The Metal File recently interviewed Voivod drummer Michel “Away” Langevin. To no surprise, the interview mainly concerns the band’s new (thirteenth) album, Target Earth, released on January 22nd by Iron Gang Factory and Century Media.
According to Langevin one of the reasons why the album sounds a lot like earlier Voivod is because bassist Jean-Yves “Blacky” Thériault is back in the band after a 17 year absence, being closely involved in the songwriting with new guitarist Dan “Chewy” Mongrain. Among all the “very progressive” songs with “strange time signatures”, Langevin requested to include two more thrash-y songs à la Motörhead, which resulted in “Kluskap O’Kom” and in the band’s first French song, “Corps Étranger”.
Langevin also says that due to Voivod’s 30th anniversary this month, the band plans live tours throughout the world this year, starting in Canada, crossing North and South America, then going to Europe and ending in Asia. In between tours they want to write new material. The past is alive.
On January 1st, England’s Abyssal released their second album of decomposing death metal via digital download.
Deriving influences from early Immolation, Incantation, and most noticeably Arkhon Infaustus; Abyssal executes their lust for decay and molds it into a good mixture of modern death/doom metal. If a rat gnawing at a corpse manifested into a soundtrack, this would be suiting.
“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay.” – Ernst Fischer
Middle earth sweeping epic metal band Summoning are due to release their next full-length soon. Old Morning’s Dawn will follow after a lengthy gap the spectacular and critically-acclaimed Oath Bound released seven years ago.
After black metal fired off its initial salvo by 1995, Summoning rose from a melodic black metal band into their own style, which meshed longer melodies, lush keyboards and backgrounded guitars, Tolkien-derived imagery and softened but rasping vocals. Building on the work of other long-phrase black metal bands like Ancient, early Enslaved and Gorgoroth, but using its own sense of tempo and mood, Summoning quickly became a favorite for many who were searching for a new direction after the underground blazed out with a final peak of intensity in albums like Transilvanian Hunger and Hvis Lyset Tar Oss.
This weighty inheritance would be too much for any band to handle, but Summoning have refined it over the years, first adding more traditional folk elements and then dialing it back to a streamlined metal sound. During that time, they’ve also fought off accusations of political impropriety and overcome personnel changes and the mercurial black metal scene/market. With their audience primed with the release of the recent movie The Hobbit, Summoning are ready for conquest yet again.
Proto-death metal ear smashers Master launch an ambitious tour in 2013 in support of their newest album, which sounds the most like modern death metal since their popular On the Seventh Day… release. Catch them in your city or suffer ignominious sodomy!
Fri. March 1st – Los Angeles, CA @ The Joint
Sat.March 2nd – Richmond, CA @ Burnt Ramen
Sun.March 3rd – Portland, OR @ The Branx
Mon.March 4th – Seattle, WA @ 2 Bit Saloon
Tue. March 5th – Boise, ID @ The Red Room
Wed.March 6th – Salt Lake City, UT – TBA
Thu. March 7th – Cheyenne, WY @ Forum619
Fri. March 8th – Topeka, KS @ The Boobie Trap
Sat.March 9th – St. Louis, MO @ Fubar
Sun.March 10th – Madison, WI @ The Frequency
Mon.March 11th – Chicago, IL @ Reggie’s Rock Club
Tue. March 12th – Warren, MI @ The Ritz
Wed. March 13th – Rochester, NY @ Bug Jar
Thu. March 14th – New England – TBA
Fri. March 15th – Brooklyn, NY @ Saint Vitus Bar
Sat. March 16th – Philadelphia, PA @ Gunners Run
Sun. March 17th – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
Tue. March 19th – Chattanooga, TN – TBA
Wed.March 20th – New Orleans, LA @ Siberia
Thu. March 21st – Fort Worth, TX @ Tomcats West
Fri. March 22nd – Oklahoma City@Chameleon Room
Sat. March 23rd – Houston, TX @ BFE Rock Club
Sun. March 24th – Austin, TX @ Dirty Dog Bar
Mon. March 25th – Midland, TX @ Fast Freddy’s
Tue. March 26th – El paso, TX @ House of Rock
Wed.March 27th – Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
Fri. March 29th – Mexicali, MX @ Bar El Andariego
Sat. March 30th – Pomona, CA @ Characters
Sun. March 31st – CA – TBA
Mon.April 1st – Fullerton, CA @ Slidebar
Even with lingering budget woes, the San Antonio Symphony is proceeding with their plans to perform Johannes Brahms’ inflectional contributions to Classical Music. 2012 saw the SA Symphony successfully stage a Beethoven Festival which received good reviews.
Created and curated by Sebastian Lang-Lessing, the program consists of all four Symphonies, both Piano Concertos, the Double Concerto for Violin and Cello, and more. It starts February 8th and concludes February 17th, at the rustic Majestic Theater in Downtown San Antonio.
Known as a nature enthusiast and sarcastic, akin to Beethoven, Brahms’ First Symphony has often been referred to as a ‘Beethoven’s 10th’. There is no doubt that Brahms was both intimidated and inspired by Beethoven, which contributed to the late bloomer’s compositions.
Century Media Records have given us some truly enjoyable metal gems throughout the years (and some really awful ones), but if ever we doubted their good intentions (haha), a look at this Amazon.de page tells us the Sacramentum classic Far Away from the Sun will be re-released next year on the 25th of January by said label.
Described in our DMU review as “a lucid but emotive tribute to the rebellious humanness of soul”, Sacramentum’s début album seems consistently hailed as a favourite among underground metal fans.
This is a boisterous track with the best recursive bashing tendencies of percussive death metal, but it drops in modern metal influences, such as a rather “rock” interlude and some sweeps in the carnival music style of modern metal. However, that’s a minority of this track. The rest is great riffcraft like we saw on Path of the Weakening and other essential Deeds of Flesh material. Please enjoy “Rise of the Virvum Juggernaut”:
One of the hidden influences on death metal, along with classical and progressive rock, was the wave of inventive ambient and electronica that came out in the 1970s.
In particular, this music like death metal, was highly structured in that verse-chorus structures would turn it into droning tedium. Thus it invented the narrative structures later used by death metal, the “riff gluing” as explained by Asphyx.
Mike Scaccia, the brilliant guitarist of Rigor Mortis and later, Ministry, has died. He collapsed onstage December 22, 2012 while performing with Rigor Mortis and could not be revived. He is survived by a wife and children, and much excellent music.
Before you read further, consider this song he created with Rigor Mortis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQURu5UqF40
What made Scaccia’s playing distinctive was his sense of melody, finely-tuned strumming and tendency to use more than low crunchy notes, as well as an ear for a quality riff and an ability to use precise arrangement to let a song unfold to the greatest impact on the listener.
No one wants to type words like this. This is a tragic loss for metal, for music and for humanity. Scaccia was not only a killer shredder, but widely acclaimed as a decent human being. He inspired many of us with his literate but emotionally intense music.
That music survives him and will serve as not only his legacy but the best insight into his character. What do you hear in this music? Darkness, beauty, equilibrium and violence. Like the man himself, more complex than a few paragraphs can do justice to, but also based of a fundamentally life-affirming but realistic outlook on existence.
It’s events like this that make me hope there is a Valhalla or reasonable equivalent. The body can die, but the greatness of a musical hero lives on long after the dirt obscures the coffin. We’ll be thinking of you, Mike, and the family and bandmates you left behind, with today’s all-Scaccia playlist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzDoVTsaN74
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDV3kGraKB0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvyXeKGIY1Y
Al Jourgensen (Ministry) tribute:
I JUST LOST MY LIL’ BROTHER AND MY BEST FRIEND – THE 13TH PLANET COMPOUND IS DEVASTATED,COMPLETELY IN SHOCK AND SHATTERED. MIKEY WAS NOT ONLY THE BEST GUITAR PLAYER IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC, BUT HE WAS A CLOSE, CLOSE, CLOSE PART OF OUR FAMILY – AND I JUST LOST A HUGE CHUNK OF MY HEART TODAY. OUR LIVES ARE FOREVER CHANGED. LIFE WITHOUT MIKEY IS LIKE ORANGE JUICE WITHOUT PULP – KIND OF BLAND. I HAVE NO WORDS TO EXPRESS WHAT THIS GUY MEANT TO ME, MY FAMILY, MY CAREER….EVERYTHING!
GET TO KNOW HIS LEAD PARTS – FOR THEY ARE IN THE PANTHEON OF MUSIC! UNFORTUNATELY, MOST OF YOU DIDN’T GET TO KNOW MIKEY’S SOUL -WHICH IS IN THE PANTHEON OF HUMANITY. HE IS MY HERO, MY FRIEND AND MY IDOL. MIKEY WAS ALWAYS BESIDE ME – MY RIGHT HAND MAN – THROUGH THICK AND THIN, THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY AND THE BEAUTIFUL.
REST IN PEACE MY BROTHER, MY FRIEND, MY HEART. PLEASE PRAY FOR MIKE SCACCIA AND JENNY, HIS WIFE AND THEIR CHILDREN, AND HIS FAMILY…..AL
The Metal File recently interviewed Voivod drummer Michel “Away” Langevin. To no surprise, the interview mainly concerns the band’s new (thirteenth) album, Target Earth, released on January 22nd by Iron Gang Factory and Century Media.
The 
