![]() ![]() ![]() If the song needs soaring melodies both vocally and musically, done. If the song needs the most brutal death metal riffs and vocals we can do, then we’ll do it. It starts by having that good riff, but if the song calls for beautiful orchestral work and choirs, it’s going to be there. For us, the adherence to a genre does not matter, whatever the song needs, whatever it takes to coerce an actual feeling from our listener, that’s that we’re going to do. Joey and I have coined the term “cinemetal” for us, basically creating a visual soundscape in your head that plays out more like a movie than a bunch of songs. Gary Vosganian: I think the term “genre-bending” is how most people out there describe MaelstroM. How would you describe MaelstroM musically? Your music is very aggressive yet melodic. On top of that, I write conceptually and created this fantasy-based story that adds a somewhat power metal motif to our overall look and feel. Even to this day Joey and I have this saying, “WWKD: What Would Kreator Do?” But that European style was melded with what was happening in New York by bands like Overkill, and Joey would infuse his classical guitar training into it as well. Kreator, Coroner, Sabbat, Destruction, Celtic Frost, Sodom just to name a few. What gave MaelstroM our identity, we always felt, was while most New York “thrash” bands were influenced by the usual “Big 4” we were more heavily influenced by the European Thrash scene. To be surrounded back then by so much talent really inspired us and pushed us to develop our style and be as unique as possible. It’s amazing if you really think about it. Gary Vosganian: Yes, so many great bands and musicians have come out of the Northeast. ![]() Where do you see MaelstroM among the likes of Symphony X, Dream Theater, and Virgin Steele? The Northeast Corridor has a lot heavy metal talent. A great example of this is the song “Lament Of The Fallen” It basically allowed us to lay down the basic structure of the song in the recording phase and then with editing fine tune everything for maximum impact. What Pro Tools allowed us to do was to completely edit sections into and out of songs in some cases, extend certain parts, shorten others, repeat parts later in the song that were never recorded that way, the possibilities were absolutely endless, and honestly the tech let us write after recording. Just like the editing can make or break a great film, so it is true with music. What Pro Tools has done is, yes, made recording much more easier and cost effective, but where it really shined, in our opinion, was in the editing phase. We had to start the song completely from scratch. During the mixes, if we blew a cue or a fader moved (and we did, often) it was over. Our first demos were recorded on giant boards to 2” reel-to-reel tape. The recording technology, it has come so far from when we first started. Regarding the band writing and music part of this project Joey and I have always had a shared singular vision for MaelstroM, so the writing was actually pretty easy and Fun. It was that Forgotten Steel review that ignited us to record our well-received EP It Was Predestined and finally now, 32 years after our first jam, Of Gods And Men, our debut album. We had garnished a ton of local New York notoriety in the late ’80s, and we were pretty respected in the worldwide underground through our demos, but that ever-elusive album deal, it never came our way. That review really spoke to us… it was almost like reading something we had written ourselves because it was verbatim what Joey and I felt all along… that it really was unbelievable to us that MaelstroM never had the opportunity to release a full-length album. It was for our second demo This Battle To Make History, Yet History Never Comes. I’d have to say the single most important factor to resurrect MaelstroM was a review we received (literally out of nowhere) in the mid-2000s from Roman at Forgotten Steel. Gary Vosganian: First off, thanks for this interview, Chris. What prompted you to resurrect MaelstroM and then write a full-length album? While technology has made recording easier and more cost effective, the band/writing music together part of the equation is always an unknown. The interview with Vosganian follows the song player. Of Gods And Men follows a similar concept album trajectory as 2112 and Operation: Mindcrime, but uses a different filmic narrative.Įxplore “Th13teen Within A Circle” while MaelstroM vocalist Gary Vosganian eloquently details the inner workings of his band, his writing partners, and the resilience it took to keep MaelstroM from vanishing into thin air. Decibel and MaelstroM are proud to premiere the single, “Th13teen Within A Circle,” a dynamic thrash opera that is as aggressive as it is scenic. Resurrected ’80s epic thrash metal act MaelstroM are releasing their first album, Of Gods and Men, after 32 years. ![]()
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