By Jim Barber
Steeped in mythology, drawing on influences that harken again to the late Nineteen Seventies heavy, doom-laden musical tomes of early Black Sabbath, with wholesome doses of the early psychedelia impressed sludge metallic of Vanilla Fudge and Blue Cheer, Barrie, Ontario’s maestros of fuzz-infused, fantastical spacey metallic music AAWKS are bringing their atmospheric depth and fantastical themes to an ever-widening viewers.
Their penchant for crafting music that’s as theatrically revelatory in its aural textures is undoubted. But it surely’s the literate storytelling that accompanies every chapter within the band’s new album On By means of the Sky Maze which actually units AAWKS out as a band to maintain one’s eyes – and ears – upon.
After forming with an preliminary lineup in 2019 and releasing their debut EP, a extra solidified lineup consisting of road-tested veterans of the Barrie and space music scene led to the band’s present roster in 2023, shortly after the issuance of their debut album, Heavy on the Cosmic.
That assortment of proficient and skilled gamers is headlined by main songwriter, vocalist/guitarist Kris Dzierbicki, along with his spouse, Randy, on drums, longtime good friend and musical confederate Roberto Paraiso on guitar, violin and a few synths and the latest addition, bassist Ryan Mailman, who additionally contributes among the guttural vocals and screams that punctuate among the tunes on the album.
In line with Kris, the band wish to preserve the true that means of their identify a thriller, which inserts in fully with their aesthetic and overarching artistic vibe.
“It would imply one thing. It is likely to be an acronym. And you may pronounce it nonetheless you need. Our guitarist Roberto all the time says that it’s a little bit of a play of phrases on the animal as a result of we’re huge, heavy and sluggish, like an ox,” stated Kris with a chuckle.
Various epithets have been thrown on the band to explain its fashion, largely to make issues simpler for music journalists and streaming platform applications. AAWKS has been dubbed as combos of Heavy, Psych, Stoner, Doom, Fuzz Rock and extra.
“What I say is, ‘hey, are you aware Black Sabbath?’ And most of the people say yeah. I then say it’s like if Black Sabbath wasn’t as proficient and performed slower but additionally possibly sooner at occasions. With bands and genres and sub genres, particularly in metallic, the longer you dangle round, each week or two there’s one other subgenre that you might add on, one other adjective to throw in there,” stated Kris.
“And now the time period ‘Blackened’ appears to be developing increasingly, and its sort of seeped into all of the totally different genres. There’s even Blackened Pop. However to me, for what we do, Black Sabbath was the birthplace. After which you’ve all of the birthplaces of Stoner, like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, there’s a bunch. After which your start of Punk could be, say, The Kinks and later The Stooges. I believe what occurs is that persons are so blown away by these pioneering bands they attempt to make their very own model of it, and it comes out sounding a bit totally different. With us there’s Sabbath after which Vanilla Fudge and even some Cream.”
Randy and Kris have been a pair for numerous years. When there was nonetheless some flux to the lineup of what would grow to be AAWKS, Kris requested Randy to take her pure sense of rhythm, exuberant character and love for rock and roll and learn to play the drums.
Working with Zeus’ (one other band from Barrie) drummer and drum teacher Rob Drake, and with numerous hours of devoted apply, Randy turned proficient sufficient to report drum tracks for AAWKS’ first full-length album. The sophistication of the rhythmic facet of the band’s new album On By means of the Sky Maze demonstrates that Randy has taken to her new instrument with aplomb and never solely improved however advanced as a percussionist.
“I did a number of classes as a result of I had by no means performed a musical instrument, ever. Rob was actually nice at understanding how I’d be taught and be capable of play catch-up. And Kris was in a position to take that sort of easy Meg White [White Stripes] really feel of what I may do and make it work. That’s what you hear on the primary album, it was a extremely simplified beat, in order that I may sustain with the remainder of them. I assume I’m a quick learner,” she stated, including that the proof within the proverbial pudding got here when the band began enjoying stay, the place one by no means is aware of from evening to nighttime what the onstage sound is likely to be, making it doubly difficult for a relative newcomer on such an integral instrument because the drum package.
“I’d say that about 60 per cent of the locations we play don’t actually have a drum monitor. As a result of we’re enjoying in plenty of dive bars and underground basement golf equipment and no matter. So plenty of it’s simply waiting for key moments with Kris. I sort of feed off both his phrases or his enjoying, relying on the music. Every part is a mathematical sample for me.”
By way of the songwriting for AAWKS, Kris performs a main function, inviting his bandmates so as to add their recommendations and specific nuances on each music.
“When the music is in its child type I’ll convey it to the band and that’s when it actually takes form plenty of the time. Solos or sure riffs may get adjusted as soon as the band begins enjoying them.” he stated, including that the lyrics are just about solely his area, giving him a possibility to comb by way of his ardour for fantastical, mythological, epic storytelling, which is in abundance on On By means of the Sky Maze.
“Loads of it’s allegorical or symbolic and pertains to issues I’ve been by way of. However I’m not like a people, singer/songwriter sort, and I don’t actually wish to write about my private love life or anger or melancholy. I wish to coat it with one thing fantastical. And that’s possibly the factor I like most about psychedelic music [or ‘Psych’] is irrespective of how heavy or smooth or regardless of the style is, you may make something psychedelic – it’s a sort of music that takes you someplace mentally. So I would like my lyrics to do this too.
“So far as subject material I’ve all the time been into plenty of basic science fiction like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury and George Orwell – stuff that has a message. However I even have learn plenty of non-sci-fi non fantastical stuff like Charles Bukowski and Albert Camus, stuff that’s extra philosophical. I learn plenty of books once I was rising up. What I’ve achieved during the last 10 years since I’ve grow to be hooked on the web is learn articles as an alternative of studying complete books. If I actually get into some topic, I’ll go down a rabbit gap on the web and, hey, possibly it’s not all vetted, however I’m selecting up some info and getting concepts for tales.”
The precise assemble of a music begins with the guitar practically the entire time, Kris stated.
“I’d say 99 per cent of the time it often begins with a riff. Generally I’ll provide you with a drum beat as a result of I’m writing the drum half after which instructing it to Randy. So if I really feel a sure beat or rhythm I’ll begin constructing on that. However there are additionally occasions when a music comes nearly totally shaped the place I’ll have one riff, but it surely shortly cascades into the entire music. That doesn’t occur typically, however when it does, it’s good,” he defined.
“Different occasions, you’ve bought to wrestle them for fairly some time, like months and months and generally even years on finish earlier than they really grow to be a music that works. However, yeah, it’s often a riff after which the phrases will come after that. I’m all the time writing verses and developing with fascinating takes on issues. If we’re watching a film or studying an article about Vikings or some sort of occult factor, which may seep into the music. Once we’re on the street I’ll get impressed and a riff or melody line or phrase will simply come, and I’ll report it. However I even have notebooks all around the jam area which are all filled with completed and half-finished lyrics.”
The lead-off monitor on the album, ‘Celestial Magick’ is a superb introduction to the general tone, vibe and ethos of AAWKS, and is predicated on a very evocative, however little-known story from Norse mythology, which Kris, Randy and the band adapt to create a doom-laden, sludgy epic that pulls the listener into one other realm.
“That was a type of the place I used to be studying about some bizarre Viking stuff, and I bought on this thread about Viking burial rituals and a few of their practices. That they had this concept that should you don’t trim the nail tissue and the hair of the useless, which ought to have been trimmed when making ready the physique to please the gods, it will go onto a ship referred to as Naglfar. This ship is product of demons and ghouls and on Doomsday the ship could be forged out onto the world to create destruction and havoc and dying. And I assumed it was a cool factor to put in writing about such an unimaginable visible,” Kris stated of the music.
Essentially the most Sabbath-like music on the report – and unabashedly so – is ‘Misplaced Dwellers,’ which options one of the hypnotically thick soundscapes and insistently potent bass strains this aspect of Geezer Butler or Lemmy.
“We have been on tour with an awesome band from Montreal referred to as Sons of Arrakis. They’re a killer band, in order that was me making an attempt to put in writing a Sons of Arrakis music. However then I additionally paid homage to – or ripped off – a part of [Black Sabbath song] ‘Kids of the Grave,’ that sort of chunky half within the riff, which I’ve all the time cherished. And like most of my songwriting, I had a visible, like a film enjoying in my head the entire time I used to be writing it,” he stated.
“It’s been most likely two and a half years since I wrote that music, however I can keep in mind picturing a planet that was on the verge of exploding – a dying planet. And this group of individuals got an omen, an indication that they wanted to go away the planet and have been provided this portal to a distinct place.”
One of the evocative and stirring songs on the album is the hauntingly enigmatic ‘Caerdroia.’
“Caerdroia is a Welsh time period for labyrinth. And I didn’t know {that a} labyrinth was totally different from a maze till I began studying about them. A labyrinth has no flawed turns. So that you go in and also you attain the center part after which come again out. It’s for meditative functions, not a spot to trick you and the place you will get misplaced. And in my thoughts, a labyrinth has excessive partitions and I imagined it throughout the summer time solstice and there was a pagan ceremony with this group of people that get caught within the labyrinth ceaselessly,” Kris stated, stating how the influences already mentioned embody Norse mythology and Welsh folklore, however that among the songs, such because the cinematic ‘Cursed Soul,’ come straight from his affinity for the fashionable horror style.
“Over the previous couple of years, I’ve actually bought again into horror motion pictures. I watched quite a bit rising up however went away from them for some time. This music is a few séance and, just like the theme of among the different songs, a personality will get pulled from one place into one other. And once I was writing it, I used to be totally invested within the visuals in my head and making an attempt to translate them right into a music. I keep in mind studying about one thing referred to as the Seventh Sense and utilizing it to raze the sky and naturally raze on this sense means to fully and totally destroy one thing. I used to be enthusiastic about how this Seventh Sense is the notice of ourselves in three-dimensional area. So this spirit embodies the one who is within the séance after which destroys all the things round it. I believe it’s a really visible music,” Kris defined.
“A lot of the songs we’re speaking about are associated to the underlying theme of the album which is motion from one place to a different, or totally different variations of life and dying.”
Like many bands whose members have day jobs, intensive touring is a problem, however within the wake of the discharge of On By means of the Sky Maze, AAWKS will attempt to get out for runs of three and 4 dates at a time, which incorporates some exhibits in Ontario later in Might opening for Montreal’s Sandveiss in Toronto on Might 23 on the Bovine Intercourse Membership, adopted by a present at The Mansion in Kingston on Saturday Might 24.
For extra info on the band, go to
Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and writer based mostly in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for greater than 30 years. In addition to his journalistic endeavours, he works as a communications and advertising and marketing specialist, and is an avid volunteer in his neighborhood. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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