Ladies, Gentlemen, Metalheads, Hardcore Scenekids, and Emo Trashkids alike,
Gather round, gather round!
I present to you all
The Bombthreat EP
Available now, right here on Bandcamp:
http://vorian.bandcamp.com/album/the-bombthreat-ep
For those who prefer to stream their music, it’s on Spotify too.
Rock out, roll nat 20s, and bang your fucking heads.
Here’s a little cliffnotes version of my comments for each song.
Bombthreat:
Ya gotta have a crazy opening track. Bombthreat being around you is about as disruptive, destructive, and mayhemic as a bomb going off, except in slow motion. Inspired by the sonically “angry” sound of The Haunted, this song sounds like a bomb going off in slow motion.
Stahlhände II Sturmkanone:
In keeping with the death metal style established by the previous track, Crusher’s theme is hard, fast, and full of intertia. It doesn’t let up at all, much like Crusher didn’t when he threw a motorcycle at a bosozoku gang made up of children. Inspired by pre-tour-accident Decapitated.
Stahlhände III Führungskonflikt:
This 7 minute romp through the boughs of death metal hell ends with a track I’d written 3 years ago. I initially wrote it as a technical death metal song with no purpose in mind and as a stylistic example of how the new-age spiritualism and conspiracy theory hype around the A=432Hz tuning standard is pseudoscientific bullshit. As I watched more Mirrorshades, I realised it would be a good theme to the chaos and huge thrown wrench that is Crusher’s and B0nbon’s power struggle for Bombthreat’s leadership. Inspired by technical death metal bands like Decapitated, Necrophagist, and Spawn of Possession.
Badass Astral Breakdown:
Well, this is the track whose demo I posted two years ago on the subreddit, and the track that set me on the journey of making this EP. Breakdown seems like a complete antithesis of everything metal and hard and aggressive. On the surface. But he’s a shaman, and shamans in astral space are goddamn metal. So I decided to make a track inspired by the likes of Emperor, and Deafheaven to give it that Pacific Northwest Cascadian Blackgaze kinda feel, but also based solidly in that OG second-wave Norwegian edge. Just like how Breakdown was constantly getting in between and breaking up fights between Crusher and B0nb0n, this track is placed in between their respective themes. And also because I needed a good transition song from the extreme metal of the first three tracks to the metalcore and alternative metal of the last three.
Stahlhände I Yarite No Oyabun:
Here’s where I’ll explain why I chose “Stahlhände” as a naming motif for both Crusher’s and B0nb0n’s themes, as well as their infighting: Both of them end up having mechanical augmentations by the second half of the show (the end of the Hand Job, anyone?) and I thought it would be nice to have a nod to their similarities in personality and how physically alike but emotionally incompatible they’ve become. “Yarite No Oyabun” was the best translation of The Biggest Boss that Google Translate spat out to me, and I decided that it would apply to B0nb0n the best. Sorry, Crusher, but I think your hands are already full with the Kingsgate Boyz. This was another track that I wrote before Badass Astral Breakdown, at about the same time I wrote Stahlhände III. I made the mistake of trying to make a Japanese Visual-Kei song without actually having listened to much Japanese Visual-Kei, so it’s ended up more akin to a a Metalcore track that you’d hear in an arcade console racing game like Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 2 (no lie, I spent far too many weekends at arcades playing that game). Seeing how Gold Star Superhighway is B0nb0n’s cousin, I think it fits.
A Night Class In Sass:
My conception of Nightsass might have been shaped by all that early-2000s pop music i heard that was the pop-rock anthems produced by industry veteran Max Martin (for real, go look him up, he’s extremely and sometimes disturbingly prolific). My compositional mind immediately went to heavy alternative rock acts like Alter Bridge, and the archetypical Californian hard and glam rock bands like Guns 'n Roses, Motley Crüe, and Skid Row. Ironically, this track probably sounds closer to Japanese Visual-Kei than Stahlhände I, but when really good creative inspiration only strikes once in a blue moon, you just gotta go with it.
Cruor Amethystine:
If the name is literally as obscure but on-the-nose an indicator as it gets, this is the EP’s Twitch anthem. If we all bleed purple, then the colour of the Cruor that runs through our veins is the purple colour of vibrant shining amethysts. This song was first written five years ago, but wasn’t completed until about three years later; the solo section was a huge writing block to overcome. Given the celebratory feel of the song, I thought it would be a good end credits piece to every season of Rollplay I’ve ever seen. Especially the Swan Song Live session. The Metalcore influences are extremely apparent, because I’d been on a huge Killswitch Engage listening bender at that time, and Alive Or Just Breathing and Disarm The Descent were on heavy rotation on my phone. In hindsight maybe putting as the closing track of the EP might have hurt its visibility, but I like the conclusive and nostalgic finality it brings to the table; it shouldn’t be anywhere else in the track list.