GET TO THE POINT: LIAM MILLWARD (THEOKTONY) — AND A FULL STREAM OF “LOSS”

 Interviews  1 Response »
Apr 132015
 

 

(KevinP puts five questions to Liam Millward, composer/guitarist/bassist/mandolin-player/backing-vocalist of Theoktony from the UK, whose new album you can stream in full at the end of this post.)

K:  Cliff notes history lesson:  You started as Pulverized in 2001, released one album in 2002, changed the band’s name to Theoktony in 2005, released a debut album in 2008.  It’s now 2015 and you are about to release your sophomore effort, Loss, via Dissected Records.  Tell us about it.

L:  Loss was actually written a couple of years ago, its just taken a while to pull together and record. Musically, I tried to keep with the original modus operandi of Theoktony, to just write and see where it took me. I try not to restrict myself to a genre.  Lyrically, I took inspiration from recent history and tried to stay on point, deal with ‘Loss’ in general, whether that be of faith, sanity, or life.

 

K:  Who’s responsible for what on this album? (Writing, playing, producing, etc,)

L:  On vocals we have Anthony Jody Myers; drums were played by Anil Carrier; guitars, bass, mandolin and samples were all by myself.  As far as writing is concerned, all music and lyrics were written by myself, with the exception of the drums for the songs “Apostate” and “Eritrea”, which were written by Anil.  I also produced the album, so if you hate it, I guess I’m to blame.  Haha! Continue reading »

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

 Metal News  No Responses »
Feb 252010
 

On the last day of last year we published a post called UK Death Metal in Review, in which we wrote about five UK extreme metal bands whose music we really enjoyed during 2009. This week we discovered good news and bad news about two of those bands — Theoktony and Viatrophy.

It’s a vivid reminder of how fleeting the ups and downs of extreme metal bands can be in this narrow little niche of music we live by, and how lucky we are that so many bands insanely care enough about the music to hang in there when the pressures to give up can become so overwhelming.

THE GOOD NEWS

We thought Theoktony’s 2008 full-length, “I“, was a real head-turning slab of technical, no-holds-barred, heavily blackened death metal, played with a lot of heart. Vicious death vocals, a very heavy low end with absolutely insane non-stop blast-beat drumming, and grinding riffs — all performed with real technical flair, a healthy dose of groove, and a mournful sense of melody.

When we originally wrote about Theoktony, we were saddened to report that the band had recently split apart. At that time, guitarist Liam Millward wrote that he was continuing to record music, providing all the instrumentals and vocals himself, and was hunting for musicians to fill out the band — and we wished him luck, because what he and his comrades did with Theoktony was awesome. (read on, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

UK DEATH METAL IN REVIEW

 Album Reviews, Listmania  2 Responses »
Dec 312009
 

Alan McFarland (Man Must Die)

As 2009 draws even closer to the end, we’ve continued to think back about albums we really enjoyed this year.  Among them were releases from five UK bands that could loosely be classified as death metal, though they sound almost nothing alike.  Four of them — Man Must Die, Viatrophy, Ignominious Incarceration, and Xerath — turned out killer new albums in 2009, and the fifth — Theoktony — was a prodigiously talented band we only discovered this year, though sadly its future is in doubt.

We don’t pretend that this post is a comprehensive review of the best UK death metal of the year, because we’ve no doubt there are awesome 2009 releases we simply haven’t heard.  The five we’re covering here are simply albums that happened to grab our attention  — and didn’t let go. Continue reading »