Long time Bay Area thrashers Vio-Lence have released a music video for “Let The World Burn,” the title track of their upcoming EP which will be available worldwide on March 4 via Metal Blade Records. Their first new release since 1993’s Nothing To Gain.
Frontman Sean Killian says:
“The memory of you will be forever forgotten when the extinction event arrives and fire becomes God. When the world burns and all is destroyed, all you know, all you believe will be forgotten forever. Let the world burn!”
Guitarist Phil Demmel adds:
“I hadn’t written a lot of thrash in the past 17 years or so, but being the main songwriter for the band over the years, I wanted that sound, I wanted that mid-’80s raw thing, but I also wanted to capture our signature notes and structures and stuff like that.”
Killian previously commented:
“For 34 years, a creation called ‘Eternal Nightmare’ has been making memories for people around the world. Now, it is time to create some new memories in 2022. I am very proud of the new music we created, and we are fortunate to have worked with some very creative people. Nothing too polished here, unless fragments of glass and broken razor blades are what you consider polished. I love to create, and we hope your heads explode when you hear the new Vio-Lence.”
Track List:
01) Flesh From Bone
02) Screaming Always
03) Upon Their Cross
04) Gato Negro
05) Let the World Burn
According to Demmel:
Let The World Burn… “We had decided to write [some new material]. I didn’t wanna do a full-length record. Ten tunes is just… I’ve got a baby at home. I’ve got a five-year-old who’s just the highest of energies and exhausting. So my time is very valuable and I just don’t have the time to write a full-length record. I just felt, let’s take little baby steps with the band and see if we can write a couple of tunes — maybe do three or four. It ended up being a five-song EP.”
Regarding the songwriting process for Let The World Burn, Demmel said:
“Man, in the 16 years that I was in Machine Head, it had thrash moments, but towards the end, there wasn’t. And I had written thrash songs. I always have riffs, but it was exciting to… Fuck, ll-out thrash song. I wanted to capture some moments of ‘Eternal Nightmare,’ and there are some signature Vio-Lence sounds that I wanted to perpetuate and continue. But also, since I’ve been playing thrash for a bit too, my right hand has gotten a lot stronger. I’m playing the best that I’ve ever played. And so I’m pushing the riffs. These aren’t songs that you’re picking up at Guitar Center and just playing in Guitar Center; they’re pretty hard to play. I wanted to push everybody in that sense.”
He continued:
“I needed [Perry] to be able to accept this material in a language that I could speak with him. And I had to teach him how to understand my language. And it was hard. And it was grueling. It was me and him in a room… Mostly, this record musically was written… I wrote the music but with Perry for… 99 percent of it was just me and him in a room fucking hammering it out. So I’m super proud of him for what he played on the record. It’s some of his best playing. It’s definitely my best playing that’s ever been recorded. Towards the end of my time in Machine Head, I wasn’t tracking rhythms, so it’d been a long time since I really tracked a metal record. I did a BPMD record and tracked those, but fuck, this is a thrash record, so tracking the rhythms was something refreshing and super cool to me. We did it with Juan Urteaga in his spot, and he’s awesome to work with. I had a great time. It was just a great experience recording with Perry. And I kind of let Sean do his own thing ’cause he had his vocals down. Sean is just destroying it on these songs, man; his voice is so unique. And nobody sounds like him. It’s sinister, man. ‘Cause he had a real high register that he was singing in back in ’88, and there’s moments of that, really, now. But it’s dark, man — he’s singing dark. And I fucking love it. I love his lyrics. He’s the favorite lyricist that I’ve ever worked with. He’s smart and he’s witty and he’s colorful with what he does. I thoroughly enjoy his lyrics.”
