The last time we wrote anything connected to Noisem was back when the guys’ former band, Necropsy, had a demo in 2012. They’ve grown up a bit now, and sound as good as ever. The new record, Cease To Exist, has the band’s usual influences (Repulsion, general thrash metal), and is a fast punch in the face of grindcore. None of the 10 songs on the record reach 3 minutes in length.
Our ears may be deceiving, but it sounds like the band is in standard tuning, or at least don’t tune way down, both of which are unusual for this kind of music. “Early on I wanted us to stick out being one of the few bands playing extreme music closer to standard tuning,” guitarist Sebastian Phillips tells D.U. over email, “but after a while we started messing around with different tunings and landed on D for its slightly darker tonality.”
In D.U.‘s opinion, the current three-piece lineup that recorded the new album is more intense live than the last five-piece lineup. “I think the trio format forces you to focus on what you’re playing more than a bigger lineup where a mistake is less noticeable in the wall of noise. I still try to put the same intensity into the show,” says Sebastian. Drummer Harley Phillips adds, “I don’t feel like it’s something we ever consciously do. It’s moreso just a product of us playing these songs as hard as we can.”
Sebastian and Harley explain that they’ve been working on material for Cease To Exist for a while, but the thing that’s new with this record is the lyrics. Sebastian says, “When we changed lineups we asked Ben [Anft, bass/vocals] to write them for us since he was the one that had to scream them every night.”
The guys played a hometown record release show this month which went well. Here’s a clip below.
Many people, we think, figured Noisem was going to blow up a few years ago, what with the big-ass tours the guys were doing, playing with Carcass and so on. Hopefully they’ll climb back up to that stature again. The guys say that while these days they do things as they come, they wouldn’t mind playing on those big tours again.
In the meantime, Cease To Exist is out now from 20 Buck Spin on tape, CD, LP (various colors), and on Bandcamp.
Note: this post has been updated with an interview added.