Decibel #221 - March 2023 by Red Flag Media

DEATHRACE KING

DENVER 2022 METAL & BEER FEST BREWED & REVIEWED

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BOB

NALBANDIAN 19 65- 2 0 22

SANGUISUGABOGG MEMORIAM INSOMNIUM CONTRARIAN NARROW HEAD ULTHAR EYES ZULU STABBING ANCIENT MASTERY

MARCH 2023 // No. 221

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upfront 8

obituary: bob nalbandian A true metal insider

10 news: savage lands A product of our environment 12 metal muthas Whole lotta love 14 exclusive:

decibel magazine metal & beer fest denver 2022 review

20 contrarian Technically not death

28 stabbing Killer be killed

22 zulu A better tomorrow

30 insomnium The really, really Dark Ages

24 ancient mastery A powerful new chapter 26 narrow head Rocking the boat

32 eyes Getting their hooks in you 34 ulthar Double downers

Smooth sailing in the Rocky Mountains 18 low culture New year, same you

features

reviews

36 sanguisugabogg For immature audiences only

65 lead review Sanguisugabogg continue to revel in sex and violence with sophomore release Homicidal Ecstasy

38 q&a: memoriam Vocalist Karl Willetts soldiers on in the face of the great Eastern Front 42 the decibel

hall of fame Gassed up by youthful vigor and the support of their label, Swedish outsiders The Crown put the pedal to the metal on their fourth full-length Deathrace King

66 album reviews Records from bands that still date their documents with “1992,” including Eucharist, In Flames and Obituary 72 damage ink Light makes right

19 no corporate beer When beer cans become beer can’ts

Through the Deadly Black Hole COVER STORY COVER AND CONTENTS PHOTOS BY JUSTIN BORUCKI

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. © 2023 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 1557-2137 | USPS 023142 Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited.

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March 2023 [T221] PUBLISHER

Alex Mulcahy

alex@redflagmedia.com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Albert Mudrian

albert@decibelmagazine.com AD SALES

James Lewis

james@decibelmagazine.com DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND SALES

tor Shawn Bosler was seriously hurt in a car crash, resulting in a horrific list of injuries, including a broken back, femur, sternum, jaw, nose and orbital bones. His shattered body required multiple surgeries, forcing him out of work for months. In early 2027, I organized a benefit show for Shawn in Brooklyn—semi-cleverly called Bozzfest—at Saint Vitus, who graciously donated the room. Without a second thought, Newburgh, NY legends All Out War agreed to headline the event for free, allowing us to donate 100 percent of the proceeds to Shawn’s young family. And when I offered to pay for the band’s gas and tolls, their label at the time, Organized Crime, stepped in and picked up that tab. If you know the All Out War dudes and the folks they keep close, you’ll find none of this surprising. Of course, All Out War aren’t on the cover of Decibel simply because they are fine folks. It’s because they are one of the best metalcore bands of all time. Mind you, we’re talking metalcore before a generation of bands with good cop/bad cop vocal approaches made the genre tag so ineffectual that Wikipedia currently lists both Deadguy and Attack Attack! as “metalcore bands.” All Out War, of course, have always been more Carnivore than crabcore. In fact, it was the devout Slayer-isms of their 1998 breakthrough, For Those Who Were Crucified, where I felt they first, um, nailed their sound. Over the course of 25 years, they’ve continued to push the metal side of their sonic hybrid, culminating in Celestial Rot. The road to the heaviest, nastiest and clearly most black metal-inspired record of the band’s career—along with details of their long struggle with a certain hardcore label—is chronicled this month in Kevin Stewart-Panko’s excellent cover story. So, if you prefer backing underdogs over bulldogs, and are more likely to attend Bozzfest than a mid-’00s pay-to-play second stage at Ozzfest, we got your new (and possibly old) favorite metalcore band right here. albert mudrian, Editor-in-Chief

ART DIRECTOR

aaron@decibelmagazine.com

Michael Wohlberg

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Patty Moran

COPY EDITOR

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BOOKCREEPER

Tim Mulcahy

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tim@redflagmedia.com CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Chuck BB, Ed Luce Mark Rudolph

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Emily Bellino Adrien Begrand J. Bennett Dean Brown Richard Christy Liz Ciavarella-Brenner Chris Dick Sean Frasier Nick Green Raoul Hernandez Addison Herron-Wheeler Jonathan Horsley Courtney Iseman Neill Jameson Kim Kelly Sarah Kitteringham Daniel Lake Cosmo Lee Jamie Ludwig Shane Mehling Tim Mudd Justin M. Norton Dutch Pearce Forrest Pitts Greg Pratt Jon Rosenthal Brad Sanders José Carlos Santos Joseph Schafer Matt Solis Kevin Stewart-Panko Eugene S. Robinson Adem Tepedelen Jeff Treppel J Andrew Zalucky CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

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To order by phone: 1.215.625.9850 (10 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST) To order by fax: 1.215.625.9967 To order online: www.decibelmagazine.com 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. Copyright ©2023 by Red Flag Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. PRINTED IN USA

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ALL OUT WAR PHOTO BY DANIELLE DOMBROWSKI

At the end of 2016, Decibel contribu-

Aaron Salsbury

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Kent Diimmel in This Moment

Tim Yeung Lone Wolf

´ davier perez

great american ghost

Richard Christy

Death - Charred Walls of the Damned

ddrumusa www.ddrum.com

 The lines are drawn

Reibstein shares his artistic talent via a self-portrait

As best as we can tell, you’ve been a subscriber since 2010. Do you recall what led you to take the plunge and sign your life away to us?

I think it was through the Blackened Music Series that I went to see Repulsion/Pig Destroyer/ Brutal Truth [Precious Metal book release show] at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, and I think there was a some kind of mini promo mag for the collected Decibel Hall of Fame book, or maybe there were free copies of Decibel. The show was one for the ages (Jeremy [Snevil] from Pink Mass flooded the bathroom with vomit, Pig Destroyer slayed). I came away from the show buzzed and bludgeoned, and of course wanted to read the Decibel mag I grabbed. I got hooked and bought the book, and I think I subscribed at the same time. You might have the receipt?

Leonard Reibstein Brooklyn, NY

You’re an artist. How would you describe your work?

Can you actually make a living off of this gig? If not, what’s your day job?

I use symbols from various subcultures (punk, metal, comics, art history, kink) to show the absurdity of social hierarchy and the sublime power of feeling. I work loosely with oil paint and sumi ink because I want to lure people in with a sensuous handling of materials while I challenge them with the imagery. I want it to look the way the music I love sounds. People can see more of my stuff on Instagram @Hellreibstein.

At the moment, I can’t. I work as an art handler to pay the bills and am interested in teaching at the college level, though those gigs seem harder to get than art sales. I don’t love the work, though it does afford me opportunities to meet collectors [and] bigger artists, and get up close and personal with amazing artworks (and a lot of overpriced trash). And if/when I do start teaching, there’s only adjunct gigs, and I make more handling.

6 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

The Crown’s Deathrace King is the Hall of Fame in this issue. Are you backing it, or do you prefer your Swedish death/thrash delivered by someone else?

I definitely back it; that album slays and is a stone-cold classic! That said, if we’re talking Swedish death/thrash, nothing compares to the O.G.: Merciless and their first album The Awakening. It’s a beefed-up version of early Sodom/ Kreator. A Scandinavian response to Possessed’s Seven Churches.

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

OBITUARIES

BOB

NALBANDIAN 19 65- 2 0 22

etal fans are never short on passion. That passion can be directed

in several ways. Some learn instruments and form bands. Others write about the music or direct films and videos. Some are publicists or managers. Bob Nalbandian did all of it at the highest level. And while many of his peers rested on their laurels or only thought of metal in the past tense, Nalbandian built a bridge between the formative metal of his youth in the ’70s and ’80s and metal in the 21st century. ¶ Nalbandian, who died in late December from mantle cell lymphoma, started in the music business young: At just 17 he was the publisher/editor-in-chief of the seminal heavy metal fanzine The Headbanger and covered then-unsigned bands like Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Armored Saint. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Nalbandian was a contributing editor to magazines including Metal Rendezvous, the original Creem, Music Connection and Hit Parader. “Bob was at the ground level and epicenter of the true and earliest L.A. heavy metal scene,” says Forbidden guitarist Craig Locicero. “For all of Bob’s influence, he didn’t have one ounce of pretension. All he ever wanted was kindness and good music.”

In the mid-’80s, Nalbandian managed the Orange County metal band EDEN, signing them to Enigma/Restless Records in 1984. Nalbandian might be best known for landing guitarist Marty Friedman in Megadeth. He was then hired in the West Coast office of Roadrunner 8 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

Records, working with bands like Sepultura and Type O Negative in their creative primes. “Bob was only at the label for a year, but it began a friendship that only got stronger with the passing of each year,” says Monte Conner, former senior vice president of A&R for

Roadrunner, now with Nuclear Blast. “We both loved the same bands from the ’70s and spent endless hours debating and discussing the merits of these bands and many others. Bob was such a huge metal fan. Everything he ever did was purely for the love of the music.” Most recently, Nalbandian directed and coproduced the Inside Metal documentary series and the Band vs Brand documentary film, and founded and produced two metal podcasts. “Bob was one of about a dozen elite U.S. metal gurus, someone who was there at the beginning of American independent metal who never wandered or lost the faith,” says Bazillion Points publisher Ian Christe. “When someone like Bob passes away, we all lose a walking library of firsthand knowledge of bands, connections and lore.” “He was there with so many of us at the beginning,” adds Nalbandian’s friend Tim Healy, now a San Francisco promoter and manager. “His smile brightened up any room he walked into. We will never see that smile again, but many of us have it permanently as part of our consciousness.” Thank you for blazing the path and staying on the trail, Bob. Rest well. —JUSTIN M. NORTON

SAVAGE LANDS

Screaming trees  (from l) Sylvain Demercastel and Dirk Verbeuren, along with Lamb of God drummer Art Cruz, need your help to save the environment

THE WORLD NEEDS

SOME HEROES

Megadeth drummer Dirk Verbeuren and Sylvain Demercastel protect Costa Rican forests via explicitly metal nonprofit

SAVAGE LANDS

hances are you own at least one (but probably more) created Savage Lands to make

album that Dirk Verbeuren drummed on. The lanky, bearded Belgian did a decade with Soilwork, has worked on dozens of albums and EPs as a session musician, and has a list of “active” bands on Metal Archives so long you have to actually scroll down to reach the end. The dude is a force of nature behind the kit, so it’s no surprise that he’s leveraging his current fame holding down the Megadeth drum throne to do good things for nature and the environment. Verbeuren, along with his former bandmate in French thrashers Artsonic, Sylvain Demercastel, have launched their new nonprofit, Savage Lands, to raise money to fight deforestation, encourage reforestation and protect wildlife in Costa Rica. ¶ Why Costa Rica? Demercastel’s been living there for nearly two decades and has long been involved in environmental activism in his adopted home. He saw firsthand how rapidly land was being bought up and forests were being cut down, to the detriment of not only the native flora and fauna, but the planet. The environment needs more trees, not fewer, so any efforts toward that goal are a win for all of us, not just Costa Ricans. So, Demercastel and Verbeuren 10 : M A R C H 2 0 2 3 : D E C I B E L

the metal community aware of their cause. “There’s a lot of environmentalism happening [in the metal world],” says Verbueren. “It’s not necessarily that all the bands talk about it in their lyrics, but a lot of people care. And we should; it’s a critical time. It’s a time where we really need to step up. And every small step we can make is important.” In their quest to engage metalheads in their environmental cause, Verbeuren and Demercastel are tapping their fellow musicians to help promote Savage Lands. “We have a bunch of the people who are involved with the project right now working on music together,” Verbueren says. “There’s going to be a band formed around the whole Savage Lands concept, with the goal of giving something cool to people and hopefully raising some money. If we can rally the metal world and

bring [Savage Lands] some visibility, it seems like the kind of thing where we can see actual results.” There’s talk of a Savage Lands metal festival in France—hopefully in 2023—and they recently partnered with Dunable Guitars on a “Lottery of the Trees” initiative that featured custom-made guitars and tickets to Hellfest as possible prizes for those who bought lottery tickets. Though Verbeuren is leaning into his extensive metal connections, he emphasizes that the star power is really just the hook to get metalheads on board. “This is not about us as people in any way,” he notes. “This is about the planet we care so much about. It feels really nice to be able to, in the position I’m in now, use my position to benefit something I believe in, that I’ve always believed in. I feel like I’m making good use of this quote-unquote fame.” —ADEM TEPEDELEN

NOW SLAYING Wonder what Decibel world HQ has been rocking for the past month? Well, here are the records that we spun most while teaching children to worship Satan… the band.

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

This Month’s Muthas: Marlene Vallee Muthas of Artie White of Ready for Death

Tell us a little about yourself.

I spent most of my life on Long Island. I now live in California with my dog Lola, my cat Mr. Binks, and 11 chickens. I fell in love with California when Artie was 18, and moved here in 1993. I’ve since retired and enjoy gardening and spending time with my grandchildren and my critters. Artie says you got him into Zeppelin and Sabbath when he was a kid, and your pot dealer got him into Dead Kennedys and Sex Pistols. Please elaborate!

Oh my goodness, that was news to me that our friend Carl exposed Artie to pot! Me, Carl and a couple of others tried to start a band when Artie was around 12. I played the saxophone and Carl played bass. I remember blasting Black Sabbath once to get Artie and his friends stoked for Halloween. Artie would get frustrated that we were so loud because he was trying to do homework or read his comics. Your son went to punk, hardcore and metal shows all around New York as a teenager in the ’90s. Did you ever worry that he wasn’t going to come home in one piece?

In his teenage years, I learned that Artie was going to shows in New York City. I remember quite a few times he was dead tired, but he pushed through the school day. I was proud of his determination. I did worry a lot and wondered if I was being a good mom, but he was always very honest with me, and I knew he was a good kid. Yet I’ll never forget when he called me around 2 a.m. saying he had to drive his friend’s 12 : M A R C H 2 0 2 3 : D E C I B E L

car from the city after a show. He’d never driven a car before, let alone a stick shift! We talked it through and thank God he made it home safely. Outside of extreme music, what were some of Artie’s interests as a young man?

Artie’s main focus was reading, especially comic books. I remember one spring he was so worried about being bored all summer since there would be no school. So, I bought him a wagon and he filled it with books from the library on the first day of summer. Artie has more bands than we can count, including Milhouse, Indecision, Concrete Cross, Celebrity Murders and now Ready for Death. How many have you seen?

I’ve seen him in three shows. One show was in NY and I actually got into the mosh pit. I didn’t really enjoy that too much. It scared me! I also saw him in Indecision in San Francisco opening for the Misfits. He was always pretty mellow and not known to get in fights or be aggressive, but when I saw him perform with Indecision and he was taunting the audience, I was shocked, to say the least. He did apologize to me for cursing during the show. It was very respectful of him. What’s something that most people wouldn’t suspect about your son?

People might be surprised at his deep love and affection for animals and his family. He became vegetarian as a teenager, even though he worked at Arby’s, which I knew he hated. —ANDREW BONAZELLI

Albert Mudrian : e d i t o r i n c h i e f  Jesus Piece, So Unknown  Fäust, Death From Beyond  The Crown, Deathrace King  Satan, Earth Infernal  All Out War, Celestial Rot ---------------------------------Patty Moran : c u s t o m e r s e r v i c e  Charged G.B.H, Like Drones in Honey  The Exploited, Let's Start a War  Chaos UK, The Riot City Years  7 Seconds, The Crew  Minor Threat, Complete Discography ---------------------------------James Lewis : a d s a l e s  The Crown, Deathrace King  All Out War, Celestial Rot  Memoriam, Rise to Power  Enslaved, Heimdal  Dryad, The Abyssal Plain ---------------------------------Mike Wohlberg : a r t d i r e c t o r  World of Pleasure, World of Pleasure & Friends  Deadbody, The Requiem  Jesus Piece, So Unknown  Rotten Sound, Apocalypse  Kruelty, Untopia ---------------------------------Aaron Salsbury : m a r k e t i n g a n d s a l e s  Blackbraid, Blackbraid I  Malignant Altar, Retribution of Jealous Gods  Escuela Grind, Non Serviam  Strychnos, A Mother’s Curse  Venomous Concept, The Good Ship Lollipop

GUEST SLAYER

---------------------------------Derrick Vella : t o m b m o l d / d r e a m u n e n d i n g / o u t e r h e av e n  Veldune, Veldune  Innumerable Forms, Philosophical Collapse  The Gathering, How to Measure a Planet?  Bruce Cockburn, Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws  Michael Manring, The Book of Flame

DECIBEL MAGAZINE METAL & BEER FEST: DENVER 2022

Hooded menace  Mystery men Thantifaxath faced a sold-out Denver crowd that was anything but a void

fter three years in california, Decibel finally took our West Coast edition Metal & WHEN: December 2-3, 2022 Beer Fest to where it should have always PHOTOS BY HILLARIE JASON been: Denver, CO. While the December temperatures were comparatively frigid, we felt the warmth of the Mile High City. Sure, all of that incredibly awesome, event-exclusive beer likely helped make things toasty, too. But those high-gravity pours weren’t always beneficial for recalling details of the 13 sets from the first year of Metal & Beer Fest’s new second home. Good thing four of the contributors in attendance were off the sauce. —ALBERT MUDRIAN WHERE:

Summit, Denver, CO

• FRIDAY •

IN THE COMPANY OF SERPENTS

During a quick pre-gig conversation with J.P. Damron, the In the Company of Serpents drummer quipped that there was no way, no how his band of dusty troubadours were going to outmetal anyone on the fest’s stacked bill. Hence, the lap steel; the spitter-soaked, curled-lip vocals; and the subdued, but still thunderous western twang acting as placemat for the cacophony of death and black metal history to follow. ITCOS’ approach was part emotional connection with past spirits and part exhumation via galloping sludge that, deliberately or not, provided the appropriate soundtrack for the tumbleweed barrage blown 14 : M A RCH 2022 : DECIBEL

in from the dry mountains during the previous day’s record windstorm. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO SUGGESTED PAIRING: Black Sky’s Chasm at the Mouth of the Ale

ORYX

“We’re ORYX, and we're here to destroy your fucking eardrums,” said guitarist/vocalist Tommy Davis. Which was true—his band deals out doom, the amp worship kind that bends front row bodies in half—but the whole proposition was so much more, thanks to a curious setup that had Davis at stage right, bassist Eric Dodgion in the center and drummer Abbey Davis at stage left. You came for the riffs ,but stayed for the rhythm section. It was a living, pulsing tunnel of low

end—think the sandworms of Dune. Entranced festgoers were treated to new material and a mind-flaying of the highest order. —COSMO LEE SUGGESTED PAIRING: Black Sky’s ORYX Abyss Lager

BLACK ANVIL

Black Anvil made a solid claim to the throne of

New York black metal with their latest album, Regenesis. Alongside their tourmates in Dark Funeral, the New Yorkers rolled through Denver to deliver their no-bullshit approach to black metal: thrashy, mean and aggressive. Playing a setlist of material focused on Regenesis, Black Anvil served both melody and aggression, courtesy of bassist/vocalist Paul Delaney, who offered melodic breaks in the form of clean vocals alongside guitarist Jeremy Sosville’s captivating leads. The sold-out crowd threw their support behind Black Anvil, packing the room for the performance and setting the tone for the rest of the night. —EMILY BELLINO SUGGESTED PAIRING: Wake’s Black Anvil Stout

IMMOLATION

If you close your eyes during an Immolation set, it’s easy to imagine you’re not standing in a cozy Denver club in December. You’re in hell’s boot camp, terrified by its drill sergeant, training

 Rocky Mountain highs (clockwise from l) Paul Delaney of Black Anvil, Sherwood Webber of Skinless and Heljarmadr of Dark Funeral prove to be Fest highlights in Denver

for the underworld’s private army. On a war tour of their over 30-year catalog, the New York death metal legends commanded a ferocious set anchored by multiple cuts from 2022’s incredible Acts of God all the way back to 1991 for a crushing performance of “Burial Ground” from Dawn of Possession. Open your eyes and you’ll see a tight quartet operating with skill, precision and… a smile? Ross Dolan appeared genuinely happy to be part of the Metal & Beer festivities, thanking the fans, brewers and this here magazine. Ross, I believe I speak for everyone when I say the pleasure was all ours. —TIM MUDD SUGGESTED PAIRING: Brimming Horn’s Angel’s Fall Mead

DARK FUNERAL

I have no idea if Dark Funeral are simply embrac-

ing the over-the-top camp of their orthodox Scandinavian black metal or if there isn’t a spark of self-awareness flickering anywhere in their corpsepainted heads. But as frontman Heljarmadr led the Summit in chants of “Hail Satan!” and triumphantly waived a Dark Funeral flag as if the Swedes had just shockingly won the National League pennant, it was difficult not to reflexively return some devil horns in the spirit of black metal pageantry. That’s because Dark

Funeral completely deliver the goods live. Janne Jaloma’s exquisite kit annihilation through a set based heavily on the band’s most recent pair of quietly awesome LPs was a clear highlight. Though unearthing the title track from their The Secrets of the Black Arts debut was a reminder that Lord Ahriman and co. have forged irony-free classics for nearly 30 years. —ALBERT MUDRIAN SUGGESTED PAIRING: TRVE’s Decibrew 2.0 Kölsch Ale

CANNIBAL CORPSE

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen death

metal’s reigning kings live. I know that when George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher asks how many ladies are in the audience, he will be met with a distinctly male roar of the crowd. When he announces that they have one song left, I know he’s full of shit. As faces are being hammersmashed in, I know the crowd will stop to catch Alex Webster’s bass solo. And yet, every time is as sickeningly sweet as the first. The quintet has sharpened their set into a career-spanning perfect killing machine. I’ll never be able to headbang as fast as Mr. Grinder, but that’s not going to stop me from trying. —MICHAEL WOHLBERG SUGGESTED PAIRING: 3 Floyds’ Amber Smashed Face Amber Ale

• SATURDAY •

GLACIAL TOMB

Temperatures dipped into the 20s this weekend,

but I saw so many Denverites in T-shirts and shorts that I had to Google it. The most cogent explanation I found was that buildings are heated so fiercely in winter that people dress down accordingly. If so, this was definitely true for Day 2 of the fest, where I walked in and had my face melted off by Morbid Angel-but-better-than-they’ve-been-inyears death metal. For a three-piece, Glacial Tomb sounded positively engulfing—they could have been closing the day, not opening it. Their huge, munching chords and serpentine melodies painted an emotional landscape that festgoers heartily appreciated. —COSMO LEE SUGGESTED PAIRING: Metal Monkey’s Breath of Pestilence Czech Style Pilsner

WAKE

The five o’clock hour may feel a touch early to

conjure wretchedly beautiful auras from the ether, but apparently not for Wake. The Calgary black/death sorcerers gathered a storm in the room with “Infinite Inward” and “Mourning Dirge (Repose of the Dead)” from 2022’s phenomenal Thought Form Descent. After dipping briefly into 2020’s Devouring Ruin with an excellent DECIBEL : M A RCH 2022 : 15

DECIBEL MAGAZINE METAL & BEER FEST: DENVER 2022

Beer the reaper  Unique brews from the likes of TRVE, 3 Floyds, Brimming Horn, Black Sky, Wake and Bone Up kept spirits high

retelling of “The Abyssal Plain,” the quintet returned to their latest release for “Swallow the Light” and “Venerate (The Undoing of All).” Cathartic vocals, soaring guitar melodies and the best drum mix of the festival made for a compelling performance not to be missed at any future opportunity. Do not sleep on Wake. —TIM MUDD SUGGESTED PAIRING: Wake’s Infinite Inward West Coast Style IPA

OF FEATHER AND BONE

OFAB soundchecked with all manner of growls from bassist Alvino Salcedo and guitarist Dave Grant. It wasn't the usual “check one-two,” and it got even more interesting once the lights fell and the band started firing live audio ammo. On a lineup full of nasty characters, Of Feather and Bone stood out with unhinged ferocity. The stage fog wafting duskly in back and belt-fed riffs erupting without regard for personal safety made for an express elevator to the early ’90s. If you missed classic-lineup Deicide or Onward to Golgotha-era Incantation, this was your second chance. “Fuckin’ pure-ass death metal,” the guy next to me muttered afterwards, to no one in particular. —COSMO LEE SUGGESTED PAIRING: Bone Up’s Embrace of Death Session Ale With Lime and Pineapple

THANTIFAXATH

If Fellini had a metal band score his films, Thantifaxath could be it. There's something to be said for a band so committed to confrontation that it soundchecks with pop-punk. The antagonism continued with the set proper. At first, it read like noise rock from hell, all jagged angles with an oddly clean mix, not 16 : M A RCH 2022 : DECIBEL

what one would expect from hooded black robes à la Portal. But as in Halloween, the monster gradually took shape, impassive and menacing. By the end, it was openly brandishing metal, Voivod meets Blut Aus Nord maybe, and somehow a pit had formed, though I don’t know what quadratic equations the moshers were solving to find the rhythm. —COSMO LEE SUGGESTED PAIRING: KCBC’s Void Masquerading as Matter Black Lager

WAYFARER

As the opening notes of “The Curtain Pulls

Back” crept through the Summit, the members of Wayfarer took up their instruments on a stage draped in red light. Drawing predominantly from 2020’s A Romance With Violence, the masters of Western black metal drove through the first two acts of “Gallows Frontier” before treating the audience to an untitled new song. “Intermission” gave way to a stunning rendition of “Vaudeville” before closing with a vicious performance of “Animal Crown” from 2018’s World’s Blood. During the set, I was jolted by the memory of being similarly mesmerized by another group of local legends at the nearby Ogden Theatre 25 years earlier. To draw a direct musical line between 16 Horsepower and Wayfarer is a natural evolution of Denver’s West-inspired music, both deserved and earned. —TIM MUDD

WarPigs’ The Dreaming Plain North-German Style Keller Pils

SUGGESTED PAIRING:

SKINLESS

in a pre-headliner lull, right? Brutal death miscreants Skinless and their logo-adorned fans had none of that as they celebrated, in fully gory glory, nearly 30 years since initial formation. Replete with old-school picks like “Tug of War Intestines” and absurd horror-movie-humor intros (“Rivers of gore! Rivers of gore!”), 9 p.m. on day two was undeniably a peak in energy. And if the combination of relentless brutality, crowd-leveling grooves and stage-mounted cryo geysers (!) somehow wasn’t enough, the Caveman Kölsch collab with Black Sky Brewery pulled attendees into total death metal giddiness. Need proof? Check out closing “Skinless – HillyBilly pit” on YouTube. —JAMES LEWIS SUGGESTED PAIRING: Black Sky’s Skinless Caveman Kölsch

PIG DESTROYER

It just feels wrong to throw a festival in a new

city without Pig Destroyer, so we brought them with us. The grindcore legends laid waste to the Summit, playing a variety of material from throughout their career. It’s not easy to follow 45 minutes of crowd-inciting knuckledragger death metal, but frenzied renditions of songs like “Piss Angel” kept the energy way up. Frontman J.R. Hayes presided over the crowd like a deranged minister, firing off sharp quips in between songs. Closing out the weekend in a packed room, Pig Destroyer owned the stage like it was their practice space and not a 1,200cap venue. The crowd, the band and Decibel staff all agreed: This is beautiful, this is art. —EMILY BELLINO

Considering the bands playing and beers pour-

SUGGESTED PAIRING:

ing, the weekend’s dozenth set could’ve resulted

Dry Stout

3 Floyds’ Starbelly

Y ISEMAN

TNE BY COUR

Rudolph’s Shitty New Year, Again think I’m hitting my midlife crisis,

which would make sense since I’m nearly elderly. Am I looking at sports cars and a young mistress, as the cliché would lead you to believe? Don’t be a nitwit—I can’t afford either of those things. Really, the only physical marker of this crisis is I’m trying to grow my hair long for the first time in 15 years. I’m at the point where I look like I’m an extra in a ’70s pornographic motion picture, which means I’m about six weeks away from looking like the fucking Quaker Oats guy. Terrific. No, my midlife crisis is my inability to describe anything musically without referencing the 1990s. I can think of 14 different ways to describe jism when I’m writing, but only three to describe metal: early-’90s, mid-’90s and (that’s right) late-’90s. I (briefly) went to school for this shit—you’d think I could yank more out of my vocabulary, the 17 percent of it that isn’t a thesaurus for cum, but I tend to draw a blank. And that’s frustrating because it feels like I’m now stuck being an old guy talking about his youth, the same guy who’d hang around the record store talking about how he used to do coke and pre-teens while listening to Foreigner back when both of those things were legal. At least I think they were—I didn’t pass the bar. Also, since at least at the end of the year, I’ve written about music that, it could be said, I’m doing a disservice to the bands I’m writing about. But fuck ’em: I’m more concerned that I can pull an AC/DC/Ramones/Motörhead with ejaculation references than accurately describing an album enough to make people want to listen to it. This is all about me, OK? We’re now a tinkle into the new year, with the holidays behind us and tax season right ahead. Did you make resolutions? I’m sure they’re mostly broken by now. I’m writing this a few days before 2022 comes to a close, so technically 18 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

I can still make mine and say they’re not broken. Yet. So, should I resolve to become a better writer? A decent—dare I say—music journalist? Yeah, no. I stopped aspiring to be anything approaching professional for a few reasons. I’m almost unable to approach any topic without a personal bias and/or frame of reference because I’m selfcentered. Technically, I’m a mess of a writer. My punctuation is atrocious, my grammar is dogshit, and I craft run-on sentences with the precision of a military strike that missed its target and hit a birthday party. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time, which is how I’ve gone through nearly 45 years on this planet. When something I’ve written gets called out for a lack of proper journalism, you’ll never see me disagree. Saying what I do constitutes that profession is disrespectful to the people who actually know what they’re doing, who do research, who don’t constantly have an extra tab open to Google proper word use. Lumping me in with them is an insult… to them. I’m honestly just lucky that I have a platform to piss about and talk about records I dig, or the time I threw a beer bottle while onstage and it hit the sound guy’s console, effectively ending a festival for the day and causing me to be banned from playing Germany ever again. So, my New Year’s Resolution™ is to continue to be a fucking twit and leave the polished, heavy lifting to the professionals. And to be grateful that I have the opportunity to do so and that 11 of you continue to read and snicker at it. Also, I won’t cut my hair before I look like a medieval squire. Self-flagellation and all that— good for the soul I hear. It’s because all three bands I mentioned earlier have dozens of albums that are all variations on the same thing. Jokes really land with footnotes.

Different Beers Demand Different Serving Sizes, but How Possible Is That With Cans?

ne size fits all” does not apply

to craft beer. We want tall pours of light lagers, petite pours of boozy stouts and varying size-and-style pairings in between. Bars and taprooms choose glassware accordingly, but for the most part, this sizing consideration has been virtually impossible in packaging. That’s been starting to change, however; 19.2-ounce cans have soared in popularity for certain brands in certain retail channels the past few years, and more recently, some breweries are offering eight-ounce cans. Is more sizing variety a trend we count on growing? Do we want it to? And do the size options always correlate to the styles and ABVs we’d expect? Posing a question about size options in beer cans on Twitter was met with different responses, all favorable. Some seemed obvious: People like a smaller serving of higher-alcohol beer, a larger serving of an easier-drinking beer, and certain occasions increased the attraction, like concerts, where prices are already high and you don’t want to be making too many bar trips. Dig a bit deeper, though, and some logic for the reverse—higher ABVs in tall cans—appears. A stovepipe of a boozier beer scratches an itch when you want a good serve, but wouldn’t want to have a whole second can.

Stick that in your stovepipe  With smaller 8-ounce options becoming more of a rarity, more beers (such as East Brother Beer Co.’s Bo Pils) are turning to larger stovepipe cans

Indeed, breweries pour different styles into different cans for different reasons. Richmond, CA’s East Brother Beer Co. cans its Bo Pils and Gold IPA in stovepipes. Co-founder Rob Lightner sees them as “offering consumers the opportunity to try out a new brand or style without purchasing an entire six- or fourpack.” Sierra Nevada tall-cans both its lowerABV Pale Ale and higher-ABV Atomic Torpedo and Big Little Thing Double IPA; marketing manager Adam Zuniga says it’s more bang for a consumer’s buck and a nice compromise between one 16-ouncer and two 12-ouncers. There’s a similar range of reasoning for eight-ounce cans. Evil Twin Brewing in New York City has used them for bigger beers like double-digit ABV barrel-aged barley wines. But arguably the best-known shorty is Lil Buddy, a 4.2% lager from Chicago’s Hopewell Brewing. There are many reasons a light beer in a small can makes sense. Co-founder Jonathan Fritz says Lil Buddy is an ideal Bloody Mary sidecar, perfect for taking a break during wine- or cocktail-focused parties, and clutch when you just want a bit of beer by yourself (whereas big beers still seem logical in big formats, Fritz says; they’re “party beers,” great for sharing). The bevy of consumer preferences and drinking occasions certainly supports size variety. But the logistics may mean we shouldn’t expect to see 19.2- and eight-ounce options from all our favorite breweries. Eightouncers are especially challenging. “From a price standpoint, they don’t make any sense,” says Evil Twin founder Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø. “People look at cans to be a certain price point, and when we age beers for three-plus years, we just can’t sell them at a low enough price so people feel they aren’t overpaying.”

Urban Artifact in Cincinnati uses both eight- and 19.2-ounce cans; CFO Scotty Hunter says they have a canning line adaptable to different sizes, a rarity for most breweries, while Fritz says that getting Hopewell’s can supplier to keep manufacturing eight-ounce cans has been an ongoing conversation, one completely (if temporarily) shut down amid 2020’s aluminum shortage. Don’t rely on shorties becoming ubiquitous. Expect plenty of stovepipes, but more typically from bigger breweries. Brewbound Managing Editor Jessica Infante says 19.2ounce cans are the fastest-growing craft format according to NielsenIQ data shared by Bump Williams Consulting. They made up five percent of craft sales in 2022, and she expects this to grow. However, many smaller breweries don’t have the budget to add another size to their can order, or the equipment to adjust their own canning lines, and one of the most crucial markets for stovepipes are convenience stores, which smaller breweries often can’t reach through distribution. 19.2-ounce cans are best for flagship brands, says BeerCrunchers blogger and Revolution Brewing chief strategy officer Doug Veliky. “I think every brewery on the cusp of being big, say 10,000-15,000 barrels, has considered/is considering this format,” he offers. “It’s really hard to sell enough through a taproom; those aren’t a ‘grab ‘n’ go’ destination. So, you need to be with a big distributor usually to be able to service gas stations, chain drugstores, etc.” The takeaway? Your well-known beers may be easy to grab on any old corner in a stovepipe, but if you want smaller pours, you might just have to share.

DECIBEL : M A RCH 202 3 : 19

CONTRARIAN

Rochester progressive extreme metal wizards wow with riffs and hooks

ew york-based tech-death mavens Contrarian are finding life “loose and nuanced” on new album Sage of Shekhinah. Whereas previous effort Only Time Will Tell harried involuted angles at unbelievable speeds to honor progressive metal—yet drive it forward—the group’s newest collection of songs quiesce the firestorm with remarkable restraint. Just don’t call it death metal. ¶ “I think the music [on Sage of Shekhinah] adheres to progressive metal and not so much to what has come to be known as technical death metal or tech-death,” says Contrarian guitarist/mastermind Jim Tasikas. Certainly, Contrarian’s death by association goes back to their 2014 EP Predestined, and while they’ve not shied away from influence (like on their raging cover of Death’s “The Philosopher”) or partnership (they recently toured with stalwarts Suffocation), new songs like “Ibn al Rawandi,” “Apollonius of Tyana” and the title track offer up the songwriting chops of Fates Warning, Watchtower, King Diamond and Queensrÿche. 20 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

That’s not say Contrarian have suddenly re-nerded their musical equation. Actually, they’ve just rebalanced the panoply of possible input. “I really enjoy the songs ‘In Gehenna’ and ‘Zabur of Satfiyah al Shamal,’” Tasikas says. “They are super-layered, but I feel at the same time have the right amount of hook for this type of music.” Grabbing listeners by their proverbial skronk is what Contrarian have done well over four albums. To do that, Tasikas has kept house with longtime partners Brian Mason (guitars) and Ed Paulsen (bass). The core team posits stability, while the rotating vocalist and drum slots— now powered by Floridian Jakob Sin and New Yorker Alex Cohen, respectively—have offered color and style. But it’s the production teams that have given Contrarian its ability to project with daedalian effect. This time it’s Grammywinning producer Neil Kernon and

famed mastering pro Alan Douches who have given Contrarian’s Sage its might. “It is very important to the core members of Contrarian that we keep the production natural,” says Tasikas. “We want the craft competence to be understood organically. This is probably one of the divergences with modern tech-death. To do this, we needed ‘traditional’ production. The best people for this kind of job were these two guys.” Poindexters will no doubt direct attention to the lack of an instrumental, but Tasikas is one step ahead. He’s got an album of instrumentals coming via his first solo album, Escaping Depravity. “From the feedback we have seen and heard, people really enjoy those instrumentals,” he says. “And yes, my solo album picks up off that style and makes it into a full concept album. I am really excited to get that music out there!” —CHRIS DICK

ZULU

Progressive powerviolence purveyors expand palette on full-length debut

ulu got a taste of the big time via two successful EPs, but the rising powerviolence crew is more than ready to prove it wasn’t just a fluke. On the band’s first album, A New Tomorrow, Zulu demostrates they have the stamina for a full-length while nudging their sound forward. ¶ “I was excited to put out the next record because I knew what I wanted to do,” vocalist Anaiah Lei says. “Vision-wise, I knew what I wanted to accomplish, and I had that confidence when doing the record.” ¶ A New Tomorrow isn’t too far a cry from the powerviolence and fast, heavy hardcore sound that Zulu—once Lei’s solo project, now a full band—established on their first two EPs, Our Day Will Come and My People… Hold On, but Lei isn’t afraid to show listeners the other styles of music he enjoys. On A New Tomorrow, listeners are treated to snippets of jazz, soul, spoken word, reggae, world music and more. Sometimes this manifests as bookends on heavier songs, sometimes standalone tracks,

22 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

and sometimes it’s infused directly into the heavy side, such as album closer “Who Jah Bless No One Curse.” Lei didn’t want to cause whiplash for existing fans, but he has his eyes set on what Zulu can continue to become. “I did it in a way that’s not overkill,” he reasons, “and I’m not introducing this insanely new sound that people aren’t familiar with, but it was something where it was like, I want this to be different, so [for] the people that are fans, that have heard Zulu before, it isn’t a complete shock that they’re hearing this. I would hope they would think, ‘OK, it’s a development. Every band goes through that.’” A New Tomorrow is a serious record with serious themes, many centered on the experience of being a Black American, but it’s apparent that Lei and his bandmates are always having fun. It’s clear in the way he talks about playing every instrument

on the record (the other members contributed, but Lei handled the majority), in the band’s music videos and how often he describes parts of Zulu’s success as “fun as heck.” “I’ve seen people that aren’t even remotely into hardcore getting into it,” he says. “I’ve seen people from different worlds tapping in with it. That’s cool because it’s already such a specific style—it’s not like we’re just a hardcore band, but it’s very different and people acknowledge that, but they like it.” The future is bright for the quintet, which will release A New Tomorrow while on tour with Show Me the Body, Scowl and Jesus Piece in March. As for reservations about the future? Lei doesn’t have them. “I don’t even question it, but it’s cool that we’re able to play on these different types of shows and different types of lineups and still people rock with it.” —EMILY BELLINO

PHOTO BY ALICE BAXLEY

ZULU

ANCIENT MASTERY

ANCIENT MASTERY Epic black metal project conquers by the power of real-world resistance

esistance, revolution, triumph—certainly words that describe power metal, but not necessarily in the way Austrian songwriter Erech Leleth’s Ancient Mastery would incorporate those themes. ¶ “Power metal songs tend to be about royalty,” opines Leleth. “Kings and queens, and not so much about the normal day-to-day people who have a different point of view, and that was a big inspiration for this new album. I wanted to have a different point of view and a revolutionary sense in this escapist music.” ¶ With a notably antifascist bent, black metal-by-way-of-power metal project Ancient Mastery weaves a tale of the mythical land of Valdura and the trials of its common folk as they resist a privileged ruling class. Having cited a preference for representing non-regal classes, Leleth’s rich storytelling and catchy songwriting on new album Chapter Two: The Resistance find a home in the thatch-roof cottages of the working class. Finding comfort in his own world, expressing an important message and identifying a real-world example of resistance is what Leleth feels fulfills this project’s ethos.

24 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

“I’m not politically active, in a way,” he notes. “I’d like to be. It works best if I sit in my room and not go out in the streets, so I wanted to incorporate elements like resistance, a corrupt government, injustice by politicians against the people, things that we see now in countries like Ukraine. I thought it would be condescending to make a fantasy album about resistance when there is real injustice in the world, and I was putting all my effort into this fantasy.” Ancient Mastery comes from an extended universe of Lelethhelmed projects, be it Bergfried’s sultry, folk-inspired heavy/power metal, Carathis’ guitar heroicsforward black metal or Grandeur’s dense songwriting, but this particular project exists in the center of this universe. “I think Ancient Mastery became the most popular project of mine,

and I think it’s the root of it all,” reasons Leleth, “because there are projects that started before, but I put the most effort into Ancient Mastery, especially now with Chapter Two. All these other projects started to revolve around Ancient Mastery, which is the base of this universe I’ve created.” As Ancient Mastery developed and reflected more of its songwriter’s power metal, heavy metal and opera influences (the artist agrees that Chapter Two is a “theatrical” listen), the sound became more automatic and easier to compose. Rather than taking the “mystical” approach to describing his process, Leleth offers this explanation: “I needed a therapeutic outlet, but Ancient Mastery is not that anymore. It’s just something I don’t question anymore. I wake up and start writing songs. There is no secret behind it anymore.” —JON ROSENTHAL

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NARROW HEAD

now, you’ve surely popped a JNCO boner for the Sick New World festival, set ta blast mid-May in Vegas—it’s basically the nü-metal equivalent of last year’s emo (or “emo”) jamboree When We Were Young, with Decibot-approved luminaries Orgy, Cold, P-Roach and Alien Ant Farm tickling your chocolate starfish alongside a curious amount of Actually Good Bands (Melvins, Killing Joke, Mr. Bungle, Failure). Well, here’s another one of the latter, wayyyy down the bill, that you hopefully didn’t sleep on when they opened for Gatecreeper and Quicksand the last couple years. The fact that Lone Star State heavy shoegaze outfit Narrow Head are increasingly holding their own on any bill is yet another indication that, outside of our blacker-than-thou fart-bubble, elitism is on life support. ¶ “The internet is responsible for that,” laughs vocalist/guitarist Jacob Duarte. “I mean, [elitism] is definitely still there; maybe it’s just not as loud. I know people who don’t like Gatecreeper because they’re into ‘real’ death metal. But the thing is, all these little scenes have their own thing.

26 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

Those bands are still doing fine because they have their own fans.” Over the last decade, the nowfive-piece has slowly but surely been building their own one-band scene, alchemizing the best of Helmet, Smashing Pumpkins, Ride and all things Justin Broadrick en route to truly coming into their own on third album Moments of Clarity (Run for Cover). “[Guitarist] Kora [Puckett] said it best: We wanted to make the pops poppier and the heavy heavier, both directions full force,” Duarte explains. “That’s just our style, too. We all fuck with metal and we’re all into different shit, but rock was the first thing we got into, so it makes sense why we’re making this music.” One of the more impressive qualities of Moments’ second half is how organically the boys can pivot from Kevin Shields pedal worship (“The World”) to caveman hardcore

(“Gearhead”) and dystopian industrial (“Flesh and Solitude”), yet no false alarms should sound despite those three tracks following a slew of melodic earworms on the first half. Credit that to Duarte allowing the band to write lyrics with him (yes, they made the requisite Some Kind of Monster jokes in the room), which prioritized sing-along vibes. While the frontman will go guttural at times, his natural singing voice is in the ballpark of Liam Gallagher, which puts a distinctive bow on Narrow Head’s soft and savage sides. “I want to get a little nastiersounding with harsh drums and stuff,” Duarte teases of the band’s future. “Not Nine Inch Nails [per se], but I love metal-sounding snares. Metal-industrial is a territory I’d really like to step into. But also make it poppier. It sounds so opposite of each other, but I think we could do that.” —ANDREW BONAZELLI

PHOTO BY NATE KAHN

The moments aren’t too big for hammering Houston alternagazers

DECIBEL : MARCH 2023 : 27

STABBING

Even the brutal death metal riffs are bigger in Texas

THE

texas quartet behind brutal death metal upstarts Stabbing may have only been grinding it out together for the past two years, but this certainly ain’t their first rodeo. All four members are scene veterans and lifelong gore obsessives, and as guitarist Marvin Ruiz says, playing together came naturally despite the distance (bassist Meryl Martinez and drummer Rene Martinez reside in Austin, while Ruiz and vocalist Bridget Lynch are based in Houston). “It kinda forces us to work on our own craft individually and try and push ourselves when it’s time to play,” Ruiz explains. ¶ Stabbing was born of a few emails and a jam session, then came slamming onto the scene in 2021 with a nine-minute demo, an appropriately titled EP (Ravenous Psychotic Onslaught), and a slew of live dates and festival appearances. Their debut LP, Extirpated Mortal Process (Comatose Music), is a vulgar bleeding mass of vomit-thick riffs, elephantine slams and blood-gurgling vocals, fueled by horrific fantasies of cannibalism, pestilence and murder. ¶ Both Ruiz and Lynch write the lyrics, and their combined efforts are one reason Stabbing stand out from the pack. 28 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

Ruiz favors psychological horror and disappeared down a rabbit hole while writing “Leishmaniasis.” It’s inspired by the Lost City of the Monkey God, a mythic settlement deep in the Honduran jungle, which is both a nod to Ruiz’s Honduran heritage and a collection of big, stomping monster riffs (“The first riff reminds me of monkeys destroying shit,” he explains). When it’s her turn to pick up a pen, Lynch finds herself gravitating towards the classics: gore, death, depravity. “Personally, I just feel it perfectly encompasses the essence of death metal and its sound,” she says. “I like to use lyrical themes of murder involving cannibalism because to me it’s one of the most fucked-up things I can imagine in any context.” And unlike many of their musical peers, Stabbing are equal opportunity killers; only two songs on the album feature female subjects, and for very specific reasons. “It Ends

With Flames” remembers Junko Furuta, a Japanese high school girl who was abducted, tortured and murdered by her male classmates in 1989, while “Final Flesh Feast” covers the case of the Kobe Cannibal, a man who was showered in media attention after he killed and ate Renée Hartevelt in 1981. “I’ve been so bothered by these two particular cases since I first read about them,” says Lynch, who wasn’t interested in populating the album with gratuitous dead girls; there’s enough of that out there already. “As someone who grew up listening to death metal, I like the idea of having lyrics that either reverse those roles or, in the case of these two songs, draw attention to violence against women in a different way.” Newcomers or not, Stabbing are already busy slashing their own path through brutal death metal’s field of rotting corpses—and they’re out for blood in 2023. —KIM KELLY

DECIBEL : MARCH 2023 : 29

INSOMNIUM

Finnish melodic death metallers find inspiration in the frozen past

1696

sounds like a pretty shitty year to have lived in Finland—famine and extreme cold wiped out about a third of the country’s population, plus religious extremism reared its usual ugly head. Seems like subject matter rife with potential for a metal record, something not lost on the history fans in long-running death/doom act Insomnium when coming up with ideas for their ninth record. ¶ “Those years 1696-’97, in Finland, were really dark, dark, really cold,” confirms vocalist/ bassist Niilo Sevänen. “And the harvest was lost two years in a row. And people had nothing to eat, and one-third of the population died. So, really dark. And there are a lot of really dark tales, like eating each other, stuff like that—horrible, horrible stories, but very, like, interesting stuff for a dark story and for a metal album. And I had the rough idea of this story in my head for, like, five years ago, maybe. And I think in 2019 I already talked to the guys that this kind of idea [was] in my head— 30 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

how does it sound like? Should we make another concept album?” First Sevänen wrote a short story, Anno 1696, a horror tale that takes place from the perspective of three different characters: an educated doctor, a credulous peasant and his wife, who’s been accused of witchcraft. There’s also a witch hunter, who forms the basis for some of the most brutal songs on the Anno 1696 album, including the vicious “White Christ” (featuring guest vocals from Rotting Christ’s Sakis Tolis). Sevänen found that the multiple perspectives provided the kind of challenge he enjoys. “I read a lot of material, like historical works about that era,” explains Sevänen. “So, I collected a lot of words, for example, that would fit that era, some things that are not maybe used nowadays that much. And thought that okay,

these words for this character, and then this other one who’s really religious, he will use these words and things like this. So, it’s kind of something that an actor would do when he portrays some characters, writing to get inside the skins of this character. So, when you’re the writer, you have to do it several times with all the characters—and that’s, of course, interesting.” Although Sevänen penned the words, the rest of the band brought their own perspectives to the music itself—and that was a process as cruel as the Finnish winter. “There are four composers in the band,” he notes. “So, there is harsh competition; it can be brutal, and it can be frustrating. But in the end, it gives really good results, because only the very best ideas and the best riffs and songs will actually make it to the album.” —JEFF TREPPEL

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DECIBEL : MARCH 2023 : 31

EYES

fter a conversation with Eyes frontman Victor Kaas, it’s clear the Danish quintet’s second full-length, Congratulations, was inspired by two things: pop songs and conspiracy theories. ¶ “It came from the live experience with our last record,” Kaas says, discussing the first of those inspirations. “People were shouting the hookier parts back at us. We’ve never experienced that before because we usually just played heavy, chaotic stuff. Then all of a sudden people are screaming our lyrics and we thought, ‘This is fucking sick.’” ¶ Kaas digs into a fundamental concern for many heavy bands: walking the line that separates catchy, memorable, visceral music from mainstream, radio-friendly schlock. ¶ “I know accessible is a no-no word in a lot of heavy music, but we just wanted to make it easier to interpret,” Kaas explains. “Seeing a band for the first time where you get thrown all these riffs in different directions, it’s hard to grasp as an audience member. So, for the new record we really tried to make more sensical, traditional arrangements. 32 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

It’s been a learning process writing pop structures and then masking those with chaos on top.” Of course, “pop” is in the ear of the beholder, and no one will think of the Billboard Hot 100 after getting knocked around by these 10 tracks. A mixture of noise rock, punk and metalcore, this assortment of hooks may get the kids to scream along, but they’ll be fighting to be heard over belt-fed rhythms, haywire guitars and Kaas’ screeching, sardonic critiques of society. And that gets us to the second inspiration for the album. “The overarching theme is misinformation and conspiracy theories,” he says. “I was always interested in that, morbidly, but now all these ideas you used to find in the deepest, darkest cesspits of the internet have hit the mainstream. You see someone you knew from elementary school posting on Facebook that

Bill Gates is poisoning the water or whatever. The lyrics are about our world getting worse and worse, and people going inward and expressing themselves in a non-productive way online. The poor get poorer, the rich get richer, and people are talking about how the earth is flat? What the fuck?” Regardless of the world’s shape, the band hopes to tour various foreign locales to promote Congratulations. But, with a growing scene back home, the new direction Eyes are pursuing has been gaining attention. “I think we’ve started attracting a broader audience here in Denmark, with the metal community also embracing us,” Kaas says. “So, we have a leg in the hardcore scene, a toe dipping in the metal scene and maybe people who don’t really listen to heavier music will start getting into the stuff we make.” —SHANE MEHLING

PHOTO BY PETER TROEST

EYES

Danish noisecore purveyors want to teach the world to sing… and read

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DECIBEL : MARCH 2023 : 33

ULTHAR

fter so many similar examples, when you read that a band—particularly a death or black metal band—is going to release two albums at the same time and one of them only has two 20-minute songs, your mind immediately jumps to ambient/non-metal music. Particularly if it’s a band known for its complexity, both musical and lyrical, like Ulthar. Also, these sister albums are called Helionomicon and Anthronomicon, so they should totally be pulling a Tangerine Dream-esque Blood Incantation/Wolves in the Throne Room on us. ¶ “Nah, nah. That’s too easy,” guitarist/vocalist Shelby Lermo scoffs jokingly. And he’s right—it’s so much simpler than that. “The idea for the two albums was mine originally; we had all this time in our hands because of COVID, and we all love creating music. Me and Steve [Peacock, bassist/vocalist] each wrote four songs for Anthronomicon and then each of us wrote one song for Helionomicon. It was like, here’s our assignment, let’s get to work!” ¶ Knowing they were writing for a two-song album in the case of Helionomicon didn’t change much in the approach. “To a certain extent, but not that much,” Shelby confirms. 34 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

“Basically, those songs, they’re not doom songs; they’re not like Sleep’s Jerusalem or something. They’re just 20-minute Ulthar songs. It was just like writing a really long Ulthar song, with a lot more riffs.” There are certainly riffs aplenty in both albums, twisting and writhing like the surreal cosmic horrors the lyrics and artwork so viciously illustrate, which is really not a surprise if you’ve heard Ulthar before. With these guys, you might not know what you’re getting, but... you still know what you’re getting. Don’t be confused, Shelby explains it much better. “I don’t feel like we’ve changed all that much,” he offers. “We still sound like the same band. The music itself is so weird and unpredictable that I don’t feel we need to have big sweeping changes or artistic statements to call attention. In every song we’re making odd decisions and wrong decisions—we

pride ourselves in making wrong decisions. I don’t feel we need to do our Black Album to prove a point. We have ideas that we are expressing.” Also, those tentacles aren’t going anywhere either. “At this point, it’s built in,” Shelby says. “Especially with the artwork of Ian Miller in every album, if people think of Ulthar, they’ll think of these psychedelic space tentacle monsters, and I’m happy with that because it fits the music perfectly.” And what if these two monstrous albums turn out to be hard to follow up? “We’ve talked about it, and none of us are worried. We’ve been joking we should do, like, a threesong EP of two-chord punk songs next. Just to fuck with people’s heads. After doing this huge project that was such a mindfuck to finish, we should go for something really simple.” So, a psychedelic space tentacle punk/death/black EP by 2024? Sign us up! —JOSÉ CARLOS SANTOS

PHOTO BY MELISSA PETISA

Bicoastal project delivers double the black/death cosmic horror madness

DECIBEL : MARCH 2023 : 35

hile the verdict is still out on what selling out actually means and

what constitutes doing so, know that whatever the term entails, it’ll mean something completely different in the mind of Sanguisugabogg frontman Devin Swank. Despite being two LPs into a multi-album contract with Century Media, don’t expect the Columbus, OH-based quartet of death metal ascendants to show up at a skate park gig (the scene of recent promo video “Necrosexual Deviant”) during runs supporting Nile, Incantation and Cannibal Corpse, or the next time they’re invited to chug ‘n’ slug at a future Metal & Beer Fest—all of the above were accomplished and conquered in 2022—with their backs turned on illegible logos, caveman riffs and breakdowns, videos featuring murderous cocks and animated weed-huffing renditions of Canadian cultural icons Bob and Doug McKenzie, and songs about “Black Market Vasectomy” and “Testicular Rot,” both from latest album, Homicidal Ecstasy. 36 : M A PARRICLH2 02 20 12 3: :D D EE C ICBI B EE LL

“We just like to be funny,” Swank laughs. “That’s all of our personalities, and it shines through. I don’t plan on selling out or changing just because we’re on a big label. If anything, it gives us more power to be funnier and do whatever we want because our label has a budget. If we want to do a cool cartoon video or have some dumb T-shirt design, I feel like we have more leeway than ever. The perception we want is of a musically serious band that still likes to have fun and fuck off a lot. “A couple adjustments we’ve had to make,” he begins when asked about being pre-pandemic local shit disturbers and post-pandemic rising label stars, “is that we’re trying to refrain from going a little too far and saying yes to every single idea that comes into our heads.

We’re actually having to sit and think on some things and make sure everyone is happy before we move forward. We’ve also had to keep on our toes as far as doing interviews, videos, teasers and doing everything right not just by our standards, but by the label’s standards. Back then, we could drop a bunch of music tomorrow that we finished today. Now, we have to do big boy stuff like take Century Media into consideration.” To that end, Swank describes Homicidal Ecstasy as the record of Sanguisugabogg’s limited discography he’s proudest of. Writing started at the beginning of 2022 and was completed shortly after their appearance at the Philly Metal & Beer Fest six months later. A full-fledged return to touring once COVID restrictions were loosened helped to sharpen the band’s creation and delivery of medium-rare grooves, incisive riffing and ridiculous velocity swings. “This was the first thing we did as a band where we really took the time to not rush everything,” Swank notes. “We even delayed the recording two or three times because we wanted to feel the most comfortable. We put all of our hearts into this record and we’re pretty excited about it. “Our first releases weren’t entirely collaborative. We wrote our first album [2021’s Tortured Whole] together, but there were some songs we were piecing together right before we hit the studio. With the pandemic, we weren’t really able to practice as much as we wanted to because one of us was really scared of getting together for months, plus we were being pressured by the label to put out a full-length. I like that album and the songs have grown on me, but as far as something with more feeling and heart to it, that’s definitely the new one.”

Lyrically and thematically, Swank has also pushed Sanguisugabogg towards new territory. While there may appear to be little progress from Tortured Whole’s “Menstrual Envy” and “Fleching Filth” to Homicidal Ecstasy’s “Face Ripped Off” and “Hungry For Your Insides,” when you peel back the layers—tear-inducing onions or rotting

THE PERCEPTION WE WANT IS OF A MUSICALLY SERIOUS BAND THAT

STILL LIKES TO HAVE FUN AND FUCK OFF A LOT. DE VIN SWANK

flesh, your choice—it becomes clear Swank has shifted away from dick and fart jokes, gross-out humor and pornogrind puns toward a deeper exploration of “the psychosexual, body horror [and] perversity,” and, of course, death’s many shades and forms.

“We stick to what we know,” the frontman shrugs. “Every record has a song about a movie. The last record had a song about the first Halloween film; on the EP [2019’s Pornographic Seizures] we wrote about a movie called Baskin; and this one I have a song about the first Scream movie. From there, I just dove into weird themes and wanting to write about stuff I’ve never written about, like a song about losing a family member. The whole thing is based on death; how death, murder and so on can be like a drug, how for some it can be euphoric and exciting, how it can be depressing, how some people want vengeance. I tried to cover a lot of ground. “I usually come up with crazy, tough or scarysounding song titles at first, then I’ll listen to the music and think of patterns from there,” he says about his peculiar creative style. “Honestly, man, it’s almost like a freestyle thing. I smoke a bunch of weed and get violently high. I’ll put the music on and also put on Kill Count compilations, a weird Dario Argento movie or a slasher flick, and mute it. Then I’ll dial in on what’s going on and how I would apply it to a different story and the music. I don’t know why that helps, but it’s my process.”

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interview by

QA KARL j. bennett

WI T H

WILLETTS MEMORIAM frontman on war in Europe, the glory days of U.K. death metal and the band’s new album

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IT’S

wet… and dark. Just like my soul.” Memoriam of this right-wing ideology, which is a global

frontman Karl Willetts is describing the English weather when we catch up with him on an overseas Zoom in mid-December. The artificial background he’s selected is Dan Seagrave’s excellent cover art for Memoriam’s new fulllength, Rise to Power, which is the second album in the band’s second trilogy. Somehow, the veteran U.K. death metal squad—which features the former Bolt Thrower vocalist alongside ex-Sacrilege members Frank Healy (bass) and Spike Smith (drums), plus Massacre guitarist Scott Fairfax—has released five albums in the last six years. “And we’re already in the process of writing album number six,” Willetts reveals. “We’ll go into the studio sometime in the middle of 2023. We’re showing signs of progress in our old age!” ¶ Fans of the members’ previous work will recognize more than a glimmer of English extremity’s glory days in Rise to Power, which is easily Memoriam’s finest work to date. “We set out to recreate the feel of what it was like when we first started in the late ’80s, when bands released an album a year and that flow of creativity was very much alive,” our man says. “I think we’ve managed to encompass that feeling, and we’ve achieved a lot in the relatively short time we’ve been together. Long may it continue!” How did you approach Rise to Power differently than Memoriam’s previous album, To the End?

The only thing that really changed is the drum side of things. Spike joined the band about three or four weeks before we went in to record the last album, so he heard the songs in their complete state and had just a few weeks to learn them. He didn’t have much of a chance to put his own style or input on them. But we saw a bit more of what he could do on “As My Heart Grows Cold,” the last song on that album, and I think that was a good stepping point forward to this album. Now he’s been with us for nearly two years, so he’s been able to imprint his ability more on these new songs. Spike has an impressive pedigree with Sacrilege, English Dogs and the Damned. How did he change things for you guys?

The way we write hasn’t really changed. Scott still has his million-dollar riff vault and comes up with all this amazing stuff. If you follow him on Facebook, you’ll see him posting videos of himself writing songs virtually every night. That’s what he does. He fixes cars during the daytime, and then comes home and writes songs. If he’s not writing for us, he’s writing for his other band, As the World Dies, or some side project. He’s continuously creating. So, we’ve got an absolute wealth of material to work with. Most of us live within the outskirts of Birmingham, but Spike lives about 120 miles away, down in

Peterborough. So, there’s a bit of a distance there, and we don’t often rehearse like we used to. But he’s a professional, and he makes the rest of us look like amateurs. And he’s the king of D-beat, which is something we haven’t explored with him to date—but we’re working on it for the next album. The opening track “Never Forget, Never Again (6 Million Dead)” is a reference to the Holocaust.

I’ve been trying to write a song about the Holocaust for 15, 20 years. Whenever I’ve sat down to try and write one in the past, I’ve always shied away from it or thought it was a bit too emotive or thought the lyrics I was writing didn’t give it the gravity that the topic deserved. But when I heard the verse riff that Scott wrote, it was so melancholy that I thought, “That’s the one.” That was the spark of inspiration for me to write these lyrics that I’ve been trying to write for so many years. And the lyrics were inspired by firsthand accounts. There are a lot of interviews with survivors of the horrors of the Holocaust, and of course they’re all getting older. But their stories need to be retained, retold and passed onto future generations. Otherwise, they get lost. It was my position, I felt, to make them heard. But it’s such a difficult subject matter to talk about, really. What got you thinking along those lines?

It was very much inspired by the resurgence

disease. Part of the discourse of that ideology is Holocaust denial, and sometimes you hear it from areas where you just wouldn’t expect it. It’s abhorrent, in my opinion, so I felt I needed to make social comment. As human beings, I feel it’s our collective responsibility to make sure these things don’t happen again. I understand that “Total War” was inspired by the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Again, drawing reference from the world around us. I see every album as a snapshot of the particular time in which it was written. A couple of years ago, the lyrics I wrote were very much focused on racial inequality and things like that, but this one was heavily influenced by the war that is very much on our doorstep. We’re only a few thousand kilometers away from World War III here. It’s another example of a nationalistic, right-wing ideology trying to assert itself—this time by invading a sovereign country. The reasoning behind it is to “de-Nazify” it. There might be a small percentage of Nazis in Ukraine, but there are probably a damn sight more Nazis in my backyard than there are in Ukraine. And there’s definitely a lot more in your backyard than Ukraine. And certainly more in the Russian Federation. So, it’s ironic, and I felt it was important to make comment. You’re obviously no stranger to writing songs about war.

War is something I’ve always written about— since ’87 or ’88—but more recently I’ve been writing songs about life experience and growing old, as I am, and life and loss and all that. On this album, all of these themes have kind of merged into one. Never more have the words I’ve written about war been more relevant. I would’ve never imagined there would be a war in Europe in 2022. It’s a shocking situation to behold, and it’s so immediate and in your face because of social media, so it’s had a big impact on the lyrical direction of this album. The entire theme of Bolt Thrower was war…

Yeah, it had to be about war. Couldn’t be about anything else! Nothing more, nothing less. [Laughs] But I suppose it’s my default. I could write songs about war in my sleep. In the past, I’ve attempted with Memoriam to not write every song about war, but to actually inject some sociopolitical and cultural elements, with songs about life and aging and experience, but as I said, it seems to all have merged on this album. But this time the war aspect is real and happening right now. DECIBEL : MARCH 2023 : 39

Modern warfare  Even after 35 years, Willetts (center r) and his comrades in Memoriam are still fighting the good fight

There might be a small percentage of Nazis in Ukraine, but there are probably a damn sight more Nazis in my backyard than there are in Ukraine. And there’s definitely a lot more in your backyard than Ukraine. You made a video for the song “All Is Lost.” The director, Hal Sinden, has said that he felt the lyrics of the song “unexpectedly resonated with current affairs in the U.K.” Do you feel the same way?

His interpretation is a bit different than mine, but we’re quite pleased with what he’s done. The video has won an award in the U.K. already and been nominated for some others in America. He’s Donald Sinden’s nephew, the classic British actor, and he had such a clear, concise idea of what he wanted to achieve with the video. From my perspective, “All Is Lost” is a song about when all seems to be going wrong, but it’s got a positive end to it about moving on and seizing the moment and living for today. But he translated it into the crowning of this new king character behind me, which does tie in quite nicely with the album cover. From that perspective, it does relate to the death of our monarch and the crowning of a new king. But we didn’t intend it that way. We didn’t have anything to do with the death of our queen, I must say. It wasn’t our fault! How do you view the Queen’s passing?

It was a huge historical event for us. I’m not a monarchist in any way, shape or form, but it did have an effect on the nation’s psyche. If there’s one thing you can say about the Queen, she was constant. She’s been there since before I was born, and now that’s all changed. And it did, for 40 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

a small moment in time, unite a disparate and disunified United Kingdom in grief.

the moment, but I’ve backed myself into a bit of a corner.

The first three Memoriam albums were a trilogy, and Rise to Power is the second album in a new trilogy. Can you tell us a bit about the new storyline?

Dan Seagrave has done the cover art for all the Memoriam albums, not to mention some of the greatest extreme metal records of all time. How did you know he was your guy?

The idea of the first trilogy came to me when I saw the artwork Dan Seagrave had done for our first album, For the Fallen, with the coffin being carried across the ravaged battlefield. I thought it was very strong visually and could be used as a vehicle to tell a story. That story went through the first three albums, which I refer to as “the death cycle,” because the coffin was the central focus of all three. We never saw this character— the king, the leader—in a state of being alive. When we finished the first trilogy, it aligned with us leaving Nuclear Blast and starting with our new label, Reaper—so it was very much a new beginning for us, with a new drummer as well—so I thought we could investigate the life of this central character. The last album, To the End, is the end of his life, so it’s a bit like Star Wars—this trilogy is a prequel. I’ve gone all George Lucas on you, and we’re working backwards now. Rise to Power shows him in his glory, at the prime of his life. He’s become the king and risen to power. Hence the purple album cover, which is a very majestic color. Obviously, the next album will be moving backwards still. Not quite sure where we’re going with that at

When we started the band, we sat down to discuss what we wanted to achieve. One of the things Scott in particular wanted was to have Dan Seagrave do an album for us. We approached him for the first album, and now he’s done all of them. As I said, we wanted to capture the feel of the ’80s, and the visual element is an important part of that. And Dan creates that old-school death metal feel better than anyone else on the planet. In many respects, he’s like a fifth member of the band. I don’t think we could do an album in the trilogy concept without him. We really enjoy working with him. What do you miss about the early days of English death metal?

Not much, really. It was hard work. But it was all very fresh and new. You weren’t really aware of what you were doing—you were just doing. And it was good fun. But there was a lot driving around, doing gigs to 20 people on a Tuesday night in Ipswich. I don’t miss that. But if you’d asked me then if I thought I’d still be doing this 30 years down the road, I’d have laughed at you and said, “Most likely not.” But here we are, enjoying it more than ever.

D E C I B E L : M A R C H 2 0 2 3 : 41

the

definitive stories

behind extreme music’s

definitive albums

Crowning Achievement the making of the Crown’s Deathrace King MARCH 2023 : 4 2 : DECIBEL

joseph schafer

DBHOF219

THE CROWN Deathrace King METAL BL ADE MAY 23 , 2000

Self-destructive party mode: activated

DECIBEL : 4 3 : MARCH 2023

the turn of the last century,

Swedish death metal was in the midst of a power exchange. To the east, the chainsaw sound of Stockholm and its storied Sunlight Studios was waning. Meanwhile, the morning star was ascendant in the west; for better or worse, Gothenberg’s melodic sound was approaching ubiquity thanks partly to producer Fredrik Nordstrom’s Studio Fredman. Between these two fires stood the Crown. Hailing from sleepy Trölhattan and owing allegiance to neither coastal scene, the quintet was led by songwriters Magnus Olsfelt on bass and Marko Tervonen on lead guitar, paired with fellow shredder Marcus Sunesson, mad dog vocalist Johan Lindstrand and high-speed drummer Janne Saarenpää. These deadly metalpunks offered a compelling middle path in 2000 with their highoctane sophomore outing, Deathrace King. “Sophomore outing” isn’t entirely accurate, though. The quintet formed in 1990 as Crown of Thorns and released two records under that banner before a lawsuit by a Christian glam band forced them to drop the “of thorns.” Good riddance. These Knights in Satan’s Service moved to Metal Blade for their second “debut” LP, Hell Is Here, in 1998—a practice lap for Deathrace King’s stint as pack leader. And KISS is as essential a reference point as any when it comes to the Crown. On Deathrace King, the band cobbled stadium rock, hardcore punk, thrash, death metal (melodic, Floridian and HM-2 varieties) into a single engine—see the “Detroit Rock City”-but-overclocked bass riff in “Rebel Angel” or the Mötley Crüe breakdown in “Blitzkrieg Witchcraft.” Saarenpää’s performance takes Mikkey Dee’s work in Mötorhead and cranks it into the red zone. The result is singular: a reconciliation between the unfulfilled death ‘n’ roll promise of Wolverine Blues and the death-thrash revival of Slaughter of the Soul—Tomas Lindberg even steps into the cypher with Lindstrand on album standout “Devil Gate Ride.” Deathrace King introduced audiences outside of Sweden to the Crown, thanks to a high-profile tour supporting Cannibal Corpse and Nile in the United States, and the Haunted in the U.K. Still, it didn’t result in a legion of imitators like Wolverine Blues or Slaughter of the Soul did. Nor did it provide much of a financial windfall for the Crown. Defying easy categorization has its drawbacks. One idea cropped up in nearly every interview given for this article: There are only two kinds of metalheads—those that love the Crown and those that haven’t heard them yet. If you’re in the latter camp, consider yourself invited to buy the ticket and take the devil gate ride as we induct Deathrace King into the Hall of Fame.

DBHOF219

THE CROWN deathrace king

What was the state of affairs in the Crown when you began working on Deathrace King? MARKO TERVONEN: The first two albums were for a small Gothenburg label [Black Sun], but after we got picked up by Metal Blade for Hell Is Here, things started to happen. All of a sudden, we were touring Europe with our favorite bands. That whole experience inspired us going into Deathrace King. If you listen to the first three albums, we were developing quickly, especially on Hell Is Here where we started to bring in the rock ‘n’ roll and punk stuff. Deathrace King was us realizing we were on to something with Hell Is Here. On Deathrace King, we didn’t give a shit if a part was punk, rock ‘n’ roll, thrash or death metal; it was all about writing solid songs. We wanted to do something that would be a punch in the face. We thought that if we could top Hell Is Here, maybe we could tour the U.S. And yeah— that happened! MAGNUS OLSFELT: We were very dedicated to the band at the time. Many songs on Hell Is Here were written before we got the deal with Metal Blade, so we didn’t know where they were going to end up, but [with Deathrace King] we knew the songs we made were going to be on a big label, so we worked our asses off to get the album solid in every little detail. We had gotten a good response on Hell Is Here, so our confidence was strong. We also had our first big international tour on Hell Is Here and we loved it! So, we believed in ourselves and thought that we were the best band in the world in our own way at the time of Deathrace King. I didn’t see any other band that would come even close to what we were doing at the time: mixing death metal with thrash and rock ‘n’ roll in that package, which wasn’t retro, but, as I saw it, the final peak of rock. I described it in a press release as “death metal as the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll Überbeast.” I still believe that is a good and valid description. JOHAN LINDSTRAND: We were at a very good phase in life: still young hungry guys who didn’t give a shit about anything else other than the band. We had done some good shows to promote Hell Is Here. With Metal Blade, the door was suddenly open to the world. We toured with Morbid Angel, we got to play Wacken for the first time, and so on. So, we were very positive when we started to work on Deathrace King. We were on a roll, so to speak. JAANE SAARENPÄÄ: Those were some intense times. We were super-tight as a band after rehearsing, recording and touring for the Hell Is Here album. We hung out a lot outside of the rehearsal room, too. There was still lots of partying. Music-wise, we were just hungry for more. We wanted to make a better album, do more gigs. I remember that my most intense rehearsing on the drums was before the Hell Is Here recordings;

like three times a week with the band and the rest of the days by myself. I was unemployed, so I put crazy hours into the rehearsal room. On Deathrace King, I took advantage of the momentum from the Hell Is Here rehearsals so I could relax more, enjoy the creative flow and just hammer those songs. The Crown are from Trollhättan, a city that isn’t known for producing metal bands. What was Trolhättan like at the time, and do you think being from that city affected your career? TERVONEN: Trollhättan is a piece-of-shit small town. There’s maybe 60,000 people here. Obviously, I had some friends that played in bands, but they’ve all stopped while we’ve stuck around for 30 years. We were never considered a Gothenburg band, and we definitely weren’t a Stockholm band. So, in Europe, we were outsiders. That’s both positive and negative, because

“We’ve always had to prove ourselves extra so people can understand there are good bands that aren’t Gothenburg or Stockholm bands. That’s the small-town mentality; you need to do everything better to prove a point.”

M A R KO T E RVO NE N I assume if we were part of something like the Gothenburg scene, maybe it would have helped our career in some sense. But at the same time, if people thought we were a Gothenburg band and listened to us expecting Dark Tranquillity, they would have been disappointed. I’ve always seen us coming from outside everything as an underdog band. We’ve always had to prove ourselves extra so people can understand there are good bands that aren’t Gothenburg or Stockholm bands. That’s the small-town mentality; you need to do everything better to prove a point. OLSFELT: Trollhättan is a small town, which means that you are more isolated. We didn’t belong to a scene, for good and for bad. Good that we had more freedom to do what we wanted to do without falling into preconceived images. But bad that we did not get the same publicity and renown that you could get in a bigger city with all the people, contacts and media. We were kings in Trollhättan in our own minds, but no one really knew us even there. MARCH 2023 : 4 4 : DECIBEL

LINDSTRAND: In the beginning it was just us, I believe. In the middle of the ’90s, Impious started out, so Trollhättan had two bands that played death metal and also released albums at the time Deathrace King came out. There were one or two other bands as well, which I don’t remember the names of. Basically, Trollhättan was a tiny spot on the Swedish death metal scene. That’s both good and bad, I think. On the positive side, we stood on our own with our own identity. On the bad side, I guess we didn’t get as much credit and promotion as the bands from Gothenburg and Stockholm got. But I guess we did all right anyway. SAARENPÄÄ: Trollhättan was dead when it came to a metal scene. There was a band from a neighboring town, Lilla Edet, called Valcyrie that played a few gigs here, and they completely blew my mind with their skills and energy onstage. Those “local” gig experiences got me into the idea of trying to play metal myself, even starting a band. The cool thing is that we managed in our early days to get a local venue packed with young metalheads. From there, new bands started appearing. Being a little band and starting to grow a following in a little town had its pros and cons. I guess we stood out a bit by not being “another band from Gothenburg.”

This band is unique in that you have two dedicated songwriters, Marko and Magnus, writing individual songs, but the music still feels cohesive. How did you balance the two writers’ different sensibilities? OLSFELT: I think that the cohesion you mentioned comes from the fact that we were a pretty cohesive band at the time. We rehearsed a lot, and we spent a lot of time together talking, partying and listening to music. I remember that I always walked around at that time with my songs playing in my head, always working on them in my mind. Same with the lyrics. I lived my life inside my songs, and the songs were inside of me almost all the time. TERVONEN: I think [Magnus and I] were inspired by each other. If you listen to our debut album, The Burning, the album starts out with my song, “Of Good and Evil,” and it’s basically an Edge of Sanity rip-off; then you can tell the second song, “Soulicide Demon-Might,” was written by Magnus because it sounds like Deicide. I was always adding melodies, while Magnus’ writing was more primitive, you could say. On later albums like Deathrace King, he started adding melodies also, so we were influencing one another. MARCUS SUNESSON: Magnus would write the skeleton of a song, but when we rehearsed, everyone would put their fingerprint on it. We were never a band that discussed a lot when we rehearsed. Everything was thought out beforehand. Marko used to do his own demos in his parents’ house, and they were always well laid out. Our music wasn’t done in a conscious way; it was just

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the result of five people playing together. It was never about trying to sound like anyone else. We always said, “We’re going to do this our way; we’re not going to listen to the label. We’re going to do what we want, and if they don’t like it, tough.” SAARENPÄÄ: [Deathrace King was] a result of many intense rehearsal sessions. A lot revolved around a small portable studio that Magnus had … that Marko quickly learned to master. Marko and Magnus had the songs in their heads. Some of them were shown in the rehearsal room, and many were pre-recorded on that portable studio with a drum machine, which were then shared with the rest of the band on cassette tapes. The arrangements of the songs did not change much in the rehearsal room, but they got the touch of every participant in the band, which made the songs in the end sound like a band effort. The only shared writing credit is “Blitzkrieg Witchcraft.” Tell me about that song. TERVONEN: That song has a shared writing credit with me and Magnus, but we didn’t write it together. Magnus presented it, and when we came to the second riff, I said it sounded familiar. Magnus told me it was a riff that I wrote 10 years earlier that we never used. I remember talking to Metal Blade about “Blitzkrieg Witchcraft.” Someone pointed out the middle section and said it was very different and unique. I told them, “That’s old Mötley Crüe. It’s ‘Live Wire!’” They thought death metal guys only listened to death metal, but we listened to all kinds of stuff.

Deathrace King is distinct in its blend of oldschool melodies, Swedish death metal, a thrashinspired feel, and sections inspired by punk and ’70s hard rock. I can’t think of another band at the time that drew from all these sources at once. How did you develop this sound? TERVONEN: That was also part of the outsider feel. We didn’t sound like In Flames or Entombed. We were all over the place. Somewhere around Hell Is Here, we were loosening up. Someone came into practice and said, “The new Hellacopters album is great!” And we all agreed, so we tried to capture some of that energy. We always loved the old Florida scene, and I’ve always been a sucker for the melodic Swedish stuff like Edge of Sanity, so I think if you take that extreme rock music and you blend it with Florida death metal, add some melody, and incorporate the history of Slayer and Metallica—that’s where we were. At that time, I can’t come up with another band that was doing our style of music, but maybe that scared people. At the time, people wanted to put everything in a category. OLSFELT: My songwriting changed a lot from meeting my girlfriend and later wife in 1997, right before Hell Is Here. She was a very free spirit and made me open up my creativity, in a way. I felt I could do whatever I wanted, and I didn’t have to stick to the fixed rules of anything anymore. I give her the credit for inspiring that; she was my muse and my Valkyrie. We did not really care what other metal bands were doing at the time. I know I was impressed with Tubronegro’s Apocalypse Dudes album, which came MARCH 2023 : 4 6 : DECIBEL

in ’98 before Deathrace King. Among my friends, that album was huge, and it was a big inspiration for me. They were also an incredible live act at that time. SUNESSON: We were, of course, always trying to stand out. We never tried to sound like anything else. I think a lot of it had to do with influences. Magnus was always more influenced by punk and rock than typical death metal. In the beginning, the band leaned more toward Florida death metal, but that developed into the more punk rock-death thing when we recorded Hell Is Here. That’s where we started, in a way. SAARENPÄÄ: I think that started on the Hell Is Here album. Magnus was often the visionary, the one that threw in ideas that were from outside “pure” death metal. We all liked the “retro” things Magnus wanted us to try in the rehearsal room, so it became a quite natural direction for the band. And let’s be honest—after hearing Entombed’s Hollowman EP and Wolverine Blues album, we were all in many ways already open towards leaning in that direction. LINDSTRAND: I think it was a natural step from Hell Is Here. You can hear similarities in the sound, but the productions are so far from each other that it almost sounds like two different bands. Back then we just played our music, and the creativity was at a very high level. There were no special thoughts or plans on how to do this album. The only change was that we went into Studio Fredman instead of Berno Studio and the album turned out the way it did.

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What were the rehearsals like while preparing for the recording?

We were rehearsing a lot. We were always well-rehearsed whenever we went to record or to play a show. I remember Janne was super well-prepared. It was like he was trying to win the World Cup in drums and the rest of us had to keep up. He never recorded to clicks; he didn’t like them. He was a very good drummer; he could hold the beat, but he also did all these weird fills—and so much blasting! We had to just try to hang on. Of course, we could play the songs with him in the rehearsal room, but it was a hassle putting the guitar tracks down and trying to fit them with his drum recording. TERVONEN: When it was time to record, we were so well-prepared. We rehearsed three times a week; it didn’t matter if it was Christmas. We knew that we had something solid. We had 10 songs and we asked one another, “If you were at gunpoint, which song would you remove?” No one could remove any of them. They all belonged. SUNESSON:

The Crown’s first three albums were all recorded at Berno Studio. Why did you decide to change to Studio Fredman with Fredrik Nordström? LINDSTRAND: We had done our previous three albums at Berno Studio—three albums which all sounded extremely different from each other. Berno wasn’t a typical studio where you went to record a full-blown metal album, and the experience was pretty limited, but that was something that we liked at the time. We didn’t want to go where everybody else did, like Sunlight or Fredman, but after three albums we decided on trying Fredman out. It was also a comfort choice, because Fredman was in Gothenburg, pretty much in our backyard compared to driving several more hours to southern Sweden like we did before. So, it all made sense. We were excited about what the Nordström touch would do to our sound. TERVONEN: We recorded the first three records down south in Malmö, which is a four- or fivehour drive away. When we started recording, it was easy to be away from home for weeks. We all still lived at our parents’ places and mommy paid the bills, but then we got older and we couldn’t spend four weeks down south; we’d lose our day jobs. So, it became a convenient choice. Gothenburg is a 50-minute drive away, and we happened to have one of the best studios ever in Gothenburg, Studio Fredman.

Deathrace King was your first album with Fredrik Nordström producing. What was it like working with him? TERVONEN: What I love about that recording is that it captured how we sound as a band. There’s no way we could go into work with Nordström and he would tweak a Slaughter of the Soul sound.

You can’t get that from us; we’re a completely different kind of band. It is pretty good production, but still has kind of a rough feel to it. It’s not polished. It’s not Dimmu Borgir, even though Fredrik is a super producer and he can do those slick productions. We spent four weeks recording it, including mixing. It was a beautiful studio with a fantastic drum room, and back then the drums were still recorded onto two-inch tape. SAARENPÄÄ: I remember that I was kind of hesitant to record “Killing Star.” I don’t even remember why. Maybe because it was one of the newer songs on the album, so I wasn’t enough wellrehearsed with it. After a couple of days without recording it, Fredrik told me that we needed to get it out of the way to get the drums done. So, I just did it, and I was surprised at how well that song turned out in the end.

“We got Tomas Lindberg on guest vocals, Alf Svensson on album artwork, and Kristian Wåhlin made the original Crown of Thorns logo that the Crown’s logo was based on, so we got the whole Grotesque lineup on this album in some strange way.”

M AG NUS O LSF E LT Fredrik never came up with any big decisions. It was never him being the almighty producer. He was just there to record. Of course, he had his input, but everything was basically decided before he did it. I don’t think he came up with ideas for the arrangement; he would just put small touches here and there, mix it and make it sound good. We recorded during the night, so he wasn’t there all the time; he was mostly there during the day.

SUNESSON:

Were there any unexpected challenges during the recording process? SAARENPÄÄ: The studio work went smooth, apart from Johan putting a little too much effort into his vocal takes and messing up his voice. That was fixed by him going in later and doing the last songs. We were super-prepared since we had done our homework in the rehearsal room, so all recording was like clockwork. On Hell Is Here, nine of 11 songs were first MARCH 2023 : 4 8 : DECIBEL

drum takes. On Deathrace King, I think eight of 11 were first drum takes. SUNESSON: “Executioner [- Slayer of the Light]” was a hard song to record since it needed a tight rhythm during the gallops. Marko and I recorded two guitar tracks each, so it’s a total of four guitar tracks, and we each play guitar a little differently, so trying to get it to sound right with the drums and each other took a little bit of work. I recorded a couple of vocal tracks with Johan since Fredman couldn’t be there; he was mixing the In Flames record. We were stressed because we were running out of time; we had to be done around the New Year. There was an issue with the vocals not being right. Johan used to get sick, and it’s hard to record vocals like that when you’re sick. LINDSTRAND: I don’t recall that much from the recording itself more than it was pretty hectic in the end, and we had to record stuff in the middle of the night towards the end in pure panic just to be able to make it on time. Other than that, it went pretty smooth. We were prepared from extensive rehearsals, so we all knew what to do in the studio. The opening track, “Deathexplosion,” is the song that the Crown play live the most often. It’s also the band’s most-streamed song on Spotify. What makes that song special and why did you decide to put it first on the album? TERVONEN: “Deathexplosion” was one of my first attempts to not include shitloads of melody. I remember I was thinking that I needed to do a song that Johan likes, and the rhythmic intro just popped out. It’s a bit in the Slayer “Chemical Warfare” area. Once I came up with the rhythm, the song wrote itself. I remember when it was done, I thought, “Johan is going to like this one!” And he did. It’s always great to play it live, because people recognize what song it is in the first three seconds and go apeshit. LINDSTRAND: I guess it just felt right to start off with that bad boy. No intro, just a hi-hat counting in the song. Brilliant. It’s always important to have a good track order to get that flow, and with that first song, we kind of set the standard for the rest of the album.

The album title comes from the song “Devil Gate Ride,” which features guest vocals from Tomas “Tompa” Lindberg of At the Gates. How did that song come together? SAARENPÄÄ: We did our first European tour with our label mates Sacrilege from Gothenburg. They didn’t have a singer after the release of their second album, so Tompa jumped in to help out. The Sacrilege guys and Tompa were just awesome to hang out with, and I grew to become a huge fan of their albums, so after that two-week-long tour, we kept in touch. We were also getting more comfortable with recording, so we wanted to just add some cream on top of the already

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quite energetic work with guest appearances from friends in bands that we toured with and loved to hang out with. So, Tompa did some lines on “Devil Gate Ride,” and Mika Luttinen of Impaled Nazarene contributed to “Total Satan.” OLSFELT: We did a tour on the Eternal Death album where Tomas was singing with the opening band, Sacrilege. We made friends with him, and he used to join us onstage for guest vocals on that tour. We of course loved his stuff for Grotesque and At the Gates, so we wanted him to join us as a guest for this album. I wanted a death race theme, with elements of speed, darkness, party and death, which suited the music and the vibe. That song and lyrics fit into that perfectly: self-destructive party mode. Alf Svensson, the guitarist on At the Gates’ early records, did the album’s quite minimalist cover. How did you choose him as your artist, and what did you think about the art? OLSFELT: I had been tattooed in [Svensson’s] No Fear Tattoo studio and saw a skull he had done, which stuck in my mind. It was kind of similar to Mercyful Fate’s Melissa skull, but with smaller snakelike skulls around it. I got in touch with him to work it out for us. First, he made a version with a spiderlike skull that looked like generic death metal; it would have fit on an album by Cryptopsy or something, and I didn’t want anything to do with that. So, I told him to make it simpler, more Motörhead-like, more like that original tattoo piece, and voilà! I think the original I saw in his tattoo studio was the perfect cover. The artwork we got is good, but not as good as the original design. I still dream of finding that original piece and re-releasing the album with that. It would be so brilliant. We got Tomas Lindberg on guest vocals, Alf Svensson on album artwork, and Kristian Wåhlin made the original Crown of Thorns logo that the Crown’s logo was based on, so we got the whole Grotesque lineup on this album in some strange way. TERVONEN: Metal Blade was all over it. They wanted to print it in silver on a jewel case for the special edition. Unfortunately, the reissue is just gray and black. There were a lot of talented artists doing great covers at the time, but we just wanted to keep it simple. The Deathrace King font was also an idea from Magnus; it’s from an ice hockey stick. What we wanted to capture was action. SUNESSON: Magnus had the idea that he wanted a skull on the cover. When Magnus showed us the art, I said, “It’s cool, I guess.” It’s very 2-D, and I wasn’t expecting that. We just went with it. The cover itself is a bit rough. You have to be in a certain mood to enjoy it, whereas with a lot of other album covers, you understand them right away. But that was us; we had to have things our way.

Killing stars  The Swedes enjoy a billing lower than Crimsom but higher than Tea Bag on their first U.S. tour

The Crown played more live shows in support of Deathrace King than any other record, including their first shows in America. What were those shows like? TERVONEN: It was a huge step for us. We were still at the point where we could do that sort of intense touring. After we started, the Crown was priority number one. Even if we had day jobs, fuck it, we went on tour. We said yes to everything. After Deathrace King, finally we went to the U.S. playing with Cannibal Corpse—for death metal, you can’t get bigger than that. Then we went with our friends in the Haunted to the U.K. We played Wacken again. We thought, “Fuck, this is growing!” It was intense, MARCH 2023 : 50 : DECIBEL

and around the time of [2003’s] Possessed 13, that intensity imploded. People ask us why we don’t tour more, and they don’t understand that when you’re joining a tour with a bigger band, it’s pay-to-play, or at least that’s what the business model was back then. When we decided to come back, we had a group discussion and we agreed that we needed more balance in our lives. During Deathrace King we were drinking ourselves to death, which is what happens when you take a young band and send them to America and offer them everything basically for free. It’s not healthy. In many ways, when we imploded and quit, it saved us, because it forced us to start thinking like adults.

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OLSFELT: The Deathrace 2000 tour was more live shows than ever before or after. They were all great. Coming to tour the U.S. for the first time was especially great for us. Going from coast to coast at 23 years old was fantastic, especially since we had shitty, low-paying jobs or were unemployed at home. We got to eat burgers every day—breakfast, lunch and dinner. We got to rock ‘n’ roll all night and party every day. We were living the dream.

After the Deathrace 2000 tour, Johan left the band and Tompa became the singer for one record. How did Johan come to leave and Tompa come to replace him?

It was a sad day when I realized I had to leave. When we were done touring at the end of 2000, it became clear to me that I couldn’t keep on doing this. We hadn’t earned one single cent from any of the shows. A lot of good PR for the band, a lot of great memories and experience, but one hell of a headache when you’re home and realize your bank account is empty. And always the same procedure fighting with your boss at work to get time off to tour. I couldn’t quite deal with that whole mess. So, they brought Tompa in very briefly. TERVONEN: We were doing so much, and we were away all the time, but we basically didn’t get paid for it. We came home with a lot of free merchandise, but it’s hard to pay the bills with that. Johan came to the point where he felt— and the rest of us felt a few years later—that we would give and give, but never find any balance in it. Johan had just gotten married, and he was starting to think like a grown-up. There is a life after death metal, and he got to the point where he just couldn’t do it. He had a wife and a life, and coming home after being away for a long time broke and hung over just wasn’t working. He got fed up. SAARENPÄÄ: Since we had fond tour memories from the Sacrilege tour with Tompa, it was a natural thing to ask him if he would be interested. He was, which was a huge relief for us, because we didn’t have any other singers in mind that would fit the band. The Tompa stint became kind of short, since those were indeed intense times, with lots and lots of work put into rehearsing, recording and touring—with very little rest. LINDSTRAND:

How did you decide to rejoin the Crown? LINDSTRAND: I came back again in 2002, first only to help out at some festivals since they no longer had a singer, then I rejoined after the summer of 2002. I’d had some time to reflect on my life, a healthy period that was needed before heading back into the scene. It’s not easy being in a band. I think a lot of people can agree on that. One way is to go all-in and hope for the best. Maybe you’ll

be lucky and make it, and the band will grow big and suddenly you can pay your rent back home. One way is to be somewhere in the middle, like doing this on the side. I tried all-in, but it didn’t quite work out. Nowadays, it’s different. Now there’s more balance in life. How do you think the success of Deathrace King has affected the rest of the Crown’s career? TERVONEN: It’s a 20-year-old album that was pretty well-received when it came out, but it’s grown over the years, and it’s proven that it’s still solid. Last year it was in Sweden Rock magazine’s list of the best albums from Sweden ever. That’s amazing. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why that is. I listened through Deathrace King for the first time in years and thought, “Shit, this has energy.” It’s so fucking intense. We were playing on the border of our capabilities. We’re going fast and you can hear that it’s a band well-prepared for the recording. It doesn’t sound dated; it has natural dynamics in it. Obviously, Janne is a good drummer, but because it’s live drums recorded with good mics in a good room,

“It’s hard to not realize what it has done to our career. Our lives would have been much more boring without Deathrace King.”

J O H A N LIND ST RA ND you hear his intensity. You feel his energy. We’re proud of the songs and still have some on the set list today. It’s better received today than it was 20 years ago in some ways. SAARENPÄÄ: I don’t think our lifestyles changed. We still didn’t become rock stars. We just kept on looking for more gigs to do. I was focused on wanting to do more tours, to get the band to grow. From what I recall, Hell Is Here was an extra big success in Sweden. Deathrace King felt like it would be absorbed even better by the world outside Sweden, and it was. SUNESSON: It did change things for us, but we didn’t know that at the time, and it took a while before we did know it. It took a while, but now people call it a modern classic. When we recorded it, it was just an album that turned out good. We never aimed for anything other than making a badass album. The Crown has always been one of those bands that isn’t well-known, but some people love it. It never grew that big, but our decisions made it that way. Even if I’m not in the band anymore, I’m still proud of the Crown’s albums, especially Deathrace King MARCH 2023 : 5 2 : DECIBEL

because it turned out so perfect. It formed my musical path. LINDSTRAND: Today we’re still active and still releasing quality death metal that feels fresh and relevant, in my opinion. But I guess most bands that have such long careers have one album that stands out, and ours is Deathrace King. I’m proud of being a part of that phenomenal album. We will of course acknowledge it at every future live show, simply because the audience goes apeshit during those classics. So, it’s hard to not realize what it has done to our career. Our lives would have been much more boring without Deathrace King. Looking back, is there anything you would change about Deathrace King? TERVONEN: No, to be honest. It’s all there for a reason, and for all the musicians involved, those were the best decisions we could have made at that time. For example, everyone else in Sweden was tuning down. Deathrace King wasn’t tuned down, and that’s an important element of that thrashy sound. That’s one of the aspects that created that style. I wouldn’t change anything. OLSFELT: Deathrace King was our career-defining album. It is our best and most loved one. I think we kind of nailed it there. So, apart from the aforementioned original tattoo design as a cover, no regrets. I wouldn’t change a thing. Of course, I wanted it to be a much bigger success at the time. We were a great live band as well. I believe we deserved to “make it” with Deathrace King, both in fame and financially. But I have to be grateful that it is still remembered and put into the Hall of Fame now. LINDSTRAND: No, not really, but I bet there was right after we were done. It’s pretty much impossible to walk out of a studio 100 percent satisfied. That has never happened during almost 33 years in the scene, but that’s more on a personal level. You analyze everything you do with a microscope, but I think we all were quite happy with the overall result back then, and we are also proud today. SAARENPÄÄ: There was one little detail that doesn’t matter today, but it was typical for me at the time to want everything to be perfect. I did want the CD tray to have a chrome finish, but that was turned down by the label because of high cost. It would have been the last piece of a perfect puzzle for me. Everything else about the album is great just the way it is. SUNESSON: I don’t think so. It was one of those albums that came together perfectly in the end. The recording was so smooth, even with trying to get everything tight. When I listened to the final mixes for the first time, I remember it sounded phenomenal. For previous albums, we would listen to a final mix and say, “Is this really the final? Maybe we should see if we can do something,” but Deathrace King was perfect. I wouldn’t change anything.

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Living Low in a World of heir Own cement their outsider legend with the black metal-inspired Celestial Rot

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of DISINFORMATION Goddammit Wikipedia, we want our money back! Paired with the online

encyclopedia’s annual “help keep us afloat” fundraising stint was us skedaddling over to the page dedicated to upstate New York metallic hardcore legends All Out War. There, we were informed that the band’s very first show (in 1990, at a skate park in their hometown of Newburgh) devolved into a riot requiring the local constabulary to break it up and send skaters, onlookers, fans and creators of the nascent combination of tritone abuse, road rash death-thrash and thunderous breakdowns packing. That colorful nugget seemed to be worth the handful of change we parted with in the name of keeping the free exchange of information alive and available. The trouble is, the accuracy of the above tale ain’t so accurate. ¶ “No, that’s not true,” frontman Mike Score laughs when asked about the details of All Out War’s first show, “but I think a lot of that has to do with a different band I played a show with that got a little bit out of control. That was a band called A.W.O.L. that All Out War developed out of and was a lot less metallic. Basically, they needed a singer to do their final show, I jumped in and we kind of wrote a song called ‘Destined to Burn,’ which would eventually become an All Out War song. That’s the connection.”

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That’s not to say that Wikipedia is entirely incorrect, as early All Out War gigs in Newburgh—69 miles north of CBGB, where shows were more riotous, but had less police presence— absolutely possessed an element of violence and danger. Jesse Sutherland and Taras Apuzzo both grew up in upstate New York’s Hudson Valley and remember hearing about All Out War and their Sum of All Fears demo in high school. A few years later, while playing together in a hardcore band called End of One, they occasionally shared the bill with the band they would eventually join on drums and guitar, respectively. “All Out War did have a reputation for these thugs that followed them around and violent shows that often got shut down,” remembers Sutherland, “but they were also playing this metallic hardcore we had never really heard before. When they were looking for a drummer around Christmas of 1996 [after the departures of Tom Connelly and Derek Taylor], they remembered End of One and got in touch. I’ve gone back and forth in the band with Matt [Byrne] from Hatebreed and have been in the lineup consistently since 2013.” “After Jesse had been in the band for about a year, they needed a guitar player,” Apuzzo offers. “He put in a good word, and that’s when I joined.” Adding to the story is former bassist (now guitarist) Andy Pietroluongo: “I was in a band

with Matt from Hatebreed that played with End of One all the time, so we all knew each other. I went to college with Mike Score and we were friendly. I joined in 1998, after Taras. Their reputation was definitely violent and crazy. I had long hair and had to go to shows with my hood up, but there was something that drew me to it.” Piecing together an accurate history of All Out War is a tough gig. Not only is Wikipedia indebted to us for inaccuracies, but so are allmusic.com, last.fm and the usually pedantic Metal Archives. Also working against attempts at a definitive historical documentation of the band is… the band itself. All Out War formed with the pointed intent of creating an incendiary metal/hardcore mix in the shadow of Carnivore, Crumbsuckers and mid’80s D.R.I. and Agnostic Front, that time CroMags and Destruction toured together in 1989, and as fellow New Yorkers Earth Crisis, Snapcase and Buried Alive were blurring genre lines. However, they had little intention of keeping a strict eye on what they were doing, how they were doing it and the results that followed. Like bassist Eric Carrillo, who has (mostly) been holding down the rumbling low end since 1990, says, “All Out War was free to do whatever we wanted. We weren’t really paying attention. We were kids who fell into hardcore, but were having a good time playing metal.”

When you spend any amount of time talking with the members as they struggle to recall whats, whens, whys and whatfors of the past, it becomes clear that focusing on non-musical minutiae, not having a plan for world domination or even giving a toss about non-musical minutiae or world domination has survived as an unwritten philosophy throughout the band’s 33-year history (minus a pair of hiatuses in the ’00s). This remains so leading up to the band’s latest and eighth album, Celestial Rot. “Me, the drummer and bassist stayed together after A.W.O.L.,” continues Score. “That was in the fall of 1990, and we got together with Chris [Chisholm] who was in Merauder, and we started to write the foundations of what would become the demo. Chris eventually joined the Navy, then Eric came on board. Our intention was to always be more metallic. This was after the CroMags toured with Destruction and a weird time because hardcore was morphing into something else. Bands were moving on to post-hardcore and becoming like Quicksand, and we weren’t totally into that sort of stuff. When All Out War formed, we weren’t tied to anything and could bring in any influences we wanted. So, we merged being into Cro-Mags and Leeway with also being into Kreator, Destruction and Slayer. Musically, there was very little connection to hardcore, and we didn’t really care because we were playing what we wanted to play. Most of us were going to hardcore shows at

CBGB, but also going to metal shows at L’Amour. We had feet in both scenes, but our connections for getting shows were in the hardcore world.” Domenic Romeo, as a member of Integrity and End Reign—a recent project in which he is joined by frontman Score, Misery Index/Pig Destroyer drummer Adam Jarvis and Exhumed/ Noisem guitarist Sebastian Phillips—has had a long, personal history with All Out War. His initial experience goes back to consuming music and attending shows as a ’90s Toronto hardcore kid. A local promoter would bring U.S. hardcore bands to the Big Smoke for Romeo, his pocket of friends and the local hardcore scene. All Out War played an all-day marathon gig one weekend and Romeo was hooked. “It was nothing I’d ever seen before,” he exults. “It was like Slayer slowed down and very Cro-Mags-ish. I loved Integrity and Ringworm, and they seemed to come from that family of bands, but had a different pool of influences and a song like ‘Destined to Burn’ that went into doom and opened the door for me to bands like Grief and Eyehategod.” These days, Paul Delaney slings bass and vocals in New York black metal outfit Black Anvil, but his past includes stints in various hardcore bands where he first crossed paths with All Out War. “I’d always heard the name around, but was 50-50 on the heavy tough guy hardcore,” he

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Most of us were going to hardcore shows at CBGB, but also going to metal shows at L’Amour. We had feet in both scenes, but our connections for getting shows

WERE IN THE HARDCORE WORLD. Mike Score

recalls. “In 1995, my old band was recording at a studio called Purple Light in Brooklyn and Joe [Branciforte], the drummer from Darkside who played on part of All Out War’s debut album, was in the studio recording his tracks. We were doing our demo and I heard some of Truth in the Age of Lies through the studio speakers, and it wasn’t what I was expecting. It was haunting; there was something mysterious, menacing and eerie about it that wasn’t like Bulldoze or 25 Ta Life.” Where Romeo and Delaney had no issue accepting All Out War’s metallic hardcore angle, one that definitely leaned more towards the metallic side of things, others weren’t so welcoming, as the band often found itself shunned by metal crowds. Granted, a booking network rooted in DIY hardcore resulted in them ending up on hardcore bills with hardcore bands, but there’s no arguing All Out War’s metallic use is much more than fleeting. It’s arguable whether this straddling of worlds stunted acceptance and made it difficult for All Out War to find a comfortable niche, but despite their proximity to the scenes in New York, New Jersey

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and Boston (and being only a few hours away from Connecticut, Syracuse, Baltimore and Philadelphia), their first album, Truth in the Age of Lies ended up being issued by German label Gain Ground in 1997. “I think we were doing a good job of confusing everybody,” laughs Score. “We were always the band without a home. I don’t think we fit anybody’s mold. We started to develop a niche with bands like Crisis, Disassociate, Starkweather and that crowd. Those were great shows because that was a scene unto itself where we fit into the most. It wasn’t a strict hardcore or metal crowd; it was a sort of ‘do what you want’ crowd.” “Don’t get me wrong,” says Carrillo. “We played with metal bands and were friends with a lot of them, but we didn’t fit in with the metal crowd because of some of the rumors surrounding us and the way we looked. That turned people off without hearing the music, even though it was a changing of the time when hardcore was going more metal with bands like us, Cold as Life and Merauder.”

“I don’t think the fighting at shows and the loose gang thing that was going on appealed to the metalheads very much,” adds Apuzzo. “We were doing what came naturally, but definitely drawing from a lot of different sources on purpose,” Score picks up. “We were going for the aggression, speed and intensity of hardcore, but we were dipping our toes into death metal like Obituary and Morbid Angel, and heavy mosh parts started creeping into our style. It was all stuff we were totally into.” “It's a bit of all of that,” sums up Sutherland. “The earlier material had metal riffs and double bass, but the song structures were written with a pit response [in mind] with big build-ups to mosh parts, which fit better with hardcore and turned off a lot of metalheads, many of whom were getting beat up at our shows.” “They may not have been accepted by straightup metal crowds,” notes Romeo, “but they were accepted by that subset of metal within metal, bands like Starkweather and Crisis. They were also in that tough guy hardcore world with the goons who would beat each other up during the hardest parts, but they have so much more to offer, and pockets of forward-thinking people caught on to what they were doing. There are some challenging listens in their discography.” “They always seemed like real metal guys,” says Delaney, who, like Romeo, has seen and shared the stage with All Out War on numerous occasions. “We would play live with them in Newburgh and in the city, and they would do C.O.C. covers, not Sepultura or something that was more obvious. There was a real metal influence in there, but they were wearing bandanas, basketball jerseys and camo pants. They have breakdowns on that first record that still make me want to drive a car down a sidewalk, but were on bills at CBGB with Crisis, Cattlepress and Disassociate. It made it hard to explain the band’s aura. There was a mystique around them, and I enjoyed that.”

VICTORY in the SHADOW of GERMAN (IN)EFFICIENCY Truth in the Age of Lies was recorded two years before it was released. In a foreshadowing of classic All Out War nonchalance, the album had been sitting since 1995 after it was originally shelved by Too Damn Hype Records. The band wasn’t even shopping it to labels when a roadie for Merauder returned from a European tour and convinced Score to send it to a German gentleman named Tobias, who ran Gain Ground. After a few snail-mail exchanges, a deal was struck. Shortly after the release of Truth in the Age of Lies, the band jetted off to Europe with Gain Ground’s backing, but soon found themselves in a lurch upon arriving home. “We made it over to Europe and then never heard from [Tobias] again,” laughs Score. By the time the band figured out that Gain Ground’s disappearing act wasn’t an act,

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they were already signed to Victory Records. All Out War found themselves on the radar of the Chicago label which, at the time, was widely accepted as the home for hardcore. Delaney describes that era as “when Victory was at its apex as a label; the top of the mountain.” These days, Victory is more aligned with post-hardcore and emo, but in the ’90s it issued some of the best hardcore had to offer and popularized the more metallic likes of Deadguy, Earth Crisis, Integrity, Bloodlet and Hatebreed. All Out War came to the attention of the label during a Chicago tour stop in support of their Germanreleased debut. “Victory used to have a record store and we played in the basement that summer,” recalls Score. “There, we met Clint, who has been a great supporter of the band for decades now. He was into the band, we mailed him a copy of Truth in the Age of Lies, which still wasn’t out—it wasn’t widely distributed in the U.S.; I don’t even know how widely distributed it was in Europe—and even before it came out, they sent us something asking if we wanted to be on the label. At the time, it made a lot of sense because we were playing with a lot of bands that were signing to Victory and they were putting out some of the more metallic stuff. But we weren’t the prototypical Victory band, which might have hurt us in the long run. We didn’t do a lot of shopping around on that one either; maybe we should have.” “Clint” is Clint Billington, who is unofficially the world’s biggest All Out War fan. He started at Victory in the ’90s as a “glorified intern,” but quickly rose through the ranks, working in the warehouse and running Bulldog, the label’s Chicago retail store. It was there that he booked All Out War, essentially as a showcase for his fellow employees. Until Victory was sold to creative rights organization Concord in 2019, he was working as the label’s General Manager of Production and his name regularly pops up as someone who both unwaveringly supported the band during their years on the label and was instrumental in their mid-’10s revival, issuing releases on his own Organized Crime Records. “I first heard a 14th generation tape of one of their demos through a buddy,” Billington chuckles, “and I thought it was cool at first. When I finally heard an actual recording of them on the Philly Dust Krew comp in 1994, it instantly grabbed me. Fast forward to 1997 and I was talking to the guy from Gain Ground and he sent me an advance copy of the first album for Victory’s distro. When I heard that, it further cemented my love of the band. I knew they needed to be on Victory and I worked towards getting them on the label for For Those Who Were Crucified.” Released in 1998, For Those Who Were Crucified is widely considered a metallic hardcore high-water mark. Featuring 13 tracks (including four that originally appeared on Truth in the Age of Lies) and produced by up-and-coming New Jersey knobtwiddler Steve Evetts, the album was “a quick

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turnaround, pressure-filled and written in a very short period of time,” according to Carrillo. It was also the starting point for a tumultuous 12-year, four-album association with Victory. Speaking to the band today, their reminiscing seems almost avuncular, with a “shucks, golly-gee” sensibility. But conducting interviews via online meeting portals like Zoom and Skype, one can see the sidelong glances, smirks and resentment buried on the faces of those members who were in the thick of those years. However, perceived label slights weren’t solely to blame for All Out War perpetually seeming to be in “one step forward, two steps back” mode. They had their van broken into and gear stolen while on tour with Buried Alive—in Chicago, ironically enough—shortly after the album’s release. That this happened in the days before GoFundMe and other crowdfunding avenues meant it took the quintet months to get back on their feet, ostensibly killing any of the momentum that the album’s sonic volatility provided. But, as Score opines in hindsight, it may have been that very sonic volatility that had Victory shying away from working the band towards the more metal fanbase they thought the music warranted. “I’ve had this conversation a thousand times,” Score says. “Because not only do we not think they didn’t push us to a metal crowd; they didn’t push bands like us and Ringworm at all. I was under the impression that Clint was often the only person that cared. No one there seemed overly thrilled about any of the metal bands on the label, especially metal bands that didn’t fit the straight-edge thing, which we definitely weren’t.” Romeo has a less accusatory take on the situation: “There were a lot more things at play. There were a lot of bands with bigger personalities than All Out War that commanded—or received—greater attention. Victory was promoting All Out War, but they were also promoting Hatebreed, Buried Alive, Integrity and Terror, and then there were bands like Merauder and Kickback on other labels. There was a lot to go up against that they were lumped in with. And All Out War was never a career band, which worked against them because they only do the band when they can do it. For a band with as many outside priorities—Mike is a high school history teacher—I think they’ve done a great job staying on the radar all these years.” Using his perspective as a Victory employee, Billington reasons, “All the All Out War guys had personal lives they were working on; starting careers and families and things like that. So, I think they got relegated to part-time band status by the label. They weren’t able to tour all the time and weren’t on the same trajectory as other bands who had their bands as their total focus. From the label’s standpoint, it’s like if these guys are more part-time, then that’s how we work them accordingly. There wasn’t the same amount

of spending for them as there was for bands who had more touring and stuff going on. There were also changes when one of their album cycles got lost in the shuffle of changing staff, a new publicist switching over and them not really getting the push they probably deserved.” No matter which tack you take—and even though the band was a fixture on the touring circuit, sharing stages with Turmoil, Dying Fetus, Cro-Mags, Shadows Fall and God Forbid after Crucified’s release—the fact was, come mid-2001, the wheels fell off. Just as All Out War finished writing and were about to record their third album, they threw in the towel. “We were getting older and it was a lot harder for us to keep that schedule up,” says Score. “I was going back to school…” “… I was building PetSmart stores,” Carrillo interjects with a laugh. “And we had Matt from Hatebreed in the band, and he ended up going back to Hatebreed,” explains Score. “We kind of gave being a full-time band a shot around that time,” says Apuzzo. “We all quit our jobs and tried touring full-time, but it didn’t work out. It seemed like bad things kept happening, and we were all broke and couldn’t make it happen.” “And it happened late,” adds Pietroluongo. “We were a little bit older. We weren’t teenagers trying to do it, and that made it tougher.” “We were just trying to have a good time,” says Carrillo. “We never really took the business side too seriously, which is our mistake, but we were just having fun with it. Around that time, we were trying to be a little bit too professional and that added to the tension. We never wanted to stop, but sometimes life makes you stop.”

CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP Two years later, a solemn affair brought the band back together. Frank Collins, guitarist in New York City hardcore/crossover band Confusion, passed away in a motorcycle accident in June 2002. A memorial show was held at CBGB the following January, at which All Out War were asked to reunite and honor their fallen brother. From there, a second spark was lit under Score, Pietroluongo, Sutherland and Apuzzo. Joined by End of One alum Jose Segarra on guitar, All Out War were back on the attack with Condemned to Suffer, an album composed of songs written both pre-and-post hiatus. It was expectedly solid and punishing; as Romeo enthuses, “They’ve always maintained consistency. No one has a bad All Out War story, and they have been consistent through their history. They don’t have a Cold Lake.” It may not have been Cold Lake, but Condemned to Suffer was an album that couldn’t disperse the dark cloud the band felt was looming over them and causing tension within the ranks. “We were trapped on Victory,” Score baldly asserts. “With each record we would see light

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The reason you’re hearing a lot of new influences on Celestial Rot is that we’re not trying to write an All Out War record. We’re trying to write based on what we’re into now,

NOT TRYING TO REPRODUCE A MOMENT WE WERE IN 25 YEARS AGO. Jesse Sutherland

at the end of the tunnel, hoping to get released from the contract. We kept putting out records and they kept not pushing the records, so we kept putting out records until finally we got free. I couldn’t tell you why Victory was so adamant about holding on to us; they weren’t advertising or pushing the records, and aside from Clint, we would never hear from anyone at the label.” “I saw both sides of the situation,” laments Billington. “If the band was unreachable for interviews, turned down tours or weren’t able to tour, people would stop asking about them. But no matter what, I always thought they should have been a bigger band that more people should have instantly understood.” In addition to For Those Who Were Crucified and Condemned to Suffer, their tenure at Victory also bequeathed 2007’s Assassins in the House of God and 2010’s Into the Killing Fields, but it was also largely responsible for a second hiatus beginning in 2010. The band reports that breakup number two was chiefly due to the dissolution of the delicate-but-stressful balance between wanting to have a good time and trying to have a good

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time in the shadow of contractual obligations amplified by non-band life experiences and getting older. Combined, it all bolstered their decision to throw in the towel for three years. As Carrillo sardonically puts it, “We figured we might as well make money working instead of making money for Victory.” And all was quiet until Philly promoter Joe “Hardcore” McKay approached the band about playing the 2013 edition of his This Is Hardcore fest. “We were going to do it with the Crucified lineup, and when we started jamming it was awesome, just like old times,” beams Score. Since reconvening in 2013 with the Drowning in Damnation flexi single, 2015’s Dying Gods EP and 2017’s Give Us Extinction album (all on Billington’s Organized Crime label) through to 2017 Decibel Flexi Series release “Accept No Masters,” 2019’s Crawl Amongst the Filth (released on Unbeaten Records) and the forthcoming Celestial Rot, All Out War have been more prolific than any other stretch in their history. And it hasn’t just been a case of quantity over quality. The quality has absolutely been there, but so has the mem-

bers’ collective desire to expand the sound they’ve been playing for 30 years. “Especially over the last few years and with the last two albums,” Score asserts, “there has been a noticeable departure, and we’ve been more aggressive about bringing in influences and elements that are farther away from the usual stuff.” “As a release featuring the return of the Crucified lineup, Dying Gods was a very logical next step,” says Billington. “But Give Us Extinction and Crawl Amongst the Filth were consciously more metal and a step away from hardcore. I think that was them really wanting to distinguish themselves from the stereotype they were living under and trying to get people to notice them in a different light. I know people to this day who still think they’re a one-dimensional beatdown hardcore band!” As a member of Integrity, Romeo remembers touring with All Out War and how he would hook up with the members to indulge in their favorite activity, ostensibly witnessing their ongoing musical growth. “They weren’t into being the ‘close the bar down’ guys,” Romeo stresses. “They’re music fans who wanted to go buy records during the day. They’re just nerds who love music, and it’s refreshing.” Similarly, Delaney, who has befriended and remains close with Score, isn’t shy about saying that what he's heard of Celestial Rot “delivers, is even more creative, and has them embracing more metal influences like blast beats and shit outside of the box.” He sees in his friend a man who still has a thirst for new and heavier sonic experiences, and incorporates them into his own creations. “When I see and run into Mike, I see him at metal shows, not at hardcore shows. They’ve always embraced that, and I like that they’re pushing themselves and writing what they want.”

PRE-PANDEMIC GROOVE in a POST-PANDEMIC WORLD The push towards more abrasion is expressly evident on Celestial Rot. Recorded by first-time album engineer/producer Apuzzo at his space in Brooklyn (“Production has been a pretty recent interest, but I’ve been dabbling in it for a while, doing pre-production recordings and just getting into it for the past three or four years”), the new album incorporates the chromatic atonality of black metal, the caveman stomp of classic death metal, the razor sharpness of tremolo-happy dive-bombing thrash, staccato stabs of Lower East Side post-punk filtered through an eerie layer of guitar virulence, stripped-down monoliths of riffs and Score’s boiling oil screech, which Romeo describes “as a volatile and manic evil witch. I got the pleasure to witness his process in doing the End Reign record, and the dude is a machine and totally amazing.”

The machine, like everything else, was impacted by the pandemic. With everyone isolated and at home, when they weren’t messing around on their respective instruments, members would gather online to share riffs and recommendations as they took deep dives into bands, albums, genres and labels that time (or a lack thereof) previously didn’t allow for. This hasn’t gone unnoticed. One of the first social media comments upon the release of Celestial Rot’s first single, “Glorious Devastation,” was, “Someone has been listening to a lot of black metal during corona!” “The last record came out in 2019 and we did a short run with Eyehategod, a short run with Integrity, and we were about to do a run with Ringworm and Genocide Pact when COVID hit,” recalls Score. “Our influences and what we were listening to were already kind of shifting, and once we had the time, we were getting into a lot of different stuff, and we’d have these extensive conversations about it. Then the riffs started coming out and we started putting it all together. It definitely helped with the monotony of being at home. It was great to focus our minds on something; for as bad and shitty as COVID was, it did allow us to be creative.” “There wasn’t a lot going on,” adds Carrillo. “I’m a construction project manager, and I wasn’t able to go to job sites or anything, so it freed me up to listen to music again, both going back into the old vaults and discovering new stuff. And that’s how we got the songs sounding the way they are. We weren’t trying to stick ourselves in a bubble and create something we’d already done, which made it more fun. It felt like we were getting back in a garage with a bunch of friends.” “In isolation, I was playing guitar a lot more and listening to music by myself,” pipes in Pietroluongo. “We took a break, and when we got back together, everyone realized they missed it. We were frustrated that the work we put into the last album didn’t happen, and we put that into the new record. This is also the first time we didn’t go back to old recordings and things we’d written in the past. As soon as we were able to get together in the same room after the initial mandates and stuff, we started writing and it came pretty quick and easy.” Posits Sutherland: “The reason you’re hearing a lot of new influences on Celestial Rot is that we’re not trying to write an All Out War record. We’re trying to write based on what we’re into now, not trying to reproduce a moment we were in 25 years ago.” Also keeping on theme of All Out War’s laissezfaire approach to planning was how Translation Loss Records, which will be issuing Celestial Rot, became part of the plan. “Early on, when we had five strong songs we all agreed on,” says Score, “I sent the stuff to Drew [Juergens] at Translation Loss just to see what he thought of it. He heard it and was like,

‘Wow, do you want to put out an EP with these?’ And I was like, ‘What do you think about putting out a full-length?’ I originally just wanted extra ears to see what people thought, and Drew was really, really into it. The writing was coming together easily and we had the bones for at least three more songs. It just felt really natural; this was the most natural record we’d written since the early days. It had that vibe of when we first started when we were kids and there were no boundaries, so let’s just go for it.”

the PARTY RAGES ON And what does the future hold for All Out War? COVID has ironically breathed a new life into many bands who took the shutdown as a sign that the iron should be struck while it’s hot because you never know when governments will next put the world on pause. At the same time, All Out War are in a comfortable place after 30-plus years and aren’t willing to uproot their lives away from the band for the sake of the touring circuit slog. Flip that page with Celestial Rot and they seem more popular now than ever, with the five of them still having the time of their lives and wanting to continue to use their band as a medium to do so. “When we got back together in 2013,” remembers Sutherland, “the first thing we discussed is that family and real life will always come first. It may not have made things entirely stress-free, but it’s certainly made things a lot easier to manage compared to the past.” “Again, there’s never been a plan,” laughs Score, “but by 2019 going into 2020, we were in a groove of how we wanted to do the band at this point in our lives; only taking a few shows, short tours and festival appearances a year. We’re anxious to get back to that groove. I also want to keep pushing boundaries. With Celestial Rot we’ve pushed ourselves a bit more and I'd like to see us keep moving in the same creative direction and bringing in even more and different influences, because that’s what keeps it interesting. “All Out War is my social life, and I would prefer my social life to be interesting,” he ends with a chuckle. “I think our only plan was to have fun with it,” laughs Carrillo. “The band doesn’t make a lot of money; we do it to have a good time, play shows and hang out with our friends. The only plan is to keep that alive.” “It’s amazing how well we work together and how we avoid real problems,” concludes Pietroluongo. “How so much of what we do just happens and falls into place. That’s because everyone is an adult and has their own lives, which we’re respectful of. I still have the desire to play with bigger and better bands and play the best and most gratifying shows we’re able to. The main thing we’ve been doing with this lineup is to make sure we’re on the same page and having fun. That seems to be working, and that’s good enough for me.”

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INSIDE ≥

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There’s nothing little about the sophomore slams from Ohio gore goons SANGUISUGABOGG

few short years ago, gore slam phenoms Sanguisugabogg were a winking curiosity within the death metal genre. After their maggot-stomping Pornographic Seizures demo, their logo was basically a meme. SANGUISUGABOGG They signed with Century Media, and with that comes Homicidal Ecstasy additional scrutiny. For those guzzling the Haterade, that CENTURY MEDIA meant critiques like, “They have more shirts than songs; more merch than riffs.” But those peripheral elements of the band are part of Sanguisugabogg’s oddball charm as death metal ambassadors in the era of Instagram. ¶ Homicidal Ecstasy is the band’s sophomore record, and it’s an unapologetically raunchy step forward as songwriters. If Tortured Whole was an oozing orifice, Homicidal Ecstasy is an oozing orifice with a better snare sound. There are fewer songs about mangled genitals, but—wait, nevermind, the opening track is “Black Market Vasectomy.” Vocalist Cody Swank’s lyrics might deal slightly less damage to dongs, but they’re still stuffed with splatter and psychosexual depravity. Let’s just say it’s not like this is suddenly Sanguisugabogg’s mature phase.

ILLUSTRATION BY MARK RUDOLPH [MARKRUDOLPH.COM]

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Still, these Columbus, OH—by way of Tromaville—blood freaks have polished up the execution device a little. They’re still heavier than hell’s overflowing septic tank, and crude by design. That said, there’s more variation throughout Homicidal Ecstasy. Sanguisugabogg still largely work with mid-to-lurching tempos on the record. But halfway through “Pissed,” drummer Cody Davidson bursts into a blast that invigorates the album. If you give these songs a whiff during their fastest moments, you can detect the distinct reek of Tomb of the Mutilated. After all, Homicidal Ecstasy is still soaked in the primordial goo of East Coast death metal. Splashes of Tampa, sure. But they double down on Mortician’s grindhouse sensibilities and the percussive bludgeon of Internal Bleeding, incorporating the bruising instincts of beatdown hardcore. Sanguisugabogg are still defined by their down-tuned grooves, yet “Testicular Rot” and “Mortal Admonishment” both emerge as strong examples of the band’s growth while preserving their intentional primitivity. When songs are built around slams, they will occasionally feel regressive. Stretches of “Face Ripped Off” and “A Lesson in Savagery” sound downright ugly as they commit to rhythm over melody. Sometimes the riffs are just a mono-note battering ram forged from Ced Davis’ swamp-dredging bass tone. But those same tracks will probably kill live. By sticking to their caveman mentality, Sanguisugabogg prove once again that playing to your strengths is not weakness. —SEAN FRASIER

BYZANTINE

Black Sea Codex SELF-RELEASED

Black seas at night

Byzantine is one of my favorite words to use when I’m being a pretentious asshole (so, always). It’s a complicated way of saying “complicated,” which makes it ideal for purple prose. Byzantine, the band, aren’t byzantine. Have you heard Pantera, Lamb of God or post-good Metallica? Like I said: straightforward. The band has been around for over 20 years and released stuff on two major indies (Prosthetic and Metal Blade) and I’ve barely heard of them. But hey, I always like pleasant surprises! So, they have a new EP, Black Sea Codex, and it’s… fine. It’s groove metal the likes of which got old in the ’90s (there’s a reason Machine Head went all nü-metal, then prog, then nümetal, then prog again). The drums have that time-corrected, quantized feel, which drives me nuts because it kills the groove that’s the whole point of this shit, so even when you have a decent headbanger like “Wings of My 66 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

Soul” something feels off. The Coroner cover (“Sirens”) is a good example of how they get down with the stiffness—the original has this slippery quality to it that makes it unique. This strips that away in favor of the lockstep stomp. Every point I give this release is due to the closing track, a cover of the Fixx’s “Red Skies” (whoa-ohhh). The way they heavy up that new wave classic works shockingly well with their sound. So, that’s worth checking out. Otherwise? I don’t think my recommendation here is complicated to figure out. —JEFF TREPPEL

COLONIAL WOUND

Easy Laugh HEX

Burn everything that bears those other names

When a record label hits you up with news of their latest signing, it’s often accompanied with a “For Fans Of” list that the new roster addition can be compared to. It’s at this point when yours truly naturally jumps to trying to find other list additions as a means of showing that 1) a modicum of independent thought still exists in this business, and 2) we do more than regurgitate press releases and shill for ad dollars. So, when Ryan “Hex” Canavan sent Easy Laugh along and touted comparisons to Coalesce, Engineer and Botch, the determination to find other sonic likenesses took over. In the end, yup, Coalesce, Engineer and Botch was a perfectly succinct summation of this Florida quartet and their debut full-length. I mean, if you wanted to expand the palette by including the Minor Times, Curl Up and Die and the Chariot, feel free, but you wouldn’t really be expanding the palette, if you know what I mean. That’s not to say this half-hour is a mere Xerox of the glory days of metallic hardcore, or that you should dismiss this with spins of Give Them Rope, Crooked Voices and/or We Are the Romans. “YSL” is a bold splash of bare-knuckle time signature abuse, abrasive melody creeping and scarred vocalizations. The wildly changing rhythms and spidery guitar punch of “Altar of Youth” and doomy minor key moroseness of “On Nationalism” stand on their own merit despite the obvious influential starting points. Though it should be mentioned that Colonial Wound possess a guitar/bass tone heavier than their inspirations combined, and nary a whiff of Converge, which is astounding as it is surprising. As is often the case with metallic hardcore of this sort, the macro of the album’s presentation occasionally falls prey to a locked-in monochromatic pacing that takes precedence over what should have been a broader swath of riff variance. Still, there’s no questioning the

brutality, abrasion and vitriolic anger spitting from these pores (familiarity be damned!). —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

CRAWL

Damned P R O FO U N D LO R E

Take it easy, Dude

Rarely has a band name been more fitting than Crawl, the moniker Michael A. Engle has affixed to his decade-old “dungeon doom” project. Just try to find another verb to describe the way the music moves on Damned, Crawl’s third full-length and Profound Lore debut. Engle builds lumbering beasts of songs, rich with tiny details and propelled by infinitesimal changes in texture and tempo. (When “10,000 Polehammers” briefly ramps up to a 140 bpm stomp, it feels like speed metal by comparison.) Unlike a lot of purer drone releases, Damned always moves forward. Just, you know, at a crawl. A true one-man band, Crawl sees Engle playing drums, keys and bass; singing (or “singing”); and triggering samples—all live, all simultaneously. That makes Damned’s harrowing, depressive atmosphere feel vividly real and present, like we’re stuck in Engle’s dungeon with him. There’s no melodic counterpoint to blunt the impact of all that bleakness. To paraphrase Sam Elliott’s Big Lebowski character, darkness washes over you, and there is no bottom. Once your eyes adjust to the darkness, the small moments that stand out hit with bludgeoning force. The lone plunk of a keyboard that transforms extended intro track “Renaissance of Worthlessness” into “… This Lesser Form” is an olive branch of melody, or at least of notes, piercing the haze of bass feedback and rumbling drums. The aforementioned “fast” part in “10,000 Polehammers” is a thrill, but elsewhere in its 11-minute runtime, the negative space swallows the song entirely, which is just as stirring in its way. When percussion arrives nearly three minutes into “Poisoned and Shadowmad,” it turns a dungeon synth dirge into a blackened sludge hellscape that ferries the album to its conclusion. Damned is relentless, but for those receptive to its bleak power, it’s well worth the suffering. —BRAD SANDERS

GRIEF SYMPOSIUM

…In the Absence of Light CHURCH ROAD

For whom the bells toll

Grief Symposium ain’t the brightest light in

the cemetery. That’s probably expected for a band whose members originate in bands like Nine Covens and long-forgotten gothic metallers Entwined. Hailing from cheery East Anglia, Grief Symposium posit a Trouble-cum-Autopsy doom-death upon metaldom like unsung chiefs. Hell, there’s even traces—no, rivers—of the Nordic HM-2 gallop and Bolt Thrower battle tank grooves thrown in for absolutely good measure. Guitarist Lee James has his tones locked in, at once recalling vestiges of classic Unleashed (twofer, really) and Cathedral’s In Memorium demo without totally aping either. Vocalist Stephen John Tovey throats longingly into the chasm as if he’s Dutch. Well, he’s not, and Grief Symposium benefit from his manly emanations of faith and devotion. “Among Dead Gods” and “Veil of Transformation” are the underside of the coffin lid—grim, brutal and redolent of undead liquor. The soil-side of …In the Absence of Light is solicitous of the potential for exhumation. Sharper, more dissonant and spine-chilling, “Descent Into Pandemonium” and “In the Shadow of the Sleeping Monarch” offer contemplative carven slabs, the kind Celtic Frost and Dolorian chiseled into infamy when we were young. Grief Symposium aren’t reinventing the wheels of the hearse on …In the Absence of Light,

but they do suggest there’s ample room down under at the proverbial salad bar. For which we should be thankful. —CHRIS DICK

HELLRIPPER

Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags PEACEVILLE

G.O.A.T. goat

It’s unclear whether goathailing Highlander James McBain is ripping through Hell or ripping on behalf of Hell, but either way his one-man blackened speed metal project Hellripper tears through whatever underworld awaits in the afterdeath. 2020 sophomore slasher The Affair of the Poisons coagulated the darkness from his debut. Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags takes his infernal overkill to the next circle down. Comparisons can be drawn to similar solo throwback outfit Haunt, spiritually if not sonically: one guy tackling everything himself, doing nothing especially original, and yet creating an exemplary sample of his chosen genre. The big improvement on album three lies in the lyrics, and fortunately McBain’s demonic hiss doesn’t obfuscate the words. This time he covers topics ranging from local folklore (“The Nuckleavee”) to the real-life Scottish cannibal clan that inspired

UNHOLY

COMM UNION Taste the body and drink the blood of

EUCHARIST

’s crucial ’90s discography, reissued on Helter Skelter/Regain A Velvet Creation has been in various states of print over the years, but never in multiple formats concurrently. The folks at Helter Skelter Productions, a vanity label under Regain Records, have finally made that a reality. Of course, all the Eucharist fanfare coincides with the group’s long-awaited, pointedly nihilistic new album, I Am the Void. If the Swedes had been dormant for the better part of 25 years, headman Markus Johnsson picked the perfect plague years to resuscitate Eucharist’s Romantic era-infected corpse. The Helter Skelter reissue posits A Velvet Creation in its original state, housed in a six-pack digipak, multi-color LP and jet-black cassette.

Cultists will rejoice in the subtraction of the two W. A. R. Compilation - Volume One cuts. The tiny world that had embraced Eucharist on A Velvet Creation was left stunned when guitarist/vocalist Johnsson and drummer Daniel Erlandsson pulled their flambent opuscule out of obscurity on War Music in 1997. Finally, Eucharist had a production—courtesy of Fredrik Larnemo (Decameron, Ablaze My Sorrow)— worthy of its winding, strident, accomplished contents. “Dissolving,” “The Eucharist,” “With the Sun,” “Bloodred Stars” and fucking “In Nakedness” hammered the Swedes into infamy. Of course, the rest of metaldom had bigger fish to fry in 1997, but Mirrorworlds is (or rather was)

The Hills Have Eyes (“The Cursed Carrion Crown”). Proper metal material for sure. Of course, none of that matters if the riffs don’t match. Thankfully, McBain has a sorcerous grasp of the guitar, laying down leads so blazing fast they’d leave Athenar or Joel Grind grabbing for their leather vests. His key to success lies less in innovation and more in mastery. Hellripper’s take on the genre serves as a thrilling reminder of why black metal and speed metal go together like whips and leather. It’s still relatively early in his career, but this third helping of miasma solidifies why he’s one of the more exciting voices on the scene. —JEFF TREPPEL

HOST

NUCLEAR BLAST

Always some rearranging

Host share a name with Paradise Lost’s 1999 record, part of their trilogy of experiments with trip-hop and gothic rock. That’s no accident. Paradise Lost founders Gregor Mackintosh and Nick Holmes are the sole members of Host, and IX is a direct continuation of their turn-of-the-millennium sound. I’m a sucker for weird ’90s “metal” records, and I call Paradise Lost’s synthesizer expeditions

the top release that year. It is entirely singular, yet within the framework of whatever the New Wave of Swedish Death Metal started out as and had matured into by that point. The Helter Skelter reissue posits Mirrorworlds without additional studio tinkering—as it was, so it shall be. This time it’s barely contained in a six-pack digipak, multi-color LP and a swamp-colored cassette. The Demo Years 1989-1992 compiles Eucharist’s much-sought-after Demo 1, the group’s jaw-dropping “The View” (from the Deaf Metal sampler), two ripping rehearsals and a lost gem from ’89 called “Brutally Deceased” on a single offering. Finally, the bootlegs and CDRs of Demo 1 can be retired, and having “The View”—the fourth song completed by the nascent teenagers—in context of the rest of the pre/non-album tracks is wicked. The rehearsal tracks, especially “Once My Eye Moved Mountains,” are absolutely nuts considering they were recorded at a youth center in the group’s hometown of Veddige. “Brutally Deceased,” in the style of Nihilist, is proto-Eucharist and features some of the grossest vocals since Entombed’s “Premature Autopsy” projectile-puked. Comes from Beethoven’s grave on a six-panel digipak, multi-color LP and on bleached bone-colored cassette. —CHRIS DICK

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the best of the bunch. Holmes and Mackintosh changed instruments, but not their songwriting style. Songs from Host the album share a thematic spine and musical integrity with their death/doom masterpiece Gothic, and so does Host, the band. Unsurprisingly, each song on IX is a pitchblack pop confection. Lead single “Tomorrow’s Sky” soars, and so does the bombastic “Years of Suspicion.” Fans of the neon metal that my colleague Jeff Treppel espouses in these pages ought to listen to Host, as does anyone nostalgic for the Flood-empowered arena-rock records by Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and (gasp!) U2. Even the superfluous cover of “I Ran” by Flock of Seagulls has enough heft to escape the original’s cheesy shadow. As an admirer of Paradise Lost’s middle period, it’s vindicating to hear Mackintosh and Holmes return to this sound with ease and mastery. It’s so easy, in fact, that I wonder why these songs can’t be included in Paradise Lost’s discography—especially after their (excellent) last record, Obsidian, occasionally played with these sounds. After all, Holmes is already both crooning and roaring in the band’s current configuration. I prefer a future where Mackintosh can crush funeral doom riffs and program fuckme-in-the-corner beats on the same LP. But if I can’t have that, IX is a great secondary option. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

IN FLAMES

Foregone

NUCLEAR BLAST

Everlost

Judging by the delicate acoustic guitar melody in “The Beginning of All Things That Will End,” Swedish titans In Flames sound like they’re trying to recapture the mid-’90s melodic death metal glory days. And to the band’s credit, during the very best parts of Foregone, they do conjure some of the old black magic. The twopart title track of their best album in a decade will make you believe that the dream of Studio Fredman is still alive. It’s tough to say why Gothenburg's once-finest are chasing dragons a quarter-century old when only singer Anders Fridén and guitarist Björn Gelotte remain from that era. According to Fridén, the horrifying news from the war in Ukraine demanded they get heavier again, but his peacenik polemics read paper thin on a lyric sheet. Maybe fresh blood has In Flames’ heart pumping. Foregone is their first full-length with drummer Tanner Wayne and former Megadeth shredder Chris Broderick, who blends into the background, minus one particularly Rust in Peace-ish solo in “End the Transmission.” Wayne proves 68 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

his death metal bona fides throughout—his D-beats in “The Great Deceiver” had me howling with glee the way Whoracle still does. That said, In Flames only catch fire around half of the time. The alternative rock choruses that typify the band’s work this century are still around on songs like “Bleeding Out” and (ugh) “A Dialogue in B Flat Minor.” They still don’t quite work, no matter how many harmonies get layered on Fridén’s vocals. The lone exception is the affecting and confessional “Pure Light of Mind,” which adds one point to the final score of an otherwise half-decent record. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

INSIPIDUS

Ubiquity Hereafter SELF-RELEASED

They’re on their way, forevermore

Despite these Denver-ites’ release history and online presence only going back to early 2021—though we’re sure the NSA already knows whether Yoav Daube (guitar), Tim Hudson (bass/vocals) and Travis Hatley (drums) were reared in cloth diapers or Pampers— they’ve certainly taken the bull by the horns to the tune of getting in a van and playing 150-odd shows since forming. We’d also put solid money down that the members of this Rocky Mountain power trio were in attendance at Decibel’s recent Metal & Beer Fest Denver (assuming they weren’t on tour). And not only because every local with long hair and a black T-shirt was in attendance on one or both days, but because Insipidus are the sort of band that seemingly takes cues from every/anywhere, and would have been appreciative of the eclectic lineup. Their hopping, skipping and jumping take on progressive death metal nabs bits from ’70s fusion, Cynic’s thrashing demo days, the fourstring prominence of Rush and the six-string cross-stitch vocal style effectively employed by fellow Mile High heshers Blood Incantation. A barrage of rollicking tom fills propel the skronky squeal of “Kanada,” whereas a power-chorded bass acts as the title track’s spine. “A Hill of Ash” and “Annihilated Post Chemical Consciousness” both offer the intensity of space-age blackened death thrash with deceptive nods to Frank Marino guitar heroics and unheralded ’90s outfits like the Big F and Last Crack, as well as a not-so-deceptive collision between Oozing Wound’s non-metal metal and Killing Is My Business…-era Megadeth. There are moments where the plot gets lost in a haze of guitar histrionics and flash, and the production is more rehearsal room one-take than a meticulous week of sound experimentation, but it all works to give Ubiquity Hereafter an anti-modernist warmth that sledgehammers the boundaries erected around Insipidus. —KEVIN STEWART-PANKO

INSOMNIUM

Anno 1696

CENTURY MEDIA

Harvesters of sorrow

Insomnium aren’t getting any younger, but they’re arguably getting better. To wit, Anno 1696 is a long lake away from debut In the Halls of Awaiting. That was 21 years ago, though. And to be fair, the doleful Finns have issued a few lionhearted bangers—see Above the Weeping World (2006), One for Sorrow (2011) and Winter’s Gate (2016)— in between. The quintet triumphs in their ability to convey the Nordic mentality and landscape error-free. Whether it’s the maudlin offensive of “1696” and “The Witch Hunter” or the crestfallen sweep of “Godforsaken” (featuring Johanna Kurkela) and “The Unrest,” the Finns hit the heart hard, bringing us Southrons deep into their tragic blizzard. Much like their forebears in Amorphis and Sentenced, the balance of aggression and self-possession is always on display. The triple guitar attack of Ville Friman, Markus Vanhala (I Am the Night) and Jani Liimatainen (the Dark Element) is quite unique—outside of the Iron Maiden constellation, obviously. This trifecta translates to a guitar-forward approach, where counterpoint, harmony and cool solo overlays can (and do) happen with effective efficiency. Cases in point: “1696,” “Starless Paths” and the Grecian formula of “White Christ,” featuring Rotting Christ luminary Sakis Tolis. The production has a score-like feel to it. Clearly, mixing and mastering gems Jaime Gomez Arellano and Tony Lindgren have figured out Insomnium’s strengths (Nordic wistfulness, in particular). “The Witch Hunter” and undulating closer “The Rapids” succinctly capture Insomnium’s melodic death metal strategos. There’s no reinvention on Anno 1696, but renewal’s a moot point when the Finns continue to demonstrate masterclasses in vigilant iteration. —CHRIS DICK

MALLEUS

The Fires of Heaven ARMAGEDDON

Grace abounding to the chief of sinners

When I received Malleus’ album, The Fires of Heaven, I checked the band members’ nicknames (the Channeler, the Hammer, etc.). I assumed Malleus were either from Scandinavia or pro wrestling enthusiasts (or both). Nope, this first-wave-worshipping black metal band is from Boston, not a place I associate with black metal. Never mind, though—black metal became a global entity long ago and Malleus perform it with intensity and ferocity.

Let’s get this out of the way: No new musical ground is broken on The Fires of Heaven. I’ve always believed intent and execution trumps originality (and that magic happens when you have all three). Malleus do a pitch-perfect job of channeling Under the Sign of the Black Mark-era Bathory. While they cite Hellhammer as an influence, I don’t hear it—they are frankly more polished and better players than Fischer and co. were early in their careers. I hear a hefty serving of Quorthon with occasional touches of Dissection-grade virtuosity. Combining savagery with precision yields largely excellent results. Where Malleus differ from their forebears is how they handle themes and lyrics. Black metal’s progenitors trafficked in juvenile Satanism and superstition (and did it gloriously). Malleus look deeper; The Fires of Heaven includes a dose of Puritan history and touches on the inhumanity that English settlers visited on Native Americans. Puritanism is a fertile and almost untouched ground for black metal; the Puritans not only introduced widespread death and disease to a population, but viewed the world as a doomed place and salvation as a crapshoot. Jonathan Edwards might have been a perfect black metal lyricist because his takeaway always seemed to be you’re going to hell no matter what. Malleus even wrote a baroque-style classical introduction (performed by Kris Force and Jackie Perez Gratz) to get the feel just right. Malleus create old sounds with exceptional care and wrap them in intelligence and sophistication. The Fires of Heaven is a combustible and very listenable combination of concept and conviction. —JUSTIN M. NORTON

MODEL/ACTRIZ

Dogsbody

T R U E PA N T H E R

Blood (and every other fluid) on the dancefloor

On the (thank Christ) rare occasion you come across the term “bootyshaking” in this magazine, it’s safe to intuit that it was written by a straight white male over the age of 40, and Neil Fallon or Lee Dorrian are the inspiration. Well, lucky you: Another straight white male over the age of 40 is here to extol the virtues of a “booty-shaking” album that is, well, not even kind of in those beloved veterans’ ballpark/galaxy/extended cinematic universe. Let’s get the two things you’ll hate out of the way: Model/Actriz are from Brooklyn and what they do contains elements of dancepunk. Don’t bail. From the jump of “Donkey Show,” the first track on this long-gestating debut LP, it’ll be shards-of-shattered-glass-clear that we haven’t steered you into Falseville. A refreshingly singular Molotov of noise, industrial and

post-punk, Dogsbody stretches percussive tension to the breaking point. And that goes far beyond Ruben Radlauer’s constant hi-hat hammering, which often come off like nervously chattering teeth. It includes bassist Aaron Shapiro’s deceptively simple foundation to the otherwise frantic “Mosquito,” guitarist Jack Wetmore’s demolitiongrade dead strums in the holy-fuck climax of “Slate” and even frontman Cole Haden’s practically undead afterhours mantras. It should be noted, Haden’s gonna be an underground superstar. Model/Actriz have gained minor notoriety based on combative live sets in which he engages the folded-arms masses with disconcerting fervor, contorting like the hellspawn of Medusa and Appetite-era Axl, suffusing his band’s violent fits and starts with erudition and eroticism. This record cements that M/A won’t be filed and forgotten under “you gotta see ’em live.” The Venn diagram overlap of “sexy,” “heavy” and “good” includes Type O Negative, some solo Danzig and, uh… you know, that other band. Here’s that other band. —ANDREW BONAZELLI

OAK

Disintegrate SEASON OF MIST

Atlas shrugged

OAK’s sophomore effort tells the epic tale of a titanic giant who seeks to be unburdened from carrying the world’s weight. Disintegrate shimmers into existence with solitary clean chord voicing accompanied by an astral synthesizer, joined shortly by the kick-snare starbursts of Pedro Soares. Our journey begins as the atmospheric cinema yields to the wretched torment of volcanic guitar and vocals wielded by Guilherme Henriques. Lyrically, Disintegrate documents its protagonist wandering in the horror of what they’ve become; questioning their existence in death; finding clarity in transition; then rising to immortality. Musically, Soares and Henriques pulse and swirl around their subject, allowing a natural build from ghost notes before unleashing an electric charge into the void. This formula repeats across four distinct “acts” without feeling forced or leading to lost focus. In fact, some of the most lucid moments occur in the connective tissue of the record’s meat, such as uncredited organ performances that provide ominous interest. In terms of production, Disintegrate is a puzzle. Overcompressed drums and distorted clipping during the intro distract and detract from the initial build. Also, some unedited coughing during one of the quieter moments is hard to ignore. That said, the stereo field leaves space for every instrument, including the bass and keys,

which is not easily achieved. (While not listed as an official OAK member, Lucas Ferrand’s excellent bass work is highlighted throughout.) With only one track clocking in just shy of 45 minutes, it may be fairer to call Disintegrate a “suite” rather than an “album.” Similarly, OAK have indicated this is just the first chapter in the giant’s tale. No matter the format categorization or production concerns, the experience these Portuguese atmospheric death/doom merchants are selling is worth every dollar and every second. I, for one, will eagerly await the giant’s return. —TIM MUDD

OBITUARY

Dying of Everything RELAPSE

Odd fellows’ best

Roughly four presidential administrations ago, an unspecified member of Obituary (because I don’t remember who the hell it was) made an unflattering comparison regarding the quality of Obituary’s riffs vs. Crowbar’s. The (paraphrased) gist: “Crowbar’s just ‘distortion-heavy.’ Play a Crowbar riff on an acoustic guitar and you’ve got yourself a limp noodle. Obituary riffs destroy no matter what.” Now, this is nothing more than yesterday’s gravy, but listening to Dying of Everything certainly recalls that ol’ sepia-toned dust-up (and yeah, I’ll return to this point). Obituary’s fundamental sound is surprisingly elastic. It’s asking a lot of the troglodytic premise established on their seminal releases to bear a decades-long onslaught of trends and life experience, but Obituary manage to evolve holistically and gracefully. If you’ve heard their 2017 self-titled release, you know exactly what to expect. Their current sound is familiar, but surprisingly crisp and—yes—even a tad commercial. Dying of Everything supersizes the hooks and bright production of its predecessor (unfortunately shedding its lower frequencies in the process), and is—by and large—the boss of me. That said, the distracting silliness of “War” and its chicken-of-the-sea acoustic break has me calling for a mistrial, re: the Obituary vs. Crowbar hearings. “War” is clumsy and embarrassing. It sounds like a GOARMY commercial and it can promptly GOFUCKITSELF. Ironically, the band favorably recalls Crowbar again and again via the style and quality of its riffcraft. They also directly (and a touch distractingly) invoke Slayer—down to those telltale perfect-fourth harmonies—in the opening track, and also Trouble via the noisome brimstone of “Be Warned.” This record will mash each and every viable potato in a live setting, and I recommend robust health insurance to Obituary’s semper-fis, but this ain’t no Odd Fellows Rest. This here noodle’s al dente. —FORREST PITTS DECIBEL : MARCH 2023 : 69

RITUAL DEATH

Ritual Death SHADOW

Hellhammered

It’s strange how strange this record seems to get without ever getting particularly strange. Ritual Death— not to be confused with the band’s two previous EPs bearing the same eponymous title—is these Norwegian veterans’ first swing at a full-length since they convened roughly six years ago, and it largely traffics in all the expected midtier satanic black metal tropes. To wit: Opener “Ancient Devil Worship” primes its ultra-simple beat with a Tom Warrior-approved “OUGH!” Staples of black thrash songwriting proudly gild every transition on the record. Song titles include such mainstays as “Black Metal Terror” and “Darkness of Death.” So, yeah, musically, Ritual Death is a relatively straight-ahead, old-school rager with gloomy cemetery tendencies, vaguely reminiscent of Chuck BB’s Nosk of the Void gem a couple years ago. All of that would be fairly unassuming if it weren’t for Håkon Tvedt’s unabashedly eerie organ and keyboard accents. Whenever that instrument lies atop these occult grooves like a suffocating fog—which is often, though not constant—the record takes on a sickly glow that nudges the music outside the norm. On their own, the songs are fun, but Tvedt’s organ is really the hero that elevates Ritual Death above its otherwise unremarkable station. Add in the curiously industrial crunch of “Vermin,” the subtle riff enhancements that buoy the center of “Morbid Veils of Kharon” and the moody, cowbell-clanging closing of “Nothingness Without, Emptiness Within,” and while it might not beg for repeated listens, it’ll certainly raise some eyebrows. —DANIEL LAKE

SORCERESS

Beneath the Mountain KING VOLUME

Old spells, new magic

Back in 2014, burgeoning doom artisans Mizmor and Hell collaborated on a split record of Oregonian heaviness. Since that point, both of those solo projects have been decorated with acclaim. But five years prior, A.L.N. of Mizmor and M.S.W. of Hell actually played together in the tragically underheard doom rock outfit Sorceress. That band’s lone album, Beneath the Mountain, has been rescued from obscurity and refurbished by King Volume, tattooed on wax for the first time. Don’t spin Side A expecting Cairn’s scorched funeral sludge or Hell’s infernal drone. Sorceress 70 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

harness classic doom’s power while swaggering through the 420 smoke of the early 21st century stoner rock explosion. “Wolves of Asgard” feels like a time portal to 2009, when a plethora of potheads chased the Sword’s hype with fuzzdrenched blues riffs. What sets Sorceress apart— outside of retrospective pedigree—is the raw energy and conviction of the songwriting and execution. Beneath the Mountain is fueled as much by atmosphere and attitude as it is the witchy riffs from A.L.N. and Blake Ferrin. Think the albums by Witch, but with a burlier guitar crunch. Each song is dynamic and shaped by shadows. It feels like a rock record without a true template; familiar but fearsome in its pursuit of something dirtier and darker within stoner rock. There’s the occult grime of “Nine Muses.” The searing harsh vocals that bubble out of the cauldron in “…Of the Trees.” Andrew Black’s bass romping through the motor-charged psychedelia of “Black Acid Mother.” Black masses for burnouts in my personal favorite, “Anar.” By the time you conclude the nearly 20 minutes composing the title track, you just wish there was another Sorceress full-length to discover. —SEAN FRASIER

TITHE

Inverse Rapture P R O FO U N D LO R E

10 percent return

Portland, OR’s Tithe really are the wham-bam-fuckyou-ma’am of black/deathgrind. There is no fat here. There is no space to breathe. There is no buildup. There is no comedown. There is only the incessant eruption of shit in the form of blast beats, warped and rancid riff barrages, and Matt Eiseman’s super-dry hardcore yowl. Even though the record’s seven tracks barely fill 30 minutes, Inverse Rapture is a harrowing experience. The fretboard frenetics and outright drum destruction on display must be mesmerizing to watch in a live setting. There’s a lot to appreciate in Tithe’s grotesque sonic explosion. The problems creep in with the realization that, musically, it’s all a bit of a lo-cal affair. Aside from the occasionally stretchy-gooey melodic lines, which crop up sporadically to emphasize an intended moment of particularly dour evil, the guitar has been afforded an extremely narrow pitch range, and the riffs squeezing through that tight space rarely make much of an impact. It doesn’t help that they’re constantly being bulldozed by Kevin Swartz’s athletic but often overzealous drum performances. Lyrically, Eiseman clearly has some things to get off his chest—the title track packs all the

pain of watching his mother’s decline through Alzheimer’s and her death by COVID-19—but his raw and oddly-pitched vocals sit uncomfortably in the mix and seem to strain against rather than strengthen the songs. Alex Huddleston’s bass is almost uniformly buried by every other element, and trying to find and enjoy it is a bit of a fool’s game. Inverse Rapture deserves and will find its fans, but there are stronger versions out there of what Tithe have to offer. —DANIEL LAKE

TRIBUNAL

The Weight of Remembrance 20 BUCK SPIN

Epicus death/doomicus

As I write this, I haven’t seen a drop of sunlight in more than two weeks. The sky outside is ugly and gray, its fog thick enough to cut with a knife. It’s been so intense (even for this corner of North America) that people have been checking in on friends and loved ones vulnerable to seasonal affective disorder. But if I had any fear the darkness might start to get to me, too, I’ve shaken it off and wholeheartedly embraced the gloom, thanks to The Weight of Remembrance from Vancouver, BC newcomers Tribunal. Cemented around the duo of cellist/bassist/ vocalist Soren Mourne and guitarist/vocalist Etienne Flinn, the band is joined by primary drummer Julia Geason and vocalist Rory Say, with second drummer Magedalena Wineski (on early single “Apathy’s Keep”) and pianist Claine Lamb (on the vampiric instrumental, “Remembrance”). Tribunal don’t stray too far from the bleak, cavernous and decadent atmospheres of their classic doom and gothic metal influences. But while moments on The Weight of Remembrance border on homage to stalwarts like Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Candlemass (just feast your ears on “Apathy’s Keep”), they’ve got the vision and chops to make such well-trodden territory seem fresh. From the foreboding bells and rain that usher in creeping opener “Initiation,” Tribunal drive the listener deep into the catacombs of their dismal world, with Mourne’s powerful clean vocals brushing up nicely against Flinn’s hair- and fist-raising snarls. There’s nary a misstep between the angelic vocal harmonies and punishing builds of “Of Creeping Moss and Crumbled Stone” and “Without Answer” before Tribunal swing for the stars of prog-infused epic “The Path.” It’s an impressive debut that suggests a band whose best work is still up ahead. —JAMIE LUDWIG

TRIVAX

The Serpent’s Gaze C U LT N E V E R D I E S

Metal: Two headbangers’ journeys

Like wine, black metal is representative of the terroir it originates from, and so the Trivax backstory bears repeating by explanation of how their sound—occultist, savage yet grandiose—came into being. And perhaps it goes some way to explaining why a band founded circa 2009 has only one studio album, a scattering of EPs and two compilation appearances to their name. Trivax were formed by guitarist/vocalist Shayan in Tehran, where music is just one of many things to trigger the Iranian authorities into meting out draconian punishment upon its citizenry. Just shy of his 17th birthday in 2011, Shayan moved to Birmingham, England, and hooked up with Sully, a bass player and fellow metalhead from Syria similarly seeking refuge from an authoritarian monster. Brum native Matthew Croton completed the lineup on drums. The rest is a history that has brought us to The Serpent’s Gaze. It’s a three-track EP, the opening instrumental’s Persian title translating to “Wake Up!,” which duly summons you to consciousness, laying the ground for a pair of eight-minute epics that recall Rotting Christ, Dissection, Behemoth at their most gnarly, a less Nordic Enslaved, and a host of second-wave black metal references that have been sexed up with allusions to black magic and other occultist hugger-mugger. The guitar tone is delicious, square-wave nasty heat. There are guest vocals from Wraath (Behexen), Russell Dobson (Winterfylleth) and John Wilcox (Funeral Throne). There are mid-sections that expand the horizons. There are blast beats. And there’s the sense that not only have Trivax evolved since 2016’s SIN, but the 2023 vintage could be worth keeping an eye on. —JONATHAN HORSLEY

VEILCASTE

Precipice

W I S E B LO O D

Hangin’ with Mike Pence

Hooper: “You were on the [U.S.S.] Indianapolis?” Brody: “What happened?” Quint: “Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin’ back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We’d just delivered the bomb, Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn’t see the first shark for about half an hour.” Beyond the Colts, Indy 500 and Bloomington claiming the late Lt. Colonel Henry Blake, Robert Shaw’s (literally) gutting monologue from Jaws

constitutes the sum total of my knowledge about the Hoosier State and its capital. All right, throw in sorrow merchants Apostle of Solitude as well. Nevertheless, rebranded from a decade-old Conjurer in 2020, Indy quintet Veilcaste’s full-length step-off Precipice acquits its grain belt-fattened death/doom admirably. Gloom-crier guitar harmonies spiral out of opener “Asunder Skies,” whose ascension entwines stringers John Rau and Brian Wyrick, plus the buzz, fuzz and scuzz of bassist Gabe Whitcomb. While the axe brigade batters and balloons, Dustin Mendel’s leathery, sandpaper tone erodes all like time itself. “Dust and Bone” delivers the singer’s best melody, a down-tuned moan touched off by a lyrical refrain as hooky as Hellraiser: “I never believed I was anything more to you than wasted time.” That alone guarantees revisiting Precipice. “Drag Me Down” bludgeons behind drummer Chris Cruz, “For Us” whiffs Autopsy, and endnote “Empty Hall” clocks 7:10 as the frontman heaves throat/lungs/epiglottis all over the glacial guitar gravel ground into clay. “So, 1,100 men went into the water, 316 men come out. The sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.” Veilcaste deliver. —RAOUL HERNANDEZ

WITCH RIPPER

The Flight After the Fall MAGNETIC EYE

Burning men

Seattle’s Witch Ripper riff and rock like a cutting-edge band from 15 years ago. That’s an excellent thing for listeners still chasing that old-school Mastodon itch, but judging by their second full-length, The Flight After the Fall, these proggy doomers have greater ambitions than that. Led by guitarist/vocalist Curtis Parker (formerly of Iron Thrones), and anchored by drummer Joe Eck and bassist Brian Kim, Witch Ripper bring more instrumental chops than their style demands. Eck, in particular, has a talent for airdrummable fills and tricky little timing accents. Accordingly, the band achieves peak performance best when they up the tempo and play with serpentine and swinging grooves. That was true on their debut album, and it’s still true today on standout track “Madness and Ritual Solitude.” But The Flight After the Fall adds something to the equation: guitarist and singer Chad Fox, who is every bit Parker’s equal as a shredder. Fox’s addition comes with a new emphasis on clean, harmonized choruses of the post-hardcore variety. I taste notes of Thrice circa 2005 when I sip on “Enter the Loop” and “The Obsidian Forge.”

These overt melodic hooks signal an intention to appeal to a more diverse set of listeners than just heshers into “Witch-” bands, and good for them! But to stand out in a crowd that still includes Baroness, to say nothing of vocal powerhouses like Oceans of Slumber, Witch Ripper will need a more distinct point of view. The Flight After the Fall is a promising turn of events, and with any luck, a third record will have more vocal conviction to match the band’s obvious instrumental talent. —JOSEPH SCHAFER

WRETCHED FATE

Carnal Heresy

REDEFINING DARKNESS

You will meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it

I’ll focus primarily on Carnal Heresy’s strengths because they are manifold. In 2019, Wretched Fate forcibly turned heads via their formulaic but muscular Swe-death debut. The band knew how to sling rocks in the form of hooks and smart phrasing, and could arguably elbow their way into the same VIP lounge as upper-crusties like the Lurking Fear and Blood Red Throne. For their sophomore release, Wretched Fate lean harder into eerie melodicism and oblique phraseologies, creating an intensely expressive record freckled with catchy passages and a relentlessly creative patois without ever denouncing their atavistic roots. That balancing act is one of Carnal Heresy’s neatest tricks (though the truly good stuff is shoehorned into the record’s second half). It’s every ounce as gnarly and blast beattenderized as the debut while affording wisps of ghostly sustain to wander its grounds, a few unusual—almost ambient—furnishings here and there, and a slate of genuinely stirring riffs. Two-thirds of this record is successfully enterprising without ever incorporating clean tonalities or stooping to the use of, I don’t know, a sampler or a fucking hammered dulcimer. That said, I’m scoring this’n a point higher than I would were I grading solely based on my personal inclinations. Qualms: The production job on the drums is characterless. The vocals are a sort of “death metal oatmeal-sufficient,” but wildly unequal to the band’s aspirations. Finally, the first portion of the record is creatively utilitarian at best (though I’ll admit to digging the bob ‘n’ weave of “Mind Desecrator”’s refrain.) Yet my misgivings are just offal in the water for the “drop-anchor die-hards,” while the band’s stargazing is bound to lure in the fringes. To wit: You basin-cheeked acolytes still grieving the untimely demise of Morbus Chron may have just found your new pacifier. Carnal Heresy is a high(ish) watermark. —FORREST PITTS DECIBEL : MARCH 2023 : 71

EUGENE S. ROBINSON

HOME FOR THE

HARDCOREDAYS NO

matter how bad your family was, if you lived even a little bit in some portion of the Western world, the holidays were noted. Sometimes in a religious context, mostly in a family one: the ritual exchange of gifts, consumption of foodstuffs and usually some sort of song. If you had a terrible family, these are the days you try hard to think about something else. If you had a good family, you’ll spend it with them and relive the glorious past and memories of the same. However, even if your family was good, there’s a point where their interests in what was gets trumped by your interest in what is, and you start crafting your own traditions. “You going, right?” I had stolen an airplane ticket. Or rather, I had a stolen airplane ticket. Back when it was easy to do such things. The only catch was to be mindful of the fact that, when they called Martin Meyer, YOU, whose name was definitely not Martin Meyer, answered to the name of Martin Meyer. Several times they called his name. Several 72 : MARCH 2023 : DECIBEL

times I needed to remind myself that I was him. I played it off like I was hard of hearing. Given that it was 1982 and I had a mohawk when no sane Black dudes had mohawks made it easy enough. And pre-9/11 no one gave a damn anyway. Anyway, I had left the West Coast to hang back on the East. Drawn, specifically, by three nights of Bad Brains at CBGBs. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas, Bad Brains would be headlining shows at CBGBs back before people called or considered it the “famed” CBGBs. That is, the club was just the club, but three days in a row of Bad Brains was too much of a draw to deny. I had followed the band X around the country, too. Until it got creepy when they started to recognize me from show to show and my only explanation was, “I love you guys.” The summer preceding the holiday season of ’82, though, was a heavy one. Sly and Robbie were regulars on the Lower East Side. Agnostic Front were just starting to rehearse in a basement on Ludlow Street, if memory serves, and I passed out

back behind their PA after consuming nothing but milk for the previous three days. Like a freaking cat. The Beastie Boys were just about to break big and Rick Rubin was telling anyone who would listen that he was going to be HUGE. When the season started to change, though, for lots of NYHC, it was back to the squats in the burned-out buildings in the LES, a situation that made me thankful that I was welcome at home again after not having been for a while. Even though I slept out as often as I could. Not because I didn’t want to be home, but because I had to be at CBs. Or 2 + 2. Or anywhere else a hardcore show was. I needed to make that stolen ticket count. Which is just what happened when Bad Brains hit the stage. Captured as it was on video and subsequently released and sold enough that when it gets to be this time of year, a passel of people routinely send me screengrabs from it where you can see me, as they open with the long lead into “Right Brigade,” lose… my… fucking… mind. Individually, and in aggregate, the show was a living, breathing

example of the transformative powers of music, art and performance. All rolled into an explosive organism of release from the old ways, laws and traumas, and into almost a totally new way of thinking and feeling. Not just about, yes, music, art and performance, but also (and most significantly) your place in space. I know all about the later careersabotaging antics that beset them— most of them self-inflicted and as a result of undiagnosed bipolar issues—but then, and those three nights where, fundamentally, you got to see them create three hours of the greatest music of that time right there, it was a revelation. The kind of revelation that would change your life. Which is how I think of it. Where family, love, life and creation all came together, for three nights, in a total embodiment of the reason for the season, it couldn’t have been more perfect. And me today? Totally a product of me from those days. So, before we call the riot squad, hope you had a Happy New Year, all and sundry. It may not get much better than this. ILLUSTRATION BY ED LUCE

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