Interview with ARMORY

by Vpower

The Band: Armory

Country: Sweden

https://www.facebook.com/armoryofficial

http://armory417.bandcamp.com/

Armory is a band that all fans of Speed Metal will enjoy, but it’s more than that, they season their speed attack with some classic heavy and thrash tunes that enrich their proposal. Young and with many things to say in the future, the kind of band I would very much like to see playing live.

Hello Armory and congratulations for your first full-length album! But before going for it, let’s review today’s history lesson, what is the origin of Swedish act Armory?

Armory rose up from the ashes of a thrash metal band under the late summer/fall of 2012. We recorded our first demo “Open Fire” during the following months and was released early 2013, but we were not quite satisfied with the result. A year later we entered the studio once again to record our second demo “S.M.I.” which was released during the early spring of 2015. During the months between the first and second demo G.G. Sundin switched from bass to guitar and Anglegrinder joined as our new bass player. We had now a complete line-up for the first time since the band got started. “S.M.I.” got good reviews and sold out in just three months. After this minor success we felt we’d really had found our own sound and started to write songs for a full-length album. In the fall of 2015 we entered Black Path Studios and recorded “World Peace... Cosmic War”, and as soon as it was ready we searched for a record label to release us. High Roller Records was the one we wanted to sign with the most and we were thrilled to find out they wanted us to be a part of their family.

You guys look young but you have been in other bands before, what are your main influences?

Mainly the American speed metal scene such as Agent Steel, Savage Grace and Helstar as well as the great H.M. bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Running Wild. -Armory develops basically a classic speed metal, right? Yes. We play our own style of speed metal, which is also quite colored by our Swedish heritage and the darkness of the universe.

You have signed by High Roller records, I usually think that the label you have signed for talks clear about what you do, so in the future when you sign by Nuclear Blast probably you will be doing some commercial stuff hahaha, what do you think?

High Roller did not have any impact on our album at all, as it was already fully completed before we signed to them. However, High Roller was always our first choice of label and we are very happy about working together with them. And regardless of what label we will end up on in the future, we will always continue doing what we believe in and play music that comes from straight from the depths of our hearts and souls.

What are we gonna find under the enigmatic “World Peace… Cosmic War” in terms of lyrics?

We are very inspired by the mysteries of the universe, various dystopian visions of the future, old metal and the unknown in general. Even if our lyrics span many different areas, there are recurring themes for the careful listener – for example the eternal and destructive spiral humanity has always been caught in. Most of the lyrics also relate to who we are, where we come from, our place in the universe and where we might go from here – all on different levels and dimensions, both as individuals and as a species as whole. The title track is obviously about interstellar warfare, but there is a deeper meaning embedded in the lyrics as well. Our belief is that if the human race would – against all odds – achieve a global and complete world peace, we would quickly direct our greedy gazes towards other planets instead. And so the destructive cycle would begin anew on a cosmic scale. But the only thing that could cause such a world peace in the first place is probably an alien attack by hostile extraterrestrial beings.

I like the aggressiveness and the under touch in Konstapel P’s vocals, it sounds very classical

Konstapel P has always been inspired by the combination of aggression and melody in the voice of for example Tom Araya. With this aim in mind, he always seeks to utilize his vocal capacity to the fullest.

I would also underline the brilliant work the two axes have done, there are guitar solos in this album where you simply can’t stay seated, unless they tie you to the chair…

Thank you! Guitar harmonies and solos have always been important in most kinds of heavy music, but perhaps more so in speed metal than in many other subgenres. While we haven’t really put any more effort into arranging the guitar parts of the album than any of the other instruments, the fact that four out of our five band members plays the guitar means that we naturally tend to favor writing the guitar parts first, and then continue with the arrangements for the other instruments. Our two guitar players have quite different playing styles as well, which gives a nice contrast to the music. Ingelman favors playing in a relatively clean and controlled manner, while G.G. is more of the “fast-and-wrong” kind of guitar player.

Although the speed metal is dominant in your music, you also deliver some good heavy metal touch in the middle, like in Phantom Warrior

Oh yes, we are very inspired by the great heavy metal acts of the eighties, as already stated. This have always been, and will always be, a big part of our identity and music.

Even we get some thrash metal dose in some songs, right?

 Yes, for sure. All of us are thrashers with our feet deeply rooted in the thrash metal soil. We by no means strive to play thrash of any kind, but the dirtiness and aggressiveness that seems to color all of our music and give it thrashy feel.

I was also surprised by the duration of the last song on the album, Space Marauders, it’s not easy to find a speed metal song of over 10 minutes…

It was never meant to be that long, actually it wasn’t even meant to be an Armory song originally. But as the song progressed we felt that all the pieces just fell together, and in our opinion it makes a perfect ending to our album.

How long did you work in the composition of the album?

A bit less than a year. We started writing the songs shortly after recording the “S.M.I.” demo, and completed most of them in around six months. Then we practiced them and perfected them for another couple of months before entering the Black Path studio in November last year.

Sweden is in the first division of Metal, but one has the idea that Speed Metal is not the strongest part of it. In Europe maybe the longest tradition in speed metal comes from Germany or center Europe, what do you think?

Yes, you are right – Sweden is not a big speed metal country. Other than us and Enforcer and Tyranex, there are not many bands playing speed metal right now (there are also some non-active speed metal side projects such as Cranium, The Hidden and Steel). But there’s a huge fanbase here, so hopefully a new Swedish speed metal scene can rise from the underground soon!

You are originally from the city of Gothenburg, there you must be very popular or maybe some kind of heroes or there are so many bands that it’s just normal?

We are not heroes by any means, but those who listen to speed metal usually know who we are. The fact that there are almost no other bands around here playing our style of metal means that we can stand out a bit in an otherwise hugely overpopulated metal scene. Sometimes it feels like almost every metalhead here plays in at least two or three bands!

Awesome! What touring plans do you have?

None at the moment, except for our release gig here in Gothenburg and then a trip north to lay waste to Stockholm. We would love to go south as well… If you want to come to your area, tell it to your local bookers!!

There is the message! What are your expectations as a band in the long-term?

We will continue doing this and playing the music that we love for as long as we have the fire still burning strong within us. It doesn’t matter if anyone listens to us or not, but at the same time it is always nice to get appreciation from our fans. And finally, as Bad News once put it; “all I wanna do is drink as much as I can – that’s why I’m a member of a heavy metal band!”.

Thank you very much for your attention, if you wish to add something…

Thanks to Highlander and anyone else who might be reading this. See you all on the field of battle, the Cosmic War will begin on the 19th of August!