Dust Bolt: Thrashing In Chaos
Thrash metal is very much a genre fuelled by youth, it’s lyrical themes often come from a place of anger, disillusionment, and more often than not a love of partying. Which is why it’s strange that the bands on the forefront of thrash have barely changed since the genre’s birth, however with the old guard of acts like SLAYER stepping down it’s time for new blood to be shed. Enter Germany’s DUST BOLT, young, angry, and hungry for thrash domination. We met up with guitarist and singer Lenny Bruce in the middle of Bloodstock Open Air to talk about the future of thrash, life as a young band, and new album Trapped In Chaos.
“To be honest I think it’s time for a change in thrash metal because people always keep watching the old bands and what they do when there are so many kids and young bands coming out,” Bruce respectfully tells us as a huge crowd gathers for ANTHRAX a just over the fence. “There’s this young uprising who’re taking it to the next level and do the 2019 version of thrash. I think we should check them out and listen to them.” DUST BOLT join peers like POWER TRIP and OOZING WOUND in a modern wave of thrash, throttling a genre which has been stagnant for far too long.
The band released their first album, 2012’s Violent Domination, when they were in their teens, since they’ve not only grown into their sound but also into Europe’s most promising thrash acts. “We’ve learned somethings with all the albums we’ve done, the first one we were seventeen back then! The next twenty, then twenty-two whatever. It’s a time where you always learn things change, and you find yourself.” Trapped In Chaos the most accomplished and polished album of their career so far. It knows what it is, a no-nonsense thrash record that shoots down the middle. “Trapped In Chaos felt like the first time we were really like “okay, that’s what we really want to do” for sure. That’s how it felt for us, its a good feeling, we were a lot more focused. 100% us and who we are now, that’s the main point.”
Trapped In Chaos is somewhat of a coming of age record in two senses, not only does the band find its footing sonically but the lyrics cover Bruce’s experience being dragged kicking and screaming into ‘real-life’. “Trapped In Chaos, you can interpret in many different ways but I see it as we’ve always been these kids playing music together, one hundred per cent about the band once you get older you get thrown into this chaotic world nowadays.” It’s this frustration and claustrophobia of the modern grind that fuels the anger behind the record. Bruce continues, “what we want to do is this, play music 24/7 and have days at festivals like today! Today has been great! The show went great! And playing festivals is always cool, you get to meet other people, you get to meet bands, you’ve seen someplace new. It’s cool as a fan to go to a festival, as a band it’s the same thing. It’s fun and we want to do it for a living but you get trapped in chaos. Being thrown into it and having to deal with it, with the positive things but also the negative things of course. Somehow you gotta make your way through it.”
Bruce uses his lyrics and writing very observationally. “It’s all my personal thoughts on somethings, issues, emotions, anything can be a trigger to write lyrics,” he tells us, using all facets of life as fuel. “You’re somewhere and it pops up in your head. I always have a piece of paper with me and I just write stuff. On the road, at home, it depends, it’s everywhere. It just happens, I don’t overthink it, it’s just what comes out of us.”
DUST BOLT are still relatively young and fresh-faced, and despite being thrown into the overstimulating pit of everyday life they are thriving as a band you’ll find them on at the head of the charge to take over trash metal.
Trapped In Chaos is out now via Napalm Records.
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