Rockezine.com interview with Detonation on Mar 26, 2005

with Koen Romeijn on Mar 26, 2005

The other day Rockezine received an invitation for a listening session of the new Detonation album. I’ve followed the band through the years so the invitation was readily accepted.
		So on a cold Saturday morning in February my friend Deathmelz from Dutch e-zine Hollands Metaal (www.hollandsmetaal.nl) and I took the train to Rotterdam and after a twenty minute walk we arrived at the Excess Studios, home of the band for the past few weeks. After a quick introduction and a cup of coffee all the press was gathered in the mixing room to pre-listen the upcoming “Portals To Uphobia”. What would be presented today were rough mixes of seven of a total of nine tracks that will be featured on the album. The remaining two tracks were not ready in time for the listening session.
		I will leave a detailed review in the hands of the reviewer who will receive the finished product because it’s not easy to judge an album you’ve only heard once. The one time I actually heard the album the first thing that demanded my attention was the great sound. The Excess Studios and in-house producer Hans Pieters have made huge progress during the last couple of years regarding the sound quality of their productions. Compare for instance Thanatos’ “Angelic Encounters” (2000) with “Undead.Unholy.Divine” (2004) and notice the considerable difference in sound. Both were recorded at Excess by Hans!
		The first few tracks we heard were more or less in the vein of their debut album “An Epic Defiance”; fast but melodic death/thrash metal, closely related to the Gothenburg-style of bands such as At The Gates, Dark Tranquillity and In Flames. The fourth track “Chaos Banned” however drifts away from familiar ground. It shows Detonation in a more melodic form and lacks any blast beats whatsoever. “End Of Sight, End Of Fears” is also mid-tempo and akin to the previous track. “Lost Euphoria Part III however is unrelated to any track on this album, featuring even Spanish guitars and covering more experimental grounds.
		After the “melodic intermezzos” the pedal is again put to the metal and the rest of the tracks are in the typical Detonation style. After listening to the album there was room for some questions.
		Your drummer Thomas had a pretty bad injury which forced him to stop playing for quite some time. Did he fully recover? Yes he finally recovered and is very eager to play again at full force. Because his injury occurred after the previous tour however, we are pretty cautious not to play too many gigs. Just to be sure.
		The guitars sound very warm and full, how did you achieve that? For the “Portals..” album we used Levi-tops and we are very pleased with them! We didn’t use too many guitar tracks and yet the sound is great.
		Who was responsible for the cover painting? The cover art was done by Niklas Sundin who also plays guitar in Dark Tranquillity. He also did the cover art for “An Epic Defiance” and we were very pleased with the end result so we wanted him to design the “Portals...” cover also. Unfortunately he’s a bit expensive.
		I noticed that all the regular tracks have the same structure: a fast beginning, a mellow mid section and a fast ending. Is that done on purpose or is this just the way you write songs? We also discovered that most tracks are that way but this was not planned in advance or something. Maybe we should avoid this on the next album because it might be a bit too predictable in the long run.
		The whole album in fact follows the same pattern. Three fast tracks, three slower ones and four fast tracks at the end... That was done on purpose to begin the album with a bang, letting the listener regain his breath and then ending it all with a blast.
		Is there a story behind the lyrics? A concept? “Portals To Uphobia” is not a concept album in the true sense of the word but all lyrics deal with the same subject: making choices.
		What will the release date be? The release date is the 25th of April but this is always subject to change.
		(Roy van den Brink)