Sometimes in life you have to go through hell to get to the place you’re supposed to be. The outrageous fortunes and vicissitudes of the music business, with all its pitfalls, fickleness, grinding frustrations, the rise of personal demons and personality disparities, can lead to the abrupt end to many a budding career.
To persevere through the morass of bad luck, bad planning, bad behaviour and bad timing takes amazing fortitude, courage, desire and loyalty – loyalty to one’s bandmates, to one’s music and to one’s vision.
Vancouver-based thrash metallers Infernal Majesty have done just that and are set to unleash their first album in 13 years, No God, on High Roller Records on April 14. It marks the band’s fourth studio album overall – the first was None Shall Defy, which came out in 1987, followed by Unholier Than Thou in 1998 and One Who Points to Death in 2004.
At times over the three decades of the band’s existence, the weird, wacky, unfortunate and ill-timed misadventures came very close to Spinal Tap, but the core band members and their fans always kept the faith that the Infernal Majesty ship would right itself again – and they’d all be ready and willing to celebrate when that happened.
The current lineup boasts a trio of original members including vocalist Chris Bailey, the twin guitar attack of Steve Terror and Kenny Hallman, new bassist Daniel Nargang (Kick Axe) new drummer Kiel Wilson. On No God, this rejuvenated Infernal Majesty sounds like a pack of wild, hungry, unbridled wolves – indicative of their new found energy, fire and creative enthusiasm.
“On this album we have stepped up our game like never before, and I think it’s because we have so much pent up inside of us that needed to get out. I wouldn’t say it’s all-out rage, but we do have a lot of frustration and anger to get off our chests after all the experiences we have gone through over the years. There is definitely a lot of fire in our belly,” said Bailey, a native of Port Hope, Ontario, who started Infernal Majesty alongside Terror, Hallman, a bassist called Psychopath and drummer Rick Nemes back in 1986 under their original moniker, Lord Satan’s Disciples. The name they have now came along shortly thereafter with the release of their cult-classic debut album None Shall Defy.
“I think we’re also just getting more mature and more serious about our approach to this band and our music. For No God, we did have something we wanted to say and, for me as the lyricist I have found that I am being a lot more analytical and I have really been looking back at where we’ve been and where we came from and sometimes you really need to do that in order to move forward. So during the time leading up to the creation of this album together, we spent a lot of time thinking about our legacy and where we wanted to take Infernal Majesty in the future. I know I wanted to bring elements of our roots back into our new songs and fortunately we were all on the same page. I think we succeeded in doing that, without the music sounding dated.”
No God is, essentially, a modern day renaissance for Infernal Majesty – a new beginning, according to Bailey.
“It’s a fresh start, a clean slate; however you want to describe it. Obviously we’re proud of our previous work and we’re very proud of None Shall Defy on through to the Demon God EP that the guys did with singer Brian Langley back in 2007. But we wanted this fresh start and to learn from the mistakes of our past,” he said, adding that the band never really went away, occasionally popping up to play a few shows here and there in Vancouver, where they moved from Toronto in the late 1990s.
“What it comes down to is that we have a passion for this band and a passion for creating this music. We have never been in it for financial gain. It’s all about our love for performing, our love for making music and how music is one of the big outlets for us to be creative and say what we need to say.”
And what they have to say on No God is powerfully incendiary, and certainly not for the faint of heart or obsessively politically correct.
Although calling themselves Atheists, there is a certain amount of the ‘dark side’ philosophy involved in the mindset of Bailey in particular, in terms of the oppositional and even confrontational approach that particular worldview and spiritual belief system takes to modern religion.
“We do believe that many of the problems of the world have been caused by organized religion – all the death, destruction and mayhem. There’s so many examples of that happening every day. And with the overall tone of the album, we’re asking what kind of God would it be to allow all this to happen? It would have to be the most evil God in the universe to sit back and do nothing. And we are saying what secular humanists have been saying for many years, that the only God is you. It’s a philosophy based more on science and logic and not just in blind belief and hope. Religion shouldn’t be your moral guidance. That’s exactly the message we’re trying to convey by the title No God and the underlying subjects of the songs on the album,” he explained.
“And we are all very conscious to be not picking on one religion over another, because we are covering the whole gamut – everybody. We’re attacking religion in all its facets and even some of the more obscure religions too.”
Some of the stand out tracks on the album are about not just religion but the precarious geo-political state of the world and the dangers of rogue states like North Korea.
“The song Nation of Assassins is basically about the North Korean regime and its threat to civilization in general. It’s one of the last vestiges of a true dictatorship on this earth, one that has that real Big Brother mentality. And as we have seen, especially with the most recent news of the missile testing, they are becoming of great concern, and that’s what spawned this song,” said Bailey.
“In God You Trust is about the suicide bombing that goes on within a lot of the Middle Eastern countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and it’s from the perspective of the suicide bomber themselves. It’s not so much about their faith, but the state of their mindset and what brought them to where they are willing to blow themselves up. And, again, we’re not picking on their religion and you will hear that in the lyrics. We’re identifying this as a psychological issue and a social issue where religion – any religion – is at the heart of this fanaticism.
“I believe if we were truly educating children in schools, if education was a higher priority then I think a lot of these issues would be dealt with, because the more people are educated, the more people are taught a broad range of subjects, but most importantly taught to think for themselves and to question everything, the less likely they are to have these crazy medieval beliefs in this day and age.”
Bailey believes that the music of Infernal Majesty, and of heavy metal in general, is a great vehicle or conduit for those who feel similarly frustrated, angst-ridden, helpless, powerless and disillusioned to express those emotions in a way that is constructive.
“We want to have people, obviously, just enjoy a good song. We also want to make them think a little bit and a concert like ours is an opportunity to vent and get that aggression out. They get to go out and yell and scream and get into the mosh pit a bit and just enjoy a good night out,” he said.
Bailey said one of the most amazing aspects of writing, recording and now releasing the new album is the fact that the Infernal Majesty fan base has not wavered and is keenly awaiting the release of No God and any subsequent touring that will occur.
“It’s one of the things that really blows us away. We have fans who have been with us since day one. They are our age now too and it just amazes me now that they are still so heavily involved in the music. Even back on our Canadian tour for One Who Points to Death, we really got a chance to see coast to coast who was still in the Infernal camp. And we were so pleasantly surprised, especially when we got down into Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick – areas we’d never been before – arriving to sold out shows and having the promoter put on another night for us in a couple of cases to accommodate all the people who wanted to see us,” he said.
“But it wasn’t until we came back and announced on Facebook that Infernal Majesty is working on a new album that we have really been able to connect with those fans. The advent and popularity of social media since our last album cycle has created a real buzz with our fans. It’s really just been over the last three or four years that we have been able to connect with our fans in a way we have never been able to before.
“And looking at the social media metrics we can see that there is already great interest in Europe and South America and its starting to spread in North America. One of the big goals for this version of the band is to break into the U.S. We never did a coast-to-coast American tour and that’s something we’d really like to do.”
And those fans will be happy to note that the creative machinery continues to be productive, as new Infernal Majesty songs are being crafted as of the writing of this article.
“One of the things we want to make sure people really know is that this 13-year gap will not happen again. We’re just so happy to have Kiel on board and have Daniel on board – these guys are seriously solid and we know they’re not going anywhere. We’re already five songs into composing the drums and structure for the next album, so in due time there will be a follow up to No God. Working with High Roller Records and having them on board has also breathed new life into us and has given us a lot of confidence,” Bailey said.
“So we’re not wasting any time with this one. We have a super strong lineup right now, we’re really excited and just looking forward to what’s going to happen over the next couple of years. We understand that momentum is important and that’s why we have been planning on new music. For No God we’re going to have a couple more singles and a couple more videos that will be coming out and we will also be re-releasing a complete redo of our last album, One Who Points to Death, that we believe will be an excellent complement to the first one.”
To keep track of any upcoming tour dates, as well as the release of new singles, videos and albums, follow the band on Facebook, or at http://www.infernalmajesty.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
