Withdrawal is a unique hardcore band from Canada, using an eclectic mix of influences to create a feral mystique that is all their own. Withdrawal’s brand of Holy Terror is of a controlled ferocity, liberated of most genre trappings while refreshing others. This band, in short, is an uncompromising force of sensory terror. That being said, I recently had a chance to speak with vocalist Adam, over some of the finer points of Withdrawal’s music, how their recent tour with Creatures went, and what they have planned for the future. Enjoy!
What are some of the forces that influence Withdrawal, emotionally and musically?
Musically, we’re selfish musicians in that we’re only really writing to hear music that we’d want to hear. We think it’s important to take inspiration from others, not to be influenced by them. “Influenced” sounds like a dirty word in that sense, there are so many hardcore bands out there that are “influenced” by whatever has been going on in the past 6 months and those bands are generally weak. We just want to do something interesting and different. Some bands that we’ve been inspired by recently have been the Fields of the Nephilim, Kickback, Neurosis, Catharsis, Rorschach… Many others. At the end of the day, we just write what we write and it comes out how it comes out. We’ve been big on dynamics lately, peaks and valleys. I read an interview with Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke where he talked about how hearts beat in musical tempos and how music effects people physically by changing their internal tempos, and I thought that was really interesting.
Emotionally, and lyrically, I’m just influenced by what I see and how I am feeling at any given time when I’m inspired to write lyrics. It’s definitely a form of therapy, and in a weird way I think each song is kind of a souvenir kept from various points in time in my life, depending on what or whom they’re about. I can’t speak for the rest of the guys, but I can say that I’ve only had the chance to write some lyrics recently for our new songs after enduring what was easily the worst year of my life. I fell out of love, family members died, drugs, my mother was in the hospital and I thought for sure she was going to die – and general mid to late 20′s life uncertainty – have made for a varied set of lyrics, so I think our new songs will be very tense and maybe uncomfortable emotionally.
Read the rest of the review after the jump!
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Photographer: Tanner Douglass
Site: Facebook
Based in: PA
All these photos are all from the Heartless/Full Of Hell full US Tour…
ONE
Somewhere on the highway in Louisiana
We were on our way to the singer of Thou’s house, and we get on the highway and see all this smoke in the distance, but did not think anything of it. As we got closer and closer, the smoke got darker and we saw a car engulfed in flames. It was like we were driving past a movie set or something, we could hear the tires exploding. I read on the news that some car hit them from behind, and sent them flying into the median and they wrapped around the pole. It was a hit and run.
Last summer, the West Memphis Three were finally released from prison, on the condition that they not sue the state of Arkansas for 18 years of prison time, including 10 years in solitary confinement for Damien Echols, all served as innocent men. The entered a plea bargain with the state, called the Alford Plea, whereby they maintained their innocence of the murder of three 8-year-old boys in 1993, but agreed to plead “guilty” so that they could be released from jail. So goes the great justice system of America; the case was sewn up from the beginning, and the Alford plea – agreeing that “the prosecution could likely prove the charge” even though they did not commit the offense – allows Blind Justice to protect the corrupt system that put them in prison on bullshit charges. Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were convicted of murder and accused of practicing Satanic rituals by a mindless public and the bible-thumping officials that represent them. Thanks to the work of countless people, the Three have been released, partly because of new evidence brought to light during the production of West of Memphis, an investigative documentary directed by Amy Berg and co-produced by LOTR’s Peter Jackson, Damien Echols and his wife Lorri Davis, which premiered Jan. 20th, 2012, at Sundance. They uncovered not only DNA evidence implicating one of the boys’ stepfathers, but also the massive faults in the initial investigation. In this Democracy Now interview with Echols, Davis and Berg, Echols talks about his time in prison, how he coped with a decade of solitary confinement and how he learned about true evil and corruption at the hands of the state. Echols wears tinted lenses because he almost lost his eyesight in the hole. He asserts that if he had chosen to sue the state of Arkansas, he wouldn’t have made it out of prison alive, because the State could easily pay someone inside to stab him to death. The prison system is the modern day equivalent to the institution of slavery, and all over the country, every day, young men are grist for its mill. The State is just as guilty as the billionaires who run the prisons, and Damien Echols is trying to blow their game wide open. After the jump, watch the interview and the trailer for West of Memphis…
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Weirdos, Freakaziods, Punks, Skaters, Leftists, Metal Heads, and Slackers…what bonds us all is art! We all know how the underground music scene has helped nuture underground illustrators, be it with flyers, album covers or other subversive materials. An early medium for freaks to express themselves with was the comic book. So it makes total sense that British comic publishing house Eyeball Comix creates comics that speak to the inner misfit in all of us! With page after page of filth that will rot out your eyes, you will be hooked. What I really dig about this company is the way that they support the underground illustrators – they have worked with Sin Eater & Gunsho, just name a couple. They have just released issue Three, and we have a couple of pages after the jump, and numb your fucking brain! Plus you can buy the new issue HERE!
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Revolution in any language is cool by me – I don’t give a fuck, as long we all can agree to say Fuck Authority! That’s the thing, no matter what gender or color, we all face many of the same issues that just keep getting worse. This is why I’m such a fan of crust/dis-beat, because it shines a light on all of the injustices in this world. Sorry State Records from Chapel Hill, NC, released an ultra caustic split between two off the hook Swedish hardcore crust bands: Makabert Fynd & Glöm Da!. I can’t understand the words, but I feel the message to my core. I don’t know what’s in the water in this country, because they have some of the sickest crust bands. From being to Sweden, I can tell you it’s not all perfect, just like any where else, they are battling racism and other ism’s. That’s why bands like Makabert Fynd & Glöm Da! serve a purpose: to let their country know what time it really is, and that they better fucking wake up. Makabert Fynd’s six songs are straight dis-fury at it’s best; the vocals reach out from every song and poke you in the eyes with rage! Then their riffs attack your flesh like fire ants, because they just keep coming and are is hot as fuck! Their drumming has the warrior punch that is a must for my crust, plus the beats are the backbone for their rancid melodic onslaught. Glöm Da! brings out the beast and wrecks shit in the process. They hit you with dual vocals that have an awesome call and response thing happening that is sonically captivating. The amount of passion that they put into all of their tunes is hard to quantify, but I will say that one listen to this band and you will buy this record. Glöm Da! rips shit on the riffage tip – under layers of dis-rage they kill shit with some catchy riffs. It’s not really hard to miss, but this band has mad layers of melody inside and around their songs. So if you are a fan of music that is audio caffeine, this split is for you! Makabert Fynd // Glöm Da! have made their crust forefathers proud with this release…up yours, status quo!
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Right here and now, you can download a full set of POSSESSED, recorded live in 1986 at the Balboa Theater. If you are a POSSESSED fan, get this, blast it extra loud and bang your motherfucking head!!!
Streaming Link:
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Class Is In Session…
FENRIZ-Black Metal University
Now Showing!2
Posted In Black Metal,Documentaries,Film
One piece of chalk + Four chalk boards + One man’s thoughts + One man’s passion = Fenriz & Black Metal University. So what the fuck is this? Well, it’s a pretty humble dude giving the world his thoughts on the history of Black Metal. I’m not going to say too much so that I don’t give anything away. I respect Fenriz for his love of metal, plus he has a pretty open mind. He seems like one of those dudes you want to have a couple of beers with and just talk about metal war stories for hours! So after the jump, class is in session, get your learning on…and even if you already know all this, it’s a killer way to spend 50 minutes.
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Maxime Taccardi: The French Connoisseur of Dark & Subversive Art3
Posted In Art,Black Metal,Illustration,Interviews,Mixed Media,Music,Poetry
Such formulations of shading, blackness, obscurity and detail on paper have rarely been so disturbing and fascinating to me. I am writing this not to impress or say anything which does not seem fitting. After “discovering” Maxime Taccardi’s art, I initiated several funeral doom and depressive black metal albums and stared at these for a solid 2 hours. I wanted to study each manipulative detail and it’s textures, the metaphorical meanings behind the subversive imagery, and then make an inquisition to herr Taccardi about what I couldn’t find out myself. This is kind of art I lust to make when the time feels right, and if I can fit myself into this niche would love create such ugly drawings like these. I received some select words of 6 of his works, where a decent array of mediums have been preserved in these two dimensional masterpieces. It reads in his photoalbums that ‘crayon’ was used, he’s French, and I assume this to mean pencil crayon but perhaps the eyes deceive.
^^mr. taccardi after someone told him they didn’t like his drawings
“The child who was dreaming he was a tree”, it’s old, i did it in 2006, i wanted to express the tree of knowledge. When you taste the forbidden tree, the futility of existence appears like a straight vision: Death, the silent cry of a deathborn. Like the circle of ouroboros…
Enter here for more, the end is embedded in the beginning… READ MORE…
Photograph courtesy of Jakob Knudsen 
Southern California’s Lake of Blood are a force to behold, pure aggression and misanthropy in the form of musical ritual. Taking the atmosphere of black metal and an absolute passion for the material to entirely new levels of intensity, they have just released their debut of last year, As Time And Tide Erodes Stone on vinyl via the ever glorious Flenser Records. Lake of Blood recently took some time to answer a couple of questions we had regarding their past, present, and future. Hit the jump to find out more.
CVLT Nation is way beyond stoked to announce an exclusive mixtape curated by Profane Existence. The song selection is straight killer, no filler – now read what Profane Existence has to say about this sonic blast of fury!
This “mix tape” features most of our current roster. The tracks were taken from recent releases that are still available and in print. The exception being State of Fear and Disrespect, who aren’t active anymore, but were included because their members actively contributed to the life of Profane Existence while they were around… and in Dan’s (Disrespect) case still do! We thought about going back into our catalog and pulling out some of the classic “crust hits” but decided to focus our attention on what’s happening now. Looking back, the mix tape that stood out to me were the ones full of new and obscure bands. They marked different era’s in my life… new discoveries… and that’s why I liked them.
Stream CVLT Nation Mixtape Curated By PROFANE EXISTENCE:
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