[David E. Gehlke Best-of 2011] Every year we rattle on about how metal is oversaturated and is sure to eventually suffocate itself, yet 2011 ended up being a very productive year. With so many releases hitting the scene, you could drive yourself crazy if you tried to figure out the path metal is on, so it's best just to ride it out and let the chips fall where they may. Such an approach can also be applied to real life, yet we'll spare the philosophical discussions for another time. Upward and onward we go...
[My Dying Bride – The Beast O’ Burden] “We are surrounded by history up here in grey old Yorkshire, which we have rarely tapped in to and so we decided to have a little look into some of the many myths and legends that many a Northern European area have in spades. I'd heard of tales of a great black dog (a ‘Barghest’ it is called here) but none really set me on fire so I invented one, and why not? The initial lyric would suggest the hound is recklessly slaughtering its way through the populous at random, but between the lines a tale of vengeance can be found. This beast has a reason!” – Aaron Stainthorpe
[Red Fang – Over the Mountains] “It’s pretty tough when we’re on the road. We have days off, but they are for pretty long drives, so we’re usually chasing buses. We don’t have a heck of a lot of time out here; soundchecks are pretty short. We have written about zero music on the road for Red Fang [laughs]. Maybe at some point, we’ll get better at it. For now, it’s get up, get in the van, drive all day, unload your stuff and do the show. Maybe we’ll bring some guitars back stage, but we’re used to writing as a group, so maybe we shouldn’t – it would be really embarrassing because people would hear how bad we are [laughs].” – Aaron Beam
[Vallenfyre – Reign of the Shadowking] “It’s the kind of music that has remained in the background of my head. I’ve held onto demos and records from that point in time, but I never had any inkling to do it again myself. It was something that was caused by the last few years and I’ve thought about it in my head, but I never thought I’d do anything. My dad dying was the catalyst and I thought, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’” – Gregor Mackintosh
[Sandstone - Welcome the Cultural Dissonance] “I know some great metal bands from Ireland and I think for such a tiny country, we punch well above our weight. But it is hard for Irish metal bands; we have a die-hard core community of metal fans here but it's hard to find places to play and touring can be a logistical nightmare which involves paying for ferries or flights when our mainland European buddies can do a tour for a lot less money in a clapped-out transit van. Maybe that's why few bands make it out of Ireland to a larger audience but they certainly deserve to.” - Stevie Mclaughlin
[Mastodon – The Beast Sure Is Burly] “Ten years doesn’t seem like much, but that’s just the nature of the beast. You have to work, work, and work, and a lot of people ask me, ‘How do you guys do it? How did you get signed?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, you need to find three other dudes that are willing to sacrifice everything including their jobs and are willing to get into a van and start touring.’ None of this happens overnight. For some bands it does, but not us. You just have to stay out there and keep working at it. That’s what we’re doing and it’s been 12 years.” – Bill Kelliher
[Serpentcult – To Nature…And Back] “There is no discussion if you put only four songs on an album, you either swim or sink. It doesn't allow the album to be filled with fillers or half-arsed songs; if one of the four songs fails then 25% of the album (and in my opinion the whole album) is already ruined. The album is one theme, and all four songs are connected. We had more songs for the album, I think we recorded like six or seven but these four tracks form the essence of this album, there was no need to add anything else. How we do that is a matter of gut feelings; one can hardly explain songwriting.” - Frédéric Caure
[Obscura – Tech-ing It Up In North America] “What I love is that the American fans are more open-minded. They’re into so many different types of music that it makes it easier for a band like us to come over and play. The driving distances are another thing, but it’s something I’m used to. I’m very happy I’m traveling with a bunch of guys that are fine guys. I would be very difficult to drive in a bus or a van with a bunch of guys everyday where we were getting on each other’s nerves. We don’t here. I never had any stress with these guys so far [laughs].” Linus Klausenitzer
[Ghost Brigade – Fear Is the Key, You See] “We've come a long way, for sure. In all possible aspects. We are better songwriters, we know better what we want from this band and most importantly, we are finally a team. In the beginning, playing this kind of music was very, very difficult for us, and thus we had a lot of arguments and we basically broke up during the recordings of both of our first two records. It was intense and in retrospect, quite ridiculous behavior. Now, after five years of doing this, I finally feel like the growing pains are over and we can just concentrate on the relevant things instead of arguing and whining all the time.” - Wille Naukkarinen
[Cipher System - Storm Chasers] “We don´t claim to be the most original band in the world, of course we sound Swedish. Many people say that we sound like a band coming from the Gothenburg area but that we have something that makes it sound like Cipher anyway. We have no intentions of sounding like other bands - we just make music in our way, but we as all other bands have influences. So the answer to the question might be that we try to make music that we like and if it accidentally sounds like another band it is not our intention.” – Henric Carlsson
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