thePULSEBy Jillian Locke, Pulse Music Editor
September marks the beginning of the new school year. However, the best of the best seasons is on the brink. With it comes all the tastes, smells and sounds of change ~ and HOODIES! But before we move headlong into the fresh season, let’s reflect on some of the most bad-ass shows of the summer, with interviews from Testament and…. wait for it… MOTORHEAD! What better way to end the summer than with the titans of metal themselves?!?!
Testament’s lead guitarist Alex Skolnick was kind enough to take some time out during the Metal Masters Tour to talk about the tour and the band’s 2008 Nuclear Blast release The Formation of Damnation. The album debuted at #59 on the Billboard Top 200. It’s the highest ranking in their 24-year career.
“This album is a combination of the best of the earlier and later period of Testament,” said Skolnick. “This album satisfies both older and newer fans.”
Reminiscent of their earlier work, 1988’s The New Order, Testament revisited many of the same themes, which are still (eerily and disappointingly) prevalent today.
“New Order was influenced by the George Orwell classic 1984,” Skolnick said. “We were assigned that book in high school and I loved it ~ it’s very metal! This album is influenced by the concepts on that album, which are a lot of themes that have come true ~ chipping away individual freedoms, increased government control. The government is undermining all the concepts they claim to be all about.”
As for The Palladium show, Testament’s proverbial nads were pumped to play a club-type atmosphere. It was a refreshing change from their usual stadium tours.
“The tour’s been really good,” said Skolnick. “It’s nice to play for a club audience. You feel the intensity much more at a club show, and there’s always great energy in Worcester.”
His thoughts on the tour itself?
“There is A LOT of metal on this tour! And when you listen to metal, you can FEEL metal. It’s an onslaught of energy. But it’s always funny at the after-party, because I put on my iPod and play James Brown. After all that metal, all I wanna hear is funk!”
The tour runs through the end of the month, so check the pages and plan for a road trip!
www.myspace.com/testament, www.testamentlegions.com
Moving right along… wanna hear from Mikkey Dee, epic monster drummer of Motorhead? OF COURSE you do! Can I just say, for the record, that this was one of THE best interviews I’ve ever done. Mikkey is a gentleman and a metal scholar. The best quote I got from him was hands down, “We’re like Spinal Tap without the script!”
Without further ado, here are some insights into Motorhead’s staying power and their August 26 SPV release Motorizer.
“I think every album is a reflection of the past year,” said Mikkey Dee. “We’re such a simple band when we write music. It’s hard to keep changing but not changing, you know? How do you color a black and white picture and keep it black and white?”
“It’s really hard to piece stuff together that is new but at the same time kind of holds within the red line of Motorhead. But wrecord is what we were feeling when we wrote it… compared to Infero and e write very spontaneously and what you hear on the Kiss of Death, it’s a very wide album. There are so many different types of songs. There are shuffles, down temps, mid tempos, ballads. It’s f***in’ rock and roll like Buddy Holly would have done it. The whole album gives you an impression somehow. I’m really happy with this album… This is us. We’re three people doing our thing.”
But when it comes to Motorhead’s staying power, and by the grace of whatever magical force has allotted them as much success and longevity as they’ve enjoyed, Dee had this to say:
“Bands keep re-writing, re-doing, and re-perfecting songs to eternity. But some people can’t see that the way it was recorded the first time was the best. There are songs I would have changed a lot on, but that’s history. You move on. It’s important to see that, and maybe that’s why we’re still here.” Well said. www.myspace.com/motorhead, www.imotorhead.com
Here’s something a little less intense than I usually include in the column – Royal Bliss, a straight-up rock outfit from Salt Lake City. Life in Between, the band’s 2008 MRV release, is generally uplifting rock and roll. There’s nothing unabashedly original about the sound, but I do a recall a particular night as of late where I kinda just wanted to drop dead from the day in/day out of the 9-5er work week, and there were definitely a few really uplifting gems on this collection. It’s definitely a stay-in, quasi-pity party night kind of sound, and let’s not bullsh*t here – we all need that sometimes…plus a bit of the cheese factor. Neal Middleton’s vocals are serenely soothing, and sort of remind me of a mellowed out version of Three Days Grace. There’s passion and heartfelt lyrics, and sometimes, just sometimes, that’s enough. OH! And there’s upright bass, and, do my ears deceive me? A dramatic, squealing violin? Oh, and this line: “I will never tell you to get sober. I will always be your true friend.” Check them out at www.myspace.com/royalbliss
On September 30th, Prosthetic Records will offer up another tasty French nugget to moisten our American metal palette. As if the seamless musical stylings of Bayonne, France’s Gojira weren’t enough, enter Colmar’s Hollow Corp. Originally released on Sweden’s Dental Records in 2007, Prosthetic will unleash Cloister of Radiance to eager North American ears this month. With their raw power and their formidable tidal waves of eerie progression spliced with doomy, stripped down post-hardcore rage, Hollow Corp. resurrects aspects of Isis’ 2002 progressive blueprint, Oceanic, in the airy, boundary-less feel of floating through a cosmic soundscape. Cloister of Radiance boasts eight tracks in 60 minutes, each track bleeding into the next, building upon solid foundation to reach further into the ever-growing world of progressive metal. Hollow Corp. make their mark by delivering the perfect balance of ethereal and brutal, stirring up a metallurgic combination that is accessible, yet bends the lines enough to blast through prog-metal boundaries with tracks like “Peripherals,” which displays the band’s softer, emotionally poignant side, to offerings like the bombastic, growling tones of “Sabbat,” that truly release the savage brutality of vocalist Stephane Azam’s guttural range.
The metallic rollercoaster follows close in suit, gripping closely to the rise of fall of the vocal melodies as we’re pulled into a simulated study of sludgery and doomology. “Thujon” is a mighty ending to an album that spits in the face of the concepts of space and time. Like their name, the band seems to create a vortex of dark, reeling sound, where a hollow space is both bursting forth at the seams, yet composed of nothing but leftover galaxies and black holes of pure, perfect metallic limbo…give them your full attention and a serious listen. www.myspace.com/hollowcorp, hollowcorp.free.fr
Therion, Sweden’s troupe of goth-metal warriors, have compiled a truly epic live collection for those who revel in black capes, corsets, and medieval battle music. Live Gothic, Therion’s 2008 Nuclear Blast two-disc release, captures the gianormous presence of this booming cavalcade of operatically-driven goth paradise as recorded on Valentine’s Day during their 2007 Gothic Kabbalah World Tour in Warsaw, Poland. But wait, there’s more! What better way to capture the entire live experience than including a live DVD from said concert? Showcasing guitarist and founder Christopher Johnsson, guitarist Kristian Niemann, bassist Johan Niemann, drummer Petter Karlsson, and vocalists Lori Lewis, Katrina Lilja, Snowy Shaw, and Mats Leven, the DVD boasts all 22 tracks from the double discs, including “The Blood of Kingu,” “An Arrow From The Sun,” “Deggial,” “The Perennial Sophia,” and a kick-ass drum solo by Karlsson that is executed so effortlessly that it harkens back to the human drum-machine himself, Nick Barker (Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Old Man’s Child, Lock Up). Therion are true masters of symphonic metal, conjuring the sounds and images of their axe-wielding past lives (clearly!). www.myspace.com/therion, www.megatherion.com
Once again, our hometown heroes of brutality have made headlines – The Acacia Strain have bombed the Billboard charts at #2 for Continent, smashing through their first week of album sales, and landed an additional spot on Billboard Heatseekers at #107. In a recent press release, vocalist Vincent Bennett had this to say: “Obviously, we’re really excited we made charts and very appreciative to everyone that bought the record this first week, but at same time it’s really hard to sell records with all the people downloading nowadays. We’re really happy that people still went out and bought it did and we hope they enjoy it.” Considering the theme for the album, according to Bennett, is “nihilism…hatred, rage, and resentment,” the album clearly murdered the Billboards, making this an epic hardcore homerun for the home team!
As for this month at The Palladium, we’ve got Beneath the Massacre (check out videos of the band recording their upcoming Prosthetic release, Dystopia, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tToXYCeGsk), with Carcass, Necrophagist, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, 1349, Aborted, Rotten Sound, and Veil Of Maya on the 5th, Opeth, High on Fire, and Nachtmystium on September 19th (check back next month for an interview with Opeth, straight from the show!), Helloween and Gamma Ray on the 20th, Whitechapel, Through The Eyes of the Dead, Impending Doom, and A Different Breed of Killer on the 23rd, and Apocalyptica on the 25th. Ralph’s Diner has a KICK-ASS line-up on the 6th, including Blacktail, Disappearer, Joshua English, Ghost Ocean, and Steven Brodsky (of Cave-In), Seemless and Bloodwitch on the 20th, the Milltown Hotrod Show on the 27th, and Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction, Ironhead, Demon’s Alley, and more TBA. It’s a KILLAH month for some drrrty metal and rock!
Next month is the UNHOLIEST and BEST month of the year. We’ve got Opeth, Danzig and Rock and Shock coming our way. Prepare yourselves for autumn, Halloween and all the spooky horror-fest and metal debauchery that will surely ensue!
Photos:(top to bottom) Motorhead, Testament, Royal Bliss, Hollow Corp., Therion
