Features

Hellbound Staff Interrogation #1: Adrien Begrand

With today being the second anniversary of the launch of Hellbound.ca (yay us!), we have decided to do short interviews with the staff of Hellbound so that you the readers can find out more about us and where we come from. Justin M. Norton came up with a bunch of questions, which we will be asking all of our current staff over the next few weeks.

Adrien Begrand was the first writer to sign on with Sean when he decided to start Hellbound, so he is the first one to be interviewed. Here is his interview below. Please enjoy

Maryland Deathfest Preview #2: Friday, May 27th

This upcoming weekend marks the return of the biggest underground metal festival in North America, the Maryland Deathfest. Quite a few Hellbound contributors are making the pilgrimage down to Baltimore for the four day festival, which starts this Thursday and carries on through Sunday, so we have picked some of our most anticipated bands to see each day and will be running daily previews this week.

Here are some bands that Sean and Adam are excited to see on Friday night.

Maryland Deathfest Preview #1: Thursday, May 26

This upcoming weekend marks the return of the biggest underground metal festival in North America, the Maryland Deathfest. Quite a few Hellbound contributors are making the pilgrimage down to Baltimore for the four day festival, which starts this Thursday and carries on through Sunday, so we have picked some of our most anticipated bands to see each day and will be running daily previews every day between now and Thursday.

Here are some bands that Sean and Adam are excited to see on Thursday night.

Sylvus: All For One

Sylvus are a Toronto, ON-based band that have undergone significant transformations. After going on hiatus for a year, they returned to the stage with a completely new aesthetic, songs and bassist. They play black metal with tinges of pagan folk and almost otherworldly hints of psychedelic noise. Their music is by turns thunderous, tender and startling; it also happens to be produced by some lovely human beings.

Natalie Zed in conversation with Toronto blackened pagan metal quartet Sylvus.

ACCEPT: In Conversation With Wolf Hoffmann

“Well, it is really one of those funny stories in life which started as a big coincidence. The short version is that, about a year and a half ago we met Mark Tornillo and loved the way he sang. It wasn’t planned out at all. We were not auditioning for a singer or anything. We just happened to meet during a jam session. Peter (Baltes) and I were spending a day just jamming some old riffs. Somebody suggested we call Mark and have him sing along with some old songs. We realized he has a killer voice which was suited perfectly to our old material. The idea to reform was born in that moment. Within about a minute and I half Peter and I just looked at each other and we knew we had to do something.”

Allan Grusie in conversation with ACCEPT guitarist and founding member Wolf Hoffmann about their reformation and the excellent Blood Of The Nations comeback album.

Sepultura / Belphegor / Hate / Keep of Kalessin / Neuraxis @ The Opera House, Toronto ON, April 18th 2011

Sepultura as they exist today have incredible muscle and power, at the expense of some of their subtlety. Their music now has less of an eerie quality, gets under the skin less. Instead, it wants to tear you apart. The experience of seeing them live was thrilling and exhausting, but left a ghost behind, alittle bit of longing for the sound of a jungle breathing on the back of your neck.

Natalie Zed discusses the recent visit to Toronto from legendary Brazilians Sepultura. Accompanied by photos from Adam Wills.

Into My Hypercube: An Interview With TesseracT

“Now, although we are all collectively really into popular science, cosmology and physics, none of us (except maybe James [Monteith, guitar] who has a MSC in Engineering) are smart enough to really get a grip upon the mathematics behind such things as string theory, holographic and multi-dimensional reality. So, the truth is Acle saw a movie called Cube2: Hypercube – and well TesseracT is a far better name than Hypercube, isn’t it? Fuck I couldn’t live with myself if I was in a band called Hypercube…”

Adrien Begrand interviews Jay Postones and Amos Williams of UK progressive metal band TesseracT