Most bands just want to rest on their laurels and they have no time, money or energy to create new material, especially given the realities of the music industry environment is these days. So kudos to Canuck thrash legends Sacrifice in creating a brand new record (appropriately titled Volume Six) and literally beating the hell out of fans since they launched their career in 1983.
“Listen man, seven years ago in 2017,” longtime drummer Gus Pynn begins on BraveWords’ Streaming For Vengeance, “we had some material that was blowing our minds. It was like ‘what the fuck?’ They’re gonna stand up and take notice. Was I convinced back then until we went into the studio in 2022 and laid it down? And then we spent all last year, piecing it together, putting it all together and finally getting at this point in 2024. Production, mastering and literally sitting on the album since last June. That’s how long I’ve listened to this album. It was excruciating. I was thinking what are the people going to think? I just wanted to put out the record. I honestly thought at that point that it was the best thing that we’ve ever done. And I’m not fucking shitting you. That’s because I thought the songwriting was so good.
“I was watching Rob (frontman Urbinati) work on the lyrics and of course vocally and I was floored then,” the drummer adds. “All the stuff was given to me in demo form and I fell in love with it. Bottom line, I figured if it’s that good and I love it… I knew when we did The Ones I Condemn, I felt the most comfortable since Soldiers Of Misfortune. But I was terrified. I was afraid that fans might think that I’ve lost a step or two from soldiers. You always have that fear.
Sacrifice drum legend Gus Pynn guest on BraveWords’ Streaming For Vengeance tomorrow (March 4th) at 9AM EST.
The sixth Sacrifice album overall, and second since the band’s reformation in 2006, Volume Six features ten new originals and a cover paying homage to the Toronto scene from which they originally emerged. Working once again with engineer Darius Szczepaniak – who was also at the helm for Sacrifice’s 2009 effort The Ones I Condemn – Volume Six was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Phase One Studios in Scarborough, Ontario. Tracked over a period of sessions between September 2023 and May 2024, the eleven-song offering was produced by vocalist/guitarist Rob Urbinati and features the band’s original lineup, with lead guitarist Joe Rico, bassist Scott Watts, and drummer Gus Pynn as well as Urbinati. They are one of, if not the only, 1980s thrash band that still has its original lineup intact and playing together, and on Volume Six, the band hits it out of the park.
The songs on Volume Six run the gamut from speedy, breakneck thrash (“Comatose,” “Explode,” “We Will Not Survive”) to more nuanced, layered, metallic compositions (“Underneath Millenia,” “Your Hunger For War”). Two instrumental tracks on the album show yet another side of the band’s songwriting while still clearly being Sacrifice songs: “Lunar Eclipse” is a showcase for Rico and Urbinati’s excellent twin guitar leads, while “Black Hashish” is Sacrifice at their most psychedelic. The album’s final track, “Trapped In A World,” is a cover of ‘80s Toronto hardcore band Direct Action, a group that had a massive influence on the members of Sacrifice during their formative years. The song features guest vocals by Youth Youth Youth vocalist and Toronto music legend Brian Taylor, who operated the Diabolic Force label in the eighties and produced the band’s first three albums, bringing everything full-circle three decades later with his appearance here.
The stunning front cover artwork for Volume Six was painted by Propagandhi bassist and lifelong Sacrifice fan Todd Kowalski. There is a mutual admiration between both bands: Propagandhi’s song “The Bangers Embrace,” off their 2009 album Supporting Caste, is a love letter to Sacrifice about seeing them play live back in 1990. The bands have shared stages over the years and released a split single of covers – Sacrifice transforms Rush’s “Anthem” into a thrash classic while Propagandhi does a Corrosion Of Conformity song – via the War On Music label in 2010. When Urbinati asked Kowalski about painting the cover he gave him the lyrics and the music and asked him to interpret it visually as he envisioned it.
The new “Missile” single is delivered through a lyric video, with Urbinati writing of the song, “‘Missile’ is a thrashing, anti-war, riff-fest written about the beginning of drone warfare where pilots were a half world away launching missile strikes like a video game. War solves nothing.”
Volume Six is available digitally and on CD, MC, and LP in Blue, White, and Black variants. Find preorders at the Cursed Blessings Records webshop here. The record is available through High Roller Records in Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Tracklisting:
“Comatose”
“Antidote Of Poison”
“Missile”
“Underneath Millennia”
“Your Hunger For War”
“Incoming Mass Extinction”
“Lunar Eclipse”
“Explode”
“Black Hashish”
“We Will Not Survive”
“Trapped In A World”
“Antidote Of Poison” lyric video:
Sacrifice originally formed in 1983 in Scarborough, Ontario, a suburb in the east end of Toronto. Taking influence from both the underground metal and punk scenes of the day, the then-teenagers released their debut album Torment In Fire in 1986 and established themselves as a band to watch. It was followed up by 1987’s Forward To Termination, featuring the video single “Re-animation,” which ended up in regular rotation on Canada’s Much Music video station the following year and even became the theme song for the channel’s long running metal music video show, the Pepsi Power Hour. Original Sepultura frontman Max Cavelera recently revealed Forward To Termination to be one of his three favorite thrash metal albums of all time. Their third effort, 1990’s Soldiers Of Misfortune, has been praised as one of the most important Canadian albums ever, making NOW Toronto’s 50 Best Toronto Albums Ever list.
Sacrifice played a prominent role in the 1980s underground metal scene in Toronto, and along with Voivod, Razor, and Exciter, is considered one of the “Big 4” of Canadian thrash metal. The band released four studio albums on Diabolic Force in Canada, Metal Blade Records in the US, and Roadrunner Records in Europe before parting ways in 1993. After coming back together to play a reunion concert in 2006, the quartet released their fifth studio album, The Ones I Condemn, in 2009. Since reforming, Sacrifice has played major international festivals, including Belgium’s Alcatraz Festival, Germany’s Keep it True, Peru’s Ai-apaec, Maryland Deathfest and California Deathfest in the United States, and both the 2012 and 2018 editions of Japan’s True Thrash Festival, amongst others.
(Photo – Kelly Clark Fotography)
The post SACRIFICE Drummer GUS PYNN On SFV – “I Honestly Thought At That Point That It Was The Best Thing That We’ve Ever Done” appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
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“Listen man, seven years ago in 2017,” longtime drummer Gus Pynn begins on BraveWords’ Streaming For Vengeance, “we had some material that was blowing our minds. It was like ‘what the fuck?’ They’re gonna stand up and take notice. Was I convinced back then until we went into the studio in 2022 and laid it down? And then we spent all last year, piecing it together, putting it all together and finally getting at this point in 2024. Production, mastering and literally sitting on the album since last June. That’s how long I’ve listened to this album. It was excruciating. I was thinking what are the people going to think? I just wanted to put out the record. I honestly thought at that point that it was the best thing that we’ve ever done. And I’m not fucking shitting you. That’s because I thought the songwriting was so good.
“I was watching Rob (frontman Urbinati) work on the lyrics and of course vocally and I was floored then,” the drummer adds. “All the stuff was given to me in demo form and I fell in love with it. Bottom line, I figured if it’s that good and I love it… I knew when we did The Ones I Condemn, I felt the most comfortable since Soldiers Of Misfortune. But I was terrified. I was afraid that fans might think that I’ve lost a step or two from soldiers. You always have that fear.
Sacrifice drum legend Gus Pynn guest on BraveWords’ Streaming For Vengeance tomorrow (March 4th) at 9AM EST.
The sixth Sacrifice album overall, and second since the band’s reformation in 2006, Volume Six features ten new originals and a cover paying homage to the Toronto scene from which they originally emerged. Working once again with engineer Darius Szczepaniak – who was also at the helm for Sacrifice’s 2009 effort The Ones I Condemn – Volume Six was recorded, mixed, and mastered at Phase One Studios in Scarborough, Ontario. Tracked over a period of sessions between September 2023 and May 2024, the eleven-song offering was produced by vocalist/guitarist Rob Urbinati and features the band’s original lineup, with lead guitarist Joe Rico, bassist Scott Watts, and drummer Gus Pynn as well as Urbinati. They are one of, if not the only, 1980s thrash band that still has its original lineup intact and playing together, and on Volume Six, the band hits it out of the park.
The songs on Volume Six run the gamut from speedy, breakneck thrash (“Comatose,” “Explode,” “We Will Not Survive”) to more nuanced, layered, metallic compositions (“Underneath Millenia,” “Your Hunger For War”). Two instrumental tracks on the album show yet another side of the band’s songwriting while still clearly being Sacrifice songs: “Lunar Eclipse” is a showcase for Rico and Urbinati’s excellent twin guitar leads, while “Black Hashish” is Sacrifice at their most psychedelic. The album’s final track, “Trapped In A World,” is a cover of ‘80s Toronto hardcore band Direct Action, a group that had a massive influence on the members of Sacrifice during their formative years. The song features guest vocals by Youth Youth Youth vocalist and Toronto music legend Brian Taylor, who operated the Diabolic Force label in the eighties and produced the band’s first three albums, bringing everything full-circle three decades later with his appearance here.
The stunning front cover artwork for Volume Six was painted by Propagandhi bassist and lifelong Sacrifice fan Todd Kowalski. There is a mutual admiration between both bands: Propagandhi’s song “The Bangers Embrace,” off their 2009 album Supporting Caste, is a love letter to Sacrifice about seeing them play live back in 1990. The bands have shared stages over the years and released a split single of covers – Sacrifice transforms Rush’s “Anthem” into a thrash classic while Propagandhi does a Corrosion Of Conformity song – via the War On Music label in 2010. When Urbinati asked Kowalski about painting the cover he gave him the lyrics and the music and asked him to interpret it visually as he envisioned it.
The new “Missile” single is delivered through a lyric video, with Urbinati writing of the song, “‘Missile’ is a thrashing, anti-war, riff-fest written about the beginning of drone warfare where pilots were a half world away launching missile strikes like a video game. War solves nothing.”
Volume Six is available digitally and on CD, MC, and LP in Blue, White, and Black variants. Find preorders at the Cursed Blessings Records webshop here. The record is available through High Roller Records in Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Tracklisting:
“Comatose”
“Antidote Of Poison”
“Missile”
“Underneath Millennia”
“Your Hunger For War”
“Incoming Mass Extinction”
“Lunar Eclipse”
“Explode”
“Black Hashish”
“We Will Not Survive”
“Trapped In A World”
“Antidote Of Poison” lyric video:
Sacrifice originally formed in 1983 in Scarborough, Ontario, a suburb in the east end of Toronto. Taking influence from both the underground metal and punk scenes of the day, the then-teenagers released their debut album Torment In Fire in 1986 and established themselves as a band to watch. It was followed up by 1987’s Forward To Termination, featuring the video single “Re-animation,” which ended up in regular rotation on Canada’s Much Music video station the following year and even became the theme song for the channel’s long running metal music video show, the Pepsi Power Hour. Original Sepultura frontman Max Cavelera recently revealed Forward To Termination to be one of his three favorite thrash metal albums of all time. Their third effort, 1990’s Soldiers Of Misfortune, has been praised as one of the most important Canadian albums ever, making NOW Toronto’s 50 Best Toronto Albums Ever list.
Sacrifice played a prominent role in the 1980s underground metal scene in Toronto, and along with Voivod, Razor, and Exciter, is considered one of the “Big 4” of Canadian thrash metal. The band released four studio albums on Diabolic Force in Canada, Metal Blade Records in the US, and Roadrunner Records in Europe before parting ways in 1993. After coming back together to play a reunion concert in 2006, the quartet released their fifth studio album, The Ones I Condemn, in 2009. Since reforming, Sacrifice has played major international festivals, including Belgium’s Alcatraz Festival, Germany’s Keep it True, Peru’s Ai-apaec, Maryland Deathfest and California Deathfest in the United States, and both the 2012 and 2018 editions of Japan’s True Thrash Festival, amongst others.
(Photo – Kelly Clark Fotography)
The post SACRIFICE Drummer GUS PYNN On SFV – “I Honestly Thought At That Point That It Was The Best Thing That We’ve Ever Done” appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
Continue reading...
