One day I see a banner with beautiful abstract art and something about shred so good it shames player twice their age (well, arthritis has it's say there, let's be fair to our elders). I decided to Google the band and that took me to their Bandcamp page where they had two songs for my listening pleasure: Creationed and Recreationed from their full length debut Astrodrama. A everflowing masterpiece of modern prog it only took one of those songs to sell me the quality of the album. I bought the album, along with a shirt and all the posters they had by the artist behind the cover art, that's how much that song impressed me. It ended up topping my 2011 list, kinda along with Last Chance to Reason and Unexpect though, and still gets regular spins on my perpetual playlist.
This new album will probably throw a lot of people off who expect more of the same but it's in an artist's nature to grow so whatever you think of this new self-titled album you've gotta give them credit for a ballsy move to a rockier, less tech sound.
To be honest the new album didn't wow me as quickly as Astrodrama did but it's slowly but surely growing on me. With all the new music I've been listening to lately, along with exams and work, I haven't been able to give it the proper listen it deserves so I'll postpone a final verdict to a later date. Sitting here listening to it I definitely recommend checking it out though. It has some killer parts that are getting stuck in my head already so I don't doubt that it'll be a member of the 2015 playlist elite.
1. In some of your artwork and imagery you tend to have some symbols related to Eastern philosophies and religions, is this something you closely relate to? I've seen live photos where your vocalist Joshua was sitting in a lotus position, presumably in an instrumental break so I imagine it's at least partly connected.
Tom: I think when you are in a small southern town like ours (mesquite, tx), some kids tend to gravitate towards philosophies that are sometimes the opposite from the ones we grow up with. Eastern philosophies were apart of the many new ideas we surrounded ourselves with in our later teen years. Those designs and promos are a bit dated, but we will always remember what we were trying to convey when including peaceful images like those.
2. On Astrodrama you had a pretty deep concept going on, is there some cohesive theme or idea through the new album?
Tom: It is from the viewpoint of our namesake, Athena. As you can see from the cover, she has evolved and the songs are telling of what she went through to get to that evolved state. Songs lyrics range from certain events in her evolution to messages she received to her actual viewpoint of the story.
3. In a recent update regarding the new album you said you wanted to put a bigger emphasis on Athena. What is Athena to you (if not the original deity I assume it refers to) and how do you plan to put a bigger emphasis on her?
Tom: I think her meaning to us has changed over the years. Now it kind of symbolizes what we were when we named the band that 8 years ago, and that is being young and curious about music and where you wanted to take it. We still have the name, which is confusing to some, but we don't want to let go of that child-like curiosity have and the name reminds us of that. We could have named the band anything, but for some reason we chose her. It's not like she is our god or anything, but because she IS important to our band we felt to connect the album imagery to her.
Tom: Yes, Dennis Konstantin worked with us on the first albums designs and we still owe him a debt of gratitude. We just wanted to simplify everything this time around and have Athena on the cover. A portrait is a great way of simplifying and the current artist Luis C. Garcia had the perfect portraits of figures with an evolved nature. He is a great artist and just did some stuff for Circa Survive, how cool!
5. Since you first started playing material off the new self titled album you made it clear that it would be quite different from Astrodrama, was this a conscious decision after looking back or was it more of a natural progression?
Tom: It was natural in some ways like songwriting. This time songwriting was different in a lot of ways, closely resembling to how we just jam for fun. No one told anyone else what to play and I think there are barely a few parts where the guitarists double up on the same part. As far as production, I think there were just things we wanted to hear this time that I don't think we could get with the same type of production as Astrodrama. We needed more dynamics, varied tones and just a little bit of mistakes so you can tell it's us.
6. When reading reviews about Astrodrama I would see references to influences ranging from Between the Buried and Me to Blink 182. Are there any big influences you feel like everyone failed to mention or notice and have the influences changed a lot between albums?
Tom: Yea, I think people tend to overlook the grind influence apparent on some songs, and the whole section of instrumental that we did. We had a singer and we still decided to do that section, but it's because of a love for that style and the value that having no vocals bring to music. The influences have definitely changed a lot and in some ways reverted more back to the original rock influenced bands that got us into music. We wrote Astrodrama back in 2009 so our music tastes had all been evolving and are something completely different now. It wasn't intended at all, but I can hear on the self titled album influences ranging from Swans, Circa Survive and Tool have crept through.
7. This year has been really great music-wise, any favourite 2014 releases so far?
Tom: Trying to think of some of the stuff the guys have been excited about... Aphex Twin, Swans, Baring Teeth, John Zorn, Flying Lotus, Big KRIT, Ab Soul, too many to name.
Tom: Yes, we got to use a few different guitars, Les Paul silverburst, Fender jaguar, a sweet Paul Reed Smith model, and our guitars. We used an Engl and I think tried a Dr Z amp. For bass we used the Verellen Meatsmoke bass head, which blew everyone away. For drums, I know Austin got use a custom snare built by Kurt Ballou!
9. If you could collaborate with any artist, visual, musical, whatever, who would you want to collaborate with and what would you make?
Tom: It would be cool to work with any of the main artists that work on the Adult Swim Network, in particular the creator of "Off the Air" and a lot of the artists he collaborates with. Something involving different visual artists like those and our music would be great together!
10. Anything else you would like to add?
Tom: A personal thanks to you for your continued support through the years! Please keep in touch and let us know what you think about the new stuff. To everybody else, please give us a chance and let us know what you think!
Thank you WAOA for the interview, the great music and for making a purple shirt.
You can check both albums out on Bandcamp and buy them there or through Prosthetic Records. The Self titled album is found above and Astrodrama is below:
More ambient?
More tech?
More klezmer?
Only time will tell.
Jón Þór