Carl Begai

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s still June but I decided not to wait on posting this stuff. Just wait until it gets to mid-July and I’ve got more music and tidbits to yap about. I’ll actually have to get creative with the title of this column…

When Forever Dies, featuring former Scarlet Sins vocalist Sylvya NuVynska, has posted the final mixed version of the new song ‘What Have You Become? online. A great little tune featuring Syl in a rather aggressive place, backed by a band featuring (get this…) keyboardist / everyman Matt Guillory and guitarist Marco Sfogli from Dream Theater frontman James LaBrie’s solo band, Halford bassist Ray Riendeau, and drummer John Pacheco, who performed on the Scarlet Sins debut and shared the stage with Syl in Surface Underground. The track was made to sound big and fat by Rush producer / engineer Rich Chycki, who also produced the Scarlet Sins debut. Check out What Have You Become? at this location.

A full album is in the works, more news on that coming soon. (continue reading…)

By Carl Begai

It’s disconcerting watching my home town going up in flames. Particularly when the people running the place invited the violence and mayhem to stop by for a visit.

I’m not particularly well-versed in politics. I can name most of the world leaders that matter, I can tell you which ones have screwed themselves and / or others in assorted financial and pull-your-pants-down-and-party scandals, but when it comes to in-depth understanding of bills being passed and assorted issues being tabled I’m painfully clued out. Willful ignorance on my part, I suppose, based on a conclusion I reached long ago that the vast majority of the suits at the top put their own interests above the average You and Me. An unfair blanket statement, true, but at the moment I’m nowhere near feeling charitable.

Case in point with the G20 summit, which landed in Toronto this weekend and turned the downtown core into a battlefield. Defined as “an informal group of 19 countries and the European Union, with representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank,” the purpose of the gathering – near as I can tell – is to discuss global financial crises (a breakdown can be found here). I’m not convinced that I fully understand the purpose of the G20, but assuming I’ve wrapped my brain around the above definition correctly the morons organizing this little soirée clearly missed their own point. By a country mile. (continue reading…)

Sharlee D’Angelo recently sat down with me to discuss the new Witchery album, Witchkrieg, for BW&BK (found here). The interview eventually turned to focus on his main priority, Arch Enemy, who have spent the better part of the last year touring in support of their Root Of All Evil updated retrospective album. Given that it’s been three years since the band’s last all-original outing, Rise Of The Tyrant, the question was raised as to how long of a wait is in store for the next Arch Enemy studio record.

“It’s definitely in the planning stages” says D’Angelo. “It’s just that ever since we changed our whole organization a little bit, things are so much smoother and going so well now that we’re self-managed. So many offers have come in and we’ve been playing places we’ve never played before. It’s like, we’ve confirmed a show in the Maldive Islands this summer (laughs); things like that you can’t say no to. And there’s the mainland European festivals, of course. We’ve made a plan now, so shows after the tail end of November that we had scheduled, we scrapped all those so we can get into the fucking studio.”

The band isn’t necessarily ready to go with brand new material, however. It’s still very much a work in progress. (continue reading…)

Photo by Carl Begai. All rights reserved.

By Carl Begai

Tell a metalhead who cut his or her teeth in the ‘70s and ‘80s that a new grunge-influenced band is making some serious noise and watch them reach for the earplugs. A hair-trigger reaction for anyone that watched helplessly as metal took a pounding with the scene-altering rise of Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam in the early ‘90s. Thus, news of an Ottawa-based alternative rock / grunge act by the name of Doll gaining momentum in the press and on the touring circuit was met by yours truly with a “So what?” reaction. Curiosity killed the preconceived notions, however, as a surprisingly painless listen to songs available online revealed grunge is only a very small part of the Doll sound. If anything its a disservice to use the term. Doll’s sound is in fact a gritty mix of indie rock, punk and metal, with only a twist of grunge here and there. Call it mayhem played at street level guaranteed to appeal to the flannel-wearing angst-happy holdovers and beer swilling rivet-heads alike. A pleasant surprise in spite of what some folks are calling it.

“It’s funny because it started off that way,” says vocalist / guitarist Christina Kasper of the self-inflicted grunge tag, “but everyone in the band likes heavier stuff and we have a lot of different influences. Over time Doll became more of a harder alternative rock band. We’re not a metal band, we’re not a punk band, and we’re not a straight up rock band, so it’s kind of good for us because we can be opening up for Genitorturers one week, the Spinerettes the next week, and Lacuna Coil the week after that. We’re able to touch a lot of these different genres at the same time, which is pretty cool.” (continue reading…)

By Carl Begai

When Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson takes it upon himself to inform people that your music kicks ass, it’s a safe bet you’re on the right track.

Guitarist / vocalist Dave Reffett received just such an endorsement for his solo project Shredding The Envelope in February 2010 during a broadcast of Dickinson’s BBC 6 Friday Rock Show, who referred to the debut, The Call Of The Flames, as “a must have album for guitar fans.” A former student at Berklee College Of Music with a resumé boasting time spent working for Sanctuary Records and EMI, Reffett was and is still blown away by Dickinson’s accolades. Being able to bring in noteworthy guest performers like George Lynch, Joe Stump, Glen Drover, Michael Angelo Batio and Chris Poland was a triumph in itself, but receiving praise from the legendary frontman gave Shredding The Envelope an added boost of credibility in the eyes of metal fans that had no idea who Reffett was.

He remembers the jolt.

“Dude… wow. I emailed Bruce Dickinson’s producer and asked if I could send some stuff, and he went for it. I got an email later on saying I should check out the playback of the previous night’s show, but I had no idea Bruce had commented on the album. When I listened to the broadcast I was blown away. I was grinning for three days (laughs).” (continue reading…)

By Carl Begai

When he’s not in the studio or on the road with Arch Enemy, bassist Sharlee D’Angelo keeps himself busy working on other projects rather than wasting his time on things like sleeping. His long suffereing thrash n’ roll band Witchery have officially ended four years of silence and scheduling nightmares and completed a new album entitled Witchkrieg. Sharlee and I recently sat down to discuss how he and The Haunted guitarist Patrik Jensen actually found the time to write and record and new Witchery album given that they’ve spent the last few years touring the world in their own respective day job bands.

D’Angelo: “Absolutely nothing has changed. A few more grey hairs but that’s about it. Throw into that the fact that our drummer Martin (Axenrot / Opeth) has been busy touring as well and there’s been no time to get together. The big problem was being able to get everybody in one place at the same time, which was the same problem we had for the last album (Don’t Fear The Reaper in 2006). At some point when Jensen was home he decided that we had to get the ball rolling, so this was the first time we did what I guess everybody does nowadays and recorded the parts one at a time. That was pretty weird for us, but that’s how things got rolling for this album.” (continue reading…)

By Carl Begai

As comebacks go Extreme’s has been about as low key as it gets. Having called it quits in 1996 in the interest of working on other projects, the band got back to business in 2004 without much more than a footnote to say they were hitting the touring trail. Frontman Gary Cherone and guitarist Nuno Bettencourt babystepped it for the next few years, welcoming back original bassist Pat Badger along the way, eventually releasing the long awaited reunion album Saudades de Rock in 2008. A sign that the second honeymoon was over and Extreme was in for the long haul. Again. More touring followed, which led to the decision to film the band’s Boston hometown on August 8th, 2009 for a live DVD; the first official live retrospective of their career. Entitled Take Us Alive, the package celebrates everything Extreme became known for when they broke big in 1990 with their second record, Pornograffitti. No rust or dust to be seen or heard, for many diehard fans it feels as if the band was never gone.

“The tour was great. Actually, I think it was one of our better tours,” Bettencourt admits. “I think we appreciated everything a little bit more. When you’re in the midst of huge success like we had and you’re doing so much touring, I think you start taking it for granted a little bit. Crowds everywhere you go, all that ‘star’ kind of stuff, you kind of expect it’s always going to be there. Then, when you do what I did and leave the band to do other things, you realize how much you miss everyone; the other guys in the band, the crew, the fans. I think that when we go on stage now we really appreciate every moment and every drop of sweat.” (continue reading…)

Everybody’s got those albums or songs that trigger a memory every time they hear ‘em. Doesn’t matter if you’ve heard the song(s) a billion times, those memories inevitably rise to the surface. Following is a list – in no particular order – of the music that reminds me of where I’ve been, why I was there, and in some cases acts as a cautionary kick in the teeth

Sven Gali – Under The Influence
Meeting the one of a kind metal god Ray “Black Metal” Wallace.

Ratt — ‘Round And Round’
Coolest guitar solos ever laid down by a sleaze rock glam band. Fan for life. I wanted to be Warren DeMartini. Fail.

Alice Cooper — Welcome To My Nightmare
Camping in Algonquin Park, which featured scientific experiments involving Duracell “C” batteries and open flame (lots of it), the Smirnoff flamethrower, an introduction to tequila poppers, and the truth about dry heaves being rather uncomfortable following too much of said liquid entertainment.

Sinergy — Suicide By My Side
First trip to Gothenburg, Sweden, which consisted of hitting every metal bar in town following an Ouzo-fuelled listening session at Studio Fredman. Sharlee D’Angelo (Arch Enemy, Witchery) is either the most talented or most dangerous tour guide alive. The jury is still out on that one.
(continue reading…)

Bummer. The screech is back.

Call that a knee-jerk reaction to lead-off track ‘The Gun Show’, which features the lovely Maria Brink back to the banshee razorblade wail she made her trademark on In This Moment’s debut; something she all but abandoned on follow-up The Dream in favour of a gorgeous clean voice. Kind of off-putting actually, coming off as a painfully desperate one-dimensional stab at making it up to the fans who bitched about her missing edge last time out. Aggression for aggression’s sake. As the album progresses, however, things open up and it comes clear that In This Moment are far from stupid and their well of creativity is a long way from running dry. A Star-Crossed Wasteland is the next logical step in the band’s career – diehard followers should have seen this coming – taking elements from the first two records and bringing them together for a sonic orgy of epic proportions. Brink’s clean voice is unique, captivating and rich regardless of whether she’s belting out ‘A Star-Crossed Wasteland’, the choruses of ‘Standing Alone’ and ‘Just Drive’, or doing up closing ballad ‘World In Flames’. She’s also finds some remarkable middle-ground between clean and over-the-top screaming – and there’s loads of the latter all over the record – on ‘Blazin”, a track that sounds like it was yanked from Ozzy’s recording sessions for Scream. Added to all this are occasional male vocals (‘Iron Army’, ‘The Promise’) that work well alongside Brink, never coming off as Rogers / Parton cheesy or a cheap feminized twist on Soilwork. Neat trick, hinting at what Lacuna Coil with an identity crisis might sound like.
(continue reading…)