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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
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CRIMINAL
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Anton Reisenegger
November 2005
http://www.criminal1.com
Criminal's new album "Sicario" turned out heavier and more in-your-face than its predecessor. The music is a bit more straightforward again and Andy Classen produced it, 'nuff said! Time to catch up with Anton Reisenegger and talk about this killer album.
Hi Anton, nice to "talk" to you again :) Even though I loved the style on "No Gods No Masters", I have to say I love "Sicario" even more, it blows me away (I gave it a 5/5)!
Hey Marlies! Nice review, glad you liked the album!
After "No Gods No Masters" you said the reactions were mixed, some loved the "evolved" style, others were more conservative. How are the reactions this time?
The reactions have been far more positive altogether, even though there's still obviously some people who prefer the direction we explored on "No Gods", and who think the material on "Sicario" is not original enough or whatever. But it's always going to be hard to make people comprehend that we have a whole history before these two albums, and that we didn't just start to play thrash yesterday. To me "Sicario" has some damn good songs and a brilliant production, and it has given us more of a base to build upon. I'm already thinking about the next album, and it might even be a mix of "Sicario" with some of the elements found on "No Gods".
Did those reactions have anything to do with you going back to a more straightforward style with "Sicario"? Or maybe the line-up changes (old bassplayer back, keyboardplayer out) caused it?
I think the reactions to "No Gods" did have an influence on us returning to a more straightforward sound, but we never held a band meeting to decide on the direction of the new album or something. As always, we just started writing and selected the material that sounded better to us. And the fact that we returned to our original band format has also definitely to do with the sound being closer to our roots.
Kato, your old bassplayer from Chile, came to England for a while and rejoined Criminal, but I heard he already left the band again too - how did you hook up with him, as well as lose him again?
When Rodrigo and I first moved to Europe, we asked Kato whether he wanted to join us and keep Criminal going, but he declined for perfectly understandable reasons. Then, when we did our last South American tour, we were without a bass player and asked him to help us out, which he did. Everything seemed to click again and the tour was just great, so I think that was when he changed his mind and decided to give it a shot. He came to England at the beginning of this year, we did the pre-production for the album, went and recorded it, and then played a few shows. Everything seemed to be working out really well, but we could kinda tell that he was unhappy and didn't really believe in his decision to move to Europe. I don't think it had that much to do with the band actually, but he returned to Chile for more personal reasons.
Are you in retrospect happy things went the way they went with Mark Royce (he didn't show up for a tour, got thrown out and wasn't replaced)? I mean, I didn't mind the keys on the previous album, but I love a key-less Criminal better!
Ha! Yeah, Mark actually made it easier for us to kick him out, which we eventually might have done anyway! I mean, I really liked the stuff he did on "No Gods", but within the band there were disagreements over the use of keyboards, or the need for keyboards, so it only seemed logical to return to the four-piece format. Mark is a really nice guy and a very talented musician, and I honestly hope he finds a band he can be happy in.
"Por La Fuerza De La Razón" seems to handle about the oppression and violence in Chile, but my Spanish is as good as altavista's computer translations;) Can you tell me more about the song? And, if you will, your lyrics in general?
That particular song is a play on words with the Chilean national motto as it appears on the country's emblem, and for the lyrics I also took parts of the national anthem and transformed them a little. But it is quite simply an anti-militarist song, meaning that ideological conflicts can't be solved by the use of force. The rest of the lyrics are also in that vein, pretty hardcore-ish political stuff and some of the insides of my mind just turned to the outside.
I read somewhere that you insisted on having "From The Ashes" on the record while the band never really liked this (older) song. What don't they like about it, I love it! :)
The song itself is not old, but it is in a way a "remake" of an old song called "White Hell", that never was actually included on any of our albums. I don't know if that was the reason, but Rod, Zac and Kato just kept moaning about it, while I thought it was brilliant. In the end, I'm happy I pulled my "band leader veto", because a lot of people have told me they think it's one of the best songs on the album.
I can only agree, that's why I asked :) Is there any specific reason you chose to re-record "Self Destruction"?
We just thought it might be a good idea to introduce that song to the European fans, since it's one of our best-known songs in South America and we still like playing it live. It also was meant to make the European edition a bit special.
"No Gods No Masters" had a pretty good production, which you did yourself. This time you chose Andy Classen and his production is incredible (one of his best as far as I know them)! Did you feel you needed someone to get more out of Criminal in the studio than you could achieve by yourself? I remember you did say in our last interview you wanted to move somewhere else the next time.
Yeah, we definitely knew that we needed an experienced producer in order to make this very important step for us, and I think Andy's work on "Sicario" proved us right. It was just great to be able to concentrate on the performances and not having to worry too much about the technical side of things. The production on "No Gods" wasn't bad, but there were certain aspects we weren't really happy with in retrospect, like the drum sound, which on "Sicario" is just HUGE!
Did Andy have any influence on the songs itself besides the sound?
Not really. We arrived at the studio with all the material completed, so he only had an influence on certain arrangements like vocal lines, guitar harmonies and so on.
Last time we also talked about experimenting more with your vocals a next time. Did you have a chance to try out much? Although there is no huge change, you're doing a bit more with your voice on this album and I totally love the vocals now!
Well, I just tried to get more variation within what I do. I don't think I'm ever going to start doing all the clean stuff like Soilwork or Killswith Engage, but I'm always open for experimenting a little. But, to be honest, within the time frame of a regular studio production, there isn't really enough time to try a lot of different things. And singing has got to do a lot with your mood, as well as with your body, so it isn't just a matter of going in and doing it, and you don't have the time to wait for the magic to happen either.
The very talented Claudio Bergamin did your cover again, although I didn't recognize it. It's fairly simple to what he is artistically capable of, who came up with the concept of the cover?
He did himself, actually. We told him we wanted something more simple, and he came up with this idea, which we all really liked. It is quite neutral in a way, so it won't influence anyone's perception of what the band might be like before they listen to it. The design of the booklet is much more elaborate though, there he really got to show his talent in full.
Your lyrics are often about violence in Chile or maybe all of South America. How bad is your home country Chile compared to other South American countries?
Chile is actually doing quite well economically, so the social unrest is more limited, even though there is still a lot of poverty. But Chile doesn't have as much gang violence as, say, Brazil, or the political and drug-related violence there is in Colombia. But now look at what's happening in France... street violence is spreading to the whole world. I've actually always thought that World War 3 will be fought on the streets instead of being a conventional or even nuclear war.
I haven't read about any tourplans yet to support "Sicario", what's in the works? How was your tour last year with Six Feet Under, btw? I unfortunately wasn't able to go to one of those shows :(
Not much at the moment I'm afraid. We're lining up a few single gigs in the UK and Germany, but we're also working on getting us a proper European tour and summer festivals for next year. We'll hopefully find out soon. The tour with SFU was okay, just a bit short. But I think we are in a much better form right now and we can really slay live!
Thanks again for your time Anton, good luck in getting on a good tour (and hopefully I'll be able to see you then, I wanna see Criminal live dammit! ;))!
Thanks a lot for your continued support Marlies, and hope to see you on tour!
submitted by Marlies 14.12.2005
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