Outcast | Interview with Jean-François Rienzo

Outcast have been around for almost 14 years now, but not much has been heard about this five-piece outside their native France since then. Something that will soon change as 2012 is set to be a big year for the Parisian fellows with the signing to a new label Listenable Records and the release of their storming third album “Awaken the Reason”, which is already making some significant waves in the metal scene.

Recently we caught up with guitarist Jean-François Di Rienzo to know more about the band’s upcoming third album and their future plans.

Congrats on releasing such a strong record as “Awaken the Reason”. I take it you’re proud with the way it came out right?

“Yes, indeed, signing a deal with Listenable Records is such an awesome thing for a band like us, those guys are super professionals and I think that deal is going to bring the band to the next level.”

I learned that you worked on this album without a record deal, and once it was finished you’ve sent it to some record labels and try to get some offers. Why did you decide to do such move instead of securing a contract first?

“There’re two reasons for that move: firstly, in France it’s really difficult to get a deal before having a strong fanbase or a finished and strong album, the second and probably the main reason is that we wanted to keep an entire control on the writing and recording process without any kind of pressure from a label who would have told us a release date before the album is finished. We really wanted the album to sound exactly as we wanted it to sound.”

Cannibal Corpse – Torture

Twelve studio albums, over two million records sold worldwide and countless tours, one of the most successful and controversial death metal bands around returns with a new record three years after their latest effort “Evisceration Plague”.

With a Cannibal Corpse record, you know what you’re getting. These guys don’t fuck around when it comes to churning out some vicious and bone-crushing death metal and that said, “Torture” is another massive achievement for the New Yorkers, it’s an utterly vicious, maniacal and brutal slab of extreme music.

Right from the blitzkrieg opener “Demented Aggression”, Cannibal Corpse lunges straight for the jugular, with guitarists Rob Barrett and Patrick O'Brien fleshing out some sick and decimating riffs with unstoppable aggression and flawless execution. The drumming of Paul Mazurkiewicz is also absolutely relentless and lethal, plus it sounds bloody organic, showing how monstrous the man really is without resorting to some studio wizardry like some fellows employ in their playing. Vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher is in prime form as well, providing those deep, guttural growls that sound like an enraged demoniacal beast.

You should also take cover when following track “Sarcophagic Frenzy” come steamrolling through with a ruthless impetus, while “Scourge of Iron” slows down the action a bit to rip some crushing and infectious grooves.

There’s not much else to say about “Torture”, it’s an absolute monster of a death metal release that sees Cannibal Corpse just getting better and better, which is something really outstanding considering these guys have been playing extreme music for more than twenty years now. (8.4/10)

Byrant Thomas

Band info: www.cannibalcorpse.net

Label info: www.metalblade.com

Pharaoh – Bury the Light

Pharaoh have been churning out some classic and powerful heavy metal since 1997, but to most people they’re still remembered for vocalist’s Tim Aymar involvement in “The Fragile Art of Existence”, the debut album of Chuck Schuldiner’s project Control Denied. Well, that classic record dates from 1999 and since then the Philadelphia-based quartet has recorded four strong and well-crafted albums that should definitely make the metal world take notice, including the newest “Bury the Light”.

This is classic ’80s metal with unbelievably ear-catching melodies, bringing to mind the best moments of Fates Warning, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. This album is so damn catchy that even people who normally run away at the sound of heavy metal might find themselves singing along with Tim Aymar. The vocalist really shines on this album, delivering some powerful anthems that make your hair stand on end. Then, there’s the incredible guitar work of Matt Johnsen, many of the riffs and leads the guitarist churns out are instant grabbers and will surely please any metal-head out there.

The album also features some of their most varied compositions yet, fast and crunchy tunes like “The Wolves” and “In Your Hands” are interspersed between calmer and mid-paced songs like the hard-rock driven “The Year of the Blizzard” and personal favourite “The Spider’s Thread”. This song reminds me of Maiden in the way it grows into an epic gallop complemented with impeccable twin guitars melodies and the powerful singing of Aymar.

To put it short, “Bury the Light” is how heavy metal should be done in this day and age. (8/10)

Luca Niero

Band info: www.solarflight.net

Label info: www.cruzdelsurmusic.com

Wykked Wytch - The Ultimate Deception

Five albums in for this Florida-based quartet and “The Ultimate Deception” is the first time I have heard of them. Cannot say I’ve been missing a lot as I have mixed feelings about Wykked Wytch’s newest record. Although I admire the band’s effort to combine numerous influences instead of drawing exclusively from one source, sometimes the convergence of such disparate styles as black metal and deathcore doesn’t work in their favour and sounds a bit clumsy.

The album opens with “Birthing the Beast”, a fierce and dark theme that sees Wykked Wytch exploring the pompous and theatrical black metal popularized by acts like Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir. The main driving force in this band vocalist Ipek is also able to deliver some evil shrieks that bear an uncanny resemblance to Dani Filth’s excruciating voice. In the end, these Cradle of Filth moments are more endearing than annoying; it’s the deathcore influence that surfaces on the following themes that really drags this record down. On these occasions, guitarist Nate Poulsen ploughs through the well-trodden deathcore path, using some generic riffs that grow tiresome pretty quickly.

It’s not that “The Ultimate Deception” is a terrible or glaringly uninspired record, it’s just that Wykked Wytch aren’t doing anything that special here that would warrant the undivided attention of metal heads. (5.8/10)

Alex Grimm

Band info: www.wykkedwytch.com

Label info: www.goombamusic.com

Terrorizer – Hordes of Zombies

Purveyors of ass-kicking grind, Terrorizer are back with their third album (second since reuniting in 2005) and fans can expect more relentless and ultra-guttural grind. “Hordes of Zombies” shows little variation in the band’s proven formula, the band has retained their maniac and frantic edge that revolutionized the grind scene back in 1989 with their classic debut “World Downfall” and I guess we wouldn’t want it in any other way.

With drummer extraordinaire Pete Sandoval at the helm and Anthony Rezhawk of Resistant Culture once again providing indecipherable and inhuman roars, Terrorizer are now joined by Morbid Angel’s David Vincent on bass and Katina Culture also from Resistant Culture replacing the late Jesse Pintado, who died in 2006 following the release of their second album “Darker Days Ahead”.

The task of replacing Pintado is unbelievably arduous, but the Resistant Culture’s guitarist proves that is up to it by providing some viciously brutal and ripping riffs that do justice to the legacy started with the late guitarist years ago.

Rezhawk’s guttural bellows are as brutally strong as ever, and the drumming of Sandoval is still absurdly fast, which is absolutely surprising for someone who had just recovered from a back surgery. Yet unfortunately, underground legend Dan Swanö manages to ruin the bass drums to the point where they sound completely sterile, like a typewriter or similar.

Aside from that minor grip, “Hordes of Zombies” still is top-notch material, and certainly deserves a place on any grindcore fan’s record collection. (7.6/10)

Byrant Thomas

Band info: www.terrorizergrindcore.net

Label info: www.season-of-mist.com

Hazzard’s Cure – Hazzard’s Cure

A little bit of caveman roars and screams, abrasive and sludgy riffs, groovy rhythms and some nods towards black-metal make up the main ingredients for the debut album from Hazzard’s Cure. This four-piece band from Bay Area plies the same type of raucous and caustic sludge that acts like Buzzoven and High on Fire revolutionized, blending Sabbath-driven grooves with some hardcore punk nihilism and layering it with some deranged and tortured vocalizations.

Things get underway with “Psilocybin”, weaving a head-nodding and sludgy rhythm that recalls the powerful impetus of High on Fire, and then midway abruptly blows into some rabid thrash attack that pays homage to the early days of the Bay Area thrash boom. While most of the songs are downright abrasive, Hazzard’s Cure still manage to incorporate a bit of melody into their sound. “Meet Me at the Mountain” for instance sees them slowing things down a bit to churn out some loose, groovy and blues-driven riffs, complemented with some sparse vocalizations that sound like howls.

The ten-minute finale "Great Dishonor” better reflects the whole vibe of the record, displaying some great riffing that ranges from a painfully slow and corrosive sludge to a ferociously malevolent black metal.

Though Hazzard’s Cure aren’t bringing anything new or genuinely essential to the table, they definitely put out a strong first record that is worthy of your attention. (7.2/10)

David Alexandre

Band info: www.hazzardscure.net

Burn Everything - Last Run Through the Ruins

How can I sum up a band that sounds like everything from Drowningman to Fuck the Facts all at once? This could be post-hardcore. This could be tech-grind. Whatever it is, Burn Everything rolls through bewildering mathematical permutations on the most aggressive side of hardcore just as easily as they unfurl some relentless grindcore attack that decimates all in its path.

On the “Last Run through the Ruins”, the Rochester, NY based five-piece displays an impressive amount of proficiency and viciousness as they fuse elements of hardcore, mathcore, grind and metal altogether, delivering an abrasive and technical sonic mayhem that will surely enthral fans of acts like Botch, Deadguy, Dillinger Escape Plan, Psyopus and Ed Gein.

This is probably too bloody extreme for most, so approach with caution, and a nice pair of earplugs. (7.4/10)

Byrant Thomas

Band info: www.burneverything.bandcamp.com

Thorun – Chorus of Giants

Thorun’s debut EP “Reprise”, released early last year, didn’t make huge waves, but did garner positive reviews and a small following of loyal fans. Their new EP “Chorus of Giants” sees the Wales four-piece improving their songwriting skills, shifting between loose and swinging grooves to powerful, bone-shattering doses of sludge, conjuring up a vibe that is comparable to a grittier Karma to Burn. Just like those US instrumental rockers, Thorun ditch the use of vocals altogether, which means guitarists Keeran Williams and Jonny Evans not only have to pluck out some killer riffs that burn with the same raging fire as a V8 engine, they must also have to carry some infectious melodies to hold the interest of listeners. Something they masterfully accomplished on “Chorus of Giants”.

There’s not much more that needs to be said about this band and this EP; the music speaks for itself. Anyone who appreciates engaging, swinging and instrumental driven stoner/sludge rock will surely enjoy Thorun. (7.2/10)

David Alexandre

Band info: www.thorunband.com

Coldworker | Interview with Anders Jakobson

Swedish group Coldworker are on the verge of releasing their third full-length album “The Doomsayer’s Call”, their first record for independent label Listenable, following two consecutive releases on Relapse Records.

It took the band almost four years to come up with the follow-up to their second album “Rotting Paradise”, so I must start by asking if this was a difficult record to piece together?

“It might appear so if you look at the release dates of the last albums. “The Doomsayer’s Call” has been finished awaiting its release for a whole year so if you subtract that, it’s suddenly “only” three years… We’ve had a couple of slow years, but once we started to write the songs for the album it was done without any complications. We might have put a little bit more time into the song writing, though.”

“A New Era” is the lead-in track from the album, and from the significance of the title I gather you’re issuing a statement claiming this is a new chapter in the band’s career right?

“No, it was actually just a coincidence. The idea to put “A New Era” as the opening track came quite late in the process. It was the last song written for the album and I think most of us wanted it to be the closing track of the album, but then it was suggested as the exact opposite. It’s a daring choice for a band who blasts most of the time to start of a new album with a slow and menacing song when the obvious choice would have been to start off with a bang, but we wanted something different this time. I guess that a lot of people will draw the same conclusions as you, but it is just a title and no hidden meaning.”

Liberteer - Better To Die On Your Feet...

A side-project for Cretin/Citizen’s Matthew Widener, Liberteer’s debut album “Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees” regurgitates the maniacal and unhinged grind Widener is renowned for, albeit with a experimental edge that surprisingly creates an interesting and captivating sonority .

One listen to the 17 songs will be enough to conclude that not only Widener, who plays all instruments, is seriously committed to crafting some vile and ugly grind, he’s also determined to push boundaries and forge a sound that is distinctly their own. As such, “Better To Die…” is grind like I never heard it before, it’s wacky as Exit-13 and Antigama, yet it doesn’t delve into jazz or noise experimentalism, and it’s raging and vile like Nasum and Brutal Truth, yet it also features the sounds of trumpets, banjos and horns. Take a song like “Build No System” for example, it surges with a raging grind fury but soon takes a left turn into some odd instrumentation filled with trumpets and flute sounds that wouldn’t sound out place in some spaghetti western movie. Then, there’s “Rise Like Lions After Slumber”, a highly invigorating and infectious instrumental that you surely wouldn’t expect to hear in a grind record, which is followed by “That Which Is Not Given But Taken” where the guitars rehash the same harmonies, but in a faster pace and harsher tone. In “Usurious Epitaph”, the relentless grind onslaught ends with some traditional instrumentation that could certainly soundtrack the battles of civil war. Then, I swear if I don’t want to mimic Rocky Balboa and run the stairs to Philadelphia’s’ City Hall when I hear the epic and appropriately titled “Sweat for Blood”.

Even tough “Better to Die…” is full of weird-ass experimentalisms, this is still a viciously crushing grind album and at just 28 minutes, it feels like a guerrilla raid, they get in, beat you senseless and steal all your belongings and then, they get out. (8/10)

David Alexandre

Band info: www.liberteer.bandcamp.com

Label info: www.relapse.com