for purported bloodlust and a doctorate in physics) lock in with engine room Frédéric Leclercq (Kreator) and Mike Heller (Fear Factory). Title translating (in part) as “four seasons,” its autumnal bandleader throws everything at his darkening garden of delights: bongos, gaming synths, shakuhachi and shinobue flutes.

“Kuroi Kage” shoots jagged vocal shards of Japanese from Mirai through a thrashy, proggy, BM-lined stagger ‘n’ stomp complete with a pitch-perfect sax solo by Mika. “Satsui – Geshi No Ato” intones an epic centerpiece of gnashing melodrama ending in a sanguine pastiche of audio samples. Instant cleave “Fuyu Ga Kuru,” with its “Enter Sandman” opening and

Zeppelin-esque breakdown, crests in a prism of Philip K. Dick lysergics. Full-on organ/guitar broilers “Shouku” and “Mayonaka No Kaii” produce a pair of speed kings straight out of Deep Purple and early Rainbow.

“Summer storm / White paper on the desk / All flies away,” wrote Japanese haiku hero Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902). Shiki by Sigh / black trad/ poetry. —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

TRIUMVIR FOUL

7

Onslaught to Seraphim

INVICTUS PRODUCTIONS/ V R A S U B AT L AT

86 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

SPIRIT ADRIFT, 20 Centuries Gone

7

Forge the past | C E N T U R Y M E D I A

Their second stopgap EP before their eagerly awaited “F” entry, 20 Centuries Gone doesn’t follow Spirit Adrift’s alphabetical naming tradition. Does that make it non-canonical? An indicator of further deviations from tradition?

Or just sole member Nate Garrett deciding that he doesn’t want to be shackled to his own self-imposed chains? Only he knows for sure. In the meantime, this collection of two original songs and six covers makes a solid addition to your collection, even if it throws off your filing system.

The covers in question are simultaneously unsurprising if you’ve been listening to the band for a while; surprising in how traditional the choices are; and an absolute blast.

Metallica and Pantera are givens (thankfully,

XENOGLYPH

7

Spiritfraud

T R A N S L AT I O N L O S S

The machines win and we die

There is precious little we know about the two classically multi-instrumentalists behind the USBM project. Right about now, Translation Loss are probably working out how to pay royalties in crypto to an unmarked server on the Dark Web. What we can say is that they quite possibly have read Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism or Nolen Gertz’s Nihilism and Technology before duly ice-picking every smart device in the home. Spiritfraud’s concept reads like a high-minded Terminator story arc with tech besting humanity physically, but especially spiritually. They choose to tell this dystopian story via the medium of second-wave black metal at its headiest.

The stormwinds of treble-scratch guitar scatter minor-key dissonance in the air. What

“Escape” is as obscure a pick from Metallica’s classic run as you can get). Garrett does a mean Peter Steele impression, so Type O Negative makes sense. Thin Lizzy, ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd seem more out of left field until you hear how naturally Spirit Adrift interpret the material. No Sabbath, but original tune “Mass Formation Psychosis” may as well be—and it’s somehow a great homage to almost every era of the originators.

Which leaves “Sorcerer’s Fate,” and that sorcerous scorcher frankly makes the whole thing worthwhile on its own. Garrett penned a dragon-slaying trad metal romp for the ages. If it’s a harbinger of battles to come, the future of the band sounds bright. Even if it doesn’t start with an “F.” —JEFF TREPPEL

sounds like programmed drums lay down an incessant if boilerplate rhythm. The soft pad of keys wash over everything. These are familiar materials, ingredients that go together, but Xenoglyph treat them with respect, laying them out in a stream of consciousness, with peaks and troughs of intensity. Does this ostensibly ’90s sound tie into the concept by referencing the antediluvian moment before the Web 2.0 summoned a golem in the shape of social media and all its data-harvesting, humanitycompromising nihilism?

It sure speaks to the enduring appeal of that febrile moment in black metal history when the shape and form was given to a new extreme of metal. Back then, the anti-human sentiment was synthesized by disaffected Scandinavian youth. Here it is technology.

But what’s the difference, ask Xenoglyph in whispered rasps through a fog of elegiac fury.

Either way, humankind is the author of its own obsolescence. —JONATHAN HORSLEY

PHOTO BY DAVE CREANEY

Extra riffs, please

The Vrasubatlat collective opens their endless maw once again, this time signaling the return of fast, angry blackened death metal duo Triumvir Foul. Though these two artists, known here as drummer Cedentibus and vocalist/guitarist/ bassist Ad Infinitum, cut their teeth in the short-lived Cascadian scene and are still members of Ash Borer, those who paid attention to Vrasubatlat over the past seven years understand that these two have found the proverbial “devil in the woods,” crafting immensely evil music across many projects. From this circle Cedentibus and Ad Infinitum founded—which includes the likes of Pissblood, Adzalaan, Uškumgallu and more—Vrasubatlat’s shining morning star is Triumvir Foul, featuring some of the duo’s most unhinged works to date.

Onslaught to Seraphim is no different from the other two Triumvir Foul full-lengths in the sense that the band wears their influences on their sleeves. However, by a formula they founded long ago, Triumvir Foul make aesthetic and atmospheric choices that turn something like a Morbid Angel riff into something spookier and more conceptually deliberate. Featuring many wailing guitar solos in conjunction with layers of spitting, OUGH-heavy vocals, Onslaught to Seraphim ups the intensity here when compared to Spiritual Bloodshed and their eponymous debut, and I think that’s the point. Triumvir Foul are here to push the envelope that much more while remaining coherent, and Onslaught to Seraphim doesn’t fall victim to the crimes of incomprehensibility committed by their blackened death metal peers.

What’s nice about Triumvir Foul is that no matter how ridiculous they get, this idea of discernibility and user comprehension makes them a comfortable listen. This doesn’t mean they’re any less angry or unhinged than, say, Watchmaker, but you don’t have to necessarily listen to this to hype yourself up. You want some riffs, no strings attached? Look no further. —JON ROSENTHAL

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by

EUGENE S. ROBINSON

GETTING TO

MEET MAX It’s

hard to say how any of just about anything happens anymore. Add in smartphones, texting and social media, and who can remember?

What is remembered is that, at some point, the cats in the Dillinger Escape Plan had dropped me a line.

We had talked for years about the off chance of doing a guest vocal deal, or having Greg Puciato scream with me on some OXBOW stuff.

(This possibility, the one I once proposed to Ivar Bjørnson from Enslaved, and the one I never mentioned but much desired—me and Jake Bannon from Converge—were the ones I was most aggressively hungering for.)

But the line encouraged me to come up to San Francisco to see them. They were playing with Max Cavalera’s new deal, so it was a two-for-one: see a couple bands I dug most thoroughly and get to hang around besides. Which is always a fun/funny thing to do since, showing up in a suit with a briefcase—coming as I usually was from work—always struck a strange chord amidst the black 88 : SEPTEMBER 2022 : DECIBEL

T-shirts, leather and denim. And I live to create discomfort.

Besides this, I’d always wanted to meet Max. Call me a Brazilophile (mostly and largely on account of being obsessed with both bossa nova and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu). But also, because countries that had spent many years with fascists in power, like Brazil, always did and have done interesting things with music.

So, I was geeked. But from Dillinger came a warning: “Max is sober now, so backstage? No alcohol or drugs.” A warning that was totally unnecessary because, while I have an obsessive personality, I’ve never had an addictive one. Small difference, but one that made it easy enough to abstain for the evening.

But, you know, as well as you think you know yourself, you, if you’re anything like me, get adept at ignoring the dust in your own eyes to go biblical for a second.

No matter, though. The show was on, I was on my way and was thrilled to get into the Fillmore again to see them play, as this came as close to anything as constituting my “stomping” grounds. The bands I had already seen here were legend:

Fear, the Misfits (complete with my first riot), Circle Jerks, the Jesus Lizard (in a show we played where I passed out during the first song), the Dead Kennedys—the list goes on.

I get to the club, get my tickets and backstage passes. Have to double back to the car when I see the metal detector because, well, um, I had some metal on me.

Return and I’m in.

Dillinger? Revelatory, as usual.

But while their road crew made the changeover, I figured now was as good of a time as any to get backstage, say hellos and meet Max, at the very least. Shooting the shit with Greg, then Ben Weinman, I spot Max. I am sober, and ready to go.

But there’s a woman backstage. I don’t know what she’s doing there, why she’s there, but in an environment so dude-heavy, she is noted and noteworthy, and like the adage about the turtle in the tree: If you see a turtle in a tree, you need to know someone put it there.

All of which I am calculating, but I am… transfixed. And while engrossed, I know while I can kind of chalk other people’s addictions up to personal weaknesses—an

inaccurate characterization, I now realize—my own personal weaknesses are never viewed by me as addictions. Can’t tear my eyes away now, which is funny. Were you to see her, this might not make any sense to you, but like Dante when he first saw Beatrice, I felt like I was seeing her soul while she did the completely commonplace backstage.

Then it dawned on me that she probably worked there.

“Eugene? Let me introduce you to Max…” Greg was talking, but at this point he sounded to me like Charlie Brown’s teacher. All bass notes, no signal, lots of noise. “Eugene? Eugene?”

“Hold on… I’m dying of thirst.”

My brain had done this to me. And I watch myself as my brain walked me across the room where I ask her for water. She’s busy, frazzled, and I’m as significant as the chairs she’s rearranging before she slaps a bottle into my hand.

Then I hear music. And the crowd cheer. I hear Max on the mic and know the moment is gone.

I hate myself, but, you know… you can’t really take addicts anywhere.

ILLUSTRATION BY ED LUCE