Nesseria - S/T CD

Nesseria started in 2004, have played over a hundred shows all over the world and have 3 split releases under their belt and I just got to know them... it's a strange world! Their new album was just released on Trendkill Recordings and on the promotional heap of flyers, cards, stickers and whatnot that came with the CD they claim to be "chaotic grindcore with metal parts. A mixture between Nasum and Converge, with a personal and modern approach.". Well, part of that is right, part of it isn't. I wouldn't really call it grindcore to be honest. OK, it has blastbeats, but that alone doesn't really make a band "grind", does it? The Converge part is very true though, the vocalist seems to have listened a lot to Jacob Bannon and the music is very similar, be it without the melancholic songs Converge has on each album. "Choatic hardcore with blastbeats and metal parts" would make a better description in my opinion. Now just because it's not as "grind" as they claim it to be doesn't mean it's bad, of course. I quite enjoy this self titled album, really. It's well executed, with a decent production, fitting the music quite well. With all the promo made for this album and the album itself being more than decent, Nesseria could win many hearts I think, especially with openminded hard/grind/metal(core) kids!

www.myspace.com/nesseria
www.myspace.com/trendkillrecordings
Stino

The Irradiates – Audio mental manipulation device 12"

I don't know anything about surf music, except the classic stuff like Dick Dale or The Ventures and the bands from my home town Besançon... In fact I think that only two bands played surf rock in our local scene: Hawaii Samurai (RIP) and The Irradiates (with 2 out of 3 members of Hawaii Samurai). The Irradiates is a relatively new band, they've been playing for 3 years now, spreading their music on the beaches of France, Switzerland, Germany and even Norway! They released a first 10” with a bunch of cover songs, then a split 12” with the great French hardcore band Lost Boy, and recently this new album with all new, own material! This new full length was recorded in Chicago by Steve Albini (classy isn't it?) and is totally killer: eleven songs of audio mental manipulation, indeed they all sound surf rock but the band has many influences. From the punk rocky songs (“Well stated”) to more melancholic songs (“dark clouds”, “Sun projector”) etc, each part of this release has its own universe and it's very easy listening and good to dance to as well! Who could guess that such music could come from the gloomy east part of France? DO NOT miss them if they play in your area, you would miss a great moment of crazy scientific surf music! Available on 12" and CD!

www.myspace.com/theirradiates
Pibe

Fuck The Facts - Unnamed EP

Fuck The Facts is one of those bands that you like or you don't. Some think they're too progressive and experimental to be labeled grindcore, others think they add something to the genre... I'm part of the last group. The mix of grindcore, deathmetal, hardcore, mathcore and what not is not new, but the band keeps in interesting. So again in their new release, the "Unnamed" EP. What actually are leftovers from the full length album "Disgorge Mexico" are to me some of the best songs I've heard from the band. There might be a little less of the wacky stuff in them and a bit more of The Fast than on the full length, even though the songs are still pretty long (but all is relative of course. But don't worry the eri "Time Is A Dictator" brings a nice pauze between all the noise, so you don't get flooded with blastbeats. The production is flawless and the artwork is very cool too. What else is cool is that band decided to release the EP themselves, so if you want to support Fuck The Facts for real, buy the "Unnamed" EP, all the hard work they've put into this (and the DIY touring) must be funded, and this is the only way to do it without moneygrabbing labels running off with half of the profit!

www.myspace.com/fuckthefacts
Stino

SATAN - Demo CD

Satan, what a funny name… the question is, what can we expect from a band with such a name? Some bad ass Black metal? Not at all! Satan is a new French, let's say, “Grindcore” Band. This new entity from Grenoble plays a Mix of grindcore and black metal, something in the middle Darkthrone and Unholy Grave, it's very well digestable and interesting : The sound is dirty as fuck and the songs are pretty raw, with some evil vocals and it all sounds really good! The artwork is very interesting as well! Some nice drawing from Chokko 1er, a young artist from France! Too bad that this demo is so short, about 7 or 8 minutes of music only… but after that you know what to do: press play again and enter the world of nasty blackened grindcore! If you like filthy grind stuff, you really should get this release, you won't be disappointed, the whole demo is available to download on their myspace too, just check their blog!

www.myspace.com/metalsatan666
Pibe

Fuck The Facts interview

The 10th of March Fuck The Facts will hit Antwerp and Stino had a little chat with Topon (guitar)!

Hey Topon! A new European tour for Fuck The Facts, you must've enjoyed yourselves here last year?!

Of course we had a great time! Even if we didn’t enjoy ourselves last year, enough time has pasted that we all at least remember having a great time. I actually didn’t think it would be this soon that we would come back, but the stars aligned and we’re gonna be getting on a plane in less than a week.

The band is doing this tour D.I.Y. (like it should imo), what's the reason for that? Most overseas bands use booking agencies etc, isn't that easier?!

Fuck The Facts is a DIY band. We don’t like waiting around for people and have no problem getting our hands dirty to making sure things are happening like we think they should. That’s not to say that we don’t get help from other people, but the general rule is that if you want something done right (or even at all in many cases) you have to do it yourself. This time around we got the help of Koppa from Agi-punk to book most of the European tour. The guys from Doomstar booking (who did our last European tour) also helped out. There’s no real reason and I can’t say that it’s easier or harder, because both times the booking process was pretty much the same. It’s just the way it is. We knew we wanted to tour Europe and we had to find a way to do it. Luckily enough people in Europe were interested in making this happen as well. In Canada and a lot of the US every show is booked straight through us, but in Europe it just made more sense to get some help.

Could you give me the 3 biggest differences between touring in the US/Canada and Europe? Any tips for European bands that want to go overseas?!

The biggest difference is probably that the hospitality in Europe is much better than North America. Feeding and giving a place to sleep to a touring band isn’t expected as much in the States or even Canada for that matter. Beer and hard liquor is cheaper in and better (in my opinion) in Europe as well. You guys also have all that fizzy water everywhere, Mel loves it, she’s always looking for it over here since we did our first European tour. The only tip I can give to a smaller European band that wants to tour the US, is prepare for the worst. Make sure you have all your paper work together and don’t expect anything. But that’s pretty much my rules for touring anywhere.

Just before the tour you released a new, unnamed, EP, also on your own. Tired of waiting for labels etc to release stuff?

Maybe that’s one way of putting it. But it’s more like we wanted to try doing it all ourselves. We put a lot of time and effort into our music to make sure we’re creating something we’ve very proud of, so we need to work with people that feel the same way about what we’re doing as we do, and it’s not easy to find. We had a tight deadline to get this EP done in time for the European tour, so the best solution seemed to be to do it ourselves. It’s actually been quite rewarding in many ways. The response has been really great and even when I look and listen to this record there’s a bit of additonal pride knowing that we did this ourselves from scratch.

The EP came after the split with Leng Tch'e and the Disgorge Mexico LP, all in one, are you guys a fast writting band?

We definitely are. We have 3 people in the band that are always writing music, so we have tons of songs and ideas sitting around on all our computers, as well as new shit that comes out just from jamming as a band. 3 of the 4 new songs from the EP are actually left-overs from our next album that didn’t make the cut. We always have tons of music on the go, because when ever we’re not tour we’re writing. It’s just the way we do it.

What are the future plans for Fuck The Facts?

After the European tour we’re going to finally release our ‘Disgorge Mexico’ DVD. It’s been in the works for a long time and we finally have it completed, just didn’t have the time to release it before tour. Then we’ll be touring the US in May and playing Maryland Deathfest. We should be doing a Canadian tour with more US dates in the late summer/fall. During all this we’re gonna be finishing our next album which I would like to see released by the end of the year.

Ok thanks and see you on the 10th!

Stino