Sammath signs to Hammerheart Records for “Godless Arrogance”

by Brett Stevens on April 14, 2013

sammath-godless_arroganceDutch-German blazing black metal act Sammath, who are preparing to unleash their fifth album, Godless Arrogance, have signed to worldwide metal music label Hammerheart Records for the release of that album.

“I’m getting emails and telephone calls from people all over the world,” said Sammath guitarist/composer Jan Kruitwagen on the change that catapults them from a smaller metal label to worldwide distribution on par with Relapse and Nuclear Blast. The band is leaving its label of sixteen years, Folter Records, on amicable terms. “Joerg from Folter was actualy proud as fuck that we got signed to these guys and only wishes us well. It wasn’t easy telling him after 16 years on his label, but he understands.”

According to Kruitwagen, Hammerheart sought Sammath after hearing the demo tracks from the upcoming album and knowing the band for a long time. “The new tracks will destroy! Guido from Hammerheart knows what’s good,” he said. Believed by many to be the boldest step of the band’s career, Godless Arrogance combines the elegant melodies of Sammath‘s first album, Strijd, with the aggressive ripping death metal approach of their most popular work, Dodengang.

The band doesn’t plan to change a thing about their approach, which is old school technique and composition with an eye toward defiant independence. “We have lots of work left to do. All drums are recorded without triggers and everything is recorded live. Getting this all sounding like we want takes time. We do everything ourselves, no hands but ours will finnish this CD, except Peter Neuber for the master (Necrophobic, Revenge, Severe Torture),” Kruitwagen added.

Godless Arrogance will see release in “a couple of months at least,” but will not change its approach. “We need to make sure it all sounds up to mark, without losing the intense sound it already has,” said Kruitwagen. He added that despite a changing music industry, the band remains committed to its approach. He added, “let the music speak for itself.”

The tracklist for Sammath‘s Godless Arrogance will be:

1. Shot in mass
2. Fear upon them
3. Thrive in arrogance
4. Death (hunt them down)
5. This world must burn (hammer of supremacy)
6. Through filth and the remains of man
7. Nineteen corpses hang in the mist

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Sadistic Metal Reviews 04-15-13

by Brett Stevens on April 14, 2013

toxic_holocaust-from_the_ashesToxic Holocaust – From the Ashes of Nuclear Destruction: This is not bad music, but it’s an imitation of something in the rearview mirror, which is hard enough without a tendency to combine the worst aspects of several genres. The songs are chaotic like American thrash, but then like German speed metal, they’re very chanty with lots of chorus activity and not much deviation from that rhythm and the chord progression that carries it. In fact, this was the kind of music that back in the 1980s, drove people to Metallica and Slayer for more of a musical experience. Most of what you get with Toxic Holocaust is like a suburban rap album, which is to say that you hear the vocals and pick up their rhythm, and then there’s distracting stuff going on in the background. Whatever the chorus is gets hammered in your brain because it repeats again and again (and again, and again). Riffs are very similar, and derive from identifiable archetypes in classic speed metal songs. Like most of those bands in the 1980s, it’s hard to construct an argument against this. It isn’t musically incompetent, and it’s roughly of the same style, and it’s definitely metally as opposed to the alt-indie-nu crowd. However, really the question is what’s missing, and we can’t spot it because neither it nor an analogue is there. This band lacks purpose. Songs are there to be like other songs, not to express something unique. While nostalgia is neat and all, this puts Toxic Holocaust in the same camp as the big pop bands, who are just making songs to sound like other successful songs, be catchy and make people dance.

soen-cognitiveSoen – Cognitive: Somehow, people say they’re doing what they’re afraid they’re not doing. Soen is nu-progressive metal, which means that it’s basically a very vocals-intense, “passionate” form of indie rock — think post-1990s style drama-intense male vocalist nonsense — with occasional metal riffs. If you don’t mind the discount Morrisey style vocals, you will not be immediately set off by this album, but the grim fact is that this style of music is easy to produce and bands are a dime a dozen. These “deep” vocals end up sounding more like someone belting out over-emphatic drama, mainly because once you strip aside the technique, there’s little actual variation. The metal riffs can be surprisingly good but not original. It’s amazing how people have been making this style of music for decades and yet it doesn’t occur to each generation that maybe, just maybe, this stuff isn’t as new and revolutionary as it claims. If you like regular rock music, and want it to have more soul-searching vocals that override the other form factors, as in Coldplay, you’ll really dig this. If you’re looking for metal, you’ll end up fast-forwarding between the metal riffs and have a 2.3 minute album here.

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Arsaidh – Roots: another black metal/post-black metal hybrid. What is it? A mixture of techniques, with no purpose. It’s not bad except that since none of it connects to a greater organization scheme than designing a song based on template, it all has the same intensity and emotional level, which makes it a tedious drone. Again, look at any part: it’s well done. Zoom out, look at the whole: who cares? It’s like a fractal made of one giant circle in that anywhere you look, the end result is pointing back to the start. Nothing is learned between inception and conclusion. It’s oddly evocation of this disassociative time because it approximates the mental state of someone who is watching life go on by and realizes it’s all the same stuff, but has no energy to do better, so joins in emulation and hopes to not be noticed. Did you ever read Vaclav Havel’s “Power of the Powerless”? It’s easy to put up some token sign of assimilation, like a state slogan or an indie-metal album, and to fit in. That way, you expend almost no energy and yet are not subject to standing out and having to face criticism for having gone your own way.

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Buckshot Facelift – Elder’s Rasp: From the newer school of grindcore, which combines the frenetic and ecclectic nature of bands like Brutal Truth with the “grab bag of anything goes riffs” and tendency toward distraction rather than continuity that is a hallmark of tech-deth and other metalcore-influenced styles, Buckshot Facelift create a faithful exploration of this style. Fast and chaotic, it shifts riffs regularly and with intensity, but could use a bit more variation in the tempo shift department. Riff composition uses techniques from the last 40 years of metal, punk and rock, with a tendency toward shifts between rock and punk riffs before drifting into metal to work up tension for a change. Vocals are like a chihuahua on methamphetamine that is reading a letter to the editor from a grandmother abandoned at the bottom of a deep well by her ungrateful children. If this subgenre appeals to you, this band is better than average but middle-of-the-road stylistically.

aeon-aeons_blackAeon – Aeons Black: Sounding like later Deicide with influences from the mid-paced death metal of the last decade, Aeon creates some compelling rhythms and uses a heavy NYDM influence through harmonic guitar squeals and repetitive downstroke rhythms. The result is “heavy,” but melody is used only as an effect, and the album is assembled of many similar pieces that lacking a gestalt, flow together into catchy wall paper. The result is thankfully somewhat death metal, but has a newer metal influence, and through its lack of focus, combines different forms and styles into one giant approximation that has no really distinct point of view. It’s like a xerox of a xerox of a photograph of Silly Putty(tm) imprint of the original. While it isn’t incompetent, and has some moments of inspired musicality, it has no content that it manages to express and so it feels like a disorganized detour into the late 1990s, perhaps death metal being used to make an infomercial. I can see the juice machines, instant waffle makers, hair braders, etc. now, because that’s what this album feels like: the shelves of a death metal store, arranged in no particular order, as you walk past and then go out the door, not having found anything worthy of permanent acquisition.

sophicide-perdition_of_the_sublime
Sophicide – Perdition of the Sublime: The modern style of metal throws a whole bunch of metal styles into a salad shooter and gives it a spin. What tumbles out is properly called metalcore because its songs are in the “variety show” form of late hardcore, but its riffs come from random metal genres. Sophicide does a better job of it than most by using rhythm to arrange riffs in roughly verse-chorus positions, meaning that you can easily follow what’s going on without much mental stress. However, the result is like most later hardcore designed around the concept of having lots of options that are incompatible with one another. They think this makes you avoid boredom, but because there’s no plan, each song devolves to the lowest common denominator. As a result, there’s not much listening to be had here unless you really fanatically love metalcore. This band is more interesting than your average metalcore, but still conveys that basic antipathy to organized expression that comes from confused times, and doesn’t help us resolve that confusion. In fact, the tendency of the listener here is to pay less attention the less organized the music gets, which is why people who hear metalcore frequently are unable to express an opinion about it. “It was there,” is all they can say, and in this style, that’s all we’re left with.

tormented-death_awaitsTormented – Death Awaits: In 1992, the average death metal fan would walk 30 miles through the snow uphill both ways to hear a new Swedish death metal album. Sometime in the 2000s, Daniel Ekeroth made a handy video about how to get the Swedish guitar sound, and at least 4,096 hipster bands suddenly became Entombed-worship acts. The problem is that they don’t understand why Entombed did what Entombed did, so they’re imitating the appearance of Entombed and then injecting their own motivations into the art. Unforunately for them, their motivations are often what hipster bands want, which is ironic acclaim and something to brag about as they make coffees at the day job. Tormented is a perfect case in point. It’s competent, the riffs are gently melodic at times, and songs hold together thanks to a riff-chorus assembly with transitional riffs worked in. The problem is that these riffs express nothing, so they’re based on existing forms in a “pick one from column A, one from column B, one from column C” approach. This misses the point of death metal, which is to stich riffs together so that they tell a story that expands as the song goes on, then revert to a simplest possible reduction. What is revealed at the center of this music is an obsession with repetitive catchy vocals, and hard rock style relatively immobile riffs, instead of the soaring tremolo architectures that made Swedish death metal great. On the surface, this is pure Swede-worship; underneath, it has more in common with Wolfmother than Entombed.

agrimonia-rites_of_separationAgrimonia – Rites of Separation: It’s time we admit that post-metal is not metal, but new age metal. Or rather, it’s new age rock that wants to be metal so it can be “rebellious.” Officially rebellious, that is, so that if anyone claims they’re worshipping Satan or extremists, they can point to their soft juicy fruity core of new age everybody-kumbaya-happy. Post-metal not only takes influences from the new age movement and its desire for gentle ambience with some kind of quasi-spiritualist uplifting feeling that makes us feel like our rotting industrial dystopia encloses a paradise of personal emotional balance, positive thinking, etc. This music is like Sonic Youth throwing in some metal riffs and then droning on a note or two, with “bizarre” song structures that are actually very much in the verse-chorus with transitions style of post-punk bands. Nothing is badly done but the music has no soul. Its essence is in tossing out anything it thinks you might like, with no relationship between those parts. Thus it’s like hearing a conversation on the subway, where you pick up on juicy phrases and the rest is hubbub which fades into the ratcheting clack of the passing tracks.

unburied-murder_101
Unburied – Murder 101: Despite the prevalence of death metal vocals, these songs song more like old hardcore with a metal influence. They are extremely simple, with often only two riffs per song which repeat while vocals rant and bass pounds out a catchy rhythm. The rhythms behind these riffs are simple but compelling, and the riffs despite being digestible draw in the listener with a sense of an asymmetrical response in formation. Comparisons to a punchier version of old Master, Mortician or even Psychomancer would be appropriate. While the music is compelling in a very primitive sense, it requires a patience for things which do not change over prolonged periods of time, and a love for the gore-grind tendency to mash a rhythm down into its essence and then use its persistence as a source of power.

altaar-altaar
Altaar – Altaar: The first track of this album presents bass-driven slow droning doom metal which is carefully put together and, while simple and somewhat predictable in terms of chord progressions, nonetheless establishes and nurtures a dark mood. After that, some kind of late model hardcore/post-metal hybrid emerges, which features predictable ranty vocals and sessile riffs. At that point, most people tune out because they’ve heard this exact same stuff from a million bands, which explains why bands like it: it’s easy to produce, thus makes for high turnover of albums, more happy fans, more sales, etc. Ideally popular music is like this because you can hire a dozen people out of the back of any bar or pool hall, channel them into a studio, and have them pump out as much of it as you can sell. This style of music rewards obedience, because you have to learn music and then memorize what others have been doing and then imitate it. That makes for something that isn’t musically bad, but has nothing to distinguish it, and because it’s not about anything, it conveys no sense of experience other than standing there listening to the random riffs.

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Steve von Till – As The Crow Flies

by Brett Stevens on April 13, 2013

steve_von_till-as_the_crow_fliesIt is one thing to become acknowledged within your genre as a leader. It is still another to reach outside that genre, and become more than an artist, but a sage.

A sage is part explainer of the past, part philosopher and part artist who makes the future seem full of interest and beauty. No matter how long someone labors in popular music, they will eventually desire to become the village sage, because that is a position above entertainer. It is a trusted voice that is a guide for culture.

Steve von Till rose to fame with Neurosis, whose music he took far beyond hardcore into the realm of psychedelic and experimental music. With this re-issue of his solo album from 2000, we can hear his voice develop from rage and ambiguity to a desire to reform culture itself. This acoustic guitar album shapes itself from simple melodies and muttered, droning vocals melded into slow atmospheric songs.

As The Crow Flies attempts to create a folk music out of the postmodern time, having let the ashes of dystopia fall. These songs are sentimental and emotional, but not in the cloyingly insistent way that pop must be. Instead, like the music of Tom Waits or Dead Can Dance, songs try to nail the feeling of a particular time in life and galvanize us toward both clarity and an amorphous desire to surpass the past.

von Till carefully paces the album so that songs appear in a varied order, using additional instruments sparsely to differentiate themselves, such that mood is not broken but slowly changes like a banner twisting in a nearly-becalmed afternoon wind. These are songs both unexpected and familiar which wring out of our decaying age a new reason to believe in the emotional power of living, and that makes As The Crow Files a success of a different color.

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Interview: Supuration

by Brett Stevens on April 13, 2013

supuration-cube_3During the early 1990s, death metal was subject to criticism because people feared it. They would claim that the bands couldn’t play, or didn’t know their scales, or were otherwise incompetent.

One of the first bands to thwart this vision was France’s Supuration, a former grindcore/death metal band who gradually modified their style as they grew more proficient with their instruments. The result was a mixture of rock, pop, death metal and progressive music.

The Cube, Supuration‘s most famous work, introduced sci-fi concept album planning into the fertile mix of metal and progressive rock. Over the last 20 years, the fame of this legendary album has only increased as more people discover it and are able to understand it, now that an intervening two decades of progressive metal have made it easier.

This year, Supuration launched Cube 3, their follow-up to the original album and a means of uniting the storyline of intervening albums. We were fortunate to get to talk to Ludovic Loez, guitarist with this groundbreaking band.

You started out as a death metal or grindcore band, and then made the change to a progressive/rock/metal style; what spurred this change? Did your interests change, or did the newer style fit your interests?

After the recording of The Cube album and Still in the Sphere MCD, we decided to change our style. We didn’t want to record another The Cube in the same vein; we tried to create a more experimental music, with no limits for us. We like SUPURATION a lot but we thought that a second album in the same veins would not be cool for us, that’s why we created S.U.P.

How important do you think style is in the creation of music? Can someone make the same album in any style, or does the style fit the music? How does this relate to individual songs — does song structure need to fit the song, or is there a way to say the meaning of any song in any song structure?

I think the structure is quite important for a song; we are trying to be original, we all love death metal style in the band, but we also like new wave music and VOIVOD for example. If you listen to our three SUPURATION albums, you’ll find the same structures: each album is linked to each other; for the S.U.P albums, each album is a story, but the structures of these albums are different even if it’s the same way of writing songs for both bands.

You’ve obviously spent a lot of time listening to metal and studying its riff forms, but there’s other elements in there in addition to your own “home grown” outlook and style. You’re probably tired of people asking this, but what are your influences??

As I told you we are into new wave of the 80’s, real gothic music like THE SISTERS OF MERCY, VOIVOD, old PESTILENCE, DEPECHE MODE and sometimes electro music coming from Germany. We are also into original soundtrack, music scores…

Do you think the death metal style easily transitions to progressive rock? What do you see as the similarities between the two? Is progressive rock — most people don’t know that Tony Iommi was briefly in Jethro Tull, or that King Crimson’s first album was an influence on Sabbath — a part of metal, encoded into its DNA?

I think you’re right, in each style of music you can hear a “small” part of metal especially nowadays with the evolution of music in general…The way to the progressive rock is natural I think, except for brutal death bands like SUFFOCATION or CANNIBAL CORPSE and so on, it’s certain that they won’t turn into progressive [music]. It’s a choice, everyone have the choice especially in music.

A compilation of your early works, Back From the Crematory, was released in 2011 and seemed to spur some interest in the early years of the band. What first attracted you to grindcore and death metal?

CARCASS, NAPALM DEATH, OLD. We were quite young at that time and we were into grind core and death metal, when xtreemmusic asked us to put out our first work with ETSICROXE and early SUPURATION, we were really excited. Imagine your old demos and rotten live on a cd more than 20 years after…amazing and exciting…

You split the band into two entities, “Supuration” which was more metal, and “S.U.P.” which was more future pop/rock/progressive. Why did you make the split? Were you able to keep the two separate? How much did they converge, or become similar?

They’re sometimes similar, the voice for example. We created another the band because after the “success” we had with The Cube, we didn’t want to record a “Cube II” the year after. We wanted to create something new with music. The two bands are two different entities, but same members and same songwriter, so both are sometimes similar and different at the same time.

Have you seen interest in Supuration renewing itself recently? Why do you think this is?

I think it’s great!! With the new record company it’s quite easier. We had had a small renewal with the prequel of The Cube called Incubation in 2003. We have good reviews — I think the result is quite correct, that’s a good thing for us…

I have known relatively few albums that attract the kind of devotion that The Cube has. What do you think makes that album stand out, and what do you like about it most?

Its story, its concept, its futurist cover; this album realized in 1993 had a big success in general I can’t explain why…but it’s cool….

You’ve just released Cube 3, which alludes to the original The Cube. Do you think it’s a continuation of what was done on The Cube, a re-envisioning, or an entirely new direction using parts of the same storyline?

Cube3 is dealing with the end of the story [from] The Cube. Between these albums we recorded Incubation which is a prequel to The Cube, I mean the story before. If you want to hear the whole story you have to listen to Incubation first the reasons of the suicide of the young girl, then The Cube with the journey of the tormented soul throughout strange places and Cube3 which deals with the reincarnation of the soul of The Cube album.

Most of your albums seem to be conceptual, or united around a story or idea. Can you tell us about the storylines in your albums? Was there a consistent story idea through all of your works?

I would say, in most of our stories in our albums, the relation between the mother and is child is reccurent. You’ve got this relation in the whole story of The Cube, in “Anomaly” (S.U.P, science fiction dealing futurist machines that kills babies linked to a overpopulation in the future), “Room Seven” (S.U.P, story dealing with an autistic child and his mother), “Chronophobia” (S.U.P, twins separated at birth, mother killed in a carcrash), “Angelus” (S.U.P, quite different, dealing with the lost of faith in god and extraterrestrial life after death), “Imago” (S.U.P, also different, dealing with a futurist drug that makes a self regeneration after a serious disease or cancer, but quite dangerous if you take it twice) and “Hegemony” (S.U.P, dealing with a neovocyt, a new vegetal/human being who is trying to run away with the head of his mother throughout a searing desert somewhere in time on another planet).

Nothing sounds like Supuration — nothing! However, if I had to pick the closest, I’d point toward the first albums from Obliveon and Dead Brain Cells (DBC), and maybe mention some of the middle period Voivod material (Dimension Hatross). Do you find these bands similar? Is it odd, or perfectly rational, that they would have a similar sound to you? Does the fact that all of you are from French-speaking areas have anything to do with it?

I only know VOIVOD, I do not know DBC or OBLIVEON, I’m sorry. I don’t think we are similar, maybe we have the same way of seeing things, the same way of creating the music. You must be right — I trust you when you say that but…I don’t know if the French-speaking have anything to do with it…maybe….I don’t know maybe a similar culture somewhere…

Do you think metal’s riff style, which uses moveable chords like power chords and as a result ends up with longer phrases more like classical melodies or complex riff from prog rock, determines how you compose metal songs? Do you think this makes metal more or less like regular rock? Was it hard for you to integrate the two styles in your music?

You know, when you are used to playing in a way, it seems to be normal for you to play that way. I mean during these years metal music has changed a lot, except for some great metal bands that are staying in their metal style since the very beginning and that’s great too… There’s so many different styles in metal music, it’s quite difficult to answer this question, as far as we are concerned, we are writing songs normally, we’re trying to be original and not to disappoint our fans who are very important for us.

Some of your “S.U.P.” material, especially Room Seven, seemed to converge on a progressive alternative rock style that others were trying to achieve at the time. The use of non-standard chords, dissonance and off-time constructions in alternative rock appeared for example on Dweezil Zappa’s “Shampoo Horn” and even made it into punk with powerviolence and post-hardcore. What do you think influenced bands to move progressive in the late 1990s? What were they seeking to express, or change in the world? Did you see this as a confirmation of your direction (if you were aware of it)?

We’re not aware of it, sorry….I guess they tried to change some things in the world of music, I suppose…Every decade a new style is created in metal or death metal, it’s a kind of circle you know. We’re not into this kind of philosophy; we are trying to do our best for people who like our stuff and for our fans. I only know Dweezil Zappa because I was told that he was a very good guitarist, that’s it….

What’s coming up next for Supuration? Will you tour and/or continue releasing music? “Cube 3” seems a bit of a progression from your older material; what’s your next metamorphosis?

We’ll play some shows for Cube3, not real tour, I mean festivals, concerts, during one or two years and meanwhile I’ll star to write the new S.U.P album, we’ll see…. Thanks for the interview

Ludovic LOEZ
for SUPURATION/S.U.P
April 2013

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Fear Factory kicks off The Industrialist tour 2013

by Brett Stevens on April 11, 2013

fear_factory-the_industrialistIndustrial metal band Fear Factory graduated to concept albums early in their career, and following on the successes of last year’s The Industrialist will be touring in support of their particular mix of industrial, metal, grindcore and rock.

Based on a science-fiction epic written by vocalist Burton C. Bell, The Industrialist comments on the present and the future as part of one continuum. While the story remains inscrutable, the dystopian-anarchist feeling of industrial music pervades it.

Bell describes the work as the band’s most focused effort. “Everything had its purpose and we knew exactly what we were doing and what we had to do,” he said. The album is the second for the reunited songwriting duo of Bell and Dino Cazares, who worked on earlier material from this band.

Starting life as an alternative to Godflesh at a time when no other band could work within that style, Fear Factory has melded its own sound over the years, combining Nine Inch Nails and Ministry style industrial rock with metal riffs and grinding cadences.

If you want to catch these maniacs on tour, be sure to visit one of these venues:

  • 4/14/2013 The Black Sheep – Colorado Springs, CO
  • 4/15/2013 Summit Music Hall – Denver, CO
  • 4/17/2013 The Riot Room – Kansas City, MO
  • 4/18/2013 The Rave – Milwaukee, WI
  • 4/19/2013 Mojoes – Joliet, IL
  • 4/20/2013 Club Fever – South Bend, IN
  • 4/21/2013 Diamond Pub & Billiards – Louisville, KY
  • 4/22/2013 Rapids Theatre – Niagara Falls, NY
  • 4/24/2013 Opera House – Toronto, ON
  • 4/26/2013 McGuffy’s House of Rock – Dayton, OH
  • 4/27/2013 The Machine Shop – Flint, MI
  • 4/28/2013 Montage Music Hall – Rochester, NY
  • 4/29/2013 The Junkyard – Nashua, NH
  • 5/01/2013 The Webster Theatre – Hartford, CT
  • 5/02/2013 The Gramercy Theatre – New York, NY
  • 5/03/2013 Revolution – Amityville, NY
  • 5/04/2013 Mojo 13 – Wilmington, DE
  • 5/05/2013 Sound Stage Baltimore – Baltimore, MD
  • 5/07/2013 NV Nightclub – Knoxville, TN
  • 5/08/2013 Amos South End – Charlotte, NC
  • 5/09/2013 Brewsters Roc Bar – Jacksonville, FL
  • 5/10/2013 Culture Room – Ft Lauderdale, FL
  • 5/11/2013 The Haven Lounge – Winter Park, FL
  • 5/12/2013 Brass Mug – Tampa, FL
  • 5/14/2013 Trees – Dallas, TX
  • 5/15/2013 Backstage Live – San Antonio, TX
  • 5/16/2013 Scout Bar – Houston, TX
  • 5/17/2013 The Station – Broussard, LA
  • 5/18/2013 Riverside Warehouse – Shreveport, LA
  • 5/19/2013 The Chameleon Room – Oklahoma City, OK
  • 5/21/2013 Fubar – St. Louis, MO
  • 5/22/2013 Station 4 – St. Paul, MN
  • 5/28/2013 Club 9one9 – Victoria, BC
  • 5/30/2013 Studio Seven – Seattle, WA
  • 5/31/2013 Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, OR
  • 6/04/2013 DNA Lounge – San Francisco CA
  • 6/06/2013 Marquee Theatre – Tempe, AZ
  • 6/07/2013 LVCS – Las Vegas, NV
  • 6/08/2013 The Roxy – West Hollywood, CA

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Soilwork – North American Infinity Tour 2013

by Brett Stevens on April 11, 2013

soilwork-the_living_infiniteModern metal-indie hybrid Soilwork heads out to the buses for a North American tour to support their latest album, The Living Infinite.

Known for their melodic approach to a rock-metal mashup, Soilwork appeal to many who like either modern metal or loud rock. This is the band’s ninth album, and their first double-disc release.

The Living Infinite shows the Swedish melodic metal-hybrid sextet at their most adroit, combining influences into a smoothly integrated package that offers consistency in entertaining variation.

You can catch this post-metal/metalcore act live at the following venues:

  • 3/14 – Albany, NY @ Bogie’s
  • 3/15 – New York, NY @ The Gramercy Theater
  • 3/16 – Hartford, CT @ Webster Theater
  • 3/17 – Montreal, QC – CANADA @ Petit Campus
  • 3/18 – Quebec City, QC – CANADA @ Dagobert
  • 3/19 – Ottawa, ON – CANADA @ Mavericks
  • 3/20 – Toronto, ON – CANADA @ The Opera House
  • 3/21 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Altar Bar
  • 3/22 – Cleveland, OH @ Peabody’s
  • 3/23 – Westland, MI @ Token Lounge
  • 3/24 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
  • 3/25 – Joliet, IL @ Mojoes
  • 3/26 – Des Moines, IA @ Wooly’s
  • 3/27 – St. Paul, MN @ Station 4
  • 3/28 – Winnipeg, MB – CANADA @ Park Theatre
  • 3/29 – Regina, SK – CANADA @ The Exchange
  • 3/30 – Calgary, AB – CANADA @ Republik Nightclub
  • 3/31 – Edmonton, AB – CANADA @ Starlite Room
  • 4/01 – Prince George, B.C. – CANADA @ The Generator
  • 4/02 – Vancouver, B.C. – CANADA @ Rickshaw Theater
  • 4/03 – Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
  • 4/04 – Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theatre
  • 4/05 – San Francisco, CA @ Slim’s
  • 4/06 – Hollywood, CA @ Whisky A Go Go
  • 4/07 – Tempe, AZ @ Rocky Point Cantina
  • 4/08 – Tucson, AZ @ The Rock
  • 4/09 – Las Vegas, NV @ Las Vegas Country Saloon
  • 4/11 – Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue
  • 4/12 – Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theater
  • 4/13 – Kansas City, MO @ The Riot Room
  • 4/14 – St. Louis, MO @ The Firebird
  • 4/15 – Dallas, TX @ Trees
  • 4/16 – San Antonio, TX @ Backstage Live
  • 4/17 – Austin, TX @ Dirty Dog Bar
  • 4/18 – Abilene, TX @ Lucky Mule
  • 4/19 – Oklahoma City, OK @ The Chameleon Room
  • 4/20 – El Paso, TX @ Tricky Falls
  • 4/22 – Corpus Christi, TX @ House of Rock
  • 4/23 – McAllen, TX @ Geo’s
  • 4/24 – Houston, TX @ Scout Bar
  • 4/26 – St. Petersburg, FL @ State Theater
  • 4/27 – Jacksonville, FL @ Jack Rabbits
  • 4/28 – Charlotte, NC @ The Casbah @ Tremont Music Hall
  • 4/29 – Richmond, VA @ Kingdom
  • 4/30 – Baltimore, MD @ Soundstage
  • 5/01 – Teaneck, NJ @ Mexicali Live
  • 5/02 – Poughkeepsie, NY @ The Chance Theater
  • 5/03 – Buffalo, NY @ Broadway Joes
  • 5/04 – Columbus, OH @ Al Rosa Villa
  • 5/05 – London, ON – CANADA @ Music Hall
  • 5/06 – Syracuse, NY @ Station 58
  • 5/07 – Worcester, MA @ The Palladium

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Hessian Studies

by Brett Stevens on April 10, 2013

hessian_studies

The Hessian Studies Center was founded in late 1994 for the purpose of creating an atmosphere for study and respect of the Hessian tradition, folk art, and philosophical background. Over the next year it struggled off and on with authenticity and funding but eventually opted to remain underground because of the freedom given to respect metal’s traditions as independent, rather than integrated, with the western world’s containers for those philosophical and political entities. Additionally, the liberal policies of the Center regarding drug use caused ostracism and exile from the benevolent gaze of the herd.

The work of the Hessian Studies Center consists primarily of materials acquisition and content authorship, as well as think tank work in the continued architecture of Hessian history. Its members have authored numerous documents for this and related political efforts and continue their efforts to this day, striving for an independent Hessian state and the corresponding benefits of legal power (decriminalized recreational substances, an end to loudness ordinances, legalized crime).

The following is a reproduction of the original Hessian Studies flyer that kicked off the chaos back in 1994:

What is Hessian Studies?

Hessian Studies is the academic study of Hessians, Bangers, Metallians, Metalheads, death rockers, and other adherents to the genres of metal and grindcore. The Hessian Studies Department believes that any truly diverse multicultural population will contain representatives of this world-wide underground culture, with its rich and spanning historical and social contributions.

What are the aims of the Hessian Studies Department?

The Hessian Studies Department seeks to establish a presence of Hessians on campus and in campus events, as well as to create a comfortable environment at The College that suits the specific needs of Hessians at a small liberal-arts college. To this end, we have presented a List of Demands to the Administration:

  1. That there be Hessians hired to faculty and staff positions, and that all hair length rules and any form of drug policy regarding Hessians hired be abrogated, as Hessians have a religious need for some currently-regulated substances.
  2. That there be a Hessian Studies Center, complete with both audio and textual libraries and lounge area, for the study and advancement of Hessians.
  3. That the community radio station play more music favorable to the tastes of Hessians during prime-time shows.
  4. That the inscription at the gate of the college be changed to either “Fuckin’ Groovin'” or “You Suffer (But Why?)”.
  5. That discrimination against Hessians as a group of drug-addicted, drunken, long-haired incompetent losers destined for parole at best be eradicated from campus literature and mindset.
  6. That there be Hessian cultural events on campus, including concerts by noted Hessian bands and festivals related to various organic products enjoyed by Hessians.
  7. That the Hessian Studies Center be funded to provide late-night pizza and beer snack breaks.
  8. That Hessians be given equal time to speak at multicultural events, and the right to develop their own curriculum of Hessian Studies Courses.

Hessian Studies Center

Hessian studies is academic analysis of the international subculture of alienated heavy metal listeners and followers of intense music and noise of destruction. Our vision includes tolerance for all people and the right to individual autonomous direction and an end to compulsion and normative behavior.

Since its inception in 1994, the Hessian Studies Center has supported the international metal subculture through collection, analysis, and dissemination of the music and philosophy of thrashers, metallions, headbangers, metalheads, Hessians, longhairs, cruisers, piledrivers and others who comprise a virtual ethnicity of people inspired by the power of heavy metal, speed metal, black metal and death metal music worldwide. We achieve our ends through peaceful and herbological methods.

In addition to supporting the pantheon of academic and cultural programs above, the Hessian Studies Center aids with time and equipment as well as money the Dark Legions Archive, a repository of analysis concerning the music of the worldwide metal community. Headbangers, metallions, metalheads, longhairs, stoners, and other social rejects apply through means of this email link.

The United Hessian Front

The United Hessian Front exists as an extension of the Hessian Studies Center that seeks to find adherents to the subculture of heavy metal music and philosophy internationally and unify their voices in a forum for communication about future generations of metalion thought. Our goals are to acquire and disseminate information about the Hessian subculture in this process while reinforcing its objectives through our actions and treatment of others.

In order for Hessian culture to accelerate its own growth toward the future it must be aware of its past as well as the likely environment into which it will develop. As the world spirals closer to oblivion, entropy, and genocidal apocalypse, the vast suicide cult that is modern society seeks further methods of denying darkness, chaos, and destruction. Hessians exist so that this may not be so.

The objectives of the UHF are as follows:

  • Establishment of an Independent Hessian State.
    To ensure freedom for Hessian development and minimal intrusion from normals, sober people, and authority figures the creation of an independent and autonomous Hessian zone under self-rule is a primary objective of the UHF.
  • Religious Freedom and Controlled Substances
    The complex sociomystical structures behind the art, aesthetic and mindset of a modern Hessian lifestyle requires the stabilizing influence of chaos-generating psychoactive substances in order to remain efficient and content.
  • Equal Air Time for Nonconventional Music
    Current media tendencies exclude all but the most soothingly inane and simplistically melodic, leaving a void of contemporary music for the intellectual connoisseur or musician, generally attenuating the intellectual readiness of the population; for this reason alone we request more air time for metal and other non-mainstream forms of music.
  • Injunction Against the Christian Right
    Given the evidentiary state within science that concludes that so far agents of discreet brainwashing have not been found to be able to influence humans to extreme behaviors such as suicide, assault, or murder through the simple method of stereophonic amplification, it’s time to call off the Christian right from attacking metal and rap as “promoting violence and depravity.”
  • Flier for Public Distribution and Chaos
    Our reprehensibly straightforward and dissonant fliers bring all of the alienation and some of the isolation home to those you can dupe into reading them, as well as providing hours of family topics for discussion. Spread this bad news everywhere to deconstruct society the networked way!

Our vision is of a world where Hessians can be recognized as a virtual nation of headbangers, metalheads, and thrashers and will eventually be treated with respect to their specific needs and inclinations. Through mutual tolerance we can live together or we will surely die together.

Hessian Life

Introduction
Hessians come from the tradition of subculture, or resistant counter-culture embedded within a much larger cultural container. They have been spotted in almost every country in the world where electricity and a relative amount of personal music technology have been distributed. Most cultures have learned to recognize them and write them off — at their essential nature, they are a pacifistic culture of alienated and/or intellectualized rockers looking for truth in extremity.

Social Conception
Society encompasses their culture, but they treat it with dissonant indifference, realizing that its actions are beyond their control and are mostly ignorant attempts at control or manipulative, fearful and destructive compulsions to duty. The desperate impulse that is afraid of silence (as in silence one must think within) drives normal social activities to be centered around events and to aim at providing comfort. Hessians reject these ideals and instead favor indirection, mayhem, destruction and other chaotic acts in their free (not enslaved by school/job) time. Often they can be found gathered around a bong for interpersonal time, or gathered in small groups to become intoxicated and raise some hell. The heavy party culture that underlies all rock carries its extremities also in the extreme rock arena, where brutal concert violence and fastidious drug abuse are signs of successful interaction.

Philosophical Worldview
Beneath this fury of strange behavior a philosophical foundation supports but does not attempt to justify these acts. The naturalistic philosophy of the Hessians prioritizes justice and ideal at the same time it encourages chaotic fantasy; its essential communication is to live well through freedom from the clutches of neurotic thought, and to spend time in whatever liberating activities can be fashioned from the elements available. The nature of this in the trapped, suffocating world of commercial society (narcotic of the one true herd) is a relative overemphasis on intoxication and freedom from plans, morals, karma, memory, or the will of other people; the consequence is often an overindulgence in rebellion without a clear direction for self-preservation. However, Hessian philosophy as revealed by the metaphors within the music reveal a fascination with information, with fantasy, with power, with destruction, and an obsession with honesty and spiritual power to speak the apocalyptic truth.

Drugs and Mysticism
Hessians tend to believe in both the psychological/mystical power of drugs as well as the spiritual power of their music, although this belief is not shared by all. Often Hessians can be found gathered around a stereo consuming large quantities of marijuana, hashish, or other less-refined forms of drug. By liberating the mind in intoxication the Hessians believe they achieve a stable plane of nihilistic consciousness, where they are closer to the dark gods of winter and more able to comprehend the profundity of death. In this morbid ritual metalheads develop a comprehension of reality that supersedes all other methods of processing life and frees them from the drug of mainstream life, fear and consumption. In this more spiritual state they feel they can comprehend the complex messages transmitted through rhythm and metaphor in the music. Other parts of this ritual involve simple spreading of chaos in the fertile order of society, a mystical act of supreme rebellion and refreshing spiritual heresy.

Freedom Manifesto

Conventional social ideals would cast aside the non-ideal, the non-quantifiable and stay with the symmetrical and symbolic, fearing the ambiguous world of obscurity and metaphor. Double meanings, they say, balking in horror like the sheep they are. But what does the Hessian say?

The Hessian rejects insecurity and underconfidence and plunges ahead no matter how insane the project in conventional ideals. By denying the doubt of the people around them and aiming for loftier ideals than the simple “feed thyself” command of society’s trough, Hessians have created some of the most extreme and beautiful music ever to hit planet earth.

Their rejection of neurosis and mocking anti-idolization of society’s scapegoats make them a terror to the unstable and fragile balance of deception that allows our modern society to function.

“Turn off that fucking noise!” — every Hessian that has ever lived has heard it. Many people every day seem not to think about how unoriginal their comments are and tear into the usual insult of how Hessian music is “noise” and not music because it does not fit conventional classifications. The wily Hessian only laughs, and mocks back with even ruder noise — for the Hessian knows that human boundaries are only impositions of human understanding, and not inherent to the outside world — a place known for its nihilism and aggressive destruction as well as its nurturing instinct.

Through their addiction to noise Hessians have discovered a method of chaotic, spiritual, dark and naturalistic living that rejects the distinction between music and noise as it rejects government, religion, control and commodity as frivolous arbitrary containers of human invention for the purposes of competitive success. Who knows why humans think that way? But the Hessian only blasts louder, breaking down distinctions as his music breaks down assumptions and suggests a darker vision for art than the kitsch and design of mainstream consumer tastes.

The anarchistic views of Hessians rest in their fundamental choice to have will, rather than reaction, as their response to life. To be informed and to be of mental presence to make decisions, they say, is a fundamental part of the valuable capacity of being alive. Society is here to make room for the individual to create and to be, they say, not to glorify the process of society and to make it more demanding, more greedily afraid of its own destruction.

Through the needs of our industrial machinery we have enslaved ourselves to bureaucracy and the weakness of human need in the power-deprived state of an anonymous modern individual. We have seen, they say, the order of our grandparents and parents grow stronger every day to enforce its arcane social restrictions yet it cannot stop the problems it bemoans, but only makes them stronger as symbols against its rule. We have seen how soon all was suspect, and anything outside the norm became fearful — we have seen also how easily the scared will run to this strong will of order, begging for their dose of power from the dominatrix, doubt.

A civilization that worships fear is nothing to us, they say, as we like the ancients choose a broader, faster, freer life. We choose our will and our dreams over fear.

Naturally this runs against the order of society: sit down and be sensible, provide for yourself or you might become lost (sheep without pension must retire in poverty, and sheep without property may be beaten by the sheepdogs of the herd). For this reason to most in society Hessiandom is an Icaran falling into the abyss of fire, consumption by internal angst (although most of the inner tension is caused by the external internalized), but to Hessians it is the freedom in the one honest voice they hear, which affirms the nihilism of survival, the degraded state of the human race, the victory of destruction over life, and the uselessness of civilization as conditions of existence.

More than the violence of punk rock or the dissidence of political music, this scares the public because of its ambiguous but menacing message of deconstruction. But ineffective control has led to anarchy anyway, an anarchy of a different sort: the equal response to suppression is rebellious destruction; the power of denial cannot file this off the walls of our memory. And so metal is denied, as it has not yet been broken down into enough of a mainstream consciousness to be accepted as anything other than aesthetic.

In the shadow of this denial Hessians have had to find a new way of understanding their existence, when it is not often acknowledged and never given any credit for being as intelligent and architected as it is. This enforced internalization has reached its peak in the romantic but morbid subgenre of Black Metal, which encourages a fascistic love of self and misanthropic hatred toward the world. Alas, Hessians in this world are tainted by its virus, and this over-extension is sometimes as much reaction as independent direction. However their metaphor speaks its truth plainly, and rebellious deconstructs any rules or beliefs that it can lay a hand upon.

But were there only silence, the spirit of the Hessian would continue, in the same proclamation that life makes oblivious of its communication, a nihilistic acceptance and aspiration toward the light as if to become the world rather than consume it. This translates, through the voices of memory and individual personality, to a universal level of thought that refines to a simple message and harmonizes in the medium of chaos. In this arena, the medium delivers the message: with no order, it is free, and it has proclaimed itself so with the organic complexity of chaotic recombinance.

The dark nihilistic rage of the winter gods of thunder presents the looming possibility of spring, of death beyond life and life beyond the living death of modern society. In the combination of musics at modernistic minimalism and romantic construction, metal brings forth a future that may offer more answers and less emptiness than our current adaptation of our collective existence.

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Gifted children find comfort in heavy metal

by Brett Stevens on April 10, 2013

heavy_metal_a_comfort_to_the_bright_childAs reported by The Telegraph and other news sources of quality, “intelligent teenagers often listen to heavy metal music to cope with the pressures associated with being talented,” according to new research.

The original research from the University of Warwick surveyed 1,067 students for their attitudes about family, school, leisure time and media. They found that students who ranked metal above other genres tended to have “lower self-esteem and ideas about themselves.”

Following up on that, the researchers interviewed gifted students to find their attitudes about heavy metal. These gifted students identified heavy metal as a source of catharsis and the release of pressures associated with school. More than a third of the top 5% of students in the UK rated heavy metal as their favorite type of music.

The study suggests that people listen to heavy metal because they are under pressure from what they perceive of daily life. As the researcher in charge of the study stated, “Perhaps the pressures associated with being gifted and talented can be temporarily forgotten with the aid of music. As one student suggests, perhaps gifted people may experience more pressure than their peers and they use the music to purge this negativity.”

This contradicts the notion that heavy metal causes the anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and other behaviors with which it is associated. Furthermore, it implies these behaviors may be the result of higher intelligence people attempting to integrate with our modern world and its declining social standards. Most likely, the research suggests, these are not problems but rational responses to the world around, and are the product of not a lower mindset but a higher one.

As another article pointed out, heavy metal is “a favoured music of 11-19 year olds with lower self-esteem than their peers” but that the “youngsters said they could connect with metal’s ‘politics’.” In other words, this is in response to the world itself and not the internal makeup of these people.

It could just be that if you notice enough of reality, heavy metal is the only music and corresponding sociocultural identity which can make sense out of what a smarter child can perceive.

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Does metal cause violence, or violence cause metal?

by Brett Stevens on April 10, 2013

the_heavy_moments_in_lifeWe recently had a mass stabbing here in Texas. Whenever we have a mass shooting anywhere in the world, I brace for the inevitable: they’re going to blame heavy metal.

They did it with Columbine. They tried it with a dozen others, blaming metal and/or industrial, even if the music wasn’t really “metal” at all. Since the 1980s, when Judas Priest got sued over supposedly backward-masked lyrics exhorting fans to kill themselves, it has been a common media trope to blame heavy metal for suicide, violence and self-harm.

A writer over at ScienceAlert asks the vital question of whether metal causes violence, or is caused by violence, in the context of an article on metal and self-harm.

First, the article points out that most people grasp the right meaning of song lyrics only 28% of the time on a four-song test, which puts us 3% ahead of guessing randomly. Even backward masking doesn’t seem to make a discernible impression.

The article dissipates a bit after that, attacking opera as likely to inspire suicide, and sort of missing the point there. Opera is about the heavy topics in life, lost lovers and regaining honor and other intense life-decisional topics, much like metal is.

In fact, if metal has a relationship to violence, it’s as neither cause of or caused by, but “aware of,” because metal is for realists who don’t deny the dark side of life as well as the light. If that was spurred on by early exposure to violence, horror, sadness or a lack of parental love, so be it — we all have to “wake up” sometime and face reality.

Fortunately, psychological research shows that they needn’t have bothered. Teenage metal fans are also more likely than most to suffer neglectful parents. That’s a much more credible explanation of why they’re drawn to both self-harming and a musical subculture that expresses their disaffection with mainstream society that has failed them.

From the article, it sounds like metalheads are just those who awaken a bit earlier. Opera fans tend to be in their 40s-80s and are aware of all that life entails, including those “heavy” decisions and heavy moments like saying goodbye to others or choosing aggression over passively accepting fate. But somehow, we never hear the media reasonably discussing this idea after a school shooting.

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