photo by Kieran Wakeman

(In this edition of Waxing Lyrical, Andy Synn elicited thoughts from Steve Tovey, vocalist of the UK metal band The King Is Blind.)

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of The King Is Blind?

Now keep them raised if you’ve heard their fantastic second album, We are the Parasite, We are the Cancer.

If your hand is down… well, what the heck have you been playing at? Not only did I give the album a glowing review, but I also hand-picked it as a close runner-up to Immolation in last year’s “Critical Top Ten”, describing it as:

“…one killer slab of Old-school influenced audio violence, with a Major in Riffology and a Minor in Metallic History, whose every track seems to exist solely to remind you why you fell in love with the more extreme side of Metal in the first place.”

So, with all that in mind, you can see why I decided to talk to the band’s frontman Steve Tovey about his influences (or lack thereof), his favourite vocalists, novels… and pretty much anything and everything else which feeds into his overall concept for each of the band’s records. Continue reading »