Legendary Paradise Lost / Bloodbath singer Nick Holmes is our guest this Friday on BraveWords' Streaming For Vengeance, talking about Bloodbath’s sixth full-length album, Survival Of The Sickest, out this Friday via Napalm Records.
Self-proclaimed Florida death metal exported from Sweden, Holmes looks back fondly at the primal roots of the genre.
“There is this sort of Florida vibe, I mean a lot of those bands are very influential on the whole kind of first wave of death metal,” he remarks. “Obviously when Entombed, Nihilist came along, that created a sort of new sound, as well. So, the Swedish thing and the Florida thing goes quite nice together. It's just a different tone of guitars, I think. A lot of it, really."
BraveWords: When you were growing up as a kid, did you draw from the Florida death metal scene? Do you still spin this material today?
Holmes: "Yeah, in fact before we play live, we generally listen to old school death metal. Jonas (Renkse; also Katatonia) will bring along his MP3 player, with his bluetooth speaker, and we just like blast it out for like two hours prior to the gigs. For me I always got the kind of strange live tapes from Tampa with Morbid Angel and Massacre, and Death. And I didn't know what the guys looked like, so everything was kind of shrouded in mystery. You didn't know what people looked like, and all you had was this cassette that blew you away, and same with the demos as well. But the live tapes had so much in them, '86, '87 that's when I really started collecting them. So the old Massacre live shows were just amazing. But again, you couldn't see them, so it made them more interesting. Now you just see them straight away, you just click your finger, but it was a lot more exciting in that respect."
BraveWords: Did you ever end up seeing Death or any of these bands live?
Holmes: "Death toured the UK, but Chuck didn't show up on that tour. I was kind of disappointed, you know? Unfortunately I didn't get to see the original with Chuck there, but they were so great, I have such good memories of those albums."
BraveWords: I spoke with Martin Van Drunen from Asphyx a couple of years ago at Summer Breeze and he said, "Blame it on John Tardy", in terms of the vocals. It's Obituary’s fault.
Holmes: "Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think the first thing I had with him was Executioner before they became Obituary. But yeah, fantastic! Great death metal voice. I mean brilliant. Absolutely, he's certainly one of the first. And also, I love it when there's different styles of death metal voice. There's obviously the kind of, typical kind of one where the chin's in the neck and you can't really hear what anyone's saying, but I love it when you can actually hear the words and it's still death metal. I've always liked that voice, like Scott Carlson from Repulsion is a good example of that. He hasn't got the most guttural voice, but he's got a great style and I like the fact that you can hear what he's saying. I've always kind of liked that."
BraveWords: And Obituary are also famous for actually not printing their lyrics.
Holmes: "Yeah. Did he even have lyrics? I'm not sure it would matter either way."
BraveWords: I find that Bloodbath - this might be a really strange thing to say - but you're almost creating your own genre. Does that make any sense?
Holmes: "Um, I guess as in the case that we're paying homage to music that was so long ago that it's almost like no one's really playing that anymore. Perhaps it's kind of retro, a retrospect I guess, that not a lot of people are actually doing, maybe. But I guess there's so many generations gone by since the start, it's good to kind of remember who started all this. We're sort of bringing that back a bit, tipping the hat to it, you know."
BraveWords: Bloodbath is a gateway for kids - it's a new release if you've never heard it, right?
Holmes: "Yeah, absolutely. It was such an exciting thing, and everything's completely different now in the music world and there's been a lot of different genres come along since then, and styles, and nu metal and stuff like that. But yeah, it's nice that you can do all this music with a modern production, then it sounds like it's modern again. Everything goes around in circles anyway, I think. And if you stay around long enough, you're going to see something going round again, you know?"
Tune in this Friday, September 9th at 3:33 PM EST for the entire interview with Nick Holmes! You can watch/listen Streaming For Vengeance on the BraveWords Facebook page or the BraveWords YouTube channel. For more information about Streaming For Vengeance, visit this location.
The world is in flames, and Survival Of The Sickest, produced by Bloodbath and co-produced and mixed by Lawrence Mackrory at Rorysound Studios, offers no respite from the horrors of reality. Instead, with the addition of new guitarist Tomas ‘Plytet’ Åkvik (Lik) onboard, Bloodbath’s latest and greatest album gleefully confronts the slavering ghoul lurking in the shadows, and treats him to ten songs of ripping death metal frenzy. Alongside Bloodbath’s official alumni, Survival Of The Sickest boasts a smattering of irresistible cameos from the great, good and ghoulish of the metal underground, including Barney Greenway (Napalm Death), Luc Lemay (Gorguts) and Marc Grewe (Morgoth).
Bloodbath: "If there was a declaration of goods attached to this album, it would say Florida death metal exported from Sweden."
Survival Of The Sickest will be available in the following formats:
- Digisleeve CD Edition
- Digital Full Length Album
- 1 Tape Edition - Brown Transparent with blue print - limited to 200, Napalm Records Shop exclusive
- Wooden Box Edition (incl. Digisleeve, Mouse Trap, Album Cover Flag, Cover Patch) - limited to 500, Napalm Records Shop exclusive
- 1LP Sky Blue - limited to 300, Napalm Records Shop exclusive
- 1LP Dark Green - limited to 500, Napalm Records Shop exclusive
- 1LP Picture Vinyl - limited to 500, Napalm Records Shop exclusive
- 1LP Black
Pre-order here.
Survival Of The Sickest tracklisting:
“Zombie Inferno“
“Putrefying Corpse“
“Dead Parade“
“Malignant Maggot Therapy“
“Carved“
“Born Infernal“
“To Die“
“Affliction of Extinction“
“Tales of Melting Flesh“
“Environcide“
“No God Before Me“
“Carved” video:
“Zombie Inferno” video:
“No God Before Me” lyric video:
Bloodbath live dates:
September
9-10 - Hüttikon, Switzerland - Meh Suff! (performance day TBC)
24 - Monterrey, Mexico - Mexico Metal Fest
Bloodbath are:
Nick Holmes - vocals
Anders Nyström - guitar
Tomas Åkvik - guitar
Jonas Renkse - bass
Martin ‘Axe’ Axenrot - drums
(Photo - Ester Segarra)
