The German black/death metal band, Voreus, opens the cursed gateways into a horrendous world of unfathomable nightmares with the release of their new mini album, “The Proclamation.” Sentient Ruin Laboratories will be responsible for putting out this blasphemous offering of extreme sounding chaos and in the process adding to an already monumental year for the label.
Voreus definitely fits the criteria for a band that one would expect to be associated with Sentient Ruin. The band’s punishing onslaught of blackened death metal is not to be diminished, even though this style of extreme metal has been done before by countless bands. I think one way for bands to break away from the mundane and repetitive stereotype is to focus on constructing compelling atmospheres. Also, you should have strong execution from start to finish when pertaining to production value. If your creative vision is to present listeners with a realm of abysmal sounding landscapes filled with abominable brutality, then don’t construct some lack luster arrangements that sound as if they were hastily written while on the toilet.
My belief is that you should always stay committed to the vision and let the music flow with a merciless synergy. For the most part I would say Voreus does that throughout the album and the tight sounding compositions shrouded in a blanket of starless darkness definitely strengthens the overall listening experience. The opening track, “Trisagion,” for example instantly grabbed my attention with its haunting chants that sound like they were coming from a forbidden temple. As the terrifying hymns fade away the band launches into a blackened death bludgeoning with the song, “Progeny of Fire.” There are plenty of fiendish sounding drum parts that send cataclysmic shockwaves throughout the musical landscape. The tormenting style of guitar work provides a profound sinister element as well to accompany the deafening sounds of infernal destruction.
On the next track, “Portals to the Dark Realm,” the vocalist begins with a gruesome death growl that echoes over the hateful sounding instrumental compositions. I find the guitar riffs to be extremely mesmerizing and even though they are not overly technical works of pointless shredding nonsense, the presentation of the riffs and unconventional lead parts inject a tremendous amount of vile energy into the overall presentation.
You also hear that same approach on the next two songs, “The Proclamation” and “Descending Into the Infernal Abyss.” I thought, “Descending Into the Infernal Abyss,” was probably one of the most dynamic and well written pieces of music off of the album. The song starts off blazing fast, but then all of a sudden the tempo dramatically slows down and this ominous chanting begins to slowly creep into the mix. As the song marches on towards the end you begin to feel as though you are being dragged down into the sulfuric world of infinite damnation.
In the end, “The Proclamation,” is a solid sounding extreme metal release and I think Voreus is band that should not be dismissed. Although the style of music is nothing new to the world of extreme music, I strongly believe the execution makes this an album definitely worth checking out. Anytime a band can successfully take you on a joyride into hideous sounding realms where demonic entities feast upon the carcasses of innocent souls, then you know this is an album that you do not want to pass up!
Check out the song "The Proclamation" below (Album comes out December 4th):
With everything gone on in the world currently to where people are unable to attend live music shows due to the pandemic, livestream shows are becoming increasingly popular. The hard rock/metal band Fozzy decided that they would not the let the pandemic stop them from playing some slamming hard rock and metal for their fans and offered up people a very unique livestream experience with an event called, “Capturing Judas.”
The event was more than just another typical livestream performance and started out with special preview of the band’s upcoming documentary, “Fozzy Across America.” The documentary, which the band dedicated in the beginning to the late great Eddie Van Halen, focused primarily on when the band played three shows in three different time zones all in the same day. I was rather impressed by the documentary and thought that the band came off as very appreciative of their loyal fanbase. Of course, being fronted by Chris Jericho who is a wrestling legend with a massive international fanbase definitely helps make such an ambitious effort possible, because playing three shows in one day is not an easy task. Hell, Axl Rose can barely make it to one show!
As much as the documentary was interesting and informative, one could tell by looking at the chat log on the side of the livestream that the fans were really getting restless and wanted to see Fozzy perform live. Once the documentary finished the band then showed up on the livestream and began hammering out the first song, “Sin & Bones.” Jericho appeared on screen wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket, which is pretty much how he dresses now in All Elite Wrestling. Sometimes I do not know if there is a difference between Jericho the wrestler and Jericho the singer, because his mannerisms are starting to blend. The rest of the band sounded tight and provided a mighty boost of adrenaline pumping riffs to help elevate Jericho’s high pitched screams.
During the second song, “Drinking with Jesus,” Jericho was definitely getting into the chorus section and even though I felt like he struggled hitting certain notes, I cannot deny his passion as he stood in front of his mic stand looking like he belongs back in the days of the 80’s hair metal scene. I thought the guitar work from Rich Ward and Billy Grey was solid along with Frank Fontsere’s pulverizing drumming. Probably the heaviest song and most enjoyable track of the evening was, “One Crazed Anarchist.” I thought the song’s colossal sounding main rhythm was perfect for people to clap along to and bang their heads. I’m sure when the band plays it live in front of an audience the entire venue begins to shake, however, sitting at home I’m sure some die hard Fozzy fans were able to make enough noise to wake up their neighbors.
A common theme of the night that took place in between songs was that the band would tell road stories and humorously banter back and forth. Honestly, because this was a livestream show and not a real live performance I did not get as annoyed as I would have if I was seeing them in a live venue. The fourth song of the night was, “Burn Me Out,” which took on a more commercial friendly Journey like sound. I guess Jericho forgot some lyrics during one of the verse sections, which was quickly noted by fans on the chat log. After the song finished Jericho even noted he forgot the lyrics and stated that he pulled a David Lee Roth which was a nice touch of humor.
Songs like, “Nowhere to Run,” “Elevator” and “Painless,” all seemed to get positive responses from the fans on the chat the log. The band even told the fans to start a chant during one of the songs in order to get the audience at home feeling like they were at a live show. Still, I feel as though the live experience of going to a concert cannot be beat, but I will say Jericho and the boys tried their best to play with enthusiasm for the entire set. Rich and Billy’s guitar solo spot at the end of the show was impressive and added a flair of excitement into the mix. The band of course finished the night off with, “Judas,” which is by now known amongst all AEW fans since Jericho uses it as his entrance music. I’m sure fans at home were singing the song note for note and I believe that even if you are not a fan of Fozzy, you cannot deny the song’s almost cult like appeal that has grown since the song was first released.
There is a lot to take away from this livestream performance when looking back through my notes. I think the Fozzy fans were extremely into the entire performance from beginning to end, especially if you read the comments on that chat log. As someone who is more neutral and objective, I thought the band played a solid set and I respect their enthusiastic nature. I do believe Jericho’s vocal delivery at times seemed a bit off, especially when he tried to hit the high notes. The back up vocals provided by the other members definitely helped cover up Jericho’s limitations as a singer. Overall, their brand of rock and metal is very commercial sounding, but appeals to demographic that is willing to forgive the lack of originality due to the fact that the music does have a catchy hard rock edge.
Unlike the wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer who throws five star reviews around like a drunken sailor, and unlike Jim Cornette who can go off on tirade about outlaw wrestling mud shows, I shall be a fair reviewer and give the event 3 out of 5 stars. In the end, Fozzy played their brand of straightforward hard rock music that has established a loyal cult like following to where they can put on events like this and get a positive response from their die hard fans. Like him or not, Chris Jericho is a passionate fan of rock and metal music and the other musicians in Fozzy are no schmucks when pertaining to their level of musicianship.
If you enjoy Fozzy’s music then I highly recommend check out the event because fans still have the opportunity to purchase tickets and view the event on demand until November 29th through (https://fozzy.veeps.com/). Again, Jericho is an individual who has provided people with years of entertaining content through wrestling and music. Even if you do not agree with what he does 100% of the time and find yourself having to critique his work, you cannot simply deny his passion and driven personality. At the end of the day that is why he is Le Champion...
The spirit of hurricane sized guitar riffs and hard hitting cuts of glass shattering rock 'n' roll lives on through the music of Cobra Cobra! This band knows a thing or two about laying down some killer sounding hard rock/heavy metal riffs for listeners to sink their teeth right into. The band's debut album, "Life After Poison," is a tremendous display of passionate rock and metal fury that comes bursting out onto the scene like a renegade hammerhead shark going in for the kill. I caught up with the band's guitarist Derek Reeder to discuss the new album and some other topics of interest. Check out the full interview below:
Hello Derek! Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. With the recent release of Cobra Cobra’s debut album“Life After Poison” how has the feedback been so far? How pleased are you with the album’s overall sound?
Derek: Hey man! back atcha! Feedback regarding our debut Cobra Cobra album “Life After Poison” has been pretty rock solid I must admit. It's almost to the point of where, for example, when I ask someone about it their response is “there are no bad songs, every song is good”, that it’s kinda becoming just a cop out at this point LOL! But I find the more specific the listener gets the better the feedback is, as you know. Maybe I should ask, what’s your favorite guitar solo on the album, or whats your favorite most “well produced song", if you could point to one, etc. Did you like a chorus on a certain song? Did the lyrics touch you in any way? How about all the “hey’s” in our gang vocals LOL! We love to talk about this stuff all day long!
In terms of the production of the album, I’m pretty pleased to be honest. I love huge sounding albums that sound expensive. But let’s face it, we don’t live in the glory days of the 250k album budgets. If we did, it would be a night and day difference, and better overall from what we have now. When you think about it, what we had to play with budget wise was probably about the same amount as one of those expensive lunch’s for one of those older artists enjoying the huge record company budget back in the day, LOL. But that being said it’s very important for me to have a really prominent drum sound, specifically at the minimum a pounding kick drum and heavy toms. Even though I’m a guitarist, and that's my main instrument, 90% of the time if I have a favorite metal band, chances are it’s not because they have a shredding lead guitarist, but rather it’s the drummer in the group who establishes the whole attitude and spirit behind the band. And if you don’t have the right guy, it can be pretty challenging just to feel good about an album, or your project in general. If you don’t have that in place you are just phoning it in, so to speak, in my opinion. Not only am I lucky to have my brother behind the kit, but we both tend to agree on the same things musically for this style and know how important “playing for the song” is. And we more than put our hearts into every aspect of it, from choices in fills to specific crashes, double bass work, and never abusing the ride cymbal! LOL. It’s all real specific stuff. So we went as hard as we could with that, crafting each song. I’m hoping for even bigger and better production on our next album. The razor tight big production layers and sound is a staple of a lot of my favorite 80’s/early 90’s bands.
I was wondering if maybe you could give readers a little insight into the album and discuss the recording process. How long did it take to record the album and what was the writing process like? Did you go in before hand with all the songs already written, or did you come up with any new ideas while recording?
Derek: Yeah definitely! The album took about a month to record at home once I had all the songs worked out. Then the vocals came second, all of which took a lot of time in trying to find the ideas that we felt worked best. And after the vocal demos and sketches were tracked to our liking, we then had to re-record all 12 songs with full vocals. But the backstory is that the writing, as usual, takes the most time.
As far as the process goes, I start out every day with a scheduled time to come up with new riffs and ideas, record them, and then starting piecing songs together. Then my brother comes in and we work to create the ideal drum parts, and then finally add bass and vocals. Probably what you’re used to hearing in terms of an approach, perhaps not, but it's what works for us. At times we moved at glacier like speed, perhaps compared to other artists, since we really go through the arrangements over and over with a fine toothed comb. So the truth is this album is really a product of 3 long years. I mean there’s so much to go over - do we have all day? LOL.
And as to songwriting, early on as a songwriter I tried writing along the lines of what was the most tempting at the time for my tastes, generally 80’s shred metal lead guitar and sledgehammer 80’s riffs, which were the main elements of the entire album. I mean who wouldn’t want an album with killer riffs and runs through the whole thing, right?
Well, after a couple albums worth of that stuff, and you slay every dragon LOL, you really start to look into what direction you ultimately want to head in. Eventually, I knew that I wanted to take a stab at writing a complete album of 3 minute songs that would fit into the classic radio AOR pop format, only to realize later that all my favorite bands threw away the rule book a long time ago! They were writing 6 and 7 minute epic songs (Cemetery Gates for example) and having success. So, along with the fact that I was getting tired of just being the lead guitarist that can shred, I came to the point of just wanting to be a band guy. A band guy who contributes to the entire process of writing great songs with my band mates.
My tastes have always kind of leaned towards upbeat (obscenely) melodic commercial hard rock and metal songs. You know, the days of the record company filter and those million dollar budgets. Everything was on the line and you needed that sugar chorus or money riff that was gonna get the party started. It's fun to put yourself in that position, and that was definitely a template going in to this album. Verse-chorus traditional structure, but with less of a rule book, more freedom and experimenting with writing longer songs. Often I’ll put on a song to test out a PA system and then a couple minutes later have to walk back over and put another song on etc. There’s something about the longer approach!
Anyways, back to the writing, once I was flush with riffs the beginning of the album began. Recorded at home (Cobra Cobra studios), I tabbed out all my solos and parts and got to work. For drums, we booked 3 studio days over an 8 month stretch, 4 songs each day, at Tone Lab Studios in Portland, home of a fantastic engineer, Justin Abel. We really turned it on creatively there, and with Justin being a song writer himself, we got a couple of last minute nudges, especially with drum ideas before hitting record. That was actually my first time in a professional grade "home" studio. But after the first 4 tunes were dialed in I got really comfortable in that environment, which inspired me to spend even more time fine tuning the next 4 songs at home to prepare for our next session. I spent a lot of time at home perfecting the various parts and arrangements before our next studio session because, as you know, that’s when you get stuff done! The pressure hits and you really have to knuckle down and make it happen by the deadline.
While preparing for the final session's deadline, June 1st 2018, my monitors at home (Infinity Infinitesimal) blew up at the last minute. So I had to scramble to mix my demo parts for the next day in the studio with a couple of sketch throw away boom box speakers I ended up finding in the garage. There's always something!
Once I was up and running again I went from being ahead of the game to running behind. By the time I finished the solos and mixes it was 11am the next morning. But I showed up to the studio to critique parts for another 8 hrs after that! LOL, Let’s just say I slept like a baby that night. After that final date, for me the album on my end was done and we had the instrumental side locked down. We sent the tunes off to our vocalist and he got to work. This project was night and day, from a style standpoint, then anything he’s done. He went through hundreds of ideas before finalizing all his vocal performances. That took quite awhile, but he did an amazing job, and I couldn't be happier with his contribution.
I read a bit of your bio from another article and found out that you and your brother give music lessons. I was wondering if you could talk about that and how it eventually led to the formation of Cobra Cobra? Also, as a music teacher and guitarist what are some of your musical philosophies when teaching people?
Derek: The lessons side of things actually started at a local music store here in Oregon City. Adrian Music was a main stay for local players and students, then it became Blue Dot Guitars after one of the repair techs, also a teacher, bought the business. I managed to get hired on, thanks to my good friend Brandon Cook (The Loyal Order, Black n’ Blue) who was also teaching there at the time. From then, for a period of time, I taught guitar lessons during the day and then would mind the shop at night when the owner went home to try to sell guitars.
As far as musical philosophies go, I'd say I am a foundational type of teacher. I mean I didn't approach lessons based on who was popular at the time. I understood that the key to being a great guitar player was to learn from the best, all the classic rock guitar heroes along with some worthy blues guys. I mean, those cats were the ones who inspired all of us to want to play right? LOL. But, just as importantly, along with the proper foundation it's all about the work you are willing to put in. I am a stickler about establishing a regular and consistent personal practice regimen. It's like a bank account, no deposit made - no withdrawal available, LOL.
As for the creative side, I’ve usually written an album's worth of songs every 2 years, just on my own in order to have something to show for my efforts for my guitar students and friends and family. As things progressed my brother and I would spend time having fun just jamming and doing the instrumental thing for awhile, building our chops and carving out song ideas from our jam sessions. Whenever you have a sound proofed 7-day-a-week rehearsal spot, in our case the guitar store, plus with all it's nice gear, it’s hard for the wheels to not start turning LOL! So from there we just started utilizing that space at night and eventually we wanted to form a proper band.
So, we’d show up every night and run through tunes I’d put together at home. Then we recruited our first bassist and vocalist and next thing you know we played our first few shows which went quite well. But then the music store went down due to the recession, it was a pretty major setback. We felt like we kinda lost everything and so we had to re-group and build back up to what we had before the crash. We ended up renting smaller rooms in a commercial office space building in town till we got a bigger room, once we were back up and running I started renting the space out to local bands, which helped offset our cost to rent the space for our project. That’s actually how our we found Chris, our vocalist. His band Fallstar rented the space for rehearsals for awhile. But lately it’s been great to keep the current practice spot we have now. It’s not an every day thing like the old days, but the idea is to have at the bare minimum, a jam room with no noise ordinances which is what we have now.
But back to teaching guitar, my whole thing before a student signs up is to make sure they understand that our lessons program is a membership agreement. It is designed for the serious student who’s really interested in improving their skills. So with that in mind, we get started getting our skills up and running from a technique stand point, almost like a guitar gym. As I mentioned previously, I try to expose them to as many of the greats as I can, which in many cases are not the players that they are super familiar with. From there we get into listening to music on a deeper level. For a new student, just to get them excited about learning, I help them get started by learning a lot of hit song 'signature' riffs from every genre including 80's rock-Nu Metal where the riff can be as basic as 2 or 3 notes. Once I show them how basic some of it can be l usually get a “wow almost anyone can do this!” kind of response. And from there they begin to get inspired to start creating some of their own ideas. And no matter how basic it may be in the beginning, it’s always a lot of fun.
For advanced players there’s no shortage of scale based lessons/workouts that I utilize. I encourage consistent improvising over a wide variety of styles, until they start to shoot for a goal - i.e. "I have to be stage ready by January 1st"!, LOL. Once they’re there and they’re feeling pretty good, it's at that point that they want me to record them, LOL. I have to admit I’m still learning my engineering chops, but eventually I think it would be nice to eventually transition into an audio engineering role, while still accepting the serious student. Nothing I do is too mind-blowingly different from other teachers out there. But since I’ve been doing it so long it’s turned into something that is not just focusing on guitar lessons, but a music career training facility and launch pad!
Returning to the debut album, I wanted to know if there are any songs off of the album that standout the most to you? For me I really enjoy those triumphant chorus sections on songs like, “Free in My Head” and “Life After Poison.” There are plenty of catchy chord structures and tasty rhythms, which I think gives the album a very fierce and raw edge.
Derek: Nice! I really appreciate that - that was the desired effect with both of those. That’s actually usually my question to the listener! Typically it’s the songs that I struggled with that stand out to me personally because just getting them across the finish line was quite the arduous task. Starting out, say you have an intro riff/a verse riff, but no chorus riff and figure you can just finish the song easily after that.. it’ll be perfect 3/4’s of the way through, then it’s like holy (bleep) - now where do we go? for rest of the song. It really felt like that for the whole album, other than track one, “The Conquering." For some reason that one just came together but some examples for that were actually “Life After Poison” the title track and “The Overtaker”. Obscene amounts of time writing/scraping/rewriting etc. But truth be told I’d never worked harder on a song then on the song “A Little Dark, A Little Sick…”
The very first incarnation of the song had a completely different chorus section in the arrangement which when I thought it was a done deal, I realized that it just, in no way shape or form, cut it. So to find something I was happy with ended up taking weeks and months of day-in-day-out working to come up with the right build and parts. The exit riff at the end took like 6 hours one night as an example. But then again, when we were tracking drums and got to the end of the song, my brother nailed the ending drum lick in one take, our engineer Justin jumped up and said “you guys are freaks!” LOL. We’re so used to bands doing predictable endings, like a fade ending or an abrupt ending that is kinda awkward. It’s hard to come up with great endings but it’s something we work hard on since it translates live. All that to say though, you forget the all the time you slaved on a track later, and it seems like a life time ago, but I still remember all the hard fought stuff.
Another high point of that song to me is that it just so happens to be the song that really showcases Chris’ vocal abilities, it's the best one in my opinion for that. But I've been getting a lot of positive feedback on that one lately as the favorite song on the album, so I know there's something special going on there.
As a guitarist and songwriter, I was wondering if you could talk about some of your musical influences. Growing up what bands or musicians played a role in your development as a musician?
Derek: Haha, well I grew up in church where my dad would put a church band together and play on Saturday nights. It was his way of reaching out to the younger crowd who thought church people were really square, can I use that term nowadays? LOL. It was actually pretty cool how they’d cover Judas Priest songs, but change the lyrics to Christian lyrics, etc. He would also do some of his original songs with extended solos as well, so that was always a thing early on.
My uncle played guitar too and was a pretty big Eddie Van Halen fanatic. So when I learned my first couple of riffs it was nice to bounce those off him. He was someone I could call up and name any player and he would know who it was: BB King, Hendrix, Brian May, Steve Vai, SRV, Robert Cray, Eric Johnson, George Lynch etc.
In the very beginning I was kinda into the Eric Clapton 24 Nights era, where he had that kinda long haired skater haircut. I just thought he was so badass looking! Around that time my uncle was sending us Joe Satriani album samplers. He sent Flying In A Blue Dream, which had 3 songs on the album; The Forgotten Part 1 and 2, and of course Big Bad Moon. If I really think back hard enough, that may of been my first real introduction to guitar music. I knew Satriani ripped, I just had no clue what techniques I was hearing so I played that thing to death.
I kinda worked my way up, Clapton, a massive Led Zeppelin phase, then into early 80’s Priest. Even though I was into the older sound I started warming up to 80’s production sound and some of the Van Halen stuff I was hearing. Then from all the guitar and music mags around I discovered Pantera and that pretty much checked all the boxes for me: drum sound, production, the energy they brought to the table and how they incorporated that Van Halen excitement into a really aggressive Metallica based style. I ended up seeing Metallica live twice so got into them heavily for awhile, and of course Megadeth and Yngwie, and well you name it!
After I exhausted all that stuff I was turned on to King’s X from a drummer friend of mine, which took a little bit of getting used to but once it grew on me it really turned into 'the thing' - my new favorite band. You had the sledgehammer riffs but incorporated into a Hard Rock Pop sound, if you will, with crystal clear vocals you could actually hear. After learning 15-plus albums worth of that stuff I started to get into the big production of bands like T-Ride. Eric Valentine, and a band I heard about through him 'Scritti Politti', continue to be massive influences, the way they construct bass lines and all the studio wizardry. So that’s basically “the” style for where I’m at now..the Pantera rhythm section, Joe Satriani solos, and King’s X cleaner vocals no matter how heavy we get. Some of the classic death metal bands were a huge influence as well so it’s pretty across the board, from guitar hero to extreme heavy metal.
I wanted to get a little more information about your local music scene, as I am always interested in hearing about local music scenes and how the bands in those areas go about trying to book shows to perform their music live. Before this pandemic, what was the music scene like for rock and metal?
Derek: Thriving! Our scene here in Portland, OR was growing leaps and bounds. For starters we have probably the biggest tribute band circuit in the country. Every year during the summer they put on a massive tribute band festival called “Harefest”. And if you’ve never heard of it definitely see if you can catch some of the show's previous videos on YouTube. There’s been 8 or 9 of them in a row every summer so far, with the exception of this year. But often a typical year for that specific scene, for example, is they’ll start off with an 80’s Weekend in January, a big Spring Break Show, a pre-Harefest show and then Harefest over the summer. Then, they will put on a big labor day show, followed by a show around Halloween then finally a big New Years Eve Show. So that’s basically what it was like before Covid-19 hit.
Most of us have been in a tribute band, some just as a side gig to help pay the bills, but also while working on our original projects. A lot of original bands book local shows all year. Some bands pay to play, to gain exposure. It's like renting a club with a ready made audience haha. But some of the venues will pay unbelievably well for the tribute shows. I like to think eventually they will pay just as well for an original band like us once they see us start to get the same draw, or even better, as a good tribute band does. That would be the ultimate, to be able to transition to “The Real Thing”. So for us, at this point we’re just pushing through this current down time by writing, demoing material and doing music videos etc.
I’ve asked this question to other guitarists before during interviews and with the recent passing of Eddie Van Halen I feel like it is extremely relevant. Do you think we will see another Eddie Van Halen come along and inspire the next generation of rock and metal guitarists? Also, you fear that people will become less interested in playing an instrument due to the increase in the popularity of electronic music?
Derek: Wow. Yeah man, that’s tricky. As a guitar instructor over the years, I've found that upwards of 80% of the new student base coming in the door (young kids) don’t even have a handle on who EVH is. I’ve got to really hound them! It's an interesting phenomenon nowadays, but I've noticed that none of the new players out there attempting to shred like the 'greats' seem to be able to command anything close to the attention span of the listener that the players of the 70's did. Along with that, most of the time they pass on any influence an Eddie Van Halen could have by chalking it up as “Dad rock”. Never mind going even further into the actual influences Eddie had like Clapton, etc.
There’s a great saying I’ve heard kicked around over the years. That is "all the best guitarists were born in 54”. Interestingly, that is the year the Fender Strat was born too. Anywhere from within that 54-56 era you've got Pat Travers, George Lynch, Joe Satriani, Michael Schenker, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Eric Johnson, to name a few. It's hard to list off all of them without looking it up. Something about being that age and processing music the way they did without all the modern distractions, already makes Eddie or any of those guys way cooler than any of us, LOL!
What we can do, though, is encourage new players to develop an intense appreciation and passion for players like Eddie Van Halen, or Randy Rhoads for example. Instruct them that if they would just set a personal goal, if they would dedicate 6 months to digest that music and get into that mindset of taking the world by storm and imagine living in that 1979 world. If a student is willing to do that, then by all means there could very likely be some really scary players coming out of the woodwork in the near future. You can't build an Empire State building on a shaky and shallow foundation. You have to dig down to the bedrock of rock and roll. I always have it in the back of my mind to take my entire music collection and throw it off the proverbial cliff, and only listen to early Deep Purple, Hendrix, and Cream, LOL, and that kind of stuff!
As far as the electronic thing goes, I feel like it’s not quite the hit to the guitar community like I’ve heard over the years. I’ve recently rethought of the electronic scene as a new community of dedicated engineers and producers who’ve learned their DAW’s inside and out. A lot of them would gladly love to record a kick ass solo, or tell you "If I had to do some of your solos I’d be so F'd!”. So if anything, they’re very encouraging and still appreciate great guitar playing, they just can’t do it themselves. As much as that scene has come into prominence, kind of taken over, it’s still up to us true believers to keep finding the treasure there is to find in the metal and rock world and ultimately get it back on top, and to keep it on top!
Looking to the future what does Cobra Cobra have planned? I believe you had talked to me about doing a music video.
Derek: The future is an unwavering commitment to new music and continuing to push the envelope with all things musical with the freedom to explore, that is without any predetermined constraints. We definitely plan on letting things unfold naturally. Sometimes that feels like years of waiting around for someone to finish their part, or for the writing/mixing/mastering to be done. It's years upon years of slogging it out without a paycheck, i.e. “paying the price” up front, in full, in advance without any guarantees of success.
Mostly we do our music for ourselves, even if no one else gets to hear it, which I can’t imagine that happening. But even though we strive to make music that will have a world-wide impact, at the same time we kind of keep our expectations low, but we keep going for the gold each and every time we do an album. Our focus is on quality and being happy with the direction we’re headed in. We know we can stand back and let the 'word of mouth' do it’s thing at that point.
We’re actually all trying to get more motivated to promote ourselves on social media, when we’d rather be working on tunes. Our bass player is really good at it at the moment. As you mentioned, a Cobra Cobra music video is next. And with that there’s some serious option anxiety on the table of which song to choose. So that should be quite a surprise! In the mean time we’re 4 songs deep into new stuff, and of course have a couple instrumental albums already in the can, just in case ‘gun-to-our-head' we have to turn out a record under contract - we could do it, haha. But that’s all wishful thinking at the moment.
With our the student base we’ve already recouped the cost for our CD’s and shirts so at this point it’s just continuing to get exposure with that new listener out there, wherever that may be. So far we’ve had some pretty good luck in the UK with radio play and some of our connections over there. They’re loving it! Those people already seem like our closest friends. But between our CD release show, as soon as that’s an option, and the new video along with new material, we’re seriously pumped for the future and everything to come!
2020 has been a rough year for live music and people are becoming desperate for some sort of live music experience. Well, don’t feel discouraged and think that all hope is gone, because Fozzy has us all covered with a special livestream concert!
This coming Saturday, November 14th, Fozzy will be performing a special global livestream event called, “Capturing Judas,” at 9PM EST. Taking place at Madison Studios in the great city of Atlanta, Georgia, the event will begin with a pre-show that includes the world premier of the band’s highly anticipated film, “Fozzy Across America,” which was filmed the day Fozzy released, “Judas,” and covers their three show mini-tour that took place in three different rime zones on the same day. Right after the 30-min documentary, the band will perform the full, “Judas,” set for people to feverishly bang their heads and start mosh pits in their living rooms.
Fozzy is fronted by wrestling legend Chris Jericho aka “Le Champion” who has been a charismatic and well regarding personality in the world of professional wrestling. From his early days in Smokey Mountain wrestling to his WWE run where he became the Undisputed WWF Champion, Jericho has always excelled and given the people memorable matches. It should come as no surprise that Fozzy has become a powerhouse in the world of hard rock and heavy metal music. Jericho’s passion for rock and metal music is undeniable and the other members of Fozzy have proven to be solid musicians that know how to hammer out some juggernaut sized tracks. The band’s 2012 release, “Sin & Bones,” received high praise from the rock and metal community and brought the band’s exposure to even greater heights. However, the band’s seventh studio album, “Judas,” somehow eclipsed the popularity of “Sin & Bones.” AEW fans literally sing the album’s title track note for note when Jericho walks to the ring! The album has also done very well in the charts and that can be attributed to the band’s loyal fanbase.
Again, mark your calendars for November 14th and get your tickets for the event at "FOZZY.veeps.com." You don’t want to miss this if you are a fan of Fozzy! Also what better way to follow social distancing protocols than to watch a kick ass livestream concert put on by Fozzy?! If you miss this then you might as well put your hands in your pockets and hangout with that goofball Orange Cassidy who probably listens to obscure hipster nonsense and does not even come close to the greatness that is Chris Jericho!
Spewing gruesome old school corpse rotting death metal for close to twelve years now, Undergang continues to push the musical slaughter fest moving forward with the release of their fifth full-length album, “Aldrig i livet.” This group of old school death metal worshipping maniacs from Denmark does not look to appease mainstream metal critics by writing more progressive sounding instrumental pieces. If anything these guys would probably take those same mainstream metal critics and bury them alive in an abandoned cemetery out in the middle of nowhere.
Teaming up with Dark Descent Records and Me Saco Un Ojo Records for the release of the new, Undergang looks to build off of the insidious momentum from their 2017 release, “Misantropologi.” I think Undergang’s approach to death metal definitely taps into that old school Scandinavian death metal world that places emphasis on chainsaw like guitar riffs and monstrous inhuman sounding death growls. Also, I find their style to be very reminiscent to that of horror themed death metal bands like Impetigo, Mortician and Exhumed. Over the years I have always acknowledged Undergang’s efforts to produce their own putrid sounding death metal, but at the same time I feel as if they stick to a very repetitive formula, which sometimes is all you need if you can effectively write extremely engaging and brutal pieces of music. The ten tracks on this new album are written and recorded in such a manner that you can forget the fact that they are not reinventing the wheel, because they are truly offering their own unique take on gruesome sounding old school death metal.
The album is constant cannibalistic feast of sickening sounding old school death metal guitar riffs. Right when that opening track, “Præfluidum,” kicks into high gear the band unleashes a violent sounding thunderstorm of distorted devastation. One area that I believe Undergrang excels in on this entire album is the production and presentation of the vocals. The vocals always seem to inject a massive amount of vile disgust into the musical landscape, keeping you fully immersed in a turbulent sea of endless death metal carnage.
As the album progresses you notice Undergang is consistently able to maintain a certain bombastic and ravenous drive that is achieved by the bands unforgiving extreme metal mentality. On tracks like, “Indtorrent” and “Menneskeæder” the band completely decimates everything in their path with a surge of pestilent sounding aggression. The riffs once again are utterly cataclysmic in terms of building a repulsive and terrifying old school sounding atmosphere. You feel suffocated by the overall brutality that seeps through the speakers and comes into your ears causing you to become possessed by the agonizing compositions that this band is able to construct. Towards the end of the album there seems to be no mercy shown by Undergang as the music gets even more sadistic sounding with tracks like, “Aldrig i livet” and “Rødt dødt kød.”
Overall there is not much to complain, or critique for that matter about this new album from Undergang. Yes, extreme metal music has witnessed a fair amount of bands that tend to write music in a similar vein, although I think Undergang demonstrates solid musicianship and precise execution throughout the album to where you can appreciate the overall artistic vision. The album definitely does not disappoint if you are a fan of death metal and I highly recommend people check it out if they want to hear some behemoth sized death metal arrangements soaked in the blood of a thousand corpses. This sure as hell beats listening to a progressive metalcore band that incorporates flute and saxophone parts in their sound…shit, those bands would piss their pants if they heard music like this!
Check out the video for “Menneskeæder” below (Album comes out December 4th, 2020):
Imagine a room full of hooded occult followers holding candles, a massive satanic sacrificial altar and an innocent screaming sacrifice who more than liking listens to mainstream pop/rap music. Now, I would not be surprised if Empty Chalice’s debut album, “Spiritual Abuse,” is being played in the background as they perform some occult like ritual, because this debut album is one sinister offering of fiendish sounding blackened death metal.
Empty Chalice definitely pays homage to bands like Bathory, Sarcofago, Bestial Warlust and Blasphemy, while also incorporating some gruesome sounding old school death metal elements. I mean the band takes their name from a Blasphemy song and both bands are from Canada, so that connection stood out right away. I think the overall production and presentation of the album is fairly solid. There are some areas where the drums and guitars are recorded a bit low, however, I think that the overall recording quality amplifies the raw and savage nature of the band’s haunting blackened death vision.
Out of the eight songs on this album I think listeners are going to be treated to one wicked sounding release that flows with malevolent force from beginning to end. The album opens with sounds of torture and despair, which is appropriate for the vicious musical onslaught that follows. “Spiritual Abuse,” is a strong opening piece of music containing some diabolical sounding riffs along with some utterly horrifying death growls. Everything seems to come crashing through the speakers with a seismic shock of unfathomable terror and pulls you down into this profane realm of bestial sounding aggression.
I think my favorite song off of the album though has to be, “13 Bells.” The band begins the song by constructing this bone chilling atmosphere that grips you with unspeakable fear. As the bells rig leaving you almost speechless, the band hammers out an unholy offering of sacrilegious sounding chaos.
Another important point to bring up is that the songs on this album do not run too long in length. Some bands that write blackened death metal can get carried away and lose listeners with countless and repetitive compositions. Empathy Chalice throughout the album is able to write effective cuts of extreme sounding brutality that waste little time getting straight to the point.
If you enjoy those acoustic sounding medieval pieces of music very similar to what you might hear on certain Bathory albums, then you will really enjoy the song, “Coup De Grace.” The music is very pleasant sounding at first and the acoustic riff lulls you into a sense of tranquility. Eventually you start to hear the sounds of people in the background being vanquished in battle and as the acoustic riff ends the band launched into a blizzard of gruesome sounding destruction. Also, the band does a killer cover of Necrovore’s “Divus De Mortuus,” which compliments the other tracks extremely well, especially since I would even compare Empty Chalice’s sound to that of Necrovore.
Empty Chalice is yet another solid extreme metal act to put out an album this year that delivers a fearsome underground metal attack. “Spiritual Abuse,” is an album that taps into the classic world of raw sounding blackened death metal, but also does not come across as painfully unoriginal. If you enjoy that tormenting style of early black metal with a bloody splash of old school grave defiling death metal, then I highly recommend checking this album out. Every time someone listens to this album and a demon is summoned forth to torment a modern mainstream pop artist...come on people we need to start listening!
