Canadian Power Metallers Unleash The Archers, have just released their brand new fifth full length album called 'Abyss' via Napalm Records . RockOverdose.gr and George Markogiannakis, had the opportunity to chat with the vocalist of the band Brittney Slayes and seek more details of it and many more...
RockOverdose: Hey Britney, how's things in Canada these days? Are you feeling already psyched 2 days before the release of your new album 'Abyss'.?
Brittney Slayes: It could be a lot better, 'complicated' is a great way to describe it for what's really goin on these days. Even though i am definitely excited for getting it out there, so you can listen to what we already worked so hard these last few months.
RockOverdose: How does it feel releasing a new album amidst the pandemic and after all what we've been through in this quarantine that already changed our lives?
Brittney Slayes: Well it's different, we have spoken with Napalm so we could push it little back a bit and we know that a lot of people pushing back their new albums, so it can be really busy later this year, or maybe next year. There's a lot of amazing albums coming out so it get might lost in the shuffle a little bit if we had pushed it back but also i know that people looking for new music right now, looking for something to pass their time and to look forward to, because we can't go to the shows right now as we normally do. I mean it could be a really good time to release a record and could be a horrible time. We have to just let the time and see.
RockOverdose: So 'Apex' your previous album was one of the best albums for heavy power melodic death metal for 2017. Do you feel that something changed in your sound comparing it with 'Abyss'. Is there any new element added on your upcoming release?
Brittney Slayes: Yeah, definitely we wanted 'Abyss' to be a very different record from 'Apex'.We don't want to write the same record over and over again. We want to give to our fans something new and exciting to look forward to but also trying to staying true to the sound you created so...we worked really hard on 'Abyss' to write something different and we used synthesizer to give a more ethereal sound and we also wrotte the whole record on 7Strings guitars to give more depth.
We also seperated ourselves completely from 'Apex', we took the first 6 months of 2019 off from playing shows, jamming together doing anything so we could seperate ourselves entirely from that and we listened to a lot of new music, all of different bands so we could come to 'Abyss' with whole new ideas, so we could write something fresh.
RockOverdose: Working with Jacob Hansen in Hansen studios should be a great experience for sure. Can you consider him as the 5fth member of the band or was a more 'do your thing freely as a band without intervening in your material or the compositions?'
We were always consider him a part of the Unleash The Archers family, we have a really big family, a really supportive team around and lots of people we enjoy working with and that we continue to work with as long as we can, so Jacob definitely a part of that. And he is also very good about giving us the freedom to do our thing and sometimes we ask him about his opinion and he'd say...'You guys know the best and otherway it's great and it's up to you'. And then sometimes he'd say 'No i think you had right the first time' so he's really great sort of objective voice on things. So we really enjoyed that side of him because he is super easy going guy, but he also knows how to help you stop being so anxious about something and when he is about to let you do your own thing and discover for yourself. He is a very talented guy!
RockOverdose: What do you believe will happen in the after- quarantine era with all the music industry, venues, big festivals etc, etc, i mean do you find a reasonable solution with open air festivals installing 500 mini platforms with distances like we saw recently in Gosforth Park in Newcastle or with the drive in concerts? Do you like that idea?
Brittney Slayes: (laughs) No i definitely don't...no you know i am spoiled, like the traditional live show atmosphere, i like having fans, i like to see all of their faces. I wanna be able to connect with every single person in the audience and i just don't feel able to do that. And as much as i really do want everything to return to normal and i want the world to do so in a safe matter, i just don't want that to be the 'new normal' and i really hope that we could do our best, every single one of us to flat the curve, to get rid of this thing, and to protect one another from it, so we could go back to normal as soon as possible.
RockOverdose: The artwork of your new album has a little bit of Manowar, Hammerfall vibe into it, i believe Adam Burke gave a truly special touch ,combining the title 'Abyss' with an epic , more 80's heavy power metal element and not computerized , photoshoped which i really love! Can you give your personal meaning about this layout cover?
Brittney Slayes: Sure!We went to Adam because he is a painter, so he painted the whole thing on a huge canvas and then basically took a super high-res photo of it and he used it for album cover and after we went back and forth quite a bit, i told him excactly what scene i was hoping we would depict and i told him excactly what was going on of the story at the time and how i wanted it to look and feel and he did a really great job by taking my ideas and turning them into something real. I wanted to have that sort of of science fiction novel cover...a 1970's fantasy novel type vibe and it looks more like a cover of a book than a cover of a record.
RockOverdose: Going back to 'Demons of the Astrowaste' album, hearing a total brutal death groovy metal track with clean vocals as well 'Daughters of Winterstone'for example. Do you believe by the passing of time and releasing more albums that the brutal vocals will not exist? Do you have plans for keeping the death metal element or make it more female fronted clean vocal sound?
Brittney Slayes: No definitely we are gonna keep that Death metal element.I am really a big fan of Death Metal and it's really an extremely important part of our band, our sound and what we do, so i will always use the Death Metal vocals basically as an another instrument and these parts are really important of my writting process and how i tell the story, so no plans of getting rid of that. I know that there are a lot of people that have asked about it (laughs).
RockOverdose: Grant and Andrew have an amazing high class skilled guitar musicianship and seems like we have the rise of the guitar duos again like we had back in the 80's and 90's. Do you believe that the fact you haven't changed many guitarists in all the Unleash the archers history so far made that happened and worked better for the band? Do you think that besides being only professionalists being friends help the chemistry and the overall work better for all of you guys?
Brittney Slayes: Absolutely! So we originally started with two other guitar players and then we lost one and then we brought Grant on board and then when we lost the other guy we brought Andew on board and that's because Grand & Andew grew up together and they've been playing in bands since they were 10 or 12 years old, so they do each other very well so it was just natural for Andrew to join the band. They've been writting songs together for years and they've always worked very well.
Their writting styles are so much different but they compliment each other and it's really important that we have two guitar players that work so well together. It helps the chemistry, it helps with songwritting, we are really happy with the line up we have right now, the four of us are really close, we've always been good friends as well as bandmates so i think it's definitely important!
RockOverdose: You recently uploaded a Cranberries cover for Zombie on facebook and youtube. Do you believe that this song is more than ever currently relevant especially with what is happening right now in USA?
Brittney Slayes: Yeah i think so, i mean just this song came to my mind when i learned about George Floyd because another child was taken and it seems to be that so many families are being destroyed with what's going on right now. Just senseless unnecessary death of innocent people so how's the whole thing came from. It's getting a lot of negative attention, but i never meant to have anything with politics, i don't care what was originally written about, it's all about the sentiment and it's absolutely needs to stop and i just feel that we have to say something and i wanted to say something meaningful, from the heart and so i felt that doing a cover of a song that speaks to me on a different level for how we can do that.
This won't get fixed and it won't be until we all recognise it, until we all throw the cover off and show that thing is broken and we have to work all together to end it. To educate people that think that skin color matters, but i think it's gonna take a while.
RockOverdose: final question turns out to be a special message to your Greek fans...
Brittney Slayes: Well thank you for listening, thank you for your support all these years and hope we will come and play for you soon, when this is all over...and if not come hang out with us on live stream on twitch, follow us on fb, instagram , twitter and we trying to talk to our fans as much as possible on there and just thank you!
For Rock Overdose
Interview/ Questions/ Τranslation: George Markogiannakis
Comments
