(Andy Synn has followed the UK’s Employed to Serve through thick and thin over the years, so we knew he was the only choice to take on their upcoming new album, Conquering, set for release this Friday)

There’s a certain misconception that Metal/Hardcore fans don’t actually like it when the bands they love become successful.

And while I can understand where this misapprehension came from (there’s definitely a small but obnoxious cadre of loudmouths out there who act like this) the truth, as always, is much more nuanced.

It’s not that we don’t like bands becoming successful… it’s just that we’re tired of bands changing their identity, dumbing own their intelligence, and – yes, I’ll say it – selling out, in order to fit into whatever mass-produced, pre-packaged mould that the mainstream seems to think denotes “success”.

The caveat to this, of course, is that when a band manages to be successful on their own terms, doing what they want to do, rather than what others think they should do, we often love them even more, because they’ve shown that you don’t have to give up who you are in order to be make it “big”.

And, let me tell you now, Employed to Serve are exactly that sort of band, and while their new album looks set to raise their profile to a whole new level, they don’t seem to have had to sacrifice one iota of their intensity or integrity – or their core identity – in order to get there.

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