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BACK
VOIVOD
- Cyber metal attack!
By Alex Ristic
It's late March, 1997, and the weather outside of Signal To Noise
studio is miserable. Upstairs, in the Toronto recording facility,
is probably the most quintessential metal band that Canada has ever
produced: Voivod.
Working with engineer Rob Sanzo on their newest offering, Phobos,
the band is in the middle of laying down the bed tracks. Michel
"Away" Langevin (drums), Denis "Piggy" D'amour (guitars) and Eric
"E-Force" Forrest (bass/vocals) are taking a break, watching a hockey
game, smoking a joint and talking with UNRESTRAINED! on the concept
behind the new album.
"It's kind of the return of the Voivod character," said Langevin
on the science fiction myth where their name came from. "It's pretty
simple actually. He wakes up and looks around and doesn't like it
(the state of the world) so he destroys everything and goes back
to sleep." This will be the second album for this threesome as a
unit and all indications are that it will be as good and as heavy
as its predecessor Negatron. There's even talk that Metallica bassist
Jason Newsted will contribute to the album, but in which capacity
is not yet known.
Giving a taste of what is to come, the band enters the studio and
rewinds and plays the skeleton of what will be "Neutrino," a spacey,
echoey beginning which later translates into crunching guitars and
extreme, crushing percussive blasts, but without the chainsaw vocals
to spare the journalist from heaving in agony and ecstasy, especially
with all the smoke inhaled.
Fast forward to Fall of 1997. Voivod are playing Lee's Palace in
Toronto. The album is out and selling well. "Neutrino" is the ninth
track, and the Jason Newsted addition is in the form of "M-Body"
a song he co-wrote with the band.
The crowd looks sparse and would be a slap in the face for most
metal legends, but the band takes it in stride. Just the night before
they played Call The Office in London, Ontario and only 100 people
showed up. In Europe, however, Voivod are true gods. Langevin says
that the first pressing of the album has pretty much sold out and
that fans in Europe have different loyalties when compared to their
North American counterparts when it comes to metal.
"It's a hardcore following," he says. "They won't let us stop. They
send e-mail, letters, and they don't want us to stop. They might
be only 75,000 people, but they think we're the best band in the
galaxy."
The band isn't too worried with the state of affairs at home. Sure
they would like to be appreciated more, but being loved everywhere
else in the world almost makes up for it.
"It's always the same. We put an album out, certain people buy it.
In every country in Europe, we're going to sell more than Negatron
(which at last count was near 100,000 world wide). Just judging
with the start and the shipping and the press. We haven't had such
good reviews since Nothingface maybe."
Not only do fans overseas appreciate the band more, but members
from bands like My Dying Bride and Dearly Beheaded go on record
as saying Voivod are their favorite bands. D'amour says it's only
natural.
"It's a normal thing you know. We're an established band. We've
been around more than 10 years (15 actually) so everybody, you know,
listened to it when they were young and grew up with it. It's part
of the influence. It's like when I learned to play guitar everybody
I was copying was an influence."
Although it's a lame excuse to offer up that maybe fans in North
America aren't used to Forrest's vocals yet, Langevin shoots that
notion out of the sky like the army would shoot a flying saucer.
He says the band plays much better live now than it has in years.
"We grew into a better band touring with Eric for the past three
years. The chemistry is better. At the end of the 80's the tension
had grown so much within the band that it had weakened the band.
And we were pretty boring live toward the end. And now it's like
total fun."
And what does E-Force have to say about the situation?
"I kind of come with the attitude of 'Let's make some music. Let's
just do it," says the singer who with two albums under his belt
with the band is just scratching the surface of what the band can
achieve.
The tour for Negatron saw the band reach the shores of Europe twice
and the US four times, and there is no reason for it to be different
this time around. There's even talk of a live album, garnered from
different dates including the Dynamo Festival in Holland and a gig
at CBGB's in New York, for early '98.
The band has avoided the fate of some of their contemporaries like
Destruction and Celtic Frost, and with Venom back and Kreator rejuvenated,
it looks like they can rise to the top of the metallic ladder once
again. The dark tunnel that metal is in right now is inching closer
to the light, but will Voivod be there when metal eventually breaks
out once more?
D'amour gives a simple response:
"I'd like to think that as long as we got the spirit in the band
high, everything's possible."
ANGEL CORPSE - Exhuming the Corpse of Retro!
By Adam Wasylyk
After playing an impressive show at the Milwaukee
Metal Fest and the following month at the Michigan Metal Fest playing
TWO ravenous live sets (to make up for Absu's cancellation), it
demonstrated that Angel Corpse devastate both in the flesh and on
disc, evidenced by their Osmose debut Hammer of Gods. Boasting influences
such as Possessed, Kreator and Morbid Angel, a retro feel permeates
Angel Corpse's music but instead of exploiting it like other bands,
they've built it into their own sound and have created some raging
black/death metal that bands can only dream of coming close to.
I had the pleasure to talk at length with guitarist Gene Palubicki
about Angel Corpse and all that is metal. What made this chat so
enjoyable was not only Gene's honesty but his evident love for metal.
With the opening of the American branch of Osmose Productions, you'll
soon see a re-release of Hammer of Gods with two bonus tracks (Possessed's
"Burning in Hell" and Kreator's "Pleasure to Kill"), so pick it
up if you haven't already.
U!: When you formed Angel Corpse, what were your philosophies and
expectations behind it's creation?
GP: What we wanted to do is what we've always enjoyed, to create
pure metal. In this case, pure death metal. Death/thrash, black/death.
Because that's where we've always come from. We listen to a lot
of the older albums, like myself I think (albums) like Possessed's
Seven Churches are still some of the most stand out albums to this
day. That stuff was pure metal. It had nothing to do with trends.
What we're doing is pure metal as well and I think what we're creating
is just metal for the sake of metal. Pure brutality, craziness,
lead guitar solos and stuff. A lot of bands these days almost try
to stamp out what metal really started out with, with bands like
Judas Priest with the dual lead guitar attack and they've just tried
to turn it into grinding sludge that has nothing to do with what
metal really is. And I think that's what we're trying to re-birth
with Angel Corpse, the real heavy metal.
U!: I noticed a strong Altar's of Madness-era Morbid Angel influence
on Hammer of Gods, are they a band that have influenced Angel Corpse?
GP: Yeah I think especially their album Altars of Madness, when
that album came out it was one of the most stand-out albums during
that time because there wasn't really any bands that were mixing
blast beats and super-speed with any kind of sensibility at all.
Plus they had the kind of energy of some of the more early Slayer
material, or Possessed for that matter. So that really stood out
as a great metal album. And keeping the tradition of dual lead guitar
attack and all that, it's perfect.
U! How did you come to sign to Osmose Productions?
GP: We did a four-track demo tape to showcase some of the songs
that we had at the time. And we sent a tape to Osmose just seeing
if they would like to do distribution of the demo tape, but when
Herve heard the tape he called us up immediately almost and he wanted
to sign the band. We did the demo tape and two weeks later we were
being sent a contract so we really had no circulation in the underground
at the time we were signed.
U!: What are you thoughts on it's roster of bands?
GP: A lot of the newer stuff that's coming out on the label I could
disagree with. This whole retro-thing I think is kind of becoming
a really bad trend. I think some of the bands that I totally distaste
are probably Inferno and um....
U!: Bewitched?
GP: Yeah, Bewitched. I mean anybody who's really into the style
that they're trying to portray is going to listen to the originators
that do those albums anyway. I mean why listen to Inferno when you
could listen to Endless Pain or Inferal Overkill by Destruction?
Those albums are still alive and well so we don't need a copy [finally
someone with the guts to say it like it is - Adam]. They're not
doing any justice to those albums by ripping them off. I mean unless
the bands are doing it as a joke and if people are happy with that
and they want to make metal a joke they can have it but I don't
want any part of that.
U!: I saw you guys at the Michigan Metal Fest when you played twice
to make up for the absence of Absu and I must say I was very impressed.
Describe to those what an Angel Corpse live set is like?
GP: PURE DIABOLIC CHAOS! We try to present something to look at.
And even that show for example, there would be like ten bands that
would play that you wouldn't really watch but you'd hear. Because
if you looked at the stage there was nothing to see. It was just
bands going through the motions, nothing exciting. Nothing very
metal about the whole thing. The whole thing about metal is it's
supposed to grab people's attention, it's not supposed to be something
you just stare at and say "whatever" and just wait for the next
band to come up afterwards. We try to make something so that there's
actually reason to watch what's going on on the stage. It's like
with leads, one guy on one side of the stage breaks off into some
total craziness when all of a sudden the people watching the show
can actually look and see what's going on on another part of the
stage. Then the other guy goes into some crazy part. It's basically
to have action going on while you're playing.
U!: What did you think of the Milwaukee Metal Fest?
GP: It was a pretty good show but there was a lot of the same, a
lot of bands sounding a like. I think that's where we really stood
out at that show, there was no other band at that show that sounded
even remotely close to what we were doing.
U!: Of the two festivals, was there one that you enjoyed more or
did they compare pretty closely?
GP: Aside from the fact that the Milwaukee deal was a lot bigger
and there was a lot more people there, I'd have to say the Milwaukee
show was better. There actually seemed to be people at the Milwaukee
show who were familiar with us, we got a fair crowd response but
at the Michigan show I don't think anyone knew who the fuck we were!
U!: Something that caught my eye at your Michigan show was your
other guitarist Bill [Taylor, ex/Xenomorph - Adam], as I was watching
him on-stage I noticed that his arms appeared to be cut up. Was
that, like, does he do that sort of thing?
GP: Yeah he does that.
U!: So he's into self-mutilation?
GP: Yeah.
U!: What do your thoughts on that?
GP: Well, myself I don't really practice that kind of thing. But
I guess each one of us in this band are into their own individual
thing. You can kind of tell, I mean aside from the fact that now
all three of us actually have shaved heads, by looking at each of
us on-stage we don't have any kind of unified look, each one of
us are in our own little world while we're out there which I think
is cool, instead of looking like robots.
U!: Hammer of Gods has been out for quite awhile so I'm sure you
guys have a good amount of new material already?
GP: Yeah, at the end of October we're going into the studio to record
the new album.
U!: Is there a title for it yet?
GP: Oh yeah, the new album is called Exterminate.
U!: How does it compare to the material off Hammer of Gods?
GP: It's definitely in the same vein as Hammer of Gods but there's
a lot more emphasis on the speed element. This album's [referring
to Exterminate - Adam] got a lot more really brutal double bass
and a lot more blasting. It's going to be faster. Other than that,
I guess anybody who liked or hated our first album is probably going
to have a more extreme reaction to this new album. We're definitely
going to have a lot better production on this new album, we're going
to Morrisound Studios down in Tampa to record the new one.
U!: And finally, what do you think the future holds for Angel Corpse?
GP: Ideally I hope that we can continue to do a lot more albums
and get some good tours and stuff so we can get this stuff out.
I really want to get people back into pure metal thing. I want to
get this stuff in the limelight. There's going to be a lot of great
albums in the near future, I mean just in the beginning of '98 the
new Morbid Angel album is going to be absolutely killer. I just
really want people to get back into what is the essence of death
metal. The whole gothic and romanticism thing, it has nothing to
do with metal. Death metal is supposed to be about violence, brutality
and vengeance, and I want to get that spirit back into people's
hearts.
The Evolution of... BRUTAL TRUTH
By: Christopher Bruni
In 1992, there was this album called Extreme Conditions
Demand Extreme Responses. It was insanely fast, brutal, devastating
and uncompromising. Little was known about newcomers Brutal Truth
at the time. That same year, Utopia Banished was unleashed by grind
heroes at the time, Napalm Death, and another album that was called
something like Necroroticism.... by a band called Carcass. Bass
player Danny Lilker was known within underground circles from his
days in Nuclear Assault dating all the way back to when he was Anthrax'
first bass player. But through numerous tours, opening up for the
aforementioned bands, Brutal Truth would slowly evolve to eventually
become the grind deities of the 90's... and the future.
When Need To Control came out, Brutal Truth would slowly manhandle
the grind scene, where bands like Napalm and Carcass would slowly
deteriorate, wanting to expand their sounds for a wider audience.
Brutal Truth were on top. Then through thick and thin, they would
sever their ties with Earache, sign with Relapse, release a cool
beaster of an EP (Kill Trend Suicide), and recently, unleash the
total epitome of grind and extreme music; Sounds Of The Animal Kingdom.
An album that will single-handedly re-define extreme music for the
90's. You see the evolutionary process? Right now, Brutal Truth
are the survivors and they are the fittest. Through Darwin's theory
of evolution, Extreme Conditions... would slowly take Brutal Truth
into Sounds...; the highest form of grindcore.
Drummer Richard Hoak is presently bored out of his fuckin' skull,
he's wasted, wants to get on the road again with the band. But first
let him explain the revolutionary process....
"Well.... with all that shit with Earache.... we never stop writing
tunes man. It's like we're walking down the street and a tune comes
in our head and we make it," explains Rich about Brutal Truth's
musical fixations since the Earache break-up. "All the time we were
dealing with lawyers, we were frustrated and we still kept making
songs. We recorded demos on an 8-track in the rehearsal studio and
that's where a lot of these tunes came from, and the songs for Kill
Trend... (their previous EP) and this were all written at the same
time, a two year limbo, and dealt with all the frustrations through
that. Relapse wanted us to put out the EP and then go full length,
so we then wrote some songs after.
Musically, though this shouldn't be taken as a joke. Sounds....
is very musical. These are songs that a well thought out and are
executed with such style, it's so inventive, and complies this insane
continuity. That is why nobody can touch Brutal Truth at the moment.
Again, Sounds... is a total milestone. It has that raw live sound
that Extreme Conditions encompassed. It's extremely striking. Just
check out the album cover; a jaw dropping half-man, half-gorilla
beast on a white background.
"When the guy who put the cover together man I just wet my pants!
It's a really striking image. It fits totally in with the music
and the lyrics and the concept. Dude, I was so psyched! I had the
idea of it, and originally I had Adam Sandler out of a magazine
and I cut him in half and I took like a gorilla, went to the library,
and pasted it together. Then I went to the Relapse office and I
was like, 'This is what I want the cover to look like,' and they
looked at me like some stupid fuckin' idiot. What Rich can clearly
prophesies is that Brutal Truth will do nothing but tour, tour and
tour.
"Starting in November we're going to get the best tour we can get
and do the world man. The US, Canada, Japan, Europe, New Zealand,
South Africa... man we'll play anywhere man, we played a fuckin
burrito shop in North Carolina. It was an awesome show. We got 75
dollars, all the burrito's we could eat, there were about fifteen,
twenty hard-core Brutal Truth fans and we like sat up on the ground
and blew it up man, we had nothing else to do, we had all the beer,
pot, burritos. We love playin' shows like that, well I do."
You gotta stop by Toronto dude?
"We hope it comes around man. If it's four of us and a sound guy
in a van, we're there."
Hey I can get a hold of some pot.
"Dude, you're coming back stage then! We're gonna have a party!"
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