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Coming to us from Calgary, Canada, this 3-piece offers us
this indepedent debut release. If you knew anything about the local
scene in Calgary, you'd realize why this band's literature has them
to be a hard rock band rather than reflecting their stronger modern power
metal influences.
One thing that will grab you right away is the powerful low-end that the music maintains, for something other than one of the extreme genres, such as death metal, this is uncommon. Generally the sound is driven by either flowing or crunchy guitar; the absense of a second guitar makes it difficult to categorize the sound as power metal. Therefore the music doesn't have the rhythm and power that bands like Pantera maintain, but nonetheless the dual role that the single guitar has to fill makes for a very original sound. A slow methodical rumbling combined with a high impact assault keeps the music very raw in nature, which unfortunately sometimes sounds a little sloppy. However, this raw sound is what helps to give an identity to the band, far too often are bands lost in the mediocrity of unoriginal overproduced music.
It is hard to determine a clear direction to the music, which is likely what provides the main attraction to the music. At points it seems as though the band was heading towards something like Crowbar, but other times they are trying for a rough melodic approach: throw in a violin at points and you may have something similar to Celestial Season, but not quite. Overall the structure is very consistant, a slow brooding approach that gives rise to an intense aural assault -- some of the transitions could have been achieved a little better, but nonetheless it retains its very hard, rough sound.
The band is in bit of a quandry however: live their music is very energetic, which is of the most difficult aspects to retain in a recording, and with a limited budget it is difficult to find a crew capable of doing it. With that in mind however, "Furbearing Animal" is a great recording that still manages to offer high impact elements with a rumbling low end and scrathcy vocals. It will be interesting to see what direction the band goes, they have the attitude to be a power metal or death metal band, but their musical approach seems to pull that attitude towards a heavy alternative.
Diesel Fly is:
Aaron - Vocals, Bass
Scott - Guitar (Steve recorded Guitar on this album)
Joe - Drums
Contact:
Diesel Fly
#2 1935 25 Ast. SW
Calgary AB T3E 1Y6
Canada
Diesel Fly would like to get some of their CDs to various parts of the world, particularily they would like one to go to Japan, Australia, Europe, South America, Canada, and the United States, so if you happen to live in one of these areas send mail to Read Tracks Of Creation http://ratw.com/creation/ with your full mailing address, name, email address, and whatever else you think we may want to know, and you could get a free CD.
This interview was done in person, this is a summarized version (the transcription is not available) with highlights and quoteable items -- much of this interview was of local interest, so with that stuff removed it may seem kind of short, sorry.
We find out that the Diesel Fly used to go by the name "Demon Seed", but they were never getting any shows, too many people thought that they were a death metal band, so they came up with the name "Diesel Fly". Since then they have been getting increasingly better turnouts, with the crowd response being very good. "I would say that without exception that at every show we have at least one person who has never seen us before [...] and comes up to the stage and says, 'you guys are great'"
Scott: "I'm gonna be stoned from now on, today was the last day I play sober."
During the shows they will normally give away CDs to anybody who just comes up to the stage, but as with this day, "people are fucking lazy" and won't go up to the stage. Otherwise their sales are going fairly well at every show and the band plans to record another demo that they will be shopping around to the labels. The new demo will be "thick and heavy" but they promise "we will still want to capture that live feel".
"I just wanted to test the waters", Aaron sent only a couple CDs out to various magazines and the band managed to get mention in Metal Hammer, based in Europe, and "Brave Words And Bloody Knuckles" out of Canada should be doing a review of the CD as well in the June/July issue.
"It was a good idea, it sets us apart", was the response to the band putting screws in 250 of the 500 CD cases that they intend to sell or giveway. To further set them apart they made red long sleeve T-Shirts, very different from the multitude of black shirts available, but if you're like me you'll still get the black shirt, which they also have available.
"I don't want to share the money with anybody else", was one of the responses to keeping the band a 3-piece; which they feel is fine considering the bassist does vocals as well. And whenever there is a disagreement in the band it is always 2 against 1, an important fact when all of the writing is always a group effort.
Joe: "I find the less heavy bands get, the more their stuff sounds the same."
Diesel Fly is very attentive to their audience by judging their play sets against different reactions from show to show. The band feels it is very important to play for the audience, the music, "it's for them". But at the same time they're playing for the people that are into the set from beginning to end.
Aaron: "I don't think I could write lighter music."
Scott: "You can write it with your ass, for crying out loud."
Copyright ©1998 Borcek