John Hatfield

Carpathian - On solid ground

Ever since I’ve known of CARPATHIAN , it seems they’ve been losing and gaining members. In fact in the eight or so times I’ve seen them play, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the same line-up more than twice. It’s gotten to the point now where vocalist Marty is the only original member left. Thankfully in early 2008, a steady line-up was locked down and the band travelled to Boston to record their upcoming second album Isolation.

Going by the two new songs put onto the bands Myspace page, Isolation signals somewhat of a large change in Carpathian’s sound, a more matured modern hardcore, free from the breakdown structure that has become a cliché in the genre.

“The two tracks on the Myspace are both similar in feel to Isolation,” Marty explains, “where as the rest of the album has some different elements again. The new sound came about with the introduction of new members and the need to push the band forward with new energy in a positive direction. From an outside perspective, I guess it could be seen as a big change in our sound. For me and the members of the band it’s been an obvious, natural progression. It’s been a long time between releases and this is what Carpathian sounds like in 2008. For a while, what the band was doing didn’t feel too right to me, so Isolation is the first stepping stone of a new, more powerful direction.”

An integral part in their new sound was American producer Jay Maas, who led the band to Boston to record - an opportunity that provided the break in routine Carpathian needed.

“Jay had recorded records for bands such as Shipwreck AD and Verse that I was into - both the bands and the production, more than anything the guitar sound. I knew Jay would bring a different energy and viewpoint to the band’s production, especially as he had no idea who we were and was just excited to produce a big sounding record. Recording in the states was simply a holiday and a chance to do things differently for the band. If we’d done it in the same environment in Australia, it likely would have had a stale and boring effect on our recording time. And we wanted to be as enthusiastic and energetic as possible during the recording process.”

Being not only the frontman but the only constant member of the band, Marty admits to, at times, feeling the pressure of holding together a line-up that was outliving it’s use. “After our European tour with Parkway Drive and On Broken Wings, and our original bassist deciding to leave the band, I wanted to either change names or quit the band entirely. Also, there were a million moments when butting heads with Crafter, who sang for the band for a brief stint, that I was on the verge of quitting music eternally. I’m glad I didn’t.”

Given the history of varied line-ups this band has had, the future is anything but certain, although Marty seems enthusiastic about the current members remaining together. “This line-up, more than ever, is on the same page about where we are at with the band and where we want to go - I can’t speak for everyone as anything can happen, and this band is the proof! The tour starts in a week, maybe by the end of it someone will have quit to find solace in a ‘real life.’ But I doubt it.”

Carpathian Venue Change

Carpathian launch Isolation at The Greenroom with Break Even, The Broderick, Rex Banner and Homewrecker. All ages, tickets from Landspeed and Moshtix . Isolation is out on August 2 through Resist Records.

I Killed the Prom Queen / Bring Me the Horizon / The Red Shore / The Ghost Inside / Dead Kings @ University of Canberra Refectory, Tuesday May 27

Opening up the show were recently formed locals Dead Kings. While this was only their second gig, you wouldn’t know it from their solid performance. Offering up a uniquely heavy-yet-still-melodic sound, they managed to hold their own on a bill of much more well known and experienced groups. It’s great to see a young group that isn’t just trying to be another breakdown metal copy of these bands.

Californian natives The Ghost Inside provided the most straight-up hardcore sound of the night. With that modern tough-guy hardcore sound and those big gang vocal choruses that just seem to scream crowd participation, they whipped the masses into a frenzy of circle pits and two stepping. While not the most original band around, they do what they do well - and a lot better than many of the other American bands of this genre.

The tragedy that affected Melbourne’s The Red Shore last year is well known - losing their singer when their tour bus crashed. Yet the surviving members have managed to continue on delivering the same level of brutality they were known for. What makes me appreciate this group even more is the fact that while every other recent, so-called death metal band takes the Swedish melodic approach, they are clearly rooted in the classic death metal sound with a slower deeper roar - and without a single lyric understandable to my ears. It’s great to see this music popular with the long-fringed teenagers that made up the majority of the audience.

The UK’s Bring Me The Horizon on the other hand are the reason the previous band were such a breath of fresh air. That’s not to say I don’t like their music, it’s just that there is a lot of it around at the moment. BMTH are not let down by their musical ability or their vocals, but it’s their juvenile lyrics that make you think they’re just a pop-punk emo band putting on an act. Maybe that’s why every teenage girl in the audience wouldn’t stop screaming vocalist Oli Skye’s name. Anyway, an energetic stage show including stage dives and a wall of death made this a fun band to watch, despite their shortcomings.

Since they broke up over a year ago, I Killed the Prom Queen had always promised to do one final tour of Australia. So now, after a year of speculation about when and who would be singing for them, IKTPQ embarked on their much anticipated Say Goodbye tour with original vocalist Michael Crafter. As the band took the stage, the main question on everyone’s mind was how would Crafter, who hadn’t sung on a record since 2005’s Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You, handle the vocals of the recent Prom Queen frontman Ed Butcher. After the second song, I think everyone’s doubts were laid to rest: while the band’s later material sounds completely different on CD, Crafter managed to match Ed’s approach yet still make the songs his own. Opening up with When Goodbye Means Forever, IKTPQ then proceeded to blast through a relatively short set of ten songs, made up evenly of Crafter’s back catalogue and songs from the last album. Maybe it was just me, but after seeing the band fronted by Ed three times, there was always a lingering thought in my mind that they couldn’t match their records on stage. Maybe it was the nostalgia of seeing Crafter back in the band, but that thought never crossed my mind during this show. Ending with the crowd pleasing encore of Sharks in your Mouth, IKTPQ managed to provide a final tribute to their fans, and while I’m sure they will perform again sometime in the future, this was a fitting end to their time as a band.

I Killed The Prom Queen - When Goodbye Means Forever

The year 2007 was set to be the busiest and most significant year that Adelaide metalcore band I KILLED THE PROM QUEEN had experienced. After recovering from the split with former frontman Michael Crafter in 2006, they bounced back stronger with new vocalist Ed Butcher and subsequently released their most successful album Music for the Recently Deceased. Breaking into the ARIA top 30 charts and gaining a sizeable increase in their fan base, IKTPQ embarked on continuous tours that saw them circle Australia multiple times as well as trekking across the US, Europe and Asia. Yet in January 2007, the news broke that their new found UK native singer had left mid-tour due to a severe case of homesickness. The next few months saw the band in a state of limbo, completing their tour dates with fill-in vocalists but never gaining a permanent replacement. Then came the final death blow, guitarist and band manager Jona Wienhoffen received an offer to join US metalcore outfit Bleeding Through, with the band deciding as a whole that there was no point continuing without a permanent vocalist. Guitarist Kevin Cameron offers no regrets to the way things turned out.

“You can ‘hum and har’ about similar decisions in life all the time but the fact is it all happened and, be it good or bad, it’s water under the bridge. I think at the time we were all very stressed and it was really a make or break time for the band, so in those months it was an appropriate move. Ultimately, being in the position to get a new singer who fitted in well was going to be a tough task, but then Jona getting the offer for BT was something we couldn’t bounce back from. Maybe if we were a US band who had new members coming and going monthly it would work, but we all felt finding two important replacements and maintaining the level we were at in Australia was pointless. I didn’t really see it coming, and the whole decision was made in about two days during what seemed like a never ending overseas tour.”

Cut to May 2008 and IKTPQ have reunited with their original vocalist and are about to embark on their Say Goodbye tour, playing 22 gigs in 18 days. And as I found out, Michael’s return was an easy decision to make despite his unceremonious firing last time. “I guess the first few months after the initial split were very tense. Unpleasantries were fired back from both sides but life goes on, we all made up in the following months, and now it feels like old times. Obviously we couldn’t tour with someone who had no prior involvement with the band, and our relationship with the more recent frontman is far more sour than that with Michael; that hatchet is long since buried. I think outsiders took it a lot harder than any of us that were actually involved in the end, being that the internet gives everyone a very open opinion on subjects they may not be so well versed in.” Regarding Ed Butcher and any contact he has with the band, Kevin seems reticent to fuel the online rumours about the reasons behind the split. “We have no contact anymore. That’s all I’ll say.”
Recording the final album in Sweden with famed metal producer Fredrik Nordstrom saw a shift in IKTPQ’s music towards the now popular Swedish melodic death metal sound. And shows with Ed Butcher featured fewer and fewer of their older songs; at the time it seemed like they were further distancing themselves from their earlier work with Michael. So one would expect reuniting and playing a mix of older and newer songs to be a big change, both for the band and also for what audiences can expect. “Definitely; obviously the last album was the most successful and what a lot of people know us from, but there’s years of history before that time in IKTPQ’s career. For this final tour we felt it was important to play a mix seeing as Michael was in the band for a long time and it would obviously serve as nostalgia for fans of the older works. Keeping fans old and new happy was imperative as well as having a fresh feel for it ourselves. It’s funny that everyone makes a big deal about the shift in style, because I don’t seem to notice it that much. We’ve been fans of that Swedish sound for a long time even if it didn’t shine through so much early on. When we were writing the previous releases, there were tonnes of half-songs that got scrapped in a similar vein to Deceased because we were like ‘it’s too metal’. I guess maybe we thought it was dangerous going for that kind of style which hadn’t taken off here. Cut to three years later (the album was written and recorded a year before being released in mid 2006) and everyone’s doing it.”

The interview couldn’t end without at least a mention of frontman Michael Crafter’s recent entry into the Big Brother house, and subsequent departure three days later. Far from a record company’s calculated publicity stunt, Michael had taken it upon himself to drum up an internet campaign, leveraging his 18,000 myspace friends to get voted in. It was always somewhat of a joke to Michael and the rest of the band and was never a threat to the tour despite what was being said on the internet. “Well, at time of press he’s already out. I thought him going in was a possibility, but yeah, it’s done now and we’ll be jamming hard from now on up until the tour,” laughs Kevin.

In regards to future reunions of IKTPQ, Kevin remains open to the possibility but considers it unlikely as most members have been quick to find new projects since the split - Jona now spending most of his time overseas with Bleeding Through, drummer JJ Peters fronting his rap hardcore act Deez Nuts, as well as new bands for both Kevin and Michael. “You never know what could happen down the track. This tour will obviously be a lot of fun but at this stage it’s the final tour and we will go on to our other projects after this.”

I Killed the Prom Queen will be saying goodbye to Canberrans of all ages on May 27 at the UC Bar, joined by Bring Me The Horizon (UK), The Ghost Inside (US), Melbourne’s The Red Shore and localS band Dead Kings. A special tour edition of Music For The Recently Deceased is being released with four bonus tracks featuring Crafter’s original vocals, two live tracks and a music video.

Sidewaves 2008: Motion City Soundtrack / Cartel / Sugarcult / Mae @ UCU Refectory, Tuesday February 6 2008 and Killswitch Engage / Shadowsfall / Divine Heresy / From Autumn to Ashes @ UCU Refectory, Wednesday February 27 2008

The Soundwave Festival’s sideshows, aptly named Sidewaves, arrived in Canberra on Tuesday February 26 and 27, days of the week not normally associated with big gigs featuring a line-up of international bands. The first night was all about pop punk, a style of music I am fairly indifferent towards. Headlining the night were Minneapolis five-piece Motion City Soundtrack. Despite my bias against the genre, they managed to put on a really fun show with a lot of energy, and what really made the night was their interaction with the crowd. While the cavernous venue wasn’t at capacity, it was obvious that the few hundred or so attendees were diehard fans of this band. Between sets they made jokes and were able to talk with the band who were not the slightest bit arrogant, and carried no sense of rock star ego.

In stark contrast to the previous night, Wednesday’s gig attracted a huge crowd, there for one thing: metal. A somewhat strange inclusion on the bill, From Autumn To Ashes, offered their melodic hardcore tinged sound to the metal bill, and those that weren’t still stuck in the huge line outside seemed receptive and open-minded enough to enjoy a band that were not strictly metal. Divine Heresy took to the stage next and put on a powerful performance of straight-up metal, featuring the talents of former Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares.

Shadowsfall brought out their thrash-metal take on metalcore, singer Brian F was a sight to be seen as he windmilled his knee length dreadlocks, while between songs they took time to ridicule the current emo trend and to lament the death of ‘woods porn’.

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Then came the band everyone was there to see, Killswitch Engage.

Opening with the title track of their latest album As Daylight Dies, they then proceeded to rip through a mixed set of newer songs and old favourites like Fixation on the Darkness and My Last Serenade.

Guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz, looking like a member of a parody metal band dressed in denim cut-offs, vampire cape and a headband adorned with the word ‘douche’, delivered some of his usual insulting, vulgar speeches all in somewhat good humour. It became obvious he doesn’t take himself too seriously and likes to have fun on stage.

Howard Jones took command of the stage and the crowd, leading them in singalongs, and then trusting them with his life as he took a downright scary stage dive off the tallest of speaker stacks. As the end of the show drew near the band left the stage briefly, only to come back on for the encore. I still wonder why bands do this. The fact they have finished for the night while knowing they will be coming back out for one last song seems like giant ego stroking to me. Anyway, on they came to finish the set and what better way to end a night of metal than with a cover of the old DIO favourite Holy Diver. This seems like the perfect song for this band to cover - with big choruses and guitar solos aplenty, Killswitch have made it their own. With screaming vocals and faster drumming, it provides a great crowd response and brings together old and new fans of metal.