The heavy metal year 2021 has started with many excellent albums so far. One of them is the new album of the Australian Werewolves. In line with all the crazy things that are happening in the world right now, the band has given it the title "What a Time to Be Alive". All those who are into ballads and soft tones don't need to read any further now, because the band has recorded the follow-up to "The Dead Are Screaming" within ten months and the result is such an uncompromising and rage-filled black/death/ thrash album that hasn't been released in a long time (in my opinion). I asked singer Sam Bean a few questions to introduce the band to you. Enjoy!

Michael

Hello everybody! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with me. How are you guys doing?

We're good! Summer's awesome, nothing has burned down yet. We know you're coming out of a lockdown. We definitely know that sucks.

You have written an incredibly intense and hateful album with "What a Time to Be Alive". Where do you get these emotions from? Did last year's situation in Australia (fires, drought and then Corona) contribute significantly to the inspiration?

All the fires and plague and stuff going on around the world has been more a backdrop to the album, we tend to predate it by a few weeks or so when recording. Can't wait to see what happens when album 3 is getting mixed. I reckon it'll be war. I'm into the studio in March, so start preparing now.

We don't wander around all day suffused with hate but it's easy enough to tap into it… it's staying calm and pleasant all the time that's the real challenge, isn't it? I've got a pretty good memory especially when it comes to assholes, so I can always dredge up some thought about them to make me furious. Failing that, reading YouTube comments tends to get me going.

Music is supposed to be emotional. And death metal was invented to be a vehicle for aggression, which most bands seem to have forgotten. A lot of modern metal feels like an emotional black hole to me, great riffs and skills but just sexless and devoid of feeling. Leaves you feeling less than when you started listening.

The title is meant ironically, I suppose. Did you choose it because of the current situation or was it already decided? I mean, there are some things on this planet that could be better...

It fit the tone of the album perfectly, this very bleak, black humor. I think I picked it up as a catchphrase over the last few years, every time something took a turn for the worse, I'd mutter it darkly. The original title was "Hate Speech" because it felt like there was a lot of that in the world and as you mentioned, the album is very hateful. We changed it though, there was too much of a risk that someone would take it the wrong way and feel compelled to have us cancelled.

You are all active in other bands. Is Werewolves more of a fun project for you or do you see Werewolves as a full band?

Well, it's a fun project but it's turning out more successful than most of our other bands which totally has us flummoxed. I was just on the phone with Matt laughing about it, we were like "OF COURSE it's the band we make the least effort on that turns out the most popular". In any case, we all love being busy and working hard so we probably get more work done with our 'fun project' than people in normal full-time bands get done with theirs.

The opener "I don't like you", who is it dedicated to?

No-one. The last thing I'd ever do is dedicate the effort of a song to someone I don't like.

I was trying to really tap that old hardcore scene knuckleheaded bully-jock vibe, almost like the old NYC bands, where they spend entire songs threatening to kick your ass. It felt direct. Modern metal bands tend to specialize in dissonance and abstracted lyrics, wispy enough so that if someone takes offense or misunderstands them that they can wipe away the meaning. They dance around topics. I guess this is a stand against that. We drive a tank through topics.

Many of your lyrics have an ironic touch, but also a spark of reality. What do you want to express with the lyrics?

Savage, blistering, blithering fury. Quite often, the aim is to take things so far that it feels ridiculous. I've also spent the last few years appalled at the lack of leadership in the world so there's hints of those feelings in there. And I noticed that both James Elroy and Pig Destroyer have a gift, which is the ability to finish a chapter or lyric with a few sentences that hit hard, and that's something I try to do. Elroy's 'American Tabloid' does that well, and a good Pig Destroyer example would be "The Girl in the Slayer Jacket"

If you listen to 'Traitors and Bastards', the sample at the end could make you think that you are a bit misogynistic....

I imagine you're referring to the use of the 'c word'? I couldn't pick anything else about the sample that could possibly be viewed that way. I don't think anyone in Australia, or the UK would think using 'cunt' makes us misogynistic as it's a commonly used epithet directed at both genders, and in our case neither the context nor intent are misogynistic. If we wanted to appear misogynistic in a music genre that includes bands like Cannibal Corpse and Whoretopsy, I believe we'd have to try a lot harder.

I do use strong language and imagery and I don't apologize for it. I think it would be fatuous to try and make shockingly super-aggressive music, and then start worrying about people getting offended by it.

What would you say is the main difference between your first album "The Dead are Screaming" and the current one?

I think the debut is us having fun, and the current album is us nailing our sound and feeling. How does that translate to the listener? I think most people would find our current album far, far more aggressive.

At Metal Archives you are listed as a "technical black/death metal" band. Would you agree with this description? Personally, I don't find much black metal approaches with you, more grindcore, thrash and death…

Nope. I don't think we're technical at all, someone probably saw that Dave is on drums and made the assumption that we're a tech band. Having said that, I keep hearing people say that some of our material is technical…I just can't square that away with bands like Archspire or Rings of Saturn, really. We're simply not in that universe, and the fact that we play competently is the bare minimum you'd expect from a death metal band. I think we're definitely blackened death metal and that's probably due to the higher vocals and the trem-picked power chords. Everyone's going to have a different take on it.

According to the site your new album is limited to 500 copies. Is that so and if so, why?

There's probably only 500 or so cunts out there crazy enough to buy our shit. Honestly, that question is above my pay grade. We bang out the music, the label makes sales decisions, and the more we insert ourselves in their business the less energy we have for making music.

Your albums have been released about ten months apart. Do you already have new songs in the box, so there will be the third album from you for Christmas?

Third album should be finished shortly and albums four to six are already written. The other guys have done their parts, they're waiting for me to hurry up and finish. I aim to be done in March. I suspect the next album will be out January 2022, but that's not a discussion anyone has had yet. I quite like the idea of releasing a Christmas album though! We also have some surprises already recorded that I imagine will come out during the year.

Are there any plans to tour with Werewolves once Pandemic is over?

No plans yet. I still think it's a little early to go making tour plans, we still don't know how quickly everywhere will open back up after the vaccination programs happen. We want to play live, I'm not sure if we're all about travelling the world playing dozens of shows to small venues of twenty people. It has to be something different. We're too old to do something we've already done hundreds of times, decades ago.

What is the current state of the Australian metal scene? There are a lot of top bands of different styles in your country. Is there a strong cohesion or is everyone cooking their own soup?

I don't really know; I don't pay much attention to the scene here. I know there's competent bands and operators, and each state here has a few core bands and people making shit happen. I spend my time at raves and yoga. I guess when we start appearing live that I'll find out what's going on. I suspect everyone's cooking their own soup right now, it's pretty hard to get interstate to work with other people.

Finally, do you have any last words for our readers that you would like to share?

I think I'm getting a migraine from thinking angry thoughts. Listen to our album, smash up your bedroom, destroy.

Thank you very much for your answers!

Danke Michael.

With "Reign Of The Reaper" Swedish epic doomsters Sorcerer recently released a superb fourth full-length album (read review here). I had the great pleasure talking to vocalist Anders Engberg via Zoom about the differences to its predecessor and the reasons for that and of course about the band, their influences and dreams and not to forget the album in general. Enjoy reading!

Michael

Hi Anders, how are you doing?

I'm doing great, actually. Riding on the waves of success (laughs).

Congratulations for "Reign Of The Reaper"! I hadn't expected such a strong album by you after I was a little bit disappointed with "Lamenting Of The Innocent". How glad are you with the receptions so far?

We're very very happy. We felt that we had a strong album but you never know. As you said, you weren't that happy with Lamenting Of The Innocent and we thought that it was great (laughs). So you never know but we always try to do our very best and only the best songs go on our albums and we're super happy with it.

Well, it wasn't a bad album at all but when I listened to it I thought, hm… something is missing. You have tightened the songs pretty much and didn't use these overlong parts anymore. How much was this a reaction to the fans' feedback to "Lamenting"?

A little bit but we also wanted to progress. When we go into the next album we think about if we are gonna change the cover artist, we gonna do some new things on the cover, do some other stuff with the lyrics and get some contemporary influences in music – so we always think it through. We always write music from the heart so to speak but this time we wanted to do a shorter album like in old-school format – A and B-side with a maximum of 50 minutes. That is what fits on a vinyl record to get quality. That was our main objective and as you said we have some pretty long tracks. I think the longest is like 6:40 or something (6:34; M.) so there are longer songs but not in the way we write sometimes with 8 or 9 minutes with a lot of instrumental parts and stuff like that. We actually had to cut down a few songs to make them fit into the format but in the end I feel that it's a really nice mix of songs that have different tempo and are different in style. I'm very happy with the finished result.

Apart from tightening the songs you have incorporated much more epic, catchy and rousing elements in tracks like the title track, 'Morning Star' or my favorite track 'Break Of Dawn'. Was this intentional or did you add these parts gradually?

When we started with our comeback album In The Shadow Of The Inverted Cross, most of the songs and ideas were written by Johnny Hagel, our original bass player. He's still around in the background. He writes stuff still but he doesn't play live anymore. So when we progressed from the first album into the second one, Peter Hallgren also started writing material for the album. Now we were three people writing music and for Lamenting Of The Innocent Justin Biggs, the bass player came in and wrote some stuff. We're always kind of progressing in the way we write. We don't think about "oh now we gonna do something contemporary that we will like"….it's not like that. We always write what we like and some of these songs that are on the album maybe should have been longer if we let us evolve in the same direction that we did before but we wanted to kind of progress a little bit and also I think that we wanted to widen our audience a little bit. With shorter songs maybe it's also good that you gonna be played on radio and stuff like that. Of course we think about that but we don't sacrifice our music writing to do it.

You already mentioned Johnny Hagel – he is listed as "musical director" and "a shadow member" on metal-archives...

He is the founding member of the band so he owns the spirit of the band. He helps us out with different stuff in the background, record label stuff, web page and so on. He wants to be involved but just this much. And he comes up with some ideas – I think 'Reign Of The Reaper' is his original idea but it doesn't sound like anything like it. He started that embryo of that song. It feels good to have his compass for the direction what we do. I've been around since the beginning also but we need to progress when we write music. That's the short story about Johnny. He's a good friend of mine and he's a good friend of the other guys.

Apart from the Tony Martin-era in Black Sabbath, I read that Manowar has a huge influence on you.

Yeah, at least for me but I can't answer for the rest of the guys (laughs). I really love Manowar.

So what do you think about their latest single with the absolutely not-matching German title?

They've seen better days but you can't erase the legacy that they got. I think they were really cool until "Kings Of Metal" but the best one is "Battle Hymns" I think. That's what Manowar is for me and when people relate to this in some of the songs, I don't know – maybe it is the choirs or the epic that they compare to Manowar. We are more melodic I think and more catch phrasing than they were.

Talking about the lyrics - while "Lamenting Of The Innocent" was about the witch hunts back in the 16th and 17th century, do we have another concept album with "Reign Of The Reaper"?

It's just coincidence really but when we started writing for this album we had like 15 musical ideas. We didn't have any title or anything. We were also in communication with the new guy that was gonna make the artwork for the album but somehow our time schedule didn't fit. So when we started writing the music and the melodies we still didn't have a cover art to match with the lyrics. So we panicked a little bit. We had to find this one work that we can use on the next album and we had to find something new to draw ideas from. We started looking at fantasy pages on the internet and it was our manager who found this image which actually became the album cover. He said that this was really cool and we fell in love with it. Then the detective work started to get to know who's done it. It turned out to be a guy in Sweden, 1 ½ hours from Stockholm up in the north. We asked him if we could use it and he agreed. That was a perfect match for what we wanted to do and what we feel where we are now. It's a good image to show what Sorcerer is all about. When we started writing lyrics we drew from that and I think because there is the reaper on the cover, a lot of the lyrics came to be about death in different perspectives. Death in battle, death in dying of old age…I together with Conny (Welén; M.) we write the melodies for the tracks and we always have some bullshit lyrics for the tracks. I have to sing something to present it to the other guys and some of that bullshit lyrics are actually pretty good so we used that. Justin our bass player who is Canadian, he is a really good lyricist. He takes these small bits and pieces of what we've done and writes the final lyrics. And that's the last thing that's finished before we go to the studio and record the album.

You have a special CD edition where you can get the "Reverence" EP. Why did you decide to record the EP?

When we did the EP, we did it like a break in between the old and the new album. First we wanted to do one cover song. We looked for a pop or kind of odd song first but we couldn't agree on a song to do. So we said instead "okay, let'́s do something from bands that we like". Each band member had to pick four songs and then we voted and it came out to be four songs. It was supposed to be a pandemic video production where you stand in your kitchen and play your instrument. We started to do the drums first and then Peter and Kristian started to do the guitars and when we got it back for doing the vocals it sounded so good that we thought that we have to do it in a proper way. We actually quit that idea of doing a live thing and recorded a proper EP. The songs were picked because we love them (laughs). That period of the 70s and 80s is where we come from.

I was pretty surprised that you covered Ozzy Osbourne on the EP and not Candlemass!

It was important to show where our influences come from. We already interacted with Johan (Längquist; M.) on Lamenting Of The Innocent so people already knew that we were really big Candlemass fans. Also the logo and the old English it's homage to Candlemass all the way.

So which of these bands would you choose to play with if you had a time machine?

I would love to have played with Black Sabbath, of course. Tony Martin has been a big influence on me and all those albums that he sang on along with the Dio-era. I'm not too fond of Ozzy-era in Black Sabbath although I love him as a solo artist. That's strange but that's how I feel. I think the Black Sabbath-eras are better without Ozzy. He brought better music on his own. I also had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Tony here in Stockholm together. We sang 'The Shining' together and I choired for him because he lost his high range and I did all the higher parts for him. That was pretty cool!

And which actual band would you like to play with? At the moment there are some new cool epic (doom) metal bands active like Thronehammer, Below, Crypt Sermon…..

I would love to tour with our label brother in Below. That would be really cool. Candlemass, Sorcerer and Below – that would be a nice trio.

Do you have some plans to do some gigs?

Of course! More than ever. We're going to play in Poland with our brothers in Doomocracy from Greece early next year. Then there is a festival on 20th of April in Lünen, Germany and we're going with Blind Guardian on a Northern Europe tour in Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. In March we are having a show in Malmö…yeah, a lot of shows! And hopefully there will be some more festivals, too.

The last words belong to you!

We're so happy of the album and how the reception of it has been from journalists and from people that are writing us each and every day telling us how great it is. We can't wait to get out and play it for you live. We're not a touring band but we will do for sure about 20 shows and we try to go where it is most convenient because of the economic side. Europe and Scandinavia for sure and we will see how it works with England and US.