War Master attempt to create a new form of the classic death metal and grindcore that defined the underground metal period. Taking their name from a Bolt Thrower song, the band might be expected to sound like that august act, but the truth is more nuanced. War Master make a language of their own from pieces of the past.
This language can be confusing because many of these pieces of the past are recognizable, although never entire songs, so that War Master tend to pair an old riff archetype with a new riff of their own creation, or use song structure or aesthetic ideas but apply them with new forms. As a result, parts of this are immediately recognizable and it takes some moments to mentally integrate the past with the current version of the same form.
On Blood Dawn, a fifteen-minute EP, War Master drop back from their smoothly integrated style for a rougher, catchier and more Swedish death metal version of their sound. Applying the classic Swedish distortion, War Master also rely heavily on the bounding riffs of the first couple Entombed and Grave releases, producing an urgent and jubilantly violent sound.
The result is a new style for War Master that is both more hasty and, by being more raw, a bit more accessible and yet more fanatically old school. This compares favorably to the latest Autopsy which takes a similar approach. Simplified song forms, although not the verse-chorus loops of pop fame, plus catchy riffs like the most compelling heavy metal at high speed, guide these songs to immediate enjoyment.
While Blood Dawn shows this band with new personnel and new strengths, it loses some of what made Pyramid of the Necropolis so powerful, which was its tight-fitting and intricate structures. If history is any guide, War Master will explore this new direction and slowly work it into form so that they can be more articulate with this new — yet older — voice.
It’s good to see the study of metal ramping up both in academia and in popular culture. This is because for the most part, metal remains an enigma.
One of its most enduringly baffling traits is its almost self-consuming alienation. Metal refuses to be part of anything. If a social institution reaches out to it, metal withdraws; if someone does something nice for it, metal gives them the finger. One might wonder how it survives with such a self-destructive attitude.
The answer may be found in a riddle of consciousness uncovered by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. He argued that what we know of reality is a “representation of a representation,” or a mental model of a world known only through sensations and re-assembled in our mind. Our judging mind forms a representation of the representation created by our senses. In the same way, metal is both a thing of its own, and a public view of the same which includes judging and social concerns.
Metal may hurt its public layer by being so alienated and isolated, but the actual thing that is metal — something we know only distantly through our senses, most notably our ears — remains health as ever. This is because it is metal the thing that defines metal the public representation, not the other way around. Metal is not obedient to any rule by itself, and it rejects formulation for the same reason it rejects trends and hippie ideas of love, peace and equality: it does not want its public handle to control its private reality. It is not ultimately rebellious per se, but disobedient, and seeks to remove itself from the social sphere entirely so it isn’t corrupted by guilt and obligation to justify itself according to the values of others.
If you wonder why ideological movements like Christian metal, National Socialist Black Metal (NSBM) and red-anarchist black metal (RAE, with an “E” for “emo”) have all failed, it is because metal is fine with accepting dangerous views, but it’s not going to formalize them. That is because in this universe, all things go through a process of being created, becoming fully known, then becoming calcified and finally dying. That calcification in the human world occurs through people imitating them outside-in, i.e. writing down the elements of what the thing is, then going through the motions, and never understanding the step before the thing in which the reasons for its existence were felt and motivated people.
You may also have seen how many retro bands utterly fail to sound like anything but a grab-bag of riffs from the past. This is outside-in imitation; they know what they want to “sound like,” but they don’t know why. We could argue that heavy metal is not the sonic end product, but the thought process that leads to that final result. That thought process cannot be easily understood, but requires someone to study the subject intently and think hard enough to find all the connections in imagery, ideals and what each musical element represents. Very few can do that, and even fewer can do that and then make inspired music based on it.
If you wonder why the Death Metal Underground is so surly toward the world, this is it: we realize metal is a fragile and sacred thing, a form of art separate from the social sphere. To allow the public image of metal to control what metal is would be to kill it. Thus we tend to reject all of that image, toss aside all obedience, and remain fairly hostile to anything that threatens to introduce obligation, justification or guilt to our motivations.
You are probably aware of how to “succeed” (emphasis on first syllable) as a metal reviews site: write friendly and fawning reviews of every band that comes down the pipe so the labels can quote you, so people can see your name and identify you as a supporterTM of the underground and then visit your site. The problem with this approach is that it’s useless. People need actual information on what each release sounds like so they can, with limited time and money, make purchasing decisions that benefit them and not necessarily whatever label found a way to make a musical clone for cheap and hopes to profit from the excessively fat margins that result.
In the spirit of metal, Death Metal Underground chooses to be unbought and un-guilted. We choose to be outsiders like the music we love because only by keeping free of that public image disaster can we be honest. It will not make us popular like the glad-handers, scenesters, hipsters, poseurs and salespeople of the world. But it will keep us from harming our favorite sonic art and help us keep a clear mind about what is important.
To love grindcore is to love the genre “as you find it.” That is, it doesn’t make sense to go around wishing why there isn’t more progressive symphonic grindcore with world music influences. Grindcore is grindcore.
There’s plenty of room within that genre however. The only rules are brutal punk/metal fusion chromatic riffing and a certain spirit that keeps intensity high and doesn’t deviate into either holiday carols or life-affirming waiting room jazz.
Germany’s Blood have been a secret of the genre for years. Like other minimalist grindcore they specialize in the riff itself, a form of art that is closer to sculpture than music as they use rhythm and direction relative to previous notes to wrest expressive phrasal forms out of chromatic strikes.
Luckily, someone recently uploaded this amazing Blood concert (“show” for you hipsters) in Speyer, Germany. Check it out, and vomit blood!
In the 1980s, the term “poseur” or “poser” was used to near-death by people trying to describe those who were involved with the music simply to make themselves look cool.
In the 1990s, we had “scenesters” who were people who hung around a musical scene to use it as a justification for their lifestyle. If someone questioned their lack of success or purpose in life, they pointed to the “scene” that they were part of.
And now, as the hands of time have run down further, we have hipsters: people who use music as a form of lifestyle adornment to explain why their life is better than yours. Generally they do this from a position of outsiderness, and by proving to be more obscure in their tastes than you, make you look like a herd-sheep in contrast.
What all these definitions have in common is that they reflect people who are using music in a backward thought process. Most people listen to music because they like it, and use their social life as a means to that music. Insincere people use the music as a means to the end of having a social life, and eventually drag down the community by forcing it in irrelevant directions. Entropy, in other words, caused by social need.
Recently No Clean Singing entered the fray with their analysis of the hipster gradient to Deafhaven:
What bothers me is that some people seem to be judging albums (and labeling the music “hipster”) mainly because they’ve become very popular, to the point of becoming “crossover” hits. We all know that the more successful, the more popular, the less “underground” a metal album becomes, the more it’s going to be put down within the community of metal. It’s a kind of perverse streak that our community seems to have.
I hope this author allows me to respectfully dissent here. The problem isn’t that these albums are popular; it’s that they’re not metal. Metal like most outsider genres has a strict sense of identity and purpose, and it fears adulteration for good reason. If metal starts admitting regular music into its inner sanctum, then metal will become assimilated by mainstream music.
We think of mainstream music as some bold direction but, if you look at history, it’s not. Pentatonic music appeared in Europe and Asia as a way to create popular music without having to wrangle with key or mode. The song form we now know as the pop song came from English drinking songs, the percussion from German waltzes, and the call-response format from gospel churches. This music isn’t a single direction; it’s what was compatible between many different directions, a lowest common denominator.
Metal broke away from this and went in its own direction. Part of being an outsider genre is to police your own borders. The only thing that gives you integrity is that spirit that allowed you to break away and have a different vision of reality. The problem is that you are constantly under assault. To the majority, you’re a threat because you’re doing things differently. And yet they wish they could be you, or at least be as seemingly cool as you are.
Hipsters are what happens when a social scene invades a musical movement. Instead of people working toward the music, people are using the music to justify their lifestyles, show off their outsider status (which is a raised status), or give themselves a unique purpose in life that others do not have. When people call Deafhaven a hipster band, they’re acknowledging the obvious: musically, Deafhaven has more in common with emo and indie rock than it ever will in metal, and we want the traitors out.
Very few people have any idea what grindcore means at this point because of the high degree of crossover between grindcore and death metal. Not just one way, but both: grind bands becoming deathy in the Napalm Death style, and death metal bands becoming grindy as happened from Suffocation onward.
But what wasgrindcore? History might show us that punk and metal were birthed in the early 1970s and spend the next three decades crossing over. This resembles a quarter-century negotiation as to what aspects of each to keep in the hybrid with the other. Early hybrids included speed metal, which used uptempo punk rhythms, and thrash, which combined metal riffs with punk songs. Grindcore was a logical extension of thrash.
Thrash — exemplified by Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, Cryptic Slaughter and Corrosion of Conformity — grew out of the “thrasher” community which was composed of skateboarders. These were a 1980s movement that existed in the abandoned areas of modern cities where skating was undetected if not permissible. Anarchistic, but also pragmatist, they were like the ultimate hybrid between the individualistic and hierarchical impulses behind human politics. Thrash bands as a result tended to direct their criticism toward society itself and were less likely to hover on one side of the political spectrum or the other, despite having a huge background influence by the almost-universally anarchist punk movement. We can only assume the additional influences on thrash came from metal, which was more likely to take a historical and impersonal view of life, where punk was much more personal and present-tense.
Where the bands that prompted the early speed metal and thrash hybrids were punk hardcore (The Exploited, Cro-Mags, Black Flag, Minor Threat, GBH) and early crustcore (Discharge, Amebix) bands, thrash in turn spurred hardcore on to become faster and more extreme, resulting in shorter songs with more metal-like (more chord changes, more internal texture) riffs. The later punk hardcore bands like Void, Faith and Siege prompted a gnarlier sound, picking up on the distorted vocals which has become a staple of the previous punk generation, perhaps prompted by Motorhead and Lemmy Kilmister’s incomprehensible gargled-glass screaming.
From this inspiration, a movement caught on in the late mid-1980s. Fronted by bands like Repulsion and Napalm Death, it quickly diversified and spread worldwide. However, like punk before it, grindcore did not have much staying power. The more one streamlines and simplifies, the fewer variations exist, until most things can be described as a modification to an archetype. At that point, bands lose the ability to distinguish themselves and thus realize their talents are better applied elsewhere if they wish to distinguish themselves. Nevertheless, between 1986 and 1990 the foundational masters of grindcore emerged in the form of Repulsion (1984), Napalm Death (1985), Terrorizer (1989), Blood (1989) and Carbonized (1990).
Derogatory returns to the oldest form of death metal which is the fast and muscular rushing tremolo-picked phrasal riffs that Slayer, Morbid Angel, Massacra, Mortuary and Sepultura made famous. Much like those earlier acts, Derogatory creates a rhythmically compelling work in Above All Else that adds depth through the contrast in riff phrase and the sensations those evoke.
The most reasonable comparison for this album would be the debut works from Mortuary and Vader, both of which utilized this style in a method that kept a rhythm rolling throughout despite numerous tempo changes. Derogatory have sensibly avoided much of the stop-start rhythm that made later death metal bands unable to keep a steady stream of riffs with consistent intensity and instead of using abrupt pauses, keep riffs flowing into one another like a transfer of momentum between wrestlers. Spidery erratic lead guitars complement this with an otherworldly sense much like the leads on early Incantation.
Above All Else provides the essential power of death metal through a feast of riffs that combine like DNA in a primordial pond spawning life. Context expands, meanings connect, and songs emerge from chaos. While this is a simpler version than many riff salad bands, it displays technical prowess and an adept sense of what makes a great metal song. Individual performances are strong but vocals and drums could be more aggressive about distinguishing themselves across the span of each song. While this is an older style, it breathes new life through Above All Else.
We were fortunate to get in a few words with Christian Ordonez of Derogatory about the band’s past, motivation and future.
What’s the concept behind Above All Else?
The concept of Above All Else is explaining how people always long for more than what they have. Whether it be power or self satisfaction, people are always trying to obtain more from what they already know. The entire album is not based off this topic but its one of the subjects spoken of more than once on the album; other subjects include reality, space, and life
When did you as individuals get into metal, and what was that album that compelled each of you to decide to be full-time metalheads? (Or are you?)
Chuck Schuldiner and Luc Lemay inspired me (Christian Ordonez) to pick up the guitar and just try to write something decent, and three out of the four members go to school as well, but I am sure we would all love to be metalheads full-time.
What style of music is Above All Else? Does it reflect your influences? What were you listening to while you composed and recorded this album, and what inspired it?
I believe Above All Else is a straight-out death metal album. All the bands I was listening to at the time do show somewhat of a reflection in the album; a few of the bands I was listening to at the time are Morbid Angel, Cynic, Death, Gorguts, and Disincarnate. After writing a few of the songs i was inspired to release a CD and share my music with everyone.
Do you have influences and inspiration beyond music, like famous historical characters, novels or plays, TV shows or movies, forces of nature, metaphysics and religion?
The only influences I have are those of various musicians I favor. Music has always been a huge part of my life and there is really nothing else that motivates me or drives me more then great music.
Can you tell us how the band was formed, and your history to this time? How do you think this will change with Above All Else being released?
I started the band back in late 2011. I had some material and we worked off of that and in the months to come I continued to write more music for the band exploring different lyrical topics and trying to create a different sound for metal. I believe that with Above All Else being released Derogatory will prepare for the second album to be something more than what Above All Else is. Nonetheless I feel like releasing this album has matured us as a band and shows us our strengths and weaknesses and what we can improve on.
Is death metal dead? Do you think the old school styles are returning, or departing?
Metal will never die, especially death metal the genre is making a huge comeback there are bands left and right that play different styles of death metal. I think the old school sound has been popping up a little more but I prefer technical death metal just because of the musicianship. Anyone can be old school; for me its about breaking away from that, which we plan to do for the second release.
Can you tell us about these songs, and when they were written — were they composed as a batch for the album, or have you been saving up material? How did you record this album, and what aspect of its production are you most proud of?
I wrote all the music and lyrics and they were all written pretty quickly. Each song holds its own meaning with different subjects for each track. We did the recording ourselves: our lead guitarist did the sound engineering end of things and spent countless hours trying to obtain a great sound that captures the feel of the music. I’m very proud of the production for the album because we relied on no one but ourselves to record our debut
What’s next for Derogatory? Are you going to tour? If so, where do people see you? If not, how do they learn more about you?
We plan to tour and spread our music and continue expanding our sound and fanbase we hope to go overseas to Europe and support Above All Else!
In conversation with Martin Jacobsen, the topic of “heaviness” came up. What is heavy? Why is the term applied to metal? This question in many ways defines why it’s so hard to understand what metal is, much less describe it.
From my experience, metal is a spirit that leads to an approach. It’s not dissimilar to classical, where a certain attitude toward life, spirituality and culture leads to a form of music complete with its complexity and techniques. Nor is it all that different from martial arts, where a specific outlook leads to some near-universal shared characteristics.
Coming at metal from a literary/philosophy background, this isn’t surprising. Artistic movements tend to share traits they develop independently. They do this because they approach their art with a similar feeling, sentiment or belief system, and as a result no matter where they start, they end up in similar places. This is analogous to how just about every culture on earth has invented something like a chair, with most designs being very similar.
Jack Fischl over at PolyMic has another take on metal with his article ‘”That’s So Metal” Might As Well Mean “That’s So Masculine”‘ — it’s a bastion of alternative masculine thought:
According to the book Running with the Devil by Robert Walser, heavy metal imagery, music, style, and lyrics offer the illusion of power to a group (young men) that simultaneously lacks traditional forms of power (money, social standing) and is constantly barraged with cultural messages that inforce the importance of those forms of power. Listening to the music, especially by going to a concert, allows low-power young men to escape and live vicariously through metal’s imagery, the way one might live through books, movies, or TV shows.
Whereas pop music tends to portray (or at least address) your classical “manly” man, metal more often ties into elements of fantasy and science fiction — two other bastions of alternative masculine escape. Any given metal song likely depicts a man or male entity (spirit, creature) struggling with something — his place in the world, a woman, his own emotions. In other words, a typical song involves guys dealing with normal guy issues from a guy’s perspective.
He does have a point. The modern world does not exactly relish the hyper-masculine, but it gives it voice in rock music through the intense sexuality of the sound. However, metal takes this a degree higher. Where rock is about individual sexual power, metal is about power itself, and transcends the sexual per se in favor of an overall masculine intensity. This is the epic nature of metal; it is not based in the individual, but all that the individual cannot control.
Some might say this world, by being so obsessed with the safety of each and every person and ensuring that we all get along, is against the kind of conflict-driven Nietzschean masculinity that metal seems to espouse with its lyrics on war, death, violence and destruction.
For many of us however metal is more than masculinity. It is a worship of power itself. When you wield death and conquest, you are the power that society denies. This unites metal’s outsider status with its realistic ideals and returns us to a definition of “heavy.” In a time of stoned flower children worrying about nothing more than their next hook-up, “heavy” encompassed all the thoughts that this worldview could not tolerate. It was all that we fear and want to suppress, including mortality and fear of loss.
What made Black Sabbath “heavy” was not a specific technique but a tendency to gravitate toward these dark thoughts and the reality that society denies. This neatly coupled metal with hardcore punk, which saw a society out of control and in denial of basic facts of life. Together these ideas brought metal to its underground state where it is completely alienated from the values and behaviors of most of civilization.
What is “heavy”? It is that which we cannot define because it is beyond the instruments of our culture — such as it is — to discuss. It is the thoughts that grip us at four in the morning and shock us awake. It is what stalks us in dreams. And it is our primal past, reaching past our modern technology and enforced civility, awakening the beast within.
The Glorious Times team recorded the “A Day of Death” concert from 1990 and made it available as a free download in MP3 or FLAC format. Basically an abridged version of the show, A Day of Death 1990 shows founders of the underground at their best.
Opening with Autopsy, A Day of Death 1990 begins with “In the Grip of Winter.” This version sounds rougher than the Mental Funeral variant that later became the norm, and more like an earlier recording I’d heard on an EP. This is followed by Repulsion banging out “The Stench of Burning Death” (later found on Horrified) pretty much exactly as it is on the album, which fits with the band’s reputation for being immaculately rehearsed. After that, Deceased lights up the soundboard with “Decrepit Coma,” which is tightly played but loud owing to the recording conditions.
After that, the first of two Cannibal Corpse tracks comes up; Cannibal Corpse are one of those bands like Venom, Pantera, Cradle of Filth and Meshuggah that strike me as historically important in popularizing a genre but perhaps culpable in eroding its meaning. Incantation follows with both “Profanation” and “Unholy Massacre.” These are live and a little unsteady and without the bass-intense production of Onward to Golgotha, which reveals these songs further but makes them even stronger as they stand up without the intense sound. After that, another Cannibal Corpse song and Deceased with “Haunted Cerebellum,” which is the really catchy song from their first album and is executed with potent verve and energy. Another Repulsion song, “House of Freaks,” which was not on their album, follows; it is more uptempo and a bit more hardcore than death metal. The set finishes out with Autopsy and “Severed Survival” which is a more deliberate and menacing version of this messy death metal classic.
This live album is great for three reasons: first, it’s a glimpse into the history of this genre with some of the most active players visible; second, it’s done in true underground style and given away free, since these bands have the albums to sell to finance their bands; finally, it’s killer and you’d buy it anyway even if it were $15 and said RELAPSE on it. A Day of Death 1990 is more like being at the Smithsonian Death Metal Hall than being transported via time machine, and it doesn’t sound its age so much as sound the level of equipment available, but it shoves forward these classic recordings in a way that makes death metal both more obscure and more accessible at the same time.
The problem with dreams is that when they are achieved, the dream is no more. Life is about the chase, not the catch. This doubly applies to metal once it got social acceptance.
During the 1980s and 1990s in everywhere but Scandinavia, to be metal was to identify yourself as a kind of social reject. It was equal parts nerdly and menacingly rootless at a time when stable suburban living and office jobs were the only acceptable future.
Sometime in the late 1990s however metal was discovered as a form of natural resource. This resource is not renewable and hard to locate. It is hipness: a combination of authenticity, rebellion, transgression and the kind of personality that makes a character in a novel appealing.
At that point metal exploded. TV shows used its iconography, the media reported on it, and “kinder, gentler” forms of metal were produced for the audience that resulted. During this time, metalcore, post-metal/emo, indie-metal, alternative metal and atmospheric metal went ballistic.
The problem for us at this very moment, as Keith Kahn-Harris pointed out, is that we’re still drowning in an abundance of heavy metal. There are too many bands for fans to make meaningful choices. There are too many big blogs and news sites reporting the same news. All of us are drowning in digital downloads.
The internet has made some things easier and perhaps better, but it has also done a lot of damage. Almost all of the personal relationships that happened back in the day don’t happen now. Kids today will visit a myspace page and download songs so they don’t get to build relationships with bands like we did way back before the internet. I still have letters from bands from back then, will kids today save their emails and myspace messages to look back upon in 20 years — I don’t think so.
In other words, convenience makes a product out of the music. With ease comes insincerity and disposability. Kevin Ord, editor of Codex Obscurum, points to the advantages of physical media in eliminating this problem:
I like to be able to hold something physical. I think a lot of people do. I want something that a kid might find in a shoebox in 10 years and say “I remember this; I’m going to reread it.” Stuff like blogs just seem so disposable.
As predicted here before, underground metal is turning back toward physicality to avoid the information overload of the digital age.
Fans and zines are asking themselves variants of this question: What use are 10,000 bands when no one can hear them all, and thus good quality does not get bumped up the line above the rest? A genre dies when it becomes so flooded that it has no quality control. Everyone gets to participate that way, sure, but the lack of leaders means that participation alone soon becomes pointless.
Where this is interesting is the nexus of intersection between metal’s concept of “heavy” and this return to primal methods.
“Heavy” is a beatnik word referring to concepts and knowledge that invoke existential and other concerns. In general, heavy is a confrontation with the dark and final side of life, like death or loss. If socialization and happiness are “light,” heavy is the opposite. In social talk, everyone wins; in heavy talk, it is clear that some win and some lose, including lose their lives to war, disease, violence and cruelty. “Heavy” is everything we fear as individuals and refuse to talk about in polite conversation.
When Black Sabbath emerged in the late 1960s, they distinguished themselves thematically from other bands by being heavy. Everyone else was singing about how the Age of Aquarius was going to bring Enlightenment and peace to everyone; Black Sabbath was singing about the collapse of the world, the failure of hope, and the doom awaiting us all.
In the same way, the Internet boom of the late 1990s was based upon a Utopian vision. Our old worries were over; a new society based on information and knowledge was here! But as the years went on, it became clear that in all areas most of this information was commercial spam or otherwise manipulative, and that the effect of “information liberation” was to drown us in irrelevance.
People crave what the old offered: strong opinions in record reviews and writing, and zines that were willing to push better bands on top of the rest. They want a death of the commercial spam that our media have become, and to be able to pick five winners out of those 10,000 bands to become the basis of the next generation in a genre.
Thus heavy returns. Darkness and evil return. A rejection of peace, harmony, happiness and enlightenment of the new age is replaced with a reliance on primal truths, pagan fears and ancient impulses. Instinct overtakes rationality. Practicality replaces morality. The beast within rises again.
As recent writings from Keith Kahn-Harris and others indicate, metal may be suffering from too much: too many bands, too huge an information flow, too many blogs, too much focus on surface aesthetics.
Contrasting this flood of “too much” is a true metal movement designed to emphasize what metal has always done well, but done anew by new generations. One member of this movement is Argus, whose album Beyond the Martyrs caught our attention for its NWOBHM/Candlemass classic metal fusion.
Luckily, frontman Butch Balich was available to answer a few profile questions and some existential ones via email. His answers strike me as relatively without contrivance, and show us this band both as it presents itself and as it is likely to be experienced.
Can you tell us how Argus formed? Did you come together on a mutual love of existing music, or a desire to create something that didn’t exist at the time?
The band was put together by Erik and Kevin out of friendship and a desire to jam and play some tunes. I don’t think it was ever envisioned it would become what it has. Our goal has always been simply to write great songs. We don’t concern ourselves with whether or not we are forging new paths or treading well worn ones. Its all about playing music we love and infusing our personality into it.
What is a “working class metal sound” (from your official biography)? Do the members of Argus identify with working-class or blue-collar roots?
Those guys grew up here in Western, PA and I think definitely identify with a working-class, blue-collar set of roots. We see ourselves as hard working and our music as fairly straightforward — what you hear is what you get — we aren’t overly complex and fancy in either our writing or our performance yet both are powerful. So I think we meant to portray the band as a straight up true metal band that works hard and is not pretentious in any way.
What would you identify as your primary and enduring influences?
We’re all over the map really. If you separated us and asked each of us you’d hear everything from Sabbath to Slayer, KISS to The Beatles, Maiden to NOFX, Marvin Gaye to Slough Feg. Collectively I think we draw from a common pool of Maiden, Thin Lizzy, some doom like Candlemass, old Metallica… We know what we want the band to sound like though so you’ll hear big riffs, great harmonies… sometimes the bands that those things remind of are coincidental, for instance “The Ladder” from Boldly Stride the Doomed has a real Solitude Aeturnus vibe even though I’m probably the one guy in the band who loves them. We are also influenced/pushed by bands like Slough Feg or Valkyrie.
You’ve picked an amalgamation of older styles for your music, instead of trying to keep up with the cutting edge or invent something. Why did you make this choice? Is there anything new under the sun, musically?
Let’s be honest — there really aren’t any combinations of riffs or notes that haven’t been used. There is NO ONE reinventing the wheel musically anymore. SO, our goal is to write great songs that we love — it is the goal of any good band. Our goal has never been to create something wholly unique as that is impossible. We draw from what we love about the music we listen to and enjoy playing and hopefully our personality comes across enough — and that is what makes us special. The notes/riffs/melodies may not always be something unheard of but we each have way of playing our instruments that adds up to ARGUS sounding like ARGUS instead of a mere rate retro metal knockoff.
Do you think the style you play selects the audience you receive, and that some audiences are more supportive than others?
I think any fan of true metal would like the band. We are neither overly refined or simplistic. I think our music has the ability to appeal to folks across different spectrums as it mixes bits and pieces of things and has strong melodies. I do think we’ve been most accepted by true metal and doom crowds so far. So far every audience we’ve played for has been pretty damn supportive to be honest. I do feel there is a niche market for what we do even though it has the potential to grow larger. If you play the style we play you do need to be prepared to accept that the fanbase is fairly limited and it will take a great amount of touring, perseverance and luck to advance beyond cult level.
There has been a movement in metal over the past four or five years called “True Metal,” in which people are less interested in outward-looking hybrids and more in an inward-looking, metal-centric attempt to continue the spirit of classic bands, although not necessarily the details. Have you seen this? Would it apply to Argus?
There is a segment of folks who aren’t interested so much in modernism and would prefer new bands to play in the old style. This is me to extent though I prefer bands not to be complete ripoffs of a specific band. I prefer bands like Slough Feg, Pharaoh, Twisted Tower Dire, Enforcer who have obvious influences but whose own personality comes through and who don’t consign themselves to 80s production values 24-7. I think Argus fits in with a retro tag though I have to say I think we manage to sound modern without sounding modern (if that makes sense). Like we don’t sound dated even though we’re playing metal based on the classic metal and hard rock bands.
This is your third album, after an EP and a demo. How has your sound changed during this time? Do you see it going in another direction as time goes on?
I don’t see that our sound has changed so much as streamlined a bit. We’re trying to capture the vibe and point of each song without belaboring the point in endless repetitions of the same riff. Why take ten minutes to say what can be said in six? I think it’s been a gradual transition. We’ve definitely become better songwriters over 7 years. Stylistically though we’ve been fairly constant. Maybe less doomy but no less moody.
Why do you think heavy metal remains popular after forty years of existence?
Because it is powerful, honest, hits-you-in-the-gut music. Because lyrically it provides escape. It provides understanding. It’s a very gut level thing… metal. There is an energy to it that few other forms of music capture — …and power, volume… I also think metal is also where you will find musicians whose level of integrity and devotion to their fans is high as opposed to more throwaway styles of music where musicians are chasing dollars exclusively rather than the art.
What’s next for Argus? Are you going to tour, or write more material?
We’re about to start writing for album 4. We hope to get over to Europe again the Summer of 2014. We have a festival appearance booked at the Ragnarokkr Festival in Chicago the weekend of April 4-5, 2014. Other than that we’re looking at some possible US dates… we’ll see what happens. Are discussing plans for small releases like a possible 7″, an EP and maybe a split.
