Converse Rubber Tracks x MetalSucks 2015 Preview: Dead Empires
Later this month, ten unsigned bands will visit a Converse Rubber Tracks facility in either Brooklyn, NY, or Boston, MA, where they’ll lay down some jams at one of Converse’s completely free, state-of-the-art recording studios. And as if that wasn’t cool enough, bands at the Brooklyn Converse Rubber Tracks will work with producer Will Putney (The Acacia Strain, Suicide Silence, Exhumed), while bands at the Boston Converse Rubber Tracks will work with producer Kurt Ballou (Converge, High on Fire, Torche).
MetalSucks held an open application process in July for bands to apply, then Axl and Vince worked with Will and Kurt to choose their five favorite bands for each city. We’ll be previewing each of the selected bands in the weeks leading up to these recording sessions, so you can get a taste of what’s in store for ya! You can check out all the previews so far here. Today, we feature New York’s Dead Empires.
MetalSucks readers should know Dead Empires well; one of their tracks appeared on Volume 4 of our completely free compilation series NYC Sucks, which highlights the best metal bands from in and around NYC. And months later we streamed Secret Snakes, Silent Serpent, the album from which that highly excellent track came.
Dead Empires are an instrumental trio, but they’re not the kind of instrumental band that 1) djents, thank goodness, 2) wanks around on their instruments, 3) gets too caught up in what they’re doing to forget to write good songs. DE’s instru-metal is dramatic, cinematic and grandiose, but it’s also gnarly and full of grit and character, eminently headbangable through and through. It’s the kind of music Mastodon (early Mastodon, natch) might’ve made if they’d decided to go the vocal-less route, which is to say that it’s big and burly and full of grade-A riffs; your papa’s prog this is not. Imagine them on a tour with Lazer/Wulf and you’re getting close.
Check out Secret Snakes, Silent Serpent below and purchase it via Bandcamp. What magic will Dead Empires create with Kurt Ballou next week? We shall see!
