It seems that every metal supergroup features at least one member of Mastodon.
Only last year, newcomers Killer Be Killed were gearing up for their first album, featuring members of the aforementioned sludge/progressive metal outfit plus personnel from Five Finger Death Punch and Devin Townsend Project.
Then, earlier this year, Gone Is Gone arrived, featuring contributions from Queens Of The Stone Age and At The Drive In in addition to Mastodon.
Now, the heavy community is about to cop the debut album from yet another new supergroup Giraffe Tongue Orchestra, featuring none other than Mastodon’s Brent Hinds on guitar, Alice In Chains frontman William DuVall and Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman.
Throw into the mix Pete Griffin of Deathklok on bass and ex-The Mars Volta drummer Thomas Pridgen, and you have a group that, on paper as far as sheer musical talent goes, is seriously worth paying attention to (regardless of how ridiculous the name might sound).
Titled Broken Lines, the record is due to hit shelves on September 23rd. We don’t know much else but the tracklist thus far features some titles that sound metal as all get out, including Adapt Or Die and Blood Moon . In addition, Giraffe Tongue Orchestra have whet our appetite for Broken Lines by sharing the chaotic debut single from it in the wicked Crucifixion.
Opening in a hurricane of riffing guitars and pounding drums, the song kills any fear of “too many cooks in the kitchen” in mere seconds, adeptly straddling the line between punk and speed metal with ease. With the addition of a spacey, ambient breakdown and DuVall pushing his vocals into screaming range, you have a song that is a ball of controlled fury. Have a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTiy_dJKZWg
Speaking on BBC’s The Rock Show, Weinman noted that “this band has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to achieve in my life. Many times I considered just giving up on it because it just seemed like it wasn’t meant to be.”
There’s also an Australian connection, Hinds noting that the band’s name was coined on a trip down under, ” I was at the zoo in Sydney and was checking out the giraffes… one just grabbed a bunch of bananas from my hand with its tongue and peeled them with it as well. By the time the bananas got to its mouth, they were ready to be eaten. I saw Ben who was at Soundwave too and said, ‘Man, I think I found the name for our band,’ and told him the story.”
You can pre-order Broken Lines here.
image: Blabbermouth
Members of famed rock bands Alice in Chains, Mars Volta, Mastodon, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Dethlok have united to form one hell of a supergroup called Giraffe Tongue Orchestra.
The line-up features Alice in Chains singer William DuVall, Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds, and the former drummer for Mars Volta Thomas Pridgen amongst a few others.
The group banded together last year to work on their first album, which they are reportedly still hard at work on in the studio. Initially, it was thought that actress Juliette Lewis fronted the band, but it now appears they have actually enlisted DuVall as their lead singer instead.
Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman recently talked about the current standings of the group in an interview with Christina Rowatt for her new podcast Riffing With Christina.
“[Juliette] is actually not our main singer. She guested… William [DuVall] from Alice In Chains is who has been singing with us. Most of the music was written before he got involved … But everybody is definitely in this band, it’s a real democracy.”
When discussing GTO’s sound Weinman then declared that, “I think when you hear it, it really does sound like all of us in one band somehow.”
During an interview last year on SiriusXM Liquid Metal’s #666-Live Show though, Weinman wasn’t quite so forthcoming about the band’s identity.
“There have been some personnel changes throughout the years, it’s something we’ve been working on for a long time. Interestingly enough, we finished all the music and we’re finalising all the vocals now. Juliette Lewis is singing on the project along with some other guest people.”
He then went on to explain the initial origins of the band, which was built around himself and Mastodon guitarist Hinds wanting to work together on a project. “We were label mates. We’ve been best friends forever–we’ve always wanted to work together and we slowly started trading riffs throughout the years. Then finally recently we got in the studio and we have a bunch of songs that are existing and we wrote a bunch of songs in the studio.”
As yet there are no details for the release of the album. But it is rumoured to be arriving sometime later during this year.
Revisit a Dillinger Escape Plan track below while you wait for the new material:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-FKM3eZTO8
Image: Blabbermouth