In a recent interview with Sinner bassist/vocalist Mat Sinner about the band’s new album, One Bullet Left, he offered BW&BK his thoughts and impressions on the forthcoming Primal Fear record, Unbreakable, which the band had just finished recording at press time. He reveals the band opted to go back to square one rather than trying to one-up their over-the-top 2009 effort, 16.6.

Following is the exclusive look into the record, due to be released on January 20th, 2012:

“We reduced the journeys to different styles of music on the new album,” Mat reveals. “I’m trying to find the right word… let’s just say there weren’t a lot of strange experiments. We went back to where we started with the riffs, meaning that the main riff is the main point in the song. That’s how we made music in Primal Fear when we first started (in 1997). With Magnus (Karlsson) and Alex (Beyrodt) on guitars, and Randy (Black) on drums, we have the strongest Primal Fear line-up ever, and the shows we’ve done recently prove that. We played Wacken this past summer, we just did some shows in Poland, and it was killer. We tried to get that vibe, that attitude, and put it on the album. We wrote songs that go back to the basics, and some fans will love them for that reason alone. You hear the riffs and you know it’s Primal Fear.”

“It will be a different album. If people want to hear totally innovative and new music, they shouldn’t wait for this album.”

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Normally I shy away from doing live / event reviews simply because I suck at them. Kind of ironic given that’s how I got my start in this business. Fact is I find it almost impossible to express how good I think a show was in print without boring myself to tears. You can only use and re-word the terms “kick ass” and “awesome” so many times until you begin to sound like that idiot hack who shows up for two songs and a shot of Jack, then heads home to compose a glowing review before bed of what he didn’t see. Between bouts of World Of Warcraft and Spongebob.

All that said, I was invited by singer Amanda Somerville to attend a video shoot for the song ‘If I Had A Wish’, taken from the forthcoming Kiske / Somerville album featuring herself and ex-Helloween vocalist Michael Kiske. Also on board for the shoot were bassist Mat Sinner (Primal Fear / Sinner), guitarist Sander Gommans (ex-After Forever / HDK) and drummer Rami Ali. Amanda and I have known each other a long time (yes, I namedropped; sue me ) and Mat has been a long time friend and supporter of BW&BK, so I was more than happy to come down and play a game of hurry-up-and-wait with them.

Besides, it was a good excuse to see if Sander was the metalhead he claims to be. I wasn’t disappointed; the ‘Painkiller’ footage was priceless (a story for another day).

In the meantime, a new video report from Amanda is available here. Below are a few highlights from the experience:

— for the record, ‘If I Had A Wish’ is not a ballad. Not even close.

— the shoot takes place in an old public swimming facility with three separate Olympic-sized pools. A protected historical monument in Nuremberg, Germany that plays on the idea of a Roman bath house. Hasn’t been used in at least 15 years, the pool areas are creepy as fuck, especially without water in ‘em. A splatter movie director’s dream. I would NOT want to be in this place with the lights off.

— colder inside than it is outside by about 10 degrees. And that’s with all the spotlights up and running.

— Sander presents the Sink Of Eternal Ick, the official Eighth Wonder Of The World discovered in one of the change-rooms during the initial look through the place. The porcelain is frickin’ ALIVE, I swear…

— there are many uses for spotlights in a deathly cold room; hand warmer, foot warmer, and in Mat’s case the Left Ball Warmer.

— in spite of the fact cast and crew have been up since 6:00am, completed one video that morning followed by a photo shoot, everyone is in good spirits. Okay, some grumbling about a 2 hour delay but nothing life threatening.

— Amanda heads to the bar across the street for a bathroom break with her hair in mega-curlers, looking like one of Chris Tucker’s favourite girls in The Fifth Element.

— Sander saves a cup of steaming hot coffee after taking a bad step and burning his shred (right) hand in the process. Amputation is prevented when The Girlfriend announces she has the ultimate cure for major injuries: Nivea hand cream.

— I discover that Kiske is not as anti-metal as everyone thinks, he’s simply pro-music. Has plenty of cool things to say about Kai Hansen (Gamma Ray) and Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), and is interested in hearing Helloween’s new horns-n-blues version of ‘Dr. Stein’. Not because he wants to hear them fail, but because he thinks it’s a cool idea.

— Kiske offers up some road stories, including the infamous tale about the rabid Toronto audience that bought up an entire trailer’s worth of merchandise in the space of a few hours when Helloween hit Rock N’ Roll Heaven in 1988 on the Keeper tour. Yes, I was there. No, I didn’t get the T-shirt. Dammit.

— the drums are so loud thanks to the room’s acoustics that the music is almost inaudible. Everyone is deaf after the first take. Just the sound of splashes, crashes and a rattling snare ringing in our ears. Imagine someone beating a fly into mush for three hours using an aluminum dinner tray and you get the idea.

— Amanda’s stylist tells her she might want to tone down her singing a bit so the veins in her head stop popping out. Apparently the camera picks up that kinda thing.

— director Martin Müller uses a discarded coffee cup as a megaphone but ends up sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Still, he manages to make himself understood through a flailing of arms.

— I’m wearing shorts and a T-shirt + a short sleeved shirt, the room is freezing, but only my nose is cold. Really frickin’ cold. Feels like someone jammed an icicle through one of my tear ducts.

— Kiske keeps forgetting one line of the song until Amanda suggests he tape the lyrics to his microphone. He does, it works…

— shot of Jägermeister at the bar across the street during a mid-shoot bathroom break = a moment of genius. Mine of course, especially since The Girlfriend paid for it

— Sander trips over the same light stand twice. Big thing, eight feet tall (not Sander, the stand). No one gets killed but it becomes clear why he ended up wearing the coffee he was carrying back from the bar. He officially earns the title Man With No Control Over The Physical Universe 2010.

— Rami plays every take, almost three hours total. He’s the only person in the room with a body temperature above -2.

— Mat comes dangerously close to having his iPhone ripped off by The Girlfriend when she discovers it takes better pictures than her own.

— when head camera dood Eddie declares “That’s a wrap!” at midnight he gets an assortment of confused looks. The echo in the room is so extreme that everyone thinks he said “That was crap!”

Watch for the video towards the end of the year. More pictures coming soon.

— all photos by Carl Begai, except for the ones he appears in. Those were taken by Alexxx.

It’s shaping up to be a banner year for Primal Fear bassist / co-founder Mat Sinner. Coming off a successful run for the Sinner album Crash & Burn – a no-nonsense rock record showered with accolades across the board, even by fans that had written them off ages ago as a waste of time – Primal Fear’s eighth album, 16.6 (Before The Devil Knows Your Dead), has yanked the band’s loyal fanbase out of the ho-hum stupor caused by last outing, New Religion. Not that the album was particularly horrible, but it lacked the staying power and overall fire of predecessors Seven Seals (2005) and Devil’s Ground (2004). A matter of taste, perhaps, but it’s hard to put down the suggestion New Religion is weak when stacked up against 16.6’s ultra-focused no-holds-barred approach. Chalk it up to a major trimming of the fat with the exit of guitarists Stephan Leibing (amicable) and Tom Naumann (necessary), effectively replaced with the return of Henny Wolter and entrance of Swedish wunderkind Magnus Karlsson. As Sinner tells it, Primal Fear hasn’t felt this good in a long time.

“The last year has been great,” Sinner affirms. “I’m still in love with the last Sinner album because it was something very, very special. I really like the attitude and the music, and I’m really happy this band could come up with such a raw and great rocking album. The vibe in the band is really, really good, and it’s just a question of the attitude of the guys in the band. The four of us working together now under the Sinner name are very good friends. We have the same view of things and that’s really special. If you see us play live I think that comes across, and I think that’s really cool to watch.”

Asked if the positive energy infusing Crash & Burn bled into the making of 16.6, Sinner dismisses the idea. It’s hard to ignore the fact, however, that Wolter – a proven formidable songwriter and player – is now a member of both bands.

“I don’t think so. Primal Fear is a different attitude and a different kind of music. The rock n’ roll attitude we have with Sinner, that whole back-to-basics thing, I don’t think that would be good for Primal Fear. Henny and me did learn a few little things making the last Sinner album, like Dennis Ward (producer) would be a cool partner to have in the studio as an engineer. Dennis always a helping hand, so we decided to work with him on the Primal Fear album, too, but the whole strategy for Primal Fear was totally different.”

Maybe so, but from an outsider’s point of view Crash & Burn and 16.6 share a similar energy. At the risk of sounding prissy, both albums are quite simply a hell of a lot of fun to listen to. Calling 16.6 one of Primal Fear’s best efforts to date isn’t an exageration, and Sinner doesn’t contest the claim.

“You’ve spoken with musicians all over the world, so you know that the new album is always the best,” he laughs. “I’m an honest guy, and the problem I had with the New Religion album was on the guitar front. We were going through a lot of problems, so it was a miracle the album turned out that great. We made the album happen with the help of Magnus and Henny, and it was a good album, but now there’s a different kind of quality on the guitar side of things. This band has a very different character now compared to the last line-up. Stephan’s big job was to handle and make compromises because he had a family to worry about. He was a very good guy, but he couldn’t keep up with us anymore. It was a friendly split, but those problems were reflected on the New Religion album. As for Tom… we don’t want to talk about that anymore.”

Suffice to say the split with Naumann was ugly, centered around his lack of motivation. In-studio conflicts during the making of New Religion made their mark on the band’s collective psyche, and while they may not have impacted the music on a noticeable level they made the recording sessions an unpleasant experience for all involved. Bringing Wolter back and adding Karlsson to the line-up essentially saved Primal Fear from becoming a crumbling mess.

“We had Henny and Magnus come in and we did shows together, we did tours together, which showed the other guys in the band that Primal Fear had a different quality of life with them around,” says Sinner. “Magnus, for example, is not only a good guitarist, he’s a great songwriter, a great keyboardist and singer and producer. He’s a fucking huge talent on stage, he looks good, plays good, has fun, so it was something totally new for us. Magnus didn’t just have a big influence on the new album, he brought in a new kind of vibe. Henny is more the rock n’ roll / metal vibe, and Magnus is more on the technical side, which is a very new dimension for the band.”

“We wanted him to make a big impact,” Sinner adds. “I’ve known Magnus for more than three years and we’ve been writing songs together for that amount of time. It makes a difference if you’re writing songs alone – which he does a lot – and writing together, so this is really a good thing for him not to be totally responsible for something. We’re a team and Magnus is a great team player. He’s also a fun guy to be around; he’s not this shy artist type living in his own world (laughs). He’s got both feet on the ground and I enjoy working with him.”

“We did everything differently this time,” Sinner says of the creative process behind 16.6. “Magnus has a studio in Sweden on a nice lake, so him, me and Henny spent a week at his house and set up the basics for this album. We wrote about 20 songs, then brought them to Ralf (Scheepers / vocals) and Randy (Black / drums). Ralf added his parts and brought a song of his own to the album, but most of the tracks were written at Magnus’ place. Our strategy was to get as many varieties and diverse styles of our metal onto the album, to show what Primal Fear could be, and make a bridge between the old days and the new.”

16.6 is, in fact, very reminiscent of Primal Fear’s third album, Nuclear Fire, released in 2001. They share that aforementioned “fun” factor and a welcome “keep it simple, stupid” attitude even though the band members have grown as musicians and songwriters since the Nuclear Fire days.

“Yeah, and who wrote the most songs on Nuclear Fire? Henny and me (laughs). What you’re saying is totally right and you’ve caught the vibe of what’s going on. Even if we found a path on Seven Seals and New Religion with some of the more dramatic stuff, we still kept the basic feel of Nuclear Fire because the Henny Wolter / Mat Sinner songs are absolutely prominent on this album”

“As the producer I wanted to make the album as interesting as possible,” he continues, “so we included some traditional parts, some modern parts, crazy parts, progressive and experimental stuff. And I can still say it’s Primal Fear even when we end up with a song like ‘Hands Of Time’. We always have a song on an album that’s surprising for the fans. On New Religion we had Simone Simons from Epica (‘Everytime It Rains’), on Seven Seals we had that monster song ‘Diabolus’, and this time we decided that since we have four great singers in the band we should do something completely surprising.”

A surprise to Scheepers more than anyone, as it turns out. Sinner explains.

“We wrote that song at Magnus’ place, and at the beginning Ralf wasn’t happy not singing the whole song (laughs). We had to convince him of it; ‘Fuck, Ralf, you’re singing 99% of the album…’ (laughs). We recorded it and he took a ‘We’ll see’ view about it, but in the end he was happy we did it because it’s so different. He likes the song now.”

At the very least 16.6 proves that Primal Fear are still able to offer up an inspired performance eight albums in. Not an easy trick to pull off by any means at this stage of the game.

“I agree,” says Sinner, “but as I told you, as long as the chemistry in the band is great and everyone’s able to work together and share ideas, it works. And it shows us as a band that we still have a lot more to say. We’ve never been in the studio and managed to record 80 minutes of music, which is what we did for this one. Normally you say 60 or even 50 minutes is enough, and we recorded 30 more minutes on top of that. Everybody was so well prepared, and for me as a producer it was a totally different job compared to the last album. With New Religion everything was a problem, and this time there were no problems. I can speak for everybody who participated in making 16.6 album and I can tell you it was a fantastic experience.”

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