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Dismemberment

4/22/2014

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A few months back, I stopped by Backstage Café in Covington to check out a random metal show. One of the early bands on the bill was Dismemberment, a blackened thrash band hailing from Laurelville, OH, which isn't far from where the Blogger of Doom grew up. Naturally, that piqued my interest. It turns out that Dismemberment was in the midst of a three night run with the mighty Skeletonwitch and took a detour through Covington on a night off. I couldn't have been more impressed with the live show and I've been eagerly awaiting a full-length release ever since. That wait is nearly over, as Dismemberment is set to release Embrace the Dark next Tuesday (4/29) on Horror Pain Gore Death Records. From what I've heard so far, the album is one of the essential metal releases of 2014. The quartet is proving once again that Ohio has somehow become ground zero for American heavy metal. I recently had a chat with Dismemberment bassist J.D. Henderly to get the scoop on the recent Dismemberment news.

How did Dismemberment come together and how long have you been at it?

J.D. Henderly: Luke (Shively, guitars/vocals) and Jake (Shively, guitars) formed Dismemberment in early 2010 while Taylor (Emerine, drums) and myself were playing in Butchered Remains. Taylor had jammed with them a handful of times and told me I had to come down and check it out, so we showed up and played an early version of “Possessed” and I was immediately hooked. We've been at it pretty steadily ever since and have been lucky enough to share the stage with a pretty large amount of incredible acts. Hard to believe it's been four years.

When and where did you record the new record?

JD: We recorded Embrace The Dark at Club Sandwich in Columbus, OH with Travis Lautenschlager. It was an awesome experience all around. Travis is great to work with and he tossed in some killer ideas as well. As far as the bass went, I basically just brought in my rig that I always play with live and let him tweak it and dial it in his own way. We ended up with the best tone I've ever had hands down. I believe Travis deemed it "nasty chainsaw bass". After laying the tracks down there, we sent the record to Joel Grind to mix and then Dan Randall at Mammoth Sound for mastering. We are all super grateful for everyone's hard work and contributions. It came out sounding way more killer than I could have imagined.

What kind of gear did you use on the new album?

JD: I used a 70's Aims Jazz bass copy through a DOD FX80-B Compressor Sustainer which ran into a Traynor TS50-B powering a Peavy 410 TX as well as a custom 1x15" cab. Oh, and a Boss TU-3 tuner.

How have you been received so far on your series of mini-tours?

JD: It's gone pretty well so far. We've met some awesome people and seen some killer acts. Stayed in some nasty hotels; one with a mystery boot print on the wall and another with some questionable sheets. Detroit was really cool, as was Ft. Wayne and Covington. Got to stop by Niagara Falls after we played in Buffalo, where Jake and I found ourselves driving the promoter's van 30 minutes to our hotel to grab the keys to the trailer we had left behind. All in all it's been amazing.

Who are some of your main influences?

JD: For me definitely Steve DiGiorgio and Kelly Conlon for their works with Death. DiGiorgio is unreal in his creativity and Conlon has some of the most intelligent bass lines I have ever heard on the Symbolic record. Tone-wise I kinda try to shoot somewhere between Land Phil from Municipal Waste and Lemmy. I also draw a little bit from Jeff Matz of High on Fire and Dan Maines of Clutch.

Who are you currently listening to?

JD: The past couple days I've been listening to Clutch's new one, Earth Rocker, which is quickly becoming one of my favorites from them, Municipal Waste's Massive Aggressive, Carcass's Surgical Steel, which is fucking killer, and a bit of Revocation here and there, Existence Is Futile and Chaos Of Forms.



Editor's Notes: Big thanks to J.D. for taking some time to speak with us here at The Blog of Doom. To hear some tracks off of Embrace the Dark, check out Dismemberment's bandcamp page at the link below. Pre-orders of Embrace the Dark are available now. - JO
Dismemberment Bandcamp
Embrace the Dark Pre-Orders
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Saint Vitus

4/17/2014

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Widely considered the pioneers of the doom metal scene, Saint Vitus are currently slated to celebrate their 35th Anniversary with a US tour that kicks off next month. 35 years of sustained success in the metal underground, especially for a US band, is a major accomplishment. We all need to take a moment this weekend to listen to the Vitus and appreciate everything they've done for doom over the years (I'm currently blasting the 1984 self-titled album). I recently caught up with founding guitarist Dave Chandler to discuss the band's success and future plans, among other things.

First off, congratulations on making it to 35 years! Other than personnel changes, what’s the biggest difference between Saint Vitus then and Saint Vitus now?

Dave Chandler: Back when we started playing we were the only ones, so the majority of the heavy metal audience didn't care about Doom.  All that has changed drastically - making it easier for a band like us to play for a broader audience. 

To what do attribute the band’s longevity?


DC: To the fans and I guess the fact that we've never really changed much.  When we retired in 1995 Doom metal started happening and people started listening.  When we came back in 2003, younger people already knew about us and had been keeping us alive. 

How has the doom scene changed in the last 35 years?

DC: There was no scene when we started, but the few people that came to see us were our age or older.  Now, there are all generations coming to the shows.

Who are you favorite current doom bands?


DC: I'm still old school.

Besides doom, what are you currently listening to?

DC: Zodiac (from Australia), Red Fang, Pink, Patti Smith, and Wall of Voodoo.

What can fans expect from Vitus on the upcoming tour?

DC: A bludgeoning.

What kind of guitars, amps and pedals are you using live these days?


DC: Schecter guitars, Marshall amps, and whatever pedals I can find that work.

What’s next for Saint Vitus?

DC: After we finish the upcoming U.S. tour there's a possibility of South America, but we're definitely taking the 35th Anniversary to Europe for about six weeks in the fall.

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Hell Couture

4/10/2014

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Recently while scrolling through the Twitter feed, I began to notice some wild, brutal, sexy pictures of one of a kind, custom, heavy metal clothing for women. I have to admit it took me a few days to put it all together and come to the realization that all of these outstanding pieces were the work of one artist, namely Rebecca Conrad, who operates an Etsy shop called Hell Couture. Obviously, I had to get in touch with Ms. Conrad to find out more.
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How did you get started in fashion?

Rebecca Conrad: I started cutting up band shirts for myself many years ago in high school just out of necessity because I wanted my band t-shirts to fit. I'm old; back then I was hard pressed to find shirts of my favorite bands at all, let alone any that would fit me. Years later, I opened an etsy shop on a whim just to see if anything would sell, never expecting it to take off as well as it did. It was definitely never anything I thought about as a child or even when I went to college. I only began to take it seriously after I started Hell Couture.

When did you start Hell Couture?

RC: 2008.

Do you have any formal fashion training?

RC: None at all; I'm 100% self-taught.

So is Hell Couture your full-time job now or just a hobby?

RC: It's my full time and only job. 

Are you still repurposing band t-shirts, or do you start from scratch now?

RC: For Hell Couture I just repurpose existing band t-shirts. I buy the t-shirts and basically use them as fabric along with other materials depending on what I'm making it into. I have another website (aulendil.com) where I make clothing that is not centered around a t-shirt (with the exception of personal collaborations I do with certain artists from time to time, which I feature on both sites), but I rarely have time to work on those items or that site with HC being so busy.


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Do you find that most of your customers are ladies, or is it mostly guys buying gifts for their gals?

RC: It is mostly girls, but I do have a handful of steady male customers buying clothes for their girlfriends.

Have any bands approached you about featuring your items at their merch booths, or do you still only sell online?

RC: Yes. I'm always flattered by the offer but ultimately it doesn't make a whole lot of sense when we begin to hash the details out for a number of reasons.  However, I'm very lucky to have the encouragement and support of a great deal of the bands represented on Hell Couture.  It's been a completely unexpected honor that so many of the artists whom I am a fan of would be so kind and complimentary.

Are you a heavy metal fan yourself, or is that just your target base?

RC: Of course. I would never make something representing a band I did not support or was not personally a fan of. 

Who are some of your all-time favorite metal bands?

RC: Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, W.A.S.P., Burzum, Gorgoroth, Sargeist, Horna, Judas Priest, Musta Surma, Satanic Warmaster, Goatmoon, Graveland, Judas Iscariot, Katharsis....I'll stop there or this could become an incredibly long answer. Who are you listening to these days?

RC: The new Sargeist is a masterpiece, as expected.  Cosmic Church's Ylitsys, Harvest's Forgotten Vampyres of The Melancholic Night, Hoath's Codex II: Kether and Cultes Des Ghoules' Henbane are all records I apparently need to listen to 300 times in a row once I put them on, these days. 

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Editor's Notes: Thank you, Rebecca, for taking time out of your busy Hell Couture schedule to provide some insight into your work for The Blog of Doom! You are certainly doing your part to make the world a more metal place. For those of you interested in Rebecca's designs, please check out the links below. New designs are posted frequently on Twitter. - JO
Hell Couture on Etsy
Hell Couture on Twitter
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Crypt of Silence

4/8/2014

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I get a lot of doom metal albums coming across my desk these days, which I guess is bound to happen when you operate a website called The Blog of Doom. Some of the records are good, most of them are great, and then you have the rare release that pushes the boundaries of doom, forces me to pay 100% attention and ends up in my car stereo for a solid week or more. That's exactly what happened when I received a copy of Beyond Shades, the debut album from Ukranian doom lords Crypt of Silence. With their progressive mix of doom and death metal, these young Ukranians have created something so fresh and powerful and unique that I just had to find out more. I managed to track down Crypt of Silence frontman Mikhael Graver for an interview. 

How did you get into doom and who are your influences?

Mikhael Graver: Hello! First of all, music is a voice of the soul. We tried different styles and genres but death-doom became the best tool to express our thoughts and emotions. 
Of course we do not put any boundaries on our work. In future, we will combine our style with a bit of post rock, atmospheric black metal, and funeral doom. But our main direction in music, we believe, stays the same. There is a lot of great music that inspires us and has some influence on our creativity. Mostly our Influences are Mourning Beloveth, Esoteric, Saturnus, Mournful Congregation, My Dying Bride, Pantheist, Shape of Despair and many others.

What are you currently listening to?

MG: Tastes differ. We listen Behemoth, Lifelover, God is an Astronaut, Tool, Hypocrisy, Death, Enslaved, Amon Amarth. From old school we like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Joy Division, Pink Floyd, Candlemass, Black Sabbath, etc. 

Where and when did you record Beyond Shades?

MG: The work on our album began on summer 2013. As it was our first experience, not all things worked out as we planned. The mastering was done by Yevgeny Semenov , the great sound manager from Slow Burn Records studios. He has made monumental efforts to make our album as it sounds now. 

What kind of gear are you using on the album?

MG: We used Mesa Boogie, Marshall preamps for guitars and Hiwatt for bass, SansAmp tech 21 guitar pedals and Meinl cymbals.

How did the band get started?

MG: It was created in 2009 by me - Mikhael Graver (Bass Guitar, Vox) and Igor Kim (Rhythm Guitar) as a studio project "Duskart". After recording "Shadows at the wall", the single, at home studio in 2010, we made decision to invite Roman Komyati (Solo Guitar), Andriy Buchinskiy (Drums) and change our musical direction from studio project with dirt/black/drone doom metal to the full value band with more expressive Classic Doom/Death sound. After such huge changes the band decided to change its name to "Crypt Of Silence". In 2011, Igor left the band and became our manager. His position was occupied by Volodymyr Mukha, but not for a long time. A few months later, he left too. Since then and up to the present, the band's rhythm guitarist is Roman Kharandyuk. 

How do you keep track of all of the parts in your 10+ minute songs?

MG: It is not as difficult as it seems. We think that songs must be complete in musical and lyrical sense. And when we feel that a song is complete and it brings the necessary semantic weight, we stop, no matter how long it is. If you are putting your soul into work there is no any difficulties at all. And fifteen minutes for a track is not a limit for our band. And in next album we will prove that.

Is there a big doom scene, or metal scene in general, in Ukraine?

MG: There are a lot of good and interesting bands and projects in Ukraine. For example, Nokturnal Mortum, Kroda, Drudkh, Flashgore, Stoned Jesus. But Doom scene in Ukraine is not so developed, compared to other countries. 

Do you have any tour plans coming up?

MG: We participate in a couple performances in Ukraine. Also we are looking forward to start European tour but it is not so easy for a young doom metal band.

What's next for Crypt of Silence?

MG: We are going to release at least two albums in future. This summer we are getting to work on our next album; it will be released in 2015. There is a lot of work to be done. Crypt of Silence is a young band, we are continuously working on new content and looking for opportunities to show what we have already made.


Editor's Notes: Big thanks to Mikhael for taking some time to give us some excellent insights into his band's history and vision. I'll publish a full review of Beyond Shades as soon as possible, but in the meantime you can check out Crypt of Silence via the link below. Hopefully these guys can get out on tour soon and spread their work to the masses. -JO
Crypt of SIlence
Solitude Productions
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