2012 really sees them hitting their straps and kicking on in a big way. Their lineup is solid and strong, after a period of instability, and the last twelve months has seen them sign to an American label, rerelease their first two albums Stateside and traverse our mighty nation several times.
The way ahead now seems very clear, and the next 12 months looks to be even more hectic for this world class Australian heavy act. Three of the band’s number joined us for a long, friendly and detailed chat recently in a cafe on High Street in Northcote.
“Mostly we’re focusing on the EP we’re putting out in May,” the very chatty drummer Daniel Luttick informs us, “it’s called Zero Degrees Freedom. It’s gonna be five tracks, one new track previously unreleased, and four reworked of the previous songs….basically we’ve decided to do that because we didn’t have time to put a five track EP out with all new songs in amongst everything else we’re doing at the moment.
“The new song is pretty heavy,” he continues with a wink, “one response to it was, from this person that’s heard it, is that we couldn’t get any heavier. It’s very intense. The song’s called Dimension Zero, and it’s at a ‘cool’ 232 BPM, so yeah it’s definitely up there!” he laughs, with heavy understatement, “I’ve definitely woken up in the middle of the night in cold sweats thinking about how the hell I’m going to play this song! But it’s a really cool track, I think a lot of people are going to take to it.”
The new EP should tide fans over very nicely until the band releases their third album, which is in the works but probably still a ways away yet. Signing to the American label has apparently opened up a number of possibilities recording wise, for this band who have thus far been completely self produced.
“The next album, we’re not sure what we’re gonna do yet,” Daniel speculates, “thanks to our connections with our label Rogue Records America in the States, we basically have access to some really great facilities. One of which is the studio that Raymond Hererra from Fear Factory co-owns, in LA. It’s a long way off yet, but the talk of recording there hasn’t been completely dismissed yet. And having someone like Raymond step in as a producer or whatever, nothing has been decided or dismissed upon…yet. But at the end of the days it’s going to come down to finance and that sort of thing.
“For the mastering of this EP…Mike Spreitzer from DevilDriver has taken it on, and that’s come through Rogue Records, so they do a lot of really good things for us. Mike’s come on board and said he’d do it for whatever price, as a favour to us and to the label.”
The new EP is to be launched this weekend, alongside an awesome local heavy lineup. It’s a venue that suited them perfectly for this very important date in the band’s current schedule. However, there won’t be a full tour in support of the release, with the band working on a nationwide jaunt closer to the end of the year.
“Great venue, great stage, great sound system,” Daniel enthuses, “when we came approach venues, it was perfect. It’s the right size venue for us, it’s a great size stage for us, plenty of room to move around. We like to move on stage.
BY ROD WHITFIELD
