Dying Fetus: The Music Comes First
It’s been some time since we have been blessed with new material from everyone’s favourite metal hashtag but this was not for want of trying. Maryland death metal veterans DYING FETUS hit a number of stumbling blocks on their way to bringing their latest maniacal offering Make Them Beg For Death to life.
“COVID stunted its growth and held up our progress quite a lot and the whole vinyl shortage crisis didn’t help as we wanted to offer a lot of different variants to the fans,” explains frontman John Gallagher. “We wanted to get the album out in a more timely fashion and this delay was never intentional but at the same time we didn’t want to rush anything, we wanted to take time and develop everything as much as possible. I feel it’s better to spend more time to get a quality product which the fans are going to enjoy. When you hear some of the all-time greats like Crazy Train or Iron Man no one remembers whether it was released a few months later than scheduled. You want to make sure you have a good, long lasting piece of material.”
DYING FETUS took their time with this release, ensuring they could craft tracks that possessed as much polish, refinement and intensity as possible and it shows. There is very little give throughout the 37 minute runtime. By this point the band know what works for them and how to get the best out of their creative process. “We’ve done it both ways in the past and sometimes coming together and jamming doesn’t work,” admits Gallagher.
“It all depends on what you’re feeling in the moment. Sometimes you can sit in a rehearsal room together and come up with nothing. Generally we’ll sit down at a computer with a click track and it’s more efficient. Everybody is different but we hold ourselves to a certain standard. If you’ve just been rehearsing and you’re thinking about the drive home and how bad the traffic might be etc your creativity isn’t going to be at an optimum level. It may sound vulgar but you know when you’ve just taken a good shit in the morning and you feel refreshed and ready for the day? That’s when you’re at your best and most creative. Not when you’re tired and try to force it. We’re not really trying to reinvent the wheel. I feel like people gravitate toward the guitar and the drums the most in death metal. When you’re doing Cookie Monster style vocals I don’t think people are looking to hear anything profound. It’s more the impact of the delivery. It’s like when you sit down to watch a horror movie, you know you’re going to expect a certain formula of blood and gore and people being killed. It’s a very similar formula for death metal.”
With a band name as controversial as DYING FETUS you know there is going to be an accompanying array of graphic lyrical content and artwork. This time around they chose to opt for a more immediate first impression for their cover art. “We really wanted to go with something realistic and bring out the sensation of human agony, the imagery of someone wishing they were dead rather than enduring this terrible form of torture,” discusses Gallagher. “We’re very happy with the way it came out and I think it fits the aesthetic. We’re not trying to be a trendy band or have a gimmick like basketball shorts or corpse paint. If you want to dress up like KISS then that’s fine, it’s a free world but the music comes first for us.”
As you continue to amass a back catalogue of tracks throughout your career as a musician it can become a headache for some established bands as full scale riots can ensue when a particular track is not included in touring setlists. Interestingly DYING FETUS have found themselves in a particularly favourable position. “Sometimes we’ve tested putting some old songs back into the setlist and the response hasn’t been that good,” admits Gallagher.
“You can tell when the crowd identifies with the music and they get all psyched up. If they’re looking a bit confused like they don’t recognise the song then that’s a sign to maybe let that song go. We find ourselves playing a lot of stuff from our more recent catalogue and they’re becoming crowd favourites. It’s definitely not a bad thing as you want people to enjoy your more recent work. It’s almost the ultimate goal. You want them to be well received. A lot of bands struggle breaking free from their older material as that’s all the fans want to hear so we’re very fortunate.”
Make Them Beg For Death is out now via Relapse Records.
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