Stefan Topuzov's Music Vault - English Version

FEAR FACTORY – “Mechanize”

2009-12-31T11:50:00.008+02:00

An unexpected triumph for the band’s (obviously) more important half

“Yeah, of course you’ll say it will be something like two of your best albums”, all of us thought when Burton C. Bell was telling the press how the new Fear Factory will mix the heaviness of “Soul of a New Machine” with the more mature songwriting of “Obsolete”. Turns out, for our complete amazement, that the bastard wasn’t lying at all!

“Mechanize” came with the big discussion if this is Fear Factory at all or not, as only half of the band’s original lineup is involved with the album, while the other half is looking from the sidelines, waiting to sue… Here we have Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazares along with bassist Byron Stroud and drummer Gene Hoglan.

Yet it is from the very first, and title track that is becomes clear that this is exactly Fear Factory. Not the bad copy of “Transgression” but the band the way it sounded at its zenith. “Powershifter” then brings in the catchiness of Burton’s trademark melodic chorus and the picture is complete. The songs somewhat surprise us with a little bit more thrash metal sounding riffs and more death metal sounding drums. Turns out this works out just fine with the band’s concept. And if anyone doubted if Death and Strapping Young Lad’s Holgan will cope with Harrera’s machine gun style of drumming… My God! He totally wipes the floor with him!

“Christploitation” is something I always expected to hear from Fear Factory – creepy keyboards over fading guitar riffs that lead us into an industrial metal massacre. The dark symbiosis between man and machine that is the band’s essence is supposed to sound exactly like that! The last song “Final Exit”, as it turns out quite oftenly, is probably the biggest gem here. A TV documentary type voice explaining to us what a funny experience is to hold someone’s hand as they die is rudely interrupted by machinegun drums before the song shifts back into the typical Fear Factory style ballad mode – awesome vocals by Burton, catchy melodies, 8 minutes of shifting between darkness and crushing riffs…

The ideal culmination of a surprisingly cool album! And the fact that we honestly didn’t expect anything worth listening from Fear Factory just makes this triumph bigger!

Verdict: 5.5 / 6

More info:
Official band MySpace
Band website

OVERKILL – “Ironbound”

2009-12-31T11:45:00.002+02:00

Thrash metal that my fill your small town stadium, but not an arena

While Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and to a lesser extent Anthrax are UEFA Champions League worthy, Exodus, Testament, Kreator and a few other similar bands are good enough for the Europa League, Overkill have always been like a Premier League middle of the table team – with some traditions, a legion of loyal supporters but no glamour whatsoever.

Even so, the band was one of the few that decided not to give up on thrash metal and continued putting out at least decent production through the years, and that’s why their fans will most likely consider “Ironbound” the best thing to happen all year. This time around though, Overkill have concentrated and made an effort to provide us with an album that may be interesting not only to the hordes of already hooked fans.

A few bass notes tear the silence at the album’s very beginning, becoming the center of 8-minute opener “The Green and Blak” and its epic melody. A thrash metal epic that is led by a bass line? You probably haven’t heard such a thing since “Master of Puppets”. And from here the album just picks up and delivers us crushingly heavy riffs like the ones in the title track, total olschool vibe in “Bring Me the Night”, and an atmosphere of darkness in “The Goal Is Your Soul” – superb thrash metal.

The production is one of the disc’s strongest arguments. The guitars sound powerful, yet cutting, the rhythm section crushes like a bulldozer moving at 160 mph, and then Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth’s vocals rise above the mix in the finest oldschool heavy metal fashion, stating loudly that it is not a good idea to fuck with this band.

“Ironbound” is packed with points that may help Overkill jump over the verdict I gave them at this review’s very beginning. If they are really going to succeed, pardon the cliché, but only time can tell. Still, the new CD is a damn fine reason to see them live on the tours that are bound to follow!

Verdict: 4.75 / 6

More info:
Оfficial band webpage

THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES - Pin Points and Gin Joints

2009-12-21T15:32:00.002+02:00

Sort of stripped down but still an awesome album

“We are no fuckin’ jukebox”, the angered Dicky Barrett shouted in 2002 as he got tired of fans asking the band to play “The Impression that I Get”. The weight of touring and all the insanity revolving around the music industry took their toll and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones had to take a few years off before the band could find back the drive to play music again.

And that is part of the reason “Pin Points and Gin Joints” is packed of songs that were intentionally written so they would be fun to play live for the band. No intentional hits, only totally stripped down ska, the way the band likes it.

It starts off with Dicky explaining to us that graffiti worth reading are rarely written on the right walls (unless it is the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior). And as you catch yourself singing along „Repent! Obey! The end is near!”, you know that the band definitely hasn’t lost its catchy chorus writing skills. We have pretty much the same case in “The Route That I Took” and “You Left Right?” where The Mighty Mighty Bosstones show us that their well of ideas is far from depleted. The last song, “A Pretty Sad Excuse”, lasts for over 6 minutes and is probably the best one here. Half of it is quite quiet and minimalistic reggae that calms you down before it explodes around the 3 minute mark into full blown ska fury. Just brilliant!

Sadly, there is one big “but” about this album. As I said, the band offers some really stripped down ska. That means that the hardcore, punk and even metal elements that put them aside from the pack 15 years ago are pretty much absent. Gone is the insanity of “Devil’s Night Out”, as well as the energy of the hit packed “Let’s Face It”.

But on the other hand, now that the third wave of ska is absolutely dead no one really expects something your little sister would be all over, right? The album is good enough for all the people who know what it is all about to like!

Verdict: 4.75 / 6

Extra info:
Official band MySpace
Official homepage

EVERGREEN TERRACE: Anarchy = chaos = problems

2009-12-01T12:24:00.002+02:00

One of Europe’s biggest hardcore happenings, the Persistence Tour, kicked off last Friday. What better occasion to hook up with Evergreen Terrace, who are touring all over Europe alongside Ignite, Biohazard, Agnostic Front, Walls Of Jericho, Death By Stereo and No Turning Back, and ask them a couple of questions. After all they also have a brand new and simply awesome album called “Almost Home” that came out just a few months ago. So – guitarist and cool clean vocals guy Josh James is good enough to answer:

- The main reason to do this with you guys now is the Persistence tour in Europe you’re doing with some of the most insanely big names in the genre. And this is the second time you’re a part of this tour, as far as I know. What was your previous experience like?
- Europe is always awesome to us. The last time we did Persistence was in 2007, the shows were amazing, some of the biggest club shows we have ever played. The bands were great, the crew was great and the crowds were great. We expect nothing less this time around. We have toured with Ignite, Agnostic Front and Walls of Jericho before so we are excited to be reunited with those friends of ours and are looking forward to meeting and watching the other bands.

- Are you doing the tour with Kyle on drums, or there is still a substitute filling in for him?
- After tons of surgeries and a lot of stress, Kyle is now back with us and will be playing drums on Persistence!

- One of the bands on the bill, No Turning Back, just did their own headline show in Bulgaria. Have you heard them and what do you think about them?
- Yes, I have heard of them. We have actually played with No Turning Back a few times, they seemed to be a great band and put on a great show. We are sharing a bus with them so hopefully they will have the shitty sense of humor that we do and don't get offended by too many of our pranks and games, ha.

- How does touring in the USA and Europe compare to each other?
- I think they are very different. Europe always feels like a little bit more of a vacation for us, ha. We take care of everything in the states, all organizing the tours but in Europe we have a solid crew from MAD Booking that we can trust and that takes off a lot of stress. We have a lot more down time in Europe, which is great. I usually take that time to explore the local culture of wherever we are playing. Plus the crowds in Europe really know how to set it off!!! Always stoked to play for the Euros.

- So, about the album - “Almost Home” is probably the freshest sounding metalcore album I’ve heard in quite a while. It came out over a month ago, so I figure you guys are piled with feedback already – what is the reaction to it so far? Mostly positive or mostly negative?
- Mostly positive. All the fans seemed to be pumped on the record. We just started playing some of the new songs on our last tour in the states and if the reaction in Europe is anything like the reaction in the states then these shows are going to be sick.

Dude, I'm pretty sure that ain't the microphone...
Photo taken from the band's MySpace page

- What do you think sets that record apart from the rest of your discography?
- It's a cleared record. From the sound quality to the song quality. You can listen to this record and hear where we have matured and grown as musicians.

- About the last song on the album “Not Good Enough” – was putting it there your own weird way of making sure if the record was a huge failure, you’d still be like “well, we told you so”, or something like that?
- Haha. No, we did that with the title of the B side and live record called "At Our Worst". That was title was not a joke, ha.

- As far as the pop culture references go – I myself am all about The Simpsons and Family Guy and what not, but do you think most people outside of the USA really get them?
- I've never thought about it. We really never think about if people will get the pop culture reference, we do it to make ourselves laugh.

- In this day and age when the USA and actually the whole world’s economy is crumbling, how does that affect a band. I mean record sales wise, also attendance at shows etc.?
- When you look at it from a business perspective being in a band is being a part of the entertainment business. The first thing that people cut out of their lives when they are having financial problems is entertainment. If the fans suffer, the bands suffer. It's that simple. Record sales, merch sales, show attendance, it's all affected. It sucks, but all we can do is try to keep our prices low, put on a good show and still make good music.

- Your band isn’t shy of making its views clear, judging by your one song where you kind of already made it clear what you think of nihilism. I was wondering where you stand on anarchy, though? And what about straight edge and veganism?
- Anarchy = chaos = problems.
Straight Edge = me = personal choice.
Veganism = my girlfriend's dad = main character in the "Chaney Can't Quite Riff Like Helmet's Page Hamilton" video.

- I can’t help ask you about “Writer’s Block”. See, I myself used to be in a metalcore band a few years ago and we all in the band were die-hard fans of The Offspring. But in the same time all the kids at the shows and the bands we toured with were full on hardcore and despised that band. So, I was meaning to ask – did it take balls to cover a band that is so far away musically from what you guys play? And what was the reception of that cover?
- We covered "Maniac" by Michael Sembello, that is a lot farther musically than The Offspring. When we did “Writer’s Block”, we really didn't think if people would like the songs we chose or not, we just thought of if we liked them. Originally, “Writer's Block” was going to be a 5 song EP, but about a week before we entered the studio the record label told us it had to be a full length or it wouldn't be release, so we threw 4 more songs together very quickly so we could meet the quota. The Offspring was 1 of those songs. We have never played that song live, but every once in a while someone will request it.

More info:
Official band MySpace

The photo at the very top is by Face The Show.

CLUTCH – “Strange Cousins from the West”

2009-11-25T23:28:00.002+02:00

A nice reminder that this band does exist

Yes, this album came out in the summer, but you also may have noticed how I write about things that aren’t exactly brand new, have you? And in this particular case some website’s lack of attention towards this album is borderline criminal!

Without being the most popular name in rock music Clutch are big enough for you to have at least heard about them. The story is pretty much the following – in 93 their debut album came out and they played stoner rock at punk rock ad hardcore speeds, then they started slowing things down with every following record, making some of the landmark albums in stoner rock history, standing proud alongside bands like Kyuss, ad bam – here are we now! And to put it even shorter – they rock, go listen to them!

“Strange Cousins from the West” is the band’s ninth studio album but also their first for their own label Wheatmaker Music so they definitely were calmer while recording it. And maybe because of that the album is a bit more simple and more to the roots of the music compare to their last few ones that were a bit more experimental. And the band also gave freedom to their blues influences a little bit more than previously, making things a bit less metal alongthe way, although I’m not sure if that is a good or a bad thing.

I couldn’t care less to be honest as I’m perfectly aware where all of Black Sabbath and metal come from, and songs like “Motherless Child” and “Minotaur” carry an emotion strong enough to make any listener move with Neil Fallon’s gospel like vocals (working pretty well as a simulation of complete insanity in “Whitchdoctor”). And yeah, songs like “Struck Down” may be somewhat primitive structure-wise, but if this ai9n’t the best rock song I’ve heard in quite a while I’d be damned!

The album is somewhat of a slow sinker but after the few necessary listens that you need in order to get it, you’re hooked. Yeah, maybe it is not the best Clutch album, but it is a damn good reason to remind you they do exist. And later you can get into “The Elephant Riders”, “Transnational Speedway League” and the self titled as much as you want!

Verdict: 5 / 6

More info:
Band MySpace profile
Оfficial band website

BORN FROM PAIN: Political ideas definitely have a place in the scene

2009-11-24T11:13:00.004+02:00

Having been a Born From Pain fan ever since “Reclaiming the Crown” was “the new one” I can’t help being very excited about their upcoming show here. Even though I’ve already seen the band three times. Not long before the show, we get in touch with guitarist Karl and we talk “Survival”, Zeitgeist, conspiracy theories and pretty much everything the band stands for today.

- So… this will be the band’s fourth show in Bulgaria – are you excited? What do you remember from the previous ones?
- I'm always excited about coming to Eastern Europe and particularly Bulgaria. Yeah, we've played a few times now and it's always a lot of fun. The shows are always great, lots of craziness and people seem to dig what we do and have a good time and that's really important. I also love just seeing the city and some different culture. I mean, we've only played in Sofia and Varna, but it's always been good and I'm looking forward to playing in Sofia again this time round and now there is the added bonus that we'll have our good friends The Setup with us so it's going to be a good time for sure. What I remember about previous shows is just good times. The first time I played in Sofia was in a club that I think has been shut down now and I remember it was sweaty and hot as hell. Last Hope played and destroyed the place. It was good times and that's how all shows are in Bulgaria.

- Comparing the crowds at shows in Bulgaria and western countries like your own Holland and like Germany or France – is there a difference?
- I guess there really aren't too many differences in some ways because there are enthusiastic crowds everywhere, although i do have to say, Bulgarian kids might be a bit crazier, but it can get pretty crazy in the countries you mentioned and that's just how we like it.

- At the last Born From Pain show here, Ché had already left and Rob had taken vocal duties. To be honest, Ché’s stage presence was one of Born From Pain’s trademark things. So, how do fans react to Rob singing now?
- Che did have a strong presence, but I think Rob's is stronger. He moves around a lot more and he is definitely more into the audience participation thing than Che was, which is something that I love, but that's not taking anything away from Che. I think at first it was a shock for a few fans, but now everybody loves Rob on the mic and they definitely appreciate that he has something to say as well as his vocal style. And since Rob always wrote all the lyrics, it definitely has a more personal feel to it, which is cool.

Bird hunting season in the Netherlands is open!

- “Survival” came out like a year ago and it is probably Born From Pain’s most message-heavy release to date. How did the band go from songs about perseverance like “Immortality” to this album about current global events staging the coming of a World Government?
- Well, there has been a message building ever since "In Love With The End" and a lot of that just comes from self education, from looking for truth in what's going on in the world and not just taking corporate news as the truth and looking into different explanations for certain things happening and that is something that is important for everyone to do. There are alternative news sources to get information from and concerning what the government tells you, well, that’s always mostly lies and their interest is to serve the corporations and people that put them in power, not to serve the millions of people that need help and so we felt it was important to write about these things and try and affect people as best we can. We're not saying that you should believe everything we talk about, we're saying that you should look into things for yourself and make up your own minds, but once you do, you should be aware that you might start thinking differently about certain global events and situations.

- Someone not so good intentioned towards the band might say you tried to sneak in every conspiracy theory cliché in the album cover – Ouroboros, the all seeing eye, skull and bones… Seriously though – what is the meaning behind it?
- Well, obviously there are references to all those conspiracy theories, but are they really only a theory or are they truth? That side of things represents a side of what "Surival" is about and people consider conspiracy theories to be ludicrous, until you start learning about them and the more you learn, the more your reasoning and what the so-called normal viewpoints are will be challenged.

- I had read a shitload of books about the World Government years ago, but I have the impression that most people were unaware of any info for such topics until the movie Zeitgeist came out. Did it have influence on you as well?
- I'll be honest, Zeitgeist, had a huge effect on me personally. I hadn't really looked into a lot of things like that before seeing that movie and it really hit home with some of its points, especially about 9/11 and the economy and Federal Reserve in the US. I'm not saying everything there is correct (and it is not – see here - the author), but it makes more sense to me than what explanations were offered. From seeing that movie I've gone on to research more things and look into alternative news sources and watch more documentaries etc and I don't take mainstream media as being an absolute, after all, it's self serving or there to serve others.

- When can we expect the next Born From Pain album? Any new songs that you are going to play here?
- That's a good question, ha! I'm not sure when there will be a new record, but probably somewhere near the back end of 2010. We won't be playing any new songs apart from those off of "Survival", mainly because we haven't started writing. I am in the process of gathering a few ideas here and there, but it's always a slow process writing new songs, at least for me ha-ha!

- Talking of the setlist I was thinking, because I have already seen the band play three times, why is it that I’m left with the impression that you avoid playing the biggest classics like “Day of the Scorpio” and “Immortality”? At least at the more recent shows the band tends to do so…
- The thing is, it's always hard to have a setlist of around 12 - 15 songs when you have 5 albums and 2 EPs, so some things are going to get left out. “Day of the Scorpio” is a song we bust out every now and again and maybe we'll play it this time. As for “Immortality”, well, that is an awesome song, but at the end of the day, most people just don't know that song, so we generally don't play it, unless we're playing a show where people really do know it or some kind of special show, so it gets played very rarely. When we travel and tour, people just wouldn't know that song like they know others and so it's often not a good idea to play it, although we all do love it.

Midfuck, when you see it you will shit bricks!
Photo by Face The Show OMG! the guy touching his weener in front of Rob is just adorable!
- Now with the global economic crisis and all – how do you manage to still maintain a busy touring schedule? Many bands face problems now that it is easier for their members to lose their jobs for taking too many days off…
- Well, I can't speak for the rest of the band, but I work in a call centre that allows me to be as flexible as I want and when I'm home I work and work hard. They know I'm good at my job and so no matter what time I need to take off, there is always work for me when I get back. The other guys probably have similar relationships with their employers too.

- There seen to be many hardcore bands today that have some really radical political ideas. To what extent do you think that political extremes have a place in this scene, and to what extent is this becoming a stupid race between kids who is the most extreme and most anti-the-system?
- Hmmm, I think political ideas definitely have a place in the scene, after all, the whole idea that you could discuss issues is something that attracted me to hardcore 17 years ago and I think it's become somewhat lost since 2000. I think music should be an outlet for opinions and views, because it's a great way to challenge the mainstream and discuss ideas in which we can make the world a better place. I always remember watching the band Catharsis and how half their show was Brian talking about different issues. I always thought it was great that they did that. I'm not saying I agreed with everything he said, but it's great that he put their ideas out there open for discussion in attempt to create some change. As for races between kids being the most extreme or most anti-the-system, well, I’m not too aware of that and don't much care about people trying to out-do each other.

- Like a week or two before you play here, your fellow countrymen from No Turning Back will also headline a show in Bulgaria. What do you think about them?
- Awesome band, awesome dudes, people will have a good time at their show (and so we did! – the author), I know I do when I see them.

- You have a song named “Endgame” on your last album. So Dave Mustaine obviously stole the name from you, ha-ha. But what do you think about the new Megadeth album anyway?
- Ha-ha, obviously he stole the title from us ha-ha-ha, but it's not a coincidence that more and more bands or people in general are becoming more switched on and interested in global events and looking for their own version of events rather than trusting corporate media or the government, especially given what people are told often end up being lies. As for the new Megadeth album, well, it's ok, it's nothing special to me. I've never been a big Megadeth fan to be honest, although “Countdown To Extinction” is a great album, I've always preferred Metallica, Slayer, Testament, Anthrax and Exodus when it comes to the classic thrash bands, but yeah, catchy title ha-ha-ha.

* The images are taken from the band's official MySpace page.
Born From Pain are playing in Sofia for the 4th time on December 5th in The Box club, alongside The Setup, A-Moral and B.F.D.M.

MISERATION – “The Mirroring Shadow”

2009-11-23T09:54:00.001+02:00

Uncompromising, yet quite polished brutal death metal

A Swedish death metal band each of whose members is also part of 2-3 active projects is not a rare thing to see, keeping in mind every third person in that country seems to be a musician. And while side projects and supergroups often suck, this is not the case with Miseration.

Ex Scar Symmetry vocalist Christian Älvestam who is featured here, is famous for his ability to handle both death metal growls and clean singing with the same ease – an ability he chooses not to take advantage of in “The Mirroring Shadow”. The dude sticks to oldschool guttural vocals and together with the quite technically talented guitarist Jani Stefanovic (a pure Swede, just like Zlatan Ibrahimovic; he plays in a lot of bands like Am I Blood, Sins of Omission, DivineFire...) delivers us an all-out death metal album in the vein of Immolation and Hate Eternal.

“Dreamdecipher” opens the album with no compromise, going into blast beat mode from the very start before the song goes through a few crushing double bass moments and a short, yet quite melodic solo, for about two and a half minutes. This is how it is supposed to be done! Next is “Blueprinted Aeon Collapse” which is somewhat slower and crushing and features some more varied ideas. What happens around the 1:50 mark is one of the best combinations of double bass, a stop’n go riff and an eerie melody that I have ever heard. Talking of melody – there’s plenty of that on the album, without being anywhere near the Gothenburg sound, but still, songs like the title track definitely remind us of some of Hypocrisy’s ventures into more melodic territories.

“The Mirroring Shadow” also displays high quality production-wise. All the instruments and the vocals sound clear enough to make the multi-layered musical moments work, but in the same time the sound is thick enough to create the needed crushing effect. The songs are quite varied and full of ideas, but also quite short (the longest one being a few seconds short of five minutes) which helps them avoid getting boring. And this way the album finds balance between the extremes of the genre – be they brutal or melodic, and also finds its place among the coolest metal releases this year.

Verdict: 5 / 6

More info:
Official band MySpace

THEM CROOKED VULTURES – “Them Crooked Vultures”

2009-11-20T19:06:00.004+02:00

A super album by a super group leaves us super happy

When you are 1/3 Led Zeppelin, 1/3 Nirvana and 1/3 Queens of the Stone Age, fan and media attention, a record deal and the following huge record sales come on their own without you trying too hard.

Well, coming up with music that is good doesn’t hurt too and that is the case with Them Crooked Vultures. Their self-titled creation is one of the few albums by similar super projects that live up to the super expectations coming from names such as John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl and Josh Homme.

The comparisons with their previous work are inevitable. And in this band’s case, due to Homme’s trademark high-pitched voice and all out there lyrics, and the fact that we have Grohl behind drums, Queens of the Stone Age and “Songs for the Deaf” come to mind the most. And this is a good thing because in case you don’t remember – that album kicked ass! And then Paul Johnes adds a bit of sensitivity to the preexisting chemistry.

Most of the best things in the album, just as in its opening track “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I”, come after the middle. Yeah, it starts a little bit shyly but before you start thinking “but, do they really?” some Zeppelin-ish stomping riffs come and crush you. Well, after the first 2-3 tracks and the first single “New Fang” that are somewhat more normal sounding, comes the real treat of “Elephants”, “Scumbag Blues”, “Bandoliers” and “Reptiles”, that are an adequate modern reading of the likes of Led Zeppelin, Cream and what not. Rock! Yes, your dad might like this but it isn’t a bad thing either.

Even though the album sometimes sounds like a overproduced recording of a jam session, this actually doesn’t drag it back but helps it sound more spontaneous instead. In a way – look, it’s the legends playing together. Releases like Them Crooked Vultures' debut bring back the faith that there are still good big bands who fill arenas with fans that worship them and to whom every note is like a new testament for our lod rock hungry ears.

Verdict: 5.25 / 6

More info:
Band MySpace
Оfficial website
"New Fang" preview

NO TURNING BACK: We toured the world without any help from anyone

2009-11-19T07:56:00.003+02:00

The second birthday of I Hate Mondays Radio is the occasion around which one of this fall’s most exciting hardcore shows is going to happen. Headliners of the cigarette smoke free еvent are the Netherlands’ No Turning Back, whose frontman and only remaining original member Martijn was nice enough to answer a few questions of mine.

- So what’s up with No Turning Back now? I can see you have a string of shows planned for the end of the year.
- We're very happy with the last years of No Turning Back. After another hectic year with lots of touring and playing new countries we are finishing this year off with some more shows. We will start this weekend by going back to Athens and play Sofia for the first time. A week later we are going to be part of the Persistence tour. This ten day tour is the biggest hardcore tour around and we will play with bands like Biohazard and Ignite (this year’s lineup also features Agnostic Front, Death by Stereo, Walls of Jericho and Evergreen Terrace – the author). And to finish off this crazy year we will play a birthday bash at the end of December in our home area Brabant, as always a sold out show with good bands.

- Looking at your back catalogue you seem to release a record every other year, and “Stronger” came out in 2008, so I was wondering – can we expect a new No Turning Back next year? And if the answer is yes, are you going play any new songs at the Bulgarian show?
- We are going to release a new record. At the moment we are writing the songs and we will hit the studio somewhere in March. We will not play any new songs yet since we are not ready with the album. We will have to come back to Bulgaria in 2010 to play the new songs.

- You manage to maintain a busy touring schedule in this day and age when everyone is holding on to their job like drowning man, afraid to take days off. Or at least that’s the impression I get from a few recent interviews. How do you manage to still tour that much?
- We basically just do it, we don't really care about a working career at the moment. The band is always our number one priority and it always worked out for us in some way. We all have temp jobs when we are back home and until now we all get by.

Lines in front of employment offices in the Netherlands have their frequent participants.
Photo by Niek van Hees

- You are the only remaining original Not Turning Back member and as far as I know it was exactly touring 8 months a year that led the other former members to leave the band eventually. So I was wondering how the new guys are doing?
- The reasons why the others left the band were all personal. Most were not ready to tour as much as the band could. Living their life with loved ones or a good job were more important than going on the road. I respect the choices they made. My priority and passion is No Turning Back. Today's lineup as it is for more than three years now are guys that want to be in a touring band more than anything. Those guys dreamed to tour the world with their previous bands but never really had the chance. We got together to live our dream and that’s the reason it works out excellent so far.

- When you tour now, can you say if attendance is like before or there are less people coming to shows, due to the bad economic situation or whatever other reason?
- We see more and more people at our shows. When we return to a place we have been before we see double the amount of people than the show before so I don’t see any real effect of the economic situation at all. I guess people will always want to spend a bit of money to see a good band that lets them blow off steam.

- You have never hid that you are strongly influenced by the classic NYHC bands. Was there any time for the last 12 years that the band has been active that people went like “you’re from the Netherlands, do something different, we’ve all heard that already”?
- In 12 years I have never heard this from anyone. Hardcore is a music style that is not new in general. Every band nowadays is a copy off something that has already has been done in the past. The people that listen to this music know that and there is nothing wrong with it. The way we write our songs are never meant to be a copy cat version of NYHC, we have our own sound. We grew up with this music; we just love the way NYHC sounds, the groove and the lyrics. We try to take this musical legacy and continue to keep the old NY sound alive.

"Look, mom! I can fly!"
Photo taken from the band's MySpace

- You have toured all over the globe and played with pretty much all of the biggest names in the hardcore game. So, tell me who were the coolest dudes and if you don’t mind – who were the biggest jerks?
- The coolest dudes? So far we only have had good experiences with other bands. We are easy going guys that get along with everyone, we are from Brabant. I think the tours we have done with Down To Nothing, Death Before Dishonor, Steel Nation, Terror, Born From Pain, New Morality, Uppercut, Sick Of It All and For The Glory were absolutely awesome. And who are the jerks? Tell me, I can't name a hardcore band around.

- What about the crowds – is it different in Europe compared to the USA or Latin America and Asia where you have also played? And how does Eastern Europe fit in among these?
- There are not many differences between shows here and the rest of the world. The promoters do the same job and the crowd looks the same. Maybe the reaction is at some places better then back home. I guess it's because not many international acts make the trip down there, so people are really excited and appreciate you are there. In the parts of Eastern Europe where we played the shows where good and the people were nice.

- What do you know about Bulgaria and our hardcore scene here?
- I don’t know much about Bulgaria. I know where it is on the map and the only band I know from Bulgaria is Last Hope who we played with a few years ago. They are awesome guys and a good band.

- The show you’re playing here is the second birthday of an underground radio station called I Hate Mondays, that features mostly hardcore and punk music. So – feel free to say happy birthday a lot, but I was also wondering if there are similar radios in the Netherlands and how many. And to what extent do the people and media in your home country show interest to hardcore music and No Turning Back?
- Well, consider yourself lucky with I Hate Monday radio because we have nothing like this at all. Our media is based on following trends and are more directed to dance music. Back in the days when heavy music was more popular you had video clips of hardcore and metal bands on MTV and other music channels. Nowadays none of them give hardcore any airplay. It’s not popular anymore. I guess that’s also the charm of this music style. We don’t need their attention to make things happen. We have busy, crazy shows and our own scene where we help each other and because of that we toured the world without any help from the media or government of our country in any way.

More info:
Official band MySpace

The photo at the very top is by Face The Show.

DESTRUCTION OF A ROSE – “Suspended in Time”

2009-11-18T09:52:00.006+02:00

You might as well have already heard this

You have read so many times how melodic metalcore is so big at the moment and how it suffocates everything around it. And of course when you read a review of such an album, the band is not “one of those” and “stands out with something”. And then when you hear the album you die of boredom, because it seems you’ve heard it all before, you fall asleep and never play it again…

Well, that’s not quite the case with Destruction of a Rose. The band is exactly “one of those” and the album is exactly the type of melodic American hardcore you have heard so many times before, you swear if you hear one more song like that you’re going to kick a little kid holding a balloon in the face! All the riffs, all the breakdowns, all the “unpredictable” song structures, everything the vocalist does, all the screams, all the melodic singing…You have been there before.

…But on the other hand why are these dudes from Las Vegas to blame that we have listened to more than one album in the past 10 years? The music industry and the attention of fans and media aren’t driven by common sense. See – bands like AC/DC and Motörhead have been kicking the same dead horse for decades now and no one seems to complain, do they? So Destruction of a Rose just might as well get away with “Suspended in Time”?

Songs like opener “Elixir Vitae” and its extra eerie intro riff or “Cries of the Dying” and the extra evil vocals in the verses, might be enough to do the trick. They’re cool. The band’s decision to stick mostly to screaming vocals at least for me is a good one. It is better this way, when the music is “metal as fuck and raises the dead from their graves”, in guitarist Nick Rose’s words, instead of being another pop sensation your little sister listens to. Yet for the first single they have chosen “Under Black Flags We Sail” which features mostly melodic vocals, but this is still far from the Attack Attack! levels of gayness.

And yes – an album that has the name Tim Lambesis of As I lay Dying on it as the producer sure isn’t going to be that bad. “Suspended in Time” is actually quite decent and the people who like this type of music sure are going to enjoy it a lot. But if the band really wants to outlive a trend or two, Destruction of a Rose will have to think of something new.

Verdict: 4 / 6

More info:
Official band MySpace
“Under Black Flags We Sail” video

MAXIMUM PENALTY: This record is our testament

2009-11-17T07:44:00.002+02:00

One of the New York hardcore scene’s living fossils, Maximum Penalty reminded us of its presence with an absolutely killer new album titled “Life & Times” that was released a month ago. Joseph Affe (guitars) has been in the band all along and during this time he has seen pretty much everything that went on in hardcore since its birth right up until today. And he obviously has nothing against telling me about it.

- Your new album "Life & Times" came out just recently. Personally I love it. But how do you feel about it?
- I’m not just speaking for myself but the entire band feels really good about finally getting a long road and process completed. Not just a finished record but also a body of songs that brings us full circle as Maximum Penalty. We are in a great spot with Reaper Records, there are songs that are on this record that took some time but for us was worth it. The most important point is that this is the first record we’ve done that wasn’t rushed, we actually took the time to focus on the Maximum Penalty sound. We’re really happy about it and if people dig on it as much as we do then were ahead of the game.

-What is the meaning behind the title?
- Since the last full length release from Maximum Penalty so much has gone down from the loss of immediate family to friends and family from our scene to personal battles with life in general. The inspiration for the songs on this record comes from not just our personal struggles but the struggles of those who aren’t with us anymore. It just seemed to embody what we were trying to convey.

- What has the reaction to the album been so far?
- Really positive, we released four songs less than a year ago just to jump-start the record a little bit before the full release and since then the songs have been well received. There have been some really great reviews along with some ridiculous ones. Some people’s views of hardcore music have been molded into this one-dimensional over the top scream, grunt, heavy style of vocals and anything that short that formula is not hardcore? There has been so much of the same style of music in hardcore that has become the blueprint, don’t get me wrong there is a lot of great music going on right now. But to be honest I think it’s a great time for an album like this to break it up a little bit without following what’s popular at the time. People need to be reminded of that.

Some idiot somewhere thinks this is not a real hardcore band?!
Photo by: Samma Jamma

- The sound of the album is somewhat more straightforward and heavier than previous releases like “Independent” and “Superlife” and more in the vein of the classic “Eastside Story”. Was this something you intentionally went for?
- Definitely, like I said earlier we made a conscious effort to return the original identity of the band back to Maximum Penalty. Myself and Darren Morgethaler (drums) started writing for this record and we said that it would be easy to just throw whatever out there and call it Maximum Penalty, which was a mistake we made in the past just to get back out on the road. This time we took the time and really made it a point that the songs were not only in the original Maximum Penalty style but also have something new with Jimmy Williams’s vocals. I think as a band that has been together for a long time writing and creating you sometimes find yourself trying new things. Some fly and some don’t. This time it was more about going back and rediscovering the energy that propelled the band in the beginning and sticking to that. By no means are we recreating the wheel but for Maximum Penalty at this point in time and everything we’ve gone through together this record is a real testament to who we are. We can only hope that it will reach people on a personal level as well.

- “Life & Times” is produced by a guy named Dan Korneff, who has mixed and mastered stuff for all kinds of big names from Lamb of God to Paramore. Looking at his portfolio I get the idea that this was the first album he fully produced himself? Why’d you pick him and how was working with him like?
- Well, he has done so much that isn’t posted on his site, so no - this isn’t the first record he has produced. During the late 90’s we were touring with Agnostic Front аnd Billy Milano was managing Agnostic Front and Madball at the time, from those tours we developed a strong relationship with Billy and he introduced us to Dan a couple of years later. We had finished up all pre-production and started talking to Korneff. Great guy, great experience, the time it took to get everything down on tape and mixed was a little tough because of conflicting schedules but worth it. You have to keep in mind we were doing all the work at night when everyone went home and in between other projects that Korneff was doing at the time.

- We all know why Maximum Penalty’s fist hiatus happened. I was wondering though, how did this whole experience affect the band from there on?
- We were young and going through some shit - Jimmy himself was in a dark time in his life and being that we were all so close it was hard not to feel the man’s pain not to mention everyone else’s troubles at the time. The phrase whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger definitely applies to us because after that and a couple of other bumps in the road we seemed to have gained a stronger purpose to Maximum Penalty.

Affe has a lot to scream about both under Bush and Reagan.

- You were among the first wave of bands to combine hardcore with a somewhat more metal sound. Nowadays metal-meets-hardcore seems to be the hottest thing. Do you follow this type of modern bands?
- Our mindset is nothing new. If you want to say that we were one of the first bands to bridge those gaps between metal and hardcore - cool. But in reality when we first started Maximum Penalty there was a few bands in the New York Scene doing what we were doing, I think it was the style of our combinations along with Jimmy’s vocal style that set us apart.

- Leeway is another classic NYHC band that mixed metal with hardcore back in the 80’s. Sutton kind of stated that looking back they have opened a can of worms by attracting suburban metalheads to hardcore shows. Do you think similar bands are to blame about this and is it really such a bad thing?
- I know what he’s talking about, we all saw the suburban migration to the hardcore scene. I think that was inevitable though, the hardcore movement was growing at such a rapid pace that it was only a matter of time before little Johnny from suburban bought a hardcore record and told 2 friends about it. I mean bands where branching out at the time not just Leeway although if you weren’t into the hardcore scene and you saw a band like Leeway do their thing back then, you were hooked.

- Back in the 80’s when the first and second wave of American hardcore bands emerged, much of their anger was directed to the status-quo embodied by then President Ronald Reagan and his policies. Now the eight years of a Bush presidency seem to have sparked pretty much the same vibe in music. Do you see a resemblance?
- It’s the job of the underground movement to find what’s wrong with the system. Reagan’s politics was for a clean-cut fake American image, while he taxed the shit out of the working class. So right there was enough for a whole 80’s punk – hardcore scene to rip apart. As far as Bush and his time in office, there was such “say one-thing do-another” mentality that his leadership left us holding the bag on so many levels. I see a resemblance in a way of our country being left with few options after the damage done and plenty of reasons to rebel against. For the record I feel Bush’s presidency was far worse than Reagan.

- You know the American Hardcore documentary by Paul Rachman. It kind of made the statement that the real hardcore died circa 84-85. Do you think it did? Or it was reborn into something else so many bands believe in and play today?
I think the beginning of the hardcore movement were 84-85 but by no means was that the death of it. What about the whole East Coast explosion of music right up until 1990?
If you want to be cool and say “yeah man I was there, 84-87, and then it died”, whatever. I still saw a lot of bands doing their thing in and around that time. I feel that musical movements come in waves so whatever is going on right now is not the original vibe but I feel that some of the traditional hardcore esthetic is still alive. Reborn? I would say just evolved some good, some bad. There are people that get involved in hardcore music for the same reasons we did when we were younger but not all.

*The rest of the images are taken from the band's MySpace page.

THE EMPIRE SHALL FALL – “Awaken”

2009-11-16T10:15:00.002+02:00

Lightning strikes the same place twice with Jesse Leach

Back when Killswitch Engage’s “Alive or Just Breathing” came out, it was one of those rare musical moments when a new album made everything else sound obsolete. And obviously frontman Jesse Leach who left after that album had a lot to do with that magic, as the debut album by his new project The Empire Shall Fall carries pretty much the same charge.

Jesse’s vocals are just one of the things that connect “Awaken” with the album from 2002. Here, just as back then, we have a collection of songs that each have some kind of a main idea that they revolve around and sets it apart from the rest. There are no compositional formulas in The Empire Shall Fall’s debut – all the music flows spontaneously and naturally.

The opening title track may be somewhat deceiving as it relies mostly on clean melodic vocals that step by step build up the tension that blows up in a Meshuggah-style riff towards the song’s end. The influences from the Swedish math-metal beats are easy to hear throughout the rest of the disc. A little later comes “Voices Forming Weapons” that is something like the newschool equivalent of Earth Crisis and “Firestorm” with all the mid tempo marching riffs and an angry lyrics (that is not that radical, though), and a simply brilliant melodic chorus to top it all.

The Empire Shall Fall don’t mind fucking a bit with some of metal music’s established clichés. “Choir of Angels” for example starts right off with no intro and at maximum speed and cuts off your head for a minute and a half. But instead of stopping just there (as you’d expect after hearing many fastass metal tracks) it goes on for 6 minutes during which it goes through all types of musical moments. And the band deserves a thumbs up just for turning the cliché upside down here!

And this is only a small part of the music that “Awaken” offers. As I already said, the songs are different from one another and there is no point in describing them all – the album is full of reasons to be heard anyway. Now, is this going to turn around the whole music industry like Killswitch Engage’s breakthrough did? Most likely not. But as far as the impact on the listener is concerned, we have a case of lightning striking the same place twice here.

Verdict: 5.75 / 6

More info:
Official band MySpace
Entire album live stream

HYPOCRISY – “A Taste of Extreme Divinity”

2009-11-13T10:48:00.004+02:00

Peter Tägtgren obviously can make a good album even in his sleep

There are a lot of bands that are actually the one man project of a super-active musician that also has dictatorship talents. But the number of people, who can pull off being in that position in more than one band and in the same time manage to be one of Europe’s most sought after and busy metal producers, sums up to one - Peter Tägtgren.

Now, when the cycle of albums and tours for all his side projects is complete and four years after “Virus”, Tägtgren finds time to put out a brand new Hypocrisy record. And we don’t have to fool ourselves – a band with such a long history and so many albums behind its back has the right to be predictable and not experiment that much. The last time they tried it with “Catch 22”, the result was quite controversial. Such bands release best of and b-side albums and make a triumphant tour or two.

But re-releasing a bunch of old songs in order to present yourself to a whole new generation of potential fans is too low for the great producer. Instead of this we have “A Taste of Extreme Divinity”, where we can find brand new songs, each one of whom would have been at home on this or that past album in the band’s quite varied discography, without sounding awkward next to each other.

You want fast and heavy death metal? You get “Valley Of The Damned” and the title track. You want something heavy, yet melodic? You have “Alive” and “Sky is Falling Down”. You want something mid tempo and crushing like the self-titled album? Here are “No Tomorrow” and “The Quest”. Tägtgren sure know how to write songs like that. He probably could pull it off in his sleep.

So, the case here is that we have something like a best of album that features brand new songs instead. And if you are new to this band that would be a splendid starting point for your future addiction. But if you already are a Hypocrisy fan – well, dude, one of your favorite bands just released a killer new album!

Verdict: 5.5 / 6

FREDDY MADBALL: I give respect to religion

2009-11-12T10:05:00.002+02:00

Freddy Cricien, whom we all know well as the frontman of Madball, is dropping his debut solo album as a hip hop artist. “Catholic Guilt” features appearances by Slaine, Vinnie Paz and… Rancid among others. The man in the center of all the lights, Freddy Madball, doesn’t hesitate to explain to me what is it like being one guilty Catholic that shares a love for both hardcore and hip hop at the same time.

- Hi, Freddy, Judging by the area code of your phone you should be in New York now. How is the city doing?
- Yeah, I’m there. The city is doing just fine.

- There was a mayoral election in New York last Tuesday – did you vote?
- No, I was too busy doing other stuff and unfortunately I didn’t have the time to go vote.

- I’m actually calling from Sofia, Bulgaria, and you have been here with Madball a couple of times. So, what do you remember from these shows?
- Sofia! It’s always a good time, a good show. The crowd is great!

- So, you have your debut solo hip hop album out now. Why wait until now? I mean – it’s known you have been into hip hop since forever.
- Well, it is just now that I got around doing it. It was something I wanted to do for a long time and I just never found or took the time needed to make it happen and now, finally I did. As the saying goes – better late than never. And I kind of think this is for the best. I finally reached a time in my life when I need to express myself in this way. I finally found the time and the means to do it. So – here it is.

- The title – “Catholic Guilt” is kind of controversial How are we supposed to interpret it?
- Anyone can interpret it in a different way. For me basically it applies not only to the religious aspect of things but also this feeling some of us have to live with – guilt. I refer to it as Catholic guilt which is a direct religious reference, but in the same time you do not necessarily have to be Catholic or Christian to relate to the stuff I’m talking about on the record. It is just a personal thing and experience – something I lived with. It is pretty much explained throughout the record and the different songs – making mistakes and learning from them or just going through certain experiences, living with the guilt of how certain things were handled. It is just a feeling.

- Catholicism is probably the only religion that has the practice of verbally confessing your sins to another person, a priest. And in some of the songs you do refer to some past dirt that you may have on your hands. Is the album your own way of confessing these sins?
- Yeah, that is one way you definitely can look at it. I do talk about certain situations and experiences. It could be viewed as sort of a confession in a way. But it is really just telling stories that come from experience. Some people may view it as a confession, some people may view it as an expression.

Freddy! In church! A documented fact!

- Back in 2004 I talked to your half-brother Roger Miret of Agnostic Front and I believe he said he was from Cuba.
- Yes, he is.

- So I figure you have some Cuban blood yourself?
- Yes, I do. We have the same mother with him. We have different fathers and that’s why our last names aren’t the same. My father is from Columbia, but my mother is Cuban, so – yeah that is definitely a part of what I am.

- I am asking you because that suggests a strong Catholic background. And I was wondering when was the last time you went to church?
- Ha-ha! That is a good question! I recently went to church to baptize my godson. It was for my boy Hoya (Roc, bassist in Madball) who asked me to be the godfather of his kid. That was a few months ago. We baptized him and that was probably the last time I was in church. I go to church every once in a while. I don’t go often, to be honest, because I’m at a point in my life when I don’t really feel the need to go to church every day to have some kind of connection with God. I was brought up as a Catholic and they told me “you have to go to church every Sunday” and what not. This is something I do not necessarily agree with at this stage of my life. This goes back to the whole “Catholic Guilt” thing. They kind of push this guilt on you, not just Catholics… for me it was Catholics because I was brought up in that religion, but organized religions in general make you feel guilty for not giving them money or not going to their church or whatever. But that does not necessarily make you a bad person in God’s eye. But then again I do respect some of the basic stuff in the Catholic religion. Even still to this day I do the sign of the cross when I pass by a church and some other things that have been implanted in me. It is like a cultural standpoint and it is hard to get rid of. I give respect to religion. Church is a nice relaxing place for me. It is not that I don’t like to go, I just don’t do it often.

- OK, enough with religion. Slaine is making a guest appearance on the album. He was here with Ill Bill in May. And we all know Bill is all about metal and hardcore. Madball has always been influenced by hip hop, but is there now a new wave of hip-hoppers who are in turn influenced by hardcore?
- I think there is. More so in the underground world, though. You have guys like Ill Bill who obviously respects hardcore music. You got Slaine who is a good friend of mine and has always respected hardcore and everything about it. And then you have Vinnie Paz from Jedi Mind Tricks who is an established underground hip hop figure and he grew up listening to hardcore. He is actually a hardcore kid! There is definitely a wave of people who coincidently are really talented in doing hip hop that also have the whole hardcore connection. And I’m obviously one of these people now, ha-ha! And it goes for crowds too. Some of the people that are in hardcore and metal also happen to like hip hop. That is how I am, you know. I’ve always liked hip hop and I like hardcore and also some metal – a little bit of everything. It doesn’t surprise me to see the same people at all kinds of shows. And it is cool to see people supporting two genres like that. I hope we see more of that!

- Do you plan to tour on this album?
- I definitely plan to do some touring. I do not have anything set in stone for now, but I do have some ideas. It is not an easy thing because of my schedule with Madball which is a full-time operation. But I definitely will try to make this happen.

When someone gives you that look maybe it is not such a good idea to tell that really funny joke about those lazy latinos...

- Oh, and another thing – what is your favorite track on the album?
- It is really hard to say. Every song is a different expression for me. It’s hard to pick one. I like certain songs for different songs for certain reasons. I’ll let people be the judge of that. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but if I have to, I’d go with “Y Que”, the Spanish one. Then again there’s a bunch of other songs that I think are good. I was talking to people about making a single from this album the other day. I’m definitely doing a video for the Spanish song. And “Dead Man Saloon” is probably going to be one of the featured songs from that record. The title track is also one that I’ll try to do something for. I don’t really know if there will be a single. I have a few songs that I want to do videos for and I guess that these will be the singles. But it doesn’t matter what video I do first – people could consider it a single if they want to. It is important for me that they listen to the whole thing.

- Rancid are making an appearance on the album in the song “London Calling”. How did you convince them to do a hip hop song?
- They didn’t need much convincing. I have known the guys for many years, I have a friendship with them, especially with lars, but Tim as well. They respect what I do musically. They have always been big fans of Madball which is very flattering, considering they are very iconinc in the punk world. But even for Hazen Street and other projects that I’ve done – they have always have been big supporters of the stuff I do. And when they listened to the song “London Calling” they thought it was a really honorable tribute with all The Clash samples and what not. They liked it a lot and couldn’t wait to be on it.

- And another sort of punk rock question - everyone refers to you as Freddy Madball, and this is also the name you have decided to put on the album, instead of your real name. This reminds me of course of The Ramones, who all changed their last names to “Ramone”. And I can’t help but ask you what do you think about the whole punk and hardcore culture nowadays? Is it too much penetrated by commercialism and trends, or is it doing just fine?
- It is doing just fine, ha-ha. It is definitely not being penetrated by commercialism. That is not the case. If anything, there should be more attention paid to it. I am talking more on the hardcore side of things, although punk and hardcore are like cousins. And as far as punk and hardcore going mainstream – that is one thing you don’t need to worry about. I think it is at a good place – it is growing, more territories around the world are opening up for it and I think it should continue to grow and blossom. I don’t think that we ever have to worry about it being commercial. The music is just too abrasive. And there is nothing bad with growing and people paying respect to the genre. It is the blue collar genre of the music world. It’s weird when people start complaining about a band getting too big. To me it is like that – if a band does what they do and stay true to their music and they happen to get big and get more attention, detouring from listening to that band just doesn’t make sense. If it is music that you like, you have to support it. I see nothing wrong with a band working hard and having success come from it.

THROWDOWN – “Deathless”

2009-11-11T11:07:00.000+02:00

A slower and more melodic, yet catchy as hell album

We all miss Pantera – I do, you do, Odd Crew do… The opinions on Throwdown though, vary from “Awesome! They sound like Pantera” to “They suck! They sound like Pantera. Well – this can be pretty much said about their new album too, although it is kind of different.

The band obviously has tried to vary up things a little this time around by throwing new elements into their musical mix. “Deathless” as a whole is quite slower and more melodic than its predecessors, although if there is a suitable comparison to other bands it remains the same as before. And really, if this is a hardcore band I’m a tram car!

One happy tram car that cannot get enough of this CD! The album opens up with “The Scythe” which is something like a slower Lamb of God with a clean chorus ala Killswitch Engage. And this is a combination that works out really well! The next track “This Continuum” also uses the formula of nice groove metal verses and a catchy melodic chorus. And yes, throwing a whole new set of clichés in an already clichéd music may not seem like the best idea ever, but in practice it has worked out awesome.

Towards its middle part the album kind of moves away from that direction and becomes way more sludgy and features slower, longer songs that are driven mostly by Dave Peters’ Anselmo-ish vocals. And the dude delivers a splendid performance. Songs like “The Blinding Light” and “Ouroboros Rising” crush mostly because of the singing. The songs are simply perfect – cool riffs, interesting drums, awesome vocals and well thought out melodies… And then comes “Skeleton Vanguard” that once again turns the album in a new direction with the excessive use of cowbell that makes it sound like something off “The Great Southern Trendkill”.

Yes, I miss the speed and energy of “Vendetta” and “Venom and Tears” as well. But in the end the decision whether they are going to play fast or slow is up to the band to make, and all we can do is say whether we like what we hear or not. And in this particular case things seem to have worked out great because I can’t stop spinning this.

Verdict: 5 / 6

EUFOBIA: What you can give for this music is important, not what you want to receive from it

2009-11-10T10:07:00.004+02:00

A lot of time has passed since Eufobia’s debut album, “Cup of Mud”, came out. A great deal of this time was filled by numerous concerts in Bulgaria and other places (mostly other places, though) , but lately the band lacked any activity. And as I was sitting there thinking how a good band like that most probably broke up due to the usual reasons, the duded announces the upcoming release of their second offering – “Insemination”. And Niki (vocals, guitars) is good enough to fill me up on what has been going on with the band lately…

- You have your second album on the way, tell me about it – when and where did you record it?
- We began working on our new album in the end of 2008 but unfortunately things dragged a bit. We recorded it in Stain Studio in Sofia with Deso Velchev (who has worked with Fyeld, The Revenge Project, Last Hope, Crowfish – the author). It will be out in January for sure. Probably in the middle of the month. We aren’t really sure when this will happen in Bulgaria, though. But what’s sure is that we do have a date from our tour with Negura Bunget towards the end of January here. And by then there will be an album ready for sure. I cannot guarantee that it will be available at stores at this time but people will be able to buy as many copies as they want at the show.

- Looking at the title, “Insemination”, and the names of half the songs (hmm, here’s a few – “Vibrator”, “Never Innocent Again” and in that context “Blindfold” and “Pissing Squad” also receive e different meaning – the author) I get the impression that it will be quite an erotic album…
- Eroticism is a quite old topic for Eufobia. This is basically the concept of the band. We sneak in a social lyric or two from time to time too. But sex is an important thing and should not be underestimated. And in regards of the porno themes in this album – the lyrics were quite erotic even before but apparently we hid it better. If you have time to pay attention to the metaphors you’ll see that sex was a major theme in “Cup of Mud” as well.

- You had a naked woman on the cover after all, although she was drawn.
- I’ll let it be known that there is something similar on the new cover too, although a bit stranger. It’ll have teeth.

Eufobia giving you the dark look while thinking of insemination.

- The cover has been done by some dude who has painted for some quite serious bands before (mentioning Obituary and Megadeth is enough, isn’t it? – the author). How did you get in touch with him and what is the idea behind the artwork?
- Ever since we signed with the Romanian label Axa Valaha we don’t have to get in touch with anyone. They do it for us. The dude is named Costin Chioreanu and I have been a fan of his for a while now. He has his own studio Twilight13 Media. He does some quite serious work. He heard the album and became really enthusiastic about working on its cover. We already have received a working version of the cover and it is awesome. I hope that people who buy this will like it as well. They might buy the CD for the cover alone, to be honest.

- You say that the album will be releases by Axa Valaha – who are these people and what have they done so far?
- The organized our club tour in Romania a few years ago and after that we have met at numerous shows here and there. They are more of a booking agency. They have organized shows for Sinister, Cannibal Corpse, God Dethroned, Rotting Christ, Suffocation, Misery Index, Lividity and many others. But the label also releases a lot of Romanian bands and definitely has the resources and experience, needed to put out a good release. There was this really popular band in Romania – Avatar, whose manager now works for us. And the man definitely knows what he is doing.

- Looking from the outside in it seems that you worked really well with your former management by Distributor of Pain – they organized shows fro you all over Bulgaria and they were the ones that brought you to Romania in the first place. So, why change them?
- Yes, they did take us out there but from that point on all that we have done has been organized with the aid of our Romanian friends. We could say we are really displeased with the management because next to nothing was done for us for quite some time now. Especially since the tour with Onslaught and Carnal, in Bulgaria there was nothing happening around us. And if it wasn’t for our Romanian friends who organized shows for us and invited us to play festivals, this band would have been dead. And we really thank them for that. We play a somewhat weirder type of music that isn’t that well accepted in Bulgaria for some reason. No bad feelings – we aren’t making a demonstration for in front of the fans, we don’t want to provoke anyone or say something – it is just that we found a country that is not our own and where we are very well accepted. We are really happy when we play in Bulgaria and things turn out good. But especially our present management has organized some quite serious tours for us and we have a lot of playing ahead of us in Eastern, Central and Western Europe. I hope that things work out just fine here as well. People who listen to similar music just have to be a little bit more open minded.

“Hey, look! Someone dropped 50 cents!”

- You have mentioned that the band started out as nu-metal. Is anything from that period still present in Eufobia now?
- No, absolutely none of that is left now. In the moment we are absolute death metal, although a somewhat different kind of it. What’s interesting is that we include some motives from Bulgarian folklore music that surprisingly aren’t that much liked in Bulgaria. But as much as we have some experience in other countries where people are more open minded this is something that does impress the audience. And maybe this is why we got noticed by a label abroad – because we are different. In the first album there were songs like “Believer” that featured some really crooked melodies. In the new one there’s plenty more of this. Almost every song is in some compound times common for Bulgarian folklore and there are all kinds of melodies and things that get stuck in your consciousness.

- “Pissing Squad” however is way more of a straightforward track that doesn’t really have such moments. Why did you pick it for a single and a pilot video?
- That’s just how it turned out. We simply like the song a lot. But this is actually our second video that we shot. We did a video for “Justine” – that’s another song off the new album. But we really don’t know what the fate of the video will be. The label didn’t really like it and there is a high possibility that we will be filming a brand new one for that song. Anyway – Justine is a character from a book by Marquis de Sade. The book by the same name is something that later became the ground for Eufobia’s philosophy. The b and was born at the time when I discovered the author through exactly this book, but the song was born way later in its present shape and form. It is about this chick that has a lot of things happen to her and she is really pure and innocent, but the things that do happen to her aren’t exactly that pure…

- She gets fucked a lot?
- Hard!

- And does the video happen to be something like Rammstein’s last one then?
- No. We shot it in some crypts. The reason we and the label didn’t like it that much is because it didn’t capture the essence of the song. It was just people chasing each other in shit. There were a lot of interesting things that happened and it was fun to do. But yeah, basically one of the things that we weren’t lucky enough for it to work out well were the videos. The one for “Pissing Squad” also was supposed to have some extra scenes in it but we had trouble and it was left unfinished.

- Well, again looking from the sides, and from the point of view of a lot of bands here in Bulgaria, despite saying you don’t really have many fans here, this contract you have and the upcoming tour makes you look quite successful…
- Well, the good connections we have we owe to the great reception by the Romanian audience and the fact that we did play there for some time. To some extent people over there stopped perceiving us as a foreign band, especially in some parts of Transylvania. It is the most natural thing for us to have a Romanian label release our albums after we have become a part of their scene to a certain extent. And if a Bulgarian band wants to be in our place they should not make the mistake most bands do of having too much of high requirements and pretentions at first. Especially in the beginning it is important to decide what you want to give to this music, instead of what they want to receive from it. If someone thinks that you can make a profit from this – they have got the wrong idea – everything is total rock’n roll. There are thousands of bands across the world. If a band wants to win people over in some way, especially abroad, it should have something of its own, something that makes it recognizable. Because if you make music that is exactly like the one the local bands make… people will just listen to their local bands instead.

The pics are taken from the band’s MySpace profile. The one at the top is by The Other Side.

THE DESTRO – “Harmony of Discord”

2009-11-09T09:12:00.002+02:00

Angry Texans strip down half their music to make it interesting

The Destro’s big and loud “Fuck you!” for all present trends and cloned whatever-core bands today is actually the good ole heavier groove metal with a more death metal twist. Something unheard of? No. Is it cool? Yeah!

These dudes from Dallas, Texas obviously are quite negatives as all the ways they can think of presenting their band in are by saying what they are not. Not a metalcore band, not a band that plays breakdowns, not a thrash band, either… And their first job when they were almost ready with “Harmony of Discord” was to remove all solos, half the riffs, half the songs. Only to make the entire thing more focused and more crushing.

And crushing it is. On the basic structure of groove metal with predominantly mid tempo heavy riffs and sludge moments, the band has built up with quite some death metal elements like a lot of double bass drumming, growling vocals and really a huge dose of anger. Without going into all out blast beat mode some quite fast moments can be heard in pretty much every song.

Somewhat surprisingly the album opens with its longest track – “Justifiers of Malice” which shows some really cool songwriting skills as the song goes from a crushing riff to another without getting dull. From there on the album kicks up the pace and songs like “Pestilence of Deceit” and “Anger Killer” definitely have the potential to start a pit or two. “Mouth of the Heretic” introduces some rather melodic riffing in the mix, ending up to sound like a Soulfly that doesn’t suck.

Sadly, the band may have somewhat overdone the whole stripping down the music thing, as at a certain moment the album gets quite monotone. And your desire to listen to it again is not among the strongest ever. Yes, “crushing” is the key word in regards of the guitar sound as well, and this is the driving element of The Destro’s music. But maybe they could have let some more memorable melody sneak in on the album.

Even so “Harmony of Discord” is not a release that lacks qualities and if you are into the likes of Pissing Razors and Hostility you’ll probably love this. And similar albums actually sound quite fresh when compared to the thousands of cloned bands nowadays.

Verdict: 4.75 / 6

THE RED CHORD – “Fed Through the Teeth Machine”

2009-11-06T17:37:00.003+02:00

1:0 for intelligent song writing

Now having only one guitarist, The Red Chord didn’t hesitate to announce that their new album will be more-direct sounding than “Prey for Eyes”. This might have led some people to worry that the band might end up offering something way simpler and less interesting, but there is no need for such thoughts in this case.

Yes, “Fed Through the Teeth Machine” is somewhat of a return to the more direct and brutal sound of the band’s earlier stuff and a departure from the direction taken with the more melodic songs in the previous one. The difference though, is that if back then the melodic elements were put in separate songs that kind of stood out weirdly among all the heavy songs, now this element of the music is featured in all the compositions, where its place was to begin with.

From the opening of “Demoralizer”, which is the sonic equivalent of being attacked by a pack of wolves from an ambush while all alone in the forest, the album’s energy doesn’t let go until its final note. Of course this is no mediocre attempt at extreme metal but an intelligent and multi-layered album with songs like “Hour of Rats” that show all kinds of influences joined together in one united entity. If they want to crush you, The Red Chord are able to do it with slower songs like “Embarrassment Legacy” as well.

The band takes turns using death metal brutalisms and psychedelic moments with outright progressive ideas. One moment they are cutting your head off with a brutal blast beat, the next an awesome solo pops out. And having one guitarist less this time around has not had a negative effect on the music and not made it one-dimensional. And in the mix of super-technical and fast death metal drumming, there are also some more classic sounding fills that add to the album’s signature sound.

This is not just a good deathcore album, but extreme music with a message that could hold its own in a dick measuring contest with some of today’s biggest death metal bands. And if you like brutal stuff with ideas, “Fed Through the Teeth Machine” definitely has its place on the list of things you have to hear this year.

Verdict: 5.25 / 6

SKINLAB: We always had to try harder than other bands

2009-11-05T09:07:00.001+02:00

Seven years after their last real full-length Skinlab released a new album called “The Scars between Us” this September. Right after that the band was left by its guitarist Glenny Telford, who was later replaced, but the band still had to cancel their US tour due to vocalist Steev Esquivel’s throat infection. But then again there isn’t anything more metal than standing up to challenges against all odds, and as Steev tells me, this is exactly the band’s plan.

- You cancelled a whole tour due to your lung infection, so asking you how you are doing right now is as good of a start as any.
- I had this lung infection which is a first time for me. It really kicked my ass so we had to cancel the rest of the tour and go home. We were up there on the East Coast where it is much colder than what I’m used to so t really kicked my ass. But I am doing way better now so it’s back to work.

- Is it just me or Skinlab hasn’t had the best luck lately?
- Well, it’s the fuckin’ story of Skinlab’s career. I don’t know what it is but we have to fight for everything we get. But when we get it – it’s ours. So at the end of the day it’s good. We have always been a band that had to try harder than other bands. It’s OK. We love what we do and that’s the reason why we are doing it.

- OK, let’s talk the new album – it has been out for over a month now – any idea how it is selling?
- It is selling like shit actually, thanks to downloads and everything. Probably way more people downloaded it than they bought it. But we are not in this for the short run. Things that happen, don’t happen overnight. We are prepared to work hard in order to sell more records. Our fans are buying it now and it’s cool. It is just that we expected to be in the game with the bigger dogs and it just didn’t happen. So it’s back to the drawing board. We’re not young puppies in this game, so a lot of this stuff is not taking its toll on us as it would with a younger band. We gotta figure out our next step here. But we are planning tours for the beginning of next year. We are pretty pissed off, so we are ready to throwdown for sure. And a lot of people thought I was pretending to be sick as a publicity stunt just to sell more records. No, I am truly sick and this is the first tour I am cancelling. But, yeah – not everyone can be Five Finger Death Punch or Lamb of God. You have to go out, you have to do your best – nothing is a given.

- I remember in 2002 when “reVolting Room” came out, a lot of fans were saying it sounded overproduced and that they actually liked the demos of songs like “Purify” and “Slave the Way” better. So – did you consciously go for a more direct sound this time in contrast to the previous offering?
- No. We actually always want to overproduce our records. We try to make the best record that we can. I come from the school of Whitesnake and Metallica with loud guitars and thundering drums – this is the big thing about metal and rock’n roll. It is all about bombs and explosions and making shit sound fat. We never tried to underproduce anything we do. All that we do we try to produce to the best quality of sound. And sometimes you explore somewhere where the fans don’t want you to be, but well – we cannot make everyone happy. To be honest, I don’t think we did anything different than on “reVolting Room”. I guess that it is just because of the production that people get that idea. And back then all the media wanted it to be the big commercial success that it wasn’t. Sometimes a label can hype it up to more than it actually it is and make an album seem different than what it actually is. We’re proud of that album. It is just that the scene kind of went under our feet. Everything changed and we were kind of left standing alone.

- You were just recently joined by Brian Jackson who replaced Glenny Telford on guitars. How is he doing in the band?
- He kicks ass. Brian’s doing great. He’s a big metal motherfucker and always ready to throwdown!

Steev is not happy that his hands are stuck in his dreads, but honestly - who would?
Pic by Phill Mamula

- What happened to the “Bloodclot” EP? There were a couple of covers recorded for it - a Nailbomb and a Crowbar one, as far as I know. Will we be able to hear them anytime soon?
- We started doing it but the label that we were signed with at the time had their head up their ass and lied to us when we signed the contract. We went straight to the studio and started recording it. And once they came they were like “We never said we wanted that, we never agreed to that”. So we responded – “Talks to our lawyers from now on”. We didn’t want on that label, we didn’t want people lying to us and we like to do what we tell our fans we are going to do. It was basically a label fuck-up, I am not going to say which label, but everyone knows what label we signed in 2007 (Crash Music - the author). It was a horrible move for us. And then it took some time to find the right label for us. But it is all good now. We regret that we didn’t put out “Bloodclot” but at least we made it into a song. It has this fast drumwork that I figure our fans would like to hear from us. We recorded the Crowbar and Nailbomb covers but only that. We have them here, we’re just waiting to figure out ways to put them out.

- There was a bit of a hiatus for the band before the newest one came out. Was it because “reVolting Room” failed to meet expectations of being a huge success?
- It wasn’t really that “reVolting Room” didn’t do that well. It was just that the label didn’t treat us like a band that existed back then. We basically got a tour handed down to us by Slayer and Jägermeister and our label didn’t even want to give us 200 dollars a week to support us. So at this point we decided to just stop it, stop the bullshit. For that amount of money we couldn’t even eat, let alone pay for gas and stuff. Luckily Slayer and Jägermeister took us under their wing and gave us one more show. But in reality we didn’t have the money to make it to the next show. So we decided to just stop. And this kind of hurt us. But I’d rather hurt my band than my family.

- Now that Skinlab is reformed and fully active what happens to Re:Ignition?
- We’re doing each their own thing at the moment. Mark (Hernandez) is with Forbidden now, recording an album, which is really cool. Tim (Howell) is just having fun being a dad. And Dave (Moore), the singer, is really busy being a professional tattoo artist which he has always been. So at this time we’re on halt. But never say never. Now actually, after like April and May when Skinlab is done touring, I’d like to put out my new project that is like where I wanted Re:Ignition to go, the way I wanted it to. I wanted more like a Corrosion of Confirmity, kind of “Blind” meets “Deliverance” kind of stuff, some heavier AC/DC or Motorhead style stuff – a little bit more ugly. When Re:Ignition was formed Dave was such a great singer that everything kind of conformed to him.

Contrary to what Steev says, everyone is staring right at their shoes here.

- Defiance also had a new album released not long ago. Any more serious plans for that band? Touring and stuff?
- Well, I think it is safe to say, I don’t know if they have told everyone yet, but I quit the band. I was only committed to doing some recordings because that was what Doug Harrington had wanted before he died. But then we got offered a record deal and some people in the band wanted to do more than the other. Personally, I wanted to concentrate on Skinlab. It has always been my favorite. And after taking 15 years off Defiance the guys and me had separated so much it wasn’t really a band to me. It was kind of a pure thrash era thing and that is not what I want to do. I’d rather do what I love. But I did the record anyway and I think it is a great one. They actually have a new singer now.

- Back to Skinlab – now with your health issues and everything it is probably not the best time to ask, but do you have any plans for touring Europe and the UK?
- We’re waiting. We would probably want to re-release the album for Europe, because it never really got a proper release. It did in France but not in the other countries. We’re thinking of doing a cool cover song, maybe a couple of new tracks, and re-releasing the album for Europe with them included. We’re trying to do this now. But, we do love Europe. European metal fans are great metal fans. It has been too long since we last went there.

- Uh, last question. Fans of yours I was talking to were wondering about your past drug problems, and I guess you are not really comfortable talking about that…
- It’s an open book, man.

- So, is “Excellerate” about heroin abuse?
- No. That song is about doing something extreme to get your blood pumping. It is about tattoos and the rush you get when the needles go into your skin. But we do have songs about drugs. Like “Take as Needed” which is about pill consumption and it was about how I was taking a lot of pills while writing “reVolting Room” and I didn’t care if it was killing me or destroying my shows. I was having a good time in my head, while in reality I was probably a complete asshole and I sounded like shit. But if it is up to drugs – we at Skinlab are pretty much done with that. I actually quit drinking after that Slayer tour. After 28 days I came home and had gained 32 pounds from drinking Jägermeister every night so that scared the shit out of me and made me quit drinking. Every now and then I have a beer now but it is the new Skinlab – we come out on stage sober now and take pride in it. Our performance is definitely better. Maybe less wild, because we used to do wild shit like falling all over the place, hitting each other and doing stupid shit. Now it is much more about the music but we are not a band that plays staring at their shoes too.

- Another drug related question – rumor has it that during the filming of the “Second Skin” video Snake was high out of his mind. Was it so?
- No, it wasn’t us. Someone came to our tour bus and left a sugar cube of acid. While we were doing the video Snake’s wife offered to make him some coffees. So he did want some coffee. And she went on the bus and got what she thought were sugar cubes and was lysergic acid. He was in the middle of the video and he had his glasses on the whole time, and I was like asking him to take them off because no one else was wearing glasses. He was like really freaked out so we called a doctor and everything. Now it may look like a funny story, but it was scary. Snake is a small dude. Taking this much acid could have really hurt him. Especially when he didn’t expect it, it could have been devastating. And it was just before two shows with S.O.D.. I know it seems fun in the press and all “oh, look they take acid”. But this is so not the type of band that we are. You only take acid when you plan it. Thanks for asking that question, though. We’re not drug addicts. If anything – we hate people who are drug addicts.

The photos are taken from the band's MySpace page.

KATATONIA – “Night Is the New Day”

2009-11-04T09:18:00.002+02:00

А мonotone soundtrack to autumn cuts the line of good albums

Yes. It is not a surprise that Katatonia release an album not in the summer but when the autumn has already killed all warmth and joy from life. A lot of melancholy and doom is radiated by “Night is the New Day”. And this is exactly what is expected from it!

The band had definitely been on the rise lately. Almost no one was disappointed by their last three albums and not a few of the fans actually wonder exactly which one of them is their favorite. Sadly the present release’s chances to fit in there are next to none. It is simply far from being as good as “Last Fair Deal Gone Down”, for example.

Yeah, it might me fitting for such a sad band to sound tired. No one expects energy to flow out of the disc. And that is the last thing that you could find in 80% of the songs. It is just that the band also gives you a few good songs that you hang on to like a drowning man to a straw. But then the straw breaks and the drowning man ends up with nothing but lame tunes.

The positive moments here are ones like opener “Forsaker” that to be fair wouldn’t have been out of place on a Fear Factory album. But what I said about New Model Army’s new one and not so heavy bands experimenting with a heavy sound for just one song, is in full force here as well. From there on the album is something like a nap parade of songs, briefly interrupted by moments like “Liberation” and “Idle Blood” or some more single interesting riff. But for an album with 11 tracks this is far from enough.

The good thing in “Night is the New Day” is the good quality of the production. All the instruments could be heard and Jonas Renkse’s vocals are sad and awesome as ever. So – they saved no money and made sure that the album sounds as crushing as possible. And, if you are looking for something dark, melancholic and somewhat heavy for the soundtrack of your sorrow (or goth pose) – this is your thing.

The moment the sun shines this album is fucked, though.

Verdict: 3 / 6

SUPERBUTT: We are no prophets and nobody is

2009-11-03T08:58:00.004+02:00

On November 19th the Hungarian dudes from Superbutt will play in Bulgaria once again, eight years after their memorable first coming here. During that time their sound has seriously evolved and improved, as is shown by their last album “You and Your Revolution” which is truly killer. Those who read this blog (and this is pretty much me) maybe have noticed that I write that every other album is worth the sometimes prolonged wait. Well, András Vörös isn’t lightning fast in answering too, but this actually ended up being quite a good interview… And, calm down. They are no Debercen fans.

- It has been quite a while since you last played Bulgaria, so like 8 years and 4 albums later what is the main change in Superbutt compared to back then?
- Well, those shows were the first ones that we ever played outside Hungary (before that, there was only one festival guest appearance in Germany, where we played 4 songs, but that doesn’t really count, I guess), the band was hardly more than a year old and altogether we played less than 50 concerts before we went to Bulgaria. Since then, we’re past our 500th gig and we toured practically all over Europe. Still, we have the fondest memories of Sofia (and Plovdiv too) and we keep telling stories about that trip up to this very day. I’ll never forget for example how drunk some of the dudes from the band got after the show: they were going around the block like 5 times looking for the hostel where we stayed, and they didn’t realize that they were going around in a circle until we, the sober ones arrived and directed them into the place. Speaking of which, we liked that hostel so much, that we are going to stay there this time too. So, girls, if you want to throw your panties at us and stand screaming our names outside our 5 star suites (well, not exactly), we’ll stay at the Art Hostel… Getting back to the changes since 2001, we have a different line up compared to then. I’m the only one on stage, that’s still the same, but Szabolcs, our guitar player at the time is still with us as a sound engineer and he’s coming too. He said he wouldn’t miss it for the world and he is looking forward to the fabulous gyuvetch that we are going to taste again for sure!

- And what has remained unchanged?
- Would “our love towards music” be too pathetic to say?

- Your last album – “You and Your Revolution”, came out in Hungary at least a year before it did in the rest of Europe. Why?
- It was more a practical issue than a tactical decision. Obviously, we didn’t want to sit on the record for too long once it was finished and so we released it in Hungary right away. That was in December last year and back then, we simply didn’t have enough time to prepare everything for a release in other countries too, before the end of the year. So, we scheduled it for 2009 with our German label, and they decided to do it rather in the second half of the year. Since it had already been out in our home country, and whoever was that much interested in any other part of the world, had quite surely downloaded it from the internet already in the first few weeks after the Hungarian release, we thought it really doesn’t make a difference, even if almost a year passes until it will be officially available on CD in Germany and some more countries in Europe. I mean, releasing a new record these days is not about really selling physical copies of it anyway, is it? Who buys CDs in 2009? The release of the record means merely that some promotion will be done, there will be some reviews and interviews and hopefully the information reaches some people as well, who haven’t heard about us before and who might like what we do. That’s all we really expect, and from that point of view, there’s not much to worry about whether it should have been done last year or now.

- What is the meaning behind the title and the whole album?
- I guess it’s a somewhat cynical and skeptical approach to how we all fight our own little revolutions that are probably just meaningless jokes to others. It might be a humble warning as well: always keep in mind how things may look different from a different perspective, before your enthusiasm turns you into a clown or worse, into a monster. A bit of irony always comes in handy, laugh at your own misery rather than be angry about things you can’t change anyway.

"Who the fuck stepped on my leg?!"

- What was it like working with Zak Tell (from Clawfinger, sings in the first song "Last Call" - the author)?
- Nice and easy. We know each other for years, and not only Zak but the whole bunch of Clawfinger is made of really cool guys. I guess I don’t even have to mention that they are professionals as well, and the entire recording with Zak took not more than an hour. I gave him the lyrics, showed him the music and he did it in no time, adding his own style to the song, which we are really happy with. Right now we are in the process of shooting a video for that song as well and Zak will be in that too. 15 years ago, when I was headbanging to “Do What I Say” in front of the TV, if someone had told me that one day we would work together, I wouldn’t have believed it at all. I now it happened, how cool is that?

- Not many bands put a song with a guest appearance as the album opener, but you don’t give a damn, do you?
- No, not really. Actually, I haven’t even thought of it until now, that you asked…

- I remember this song off your first album – “Ernesto c. Guevara for President” – And to be fair that guy isn’t exactly my favorite character. So, I was wondering what you meant in that song?
- Although the title may suggest differently, if you read the lyrics, you realize that it isn’t a campaign speech for the late Che Guevara or the likes. On the contrary, the lines “it’s so red that it has to be brown” in the pre-chorus refer to the colors of Communists and Nazis and both that and the line of the chorus “…you march and your faith is strong, but I was there when it all went wrong” try to say, that no matter if it’s far left or far right, it always ends the same. Similarly, the verses picture the two poles of a thing in each line: saints or hypocrites, judges or suspects, rebels or fat civilians but you know what? In the end it doesn’t matter, it’s all the same.

- The short written introduction on your band’s myspace states you don’t have political messages. Am I missing something, because I honestly thought you did?
- No, not directly at least. I wouldn’t deny that I have a strong opinion on a lot of things, including politics, but I’d hate to express those in a direct way in our lyrics. Honestly, who am I to tell people how to think or what to like? Yes, sure, if we lived in a dictatorship, I’d definitely stand up for general and eternal values, like freedom. But thanks God, we live in freedom and although there is a lot of shit going down in politics in our country too (like everywhere in the world), how petty and ridiculous would it be to go out on stage to tell people to vote for this and that party, or to yell them that the war in the Middle East is wrong? I mean, yes it may be wrong indeed, but we’re not in the position to debate that when we are on stage, because I have a microphone but the audience doesn’t. So, whatever I’d say, it couldn’t generate a discussion, it would just be a one sided revelation and that’s not right, because we are not prophets and nobody is. And if we can have a message to people, I’d rather have this (I mean that nobody is a prophet, nobody can have the ultimate truth and there is at least two sides to every story), than direct messages as to how to behave, what to think and who to vote for. I mean, come on, music is supposed to be art of some sort, which is way above the narrow-minded politicians fighting for money and power.

- It also says you are no rock stars and you drive a Ford Focus. Hell, that’s better than my car. So you’re rubbing it in my face or what? (Kidding) But seriously – you say you don’t make money from the band, so I was wondering what is the main force that drives you to continue?
- As a matter of fact, after five years I just changed my Focus to a new Honda Accord, so I hope that makes me Axl Rose now! Getting back to your question, well, how about self expression, leaving your little mark on the world and also all the experience and adventures and that come along with playing music and touring?

András has a Redrum t-shirt but doesn't sing in Bulgarian.

- Here in Bulgaria some people have the idea that singing in English instead of Bulgarian isn’t patriotic enough. You guys sing in English as well, besides the one EP in Hungarian. Do you have the same language issue over there?
- No, we don’t or at least not in that form. And let me ask back: if singing in English makes it possible for I.T.S.I. or Last Hope or any other band from Bulgaria come over to play a show in Hungary (or anywhere else in the world) and make me think that “WOW, it’s good, so Bulgaria must be a great place, because they have good bands and cool people” – isn’t that patriotic enough? Singing in English is just a functional tool, because that is the language that most people understand around the world. It’s the new Lingua Franca and although I’d love to sing mostly in Hungarian, because that’s my mother tongue and obviously I’ll always be able to express myself more sophisticatedly in my native language than a foreign one, unfortunately it’s spoken only by 15 million people or so, while English is spoken by a billion at least. On the other hand, I hate when some bands say: I sing in English because it sounds better. Bullshit, it doesn’t! You may hide the clichés of some lyrics behind English because we don’t understand that language as much as our very own, but that won’t make it sound any better. And the audience in your home country will always be able to identify a lot more with lyrics that are in your and their common mother tongue, so while I admit, that English is the practical solution and we’ll stick to it because we like to travel around the world touring, I want to come up with more Hungarian stuff too in the future.

- You always had awesome videos for your singles. Do you guys in the band have something to do with the storylines in them or not?
- No, usually not. Our secret to have good videos is to work with directors who want to realize their own ideas that they often have had for a long time but didn’t have a chance to do yet. That way they really give their best and that usually shows in the results. On the other hand we also have to admit that we are musicians and may not know too much about how to make a film or a video, so I guess it wouldn’t be wise to try to instruct people who are good at it, while we are not. I mean, we wouldn’t like to be told either, what kind of music to write, so our visual art partners have a free hand too. We are the band that can be made look anything, we will not oppose to almost any idea. The best example was, when we shot the cover photos of the “Black Soup” album, and the photographer poured a mixture of olive oil with baking powder and black paint on top of our heads from above, while we were standing naked in a photo studio where it was hardly warmer than 10 degrees in January and they didn’t even have hot water to wash it off afterwards. But seeing the result, we said, yeah it was well worth it.

- The “Figure” video in particular – what is the meaning behind it?
- Well, just like it was said above, you should ask the director about that, but to my understanding, it’s about the constant fight and the vain effort to overcome your own self. It is best if I give you all the link of the “making of” video on YouTube, which gives you some more insight.

- The Hungarian scene seems pretty strong with bands like you, Blind Myself and Subscribe that we have seen in Bulgaria a few times. What are some of the other names concert organizers in Bulgaria should write down now?
- Most importantly, I’d recommend our number one hardcore band called Bridge To Solace, whose name is probably not unfamiliar to the hardcore kids in Bulgaria either. Other than that, I’d list a few that are very young but promising, like AWS or Turn Of Mind, but for those who like a bit less hard stuff, in the vein of Mars Volta and the likes, I’d definitely suggest the bands Turbo and Shell Beach as well.

- And last - I know you’re from Budapest and this probably isn’t your club, but still, what do you think of Debercen’s entry in the UEFA Champions League?
- Generally speaking, my sport is ice hockey and I don’t give a rat’s ass about Hungarian football, which is a pity, because it’s a great sport, but they destroyed it in our country. Just like you guys are over the famous Stoichkov, Lechkov, Balakov era too, but let’s hope that we both climb up again one day. Debrecen is a sympathetic team and although they know that they could have never made it into the Champions League if it wasn’t for the new qualifying system implemented by Platini, it’s still cool to have a team in there after 15 years.

The photos are taken from the band's website.

MAXIMUM PENALTY – “Life & Times”

2009-11-02T09:07:00.004+02:00

This might as well turn out to be their best album

A lot of time passed since February 2008 when Maximum Penalty unleashed the first songs from this album in the internet. Well, the slight postponing obviously paid off because “Life & Times” turned out really great.

For a band with a history dating from the mid 80’s you’re bond not to expect big surprises. There are some, though. If Eddie Sutton from Leeway sang for Madball, the result would have sounded pretty much like that. And the band also seems to have moved away a bit from their strong Bad Brains influence, displayed during the 90’s. Also, this time the album, unlike 2002’s “Uncle Sam” which was recorded only by Jim Williams and Rich McLoughlin, has been written by all of Maximum Penalty together. The band has also been joined by bassist Jonathan Buske whom we all know from Terror and Rag Men.

Some quite hardcore and 100% New York sounding music hits you from the very first, title and somewhat auto-biographic song. Without any stops of fills the vocals flow from the verse into the chorus and gang shouting of lyrics like “There is no remorse, hate is what’s respected”. Williams’ vocals have always been one of the band’s strong sides. Songs like “Paper Bullets” are practically driven by them. The same, but with more speed is displayed in “Thereat Assessment” which at least for me is the best song here. The tempo change towards the end is absolutely killer! There are 15 tracks in the CD so there's enough for everyone to like.

The album sounds more focused than its predecessor and actually more focused than all of Maximum Penalty’s full lengths so far. The music has a lot more to do with the classic “Demo 89” and the “East Side Story” EP. The other important thing is the production, made by Dan Korneff, which is completely crisp and definitely the band’s biggest achievement in that direction.

It wouldn’t be unfair if “Life & Times” turns out to be your favorite Maximum Penalty record. And I do hope they tour for this album in Europe, not leaving a certain part of it out of course.

Verdict: 5 / 6

SLAYER - "World Painted Blood"

2009-10-30T10:00:00.000+02:00

SSSSSSSSLLLLLLLAAAAAAYYYYYYEEEEEEEERRRRRRR

The release of a new Slayer is one of those moments when grown up men turn into a bunch of complaining kids. One guy says it is not fast enough, another one finds it a disgrace to the band that delivered “Reign in Blood”, someone else finds the guitar sound to be too thin, and there is always the dude who digs up the names of bands that “play thrash metal that is way more adequate of the times” whatever this might mean…

Oh, God, he who listens to Slayer!

“World Painted Blood” is as good of a Slayer record as you’d get by this band in this day and age. The dudes have taken the skeleton of “Christ Illusion” and combined it with their not so bad idea from back in 88 that there are other playing speeds than insanely fast, that later resulted in “South of Heaven”. And the result is, at least for me, their most exiting offering since “Seasons in the Abyss”.

For example, the opening title track is not the fastest thing ever to come out of this band. But what happens around the 3:20 mark as surprising for Slayer as it is, is one of those musical moments that get stuck in your head for good. The punching slow moments come again in the middle of “Beauty through Order” when some mid-tempo riffing kicks in and you remember classics like “Ghosts of War”.

Before the album was available, Slayer had said (like every other band on the face of the Earth!) that their new album will be a combination of everything they have done so far. And so, we also have some insanely fast songs like “Public Display of Dismemberment” and the already well known “Psychopathy Red”.

The album is produced by Greg Fidelman and Rick Rubin. So – it sounds like Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” and this means a lot of people will complain about the sound. Some of the songs this time around have been finished in the studio, instead of being completely ready before the band stepped in, and this is a first for Slayer.

Spontaneity often is a good thing, but maybe it is also the reason that moments when things don’t really work out are present here. For example, “Americon” that just fails at grabbing your attention, or “Playing with Dolls” which is like an attempt to make something like “Jihad” with the only difference that it goes nowhere.

Even so this is an album that is going to be listened to quite a lot because it does offer some really cool songs. And is one hell of a Slayer album! So the almost perfect rate I put suits it perfectly!

Verdict: 5.75 / 6

BARONESS – “Blue Record”

2009-10-28T09:09:00.000+02:00

Two years after “Red Record”, the band become PFC Levski fans

The cover looks familiar? Yes. This is because Baroness’ frontman and guitarist is John Baizley, creator some quite characteristic artwork for bands like Darkest Hour and Pig Destroyer, for example. Artsy, huh?

Well, yes. And that Relapse invest themselves in a progressive-sludge metal band is no surprise either. A lot of people compare them to Mastodon who are this label’s golden egg laying goose. I’m usually not enough of pretentious artfag to write about bands like this one but I poured myself a glass of wine just to even things up…

Yes, my first association upon hearing “Blue Record” were Mastodon as well, although Baroness have a stronger punk vibe to their sound. The songs in the album aren’t the longest ones ever – they usually clock around four or five minutes, half of their length being an instrumental intro. During this time though, the band puts a lot of ideas in the songs, usually on multiple layers, so the CD is heavy to listen to. And that is the point.

The whole thing has a framework structure – opens with “Bullhead's Psalm” and closes with “Bullhead's Lament”. In between there are standout tracks like “Swollen and Halo” with its uniquely catchy intro melody that also appears as a prelude later. “A Horse Called Golgotha” features a more distortion and a metal sound, while it also has a certain electronic vibe that brings me back to Killing Joke’s last one (a place I happily spend time at). And I personally couldn’t shake off the feeling that “The Gnashing” and its beginning remind me of Bulgarian punk-rockers Kontrol and their song about growing weed in the forest “Otivam tam”. And this is totally not a bad thing either, ha-ha!

The production is what you’d expect from a similar band. And it is intentionally not the crispest one ever – it features a lot of distortion and a 70’s sound. Super! The album sounds more focused and is easier to get into than its predecessor “Red Record”, which was much more of a case of “art for art’s sake”. At least as far as I understand. I also don’t know nothing about wine, but that one bottle I just drank sure made me feel good…

Verdict: 5 / 6

New A-MORAL and CROWFISH coming next year

2009-10-27T09:48:00.001+02:00

I have the impression that bands from Varna play Sofia shows less often than before so I use this chance to catch up to events by asking the man/scene of Bulgaria’s seaside capital Joro (Crowfish/A-Moral) what I can think of. And he answers!

- What’s up with Crowfish lately?
- We gave ourselves somewhat of a break. We’re playing Sofia now for maybe the first time in like half a year. Other than that we do have some future plans – we write new songs, there is going to be a new album, but it is not exactly clear when it is going to be ready yet. Most likely it will be done sometime next year. Now, at this show, we aren’t going to play any new songs because the idea of the Way Fest is to play old songs. Probably next year when the album is out we will also make a big European tour. But for now we’re having a much needed rest. The situation for playing in cities is quite bad right now, not only in Bulgaria but everywhere.

- OK, and what about A-Moral?
- We have an absolutely ready second album. We will enter the studio to record it most likely in the next month and we expect it to be out by the beginning of the next year. It is going to be titled “Life on Credit” because everyone right now is living on a loan after all. It will include 11 tracks.

- Crowfish’s drummer Bojo also plays with G.O.T.C. – what happened with this band?
- I don’t know really. They haven’t played in a while. They do have new songs but I don’t know when they are going to record them or release anything.

- After the club Area 51 in Varna vas closed where do bands from the city play now?
- There are a few places. One of them is the so called Seaside Casino. It is somewhat contradictionary. As a position in the city it is almost perfect, but when it comes down to sound there are a lot of problems. It is this big hall and the acoustics aren’t that great. There is also this smaller club called Usmivka (smile) where we do shows as well. But as a whole the situation is really hard after they closed our club down. The city administration tried to save itself trouble and work by doing this. We had asked numerous times for a police car to be sent in front of the place when there were concerts. After all when there is police present there are no problems. But they never sent one, probably because they had better stuff to do. And there is always these people who would call the police if there is a crowd gathered in front of the club, no matter if there is actually trouble or not. And in the end it turned out that it would be easier for some people to just close down the club. And actually we are in no way responsible for what is going on the street. The police should take care of things there.

- Besides the club, there was also the label named Area 51. Does it still function?
- Yes, even though we have hardly put out anything new in quite a lot of time. We will have to think about that. I think the last thing we released was Cold Breath’s album. Now they are recording a new one so it is most likely going to be our next release.

Halfway through the set Chavdar starts wondering whether he turned off the oven before he left home or not...

- Most of the bands in Varna – Crowfish, Indignity, Outrage and the likes… have been together for quite a while now and even newer projects like A-Moral and G.O.T.C. are basically the same people with different roles. Where is the new guard?
- There are a few young bands, but for them the problem with the lack of a place to play at is very serious. After all the biggest stimulus for a young band is to perform live and present itself to people. And this is just not happening. This is the reason many of the bands gave up. There is no places to play live at, it is hard even to find a rehearsal place, and then the city authorities hardly do anything about it – it is actually the opposite by trying to silence that kind of happenings and shows. The situation is really bad. We try to do all we can but it is hard.

- To what extent is the mayor Kiril Yordanov responsible for that? After all A-Moral have a song about him – “Mayor-Idiot”, and as far as I know it is you who writes the lyrics…
- Kiril Yordanov isn’t directly responsible but after all this is the policy of the whole city. They do not tolerate such rock events and concerts. There also a lot of other things. The city is a nightmare for drivers, there are no parking spaces – everyone parks everywhere, on sidewalks… and the city authorities doesn’t do anything about it. All they do is sell municipal properties. This is not politics in favor of the people but rather in favor of some businessmen. All the construction sites in the city, all the companies ruin the streets and the leave the Municipality to take care of the situation and this is done with the mayor’s knowledge. And then it is us, the taxpayers, who pay for the repair works. I do not think he deserves to be mayor. And this is why we have pointed our anger to him. He is serving his third consecutive mandate but his election is sort of relative. I guess most people just don’t think. This is the main problem not only in Varna but in the whole country. We have had the same government for 30 years, or even 70 years. Only faces in government change but the main driving forces behind it remain. And people vote just out of habit. The mayor does some surface stuff like painting a few zebra crossings and people are like “look, he really does do something for the city”. But then problems like the lack of bike lanes remain.

Crowfish bathe in blue light. Well, it is better than chicken blood...

- Years ago the hardcore scene in Bulgaria seemed more united. I guess you remember how Vendetta used to sing “from Sofia to Varna as one we stand” and then they changed the lyrics to just “as one we stand”… now the scene doesn’t seen as united. What changed?
- Times were different. There weren’t that many shows and people weren’t that alienated back then. Not the principle of globalization is active at full force. People get alienated, everyone stays at home, they try not to go out as much, they go only to work, buy some stuff and head back home. And that is it. This makes people easy to manipulate. It is the world tendency, it is not limited only to Bulgaria. You can see less and less people going to shows. This is one of the reasons. People have become apathetic to everything. It is not like 10 years ago – people were more energetic, they travelled around. Now the young ones don’t care at all.

- You know, some might say you think so only due to nostalgia…
- No. This is not something only I think and not something limited only to music. It is the same in every other sphere. It is the so called World Government. The moment when this thing will be a reality draws near. This crisis and all the bank bankruptcies is no coincidence – all the money and property has to be concentrated within a group of a few people. This is the whole idea of the crisis. And this is it – people’s routine’s have been getting tighter and tighter and in the end they have no time to think for shows and all kinds of entertainment. This is not so clearly sensible now but it will be obvious in some ten to 15 years.

- Isn’t it the exact opposite – people becoming easier to manipulate when they waste their energy on entertainment instead of focusing on real issues?
- This is the exact idea – to make people unable to think why things end up that way. To make the apathetic. And in the end everyone will be ruled by a single corporation that would decide everything. This is the goal of this whole globalization thing and it is fully in motion as we speak.