{"id":35117,"date":"2015-07-03T00:00:16","date_gmt":"2015-07-03T00:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=35117"},"modified":"2015-08-23T20:04:29","modified_gmt":"2015-08-23T20:04:29","slug":"feature-cut-up-07-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-cut-up-07-15\/","title":{"rendered":"CUT UP – A Butchery Improved (July 2015) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

CUT UP – A Butchery Improved<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nJuly 2015<\/span><\/p>\n

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Cut Up (l-r): Tobias Gustafsson, Erik Rundqvist, Anders Bertilsson and Andreas Bj\u00f6rnson<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\nOn February 20th, 2013, it was revealed that Karlstad, Sweden-based death metal outfit Vomitory would disband following a 24-year career which spawned eight full-length studio albums, the band\u2019s swansong performance taking place on December 27th of that year at Metal Cl\u00fcb \/ N\u00f6jesfabriken in Karlstad. \u201cThere were a lot of reasons for Vomitory\u2019s split,\u201d Tobias Gustafsson shares, longtime drummer for the assortment. \u201cThe band was active for 24 years non-stop, and of course that takes its toll. For me personally, the last couple of years were quite heavy. I still enjoyed it, but it was a bit cumbersome. The band was becoming more of a burden more than I thought it was fun, and I also felt that the level of motivation wasn\u2019t the same in the band. That was also something that brought my will to continue down a bit. There were different life situations for everybody, so it was getting more and more difficult to get everything working with our jobs and daily lives in general, and our families and so on. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think that Vomitory had reached the end of its life so to speak, so it was definitely time to call it a day. I think we did it at the right time, because we were still a great band when we split up. Our final album Opus Mortis VIII<\/em> (April 2011) was a really good album that we can proud of, so I think we did the right thing. We decided to stop while we still enjoyed it, and there was no bad blood involved in this decision; we split up on good terms with everyone. So yeah, that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The musical partnership of vocalist \/ bassist Erik Rundqvist and the sticksman has continued within the ranks of fellow Karlstad-based death metal ensemble Cut Up. \u201cAs you know, me and Erik of Cut Up played together in Vomitory for many years,\u201d he begins. \u201cWe disbanded Vomitory by the end of 2013, but during the last few months, me and Erik were talking about maybe wanting to do something together again after the Vomitory split. I think it took us maybe two months after the Vomitory split, and then we started to talk again about maybe forming a new band. Both of us were very excited to start something new, so we decided to do so. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were talking about which people we wanted to have in the band and so on, so everything went pretty fast. Actually, we knew Anders Bertilsson the lead guitar player. We knew him very well from before, from his previous bands like Coldworker and another band called Ruin. We had been playing at the same venues, so we have some mutual friends as well. Also, Anders filled in as a live guitarist a few times during the last couple of years for Vomitory, so we knew that he was a great guy and that he was a great guitar player and so on, and so that was a very natural choice for us. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen we wanted a fourth member. We wanted a guitarist who was also a lead vocalist, because that was something that we decided quite early on \u2013 me and Erik \u2013 that we wanted to have two lead vocalists in this band to be able to have some more diversity to our sound, and have more to work with musically so to speak, and also bring up the intensity and so on. We knew this guy from our area, namely Andreas Bj\u00f6rnson. We have seen him live a couple of times with his other band, Fetus Stench. We knew that he was a great vocalist, and a really good guitar player, and a great songwriter, and so on. We asked him, and he wanted to try out. After the first rehearsal together, we felt that this was the line-up that we would go for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cut Up\u2019s moniker was inspired by a composition penned by a defunct death metal outfit who resided in California from the late 90s until the early noughties. \u201cWe wanted something that was straight in your face and that was very memorable and easy to understand, and I think we found that,\u201d Tobias explains. \u201cI got the idea from the song \u2018Dead, Cut Up And Ready To Fuck\u2019 by The Ravenous. I thought it was a cool band name. It\u2019s a violent name which represents our music pretty good I think, although the words themselves are not very original. \u2018Cut\u2019 and \u2018up\u2019 are two very common words, but I think it\u2019s still quite an original name for a death metal band, so I think it stands out from the rest. Besides, all the other shitty names were already taken (laughs). No, seriously. I think it\u2019s a cool name.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Cut Up (l-r): Tobias Gustafsson, Anders Bertilsson, Andreas Bj\u00f6rnson and Erik
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Debut offering Forensic Nightmares<\/em> arrived in June 2015. \u201cWhen we started the band, I brought one song,\u201d the rhythmist divulges. \u201cIt was actually the last song that I wrote for Vomitory, which we didn\u2019t use, and that song is the album opener \u2018Enter Hell\u2019. I took that one to Cut Up, so we could have something to play in the beginning. We thought \u2018This song fits us good.\u2019 Also, Andreas brought one song that he already had, which was \u2018Burial Time\u2019, so then we already had two songs. After that, Andreas got really inspired and wrote a lot of songs in a very short time. He wrote most of the music himself, and Erik wrote most of the lyrics for his songs himself. Then we rehearsed everything together in the rehearsal room, and worked on the final touches together to make final versions of the songs so to speak. Yeah, that\u2019s how we do it. We work mostly by ourselves when we write songs, and then we present it to the other guys. Then if there are any changes that need to be made, we do that together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tobias personally authored the music for two numbers, namely \u2018Enter Hell\u2019 and \u2018A Butchery Improved\u2019. \u201cThose are my songs,\u201d he confirms. \u201cIt\u2019s straight ahead death metal, no frills, the way I usually write. I think \u2018Enter Hell\u2019 is more typical Swedish death metal; with that opening riff and also the middle section, in my ears it\u2019s very early 90s kind of Entombed-style riffing. Also, I think it\u2019s a great album opener for many reasons. \u2018A Butchery Improved\u2019 is maybe a bit more diverse, because it has this heavy mid-section where there\u2019s some room to catch your breath and bang your heads. I don\u2019t know. There\u2019s not much more to say, I guess.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cut Up performs death metal of the more traditional variety. \u201cThat\u2019s always very difficult to describe, your own music, but I think we have one foot still in the old school,\u201d the percussionist admits. \u201cOur music is based in the old school death metal, but I definitely think that we\u2019re a contemporary band with a modern production. We play brutal, grinding, groovy death metal from Sweden (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n

A wide range of groups influence Cut Up\u2019s overall sound. \u201cSpeaking for myself, I come from the old school with old thrash bands and that early death metal wave \u2013 the beginning of the 90s,\u201d Tobias cites. \u201cI still listen to that kind of death metal. I also listen to newer death metal too of course, but I like the old Entombed stuff, old Grave, old Bolt Thrower, Napalm Death. Those are bands that are always in my head somewhere when I write music. Also, Vader, Exhumed, a lot of bands \u2013 Terrorizer, for instance. I think we have slightly different sources of inspiration in the band, but we have many in common too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forensic Nightmares<\/em>\u2019 lyrical content is typical death metal fare. \u201cYeah, I would say that,\u201d the sticksman agrees. \u201cThe lyrics deal with horror and gore, which I think is very appropriate. We play violent, brutal death metal, and the lyrics should be accordingly. In the beginning, I think it was meant that Forensic Nightmares<\/em> should be a bit of a concept album. After a couple of songs though, Erik ditched that idea because the lyrics took a slightly different turn. In a way mind, the lyrics are basically more or less in the same vein anyway. It\u2019s gory, it\u2019s brutal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recording sessions for Forensic Nightmares<\/em> took place at Big Balls Production Studio in Karlstad, Sweden during November 2014. \u201cIt went really, really smooth,\u201d Tobias remembers. \u201cI don\u2019t remember how many recording days there were, but maybe between ten and 15 recording days, and then we were done with the recording. It went really, really smooth and we were very well prepared, because all of the music… <\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the songs were more or less completely finished when we entered the studio. There were just a few things like some of the guitar solos, which had to be worked on in the studio, and also some lyrics had to be reworked \u2013 maybe just a few lines, and so on. Basically though, everything was finished when we started recording it, and that felt great. But yeah, for being together in the studio for the first time, I was really amazed about how well it went and how good it sounded. So yeah, I\u2019m really happy with it. Then we sent the recording to another guy for mixing, and that went really, really smooth too. The album was actually finished around the New Year \u2013 that\u2019s when we had our master.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Polish artist \u0141ukasz Jaszak designed the cover artwork for Forensic Nightmares<\/em>. \u201cHe\u2019s also the guy who did the last Vomitory album for us (Opus Mortis VIII<\/em>), the cover artwork,\u201d the rhythmist credits. \u201cThe cover portrays a pile of human body parts, so the idea is that that pile of human garbage is a forensic nightmare for the forensics to take care of. That\u2019s basically it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A music video was filmed for the track \u2018Burial Time\u2019. \u201cIt was done in one day, in an old industrial facility which was not in use,\u201d Tobias informs. \u201cWe decorated it with black sheets on the walls, and just a few spotlights. We wanted to make a very clean and simple video as the first video from the band, to present the band that way, so it went pretty smooth. It was quite easy, but it always takes a lot more time than you think it will. It worked out good in the end though, and we\u2019re happy with the result. It\u2019s just a straight up performance video of the band, so there are no special effects or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

On April 2nd, it was revealed that Cut Up had inked an album contract with Metal Blade Records. \u201cActually, there were other labels interested in Cut Up,\u201d the percussionist reveals. \u201cWe were considering working with them too, but Metal Blade gave us a very good offer, so we thought it was a good idea to sign with Metal Blade. It would also make sense, given mine and Erik\u2019s long history with Metal Blade through Vomitory for many years before. We know what they can deliver and we always worked well together, so we decided to sign with Metal Blade, and it\u2019s nothing that we now regret. We\u2019re very happy that we ended up with Metal Blade. So yeah, it feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forensic Nightmares<\/em> was released on June 26th, 2015 in Europe and subsequently on the 30th in North America, all via Metal Blade Records. <\/p>\n

Interview published in July 2015. All promotional photographs by Soile Siirtola.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CUT UP – A Butchery Improved Anthony Morgan July 2015 Cut Up (l-r): Tobias Gustafsson, Erik Rundqvist, Anders Bertilsson and Andreas Bj\u00f6rnson On February 20th, 2013, it was revealed that Karlstad, Sweden-based death metal outfit Vomitory would disband following a 24-year career which spawned eight full-length studio albums, the band\u2019s swansong performance taking place on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35117"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35133,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35117\/revisions\/35133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}