Only a few years ago it seemed that death metal had breathed its last, destined to remain in the underground forever while black metal, nu-metal and a new wave of thrash took its place. But something very unexpected has happened over the last few years death metal has returned from the grave, only with a new haircut.
Thanks to MySpace and the success of heavy metal in general right now, a new generation of bands inspired by the extremity of the 90s but born from the all-conquering metalcore movement hasemerged and are unexpectedly taking some very brutal sounds into the spotlight. And while death metal veterans may sneer at the swarms of metalcore acts whose knowledge of death metal starts and ends with At The Gates' final record, its not quite so straightforward dismissing bands such as the fast rising Through The Eyes Of The Dead who, like Job For A Cowboy, are generally lumped into the awkward 'deathcore'category.
"Oh yeah I hate that term actually," laughs guitarist Justin Longshore. "I mean there's so many genres and sub genres it's easy to get lost in it all, but you know we don't really listen to'deathcore' bands and we're definitely not influenced by them."
Indeed, Through The Eyes Of The Dead take their cues from the masters; hell, even the name is taken from a Cannibal Corpse song. Justin himself cites Death as his favourite band, while also enthusing over such luminaries as Suffocation, Carcass, Deicide and In Flames, whose early work he'blames' for the band's melodic side. Despite the baseball caps and tidy haircuts the band's music really doesn't have much to do with anything 'core'and the band - like the aforementioned Job For A Cowboy seem to have captured the hearts of a massive new audience without deviating far from death metal's traditional blueprint of brutality.
Though this achievement is nothing to be sniffed at, it's slightly strange when a band is pigeonholed according more to its fanbase than its sound, a subject Justin has mixed feelings about.
"We really have a mixed audience which is great, our shows draw metal kids, hardcore kids, metalcore kids, old death metal dudes and I think its cool that we can tour with bands that have a whole hardcore crowd and still do well playing with say, Children of Bodom, who have a strictly metal crowd. I've nothing against being grouped with the whole deathcore or metalcore thing, but we're not big fans of that stuff. We play shows with those bands so we tend to get grouped with them, which is fine, but I don't personally consider us a part of that scene. Kids want their death metal nowadays, they are picking up on that and less and less of the metalcore stuff. Actually it's kind offreaky seeing bands like Nile and Behemoth on the top 200 and seeing Job For A Cowboy sell 13,000 in their first week. Who'd have thought that it would get as big as it has?"
It's unlikely that the band themselves could have seen their meteoric rise when they started out some five years back. With over 1.5 million profile views they have benefited hugely from the growing 'MySpace metal' audience, a fanbase largely disconnected from metal's history and culture but one which has enabled new bands to find fast success at a grassroots level. Coming from South Carolina a quiet place which boasts a lot of countryside and rednecks but not a great deal in the way of heavy music the band formed from the ashes of Tell Her I Said Goodbye, a group which blended, amongst other things, death metal, black metal and clean choruses and which Justin describes as, 'kind of off the wall: Following the name change the band were joined by a new vocalist, Anthony Gunnels, and recorded a five track EP in early 2003 which was followed by a split CD [with The Knife Trade] and the 2005 debut full length 'Bloodlust: This successful album was soon followed by a series of line-up changes that left Justin asthe only remaining original 'Tell Her...' member in the band.
"When things started getting serious after we got signed by Prosthetic and recorded Bloodlust', we definitely had to back it up and start touring," explains Justin. "Sadly the guys who were originally in the band really weren't cut out for it. The original drummer quit in the studio right before our first tour. In fact we had to practically beg him to finish the album. The original bassist quit during the tour and then the old guitar player pretty much quit for a girl!"
Losing three quarters of your bandmates would be enough to persuade many people to cut their losses and quit but its clear that Justin is a considerably determined and focused individual. Though he's generous enough to deny it, he is arguablythe driving force behind the band, having made them a full time prospect since the release of'Bloodlust', touring relentlessly with the likes of Terror, Bleeding Through, Unearth, Ion Dissonance, The Red Chord, Children Of Bodom and God Forbid. He remains the sole founding member with vocalist Anthony Gunnells, having been recently replaced by one Nate Johnson [known for his work in Premonitions Of War amongst others] but remains optimistic about the many line up changes.
"I never like to give up on anything and once the band was established I really didn't see a reason to abandon something I'd put so much work into. It actually worked out for the best," he adds. "I look at it as a huge improvement, the band is much tighter and more dedicated, everybody is in it for the right reasons now and there's that drive where everyone gives 110 percent. On our new record the line-up is perfect, we've toured relentlessly and we're just such a tight unit from that, we're just so much more devastating as a band."
If anything, new album 'Malice' sees the band pushing their sound further into the realms of extremity. The decision to up the brutality and use more traditionally death metal vocals as opposed to the screams and clean vocals that are so popular at the moment marks a move away from both their peers and the expectations of fans.
"A lot of people thought we'd go softer due to the success of the last record," laughs Justin. "A lot of bands do that which is fine. Some people want to make a lot of money, but we wanted to stay true, make music that we love to listen to and head in a heavier direction as opposed to selling out or whatever. We had a lot of kids ask if we were going to use clean vocals on 'Malice', and it's not something we would rule out - we're certainly not narrow minded when it comes to music - but right now that's not for us."
As ifto prove a point the new album has been produced by guitar legend Erik Rutan, one time member of the legendary Morbid Angel who's now fronting Hate Eternal. Even more telling is that the band have included a cover of Morbid Angel's'Domination' as a bonus track for the European market.
"This time we wanted a rawer sound, a fat, analogue, warm sound. Even though we recorded in Pro Tools we really didn't want it to come across as too digital sounding as we're big fans of the older analogue recordings. I think Erik definitely helped us achieve that. Actually the first tape I ever got was Morbid Angel's'Covenant'and the choice of 'Domination was mainly because we were using Erik. He even taught us some of the riffs!"
Despite the path the music has taken, the lyrics have, perhaps surprisingly, moved away from the death and gore flick inspired subjects of their past.
"That whole subject's so tired," sighs Justin, "Our last singer was really into serial killer stuff but this time we wanted to write lyrics that more people can relate to. The album title's pretty self explanatory, we're writing about all the fucked up things that go on in the world and the artwork's a continuation of that. Paul Romano [cover artist for Mastodon, amongst others] was really influenced by a World War II artist who was in the trenches seeing all this stuff and painting these grotesque images of malice, and real hatred amongst men."
The serial killer fascination on 'Bloodlust' resulted in the inclusion of a quote from Jerry Brudos, best known as a serial killer, but also as a major foot fetishist. Whether that explains a strange incident the band experienced while touring that album is hard to say, but it's eerily coincidental.
"It was a while back," groans Justin. "A guy in Massachusetts came and asked to take pictures of our feet, saying he was a photographer from a foot fetishist magazine. Little did we know that he was only
using a disposable camera. Looking back the guy was probably just some sicko, getting off on pictures of our feet. Our old singer took that quote but it was before that incident and I don't think he even knew about the foot fetish thing. I mean its not like we're into that shit or anything!"
Ah, that's what they all say. Turns out the band have met their fair share of strange characters during their time on the road.
"One time we were in this small Christian town, our van breaks down and we took it in to get it fixed. Our bass player asked the guy what we owed him and the dude was like,'just pay me in prayer: They all had to like, pray, that was the payment. But as far as strange people go, there's tons of them at shows.
Still that's something these stalwarts are going to have to get used to given that they are rapidly growing in profile and look set to be on the road for much of the foreseeable future. Still despite finding the increased attention a little hard to get used to, its clear that these workaholics wouldn't have it any other way.
"I'm probably the first person in my family to ever travel to Europe and right now we can almost travel for free so yeah, it's very cool. There are a lot more people asking for autographs and stuff now which is also pretty strange. I definitely never thought I'd have to autograph stuff playing in an extreme band. There's a lot of kids who look up to you as well, which means a whole lot to us, so we try and hang out with everyone to be as sociable as possible. But we're touring a lot. We take that side of things very seriously and when you see us live you're really going to know what the bands about!"
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THROUGH THE EYES OF THE DEAD
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