WITH DRA WAL
Brett: The last effort your band put out was Faith, Flesh and Blood; how does the sound of the split or LP compare to that of this release? Also are the lyrics still in the same fashion since I always find much of what you write to be an interesting view on the world. Adam: The new material we’ve been working on is quite varied. There are some songs that are much more in the vein of our earlier Unknown Misery-era style of metallic hardcore, there are some songs that are a bit more thrash, and some are really slow and evocative. The LP is going to have lots of peaks and valleys, and I think the game plan is not to overstay our welcome on the record. “Reign In Blood” is 28 minutes long, and I think any hardcore records longer than that are a bit overkill, so we’re aiming for around that run-length, plus 2 of the slower more evocative songs on there. One song with the working title “ghost town” is really interesting, there is barely any distortion on it at all, it sounds closer to Codeine than say, Integrity or something. It has e-bow and lots of reverb and a weird drum beat. I think it’s going to have a great feel to it. That being said, as for the split we’re doing with Young And In The Way, I think we consciously set out to write showcasing the harder style of ours. I almost said Hard Style, blech. What I mean is, our earliest songs would really hit you over the head with the aggression. We figured that Young And In
I’ve been friends with Adam of Withdrawal for a while and with their new split and LP on the horizon, I decided that I should sit down and talk to him about it, Holy Terror, the music scene and their California cohorts Crucified (of whom Adam can talk about forever)
The Way have carved a niche of theirs playing fast, blast friendly blackened crust, so we didn’t want to write a side that is too similar to theirs. So I think a bit of knuckle dragging aggression that might have been lost on Faith, Flesh & Blood returns on the split. Joel thinks the songs sound like 100 Demons on acid. Lyrically, I think I’m always coming from the same place. I write about normal human relationships and experiences and veil them in obscure imagery. One song on the split is called “Human Garbage Existence Disease” and that’s about my daily walk home from my job in downtown Winnipeg past this mall here called Portage Place to an area of the city called Osborne. Winnipeg has a lot of street crime and a problem with homeless people, and I guess one of the ways they tried to revitalize downtown in the late 70’s was to build this big box mall smack dab in the middle, and all it really did was become shelter for all the human cockroaches downtown. So basically, walking past there every day listening to music watching these crappy people picking up cigarette butts off the ground or jumping people, shit like that. If you lived in Winnipeg you’d understand. I think most people would expect me to sing about Satan or something, and I guess sometimes I do, but you can find your own meaning in my lyrics or you can just accept it when it’s about how disgusted I am with shitty inhabitants of a run down mall in downtown Winnipeg.