AN NCS INTERVIEW: YOURI RAYMOND (UNHUMAN)

 Interviews  5 Responses »
Jun 222014
 

(In this post we have Austin Weber’s interview of Youri Raymond, guitarist/vocalist of Montréal’s Unhuman, whose debut album Austin reviewed here.)

Except for a group of hard-core devotees and super-geeks like me, last year’s independently released self-titled Unhuman record came out of absolutely nowhere, catching the majority of the technical death metal scene by surprise. Yet that record was actually a very long time coming, with the majority of the songs originally dating back to 1999 and 2001.

I wanted to get the story behind what caused the album’s delay and all other things Unhuman related. While French is his principal native tongue, Unhuman’s main composer, guitarist, and vocalist Youri Raymond did a fine job deciphering the garbled language I speak and answering back in English. After the interview you can find links to some of the bands Youri mentioned in the interview.

********

Continue reading »

UNHUMAN: “UNHUMAN”

 Album Reviews  13 Responses »
Nov 052013
 

(Austin Weber is back for the second day in a row, this time with a review of the new album by Montreal’s Unhuman.)

As any good metalhead knows, the Canadian metal scene is insane. So many amazing, influential bands have come from here, though overall it’s always been their death metal scene I’ve been drawn to the most. A big part of what makes their scene so strong is that many of the best performers have shared their talents among multiple groups/studio projects/playing live for each other.

Unhuman falls in that category, as a group collectively steeped in years of death metal mayhem that starts with founding member and composer of almost all of the music on Unhuman’s Unhuman — Youri Raymond. It’s a name some will have heard before as a member/songwriting contributor for some of the tracks on last year’s amazing Cryptopsy album. Still others may know him due to his involvement with Secret Chiefs 3, as he contributed vocals on several tracks on Book Of Horizons, which is what led me to Unhuman a long time ago. He added current drummer Alexandre Dupras (The Plasma Rifle, Teramobil) in 1999 and then added current bassist Mathieu Bérubé (Teramobil again, whose latest release I previously reviewed hereat NCS) in 2008, and rounded out their line-up with guitarist Kevin Chartré (Beyond Creation, Brought By Pain) in 2011. Continue reading »

RECALCITRANT ROUND-UP: UNHUMAN, NEKROGOBLIKON, ANAGNORISIS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Sep 192013
 

(NCS contributor Austin Weber steps up, but not on my toes, to provide this round-up of new metal.)

Normally these songs and album news round-ups are all Islander, and I would dare not step on his toes lest he cut mine off. However, I had a few things to discuss, and he was busy so here are a few bands to check out.

UNHUMAN

The first item on today’s agenda is Unhuman, a name many do not know yet, but should. They are a supergroup from Canada, with a high degree of quality metal pedigree in their insane line-up.

Which really starts with the sole remaining founding member Youri Raymond (Secret Chiefs 3, Cryptopsy), who brings some punishing and varied vocals to the mix while also composing on guitar. He is joined by Kevin Chartré, the badass guitarist from Beyond Creation and the also excellent Brought By Pain. Following those two is Mathieu Bérubé on 7-string bass; he is also the guitarist in Teramobil, a group I wrote about earlier this year here at NoCleanSinging. Rounding out the line up is the excellent mechanical precision drumming of Alexandre Dupras who also is in Teramobil and also drums for The Plasma Rifle. Together, “Chaotic Equilibrium” shows the totality of what such an incredibly skilled and creative line up can achieve.

“Chaotic Equilibrium” traverses a diverse melding of melodic and aggressive ideas fighting back and forth trying to reach resolution, much as the title would suggest. As much as I hate most metal lyrics, this song is the exception to that rule. The lyrics are intriguing, a sort of positive philosophical musing with a powerful message I can get behind. If you go to YouTube from the link they can be found in the “show more” section. Continue reading »