Shakes on a plane
I have absolutely nothing interesting to write about at the moment, but wanted to say, "Hi." Hi. Right now, I'm recovering from day one of the 4th annual Chicago Powerfest, where Scarecrow and I saw a number of extremely talented bands. Heading back down to Chicago Godforsaken Heights for the conclusion tonight. My interview with Nils Eriksson of Nocturnal Rites, one of tonight's headliners, ran yesterday and can be viewed here... expect a full run-down of the weekend's performers in the forseeable future.
Been a bit of a disappontment on the movie front lately, with "Eaten Alive", "The Mad Butcher" and the original "Fantastic Four" all coming up short. However, I've recently enjoyed some albums I got for free, which include but are not limited to: The Flaming Lips' At War With the Mystics, HORSE the band's The Mechanical Hand, Nanook of the North's The Täby Tapes, In Flames' Come Clarity, David Gilmour's On An Island, Maroon's When Worlds Collide, Stephin Merritt's Showtunes and Dysryhthmia's Barriers and Passages. Many thanks to those of you who floated me copies of some of these.
Ladies and germs, I am proud to leave you with "TV Funhouse" episode #107 in its entirety. If you never saw this sleazy parody of a children's program on Comedy Central, I am very sorry. It was brilliant, and way more distasteful than "Wonder Showzen." There were only eight episodes made. I continue to hope for a DVD.
Been a bit of a disappontment on the movie front lately, with "Eaten Alive", "The Mad Butcher" and the original "Fantastic Four" all coming up short. However, I've recently enjoyed some albums I got for free, which include but are not limited to: The Flaming Lips' At War With the Mystics, HORSE the band's The Mechanical Hand, Nanook of the North's The Täby Tapes, In Flames' Come Clarity, David Gilmour's On An Island, Maroon's When Worlds Collide, Stephin Merritt's Showtunes and Dysryhthmia's Barriers and Passages. Many thanks to those of you who floated me copies of some of these.
Ladies and germs, I am proud to leave you with "TV Funhouse" episode #107 in its entirety. If you never saw this sleazy parody of a children's program on Comedy Central, I am very sorry. It was brilliant, and way more distasteful than "Wonder Showzen." There were only eight episodes made. I continue to hope for a DVD.
posted by SoulReaper at 11:45 AM
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Nocturnal Rites to make U.S. debut at Chicago Powerfest
After a voyage taking them many miles and years, Nocturnal Rites has finally arrived.
Yet, as the Swedish metal band makes its live American debut this weekend during Chicago Powerfest 2006, it begins a new quest: to capture the attention of Stateside metal fans.
Powerfest was spawned by members of local bands Ion Vein and Twelfth Gate. Now in its fourth year, it's gained enough momentum to move to a larger venue (Mr. Kelley's Music Box in Chicago Heights) as well as host an array of international acts. Italy's Eldritch and England's Biomechanical perform for the first time in America tonight, while last year's headliners Morgana Lefay return to join countrymates Nocturnal Rites on Saturday. Also on the bill are Los Angeles veterans Agent Steel, Minneapolis' Gracepoint and Madison's Mirror Black, while local participants include Ion Vein, Twelfth Gate and gothic black metallers Withering Soul.
Chicago Powerfest features a type of band you won't see at Ozzfest or Sounds of the Underground. The main draw is technically demanding progressive metal and heavy power metal. But while "prog" isn’t as dirty a word as it used to be, "power" is subjective, even a little contentious.
Used as a shorthand description by journalists and publicists alike, "power metal" is often treated like the "emo" tag. In 2006, when bands like Gamma Ray and DragonForce are embarking on their first U.S. jaunts and the likes of Avenged Sevenfold co-opt power metal traits for mainstream radio, the term nonetheless carries a stigma that keeps most performers from embracing the designation. Just as every emo band will tell you they really play "alternative pop" or "post-hardcore," the majority of power metal bands prefer "traditional" or just plain "heavy metal."
To be sure, the quick tempos, guitar harmonies, high-pitched vocals and fantasy lyrics associated with power metal all have their place in Nocturnal Rites' catalog. Beginning as a traditional Swedish death metal outfit in 1991, the band soon dipped into the anthemic melodies and clear singing of old-school heroes like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Helloween. Their debut, In A Time of Blood and Fire, appeared on the tiny Megarock label in 1995, two years before fellow Swedes HammerFall kicked off the European power metal explosion with their hugely popular Glory To the Brave.
The band continued, achieving better distribution and tighter songs. Yet beginning with Afterlife, the band's fourth album in 2000, Nocturnal Rites made some crucial changes that took them away from songs about besieged kingdoms and rings of steel. First was the addition of distinctive, emotive vocalist Jonny Lindqvist. Second, the production brought out a heavier tone in the guitars of Fredrik Mannberg and Nils Norberg, giving them a fuzzier, almost industrial weight. Third, the songs themselves breathed with midtempo structures and textures that, considering the power metal trend, were both traditional and forward-thinking.
Many of their peers still follow the template Nocturnal Rites helped revive, but the Swedes allow their own personality to shine through. That penchant for individual identity and honest songcraft has lead to a rapturous reception for their recent seventh album Grand Illusion (Century Media). While energy doesn't flag in songs like "Never Trust" or "Never Ending," the record's character is better experienced in the dense, keyboard-enriched trudge of single "Fools Never Die." Reminiscent of both vintage Dio and recent In Flames, it sticks in a listener's head like a stadium anthem and gets it banging like a real metal song should.
Bassist Nils Eriksson called to discuss Illusion - which should not in any way be confused with the old Styx album - as well as the Nocturnal Rites appearance at Chicago Powerfest. Following is an edited transcript of the conversation.
Q: Why did it take so long for Nocturnal Rites to play in the U.S.?
A: I think it's circumstance. We've had offers before to come over, but it's always been in the middle of something else. Touring in Europe, doing other stuff in the middle of an album or whatever. But it really feels good to finally get over there and do our debut show in Chicago.
Q: When you got offers before, was this early on or after you got with Century Media? I know you've been with them for a long time.
A: Well, there's always been talk about us coming over to the States and touring or doing a few shows or whatnot, but it's just never worked out for some weird reason. Fate or whatever (laughs), I don't know. We're just glad that it's happening now, with this album. The response has been great. It just feels good.
Q: What’s your concept of a good song? What do you feel should or should not be in a Nocturnal Rites song?
A: I think there are very few "should nots" in a Nocturnal Rites song. It's the balance between melody and aggression. I think a lot of bands in this genre sort of lack the aggression part. It's supposed to be, you know, metal, but a lot of bands come off sounding melodic and that's it. There’s no raw energy, no nerve, no spunk in it. But I think we have a definite balance between the melody and the aggression. Actually, I don't know if "aggression" is a good word for us, but you know what I'm talking about.
Q: Yeah. Ever since Afterlife, you guys have really beefed up the sound. It's been much thicker and fuller since then.
A: I agree.
Q: Was that a decision you made with the producer, was it something you came up with and then went to him, or what?
A: Actually, we've never really sat down and made decisions musically before. We've just written songs that we felt like doing at the moment, and things have just come out as they have, for I don’t know what reason. I think maybe that's why every album's a bit different from the others and why we always keep things fresh. We don't sit down and say, "Hey, last time was cool, but it was maybe a bit too melodic, or too dark or too heavy or too fast" or whatever. We just start with a blank sheet and that's it, we just go from there. That way everything comes out different every time. It's always fun and refreshing to write new songs because you never really know where we're going to end up. That way it's interesting for us as well as for the fans to hear the final product. As far as producers, we've never really sat down and had discussions with them either. It's just always been that we come there and start recording, and that's it. We go until we're satisfied and things sound great.
Q: Grand Illusion has been getting really strong reviews, which I think is pretty interesting. To me, it doesn't sound all that different from what Nocturnal Rites has been doing on the last couple of albums, but a lot of reviewers seem like they're hearing it for the first time. Do you feel it's very different from your past records?
A: I think production-wise it's a bit different. I think it sounds a bit more mainstream, maybe. It’s not as noisy as Shadowland or Afterlife. It's maybe a bit more user-friendly (laughs), if that's a word you can use. As far as songwriting, I think it's a bit heavier, it's got more progressive parts, and overall I think it's more even than some of our older albums. It's really hard for me to analyze records because I never really listen to them when they're done. I'm really happy about the reviews and the fact that people like it, because we worked really, really hard on this album. We spent maybe eight months writing it, every night, just going back and forth through the songs, making sure we had the best material before we went in the studio. We mixed and remixed and we came back and did things all over again. When we came out of the studio, we knew we had a great album. I'm just happy about the response.
Q: It's been pretty unanimously positive. I always thought you guys were a band that totally got the shaft, like everyone thought you were just another power metal band. From the beginning, I thought you guys were far above average.
A: I think maybe with this album we've managed to step away from the average power metal thing. I think a lot of bands in this genre... I love melodic music, I love melodic vocals, but when you pile melody on melody without substance, after ten songs there's just a big bucket of melodies that you can't sort through. Like I said, the thing about the balance. Even though we write really melodic and memorable songs, they still have an edge, they're rough in some way. A think they appeal to people not only into melodic metal but people who like other genres of metal. I think it's a broader album, maybe, in that sense.
Q: You didn't start Grand Illusion with a fast song like you usually do. Was that a conscious decision, to start with "Fools Never Die"?
A: We chose that for the first single and first video in Europe. We just thought it was a good opener, and just the fact that in the past we've had fast songs at the beginning of a lot of albums, we chose to go a different way this time. So I guess it was conscious in that sense. We just wanted to do something different. It's a song I think a lot of people can relate to. It's easy, it's memorable, it's straight in your face. It's just a normal metal song that you could hear anywhere, even on the radio. I think it was a conscious decision, at least for me.
Q: You guys had a lot of guests on this album, too. Were any of them particularly interesting to work with?
A: All of them were. The most interesting one, I guess, was the skier Per Elofsson. He's a cross-country skier, we grew up together a little bit when we were kids. He's like a household name in Sweden. So that was cool, he came in and did some noises to get the album to stand out a bit. But on a musical level, I guess, Jens Johansson has always been... I remember listening to the old Yngwie albums when I grew up and I've always loved his playing. It was cool to have him on one of the albums because we'd met him before.
Q: And Kristoffer W. Olivius from Naglfar... are you friends with those guys?
A: Yeah, sure. I mean, we've known them since, I don't know how long, but we sort of grew up together playing music and doing local shows, so we know those guys. They're from the same town as us.
Q: How do you feel about the term "power metal," versus saying a traditional heavy metal band? Do you think that term has a positive or negative connotation?
A: I think a few years ago, it was very cool to play power metal. It's not cool anymore (laughs). I mean, for some reason, we've always been a step ahead of the genres. Like, in '95, our first album came out and we played what I would call power metal, with the whole imagery of warriors and swords and all that crap. But we stopped doing that in '99, 2000, when that was at its peak, you know? We did Afterlife, and that was really different. I think we're still called power metal even though I wouldn't really call our music power metal anymore. It's just metal, melodic metal.
Q: Are there any bands that you can think of that you feel are bringing new ideas to the traditional metal format?
A: I very seldom listen to much metal at all, at least melodic metal of today. I listen to more, um, country music, to be honest (laughs), just normal pop music, because I love that kind of stuff as well. I listen a lot to my old albums from the '80s like Bon Jovi and Foreigner and all that stuff, and I love a lot of harder music. I love In Flames, for example, right now, and there's a lot of old death metal bands I love listening to. But, sure, there are a bunch of great traditional metal bands today. I think Evergrey is a good band.
Q: What are you hoping for from your first U.S. show?
A: I'm not sure, actually. I think it's cool to actually start out on a festival. It would be harder to go out there on your own and do some club shows and not even be sure you'll have any people there. I think it's a good start. It's a big city, we'll definitely have a full house, and it's going to be a great night when us and Morgana Lefay play. I'm just hoping to do a great show. We've played a lot this year and I'm sure we're going to do great.
Q: Do you still do some of your old songs or do you stick to the newer albums?
A: We do songs from pretty much every album. Maybe not the first one, but at least when we play headline shows, when we do like one and a half or two hours, we do songs from pretty much every album.
Q: Do you have any final words for the people out here in Chicago?
A: No, I'm just glad to finally get over to the States and bring some real metal.
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