Articles

Articles, Features, Headline June 14, 2012

Interview with Yasin Hillborg, director of Så Jävla Metal

Currently set to celebrate its Canadian premiere at the NXNE festival in Toronto, Så Jävla Metal is a documentary about the evolution of heavy metal music in Sweden. The film traces the beginnings of heavy metal through hard rock, beginning with bands like Europe, and continuing to trace the development of the sound as the music became heavier. It contrasts the way that Swedish metal grew up in tandem with metal in North America and other places in Europe, specifically in Norway, where the violence of black metal is contrasted again Swedish death metal. Writer and director Yason Hillborg found the time to talk to Hellbound about the documentary, his vision for it and his experiences making it.

Articles, Features, Headline June 11, 2012

WORD ASSOCIATION FUN WITH… LIBERTEER, PART II

After my proclamation earlier this year that Liberteer’s debut album, “Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees” is the front runner for my favourite album of the year, I’m standing by those words 150-fucking-percent. (And yes, I still say that even after fucking Palmerston took like four months to run this second part of this interview!) I’ve been spinning the album a few times daily since last week and am loving it more and more each time. So, I got in touch with main man (well, only man) behind Liberteer’s all-awesome awesomeness, Matthew Widener, for another round of word association. Here’s the resulting silliness.

Articles, Features, Headline June 8, 2012

Anvil: No longer bottom feeders with success that’s well deserved

“This is a mutual strength for Kudlow and Reiner, who are sons of Holocaust survivors. Kudlow believes that “no matter how much money you make, there is never a means to an end” as it is not something one can derive satisfaction from.

Being thrown into a heavy metal abyss in the 80s without a producer, manager or financial support, the band needed extra assistance, but faced challenges with a resilient independence.

“We didn’t have all of that but we still had to survive,” Reiner says. “Through struggle, we enjoyed it.””

Hellbound contributing writer Ola Mazzuca interviews Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner from Canadian metal legends Anvil about how endurance, never giving up and sticking to their guns has helped the Toronto band regain the success they so rightfully deserve. All photography by Frank Mazzuca.

Articles, Features, Headline May 23, 2012

Metallic Taste Of Blood: The Hellbound Interview

“Metallic Taste Of Blood is one of the latest projects by Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin. Together with guitarist/composer Eraldo Bernocchi (Obake/Somma), drummer Balazs Pandi (Obake/Merzbow) and keyboardist Jamie Saft (John Zorn/Merzbow) he worked on arguebly one of the best albums of this year. Through some digital magic I was able to speak with three of the four members, namely Colin Edwin (CE), Eraldo Bernocchi (EB) and Balazs Pandi (BP) about the origins of this remarkable musical venture, future projects and the prospects of touring together…”

Interview by Raymond Westland

Articles, Blasphemy Blog, Blogs, Headline May 22, 2012

Blasphemous Meals #6 | At The Heart of Winter’s End

“This installment of Blasphemous Meals brings you the very best of winter’s warmth from Hellbent for Cooking. These dishes are hearty and fire the soul. Just because winter is over doesn’t mean that heavy food should be eliminated with heavy metal.

Enjoy the following foodie ventures from the Blasphemy Blog test kitchen. Winter may be grim in a headbanger’s world, but spring is pretty cool, so prepare for the season as you warm up to multicultural fare from Sir Lord Baltimore, Trouble and Abigail.”

Cooking and writing by Ola Mazzuca

Articles, Featured, Features, Headline, Interviews April 25, 2012

Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse: The Hellbound Interview

Prominent American senators and presidential hopefuls have pointed their fingers at Cannibal Corpse, implying the band is partially responsible for society falling apart. Murder victim family members have also done the same. Censorship has reared its ugly head in Germany, a nation where the band has been legally prohibited from playing certain songs. And yet through it all, the Florida-based death metal machine continues to march on, hacking away at everything in sight—musically, that is—nearly a quarter of a century after its inception.

Jay H. Gorania interviews Alex Webster, bassist and founding member of death metal legends Cannibal Corpse.

Articles, Blogs, Features, Headline, Interviews, Witchfinder Blog April 20, 2012

Thérèse Lanz of Mares of Thrace: The Hellbound Audio interview

I had the opportunity to chat with Thérèse Lanz about Mexican food, video games, being interviewed, stupid questions she is asked, Chicago (and what to eat late night), U.S. Politics and a little bit about music a few weeks prior to the release of The Pilgrimage (Sonic Unyon Metal) and the cross Canada tour that will probably be bringing Mares of Thrace close to your town. Regardless of how many times you speak to Thérèse, she is always entertaining and has a lot of very informed things to say on pretty much any topic. But mostly on tacos and video games…

Interview by Jason Wellwood.