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THE ARCHIVES
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Morrigan's Pit has closed down as of November 2006. The site and its articles will stay online as an archive until September at least, but probably longer.
The Archives
2002-2006
» CD REVIEWS
» INTERVIEWS
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BALATONIZER
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Mario Musumeci
June 2005
http://www.balatonizer.com/
About three weeks ago I did a review for a band called Balatonizer. Hailing from Italy, the guys from Balatonizer are planning on unleashing their "vulgar death grind" with a vengeance. They just recorded their first full length album entitled "Occlused In Ottusity", and it sounds amazing. I had the opportunity to do an interview with Balatonizer's vocalist Mario, during this interview I asked him some routine questions like their influences and the bands that they look up to and also the use of a drum machine instead of a human drummer. Check it out!
How and when was Balatonizer formed?
In 1997, at the beginning, we were with two vocals and a drummer. After that in
2001 we became a brutal trio composed by Mario (voice growl/scream), Marco (guitar/drum-programmer), Rodan (bass) and our drum-machine that satisfied our concept of the "vulgar-death-grind"style. At the beginning it was an expedient...but, as time was going on, we founded out our own musical dimension with it. We think now it's a sort of Balatonizer trademark! We are 3 idiots that founded in our brutal band the "vulgar death grind" attitude. Ahahaha!
The name Balatonizer, very unusual name, what does it mean and where did it come from?
"Balatuni" in Sicilian dialect means big stone, Balatonizer sound so cool!
Which bands have had an influence on Balatonizer?
Many bands influenced our trip during our long activity. Founders like Cannibal Corpse, Decide, Suffocation, Death, Brutal Truth, Pestilence, Napalm Death, Malevolent Creation, Vomitory, etc... and more recent like Nile, Mortician, Dying Fetus, Internal Bleeding, Sinister, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, etc...but it would be reductive to make such a short list for the fact that there are many other bands that meant a lot for us. We had spent many beautiful years closed in in our lair listening to everything existing of death, grind, black, crust planet.
Besides the bands mentioned above, are you influenced by anything else?
Yes! From everything that is clumsy!
You guys use a drum machine. Have you guys ever had a (human) drummer?
Yes at the beginning for some years, but we didn't find a real brutal drummer and
then we went to the drum machine. The enormous developing in affordable audio
technology of the last years is giving great opportunities to everyone who is
involved in every music creation process. You can have more control now! We can
have a pretty trustworthy vision of the impact we are going to deserve with
every Balatonizer track just from the beginning of the composition stage. We are
able to immediately change everything... years ago we were able to notice some
kind of arrangements defects only after spending a lot of time and money in
professional recording studios. Now we utilize computers to try various
arrangement solutions on every single riff before we proceed any further. All in
all ours is a true musical research... but, unlike in experimental music, our
research's aim is only and even to pulverize everything!
The most famous band that uses a drum machine is Mortician, they also use movie scenes as intros for there songs. I noticed that Balatonizer also uses movie scenes as intros, would you care to comment?
Yes but we don't use horror movies but mafia and Italian comedy from the 1970/80s!
You guys have released 2 demos and 1 EP. Are there any copies left or are they sold out?
We still have some copies, we haven't made any more copies for many years of the old work.
How was the reaction on the demos and the EP?
Cool here in our land Sicily! Our brutal scene, in Italy, is relegated to a sterile underground ambit that give us only some poor possibilities to promote ourselves. There are many other bands of fine workmanship that work hard trying to become
popular in nations like Germany, Northern Europe and Eastern Europe where this kind of music is more appreciated. In Italy it's very difficult to find the right channels to promote ourselves. For this reason I admire a lot of Italian brutal bands that still continue to promote their project without surrendering. They do it only for a pure passion for the brutal style.
Here our scene has retrograded the environment and then it is not possible to substain a more big contest with more possibilities of use.
You new cd is entitled "Occlused In Ottusity", what's the difference between this album and your previous works?
This is the first full length album with our drum machine. The first and the second demo are with a drummer in pure grind style.
How have the reactions been so far to "Occlused In Ottusity"?
We started making promotion alone only some months ago....The first reaction was so cool and we appreciate it.
Are you planning on going on tour to promote this album?
We haven't many possibilities here but we hope that will improve in the future. We are under a little label that didn't make a big promotion. However we trust the situation will improve!
Are there any bands that you'd like to go on tour with?
Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, Cliteater, Dying Fetus, Disgorge, Necrorectumonomicon, Deicide and many others...
I was curious about your lyrics, what are they about?
Have you noticed that we don´t have texts? The only semblance of a message that we want to transmit is totally expressed in the comic artwork, drawn by our guitarist/drum-programmer Marco, inside the CD. What we want to communicate with our project is only brutality at the wild state. A Neanderthal language addressed to the reducted cerebral conscience state of
our public that, during the listening of our CD, fall in a cataleptic state and expresses itself using the most primordial intellectual capabilities. It's only in that phase that the most primitive and brutal human expression comes out in it's marvellous spontaneity.
Inside the booklet of "Occlused In Ottusity" there a comic story featuring you guys. Would you describe the story in your own words?
We are walking in the woods and we smell a strong reek. We follow the reek and we
enter in a cavern were we find a beast that gives us the power to become enormous
with a lot of muscles! Then we fly to the marvellous society to make clean (destroy everyone in their path)!
You also made a video clip. Can give me more info on it (why that track, where etc.)?
We had make it alone in our box, "Muscular Prevarication" because it's with mid
time and fast beats together!
Any final words for the fans out there?
The best mix for us is brutality and big irony! Stay brutal!
Thanx a lot for your time and I wish you and the band a lot of success in the future!
submitted by Brian 26.06.2005
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