Lifeless Dark (EN)

Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, Lifeless Dark blend the essence of pure thrash metal with old hardcore. Their first demo Who will be the victims? was released in 2018 after Ryan (drums) and CC (guitars) jammed for about 6 months and then recorded the tracks. They got Sam to join on second guitar and Elaine on vocals. The demo was recorded in February after just a couple of rehearsals. Then Jeppy joined on bass, shortly after the tape was released. They all knew each other from the Boston punk scene somehow. Their first show was on January 2019.

I feel Lifeless Dark are well worth a listen, because even with just one demo out, you can sense they’re pure genius. I’ve been lucky enough to see them live twice, and I can tell you the crowd went wild with every song. The prelude to each gig feels like the calm before the storm. This band is really good when it comes to putting all parts ─lyrics and music─ together to tell you a story. A story in which you wouldn’t like to miss anything! Elaine’s voice is all-enveloping and the guitars are sharp and straightforward. Lifeless Dark is a trip to the eighties’ sound, but they go beyond what a revival band would do, they took the legacy of bands such as Sacrilege and gave it their very own twist!

Worth mentioning is that the band is recommend for people into Bygone, Devil’s Dare, Stone Dagger, Mind Eraser, Death Evocation, Magic Circle, Mentally Challenged, No Tolerance, Prisoner Abuse, Put to Death, Soul Swallower, World War 4,

• Which would you say are the ingredients to generate an atmosphere that conveys that eighties sound combined with rawness… What are the elements you think of when you are composing?

CC: I don’t know exactly what the ingredients are… but I was always drawn more to the wave of peacepunk bands that kind of embraced metallic elements. Sacrilege obviously, Amebix, Axegrinder, some of the early Napalm Death before they started doing blast beats, Antisect, the Bolt Thrower stuff with Alan West singing. Some of the wave of Japanese bands that kind of played off those bands like Crow, SDS, Final Bombs factor in for me… and I like old heavy metal too. I think in the past we’ve mentioned Détente, early Slayer, things like that.

• I think you, Elaine, are such a good story teller, and you generate a special connection with the crowd too. Where do these skills come from? Is there anything you attribute them to? Movies, books or inspiration in some other singers/writers?

Elaine: I think with the storytelling aspect I like a lyric that can evoke an image. Probably not shocking that Tam from Sacrilege is my biggest influence, I like how she can paint a horrid picture but it’s really a metaphor for a much bigger idea and I try to do the same in some of my lyrics. Life Line is definitely my favorite example of this. For vocal pattern and delivery Tom Araya on all the old/classic Slayer stuff is my absolute king and Russ Anderson from Forbidden as well.
With the newer songs I’ve been putting a lot more of my spirituality into my lyrics and have really been inspired by Tam’s lyrics on Turn Back Trilobite, Lee Dorrian’s lyrics on the first three Cathedral albums and Ozzy’s lyrics, both Black Sabbath and solo. As far as connecting with the crowd, Barney from Napalm Death is exactly who I want to be when I grow up, singing with the same band for decades, putting on killer shows every time, still sounding great with tons of energy, loving it to death and not jaded at all, still has great politics and anger.

• I’m very curious about the Boston scene. Would you say that the scene is political? Do you think that punk people there are also into metal or Lifeless Dark is a special case?

CC: Boston is a pretty small city so there’s a lot of crossover between punk and metal people. I’m not sure what the political status of a lot of people is, but I think it tends to vary pretty widely.

• Which are the first punk or metal bands you fell in love with when you were teenagers/kids?

Jeppy: The First punk bands I fell in love with were the Ramones and Misfits, and those were the bands that taught me how to play guitar, bass and drums.

Elaine: They aren’t punk or metal bands, but my childhood favorites were KISS and the Grateful Dead and I think they both carry some influence on me to this day. By the time I was 15 years old I was a full-time Lemmy disciple and Motörhead has always been my number one since then.

CC: As a kid I liked what my parents liked, which was the Beatles, The Doors, Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac. My mom kept up with some of the new wave stuff so I also heard things like the Bangles, The Cure, Oingo Boingo and some Ramones stuff growing up. The heaviest thing I knew about was Mötley Crüe but I wasn’t allowed to buy the record! I was also obsessed with the fake punk song in Star Trek 4 when I was 6 or 7, and held a tape recorder up to the tv to make a copy.

• I was trying to find your lyrics somewhere to give them a read, but while were here, let me ask you, what inspires them?

“Outcry” is about how human sacrifice is portrayed as barbaric in movies like the Wicker Man and stories like “The Lottery”, but the origins of human sacrifice were that only one person was sacrificed to benefit an entire community. Now under global capitalism, everyone’s lives are sacrificed to benefit just a few men at the top. “Radiation Sickness” is just straightforwardly against both nuclear weapons and nuclear power. “Feeding the Light” is about going into the spirit world and understanding from a different perspective how we are harming not only our own lives, but all the life we are connected to both in nature and in the unseen worlds with the imbalances we have created. The lyrics for the seven new songs are all about different things but I think a common thread for me is trying to understand how the outside world is connected to the inside world. How the horrors of reality are connected to our brainwashing and the starvation of our spirits.

• Tell us a bit about the future, any upcoming recordings? Any upcoming tour?

CC: Almost done recording our LP!

• Please recommend us some Boston bands or any book/fanzine, please!

Elaine: Innocent, Face First and The Lousy are all current favorites coming to mind. I don’t know any current zines but there was a fanzine in recent years called Never Was Turned Has Been that I really liked because it was very opinionated so even if I didn’t agree with all the opinions I could respect it. I don’t know of any books but someone should make a book on either 80s Boston hardcore or the 70s punk scene here, I would love to read either one.