Sonic Shocks 9/2012

Issue 9/2012

£ FREE

Someone may not like it but...

Complete report, pictures and interviews inside

Cover images courtesy of Jessica Gilbert (aerial view) and Derek Bremner (fans shot)

WE HAVE PICTURES OF

BLACK SABBATH

AND WE’RE NOT AFRAID TO SHARE THEM

British stars join the growing anti-tog list with a strict ‘single use’ deal

Pictures taken from the crowd by Ivan David (Opensight) - read comments on page 2

! ikes again Denise str photos inside report and

Full

Happy Birthday

ANTICHRIST!

Our reports from DOWNLOAD ROCKLAHOMA SLAM DUNK IBIZA ROCKS Interviews with FEAR FACTORY SERJ TANKIAN DEW SCENTED KING OF ASGARD WATAIN UGLY KID JOE KYUSS LIVES THE SAFETY FIRE UPON A BURNING BODY SANGUINE VEIL OF MAYA HELLYEAH PERIPHERY EUROPE THE AUDITION MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK VILDHJARTA MALEFICE OCTOBER SKY Plus THE HAIRSPRAY CORNER BURLESQUE! LONDON AT NIGHT REVIEWS LIVE! SONIC SPEED FREAKS

Page 2

by Cristina Massei At this year’s Download, the already tiny selection of professional photographers accredited for the main stage pit had to sign an agreement including a restriction for ‘single use’ to be allowed to shoot Black Sabbath.

Basically, if the tog was shooting let’s say for Metal Hammer, he could use ONE shot, ONCE and on Metal Hammer only. Even Download’s press office wasn’t authorized to share any of the Sabbath ones with ‘third parties’ for editorial use. So, we launched an appeal with our readers for some shots from the public, and hey presto, the photos were in our inbox. My improvised tog – and the other thousands in the crowd with a compact camera, iPhone etc – had not signed anything, so get stuffed to the Sabbath camp, and if the images accompanying our review are not of a professional standard, you only have yourselves to blame.

This is just the latest blow on music photographers by self-centred greedy rockstars, and although I really fail to see the advantage of such a restrictive clause for the musicians themselves, there are worst offenses perpetrated daily to a category already struggling to survive.

Here’s what you need to sign before being allowed to shoot ageing rockers Van Halen:

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Issue 9/2012

under this paragraph shall be deemed a breach of this Agreement, with the understanding that Licensee shall request all third parties to correct any such inadvertent failure on future runs after Licensee has been notified

by Licensor in writing of any such failure or upon Licensee’s independent discovery of such failure.

3. Licensor represents and warrants she/he is the sole, full, and complete copyright holder of each and every one of Materials and that she/he has the full right, power, and authority to enter into this agreement. Furthermore, Licensor acknowledges that she/he is not entitled to receive nor shall he receive any other compensation (past, present, or future) other than that which is specified in paragraph 1 above. Licensor hereby agrees to indemnify, defend and hold Licensee, its directors, officers, shareholders, attorneys, employees, agents, successors and assigns, harmless from any and all claims, causes of action, demands, damages, losses, costs, obligations, recoveries and deficiencies (including attorney’s fees and costs) which arise from or relate in any manner in whole or in part, to any of the representations or warranties of Licensor contained in this agreement."

Basically, Motley Crue can make money out of MY pictures but I CAN’T. And shall any problem arise, legal costs are on me. Please note that Motley Crue do NOT allow shooting from the pit but only from the sound desk, so really, you’re better off with your iPhone from front row. And for everything else there’s Photoshop…

More and more artists ask photographers to surrender their rights if they want to shoot, rights to monetize their work and sometimes even to use the shots for their own portfolio. This practice is out of order, completely illegal and should indeed be stopped by the authorities and rejected by the togs themselves in the first place.

More Sa bbat

h from D

Sonic Shocks Ltd www.sonicshocks.com info@sonicshocks.com Editor in Chief and Creative Director Cristina Massei

thewickedwitch@sonicshocks.com

Content Director Matt Dawson

cygnus@sonicshocks.com

Business Director Marcus J West

ownload !

marcus@sonicshocks.com

Unsigned Editor Dan Balchin

zorro@sonicshocks.com

US Correspondent Denise Bales Britt Burlesque & Nightlife Sophia Disgrace The US Government has established that copyright exists the moment when a work is created, which in this case is the moment when a photographer clicks the shutter button. As a matter of courtesy, I may indulge the artist into approving the shots before being published whenever deadlines allow it; however, the performance is public and – unless there’s a total no shooting policy for that specific event, which would be impossible to enforce – there’s no issue of privacy as it could be argued in the case of paparazzi invading personal space. And at that point, it is all simply and crudely a monetary matter.

The whole agreement makes a joke out of any copyright law, however what I find particularly scary here is paragraph 2: :”in the even to f a breach or THREATENED breach… Van Halen shall be entitled to injunctive and other equitable relief TO STOP OR PREVENT such breach or THREATENED breach”. So, what constitutes THREATENED breach? If my image - which is online TO PUBLICIZE VAN HALEN to THEIR benefit - gets used without my knowledge on some dodgy t-shirt, I will have to defend myself for having given FREE EXPOSURE to the band? Wouldn’t the thief be violating my property? No. Would be threatening Van Halen’s, and I may well have to pay for Van Halen to prosecute the guy. Actually, I may have to pay for the POSSIBILITY of that happening, with an ‘injunctive or equitable relief to allow Van Halen to stop or prevent the THREATENED breach’. If my picture leaks, basically, I don’t get compensation: I pay Van Halen to claim compensation on MY work. Sure it doesn’t work like that if their album leaks?

Motley Crue went a step further, imposing the photographer to licence all the images to them to exploit as they see fit, without having to pay him anything ever, and at the same time renounce on his right to exploit HIS own work. Oh, and he also has to pay legal costs if anything goes wrong.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the agreement – which the band had removed from popular Facebook page ‘Music Photographers’: 1. (a) For good and valuable consideration, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, Licensor hereby agrees to license to Licensee, on a nonexclusive basis extending worldwide in perpetuity, the right to exploit Materials in all manner and media now known or hereafter devised, including, without limitation, the use (for commercial or promotional purposes), in phonograph record albums, merchandise, motion pictures, television, via Internet/multimedia and website, via mobile telephones, videocassettes/ DVDs, all audio-visual rights, publishing rights (in all forms) and publication rights for publicity or advertising purposes. (b) Notwithstanding anything contained herein to the contrary, Licensor agrees that it shall not license any of the Materials (or shall not exploit any of the Materials) without the written consent of the Licensee which shall be withheld in Licensee’s sole discretion.

2. Where reasonably practical, Licensee shall use best efforts to accord Licensor credit in all instances where Licensee exploits Materials. Said credit shall read as follows: “Photographs (or Footage) by ________________________” No casual or inadvertent failure on Licensee’s part to fulfill any obligation

Now, we do understand that Van Halen, or Kiss, or Lady Gaga are not just people: they are a brand, a trademark, and as such may not be right on our end to profit their name and fame, but asking us to surrender OUR copyright and give them our images to exploit for free is out of order. A royalty on any profit would be fair, instead the greedy bastards up on stage prefer to just take the piss instead and show who’s in control, suck the last penny out of our pocket for the honour of three songs in the pit being pushed about by security and targeted by drunken fans. Note: it’s never the poor young semi-unknown band doing this; it’s normally the Foo Fighters, Coldplay and Lady Gaga of this world, those who could really be throwing $$ notes in the photo pit every night without their estate being affected the slightest.

When Alice Cooper lets you shoot a full set from the pit with nothing to sign and even Metallica welcome professional photographers with no restrictions, is obvious that is not us exploiting the bands’ image – surely Lars Ulrich wouldn’t allow it. No one is asking for charity here, the name is yours but the image is MY creation, MY work, not to mention MY equipment, MY insurance, MY time.

I urge all music photographers to carry a compact in their pocket and say no when presented with any agreement that violates their professional and artistic rights. It’s time to put an end to an illegal, immoral and unethical practice that has been tolerated way too long. The Black Sabbath pictures we published on this issue show that nowadays we don’t need access to the pit to get some shots, we need it to get GOOD SHOTS. And that is not solely to OUR benefit.

Shame on you, sad greedy cunts with illusions of grandness. My photos are my art, my creation, my intellectual property and – last but not least – my job and only source of income. Remember, I don’t need to shoot YOU, but YOU need US – and by us I mean the press in its entirety. See, I represent both… so if you try to steal my work, I will make sure the world knows. You will not get another review from me, but your ‘agreement’ will be made public to show your fans what a lowlife you really are. And before you say ‘it’s not me, it’s the management’, I’d like to remind you that you’re the one who hires them and fires them… If they’re the thieves, pick a side.

Show us who’s really in control, because if we start using iPhone shots on editorials, you’ll be left with none.

All Black Sabbath photos were kindly offered by Ivan David, check out his awesome band OPENSIGHT here: www.opensightband.com

In-House Photographers Cristina Massei Marcus J West David Lees Matt Higgs Cayleigh Shepherd Nelly Loriaux Writers (this issue) Cristina Massei Matt Dawson Marcus J West Dan Balchin Becki Kremer Denise Britt Matthew Tilt Sophia Disgrace Nelly Loriaux Matthew Higgs Claudio Pucci Olivia Cellamare Ross Pike General enquiries info@sonicshocks.com Advertising enquiries advertising@sonicshocks.com Back issues distribution@sonicshocks.com

Issue 9/2012

Sonic Shocks

by Becki Kremer photos Cayleigh Shepherd, Matt Higgs (Tenacious D), Cristina Massei, rock. I showed my protest in the form of a half arsed boo Ivan David (Black Sabbath, Andrew Whitton (Soundgarden) and went to go get some chips. That'll teach 'em...

2012 – The year the world will supposedly end. If this pans out to be true then those who decided to not join in this year's muddy merriment of Download are definitely going to be pissed off.

As my second year of reporting on this glorious occasion, I came to realise that it was the same place as last year, but there were many different experiences to be had. As the weekend went on I realised that there should really be a handbook written on how to navigate the festival, how to prepare for excessive drinking before 1pm, and the onslaught of british weather. So I decided to jot down notes of nifty , valuable nuggets of truth that could be passed on to many Download virgins, so that next year (if the world doesn't implode) they can avoid all the pitfalls of the festival. Here's what I gathered...

-Baby wipes solve almost any problem.

-Don't trust a fully grown man wearing a cow suit.

-If a food stall is still deserted by the last day, avoid it like your life depends on it – unless you enjoy the sensation of salmonella.

-The rule is this: Shoulders = Boobies. If you don't follow the rule, don't look shocked when you get booed.

-ALWAYS bring extra socks. And make sure your socks bring extra socks.

-Keep your beer on you at all times, unless you want people to use it as a football.

-There is always that one really tall twat stood in front of you when you're trying to watch a band.

-Best value for money = Hot Wok Noodle Bar. -If you don't wear wellies when it's raining then you're just asking for the ground to swallow your feet.

-Apparently you're supposed to take it as a compliment if someone working at the bar who looks about 12 years old asks you for ID. I'm pretty sure I should be ID-ing you, sweetheart.

Luckily for me TRIVIUM were up next and swiftly kicked the energy up a gear, by blasting through fan favourites and perforating ear drums in the process. Even though they're not on my iPod as much as they were several years ago, I still hold a soft spot for them in my cold, empty heart, so it was comforting to hear them spill out old classics like “Pull Harder On The Strings of Your Martyr” and “Rain”. It's not a surprise this band have come so far considering Matt Heafy's charismatic aura and ever-extending gratitude toward his fans, which paid off as he soon had the arena eating out of his metallic palm. Watching an entire audience jumping all at once or witnessing 7+ circle pits breaking out at the same time never gets old, and I hope Trivium feel the same way.

STEEL PANTHER are not for the faint hearted and as they strutted onto the stage the atmosphere of the growing crowd shifted toward a more naughty frame of mind. Yowling his way through “Supersonic Sex Machine”, Michael Starr showed how much of a crudely fantastic frontman he can be, quashing rumours that the band always lip-synch. Guitars wailed and women swooned as the arena was blasted with side-splittingly entertaining “Asian Hooker”, “Community Property” and “17 Girls in a Row”. Getting the entire crowd to look up and shout “Fuck you!” at a passing plane, and a brief onstage cameo from Corey Taylor only excited the audience more and the stageside screen soon turned into the world's biggest boob cam.

Unfortunately for me I didn't get to attend Just to be clear, everything the Friday of this year's festival but despite you've ever heard about this, I luckily missed the incessant downtheir stage show is true. pour that was reported back to me. UnluckThere's crotch thrusting, ily, I didn't miss the mud. If you thought it shrieking vocals, hilariwas hard last year to get from one side of the ous onstage banter and arena to the other, then try adding about 20 tonnes of swampy spandex galore. All that was needed was for someone to sludge. hump an inflatable doll. Oh, wait...

I knew it was going to be a messy, sweaty weekend – but I didn't know it was going to be hilarious, and down-right awesome. The comedy was not about to let up as everyone anxHere's what went down... iously awaited TENACIOUS D who did not disappoint when they slowly stepped out into the open wearing fluffy white robes, to the loud chants of “D, D, D, D”.

Without a single word the duo began strumming the SATURDAY intro to “Rize of The Fenix” as we all clapped along.

Howling out lyrics as if leading us to battle, they took First band of the weekend for me were HALESTORM and al- complete command of the stage as a giant, strangely though they're not my favourite kind of band they certainly get phallic phoenix began to inflate behind them, followed an A for effort. At a relatively early time in the day it's not easy to by a dancing squid-monster and a guitarist possessed get a crowd going, have enough stamina to sustain crappy weath- by Satan. There really was something so mesmerising er, and integrate cowbell into insane drumming skills, but the about Jack Black and the poker face he had on when he band man- said the most ridiculous things, or his spasm/dance that aged to pull he did during scat riffs. Add that to the fact he owns it off. Plus the most deviant looking eyebrows ever and you've it helps that got yourself a fucking show. A lot of new songs were the female played, such as “Roadie” and “Deth Starr”, but also old lead singer ones were honoured in the form of “Fuck Her Gently” and the has more ever infamous “Tribute”. It was beautiful, it was hilarious, and balls than it was also a shame they weren't higher up in the bill. most blokes I can think of. BIFFY CLYRO were a band that I was surprised to see taking It still wasn't to the stage before Metallica, and I was proven right once they late enough started awkwardly playing. Starting their set with “Mounin the day to tains” it soon became apparent that there was going to be litget people tle to no audience a b s o l u t e l y interaction and it buzzing but even felt like the their strong band were rather stage pres- u n c o m f o r t a b l e ence and and wanted to their rau- get off the stage cous alt rock as soon as possound still sible. But who managed to can blame them get a big ap- seeing as most of plause from the audience who the ample gathered around crowd. to watch them were really just Taking to the there waiting for stage straight Metallica. Biffy after was did an average G I N G E R job but were comWILDHEART and as I saw the dreaded Geordie play last year pletely the wrong at Sonisphere, where he packed out one of the moderately-sized band for this slot tents, it was lovely to see him on a bigger stage this year. After a on the schedule, few minor mic problems, the band kicked through awkwardly and seemed more fantastic songs such as “Another Spinning Fucking Rainbow” interested in imand “Inglorious”, even managing to get a steady synchronised pressive visual clap going. But when the band riffed through heart-pumping effects than en“Suckerpunch” it was clear that most of the crowd had gathered gaging stage dyhoping for old Wildhearts songs, which they unfortunately namics. didn't seem to get.

Over on the other stage I caught Popping past the main stage in my early afternoon quest for most of SKINliquid god juice (affectionately otherwise known as Tuborg) I DRED's set, and caught a bit of the end of BLACK VEIL BRIDES' set and was after seeing them almost sick all over myself when I saw how many people had playing at last showed up to watch them play their watered down metal-cock

year's Download I was incredibly eager to see them and their energetic ways again. In short, they did not disappoint. On top form again, Benji bounced about the stage in a reflective gold suit, as Daniel donned a horse mask, and got the crowd going mental as usual. Jamming through reggae-metal anthems like “Pressure”, “Game Over” and “Trouble”, their usual skilful act of putting the crowd down in order to get a larger applause came across perfectly, and was topped with the traditional Newport Helicopter which is always awe-inspiring to watch. Their enthusiastic stage mannerisms are so enticing that it hurts, and at the same time really makes you proud to be a part of such an amazing genre and community. It's safe to say that second time around Skindred have completely and entirely won me over.

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE were next up to impress, and they did just that. Powering through classics like “My Last Serenade”, “Rose of Sharyn” and “My Curse”, former lead singer Jesse Leach blended right in to the band as if he had never left. Without disputing the amazing contribution Howard

Jones had, you can always tell the strength of a band by their ability to adapt to vocalists, new or old, and Killswitch have aced it. Riffing like there was no tomorrow the band were gracious and captivating, and at one point I thought the sky had begun to spit, but instead of finding rain I realised that the prickly feeling was in fact my hairs standing up on end.

As the teeny boppers waded over to see You Me At Six, the main stage soon became flooded with more people than I've ever seen in my life. And it was obvious that about 90% of the entire festival grounds had showed up to see METALLICA. After a small delay in their presence (what a surprise) four of the pioneers of modern metal finally took to the stage and burst into “Hit The Lights” which rendered the crowds of people practically insane. Keeping the mood going, the band turned minds to jelly as they crushed through tunes such as “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, “Enter Sandman” and “The Unforgiven”, with James Hetfield rarely taking the maniacal expression off his face as he growled the words. Say what you will about Metallica, but there's a reason why they're still such a popular band in the metal genre. They know how to write classics, they know how to work a venue and they know how to keep an audience entertained. Prowling the stage, Robert Trujillo eyed the crowd whilst sending out swampy bass lines, and Kirk Hammett did what he does best – burned through a fret board with his fingers. After doing the predictable off-stage/on-stage, they returned for the encore with “Battery” and decided to play two more songs, ending on “Seek and Destroy” as giant, Aero advert-like bubbles rained down on the crowd and fireworks painted the sky. A fittingly extravagant end to a day that lived up to what it should've been.

Two words: more please.

Band of the Day: Tenacious D Biggest Disappointment of the Day: Biffy Clyro Surprise of the Day: Killswitch Engage

Page 4 SUNDAY Nothing like a good ol' fashioned bit of stoner rock to wake you up on a Sunday, and KYUSS LIVES couldn't have done it any better. With the strong smell of bud wafting through the air, the crowd swayed in time with the doomy sludge vibrating from the speakers as John Garcia peered over his mic through sunglasses.

Although the band were rather tame, and barely spoke to the audience apart from saying thank you before leaving, the lack of interaction didn't seem to be arrogance. Kyuss have always been a rather understated band so you hardly find them doing back flips or expecting audiences to worship them. The set was simple and sweet, and kept fans happy by raging through tunes like “One Inch Man” and “Green Machine”.

If that set didn't wake people up, ANTHRAX sure as hell were about to. Opening with the uber-classic and uber-fitting “Caught In a Mosh”, the band got the audience pumped, and on their feet into a whirlpool of mosh pits. It was also incredibly admirable to see countless parents with their small offspring tagging along to witness the culture they'd recently been introduced to. While Scott Ian's beard flew around with every head bang, Joey Belladonna shrieked lyrics like a heavy metal banshee to anthemic songs including “Madhouse” and “Antisocial”. It was a shame to not see them higher up in the bill considering how high up in the bill they were at last year's Sonisphere, but I'm pretty certain that what little time they had satisfied every pair of eyes and ears aimed toward the stage.

RIVAL SONS were up next on the other stage so I squeezed my way near the front to get a better view for my first time seeing them. And I have to admit they came ready to impress. Despite being late to the stage due to technical difficulties, their timeless Led Zeppelin vibe and bluesy feel was flawless, and you could tell there was a lot of emotion in their set. With swooning vocals and strong rhythms, the LA-based bunch swaggered through tracks like “Gypsy Heart” and “Face of Light”, before ending on “Soul”. It was a shame they had such a short set, but every song they played got the audience joining in, and wanting more

when they left. It's easy to say that the world needs more music like this.

Now I have to come clean, I've never really been the biggest BLACK LABEL SOCIETY fan, but they were undoubtably badass live. And it was definitely nice to see that the Devil's music is still alive and well. With a giant chief headdress splaying out like a crown atop his blonde head, Zakk and his furious fingers of madness led the band through “Fire It Up”, “Crazy Horse” and “Concrete Jungle”, while wailing into a wooden crucifix microphone. The crowd went batshit for it, and the giant circles of rage took up again with much pushing, shoving, and horns showing to be had. Then half way through he did end up having a bit of a love fest with his guitar where he soloed for near on five minutes, until I couldn't tell if he was becoming possessed by his guitar or if he was having an orgasm. Or both... Soon the Aero bubble-balloons from Metallica's set were back flying amongst the crowd and the band polished off the set nicely with “Stillborn”, much to the happiness of the fans.

LAMB OF GOD followed suit to entertain the packed out crowd, blasting into their set with “Desolation” in a puff of yellow smoke that made the sea of people erupt, in unity with the double bass pedal madness. I was stood rather far back (no chance of getting near the front) and I could still see the mass amounts of pits breaking out, as Randy Blythe prowled the stage with his screams ringing out through the arena. With every person's arms swaying in unison outstretched toward the sky, the unholy five, led by the States' potential presidential candidate, crashed through tunes like “Set To Fail” and “Redneck”, before ending with “Black Label”. A perfect end to some pretty solid main stage metal.

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I've never seen LA DISPUTE live, so I was incredibly excited to see them play this year. So excited that I literally ran through mud, food and (probably) piss to get to the tent they were playing in. Blasting off with “A Departure” the boys from Michigan shook up the relatively large crowd, with quirky rhythms, disjointed time signatures and down-right poetic spoken word. The trademark half-scream/half-speech quiver in Jordan Dreyer's voice was very much still there despite the quiet mic, as he slapped a tambourine in time with the music and made awkward and quirky look effortlessly cool. Lively yet calm, they powered through strong songs like “New Storms for Older Lovers” and “Said The King to the River”, as the huddled groups of fans smoked and screamed along with them. It was totally worth running across the arena to see them, even though they didn't play “Bury Your Flame”, and the beautiful sorrow behind the lyrics and intricately layered guitar resonated with me long after I had left the tent.

I was back to the main stage for MEGADETH where I could barely get near the front, and from where I stood those up against the stage almost looked like little metal ants. As the intense bass and savage riffs commenced, the blanket of ants began to jump in time with “Never Dead”, and white shirt-clad Mustaine busted out some ace guitar work whilst his flowing locks fell over his face. With infamous songs like “Peace Sells”, “Public Enemy No. 1”, and “Symphony of Destruction” swelling from the speakers, it was hard not to be proud of one of the finest audiences I've seen in a while, who had congregated to see one of the original metal legends. It felt as though everyone was involved as a wave of pumping fists pounded the air, synchronise clapped and defiant cheers rang out everywhere.

There were even a few little 'uns who had been hoisted on their parents' shoulders to guarantee a better view – which also explained why the camera would keep cutting away every time girls tried to lift their shirts up. It's no wonder these boys are considered one of the Big Four, given a performance like that.

I've heard a lot about REFUSED but never really listened to much of their stuff before, so I thought I'd pop over and see them, and let me tell you – those boys know how to put on one hell of a show! With a huge portion of the arena still watching the last bits of Megadeth, I managed to get to the second barrier with a clear view of the stage, where their drum skin proclaimed FREE PUSSY RIOT!!!, and they leapt straight in with “Worms of the Senses...”, determined to electrify the crowd. Dennis L is by far one of the most energetic and entertaining front men I've seen in a long time, and with the way he swung his microphone, karated kicked, dived, body popped and bounced around the entire stage I could've watched him perform for literally hours. Animated guitarist Jon Brännström kept all eyes on him equally as much with his inspiring way of half moshing/half swaying as he played his instrument. Despite the smaller audience than at the main stage, nearly everyone jumped and clapped along as the Swedish punks ripped through “Liberation Frequency”, “Rather Be Dead” and “The Deadly Rhythm”. It almost seemed like Refused didn't want to leave, and by the end of their set neither did I. They were incredibly grateful for the support of the crowd and played out with “New Noise” whilst still keeping the energy levels sky high. If nothing else, they've made a massive fan out of me.

Anyone who knows me well know that I've a big grunge fan, so there was no chance I was going to miss SOUNDGARDEN's set. After legging it to the main stage I pushed my way to the front and found myself about 8 rows from the stage as Cornell and Co. ambled on to rapturous applause. Smoke filled the air, kids were lifted on to shoulders and the sun came out to greet us, as we were treated to the likes of “Spoonman”, and all was well with the world. Rather subdued in his onstage manner, Chris Cornell (with slighly longer hair) showed us all why Soundgarden were one of the founding fathers of grunge, and how there is so much more to their back catalogue than their overlyplayed stuff. There was no huge theatrics or ego-stroking going on, just a simple band that inspired a generation, supplying us with some of the greatest songs they've ever written. I stood in awe at the jagged sounds of my youth raining over the crowd, as tunes like “Hunted Down” and “Fell on Black Days” filtered through the ears of those everywhere within a mile radius. Soon came the classics like “Jesus Christ Pose” and “Black Hole Sun”, for which the crowd went nuts, with even a few pits smashing open for the former. Gracefully thanking the crowd the boys ended on “Beyond the Wheel” and casually exited the stage, leaving a tremendous buzz hanging in the air.

I blatantly didn't go to see him play, but I just want to give acknowledgement to WILLIAM CONTROL for getting the award for World's Worst Slot in the Bill, seeing as about 10 minutes into his set was when the headliners were due on.

Regardless of how mind-blowingly amazing his set may have potentially been, I'm pretty sure the only people there to watch him play were 14 year old girls and tumbleweeds.

I'd be lying if I said that everyone left in the arena at the end of night wasn't there to see the almighty BLACK SABBATH, and if I thought there were loads of people to see the headliner on Saturday I hadn't seen anything yet. Scanning the crowd, it was amazing to see so many people had travelled from all over the planet just to see Sabbath play – to the point where almost everyone around me spoke a foreign language. It truly felt like I was stood in the midst of heavy metal Mecca. Lights reflecting on a huge draping curtain produced purply shadows as a long video package of their past played on the large screens, amping the anticipation up. When the curtain finally raised it revealed some of the ultimate fathers of metal, fronted by the very original Prince of Darkness, as cheers and screams of joy filled the arena. The band went straight into the appropriately named “Black Sabbath”, with Ozzy encouraging the crowd to get louder – as if that was even possible. Although subdued, it was amazing to see Tony Iommi considering how difficult it must've been to come out and play considering his medical condition, but he still played like an absolute trooper and riffed out the melodies with absolute perfection. “The Wizard” saw Ozzy have a fantastic go on the harmonica, and “War Pigs” blew everyone away with how insane he is. At the age of 63, knowing his infamous past with substance abuse, it was astounding to see him bolting (and sometimes shuffling) up and down the stage and hilariously jumping along with the crowd like a brilliant lunatic. It gave me such utter respect for him that I will never forget, and as the Sabbath grooved through classics like “Fairies Wear Boots”, “Snowblind” and “Iron Man”, I began to see that I was witnessing one of the

most awesome gigs I've seen in a long time. It also dawned on me that about 90% of the bands that had played that day wouldn't even be who they are if it weren't for Sabbath. It was inspiring, overwhelming and fucking entertaining. Thank the universe for Sabbath – a perfect end to the weekend, that I would chop my arm off to see again any day. Seriously...

Band of the Day: Black Sabbath Surprise of the Day: Refused

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actual automaton that can learn and absorb information and turns against humans. Kind of Terminator meets Bladerunner but from the perspective of the automaton rather than the human”.

An extra incentive for the album itself is the book that comes free with it to help help complete the story: “We actually want people to go out and buy the record and read as well as listen, we made 20,000 copies of the digipak and as far as I know they’ve sold out.”

This leads to the question though: Where does Dino stand when it comes to structures such as iTunes, Pledge music or Bandcamp? “I don’t mind ITunes at all, but as far as downloading music is concerned we knew that technology was going to make certain things obsolete: CD’s, record stores. We saw it coming, and you just have to adapt. Some have mixed feelings; as long as some are supporting the music, I still think it’s great.

Pay What You Want I know backfired on a few people and one of the worst things of downloading music illegally is that it cheapens the music, so if your CD’s worth say nine dollars no one wants to pay for it anymore.”

An interview with Dino Cazares

by Matt Dawson

After a big return in 2009, Fear Factory released in 2010 their first album with Burton and Dino together since Digimortal, Mechanize; now, as The Industrialist is released, we ask Dino how it felt to be playing Download as openers – this was due to the weather conditions causing a slight shuffling of plans. “It was pretty interesting to see all the kids rush down to the front to see your band, we could really pump it [the sound] out there as well” - which is a reference to how you could hear Burton C Bell’s vocals not that far away from the arena itself.

When it comes to The Industralist however, there have been many theories onto how it relates to various political issues; Dino says that this should not come as too much of a surprise: “We’ve always been a band that talks about futuristic technology, how times have changed and so on, this just takes it even further to an

Some people were also surprised at the use of programmed drums on The Industrialist after having Gene Hoglan on the previous album, however Dino makes it clear that this shouldn’t be a shock to many at all: “We’ve been using programmed drums for years since the inception of the band which we’ve never been shy from using as most should know, it was still programmed when Gene was there, people need to read the credits of the CD more! “[laughs] The future may be coming closer to how Fear Factory have documented it in the past, but with tours coming up with Devin Townsend this year and - according to Dino - at least two more records, it could go in any direction.

long friends who made the tour what it was, and the atmosphere spilled into the shows as well’.

After a mutual desire to catch Soundgarden and friends in Periphery (even with seeing them 30+ times in the US via the aforementioned tour), the topic swings to the mass labelling of bands such as The Safety Fire into the world of Djent, a label that the band don’t necessarily agree with: ‘It’s a label that a lot of people use for us so it’s not something that we’re like ‘fuck you, man!’ as there are some elements and it helps people connect us with other bands, but we see ourselves as more Prog metal’ according to Sean.

By Matt Dawson Photo Credit Tom Barnes After the initial discussion about the crazy weather, in which guitarist Derya recalls about trying to pitch a tent at 60 mph winds and vocalist Sean jokes about how the mud is terrible for ‘such a style conscious band as ourselves’, the subject turns to how the success

of Grind The Ocean came about while they toured with the likes of Periphery in the USA. Sean states that ‘You could visibly tell when people had got a hold of it, as luckily it hadn’t leaked until after it came out and people hadn’t heard most of our live set as it was unreleased material, but when it came out people were singing along

to the words so it changed our shows.’

Grind The Ocean came out 3 years after their first EP Sections was released; Derya feels it represents a ‘significant’ evolution while Sean sees it as ‘more focused; ‘Sections’ was chosen as the title for that EP as when we were writing the album it was different parts put together

over three years; we were all in different places across the country, at Uni and stuff. But ‘Grind The Ocean’ was more fluid over a short time period.’

Their tour in the USA earlier this year was a big deal according to Sean: ‘We were with bands like Protest The Hero, Jeff Loomis who is a legend in his own right and life-

In the future, there’s no rest for the Safety Fire busy on a tour with Gojira, along with upcoming dates with Periphery and Between The Buried And Me. Of course if you’re now asking ‘Did you find out what DMB (FDP) means?’ the answer is no, the band do enjoy the many interpretations but state that ‘it’s something they’ll take with them to their graves!’ with a smile and a hearty laugh.

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Issue 9/2012

they however think it’s ‘amazing if not a little bit crazy’ yet also to use a cliché ‘the stuff dreams are made of ’. Talking about Slam Dunk, Reuben speaks of the fun brought on by making their UK debut there and gaining a lot of new fans, jokingly remarking about the much better weather.

Back to the movie topic for a brief moment, he also reveals that due to the recent travel there hasn’t been as many movies that they want to see – in fact Thor was the last one they caught as a group - but their tastes vary; when it comes to horror, all of us joke that there lies in the concept for the 3rd album’s theme, so if that becomes the case…

by Matt Dawson The first day of Download is cursed with the worst weather the festival has ever experienced in its 10 year history; yes, there have been some freak downpours like the one that occurred during Slipknot’s Duality in 2005 but nothing like this. With that in mind the obvious first question to Upon A Burning Body was simple: How were they coping in it?

Reuben Lemos (bass) : We didn’t have any rain boots but we kind of made some out of our shoes! [laughs] From watching the festivals such as Woodstock and other Download edition the craziest kind are the ones that always end up a little messy and a little grimy.

Sal [guitar]: It kind of adds to it!

Upon A Burning Body have a tradition throughout their past couple of albums: while The World Is Ours from 2010 features names of movies that Al Pacino played a role in, the follow up Red White Green is based on Robert Rodriguez movie titles, so what made the band such a fan of his work?

Danny: The first selling point is he’s from the same city as us [San Antonio, Texas] and his movies are amazing pieces of work.

Reuben: It also fit the theme we were going with which was nice and dark so it made perfect sense.

The band have only recently made their debuts in the UK with Slam Dunk festival, so the idea of playing Download Festival as your next big show would unnerve some bands;

Next on UABB’s schedule when it comes to the UK and Europe is a tour with Trivium, Caliban and As I Lay Dying, which once again feels like a dream come true. Reuben states that ‘to come from a small town in Texas to be doing this is amazing’ and Sal says that since they all grew up ‘on a diet of Trivium and As I Lay Dying it’s huge for us’.

As Upon A Burning Body become a name to be reckoned with in the UK and Europe, they show gratitude to the fans and appreciate and acknowledge the people they’ve got. The next stage beckons for them: the world is now theirs.

Catch Upon A Burning Body with Trivium, Caliban and As I Lay Dying this coming Octobe: 15th – Manchester Ritz, 16th Glasgow

ABC, 17th – Birmingham HMV Institute, 19th – Bristol Academy, 20th – Norwich uEA and 21st – London Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

An interview with John Leven

by Cayleigh Shepherd The adverse weather stopped Europe from playing their slot at Download when they got stuck in traffic, but they still found the time to chat to Sonic Shocks!

It’s such a shame you couldn’t play this weekend!

It’s a great shame, but we are coming back in November, so you shall see us then. The tour starts on Wednesday 21st in Birmingham, then Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, Nottingham, Bristol, and Cardiff Coal Exchange – we’ve never been there before, I think that’s new, and ending up in London at the Shepherd’s Bush on December 1st.

It’s gonna be great!

Where did the ‘Bag of Bones’ title come from?

The bag of bones was something Joey came up with. When we started rehearsing, he’d just written the song and started singing ‘bag of bones…’ and so that was the title of the song, and we thought ‘maybe we should use that for the album title. Then afterwards, I found out that Stephen King had a book called Bag Of Bones. We didn’t know that.

We’re not stealing titles from Stephen King: I promise!

This album is bluesier than the music we normally associate with Europe. Was it a conscious decision to record a blues rock album?

Somewhat unconscious I would say. It’s not like we sit around a round table as five knights and come up with a big master plan. What we do when we start writing, especially for this album, we have all this new, modern technology, where we sit at home and record stuff and ideas, and we send the files through the Internet. I can record something at home and send it to Joey, call him up and ask him what he thinks two minutes later. In that way, you become more honest in your song writing. For me as a bass player it’s really hard for me to come through in a rehearsal situation and say “hey guys! I’ve got this great idea!” while sitting there with my bass. It’s a lot easier for me to sit at home and record stuff with drums and everything, being able to send the other guys the idea I really have.

In reference to the title of your latest single, why are we ‘not supposed to sing the blues’?

It’s hard for me to explain the lyrics that Joey writes, but I believe the meaning is that we come from a suburb of Stockholm where nobody has even been famous for writing or singing the blues. The song isn’t really a blues song but it has blues influences. People would probably say, “You guys are from a fucking suburb of Stockholm! Who do you think you are? The blues belong to Missippissi, or Chicago, or the Delta.” It’s about having people telling you that you should not do

this, and you think “well I should”.

How was working with Kevin Shirley (who has recently been working with blue artist Joe Bonamassa)?

Well Kevin doesn’t only work with blues artists, he’s worked with Aerosmith, Black Stone Cherry, who true, do all have a little blues in their music. We met Joe Bonamassa a couple of times. He came up and made a guest appearance at one of our shows in Stockholm as Black Country Communion played the night before. John Norum has also been doing guest appearances with Joe when he comes to Stockholm. We started listening to the bands that Kevin had been producing and we thought his work was very interesting and thought he should produce our next album. We met him a couple of months before recording and he was a really nice guy and had some interesting ideas to record. He likes to work with a band in a live situation in the studio, do it fast and not be too picky about everything and simply capture the magic. It turned out great.

Now that Joey lives in London, despite being able to call and share things with each other instantly over the internet, do you lose out on anything by not having the presence of the other person actually in the room with you?

In terms of song writing, it doesn’t matter where you live today. You don’t have to meet in the same room, sit down and write a song together anymore. It doesn’t matter. I don’t see John Norum who lives very close to me more often than I do Joey because he lives in London. It’s not like we really hang out that much while we’re not touring. The only good thing about it is that Joey has become more fluent and natural in the English language, and he’s the one writing and singing the lyrics!

How do you feel about being one of the bands who’ve laid down the path and been such an influence to the younger generation of Swedish rock bands?

It’s really flattering, and something that is really satisfying knowing that you have influenced people. I read somewhere in a magazine where somebody had sent in a letter to this magazine saying that he had met – I think it was Steve Marriott – and he had told him right before he died “I’m probably going to bother you, and you’ve probably heard this a thousand times, but you changed my life: I became a much better guitar player and musician after listening to you”. And he answered, “I’ll never get tired of hearing that.” and that’s the way I feel too. If a kid comes up to me and says he started playing rock and roll because of you, then it’s good for you and me.

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An interview withBrant Bjork by Matt Dawson ‘We were nervous, we didn’t know what to expect!’ are the first words that Brant Bjork exclaims when talking about the Donington crowd as Kyuss Lives play for the first time at Download; but in the end he feels ‘It was great, I feel the band performed well, it’s always tough to make people wake up, move and get the blood pumping, I think they didn’t mind waking up to us.’

Recent events via a lawsuit brought on by Josh Homme and Scott Reeder would have left fans even wondering if Kyuss Lives would be playing Download itself: Brant makes clear though that ‘There’s no risk until we’re ordered by the court to stop. Obviously if we’re convicted and we want to exist, we’ll keep moving forward but we feel very positive.’

‘When you deal with a legal issue you have a lot of technicalities and a lot of grey area but the simplest way to explain the lawsuit for those that don’t know is two guys want this to exist while two others don’t. To be honest John and I are as shocked and curious as everyone else, we just didn’t think that by doing this we’d be in this situation but now that we are we don’t want to back down.’

The shock does come as a surprise when two factors are bought into account: the fact that John Garcia was doing his ‘Garcia does Kyuss’ sometime prior and the fact Nick Oliveri’s lat-

est album for his Mondo Generator project has a track that features BOTH Josh and John.

‘It’s interesting, that whole recording took place just as the storm clouds started to come over.’ Brant reveals while stating that ‘Nick has an ambiguous energy and perspective on things in general, he’s got plenty of issues to manage at the moment and wants everyone to get on!’

Pending any court orders, the future is bright for Kyuss Lives: ‘We quickly wanted to pursue the challenge of creating new material and we committed to that from the beginning; we will be recording in about a month and hope to get that music out Spring of next year, we feel very positive and got a lot of support. Hopefully the Gods will smile for us.’

Brant sums it all up nicely however by proclaiming ‘Rock and Roll is a great world where we can all bond on something that’s beautiful.’ with a hip,hip hooray thrown in for good measure.

Until otherwise, Kyuss truly Lives!

Ugly Kid Joe – Whitfield Crane and Klaus Eichstadt After 15 years away from the live stage there must be a sense of pressure for Ugly Kid Joe as they grace the Donington stage for the first time, shortly following a show in London with Fozzy and Butcher Babies. In the end, Whitfield proclaims that the shows, along with the feeling of being back together, were a mixture of ‘awesome, amazing and pretty good’ joking around the fact that ‘people came to the show!’.

Donington became a quick rollercoaster few days of fun as well for Ugly Kid Joe, as members managed to catch Anthrax, Sebastian Bach and ‘a little band’ called Metallica, but nothing compared to Sweden Rock, says Whitfield: ‘I manage to catch Michael Schenker – he’s the man – and I got up on stage to sing with Motorhead!’ Klaus then remarks ‘Whitfield’s been wearing the Motorhead shirt for a very long time so it all combined with Lemmy’s vocals on an old track makes sense!’

The next point of call was to wonder how it must have felt to get a call off the organisers of Download, not only to play it for the first time in your career but on the particular milestone of its 10th year. Whitfield feels ’super grateful and amazed particularly as we didn’t know we could get a show anywhere let alone at Donington. I feel like the kid that got the best toy for Christmas!’

Not just content with playing live, the band also self released a brand new EP called Stairway to Hell – which depending on your point of view is a take on either Led Zeppelin or AC/ DC – to which the recording process according to Klaus was ‘part California, part Louisiana, with one half recorded in Dave Fortman [fellow guitar player in the band]’s studio’.

When it comes to what both Klaus and Whitfield hate from recent pop culture, Whitfield firstly proclaims his love for Lady Gaga calling her ‘an intelligent, superstar phenomenon’, followed by Klaus bringing up his ‘hatred for the Kardashians and reality TV’. As Geordie Shore is mentioned, Whitfield brings up the fact that Brian Johnson’s former band was entitled Geordie prior to his AC/DC days.

For the UK fans that thought Donington would be their only chance to catch Ugly Kid Joe in the UK, don’t despair: Whitfield reveals that none other than the legend that is Alice Cooper has asked them to be support for his upcoming October tour. When we ask both Klaus and Whitfield what tricks Alice Cooper has up his sleeve, they both proclaim ‘guillotine and killing will figure somewhere’.

It’s good to see that Ugly Kid Joe are back doing what they love with nothing aside from Reality TV to hate about life right now.

Catch Ugly Kid Joe supporting Alice Cooper this October!

Interview with Vinnie Paul and Chad Gray

by Matt Dawson

see the light of day, to which Chad jokes ‘they may be busted out in 20 years!’

Still going strong after recording 3 albums together, Vinnie Paul and Chad Gray arrive at Download to talk about Band Of Brothers due out July 17th – which both say together at the same time – and reveal that the recording process took on more of a live feel as Vinnie explains:

That nicely takes us to Vinnie’s recent reissue of Pantera’s Vulgar Display Of Power that contains a never before heard track lovingly titled ‘Piss’: ‘It still feels as fresh as yesterday, which proves the music stood the test of time. It’s still current and still valid today and it’s great to be part of something special.’ leading to how the ‘sound and attitude had come along at a time when heavy metal had pretty much taken a back seat to grunge and we kept waving the flag high as long as we could!’

‘It was similar to what we’ve done in the past: we get in there, we barbeque, we drink, we get music together and it’s all very rock ‘n’ roll!’ Chad agrees that the idea of a jam vibe works: ‘It’s definitely a collective rather than other bands who have one guy that writes so you get everything they bring to the table and the very best of it. Every note we’ve ever played is recorded somewhere, we wanted to get that raw vibe rather than demoing and trying to recreate that.’ They then both joke that there’s a vault somewhere in which some will probably never

For those wondering about Mudvayne, however, people shouldn’t be holding their breath at this moment in time as Chad declares ‘I’m Hellyeah 100% to the bone right now, that’s the way it should be!’

Band Of Brothers is released on July 17th

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Serj Tankian

A CORNUCOPIA OF IDEAS FOR 2012 y Matt DawsonBy Matt Dawson If you thought there were any signs of Serj Tankian slowing down in the near future, time for you to think again. in this interview he discusses his 3 new projects ASIDE from the latest album Hara-Kiri, what spurred on the recording process along with thoughts on playing Download festival and topics such as the Eurozone and Occupy Movement.

You headlined Download Festival in 2011, the second time headlining the festival. How was it to have headlined it twice?

It was a great vibe of a festival, a beautiful day. It was exactly 6 years since our first appearance [laughs]. I remember - this is going to sound funny - getting a call right before we get on stage that one of my dogs had escaped from my brother’s house and they’re looking for him so as we’re about to go out to this mass audience all I’m thinking is ‘Fuck, I hope the dog’s safe, I hope the dog comes back’.

It’s weird to say that but in some ways it took the pressure off as I thought ‘the dog’s going to be OK, I’ll perform and find out what happens after’, it’s quite interesting how things happen in life but I had a great time, the audience response was incredible. I got a text as soon as I got off stage that the dog was found safe so I was relieved!

The opening track for Hara-kiri in ‘Cornucopia’ has a strong environmental message towards it, what is your take towards climate change particularly those who try and deny its existence?

I feel that opinions about climate change are useless as scientific facts prove it’s due to the structure of the environment and abuse of our resources is having a strong effect on it, those who deny it probably deny that the Earth was created 2,000 years ago. I have zero respect for their psychological predisposition.

The first single ‘Figure It Out’ takes an anti-corporate slant as well…

Figure It Out is a comical/political song. It’s comical because it takes all of the complexities of the whole irregulation movement, the middle class and the mass populace of most nations, it takes globalism and all its abuses with the IMF, WTO, World Bank and all the austerity measures in Europe and reduces them to a comical target of a CEO that we need to get immediately.

In the video we have the protestors break into the room where they’re partying and we have to attack them, it’s all that based in a simple yet comical turn.

People are starting to see those flaws and reacting to them now.

What are your feelings then on the current Eurozone crisis and the Occupy movement?

They’re all tied in, if we look at the interactivity of nature and how economical and ecological things affect the political e.g. the lack of rainfall affects migration which becomes a political issue.

The Eurozone problems that are occurring, the reactions to austerity measures also affect the US and world economy, the labour crisis in the US as well as to a certain degree in Europe.

I think what’s happening with the Eurozone is quite interesting as I think to a certain degree it’s well thought out but there’s always differences between national and collective economic intentions and they don’t always match. Different countries have ethics of working – to give my example when doing press in Germany everything is laid out for us, UK and

France are always last! [laughs] It has a lot to do with national character.

Not every country is going to have the same type of austerity outlook, some have populations that are more social, some are more capitalist and free market, that’s how their societies were trained to behave. You can’t expect Greece’s population to react like the UK’s population to some of these measures so all of that has to be taken into consideration.

I still think the Eurozone is a phenomenal idea and it could bring peace to continental Europe for the first time in many, many centuries, I think the US is afraid of the Eurozone because the US dollar has been controlling since World War II and they probably WANT it to collapse which I fucking hate as I think that’s very selfish.

As regards to the Occupy movement I have a one word response: Finally! During the creation of the globalist agendas we’ve been waiting for the populace to wake up and say ‘Where’s my cut of this fight? What do I get?’ Corporations can buy water resources in India and put the lives of local residents in jeopardy because they can’t afford to buy their own water from their wells but that never really affected the US population that much.

Finally we’re seeing the abuse of globalism, the inequities and the imbalance of the agenda being stood up to and it’s a beautiful thing. I do have to say most of it is inspired by movements elsewhere as well such as the student protests in Chile, you take whole countries that have against the movement and the IMF, WTO agenda and they’re doing very well such as South America and China.

All the others on their list seem to be collapsing and that says something about the plans, they’re not necessarily motivated as justice for everybody involved, it’s a form of empire.

What was the moment that made you realise Harikiri had to be written?

I think when we were experiencing the massive death of birds and fish around the planet in January 2011, for me it was such an ominous thing, it was so powerful that I couldn’t look away from it. I wrote the title track to try and understand the phenomenon better of why these beings who were all inter-connected with nature, whose early warning systems are more progressive than ours as human beings, why would they decide to leave this planet Earth? What symbol were they given to leave? What did that mean for our environment?

The first song was written from that and then suddenly more started coming to me, I can’t fully explain it. I was writing an opera, touring with System and writing a poetry book and I was like ‘My schedule’s booked!’ and yet these songs just started coming so I was thinking ‘Fuck, guess I have another rock record!’

What are the future plans not only concerning Hara-kiri but other projects?

I’ll be back in the autumn to do some headlining dates with the FCC and some festivals and longer tours possibly next year. In regards to other projects there are 3 more records coming out: one is Fucktronic which is me and Jimmy Urine from Mindless Self Indulgence.

It’s a British gangster story and we’re working with some visual partners to develop some interesting visuals for the record, an interesting and unique project that I’ve never seen anywhere else musically.

I’ve got my first symphony called Orca and we’re going to be doing a tour with orchestras around Europe when we release that probably at the end of next year and the third project is Jazz-is Christ which I did with 3 incredible jazz players and we’re trying to find a label

By Matt Dawson The final day of Download actually decided to bring out the sun after two days of miserable weather, as Spencer Sotelo proclaims that ‘I’ve had enough rain, we’ve been hanging out in Bath and it’s just been miserable weather the whole time! It’s nice for a change!’

Periphery have their second album due out July 3rd/16th (the former being digital and the latter being CD) under the title of Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal which Misha Mansoor explains ‘not everyone is keen on that name and is titled that inside the booklet that comes with the album, the name must also be pronounced as “Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal”, action movie trailer style.’

Spencer compares the name to ‘When you see your arch nemesis in an action movie and it’s the one liner that you say right before you shoot him!’ He then proclaims how Last Action Hero is his favourite action movie – admittedly it was the first one that came into his mind!

October brings to the band what Misha states are ‘the most UK dates we have ever played’ with Between the Buried And Me and The Safety Fire, following 3 dates with Dream Theater earlier this year that both describe as an experience: ‘Playing Wembley Arena was something we thought we’d never do as a band’ Spencer declares, while Misha says ‘it’s an experience hard to put into words but I’m glad it happened’ The Safety Fire of course are no strangers touring wise with Periphery as they did a US tour: Spencer describes it as ‘the most fun I’ve ever had on a tour! Sometimes tours can drag on but that was one of the quickest, painless and funniest tours!’

Misha also makes clear that, even though ‘Make Total Destroy’ was originally a Bulb demo, most of the new tracks on Periphery II: This Time It’s Personal are brand new, while the track recently used on videos to tease the album is titled Muramasa: ‘It’s part of 3 songs that’s thematically and lyrically tied in including Ragnarok and Masamune; the first line of the album is also the last line of the record, a sprinkling of concept but not a full concept album’.

In recent months a band close to Periphery’s heart announced plans for a reformation in Sikth. Misha loves them and ‘really hope it happens’ while Spencer asks ‘If they do tour, can we support them as I would love to tour with them and they were a big influence on us, I’ll clean someone’s shoes to get on that tour!’ The duo however aren’t going to get too excited until a show is actually announced just to be on the safe side.

Periphery II; This Time Is Personal is out on Century Media July2nd/Sumerian Records in the US: July 3rd and see them touring with Between The Buried And Me and The Safety in UK/Europe this October

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ROCK’N’ROBBED It may be only rock’n’roll, but always make sure you read everything first!

On every issue we talk to trusted industry figures to help you choose wisely and know what to expect when signing a deal, be it with a label, manager, PR, venue or else.

On This Issue:

MEDIA & PUBLICITY Here’s our pick of trusted partners and their expert advice...

DUFFPRESS - Duff Battye

FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW

by Cristina Massei Do you really need a PR? I guess it depends on what you want to achieve, how far you want to go. Surely modern technology gives artists the opportunity for free promotion we could only dream about years ago, and that - coupled with talent and hard work - is a marvellous instrument for a musician. But there’s a limit to how far DIY can go, and at some point you will come to a wall made of lack of knowledge, contacts and time. You may well be happy just staying on your side of the wall and playing your gigs; however if you want to take the next step, try walking on the other side of the wall and see how far you can go, you’re going to need some help from the pros.

Music PR is one of the few remunerative jobs left in the music industry, so it’s no surprise that many ex musicians, music journos, roadies and the likes decide at some point to set up their own firm. Some do a really good job of it, exploiting their knowledge of the business and contacts made along the way; others adopt the ‘blanket email’ technique in ‘lottery style’, meaning they send the same email to a large number of random email addresses – from established press to bloggers – relying on the odds that a percentage of them will be picked for review. Sometimes, probably for an extra charge, they will send a second and even a third blanket email, reasking for reviews and links that may have already been published and sent over – and if not, believe me, those additional emails won’t do you any favours.

Now, this may come as a surprise to you, but out of the 200+ a day emails I get ONLY IN MY DIRECT INBOX, the blanket ones don’t really get my attention. Even worst when they come from a complete stranger and start with something blatantly fake like ‘I hope your weekend was nice, I went jet-skiing with my friends in Papua New Guinea and I have a real tan now’; note, these emails tend to arrive on a Monday after you spent a weekend in hospital with food poisoning, and there’s no point in me replying just that as you obviously won’t give a shit, just like I don’t give a shit about your tan. Just get straight to the point, will ya? I have 199 more to read… ‘Anyway, I wanted to introduce you your new favourite band’ – really?!? – ‘we’re all so excited’ – as you were about all the other 20 you sent me last week. FAIL. News stories are a bit different, blanket emails here are obviously allowed; still, I don’t really need to know that your artist had a new tattoo done today, shaved his head yesterday and met Shakin’ Stevens the day before. Just let me know when they play, release something, win something meaningful, occasionally when they fall off stage or get arrested. That’ll do.

Why am I saying all this? Ranting as usual? Sure, but that’s not the point. The point is, a good PR knows how to grab the attention and trust of people like me, a.k.a. the media. Because - let’s be honest - as much as we want to give everyone a chance, there isn’t enough time to read 200 emails every day and listen to all that comes with it; some WILL be left behind and fall at the bottom of our Inbox. When I get an email from a trusted PR, I know the news piece will be worth my news feed, and the music relevant to my taste and audience, so they get priority or at least an immediate forward to my News Editor. So the advice I can give you from THIS side of the Inbox is to meet the PR in person before you let them handle your promotion, because they will be your face and your voice, and if they don’t really know how to deal with people you’ll be wasting your money.

Don’t base your choice on how many emails they promise they’ll send out for you; actually, beware of seemingly too large numbers. Ask for quality rather than quantity, value the importance a personal touch and remember that, sometimes, less is definitely more.

DuffPress are currently one of the major players on the London PR scene. Just back from Download, where the team was busy taking care of Kyuss Lives, Ugly Kid Joe, Ginger, My Passion and more and in the middle of plenty of new campaigns – including names like Black Sabbath – firm Director Duff Battye found the time for a thorough chat with Sonic Shocks…

What is most important when choosing a music PR firm?

One that fits your style of music. And equal with that, a firm who are into what you do. They can be the best firm in the world but if they don’t believe then the people they are selling it too won’t either.

How can we check a PR credentials?

Check their previous client list. If you know any of the clients speak to them. Even if you don’t drop them an email. Call up journalists also and ask their opinion.

Why not.

Is there any ‘small print’ to avoid when signing a PR deal, any ‘red alert’ that a PR firm may not be serious?

I’d avoid pr companies who offer a flat rate for a job.

Each band and campaign is totally different. If they bang out a standard fee it shows a lack of care. Every single band, album, single and tour are different - you have to look at each campaign the same way.

Do you take any band who pay or do you have a selection criteria?

No, of course not! The only criteria is we have to like them – and believe in their music. The money is secondary.

What services do you provide to the artists on your roster?

The main thing is exposure through tv, radio, national and regional press and online. Behind the scenes it can be everything from artwork to photographers, from publishing deals to tour supports, from instrument hook ups to touring musicians. If you run an independent company you tend to offer a lot more to your bands than just plain PR. At what point in an artist’s career is a PR needed and what difference is it going to make?

I would say a pr is needed right from the start. It’s almost impossible to sell yourself as a musician / band – it clashes to badly with the artistic profile. The difference it will really make is that the band can concentrate on the things they should be – namely writing great songs and doing great shows – and all the other stuff can be in someone else’s hands.

While with snail mail and hard copies the artist/PR had to make a selection when it came to press and promotion, with the internet even small blogs are often submerged with emails, mp3, streams and more. How do you get your artists noticed in such crowded inboxes?

It’s always been about and remains about the relations your pr has with media. A good PR builds up a level of trust with media so they will always at the very least listen to what they send.

Is it fair to say that bigger names on your roster can be helpful for the smaller ones, even in terms of ‘trading’ coverage?

Yes, of course. Although it’s never verbalised it stands to reason if you are delivering a media an exclusive with a huge artists they are going to be more inclined to support the smaller acts on your books.

Once an artist hires you, what’s left for them to do in terms of promotion?

In the old days, very little. Now, it’s changed. Social media should and must be run and controlled by the band. And social media is now as important as tradition forms of media.

In a job that requires you to be a people person but also a strict professional, did you ever find difficult combining the two?

Yes. it’s hard to remember sometimes that this is a job and these people are not your friends. But, when you’ve been around a while you realise that’s the deal. It helps me that I’m sober. It’s much easier to see clearly when you are sober!

CHRIS HEWLETT PR Chris Hewlett In his long solid career, Chris Hewlett worked with a diverse range of top names: from Peter Gabriel to Alter Bridge, from Deep Purple to Level 42, but also up-andcoming names like Missing Andy or John Wean and many more (see www.chrishewlett.com). Aside from targeting the right press for each artist, Chris knows how to throw a launch party and how to treat his guests, a skill that helped him build a close relationship with a large number of press contacts.

What in your opinion is most important when choosing a music PR firm?

The most important criterion is enthusiasm. Any decent PR – and there are loads!

– will only take on artists that they truly love.

Is there any ‘small print’ we should be careful to avoid when signing a PR deal, or any ‘red alert’ indicating a PR firm may not be serious?

Personally, I don’t believe in contracts, and don’t ask people to sign them. If something is not right in the working relationship then each party should have the right to walk away. Very rare that it happens though!

Do you offer a different range of contracts to your clients, or is it pretty much just one standard agreement, one price for one set of services?

These days the PR industry is increasing flexible in what they offer. The days of ‘one size fits all’ are long gone, and with good reason.

At what point in an artist’s career is a PR needed and what difference is it going to make?

PR is not a magic wand, it’s part of the process. As with most industries, there are lots of people chasing success, and a decent publicity function should always form a major part of an artist’s battle plan. Bands at any stage of the career should be working with a PR in order to develop, nurture and sustain what they are doing.

When it comes to social networking, do the artist have to follow a line agreed with the PR or is that completely their territory?

Social media is a great way for an artist to ‘hang themselves’. If something indiscreet is posted it is hard then to issue a ‘statement’ trying to control the fallout, as the initial posting is clearly a statement in itself! You also risk alerting people who might have missed the offending item in the first place. As ever people need to think out what they’re saying. I do believe that overly filtered / moderated social media is generally so dull as to be counterproductive. People need to believe it’s the voice of the artist.

NO QUARTER PR - Faye Blaylock A long experience in the field (including Eagle Records)and a passion for rock music, Faye owns her own PR firm and is building terrific relationships with labels (Frontiers Records is a regular client) and press. We worked with her on Sebastian Bach, Amebix, Jeff Scott Soto and many others. A very helpful PR who knows our personal taste, never pushy but with a contagious, genuine enthusiasm about all her clients.

What is most important when choosing a music PR firm?

Honesty – blowing smoke up bands asses should not be encouraged by either party! Other than that, a solid background in PR and a understanding and enthusiasm for the band’s music are vital. It’s logical, but a band should choose someone they feel they have a good rapport with.

How can we check a PR credentials?

The very best way is word of mouth, ask around or failing that ask if they produce clippings books of coverage they have secured and ask to see those.

Is there any ‘small print’ to avoid when signing a PR deal?

Speaking for myself, most of my work comes by personal recommendation, so sometimes it’s just a handshake deal. When I do produce a ‘deal memo’ it’s very simple for both parties to understand– I’m a straight talking person and don’t feel the need for reams of small print.

Do you take on any band or do you have a criteria?

I only work with bands I like and believe in.

Do you offer a different range of contracts to your clients?

I can tailor my services as needed –it’s definitely not a case of ‘one size fits all’ – I want everyone involved to be 100% happy with the plan we agree on.

What you provide to the artists on your roster?

I cover print and online media plus regional broadcast and print media – I publicise albums and tours, create press releases – all the regular stuff.

At what point in an artist’s career is a PR needed?

As soon as an artist is considering professionally releasing an album – by which I mean proper distribution for that releasethen it’s time to seriously consider some kind of PR support.

There’s no point having the best songs and the best album out there if the only people that know about it are your friends and family!

With DIY, is it realistic for a band doing a good job of both PRing and playing, and maybe holding a day job?

I understand bands wanting to try that autonomous approach, but with the best will in the world it usually doesn’t work out very well. Bands perception is they will shove a few CDs in envelopes, bung them to the magazines and hey presto the reviews run and the features editor gives them a call – it’s just not as simple as that. I wouldn’t jump on stage and expect to be a rockstar!

Before the internet the PR had to make a selection when it came to press and promotion, now even small blogs are often submerged with emails, mp3 etc. How do you get your artists noticed in such overload?

Be targeted, know what works where, be respectful of writers, build relationships and understand individuals’ personal taste.

Is it fair to say that bigger names on your roster can be helpful for smaller ones, kind of ‘trading’ coverage?

I don’t believe in trying to wield one artist in order to gain coverage for another, don’t think journalists like this kind of attitude, it’s disrespectful. Obviously if a PR has worked with high profile artists it’s good for their relationships with media, and the strength of those relationships are important for all their clients.

Once an artist hires you, what’s left for them to do? Sometimes the most challenging thing for the artist in these terms is providing the correct tools for the publicist to work with – for example a press photo and a good press photo are two different things!

Social networking, do artist and PR need to agree a line?

They should work in tandem, as always communication is key – both to media and fans AND between publicist and band.

In a job that requires you to be a people person but also a strict professional, did you ever find difficult combining the two?

People person and strict professional: difficult to combine?

Not really, I’m a moderate drinker so am always clear-headed at gigs, at least while I’m working- working for myself has improved my judgement of others. I always try to be honest and tactful. I generally enjoy my job and mostly encounter other like-minded and professional people whose judgement I respect. The rock scene is small and most people know one another.

Where can we send material for your consideration and is there any rule or advice we should follow?

That’s for bands to work out. If they want it bad enough we’ll notice it.

I always say that you don’t get into the business to make friends. My clients tend to stay with me, and we have fun along the way, but I think it’s important to keep work and private lives separate as there are times when objectivity is required.

Is there anything else you would like to say that you feel may be useful for our readers?

It’s not who you know, it’s how you are known by those who know you…

Where can we send material for your consideration?

No unsolicited music – look me up on Facebook or via friends and if you are serious about PR – let’s talk!

If you think Chris may be your guy, contact him on chris@chrishewlett.com or via Twitter @chrishewlettpr

Is there any artist in particular on your roster that you would like to mention right now, what are they up to?

I find it such a privilege to have worked with the Australian band Karnivool. I think their last album “Sound Awake” is a masterpiece. I honestly don’t know why they aren’t headlining Wembley.

Head to http://www.duffpress.com/ for more info

Any of your artists you’d like to recommend right now?

Million $ Reload are a UK band from Belfast on the Frontiers label, they are a great hard rock band and definitely ones to watch.

Is there anything else you would like to say for our readers?

Be polite, be professional, believe in yourself but be realistic in your expectations and be willing to listen to advice.

Faye can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/faye.blaylock

Sonic Shocks

Page 10

To The North an interview with Jonas Albrektsson, bassist of Swedish Viking metallers

Issue 9/2012

a title that implies a command? It sounds like you are guiding an army of Vikings to war particularly in the track Gap of Ginnungs.

We wanted to create such a feeling of command exactly as you said. With regard to the title, it does have two different meetings. It’s first of all a celebration to our Nordic heritage, we salute our country and surroundings. The second meaning refers to the Vikings when they were fighting in wars around the word, and when heading back to their country, To North was the command to guide them. Gap Of Ginnungs is a very epic song, very different from what we did in the past, I am very glad you like it. The lyrics of this track are based on the story of creation of the Norse mythology, it tells how about the fights of the Viking when there was nothing, then the world was created.

Up In The Mountain is a beautifully structured song that again implies a path to a battlefield, Karl’s vocals become even deeper and I really like his scream half way. Are you planning to take this song live at all?

I think so yeah, most likely! When we recorded it we were not sure it was going to work out but in the end as time went we thought we’d go for it. The lyrics are based on two beings rising from nothing to have a good life.

The title track is perfectly placed at the end of the album: is there any closing message for To The North in this beautiful, instrumental song?

It reflects the feeling that we wanted to represent, some sort of low, mellow, sad mix of emotions, like the struggle the viking had to go through for living in those times.

by Marcus J. West

(Photo Rickard Moneous) You joined the band in 2009: how did you know Karl (Karl Beckmann, vocalist, guitarist and funding member of the band) and what attracted you the most of King Of Asgard since the first time you heard and saw them?

I have known Karl since we were 5 years old, we hanged around in the same area for a while before starting playing in local bands, until Karl started King Of Asgard and he asked me to join him. I went to the first rehearsal and I immediately liked what he was doing and that was it.

Have you always wanted to be the bassist of the band?

Definitely, it’s my instrument of choice, I have played it all my life.

Your arrival into the band also marked your deal with Metal Blade: how did they found out about you and what do you think are the factors that made them choose King Of Asgard over other Viking metal bands?

Actually it was our drummer, Karsten (Karsten Larsson) who got in touch with them and sent a demo to the label. Andreas from the Metal Blade German office really liked it and once he got the ok from the US headquarter, he got us signed. He saw the potentials for us as a metal Viking band, we had been in the metal scene for a while and they relied on us for the fact that we were going to do something special in the future.

What was the mood of the band while recording To The North?

We recorded the whole album with a deep sense of pride since the very first moments that we entered the studio, we knew it was going to be a good album. We wanted to do our job and we did, everything worked out the way we wanted it , it was hard work but lots of struggle, well worth struggle though. It took us only two weeks to complete, lots of people think now it sounded impossible but it is exactly the time it took. We did lots of pre-production at home working our ass off, we knew exactly how the songs should have been before entering the studio.

What are your plans for the next King Of Asgard tour?

We want to come to England! We have hard times getting on tour because of our, let’s call them “regular jobs”: Karsten for instance has a farm to run and Karl owns his own furniture shop so it’s kind of difficult for us to go on long tours, hopefully we will get on shorter legs. But please if someone wants us in England let us know and we will come!

King of Asgard vs Amon Amarth in a battlefield: who wins?

(Laugh) Oh my God, that is hard to say but one thing is for sure, we are old dirty bastards that won’t give up! Maybe we get even…..

Tell us about the King you take your band name from: why did you choose him to represent your band?

The King Of Asgard is Odin. Karl came up with the name when he started the band, he thought it was a good idea to use him to identify us with the Norse heritage we are so proud of.

Indeed, in the lyrics as well as in the development of the music path you use the Norse heritage: do you do lots of research on the subject and base your song-writing on legends or do your songs relate to imaginary tales?

We based our music solely on the Norse mythology, the Viking, the myths and the legends from books that were written thousands of years ago. We tell these stories as we want to share our heritage with others.

Fi'mbulvintr, your first album, was released in 2010: what do you treasure the most from the writing and the recording process of that album?

It was like… everything was really new with the band, I had just joined, we were a new unit and felt that the first album was going to be something special. As it came along in the studio, track by track, we did not really know what to expect but once everything was recorded we were more than happy with the results. It was a surprise to us, we had no idea on where we were heading, also considering that people really liked it.

When was the first time you played songs from Fi'mbulvintr live and was there any particular one you felt proud of in front of a big audience?

The first time we played Fi'mbulvintr live was at the release party here in our hometown and when we played the song Einharjar - the song we also made a video for - people around us just went crazy. It does provoke the same effect when we played it live now.

And in 2012 we already have the follow-up with To The North coming out on 27 July. Is To the North

THE ALL AMERICAN PUNISHERS Interview and photos by Marcus J. West

Tonight’s line-up is very well diversified. However, I think that Veil Of Maya emerge as the band with the most modern sound, hence your headlining position in the bill. How has it been going for you so far?

Danny: I think the audience is here tonight for all the amazing band in the bill, they are all awesome!

Brandon: the current tour has been going really well for us, we always try to stay ahead of the game so that our fans do not get bored with the way we sound. I agree with Danny, on this tour we have amazing support bands.

Have you already been playing tracks from Eclipse?

Brandon: yeah! We play four new tracks every night, for us taking the new stuff live is the most exciting part of the show Danny: particularly when you see the reaction of the audience to the new songs.

Amongst the future masters of the all stars and stripes deathcore, Chicago based Veil Of Maya are the ones. They have been touring Europe as the well deserved headliners to a line-up that has no contenders (Volumes, Structure, Vildhjarta and Betraying The Martyrs) and are now getting ready to share the Summer Slaughter Tour back home with Cannibal Corpse, Between The Buried And Me and Job For A Cowboy just to name a few. Veil Of Maya are proving to the world that Eclipse - their fourth album, which saw the light on February 28th this year - beautifully encompasses ten tracks that define it as a true must have, thanks also to Periphery’s guitarist and mastermind Misha Mansoor magic touch as the album’s producer. Here is what Brandon Butler and Danny Hauser, Veil Of Maya’s lead singer and bassist, had to say prior to their show at the London Underworld last May.

Speaking about the music genre that identifies Veil Of Maya in Eclipse: deathcore vs technical death metal?

Bandon: when I write music I always think about metal. If I think that up until few years back there weren’t all these subgenres that you hear about now. Veil Of Maya is a metal band, from the outside people can call us whatever they prefer.

What is the concept that drove you to the making of Eclipse?

Brandon: it all started with Marc (Marc Okubo, Veil Of Maya’s guitarist), during our last tour in Europe he met a girl in Italy, she had a tattoo on her arm of a girl holding her eyeballs. When Marc asked what was the story behind it, she said she was blind when she was younger. One day she was with her family, she looked at an eclipse, the next day she woke up and she could see. This was the whole inspiration for the album.

Fascinating story! And did the album unfold easily?

Danny: everything went really fast, we recorded

the album at Misha’s place (Misha Mansoor Perifphery’s guitarist and mastermind), hanging out, everything was very relaxed, we watched lots of South Park.

Brandon: I did the vocals separately with Michael from The Faceless (Michael Keane) as I just have always worked very well with him and felt very comfortable working with him again, and also because Misha did not work on the vocals. Everything was done very quickly and smoothly, we did not have the bumps we had in the past, you got to learn as you progress and you get older and tour, you correct your mistakes and everything becomes a little easier each time.

When did Misha become part of the equation?

Danny: Marc and Misha have been talking about recording together for a while, we toured with them in the US and that solidified the whole relationship, we started with one song that then turned into a whole album.

Bandon: we have done few tours with Periphery in the past, Marc and Misha have always been talking about working together, it was just a matter of figuring out the right timing as he has always has lots of projects going on.

Do you think you will work with him again?

Brandon: everybody wants to, yeah! Definitely it’s a possibility for the next album, it all depends on his schedule.

What was your mind-set during the recording process of Eclipse?

Brandon: we did not have any specific goal a part from taking Veil Of Maya to the next level, making sure that we were happy with our progression and that Eclipse was not going to disappoint. I think we have done a pretty good job!

One of the first songs that came up to my attention when I first listened to Eclipse is Punisher; the song’s last riff is introduced by “all they have is just bao-nuh, bao-duhnuh-nao, we-neh-nuh-nah-nuh-neh-no”.

How did that bit come about?

Danny: it was Marc’s idea to put that in the album. We saw a youtube video with a kid poking fun at Periphery and since we recorded the album with Misha we thought we had to put that riff in the album, it kind of became the full song!

Marc: yeah, I remember when Marc told me to check this video out with that kid who went on for a while making fun of Periphery with that sound so we decided to add it. We never really thought it became so big, people seem to like it a lot,

it was something we wanted to experiment with and luckily it went well!

Eclipse has got some very epic textures, how do you plan to reproduce them live?

Danny: all the synth parts come out from a sampler, Marc does all the harmonies and the second guitar parts with a loop pedal.

Brandon: we just concentrate all the equipment as much as possible, we do not even have cabinets on stage anymore What are your plans for the future, after this quite extensive European tour?

We have the Summerslaughter tour in the US coming up in the summer; it would be our first tour with Eclipse. The line-up is awesome, with Cannibal Corpse, Between The Buried And Me, The Faceless, Periphery, Job For A Cowboy, Cerebral Bore, it should be a really good tour, we really like the line up! We also want to work on a video from Eclipse, we are still deciding for which song, it’s probably going to be for The Punisher as it looks like this is the song the majority of fans want to see on video. We have two months off before the Summerslaughter so we have time to figure it out and get the video done.

Issue 9/2012

Sonic Shocks er, who now makes an explosive team together with Marvin. I seriously can’t wait to unleash this beast, because things are feeling really good for us as a unit right now!

Describe how the sessions for Icarus progressed

An interview with vocalist Leif Jensen by Matt Dawson How do you feel the band has evolved since the addition of Marvin Vriesde along with Koen Herfst and Joost van der Graaf?

Hi there! Well, obviously it was yet another massive change of patterns for Dew-Scented, but judging by the final results of “Icarus” I would like to think that it was a step forwards for the band and a switch for the better. I think Marvin wrote a killer record. Extremely compact, a ton of variety, a sweet dose of technical edge that made room for everyone to show their instrumental skills, etc. Overall, this album feels fresh and very determined, which is just the way I like my Thrash Metal, anyways. Koen (Drums) and Joost (Bass) are some of the best musicians I have been fortunate enough to work with, ever. Those guys added the much needed musical bite and challenge which made everyone involved give his very best!

I think “Icarus” is a result of a good chemistry and a healthy portion of motivation to make up for the frustrations of the past year with the band…

What brought on the decision to add Rory Hansen as a second guitarist?

We always felt that Dew-Scented works best with two guitarists, so after we had “Icarus” recorded we discussed some options for the second guitar position and it was actually Joost and Koen who suggested asking Rory, as he also plays with them in the Death metal outfit I Chaos. Funnily enough Rory is the guy who replaced Marvin many years back in his old band Blo.Torch and even though they both knew and liked each other from living in the same area, they so far had never played together in a band! Rory is great guy and a superb play-

Uuuuf, this is a tough one because there was a ton of stuff happening around the same time in 2011. We basically started to write new material in the Summer of 2011, at the same time as the previous line-up for “Invocation” was collapsing and playing some farewell festival shows, before going into some hibernation period. Unfortunately, we noticed quite soon, that the group’s focus and stability wasn’t working out with some of the guys left anymore, so we had to move forwards with a sharp cut and change the overall set-up. I basically put the band’s musical future and the full songwriting responsibility in the hands of my old friend Marvin and he one by one suggested bringing in Koen (drums) and Joost (bass). At first we didn’t know how we would function together, but there was a quick and easy atmosphere in the co-operation and everybody ended up enjoying the sessions for “Icarus” so much, that we now are strongly looking forwards to the upcoming live-shows! We tried to keep all these changes and “inner drama” away from the public eye and only return to the spotlight when the changes are dealt with and having a strong album that hopefully will answer all questionmarks. I think “Icarus” is the bright step forwards for the band and hopefully people whop know and dig DewScented will be able to agree…

What brought on the idea for the mythology of Icarus to be the title of the album?

I think it was the fact that this ‘concept’ allowed us to add a sweet different twist to lyrics and visuals, when pairing up elements of the Greek saga with our own, trademark apocalyptic vibe for things. It was quite a nice push forwards in the writing process, as I tried to use some of the story’s symbolism within the lyrics, without allowing those bits to take over and make it a cheesy essay. I think we managed to find a nice balance, where it gave us a certain thread to follow, but this is by no means what you would call a concept album. It’s just a reference and I think it also allowed us to come up with a bit of a different feel for the 9th chapter in our “i”-centered row of album-titles.

How does it/did it feel to be at Summer Breeze Open Air, any plans for UK shows in the near future?

Yeah it was cool to be added to Summer Breeze! It’s one of

Page 11 Germany’s coolest festivals and has been growing non-stop in these past years. We are playing there for the third time already, so that’s cool! We will be doing a string of shows together with Six Feet Under around that time, so that should be a nice debut for this new album and the band’s re-shaped line-up! UK shows: Yeah I hope that will work out some day sooner or later….we last came over for a week of dates (also including Ireland) in early 2011 with Nile and that was quite cool, even though we missed the London show after our bus broke down somewhere in Scotland with no chance to be repaired to make it to the gig in time. Hope we will be able to make it up for that sometime soon…or maybe we even get to finally play a festival-show in the UK at last?! Let’s see…It’s all wide open for 2013 ;-) What other characters from any ancient mythology would you like to base songs on?

None, man! Really, I normally don’t think such exercise work all-too well with our style of music! As I explained before, “Icarus” is anything but a proper concept album. It’s only a bridge between certain elements of the story and our very own tradition of lyrics and vibe. I think it worked out in a very interesting way on this album, but it’s nothing we feel needs to become a pattern into the future! I feel reality and modern times, observed with wide open eyes and a clear mind gives you enough morbid stories and negativity to portray in lyrics for a tasty Thrash Metal record. Reality totally outdoes fantasy in its inspirational power for me!

How was it to have Dan Swanö, Rob Urbinati and Dennis Schneider guesting on various songs on the album?

Oh that was awesome and a great honour! All those guys are inspiring musicians and part of the band’s history so far, so we are very glad to have them on “Icarus” in order to extend the “collective” atmosphere we had when writing and recording this album. Rob is one of my fave Thrash-Metal singers of all time and after having covered Sacrifice’s “Apocalypse Inside” on 1999’s “Ill-Natured” album, it’s awesome to have him join me for a vocal duet. Dan is pretty much the perfect artist. So devoted, so driven…and he can do it all…several/ all instruments, varied types of vocals, different musical styles, production, etc. Quite an impressing guy indeed and I am really proud to have maintained a longterm friendship and creative musical exchange with him since we first crossed paths in 90’s.DEnnios is a great guitarist that has been jamming / rehearsing with Dew-Scented before, so it felt good to invite him to contribute to this new album as well. Yeah I hope, all in all, these guest appearances will be an interesting touch for “Icarus” and add another layer of quality to the release…

What do you feel the future holds for Dew-Scented?

Hopefully more challenges!? It’s nothing worse than be bored or too comfortable with things, really. At this stage we are simply taking it easy and waiting to see what’s next to come with the release of “Icarus”. The debut live shows are definitely something we look forward to and then we will hopefully have some nice touring opportunities following in 2013. It feels good to be around still and to have overcome many difficulties in these past years. I am grateful for everyone who keeps supporting this band, one way or another. Thanks for the time with doing / reading this interview and please make sure to check out www.dew-scented.net <http://www.dew-scented. net> and/or www.facebook.com/dewscented <http://www.facebook.com/dewscented> for more news and upcoming tourdates or newly available merchandise! Keep Thrash alive!!!

Sonic Shocks

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Issue 9/2012

Interview with Tarin Kerrey and Nick Magee by Matt Dawson Sanguine give the best reaction when it comes to the question of how does it feel to play Download: Tarin describing it as ‘absolutely amazing, [an experience] she wouldn’t miss for the world’ while Nick just purely states it’s ‘insane’, more so considering they’ve been given the chance to play acoustic version of their songs on the same day as Black Sabbath THEN a date to support Megadeth two days after.

[Formerly of In Flames] who we really sparked with’ says Nick, Tarin adds ‘We’re hoping to go back and record more, these songs have been with us for a while so they’re tried and tested but Nick describes the fact they played an acoustic set as ‘really weird, normally we’re a much we’re going to add a lot more orchestra, heavy and epic basically!’ heavier band, we had written some stuff just by coincidence anyway so it worked out all right in the end! [laughs] while Tarin sees it more as ‘a sneak peek towards our new album that Working with Jesper came about from simple beginnings states Nick: ‘Our manager passed on we’re recording hopefully end of the summer. Two birds, one stone all that!’ [laughs]. the demo to someone else who knew In Flames’ management team and we were dubious at first because we hadn’t written with anyone else but as soon as we hit the studio there was a spark’.

Aside from Sanguine Tarin herself has been recently showcased via Mikee Goodman and Tarin adds: ‘Two days, two songs banged out!’

Adrian Smith [Iron Maiden]’s project Primal Rock Rebellion: she states that the experience was ‘bloody mindblowing, two legends in one room, Adrian is awesome and Mikee we’ve As Tarin points out ’We released our album back in February so we have a platform to go on known for a while since he’s helped us out.’ now and people can get an idea what we’re all about’. Add the fact there’s a free live EP to download from Sanguine’s website and the future looks like it will soar for Sanguine.

Talk then goes onto the new album: ‘We started writing in January with Jesper Stromblad

All stars and stripes metalcore: an interview with Buz McGrath from Massachusetts’ based quintet Unearth

By Marcus J. West Welcome back from Hellfest, what was it like to play in the Warzone there?

The show was awesome, it was packed out and we saw a good reaction from the fans that came along, we had a really good time. We feed off this stuff, there is a cycle of energy between us and our crowd happening.

The line-up this year at Hellfest was amazing, was there any band that you felt proud to share the festival with during those three days?

The day when we played there weren’t the bands that I wanted to see expect for Yob. But during the other days it was good to see bands like Hatebreed, Devildriver and The Darkest Hour.

From France to England here tonight at The Underworld with Malefice, Malevolent Creation and Romeo Must Die. What are your thoughts on this amazing line-up and what are you expecting from the London crowd tonight?

I think this is all great, I have always been a Malevolent Creation fan and I have never seen them live so… you will find me in the pit!

How did you feel the first time you played outside the US? What was or where the major differences you noticed between the crowd back home and the others?

When we first came to Europe nobody even knew who we were, but people kinda went nuts for us anyway because we brought something different from what they were hearing and they showed lot of appreciation; that was nice. I think that people here in Europe can get into a type of music even if it’s not the coolest to listen too in a particular time, particularly in Germany and in the UK where we first came. What we noticed coming to Europe is that people really take care of the bands, even if it’s a small venue where the band is playing. You get food, water, beer whereas in the US they will just put the band in a corner with a pitcher of iced water and that would be it. It was cool to be treated nicely like that.

What do you think is the major factor that makes Unearth a great live band in both big stages and small, intimate venues like tonight’s (The Underworld)?

I think that, by the time we started touring a lot and we god bored on stage, we started doing stupid things to entertain ourselves. I guess this kinda translate into some sort of visual force that the crown reacts to it. As I said before, it’s a cycle, the people get into it, we get excited, they get excited in a massive orgasm of metal and mosh.

How is it going with Nick (Pierce) on board as the new drummer?

Nick is a complete piece of shit. First and foremost he quit today and he is in so much painkillers that he is a zombie... I say this because he is standing right there…

Nick, is that true that you quit today?

No, I didn’t, it’s just a joke (laugh!).

I just saw you at Hellfest, it couldn’t have possibly happened.

Honestly, I was just joking! We are having a good time,

HAPPY 8TH BIRTHDAY Nick is a machine. It’s also good to have another member of the band that contributes creatively, it’s a dawning of a new day that you are now witnessing.

Darkness In The Light is nearly 1 year old, any plans for the follow-up?

Oh boy! We are hoping to start working on new material at the beginning of next year. Whenever I say something on how the new Unearth record is going to sound, it turns out to be words like fast and hard… so the new album is going to be fast, hard, aggressive, melodic, mosh, mayhem.

Metalcore is gaining lots of presence in the metal community, what do you think are the major factors for being chosen by the audience? Is there any particular metalcore band there that you admire?

I think the gendre itself is in the toilette everywhere.

The title metalcore four years ago was a bad word, before that it was cool for a second but then the bands that were associated with that tag were kinda falling off. I do not know, I always consider ourselves metal but I guess that even if we came out with an album sounding like King Diamond or Dio people will still call us a metalcore band. It’s all metal to me, it’s funny that this term is still around. With regard to a metalcore band that I really like and respect, definitely As I Lay Dying. We are good friends with those dudes. Also I like August Burn Red, they are really good in their style.

What happens with Unearth after this tour?

We are going to take July off, then we are coming back to do more European festivals during the first half of August and we join the All Stars Tour with Suicide Silence, Betraying The Martyrs and a bunch of other cool bands.

Come and check us out! We are out there, we are doing it, you are not going to be disappointed.

CLUB ANTICHRIST! Friday 29th June at Club Colosseum (1 Nine Elms Lane, Vauxhall, SW8 5NQ) Doors - 8pm / Bar Happy Hours - 8pm-11pm / Last Entry - 2.30am / Club Close - 6am Ticket info - Early bird and couple tickets are now completely sold out! Limited singles tickets are still available at www.clubantichrist.com priced at £23 and 300 tickets will be available on the door at £28 Dress code - Party people, club kids, birthday suits! Plus the usual alt., goth, industrialist, cyber Goth, punk, theatrical, bondage, PVC, vampire, uniform, drag.

Unprecedented advance ticket sales for AC’s eighth anniversary have forced promoters to turn the June 29th event into a 10 zone special. Now spanning and both floors at Vauxhall’s Colosseum Club and accommodating 1,400 clubbers, this will be the biggest birthday party yet for the legendary London alternative night.

A firm favourite over the past 8 years, Antichrist offers fun, friendly atmosphere, and eclectic bills planned with a diverse audience in mind. As ever, AC‘s sense of fun comes to the fore at the June birthday bash, with clubbers enjoying all the accoutrements of a kids party. There will be party bags - available to first 100 through the door.

There will be cakes - baked by party-goers who were quick to offer their culinary skills in return for free entry, and available free for all guests to feast upon. There will be AC’s own version of

face painting - as Alice Bizarre sets up her makeup stall in the Chillout Room. And yes, there will even a magic show - courtesy of underground illusionist Dee Christopher, who presents his mindbending party tricks on the Theatre of Sins stage.

And much, much more for every taste, age, gender, nationality, currency… You got the idea! Here’s a little list of AC entertainment wonders for the evening: PUREFUCKINGINDUSTRIAL (10pm-6am) - Industrial dancefloor with special guest DJ Totentanz.

THE HELLFIRE ROOM (8pm-6am) - Alt/goth dance floor THE HELLHOLE (2am-6am) - Rock / metal dance floor THE DEVIL’S PLAYROOM - PlayPenz-equipped dungeon, hosted by Mistress Rebekka Raynor.

COUPLES’ DARKROOM - with sofa beds, free condoms & tissues DOWNSTAIRS INDUSTRIAL LOUNGE BAR CHILLOUT ROOM - with free birthday cake, Alice Bizarre make-up stall, Thai food stall & free tea and coffee after 3am, served by AC’s famous saucy maid service!

TWO HEATED & SEATED SMOKING AREAS PLUS walkabout performers, photo booth, free party bags for first 100 and official Amphi fest warm-up party with ticket and CD giveaways.

What more reason do you need to join the celebrations for 8 years of Sin??!

Sonic Shocks

Issue 9/2012

Page 13

THE HAIRSPRAY CORNER Ex SOUTHGANG vocalist JESSE HARTE presents

BLOODY RED HEARTS

by Claudio Pucci

Jesse, it’s a pleasure to have you back after so many years. Can you tell us something more about your new band Bloody Red Hearts and the new album coming up?

JH- It is exciting and quite fun to be playing music and recording with this talented group of musicians.

These are not just any musicians either; they are very close friends and two of them I have known since I was in high school. It is just fun as hell to do this again! My former band SouthGang was similar as we all grew up together and now we have that same chemistry again with this band, Bloody Red Hearts.

The music just flows out in a very natural way. We all grew up on the same sounds, we know what we like, we get together and write and it just happens. We are very happy with the results so far.

by Sophia Disgrace Photo by Terry Mendoza

saucy entertainment, led by none other than Miss Tempest Rose. The show includes highlights from the award-winning ‘Circus Burlesque’ and the sell-out Burlesque! show ‘Shipwrecked’. The Edinburgh Spotlight 2010 has dubbed it ‘Burlesque Welcome to your one stop drop for all in its purest form.’ High praise indeed! the news on the best burlesque nights, in the capital and beyond! My name is Sophia Disgrace and I’ve performed Tickets from £14.00, please call The at numerous events in the U.K and Southbank Centre Ticket Office on abroad, from festivals to the most ex- 0844 875 0073 for further information. clusive clubs. I tend perform in a neo burlesque style and o en incorparate other elements, such as fire play, into my routines.

Club Noir Burlesque

Do you have any surprises in store for us with this new project?

JH- I guess the big surprise for most is the sound of this band. It is much heavier than SouthGang and the writing is much different. It is actually influenced by 70's European heavy metal and some of the very early 80's metal from the US. You won't find any big pop rock hooks or simple “good times” lyrical musings. The writing is a bit of poetry and takes some jabs at life in general.

It covers some political tones in the song "Good News" and then goes on to cover hardships like divorce or breakups in the song "Fade Out".

All with a bit of word smith work of metaphors, rhymes, and alliterations and heavy guitar riffing arrange-

The World Burlesque Games

Burlesque - or ‘the art of tease’ as it’s HMV Picture House, Edinburgh also known, first rose to prominence Sat, 11th August 2012 in the 1950’s; in recent years it’s enFrom 9pm joyed something of a revival, with stars such as Dita Von Teese helping to pop- Keeping its tongue firmly in cheek, ularise the scene once again. the burlesque world adds some much needed glamour to the Olympic fever London as ever is at the fore front of currently sweeping the nation. Expect this movement, which is both allur- an Olympic torch, official ceremonies ing and inspiring for men and women and an enticing assortment of performalike. ers, representing countries the world over. Screw the London version, this Here are my pick of all things bur- looks set to be more entertaining by far! lesque this month...

Tickets from £21.00, please refer to HMV tickets online for booking details.

Burlesque Cares...

Dexters, Castle street, Dundee Friday 20th July 2012 Doors open 7.30pm, First act 8.30pm Burlesque Cares “Art From The Heart” is putting some extra love into the usual glitz and glamour of the tease with a unique event, created to raise money for the Special Baby Unit at Ninewells Hospital and also in aid of MECP2 Duplication Syndrome. For less than a tenner you can see eleven, that’s right, eleven (!) lovely ladies - such as starlet Misty Vie - cavort and ashimmy for your delight! There will also be a raffle on the night.

Tickets can be bought from Grouchos in Dundee for £7 or you can pay on the door £8.

House of Burlesque!

At The Southbank Centre,London.

Running now until the 25th July 2012 The House of Burlesque and Time Out Live bring you a whole hours worth of

This months velvet curtain reveals...

Burlesque Spotlight!

ZOMBIE WOMEN OF SATAN 2 Yes, the sequel is coming! the original, erm, Zombie Women of Satan, is a U.K indie horror, which quickly gained cult status for its gore-geous take on the zombie genre-with a little tassle shaking thrown in for good measure. Myself and numerous other performer lovelies are set to get bloodied up for the big screen later this summer - so keep your eyes peeled!

In the meantime familiarise yourself with the original, if you haven’t done so already: available now from a HMV store near you.

ments.

Are any of your personal friends involved or guesting on this project? (I know that Erik Turner had something to do with it).

JH- Actually there is no other musicians other than the four band members on this EP. There are no outside writers involved and no big name producers. It is a very organic from the heart project. It is from the Bloody Red Heart! We write the music we like and have no aspirations for any commercial success unless it happens naturally. However as you has mentioned my good friend Erik, I did send him some rough mixes to get his opinion towards the end of recording.

I remember your old songs like ‘Misery or final resting place’ – genius! - and I love each one of them.

What kind of songs can we expect this time?

JH- Thanks man, but I am no genius, just a man with his angst for words and need to sound off. They are all just personal words written trying to find an outlet to get something out and let it go. I write the lyrics and the band which includes Tommy Redd who is our axe man co-writes the music. Some of you metal heads might remember Tommy in the notorious band Iron Steel which was a super group of metal heads trying to play faster and funnier than any other band. I won't drop the names,

but do your heavy metal home work and check that project out as it was pretty insane.

Do you have a favorite song on this new CD and why?

JH- My favorite is the track "Bitter".

It is a heavy groove musically and the lyrics are fire and ice. What I mean is it is a dark song about turning the negative situations in my life into positives and overcoming and rising out of some dark places I had sometimes fallen into. Now describing in specific details those situations is not something I do as lyricist. I say it in a more general way so the listener can put themselves in their own shoes and rock their own analogy of the words and let it fit their situation.

How did the name Bloody Red Hearts come up?

JH- The name was created by our guitar player. It was after one of our writing sessions. He said "since your name is Jesse Harte and mine Tommy Redd, why don't we just combine our last names and write this blood brother music!". Hence, Bloody Red Hearts became the band name.

When will we see you in Europe?

JH- That is something we are looking into. I don't have an answer yet, but we are definitely interested in Europe where the sound we have might fit even better than it is appreciated here is in the USA. What kind of music do you usually listen to these days?

JH- I am still a big fan of classic metal like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, ACDC and many classic rock metal acts. But I do like newer bands and love all Dave Grohl's work, Alter Bridge, Shine Down, Wolf Mother, and a long list of others.

What do you think about Van Halen’s reunion? Is it just business or does it look like they are actually having fun?

JH- I just heard that tour is on hold. I have not heard why though. The album seems pretty genuine and I am glad they are doing what they are doing. The magic they had was spectacular back in the days when Van Halen was on top of the world.

Did you see that new movie “Rock of Ages” and/or the original musical?

Motley Crue, Ozzy, Twisted Sister… and in America there are Festivals like Rocklahoma... What do you think about this apparent revival?

JH- It seems things are heading back to a more pure rock metal sound as the generations of rock music lovers are coming out to support the old and new sounds. They are actually cross breeding so to speak with the old fans being introduced to the new and vice versa. I am not a huge fan of 90's rock although it was a bit necessary to cleanse the pallets for music fans. The Seattle grunge scene produced a lot of interesting and cools sounds. But, then after that came more boy band rock and it just got sloppy all over again. I think we are seeing people take notice that artists want to get away from computers and make more analog sounding recordings as Grohl and Foo Fighters have done recently and I support that.

Is it still important to make a good video to promote a song?

JH- It is always a big marketing plus to have a dynamic video. But at the same time I personally don't gravitate towards music videos like I did when I was younger. Good artistic heavy music is what I am in it to find and what I listen for. The very last thing I do as fan of rock music is look for a video.

When I do I am pleased if it is creative and not guys on stage trying to look too cool.

What do you think about the legacy of bands like Motley, Kiss, Bon Jovi, Poison etc…?

JH- Icons of a great era of music, and as long as they can keep selling albums and tickets and keep their fans happy it is great that they are still entertaining.

Their fans are very happy to see them and I am one also. When I get a chance to catch a show it is always a great time and good memories with classic songs.

Do you prefer “old school” - i.e.

Faster Pussycat, Firehouse, Warrant, Trixter -or “new school” - Vains of Jenna, Crashdiet, Reckless Love and why?

JH- When it comes to rock music I am definitely old school. I am a fan of all that stuff for sure. Everyone of those bands is making cool music.

Do you have closer friendship with any of the musicians in your band and do you hang out with them regularly?

JH- Yes we are all very close and great friends. I have known Jeff Hines the drummer and Jeff Caldwell the bass player for about 28 years. Needless to say we have a lot of stories to laugh about. Tommy Redd is the new guy and we are still teaching him the old school dialects.

Where can a fan buy your new album?

JH- Digital downloads are available at iTUNES, AMAZON MP3, Google Play, eMusic, Rhapsody, MySpace Music, simpfy, V CAST, NOKIA, ZUNE, medianet, Tradebit, Greatindiemusic, 24-7, 7digital, myxer, MOG, iHeartRadio, DEEZER. All hard copy CDs will be available in June at our store on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ BLOODYREDHEARTS .

Is there a way fans can get in touch with you?

JH- The best place is at our Facebook page, but you can also contact us at www.bloodyredhearts.com and we welcome your feedback.

Do you have a message for your fans?

JH- It is a much wiser thing to write metal from the heart when you want to win the heart of blood thirsty metal fan like you! Also, thanks Claudio for the interview!

Sonic Shocks

Page 14

Speaking about the UK, you left great memories with an amazing late night performance at Sonisphere last year. Few of us will be lucky to see you performing at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods in few days before you hit Bloodstock Open Air 2012. Any anticipation on the set list for the Golden Gods?

Metal Hammer got in touch with us and a bunch of other bands because they wanted to have live music at the awards. It’s going to be a very short concert, two-three songs really. But the good thing is that we have made sure that we will use the full stage show with all the pyro and everything. I think that no matter how short it will be, I think people are going to remember it. We have some nice stuff planned, Watain is never a show that someone can walk away from without having an opinion about it, we are just going to keep that up very much. This is an award it’s not a proper concert, I see this as a challenge really, and also we have been nominated in the live category together with Metallica, Iron Maiden and Rammstein, it feels we have something to prove, we will see.

The Devil Is Always Right

I think your show will be the highlight of the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards! Anything else you would like to add Erik?

Like I said thirteen years for us means the death of an era and the birth of a new one, our show at Bloodstock will be the very last show of this era that we are in right now. I hope people will come to see it because it will be a spectacular ending and a spectacular beginning.

An interview with Erik Danielsson by Marcus J West Photos Cristina Massei As Watain - the notorious, infamous black metal troopers, the sovereign of the darkest realms - are back from an extensive tour across North America together with Behemoth (and the like of The Devil’s Blood and in Solitude), frontman Erik Danielsson shares a few words from his retreat in South Oregon on the very near future of the band… and even more to come along a blustery, tempestuous path towards conquering the world with plenty of fire and blood. As They celebrate this year the 13th anniversary of their superb career with a state of the art dvd Opus Diaboli, Watain are about to savage the Metal Hammer Golden Gods awards in London and are getting dangerously ready for what will undoubtedly be an epic live performance at Bloodstock Open Air 2012. For those of you who remember Watain’s memorable late night blast at Sonisphere last year, Bloodstock will be the perfect, infamous ending of a journey into the darkest path… and the beginning of a new chapter.

Welcome back from what could be described as a unique, state of the art tour, too bad it only happened across the US and did not reach Europe! What was it like to share it with Behemoth, The Devil’s Blood and In Solitude?

We all agreed once it was over that it was one of those tours that happen very rarely, where everything was just right every night. It had to do with so many factors, first of all the combination of bands. Most of the times, tour packages are put together based on politics, it’s like labels and booking agents coming together, bringing together whatever band they think should be on tour at the moment. This was different, it was all arranged based on artistic and spiritual values which was great as I think every tour should be like this. Every night, it was just very inspiring to have the other three bands to share the shows with, it was fantastic, very well arranged and attended.

We heard that there have been several controversial reactions following your shows: is there any particular city where you had to face problems with the local authorities and if so, what sort of accusations have these authorities thrown at Watain?

Being in a band like Watain and being on tour with the other three bands that were on the bill, everybody was expecting controversy and of course we have got a fair share of it during this tour.

I think there is no other country in the world like the US when it comes to being fundamentally Christian and very conservative, which is totally contradictive to everything that all the bans that were on this tour stand for. Of course we met quite a lot of opposition as we went along pretty much everywhere, but even more importantly I think was for the people that came to our shows to see that the bands of this tour package were

Erik Danielsson could not have been more right on the Watain show at the Golden Gods Awards, it will certainly be remembered. Taking possession of the stage with the crosses, pyro and Watain’s powerful black metal destructive militia with Malfeitor and Reaping Death, the band generate nothing but pure bliss. This is what Erik shared with us right after Watain’ short yet memorable performance, which made everyone wish Bloodstock was already happening the following day. completely opposite to all this. And that was what I preferred to focus on, instead of whatever resistance that has been met, which was trampled down, extinguished as any kind of opposition should. There will always be people that try to correct us and fight the devil, but they will soon learn that the devil cannot be fought, he will always win. This is really what this tour was a big proof of.

Was there any particular city where you felt people have been waiting long and were dying to see Watain?

We only did one tour in the US prior to this one, so I felt that there was indeed the need for another one. The US seems to have become the country where you can pretty much go at any time and we have a very devoted crowd that always show up no matter what. I think this time the fans were particularly happy everywhere to have us in a bill with all the other bands fitting perfectly to what we do, which did not happened in the past. It looks like we came over at the right time for this event.

With four, outstanding studio albums in your extensive repertoire, how difficult it is to put together the set-list for the shows? Do you still play tracks from Rabid Death’s Curse?

It’s getting harder and harder to put the set-list together, of course but also what we are trying to do as much as we can, is to change the set list night after night, just to be able to actually take in more of both the old and the new material. One thing we did on this tour, on the last five dates I was also playing guitar so I had to remember what songs I could actually play which I have not done for quite a while, that pretty much led to play stuff from the first two albums (Rabid Death’s Curse and Casus Luciferi) which was really cool because we have not played those songs in a very long time and we realized that they still work. People that came out on those last five shows got to see something very special. This kind of gave us the taste for trying out more of the old stuff and keep it in the repertoire. We’ll see, we try to be open with the set-list, take it as it comes and play what we feel like.

Interview and photos by Marcus J. West An interview with Daniel Ädel, Vildhjarta’s vocalists together with Vilhelm Bladin and guitarist Calle Thomér in Roncade, Italy prior to their first ever show in the Italian soil. The Swedish from Hudiksvall deathsters are about to rampage the stage of the New Age Club opening for Veil Of Maja. With their Meshuggah fuelled unethical riffage blasting throughout their last year debut album with Century Media, Måsstaden, Vildharta are mercifully taking over their well deserved spotlight in the metal society.

And this is just the beginning, as their first American tour

Welcome back to the UK Erik and welcome to the Golden Gods Awards. As we mentioned last time we spoke, you left great memories here with your show at Sonisphere last year.

What was it like to play live here tonight Malfeitor and Reaping Death? Your set was awesome!

I know there were lots of people here that maybe have never really heard about us, so we just wanted them to want to see more of Watain you know? We wanted to make sure we were going to use the pyro and everything. It was cool that they allowed us to do the show the way we wanted, that’s what we needed. We open most of our shows with Malfeitor, it really gets you deep, deep down.

How is the follow up to Lawless Darkness progressing?

Where I was in South Oregon last month, it was just me and my ideas with nothing else around me, that does not happen very often unfortunately; it was just what I needed to work on the new material.

Is there any band tonight at the Golden Gods Awards you feel proud to share the stage with?

We have been friends with Ghost for a long time, it seems that our generation is starting to take over.

Are you looking forward to Bloodstock?

I am, even if right now it feels very far away. We have the whole summer off now to get ready, we will be preparing some very special stuff!

Watain will not win the Best Live Band award (which was assigned to Rammstein), but have mercilessly overtaken the Best Underground Act category. Beware, the next Watain era is approaching!

Lawless, Darkness is still very alive and listened to in the black metal community, being one of its masterpieces. Any anticipation on the follow-up?

Well as a matter of fact the place where I am at right now which is up in the mountains in South Oregon is the place where I have gone to start the writing process. But then if it will be a full length album or a single or a movie or a book I do not know. I want to keep everything as open as possible because we want to make sure that with Watain, we will always do our best not to follow the ordinary patterns of a band. We like to question and do things our own way. We’ll see, one thing that is for sure is that there is lot of material.

Why did you feel at this point of your career the need to release Opus Diaboli?

For many reasons really. We have been talking for quite a long time about making something in video format, it was mainly about the fact that we wanted to try out the work in that format, which turned out great and inspiring to work in a complete new way, expressing Watain in a completely different way we are used to and that we have not done before. It’s also a thirteen year anniversary release, thirteen has always been a very important number to us being the number of death and the number of the crossroad. It marks the death of the old and the birth of the new really. Another reason that I personally find very important is that we wanted to make a proper presentation of the band, as at the moment there are so many people wanting to put us in this category or that one as a controversial band. We wanted to take the opportunity to show whoever who want to listen to us how WE feel about Watain, what it means to us. Over the last years there have been so many new fans coming into our circle, we wanted to explain to them what they got themselves into.

is about to start….

Unethical Riffage

Issue 9/2012

So many bands are constantly coming out from Sweden: Vildhjarta confirms that it’s not only about Stockholm and Goteborg, there are more places generating good metal. How did you get such a great exposure so far away from where the action is?

Daniel: via internet, that was the way we reached out from the beginning. When you are from a very small town very far up north as we are, where there is not a big audience, we had to come up with putting out music on line for people to hear it. It’s such a weird music, it was hard to find people around us who liked it. As we started the process, we found out there were lots of strange people like us who understood the music.

Calle: I joined the band in the summer of 2009. I got in contact with Daniel on line as I was watching randomly some youtube clips and I came across some of Vildhjarta studio diary from the very early days. We started chatting and ended up doing the lights for their shows until I got a big promotion and became one of their guitarists.

I recently read your statement about your success: “commitment to our fans and the art of music itself”.

Daniel: we always write hard stuff and push ourselves to the limit all the times. So many times when I write I think “how am I going to pull this one off”?

Calle: we cannot even play everything live yet!

Daniel: when you write music in front of the computer you can experiment with anything, and then you have to learn it afterwards. It’s different from me as one of the vocalist but as a whole our music then become even more strange when you start cutting and pasting parts. With regard to the commitment to our fans and the art of music itself I can tell you that I have to write to stay mentally sane, when I record music I feel good and I like the results, sharing them with the fans makes the band that we are.

Calle: Writing is not much fun for me actually, Daniel writes almost all of our lyrics so I am trying to catch up with him, I am always one step behind, but when I get to a good riff it’s always satisfying.

Daniel: Vilhelm, the other vocalist joined the band quite recently and although everything was ready for putting out the album I got a lot of help from him from him. The vocals are textured and low in the mix, we do not want them to take over like the usual pop production, we want the sound of Vildhjarta to be a solid unit with the music and vocals very tight together.

Is Vildhjarta a progressive metal band or a djent one or

a combination of both?

Calle: We can understand why people would define us a djent band because we do have that sound incorporated.

But whatever people want to call us, for us our music it’s just heavy metal.

Daniel: Djent is cool, metal is cool, as long as it’s good music.

When I briefly spoke to Vilhelm in London, he mentioned Meshuggah as your main influence which I definitely recognize in the deep darkness of your sound.

Daniel: it was not a choice, it just happened. I was listening to them in 2005 when they released Catch 33 and since then my whole view on music has changed, it was like opening a door to make the box bigger.

Calle: Catch 33 is the best album ever made.

You are now signed to Century Media, how did it all happen?

Daniel: we were very happy signing with them, they have been listening to our music since 2009.

Calle: it took one and half year before we decided anything.

Daniel: yeah, by 2011 there were lots of labels who wanted to release our music but we felt comfortable with Century Media so we decided to go ahead with them. We are really happy.

Måsstaden is so full of architectures, harmonic progressions, staccato riffs, whisper-screams interwoven with deadly growls and reverberating guitars with the titletrack being pure instrumental bliss. How did you approach such a prolific path in the making of the album?

Daniel: it was very chaotic in some way, with lots of writing and searching for the right riffs.

Calle: some of the riffs are five years old!

Daniel: We wrote and record simultaneously and the whole album was put together only two days before the deadline, it was a very chaotic experience to finalize everything, even the artwork was done at the very end. By the way have a look at the booklet inside the cd, there is a picture that reminds of Venice a lot, it’s a very dark but you can see the type of architecture.

Traces is such an amazing track with that sudden change of vocals.

Calle: it was Daniel who thought to have the addition of clean vocals in this track, even if Vilhelm was not happy with the results but I agree with you, it’s a great song.

Daniel: we just knew when we listened to the whole album that this track would have clean vocals.

Tell me about the choice of words as unethical riffage.

Calle: our music and particularly the riffs sound pretty

much outside the box, I thought that unethical riffage would be a fun term to name our style.

And what about the word Thall which is somewhat taking over everywhere.

Daniel: Thall means thall in every language. Someone described as a word with a lot of substance and no meaning.

I know you are now going to be on tour in Europe for a while and then…

Daniel: we have a tour booked in the US coming up soon, starting in Seattle on July6th, then we will be playing at Brutal Assalult and we are working on another European tour in the fall, after that it will be time to write another album.

Any final greetings?

Daniel: Thall!

Calle: Thall!

Sonic Shocks

Issue 9/2012

Interview and photo by Matt Higgs Sonic Shocks caught up with The Audition frontman Danny Stevens during this year’s Slam Dunk South Festival, Matt Higgs finds out what the band have been up to in since their departure from Victory Records in 2010 and what fans can expect from new EP ‘Chapter II’.

Sonic: So yesterday’s show at Slam Dunk North, how did it go?

Awesome dude, so much fun, it was great being back.

Sonic: It’s been a while since you were last here, your enjoying being back in the UK then?

It’s our second home man, we’ve been here like six or seven times.

Sonic: Did you get a chance to check out many other bands?

We really just saw the bands on our stage, May Day Parade, Cartel, bands we are friends with.

Sonic: So you have just released your new Ep, for those who haven’t heard anything from it yet, what’s it like? any changes big changes from your previous releases?

There’s more rock and roll, more soulful vibes, lots of influences from maybe the opposite end of the music spectrum.

Sonic: Any main influences while you were creating it?

I’m a huge soul fan, and were all huge Foo Fighters fans, Jack White, Bruce Springsteen, they all inspired us, it shows on this record.

Sonic: Chapter 2 is the Ep’s title, do you want to explain how you settled on that

name?

It's a new chapter for the band, we are finally done with Victory records, there are new members in the band, we are trying to take the band’s sound to a new place gradually. It just felt appropriate.

Sonic: So you’re enjoying being away from Victory then?

Yeah, I think any band that succeeds the gauntlet would tell you the same.

Sonic: So have you found with more independence you creativity has become unstrained?

It’s not just the music its everything, the marketing, the promoting, the artwork, the ideas, everything is ours. It’s kinda scary because if it fails it’s our fault, we won’t have anyone to blame, but if it does well it’s a little pat on the back for us.

Sonic: With a few albums down now, has the writing processed changed, have you found it easier/harder?

We have never written the same way twice, it’s very organic, someone will come up with an idea and then we all work on it, or someone will write a full song and we all put music to it. It’s always different, always organic.

Sonic: You’ve been away from the touring circuit for a little while, I imagine that was really frustrating?

I had a nice time, I got to be a normal human being for a few years.

Sonic: What did you spend the time doing?

I played a lot of golf, a lot of ice hockey. We were on tour for five and a half years straight, it was just nice to actually see my parents for more than a week at a time; and my friends without having to check a fucking schedule.

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Sonic: Have you found since self releasing your EP, that you have been able to do more things that you want, with fewer restraints on your time?

Yeah we just went out on tour with Eve 6, if you remember them from the early 90’s, they just came back from a seven year break and I feel if we were on another label that wouldn’t have happened. But the tour was absolutely killer for us, we are absolutely loving the control and being back on road.

Sonic: The EP was funded by fans, what’s it like knowing that even after taking a small break you still have that support there?

Incredible, the cool part of the release is that the fans got the chance to be part of the whole thing. It’s because of the people that chipped in that it even happened, it’s basically why we are still a band, because we couldn’t have funded that ourselves. So hats off to all the fans that helped us make the release.

Sonic: Did you feel more pressure to please the fans with the release?

For sure, they were the ones paying for it.

Sonic: Bands are having more and more success with things like Kickstarter and Pledge Music, obviously you need to have some kind of an established fan base to do that sort of thing, but do you feel it’s the way forward?

I think so, I think like with anything it will fizzle out and die at some point, but it’s interesting because it is a different route to take for your band or whatever it is, it’s a cool way to

do something like that, and people are keener to buy the product. People love interaction, and T shirts and shorts.

Sonic: So what are your plans after this, new album maybe?

Not yet, were going to take the summer off and hopefully do a full on tour here this fall.

We are in talks with someone to do a big tour which would be very good.

Sonic: Supporting or headlining?

Co-headlining maybe.

Sonic: Can you let us know who?

I can let you know that we talked about it last night.

The Audition’s stunning new EP Chapter II is available to buy now.

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Sonic: So you did Slam Dunk North yesterday, how did that go?

It was a good show, with a great crowd.

Sonic: Did you get a chance to check out any of the other bands playing?

Yesterday no, it was a hectic, we saw a little bit of Lower Than Atlantis who were a new band to us though and they were pretty good.

Sonic: So the new album ‘GO’ is coming out soon, for anyone that’s not heard it yet how does it differ from earlier Motion City Soundtrack albums?

Someone online said, though I don’t know how they heard the album, that it was a mixture of ‘I Am The Movie’ and ‘Even If It Kills Me’, I thought that was interesting.

Sonic: You think that’s a fair summary of the album?

I think every time we have put out a record we have tried to take a step further, I feel we have done that on this record. I think that from Justin’s lyrics and Justin’s singing combined with the way that we play, you can tell that it’s a Motion City Soundtrack song even if we go more mid-tempo or write a harder track. You can always tell it’s Motion City.

Sonic: With several albums in the bag now, you’re no longer new boys to the game, how have you found the writing process has changed?

It’s changed completely from ‘I Am The Movie’ and before, because of the technology that we have we are able to write on our own at home, record it and send each other ideas or work on ideas and show it to the band later.

Whereas before it was like Tuesday and Thursday night were going to practice and write songs, and that’s the only time. You had to use your head rather than your hard drive. It’s weird I feel like I’m dumber now, but it’s easier.

Sonic: You recorded in your hometown, Minneapolis, did that have any impact on the record?

We did it in the winter, we did it in Minneapolis and those are two of Justin’s favourite things, he really enjoys the bleak winter. I think he felt very comfortable which may have helped the process of writing the lyrics.

Sonic: The album leaked slightly early, how frustrating is that for you? Building up to the album’s launch and wanting to make a big release...

That’s the most frustrating thing about it: in our brains we were ready for June the 11th, that’s when our baby is born, that’s the day we’ve prepared for it. It happened three weeks early and we just felt like ‘oh shit, we weren’t prepared, the world’s not ready’. The album wasn’t ready, even though it really was. I think it’s one of those things, if it happens what are you going to do? June the 11th it’s going to be in people’s hands, if people want to download it for free, whatever, we can’t control that. There’s just something upsetting about it being out there before it was ready. The good thing is if people like it they’ll talk about it, so maybe that will help release day, you never know.

Sonic: So you have semi self released the record along with Epitaph who you have some good history with, how have you found that?

The whole album was really our doing, we had no label when we recorded it; we finished a tour, we decided to go home for a little bit, take a bit of a break, then come right back and record immediately. We didn’t want to take any sort of a break to sit around and wait for something to happen, then sign to a label, we just kept going and when we had a full record done we could play it to labels. I think that helped a lot, it kind of put the power back into our hands.

We get on well with Epitaph, they know how we work and we know how they work. I think they really trusted us and we felt good about putting it back into their hands for them to deliver it, It feels great actually. It’s been a comfortable transition which is always nice.

Sonic: So with your own label Boombox Generation, are you planning to sign any more bands? Or is it a case of a lack of time while being on the road?

It’s something we have now and can pick it up if there is something we want to do, it’s wide open.

Sonic: But it’s not something that you intend to keep just for you guys, you would look to sign other bands?

Nothing’s out of the question right now.

Sonic Shocks

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LIVE!

Issue 9/2012

Brixton Academy, 5th June 2012 Review and photos by Matthew Higgs With the crowd in fine voice before the smallest sign of life on the Academy’s stage, anticipation was obviously running high for the return of the D. As the houselights started to rise amongst the crowds cheers, it would be a pair of young brothers who would first open the night’s proceedings.

The Bots have recently found themselves hailed by Spin Magazine as ‘Best Newcomers’, no mean feat for a young 18 year old and his younger 14 year old brother, at first the crowd seem unsure as what to make of the duo’s groove filled rock, but soon find themselves nodding along to tracks including single Northern Lights. The pair could easily have been a creation from Black’s film School Of Rock and may have felt a little contrived had it not been for their musical competence and the endearing energy shown throughout their set. While there is still an element of novelty due to the siblings’ young age, by the time of their departure from the stage they have successfully and enjoyably killed the time until the D’s arrival and I suspect won themselves more than a few new fans.

As tension builds for a rather older duo, the crowd sing one Tenacious D track after another, finally their heroes pace onto the stage adorned in robes that make them resemble some kind of obscure monks. Disrobed and joined by a backing band. the pair opens on latest single and album title-track ‘Rize Of The Fenix’ as an inflatable, veiny and somewhat phallic looking phoenix grows behind them.

Inflatable phoenix now fully erect, Jack Black and Kyle Gass treat the adoring crowd to some ‘Low Hanging Fruit’ and the Spanish toned ‘Senorita’ while pulling some interesting rock out faces and filling every pause between songs with plenty of witty banter. While still as theatrical and humorous as ever, the duo seem to have focussed more on the rock than the laughs than the bands last arena tour did. Following Deth Starr, Black pulls out a plastic toy for what can only be his Saxaboom solo; never before has a musician won so many cheers from a crowd with a child's toy, but hey, not everybody is a Saxaboom master. Asking if the those on the front row are dehydrated from rocking out, Black offers to quench their thirst before shaking his sweat onto them, mmm salty refreshment.

After a brief argument between Kyle and Jack, the spotlight falls on a lone Mr Black for an almost touching ‘Dude (I Totally Miss You)’; returning acoustic in hand once more for ‘Friendship’ Kyle completes the duo who have written more comedic hits than can be counted, even with socks off. ‘The Metal’ sees Gass and Black step away from the guitars for some schooling in wailing, as notes are seemingly held forever. After proclaiming that Brixton was the best show on the bands tour ten years ago, something they are maintaining again, the D invoke new highs in the sing along championships with ‘Wonderboy’.

With plenty of red light the pairs backing guitarist is possessed by the devil for a roaring rendition of ‘Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)’, ok so he’s no Dave Grohl but the new Satan does make the role his own as fans continue to sing, scream and shout every word back to the stage.

Level ten on the Tenacious D Richter scale however is never enough: pulling out the greatest and best song in the world, ‘Tribute’ sees the band and fans alike hit eleven. As the rafters finally stop shaking in the academy, it’s time for the band’s individuals to shine, with a selection of solos before ‘Double Team’ ends the set in a blast of confetti ejected from the penis phoenix. As he leaves the stage, Black tastefully explains how he would like to fuck everyone in the room.

Returning alone once more for ‘Baby’ Black has clearly loved every second of the show as the crowd chant “JB”. Finishing the night on one final eargasm, ‘Fuck Her Gently’ offers a last rock out for the fans that have lapped up every second of tonight's show. Tenacious D are still as tongue in cheek, still as silly, and still as fun as ever for any who didn’t grow out of their sense of humor during puberty. most of the set he stood squarely behind the his stand, the mic clutched close to his face while moments where he leaned over to sing to the crowd or collapsed to the floor felt rehearsed and a little awkward. Some solid songs didn't raise the performance beyond workmanlike, unfortunately.

Second support band Fearless Vampire Killers were the polar opposite of uncomfortable on stage. They appeared in clouds of smoke, talc and gentlemanly Victorian attire to perform a very ungentlemanly show; thrashing, strutting, posing, running, sweating and screaming, it was the kind of searing performance that makes you worry for the health of the performers and wonder if there were ice-packs and painkillers waiting backstage instead of liquor and groupies. Playing an infectious brand of theatrical alternative pop-rock, it won't be long before they're headlining tours themselves, if only because they're a frighteningly hard act for even more experienced bands to follow.

O2 ABC Glasgow - 13th June 2012 Review and photos by David Lees The O2 ABC is a strange venue, with the stage recessed into a wall halfway down the room rather than being at one end meaning there are big stretches of empty space on either side of even a large crowd. Sadly it wasn't a large turn-out the night of William Control's New Faith tour and the atmosphere suffered as the small crowd clustered next to the stage were dwarfed by the empty space around them.

First act Obscure Pleasures, a new wave band from Birmingham channelling the darker side of the 80's, would have struggled even in a more intimate venue.

Their sound inevitably suffered from a lack of a live drummer but the main problem was that singer Joshua White just doesn't seem very comfortable on stage. For

Flouting the smoking ban with a glowing cigarette in his mouth, William Control flickered across stage in a series of strobe flashes like a vampire in an old movie, dressed in Victorian finery. You wonder how hard it is to find three bands to fit on one bill who all share the same sense of fashion aesthetics. Though the crowd is only marginally bigger than before the fact it's made up of obviously die-hard fans does a lot to compensate and William Control put on a show that matches Fearless Vampire Killers for energy if not sheer chaos. It's the relationship frontman Will Francis has with his fans that really sets the performance apart though. When he says how happy he is to be there or thanks the fans for coming out it feels sincere, not just what's expected of him. Filling an hour with danceable, dark songs about love and suffering it's fair to say the fans got exactly what they came for and it's only a shame more people weren't there to be won over.

Sonic Shocks

Issue 9/2012

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Camden Barfly, London - 8th June

by Cristina Massei

Whisky A Go Go, West Hollywood, (CA) - 3rd June 2012 Review and photo by Marcus J. West To battle with eleven thrash bands in one go, all tightly gathered in the tiny Sunset Boulevard metal den better known as Whisky A Go-Go, is indeed hard work, but the kind that flows effortlessly. However, during this backbreaking marathon, it’s hard to notice which band can actually prove who the hell they are; they all seem angry, wild and brutal and ready to fight the world alright, but to be a thrash band you need to share that special fiery core, those burning blames that feed the moshpit ruthlessly. The first band to emerge on this primordial concept is Southern California based Velosity, a very Megadeth-esque dangerous trio that attack and destroy with their captivating fury, note by note. Try to load Spiritual Encounter in whatever music device you have, play it loud and see if you still have walls around you.

Vital Remains and Bonded By Blood, the latter also from around the Los Angeles area, continue the path to total devastation; they also have plenty of that core I mentioned earlier and feed the raging crowd as promised. The atmosphere now is the one you want: bands and fans are melting together when finally the thrash heroes of the day stomp on stage and salute their audience with passion and glory, the pride burning in their blood just like a Living Weapon (which is also the title of their latest album known amongst to the thrash community as a true must-have). There are very few frontmen that nail it as John Kevill does; with the lethal sequence of Total War, Living In A Whirlwind and Combat Shock he proves that there is never enough of Warbringer. Really a great set, the perfect trampoline to jump from straight to Wacken Open Air 2012 (www.wacken.com)!

O2 Islington Academy, London - 14th June

by Cristina Massei

After a vigorous performance from The Howling, a sold out Islington Academy is ready to welcome tonight’s much anticipated headliner, ex Skid Row undisputed hero Sebastian Bach. One of the

few out of that sleazy scene to have kept his own hair, but most of all the voice and energy of his best days, ‘Hurricane Bas’ opens the party with Slave to The Grind: between the excitement and the

If watching the Yo-Yos live back in February seemed unreal, having them for a second time in London warming up for Download (yes, Download!) was a dream I didn’t want to wake up from; even more so when Neil Phillips joined Danny McCormack and Tom Spencer for the reunion I didn’t think I would be lucky enough to witness.

Could it get any better? It surely did when Stereo Juggernaut were added to the bill.

It’s one of the coldest, wettest, windiest summer nights London has seen for quite a long time; most UK gig-goers are already swimming in the mud at Donington, yet tonight’s remarkable combination manages to pull a numerous and much excited crowd at Camden Barfly, enjoying the usual awesome selection of tunes from the Jubilee team downstairs as they wait for the live venue to open.

It’s past 11.30pm when Stereo Juggernaut come out, determined to honour tonight’s main attraction with a mindblowing performance; and mindblowing it is. If you’ve never seen this band before, get ready for the unexpected. As diminutive frontman Ben, the lovely Asha and young Reuben take to the stage, you are oblivious to the storm that is about to hit you. Intense and poetic, ‘Like a Star’ and ‘Defeated by the Sea’ still shine in the half hour setlist, but the new ones blend in a treat even marking the evolution of this promising outfit. There’s a debut album in the making, and I think the time has finally come for this promising London outfit to get it ready and out to the masses.

As Danny, Tom, Neil and the young new drummer make the appearance, smiles on and off the stage warm up the room, heat that no weatherman could foresee in this little corner of Camden Town.

No notes describe happiness like those in ‘Time of Your Life’; as serotonin levels rise in the crowd and visibly in the band, one can only hope music-induced happiness will be McCormack’s addiction of choice for a long time to come. Hearing all three original voices live like in the masterpiece that is ‘Uppers & Downers’ is a joy and a privilege, ‘Head over Heels’ makes you want to scream from the rooftops how fucking good this band is and ‘Home from Home’ is simply overwhelming. Song after song, you can feel nothing but grateful for being here tonight.

Just a brief set to prepare for the big Festival tomorrow, but it filled our ears and hearts like it was a whole weekender of splendid rock’n’roll. Long live the YoYos. We hope. headbanging, he hits the microphone splitting his forehead open right in the middle. Just a bit of blood, quite rock’n’roll after all… The show goes on like nothing happened and Sebastian gets the crowd ‘Kicking and Screaming’ with a taste of his latest album, mixed to some good old Skid Row. ‘Big Guns’ is always a live favourite as the audience warms up very fast: dancing, headbanging, singing along, old and new fans are visibly having a ball. After witnessing way too many unnecessary ‘comebacks’ from 80’s ex stars and rejects, I have to give it to Mr Bach: he’s one of the few who still fully deserves to be on stage and get paid for it. We mentioned already the energy, the voice and – don’t pretend it’s not ESSENTIAL – the hair, but what truly strikes you as you watch him dominate the room is the enthusiasm. Doesn’t matter how many reality shows he’ll get himself involved with, when he’s on a stage he’s clearly loving it, and he’s thankful to those who make it possible. Despite the new material working great live and being eagerly received by the fans, ’18 & Life’ is a granted climax, as Islington turns into one voice – and a sea of fists in the air.

There’s still plenty to go, old and new, including ‘My Own Worst Enemy’, single ‘Tunnel Vision’ and latest ‘I’m Alive’

but also THE ballad moment with ‘I Remember You’ and that closing everyone was longing for: ‘Youth Gone Wild’, hymn of a generation, sends everyone home on a high, as Sebastian thanks a blushing Nick Sterling for keeping the band’s age down and the riffs coming.

Sonic Shocks

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With a queue that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, Slam Dunk had obviously done something right in their band booking. As the sun beamed down on Hatfield it was time for the first real summer festival of the year to kick off.

UNEARTH – MALEVOLENT CREATION – MALEFICE – ROMEO MUST DIE

With most of the crowd still filing into the festival site, Hildamay took to the Vans Music stage with a passion that was admirable, especially when most people in the room just wanted to quench some dehydration with an early beverage. A few teething problems with the sound left vocalist Tim Lawrence silent for a while, but overall the band put in a solid set to start the day.

The Underworld - London, 20th June

by Marcus J. West

Romeo Must Die opens tonight’s extreme marathon. They did a good job opening for Anterior final chapter not too long ago and they are back. Frontman Adam Frakes-Sime is wearing his Rocky Balboa trademark t-shirt and for few moments the stage appears to become a ring with the notorious boxer fighting his own persona. Malefice are next, this is a band that is always welcomed (remember them at Download last year?). Big changes are happening for this quintet from Reading: new label, new attitude and approach to life, frontman Dale Butler has short hair now. But the flaming core is still there, as he knows how to fuel pure fire to the now raging Underworld crowd. Awaken The Tides, Malefice’s third album is a year old, tonight the anticipation of the follow-up is in the air, with plenty of arduous riffings, powerful vocals and devastating drumming, thanks to Chris Allan Whyte supremacy. Their set just flow, too quickly perhaps, Malefice need to come back. With Malevolent Creation hailing from Buffalo, the stage and the atmosphere becomes darker, heavier and bulkier, their blend of death metal and hatred attacks brutally and mercilessly, there is no escape from the moshpit as they ignite Decadence Within and To Die Is At Hand as raging assaults. Vocalist Brett Hoffman has a remarkable stage presence and knows how to bring his pack forward. From the depth and darkness of Malevolent Creation to the metalcore architectures of Unearth: the sudden change of scenery hit like hell. Unearth are back in one piece from a staggering performance at Hellfest 2012 where they transformed the Warzone tent into total mayhem. Their intensions tonight are exactly the same: when they hit the stage at the blistering notes of This Glorious Nightmare, frontman Trevor Phipps appears to be in full command. The cycle start, they feed their energy to the audience, the audience feed them back, their show become a whole world of fire and good times.

OPENING NIGHT Ibiza, 6th June 2012

Review and images by Nelly Loriaux Ibiza Rocks opens up its doors again for what's promised to be the biggest Rocks season ever with the finest breakthrough acts performing alongside established live acts and renowned DJ's. The opening night was, by all account, a roaring success. Every square inch covered, from roof top to poolside not forgetting the lucky few smugly looking from the comfort of their private balconies.

Being first is always a challenge but The Milk and Ed Sheeran were up for it. Fresh from their successful Camden Crawl stint, Essex lads The Milk were on top form. Rick Nunn, supported by guitarist Dan Legresley, bassist Luke Ayling and drummer Mitch Ayling, belted out track after track in an unwavering momentum. When performing live,they have consistently followed a 'no breaks, just beats' style and tonight was no exception. Playing their setlist as a DJ would spin his decks ,they won the audience with their infectious rock'n'soul numbers such as ''Broke The Family', 'B-Roads', 'All I wanted Was Danger' and 'Everytime We fight', squeezing in Wretch 32's 'Traktor' and Stardust's 'Music Sounds Better With You' for good measure . They might have been unknown to many people tonight but their bluesy, soulful riffs and energetic set ensured that they will be remembered.

Next on stage fresh faced ginger haired singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran looks barely old enough to drink, let alone do a solo performance in front of 1000 of boozy holidaymakers. Dressed in a yellow and black Ibiza Rocks t-shirt,3/4 length khaki shorts and a pair of trainers he certainly stuck out like a sore thumb, all alone on that big stage, but under this deceiving goofy appearance laid a highly talented troubadour that has managed to clock on more than 10 millions views on Youtube.

Armed only with an acoustic guitar, a looping pedal and an incredibly charimastic stage presence, he quickly enrolled the audience as his 'gospel choir'. For nearly 2 hours his captivated 'backing singers' helped him deliver his lovelorn ballads with passion, words for words, from the poetic 'The A Team' to the poignant break up song 'Drunk' and just to demonstrate that his talent doesn't just rely on writing touchy feeling songs, he surprised us all with a harrowing cover version of classic Nina Simone's 'feeling good' and showed off his rap skill to Lil Kim's 'lighters up'.

Ed Sheeran may seem only barely out of his teens but he's certainly a very talented kid. Performing his encore from a blacked out stage, lighters up in the air, the whole of Ibiza Rocks joined him one last time for 'you need me, I don't need you'.

The evening was a blast. And with many more world class acts still to come such as Maverick Sabre, Labyrinth, The Maccabees and Kaiser Chiefs Ibiza Rocks 2012 is set to be the place that will rock your socks off.

Issue 9/2012

Herts University, Hatfield - 27th May

Review by Matthew Higgs/ All images by Marianne Harris (www.marianneharris.co.uk)

Back outside Zebrahead took to the main stage while declaring it was “the sunniest we have ever seen England”, helping to provide a perfect soundtrack for the weather with their feel good rap core/pop punk hits. The band even pulled a bikini clad girl and token guy from the crowd before pouring them drinks from their own on stage bar. ‘Anthem’ predictably stood out as the crowd started to get their bounce on.

While I only managed to catch a couple of Marmozets songs on the Vans stage, it’s clear that the young band are getting increasingly tight with their sets. The math/ post hardcore belters that poured from the band as they threw their all into their performance were lapped up by a sizable contingent who have made their way to see the Northern prodigies.

While previous to Slam Dunk For The Fallen Dreams were unbeknownst to me, by the end of their set they could add another name to their roll-call of fans. The melodic metalcore band put on a blinding set, whipping the crowd into frenzied pits as lead singer Dylan Richter leant out into their midst. Singles ‘The Big Empty’ and ‘Let Go’ were given roaring outings as the band blasted through their allotted set.

The Word Alive waste no time maintaining the momentum of For The Fallen Dreams, Tyler Smith’s vocals switching effortlessly between incredible highs and gut wrenching screams on opener ‘Hounds of Anubis’. The band sound tight as they bring in synth samples and intricate riffs while carried along throughout by some furious drumming.

Playing several tracks from new album Life Cycles to a crowd who lap up every note, it looks like the bands forthcoming release could be a smash.

Of Mice & Men have gone from strength to strength over the last year, with a packed out room its far from surprising when all hell breaks loose as the Californians take to the stage. ‘Second and Sebring’ shows how the band have come so far, perfectly mixing brutal breakdowns with a melody that retains plenty of hooks. Vocalist Austin Carlile spends half of the band’s set off the stage and in the eye of the crowds storm before once returned to stage, the band close their set with an almighty wall of death.

For ten years Motion City Soundtrack have been writing some of the catchiest pop rock tunes available, with a sizable crowd gathered in the sun it was time for the sing along to begin. ‘Make Out Kids’ and ‘Her Words Destroyed My Planet’ both see the bands set turn into a full on karaoke as more than a few voices join frontman Justin Pierre on vocal duty. It’s easy to forget just how many great songs the band has written, MCS wilfully reminded all present.

Cancer Bats are easily one of the hardest working bands on the current touring circuit, stopping in Hatfield for a set they kick off with their raucous cover of Beastie Boys Sabotage. As Liam Cormier paces the stage like a caged lion the band tears through tracks including ‘Hail Destroyer’ and ‘Dead Wrong’. At times the band sound slightly off, a rarity for a group that consistently kills it, thankfully when a band pours so much energy into a performance a few off sections are forgivable, the band still putting on a show to remember.

With new drummer, former Rise To Remain member Pat Lundy in tow, Funeral For A Friend win their biggest applause when playing older tracks like ‘Escape Artists Never Die’. Battling against muffled sound thanks to a breeze across the stage and maybe some sound issues, the band seemed to be lacking some edge, coasting through their set until its finish. It’s a shame, as so many in the crowd clearly have fond memories soundtracked by the bands classic albums, but it was not to be the bands best day.

FFAF have always been a band to bounce back however, teething issues aside it will be interesting to see how they return in the next year, delivering a new album that has been suggested by some as a return to their earlier sound.

Every Time I Die, what can be said, two words: CIRCLE PIT. With a wall to wall cyclone of bodies, from opening note to final scream Every Time I Die know how to put on a show. Opening on ‘Underwater Bimbo’s From Outer Space’ Keith Buckley encourages the crowd to keep the pace that is set from the off. ‘No Son Of Mine’ and ‘I Suck’ both add fuel to the crowd’s fire as bodies pile over the barrier. Finishing by inviting the crowd to the stage (much to security’s lament) bodies, instruments and microphones end up flying everywhere as one of the festivals stand out sets is brought to a close.

Opening on ‘What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost’ Taking Back Sunday play the tracks, but don’t give the performance the fans expect as Slam Dunk South is brought to a close. Adam Lazzara does well to hobble around on a still broken leg, but musically nothing seems to click.

‘A Decade Under The Influence’ is sung back with vigour under Hatfield’s setting sun, but it’s the newer songs that can be heard clearer, which vocally and musically sound disappointingly sloppy.

Lazzara only makes things worse with his talking between songs, coming across as either high or over eager to appear ‘out there’. ‘You Know How I Do’ once more proves the bands prowess as writers of some of the best rock songs of the last ten years, but unfortunately it seems they lose their coherence live.

While it’s always great to hear some of the bands classic tracks live, overall TBS were a disappointing end to a great festival.

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by Deni

Rocklahoma 2011 was my first official festival to cover as an official media/photographer person. Little did I know at the time that the bar was being set very high for every other festival I have since attended. Nothing compares to the organization, the super friendly staff, the vendors, the music and most of all the sense of family that is Rocklahoma. I hope to be a part of this family for many years to come. Now onto the reason I came to ROCK!

SATURDAY

Red – My second show of the evening was a Christian band. Red made Radio & Records history as the first band in Christian rock history to have a song debut at No. 1 when the band's single "Fight Inside" was released in November 2008. When asked if they are a "Christian band," Anthony Armstrong states, "We always like to call ourselves a Christian band because that’s what we are. If they ask us if we’re a Christian band, we tell them yes. Wow, the show these guys put on was energetic, charismatic, hard, heavy, uplifting and simply amazing. Michael Barnes is a force to be reckoned with.

Please check out these guys. www.redmusiconline.com Slash – Billed as Slash but the highlight of this show was Myles Kennedy on vocals. No need for Axl, Myles works just fine without all the school girl drama. Slash was Slash. Perfection. I don’t think anyone would expect anything else. They played songs off the new album ‘Apocalyptic Love’ that was just released on May 22nd. Of course they threw in some Guns N Roses and sounded fantastic.

Something about hearing the guitar on Paradise City playing while the sun is sinking in the Oklahoma sky brings a feeling of completeness for this rocker chick. Get the new album. You will love it.www. slashonline.com POD – An old favorite of mine and my kids. Love POD. THE (sorry Skillet & Stryper) Christian band that made it huge in mainstream

music. I don’t care if you have pentagrams tatted on your arms and an upside down cross on your forehead, if you didn’t come out of this show feeling like you had been at church something is wrong way deep inside of you. They played old stuff, they played new stuff but when he (Sonny) started lifting kids onto the stage during ‘Youth of the Nation’ to sing with them I lost it. Then when I could visibly see him praising God and completely and totally loving what he was doing …wow. I felt renewed by the time the set was over. Way to rock it guys! www.payableondeath.com Creed – Ok, I will admit it. Scott Stapp creeps me out a bit. Not sure if it’s the weird faces he makes or the dorky was he dances around. I was not really excited about seeing them. I tried not to love it, I really did but it was impossible. The music and vocals was flawless people, flawless. The love of performing was evident; the humbleness of what he has been through and overcome was evident. This show will be in my Top 5 at the end of this article and I’m not even a Creed fan. Amazing performance, just brilliant. And yes, they are another Christian band. Church on Friday night at Rocklahoma ROCKED! Check out what Creed is up to at www.creed.com So ended the first day of Rocklahoma 2012. A great start to an even greater weekend to come.

SUNDAY Black Stone Cherry – Quite an opener for the day. The guys from BSC are like your friends from the hood. Good ole boys.

FRIDAY Chevelle - Who honestly doesn’t like Chevelle? They are classic.

Well they formed in 1995; I guess that is getting pretty close to classic. ‘The Red’ was a crowd pleaser and my favorite of the set. They sounded just like they have always sounded: strong, in perfect harmony with each other mixed in with just enough roughness to make them human. Great start to my night. www. chevelleinc.com

Britt

Trivium – That will get the evening off to a head banging start, or a headache. I love the energy these guys bring. Never slowing down, even in the hellish heat of an Oklahoma evening, facing the sun these guys tore it up! I don’t even like music this hard but I loved it live and loud from Trivium. www.trivium.org The Darkness – The Darkness are a British glam rock band from Lowestoft, Suffolk, formed in 2000 and I have been waiting for years to see The Darkness live.

I’ve sang their music at the top of my lungs for years as well. I was not disappointed! They didn’t even have to sing, just the sight of them was enough.

I see where Foxy Shazam has originated from. I love it. What a front man they have in Justin Hawkins! Such a fun group of dudes. They are working on their 3rd studio album right now and I for one can’t wait to hear it! www. theactualdarkness.com Megadeth – Yes Megadeth! Nope, I don’t like that heavy music they play either. Its live music people…I love it ALL! And the chance to see Dave Mustaine in person?? Hell yeah I was there.

Ok, truthfully the sound was not all that great. Never is on the main stage it seems. But the music was phenomenal. The history of heavy metal being played out right in front of me was amazing. What was the most amazing thing about this show you ask? Honestly it had to be the sight of my 15 year old son in the VIP pit hanging out with the members from Pop Evil and LYNAM and enjoying Megadeth with them. Long live rock and roll of every flavor. www.megadeth.com Rob Zombie – Yes he is in my top 5 for the festival. Church on Friday night, satanic imagery on Saturday night.

This shit will give you nightmares.

I have never seen a more elaborate, well put together stage production in my life.

There were giant robots, skeletons, horror movies on the screens. He was rude, crude and obnoxious.

Not likeable at all. Then why did I keep catching myself rocking out all hard to this assholes music?

I guess because the musicality of it is pure genius. That Rob is a smart man. Props devil man…mad props. www. robzombie.com

Charm City Devils – Wow. Was not expecting such greatness from these guys. I was singing along to songs I had never heard before.

Their album was immediately loaded onto my Ipod. John Allen is the sweetest guy ever. A former drummer turned front man. As Steven Tyler says, “shit fire save the matches, f*** a duck and see what hatches”. Damn y’all these boys are good! ‘Burn Baby Burn’ to ‘Devil Is A Woman’ this band kicked all kinds off ass from start to finish. Any band that can cover ‘Man Of Constant Sorrow’ from my most favorite movie ever had my support. Love you guys.

Check em. www.charmcitydevils.com Jackyl – Why oh why am I just now learning of the greatness that is Jesse James Dupree and Jackyl? This is my number ONE on my top 5 of the weekend. WOW. I have never laughed and rocked so hard at the same time. You want Southern hospitality? Look no further. From telling you how to take care of your cast iron skillet to how to take care of your woman, Jackyl has your answer. Jesse's voice has not diminished in over 20 years. This chainsaw wielding comedian/rock star stole the show. His ass length hair was flying in the wind, his jaws chewing relentlessly on a piece of gum, his laughter echoing across the crowd. You could not help but smile and sing along. No fancy production, just genuine love of his fans and of his music. Could not have asked for anything more. I love you JJD. www.rockmerollmejackylmeoff.com Art Of Dying – Observing from on the side stage… total kick ass show! Facebook these guys and you will see how much they love and appreciate their fans. Hailing from Canada these dudes were a crowd favorite at Rocklahoma 2011. Playing hits such as ‘Sorry’ and ‘ Get Through This’ they had the crowd at “Hello Rocklahoma”. Hanging around for hours after their set to meet and take pictures with their fans make these guys one of my favorites. They know who is buttering their bread. Keep on keeping on guys. www.artofdyingmusic.com Queensryche – I was going to leave out this veteran of rock and roll and Rocklahoma due to Geoff Tate’s comment to the crowd during their set. Something along the lines of , “so this is Rocklahoma huh? Well you suck. No seriously, you suck”. Really Geoff?

Maybe it was YOU that sucked. Ever consider that? Actually they didn’t sound horrid.

Music was great. In my opinion it’s time for someone to hang up their festival hat. I adore this band but it was sad to watch 75% of the crowd meandered over to hear HellYeah’s sound check during the middle of Queensryches set. It hurt my heart for these guys. They have kicked ass for many years. You have to remember one thing Geoff; you are where you are because of the people that stand in front of you. Don’t ever insult your fans, rockstars. Without us/them you are nothing. www.queensryche.com HellYeah – Oh helllll yeah! The Supergroup HellYeah takes the Hard Rock Stage.

Once again we are rocking from side stage. Man, just being in the presence of Vinnie Paul Abbott is enough to make one happy for life, let alone being on the stage with him, watching him smile and point his drumstick at your 15 year old son who is an up and coming drummer. I was in rock and roll heaven. ‘Alcohaulin Ass’ made my festival.

Good grief these guys can freaking rock it. Why were they not headlining the whole ROK? Same question I asked last year of Black Label Society. WHY? Maybe they like the superior sound of the Hard Rock Stage. Perhaps it is the intimacy of the smaller stage. Who cares? These guys were phenomenal. Your brother is watching proudly Vinnie. \m/ www.hellyeahband.com Chickenfoot – Seriously, how can you go wrong with Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony and Chad Smith? You can’t. Super group? Ummm, yeah. Slightly. I got this straight from Wiki and LOVE it. “While the band's name and logo reference a disparaging term used to describe the peace symbol, the "footprint of the chicken", bassist Michael Anthony asserts that the name originated from initial jam sessions between Hagar, Smith and himself: "there are three talons on a chicken’s foot and there [were] three of us."[3] Later Anthony stated: "it was just supposed to be a bullshit name that we’d used for a while, and then [when] the rumors spread about the band, everybody used that name so we thought, 'fuck it, let’s call it Chickenfoot'” With any “Super Group” you get what you would expect. Perfection. This was perfection. What a perfect end to a perfect weekend. www.chickenfoot.us Thank you Rocklahoma for being the best festival of this rocker chick’s year for the second year in a row.

I cannot wait till next year. A special “Thank You” to Denise and Lenny Palmer of Rock 103.9 College Station, Texas for all the hospitality! We love you guys!

Denise’s Top 5 of ROK in order: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Jackyl Rob Zombie POD Creed Charm City Devils

Sonic Shocks

Page 20

Issue 9/2012

METRIC Synthetica

Out now on Southern Lord

MANOWAR The Lord Of Steel

Out now on Magic Circle

SPINESHANK Anger Denial Acceptance Out now on Century Media

Out now on Esoteric Recordings

Out Now on Mom + Pop Music

by Matt Dawson

by Matt Dawson

by Matt Dawson

by Matt Dawson

by Olivia Cellamare

Now THIS is what you can call ferocious from the offset: a wail of guitar feedback into a cry to remain true to your roots but done in a way that stops it from going stale in ‘No Love’.

Everybody welcome to what can be gathered for many as their first taste of Burning Love, a band that many shall compare to Converge due to their hardhitting riffs and Kurt Ballou ONCE AGAIN doing brilliant production; but Chris Coloham - formerly from Cursed – brings more to mind than Kurt Ballou and Terror’s Scott Vogel with his emotion towards songs such as ‘Karla’, ‘Tremors’ – whether named after the Bmovie who knows – and the multi part track known as ‘Pig City’.

There’s an underlying darkness of sleaze beneath the usual sound to Burning Love: lyrics about anarchy and the death of Karla on the latter track involving torture and a hammer, with a feeling that you’re enveloped into it all as you imagine the chaos a live show by this band purely brings with bodies either slamming or flying everywhere.

One of the finest hardcore records to be released this year: the fire for Burning Love will shine brightly for a long time yet!

Manowar have gone ‘back to basics’ you could say with this album after the bombast of Gods Of War and the re-recording of Battle Hymns by getting rid of the symphonic elements and going stripped down.

Joey DeMaio once again handles the production duties – as he has on most of the band’s albums - but weirdly turns his bass tone the lowest he’s ever done and seems to have instructed the band to treat it as a live session which becomes obvious.

This is partly down to the keyboards sometimes sounding very out of place on moments such as the title track, but yet there are the guitar solos by Karl Logan that manage to do a far better job than another band beginning with M in recent years (one with Metal in their name…) and Eric Adams bringing his usual tone to proceedings.

The lyrics of course are what you expect from a Manowar album: battles, Valhalla, a song that could fit nicely on an action movie soundtrack in ‘Expendable’ and even a song that no doubt will be used by a American wrestler in Mexico one day in ‘El Gringo’ (and funnily enough that track is being used FOR an action movie), but even then the idea of ‘Manowarriors’ does cause a slight twinge for being a bit too cheesy.

The Lord Of Steel is not one of the best Manowar albums out there but if you get past the bass tone and keyboards it’s fairly decent; let’s hope with the next one we get back to the era of Hail To England and others.

There’s a saying in the theatre that is ‘pro wrestling about the storylines seem to come around every 7 years’, or at the very least - according to a promoter named Jim Cornette - that’s what supposed to happen.

The same could apply to rock/metal really, as nu-metal has cycled around for a second wave: Limp Bizkit being considered cool again, Papa Roach releasing another album later this year and now after nearly a decade away Spineshank return with Anger Denial Acceptance.Now I know what some people may be thinking: ‘great, another nu-metal band coming back sounding EXACTLY how they were before, let’s go towards the future rather than the damn past!’ and yes that thought is reasonable particularly if the band were BAD first time around, but in all honesty how many of you still enjoy it however guilty you may feel when ‘New Disease’ kicks in on a night out? Thought so. Spineshank’s time away actually managed to do them some good as Johnny Santos’ vocals show more depth than ‘slightly whispered vocals’ followed by a chorus that’s mostly shouting and the band seems to have taken a darker tone, more distorted guitars by Mike Sarkisyan with fast paced drums from Tommy Decker. In a weird way they’ve gone more onto the metalcore side with tracks mostly about loss – ‘Murder Suicide’, the title track and even 3 tracks in ‘God Complex’, ‘Motive Method Opportunity’ and ‘Exit Wounds’ that carry on the Anger, Denial Acceptance theme. Is it anything particularly new? Only slightly and, even then, it depends if you feel that even metalcore is getting over-saturated as it is; the true test will come once the nostalgia fix has started to fade.

In the end this is a good start towards a comeback for Spineshank, but let’s start cutting down a bit on the reformations: The Kennedy Soundtrack will get ideas next...

After four years of waiting, the project of two men known for their legendary roles in the world of progressive rock as members of Genesis and Yes finally comes to fruition as Chris Squire and Steve Hackett bring us A Life Within A Day. This of course isn’t either man’s first foray into the super group world: Squire doing projects such as Conspiracy and Hackett being part of GTR – a group that contained Asia members Jeff Howe and Geoff Downes- but following guest appearances by each other on recent solo work the collaboration was inevitable.

Those who expected the cliché that super group would equal an overblown mess - which in all honesty applies to some - will NOT find it in the world of Squackett, as the album begins with a grand guitar solo to begin ‘A Life Within A Day’, and from there onwards the album brings a sublime soundscape.

Steve and Chris show great vocal work - prog historians may know Steve’s first solo work contained a track in which he sang through the use of effects - while the music itself gives way to moments of atmospheric calmness to jazz and even pop on tracks such as ‘Aliens’, ‘Sea Of Smiles’ and ‘Perfect Love Song’; with the addition of Jeremy Stacey - who some may know for his work with Noel Gallagher - on drums everything clicks together nicely.

Just as Storm Corrosion had two modern progressive heroes coming together to create a great album, A Life Within A Day has two legends of the genre creating a collaboration that will be in any self-respecting progressive rock lover’s collection.

In my biased opinion, Synthetica is one of the year’s best records. In my non biased opinion, well I’m still going to take the same stance. Metric are a band that I can associate various life events with. From the happy times to the times where drinking beer and watching The Wire on repeat just to get over a heartbreak. Emily Haines writes lyrics that don’t just mean the world to you, they become your world.

Their last release, Fantasies came out in 2009. It was one of the most perfect records of that year. They’re a band that I have to listen to everyday. I can’t go a day without listening to them. Synthetica is on a par with Live It Out- it is truly that great.

The record starts with Artificial Nocturne which has my favourite lyric of the year, “I’m just as fucked up as they say. I can’t fake the daytime. I found an entrance to escape into the dark.” When the lead single, Youth Without Youth came out it felt like the first time hearing Metric all over again. Every single record of theirs sounds different from the last but the backbone of it is a Metric sound. That sound is raw, daring and honest.

Synthetica has all of this and so much more. If I had the money I would truly go out and buy you all a copy just so you don’t miss out on how incredible this record is.

As generic as it sounds, there are NO fillers on this record. This record is powerful. Not because you can imagine it being played in arenas but because it holds so much meaning, values and truth. Strong yet delicate, Synthetica will - as previous Metric work - be a source of comfort and guidance. Invest in it and lose yourself.

Most importantly - enjoy.

BURNING LOVE Rotten Thing To Say

ATTIKA 7 Blood Of My Enemies

30th July -Ninetone/Menbran

by Matt Dawson So you decide to get back with your old band in Biohazard then JUST as they’re about to tour the reunion album you leave the band. If you’re Evan Seinfeld the next option is to create a ‘supergroup’ with a founding member of Static- X and a motorcycle builder for Sons Of Anarchy – the music you’ve been thinking of doing for a while.

The problem is, while the music provided by Rusty Coones and Tony Campos is decent, the songs mostly comprise of fighting, fantasies of being a serial killer and life in prison – probably given Rusty’s initial writing of the lyrics was done while in jail the strongest and most accurate of all – which work for one or two tracks, but you do wonder if it could do with some more variety.

Evan’s voice doesn’t sound particularly strong here, with some signs of strain at points while he sings each track; this album given the gang mentality of a prison could have had more of a hardcore edge to it, plus I suppose it’s easier to sing about it when you’ve played a role in HBO drama OZ a few years back.

Unless you’re really curious to see Evan’s career post Biohazard this album isn’t an essential purchase – a few tracks like ‘Lockdown’, ‘No Redemption’ , ‘Crackerman’ and ‘Living In Opression’ with ‘The Cold Hard Truth’s spoken word as an opener or coda would have made it better as an EP. One for fans of the culture and Evan only.

MARDUK Serpent Sermon

GLASS CLOUD The Royal Thousand

2nd July - Basick/Equal Vision

by Matt Dawson Tech Metal has reached what some may call its peak globally: Euroblast’s reaching its 8th instalment this year, the UK gets their own version and Century have signed the big three in TesseracT, Monuments and Periphery (in Europe for the latter).

Here comes the people crying ‘Oh but it’s all downhill from here, all the clones are going to come out and make a diluted form of what’s come before it!’ and you can call them pessimists or elitists because they’ll ignore Glass Cloud at first stupidly, after reading that - shock horror – lead singer Jerry Roush is the former vocalist from Of Mice And Men/Sky Eats Airplane, a band that however seems to be popular with tech given another member’s past connection with TesseracT. Of course it’s ridiculous, given that he also teams up with Joshua Travis from The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza that blew up via the release of Danza III sometime ago, creating what some would construe as an ultimate team up; to that they’re not far wrong.

With ferocity brimming out on tracks like ‘Counting Sheep’ and ‘Falling In Style’ and even a great balance of ambience and power with the combo of ‘Prelude To A Ghost’ and ‘All Along’ – the lyrics will make it all clear there – the combination of the duo works wonders and yes, for those wondering, the guitar tone that perpetuates Danza tracks like ‘Yippee-Kay-yay MOTHER!@#$%^ does crop up a couple of times.

Tech Metal still has life in it and once again Basick have found another gem.

SQUACKETT A Life Within A Day

CULT OF OCCULT Cult Of Occult

Out Now on Hammerheart

by Marcus J. West Five superb tracks which unfold for over forty minutes through scorching, transcending sludge territories, with attention-grabbing and appealing path digressions in doom and hardcore. This is a great start for the French Cult Of Occult, debuting with this self-titled album which can only lead this impressive squad very far into a well deserved brilliant future. Blurry And Muzzy opens this journey with plenty of intricate and sensual whirls, thanks to stabbing vocals and penetrating, soulful connections with plenty of guitar bridges that evolve in captivating, voluptuous assaults. The atmosphere becomes almost uncanny, in an inner world all to be discovered as the unrelenting but funereal rhythms of I Hate You and Walking In The Desert, (hard not to imagine the latter delivered live somewhere like the Underworld, in total, blissful unity with the crowd) take over the listener. It’s difficult to resist the intense break-down tempos, it becomes too tempting to just let go. The title track at the end of the album confirms Cult Of Occult is nothing but great stuff, very well done to France again!

Out Now on Century Media

by Marcus J. West Just like the Babylonian god Marduk, patron deity of Babylon, the Swedish from Norrköping black metallists return to the world of the leaving souls with another graft of pure genius. Since their rampaging beginnings in 1990, Marduk have been delivering dangerous blend of Satanism, antiChristianity, biblical tales, death, all in the name of the state of the art black metal. Serpent Sermon, Marduk’s twelfth studio album has it all. From the Majestic opening with the marching, eerie intro of the title tack, it’s hard not to bow to Daniel "Mortuus" Rostén commands, his vocals are violently piercing the soul like flaming swords. The deadly path unfolds with Messianic Pestilence, brutal and hateful, a tumultuous whirling into hell ferociously guided by the malignant drumming of Lars Broddesson and spine-chilling bass assaults of Magnus "Devo" Andersson. The guitar intro of Souls For Belial could not hit deeper, Morgan "Evil" Steinmeyer Håkansson keeps the path of this superb, empowering track hateful and fiery, towards realms that no human being could ever reach, without the blaze of this seditious hymn.

Gospel Of The Worm and World Of Blades implacably close Marduk’s twelfth chapter with only one wish: to see this masterpiece live in all its mercilessness and epic sentencing (at the Underworld on September 29th so bear with the fervour, not TOO LONG to go). Too soon to tell? Probably yes, but Serpent Sermon is THE candidate for Album Of The Year 2012.

SERJ TANKIAN Harakiri

10th July - Reprise Records

by Matt Dawson From the beginnings in System Of A Down, Serj Tankian has always shown passion towards fighting against what is construed as the mainstream: Globalist movement being one in particular, as was proven when ‘Figure It Out’ was released to the masses.

Described as a ‘comical/political song’ by Tankian himself, it still makes the message clear on who he believes are the causes of the austerity measures along with the financial crisis globally. The rest of Harakiri goes towards topics such as Occupy, environmentalism (a subject SOAD fans may recognise via Science from Toxicity), the takeover of ‘reality’ TV and even with the title track a reference to the mass disappearance of birds and fish during January 2011.

Unlike the previous two records Elect The Dead and Imperfect Harmonies there’s more of a point to make it a pure rock record this time around, which allows the message to go through via the incredibly catchy hooks of each track.

For those that have already awoken you’ll enjoy Harakiri, for SOAD fans this is an excellent starting point to cross over into Serj’s solo work and - given there’s three more albums coming in the future all unique in their own way - there’s plenty of time to wake up.

Sonic Shocks

Issue 9/2012

TURBONEGRO Sexual Harassment

VIZA Carnivalia

KING OF ASGARD ……To North

Page 21

ACEPHALIX Deathless Master

FARMER JASON Nature Jams

25th June - Hip-O Records/Universal

Out now on Volcom

1st August -Architects Of Melody

27th July - Metal Blade

Out now on Southern Lord

By Matt Dawson

by Matt Dawson

by Marcus J. West

by Matthew Tilt

Hooray for sleaze! From those in the 80’s to the ‘outrage’ caused by Tom Of Finland even further there’s always been an underlying element of it in rock and roll and art.

Turbonegro have always been able to balance it just right.

The biggest change to their world however came when Hank Von Helvete two years ago decided to part ways, leaving some to doubt - add the fact they had gone into hiatus - that there would be any future material.

Enter The Duke Of Nothing in Tony Sylvester to a rapturous reception by the Turbojugend and the return of guitarist Rune Rebellion to the fray making all the pieces fit for Sexual Harassment.

Turbonegro Manage to switch between the slightly evil, with the double whammy of ‘I Got A Knife’ and ‘Hello Darkness’ to the antireligion in ‘TNA (The Nihilistic Army)’, and the sublimely hilarious, with tracks such as ‘Tight Jeans, Loose Leash’ and in one of the best song titles of 2012 in ‘Shake Your Shit Machine’ – complete with The Duke’s leer of ‘You’re a Big Girl ain’t ya?’, raising a hearty chuckle - with great solos by Rune and Euroboy adding another layer to it all.

Let the Turbojugend heartily cry for the return and come November in the UK there’s no escaping it, 2012 is the year we bow to The Duke.

Now and again it feels refreshing to get a worldlier grasp of musical culture: take Viza for example, based in Los Angeles and featuring elements of Armenian, Russian and Greek traditional music mixed together, a band that fans of peers like Gogol Bordello will see as kindred spirits.

A big endorsement for them is Serj Tankian who has performed on a track from their previous album Made In Chernobyl and it’s not hard to see why, as an influence of System Of A Down comes across quite easily bit with the right amount to avoid accusations of being copycats: songs such as ‘A Magic Ladder’ use a good analogy for finding love that vocalist K'noup Tomopoulos carries well.

There’s also an element of punk with the track ‘Everybody Wants Money!’, bringing a political edge - however brief - to proceedings; but the overriding sense of making people dance makes it a party record throughout, with the use of instrumentation such as the Tar, the Saz and the Oud adding the global slant.

If you’re looking for some infectious songs able to satisfy punk and rock fans, Viza are your port of call, evoking the true carnival spirit.

With Karl Beckman leading this unstoppable Viking army as its frontman, guitarist and powerful lead singer, King Of Asgard has been quenching the thirst for blackened death metal with powerful tales of the Scandinavian mythology along tempestuous war paths. Nailing it all again with their second album, To North King Of Asgard transport the listener to those long past worlds, where battles fed the honour of the Vikings in the pursuit of long lasting roots. Tracks like ‘The Dispossessed’ and ‘Bound To Reunite’ are thunderous hymns to glory, both are immensely rich of sonic struggles and inexplicable harmonies.

Absolutely captivating and inciting is the bass (Jonas Albrektsson) and drum (Karsten Larsson) unity that unfolds all along the way, in an all pervading fury.

With all tracks beautifully crafted and structured such as ‘Gap of Ginnungs’ and ‘Up In The Mountain’, To North is for the ones that believe in the greatness of a glorious past, brought to life by these magic tales.

Obituary. I’m not talking new Obituary; I’m talking “oh shit what’s wrong with John Tardy he sounds like he’s dying…and why are my bowels collapsing” Obituary. Acephalix shouldn’t even be released on CD; they should be traded, secretly, on a tape that’s been passed through so many hands that you wonder whether it will even work.

Deathless Master sounds so old you’ll be amazed it’s not a reissue. It’s down tuned and dirty, only letting the odd guitar line escape the constant battery to soar over the rest with a well-timed solo. The vocals are disgusting incomprehensible. No pig-squeals or hardcore shouts, just pure evil channelled through a microphone and send screaming down your ear canals.

It’s just nice to hear that this stuff hasn’t been forgotten amidst the skinny jeans and the breakdowns. That a band can still come out and scare the shit out of you; sounding so monolithic, so thunderously primitive.

This whole album builds to its monstrous climax that is The Hunger. A culmination of the nastiest order, its six minutes of thunderous death metal that shows a mastery in song writing and tempo topped off with that dirty production that gives this album that Slowly We Rot feel.

So many bands have tried to copy that classic death metal sound and so few succeed, failing to either have the talent to play it, or the smarts to put their own stamp on it. While Acephalix do clearly love Obituary, this is still a Acephalix album, if only because it’s become abundantly clear that anyone who sounds this good isn’t going to be any present day incarnation of Obituary.

Maybe I wouldn’t be listening to ‘Nature Jams’ if Farmer Jason wasn’t really Jason Ringenberg, whose main outfit Jason & The Scorchers pioneered the fusion of punk and country, later credited with the birth of Americana. Jason is a unique and underrated artist, and I know for a fact that even a collection of children songs would be an exceptional listen coming from him. And this is exactly what ‘Nature Jams’ is: a collection of children songs about the outdoors and the many wonderful activities Mother Nature can offer.

Hanging there in between country, acoustic folk and bluegrass, the 16 tracks on ‘Nature Jams’ are quite an uplifting, joyous compilation of tips on canoeing and whale-watching next to observations on buffalo and moose and tales of child-friendly bison and faraway places. Over quite some time, this is the only album which made me smile on the Tube at rush hour, so here’s already a good reason for you to get a copy, whatever your age. However, if it’s an excuse you’re looking for, a good one to look cool with your friends when you come out the record store with a children CD in your hand, you want to check out the impressive array of special guests.

Get some spelunking tips – that’s cave exploring – from Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson, Take a Hike with REM Mike Mills, discover manatees with Hank Williams III and Tommy Ramone, go whale-watching with The Saw Doctors and finally meet the rest of The Scorchers when they join Jason to sing about Scandinavian glaciers. This Farmer has some pretty cool friends, and I dare you not to join the list after a spin of ‘Nature Jams’. And if you do have your own kids, you don’t even need an excuse.

SHINING Lots of Girls Gonna Get Hurt

FUKPIG/KROH 10” Split

NECRO DEATHMORT The Colonial Script

MARTYRDÖD Paranoia

Out now on Southern Lord

by Matthew Tilt There’s been a surge in crust punk recently. Blackend crust punk, death metal infused crust punk, crust pop punk. I seem to have seen it all over the last few months.

Martyrdöd have been doing this for eleven years so they at least know enough to stand out from the ever growing pile of forgettable crust bands; unfortunately Paranoia falls well below the grade.

There are some great moments. The rough production gives this a black metal feel that really helps some of the solos sour out of the murky depths, especially on tracks like Varje Val Har Sitt Pris which ends the album on such a blissful high that you feel, only briefly, that you could forgive the rest of the album but this track only heightens the problems that the rest of the album has.

No one expects crust punk to suddenly become experimental or fuck around with terms like post… or …core, but when you can spend the majority of the album pointing out where each riff came from it does start to drag. I never did listen to albums as an alternative to I Spy. What’s worse is that Martyrdöd have made some incredible albums and while it’s oh so elitist to say that “the older stuff was so much better” in this case it’s true.

They’ve lost something and Paranoia is nothing more than a photograph; a copy of something it can never hope to live up to.

Go buy In Extremis instead.

Out Now on Distraction Records

by Matthew Tilt Necro Deathmort are dark. Every track carries this dingy, pitch black atmosphere that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, sending a shiver down your spine like an electric shock. The Colonial Script fully immerses you into this blackened world, holding you in a state of limbo, stretching out long passages of abstract and obtuse noise before splitting away into something more typically blackened death metal or, somewhat more confusing, sparse moments of melody that only serve to further mess with your psyche.

There are stand out tracks here. The Colonial Script needs to be heard in full, building like a tapestry around you; revealing itself in spits and spurts from the shadows, constantly surprising you. Shape shifting their way through various genres and ideas, never running them into the ground, but never leaving them untapped.

Unfortunately the production doesn’t always let them shine through. Dominant sounds occasionally overpower the more nuanced tracks, especially at the third quarter where Shadows of Reflections… and Theme from Escape fall victim to synthesised takeovers. It’s never quite bad enough to ruin the mood, but after several listens it does start to reveal the splits in a seemingly seamless album.

When complaints are this minor though it feels petty to concentrate on them, as if you finally expected the impossible and heard a truly perfect album. What this album is, though, is an incredibly dense and otherworldly listen. Moving swiftly from the horrifying to the light and never giving the full picture away; expecting you instead to decode a little piece at a time over several listens. A beautifully heavy album.

by Cristina Massei

TERROR EMPIRE Face The Terror

Self Released - Out Now

by Ross Pike Portugal is not a country often cited as a go to arena when seeking out new metal talent. Fortunately, Terror Empire speak the international language of thrash: speed, technicality, a preoccupation with conspiracy, war and destruction as well as a healthy predilection for wasting as little time as possible. These tropes are all in evidence on the band’s fat-free debut ‘Face the Terror’.

The quintet reference the great and good of thrash on ‘Face the Terror’, liberally mixing the chops of ‘Rust in Peace’ era Megadeth with the rough hewn dynamism of Slayer, although they would likely concede that early Sepultura are the prime inspiration. From singer Ricardo Martins’ gruff, Cavalera aping vocals to the band’s politics, the Brazilian legends and fellow Portuguese speakers loom large.

Opener ‘Dirty Bomb’ shows off everything Terror Empire are about from the doomy opening riff to the blistering interlocking twin guitar from Rui Alexandre and Sérgio Alves, and Martins’ screaming, “This is not a threat. This is a promise. Fear the dirty bomb!”

The exhaustive pace and chaotic song arrangements create a claustrophobic atmosphere over the next four tracks; amplifying the lyrical themes of fear, punishment and violence. Redemption comes on the defiant finale, ‘Last Fire’, with the band raging in unison until the crackling sound of fire ends the record and their resistance.

Terror Empire’s combination of hard-hitting complexity, disorientating speed and Martins’ constant hectoring conjures up the feeling of paranoia and oppressive fear they feel persists in modern life. Conceptually then, ‘Face the Terror’ works but like their technically gifted thrash counterparts Evile, Terror Empire suffer from sounding so close to a thrash metal blueprint that they are limited to re-enactment rather than innovation and risk the likelihood of being passed over despite their obvious quality.

Spinefarm Records

Out Now on Devizes Records

by Matthew Tilt

by Matthew Tilt

It’s a myth that a band has to adapt a cover version to their own style to make it worthwhile, but you when you’re venturing out into the realm of the Covers Release then it’s important that you don’t just offer what people could have found elsewhere, like, the original albums/singles.It’s somehow fitting that a band as disturbingly creative, yet containing a vocalist as diabolically unpredictable as Niklas Kvarforth, would release something that is so thoroughly disappointing. Containing four covers from Katatonia, Kent, Imperiet, and Poets of the Fall, this is a great insight into what Niklas listens to between faking his own death and writing incredible, depressive albums, but none of the songs ever vary from their original form.There’s no denying that music on offer here is impressive, Shining managing to copy each track to the note, even bettering the production on Katatonia’s For My Demons, but all this only makes them slightly better than your average wedding band. The only saving grace is Niklas’ distinctive voice, which has never been better than here, and is the one thing that stops you checking the case every few seconds and making sure you didn’t put the wrong CD in.I should have mentioned at the start that if you mix the Covers Release with the Stopgap Release you can often reveal just how lazy a band can be.

I never thought I’d call Shining lazy, but it has to be said that this didn’t exactly take a lot of doing.

It’s not like they changed the tracks…at all. Don’t waste your money, Shining can depress you in much more glorious ways than this.

There’s a strange mix present on this split. The lofi, degradation of Fukpig, which only seems to get dirty on every release, and the polished, monolithic space doom of Kroh; you couldn’t find two less suited bands but when have Fukpig ever given two shits about what should be.

Their two tracks here offer up exactly what we’ve come to expect from the Brummie noisemongers; an apocalyptic stampede of distortion and feedback, riffs that don’t much cut clean through the production, but hack like a blunt machete. Drunk spews pure hatred, sounding like he’s going pull a lung up through that tunnel of napalm and broken glass he calls a throat.

When it abruptly ends it shows the advantage of releasing splits of this nature on vinyl. You don’t notice the seam if you have to turn the vinyl over before you hear the next band. Kroh’s brand of doom, while sit at the polar opposite end of the scale, is just as unsettlingly as Fukpig’s blackened crust assault. Dropping distorted, almost childlike vocals into the middle of Lucidius is a great way of making the hairs stand up on your listener’s neck after you’ve battered them with some behemoth riffs.

Retribution carries a darker edge, but suffers because of this. Stripping Kroh of the originality they showed in Lucidius and reducing them to a mess of half cooked melodies and shoddy riffs. Probably should have left it at the one song because the worry now is whether Lucidius was a fluke.

Sonic Shocks

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RE-AWAKENING THE TIDES

an interview with Malefice frontman Dale Butler by Marcus J. West Hi Dale, how is it going?

Great thank you. Nice to see you again. Am I allowed to swear on this interview?

Sure.. no problems, ever. I am looking forward to seeing Malefice live here at The Underworld, last time when you opened for Sylosis at the Islington Academy you did a great show! And it’s just been over a year since you played a set at Download containing just songs from Awaken The Tides, how do you feel the reaction was on that day and considering the acclaim for the album a great chance to take?

It was good, it was some sort of gamble for us because we thought that people wanted to see live more of the stuff they knew. But we were very pleased with the results, the album did great and we really enjoyed playing it live at Download. It’s hard for us to squeeze three albums in thirty minutes set like tonights but from Awaken The Tides we still play Delirium every night, it’s a great song, I enjoy it every time You are now on a brief tour with Unearth (and in the case of the London show also with Malevolent Creation): how is it going touring with them?

The past few shows have been great, there is so much energy on this tour.

Unearth has always been a band we have always strived to go touring with, we have always loved them and we have never had the opportunity to do that before. We met them in the best and we knew they were great guys.

It’s going to be a great show and with Malevolent Creation we have a very diversified bill.

How are plans going towards the next album?

Yeah! We are going into the studio in August, I cannot tell you too much about it but one thing is for sure, we are not too interested in being a brutal-brutal metal band, we want to write great sons with lots of energy and tons of fun. You will love it, we stripped away all the dark stuff, it’s all about drinking, partying, having fun with your friends and being together. It’s just something that I personally, after being so negative for three album, wanted to show that I am not a depressed bastard, I have this very happy side of me and that will come out in the lyrics.

What are you looking forward to on the upcoming tour with Silent Screams and Carcer City? You also announced a facebook competition for opening bands on the tour, what spurred on the idea and which other bands that submitted entries would you recommend?

We picked these two bands because we really liked them both, we are really looking forward to this because it’s really OUR tour. Most of the time, labels and management have a say on the bands that are supposed to be in the bill, but this one is just US and the bands that we choose. The

response to our facebook competition was fucking mind-blowing. We believe pretty much to support the local scene in this country and we try as much as possible to get people excited about it again. If we are playing in Leicester for instance, we want to look for two local bands to support us and not maybe bands from Nottingham that may be friends with the promoter. We are looking for bands that are progressed enough to be at a level that it would be a good opportunity to open for us at this early point of their career. We did separate competitions in each city, we want to make sure that the people that come to our show are aware of what they have in their hometown, some of our fans may go along with them and build up a reputation. It was a cool idea for us and we have had the support of DevilDriver on a larger scale on this kind of approach. Dez (Dez Fafara, DevilDriver’s frontman) has always said to me: this is the way it’s supposed to be, make sure you do the same.

I have just seen DevilDriver at Hellfest, they were awesome!

They are always good! We have done three European tours with them and I have never seen them playing shitty shows ever, and I watched them every night. I would watch only one, two shows of most of the bands we go on tour with, but with DevilDriver it was every night, they are just great!

Malefice just recently announced that they had signed to Transcend Records. What was behind the decision and how do you feel about signing to Transcend?

We really love Metal Blade, we just want to try something new. We felt that with Metal Blade we reached the level where our current sound would take as far as Metal Blade would take us but as we changed our music, our image, and our branding, we thought we should change label too. It’s not a negative thing, we are still working very close with the Metal Blade guys here in the UK. It’s a fresh start for us, we want to go to a different direction. We have done the brutal band thing to death, we got so far with that. And we are like: why don’t we try to reach a different audience like tonight with Unearth? All of our shows will be 14+, we want to try to get more kids to party!

Chris (Chris Allan-Whyte), your drummer, has been in the band for over a year now and you also have a new guitarist (Andrew Wilson).

The two members we got rid off were big trouble makers so it feels nice now to play without dealing with any bullshit. There is lots that goes on behind the scenes but if anyone leaves this band it’s because they are assholes and anybody gets in is because they are great, like Andy and Chris, two of the most professional people I have worked with, it’s a privilege to have them.

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Issue 9/2012

Sonic Shocks

Issue 9/2012

Introducing

Here you’ll find some full length reviews, alongside more succinct summaries of the latest in Unsigned and New music. All of these artist’s deserve your time and attention, so look them up and maybe you’ll find something special.

1. October Sky – The Aphotic Season Whilst this band are now signed, at the time of reviewing their debut release ‘Hell isn’t my home’ and raving about it hugely for Sonic Shocks, I felt October Sky deserved their moment in the spotlight. This band is really quite incredible and why more people haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy their music escapes me. They have beautiful musicianship and with a vocalist who knows what he is doing, they epitomise what having the ‘full package’ can truly get you. That said, this band should be global by now.

Visit them here - www.myspace.com/ octoberskyrock For fans of: HIM, Muse

2. The Temperance Movement Having seen this band support Little Angels at the Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth recently, there was no doubt in my mind that The Temperance Movement were more than worthy of a slot in this feature. Their sound is very unique in today’s market and you won’t find many bands doing their musical idols and influences justice. They have a selection of songs on their MySpace worth checking out.

Visit them here - http://www.myspace. com/thetemperancemovement For fans of: Free, Creedence Clearwater, Led Zeppelin

3. Chasing Dragons – Take Flight For A Firelight [Album] This band have the makings of something very special indeed. Unfortunately, the way this album has been recorded and mixed as hindered their chances of making more impact. The vocals seem far too distant in relation to the instruments and therefore the overall sound is comprised. Whilst I recognise their potential, Chasing Dragons should get this album remastered.

Visit them here - http://www.facebook. com/musicchasingdragons For fans of: Flyleaf

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4. Fist Full Of Lies – If it wasn’t for this I’d still have everything [EP] A band that utilises the ever favourable clean vocal / screamo mix and pulls off a perfectly commendable four track EP. Whilst this feels every bit the first taste of an upcoming group, this will be enough to gain some notoriety amongst peers and in the press. If they can get a foot up on the ladder and score a few decent support slots with known bands, it could be the break Fist Full Of Lies will need for longevity in this industry.

Visit them here - http://www.facebook. com/fistfulloflies For fans of: Billy Talent, Lost Prophets, Alien Ant Farm

5. Dropbunny – IO [Album] Dropbunny are dark and ferocious.

One of the first groups I’ve come across to consist of seven members and you can hear the entire crew at work to produce the wall of sound. IO is your standard head-bang, circle pit worthy album and I can only shudder to think of the carnage that would await any unwitting audience member at a Dropbunny show.

Visit them here - http://www.facebook. com/dropbunny For fans of: Suicidal Tendancies

lesson. My only concern is that artists of this nature don’t have huge longevity unless discovered and propelled onto every radio station in the country.

Visit him here - http://www.facebook. com/Jamie.Parisio For fans of: Darren Hayes, James Blunt, David Gray

You have reached the number one spot in our Sonic Shocks spotlight feature, congratulations! Who are ‘October Sky’ and how would you describe yourselves to potential new fans?

We are rock alternative band, very committed to our music. We have been playing together since we were teenagers, so we are like brothers. If you like modern rock music in the likes of Muse, Coldplay or 30 Seconds To Mars, you would probably enjoy our music.

Which artists do you cite as influences on your sound?

We all have different musical influences, from rock to electro/DJ music. Just to name a few; Rage Against The Machine, Kasabian and Glitch Mob. You have recently release your new second full-length album. How did you approach the writing and recording of this record? And why did you choose to fill the void since ‘Hell isn’t my home’ with EP releases?

The Aphotic Season is basically 3 years of hard work, trying different sound and arrangement. We took the time to compose each song and let them mature before they were ready to be put on a CD. We picked the best songs of our catalog and used the ones that sounded different. Because we weren’t ready to release a strong full-length album, we released 2 EPs for our fans.

They have been so great to us. It’s the least we could do for them.

8. Coroner For The Police – Swamp Box [EP] With sound similar to that of early White Stripes work, I was intruiged to find out that Coroner For The Police are actually a four piece. The EP showcases a band who are reliant on more simplistic arrangements and whilst it was worthy of tapping ones feet, it didn’t enthuse me to get up and move.

Visit them here - http://www.coronerforthepolice.co.uk/ For fans of: White Stripes

What has the feedback been like so far from press, fans, and family?

The album has been well received so far from both fans and press. For the first time, we received feedback from complete strangers saying how much they love the album and how much they are addicted to it. It’s always good to know that your music makes a difference for some people, even people living in countries we have not toured yet.

How do your songs translate live? And are there any personal favourites for both yourselves and the fans?

Since the album has just been released, for now, we won’t modify any of them besides intros and outros. We want our fans to be able to sing along with us.

Our personal favorites are Dark Vision and Fall Back Down just because they are awesome to play live, we love playing fat riffs.

Has anything changed for you as a band since getting signed to Rocksector Records?

October sky is one big family. We all work together and we all have fun together. Having a record label on board is a great addition to our team. We believe that we can achieve a lot of things when everyone is working as a team.

Do you have any plans for 2012- tours, festivals, videos?

We have just released our first single Dark Vision, which will be followed by Green And Beautiful this summer. We are planning to release 3 singles in 2012, with 2 music videos and a tour in the fall (all the tour dates have not been announced yet.) Stay tuned to receive updates on the upcoming tour.

If you could share the stage with any band, who would it be and why?

I think Muse is the band we would love to play with the most. We share the same kind of vision for live production…on a different scale obviously. We are a cinematic band and we always try to put on crazy lighting shows with a unique concept. For us, a show should be like an experience, something you enjoy so much that you can’t miss the band next time they’re in town.

Where can we find out more about you online?

The best place is http://www.octobersky.ca You will find anything you are looking for. Facebook, Twitter, shows, music, store, etc.

6. Blood Of Spectre – Self Titled [EP] This lot aren’t for the faint hearted and they pack a real punch when you turn the speakers up. One of the main reasons why Blood Of Spectre are being featured in this spotlight is for the fantastic musicianship. Lead guitar and blistering double foot action from the drummer have cemented their place in the top ten. The overall sound is a little rough at times, but they have room to grow in time.

Visit them here - http://www.facebook. com/bloodofthespectre For fans of: Sylosis, Black Dahlia Murder, Killswitch Engage 7.Jamie Parisio – You Promised Me The Sea [EP] Jamie is a talented singer and represents a truly British sound. Using a mellow and calming guitar line, he compliments this with a soothing vocal and one which effortlessly captivates the

9. A Farewell To Tyrants – Self Titled [EP] Musically, this band are impressive, with fast guitar licks and melodies and heavy rhythm sections. The issue comes, like so many groups, with the choice of vocal delivery. The cleaner approach is far stronger and unfortunately the growling interrupts the flow.

The lyrics aren’t too special either, but this is just an introductory EP, so hopefully they can smooth the rough edges to their sound and come back with something more promising.

Visit them here - http://www.facebook. com/afarewelltotyrants For fans of: Protest The Hero

Any parting words for the Sonic Shocks readers....

If you guys like energetic shows, make sure you come see us live! Keep reading and supporting Sonic Shocks…they rock!

10. Lay Siege – Obolus [EP] The current trend for bands to growl their nuts off all over any music they lay down is relatively acceptable if your tracks can be differentiated from each other, but this EP is too samey to make a real impact. Whilst I recognise that Lay Siege are trying to follow the pack with their sound, I'm not hugely con-

vinced that they are able to stand out from the many upcoming artists trying their luck with this setup. Perhaps their future efforts will be more valid.

Visit them here - http://www.facebook. com/laysiege For fans of: Angry drunks outside off licences

Making new frien ds

GOLDEN GODS

at the

2012!