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MUSIC
FEATURE
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QUIETENING THE BEAST?
morning and getting the mixes from NewYork...
it was fantastic.”
As well as a sonic reboot, Hyde also got the
chance to stretch his vocal talents a little as
well. His trademark guttural roar still dominates,
but he also adopted a more restrained ‘singing’
voice on songs like
Devils Of Last Night
. The
Beastwars frontman admits he took some
persuading, but he is glad that he did, because
again, he feels it added a new dimension to the
album.
Hyde had similar initial misgivings about the
most radical song on the LP, the prog-folk of
The
Devil Took Her,
which he sings over a plaintive
backing of acoustic guitar and what sounds like
a flute. “I wasn’t too sure if we should put it on
the album because it is hard to expose yourself
sometimes,” he admits. “It’s about how jealousy
and anger can push anyone you love away from
you. It’s a pretty desolate song.”
2016 marks the 10th anniversary
of the band but unfortunately
Beastwars will be on temporary
hiatus for the rest of the year,
with drummer Hickey off
to the UK. However Hyde
hopes the band will be back
together again next year in
Europe.
For now, he is proud of
the work they’ve produced
to date and the fact that they
have managed to retain their
independence throughout their career.
He puts much of that down to the dedication of
their fanbase, both here and abroad.
“We are really helped in New Zealand by
Universal Music and they’re good people,” Hyde
says. “But when you buy a record from us,
we pack it. We send the t-shirts, we send the
posters. We actually went out on a limb on this
album – we were heavily in debt. But
after one day the
band was out of
debt because fans
bought so many
records. We’re
very thankful for
what our fans have
allowed us to do by
buying our records.”
more subtlety and variety this time around.
Part of that is down to a new production
team. The first two records were produced by
Dale Cotton, but
The Death Of All Things
was
produced by the band and James Goldsmith in
Wellington, and mixed by Andrew Schneider
in NewYork. It boasts a crisper sound, but one
with a distinctive, early ’70s hard rock vibe
as well. “We felt we needed a change,” Hyde
explains. “James Goldsmith had just bought the
new studio in Wellington and he was making
great records out of there – Mermaidens,
Red Sky Blues – so we gave it a punt. And it
worked out really, really well. We had
never recorded an album in our
hometown, so it was great
experience.
“Once we passed it over to
the guys in the States they
added another dimension. I
love how it sounds. It was
exciting, waking up in the
B
eastwars’ famous mantra has always
been “obey the riff.” That hasn’t changed
on their third LP, the suitably apocalyptic
The Death Of All Things
. However, frontman Matt
Hyde acknowledges that there is more to their
new album than just monster riffing.
“We definitely wanted to go to the ‘quiet/
loud’ spectrum,” he tells
STACK
over the phone
from the band’s hometown in Wellington. “We
wanted to experiment, we wanted to come out
of our comfort zone and we wanted to take risks.
And I think we pulled it off – I think we made a
great record, with different sounds and different
feels all through it.”
We think so, too. But don’t worry, diehard
fans; that doesn’t mean Beastwars – Hyde,
James Woods (bass), Nato Hickey (drums) and
Clayton Anderson (guitar) – have gone soft: tracks
like the opener
Call The Mountain
and
Black Day
are certainly as dark and heavy as anything on
their two previous albums. It’s just there their
sledgehammer force is channeled with a bit
We wanted to
experiment,
we wanted to
come out of our
comfort zone
Not really, but Beastwars’ frontman
Matt Hyde
tells John
Ferguson that the metal mavens’ third LP
The Death Of
All Things
does offer some more reflective moments.
•
The Death of
All Things
by Beastwars
is out now.