 |
| Zero Fire |
On March 22nd, Zero Fire is going to release their second EP via their BANDCAMP page. You'd do well to see what's going on there.
For a paltry five dollars CANADIAN, so $3.75 USD, you can have six tracks of their well crafted, and slightly left of center metal rock.
Today's a good day to peep their stuff on FACEBOOK too.
In the meantime, let's find out what their favorite records are....
1. My favorite kind of album is the concept album. The Wall is my absolute favorite. Beyond the amazing songs, it has spectacular nostalgia for me. What's your favorite one and why?
Graham King (Clean Vocals and Guitar): I'm a big prog fan, so I've definitely listed to my fair share of concept records for sure.
Interestingly enough, I'm much more of a music guy than a lyrics guy, so while I may listen to a lot of them, I'm normally not really getting pulled into the world that the artist is trying to create.
If I had to pick, I would probably say the first Good Apollo record by Coheed and Cambria. I can listen to that record front to back and still enjoy it, even after having heard it so many times over the years.
Mike Myszkowski (Bass): One that comes to mind is Thrice's The Alchemy Index; if you just put that on Spotify there's no question when the music has moved from one element to the next.
I think that's an accomplishment.
Erik Thorkildsen (Drums and Vocals): The Ocean put out an album in 2013 called Pelagial that starts off bright and beautiful.
Over the progression of the album is shifts to ending slow, murky, and extremely sludgy/heavy. I loved the concept of this album and all the special edition packages they had available for it.
2. My very first album was Live Evil b Black Sabbath. Since then I've had a strong affinity for the live record, even if they're a bit fake. KISS set the bar with Alive!. Surely, it was fake, but it's got the best concert feel of any one.
Tell me about your favorite live record?
ET: The Acacia Strain - The Most Unknown Known. It's them after releasing my personal favourite album of theirs, Continent.
It's just a great recording, tons of energy, and it's available as a DVD or just straight audio. Super heavy, super straight forward.
MM: The mark of a great live recording is that it makes the album version obsolete in your mind. Pantera's 101 Proof does that for me; you'll never catch me listening to the album version of Cemetery Gates.
I also have a playlist of live versions of every song off Bleach because I love those songs but the drums on the record just don't do it for me.
This way you get Dave Grohl smashing the tubs as God intended. Even though Zero Fire has never elicited a comparison to Nirvana, I feel like Erik and I both strive to emulate the simple yet powerful approach that Dave and Krist took toward supporting the music.
3. There are a great number of records I've turned to for my moods. What do you listen to when you're angry? Sad?
MM: I don't really listen to music when I'm angry. Radiohead and Elliott Smith are pretty great to be sad to though.
ET: Angry would be Slipknot - IOWA.
Sad would be AFI - Sing the Sorrow.
4. One of my friends laughs at me, routinely, for loving the Misfit Toys of albums by major bands. Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed, Carnival of Souls by Kiss, Diabolous En Musica by Slayer, etc.
What's the strange one that you love?
GK: This is an awesome question because I feel like there are a lot of albums like this that go under the radar but are really solid records that maybe just came out at the wrong time, or another big record really dominated the scene at the time it was released, but one of my favorite records like this is probably Smashing Pumpkin's "comeback" record, Zeitgeist.
This album crushes to me, tracks like Doomsday Clock and Tarantula. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker, who did so many great Queen records among other things.
The whole album was recorded without any computers, just straight to tape. "United States" is this crazy 10 minute jam out track that Jimmy Chamberlain apparently did in one take.
Love that record.
And strangely, it's not even on Spotify or anything, I think Billy Corgan pulled it off, so I guess he wasn't happy with it?
It's almost like it's just been retroactively but I really enjoy that record because it's just full of riffs. Definitely the heaviest Pumpkins album, at least in my opinion.
MM: Back in 2008 Green Day released an album as "The Foxboro Hot Tubs." They just posted a free album on a website that looked like it was for a small town hot tub dealership.
The songs were legit as hell and word never really got out about it. I thought it was pretty cool for a band of that magnitude to do something like that just for fun.
5. It's almost fashionable to release live versions of albums or re-record the old ones. King Diamond is releasing a concert with Abigail front to back. Roger Waters has done The Wall twice. Which ones do you have in your collection?
GK: I'm not the biggest fan of the whole re-recording old stuff thing. I feel like you've kind of got one shot to present the "studio" version of your tunes, because if you re-record something, and it doesn't have that same magic or energy that made someone fall in love with it in the first place, it's just not the same.
I do get the idea of trying to get the thing sounding as perfect as you can, but sometimes something can sound like absolute shit, but still be an amazing song, and there's something really endearing about that to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment