Surrey added to the map of New Wave of British Death Metal

LIFE AFTER DEATH METAL IN EPSOM
By Tom Willmott

Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page may be Epsom’s most famous musician but his namesake Danny Page (no relation) hopes to rival him one day. Danny is the lead singer of Pravus, an up and coming death metal band hailing from Epsom, a small town in Surrey.

Before settling on Pravus, the band, which also features guitarists Dave and Paul, bassist Cloud and drummer Iolo, had been through various name changes. “It’s a Latin word meaning depraved, wicked, evil and perverse, basically what we wanted to convey in our music.” The band claim to have a diverse range of influences. “We all have our specific favourites, mine personally are pretty vast, including Strapping Young Lad, Cannibal Corpse, Porcupine Tree, Opeth, Aborted and Yes.” In an attempt to raise their profile, they have entered a competition for a place at UK metal festival Bloodstock Open Air. Success would mean playing alongside giants such as Heaven and Hell and Twisted Sister. “It would be a great honour to play Bloodstock, I couldn't think of a better way to break through into the scene than to play a festival that has so many successful acts on its bill.”

Their songs focus mainly on the darker side of this planet. “Empires” (full title “Empire of Hate”) is about a fictional world where we are run by a totalitarian state, fed fake news stories and kept in our homes. As their sound is hard to define, even they find it difficult to categorise themselves, although the sound they are closest to is death metal. “We aren't really brutal enough for death metal. We aren't proggy enough for prog metal and we aren't groovy enough for groove metal.” Despite their short touring life, they are already on track to proving themselves ones to look out for. “Our last gig had the biggest turnout and we got a very positive response.”

When it comes to recording, they are very organised. “We don't actually get to the studio until we're confident with the song as a band first in the jamming room. So it’s usually there that we write and structure the songs.” The band have promised that new material will be delivered in the near future. “We have two tracks from our demo that were featured on MySpace after the gig at the London Gaff in Holloway on 14 March, and more to feature on our EP we're writing.” And whilst the band may not have as much funds as they would like, they're still prepared to tear up a venue near you. “We may not have the budget to be able to do a full on tour, but we are looking to play as many shows as possible around the UK.” It seems this band really do have the potential to kick up a storm and are ready to challenge the metal scene. Visit the band’s MySpace (www.myspace.com/pravusmetal) for any gig updates and new demos.

ROCKS LIKE:
Hypocrisy – A Taste Of Extreme Divinity
Napalm Death – Smear Campaign
Nevermore – Enemies Of Reality

The week that shouldn't have been!!

Triumph and Trauma are two things I have constantly battled with in the past 5 days. I felt it would be useful to express my feelings in my neglected blog just to give a recap.

Monday - No uni today and so things would been running as smooth as possible. Since this is the day that the new album releases and also with a load of money in hand, my wallet was going to be murdered. However, on my way in the town square, I passed some twattish idiots who I overhead utter the words "Get a fucking haircut." trying to make out I couldn't hear what was going on. It really angers me that people would judge you on your appearance especially in this day and age. I could have easily insulted them back but when there's other citizens around you, it's just not acceptable. I cheered up eventually by getting Band Of Skulls' album which I finding really enjoyable at the moment.

Tuesday - So I enter uni for contextual studies (my least favourite part of the course) and have a very early wake up call to a crime scene. What turned out to be what I thought was just a nice way of insulting each other turned out more viscous, which I felt such a shame considering this class had always had a friendly nature. Not only that, we had to stay behind for a while considering the police were called in and so asking for all witnesses phone numbers and having to write down a statement about what had occurred. It definitely was an act of total selfishness considering we had to miss a camera tutorial we had initially been booked in for. But at least it brings us closer as a group considering we now have an "enemy".

Wednesday - Again it was an early start but this time for all fun reasons. Booking free Rage Against The Machine tickets would always be a nightmare and so after nearly waiting 90 minutes I felt like tearing my hair out and breaking down in tears in front of the screen. At one point I was nearly helped out by my lovely friend Kelly but whilst trying at the other end I finally succeeded in getting two tickets. The only thing I am worried about is that because I was in a state of panic I hope I put my friends correct details down. Then came a very lengthy waiting game for the confirmation e-mail to arrive. See Tickets has never had a great reputation in the past and they weren't doing themselves any favours by taking even longer than expected to deliver the confirmation. At around 5.16 I received confirmation alas 46 mins late. But at least now that was over and done with I felt extremely cream crackered and wasn't able to get out of my seat until around 1 a.m.

Thursday - Another lecture that would hopefully go a lot less violent than the previous. But even this would have its weak points. A fire alarm blurted out and so it was time to evacuate the building. I really cannot stand fire alarms due to the fact they can damage your hearing badly not to mention there was one the other week nearly my house which lasted nearly six fucking hours and whilst trying to drown out the torture with Mogwai, my ipod ran down to an empty battery. Eventually after standing nearly twenty minutes in the rain, we were granted access to enter once again. The cause apparently was a hair dryer of all things!! But the lecture was a pretty interesting affair and going to weatherspoons for a slap up meal (due to one of our colleagues birthday) is always worthwile. I had the pleasure of interviewing my favourite Italian Melanie with her also interviewing. It was pretty funny even though I kept going "off the record" and missing out valuable questions. But at least I felt a bit more self-conscious this time around.

Friday - So out of all the things that had frustrated me, who'd have thought it would be my turn to let MYSELF down!! All because of mistaking two digits for one. I can't believe I would make such a foolish mistake and I now feel ashamed. If it was my previous college, I really wouldn't haven't cared because it was awful. However with uni, I do care. I actually find what my lecturers very interesting characters and the people I work with are some of the best people I've met in the past 5 years or so. It is kind of a shame I've broken my near 100% record attendance but I guess nobody's perfect. Also I'm starting to get sick of looking at forums where people like to think themselves as intelligent by treating their opinions as facts. If they really value their opinion that much they should have at least taken up something like Music Journalism and then they could be taken a little more seriously.

I do apologise for sounding like a whiny little bitch as I don't tend to talk about my experiences but it just felt a bit more necessary this time.

Hopefully uni will get back to normal and I'll manage my time a lot better in the future. On a positive note this what I literally cannot wait to hear. This has definitely made my week more than anything:

Albums to look out for this year

Well we can now speculate on what is in stock for this year in terms of album releases. I'm keeping my eye out for this lot so far:

Lostprophets - The Betrayed (18 Jan)
HIM - Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice (8 Feb)
Angels and Airwaves - Love (14 Feb) (Released entirely for free!!)
Story of The Year - The Constant (15 Feb)
Alkaline Trio - This Addiction (22 Feb)
Blood Red Shoes - Fire Like This (1 Mar)
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Beat The Devils Tattoo (8 Mar)
The Automatic - Tear Down The Signs (8 Mar)
Dillinger Escape Plan - Option Parlysis (22 Mar)
Kamelot - TBC (22 Mar)
Deftones - TBC (26 Apr)
Rolo Tomassi - Stolen Magic (Mar)
Coheed and Cambria - Year of The Black Rainbow (Apr)
Slaves To Gravity - Underwaterouterspace (Apr)
Cancer Bats - Bears, Mayors, Scraps and Bones (Apr)
Bullet For My Valentine - TBC (Apr)
Gaslight Anthem - American Slang (Jun)
Stone Sour - TBC (Aug)
Against Me - White Crosses (Spring)
Good Charlotte - Cardiology (Spring)
Funeral For A Friend - TBC (Summer)
Fighting With Wire - Bones of The Twilight (TBC)

Then hopefully these bands will be relasing something:

Jimmy Eat World (Aiming for a 2010 release)
Kings of Leon (No word yet but lets hope it's an improvement on Only By The Night)
Fair To Midland (Have just released a new demo and recording new material)
Oceansize (Just released an EP so a full length is expected to follow)
Hold Steady (Debuting new songs on tour)
Pulled Apart By Horses (Highly anticipated debut which apparently is done and dusted)
Brigade - (Aiming for a 2010 release)
Incubus - (Just released a greatest hits album and come off their hiatus)
Nine Inch Nails - (Apparently two new releases confirmed by Mr Reznor himself)
Middle Class Rut - (Released an EP last year so debut now expected)
Awesome Color - (No word yet but it would be nice to hear more new material)
Arcade Fire - (Aiming for a 2010 release)
Fucked Up - (Have some releases planned apparently)
Iron Maiden - (Playing Sonisphere so hoepfully there will be new material to be promoted)
Exit Ten - (New demos have surfaced)
Bright Eyes - (Apparently the last album to be released under the "Bright Eyes" moniker but still aiming for a 2010 release)
Zico Chain - (Several demos have surfaced)
Chapman Family - (Having already released a couple of singles a debut should seem likely)
Innerpartysystem - (Have started writing and demoing)
White Stripes - (Jack White should be entering the studio after finishing touring with his several hundred other bands)
Strokes - (Playing the Isle of Wight festival so hopefully there will be new material to promote)
Interpol - (Aiming for a 2010 release)
Foals - (Same as above)
Klaxons - (Even if it has taken them three years apparently progress is being made)
Within Temptation - (Aiming for a 2010 release)
Turisas - (Same as above)

There is also the hope of Foo Fighters and Queens of The Stone Age releasing new material but if not then another Them Crooked Vultures album would be nice. Or maybe a new Desert Sessions album but that would be greedy.

Another thing I had intended was to include Avenged Sevenfold in the list but since the untimely death of their drummer Rev, the chance of releasing a new album now look very slim.