How to Get Noticed in a Strange World

Written by: Tom Wilson | Sense Music Media

In early May, I opened up my Messenger and found a video message from a young metalhead in a Symphony X shirt:

“Hey Tom, what’s up man? My name’s Gavin. I saw you were into Ion Dissonance, which is one of my favourite bands. I recently put out a record that’s sort of inspired by them – it’s like mathcore meets technical death metal.” He holds up a white-and-red cassette. “I’d love if you could check it out. You could be the perfect audience member. Let me know what you like, what you don’t like, that would be awesome man.” He signs off with a thumbs-up.

The Artist - Gavin Brooks

So a video message was my introduction to 22-year-old Las Vegas native Gavin Brooks, who had also sent a Bandcamp link to the debut album of his project 0% HATE. As I checked out the music, I realised what it meant that he referenced Canadian mathcore troupe ION DISSONANCE. He had gone through their Facebook page and sought out people who had liked their music in a targeted advertising campaign, sending each one a personalised video message addressing them by name and urging them to check out his music. More personal than spam, but also requiring far more work, the time and effort that would have gone into this was impressive, but as I soon found out from his music, Brooks is not afraid of hard work. He spoke to me from Vegas.

The Interview

Do you think that bands have to be more creative with how they get their music out there now?

I’m still very new to how to promote a metal project, so I’m still learning as I go, but I definitely have the sense that there is a lot of stuff out there! I always noticed it with my favourite bands, is that there’s so much cool music that doesn’t get heard, or it’s just fighting for attention. When I first was getting into experimental death metal – and I guess it’s like this with any genre that you get into – you sort of notice the most prolific acts, and you don’t really have the sense that there’s an overwhelming abundance of music, but the deeper you get into it, it’s like, oh my god, there really is a lot of slam brutal death metal bands or grindcore bands or whatever it is … When you look at metal in general, and just band music right now, there’s definitely room for innovation, and I think there’s something to be said for trying to do things differently in how you promote yourself, but also … I think the relationship that people have [with] their audience … I think part of the reason that, historically, metal music has done so well is that it’s all based around the live show, and the energy that you get from that, and I think that as that has kind of dwindled over the last twenty years … There’s gotta be some kind of evolution. I don’t have the answers, but I agree.

I feel like there are more musical ideas in the first two and a half minutes of As All is Merely Random than most bands would have in an entire LP. What is your creative process like? Are you starting with a basic idea of a song and then going through and pumping ideas into it? Or is it more of a sporadic approach?

I don’t think of things in terms of “songs”, really. I just think of things and how they flow from one moment to the next. This album was demoed out, it was written [and] recorded all in one big long sequence. I ended up having to choose where [each] track’s start and end was. For me, I’ve always been a big fan of really complex music. That’s not to say that I don’t love a lot of [music] that’s totally the opposite, like really minimal and really bare-bones, even psychedelic-type music. The thing that really satisfies me about the really complex stuff is that it gives you a lot to chew on, and I find that it often has more longevity to it, you know? I think it’s good if it can have an impact immediately, but also, you could be on your fourth or fifth listen and noticing things that you didn’t really pick up on before … I write from a very intuitive perspective, and I always have. I’m starting to learn some theory nowadays, but I’ve always just been very into hearing it, and trying to listen to what feels good for you in a particular moment … It’s not necessarily easy, but with this type of stuff, I really try to max out my effort in that area. If I get tired of it, I’ll come back to it later, and just try to push that creative angle … Once you get into the habit of just pushing out ideas, and really stretching that muscle, it gets easier.

There are some really interesting spoken word samples in this. What can you tell me about them? Where did they come from?

A few of them are from seminars or interviews of fringe personalities that I just found on YouTube over the years. One of them is a voice message that someone actually sent me. One of them is from a really old video game called Deus Ex [Ion Storm, 2000] … I was hardly alive when that came out. The big thing for me … I really love good use of voice samples, in all kinds of music. The whole time I was making this album, I had a very specific feeling that I was going for … Over the time that I was making it, those were the things that I ended up hearing and going “Oh, that’s perfect!” One of them – the girl at the end of As All is Merely Random – that was from a YouTube channel that had like one subscriber. This lady was just uploading videos and rambling and getting no views. From time to time, I like to look for those kinds of oddities.

Of all the instrumentation, what do you think is your biggest strength, and why is it bass guitar?

[Laughs] Well I love your question! I think that bass is so sick, dude. I started, like most people, by playing guitar when I was pretty young, but it wasn’t long after that [when] I got my hands on a cheap bass and started messing around with that. The thing that pushed me into seeing bass as its own instrument … I don’t know if this is ironic or not, but I was really into power metal at one point in time. There was a good year when I just learned these songs by these power metal bands that had these insane shredding bass parts, and all the 1/16th-note crazy difficult stuff … Learning those songs got my brain thinking about how a bass works in relation to the guitar parts, but also I liked how a lot of those bands expressed it as more of a lead instrument. Then, of course, I find technical death metal, and there are a bazillion insane lead bassists in all these bands … I will say this: bass, in certain ways, is much more challenging than guitar, when you’re trying to play that kind of material. There are also things that are a bit easier about bass; you don’t have to worry about muting in the same way that you might have to with a guitar, because you’re not playing with high gain. Just to clarify, the drums are programmed. I probably have a very beginner level drumming capability, so I can’t take credit for that. Everything is hard when you’re pushing yourself, but I love that you pointed out the bass.

Album Review - At The Mercy Of Your Own

While only four tracks, At the Mercy of Your Own is no EP –at 35 minutes, it’s longer than Reign in Blood, and is so sonically dense that one 0% Hate song feels equivalent to a whole album of another band’s material.

Swinging back and forth between full-throttle blitzkrieg and ambient soundscape, it’s impossible to fully take in this album on first listen. I’ve been playing it for two weeks now, and I’m still noticing new elements.

Track #1 - Amor Fati

Opener Amor Fati [Latin for “love of one’s fate”] sends us tumbling end-over-end into a vortex of musical hostility, shuddering back and forth between tempos as fretboard-melting technicality dances under Brooks’ guttural roars. Dissonant notes flit off at right angles, before the track collapses into feedback, and a sample of a woman’s breathy voice tells us not to think too much, and just enjoy our time on this planet. This segues into a man talking about how people don’t understand how their world works, and that what appears to be chaos is actually just the systems of our world working as they were designed to. It feels like these statements could be pointed at those who might try reading too much into the labyrinthian arrangements on offer here. This quiet contemplation is short lived, as urgent strumming soon builds into dizzying shredding…

Track #2 - At the Mercy of Your Own

With At the Mercy of Your Own, the imagery of the cover art becomes strikingly relevant, and Brooks sinks his fingers into our minds, gouging into it until it bleeds, twisting and bending the grey matter to its will.

Track #3 - As All Is Merely Random

As All is Merely Random begins with malevolent classical guitar underscoring another spoken-word sample, before the song erupts into a spasm of technical fury – imagine Nile playing mathcore. Changing tempo and tone every few seconds, it’s exhausting, and that isn’t a criticism.

Track #4 - An Anguished Lust, A Skyline of Two

An Anguished Lust, A Skyline of Two twists and turns for almost twelve minutes, grabbing us by the ears and dragging us along the serrated edge of technical death metal. It’s challenging, heady stuff – basslines and riffs changing course with thought-speed. Seven minutes in, Brooks veers into a Gojira-esque freakout, channelling Joe Duplantier’s planet-sized riffing before sending us crashing back into a maelstrom of death metal. Instead of merely supplying rhythm, Gavin uses the bass as a lead instrument, and it often outshines his guitar work.

The Verdict

Think about what music sounded like a hundred years ago. There are people alive today who remember when rock ‘n’ roll was a new sensation. I wonder what technical death metal is going to sound like a century from now. It will probably sound like 0% Hate. Impossibly dense, unpredictable and breathtakingly extreme, At the Mercy of Your Own is a devastating statement of intent.

8/10

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