By: Jay Broderick - Canadian Thrash Metal Titans Sacrifice have recorded their sixth studio album. The aptly titled Volume Six is locked down, and is set to officially hit the streets on February 21. The album is receiving tons of acclaim from media outlets, including us here at LoudTO. The album is an absolute killer! But it's been a while since the band's previous release. The Ones I Condemn was released on Canada Day in 2009. In a chat with Sacrifice frontman Rob Urbinati, we got a little peak into the album's genesis.
If it weren't for the biggest challenge that the majority of the Baby Boomer generation and beyond had witnessed in their lives, this album would undoubtedly have been released much sooner. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 Pandemic threw a wrench in the band's plans. "Once we had a couple of songs written that we liked, we decided, 'OK, let's work towards getting something together for recording'" Urbinati told us. "It was going well, and then the pandemic hit. I guess it's part of just not having any life experience [with this type of life challenge] or really doing anything other than sitting around your house. It's not particularly inspiring."
Once life got back to some type of normalcy, what does a musician do to get themselves out of a writing block? "I didn't really do anything special to get out of it. I had just tried to continue writing and sometimes I'd write stuff that's completely opposite of Sacrifice. You know, screw around on my keyboard and make sci-fi soundtracks or whatever. And you just have to wait for that lightning to come back and strike you to get that creativity going again."
When the Sacrifice vocalist/guitarist plugs in at home, it doesn't typically take him long to create a new riff. Where that goes is anybody's guess. Sometimes it ends up being nothing, but on occasion, he finds a new Sacrifice song. "I can usually tell if something's working. If I go back to it the next day and listen to it a couple of times, and then the day after that, if it keeps drawing me back to it, that's when I know it's good. I'll work on it a bit more and then share it with the guys." Urbinati will also add the rest of the instruments, but at a bare bones level. "I'm not going to overly over program the drums. I'm going to keep it basic and let Gus do his thing. Same with the lead guitar and the bass."
Lyrically, Sacrifice sings about the atrocities of man, and impending doom. Previous tracks like "Soldiers of Misfortune" and "Light of the End" carry these themes. The message continues on the new album with songs like "Your Hunger for War", "Incoming Mass Extinction" and "We Will Not Survive". With the Doomsday Clock now sitting at 89 seconds to midnight, I throw Rob the question as to whether the world is in a much worse place now, compared to say 40 years ago. Or has social media skewed our reality?
"I think in the 80s, the scary thing was, especially if you're Canadian, that we're right in between both nuclear superpowers" Urbinati explains. "So if anything broke out, like we're right in the middle of both countries. It seemed kind of inevitable that it was going to happen back then. Thankfully it didn't. I find it scarier that the propaganda is so strong in today's world with social media and everything. People can talk all they want about, 'oh, mainstream media sucks'. Well, yeah, it does, but the social media news isn't a worthy replacement. It's way more full of lies, I find, than the mainstream media is. They can spin things certain ways, but it's almost impossible to verify fiction from truth in social media. In a lot of cases, you can see things enough times and it becomes real to you whether it's real or not. I think people need to have a bit more awareness of how this works. I don't really think the average person puts too much thought into that. It's scary because entire populations' minds can be molded in certain ways. I find that completely terrifying."
Despite the subject matter, Volume Six isn't all as heavy (emotionally) as the noted tracks. One of my favourite songs on this album is the instrumental "Black Hashish". The arrangements are something I find sorely lacking in modern metal. I liken it to Metallica's instrumental opus "Orion", but Urbinati brings me back even further than that. "It goes back to songs like Rush’s 'La Villa Strangiato' from that classic rock era. We're obviously a thrash metal band, so that's where our perspective starts, but we have a lot of influences from the classic rock era." Aside from my love for the track, the song also holds a special place for Urbinati as well. His daughter Raven appears on the song in a vocal performance. "She's a great singer. She loves metal. When 'Black Hashish' was written, I actually had some vocals on there" he explained to me. "They're kind of more atmospheric vocals, but when it was coming time to record I thought, 'I'll try asking her if she wants to sing on it.' And yeah, she was interested. She came down to the studio and it took her maybe two takes. She did a great job. It makes the song way more special for me, having my daughter on it. It's one of my top three songs on the album, for sure. I'm pretty happy the way it turned out."
As it turns out, Raven isn't the only guest to appear on Volume Six. To close off the record, Sacrifice chose to record the Direct Action track "Trapped in a World", with long time friend, and producer Brian Taylor recording the vocals. "He’s such a huge part of our band. We would have never, ever done anything without him. You know, he recorded our first demo, produced our first three albums. He was always there for us. So yeah, we just asked him and he said, 'Yeah, for sure, I'll do it.'"
With the album available for all to listen to on February 21, I asked Rob if there were any other tracks, outside of the ones we just discussed, that he thinks fans should keep an ear open for. "The opener 'Comatose'. I would say it's probably my favorite on the album. It's fast! It's a very aggressive song. It's just what you'd expect the heaviest song on a Sacrifice album to sound like."
As we closed off our conversation, there was one last burning question that I had to ask. Was Rob Urbinati in a position to share any exclusive news with the LoudTO readership, in relation to a future Toronto show? "I wish I could give you an exclusive, Jay. All we have set in stone right now is Vancouver in May. We'll be nervous. It's our first time performing our new material. Aside from that, we got a bunch of stuff up in the air, but nothing concrete yet." But he did let me know that once a show is locked down, he will let me know. I'm holding you to that Rob!!
Sacrifice Online
Comentarios