st227

MUSIC FEATURE

visit jbhifi.com.au/stack

together with the guys in a room and just sit there day in and day out, working

on something that we’re making from thin air, and release a lot of frustration, sadness and anger from the last few years, was the meaningful component for me. Now the meaning comes from getting to share it with everyone else, and hoping they like it. It's true Godlike taps into a lot of visceral anger and aggression. Has the recent state of the world influenced Godlike by Thy Art Is Murder is out Sep 15 via Human Warfare. its themes, or was the emotion channelled from a space more personal? Undoubtedly, this is one of our most personal records in a long time. During COVID lockdown I was trapped in Australia, away from my daughter who lives in Denver, Colorado, where I generally spend most of my time. We were apart from each other for a few years; from the age of four, until six. This is obviously a hugely developmental period in her life that I was, for the most part, absent for. So half of the record, essentially, touches on different ideas or feelings that

INTERVIEW

MEETING THY MAKER Australia's pre-eminent titans of extreme metal Thy Art Is Murder have consistently blazed an impressive sonic path, earning them global affection.Their latest LP features the most artistically daring, uncompromisingly progressive, and completely harrowing music of their entire discography.We sat down with guitarist Andy Marsh to glean his insights on the brilliant Godlike . Words Alex Burgess

I encountered in that period... [There's also] geopolitical stuff, [and] the rest is pretty much bleak emptiness. The song Godlike is meant to be pretty triumphant; it’s about true love being eternal. All in all, a lot of really sad sh-t!

The meaning is in the doing, not the outcome...

I guess these themes go hand in hand with the music thatThy Art creates? That is correct. If this had happened to me ten years ago, we couldn’t have created Godlike , because we didn’t have the songwriting skills that we have now – [the ability to] contain those stories in metaphor so that they are relatable to more people, and providing others with the freedom to adopt their own interpretations...

You have alluded to your belief that the gap betweenThy Art's present sound, versus what you imagine the band should sound like, is closing. What does that mean in the context of Godlike ? In one sense, albums never really mean much to me. For me personally, it’s never about the result, but always rather the process

of getting there; the meaning is in the doing, not the outcome. At the end of the day, writing and recording an album means you get to work with your friends. We’re in an interesting vocation in that we are essentially tasked with creating something from nothing, which is a strange thing to imagine. But then to do it with... your best friends and to be so pleased with the result, is a pretty f--king nice feeling! After such a long break, to be able to get

Continue reading the full article online at jbhifi.com.au/stack

Emerging from Nirvana's metaphorical birth canal this time 30 years ago was the group's third and final album, In Utero . For this collection, the grunge trio sought to recapture the caustic sound of their '89 debut Bleach , leapfrogging the comparatively commercial feel of breakout Nevermind (1991). To achieve this end they hired producer Steve Albini, as frontman Kurt Cobain very much admired the icon's previous work with Pixies and The Breeders. Recorded six months after the birth of Cobain and Courtney Love's daughter Frances, In Utero became a massive critical and commercial success, spawning singles Heart Shaped Box and All Apologies , and sealing their unimpeachable legacy.

o

m

n

t

s

h

i

Y 30

h

T

O

E

G

A

A

R

S

Kurt Cobain in the clip for Heart-Shaped Box (1993)

68 SEPTEMBER 2023

jbhifi.com.au