Spanish thrash metallers Crisix may be under the radar to some people out there but if you love thrash metal, this band is for you! Their third album “From Blue To Black” has just been released and so we had to ask the band a few questions regarding the new songs as well as get a litle insight into the band themselves.
Crisix are a band I discovered a few years ago when the first album “The Menace” came out and the single at the time, “Ultra Thrash” was getting around in the thrash metal community. Upon first hearing it, I immediately thought Death Angel but there was a certain slickness about it that just caught my attention. It was the tightness of which they perform which really makes this band stand out and on the follow up album “Rise…Then Rest”, it was clear this Spanish thrash band wasn’t just a one trick pony. Hearing a preview of the new album saw the band continue into that thrash mania they started with so with the release of “From Blue To Black”, the band had to be pretty happy with how this one turned out.
“We are feeling more than great right now, the album just came last week, and we’re having an overwhelming feedback of all the old fans and the new ones that like and enjoy the music, lots of different people with different music tastes are praising the album which is awesome, we couldn’t be more grateful.”
By this time now, the band had pretty much cemented their sound and could start tweaking what they wanted to do with subsequent albums, so achieving something more specific was probably in the cards.
“The message behind FBTB is simple: The human being is the only animal who constantly adapts his environment, instead of adapting himself to it, we are predators by nature and our planet is condemned to extinction, and thanks to us, that destiny takes a giant step forward. From the light of creation to the absolute nothingness, from life to death, from blue to black.”
Without being too rigid in the process, the band likes to stick to a formula of basically no rules and anything goes but obviously within the confines of their own trademark style. The writing and recording process didn’t change a whole lot from the first 2 records.
“We never plan anything when it comes to start composing new songs. We just make it flow from deep inside us, whatever the riff sounds like, with no marks and no limits. This time we had plenty of time to cook a lot of new hot riffs and think about new lyric ideas to express with this new album. But definitely, we’re non-conformist, we’re constantly trying to offer something new and different. We’re restless stubborn dudes!”
Track 4, “T-Terror Era” has the Terminator theme in the song and it may come as no surprise to many fans that the band are fans of the franchise series.
“The idea behind this is simple, we wanted to do a song based on the 1984’s movie ‘The Terminator’ by James Cameron. Once the idea was clear, we started working on the song. The song talks about this awesome picture and the lyrics are from the point of view of Kyle Reese. We love Terminator and the things came out in a natural way.”
“From Blue To Black” has only been out a short amount of time but already the response has been hugely positive so the band must be doing something right!
“As we said before it’s been amazing reading all the messages that our fans have written to us, sharing their good vibes about the new album with us. We trusted 100 percent in FBTB, but we never expected that feedback, and of course, those excellent press reviews we’re receiving all over the globe, AMAZING!”
One of the trademarks of Crisix is the tight performances of each song, from the guitars to the drums and everything else. Preparation seems to be key in getting those performances captured in the recording.
“Luckily we know very well our engineer Oscar Ax, and he knew very well from the beginning what we were looking for regarding the sound and everything. We prepared all the songs, guitar rythms, drum beats, for long time ago and we studied every single detail of each song before enter the studio. We worked our asses off, but it’s really worth it.”
Discovering a band like Crisix is always exciting as it shows that old genres can still gain that feeling of discovering brilliant music for the first time again. I didn’t know the back story to the band so I had to ask how Crisix formed in the first place.
“For those who still don’t know who we are, besides the economic ‘Crisis’ in Spain, I could say Crisix it’s a metal/thrash band coming from Barcelona, formed by 5 crazy-passionate dudes united by music. We were just young friends that loved listening to metal and joined to form a metal band.
We have released two albums so far, and now about to release the third one and the most important in our career, named ‘From Blue to Black’.”
The band’s influences may seem obvious on the surface and it is but it turns out there are a few interesting bands that helped forge Crisix’s metal style. When you take a song like “Psycho Crisix World”, there had to be more than just the original thrash metal bands from the 80’s.
“We have a lot of influences, not only the ones who come from those thrash metal bands we love, we really listen to plenty of music genres. ‘From Blue to Black’ is the proof. We love to listen a plenty of music genres, from the classy Chuck Berry going through Kiss to Cannibal Corpse. Expect the unexpected [laughs]. But of course we have to say Thrash metal have been the main influence in Crisix since the very beginning of our career. There’s no doubt about it, and we tried to evolve that sound in our way giving our identity.
Those insane guitar riffs from Exodus ‘Bonded By Blood’, the classic fast-raw albums from Vio-Lence, or the melodic thrash riffs and speechless guitar solos from Testament were, are and will be our holy bible. Talkin’ ’bout the vocals you can find influences that come from guys like Bobby ‘Blitz’, Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza, Chuck Billy… even influences beyond thrash metal, bands like Death, Morbid Angel are in our personal bible too.”
The last 10 years or so have really seen a surge in popularity with thrash metal, many of today’s bands take what the originators did and inject their own brand of thrash, heaviness or whatever twist they use to make it sound more modern. It’s certainly more aggressive than before and there’s also a strong punk influence that has seeped in too.
“As we said before we really love the 80’s Thrash metal, but the 21st century have given us great new bands giving a new prespective of this genre. Bands like Warbringer, Lost Society, Angelus Apatrida are doing a great job melting the old school with new influences, we love it.”
Everyone has a different story to how they got into heavy metal and the sub-genre of thrash metal and the original wave of thrash back in the 80’s was truly a magical time.
“It’s a music genre that we love since we were into metal, major bands like Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer, Exodus, Testament, Overkill are a holy bible.”
It does beg the question though of why the genre has become more popular in recent years with modern thrash/punk bands like Municipal Waste, Toxic Holocaust, Angelus Apatrida, Suicidal Angels and of course, Crisix. Not that us fans are complaining but it’s interesting some 30 years later how things have come full cirlce again.
“We think this genre is full of energy, despite being born 30 years ago has this young rebel vibes that the nowadays generation is looking for. That’s why a lot of young people find their place in the thrash metal scene.”
Being the witness to the recording of any of those classic album’s would be very cool and it’s a question that we tend to ask a lot of bands just to see the variety of choices given.
“HARD to choose man, but I think it might be ‘Somewhere in Time’ from Iron Maiden back in the mid 80s. I think we all in the band agree that this album is the best Iron Maiden album we have ever heard, and would be magic to witness the recording process. Another interesting album to witness would be the Cowboys from Hell album from Pantera, 25 years later metal bands are still trying to get close to that sound, but it’s impossible.”
Life however, is bigger than music itself. What is the meaning of it all?
“A good film by Monty Python. But if you want a more profound point of view: be happy, spend your time doing what makes you happy, and share your life with people that makes you happy. And don’t forget to Rock & Roll!”
Sounds good to me!
