From Chicago comes HEMI, a power trio that, on their way to world domination, just released their studio album Avalon. From the opener Re/Vengeance (in which the Bad Brains in their best hardcore mood knock on wood) to The Final Deletion, HEMI shows itself to be a power trio in which their unified force is many times greater than the sum of the individual parts. With fierce, personal lyrics by bass player Trent Zuberi, who together with drummer Mike Cieplik provides a rock solid basis, and the adventurous input of guitarist (and keyboard player) Tim Wilkens, the band offers with Avalon a versatile listening experience in which classic metal ingredients together with multicoloured and imaginative accents are successfully assembled into aural cluster bombs. Listen to the intro of Decay and the instrumental Avalon Averted, songs in which atmospheric music creates a cinematic space in the head in which images are chiseled that - long after the songs have finished - remain in place. More as an addition than standing in stark contrast comes Death Wizard, a knuckle sandwich of a song in which the instrumental ornaments between the choruses provide exotic highlights. From Death Wizard it goes at a gallop to the steel staccato riff of Darkhorse, after which The Final Deletion marks the end of a metal trip that, with its 25-minutes, might have taken a little longer.

TRENT:  I personally am rooted in older metal from the 70's and 80's with a big emphasis on the power side such as Manowar and DIO and then to the thrash aspect of Anthrax and Megadeth. I also absolutely love 80s New Wave and Pop. 
​My biggest contribution to the album were the lyrics. Which I bring from personal feelings along with fantasy-like storytelling. I would say the emotion of my lyrics is always rooted in some feeling I am experiencing or a personal aspect I am dealing with but I like to also tell a story because I feel like I want to give the listener a chance to put themselves in the shoes of the story alongside me. I am a huge fan of metaphors and symbolism as well, my lyrics are littered with it constantly and it's such a trip when someone actually picks up on it or catches it because then I know they were seeing it through my eyes. I always like to keep in mind that a musical work is just as much a story as it is a composure. Yeah the riffs and beats will pulsate through your body and make you bang your head but if you can captivate someone with words strong enough that it moves their mind as much as their body, you really engage a listener in a much deeper way.

TIM:  Trent and Mike are much more rooted in classic metal and thrash as well as classic rock.  While I have great respect for the originators, I draw much more influence from metalcore, melodic death metal, prog, and punk.  My favorite bands combine different sub-genres of metal into a cohesive sound (Revocation comes to mind), and with our contrasting influences that was our goal on Avalon.
When it comes to musical influence in writing, I have played classical and jazz piano my whole life so I always had appreciation for metal bands that add those sounds into their music.  Many don't realize how much commonality there is between metal and classical music, and now more and more modern prog bands like Intervals are incorporating jazz stylings into their sound.  Beyond that, I am a huge hiphop fan of all kinds, just as much if not more than metal!  I find the two genres strike a perfect balance when thrown onto the same playlist  

MIKE:  I am very into the classic "big-sound" powerful bands such as Led Zeppelin, Metallica, DIO, and Iron Maiden. Pretty much anything with a big booming sound.
Outside of metal I am really into Jazz. It's one of those genres that I grew up listening to that always interested me, specifically as  a drummer. Some of my biggest influences are Chick Corea and Dave Weckl. Their fusion styles really opened my eyes to what more is possible from a drummer as it relates to other styles.

Trent Zuberi - Lead Vocals, Bass Guitar
​Tim Wilkens - Guitars, Keyboards, Backing Vocals 
Mike Cieplik - Drums and Percussion 

Next in a series of interviews with Brazilian metal bands comes PANDEMMY. Founded in 2009 by lead/main guitarist Pedro Valença, PANDEMMY is a metal band that expanded their death/trash sound throughout the years with influences coming from in and outside metal. After Self-Destruction (demo 2010), Dialetic (EP 2011), Idiocracy (EP 2012), Reflections & Rebellions (Album 2013), the band released Rise Of A New Strike (2016), a marvel of an album: vigorious and versatile with an almost delicate feel for melody, a collection of superb songs that feels like a metal symphony. Wagner & Heavy Metal asked Pedro Valença about the band, their musical influences and their goal in life and music.

1.  My first question about PANDEMMY. What is the exact line-up of the band?
 
Pedro Valença - Hi Metalheads! We are PANDEMMY, Brazilian Death Thrash Metal band! The exact line-up of the band is Pedro Valença and Guilherme Silva (Lead Guitars), Rayanna Torres (Vocals), Marcelo Santa Fé (Bass Guitar) and Arthur Santos (Drums).
 
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2. What is the metal scene like in Brazil at the moment? Is it growing and alive? Does is know many subgenres? If so, which of the subgenres is most popular?
 
Pedro Valença – Brazil is a very big country. there are several metal scenes depending on the region. In general we have great bands and a good schedule of shows. Some cities have difficulties with venues and equipment. We still do not have the level of public that Europe and the United States have. This also hinders the creation of major festivals. Extreme music has more space in the current scene, because Sepultura and Krisiun are big bands that influence a lot of other bands. We also have great melodic bands like Angra, Hangar, André Matos, Terraprima and Hibria.
 
3. Does each band member bring their own specific influences or are all the band members into the exact same music?
 
Pedro Valença – We have influences in common in Heavy Metal, especially in Death Metal (Carcass, Morbid Angel, Death) and Thrash Metal (Megadeth, Kreator, Destruction, Sepultura), but each member likes other types of music.
 

4. What is the writing dynamic among members of the band (does one person write or is song writing more a band effort)?
 
Pedro Valença – Me and Guilherme are the main composers. When rehearsing new songs, any member thinks about the parts that can be modified. About the lyrics I also like to write them.
 

5. I hear many diffferent influences in the music of PANDEMMY (thrash, death, progressive metal). What are the influences of the band outside metal?
 
Pedro Valença – Great question, my friend! We like pop music (Lana Del Rey, Michael Jackson, Adele, Dido, Alanis Morissette), some things from the 1990s (Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Soundgarden), hard rock (Uriah Heep, Gun Sin), blues, classical music and movie soundtracks.
​

​6. I noticed that the band, sometimes, remembers a bit of DEATH. A band like DEATH (read: Chuck Schuldiner) implemented increasingly complex song structures into their thrash/death sound. How do you see your own musical development? Are there (musical) areas that you still want to explore?
 
Pedro Valença – Thanks for the compliment! Chuck Schuldiner and Death is a great and present influence. I think we evolved on the second album. We like to keep a dynamic between the tracks. This dynamic can give the impression that we are technicians. Our compositions flow, are not intentional. We will never be something like Math Metal (?!) or Technical Death Metal.
 

7. What  inspires the band the most when it comes to writing lyrics?
 
Pedro Valença – The injustices of the world. Few lyrics approach personal issues. We are a heavy metal band that doesn’t support any conservatism. It’s sad to see headbangers supporting politicians like Donald Trump, Le Pen, Joko Widodo, Mauricio Macri or Jair Bolsonaro. These people hatch the egg of fascism.
 

8. Does the band believe in heavy metal (the kind of metal that you play) as a force that can change things for the good (as music that can raise awareness about, for instance, political and environmental issues)?
 
Pedro Valença – Absolutely !!! Heavy Metal has come to break paradigms. See our heroes. They all grew up in oppressive environments, suffered from prejudice, addictions, any kind of violence. They made music based on their inner demons. We better understand life through these life experiences. I think Heavy Metal (and Rap) have great potential to change people for the better. Talking about politics, ecology and emerging issues (such as the new wave of fascism) is necessary. We cannot relieve the danger that the planet and society are in.
 

9. What was the biggest gig of the band sofar (in and/or outside Brazil)?
 
Pedro Valença - Our most three shows was on Abril Pro Rock Festival (2012) supporting for Exodus, Ratos de Porão and Brujeria; Roça n’ Roll Festival (2011) in the state of Minas Gerais for Wacken Open Air Metal Battle Brazil and Hellcifest (2017) supporting to Abbath and Amon Amarth. When the economic crisis is over, let's plan our first tour in Europe.
 
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10. Final question for now: do you have any specific goal in mind for the band (besides world domination)?
 
Pedro Valença – Music is art. Entertaining or raising awareness are our goals. Make people feel good with our music. Make the most of shows, at most places, launch good albums and dominate the world. Thank you for interview. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Keep spreading the PANDEMMY!

From the land of Hrvatska comes Dreamborn. Roaming the musical landscape where Dreamtheater, Ayreon and Nightwish harvest for ideas, this Croatian metalquartet delivers with Seven Deadly Sins an album that is every way as convincing as the listener - familiair with the names mentioned above - can wish for. Dreamborn is about good music, a welcome reminder of the times that predate the born of nu-metal (think Iron Maiden & Helloween). (Don't get me wrong, I love Faith No More but one joke about Mike Patton comes to mind "with FNM Mike Patton invented nu-metal, with Fantomas he said sorry". One can only keep up so long with Korn and all its incarnations.) Back to the heavy metal that still will be relevant 20 years from now. If Dreamborn will be around by then only time can tell but the kind of music in which they show themselves skilfull & versatile, heavy metal with a strong taste for melody, certainly will. 

From the keyboard-intro until The Sign this album is a trip to enjoy for those who want their metal forged along strong melodic lines and founded on tight instrumentation. The cumulative strenght of guitar, bass, keyboards and drums creates a heavy, if somewhat keyboard-loaded, sound in which Dreamborn show themselves solid songwriters. It results in a 40-minute canorous, symphonic metal fest. The drums on the record deserve a special mentioning. Created out of MIDI-samples by Goran Radočaj & Hrvoje Hrženjak (and sounding very organic nevertheless) they give this music an edge and forward-moving-power that's impossible to resist. The vocals from Goran Radočaj are smooth yet powerful - perhaps a bit too smooth to deliver a lyric like "I have killed..." (in the song Seven Deadly Sins). Together with the glorious chorusses (e.g. in Life) it wraps text & music into a fantasy-kind of veil; a depiction of the human condition in an elevated stage where emotions are channeled into a dreamlike kind of state (and when we return from planet Dreamborn, after we woke up, we feel enriched and face the day just so much more easier).

Seven Deadly Sins is 24/7 music (right now I'm having it for breakfast, for all the right reasons, it's a perfect start of the day) and to indulge myself I'm about to give it another spin.

Goran Radočaj - vocals
Ana Radočaj - guitar 
Hrvoje Hrženjak - keyboards
Saša Cvitkušić - bass
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This hilariously informative book, in which prejudices and opinions are presented as scientifically proven facts, as they should be, and proved besides being indestructibly entertaining, a kind of sentimental journey. A History of Heavy Metal according to Andrew O'Neill touched on more than few occasions on my own journey through the musical landscape.

The opening of Beethoven's Fifth was one of the first encounters with music I can recall.

The Beatles were THE band of my youth.
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Helter Skelter was probably the first heavy metal song I heard, without me knowing what heavy metal was. Helter Skelter probably was the first heavy metal song, without Paul McCartney knowing what heavy metal was. He couldn't. The expression was coined by Lester Bangs after he heard Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin (more than a year after Helter Skelter was released in 1968). But then Helter Skelter was perhaps punk. Years before the Ramones, Johnny Thunders & The New York Dolls came to be, light years before The Sex Pistols saw the light of day – so much for genres and their boundaries. (There is a strange thing about genres. Genres are invented to map the musical landscape. And then all music has an obligation to fit within a genre.)

Genre boundaries are exactly what Andrew O'Neill does care about. Not always but when you want to prove (like he does) that heavy metal is the best music in the world, it's important to get your definition about what heavy metal is strict & straight.

So Andrew O'Neill (never heard of him before by the way) begins to explain what is  – according to him – definitely NOT heavy metal (any album that came out before Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath, Nickelback, your band) and what can be considered as heavy metal, even when it is not music (skulls, goat skulls, your mum). Andrew O'Neill is a comedian and it shows. But a comedian with some tricks on his sleeve.

He works his way back to the origins of his favorite music genre and comes up with some informative (and funny) observations. (“Metal fans are better than the rest of the population and that's SCIENCE.” LOL! And something that's addressed directly to me: “It's entirely possible to love heavy metal while still dressing like a - whisper it - normal person. But why the fuck do you want to do that?” LMAO!)

In search for the origins of heavy metal O'Neill reminds us of the heaviness of Howlin' Wolf. He makes a bit of fuzz about the difference between hard rock and heavy metal (like we care) but is a bit hazy about explaining it. (My shot: Hard rock is rock 'n roll on steriods and heavy metal is rock without the roll, expanded with some heavy chromatism.)

He talks about extreme and heavy music and there are some observations I might add to his. About learning the subtle variations of something that sounds like mayhem when you first hear it. The fascination for music that takes you where you didn't go before. Music that's like looking at clouds while waiting for the moment until you start recognizing faces. The liberation and energy when those faces appear. (In this regard it’s interesting to look at the differences between a grunt and a melodic voice. The difference between, say, Obituary and Queensrÿche - with opera-derived vocals. The different vocal styles changes, or should change, the music more than just the sound of it. The primal power of the grunt, the lack of melody of it, finds in the best of black and death metal, its compensation in the instrumentation. I don’t believe in melodic grunt, it’s a bit the worst of different worlds: melody in poor sound with no faces in the clouds.) My fascination for extremism in music brought me from Slayer to Kurtag. My taste for melancholy brought me from heavy metal to Richard Wagner.

Heaviness in music is not defined by volume. Musical heaviness is about the “downer”-effect it has on its listener (the kind of sorrow that feels good). Death (the band) on low volume is still heavy music. Morton Feldman's – totally not loud – Rothko Chapel is extremely heavy music. Play Sky Radio loud and it doesn't become heavy music (it becomes sound pollution). Heavy music is heavy music on all volume levels and decibels only go so far to communicate that heaviness. Decibels are limited to what ears can take. (Mind my tinnitus, the day Lemmy engraved a tattoo on my eardrums)

Interesting and enteraining. And did I mention that The Neil Gaiman found it hilarious?  

One of my favorite metal albums is Individual Thought Patterns from Chuck Schuldiner's Death. Heavy metal ear candy made by Schuldiner's vocals and guitar, Andy LaRocque's guitar, Steve DiGiorgio's fretless (!) bass and Gene Hoglan's drums. Neck breaking tempo changes and transcendental tutti's that together make it into great songs. It's music that liberates with guitars searching for heterogeneous arpeggios rather than monotous power chords. You will not find their music labeled as progrock but more than bands like Queen, Savatage and/or Dream Theater, I consider Death (from their album Humans on) to be one of my favorite progrock / metal bands; progressive song structures in music that crosses borders, burns like h*ll, never cease to fascinate and has a taste for the theatrical as well.

Chuck Schuldiner's life was cut short by a life threatening disease (and the US healthcare system). He died on 13 december 2001. ​(WdM)

To work oneself back through the catalogue of a favorite composer or band and find out that their early work already was full of substance and on moments eclipsed the music that would save their names for posterity. It happened with Richard Wagner (I like his first two operas, Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot, both more than Rienzi, his most famous pre-Fliegende Holländer opera) and it happened with Iron Maiden. Their debut album is a fresh heap of metal in a punk coat and I prefer it over a lot of their later output. Singer Paul Di'Anno sounds more pop and punk than metal. We're still a few years away from the band that would grow into a football stadium rock act. Compared to the Bruce Dickinson-years Maiden sounds on their debut album like a band that still has to make up their mind on a lot of things but the signature sound (with Steve Harris' galloping bass and the brazing guitar appergios) is already there. 

Paul Di'Anno possessed a charisma that was undeniable. With an unwavering refusal to let his hair grow, he performed with the brash defiance of a punk, infusing that genre's energy into the sometimes overly technical world of heavy metal. His snarling, piercing voice catapulted Iron Maiden to the heights of the charts, especially following the release of Killers in 1981, an album that became a landmark in what would come to be known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Yet, as so often happens in the tempestuous lives of those on the cusp of greatness, Di'Anno's fortunes began to unravel. Steve Harris, the band's founder and bassist, deemed Di'Anno too unreliable for their impending breakthrough, largely due to his rampant cocaine use. And so, in 1981, he was dismissed, replaced by Bruce Dickinson, whose tenure would indeed elevate Iron Maiden to the status of one of the greatest bands in the world.

Di'Anno pursued a solo career thereafter, performing tirelessly for many years, even as illness confined him to a wheelchair in his later days. But throughout, he would always return to the repertoire he had been privileged to perform with Iron Maiden, the very work that had made him a cult hero.

His personal life, however, was far less heroic. In 1990, Di'Anno was convicted of domestic violence after threatening a girlfriend with a knife while under the influence of cocaine—a crime for which he would later confess to feeling lifelong shame.

Shortly after his death, his former band honored him with a gracious tribute, acknowledging his pivotal role in their early success: “His pioneering work as our frontman and vocalist, both on stage and on our first two albums, will always be remembered with affection—not only by us but by fans around the world.”

Remember Tomorrow is a song of superb schizophrenia. A song that carries its teenage resentment with a mature attitude and will be forever linked with its singer. 

David Bowie considered Glenn Branca for a mutual project (there was a short collaboration between the two but the result never saw the light of day). And Scott Walker made a stunning album with Sunn O))). Stranger than fruitcakes and unlike anything I heard before (which is very much a recommendation). 

Belonging to the same generation of pop & rock stars, Lou Reed made, perhaps surprisingly, a more conventional choice when he was looking for a partner for his Lulu-project: the boys from Metallica. Creator of repertory that's considered by many as the Holy Grail of Heavy Metal, this collaboration with the former member of the Velvet Underground was received with both disbelief and expectation. Announced as Berlin meets Master of Puppets. As a result, Lou Reed even received death threats from Metallica fans who blamed him for destroying the career of their favorite band (did they really need Lou Reed for that?). 

Was it that bad? It has a weirdness that obviously alienated Metallica fans who - when “Master of Puppets" is mentioned as reference for a upcoming Metallica-album - lose, whatever there is left, much, if not all, of their capability to keep an open mind for new music.

The result is a poetry-slam over a metal jam. It milks out a few good ideas in songs that are in need of a good edit. It sounds like something that is stuck in pre-production. In a way it is the worst of both worlds and Reed, even by his standards, sounds off-beat and detached. But then, was "Berlin" not the same kind of monster? A singer who is losing himself in songs that, very often, are lasting too long. A shortcoming also Metallica-songs tend to suffer from. And Reed, being his own book, with that unique voice that tends to nag if you don't have a taste for it. Lulu is very much a Lou Reed-record. Don't try to make it through this album searching for "Ride the Lighting" and "Master of Puppets"-references because you will find nothing here but the title of the album-song "Frustration" closing in on you.

In a way "Lulu" is like watching an accident waiting to happen. Reed rhymes and Metallica plays. And more than once the rhyme master is losing it when the band puts the pedal to the metal

The Lulu on the album cover looks a bit like Louise Brooks with bleached hair. Louise Brooks played Lulu in the movie Pandora's Box from G.W. Pabst in 1929. A film noir that, almost 90 years later, lost nothing of its glamor and elusiveness. Louise Brooks - there is only one Lulu because there is only one Louise Brooks - is seductive and dangerous (for the men who love her and dangerous to herself). She is an impossible woman but we hate to see her go. When she has her death wish fulfilled by the hands of Jack the Ripper we feel a knot in our stomach. 
​
Compared to the Lulu of Louise Brooks and that other incarnation of Frank Wedekind's brainchild, in Alban Berg's opera, Reed's portrayal of this femme fatal is by far the most one-dimensional. His Lulu drives solely on anger and frustration and it's hard to see why she attracts men in the first place. Her death comes only as a salvation. We are not challenged to sympathize with or feel anything for her. 

But for all what is missing here, solid songwriting to begin and to end with, Lulu from Lou-tallica became a kind of guilty pleasure for me. It's an album I learned to appreciate for what it is: a Lou Reed-album with Metallica jamming in the background. The best ideas on the album are in the first half. I like Miss Distress and Pumping Blood which gives us Metallica being their thrassiest self. A feel and approach I wouldn't mind if they could bring it towards their next studio-album.
​
For what it's worth, David Bowie thought "Lulu" was Lou Reed's best effort. Up there with "Berlin". (WdM)

No staccato-style guitar riffs but chords, heavily distorted, slowly moving forward. Like bricks and grit that are poured into the ears of the listener. Welcome to the drone metal of Sunn O))). Minimal music made with maximum means. Minimal when it comes to changes in tempi and chord progressions. Maximum when it comes to the use of instrumental and vocal forces: guitars, accompanied by violins, cellos, trumpets and a choir. But minimal music is perhaps not the right term to use here because the absence of changing time signatures and changing chords every few seconds does not leave us with soundscapes that are short on ideas. Although this music draws on repetition this is not the Philip Glass copy-paste routine; music in which the curiosity towards the next note has vanished. The musical landscape of Sunn O))) is an organic hatch. It breaths, not unlike orchestral music, and is more versatile in composition that you will give it credit for at first hearing.

Their Monoliths & Dimensions is in my CD player for some time now. I simply can't stop listening to it. The music on this album is like a symphony in four movements. Eine symphonie des Grauens. A painting in black and grey. It's music for all moments of the day though. And music that works, like all good music does, on all volumes. In the morning it is, played on low volume, like a growling hound that's slowly waking up. A bit like the dragon that is disturbed in his sleep by Siegfried. But the dragon here is served by more than just a simple leitmotiv. More a leporello of a leitmotiv.  A simple theme unfolded and expanded in time. Slow and heavy chords drifting in an ocean of stone and rock in the first movement: Agartha (like the Miles Davis album named after the legend city in Earth's core). The vocal lines for the choir in the second movement: Big Church have a neo-classical touch to it, say Schönberg's "Friede auf Erden" or Ligeti's "Requiem". When the choral singing starts in "Big Church" the beast illuminates. The dragon is gaining conscious or (in reference to the album's title and the movie 2001: Space Odyssey) the monkey has touched the monolith. An illumination short lived because in the third movement: Hunting & Gathering a grunted voice takes us back deep into the primal mind. With the trumpet in the fourth movement: Alice we reach the conclusion, the next evolutionary stage. Here the beast becomes civilized and the music, finally, shed some light. It's like the slaying of the dragon, PETA-style. With trumpets instead of swords. 

It was around 1340 that the poet Petrarca noticed, walking on the Mount Ventoux, that the landscape he witnessed influenced the thoughts that were on his mind. Thus he advised everybody to take a good stroll, once in a while, for the benefit of an uplifting spirit.  Nietszche sad "Yeah right!" more than 500 years later and added to Petrarca's finding that everybody should make his own landscape. For that landscape we don't need to leave our chairs anymore because we enjoy the benefits of recorded sound. Nothing better than music to give your imagination a boost and create landscapes in the mind. Wondering through mystical worlds of sound that marvel the brain, relief the mind and bring in new ideas. With the musical landscapes of Sunn O)))'s Monoliths & Dimensions that is no different. It's a marvelous and transcedental record. ​(WdM)

 There was a time when I could not come across the fruit & vegetables department in the supermarket without screaming “Roots, Bloody Roots” at the bananas, apples and carrots that were there in front of me.  

Well, that's not completely true. But the metal from Brazilian band Sepultura was from the very infectious kin. Their album “Roots” was a breath of fresh air in a genre that was not too well known for its eclectism. Formed by the brothers Max and Igor Cavalera, the band drew attention of metal fans worldwide with their album “Beneath the Remains”. This was thrash metal at its best. Sounding like it was coming from the San Francisco Bay Area, rather than the country that gave us samba-to-dance-to and football-to-inspire-us (Pele, Garrincha, Zico & Socrates), the album was a headbangers ball to remember.  

After Roots Max Cavalera left Sepultura and formed Soulfly. I lost track of him after that but was more than pleasantly surprised when I came across his latest output with this band. It sounds by times as a return to his thrash metal roots after the world music influences on “Roots” and the first Soulfly album. The riffs in his music were never among the most original but the Cavalera groove is still unique. And still infectious as h*ll. ​(WdM)