Local metal band Tyrants of Chaos are amped about their brand new second Cd “…into Oblivion.”
They have a close to sold out CD release party for the CD with local punk band Sessions coming up, March 23 at La Cite Des Prairies.
“The music speaks for itself,” said drummer Ryan Dyck, noting the band including powerhouse vocalist Phil Sirias, guitarist Curtiss Vaselenak and new guitarist Alex Wagner, bassist Paul Denton spent a solid six months in local musician Sheldon Arvay’s Hothouse Studio working on The CD.
“But different this time, we sent it away to Grant Hall at Hideout and Touchwood Studios in Nevada for mastering. He’s worked with Five Finger Death Punch and Papa Roach and a lot of other metal bands,” Dyck continued, adding the band is extremely pleased with the result.
“ Sheldon grew up with a lot of those guys in Saskatchewan, so he reached out to them. Usually mastering costs $10,000, but they gave us a really good deal,” he said, adding the extra set of ears shows in the final result.
“We released the first CD in 2016 and this CD is miles above that one, not that that was bad,” Dyck enthused.
“We’ve played all of these new songs at least once in our shows,” he said , noting the band draws heavily from the new wave of British heavy metal including bands like Saxon, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
“That’s our age group. That’s the music we grew up on and made us want to play, he said, noting he also plays drums with a jazz trio and classic rock band Blame Andi with Sheldon Arvay.
“For the CD release party, we‘ll be playing two sets of the first and second albums and the a third set of covers from bands that we grew up listening to like Accept, and Iron Maiden and AC DC, all those bands we grew up listening to and who made us want to play,” he said.
“ And our videographer Dixon Drayson will be shooting some live footage for us at the party,” he said.
In addition to hard copies of the CD, they are also releasing the CD on A USB drive including photos and the new video for “Chaos Train.”
“We wanted to release it on LP, but who has a record player anymore? Well we do,” he said.
“We’ve already sent copies of the CD overseas in Europe because we have a following there. We’ve been reviewed in magazines over there. That‘s the goal — to play Europe. So we’ve started reaching out,” he said.
“Paul (Denton, bassist) grew up in Sheffield, so he’s excited to go back,” Dyck continued.
Other than getting the CD mastered in Nevada, the CD is a completely local production.
“Sheldon Arvay did the engineering and Nicole Arvay did the artwork for us,” he continued.
“We wanted the CD to sound as live as possible. So we didn’t play with a click track. Each of us played our parts live in the studio, though we aren’t playing together” he said.
“We worked a lot under Sheldon’s engineering,” he said, adding they chose their best six songs for the CD.
“We wanted songs with hooks that really stick with you that you will want to press repeat on your CD player and want to play again. Because why release a CD of 12 songs, half of which you you’ll never want to hear again,” he said.
The band made the music together, but Phil Sirias wrote the lyrics.
“‘Trench Foot,’ is about soldiers in World War 1 trying to survive in the trenches. ‘Chaos Train’ is about life and how it can go in different directions. ‘Light of Day ’ is rock and roll, so there are a lot of hooks and different time signatures,” he said.
The CD is also guitarist Arik Wagner’s debut with Tyrants of Chaos.
“He’s an old friend. He’s Caste of Shadows’ drummer, who we have played a lot of shows with. But he’s also a great guitarist. I can play Smoke on the Water like everybody else, but he’s amazing and he fit in perfectly with Curtiss. He joined the band just as we started recording the CD, so he had some work to do, but he fit in perfectly,” he said.
The music begins at 8 p.m. and will go until around 1 a.m. at la Cité des Prairies, Saturday, March 23. Tickets are available from band members for $10.
They also have a gig in Calgary on March 30 at Dickens’ Pub with San Diego ’s Tzimani and Calgary classic metal bands HROM and Greybeard.
Tyrants of Chaos will also be at the Slice, May 4 with Saskatoon’s Despite the Reverence.
