Truth Corroded

A little over a year ago, local metal band Truth Corroded played their first overseas show. Curiously enough, the country they played in was Singapore, a place whose squeaky clean, almost puritanical, image makes it seem a most unlikely spot to do a metal show. "The people who set the gigs up over there do experience a few problems," admits rhythm guitarist Mark Lennard. "There're certain areas they can't put shows on in, for example, while the bands themselves - especially the international ones - have to satisfy certain criteria; you can't be too anti-religious, for example. Before we went there ourselves, we had to submit our lyrics to the government so they could approve them first. Luckily, though, our song lyrics aren't exactly direct; they're more metaphorical. For the most part, though, it was actually pretty easy to go there."

"We played in the old parliament house, which was really crazy!" adds bassist Greg Damon Shaw.

"Yeah, it was the sort of place you'd expect a choir to be singing in or something!" muses Lennard. "It's a big white building with chandeliers everywhere."

"Very, very regal!" sums up Shaw. "The country itself, though, is pretty Westernised. You walk through the main part of the city, and you could be in Sydney or Melbourne - it's very fashionable; in some respects, it's probably even a bit more Westernised than here! The people that live there have their own issues, though the ones we hung out with were awesome."

"They really let us know what was happening there," says Lennard. "They have their own little scene going on - there were some pretty interesting bands that we caught up with."

"Everyone does national service too," Shaw tells me. "We were hanging around with all these dudes who were rattling off what weapons they knew how to use. One guy was like, 'I can fire a missile launcher!' while another went, 'Well, I fly a jet!'"

All this talk of weaponry seems oddly fitting given that the band's new album, 'Upon The Warlords Crawl', is a critical look at the military-industrial complex and its influence on current events. "Our last album, 'Our Enemy Is The Weapon', was about something similar, though a lot more specific," Shaw muses. "In its case, the issue was nuclear weaponry and the relationship between it and the military-industrial complex. This one, though, is more about weapons per se. But yeah, it's again targeted at the military-industrial complex. It's about how we have a choice between taking a stand against it, or allowing all the shit it's responsible for to get out of hand."

'Upon The Warlords Crawl' is the band's third full-length album, and was created with the assistance of Swedish producer Jonas Kjellgren, who's worked with the likes of Carnal Forge, Scar Symmetry and The Absence. "[Vocalist] Jason North contacted him after we'd heard the new Carnal Forge album, 'Testify For My Victims'," Lennard informs me. "The time we wanted to do it was right for him; it was between the end of a Scar Symmetry tour and the beginning of writing for a new album of theirs. He spent longer than he said he would initially, and we're all pretty stoked with the finished product."

"We also worked with a guy called Kyle from Slaughterhouse Studios," Shaw adds. "He's a fan of groups like The Rivalry and Cry Murder, and did a great job for us, without a doubt."

"He's really, really good," affirms Lennard. "He caned us, but in the nicest possible way!"

"Yeah," laughs Shaw. "He's a nice guy, but he can work you!"

Says Lennard, "It was worth it; there's not one bit of the new album where we think, 'oh, that could have been better!'"

James Brazel

Truth Corroded launch 'Upon The Warlords Crawl' at the Enigma Bar on Sat 12 April with Double Dragon, Dyscord and The Omen (Vic); and the Underground on Sat 26 April with Black Like Vengeance (Vic), Synthesist (Vic), Fragmenta and Asphyxia.

'Upon The Warlords Crawl' is out now on Truth Inc. Records.