[Neuraxis] "We didn’t intentionally set out to do anything, but one thing we were interested in testing out is that in our past albums, there was riff after riff and double-bass all the time, so Tommy (McKinnon, drums) wanted to try a more minimal approach and it brought out the guitar heaviness and the vocals. I’m not putting anyone down, but with these newer bands, the drums are the main thing and the drum beats are everywhere and you can’t decipher everything and it’s chaotic. We wanted to use a traditional approach, playing a little less with the drums and bring out the guitars. " - Rob Milley

[Austrian Death Machine] "Austrian Death Machine is a combination of me really loving all of Schwarzenegger’s movies as I was growing up, and me being able to laugh at the funny Schwarzenegger moments. When you think of leading actors in some of the biggest action films, Schwarzenegger is the perfect action film actor. But then sometimes, he’s outright funny without actually meaning to be." - Tim Lambesis

[Airbourne] "I've always wanted to go as far as we possibly can. For the amount of work we’ve put in since we were 11 years of age and our first gig was when I was 13, so, Joel was able to drive when I was 14. As soon as he got his license we were touring, when he was 18. Not as hectic a schedule as we have now. It’s a great feeling and it’s good because we love it, we love it. We love playing and it’s good to see people coming to the shows." - Ryan O'Keeffe

[Firewind] "To be honest with you, this kind of music I've been doing since the debut album. I haven't changed and it was way before Guitar Hero was around, I guess, and I just did what I did, but maybe in 2002 guitar solos weren't cool enough. These days they are again, you know? But it is true that a lot of kids at the shows, you know, they get into the band because mainly the guitar thing, and then they discover the band and the songs. This is cool, because we have a different angle as well, which is the whole guitar thing." - Gus G.

[Cryptopsy] "I’m not really sure as I don’t know how to label things anymore. I think the unfortunate thing for the scene right now is that there are too many bands and too many bands that don’t have an identity. Back when in day you had bands like Death, Obituary and Carcass, but they all had their niche. Now it seems like everyone is content to just jump on a bandwagon instead of create stuff, because when you create stuff it’s gotta be original. That’s what’s really sad about the scene these days." - Flo Mournier

[Bellusira] "With all the promotion in the last six months, I guess what we’ve done is set ourselves and people out there up for this big anticipation for our debut EP. We know that people are wondering if we’re a one great song band or whether or not we can deliver the goods. There’s a lot of pressure on us about this upcoming EP. But the great thing is that we can deliver." - Crystal Backman

[Blistering.com Special Report: Hellfest 2008 - June 20-22, Clisson, FR] Having two major name and highly-influential extreme metal reunions in the form of Carcass and At the Gates is surely enough to salivate the chops of anyone of even the slightest metal persuasion, let alone the fantastic amount and variety of bands on show at this year’s Hellfest, which featured a good selection of black metal (old and new), thrash (old and new) and death metal (old and new) as well as the (un)holy trinity of ultimate doom bands (My Dying Bride, Candlemass and Katatonia)

[Shai Hulud] "The overall mindframe what I’ve been saying to those that has asked is that we’ve wanted to maintain…we’re always going to maintain our melody. We’re a melody-driven band. There’s no way to consciously write more melodies because we do it naturally. We wanted to take the intricacies and the melody-driven aspects of That Within Blood Ill Tempered and give it a swift kick in the ass." - Matt Fox

[Daylight Dies] "We consider ourselves a death metal band in regards that we have death metal vocals. A lot of people are sensitive about the way that you use genre markings. Some people say we’re doom metal, some people say we’re not doom metal, some say we’re doom/death, gothic or whatever. I don’t care, I think we are just a metal band, but we want death metal vocals as our main vocal style." - Jesse Haff

[Keep of Kalessin] "We thought, 'Why, why all the sudden is it wrong that you can hear a human playing on an album?' Today, what separates the drummers of today is not how they are playing, but who the producer is. I think that is something to be aware of and we wanted to keep each individual marking of each instrument. We wanted to make it sound like a band was playing. We didn’t copy and paste and edit stuff. There are so many details in our production and adds more atmosphere. It has this organic feeling – humanity – this living, breathing album and each individual adds his characteristic to the instruments. I think it’s a very bold thing to do today." - Obsidian C.

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