Photo Courtesy of Earsplit PR
Industrial solo-act Author & Punisher a.k.a. Tristan Shone is one of the most unique performers in music today. A former mechanical engineer, Shone left the field to study art and sculpture. He creates his own instruments, including a drum machine that looks like a robotic fist, and a neckpiece microphone that amplifies his trachea. Alone from behind his mechanical fortress he delivers harsh, beat-driven live sets that envelope the audience like a thick black cloud.
I caught up with Shone before a captivating and sufficiently loud appearance at Toronto’s Hard Luck Bar to talk about the visual aesthetic of his instruments, why he never intended to make industrial music, and how he fits into the metal scene.
Author & Punisher’s latest album Melk En Honing (Dutch for “Milk and Honey”) is available now, and you can watch the puppet-filled video for “Void, Null, Alive” below.
Photo by Francesca Ludikar
For nearly a decade Skye Sweetnam was a bonafide Canadian pop star. She released two solo albums and had fans all over the world. But in 2011 she surprised more than a few of them when she debuted her new band Sumo Cyco, a blend of modern metal, punk, and ska. After years of having major label support, Sweetnam’s career is now purely DIY. The band has built their fan base from the ground up, independently recording their debut album Lost in Cyco City (2014) and filming a series of ridiculous music videos. I caught up with Sweetnam before a recent performance in Toronto to talk about how fronting the band stacks up to her former mainstream success, why playing perfectly isn’t always the key to a great show, and how a certain Canadian pop icon should perhaps also follow their heart into heavier music.
Sumo Cyco will be co-headlining a NXNE showcase with metallers Diemonds this Saturday June 18th at the Bovine Sex Club in Toronto, and they’ll be playing with Ill Scarlett on Canada Day July 1st in Hamilton at Club Absinthe. They’ve also got some U.K. dates lined up for the fall. You can check out the crowdfunding campaign for their next album here, and watch their video for “Crowd Control” below.
Photos by Adam Wills
What more can be said about U.K. grindcore icons Napalm Death? Beloved by metalheads, punks, and rockers alike they’ve been flying the grind flag for 35(!) years, and basically created the genre with the legendary album Scum in 1987. The band incurred numerous lineup changes early on, with literally no original members left in the band today. But the current lineup has more or less been the same since 1990’s Harmony Corruption (the major exception being guitarist Jesse Pintado who passed away in 2006).
They’re also arguably the most politically active band in extreme music, and maybe in guitar-based music in general. For example vocalist Mark “Barney” Greenway received a lot of mainstream press last year for his attempt to reach out to President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, who is inexplicably a fan of the band, in an effort to persuade him to overturn the death sentence of two Australians who had been convicted of heroin smuggling in the South Asian country.
Napalm Death’s latest album Apex Predator/Easy Meat is also perhaps the band’s most well-received release in decades, garnering high praise from both fans and critics. I met up with Greenway at the Toronto stop of their recent eclectic tour with The Melvins and Melt-Banana to talk about the reception of the new album, the impending U.S. election, and even their famous mention by superstar comedian Jim Carrey on the Arsenio Hall show.
Napalm Death have European and South American tour dates lined up throughout the summer, and Apex Predator/Easy Meat is available now on Century Media Records. Check out their new video for “Dear Slum Landlord” below.
Napalm Death - April 19, 2016 - The Opera House, Toronto
If there’s an “it” band in heavy music these days it’s Sweden’s Tribulation. They’re currently riding a wave of popularity and rabid critical acclaim from their third album The Children of the Night which dropped just over a year ago. The band plays a distinct combination of classic heavy metal and hard rock focused through their death metal roots, as such the majority of praise has been for the uniqueness of their music. Think of Judas Priest with dirtier guitars and death metal vocals. It’s a style that has the potential to appeal to a wide group of people, so it’s not surprising that the band has already been on tour with a variety of bands like Cannibal Corpse, Deafheaven, and Grave Pleasures.
Although old-school metal seems to be the sonic heart of the group, their penchant for corpse-paint, flamboyant stage attire, and vampiric imagery has got them tagged as a “gothic” band. Although that’s perhaps only aesthetically true, combined with their eclectic sound it creates an engaging mystique both live and on record that is truly captivating.
The band recently passed through Toronto supporting black metal icon Abbath, and I caught up with guitarist Adam Zaars to the speak about their classic metal influence, the whole “goth” thing, and why they feel it’s important to play for different kinds of audiences.
Tribulation has a number of festival dates scheduled throughout the Spring and Summer in Sweden, Germany, and The Netherlands. The Children of the Night is available now on Century Media Records, and you can watch the video for “Strange Gateways Beckon” below.