photo by Kelly Clark Fotography
(On February 21st Cursed Blessings Records and High Roller Records will release Volume Six, a new album by the ’80s-era Canadian thrash metal band Sacrifice — their first one in 16 years and with their original lineup intact. Yesterday we published Wil Cifer’s review, and today we bring you Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Sacrifice vocalist/guitarist Rob Urbinati.)
It’s always cool to know that there are veterans of the metal scene who keeps its fire burning, who are able to give it hot and strong. Sacrifice is one such band.
They started in 1984 as one of the first Canadian thrash/speed bands and evolving at the same time as bands like Anvil, Exciter, and Razor did. Torment in Fire (1986), Forward to Termination (1987), Soldiers of Misfortune (1990), and Apocalypse Inside (1993) left their impact on the world’s scene, but Sacrifice disbanded in 1993 on the peak of their activity, as one may say.
The band returned in 2006 in its original lineup, and they keep on rocking until today. Scott Watts (bass), Joe Rico (guitars), Gus Pynn (drums), and Rob Urbinati (guitars, vocals) haven’t forgotten how to do aggressive, technical, and highly tense metal. Their new album Volume Six easily proves it, as well as this interview.
Hi Sacrifice! Who’s online today? And what’s happening in Sacrifice’s camp now?
Hi it’s Rob here. Right now we are just anxiously awaiting the release of Volume Six and trying to get some rehearsals in. Lots of interviews and all that stuff.
So, the band celebrated its 40th birthday in 2023, accept my congratulations! How was it? What motivates you to keep thrashing at such a venerable age?
It really doesn’t feel like that long, thanks. Our motivation is that we still enjoy the recording studio and playing live. We all can play as well as we ever have so Sacrifice still feels like we are that young band.
You reunited with the original lineup in 2006, and since then there have been no any replacements in the band. How often do you meet each other? Do you rehearse regularly?
Gus and I still live in the Toronto area so we see each other fairly regularly and rehearse.
Scott is in Vancouver and Joe is in Detroit so the four of us pretty much only get together when we are playing shows.
You planned to gather the new material into an EP, so why did you aim to do a small record from the start? Did you doubt that it could work?
We weren’t sure we would have enough material for a full album but that obviously happened. Recording a full album is a lot of work, it is work we enjoy though. Taking on a project like this can be difficult but we did it.
How much space does Sacrifice take in your life now? Is it an outlet for ideas from your artistic side? A kind of connection with the thrash scene of the past or a way to spread some ideas?
Sacrifice isn’t what we do for a living so it can be difficult to commit to certain things. We enjoy doing this and I like to write songs, so for sure it is an outlet for expression. We do I guess feel some connection to our past but we more live in the here and now.
How challenging was the recording of Volume Six? Did you try something new in the studio or do you just have a working algorithm to follow without any distraction?
We like to record somewhat like we used to with tape. We don’t follow a click track to keep it human sounding. The only challenging thing was all of us being able to make time. Darius Szczepaniak who engineered the recording was great with us and was fully behind this project so he helped us work around any obstacles we might have had.
Volume Six sounds like an essential Sacrifice album. Did you ever feel an urge to change direction to a more commercial or, as the opposite, to a more technical or even more progressive direction? Would you say that your musical tastes are quite the same as they were in the ’80s?
We just go with our instincts and be honest with our music. There isn’t any one of us wanting to jump on any latest trends or anything. We know what we are best at and work with our strengths. One thing though is that we won’t let ourselves get boxed into our genre’s rules. You can hear other influences in our music, ’80s hardcore, classic rock, even some progressive stuff. Essentially for myself, my music tastes haven’t changed much since I was young. I listen to other music but overwhelming my main diet is metal.
How much of Torment in Fire do you see in Volume Six as its author? Do you search for the rawness of your first records now?
That is the strength of that record, the rawness. A song like “We Will Not Survive” for example reminds me of TIF somewhat. Our first record is a part of us so I feel like it will always be present in our sound in some way. On Volume Six we did strive for a raw sound, but polished also. It’s a hard balance to achieve but I think Darius helped us nail it.
How important is it for you to stick to some philosophy behind Sacrifice’s lyrics? The Volume Six lyrics deal mostly with apocalyptic themes; does this topic worry you nowadays more than in the ’80s?
I don’t really have any philosophy behind anything as far as lyrics go. It kind of writes itself once the music is there, I just go with whatever feeling I’m getting from the energy of the song. The music sounds apocalyptic and dark; this is the more extreme end of thrash. In the ’80s the nuclear war thing seemed like a real possibility, today things are different. It feels like the world is taking a very dark turn.
For good or for bad, Canada took the first step to decriminalize heavy drugs two years ago or so, and you have the song “Black Hashish” here in Volume Six. So what’s the song about?
First of all, Canada has not decriminalized hard drugs. I believe a pilot project was started in British Columbia with that, and I’m not sure if it’s still active. Marijuana is legal in Canada and most of our population supports this. Hashish is a processed version of marijuana, and it was part of our rehearsals back in the early days. It wasn’t legal then and mainly came from Afghanistan. This song has eastern sounding riffs and sort of tells a story about that, to me anyway. It’s hypnotic, yet heavy. There are no lyrics and we aren’t promoting anything, just a part of the history of us.
Volume Six sounds both focused and aggressive, even bitter I would say. What helps you to keep the high level of aggression and energy in your songs? What charges you nowadays?
Sacrifice is known for aggressive music, it is what we do best and is natural for us. We are really all pretty down-to-earth people, but this music is an outlet for us. Maybe if we didn’t have this band, we would be assholes! Watching the news, people molded by social media, warfare, extreme wealth, homelessness, this kind of thing, makes me pessimistic about the direction of humanity. There is no shortage of awful things about humans. There are also good things but we have work to do as a species.
Did you ever discuss with your colleagues if it’s worthwhile to push the band further, to promote it and just put more effort into it?
I think we are happy with how things are for us. Speaking for me personally, I’m not into being a rockstar or anything. I enjoy playing music with my band mates and that’s it for me. It’s not like we aren’t putting effort into this; we feel like Volume Six could be our best album.
One of your latest releases is the album Live in Japan 2018 (2023 Cursed Blessings Records). Were you aware of such a level of popularity in Japan considering rare releases and so on? How did this mini-tour go back then?
We haven’t actually toured Japan, but we have played the True Thrash Fest in Osaka twice. We really love Osaka, we have lots of friends there now, and we hope to play there again. Japan is amazing.
How actively do you play live nowadays? Is it fun or a necessity for you nowadays? What’s your tour schedule for 2025?
All we know right now is that we will be playing Vancouver in May. A few other things are up in the air. For the past few years, we have only been playing about 3 shows a year; we aren’t that active. It is fun for us, not a necessity. We for sure aren’t doing this for financial reasons! For the time we put into this band, we could all do something more lucrative if it was about that. People in our audience are working people, we are no different.
Sacrifice is in our DNA.
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Great to hear from these guys and this new album sounds like its gonna be killer.