Interviews and reviews

[Tyranor]

I was thinking recently and found interesting thing that as many reviews as I was able to read I have never stumbled upon any constructively negative one. There was one sexy big muffin but written in such infantile outlook and style that I do not consider it seriuos or competent. But it was only one. It would be interesting to know how many (approximately) negative reviews you red or maybe even could drop the link? Anyone?

[Brooke]

It would be interesting to read a constructive one, however I gain much enjoyment from some of the rants we have had, its really cool to see the effect our work has on some people.

[Darkcrawl]

I found the childish one (if it's the one I think it is) very funny. I too enjoy the negative reviews especially for albums I think are superb. Some people connect to certain music, others just don't so they have to rubbish it.

[Tyranor]

There is one negative in Chronical of Chaos page one partly negative in Metal Observer. And one whining review has Into-Obscurity.com site. Those opinions more evidently prove what TAOP guys said in some interviews about "understanding".

[Tyranor]

I wrote one long review some time ago for "Ichneumon Method" but I did it in my native so it wouldn't help if I just post it here. Sorry guys I couldn't resist to give you a highest point even if this release has some flaws. It's just awesome and unique compared to most nowadays releases as it was stated many times before.

[mat]

Please visit www.metalgimp.com

I recently did an online interview with Brooke which has now been published on the afformentioned website.

[thanatos]

mat said:

Please visit www.metalgimp.com

I recently did an online interview with Brooke which has now been published on the afformentioned website.

Very interesting interview, lots of nice and juicy information in there.

On a somewhat related note, I was looking through my old copies of Terrorizer and found this interview with The Axis. Since I have a bad habit of losing things I've scanned it.



This is from the June 2005 issue (I think).

[Darkcrawl]

Thanks for both of these chaps! And great interview Mat!

[Tyranor]

Both interviews are really very informative sources. Thanks guys. Actually all interviews with TAOP crew I've red happens to be very substant.
Interesting is there any more older ones somewhere...?

[mat]

Cheers guys...that one was my first ever so hopefully the guy that runs the site will let me do some more sometime soon.

[tom]

There's another Taop interview in terrorizer from back when Physical Illucinations came out.

Edited for poor grammar.

[Tyranor]

Any chances to scan it? "Physical..." is very special mini so thoughts and words from that era should hold alot of interesting information.

[St. Mark]

It's in Issue 127/Jan 2005 if somebody with a scanner wants to grab it.

I've quickly typed it up for now, because that's how much I care:

'The' Axis Of Perdition's debut full-length, 'The Ichneumon Method', might have been a favourite around these parts, but their EP, 'PHYSICAL ILLUCINATIONS IN THE SEWER OF XUCHILBARA (THE RED GOD)', has opened up a whole new portal, to the far reaches of the hell simmering all around us. Avi Pitchon took up the challenge to gaze into the abyss.


To those who didn't learn our 2003 writers' albums of the year by heart, here's a reminder that Axis Of Perdition's debut album shot straight into #4 straight outta nowhere (well, Middlesborough actually). Still, the duo behind it, Brooke and Mike, now shamelessly and nonchalantly dismiss it as a you-ain't-seen-nuthin'-yet, fumbling-in-the-dark sort of effort.

"'The Ichneumon Method' was a very transitional album in hindsight," explains guitarist and programmer Mike, "containing a lot of ideas and general residue from our previous band, which was technical death metal with a strong Emperor influence and a Lovecraftian slant. This new CD is the first time we've really done something that was pure Axis in every aspect, from sounds to concepts, and should set the stage well for the upcoming new album."

The band is in concensus as vocalist and bassist Brooke elaborates: "It was in this time that we were really trying to figure ourselves out and what it was we were really trying to create, that epiphany came about with the recording of this CD and we became 'The Axis Of Perdition'. This CD doesn't so much point the direction towards the new as push you through the rusted, pitted iron door, slam it shut and leer through the viewing port salivating over what's about to happen."

'Oh, the vanity! The pretentiousness!' you may cry. 'Pick up a copy of 'Physical Illucinations In The Sewer of Xuchilbara (The Red God)' and die, sad wankers,' would be a proportionate response. And, while'...Method' won superlatives like "a nihilist necrovortex akin to having one's brains sprayed with nitrogen in a torture session 150 years into the future," this EP (originally recorded a year ago for a split with Blut Aus Nord)... thi-hi-his EP... well imagine waking up naked on a ledge of an arctic cliff realising you survived the liquid nitrogen session, your cracked, dry brain barely registering the torrents of icy splinter hailing around you as Antarctica slowly crumbles, sucked into the hollow earth of an ancient machine woken to life by a filthy cannibalistic, necrophiliac, subterranean race of giant hamsters (okay, drop the hamsters bit). 'Physical Illucinations...' is much more abstract than '...Method'. Decaying, malfunctioning structures of what once was black metal are in turn drowned in shrieking anti-matter tornadoes. Which, according to Mike, is nothing compared to life in 'Boro:
"You're not simply hearing 'songs', but the sounds and textures of a three-dimensional environment existing all around you, and a very frightening one at that, characterised by filth, repulsion and contorsion. The lyrics represent the semi-coherent musings and experiences of a person trapped in such an environment for real."

Brooke gives a more vivid picture: "There are big shops towering on either side and the Saturday shopping herds are bleating away packed in every side, there's barely enough space to breathe or walk and all you want to do is get something to eat, when this shambling smackhead comes out of the crowd demanding money, skin the wrong shade through the dirt, clothes so unwashed they are cracking, breath like a bag of drowned kittens washed up on the bank after days in the Tees wheezing through decaying teeth all the time dribbling, and you're sure it's pissed itself recently and no matter how many times or how violently you say 'Fuck off' it won't go and all you want to do is beat the shambling degenerate subhuman until it stops breathing and leave it in the gutter for the council to clear away but there's nothing round to hit it with and if you touch it you might catch something. All we really do is magnify that."

Oh. Still, there must be more to TOAP's sound than punk realism and BM misanthropy: a deeper layer of evil, human misery being only its surface appearance. Just as David Lynch makes a front lawn or a brick wall emanate hostility, TAOP place evil on sub-atomic levels. Mike tends to agree: "Dereliction, decay and rust certainly aren't frightening in themselves but we in Axis want to present these things as having a real, manifest darkness behind them, as if a derelict building was created because of the 'normal' reality of the building intermingling with a kind of 'hell' reality that co-exists with it at the same spot. I often feel like I'm simply a conduit translating whatever messages the 'hell' reality we write about to the best of my abilities, just a go-between."

"It's all instinctual," adds Brooke, "the simplest of noodlings often explode without warning into full songs in orgies of unstoppable creativity and this is how our best material is born. We didn't follow this enough on the 'Corridors' demo and we can listen back and hear where we were 'trying'. We clicked on this strain on the new EP and letting ourselves go will be in full effect on the new album."

[Mike]

Blimey. Kudos for taking the time to write that up; shame we didn't say much worth reading. I'm sure we did some other interviews around that time but I'm buggered if I can find any on the 'net, apart from the one I did for Foreshadow productions which is already in the thread.

[Dalihrob]

www.mortemzine.net/article.php?id=713 It´s in english but if you are interested in rozhovory you can read it in czech I did the translation to czech :-P