Wonderbox Metal

Interview with To the Pain

US Classic Metal/Thrash band To the Pain’s latest album 7 is a feast of delicious Metal delights, albeit one that’s over far too quickly for my liking! The very amiable Steve kindly answered my questions about the band…

For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!

Hi those unfamiliar with our band…where have you been? We are To The Pain!!! We are a METAL band from Long Island, New York. We formed in 2012, and just released our 2nd album, “7”. The band is Johnny Intagliata- Vocals, Jimmy Klimatas- Drums, Craig Piano- Rhythm Guitar, Jeremy Lustig- Bass Guitar, and me, Steve Shaver- Lead Guitars. Check us out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ToThePainNY or Twitter at https://twitter.com/ToThePainNY

Give us a bit of background to To the Pain

To The Pain formed in 2012, as a band. Originally it was a recording project of Johnny and Steve. We were just re-recording a few old songs we had written in the 80’s and a few new ones. We decided that we really should get a band together and play some gigs. So we recruited Jimmy and Jeremy, and our original rhythm guitar player Mark Trojanoski. Mark eventually decided to leave the band to follow Janick Gers around the globe to learn the fine art of marching in place, and we got Craig Piano to replace him. Here we are now, making lots of loud noises! (Sometimes even in key!)

Where did the band name come from?

The band name is from the movie The Princess Bride. There is a duel scene in the movie, and instead of battling to the death, they battle To The Pain! Mark thought of the name, and we all thought it was slightly better than any other name we could think of, so we kept it!

What are your influences?

The bands influences are definitely the Big 4 of American Thrash Metal, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, and some other band who’s name escapes me. Also Iron Maiden, King Diamond, Judas Priest, Racer X, and of course Mariah Carey. (Just kidding)

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

Not sure what the other guys are listening to, but I cannot stop listening to the new Lamb of God album. Its brutal, heavy, and I think one of their best. Also the new Symphony X album. They have been playing nonstop in my car. Both great albums, and vastly different.

What’s your favourite song on 7 and why?

Tough question. My fav is probably either “Seven”, or “Is It My Turn To Die”. I was real happy with the solo in “Seven”, and the crazy tapping part in the outro of “Die”. Oh yeah, and there is some decent song in there too. LOL. If you made me choose, I would pick “Seven”. I just like the groove of it, and I like the anger in Johnny’s voice. Although some dope on Deadspin called it the worst song he ever heard because he didn’t like the lyrics. So to that guy, suck it! Actually I feel if people love your stuff, some people are going to hate it too…nobody ever 100% approved of any idea or song.

How do you feel you have progressed between releases?

Well the first album as I said was really just going to be a recording project, so I wasn’t really that concerned with who else was playing on it, or their style of playing, or anything like that. A lot of what Jimmy played on the drums were parts I played on the demos. This album, is way more of a polished band playing the songs. Johnny shook off the rust from his vocal cords, and the rest of the guys in the band really brought it on the second album. I also think we found our groove as far as the style of music we play. On the first album we tinkered with some new school metal ideas and on this album I kind of threw them out the window. We all like the classic stuff, we are good at playing that, so we stuck to it. Not to say there aren’t any newer types of influences, but you can really hear the classic style in our album. I also have always looked at the band song-wise as trying to write like early Van Halen. What I mean by that is Van Halen played all kinds of tunes. There was variety in their music. They just didn’t play 10 versions of “I’m The One”. You had “Ice Cream Man” and “Running With The Devil” along with “On Fire”, etc. We tried to have a vast array of styles, but with that classic feel. There is some Priest inspired playing, but also some Slayer and Anthrax inspired playing. Definitely a lot of Maiden inspiration throughout the guitars on this.

So far both of your releases have been quite short – what’s the deal? MORE THRASH!

LOL. I would love to write a full length album and release it. But the truth is, we just don’t have the time to sit down and write and record the full album. This album has 6 songs, plus an orchestrated intro that I wrote. It very easily could have been 4 songs, as I made the call to add “Is It My Turn To Die” and “Don’t Eat The Eyes” in the 11th hour when Jimmy was doing his drum tracks. Its funny, people say we are a thrash band, but I consider us to just be a metal band. Sure we play some thrash, Heavens Carnage is certainly thrash. But we also play Dio/Maiden inspired metal like Don’t Eat The Eyes. If I had to say what we are, we are a metal band. But if someone wants to call us thrash, or speed, or retroclassicmetalrockwhatevergenreIjustmadeup, that is fine too. Getting back to not recording a full length, because we do all of this ourselves, and I am mixing and recording everything in my house, and not in a studio, its tough to find time to add more songs. But we will try on our next one! I promise!

What does the future hold for To the Pain?

Hopefully the future includes some shows with some established artists…and some bigger and better venues. We do pretty well for a local band drawing folks to shows, and we have some awesome fans that just go bananas at our shows. So we are hoping to grow that fanbase, and move on to bigger and better things…Oh and write longer albums with more songs for you!!!! Thanks for taking the time to interview us, and check out our album! We really do appreciate all the opportunities and the reviews, both good and bad that you folks in the press give us.

Unbreakable Hatred – Ruins (Review)

Unbreakable Hatred are a Death Metal band from Canada and this is their second album.

This is Technical Death Metal that’s as ferocious and brutal as the best of the genre while still having the technical flourishes that mean so much to fans of Tech Death’s dizzying heights. Even more impressive though is how Unbreakable Hatred have managed to retain a semblance of songs on these tracks so that they don’t disappear too far into their own world.

The band have a very clean and polished sound that allows the listener to hear everything that they do. As such, it’s easy to hear how proficient they are at their craft and it’s very easy to enjoy the carnage that they unleash.

The vocalist has a savage voice that’s crisp and neat, if such terms can be applied to aggressively barked growls. I find he manages to compress a lot of personality and feeling into these clipped outbursts and the band have a definite asset in his delivery.

While the songs are no doubt on the technical side of things, I also like the inclusion of simpler riffs and sections that help the songs to retain a catchier, more enjoyable edge.

Pounding drums, heavy riffs, frenzied vocals, lightning leads and solos…Unbreakable Hatred don’t mess around and they spend these short 30 minutes showing a finely balanced blend of professionalism and base aggression.

Listening to this it brings to mind Cryptopsy’s None So Vile; Ruins evokes similar feelings to that album and shares similarities to it in some ways. It’s not quite up to those lofty standards, of course, as None So Vile is pretty much The Ultimate Death Metal Album™, but it’s damn good company to keep at any rate.

This is definitely one of the elite. I think we can safely move Unbreakable Hatred to the top of the recent Technical Death Metal pile. All hail our new overlords!

Nightfell – Darkness Evermore (Review)

This is the second album from Nightfall, a US Death/Doom Metal band.

This is the follow up to their 2014 début album The Living Ever Mourn, which was a very enjoyable album of Death/Doom. Darkness Evermore continues their brand of Old-School Death Metal that has a large Doom influence, this time resulting in songs that are longer and more mournful than their first release.

The darkened atmosphere from their début has been expanded upon and fleshed out with more ambition in Darkness Evermore. The essential style of the band is the same, but the melodies are bolder, the emotions heightened, the Doom deeper and the darkness more palpable. This is The Living Ever Mourn 2.0, in the sense that they have improved upon and refined their original formula, which was already pretty damn good to begin with.

The riffs are highly emotive and continue to draw on the wellspring of fertile inspiration that bands such as Dismember, Sentenced, Paradise Lost, Amon Amarth, My Dying Bride, etc. have all drawn from for their powerful guitars and melodies.

These tracks are involving and paint a heady picture of a strange, underworld landscape for the listener to become entranced with.

The Death Metal base is complemented extremely well by the Doom influence, reminding me of the amazing début by Temple of Void; both bands know how to create emotive Metal atmospheres without losing their Death Metal core.

It’s not all slow dirges either, as there’s enough upbeat material here to provide good variety. These parts are still done in a gloomy way though, and they even have a Blackened feel on occasion; there’s a noticeably larger Black Metal influence in general on Darkness Evermore in fact.

Nightfell have successfully followed up their strong début album with an ever stronger second one. Check this out.

Diabolus Arcanium – Path of Ascension (Review)

This is the début album by Indian Black Metal band Diabolus Arcanium.

This is Symphonic Black Metal that has a strong orchestral component and Classical influences. It has a cinematic feel to it in places and the band do everything they can to foster a real sense of immersion in the soundscapes that they create.

It’s easy to throw words such as majesty, grandeur and epic at Diabolus Arcanium, and all of those words are indeed fitting descriptors for their take on Black Metal. This is larger-than-life music that won’t be to everyone’s taste for that reason alone.

Symphonic Black Metal always takes me back to the mid/late 90s, it just can’t be helped. A lot of people seem to turn their noses up at the more orchestral/symphonic side of things that some Black Metal bands embrace, and to me this is a real shame. Also, with everyone seemingly concentrating on being as evil, cvlt and grim as possible these days, it’s actually relatively rare to find a band who play this style, especially when they play it well like on Path of Ascension.

The singer’s Black Metal shriek is akin to a snarling beast and he takes a traditional approach to his performance, once again reminding me of 90s Black Metal.

The orchestral sounds are varied and clever enough to never become boring, unnecessary or too overbearing. They’re written with just the right balance in mind and enhance the core of the songs while at the same time being essential to their existence. Some keyboard-enhanced bands sound like the Symphonic aspect of their music is simply tacked on as an afterthought, whereas on Path of Ascension it sounds integral and complete.

One of the main reasons it sounds so good, apart from the writing and arrangement, is it actually sounds like a full orchestra playing, rather than just some guy with a keyboard. The fact that it actually is just a guy with a keyboard is quite shocking, that’s how well-done this is.

Ultimately, this is still Black Metal, so there’s a darkened, Blackened core to the band and they keep an aggressive bite to things, even with the omnipresent orchestration. The songs walk a fine line between Blackened barbarity and Classical magnificence.

Diabolus Arcanium have produced an impressive album that’s an engaging and enjoyable listen. The songs hold the attention and ultimately they make you just want to bounce along to them, blast beats or not. And who can say fairer than that?

Kade Storm – Beyond Blood & Ashes (Review)

Kade Storm is a solo artist from the UK. This is his début album of Blackened Doom Metal.

The album features a grim, heavy sound that is pleasingly murky.

The vocals remind me of the singer of Cathedral if he had a rawer, Blackened edge to his voice.

Apocalyptic mid-paced riffs form the bulk of the music, relentlessly stomping onwards in a fit of dark vision. The music has a Doom/Sludge feel to it, enhanced by a Blackened twinge and some Classic Metal elements on occasion, especially in the included guitar solos.

The guitars chug and groove in a restrained and bleak way, giving the songs a curious feeling like they’re somehow stuck between styles. This is not necessarily to their detriment, but it is somewhat of an acquired taste. Or, I suppose more accurately; it depends if you’re in the mood for it or not.

The music is consistently similar throughout, giving it a drone-like hypnotic quality in some ways. Individual songs work perfectly well, but taken as a whole the album describes a full movement of crawling, ugly Doom with occult atmospheres and dark designs.

Check it out.

Electricjezus – The Foundation Pit (Котлован)

This is the second album from this Russian Doom/Sludge band.

This is gritty, earthy Sludge that has a bedrock of down-tuned riffage and harsh vocals, providing the listener with plenty of opportunity to engage with the negativity and also have a darn good groove to the music as well.

The music is largely mid-paced with slower sections appearing as necessary to drive the tar-like feeling of Sludge home.

Vocally we get Blackened screams that seethe with energetic disgust and bile. They frequently take second place to the rest of the music and are only used when there needs to be an added violent emphasis to the songs’ downbeat messages.

This is only a two-piece band but they make more than enough noise to make you think otherwise. The beefy, bass-enhanced riffs become hypnotic by their repetition and, as any Sludge/Doom fan knows, it’s easy to become entranced by this kind of relentless, churning heaviness.

The band have an ear for a good riff and this is the kind of Sludge that it’s easy to fall for. Heavy, emotive and crackling with hate; Electricjezus spend 41 minutes flattening the opposition with waves of distortion.

Oh, and there’s a magnificent Sludge cover of Berlin’s Take My Breath Away, too. Top work!

Make sure you check out Electricjezus.

Interview with Designs of Chaos

Designs of Chaos’ new EP The Darkest Storm shows once again what a fertile breeding ground the UK is for Metal bands. Let’s find out a bit more about this promising band…

For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!

We like to think of ourselves as a modern metal band from London, nothing fancy, no technical sub genre to hide behind, just plan and simple metal. Some say technical death metal, we just like to say metal. We play fast, we hit hard and we sing about stuff that has meaning to us, and we enjoy ourselves while we do it.

Give us a bit of history to Designs of Chaos

Designs of Chaos has been around for 7 or 8 years in one form or another, but we’ve only recently become the band we are today. Several members have come and gone, but it wasn’t until Jay joined as our frontman 4 years ago that we’ve felt that we were the band we wanted to be. Jay forced us to play faster and heavier than we had in the past and took us in the direction we always wanted to go. We have come a long way since our humble begins and we try to bring influences from all the members of the band to deliver the package we’ve become.

Designs of Chaos 5 Where did the band name come from?

The name was thought up by a couple of ex-members, they liked the juxtaposition of the order in chaos, they pitched it to us and we liked it, it just kind stuck from then on.

What are your influences?

We have a vast array of influences, each member has quite a different background, Dean is an old school thrash head and loves bands like Exodus, old school Metallica, Sepultura and even more modern bands like Lamb of God. So we get a lot of our fast thrashy roots from his love for that style. Jay has a more modern post hardcore, technical death metal influences which is where his vocal style comes from. All the band has similar bands we all draw from like Lamb of God, Meshuggah and Metallica, so we just throw it all together and see what comes out the other side.

What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?

The new Lamb of God album is sick, plus the new Between the Buried and Me is really different. Also look out for the new Enabler album that’s pretty awesome as well.

The Darkest Storm has a much more aggressive edge to it than some of your peers – is it important to you to keep this intensity and heaviness in your sound?

That’s what we like, we’re not really into melodic vocals at the moment, we might go down that route one day, but it’s not where we are right now. We enjoy heavy and fast paced song therefore we play that style. When someone brings in a new song or a riff we all have to be feeling it to get it to work, we’re very critical of our own work like that, but we’re all in it together so we all have to like our output or it’s not going to work.

You strike me as a band that would be very good live – what’s the typical Designs of Chaos show like?

We get great feedback from people at our shows, we just give 110% and really try and give people a good performance. Jay especially tries to really engage with everyone in the crowd and get everyone involved, jumping around the stage like the crazy monkey he is, we all go nuts for how ever long we’ve got, it’s exhausting at times but such a rush!

What’s your favourite song on the EP and why?

It’s fair to say we all have a special place for Darkest Storm in our hearts. For us it’s more than just a song we wrote. It was written and partially recorded right before our close friend and drummer died last year. The lyrics are about having someone there for you during tough times, so we all felt it spoke to us when we lost him, and we all drew strength from each other to get us through, what was our darkest storm.

What are the subjects/themes of the songs on this EP?

I’ve already spoken about darkest storm, but Social Phantom is about how the social media has connected us so much that we know more people than ever before and yet are just as isolated as ever. You watch vicariously as “friends” are out having fun, but they never see you, or they might interact with you online then blank you totally on the street. The social media frenzy of late is really weird and we tried to address that.

Designs of Chaos 4 Give us a bit of information on your songwriting process

I’ve already touched on it really, but generally Dean or JD will bring a riff into the studio and we’ll jam it out, and start to work on the composition, Jay does all the lyrics himself and tends to wait until the song is more or less complete before finalising his lyrics, we all jam through the track as much as possible and really hammer out the dents until it’s a smooth and polished piece.

How did the recording go?

JD is a wicked recording artist, and we did all the recording with him, either in a studio or just at his home. It was the first time we’ve ever recorded in this style as historically we’ve always gone into a studio and recorded everything over the course of a couple of weekends or something so this was a little alien to what we’re used to but it allowed us more time to get everything perfect.

How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?

Right now we have been focused on getting our last EP out to everyone, so we don’t know how our songs will form next, we’ve got a few things kicking about which we are working on, but nothing solid as of yet. We just want to make good metal songs that we and others enjoy, who knows where that thinking might take us.

What’s next for Designs of Chaos?

We’ve got a few shows lined up in the future and we’re just going to be getting out there and trying to play to as many people as possible. We’re playing Beermageddon in August and we’re all looking forward to that, then we will continue to look for shows around London, and who knows we might even get to do a UK tour in the winter.

To the Pain – 7 (Review)

This is the second album by US Thrash Metal band To the Pain.

This is a short release – 6 songs in just under 27 minutes – featuring Bay Area-style Thrash and a fantastically-titled closing song Don’t Eat the Eyes. (I felt compelled to point that out).

The Metallica/Anthrax/Testament inspired songs are a real throwback to decades past and in all honesty it really, really works. It may be resolutely Old-School but it’s not a Retro release or any such nonsense – this is a real band playing real Thrash and doing it very well.

I enjoyed their début album, (which was one of my earliest reviews), but I can’t help but notice the strides forward that the band have made in the intervening years. 7 has seen them make advances in every area, from sound to songwriting to delivery; the entire thing sounds more confident and assured. The songs are better and this is a real Thrash Metal feast.

The singer’s voice has improved along with the rest of the band and he too sounds more confident in his role. He has settled into his job with ease and seems to have no problem infusing his performance with character and charisma.

But where’s the rest of the album? I feel like there are another two or three tracks missing. Some bands easily put out too many songs and you can lose attention, but 7 is the opposite and is over before you know it. Maybe it’s better this way though, as it certainly leaves you salivating and hungry for more.

Well, recently I’ve stated, quite a few times actually, that I feel a bit jaded with Thrash Metal. However, there have been a plethora of recent releases that are making me rethink this and To the Pain’s newest is another. 7 is a winner for me. Check it out.

Amenthes – Destroyer of the Icon (Review)

Amenthes are a US Death Metal band and this is their début EP.

Amenthes play Modern Death Metal with a hint of Grind and even Black Metal.

Vocals are various growls with added screams. Duties are shared between the main singer and a guitarist/bassist; they’re ably done and not without personality.

The music is darkly brutal and there’s enough character and passion to the riffs to help Amenthes stand out from the pack.

On this release Classic Death Metal riffing has been combined with more modern chops to create a blend of the old and new. This is added to on occasion by a Grindcore influence that allows the band to let their focused assault slip off and get a bit more frenzied. Some of the riffs have a slight Black Metal flavour to them, lending the band a dark feeling to some of the parts of the songs.

I can hear shades of Cannibal Corpse, Martyr Defiled, Decapitated, All Shall Perish, Job for a Cowboy, Hiss from the Moat and others in their sound. It’s a good mixture that allows the band freedom to do what they want without losing the core brutality that all Death Metal has.

Blast beats and energetic riffs lead the way while the vocals snarl their way through the carnage. I enjoy a good solo and the band have got me covered in this respect too.

I like that there are a few different things going on here, with some nice ideas sharing space with the heavy Death Metal.

This is a very enjoyable release from a band who have real enthusiasm and the songs to match.

Highly recommended.

Behold! The Monolith – Architects of the Void (Review)

This is the third album from US Doom Metallers Behold! The Monolith.

The band play Doom mixed with Sludge, producing an album that sits outside of the normal template for both sub-genres and is all the better for it.

In addition to the usual Doom staples, there’s also an anger here. This is manifest in the aggressive vocals and the more upbeat aspects of the songs.

The tracks are a combination of Doom, Sludge and even a bit of Classic Metal and Post-Metal on occasion. This is an interesting and less-travelled path for a band to tread, and in this way Behold! The Monolith remind me of the equally compelling Khemmis.

Architects of the Void is a heavy and dark album, full of slow, agonising crawls through a landscape littered with broken dreams and dying hopes. That’s not to say it’s a completely nihilistic and bleak album like some Doom; this is actually more of a well-rounded release than that, with brighter parts, epic feelings and groovier sections included too. Overall though, it’s heavy, dark and very engaging.

The songs sound introverted and personal, albeit through the lens of a public-facing band. This sounds more like music played for the sake of musical catharsis and outlet than for the need to simply rock out or any such thing. There’s a lot of feeling here, sometimes bubbling beneath the surface and sometimes right in your face.

Due to the mixing of the sub-styles, (Doom/Sludge/Metal), this is quite a varied release and each song has its own personality. The album works well holistically and there’s a lot of depth, nuance and longevity to be had on this release.

Like the tastiest of Metal feasts, Architects of the Void will leave you feeling satisfied and satiated.

Very highly recommended.