Thursday 4 September 2008

Overcast Are Reborn On Reunion Album; Plus Killswitch Engage, Metallica & More News That Rules, In Metal File





It's been two days since influential Massachusetts metallers Overcast announced they'd be reuniting for a single release � a accumulation of re-recorded tracks culled from the band's seedy produced back-catalog.


But on Tuesday, after what was a prolonged, even modest, bidding war (or as close down to a bidding war as you can get in metallic element), Overcast's reunion LP, Reborn to Kill Again, in the end landed in stores. And while the band has a fistful of reunion shows engaged through August 30 in Waterbury, Connecticut, with Dissolve, the reunion is going to be short-lived � at least for the time being.


With frontman Brian Fair's number one priority existence Shadows Fall, the striation he united after Overcast's 1998 dying, and bassist Mike D'Antonio's other band, Killswitch Engage, set to start work on their next studio effort in October, Overcast's reunion can't carry on forever. But D'Antonio aforementioned there's a chance the band could release new material down the line.


"When we recorded it, we just well-tried to start the songs sounding as good as they maybe could, and there ar two songs we'd ne'er recorded that are on this platter," he aforesaid. "We had talked about doing some other record, and there's another record on the tabular array under our contract with Metal Blade. We toilet do it if we want. If we don't, whatever. But we have discussed doing another record, and I'm kind of excited around tinkering with ideas for it. That said, if we did start writing a new album, and it wasn't turning out like an Overcast record, I don't think we'd put it out. It really needs to give a certain vibe. It can't be another metalcore record, like the things that are going on these days. It really needs to have that old-school brain, which we had held true gage then. If not, it's not even worth it."


Produced by Killswitch guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz and recorded on the band's own dime, Reborn to Kill Again may sound slightly different to longtime fans. That's because some of the songs were recorded the way they were originally played or tweaked in the studio to reflect the changes they've undergone since they were outset recorded.


"We didn't want to change it too much, and we didn't want it to sound like a different band," D'Antonio said. "At the like time, we didn't want to give [fans] the exact same record, just we did want it to feel like the same banding. Some of the stuff was recorded the way we'd played the songs live, because when you've played something 100,000 times, you end up tweaking it, changing it slightly. So the raw album reflects some of the aged songs and how we used to play them live back then."


After Overcast's brief run of gigs, it's back up to Killswitch for Mike. He aforementioned he's been writing material for the follow-up to 2006's As Daylight Dies over the past year, and he's already submitted a handful of demos for the disc, which the band hopes to have in stores this coming spring. He aforesaid a headlining run was also in the works for March.


"I'm one of those dudes who necessarily to save constantly, because I actually suck at writing medicine with a deadline," D'Antonio said. "My brain gets fried, and I can't do anything, I just now shut down completely. When we start on this next one, we'll just bring our demos to practice, and we'll hear to them, judge them and start rearranging the parts that need to be rearranged � or we just start jam on what sounds cool."


So far, he said, the material's sounding "fast" and everything he's written for the LP "has at least one and only blast thump and very fast drumming, with truly slow riffs." Has the bassist always considered a Shadows Fall/ Killswitch Engage co-headlining go, with Overcast as the opener? "Not at all, but that could be fun," he said. "It could be really non fun for me, merely that's something to consider."


The rest of the week's metal news:


If you'd like to take heed Metallica's raw single, "The Day That Never Comes," you rump head on over to the band's MySpace thomas Nelson Page, where it's been streaming since Thursday morning. The song will appear on the band's forthcoming album, Death Magnetic, due September 12. ...


First, Sid Wilson breaks both his heels. Now, Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison has broken an ankle, forcing the band to