Terrorizer is about one week away from releasing their long awaited new album Hordes of Zombies. However, it looks like the death grind band and their label Season Of Mist have found themselves in legal trouble over one particular song and cover artwork.
Forward Regression Records is claiming that Terrorizer have plagiarized a song from a band on their roster called Collapse. More specifically, Forward Regression is stating that Terrorizer’s “Subterfuge” plagiarizes pieces from Collapse’s song “Mechanisms of Oppression,” while Hordes of Zombies also strongly resembles the cover to Collapse’s Sustainability. Forward Regression have made it well known that they are set to file a lawsuit against Season of Mist for copyright infringement for plagiarism in regards to both the song and cover.
Lambgoat reached out to Forward Regression for a more in depth explanation for the lawsuit. Forward Regression responded to them with the following:
“It is our opinion that in the song Terrorizer ‘Subterfuge’ one of the main guitar riffs starting at appx. 0:28 Seconds until 0:45 Seconds and again later in the song are lifted directly from the song Collapse – Mechanisms of Oppression at appx 1:48 in the song. Our song was released in 2008 and re-recorded and released again in August 2011.
As well, the cover artwork for the album resembles our album Collapse – Sustainability. With the Moon in background, with destroyed buildings, and destroyed automobile in the foreground. This will be used in our lawsuit to prove in our opinion that they have blatantly copied our material. If this were a publicity stunt, it is Season of Mist and Terrorizer not Collapse and Forward Regression who are creating the controversy. By copying our album art and lifting riffs directly off our album.”
Forward Regression further made it clear that they are serious about the lawsuit in an attempt to prevent the album’s release or receive some sort of financial statement. Lambgoat also received confirmation from Season Of Mist that the lawsuit is indeed real and could likely end up in court soon.
You can listen to both Terrorizer’s “Subterfuge” and Collapse’s “Mechanisms Of Oppression” after the jump. While you can determine for yourself whether Forward Regression has a case, we have to agree with Lambgoat in that we hear two songs of the same genre with some similarities. As for the cover artwork, we think that’s a bit of a bigger stretch. But judge for yourselves, and listen to the two songs and look at the covers back to back after the jump.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeXO7u_HYHw[/youtube]
Collapse – Mechanisms Of Oppression by Jason Mackenzie
And here are the two covers next to each other:
