A Sadistic Dissection of Classic Pink Floyd

by Staff on March 23, 2016

Pink Floyd face palm

Article by David Rosales

Pink Floyd rightly reject the tag of progressive rock. Their compositional development falls light years short of what the best bands of that movement were doing with much better taste than Floyd’s false humble presumption. Pink Floyd’s most developed and experimental ambient moments merely point in the direction of the road that their more inspired and thoughtful contemporaries were traveling on. Klaus Schulze’s ambient work in Tangerine Dream is a true testament to experimental, electronic, and sampled music.

Floyd were pioneers at modern hipsterism in rock and metal as we know it today: a brain cancer that places weirdness and forced variety before artful coherence. Their undeserved praise is based on the simple fact that they are marketable to a wide audience. They wrote mediocre rock songs derived from the style of The Beatles: laughable in their ambient attempts and a headache when their ‘creativity’ ran too free. Pink Floyd’s only truly laudable moments are displayed in laid back, long-running rock songs that support narrative on melody lines, include justified interludes. These works approach the story-telling function that reigns in and maximizes the long-lasting impact of their early experimentalism.

A brief rundown of each of Pink Floyd’s early albums is given below in the interest of separating the little good from the large amounts of face-palming, pseudo-progressive posturing:

PInk Floyd Piper at the Gates of Dawn

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is too much of a name for too pathetic an album. A careless, random attempt at making Beatles songs take unexpected, sharp turns. .These are not at all pioneering as they simply abuse the Beatles’ wackier tendencies, creating interest through disjunction. These are poorly written pop songs with arbitrary appendages and nonsensical sounds: postmodernism meets banal rock music. Noteworthy are weird passages that sometimes build up to cumulative sequences  but these are sparse and lead nowhere.

 

Pink Floyd A Saucerful of Secrets

A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)
Pink Floyd moves on from The Beatles, adopting their postmodernist style consisting of  juxtapositions and sequences that might sound coherent if used in a movie soundtrack but that fall short and sound incomplete when presented as music alone. They get points for sounding weird but this work amounts to a childish joke: the kazoos, marimbas, and random found sounds are ridiculous.  People tend to like any entertaining piece of garbage. Ghost is an analogous modern band.

 

pink floyd more

More (1969)
Pink Floyd moves on to a bawdier expression of the so-called ‘folk’ rock n’ roll of Led Zeppelin with mediocre results. However, they also continue a refinement of the ambient-oriented light rock interludes. More is intensely nonsensical, free jazz-influenced postmodernist pap.

The songs tend to have unclear curves, directions, or points. These are either standard pop songs that fade away or jumbled messes of random ideas breaking down into incongruent parts. The more laid back and standard pop songs with only moderate introductions,  extraneous noises are the most pleasant; they still retain a certain sense of order that doesn’t render them oustanding but intelligible. Their surface traits attain purpose and balance in a way that finally approaches beauty. The random and bunk interludes remain unbearable though. This is music for those who wish to pose as music lovers yet cannot focus on actual ideas and aural concepts that birth, raise, and live lives of their own.

 

Pink Floyd Ummagumma

Ummagumma (1969)
1969’s second release is a much more consciously structured concept album. Again, Pink Floyd bring forth something that is more akin to a weirdo-funny soundtrack that evokes the idiocy of Ghost minus Ghost’s complete lack of talent. The conceptual focus brings to the album a shadow of meaning that is completely lacking from any of their prior releases. We can appreciate their compositional boundaries when the non-interlude tracks crumble and lose coherence in the middle.  Entropy at work. The rest of the tracks are simply silly and completely unpurposeful as the band strums away in extremely simple cyclic orderings that are never resolved; they just slide away with no heads or tales. This is music that brings nothing except a meta-feeling of strangeness and not-so-unique uniqueness to make the ego feel smarter for ‘liking’ it.

 

pink floyd atom heart mother

Atom Heart Mother (1970)
Here, Pink Floyd start to display the sound they will be known for at the time of their zenith. The music flows smoothly and the randomness of sampled sounds is attenuated as they thought more this time around. While everything before Atom Heart Mother is utterly worthless, this album approaches the more orderly works their contemporaries with stronger classical influences. Pink Floyd’s music remains singularly simple but exquisitely developed; the messy pretentiousness is boxed in and reserved for very specific moments. They remain unable to capitalize, creating promising initial ideas but driving them into swamps, becoming brackish in their underlying repetitiveness. The suite bears the weight of the album; the rest of the songs are inconsequential and unworthy of notice.

 

pink floyd meddle

Meddle (1971)
A coming of age for Pink Floyd.  The band is finally able to synthesize the concrete and promising aspects of their music, leaving behind much of the earlier nonsense which must have been explored in a completely intuitive manner. This album sees Pink Floyd apparently learning from their more cerebral peers (King Crimson had released several albums, Genesis was releasing their sophomore record, and Yes was arriving at their most meaningful expression alongside but completely separate from Pink Floyd) and trying to give continuity to the album itself: more tasteful attention is given to details inside songs which are somewhat melodically developed. The band is still mostly unable to conclude them, resorting to fades and cheap bale-outs. Most songs here are little better than augmented pop songs arranged with the whole album in mind, except for the longer stretches like the famous “Echoes”. This last track constitutes the net worth of this release; the rest may be dismissed without great loss.

 

pink floyd obscured by clouds

Obscured by Clouds (1972)
Obscured by Clouds starts out with an intro that might have inspired the work of later Tangerine Dream, who made worthwhile music out of what was merely a random snippet of Pink Floyd. After an album that promised to elevate the band beyond its all-too-mediocre shyness, Obscured by Clouds relies on underdeveloped pop songs, random cool-sounding interludes that are just there as they can be, and the snapshots of what would later constitute the sound of their most prominent mainstream success.

 

pink floyd dark side of the moon

The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
1973’s classic is probably the one and only Pink Floyd album worth dedicating precious moments of existence to. The Dark Side of the Moon is the final definitive sound of the band par excellence. Their crippling compositional shortsightedness is still present but they have learned to just deal with it through years of perseverance. Through years of refinement the band has turned their prior randomness into sharply-focused moments that finally assemble together yet always remaining unrelated cars in a train of pure intuition rather than one single narrative. Delightfully put-together, each moment in the wide repertoire from this jack-of-all-trades band is brought forth slowly in a way that feels necessary and justified. It has the expectation, delivery and dissolution that any good album should envy.

The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd’s crowning achievement, deserves an honorable mention, perhaps a footnote under true masterpieces of popular art music that came out the following year through other talents. King Crimson’s Red, Genesis’s The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Gentle Giant’s The Power and the Glory are albums that appear smooth and simple but are truly only so in appearance. An unseen force is channeled through their inner alignment: complexity is made to seem easy and complex thought condenses into naturally-flowing music that effectively suscitates clear images in the mind’s eye.

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Blood Incantation – Interdimensional Extinction (2015)

by Staff on March 5, 2016

bi - id

Article by Corey M

Blood Incantation released their debut EP Interdimensional Extinction last year  to little fanfare. Having heard one of the US death metal band’s songs on a Dark Descent compilation, I was highly anticipating this release and was not disappointed. However, other respectable authors have dismissed it without giving it the attention it deserves. Because I’ve only grown to appreciate this EP more over the last several months, I intend to elaborate on Blood Incantation’s strengths, because I believe they deserve more coverage.

Guitars are the focus of and main engine of Blood Incantation’s music. Typically one guitar plays chords in rhythmic bursts to support the other guitars which harmonize faster-moving and more complex melodies. An excellent balance between the low-register rhythm chords and the weird-and warbly-leads is always maintained. During high-tension segments, the guitars mainly play in unison for maximum impact, and during some of the more paranormal passages, the drums and rhythm intensity are dialed back just enough to open up space for the imaginative and unpretentious leads. The best of the guitar solos remind me of those on In the Nightside Eclipse, sharing that ability be technically modest yet very evocative. Blood Incantation’s flailing-tentacle leads mysteriously manage to reflect or echo the dynamics of the chord pattern underneath, achieving symbiosis with the rhythm guitars and drums, even while ratcheting up the tension to the point of anticipating a total musical disintegration. Other times, leads are used to gracefully close out a song, resolving the musical stress by harmonically tying together the wildly whipping threads of various melody.

Vocals are perfectly competent and never interfere with the shape of the riffs, partially due to having a more forward-sounding presence in the mix, compared to the guitars which cast a broader curtain of sound and envelop the rest of the instruments. Drums are in thrall to the guitars, and when the guitar rhythm turns odd or just a little unorthodox, they provide an unobtrusive, robust foundation on which the highly melodic riffs build. Special mention must go to the session player with the fretless bass, who plays in the technically adventurous death metal band Stargazer. Giving each a riff an uncanny, slithery feel, the fretless adds another layer of harmonic depth and texture in a way that is underutilized or outright ignored by many death metal bands.

On the extra-musical side, Interdimensional Extinction‘s cover art is not only very cool, but an effective visual representation of the themes present in the music, featuring a distant planetary body surrounded by an orbital ring of human skeletal bits. Human skulls are always related to human death and sometimes death in general, as a concept that extends further than the merely personal, into the planetary, the celestial, and yes, even the “interdimensional”! This far-out unearthly realm is what Blood Incantation attempts to explore, as their perspective encompasses not only human death, but death as a common fate for all for all systems of organized energy, from a single bacterium to the largest galactic cluster. Does the band intentionally attempt to establish a sympathetic link between humans and non-human things by relating us all under the empirical inevitability of death? Maybe; maybe not, but these are the sorts of imaginal realms that great death metal can take a listener’s mind.

All four songs on this EP are proficiently crafted and offer the very thing that most lovers of death metal are either actively searching for at least glad to hear; death metal in its unadulterated language, but through a distinctive dialect. Perhaps the band’s native Colorado landscape has informed their intuitive songwriting, as each song moves through jagged peaks and rolling valleys, organically and without pretense. Due to the clarity of the arrangements and mixing, the songs are actually relatively easy to follow, and riffs do not hide behind distracting, murky guitar tones or gratuitous reverb. There may appear to be similarities with Demilich or Immolation, but they are only skin-deep, and Blood Incantation use intriguingly idiosyncratic methods of riff development and song structuring. All things considered, including that I have been listening to this solidly for six months now, I can only think of good reasons to recommend this EP.

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On The Music of Demilich

by Staff on February 25, 2016

demilich-20th-adversary-of-emptiness

Article by David Rosales; get more perspective by also reading his article on Timeghoul

Much has been said about Demilich here and elsewhere, but remarkably little has been written about the potential of their music as ground for future bands to elaborate. For starters, the fact that Demilich has a solid fanbase and many admirers among professional musicians, but very few bands produce music in the same vein tells us that it is no easy task. This may also be due to the fact that most people tend to confuse appearances with mechanics, and mechanics in turn with character and essence. It seems to me that there is very little to elaborate, since Demilich is only distinctive at its very surface, in a very similar case to Immolation’s. Anything anybody may take from them besides this sort of surface plagiarism are the abstract concepts of loosening and playing with rhythm and mode consistently to achieve a distinctive sound. Perhaps even taking cues from their distinctive style could yield the foundation for the trademark sound of a younger band.

First, what makes Demilich stand out is their idiomatic approach to death metal that takes the best out of playing with tritones and off-putting harmonies in the context of the gore-flavored aura strand of the genre. Where Immolation goes for uncomfortable and dissonant, Demilich takes the modal/harmonic and rhythmic aspects of death metal to the extreme of this aural potential without incurring in the surface character deconstruction of Immolation’s coloring. Both of these bands, however, make use of standard death metal song-wide structuring techniques of the riff-salad kind with motific liaisons.

This surface extravagance coupled with an inner orthodoxy makes it very tricky for anyone to successfully extract the core of their teachings. In the case of Demilich even more so, since it is the silly side of their music’s character that stands out the most, making it particularly difficult to emulate them without producing obvious imitations. This may lead younger bands to think that a particularly derivative passage’s conspicuous appearance might be mitigated by mixing it into a hodgepodge of different styles and sounds. But to the perceptive listeners out there this will only sound like a motley fabric, a bag o’ tricks on display intended to fill in for actual content (Editor’s note: Have we told you about carnival music?).

Finally, superficial appreciation of the music of Demilich often leads fans to single out their music as “progressive”, as “opposed to traditional death metal”. Frequent readers of this site should immediately identify the grave mistake in this. Be that as it may, when you take the misunderstanding how progressive death metal in general is, and you put it together with the common metalhead’s idea of what progressive rock or metal is, you may begin to envision the monumental blunders that might come as a result.

Rather than insert Demilich-sounding passages into modern Dream Theater soundtracks, the young death metal musician might take head from the way Demilich balances out their outlandish sound. Demilich’s music, when seen at an abstract and aural level, can be divided into passages that are either more pounding, more syncopated or what we now call doom-laden (Demilich never stops too much in these power chord phrasal statements, though, so they do not really stand out). The emphasis on groove and the goofy-gore character is a constant that gives them their trademark sound.

The value of these concepts lies in learning how to produce sections that create variety within a narrative, with a distinctive and constant language that lends a personality of its own to the music. The narrative is produced through the equivalent of formal statements, developments, pauses for air, retaking of the topic, etc, in their musical manifestations. This is the greatest value of the best classic death metal bands: their outstanding ability to articulate.

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Sadistic Metal Reviews mini-feature – Barbaric Horde – Gasmask Perpetrators (2016)

by Staff on February 12, 2016

barbaric horde
Article by David Rosales

One of the greatest curses of the Internet age is that every kind of garbage can be marketed as “art”. Labels pop out of nowhere only to pump out bad excuses for music; albums not even the people who wrote them can remember a week after they listen to them. Barbaric Horde’s Gasmask Perpetrators is one such worthless package.

While we insist that cliches of music are themselves not the problem, as they only constitute solidified code words of an artistic circle or movement, these really do need to be used to express something unique. What good is a book that has no spirit of its own, no story of its own? What good is an album that plays the same old tropes in exactly the same way with nothing but a mere reproduction of what has come before it? If not for its overall air of mediocrity, Barbaric Horde should be reprimanded for wasting anyone’s time with absolutely nothing but empty statements and pseudo-underground statements. If you believe you are underground so much, then you do not try to be so by emulating the exterior of the sound of what today is known as classic “underground”. If you believe you are truly underground, you stay so by staying hidden, not by imposing your third-rate crap on all of our ears. Anyone who doesn’t understand this is at best a poser deserving of all your elitist contempt.

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Dystopia revisited: The political trap

by Gabe Kagan on February 8, 2016

megadeth

Metal journalists are yet again falling into to the trap that of believing that the differences in their political opinions and those of the bands they cover are somehow a valid criterion for judging the overall merit of the music they’re listening to. It happens every day when a prospective metalhead first learns about Burzum, and it more recently has permeated how we interact with the horde of propaganda bands out there who never let a good song get in the way of a good slogan. Megadeth’s latest full-length (Dystopia) wasn’t quite that heavy handed as a mouthpiece for Dave Mustaine’s politics (and indeed, I found it to be a banal and sterile experience compared to the band’s more ambitious early work on its musical elements alone), but it expresses enough of an opinion through its lyrics that it stung a few dissenters.

Illustrating this neurosis today are two reviews of Megadeth’s latest that are more concerned with David Mustaine’s politics than his musical efforts. First, a writer for the AV Club had to stress that even though they enjoyed the music, they were also certain that “…there’s simply no room in our already fear-laden culture for any more xenophobia”. Another review hosted on Cisternyard Media is more critical of the music, but is otherwise similar in its condemnation. Interestingly, they explicitly mention a similar level of political fervor in Megadeth’s earlier works, which doesn’t exactly attract their vitriol, and therefore helps to illustrate the writers’ specific beef with their positions.

These reviewers’ criticisms read like a poorly written tutorial on how to be the perfect social justice warrior, railing against the injustices that are clearly inherent in Dystopia‘s lyrics that therefore requiring immediate shaming and censorship, and then making lasting friends with other like-minded people in the process. The other major problem with these reviews is that they discuss the actual sound and execution of the music in an exceedingly shallow manner at best, instead choosing to be seduced by Megadeth’s technical wizardry. Given that they’ve already rejected Dystopia for not being politically kosher, I’m not expecting them to attempt more advanced topics, such as “Does Dystopia‘s songwriting effectively complement the themes Dave Mustaine is trying to convey?”, but that is a venial sin at best, given that your average metal critic cares little for musical analysis. If they continue to pursue their political vendettas, though, the odds of them writing anything significant on these subjects is nil.

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Classical and Pop Metal – Part 2 (Inadequacy of Existing Definitions)

by Staff on February 6, 2016

800px-Grand_Piano_1781_France_-_Louis_Bas

Article by David Rosales, 2nd installment of a 7 part series; read the first part here

Most people with no formal training regard pop as a subset of the many kinds of music genres they can possibly listen to that are not considered “classical”. This implies a delimited genre that is easy to listen to, particularly repetitive, and with a strong emphasis on catchy choruses that form the whole of the content. It’s considered superficial even by those who profess to love it, who do so in a tongue-in-cheek manner. It’s all about the fun, they say. Classical music actually has two definitions, but the popular take on it is that it’s boring and long-winded music written and performed by some old men and nerds at school.

Modern academia unofficially defines “popular music” simply as “everything that is not what we do”. Sadly, they impress upon this broader group the same restrictions that non-academics would on their particular “pop” genre. It is obvious to anyone who explores so-called popular music beyond The Beatles or Michael Jackson that this definition is more of a belligerent and dismissive gesture than a sincere attempt at distinguishing what is a much richer well of music. In short, it is an indirect way to claim the irrelevance of anything that is not academic music.

When confronted with this reality, either through accidental exposition (such as a music teacher dealing with the musical tastes of a classroom with varied musical backgrounds) or as a result of a casual debate, it is not uncommon to see academics jump through hoops to justify an out of hand prejudice or a forced humanist humility that will accept the most vulgar and banal musics as a valid expression of the soul. In either case, real discernment is sorely missing. Also, that the musical academic establishment hilariously wants to keep calling itself “classical tradition” when they have abandoned all but the most materialistic of the original precepts is a sign of their arbitrary and lazy attitude towards music that is not spoon-fed to them (oddly, a reflection of the same attitude of most mundane popular music listeners).

When we accept that music goes beyond mere forms, beyond parts and consists not only of the instruments, or the notes, or the intentions but is truly an entity completely apart born from these elements, we tacitly acknowledge that the terms used to describe genres most also go beyond the surface and take into account holistic considerations. For this, both current uses of the terms “popular” and “classical” music are not only unsuitable, but defined unevenly. While pop music is defined in very narrow and simplistic terms, classical music is considered this vast and unrestricted attitude that is only tied together “objectively” through the most superficial and politically-motivated arguments.

Those with a serious background in academic music would readily accept that correct distinctions have to lie at a metaphysical level, even though we must necessarily judge them through concrete notes and forms. It is here that the average person becomes bewildered, at a loss since he is no longer able to make universal egalitarian statements. The key to untangling this moral conundrum is to be truly scientific about the matter and take into account the context at several different levels, in which music develops. The distinction between the broad groups distinguished through our new “classical” and “pop” (to avoid using the noun) terms take on a much more abstract though still nebulous character.

That it is abstract does not mean that it cannot be decided or that concrete music analysis cannot be applied. It simply means that strong contextualization is a must, and that the fact that art can never be objective, because the whole of the human experience is itself necessarily subjective. This in no moment means that standards should be lowered, but that standards should be understood not at a superficial level of complexity, but in the interplay between intention and realization in proper context. For this, the concepts of natural and artificial, inner and outer, as well as transcendence need be discussed and understood.

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Megadeth – Dystopia (2016)

by Gabe Kagan on January 25, 2016

megadeth_dystopia

Megadeth has cycled between obvious mainstream rock pandering and careful imitation of their best appreciated works at an ever accelerating rate since their reformation in 2004. If this trend keeps up, they’ll be changing styles with every strum of their guitars in a few years. Dystopia isn’t quite as quick to alter its own sounds as that rather implausible hypothetical peak, but it’s still obviously colored by two colliding trends; Dave Mustaine’s desire to outsell Metallica, and the fact that even relatively extreme metal can sell enormous volumes in 2016. This makes what would be yet another comeback album into a surprisingly disjointed experience at times.

In general, Dystopia provides its potential listeners with several varieties of vintage Megadeth to peruse at their leisure, ranging from the technical wizardry of the ’80s and Rust in Peace (arguably the musical peak of this band) to the streamlined pop metal that immediately followed such, and even hints of recent albums through conceptual and musical continuity. Beyond the vocals of Dave Mustaine and the frequent guitar leads, though, there’s little that distinguishes this from other poppy speed metal of the mid 2010s, especially since this is one of those dime-a-dozen studio perfect recordings with perfectly appropriate production and instrumentation. One definite problem, however is that Dave Mustaine’s vocal and lyrical contributions have decayed in quality in recent years. Megadeth’s always been political at the best of times, but more often than not the lyrics devolve into political sloganeering that might be appropriate if he actually ran for president of the USA. In song format, though, all they do is annoy, irritate, and pander. Mustaine also relies increasingly on digital processing to mask the age-related decay of his voice, most notably on “Fatal Illusion“. This isn’t an innately bad thing, and you could theoretically make a case for the chorusing and harmonies opening new ideas for Megadeth to explore, but it pushes unneeded emphasis on the vocals, so even the average listener that decides that the technique sounds kind of cool might find it grating regardless. Perhaps I shouldn’t be focusing on the vox too much, but when the rest of the album is competent and yet unremarkable, it’s sometimes the only option.

In short, Dystopia is kind of disposable; most metal albums that try to approximate known classics are. It’s still better than Repentless, but the “Big Four” have all since run out of momentum, which makes Dystopia‘s slick technical competence marred by excessive streamlining even more unremarkable than it would otherwise be. The last time Megadeth tried their hands at this, they cranked out Endgame, which was well received at the time of its release and generally similar in approach, but has since faded from the public eye. Do you still have space in your listening rotation for Endgame? If you don’t, you won’t have time for Dystopia either.

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Spinefarm Records acquires Candlelight Records

by Gabe Kagan on January 19, 2016

spinefarm logo

According to a source at Blabbermouth, the owners of Candlelight Records in the UK have recently sold their assets to Spinefarm Records in Finland. By doing this, they have consolidated even more label power into Universal Media Group. For now, former Candlelight members keep their previous licensing deals, and the deal has prompted the usual pieces of corporate rhetoric; what becomes of the former label’s assets is really more of a question for the roster. Spinefarm and Candlelight Records have both made indelible marks on metal history by releasing many famous metal recordings. In Spinefarm’s case, this includes formative works by Sentenced and Beherit, while Candlelight brought out Emperor’s studio work, as well as the debuts of Havohej and Opeth. Both went on to even more commercially successful artists.

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Condemner – Omens of Perdition (2015)

by Staff on January 16, 2016

Condemner - Omens of Perdition - cover

Article by David Rosales

Published as an EP last year, Omens of Perdition is a minimalist death metal act that could easily draw comparisons with Desecresy. They share the spacious (and spacey-vortexy) approach to an Incantation like style through the sound of the Finns. When we go into particulars, however, the differences make it clear that resemblances are mostly a matter of general sound preferences, not methodology.

While Desecresy as most perfectly materialized in Stoic Death gives us a Finnish death metal that depends on high-note, short melodies as hooks with laid-back riffs for support, meat and almost harmonic accompaniment, Condemner goes through no such hoops, cutting to the chase, delivering an unrefined but naturally compelling train of dark thoughts. Riffs in Omens of Perdition are essentially melodies with few notes that constitute the bare-bone themes of the music, with nothing else but a bass unison and soft-punch, minimalist blast-beating drums.

These drums are played lightly but insistently, providing for emphasis on dynamics and accent in an application somewhat reminiscent of Paul Ledney’s style on Dethrone the Son of God by Havohej without the occasional flair. Rather than complement each other, the instrumentation in this music forms a total unison, even the percussion. Intensity varies evenly, changes affect all instruments towards the same side of the spectrum. When arriving at the slowest and vastest, the music may even exhibit silences on the drums, while huge guitar power chords roar as the drums only mark accents, reminding one of certain parts of Skepticism’s Stormcrowfleet.

Songs alternate thematic riffs that run over mirroring, enhancing drums, with scantly-clad doomy statements covered by a mantle of skeletal power chords. To the detriment of this otherwise quite satisfying music, what effaces the identity of individual songs (and of the release and band itself) is the complete lack of obvious climaxes. We can also take this as both the strength and willing limitation of Condemner, which presents a clear, solid monolithic picture. This steadiness may allow the author to draw an abstract parallel with J.S. Bach’s fugal writing for the keyboard or chorales.

While there doesn’t seem to be any particular goal in Condemner Omens of Perdition, the straight-forward treatment is accompanied by an inconspicuously dexterous development of themes. This in itself is more than could be wished as a saving grace. It becomes both a protection of higher music from the pop-hook addicts and a mystical gateway which opens up through direct intuitional experience to he who is listening.

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Interview with Sadist (Italy)

by Gabe Kagan on January 8, 2016

Promo pic for "Hyaena"

Perhaps it was to be expected from the quality of their earlier works, but Sadist’s Hyaena was one of the high points of what I listened to in 2016. With that in mind, I took the opportunity this Italian band provided to perform an email interview, with some hope of getting some insight into what makes Sadist themselves.

The band’s vocalist (Trevor Nadir) fielded my questions, discussing the past, present, and future of the band and giving us a better picture of what went into Hyaena in particular.

You formed in 1990, right in the middle of the first major flowering of death metal. What was the metal scene in Italy like back then?

TREVOR: Happy Metal Year!
The 90’s were very important for the Death Metal. Death, Cynic, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Deicide, Obituary, Morbid Angel and many others have contributed to birth and consolidation of the genre. In our country there were many Death Metal bands. It was certainly much more difficult, the correspondence with the other bands was only through physical mail. I’m very close to Death Metal of the 90s, for me the music stopped at that time, have a nostalgic and I would go back to those years. Sadist was the first band in Europe to add keyboards to Death Metal, we have always been a band that likes to experiment, keyboards were a strange thing, especially in those years, but we are very proud, this is our trademark, of which we are proud of still!

This is a more obvious question, but who are your influences? Have they changed with time?
TREVOR: Each of us listens to different music, perhaps for this reason, the sound of Sadist is contaminated with various styles. Sadist is absolutely a Techno Death Metal band, although in our sound there are other inspirations too: We all love Italian 70’s prog and ethnic music as well. In the past we experienced may ethnic instruments but the new album Hyaena, although it may be misleading, this is not an album about Africa, but on a concept centered around a ruthless predator, who lives in Africa.

We are professional people, we like to be prepared before to put out a new album and we always need to be satisfied of it, first of all. Sadist is a band devoted to technical, Tommy, Andy and Alessio are very prepared musicians, people who have dedicated their lives to their instruments, and very serious guys with one and only personal goal: to always improve. The technique is certainly important but, above all, we must think about the songwriting, the technique must be functional to the music and not an end in itself.

Building off the previous question – how has it changed in the last 25 years?
TREVOR: 25 years ago it was different, it was definitely difficult. Today we are doing interviews via email, on a day we can connect several times around the world, work remotely is something normal. Think of how hard could it be that only a few years ago, can reach somebody or something. However there is also something that works worse, in fact I think that today, it’s all too much and take away, music, bands are increasingly less durable and is no longer the time for rock stars. There is a great saturation and the band, especially the younger ones make great effort to stand out, it is increasingly a question of money. This is not a good time, we hope that the trend changes.

What inspired you to make a concept album about hyenas?
TREVOR: I always take care of the lyrics and the concept album of the album too. I’m a convinced naturalist, I always loved and respected very much the wild hyena. It’s a skillful hunter, smart, and very strong, many people believe it is only an animal that feeds on carrion, a thief, a street sweeper, but this is a myth, the hyenas are ruthless hunters, animals with incredible strength and intelligence, adaptable to any situation. Inside text can be found habits of the herd, hunting tactics, ancient legend which tells that the hyena is ride from the devil, the brutal nature of the animal devour their prey alive. Our music is brutal and the combination with the hyena was something natural, we are talking about an extremely brutal animal. We were lucky enough to pose for new photos with a skull of a hyena, who died in 1888, and we have thank for that all the staff of the Museum of Natural History “G. Doria” in Genoa, Italy.
I love Hyaena…

Another promotional pic for Hyaena

Hyaena strikes me as, at least in part, inspired by recent developments in metal and progressive music (although I can hear some of this on the previous album as well). Is this your intent? Any particularly recent musical influences of interest?
TREVOR: I would say no, simply Season in Silence was supposed to be a springboard to do better next time and we believe that Hyaena is now the most mature album of the band. Every Sadist’s album has different sounds, We are a band that remains faithful to experience, which is why our albums sound different from one another. Season in Silence is colder, both for the lyrics and the music, with Hyaena instead we resumed ethnic and tribal instruments, close to Mediterranean tradition. It’s hard to make terms of comparison… Although, as mentioned before, We are certain that this is the best chapter of the band up today.
Hyaena is a very Sadist album, containing our Death Metal matrix, but at the same time it was our intention to go back on the tribal and ethnic sounds, already used on albums like Tribe and Sadist. On Hyaena We wanted to get to the bottom and We’ve asked for help from Jean N’Dyaie, a great musician, a talented African percussionist. We simply wanted to bring to African culture, their sounds, their habits, We need all of this. Tommy has played many instruments linked to African tradition, like the oud and the santur, We did a thorough search in the traditional sound. Hyaena is a Death Metal, brutal, tribal, ethnic, Mediterranean and terribly Sadist album!

Since you’ve had a keyboardist from the beginning – how do you go about adding keyboard parts to your music?
TREVOR: As mentioned earlier, Sadist born with keyboards, this is our strong identity. Tommy is now known, as the musician playing two instruments simultaneously. It’s an incredible musician. Needless to say, many songs take ideas from the structure of the keyboards, the initial ideas on which is built the structure of the song. We could not think of Sadist without keyboards. We are then to be honest these keyboards are the instruments that characterize the disturbing and horrific soul of our band.

Many of the tracks on Hyaena avoid merely using simple verse/chorus structures. How formal/planned is your composition process these days?
TREVOR: We are a Techno Death Metal band, surely, it is true, however, that we want to keep in mind that we are talking about the songs and the structure has its own importance. Get Death, a band that was technically prepared, but it certainly can not be said that they did not songs, the whole song is what you have to stay ahead. We must try to give space to each individual instrument, absolutely, but one thing is certain, the song is not to be raped.

As a corollary to that, has the way you approach songwriting changed significantly throughout your career?
TREVOR : Sadist is a band that works as a team. Each of us carries out our task to the best of its ability. We are ambitious people, who do not save. Music and lyrics are walking side by side, while Andy, Tommy and Alessio were busy writing songs, I was far from the chaos of the city, and I took care of the lyrics. Each of us is aware of what it takes to the band, the certain sound, the particular phrase.The initial ideas are dictated by Tommy and Andy, though, with the new album, the contribution of Andy was particularly important; really inspired when writing riffs. Our music is generated accordingly to the issues addressed in this way we can have the right impact.

What’s your favorite part of Hyaena? What’s something you think can been improved?
TREVOR: We are very happy about the new album. Sometimes it happens that at the end of the recordings you think something could be improved, this has not happened this time. We worked in our Nadir Music Studios, by taking the time needed, working with the necessary calm you can afford to do things in the best way. Personally I am very attached to “The Lonely Mountain”, it’s the first videoclip for the album, a song that’s very Death Metal.

What other bands, metal or not, do you guys listen to/think are worth following these days?
TREVOR: There are so many good bands, but as mentioned before, are tied to Death Metal. The 70/80’s and 90’s have spoken and given a lot to the music, it’s hard to think of something new. Despite the young guys, all play very well, maybe what it is not is their originality or at least their attempt at being original. Having everything at once is perhaps killing their genius.

A question lifted from another interview we had on our site: What do you attempt to capture, express or communicate through your music? Or is this even the goal of music? Is music communication or decoration? What is the goal of your art?
TREVOR: Making music is an art form, certainly. The messages may be different. Playing Death Metal means venting their anger inward on the system, but at the same time means telling, through the lyrics, your thinking or your mood, this also peer through the melodies of the instrument. The music is not only heard, it should be read, viewed, stored.

What are your plans for the future like? Any upcoming touring or new material we should know about, or is it too early to say?
TREVOR: As for the promotion, by the time we organized with our label Scarlet Records, we want to make a great team effort, people are professional and prepared, and there is great mutual respect. But a good promotion also involves the live set, which is why we started to try, are not canonical songs, and certainly not easy to play on stage, you need preparation. About upcoming releases, together with our booking agency (Live Nation) are working on the next steps, we received a number of proposals, even for a couple of tours in Europe, we expect to be on stage as soon as possible, we are excited by the idea of play the new songs. We want to do our best, in any event, provide a spectacular show to the public , carry the name Sadist as high as possible, and then who knows, reprint the first album and think of a new album. We’ll play at the next Hellfest, and other festival, and we hope to play in the USA; we have many friends and fans who are waiting for us.

If you have any closing remarks you want to make, now is a good time to write them.
TREVOR: For many years I documented the animal in question. I’m really interested, especially for its hunting techniques, although not underestimate the importance of the pack and hierarchies within the same. Animals are crazy, very strong, resistant, challenging and hunt prey much larger than them, and at the same time you also have to cope with other predators, much larger. In this respect, according to what was said earlier, is the number to make a difference. The hyena is a voracious predator that brutally tears apart its prey, an unwitting and innocent murderess. Not scavengers, nor thieves, and they don’t eat only carrion, absolutely not, indeed, are sometimes other animals, such as lions, hyenas to steal the hunted. For many years I document, through books, movies, stories. Television is a stupid means, however, in the 80’s and onward, it allowed me to deepen this interest, thanks to interesting documentaries.
The hyena is an incredible animal, charming, because it’s my favorite predator. We must dispel the myth, the hyena is not only a scavenger carnivore, it also feeds on carrion, but is a skilled hunter, which has a strong team spirit and where within the song applies a strict hierarchy, where the matriarch has absolute power. He saids that the devil comes in the night riding a hyena, and that that the hyenas dig up the corpses. After their death the eyes turn into stones, and Zambezi sorcerers, devourers of men, took the form of a hyena, they appeared to the dead, that they rose and were torn to pieces. Around the campfire, it consumes the sacrifice of a young goat, putrid flesh of zombies and fresh meat for the last dinner. All of this is “The Devil Riding the Evil Steed”.

All the best to you, staff and readers. Stay Brutal!

Trevor Sadist

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