INTERVIEW: Woe at Shadow Woods Metal Fest, September 14 – 17 2017

By: Mark Ambrose

From September 14-17, hundreds of metal fans descended on White Hall, Marylandfor a weekend of camping, music, and generic mayhem at the third annual Shadow Woods Metal Fest.  THE SLUDGELORDwas on the scene and managed to snag a few interviews with performers, artists, and the people behind this unique, amazing musical event.  As part of our coverage, we sat down with Chris Grigg (guitar and lead vocals) and Grzekiek Czapla (bass) of Brooklyn black metal powerhouse Woe before their set on Saturday, September 16.  Chris and Grzekiek took a few minutes to discuss their new album, “Hope Attrition”, their new label Vendetta Records, and the future of Woeafter a lengthy hiatus and lineup changes.



What are your thoughts on Shadow Woods so far?

Grzekiek: Really cool fest, cool people, organized as FUCK.  The bands are sick.  I’m really happy to be here.

You recently put out “Hope Attrition”, your first release with Matt Mewton (guitars) and Lev Weinstein (drums).  What’s the difference with their presence in the band as opposed to your prior releases?

Chris: They were super on top of shit.  This was the smoothest recording.

G: The most prepared that we’ve ever been for an album.

C: Not to say that people in the past were unprepared but this was just very low stress.  It was also the first album since the very first one that I didn’t record on my own.  So that was very helpful that I didn’t record shit.

G: Oh yeah!  Chris didn’t record this one!

C: Thank fucking god.

Who were you working with in the studio?

C: Stephen DeAcutis in Edison, NJ– he recorded Evoken[2007 “Caress of the Void”], Disma.

G: Legend!

C: Amazing studio, amazing engineer.  Sick dude.  But Matt and Lev rule! Grzekiek rules!

G: Probably, hopefully this is the band.

C: It fucking better be.

So it feels nice and secure for now?

G: It feels forever.

There was a pause between 2013’s “Withdrawal” and this.  What were you working on in the meantime?

C:  Mostly I wasn’t playing music.  I took a lot of time off for life things.  G was doing life things.

G:  We were completely in communication.  Best friends, hang out.  We just weren’t playing. 

C:  He was doing other band stuff.  I switched careers and really just needed a bit of a break.  I was pretty burnt out.  And a nice thing about not having to depend on it to make money we have the flexibility of saying, “Yeah, we’re not gonna do it.”  I got healthier – I’m not like a totally depressed, anxious person, the way I used to be.  I just took some time to be a better person and hit restart on the whole project.

This is your first album with Vendetta Records.  How has that relationship been so far?

C: Amazing.  AMAZING.  Stefan [Klose] is the coolest fucking dude.

G:  The first label we worked with where it felt like they are on our side.

C:  Totally, all the time.

G:  They are an awesome label and are successful because of it.

Who are you looking forward to seeing today?

G:  Motherfucking VASTUM.  And yesterday, Human Bodies blew me away.

C:  We kind of want them to just play our set for us.

What do you do in your non-Woe time?

C:  I’m a developer – code.

G:  I’m a geologist.

2 parts Woe, 1 part SLUDGELORD

Are you guys multitasking with any other projects?

C:  Matt and I have a new band called Death Icon– just raging, thrashy black metal.  I’m drumming for that.  Back on the kit.  I did the first Woe album and had a grindcore album with my friends Unrest a few years ago with the guys from Crypt Sermon.  NAME DROP! 

G:  Alright with the name drops.

C: Ok I can keep going.

G: Sonja– we’re a three piece.  We fucking rule – fucking absurdly rule.  With Melissa Moore and Ben Brand.  Sisters of Mercy meets Type O Negative meets Manowar and Judas Priest.  Classic rock, just heavy metal.

C:  Heavy metal with like a goth, dark, deathrock vibe.  I would quit my job and move back to Philly to play bass – no, second guitar.  Everyone who hears it wants to be in this band.

And are there any events you want to promote?

C:  We’re playing with Nails and Couch Slut in Brooklynon November 18

G: Much respect to THE SLUDGELORD!

The End

Band info: facebook|| bandcamp

TOP 16 ALBUMS: The Sour 16 for February 2017

Let it be known fellow Sludgelordians, “The Sour 16” returns.  The Sludgelord presents the very best riff based music to pour scorn on this desolate day and strike upon us the might of the riff, to inject our veins with sin and guide us on journey of subservice to doom, an act that goes against the very laws and teachings of populist culture, and for those that wish to come with us on our quest, kneel with me as we embrace the thunderous din that is, “The Sour 16”.

You know the drill by now, each month, you the reader are unwittingly compiling a list of the top 16 records of the month, covering all genres of metal.  Is it not a chart, in which reviewers or contributors extol their opinion about their favourite music.  To put it simply, “The Sour 16” are the records that have been trending the most at Sludgelord Headquarters.

The results are compiled based on page views alone and calibrated into the list below.  All reviews can be viewed by clicking the artwork and we have included album streams wherever possible. (Total views since their publication are highlighted in red)

16). Morta Skuld - "Wounds Deeper Than Time" (579)

15). Crystal Fairy - "Crystal Fairy" (629)

14). Woe - “Hope Attrition” (660)

13). Weltesser - "Crestfallen" (711)

12). Grey Widow - "II" (720)

11). Dread Sovereign - "For Doom The Bell Tolls" (739)

10). Brutus- "Burst" (820)

9). Wiegedood - “De Doden Hebben Het Goed II” (924)

8). Psychedelic Witchcraft– “Magick Rites and Spells" (979)

  

7). Darkest Hour - “Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora”(1011)

6). Death Alley - "Live At Roadburn" (1023)

5). Cult of Occult / Grim Van Doom - "Split" (1096)

4). Sleep - "The Clarity" (EP) (1437)

3). DOOL - "Here Now, There Then" (1439)

2). Unearthly Trance - "Stalking the Ghost" (1526)

1). Widows - "Oh Deer God" (1705)

A big thank you as always to our amazing writers, your dedication knows no boundaries and for that I am truly grateful. February’s  “Sour 16” features reviews by:  Victor Van Ommen, Ben Fitts, Theron Moore, Brandon Green, Charlie Butler, Chris Bull, Jake Wallace, Conor O’Dea & Grim Trashcan

ALBUM REVIEW: Woe - “Hope Attrition”

By: Conor O’Dea

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 17/03/2017

Label: Independent |
Vendetta

“This is music that is deeply rooted in darkness that still somehow manages to be transcendent and uplifting.  If you liked the incredible promise presented by “A Spell for the Death of Man”, this album exceeds it in every way. This is great metal, full stop.”

“Hope Attrition” DD track listing:

1). Unending Call of Woe

2). No Blood Has Honor

3). A Distant Epitaph

4). The Din of the Mourning

5). The Ones We Lost

6). Drown Us with Greatness

7). Abject in Defeat

The Review:

USBM has always been an interesting subgenre characterization for me. I have generally been of the school that geographies aren't exactly the most robust way to define a sound in a heavily globalized world. Labels like 'Cascadian', while lyrical and evocative, certainly extend beyond a specific geospatial location. Like all things boxed and categorized, we need to remind ourselves that while topographies may inspire certain sonic landscapes, the map is seldom the territory. Which is a very roundabout way of bringing me to the point that I do feel like there is something idiosyncratic in black metal that is made in America, but that something is very, very difficult to define. It is more like a visceral challenge to and disrespect for orthodoxy, movements, subgenres than anything tangible or even consciously intended. And this is neither borne of contrarian pretense nor some musical equivalent of obstinate defiance disorder: USBM bands make metal the way they want to. It is inflected and accented with the elements they choose and that's all there is to it.

Woe's “A Spell for the Death of Man”was a standout for me when released, and partially for these reasons, this was band that, for lack of a better description, sounded like themselves. Yes, you can hear their influences. Yes, you can see where the alchemy underpinning some of their ideas. But already in this debut, you can hear musicians keenly aware without fabricated neurosis of being overly self-conscious or possessed by self-conceit. They aren't trying or aiming for anything beyond that, and the results are savage and excellent. “Alone with our Failures” and “Wake in Mourning” are emblematic of this strong identity and musicianship. The promise of A Spell continued to bloom in sophomore effort “Quietly”, undramatically, but seemed to stagnate slightly in “Withdrawal”, which felt a little attenuated and listless by comparison. I can happily state that “Hope Attrition” is several steps beyond the debut and follow-up albums in both maturity and compositional excellence.

I have written a couple of times before on this blog about the importance of album cohesion, and this album has it in spades. Album opener “Unending Call of Woe” offers thick, mildly dissonant riffing, serving as the perfect introit for the conflagration that follows it. “No Blood Has Honor” has gone already as a song of the year pick for me, and I do not see it being bumped off the list. Anthemic, relentless, instantly memorable, it is the peak of an excellent album. “A Distant Epitaph” is a perfectly mournful acoustic interlude, but painfully short, given how beautiful it is. I would have liked to have seen this fleshed out a little more. Throughout the album, the raging but sorrowful melodicism of the second track sees expression in a variety of songs, which leads me to that strangest of black metal paradoxes: music that is deeply rooted in darkness that still somehow manages to be transcendent and uplifting. Leave it to black metal that emerged from New Jersey and grew up in New York to be as gritty as it is transformative. If you liked the incredible promise presented by “A Spell for the Death of Man”, this album exceeds it in every way. This is great metal, full stop

“Hope Attrition” is available to preorder/buy here. Vinyl will be available here

Band info: facebook|| bandcamp