Metal Hammer

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MARILYN MANSON Manson: “the job of a rock reveal the name of her abuser (after star is to entertain people” a Twitter user asked why she has never named them, she replied: Manson doesn’t sound angry or magazine” – their exact words – is “They threatened to kill me or have GETTY exasperated when he says this. There’s even engaging with a topic like this. me killed”). a calmness in his voice. But he’s clearly They also insist that Manson didn’t not engaging with what I want to talk hang up, that the line cut off. At one Nor is Manson’s silence any about. I try another question – does he point, they ask if the magazine can implication of guilt. Seen one way, his still feel like a transgressive artist? - pull the piece and not run it. There’s reluctance to engage with questions but we end up talking over each other. an implication that if it runs, it could about his relationship with Evan damage future relationships between Rachel Wood and the culture of abuse “Nah,” he’s saying, “I’m just saying the magazine and Manson. Offers from generally is logical. Even simply you’re not going to get a response the magazine for Manson to clarify his acknowledging what has been said from that. It’s only because it’s not comments and position on the issues could be viewed as giving credence to something I’m gonna respond to, ’cos raised are turned down, including online allegations. it’s not off [sic] the table.” a further set of questions surrounding Evan Rachel Wood, Esmé Bianco and But it is frustrating that an artist who So you just want to talk about your the #MeToo movement. was never afraid to take on the bastions new album? of power and their abuses is suddenly To be clear: there’s no suggestion ducking the issue of personal abuse and “Tell me good questions about the that the person Evan Rachel Wood the culture that for so long has either music and we’ll continue.” has accused of abusing her is Marilyn ignored it or glorified it. Manson. Wood herself has refused to So you only want to talk about the When he talked of fantasising about new album (now it’s my turn to repeat “I UNDERSTAND smashing Evan Rachel Wood’s skull myself)? You don’t want to talk about THAT YOU HAVE with a sledgehammer, Manson wasn’t the [online] allegations against you? TO ASK A QUESTION just exercising his artistic or personal LIKE THAT, BUT right to free speech, he was doing what “There’s no allegations against I DON’T WANT he has always done: saying something me, and I’m not going to talk about TO TALK ABOUT outrageous, crossing boundaries, it. Rumours…” RUMOURS” testing the limits of people’s tolerance for transgression. All the things we There’s a noise like someone has MARILYN MANSON wanted from Marilyn Manson. put their hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. I think I can hear But culture has shifted. The #MeToo a muffled voice. Then silence. and #TimesUp movements have cast his words in a different, truer light. I listen for a few seconds. But Marilyn Women – including ones who have Manson has gone. been close to Manson at points in his life – are threatened and abused on t doesn’t take long for the shit to a daily basis. Talking about smashing hit the fan. There are calls from in a partner’s skull isn’t provocative – Manson’s team asking what Hammer it’s pathetic and psychopathic; calling was thinking bringing up Evan Rachel someone 158 times and cutting yourself Wood, and why a “heavy metal until they take you back isn’t romantic, it’s abusive. As Evan Rachel Wood’s testimony about her treatment at the hands of an unnamed partner show, these situations are real. This isn’t an attempt to ‘cancel’ Marilyn Manson, just an attempt to engage him in a broader conversation about an era where some of the old rock’n’roll ways look increasingly toxic, and his place in it. “We’re living in a world where everyone’s afraid of everything,” he said at one point during our conversation. In his case, that fear apparently extends to discussing a subject that’s both timely and real. During one of his many circular digressions in our interview, Manson once again brought the subject of conversation back around to We Are Chaos. Where in the past, he said, he had used his songs and his persona to hold a mirror to society, here he was turning it inwards. “I use a mirror on myself,” he said. What he sees when he gazes into that mirror isn’t clear. Because right now, the phone line is silent. And so is Marilyn Manson. 52 METALHAMMER.COM

MARILYN MANSON Following this interview, we asked Manson to respond to 10 questions. He didn’t, but his PR did give us a statement WORDS: SCOTT ROWLEY s we prepared this story, over multiple being controversial and outrageous and today “You go on to talk about Manson commenting phone calls we offered Marilyn is questioned as abuse? on sexual harassment, Me Too and specifically Manson’s team the chance for him the experiences of his ex partner Rose to do another interview and tell us his 7) Another former girlfriend of Marilyn McGowan. These are all issues that Manson side of the story. On October 21, his Manson’s, Esmé Bianco, also testified in has publicly addressed and are available UK PR wrote to us to stress a few things: front of the California Senate Public Safety online. Please see Channel 4 interview from firstly, that Manson had not hung up: “the Committee about a past abusive relationship 15th December 2017 http://bit.ly/MMchannel4 line had cut… the reception had been bad she had. How does he feel about the fact [Editor’s note: we have made the long links he throughout the call… Unless you have proof that two of his ex-girlfriends have had supplied into bit.ly links for convenience]. that Manson put the phone down I can’t such relationships? see how you can write that as fact.” (Later, “Manson has never shied away from public he added: “After the line had cut to the 8) Another of MM’s former partners, Rose comment - equally he does not have to make interview, I made the decision not to reconnect McGowan, has been at the forefront of the the same comment twice. the interview.”) #MeToo movement - with at least three of his “We have never refused to respond,” he ex-partners claiming to have suffered abuse at “There will be no further comment on wrote. “You have chosen not to tell us what the hands of men who then intimidated them specific songs. Your journalist had the you are writing and it’s impossible to respond into silence, does he stand in support of them? opportunity to ask Manson about his music – to something we don’t know the content of.” one of only two interviews granted in the We wrote back with some questions for 9) It’s possible to interpret lyrics on the song UK – and he chose not to. Trying to weave Manson to respond to, offering him the chance Perfume on his new album as being about one section of one song from an artist with to express his side of the story: ‘victim culture’ – the song seems to suggest a 30 plus year career to fit a narrative is both that some victims relish their victimhood and disingenuous and troublesome. 1) In the interview, before the call was do it for fame (‘So you wear your damage on your terminated, we asked how Marilyn Manson sleeve… Cause victim is chic/You’re as famous as “You mention Manson’s ex fiancée Rose (MM) felt on hearing Evan Rachel Wood your pain’) - is that how he feels? McGowan in your questions. Rose is one of the (ERW)’s testimony. How did he feel? bravest and most outspoken figureheads of the 10) The song could even be considered Me Too movement. Manson remains friends 2) How does it feel to be “tried by social threatening to someone who is claiming with McGowan and she talks very fondly of media”? He has been accused by people online victimhood: ‘In your hair will be brains.’ What is their three a half years together. There are of some terrible things. Would he like to take the song Perfume about? multiple sources worldwide. I link to Washington this opportunity to answer those critics and Post article on McGowan’s Memoir “Brave” clear his name? Marilyn Manson’s UK PR representative, here: http://bit.ly/rosebookextracts Duff Battye, replied, “We have advised our 3) ERW responded to online gossip that her client not to comment further on your article,” “You fail to mention Manson’s ex-wife Dita unnamed abuser was [actor] Mickey Rourke and went on to make a statement: Von Teese, who remains good friends with by tweeting: “A lot of rumors have been Manson. Quoting from a Female First article circulating around about who I was talking “Personal testimony is just that, and we published in 2018, “Dita admits she has been about in my testimony. I would like to clear think it’s inappropriate to comment on that. “lucky” to avoid any abusive episodes in the something up and say, it wasn’t Mickey entertainment industry in her career”. http:// Rourke.” How did MM feel to read that, bearing “You then go on to talk about Manson being bit.ly/ditastory in mind that some people online have claimed accused of “terrible things” by unnamed that the unnamed abuser could be him? Did “critics” but offer no guidance on who these “There are also numerous articles over he reach out to ERW and ask her to clear his critics are and what these things are, so it’s multiple years where Evan Rachel Wood name also? not possible to comment. speaks very positively about her relationship with Manson. In NetAPorters.com’s The Edit 4) After a Twitter user asked ERW why she “You then mention Mickey Rourke. It is my “I wouldn’t trade any of [our relationship],” has never named her abuser, she replied: understanding that Evan Rachel Wood dated Wood told the mag. “I appreciate everything “They threatened to kill me or have me killed”. multiple people around the time she was he taught me. I just don’t think we were right Back in 2009, MM appeared to make light- dating Manson. Basic internet research will for each other.” http://bit.ly/ERWonMM hearted/hyperbolic comments about give you a host of other names that have not fantasising about “smashing her skull with come up in any of our discussions. “Finally you talk about death threats. a sledgehammer” – does he regret making Manson knows all about those - he has had comments like that today? “Your next couple of points deal with many. He has spent his career being blamed comments Manson made in Spin magazine for everything from Columbine to teenage 5) Does he agree with Patricia Arquette in 2009. Your confusion around the timeline suicide. Unfortunately, we live in a time where that “Marilyn Manson Cutting himself of this is extremely worrying. [Editor’s note: people believe what they read on the Internet, 158 x’s when he called Evan Rachel Wood there is no confusion around this timeline.] and feel free to say what they want with no after breakup it’s not [LOVEHEART EMOJI] The comments in Spin where Manson had actual evidence. The effects can be catastrophic it’s abuse”? a fantasy of using a sledgehammer on Evan and promoting non fact based information is and he cut himself 158 times was obviously wholly irresponsible. All we can try and do, 6) What does it say of our culture that when a theatrical rock star interview promoting as the media and individuals, is to use facts he said that in 2009 it was seen as Manson a new record, and not a factual account. The and truth and not hide behind gossip and fact that Evan and Manson got engaged six conjecture to further our own agendas.” months after this interview would indicate that no one took this story literally. METALHAMMER.COM 53

GHOST Ten years ago, a band formed by a former death metal mainstay turned the underground on its head. A decade on, we look inside the unlikely rise of Ghost WORDS: DAVE EVERLEY

GHOST PRESS

GHOST omething strange was afoot, but Crashdïet. “Between 19 and 29, I was a very Papa Emeritus with Lee Dorrian and Lee Dorrian wasn’t sure what. unsuccessful musician”, he says, wryly. some seriously expensive robes It was early 2010 and he had recently signed an intriguing new In 2006, Tobias added another project to his anti-pope named Papa Emeritus. He loved the band named Ghost to his label, crowded CV. He’d begun writing songs inspired theatre of acts such as Kiss and King Diamond, Rise Above, and now their by the old Blue Öyster Cult, Mercyful Fate and and he wanted to put his own archly sinister frontman and mastermind Tobias Forge Misfits records he grew up listening to. He occult spin on it. wanted money. For a robe. loved the way those bands used classic rock, “At that point I still hadn’t seen what they metal and punk to smuggle in big pop melodies, It was an ambitious plan, but that ambition looked like”, recalls the former Cathedral and not to mention the occult undercurrents that butted up against his need to pay the bills and Napalm Death singer. “Tobias kept asking for flowed beneath each of them. help feed his family. He was working in a call money, which was increasing, for this bespoke centre for a Swedish phone company when the robe he needed to have made for a photoshoot. Tobias christened this one-man band Ghost, full concept for Ghost began to materialise. “It’s It ended up costing more than the actual shoot though initially it was just one of several so ludicrous, because I know nothing about itself. I was like, ‘Fucking hell, it better be musical pursuits occupying his attention. That telephones or computers”, he says with a laugh. a decent robe.’” began to change over a weekend in March “I just mastered the art of bullshitting.” A curious Lee coughed up the cash and 2008, when he entered a studio in Stockholm waited, wondering what this secretive musician with his friend, Repugnant bassist Gustaf While he was there, he began sketching from the Swedish city of Linköping was up to. Lindström, to record demos of three songs out songs and concepts. It was there, too, that “Then the photos came through, the very first Tobias had written: Prime Mover, Stand By he scribbled out the Ghost logo while on the photos we’d ever seen. It was like, ‘Fuuuuuck…’” Him and Death Knell. Towards the end of the phone to a customer. “I was sitting there just Post-Slipknot, bands in masks were a dime weekend, the pair listened back to the wishing for another life”, he says. a dozen, but this was something more sinister. recording they’d made. “I think that was the The photographs showed a group of shadowy moment where we knew that this sounded That other life was calling. With a young figures in dark cowls, flanking someone very peculiar”, says Tobias. “If we liked it, we family to support, Tobias’s attention had – something – that resembled an undead pope, knew other people would too.” understandably been drawn elsewhere. But he right down to embroidered mitre, deathly could feel the clock ticking down. “Towards mask and, yes, very expensive robe. He might have liked the songs he’d written, the end of 2009, I felt I needed to take the “It was timing, it was ambition, it was a little but the last thing he wanted to do was sing on little time I had and focus all of it on one bit of desperation”, says Tobias Forge of the them himself. “I was always a big fan of Slash thing”, he says. “And Ghost was the best thing impact his band would make, not just on his and Keith Richards”, he says. “I wanted to be I’d ever done.” new label boss but on the metal scene at large. the cool guitar player rather than the singer.” “On the other hand, I had been preparing all arch 12, 2010 was the day Tobias my life for it.” He contacted several established vocalists Forge’s life changed, for good and The man at the centre of both the photograph to ask if they wanted to sing the songs he had bad. He had uploaded the songs he and Ghost itself knew what he was about to written, including ex-Candlemass frontman had recorded as Ghost to MySpace, then spent unleash on the world. What he didn’t know Messiah Marcolin, Janne ‘JB’ Christoffersson of the next few hours rehearsing with Repugnant, was just how much the world would embrace Grand Magus, and former Yngwie Malmsteen figuring he could hit the road with that band his grand, crazy vision. singer Mats Levén, among others. None of and spread the word about Ghost while he was them bit. Reluctantly, Tobias realised that if he doing it. That evening, he visited his mum at obias Forge admits that Ghost were his wanted the job doing, he would have to do it her apartment. Checking his computer, he last roll of the dice. He’d been playing himself. Or almost himself. In his head, this watched his MySpace page explode. in bands since his mid-teens, with little project would be fronted by a ghoulish figure “My wife was out, the kids were sleeping, to show for it. Now he was hurtling towards in papal robes and make-up – a kind of Satanic my mum was asleep on the couch,” he says. 30, married, with twin children to support. “I was sitting there, just euphoric about what “At that point in 2009, I was at a point of was going on.” desperation”, he says. “I was one year into parenthood, facing the fact that, fuck, we need more money. So I decided to do something.” Tobias had been introduced to rock’n’roll as a toddler by his older brother, Sebastian, 13 years his senior. Sebastian’s tastes trickled down to him: music, comic books, horror movies. When he brought home a copy of Kiss’s 1977 album Love Gun, the young Tobias was hypnotised by the vivid, cartoon-heroic sleeve. “My brother said, ‘You can have it, you seem to like it more than I do.’” Tobias’s dad, an amateur musician and professional photographer, taught him how to play guitar as a child. “I never had any ambition to do anything else than become a musician”, he says. A veteran of several bands by his mid-teens, he dropped out of school, gradeless, at 16. For the next decade, he passed through a series of groups in an assortment of styles: death metal malcontents Repugnant, indie- rock outfit Subvision, alt-rockers Magna Carta Cartel, and even a stint in hair metal revivalists 56 METALHAMMER.COM

GHOST And so it begins PRESS Just after midnight, the phone rang. “My in a friend’s living room. “It was myself, one something that conjured the same magic. mum went up and answered it”, he says, his guy that ended up being in the band a bit later, “I said, ‘It can’t just be two dudes in t-shirts voice cracking with emotion. “She came back his neighbour and a friend of his and someone playing three songs and a load of Mercyful Fate and everything just froze.” else”, he says. “It was completely fake.” covers in a bar.’ What I heard through those speakers was worthy of more than that.” His brother Sebastian had collapsed and What wasn’t fake was the fascination with died at home. He had suffered from an the occult that ran through Opus Eponymous. What he didn’t want was to follow every undiagnosed heart condition. No one saw his “I’ve lived most of my life in cahoots with the other band and schlepp around the Swedish death coming, least of all the little brother Devil”, says Tobias. “I deeply identify with the toilet circuit. Ghost deserved something who idolised him. “It felt like some weird pop cultural Satan – I grew up with it, it’s in the much grander. trade: the band for my brother”, says Tobias. music I listened to, the films I watched, the art “It was like, ‘This has happened, there’s He publicly unveiled the band at the Hammer nothing I can do with it, I’ve just got to take “I WAS AT Of Doom festival in Wurzburg, Germany, on the ball and run with it.’ And I’ve been running A POINT OF October 23, 2010. The following day, they flew with it ever since.” DESPERATION” into London to play the Live Evil Festival at the 500-capacity Camden Underworld club. Lee Dorrian wasn’t aware of what Tobias had TOBIAS FORGE been through after Darkthrone drummer and “There weren’t that many people watching underground metal hypeman Fenriz pointed I saw. He was the perfect father figure for an them”, says Lee Dorrian, who attended the him in the direction of the tracks the Swede angry teen who wanted to blow up the world. show. “And most of them didn’t know who had uploaded to MySpace. “I started playing I’m not an angry teen any more, but this is just they were. When they came on, it was, like, the demo on a Friday, and by Sunday I must my way of expressing myself.” ‘Whoa, what the hell is this?’” have listened to it 30 times”, he says “It didn’t sound like anything else. It was poppy and obias had been conceptualising how That sense of shock didn’t last long. The Satanic. It was totally on its own.” these songs should be presented live buzz around Ghost began to grow, helped by virtually from the moment he wrote some high-profile patrons. A copy of Opus Within a week, he’d offered Ghost a three- them. In his head, the Ghost live show would Eponymous found its way into the hands of Phil album deal with Rise Above and paid for Tobias nod to the OTT theatrics of Kiss and Alice Anselmo, who began raving about this freaky to go into a basement studio in Linköping to Cooper. But there was something else, too. Swedish band that sounded like Mercyful Fate record Opus Eponymous with his old friend His mother regularly took him to the opera as and Blue Öyster Cult. Brian Slagel, founder of Gustaf Lindström on bass and session a child. He didn’t like everything he saw and influential US label Metal Blade, passed a copy drummer Ludvig Kennberg. “Tobias was heard, but there was something profoundly to James Hetfield. a really nice bloke, dead friendly”, he says. mystical about the room itself. “But he was 1,000% focused on this. It was “The décor, the smoke, the smell, the silence “I’m in their fan club”, the Metallica singer everything to him.” before the curtain went up”, he says. He wanted told Swedish broadcaster SVT in 2011. “I had no idea what they looked like until I saw the That first promo shot of the band in their video. I heard the music first and I thought it regalia – the one with the expensive robe that was great, very unique, very melodic and made Lee Dorrian wonder what they hell he a breath of fresh air for metal.” had invested in – was taken by Tobias’s sister The band supported Paradise Lost, Trivium and Mastodon, and appeared on the cover of METALHAMMER.COM 57

GHOST “I’VE LIVED Care to confess your sins? MOST OF Judgement awaits MY LIFE IN CAHOOTS Tobias Forge only became Papa after several singers knocked him back. WITH THE Ex-Candlemass frontman Messiah Marcolin failed to check his inbox DEVIL” Tobias on their albums,” Messiah and Messiah visited the PRESS TOBIAS FORGE Forge’s tells Hammer, “but when band backstage. original plan MySpace kind of died, Metal Hammer in April 2012 with the words was to enlist I stopped looking at it.” “We became friends and ‘Join Their Cult’. The increased profile only another, have shared many a glass amplified the mystery that was a key part of more Messiah picked up Opus of Amarone red wine over Ghost’s appeal too. Tobias stayed in character established Eponymous after it was the years. I remember telling in interviews, and other bandmembers simply singer to released, having heard that Tobias when they played didn’t speak. The public wondered who the front Ghost. it was partly inspired by a small festival in Sweden hell was behind those masks, which was One of the Mercyful Fate. Around the called Muskelrock that precisely what Tobias wanted. people he approached via same time, he happened to I thought they have the MySpace was Messiah check his MySpace page for potential to become a really “I never did it because I’m shy or did not Marcolin, best known as the the first time in a while. “And big band. He said, ‘Do you want to be seen”, he says of the deliberate ex-frontman with Swedish there I found a message from really think so?’” anonymity. “That was not the plan with this doom icons Candlemass. Ghost asking me if I would project. I’ve spent my whole life imagining “I used to get loads of consider singing on their first Despite the missed and dreaming about things. I don’t like the requests on MySpace from album,” he says. opportunity, Messiah is way things are overexposed these days. It was bands wanting me to sing a fan of Ghost and Opus somewhat difficult with everyone who wanted Shortly afterwards, Ghost Eponymous. “I really liked it, to peek in, but I had a bigger problem with played a show in Stockholm, still do,” he says. “It’s great!” people that wanted to peek out.” By the time Ghost played the final show of the Opus Eponymous campaign on August 19, 2012 at the Netherlands’ Lowlands festival, the album had become Rise Above’s biggest ever seller. But much as he loved the band, Lee Dorrian knew that his label didn’t have the resources to take them to the next level. “It was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, the stage shows were starting to expand”, he says. “We started talking about finding a way for them to be released from their contract, which was a tough thing, but I didn’t want to stand in their way.” The band left Rise Above for Loma Vista, a subsidiary of Universal, who released their second album, Infestissumam, in 2013. By the end of the decade, Ghost had released two more albums, notching up a Top 10 record on both sides of the Atlantic with 2018’s Prequelle. Papa Emeritus, the all-knowing, all-seeing undead anti-pope, may have seen that coming. But Tobias Forge didn’t. “I had this naïve idea that we could be on a label like Rise Above and we could do well doing records for them, maybe play boutiquey shows every now and then”, he says. “I never really thought that it was going to take on any kind of mainstream success. Certainly not like it has.” Stranger things have happened than a group of pop-metal Satanists in masks and robes becoming the definitive band of a decade, though not many. But then the Devil moves in mysterious ways. CURRENT ALBUM PREQUELLE IS OUT VIA LOMA VISTA. SEE MORE AT GHOST-OFFICIAL.COM 58 METALHAMMER.COM



MR. BUNGLE Twenty years since their last album, Mike Patton’s genre-bending eccentrics, Mr Bungle, are back with some thrash royalty in their ranks. Mike explains why WORDS: STEPHEN HILL • PORTRAITS: BUZZ OSBORNE • STUDIO PICTURES: HUSKY HÖSKULDS Mike Patton sounds the shape of former Slayer sticksman disarmingly chipper. Dave Lombardo and Anthrax riff lord “Heeeellloooooo!” Scott Ian. Who saw that coming? he drawls in his distinctive baritone, “We wanted it to be the most before introducing fucked-up reunion thing ever, and himself and warmly enquiring about I think that’s how it panned out”, Mike what sort of a day we’ve been having. cackles, when we ask where the hell It’s not what we were expecting from a this idea came from. “Because we’re man who has something of a reputation not playing the hits, we’re not playing as a difficult interviewee. We thought anything that people know. First it we were getting metal’s most notorious was a joke, and all of a sudden… it subversive, but instead we spend almost was happening!” an hour in the company of a charming, warm, chortling gentleman. You can tell Mike is delighted to But maybe we should have expected have reunited with his old pals, once to be surprised by Mike Patton. After again confusing the entire music all, he’s spent his 35-year career doing scene. He happily regales us with tales the opposite of what fans expect, or of the band’s early days, growing up even want in many cases, with gleeful with Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn and regularity. Evidence that he still guitarist Trey Spruance in the small delights in making unusual and town of Eureka, California, where they unpredictable career choices was last consumed music and longed to escape year’s decision to resurrect his first their confines. band, uncategorisable noise terrorists Mr. Bungle, solely to perform and “We were just freaks!” he yelps. re-record their debut 1986 demo, “I think it’s hard to explain to people The Raging Wrath Of The Easter Bunny. who didn’t grow up in that environment, A demo that most people have never how desperate it makes you to get away. even heard or knew existed. As if that Music was everything to us. I used to wasn’t bizarre enough, they’ve added work in the local record shop and I’d just thrash metal royalty to their ranks, in order all of these weird and wonderful records. The shop would have to foot the bill for it. I’d open one up and make myself a tape copy, and then seal it

MR. BUNGLE Mr. Bungle (left to right): Scott Ian, Mike Patton, Trevor Dunn, Dave Lombardo, Trey Spruance

MR. BUNGLE Scott Ian: metal thrashing mad back up to sell. Like, ‘Oh, that band anymore and people get seduced by get older, and you bump into each Minor Threat sound cool… let’s order that… and we haven’t been around for other, and you reconnect, and slowly that!’ It didn’t matter if it was Slayer or a long time!” all those old problems don’t seem to Stravinsky, we just lapped it all up!” matter so much.” It was the end of the year 2000, These malleable young men formed only a year after the release of their T he world may not have seen the Mr. Bungle in 1985, and released career-best California album, that reunion coming, but Mike says a handful of demos that hopped and Mr. Bungle vanished. There was no that, having reconnected with skipped from thrash, to salsa, to ska, statement, no dedicated final show, Trevor and Trey over the last with scant regard for genre conventions, no press back and forth – they were decade, the three of them have spent before Mike was headhunted by Faith just gone. As the years progressed, much of that time toying with the idea No More and became a superstar. the less likely it looked that they’d of reviving Mr. Bungle. “It has been Despite this, he continued to front ever return. “Oh, I remember why we years that we’ve been talking about Bungle. Almost certainly due to his split”, Mike explains. “We weren’t this”, he says. “For the longest time, success in FNM, the band signed with getting on at all. That it was just some silly little parlour joke Warner Bros in 1990, and spent the was all. But you that we would say to each other, like, decade releasing three brilliantly ‘Wouldn’t it be weird if we got back bizarre, distinctly unique albums that Recruiting Lombardo together? No one would expect that!’ confused some and angered others but, was Trevor Dunn’s Then one day Trevor had this crazy crucially, inspired an entire generation ‘Eureka!’ moment idea: ‘Why don’t we just get Lombardo of future musicians. in to play our old stuff?’ And I thought, ‘That’s a really good idea.’ Because if we In subsequent years, the legend of were going to reunite, then it wasn’t Mr. Bungle grew, with bands including going to be in the usual way.” Korn, System Of A Down, The Dillinger Escape Plan and Mastodon citing them Bungle used to air-drum to Slayer in as a crucial influence. Such is Avenged the van back in the day, and Mike and Sevenfold’s admiration, they covered Trevor have since worked with Dave in the song Retrovertigo on the deluxe hardcore punk supergroup Dead Cross, edition of their 2016 album, The Stage. so they knew he’d nail the material. We ask Mike why he think his band Then Mike realised they needed have achieved such cult status. “How a rhythm guitarist, and Scott Ian came the hell would I know?!” he half giggles, to mind. They weren’t well acquainted, half spits. “I guess there is this mystery surrounding this thing that isn’t there “WE WERE JUST FREAKS!” MIKE PATTON 62 METALHAMMER.COM



MR. BUNGLE Rock’n’roll is non-stop Don’t know where to start debauchery, man with Mr. Bungle? Trust us, you’re not alone. Here are Trevor and Mike, the band. “All of us re-listened to the our picks from each album making it up as old songs and thought, ‘Holy shit! Squeeze Me Macaroni they go along This sounds like it’s recorded through a vacuum cleaner!” Mike squeals. “But (Mr. Bungle, 1991) but Mike knew he was a fan, as he’d we did our best at the time; we were Rap metal, funk, salsa, a horn section, been to their shows. “I reached out all 16 back then. All of us realised that, a bit where Mike Patton sounds like and… I think he was really freaked actually, this music was pretty good. he’s crying or being tortured… what out!” exclaims Mike. “I think he So it was like, ‘Let’s do it and not mess sort of song is this, exactly? It’s hard thought I was going to send him the with it, and make a real document of to say but, despite being a mangled new Bungle thing, and I had to explain, what we sounded like at the time.’ mess, Squeeze Me Macaroni still ‘No, I want you to be in the fucking A lot of people think that Mr. Bungle manages to be oddly catchy. How’d band!’ and that’s how it went.” is a different kind of band, they don’t they do that, then? understand that [thrash metal] part of Finally, after years of looking for us, but it’s in our blood. And [let’s] not Everyone I Went To High the weirdest of reasons to reunite, just document it; do it with two dudes School With Is Dead Mr. Bungle had the one they needed: who fucking inspired us to make that to return to the earliest, thrashiest, music in the first place, Scott Ian and (Disco Volante, 1995) most outwardly metal incarnation of fucking Lombardo! I mean, if someone Even by Bungle standards, 1995’s puts that on your plate, you’re kinda Disco Volante is hard work, and like, ‘Yeah, I’m eating that!’” comfortably one of the oddest albums ever to be released on The album is beautifully evocative of a major label. If you can get past the glory days of thrash metal, with that this opening track, with its doom unmistakable Scott Ian guitar tone and riff and a yelping, screaming, barking, the rhythmical wild abandon of Dave belching performance from Mike Lombardo perfectly complementing Patton, then you might – we repeat the more idiosyncratic nature of the might – have the stomach for the original Bungle members. “Is it 80s rest of the record. thrash metal? Yes, it is”, Mike says. “It’s a timepiece, it’s mark-your-watch kinda Sweet Charity music. But that’s where we came from.” (California, 1999) That might be where Mr. Bungle Just to prove that they aren’t random came from, but where do they all the time, the opening song from go from here? There’s a pause. Mr. Bungle’s finest album is a grand, “I have no idea”, Mike blurts out, 60s-style lounge ballad that features before letting out another healthy some fabulous slide guitar and guffaw. “Who knows. We’re kinda a wonderfully bombastic, louche making this up as we go along!” chorus that Mike utterly nails. In an alternate universe, this is a hit single. Well, what were you Still sounds evil as shit, mind. expecting him to say? Methematics THE RAGING WRATH OF THE EASTER (The Raging Wrath Of The Easter BUNNY DEMO Bunny, 2020) IS OUT NOW One of the unreleased songs that VIA IPECAC never made it onto the original …Easter Bunny demo in 1986, Methematics is a nearly nine- minute-long piece of thrash metal nirvana that is still disarmingly odd enough to capture all of the things that were great about Bungle the first time around. “THRASH IS IN OUR BLOOD” MIKE PATTON 64 METALHAMMER.COM



KILLER BE KILLED ...well, obviously they’ve met each other before, but they’ve never interviewed each other before. We made the members of supergroup Killer Be Killed do our jobs for us. Sorry, lads 66 METALHAMMER.COM

KILLER BE KILLED WORDS: ELEANOR GOODMAN METALHAMMER.COM 67

KILLER BE KILLED n 2014, Killer Be Killed released their self-titled debut album, featuring Dillinger’s Greg Puciato on vocals/guitars, Soulfly’s Max Cavalera on vocals/guitars and Mastodon’s Troy Sanders on vocals/bass. Yes, that’s three vocalists, and a hell of a lot of talent. Working around the schedules of their main bands, they’ve finally recorded a follow- up, Reluctant Hero, with Converge’s Ben Koller replacing former The Mars Volta man David Elitch on drums. To celebrate, we asked each bandmember to set questions for the next, and then we interrogated them. From bacon consumption to giant dreadlocks, here’s everything they wanted to know about each other. AX: WHAT IS YOUR Killer Be Killed (left to right): FAVOURITE OR CRAZIEST Ben Koller, Troy Sanders, TOUR STORY EVER? Greg Puciato, Max Cavalera Greg: “We were in a bus accident in Poland, in 2017. I was asleep and we got IF YOU COULD HAVE A SUPERPOWER, nine years old. Pretty much from nine PRESS/JIM LOUVAU rear-ended by a semi at full highway WHICH ONE WOULD IT BE AND WHY? until 15, I just wanted to write music, and speed, and people had to get airlifted in “It would be a tie between time travel I did; it was a hybrid of everything I liked a fucking helicopter. There were 13 and teleportation. I talk about them – metal and grunge and alternative and people were on the bus, and nine of us pretty much on a weekly basis. I’m so heavy, guitar-based music. The stuff went to hospital. You’re supposed to be annoyed that I was promised, when that I write on guitar for this band is safe when you’re asleep, so I ended up I was a child, by cartoons and science- exactly connected to what I would have having panic attacks, and I had fiction movies, that at least one of those written in that time period, to the extent a hard time for a long time. It happened things would have happened by now. that I used two riffs that I wrote at 13 when Dillinger were breaking up, too. After being on tour for your whole life, years old on this record, on Dead Limbs. It was like, ‘OK man. The universe is you miss so many things, and you The opening riff, and the one that starts telling us, wrap this thing up.’” know so many people that you can’t at 3:29. It sounds totally seamless.” see without getting on a plane. Even IF YOU COULD BE PRESIDENT, WHAT living in Los Angeles, it takes for REG: YOU CAME UP WITH KIND OF LAWS WOULD YOU PUT fucking ever to get from one side to THE TITLE, RELUCTANT HERO. INTO ACTION? another. Another one would be not WHAT DOES THAT TITLE “I’d institute Universal Basic Income. physically ageing, unless I wanted to. STAND FOR AND MEAN TO YOU? I think it’s pretty much the only way I’d like to freeze, right about now.” Troy: “Wow, Greg. Way to get very that we’re going to be able to go forward personal first thing in the morning! economically on this planet; stabilising WHAT DOES KILLER BE KILLED The last track that we pieced together the lower tiers of the population MEAN TO YOU? in the studio was a very slow, dark financially would be the most “It connects to the earliest time of my track. And I was penning some lyrics, immediately beneficial thing to society music playing, which is really cool. in regards to my dear friend Nick John, overall. A lot of problems like drugs, Dillinger has metal elements, but this is who was also my manager for 15 years, crime, poor health, poor dietary habits the first straight-ahead metal band I’ve and he had just died of a horrific and poor education stem from poverty.” ever been in. I started playing guitar at WHAT ACTOR WOULD PLAY GREG PUCIATO IN HIS LIFE STORY MOVIE AND WHY? “Denzel Washington! Ha ha ha! I’ve heard a lot of people tell me, ‘Sometimes you look like Tom Hardy.’ But it would have to be multiple people, because they would probably have to go through different time periods, right? That Timothée Chalamet kid would be pretty good for the teenage years, and then maybe slowly morph into Tom Hardy, and then end up at Denzel Washington. Something’s gonna happen in the next 15 years and I’m gonna end up a 65-year-old black man.” 68 METALHAMMER.COM

pancreatic cancer. While I was working because he was fucking crazy. The last KILLER BE KILLED on the first draft, I got a phone call that song of the night, he’d jump onto the an extended family member had just floor of the crowd, and he’d have the HOW MANY PIECES OF BACON passed away. He’d also been fighting big stick with the flame on top of it, WOULD YOU SAY YOU ATE DURING a horrific cancer battle, and had always and he’d have a gallon of some kind of THE MAKING OF RELUCTANT HERO? referred to himself as a ‘reluctant alcohol. He’d spit on it and create this “Well, only between four and six every warrior’. This was not the fight that massive plume of fire above the crowd. day. We did maybe 25 days total in the anyone ever wants to have, but when That would’ve been shut down so fast if studio, so I’d say approximately 120 faced with that extreme obstacle of fight that were to happen right now. Is that slices. We’d share a rental home when or flight, life or death, you’re gonna go too sweet to say that I want to be him? we were in the studio recording, so we’d for it. I said, ‘I wanna call this song His showmanship was out of this world, share a lot of breakfasts together. But Reluctant Hero.’ The other three guys all and his idea to blow fire in the crowd was that amount of bacon was only done in said, ‘That’s amazing, I really like that a giant display of elephant balls.” the celebratory moments of being with title.’ Then a couple of days later, they my friends in Killer Be Killed.” all said, ‘We should call the album that.’ IF YOU COULD RELIVE ANY YEAR OF That made me happy, because it YOUR LIFE, WHICH WOULD IT BE? HOW MANY MILES HAVE YOU RUN translated some sort of deep emotion “I wanna say 2007. That was a fantastic THIS YEAR? to them, without them truly knowing year. We played Wembley Stadium “I think I’m just over the 200 mark. where I was coming from lyrically.” supporting Metallica, in front of so When Greg and I lived together, we many people that their faces looked like encouraged each other to do a morning IF YOU WERE FORCED TO MAGICALLY pixels. We were just playing a 30-minute run before our eggs and bacon. If you INHABIT THE LIFE OF ANY OTHER warm-up slot, so there wasn’t really start like that, you’re setting yourself MUSICIAN IN HISTORY FOR A YEAR, a lot of pressure on our shoulders, and up for a good day. You have to balance WHO WOULD IT BE, AND WHEN? we were kind of giggling onstage. Like, the bacon. That should have been the “Greg Puciato in the very first Dillinger ‘Look at this, this is actually happening, album title! ‘Balance The Bacon’. But Escape Plan / Mastodon tour [in 2002], it’s like a dream come true.’” yeah, 120 slices of bacon, maybe 200 miles. As long as the mileage outweighs the bacon, we’re in good spirits.” ROY: HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU MAKE PER YEAR? Ben: “Ha ha ha! Oh, not as much as I’d like, but I feel very blessed. I’m very comfortable, especially being a professional drummer, because most people would think that I’d make, like, five cents. I won’t make as much money as Mastodon, unfortunately. But with KBK, we’re going to be bigger than Metallica, so I’m not worried about it!” DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN MASTODON AND CONVERGE TOURED TOGETHER? THAT WAS AWESOME “I absolutely do. I remember every time we toured together. I think one of the most memorable nights I had was in Japan. We did a tour with Isis, Mastodon and Converge. One night a bunch of us went out to karaoke, and shit got really crazy. I remember many pint glasses smashed on the floor and entire pitchers of beer spilled. There was, like, inches of beer on the floor. We thought we were going to get arrested, and then the staff just came in and started cheering for us, and we were like, ‘What is life?!” DO YOUR KIDS RECOGNISE THE PASSION AND DEDICATION YOU HAVE TOWARDS THE BANDS YOU’RE IN? “Yes, and no. I have an eight, a six and a 10-month-old, so it’s quite the handful at home. Roland sent me an electronic drum kit at the start of the pandemic, which has been a life saver, and we have that in the garage and we come out and play a little bit sometimes, and if I’m trying to impress them, if I’m trying to go crazy, they don’t care, at all. They METALHAMMER.COM 69

KILLER BE KILLED just say, ‘Give me the sticks, this is Max, if your dreadlock could how you do it.’ But they’ve also never take a few steps to the left… seen me play a show, or a concert, or a festival actually in person. So I think YOU HAVE A GIANT FAMILY. ARE YOU RELUCTANT HERO, BEING CALLED that’d probably blow their minds, GROOMING ANYONE TO BE THE THE NEXT GREAT HOPE IN HEAVY a little bit. If they see a music video on NEXT MAX CAVALERA AND TAKE MUSIC, AND THE SOLUTION TO YouTube, and I’m in it, then they get OVER THE FAMILY BUSINESS? GLOBAL UNREST THAT WILL ALIGN mildly impressed, if they like the song. “Well, hopefully so! I’ve been kind of THE PLANETS? If they don’t like the song, they’re just lucky in that area, because Zyon plays “Oh, that’s a mouthful, man, jeez! Well, like, ‘Ugh, I wanna watch The Smurfs.’ drums with me in Soulfly, and Igor is I always said that in metal, we have a great guitar player, and also plays succeeded where society fails in general. IF KILLER BE KILLED WAS TO HAVE bass and writes horror books, like I like to think that in rock music, there A SINGLE VOCALIST, BASED STRICTLY Stephen King. I adopted the kids from is less prejudice, there’s more of a bond ON GOOD LOOKS, WHO WOULD YOU Gloria’s other marriage, so we have between people. If you go to Wacken, VOTE TO BE OUR SOLE SINGER? Richie who is in Incite, and Jason is there’s all people from all walks of the “Oh no! This is a horrible question! a drum roadie. The other ones, Roxanne Earth together. Nobody’s fighting, Well, I feel like they’d have to share the and Christina, help a little bit. I joke there’s no Republican or Democrat, no spotlight equally, because they are all a lot with Gloria. I say, ‘Hopefully they Arsenal or Tottenham fans. Maybe all beautiful humans. If you were speaking get something going, and we can be in presidents of the world should listen to in specific categories, Max is classic our RV travelling the world, and they the new Killer Be Killed album. Maybe metal, with cool dreads and spikes, and can support us when we get old!’” the Pope should listen to it.” is kind of punk. If you wanted a classy Gandalf with the voice of an angel, THERE ARE RUMOURS ON THE HOW MANY RELATIVES NAMED PRESS/JIM LOUVAU you’d have to pick Troy. And if you INTERNET THAT YOU’RE CUTTING IGOR DO YOU HAVE? wanted a more clean-cut, muscley OFF YOUR GIANT DREADLOCK. “My brother was the first one. I still man, then you’d have to pick Greg. It WILL YOU BE DONATING IT TO don’t know today why my family picked depends on what you’re into.” MEDICAL SCIENCE, CUTTING IT a Russian name. My mum was part UP IN PIECES FOR ALL YOUR Brazilian native Indian, my dad was I HAVE NEVER MET YOUR WIFE, KIDS BANDMEMBERS TO SHARE, OR full-blown Italian and also a little bit OR DOG. ARE YOU EVER GOING TO RAFFLING IT OFF FOR CHARITY? of Croatian. But I always thought it INVITE ME OVER TO YOUR HOUSE? “Those are all good options! I think was a strong, really powerful name. So “Ha ha ha! Of course. Well, we always first we have to wash it, and kill all the when I had my second kid, I named him invite each other over to our houses, but bacteria and animals. I dunno what Igor. There are many fans that have my one of the biggest problems I have in life we’re going to do with it, yet. It’s been son’s name. There’s one guy that makes is geography. I hate geography, I hate with me for 27 years, but it’s time to all my battle vests, and he’s a huge that all my friends are so far away. In all move on. Charity might be cool. It Sepultura fan, and both of his sons are my bands, there’s people in LA; Florida; would also be kind of cool to see it named Max and Igor, which freaks me Phoenix, Arizona; Brooklyn, New York; somewhere, like a hall of fame!” [NB: out a bit! But it’s really cool.” Salem, Massachusetts. It makes me Max cut his dreadlock off soon after]. wish that we could all just pick one RELUCTANT HERO IS DUE OUT spot, where we’d have a village. We’d WOULD YOU LIKE TO COMMENT ON ON NOVEMBER 20, VIA have a big metal gate with attack dogs THE NEW KILLER BE KILLED ALBUM, NUCLEAR BLAST and tyre fires at the entrance, and wouldn’t let anyone else in, and then we could all hang out all the time.” EN: HOW DO YOU STAY SO INSPIRED BY HEAVY MUSIC, AND STILL GET PUMPED UP ABOUT NEW BANDS? WHAT HAS BEEN ON ROTATION LATELY? Max: “Since I was a young kid in Brazil, I always loved the underground; there’s more of a real energy and passion in a lot of these new bands. So my whole life I’ve worn shirts of bands that I like, all the way back to the tape-trading days. I was tape trading with Chuck from Death, and the guys from Morbid Angel, and then I still kind of do the same today, through the internet. When I find a band that I like, I have my son Zyon hit ’em up and tell them I’m a fan of their music, and do they wanna exchange t-shirts? The last band was Creeping Death from Texas; they’re kind of like a heavier Power Trip. I think I’m a fan first and a musician second.” 70 METALHAMMER.COM



EMMA RUTH RUNDLE AND THOU

EMMA RUTH RUNDLE AND THOU On the face of it, post-rock singer- songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle and Louisiana sludge masters Thou don’t have a ton in common. So how did they end up combining for one of the year’s very best albums? WORDS: TYLER DAMARA KELLY • PICTURES: CRAIG MULCAHY

EMMA RUTH RUNDLE AND THOU Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou deliver a message of hope in these trying times 74 METALHAMMER.COM

EMMA RUTH RUNDLE AND THOU ouisiana’s Thou write feral sludge of the metal world is a much more sometimes putting that into a song can metal, while Kentucky singer- inclusive and more accepting place for be powerful. “I very much feel that as songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle people who feel otherwise outcast a listener of metal, it helps pull out all creates emotionally bruised post- going to, like, I don’t know, a Behemoth these feelings as, for me, it’s catharsis”, rock. Between their music lies an show or something like that, and I Emma says. Andy – who doesn’t listen abundance of subgenres, yet they think that really drives people towards to much metal these days and feels have somehow brought their styles throwing themselves entirely into it.” slightly removed from the scene – together for a brilliant new album, May throws the horns at this and lightens Our Chambers Be Full. ay Our Chambers Be Full is the tone, much to Emma’s amusement. It might seem like two worlds rooted in the duality of Thou’s colliding, but they’ve been playing on monolithic intensity and While Thou are no strangers to the same circuit for years. “I became Emma’s brooding fragility, but the collaborations – having done a split very obsessed with Thou in 2015 – and artists share common ground when album with Oakland doom metal I feel like there was a mutual awareness”, it comes to dark lyrics. They explore anarcha-feminists Ragana, and an Emma explains. Around the same time, the nature of existence and the pain album with Rhode Island’s nihilistic Thou guitarist Andy Gibbs was working of the human condition, expressing experimental duo The Body – Andy still in a kitchen in Berkeley, California despondency about thwarted potential found it humbling to bring a selection of when a colleague put on Emma’s and the inevitability of history repeating songs to the group and allow everyone instrumental album, Electric Guitar: itself. There’s an overriding emotional to eviscerate them. “To throw them into One. Three years later, he met her when desperation that Andy describes as the crucible and see what comes out of it they both played at Seattle’s Northwest being present in grunge music. – you have to really go in with detaching Terror Fest, and was moved to tears by While he hesitates to “lean too much yourself from this sense of ownership her performance. on grunge as a descriptor” of the whole of the song. I definitely started thinking But it wasn’t until Thou’s residency album, the main riff in Out Of Existence is more about collaborative processes in at 2019’s Roadburn Festival that the reminiscent of the undulating, warped general; how to be open to others’ input collaboration was set in motion. They guitars in Soundgarden’s Gun, and Andy and deflate your ego a little bit when teamed up to write a clutch of new songs himself describes Into Being as their own you’re working, and trust other for a special set, with the understanding version of The Smashing Pumpkins’ people’s intuitions”, he says. they’d eventually go on a full-length Mayonnaise. It’s a bleak song, as Emma record. As we speak to Emma and Andy explores her thoughts on a life lived “Those songs have a soul and have via Zoom, from their respective homes a big form; then they get thrown into in Louisville and New Orleans, it’s “THESE the circle of chaos. It’s an arduous evident that a deep-rooted friendship SONGS HAVE process”, Emma adds. “For me, it didn’t has formed. They occasionally finish feel unfamiliar. It reminded me a little each other’s sentences, and share A SOUL” bit of when I was in [Los Angeles anecdotes that craft a panoramic view EMMA RUTH RUNDLE post-rock band] Red Sparowes – there’s of how they went from emailing ideas sort of a democratic process when back and forth to embarking on 15-hour through screens, while invoking Plato’s you’re writing with that many people.” drives between their home states to put Cave – the allegory about humans them into practice. being chained inside a cave from birth, Despite their sonic differences, Emma Despite the challenge of blending facing a wall and only being able to and Thou operate with synchronicity, both their sounds, not least the perceive shadows of real-life objects revelling in their moments of darkness combining of Emma’s wounded yet and events. ‘Tethered, we will never know and embracing their cyclical nature. defiant croon with Thou frontman the river of a real life’, Emma sings, as While they may never be free from Bryan Funck’s sandpaper howl, they heaviness swirls around her. ‘Forced to them forever, music is a coping clicked straight away and found shared watch a coloured picture of the sunset / mechanism and a salve. Emma fondly reference points. “There are seven of us Waiting for the failure of this frail frame / reminisces about their year together, on this collaboration, so you’d figure Shadows keep us chained inside the cave.’ telling us almost wistfully that, despite that the Venn diagram is going to be being somebody who normally works kind of limited, because there are only With its primitive riffs and Emma’s alone, things have been “quiet and so many bands and artists that we can vulnerable singing, the song epitomises lonely since that time”. She’s currently all agree on”, Andy says. a feeling that Andy has long been creating the follow-up to Electric Guitar: “We’re both very passionate about striving for. “Something that I have One, as well as another solo album. similar 90s bands, but we both love been personally trying to accomplish Tori Amos”, Emma interjects, as the with this band for a lot of years, through Emma can’t imagine doing another pair burst into laughter. Andy points using different folks to collaborate with, collaboration like this again, despite out that those sounds didn’t make it is this marriage of something that’s the lifelong bonds formed. “Thou was onto the album, but Emma retorts: really crushing with something that is my favourite band for a long time”, she “I feel like you and I have a lot of a deep fragile and beautiful… I feel that kind says, laughing sheepishly. “‘Imagine soul connection to a certain sound – of emotion with the bands that I love, the chances to get to collaborate’ – that was just understood.” like Hell or Corrupted”, he explains. that’s an interview question I get a lot. Their excitement about doing their I already did what I wanted to do. It first interview together is palpable, and Meanwhile, opening with Emma’s doesn’t get better than that!” Andy is pleased such collaborations are meditative and solemn vocals yearning embraced by the underground metal for solace and reprieve from the The deep respect between these community. “The more mainstream hardships that have littered her path, artists resonates throughout May Our instances of metal tend to be really The Valley speaks to the notion that Chambers Be Full, as they seamlessly dominated by a certain man”, Andy there is always an element of hope to unite their subgenres. Their music faces says. “The idea is that our little corner be found at the bottom of your pit, and the darkness, but offers a message of resilience and empathy to keep us afloat during our most trying moments. MAY OUR CHAMBERS BE FULL IS OUT NOW VIA SACRED BONES METALHAMMER.COM 75

PALLBEARER

PALLBEARER When Pallbearer took a break, they ended up processing feelings of grief and pain they’d pushed aside for years. They poured it all into devastating new album Forgotten Days WORDS: LAINA DAWES • PICTURES: JACOB SLATON AND EBRU YILDIZ

PALLBEARER fter relentlessly touring of his life,” says Brett. “Aside from Pallbearer (clockwise from top left): their third record, being a major life event that for anyone Joseph D. Rowland, Mark Lierly, Heartless, Pallbearer felt would be traumatic, he was 25 or 26 Devin Holt, Brett Campbell burned out. Released in when that happened, so he was very 2017, it broadened the young, and I think he has some band’s commercial unfinished business with his mom appeal, breaking into the Billboard that he had never fully worked out.” Top 200 chart and earning them a Metal Hammer Golden God for Best The four songs written by Brett, Underground Band. Even the New meanwhile, include what he describes York Times got in on the act, describing as “philosophical musings on the the album as coming very close to passage of time and your perspective “capturing the uncanny allure of pop changes, and how they look different music at 16 r.p.m”. But the Heartless cycle to you as you get older”. But it’s the title took its toll. When the band arrived track that’s the most hard-hitting, back in Little Rock, Arkansas, they had detailing his grandmother’s battle little left in their creative tanks. with Alzheimer’s disease. Starting “I didn’t pick up a guitar for two with a squall of feedback, it lurches months when I got home,” singer Brett into a mammoth groove, as he sings: Campbell laughs today, speaking to us ‘Dark clouds move closer / at the edges on the phone. “I didn’t feel like playing of my mind / obscuring, consuming, my music; I didn’t feel like doing anything. perception of time.’ I hung around, went on walks, watched TV and spent time with my girlfriend. “I watched her memories, her history But after that passed, this huge creative and her identity change,” he recalls. floodgate just kind of burst, and all this “What are you but a collection of material came out organically.” memories and history? So, if you lose The material he’s referring to formed those things… it’s a gradual death. You the basis of Pallbearer’s new album, lose your life before your body dies. It’s Forgotten Days. By taking time off, Brett pretty horrifying and an awful thing to and his bandmates – bassist/co-vocalist watch someone you love go through, Joseph D. Rowland, drummer Mark and part of it is that I feel that it might Lierly and guitarist/backing vocalist be part of my future, as well. It’s an Devin Holt – were able to reflect on the interesting subject to explore.” last 10 years, coming up with their most personal music yet. Dialling down their espite the difficult subject proggier elements and turning up their matter, Forgotten Days came Sabbathian heft, it finds Pallbearer together at speed. Over the last exploring themes of family and loss. decade, and thanks to that endless “I think that period came with the touring, Pallbearer’s chemistry has benefit of having the time for all of us developed to a point where they can to reflect on our lives at this point,” says easily pick up on each other’s cues. “In Brett. “That is apparent in Joe’s songs the past when we were trying to convey particularly, as some are uncomfortably music material [to each other] it’d take personal, but it creates some of the some time for us to get there, but now most beautiful subject matter.” we can do it almost instantaneously, or Joe was in his mid-20s when very quickly,” he explains. “Sometimes Pallbearer formed. A year into the it even surprises us. For example, I can band, when they were busy writing bring a song to rehearsal, and within debut album Sorrow And Extinction, his two hours we have the song learned, and we can laugh about it, because in “I’M A the past, it would have taken hours and PUSSY AND hours, or even days. From all this time IT’S FINE!” playing together we are really in sync with each other.” BRETT CAMPBELL The recording process was fast, too. In November 2019, Pallbearer went into mother passed away. Instead of Sonic Ranch studios, just outside El processing his feelings about her death, Paso, Texas. They normally produce Joe threw himself into a decade of their records themselves, but this time touring, partying and drinking. Several they brought in Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), songs examine that part of himself, Wolves In The Throne Room). He had who he has become, and what he would worked with the band on a week’s say to his mother if he was able to worth of live shows during their speak to her in person. Heartless tour, and they’d spent many hours in the van chatting about their “He never looked at how that event, shared approach to recording. The band that trauma, had altered the trajectory hoped he’d bring some more expertise, and with him on board they recorded in two weeks. Before that, the quickest turnaround they’d managed was five. 78 METALHAMMER.COM

PALLBEARER RANDALL DUNN: PRESS/UNA BLUE. “We started talking about his Producer Randall Dunn method, and it really synced up to explains how he helped what we had already done, or at least Pallbearer nail that attempted to!” says Brett. “We thought, distinctive classic sound ‘This guy is way better at this than we are.’ He already understands us, so we HOW DID YOU AND THE BAND MEET? thought it would be best to work with “We have the same management, so him and get better results with less I’d heard them a couple of times and work. We could just tell him what we was like, ‘This is in my wheelhouse, I’d were looking for and he was able to find like to work with these guys.’ And they the right sound instead of fucking already had a couple of things going on around with amps and pedals. He’s also when I showed interest, so we put it on a funny guy, so that really helped!” the backburner. Then this record came forward and they wanted a more classic It’s a testament to their talent and 70s sound, and that really resonated Randall’s production that they’re able with me, and working on tape again to bring different strands of heaviness resonated with me. Around that same together. Crushing opener Forgotten time, I did sound for them on a short Days shows they’re still firmly tour and we had a great time hanging positioned in the doom metal genre, out, and we just decided to do it.” as the crashing cymbals and down- BRETT SAID YOU DISCOVERED THAT tuned riffs are even more pronounced YOUR METHODS SYNCED UP. WHAT than on 2012’s emotionally and DID YOU BOND OVER? sonically bruising Sorrow And Extinction. “We really hit it off over the fact that Meanwhile, Riverbed showcases a lot of the sound on modern, heavy a rockier sound, Brett’s plaintive voice records has gotten very laboured over, conveying pain. The intro to Silver Wings and computer driven. We wanted to do is reminiscent of 70s progressive rock, something that was much more akin while closer Caledonia is a multi- to an older record. They wanted to layered, deeply rich composition. record at a high volume, to be in the same room, and to do a lot of it live, “When I’m writing by myself, just and I really supported that. And also playing my guitar at home, never we talked about leaving a little bit of once do I think, ‘Should I not do time and space for things to happen this because it doesn’t sound metal on the spot, where something might enough?’ I don’t really care,” he says. make a track just really come alive.” “Maybe it should be more of a concern WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING because it is easier to sell records, so WITH A BAND WHO’VE ALWAYS as in conceptually someone can say, SELF-PRODUCED? ‘Check out this death metal band’ to “It was really easy, because they were their friend, so they have an idea of in a mature enough place where if they what they will be listening to, but we trusted the person they were working don’t have that luxury because we are with, they actually let go. A lot of bands not really in any genre.” that self-produce end up with a lot of fighting or discussion that goes on and Forgotten Days packs a wallop on, and part of the real helpfulness of while also being introspective, having a producer is cutting through all embracing lightness, forgiveness and that and getting to business quicker.” understanding over darkness. For HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE Brett and co, the experience has RECORD NOW? allowed them to freely explore some “Killer! I’m really happy with it, and of the deepest parts of themselves I think it also has a big sound that is without judgement. very different than a lot of their peers are doing right now.” “Macho, hyper-masculine stuff WHAT ELSE IS COMING UP FOR YOU? has always seemed a bit gross to me,” “There’s a lot of stuff going on, but Brett says. “The idea that being I’m just waiting for another Pallbearer sensitive or thoughtful or fragile record that we’re going to do, and – that all human beings really are – is a new Zola Jesus record, and another something to be laughed at or sneered solo record probably this year, and the at. If you are afraid to look at yourself Candyman score that I produced with in a realistic way, accepting things or Rob [Aiki Aubrey Lowe], who used to feelings the way they are, you are going be in Om, is coming out. I’m really to end up being fucked up, depressed, excited about that!” angry, whatever, emotionally SEE MORE AT WWW.FACEBOOK. underdeveloped and stuff. You see COM/RANDALLDUNNMUSIC that in so many older men, especially because they were never allowed to show feelings for fear of being called a pussy. I’m a pussy and its fine!” FORGOTTEN DAYS IS OUT NOW VIA NUCLEAR BLAST METALHAMMER.COM 79



THE REVIEWS 100 COREY TAYLOR Slipknot’s master showman unleashes a solo spectacle 82 KILLER BE KILLED Metal’s most thrilling supergroup up the ante 82 ALBUM REVIEWS 86 DARK TRANQUILLITY 88 HATEBREED 90 IRON MAIDEN 93 PUSCIFER 98 LIVE EVIL 100 LIVE REVIEWS 102 TALLAH 103 ENSLAVED 104 FEVER 333 EDITED BY: JONATHAN SELZER • PICTURE: GINA JOY CHONG METALHAMMER.COM 81

ALBUM REVIEWS Killer Be Killed get the squat party vibe going KILLER BE KILLED Reluctant Hero NUCLEAR BLAST Metal/hardcore allstars return with their A-game intact KILLER BE KILLED’S 2014 self-titled to be juggled, they disappeared all too quickly, letting each of the frontmen impress their and everyone expected that to be the end of own strength and personality on every song. debut album was one of those extremely rare the story. Opener Deconstructing Self-Destruction comes instances where a supergroup did manage to in with a Sepultura-esque riff that sees the live up to the sum of its parts. Incorporating But, to the surprise and delight of many, hazy melodic croon of Sanders give way to all of the things that made the individual work they’re back, this time with the added bonus the iconic, staccato bark of Cavalera and then of Soulfly/Cavalera Conspiracy man Max of Converge’s octopus-limbed drummer, Ben Puciato’s spittle-drenched sneer, while the Cavalera, Troy Sanders of Mastodon and Greg Koller, added as a full-time member. With headbanging groove remains satisfyingly Puciato of The Dillinger Escape Plan fame so the unbelievable consistency of all four men’s rigid throughout. And while tag-teaming the successful, it delivered a brilliant, genuinely output, it will come as no surprise that instantly recognisable timbre of each vocalist cohesive genre mash-up between some of Reluctant Hero is another absolute gem of an helps to keep the dynamics of each Killer Be metal’s most revered artists. Unsurprisingly, album. Once again, the main strength of Killer Killed song mobile, they are musically adept considering the various day jobs that needed Be Killed is the equal opportunity policy of as well; Left Of Center rides along on the kind of continually kinetic rhythmical patchwork “A SUPERGROUP THAT LIVES of Mastodon, yet Filthy Vagabond will delight UP TO THE SUM OF ITS PARTS” classic punk rock and hardcore aficionados. It’s a style that Cavalera has leaned heavily 82 METALHAMMER.COM

ALBUM REVIEWS VICTOR YEUNG on in the past, but it’s great to hear reaches those particular standards again, ACCUSER self-realisation, Edification although the one minute and seven contrasts light and shade Sanders’ lackadaisical drawl used in this seconds of thrashing on Animus, the early Accuser with opener The Vine and death metal-meets-space rock of Dead the aggressively catchy particular framework. Limbs and the closing title track – as close METAL BLADE Machine Dependent setting as the band have to a ballad – are all still German thrash veterans having the the tone. Dark textures The album’s highlight, though, is the very strong moments in an album that time of their lives are married with acerbic never loses its focus or charm. screams amongst a flurry sprawling, slow build of seven-minute- While German thrashers of nu metal-inspired riffs long album centerpiece, From A Crowded So, a welcome return from what is Accuser enjoyed a pretty and bass licks, before the Wound. It starts with a riff so heavy and almost certainly the finest supergroup of successful decade of album blossoms into the past decade. Fingers crossed that they destruction during their a cacophonous frenzy of oppressive that it’ll make you feel like stick around a little longer this time, and first incarnation, it wasn’t hyper-precise tech-groove that maybe we here in the UK get those until they reformed in 2008 cuts shot through with you’re pushing a boulder up a mountain. long-awaited live dates. Unquestionably, that they proved they were modern metalcore these songs deserve to be heard. a real force to be reckoned overtones for maximum It’s then carried along by a seething yet with. Now sounding more shit-kicking effect. ■■■■■■■■■■ formidable than ever ■■■■■■■■■■ restrained Puciato until both Sanders and thanks to the return of lead FOR FANS OF: Lamb Of FOR FANS OF: Mastodon, Sepultura, guitarist René Schütz, God, Meshuggah, Gojira Cavalera join forces and trade vocal lines The Dillinger Escape Plan Accuser sees the veterans in vintage form as they draw SOPHIE MAIUGHAN in an astonishingly crushing mid-section, STEPHEN HILL on the grooves of their ’92 LP, Repent, and the sharp BERGETON before the song simmers to a close. It’s an riffs of ’89’s Who Dominates Who? for inspiration. Clearly Miami Murder astonishing moment, reminiscent of the keen to make up for his debut album’s closing track, Forbidden eight-year absence, Schütz DARKHAN MUSIC Fire, taken to even greater heights. shreds up a storm through- Mayhem’s guitarist feels the need out and his face-melting for neon If there is a slight gripe with Reluctant solo on Misled Obedience Hero, it would be that it never quite is spectacular, while the You don’t need to reinvent hook-laden, melodic Be the wheel if it’s attached None The Wiser affirms to a DeLorean. Teloch, they’ve still plenty of tricks guitarist for Norwegian left up their sleeves. legends Mayhem, has ■■■■■■■■■■ hopped in, ragged the FOR FANS OF: Testament, knackers off the accelerator, Heathen, Kreator hit 88mph and driven himself back to the future. EDWIN MCFEE In the past. As a solo venture, Bergeton is AFTER SMOKE CLEARS another black metal musician fancying himself Edification as John Carpenter, all 80s synth bluster and chonky SELF-RELEASED electronic beats. But he just Groove-tech debutants get their does it so well. That subtle sonic and psychic shit together choir building through Depeche Load, those These Londoners’ debut car-chase licks in Lambo, album is a textured journey the way Fort Apache Marina full of ambition and self- integrates that almost assured design that brings comically metal breakdown together groove metal, – it’s slick, sexy and technical precision and stupendously intense. a maturity that belies the Miami Murder isn’t four-piece’s short career. idiosyncratic enough to Charting the transition be a synthwave essential, from self-destruction to but it’s one hell of a party nonetheless. ■■■■■■■■■■ FOR FANS OF: Perturbator, GosT, Carpenter Brut ALEC CHILLINGWORTH METALHAMMER.COM 83

ALBUM REVIEWS Geezer Butler mines his maximum impact. Matthew industrial upbringing McDougal’s bile-flecked vocals are honest and GEEZER BUTLER BLACK STONE CHERRY impressive, without a clean chorus to be found in this Plastic Planet/Black Science/Ohmwork The Human Condition churning pit of suffering. Your Receding Warmth’s BMG MASCOT clenched-teeth attitude Southern rockers carve through the is potent, while the What the Sabbath bassist did on his holidays isolation blues production strikes just the right balance between BY THE MID-90s, as co-founder, omitted Bell due to commitments with With Lynyrd Skynyrd due to gritty and polished. Fear Factory. Up stepped Clark Brown, hang up their boots, Black A defiant soundtrack for bassist and lyricist of the trailblazing Stone Cherry are among the today’s fractured world. Black Sabbath, Geezer Butler who made his status as frontrunners to inherit the ■■■■■■■■■■ had long since attained rock a complete unknown seem Southern rock crown. Seven FOR FANS OF: Knocked god immortality. So more than pretty laughable. Equally albums in, the Kentucky Loose, Justice For a few eyebrows were raised comical (though not in a good quartet have developed The Damned, Great when, with Sabbath on hiatus, way) were a set of lyrics a strong identity, forged American Ghost Geezer risked his hard-earned inspired by Butler’s 1960s around the gruff, emotion- credibility by teaming up with childhood love of sci-fi TV charged drawl of guitarist SOPHIE MAUGHAN Fear Factory frontman Burton shows. With the focus upon Chris Robertson. Wrapped C. Bell to form a side-band him increased, sadly there up immediately before BRAVE THE COLD known originally as G//Z/R. were times when guitarist lockdown, The Human Teamed with Butler’s Pedro Howse (a relative of Condition is charged with Scarcity thunderous bass, the hiring Geezer’s) seemed somewhat both despair and positivity, of Bell and his instantly out his depth. Robertson’s bellowing MISSION TWO ENTERTAINMENT recognisable voice was a thinly veiled metaphors for Napalm Death and Megadeth masterstroke. Released in ’95, The least said about 2005’s repetition, perseverance, members fuse their love of fury Plastic Planet [8] fused brutal Ohmwork [4] the better. Still sadness, doubt, anxiety Pantera-style grooves with without Burton, the band’s and, above all, optimism. Brave The Cold is Napalm crisp FF/Ministry-flavoured name had been shortened to When he sings: ‘Life is way Death guitarist Mitch textures and more familiar- GZR. They’d also lost the too short to live this way,’ Harris’s high-speed sounding moments such as musical plot, dipping in and everyone will empathise. successor to his underrated the doomy Seance Fiction. out of grunge, hard rock, ■■■■■■■■■■ Menace project. Scarcity It turned out to be a highly doom, rap and even nu metal, FOR FANS OF: Lynyrd culls a vast swath of his credible debut, suggesting that and Ohmwork is very grim Skynyrd, Buckcherry, guitar prowess and his an old dog could be taught indeed. However, now Monster Truck chameleonic vocal abilities contemporary tricks after all. available on vinyl for the first on an album that constantly time, these albums stand as DAVE LING uncoils itself from known Once again defying the cynics who this testament to a musician unwilling to to unknown. The dystopian time expected Geezer’s plaything to have simply reside in his comfort zone. BOUNDARIES grind he’s known for – fizzled out, two years later he returned which drummer Dirk under the retooled handle of GEEZER. FOR FANS OF: Fear Factory, Pantera, Your Receding Warmth Verbeuren powers with The resulting follow-up, Black Science [6], Godsmack violent panache – provides UNBEATEN the starting point for the DAVE LING Metalcore debutants stir up some souped-up engine to barrel genuine, pit-ready grit into a hardcore punk maelstrom (Apparatus), This Connecticut-based tech-death (Refuge), Killing metalcore quintet’s debut Joke-ish menace (Blind full-length sees them Eye) and, on Retrograde, taking an introspective a monolith of massive look at modern life and the guitars and vocals that dark shadow currently recall Fear Factory at looming over it. As subtle their Luddite-hating best, as a sledgehammer to all while sounding like the face, Get Out’s acerbic a synthesised masterwork shouts should earn a rowdy instead of frazzled genre response and Behind The cherry-picking. Bend’s downtuned ■■■■■■■■■■ atmospherics and raw FOR FANS OF: Napalm aggression are intended for Death, Pig Destroyer, Cattle Decapitation CONNIE GORDON 84 METALHAMMER.COM

ALBUM REVIEWS MAIJA AJOMO/PRESS BRUTUS handling all of the particularly intoxicating. “We’re fucked”: Dark instrumentation, as on his Admittedly, there are some Buddha Rising consult Live In Ghent previous EPs, he’s passed tracks where the musical the omens over the mic to vocalist arrows fall short of the SARGENT HOUSE Peter Emms for this debut bullseye, but Atonement DARK BUDDHA RISING Post-punk/hardcore high-climbers full-length and it’s a good employs barrages of cast a spell on home turf fit, with Emms’ pained, muscular riffery echoed by Mathreyata strung-out scream adding soaring melodies and the Recorded in front of even more intensity to the melancholic yet anthemic SVART a passionate native crowd, band. For the most part, Buried In The White leaves Live In Ghent showcases the Indoctrinate consists of a lasting impression long Finnish doom mystics match the immensity tremendous power and minute-long shards of after the first listen. of the endtimes pliability of the Belgian blastbeats, meaty metallic ■■■■■■■■■■ post-hardcore wonders. riffs and blind, seething FOR FANS OF: October SUNYAGA, THE Last year’s Nest was an hatred. Despite some swift Tide, Katatonia, OPENING track of the incredible step up for and generally convincing Hanging Garden Brutus, but, as good as breakdowns here and seventh album by Finnish that album was, it’s still there, Concede definitely SOPHIE MAUGHAN metallers Dark Buddha awe-inspiring to hear sound more comfortable Rising crashes in on those songs recreated live blasting than they do on DÉLUGE a towering wave of doom- with such potency. It’s slower cuts like chuggy, laden riffage that ranks particularly impressive to five-minute closer One Ægo Templo as one of the year’s finest consider the dual talents of With The Earth. Indoctrinate intros. After a couple of Stefanie Mannaerts, who won’t win Concede any METAL BLADE minutes, spectral vocals are manages to keep time on prizes for originality, but Alcest-approved Frenchmen find introduced – curiously reminiscent of Alice In Chains the drums, blasting away if you just want a quick, beauty in the heart of black metal at their most seasick – and it’s clear you’re in for one with furious gusto, whilst efficient sonic beating, it heavy trip. also flexing her staggering does the trick. “I wanted to go further vocal range. Like most live ■■■■■■■■■■ into something more ‘easy Having stunned many by way of their 2019 albums, this is really only FOR FANS OF: Nails, All to listen to’,” Déluge collaboration with kindred spirits Oranssi Pazuzu ever going to be of any Pigs Must Die, Full Of Hell guitarist François-Thibaut under the name The Waste Of Space Orchestra, the interest to those already Hordé has said of Tampere-based ensemble have wasted no time in au fait with the artist, but if KEZ WHELAN composing his band’s completing an album – no, an experience – that ranks you are then this is a stark sophomore album. If that’s as their most formidable and all-encompassing reminder of how special COUNTING HOURS the case, we really don’t statement to date. Plenty of bands in 2020, especially a band Brutus are. want to know what he those belonging to the doom category, are described as ■■■■■■■■■■ The Will finds hard to listen to. psychedelic; Dark Buddha Rising are one of the few to FOR FANS OF: Cult Of Following up their 2015 actually sound as though they’re actively testing the Luna, Oathbreaker, THE VINYL DIVISION debut, Æther, which limits of consciousness via their music. Raketkanon Gothic-tinged Finns start to draw featured a guest turn from from their own well of misery Alcest’s Neige, the French Mathreyata is comprised of four tracks, the shortest STEPHEN HILL quintet have created an of which is just over seven minutes in duration, that The debut album from expansive, hour-long beast build upon essentially simple rhythmic frameworks, CONCEDE these Finnish miserablists that’s equal parts black drawing the listener inexorably through a wormhole finds them growing in metal, post-rock and towards what one can only imagine is complete ego Indoctrinate confidence since their 2016 hardcore punk. Its rushing dissolution, the end of the universe itself, or both. self-titled EP and paying off blastbeats and passionate Following the thunderous Nagathma comes Uni, which PETRICHOR/NAPALM the debt they owed to the wails are as black metal as builds from a horizontal drone to a hypnotic rumble Hard-as-nails hardcore/grind likes of Paradise Lost and it gets, but the ambient overlaid with strafing keyboards, then finally to what duo raise their mast to the blast Katatonia – meaning they guitar leads and caveman sounds like a devastating free rock interpretation of are free to stake out space breakdowns add plenty of jazz master John Coltrane circa Ascension. This flows Specialising in the same on their own distinctive twists and turns. And into closer Mahathgata III, which is perhaps the album’s type of modern grinding terms. Beginning with the that’s before you get to most straightforwardly doomy piece, yet still impresses hardcore (just don’t call it stirring, atmospheric title the sax solo on Opprobre, with its sheer, reverberating heft. Given the absence powerviolence!) that Nails track, the five-piece waste or Abysses’ juxtaposition of hope that seems to characterise our current epoch, popularised, Jay Huxtable’s little time in setting out of pummelling metal with Mathreyata is almost comforting in its consummate, Concede have a remarkable their stall, The Will weaving quasi-spiritual vocals. apocalyptic immensity. amount of piss and vinegar a sumptuous, goth-tinged Ægo Templo rewards the for, essentially, a solo soundscape that’s all eclectic and, if Hordé is to ■■■■■■■■■■ project. With Huxtable pouring rain and flickering be believed, this is just the candles, while Profound’s tip of the iceberg. FOR FANS OF: Oranssi Pazuzu, Neurosis, Ufomammut multi-layered tapestry of ■■■■■■■■■■ sombre guitars and play FOR FANS OF: Svalbard JOSEPH STANNARD between hypnotic cleans Oathbreaker, The Ocean and unhinged growls is MATT MILLS METALHAMMER.COM 85

ALBUM REVIEWS Dark Tranquillity step into DEMONICAL verses vaguely similar to the melodeath limelight Body Count, The effect is World Domination ruthlessly vivacious with DARK TRANQUILLITY plenty of call-to-arms AGONIA moments, particularly the Moment Swedish death metal conservatives triumphant roar of ‘Move!’ get entombed in lethargy in Total Dominance. An CENTURY MEDIA album packed to the brim Recreating the sound of with guests to offer as much Melodic death metal underdogs make their case for superstardom early 90s Swedish death variety as possible, it’s metal is fast becoming perhaps overwhelming at IF WE WERE TO make a list of metal’s backbone, channelling melodeath a trend in itself. In recent times, with an essence of the DANIEL FALK/PRESS mainstays with their simple, grunted years, youngsters like Lik band feeling lost amongst most underappreciated acts, Dark hooks and heroic guitar leads. and Deserted Fear have all the collaborations. Tranquillity would be very high on it. built careers on it. Having Nonetheless, this album is Along with In Flames and At The Gates, However, it isn’t until Moment’s second formed in 2006, Demonical a vast extension beyond the the sextet were part of 90s Gothenburg’s half that the newcomer-wrangling deserve credit for traditional hardcore sound holy trinity, paramount in pre-empting this current of 2017’s South Haven. defining the melodic death potential rears its head. revival. However, World ■■■■■■■■■■ metal genre. Yet, for A Drawn Out Exit satisfies Domination shows why FOR FANS OF: Scarlxrd, whatever reason, Mikael the intellect with its they’ve never enjoyed God Complex, Body Count Stanne and co rarely enjoy surprisingly progressive neither the acclaim of the same notice as their time signatures; the their predecessors nor YASMINE SUMMAN equally game-changing following Eyes Of The the momentum of their contemporaries. This is World boasts one of DT’s successors. It replicates the DIAMOND HEAD in spite of a 20-year-long strongest choruses to date, nostalgia of those buzzing career with no bad albums, balancing raw growls with guitars, but the way songs Lightning To The and their development catchy yet sorrowful goth such as Aeons Of Death and Nations 2020 into a unique soundscape rock singing. Failstate’s Victorious plod along with mixing melodeath with Paradise barrelling, synth-backed slow, simplistic rhythms for SILVER LINING MUSIC Lost-like gothic metal. refrain juxtaposes with an appeal to nearly six minutes soon gets Lars Ulrich’s favourite band revisit the vigorously primal, and lastly, In Truth dull. Demonical’s energy their classic debut album Created by men who seem as sick of Divided proves a decidedly not-metal levels need a recharge if their ‘B+’ popularity as their fans are, epilogue, defined by its beautiful keys they’re to compete with this You simply cannot argue Moment is a jugular-seizing demand and chilled-out percussion. niche’s newcomers. with the seminal power of for recognition. Rarely have its creators Anthemic, pummelling and ■■■■■■■■■■ Diamond Head’s 1980 debut sounded as urgent as they do here, heartstring-plucking, Moment is the FOR FANS OF: Dismember, album. Some diehard fans packing all of their strengths into one outing with which DT deserve to grab Deserted Fear, Amon may recoil from a complete 50-minute voyage. Dark Tranquillity’s that elusive brass ring. On a par with Amarth re-recording of the whole 12th album commences with its most contemporaries At The Gates, this is thing, but these songs are aggressive and flashy feet forward, a grand effort worthy of genre acclaim. MATT MILLS so timeless, anthemic and before gradually unfolding into a forlorn integral to the evolution of serenity that, although softer, feels no ■■■■■■■■■■ DETHRXNER heavy metal that guitarist/ less essential. Early cuts Phantom Days founder Brian Tatler would and Identical To None establish a charming FOR FANS OF: Soilwork, Novembers Doom, Overthrxwn have had to work very hard In Flames to screw it up. In the end, PRIME COLLECTIVE Lightning To The Nations MATT MILLS Danish metalcore crew set 2020 is a joy. Sonically a guest-laden trap for themsleves thunderous and played with palpable vim and vigour, it’s Who would have thought never going to usurp the beatdowns would work original, but it’s thrilling to so well with trap beats? hear the likes of Am I Evil? Dethrxner’s second album and The Prince sound so sheds light onto what huge and contemporary. a Scarlxrd/Knocked Loose Four bonus covers, including mash-up would sound like. a spine-rattling version Alongside the beats, of Metallica’s No Remorse, Overthrxwn blends gut-` complete a thoroughly curdling vocals with rap worthwhile plundering of the past. ■■■■■■■■■■ FOR FANS OF: Metallica, Motörhead, Angel Witch DOM LAWSON 86 METALHAMMER.COM

ALBUM REVIEWS heavy music is not one Felmax and Linkin Park’s SMALL MERCIES of them. Empress have Joe Hahn replacing crammed an impressive skyscraping metal with Where EP is short for ‘Epic Potential’ amount of disparate juddering beats on Bad ECCLESIA influences into their full- Company, Trouble and Wash ALTER BRIDGE CORRUPT length debut, but the end It All Away. The one new MORAL ALTAR De Ecclesiæ Universalis result is refined, fluid and track, Broken World, Walk The Sky brimming with inspired satisfyingly sums up the Patiently Waiting For AURAL MUSIC moments. At their core, bonfire that is 2020 in a hail NAPALM Wonderful Things Spanish Inquisition doom fetishists riff-heavy songs like Trost of machine gun riffery. forgo the comfy cushions and Sepulchre have a foot If only there could have An EP featuring six live SELF RELEASE planted firmly in doom and been more of that on offer. tracks from the arena Steeped, for some peculiar sludge territory, but with ■■■■■■■■■■ rockers, but the talking After 2018’s more reason, in the language and detours into scabrous BM, FOR FANS OF: Stone Sour, point here is a new song, experimental Eunoia, this imagery of the Spanish dreamy post-rock and even Nickelback, Bad Wolves Last Rites. Written in EP returns to CMA’s more Inquisition, these doom viscous, trippy post-punk, lockdown and possessing directly abrasive hybrid newcomers manage to this is wonderfully tricky DANNII LEIVERS a seriously heavy riff, it’s of grindcore and sludge, transcend their hokey to pin down. At their most enough to tide you over ’til albeit sharper and more schtick with an album of merrily perverse amid the GAMA BOMB they return to our shores. imaginative than before. rousing, ribcage-rattling multi-mood, steroidal goodness. The soaring shoegaze sprawl of Hiraeth Sea Savage ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ vocals and organ-draped and monolithic closer frilliness would be ludicrous Lion’s Blood, Empress have PROSTHETIC STEPHEN HILL KEZ WHELAN in lesser hands, but Ecclesia so much potential it’s Madcap Northern Irish thrashers manage to land somewhere slightly scary. The tragic take to the seas of cheese HOLY DEATH LIMBS between Candlemass and death of bassist Brenden Cirith Ungol thanks to Gunn last October looms Seven records in, it’s safe Deus Mortis Only The Lonely EP sheer audacious pomp. The large over an already to say we know what to crunchy, borderline garish emotionally potent piece expect from Gama Bomb: SELF RELEASED UNFD guitar tone forgoes kit nerd of work, but it’s hard to machine-gun riffing, amplifier worship entirely, imagine a finer tribute. movie-referencing lyrics The latest EP from these There are a lot of bands and while undeniably ■■■■■■■■■■ and more daftness than Nevadans is a thuggish out there melding post- classic-sounding there’s FOR FANS OF: Elder, a weekend at Pontins salvo of sludge-spiced hardcore and metalcore at a refreshing lack of atavism Svalbard, Yob with Lawnmower Deth. doom. Born out of a near- the moment, but Limbs are that sets them apart Sea Savage sees the ship death experience, the an example of how to do it from the retro fetishists DOM LAWSON largely stay its course as power trio particularly well, with rip-out-your- plundering pre-’76 Sabbath. Gama Bomb embark on impress on the primal, beating-heart choruses and The way Antichristus morphs FIVE FINGER a nautically themed 12- speaker-rattling chugfest pummelling beatdowns on from classic slow-mo stomp DEATH PUNCH track odyssey that loosely that is Spiritual Degradation. the excellent Empty Vessel. to fast-paced rockathon and resembles a concept record the fist-pounding chorus of A Decade Of Destruction, – albeit one as described ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ Deus Vult are two highlights, Volume 2 by a hyperactive six-year- but the album’s so full of old with a penchant for EDWIN MCFEE DANNII LEIVERS ’em it’s enough to make BETTER NOISE MUSIC b-movie kitsch. That said, a believer of even the Las Vegas’s groove metal juggernaut the band’s general diet of MY DYING BRIDE THROANE staunchest heretic. scrabbles for spare parts thrash, thrash, thrash ■■■■■■■■■■ and thrash is switched up Macabre Cabaret Une Balle Dans Le Pied FOR FANS OF: Reverend Las Vegas behemoths Five by an infusion of classic Bizarre, Iron Man, Ghost Finger Death Punch used NWOBHM histrionics, NUCLEAR BLAST DEBEMUR MORTI PROUDUCTIONS up the best of their material Philly Byrne giving us his ALEX DELLER on 2017’s A Decade Of best Halford impression as Six months after a mighty Multi-disciplinary artist Destruction. As a result, this he shrieks through the likes new LP, Bradford’s morose Dehn Sora returns with EMPRESS second Best Of feels a little of Sheer Khan, Judo Killer and maestros drop more a lacerating, Blut Aus thin on the ground, save Rusty Jaw. It may be musical sumptuous gothic doom Nord-fuelled 13-minute Premonition for the stadium-sized Hard Marmite to some, but this nuggets, these three journey to the edge of sonic To See and their chugging extra layer of cheese perhaps more theatrical, coherence – a seething PETRICHOR cover of Kenny Wayne perfectly accentuates the ornate, even uplifting, realm where doom, Genre-blitzing riff worship from Shepherd’s Blue On Black. silly, fun side of thrash confirming 2020 as a boom ambient, black metal the volcanic shadows of Vancouver The bonus material too, is that Gama Bomb champion year for MDB, if no one else. and industrial collide. underwhelming. There are so fervently. There are many things to four previously unheard ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ dislike about the post- songs, but three of them are FOR FANS OF: Bonded By internet world, but an remixes of existing tracks, Blood, Municipal Waste, CHRIS CHANTLER TOM O’BOYLE increased eclecticism in with superstar DJ Steve Overkill Aoki, dubstep producer RICH HOBSON METALHAMMER.COM 87

ALBUM REVIEWS Hatebreed: unchallenged his shoegaze project Little kingpins of Pit City Giant Drug, here the bassist is in cahoots with Dimmu HATEBREED GARMARNA Borgir’s Silenoz (guitars), Cyrus (guitars) and Tony Weight Of The False Self Förbundet Laureano (drums) for some chunky old-school death NUCLEAR BLAST SEASON OF MIST metal. For their second Scandic folk-rockers find a darker album, ID keep it simple: Hardcore’s mosh kings leave only themselves to compete with route to the otherworldly chugging riffs, bleak guitar leads and generic vocals OVER THE COURSE of 500 episodes But while Cling To Life’s theatrical leads A Swedish folk-rock band that nonetheless work help add an emotional edge, Hatebreed with a 30-year legacy, perfectly in context. As if to of his podcast, Jamey Jasta has given have comfortably found their niche since Garmarna explore darker compound the authenticity, listeners an honest insight into his environs on their seventh the cover art is by the musical processes, be it a bit of experimentation on album. Acoustic folk legendary Dan Seagrave. songwriting, production or 2009’s self-titled album, remains their primary MO, ■■■■■■■■■■ the live environment. In and as such every other but opener Ramunder FOR FANS OF: Obituary, the case of Hatebreed, the track unapologetically reveals their enthusiasm for Death, Morgoth frontman has revealed follows an almost clinical, sonic experimentation. The that as well keeping it bulldozing approach. dark vein of electronica that JOSEPH STANNARD “haaaard” and having Relying purely on energy runs throughout coalesces necessary trips to and positive attitude, it’s here as glowering back- KALANDRA “Moshville”, each new this tried and trusted ground radiation that never album should have songs method that may limit quite lets you sit at ease with The Line that are strong enough to the band’s scope but the song’s jaunty hooks. open and end a show – also provides a cordial The hushed determination BY NORSE MUSIC a daunting task considering the already familiarity. Yes, the title track may be of Dagen Flyr builds to the Rarefied, folk-infused wonder from bulging setlist boasted by one of heavy a little too wordy, but on the whole Jasta’s cinematic urgency of Sven the Norwegian hinterlands music’s most consistent live acts. outpouring of self-help slogans and I Rosengård, with anxious optimistic advice ensures Weight Of The violin accompanying acidic Appropriately considering So even though there is little to dislike False Self does an exemplary job of making electronics. Vocalist Emma the nature of their music, or criticise about the Connecticut you feel instantly better about yourself. Härdelin floats ethereally Kalandra’s career has been bruisers’ eighth effort, the only relevant Ultimately, it’s this beneficial affirmation above the consternation, be a slow burn. Formed almost test is how its songs stack up against their that ensures that any new Hatebreed it ballad or belting anthem. 10 years ago, they’re only own watertight discography. The opening release makes for an indispensable, She’s a cornerstone of now releasing their debut duo, Instinctive (Slaughterlust) and Let Them cathartic trip to Pit City, no matter how it mellifluous sounds album, heralded by their All Rot, have the potential to be firm live stacks up against their previous efforts. obsessed with the darker startling 2.3m-viewed favourites, with gang vocals, adrenaline- side of Swedish folklore. An cover of Wardruna’s filled turns of pace and bulldozing riffs ■■■■■■■■■■ absorbing, otherworldly signature track, Helvegen, that hardcore fans can shout, jump and adventure to lose yourself in. and their contribution to kung-fu dance along to in that way they FOR FANS OF: Knocked Loose, Sick Of It All, ■■■■■■■■■■ the Beforeigners TV series find so agreeable. Madball FOR FANS OF: The Moon soundtrack. From the & The Nightspirit, glacial, devotional grace ADAM REES Jex Thoth, Hexvessel of Borders onwards, The Line sounds like it’s been filtered TOM O’BOYLE through mineral rock for aeons to reach a sublime, INSIDIOUS DISEASE distilled state. For all Kalandra’s Scandic pop- After Death noir sensibilities, there’s a sense of exquisite gravitas NUCLEAR BLAST throughout, not least in Extreme metal A-listers launch Katrine Stennbekk’s wind- another satisfying deathly salvo sculptured vocals. Ensom’s Gaelic-tinged progressive Shane Embury gets about pulse is a highlight, but a bit. Not content with The Line is awash in heart- masterminding the thawing, liberating wonder excellent new Napalm that’s both far-flung and Death album, chucking out deeply intimate. a new Venomous Concept ■■■■■■■■■■ LP and reissuing the work of FOR FANS OF: Eivør, Aleah Starbridge, Bel Canto JONATHAN SELZER 88 METALHAMMER.COM

ALBUM REVIEWS TOM LUND/PRESS KATATONIA with their 2017 debut. But has apparently chosen to Hjelvik counts here the duo have really return his natural, late-80s his blessings Dead Air found their voice – and it’s habitat: on the fringes of a darker, more foreboding thrash and death metal and HJELVIK PEACEVILLE and resounding tone. The under the close spiritual Sweden’s melancholic masters put expert use of instrumental guidance of Tom G. Warrior Welcome To Hel the spring back into their step tension and release keeps in particular. And it works. attention fixated on the The latter part of the album NUCLEAR BLAST This spring, veteran newfound cinematic may showcase some more Swedish prog metallers vastness Katla summon experimental and less Former Kvelertak frontman heads to the heavy Katatonia released City even at near-quiet, through successful material, but metal altar Burials – a mighty return the varied use of doom, Loudblast sound hungry after a four-year hiatus. cello-led drones, black once more. ERLEND HJELVIK’S With the supporting tour metal, post-punk and ■■■■■■■■■■ DECISION to part ways derailed by the pandemic, horror folk soundtrack FOR FANS OF: Possessed, Katatonia streamed a tenets. The massive hole Death, Tryptikon with Kvelertak in July 2018 lockdown show in May, left by the untimely passing due to a change in “individual released now as a live of composer extraordinaire OLIVIER BADIN goals, needs and motivations” album, and the Jóhann Jóhannsson in 2018 came as quite the shock. performance highlights could be filled by these MACABRE The frontman had, after all, the band’s aptitude for fellow Icelanders, such is helmed the band from their performing their highly their spellbinding ability Carnival Of Killers early days mining the (as polished material with both to swell gently or crush then) largely untapped veins precision and emphatic grandly depending on the NUCLEAR BLAST of black’n’roll into the kind of act that could cause potency. The setlist offers movement’s cause – and Chicago’s serial killer-obsessed a media furore and play to massive arenas around the a veritable Katatonia primer, Guðmundsson’s yearning sickos return from their slumber world with Metallica. While wearing an owl on his its 20 fan-chosen songs vocals add genuine head, naturally. including three tracks from emotional solemnity to It’s been nine years since City Burials. Anthemic the soundscapes. This is the last album by the A talismanic presence within Kvelertak, it’s no standards My Twin, Lacquer a gripping, often profound undisputed kings of surprise to see that Erlend has opted to go down the and Unfurl translate well, LP to lose oneself in. Murder Metal and just solo artist route for his next project, pulling together capping off a towering vocal ■■■■■■■■■■ like the methodologies musicians including lead guitarist Rob Steinway performance from Jonas FOR FANS OF: Urfaust, employed by the topics (Skelator), rhythm guitarist Remi André Nygård Renkse. Not a dramatic Ólafur Arnalds, Jóhann of their affection, the (Inculter), bassist Alexis Lieu (ex-Benighted) and leap from the originals Jóhannsson more things change the drummer Kevin Foley (ex-Benighted, Abbath). but earnest, energised more they stay the same and a worthy addition to DEAN BROWN for these Chicago sickos. Perhaps as a direct result of gathering a motley crew their catalogue. Familiar folk like Gacy, from genres as disparate as deathgrind, classic-style ■■■■■■■■■■ LOUDBLAST Speck and Ramirez are heavy metal and blackened thrash, Welcome To Hel FOR FANS OF: Anathema, mentioned alongside more simultaneously feels heavier and more ostentatious Swallow The Sun, Manifesto obscure serial killers Joe than anything Hjelvik has done in the past. A big part Paradise Lost Ball, Leonard Lake and of this is in the change of the basic framework of each LISTENABLE Charles Ng, all delivered song – removing the oily motor of rock’n’roll at the core JOE DALY France’s oldest death metal act with that contrasting of Kvelertak and replacing it with a pulsing heart of return to their roots thrash/death/grind/ distilled – and still somewhat blackened – heavy metal. KATLA nursery rhyme/commercial The result is a delicious triptych of snarling thrash, Loudblast’s eighth full- jingle musical mix. Your black metal imperiousness and flashy guitar Allt Þetta Helvítis Myrkur length fares far better Window Is Open skips along grandstanding torn straight from the history books. than 2014’s Burial Ground, in a hail of metronomic PROPHECY PRODUCTIONS perhaps because it just chaos and Tea Cakes might Even sifting through the filth of metal’s underground, Expansive Icelanders undergo doesn’t care about being be about as evil as Macabre Hjelvik still finds some nuggets of gold to appease the a majestic transformation relevant anymore. have ever sounded. masses and get them howling along. The Power Ballad Of Stylistically, Loudblast However, distorted novelty Freyr and Glory Of Hel are riffy floor-fillers, while North Formed by drummer haven’t stood still through- anthem Stinky and Tsar is blackened thrash with all the frosty trimmings, Guðmundur Óli Pálmason out their 35-year existence, bastardised covers of suggesting that as hard as Hjelvik goes on Welcome To and multi-instrumentalist/ with variable results, their nursery rhyme favourite Hel, he hasn’t forgotten what it takes to enthral a crowd vocalist Einar Thorberg undeniable peak remaining Them Dry Bones and 60s many thousands strong. Guðmundsson, Katla drew 1993’s Scott Burns-produced German beer hall jazz hit comparisons to Pálmason’s Sublime Dementia. But after Warte, Warte prove that ■■■■■■■■■■ former band, Sólstafir, numerous line-up changes sinister smiles aren’t – the latest recruit being always sinister. FOR FANS OF: Midnight, Satyricon, Kvelertak ex-Dragonforce and Kreator ■■■■■■■■■■ bass player, Frédéric FOR FANS OF: Repulsion, RICH HOBSON Leclercq – sole original Pungent Stench, Exhumed member Stéphane Buriez CONNIE GORDON METALHAMMER.COM 89

ALBUM REVIEWS Iron Maiden unleash some MITOCHONDRIAL SUN Desert amalgamates starry WORLD of their deepest cuts post-rock and desert rock SERVICE Sju Pulsarer into a heavy-toned sonic IRON MAIDEN landscape. Feast At Half- Heavy metal uprisings ARGONAUTA Light City’s howling guitars from around the globe Nights Of The Dead, Legacy Of The Beast: Bong-worthy meditations from presents a more morose Live In Mexico City ex-Dark Tranquillity axeman vision and A Clamour Of CIDESPHERE Limbs’ chunky, doom-spun PARLOPHONE Less than a year after riffs are pure Sabbath Dawn Of A New Epoch Mitochondrial Sun’s territory. Mountain Caller Heavy metal’s indefatigable globetrotters cement eponymous debut, ex-Dark create multiple shades of TESTIMONY their legacy Tranquillity guitarist Niklas light and drama; as a largely Sundin has returned with post-rock album, the Turkey’s Cidesphere are one FOR THE PAST TWO a follow-up. Where the Mogwai-esque moments of many bands enthusiastic former played out as won’t have the metallic about playing the classic decades, Iron Maiden a dreamy buffet of ambient clout that some readers Gothenburg blend of thrash have been nothing if not electronica, Sju Pulsarer crave, but there are plenty and melodeath, dipping into consistent. They release (‘Seven Pulsars’), forcibly of profound morsels to the style’s early, aggressive a studio album; they perform pushes that sound forward wrap your ears around. days. Forget about around the world to support into the arcane mists of ■■■■■■■■■■ originality, though. it; and then they document atmospheric BM. The seven FOR FANS OF: Elder, ■■■■■■■■■■ the tour for posterity’s sake primary tracks share the Russian Circles, Cloudkicker in the form of a live album. same undercarriage of OLIVIER BADIN That pattern breaks, punishing blastbeats HOLLY WRIGHT however, with the release of the group’s new live set, and tremolo picking, HORNCROWNED their second since 2015’s The Book Of Souls. Recorded in distinguishable only by NECROPHOBIC Mexico City in late 2019, Nights Of The Dead captures the each song’s spiralling Rex Exterminii band during their ongoing Legacy Of The Beast tour, melodies and distant Dawn Of The Damned (The Hand Of The Opposer) which celebrates all eras of their 40-year history, albeit electronic samples. Through with mixed results. While classics from their first three these waves of rhythmic CENTURY MEDIA KETZER albums with Bruce Dickinson compose more than half repetition opens a portal of Melodic Swedish viciousness for of what’s included on the 100-minute release, 20% of stillness and introspection those about to rock These Colombians return that running time is devoted to oft-overlooked Blaze that all but demands with another storm of Bailey material, while the Di’Anno years get only listening to the album in Following 2018’s highly blastbeats, buzzsaw riffage a cursory nod via the band’s eponymous anthem. its entirety. Hypnotically regarded Mark Of The and pure, blackened rage. arresting, Sju Pulsarer offers Necrogram was never Horncrowned are staunchly Furthermore, just one song – 2006’s meandering For a powerful complement to going to be an easy task, anti-evolution, but kvltists The Greater Good Of God – hasn’t previously appeared on late-night bong rips and but Swedish veterans will find much to enjoy. a Maiden live release, and with so much overlap between early morning meditations. Necrophobic have acquitted ■■■■■■■■■■ Nights Of The Dead, Live After Death, Flight 666 and Rock ■■■■■■■■■■ themselves impressively In Rio, it would be easy to dismiss the release as for FOR FANS OF: Unreqvited, with their latest album. JOE DALY completists only. Hermóðr, Violet Cold After brief instrumental intro Aphelion sets the NUCLEAR Those who do so, however, would miss out on hearing JOE DALY scene, the band tear into Dickinson sound as sharp as ever, as if he’s thumbing their signature blackened Murder Of Crows his nose at peers who have to tune down to compensate MOUNTAIN CALLER death metal with the for decaying vocal registers; a stunning and glorious ferocious Darkness Be My BLACK LODGE homestretch featuring seven of metal’s all-time greatest Chronicle I: Guide, its stroboscopic songs performed with potency and precision; and – not The Truthseeker riffing and serrated With Testament, Kreator, insignificantly, given the shitshow of a year that it’s been melodies lodging Sepultura and other thrash – a poignant reminder of the power of live music. That NEW HEAVY SOUNDS themselves immediately luminaries all jostling for said, while it might not be the first time we’ve heard the Doom-infused post-rockers weave into the listener’s pleasure position, the Chileans’ sixth Air Raid Siren repeatedly command a crowd to scream an expansive, feminist tale centres. Necrophobic album moves on from for him, here’s hoping the next time will be in person. compare what they do to outright Slayer worship While the this London trio’s AC/DC and there is a sense for a modern take on ■■■■■■■■■■ progressive instrumental that they’re locked in an a well-trodden sound. debut is a feminist allegory, eternal return. Thankfully, ■■■■■■■■■■ FOR FANS OF: Bruce Dickinson, Blaze Bailey, Paul Di’Anno Chronicle I: The Truthseeker is another attribute they share an unpretentious package. with Angus and co is their ADAM REES CLAY MARSHALL Journey Through the Twilight dependable, formidable songwriting ability. ■■■■■■■■■■ FOR FANS OF: Behemoth, Satyricon, Sacramentum JOSEPH STANNARD 90 METALHAMMER.COM

ALBUM REVIEWS OLEG ROOZ OENOS expression of black/death/ A series of Godflesh-like Tatiana Shmailyuk puts thrash metal honed to vocal detonations during Melbourne on high alert Musta III a razored trident. Some Stellar and Lament Of Man bands playing this style seem particularly JINJER SELF-RELEASED of extremity can lose incongruous. The stylistic Finnish post-black metaller opens themselves – and the melange suggests an exotic Alive In Melbourne up a Cabernet of curiosities listener – in a coagulated journey, but the band would mess of indiscernible be better sticking more NAPALM Writing tracks inspired by frenzied riffs. Yet rigidly to the dustbowl- different types of red wine Omegavortex, just like indebted routes of this Tech-metal marauders unleash the storm before… is either a really cool Teitanblood or Malthusian album’s latter stages. the other storm concept or insufferably before them, avoid this ■■■■■■■■■■ pretentious depending on pitfall by paying studious FOR FANS OF: Earth, BACK IN MARCH, where your head’s at. Slayer heed to the works of the Master Musicians Of fans will probably move masters. Death metal’s Bukkake, Magma Ukrainian modern metal along rapidly, but post- classics were founded on juggernauts Jinjer were metal connoisseurs might memorable yet complex SPENCER GRADY poised to unleash the find some common ground riffs structured in clever shit-kicking fury of the when it comes to one-man ways, and with the HENRIK PALM critically acclaimed album Finnish act Oenos. Opener thrashing whiplash of Macro upon the world via Nebukadnesar doesn’t really Violent Transcendence and Poverty Metal a global tour starting in have the scale of its name- the equally volatile Void Australia. Unbeknownst to sake, though; its doomy Possessor as two opaque SVART the four-piece, their aim to weight disperses and leaves anthems of particular note, Former Nameless Ghoul/In Solitude take the world by storm would be cruelly blighted after some rather weak post-BM Omegavortex understand guitarist goes on a weird, wild ride a mere handful of dates by the now raging COVID-19 on the palate. Alges and this innately. From horns pandemic, which makes Alive In Melbourne not only an Perafita fare better as they to tail, Black Abomination Despite its austere artwork historical event in the band’s career, but also one of the showcase a depth of Spawn is the real deal – and general air of DIY final metal shows of the year. atmosphere essential for as vicious, merciless and grit, Poverty Metal is an post-metal, with swirling confident a start as any astonishingly colourful and Filmed at Max Watt’s House Of Music, this release is and heaving riffs and raw heathen of underground esoteric affair. Henrik Palm the audio output of its previously livestreamed format. screams, and yet the drums barbarism could hope for. has a diverse CV including Faultless on ferocious opener Teacher, Teacher! and Sit are very monotonous and ■■■■■■■■■■ stints in In Solitude and Stay Roll Over, vocalist Tatiana Shmailyuk shines like the metronomic. This is a big FOR FANS OF: Teitanblood, (allegedly) Ghost, but his proverbial diamond, her enthralling cleans conveying issue across the album, but Watain, Lantern solo work sounds quite emotion and range while a plethora of unnerving with Bock adding some unlike anything else he has whispers instil a sense of menace as the tempo quickly progressive twists through DEAN BROWN done. There’s a magpie-like shifts making way for some groove-laden riffery. It’s dynamic instrumental accumulation of ideas going a joy to hear the experimental thump of Judgement interplay and Enstikto’s ONSEGÉN ENSEMBLE on here, but somehow it all (& Punishment) offset that coarse-throated rapacity, as acoustic folk a highlight, hangs together. Opener its subtle blending of reggae elements sits alongside there’s potential for this Fear Bully is a scratchy collage djent and metalcore-hued verses for a brief sonic detour project going forward. of wonky noise and spiky from the fervent belligerence. The explosive back-to- ■■■■■■■■■■ SVART guitars, vaguely redolent of back brace of On The Top and Pit Of Consciousness goes FOR FANS OF: Lantlôs, Finnish post-rockers get their sonic late 70s experimentalists directly for the jugular, delivered at breakneck speed Cult Of Luna, Rosetta maps in a muddle This Heat, but with with zero regard for musical boundaries, before the bittersweet melodies technical precision of Home Back grips anyone listening DEAN BROWN Fear is a post-rock pick’n’ threaded through the like a vice. mix that might leave some chaos. Elsewhere, Sugar is OMEGAVORTEX a bit queasy. There are some a rumbling, rambling art The setlist comes largely from Jinjer’s latest and delightful widescreen vistas rock hymn, Given Demon is arguably best album to date, but there are sufficient Black Abomination Spawn here; the slow-motion a shapeshifting, prog-psych older cuts thrown in too, including the prog-tinged Spaghetti Western twang concerto, and the sparse atmospherics of Pisces, which comes complete with INVICTUS PRODUCTIONS of Sparrow’s Song and and pretty Nihil perfectly a spinetingling crowd singalong, and Captain Clock’s Teutonic filth-ridden extremists hit Satyagrahi casts back to the sets up the krautrock pulse defiant bludgeoning. Alive… provides an eclectic and the solid core of chaos prairie-bound designs of and hard rock swagger of exhilarating escape from show-less life in 2020. Earth’s Hex; Or Printing In Nihilist. There is even room ■■■■■■■■■■ With a suitably filthy The Infernal Method. Yet, for a fuzzed-up, insanely mix adding a live feel, especially in the first half, heavy cover of Twisted FOR FANS OF: After The Burial, I Am King, Monuments Omegavortex’s full-length Fear suffers an identity Sister’s Destroyer. It’s all debut is a powerful crisis, as bouts of inert ersatz quite mad, of course, but SOPHIE MAUGHAN ritualism clunk into clichéd brilliant with it. horns over laborious sludgy ■■■■■■■■■■ riffs, seemingly ticking off FOR FANS OF: Voivod, checklists of progressive Ghost, Pinkish Black clauses without conviction. DOM LAWSON METALHAMMER.COM 91

ALBUM REVIEWS You wouldn’t want to be stuck PG.LOST the dramatic synth-driven in the middle with Nibiru sweeps and burbling pulses Oscillate of Giorgio Moroder with NIBIRU Turner’s demonic rebukes, PELAGIC the trio somehow saddle Panspermia Scandic post-rockers wring feelings of detachment exponential grace from the gloom and despondency with ARGONAUTA a disconcerting bliss. Pg.lost’s fifth full-length Disparate elements collide, Turin’s hypno-sludge dementors Hulk smash the sanity Matrix has expanded their lush, assimilate and birth cinematic soundscapes something unique and THE FIRST FEW minutes of tones, with the Italians’ ritualistic further, sounding richer wonderful – the soundtrack instincts on full display. But it’s also and more grandiose than spinning while an android Panspermia’s opening track, Alkaest, will startlingly extreme, offering no glimmers ever before. The title track’s assassin sporting a sequin- definitely sort out the real sonic voyagers of light amid this vexed quest for spiritual ominous synths burble encrusted jumpsuit busts from the lightweights. A lacerating squall perilously before a euphoric mirrorball moves to Skinny of feedback, drone and release. At times, the thick refrain lifts the entire Puppy’s Too Dark Park. garbled insanities, it soup of ugly sound feels ensemble out of the ■■■■■■■■■■ demands total surrender almost overwhelming, but quagmire. On Oscillate, FOR FANS OF: Skinny long before the drums there’s always another pg.lost prove adept at Puppy, Killing Joke, Zombi finally kick in at the five- mutant crescendo around turning the dark on a dime minute mark. In truth, the corner, and even and unveiling light beneath. SPENCER GRADY Nibiru have warned us spectral shards of melody Mindtrip lumbers along at a in advance about exactly oozing from the depths dawdling, melancholic pace PTEROGLYPH how deep into the lysergic to provide a slender link before building to delirious abyss they like to dive; to reality euphoria. Whilst the usual Solaire the Italians’ five previous crescendo-core post-rock albums have all made Again, Nibiru revel in tricks are evident, they’re BLOOD BLAST a mockery of most band’s attempts to delayed release, spending employed with restrained Tech-minded Yorkshiremen blow minds, via hulking doom, atonal a full 12 minutes lost in the eye of the artistry and a sonic depth sacrifice the prog for extra power sludge and ton after ton of abrasive, overdriven storm before anything hitherto unrealised on disorientating noise. Nothing will have resembling music happens. When it previous pg.lost releases. Pteroglyph started life prepared the red-eyed faithful for this, does, it’s an eviscerating, thuggish ■■■■■■■■■■ on a much proggier path. however, and it’s slightly alarming to assault: a bad trip that bites back. The FOR FANS OF: Mogwai, Their 2017 debut, Death Of think quite how many hallucinogenic closing two tracks keep the anti-cosmic Caspian, Cult Of Luna A Prince, created towering drugs one would have to guzzle to be accelerator firmly pinned to the floor, riffscapes, punctuated by on the same psychic wavelength as ensuring that Nibiru are now, without REMFRY DEDMAN florid fretwork and melodic Nibiru themselves. question, the most deeply fucked-up and interludes that nodded to militantly individual band operating in PHARAOH OVERLORD Meshuggah and Devin Even without chemical assistance, the heavy music right now. Feel free to dive Townsend, but since then 20-minute Aqua Solis will scrub your brain in, but don’t say we didn’t warn you. 6 there have been some sonic and soul with equal enthusiasm. This is shake-ups in the camp. freeform fearlessness, a slow-motion ■■■■■■■■■■ ROCKET RECORDINGS Songwriter and bandleader avalanche of unearthly textures and Oddball Finns recruit Aaron Turner Jimmy MacGregor has FOR FANS OF: Sunn O))), Xasthur, Esoteric for a unique disco inferno streamlined the sound to maximise on power and… DOM LAWSON Pharaoh Overlord have let’s just say it’s gone pretty always been an eclectic well. The title track and concern, their mutant Crown Of Bones balance stoner, sludge and krautrock technicality and brutality in rhythms never quite fitting an immediately satisfying with the tried’n’tested bludgeoning of juddering templates. Now, abetted guitars that recalls Gojira by vocalist Aaron Turner and The Blackening-era (Old Man Gloom/SUMAC), Machine Head. Some of current Overlords Tomi their cerebral nuance has Leppänen and Jussi been sacrificed, but still, Lehtisalo have delivered this feels like a fresh start their most esoteric for a band who have already statement yet. Combining shown an exciting amount of promise. ■■■■■■■■■■ FOR FANS OF: Gojira, Meshuggah, Machine Head DANNII LEIVERS 92 METALHAMMER.COM

ALBUM REVIEWS TIM CADIENTE/PRESS PULCHRA MORTE sixth album. They might instrumentals to contrast Puscifer: out of their have split for six years in against her varying vocal ‘silly’ phase… mostly Ex Rosa Ceremonia 2008, but that proved just styles. Variety is rife; long enough to recharge the underneath the fast-paced PUSCIFER TRANSCENDING batteries for a thunderous rhythm and eccentric US Paradise Lost devotees dig into comeback, with the added guitars are moments of Existential Reckoning some very modern woes benefit of seeing the UK vulnerability, softer sludge scene flourish from acoustic tracks that give ALCHEMY RECORDINGS Clearly keen to strike while seeds they had sown. Hard listeners every opportunity the iron is hot, this death/ To Kill sees the band on to understand the workings Maynard James Keenan finds serenity beyond doom unit have unleashed furious, fantastic form, of Scarlet’s mind. the silliness their second album a mere coming out full-pelt on ■■■■■■■■■■ year after the release of Snakebite and giving no FOR FANS OF: Poppy, New IF YOUR DEBUT their critically acclaimed quarter from then on. Years Day, In This Moment ALBUM’S called “V” Is For debut, Divina Autem Et Imagine High On Fire in Aniles. Now featuring a high-speed collision with YASMINE SUMMAN Vagina, you can’t expect folk Skeltonwitch’s Adam The Bronx and you’d be to take you too seriously. And Clemans on vocals and partway to describing the SONS OF OTIS to his credit, Maynard James Wolvhammer/Abigail swagger and freneticism Keenan – he of Tool, A Perfect Williams’ John Porada on Speedhorn effortlessly Isolation Circle and… wine – has never bass, Ex Rosa Ceremonia invoke. Russ Russell comes demanded respect nor sees them pen another love closer to capturing the TOTEM CAT understanding of Puscifer. letter to Paradise Lost’s intensity of the band’s live Toronto’s stoner boom survivors The project began as a purge seminal Gothic whilst shows than anyone has, fuse the mantic and the tantric playground, betwixt his main band’s 13-year dry spell; rallying against social elevating their sound so as the years dragged on, though, Puscifer got better. media, influencers and the much you can actively hear While Sons Of Otis came More song-orientated. More, for want of a better word wilfully ignorant, and it’s why RS were the shining to quasi-prominence and a sick bucket, mature. a dense, unflinchingly dark hope of British metal. during the late-90s stoner delight. Fans of Peaceville ■■■■■■■■■■ boom, their lengthy service At album four, Maynard and co find themselves Records’ 90s output will FOR FANS OF: High On Fire, marks them out as lifers, sounding an awful lot like APC’s last record, Eat The love sinking their teeth into Iron Monkey, Pantera purists and shaggy-headed Elephant. Or vice versa. That chilled-out, serene the likes of the crushing, standard bearers. musical spine of piano and sparse guitar supports both clean vocals peppering Knife RICH HOBSON Combining the woolly- albums, even if Puscifer do bend it a little more, Bread Of The Will. Elsewhere The edged riffs of Kyuss, the And Circus’s electronics evoking vintage Skinny Puppy Serpent’s Choir, which boasts SCARLET addled frazzle of Supercoven amidst the alt-rock wooziness. But weirdly, Existential more than 100 guest voices -era Electric Wizard and Reckoning’s selling point is its emotional resonance – including Nick Oliveri, is Obey The Queen a vocalist who owes his In particular on A Singularity, where Maynard’s higher, every inch the epic, while whiskey-pickled uvula to softer notes are flanked by snappity, digitised snare. the simple but sinister To ARISING EMPIRE Dave Wyndorf, Isolation Co-vocalist Carina Round lurks in the background as the Suffer (The Way You Do) Feminist firebrand unleashes an sounds undeniably familiar keys and guitar swell, readying Maynard’s proclamation: suggests a bright future. eclectic sonic arsenal the moment it stumbles ‘God damn the sun!’ – not the first time Puscifer have taken ■■■■■■■■■■ from the speakers. If you direct influence from Swans, but Maynard owns that line FOR FANS OF: Paradise Plunging into the greatest allow it to seep beneath with such conviction, such pathos, he rehomes it. Lost, Katatonia, Mourning depths of her tormented your skin, however, you’ll Beloveth past, Scarlet’s debut album soon realise there’s more Puscifer’s always been dismissed as Maynard’s is a rage-fuelled, cathartic at play than heavy-lidded ‘silly’ band. Existential Reckoning isn’t silly. In places EDWIN MCFEE remedy from her previous hero worship and deliberately annoying, yes – Postulous’s vocal loops anguishes that inspires bottomless low-end. While will drive you up the wall; in places jarring, sure – RAGING SPEEDHORN others to be one who each song is deceptively Carina’s ‘Shut the fuck up’ on Fake Affront is genuinely survives, rather than simple – constructed, funny, but Maynard ripostes it with his seldom-used, Hard To Kill suffers. Scarlet touches dolmen-like from a handful deep-throated cry: ‘Far right, far left, same shit.’ The on issues that resonate of basic elements – the kookiness rises just high enough to make this a Puscifer RED WEED with many young women endless head-nods coalesce album, but it’s an accoutrement - a subtle note, Corby ragers prove what doesn’t kill – receiving unsolicited into something that’s both a seasoning atop the band’s tightest serving of songs them makes them sludgier nudes, oppression in the mantric and perpetually to date. Maynard James Keenan has something to say. workplace – and takes the on the brink of meltdown. Listen. It’s awfully catchy. Twenty years on from their rowdy riot grrrl attitude of Whether by accident or debut, you would be hard- telling it quite simply to design it’s really quite a feat ■■■■■■■■■■ pressed to argue with the “shut up”. Fitting genres – a blurry, bleary ode to the title of Raging Speedhorn’s together like jigsaw puzzles, RIFF in all its infinite, FOR FANS OF: A Perfect Circle, Devo, Nitzer Ebb Obey The Queen is the nu hypnotic glory. metal-meets-2005 ■■■■■■■■■■ ALEC CHILLINGWORTH metalcore love-child that FOR FANS OF: Kyuss, Crystal had a punk phase, sprinkled Spiders, Monster Magnet with bursts of electronic ALEX DELLER METALHAMMER.COM 93

ALBUM REVIEWS Sodom seek out a new SOULBURN Medeiros and bassist Drew dawn for thrash Murphy. Black metal is still Noa’s D’ark their cornerstone, their SODOM esotericism anchored by an CENTURY MEDIA urbane grittiness born of Genesis XIX Asphyx’s blackened offspring goes Hill’s New York origins. The deeper into the dark side fervency of Bone Furnace STEAMHAMMER/SPV showcases the juxtaposition Soulburn and Asphyx are – the equivalent of seeing Ruhr Valley thrash veterans minimise the fuss – and the thrills like separated Siamese stars as your face smashes twins. At some point into concrete. The eerily STARTING IN 2018, line-up Devastation. Overall, it’s speedy, no-frills Soulburn were Asphyx, sparse Secrets Of The Black thrash pushing toward the coarse and a name change chosen by Sun provides respite before instability cast a cloud over this decades- crude side of the spectrum. their mid-90s line-up to it’s back to the business of old German institution and its bassist/ distance momentarily tearing your head off and vocalist/founder, Tom ‘Angelripper’ Such. The trouble is much of the album themselves from their past. hurling it into a black hole. The revolving door was, in part, because steamrolls the listener without nuance From 2014 onwards, they Mike Hill has found a band Angelripper wanted the became two entities, capable of keeping up, and band he founded in 1982 to and a dynamic limited to moving in two different breathed new life into this be comprised of local Ruhr ‘fast parts and half-time directions. They now only muscular beast. district dudes who could mosh parts’. The complete have one common link left ■■■■■■■■■■ regularly get together to lack of intricacy and – guitarist Eric Daniels – FOR FANS OF: Vanum, rehearse and write instead gradation wouldn’t be and while Asphyx are top- Nails, Ash Borer of succumbing to the ways so bad if the production class doom/death, Soulburn of the digital world. Old delivered a more have gotten blacker, darker TOM O’BOYLE habits die hard for the punishing tone and and far more extreme. This old school, and with an execution, but as such, fourth album stretches in VESTA overhauled line-up that seven-minute tunes dual directions with vile includes drummer Toni The Harponeer and the black metal parts, enhanced Odyssey Merkel and guitarists Frank ‘Blackfire’ title track end up bloated by Legion Of The Damned Gosdzik (ex-Kreator) and Yorck Segatz, and overwrought. Even songs of more frontman Twan van Geel’s ARGONAUTA the quartet repaired to a dingy, reasonable length for the band’s high-pitched shrieks, Instrumental Italians lose their beer’n’sweat-scented room to piece preferred ‘a couple of riffs and a solo’ next to some of doom’s bearings on album number two together full-length number 16. stylistic structure often go nowhere bleakest manifestations. fast, Euthanasia and Glock’n’Roll being Eric’s sinister and piercing Italian instrumental post- Genesis XIX manifests this backstory. obvious offenders. That’s not to say a few solos in particular are like rock trio Vesta want to take The songs possess elevated tempos and rollicking thrashing haymakers aren’t a pre-Raphaelite painting: you on a journey, but for all a stripped-down rawness with minimal levelled in the form of Sodom & Gomorrah, tragic yet beautiful. the styles and atmospheres layering cluttering up the mix. The Indoctrination and Friendly Fire, but ■■■■■■■■■■ the band experiment with production quality speaks to this edict there’s enough questionable fat that FOR FANS OF: Asphyx, it’s questionable if there’s as well, sounding somewhere between even those face-to-face jam sessions Hellhammer, Bathory enough interesting scenery a garage-y analogue recording and the weren’t able to excise. along the way. Elohim result of the band time-travelling back OLIVIER BADIN opens cinematically, with to 1986 to use the same studio and board ■■■■■■■■■■ doom riffs clashing under settings as Destruction’s Eternal TOMBS tumultuous skies. Tumae FOR FANS OF: Destruction, Kreator, Slayer is disarmingly quirky, with Under Sullen Skies light fuzz and auras of CONNIE GORDON desert rock abound. Juno, by SEASON OF MIST contrast, lurches with an NYC’s esoteric black metallers refine ugly chug before expanding their book of spells into melodic instrumentals. Borealis is a progressive left- Tombs are the brainchild of turn, delicately interplaying frontman Mike Hill, whose leads in esoteric environs. drive has sustained them There’s plenty going on, but through several stylistic the kinesis on debut album tweaks and personnel Signal is lacking here and changes. Album five Odyssey struggles to hold introduces new drummer the attention, letting the Justin Spaeth, guitarist Matt mind wander rather than setting senses ablaze. ■■■■■■■■■■ FOR FANS OF: Yob, Kyuss, Tool TOM O’BOYLE 94 METALHAMMER.COM

ALBUM REVIEWS VOIVOD ceremonies in cautious Wonderful Hell a slightly RESURRECTIONS fashion; a pensive rhythm darker, more desperate Lost Machine – Live section treads carefully undercurrent than before, Exhuming the latest metal reissues towards an aggressive end, especially on the seething, CENTURY MEDIA with bassist Lucas Gadke’s confrontational Her? and Sanctuary: caught in Quebec’s kings of wonkiness, death vocals unexpectedly the shimmering, soulful a reflective mood caught in the act intense. Laura Bates’ slow burn of surprisingly keening violin leads reach doomy closer Demon. TURNS OUT GERMAN thrashers Destruction With their 40th anniversary reedy and emotive heights. ■■■■■■■■■■ looming, Voivod are in the At more than 11 minutes FOR FANS OF: Petrol Girls, got one of their most famous songtitles from MAD rudest of health. Recorded Freyjan Death Cult is this Drug Church, Refused BUTCHER – an Essen speed metal band, whose low- at Quebec City Summer Fest third album’s longest budget, high-energy 1985 debut, Metal Lightning Attack on July 13, 2019, Lost Machine track, born in dissonant, KEZ WHELAN (Relics From The Crypt) [7], still raggedly wrecks necks – Live feels like a celebration: amorphous improvisation, with charmingly naïve swagger. Seattle’s sainted both of the band’s vast and sustained by monastic WITHIN THE RUINS SANCTUARY brought a cerebral, progressive flair to their legacy and the fact that they chants and culminating in crunchy power-thrash on 1990’s Into The Mirror Black hit a sublime new creative breathtaking, feral pace. Black Heart (Century Media) [9], which still sounds like it’s booting peak with 2018’s The Wake. To simply call Völur folk- heavy metal into the 90s. Its dusky complexity never Stuffed to the gills with doom is reductive; they’re EONE HEAVY overshadows the animal bite of the guitars, or the late angular prog metal classics, a free-flowing, highly Massachusetts tech-heads bring Warrel Dane’s dynamic, expressive vocal attack. this is exactly what a live inventive trio whose risks some fireworks to the party album should be: exciting, have reaped compelling By 1995, Halifax ugly ducklings PARADISE LOST momentous and genuinely musical rewards. However you want to label were turning into goth metal swans on Draconian Times revealing. Old classics like ■■■■■■■■■■ them, Within The Ruins’ (MFN) [8], a class act worth regular reappraisal. Despite Psychic Vacuum and The Prow FOR FANS OF: Jess & The musicianship and sprightly a second-half lull, the muscular world-class songs here have never sounded more Ancient Ones, Bell Witch, bounce has helped them still seem to grow after 25 years. electrifying, and Voivod’s SubRosa keep their heads above the inspired cover of Pink congested techy metalcore Japanese drone trio BORIS debuted in ’96 with Floyd’s Astronomy Domine TOM O’BOYLE pack. Black Heart introduces Absolutego (Third Man) [9], resoundingly laying down never gets old, but it’s new vocalist Steve Tinnon, a colossal gauntlet for the drone-doom scene that recent material like Post WAR ON WOMEN and while his bark helps spread in their wake. Like climbing an Escher staircase, Society and The End Of fill Tim Goergen’s shoes waterlogged, until convulsive drums smash it to dust. Dormancy that clinch it. Wonderful Hell it’s the music driven by 1998’s Amplifier Worship [8] was much pacier, more Voivod are on fucking fire. guitarist Joe Cocchi and versatile and entertaining, but less satisfyingly ■■■■■■■■■■ BRIDGE NINE an insanely tight rhythm monolithic. Swedish prog troupe PAIN OF SALVATION’s FOR FANS OF: Enslaved, Long-running feminist punks with section that make the third album, The Perfect Element Pt 1 (Century Media) [8], Mekong Delta, Rush a heavier world on their shoulders Massachusetts quartet’s turns 20 in 2020; this remixed anniversary edition sixth effort their most emboldens the kaleidoscopic sound, gifting a weighty DOM LAWSON It’s kind of depressing that adventurous. Domination undertow to some restlessly eclectic arrangements, War On Women’s steadfastly and Deliverance are taking in multitudes of light and shade. VÖLUR feminist message and propelled by galloping condemnations of far-right Maiden-esque leads next to Mancunian pioneers of ‘English Heritage black metal’, Death Cult ideologies seem even more the fiddly time signatures, WINTERFYLLETH are celebrating a decade of their topical now than they did hulking, elasticated riffs magisterial second album, The Mercian Sphere PROPHECY PRODUCTIONS when the band formed and glitchy electronics, (Candlelight) [8], yet these brooding rustic atmospheres, Avant-doom voyagers add some a full decade ago. And while the instrumental folkish melodies and tempestuous intensity, powerfully new strings to their bow whilst the Baltimore quintet Eighty Sixed introduces steeped in tales of ancient Albion make it feel closer to sound equally furious and moodier tones and Hollow 1,000 years than 10. Occasional Winterfylleth collaborator Canadian folk-doom trio intensely hooky on the even adds some black metal JO QUAIL’s 2016 LP, Five Incantations (AdderStone) [8], Völur have taken the melodic, d-beat-laden harshness. Even though consists solely of the composer and her electric cello, bold step of replacing all title track, there’s also the clean vocals of bassist weaving offbeat, reflective rhythms, structures and six-string guitars with a palpable weariness Paolo Galang aren’t strong melodies with complex loops and layers. If you only get violin, hoping to offer emanating from cuts like enough to elevate the one pensive, neo-classical cello suite this year (and an alternative take on the acidic, Shellac-quoting title track and Devil In Me, that’ll probably do), best make it this one. oppressive heaviness as Aqua Tofana and the there’s enough clever, opposed to losing it entirely. cathartic, wounded Big catchy chaos erupting CHRIS CHANTLER But does it work? Death Words. This isn’t the sound through every fissure Cult’s 37 minutes are split of a band running out of to ensure the exciting across only four tracks. steam, however, more moments vastly outnumber Inviolate Grove opens a band operating under the the ponderous. fatigue that comes from ■■■■■■■■■■ screaming at the world FOR FANS OF: Born Of about these topics for 10 Osiris, After The Burial, years and still not seeing Veil Of Maya any real change. This gives ADAM REES METALHAMMER.COM 95

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SUDBAJTECEST TO Your essential guide to the best and the Dani and co invite you biggest metal bands hitting the UK to an evening of worship BLACK STONE CHERRY ENGAGE, SEPULTURA, STEEL ROAD TRIPPIN’ PANTHER, ELECTRIC WIZARD, SEP 9 BRISTOL O2 Academy A.A. WILLIAMS, BARONESS, LACUNA CRADLE OF FILTH COIL, TWIN TEMPLE, AIRBOURNE, SEP 10 BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy ALESTORM, EMPLOYED TO SERVE, Suffolk’s finest are doing a livestream in OBITUARY, VOLBEAT + MORE February! Obviously, it’s from a church SEP 11 LINCOLN Engine Shed JUNE 4-6 DERBYSHIRE Castle Donington Have you picked up any new skills during the pandemic? SEP 13 NOTTINGHAM Rock City Dani Filth (vocals): “I started doing some more artwork and EVANESCENCE nibbling away at poetry. I was trying to fix my garden up – SEP 14 LEEDS O2 Academy WITHIN TEMPTATION getting an artificial lawn put onto a patio area – and I’m still waiting. The nearest date they can actually start is December. SEP 16 MANCHESTER O2 Apollo SEP 30 GLASGOW SSE Hydro Arena But no, I’ve been totally busy with the [next] record. We’ve OCT 1 LEEDS First Direct Arena been taking our sweet time recording an album, which is SEP 17 GLASGOW Barrowland OCT 3 BIRMINGHAM Arena close to being finished now.” OCT 4 LONDON The O2 SEP 18 EDINBURGH Usher Hall Why did you decide to have a livestream in St Mary’s FAITH NO MORE Church, in Colchester? SEP 20 NEWCASTLE O2 Academy “It’s called an Art Centre, but it’s a church. Ironically, this was JUN 7 MANCHESTER O2 Apollo planned since April. And originally it was supposed to happen SEP 21 LIVERPOOL O2 Academy JUN 8 MANCHESTER O2 Apollo at the beginning of July, but there was building work going on.” JUN 9 GLASGOW O2 Academy SEP 23 FOLKESTONE Leas Cliff Hall JUN 11 BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy What challenges have you faced with putting it together? JUN 12 LONDON O2 Academy Brixton “We’ve obviously got a few issues with Scotland, which I think SEP 24 CARDIFF St Davids Hall JUN 13 LONDON O2 Academy Brixton is OK at the present, because we’ve got crew members and our bass player in Scotland. And we’ve got two people [drummer SEP 25 EXETER Great Hall GUNS N’ ROSES Martin Skaroupka and guitarist Marek ‘Ashok’ Smerda] from the Czech Republic who are actually coming in and SEP 27 SOUTHAMPTON O2 Guildhall JUN 18 LONDON Tottenham Hotspur Stadium quarantining for 14 days, bless ’em! That’s dedication to their JUN 19 LONDON Tottenham Hotspur Stadium art. They’ve got no other choice to be honest! Ha ha ha! But SEP 28 CAMBRIDGE Corn Exchange JUN 22 DUBLIN Marlay Park we’ve got them an Airbnb with a garden. They’re just going to JUN 24 GLASGOW Bellahouston Park load up on Netflix. I think Martin’s got one of those home kits SEP 29 LONDON Royal Albert Hall with the practice pads and everything, so he doesn’t go rigid.” BLOODSTOCK OPEN AIR What can we expect to see from it? “We’ve got a bunch of FX, we’ve got fire, and a really varied DEVIN TOWNSEND, JUDAS PRIEST, set with fan favourites and a few songs to surprise people MERCYFUL FATE, SAXON, BURY that we probably haven’t played for a while. So yeah, we’re TOMORROW, SKINDRED, DIMMU really looking forward to it, naturally, because I think our last BORGIR, DARK TRANQUILLITY, THE show was in Bruges in November last year, and that was BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, ORANGE literally the last time we’d been together as a band, fully.” GOBLIN, SYLOSIS, LIFE OF AGONY, JINJER, SVALBARD, GLORY HAMMER, What else is on the horizon for Cradle? SACRED REICH, VIO-LENCE + MORE “There’s our beer – The Pale Countess – from Electric Bear Brewing. And we’re looking at a potential second beer, which AUG 11-15 DERBYSHIRE Catton Hall is gonna be a bit darker. We’ve done a make-up palette via VE Cosmetics, and each colour corresponds to an album. BURY TOMORROW HELLOWEEN We’ve got a lot of influencers talking about it – people like /1$22 13Ħ12!é19(÷ü Doro, Simone Simons and Maria Brink. We’ve been busy!” MAY 24 LEEDS Headrow House MAY 22 MANCHESTER Academy MAY 25 LONDON Kingston MAY 23 LONDON O2 Brixton Academy MAY 26 SOUTHAMPTON Joiners MAY 27 LONDON The Underworld KILL THE LIGHTS NOV 12 BRIGHTON Chalk NOV 13 SOUTHAMPTON O2 Guildhall MAR 3 BOURNEMOUTH Anvil Rock Bar NOV 14 NORTHUMBRIA University MAR 4 BRIGHTON The Green Door Store NOV 15 GLASGOW SWG3 MAR 5 LONDON Boston Music Room NOV 17 LEEDS Beckett SU MAR 6 BRIDGEND Hobos NOV 19 MANCHESTER O2 Ritz MAR 8 BRISTOL Rough Trade NOV 20 BIRMINGHAM Institute MAR 9 LEEDS The Key Club NOV 21 BRISTOL O2 Academy MAR 10 NOTTINGHAM The Old Salutation Inn NOV 22 NORWICH UEA MAR 12 GLASGOW The Garage NOV 24 LONDON Electric Ballroom MAR 14 BIRMINGHAM The Asylum Venue NOV 25 LONDON Electric Ballroom JUN 4 DERBYSHIRE Download Festival DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL LAMB OF GOD KISS, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, KORN, KREATOR DEFTONES, GOJIRA, KILLSWITCH DEC 14 2021 BRISTOL O2 Academy DEC 15 2021 MANCHESTER Academy 98 METALHAMMER.COM

LIVE EVIL Orange Goblin: proper gigs! Well, seated, but still! Conjurer: studio-bound. Thanks, COVID! ROAD TRIPPIN’ CONJURER:PRESS. ORANGE GOBLIN: KEVIN NIXON. CONJURER DEC 16 2021 GLASGOW O2 Academy READING FESTIVAL DEC 17 2021 BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy One of the UK’s most exciting young metal DEC 19 2021 LONDON O2 Academy Brixton AUG 27-29 READING Richfield Avenue bands are playing Radar festival next summer LEEDS FESTIVAL SKUNK ANANSIE How has 2020 been for Conjurer, all things considered? Brady Deeprose (vocals/guitar): “We’d been trying to force AUG 27-29 LEEDS Brahman Park JUN 7 CARDIFF University ourselves to take a year off to work on the follow-up to Mire JUN 8 NOTTINGHAM Rock City – we were looking to get busier and busier so our only option MAYHEM JUN 9 LINCOLN The Engine Shed being ‘finish the album’ has been somewhat of a come-up.” JUN 11 NEWCASTLE O2 Academy MORTIIS JUN 13 GLASGOW O2 Academy What band plans have been waylaid by the pandemic? JUN 14 MANCHESTER O2 Victoria Warehouse “We were on tour in Europe with Car Bomb when the US MAR 23 MANCHESTER Academy 2 JUN 15 NORWICH The LCR, UEA travel ban was announced and they had to book flights home. MAR 24 LIMELIGHT Belfast JUN 17 LONDON Meltdown Festival We drove back from the depths of Germany and kissed MAR 25 DUBLIN Academy JUN 18 SHEFFIELD O2 Academy goodbye to all of our festival plans, tours and one-off shows.” MAR 26 GLASGOW Slay JUN 19 BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy 1 MAR 27 BRISTOL The Fleece JUN 21 BRIGHTON Dome What have you been up to in the meantime? MAR 28 LONDON Islington Academy JUN 22 GUILDFORD G Live “We are slow writers so have spent all our time moving into JUN 23 FOLKESTONE Leas Cliff Hall a new lock-up (a first for us, having our own practice space!) NIGHTWISH JUN 25 LEEDS O2 Academy and finishing the record. We’re back in the studio this year.” JUN 26 BRISTOL O2 Academy MAY 1 BIRMINGHAM World Resorts Arena JUN 29 CAMBRIDGE Corn Exchange A lot of bands have put together some great streams this MAY 2 LONDON SSE Wembley Arena JUN 30 LEICESTER O2 Academy year. Has that given you ideas? JUL 2 LONDON O2 Academy Brixton “I’ve seen a lot of this kind of stuff and it’s secured in my mind THE OCEAN exactly what we don’t want to do. We’re planning two events SLAM DUNK FESTIVAL for next year, both of which are completely fucking insane.” FEB 4 BRISTOL The Fleece FEB 5 GLASGOW Slay MAY 29 LEEDS Temple Newsam You got announced for Radar festival – it seems like that’s FEB 6 MANCHESTER Club Academy MAY 30 HATFIELD Hatfield Park a festival that boundary-pushing, progressively minded FEB 7 LONDON 229 bands really gravitate to… FEB 8 BRIGHTON Patterns THUNDER “Yeah, it’s not our typical ‘scene’ but I don’t know what is. My favourite thing about this band and our sound is that it allows ORANGE GOBLIN UGLY KID JOE us to hop between festivals like Radar, Arctangent, 2000trees, Download and Bloodstock without feeling too out of place.” NOV 15 LONDON The Dome MAY 13 CARDIFF Motorpoint Arena NOV 16 LONDON The Dome MAY 14 BIRMINGHAM Resorts World Arena What have you missed most about festivals in general? MAY 15 LONDON SSE Wembley Arena “I haven’t missed the lack of showers! The connection we get PARKWAY DRIVE MAY 22 GLASGOW SEC to make with festival audiences cannot be replicated and not MAY 23 LEEDS Arena having that experience has been really difficult.” HATEBREED, CRYSTAL LAKE VENOM PRISON When touring is back, which bands would you most like to APR 18 LONDON Wembley Arena go out on the road with and why? JAN 22 BIRMINGHAM Castle & Falcon “I decided the other day that my bucket list for us to support RADAR FESTIVAL JAN 23 LEES Key Club is Yob, Gojira, and Converge, so any of those would be dandy. JAN 24 GLASGOW G2 In a less career-defining, more realistic sense, I’d really like DIRTY LOOPS, HAKEN, SLEEP TOKEN, JAN 25 MANCHESTER Rebellion to do some shows with Herod and/or Press To Meco.” CONJURER, HACKTIVIST, JAN 26 NOTTINGHAM Rescue Rooms HUMANITY’S LAST BREATH JAN 27 BRISTOL The Fleece JAN 28 SOUTHAMPTON Joiners JUL 30-31 GUILDFORD Casino Nightclub JAN 29 LONDON Underworld RAMMSTEIN JUN 12 BELFAST Boucher Road Playing Fields JUN 16 CARDIFF Principality Stadium JUN 19 COVENTRY Ricoh Arena METALHAMMER.COM 99

LIVE REVIEWS LIVE REVIEWS COREY TAYLOR THE FORUM, LOS ANGELES Slipknot’s unstoppable frontman unleashes a new spectrum of showmanship TWO SONGS INTO his solo global You’ve just crossed over… into the CMFT zone livestream, Corey Taylor steps gleefully THE SET where he pushes his voice to the very ivories in order to record it for CMFT. up to the mic. “Look at all you people edges of his range. Sure, it isn’t the strongest song on here tonight!” he roars. The camera HWY 666 the album, but it’s played here with pans back to reveal a deserted LA Meine Lux Despite the vast yawning space in humility and emotion that can’t help Forum. “All you people out there Halfway Down front of the stage, the show often feels but touch the heart of the most having a great goddamn time, make Silverfish personal, aimed at revealing the parts hardened Maggot. He’s rejoined by some noise!” of Corey’s persona we’ve never seen the band for Zzyzx Rd., from Stone Shakin’ before. During promotion for CMFT, he Sour’s Come What(ever) May, and by Those shots of the cavernous venue, Song #3 talked up the fact these songs show off the time we reach the song’s soaring plus pre-show footage of Corey and Everybody Dies On his personality and tastes better than outro, he’s hit his stride. As it reaches his band in facemasks (not those My Birthday any of the other albums he’s been its climax, buoyed by rippling masks), having their temperature involved with in the past. A handful of interjections from guitarist, Zach taken on arrival earlier today, are stark Snuff well-placed covers amplify that. With Throne, Metal’s Great Big Mouth reminders of the challenge facing our Taciturn renditions of All This And More by punk slumps back from the keys in palpable beloved industry right now. With live Culture Head veterans Dead Boys, Eagles’ Already relief, with a triumphant, “We did it!” gigs off the table for the foreseeable, The Maria Fire Gone, and the Springsteen-esque On the COVID-19 pandemic has forced The Dark Side by the John Cafferty And The night finishes exactly as bands to consider new ways to present Home The Beaver Brown Band, this feels like expected, though, with swagger and their art to the fans. For Corey, that Zzyzx Rd. him cherry-picking favourites from fireworks. First, there’s a furious rattle means celebrating the release day of All This And More his own record collection. through European Tour Bus Bathroom his debut album, CMFT, by tapping Already Gone Song, two minutes of taut, no-frills into the hard-partying, go-big-or- Onstage, too, we’ve come to know Black Flag-esque punk. Then things go-home spirit of the songs, and Kansas Corey very well – as the nihilistic come to a close with genre-mashing livestreaming a full-blown rock’n’roll Black Eyes Blue vocalist of Slipknot, who prowls the single CMFT Must Be Stopped. An homage show from an empty 17,500-capacity Samantha’s Gone stage like a feral beast looking for fresh to 1980s rap-rock, it’s easily one of the arena, crammed with lights, pyro and Through Glass meat. We’re familiar with the mercurial most divisive tracks of 2020 and the fire-breathing dancers. entertainer who fronts Stone Sour, that band, fully aware of that fact, taunt ENCORE same guy we see in tonight’s pre-show the naysayers by blowing it up bigger Backed by glittering letters that On The Dark Side footage, mucking about with his than an AC/DC Rosie doll. As it segues spell out his initials – Corey Mother bandmates in rehearsals and telling from Rick Rubin-inspired stadium Fucking Taylor – he’s a world away Bother dorky jokes behind the scenes. But anthemia, to a cover of Kiss’s Watchin’ from the animalistic gauntlet he European Tour this is the first time we’re meeting the You and back again, they’re joined by stalks with Slipknot, or the metallic Bus Bathroom Corey Taylor who sits, alone onstage, dance troupe the Cherry Bombs and anthemia of his other band, Stone Sour. bent contemplatively over a piano the show ends in a shower of flames This is about big grins, loose thrills Song and visibly nervous as he prepares to and sparks. It feels like a new chapter and dirty fun. Towering plumes of CMFT Must Be play it live for the first time. After is just beginning for one of our scene’s steam erupt during desert-blown writing Home for his wife Alicia Dove, biggest showmen. stomper HWY 666 and the shout-along Stopped Corey spent two and a half years Meine Luxe brings together the Vegas teaching himself how to tickle the DANNII LEIVERS and Sunset Strip, jacked up on whiskey and gasoline. Blasts of fire punctuate the band chants and bone-shaking riffs of Culture Head while album highlight, Samantha’s Gone, evokes peacocking, old-school fun, rife with shades of Poison and Bon Scott. Not all the new material has the same bite. Everybody Dies On My Birthday and Kansas fall flat on record and do so here too. More exciting are the moments Corey drops the bravado: grabbing an acoustic guitar for a vulnerable, mid-set rendition of Slipknot’s Snuff, which feels very Nirvana Unplugged in terms of atmosphere and presentation, and Stone Sour’s little-played Taciturn, 100 METALHAMMER.COM