COLDWORKER
A New Beginning
By: John Gnesin
The untimely demise of vocalist/producer Mieszko Talarczyk in 2004’s tsunami disaster in SE Asia sent shockwaves throughout the entire international extreme music scene. Among his many contributions to this music, none stands prouder than his work with the best of the second-generation grindcore bands, NASUM: a group whose existence was cut-short by this tragedy. Almost two years later, in Mieszko’s indomitable spirit, the remaining members have begun to explore and pursue new projects and the first among these - COLDWORKER - will be releasing their debut album, The Contaminated Void, through Relapse Records this fall (in Europe, US release is slated for early ’07). The brainchild of drummer Anders Jakobson; COLDWORKER finds the skins-man joining forces with a group of younger, less-experienced musicians to form a fresh musical vision that begins with the scathing grind that was NASUM’s trademark but then combines it with elements of catchy Swedish death-metal and epic, chaotic hardcore to produce a sound and a fury unmatched by many current contenders in the international scene.
Of course, jumping right back into music was a cause for great turmoil for Jakobson and it wasn’t until January of 2006 that the drummer felt the urge to grind return. “2005 was a very dark year for me music-wise. I almost didn’t play at all. Probably six months passed before I even touched my drums. I had a constant feeling that my days being a musician were up because I didn’t see myself going anywhere near a new band or project.”
These doubts soon subsided however, in part due to Jakobson’s pure energy and will to create, but also in part thanks to the music of one of his younger label-mates, as Anders explains:
“I couldn’t stop thinking about music, I couldn’t help myself but picturing my musical life after NASUM. I had lots of sources of inspiration that I didn’t really have the chance to explore in NASUM and pictured a band that combined the harshness of CONVERGE and TRAGEDY, with the anxiety of NEUROSIS and the massive sound of ISIS and GODSPEED! YOU BLACK EMPORER, and mixed it with the grindcore foundation I stood upon. I was very excited by this imaginary band and I even wrote an “I’m looking for new members...” note that never got posted in the local music stores, because at that point I got the BURIED INSIDE CD from Relapse and - guess what? - They had more or less created that kind of vision. The CD was great and really helped me through those hard months, but with that I put that idea to rest.”
Even this false start couldn’t slow Jakobson down and after he put his ideas for a new project on the shelf temporarily, he found time to record some jams with his ex-band-mates in NASUM, Jon Lindqvist and Urban Skytt, and also to write and record a new album with KRIGSHOT, his punk band. Inspired by the effort he put into these projects, Anders quickly returned to his ideas for a whole new project, but instead of picking and choosing fellow scene veterans to make his vision a reality, he instead chose to work with a random group of virtual unknowns: Anders Bertilsson and Andre Alvinzi on guitars, Oskar Palsson on bass and vocalist Joel Fornbrant. I quickly found out that I was hardly the first person to question Anders on why he chose to work with a much younger and inexperienced group:
“This question was asked by one of the new members as well: Why me when you can play with more experienced people, people that you know? Well, the truth is that I didn’t really look among my closest friends for possible new band members since I knew that most of them didn’t really share the same vision as I did and also most of them were occupied with other bands. I needed a fresh start, fresh new blood, and new people to create something new together. None of the members in COLDWORKER has previously played together. Some knew each other briefly, some were complete strangers and this has really turned into a backbone in the band. We have joined forces due to our love for the music and we’ve been in some sort of creative haze since day one. I mean: we’ve gone from not knowing each other to our first album recording in four months! The setback is that I feel very, very old, and that every time I tell a story from my past (like “When I was in Japan...” or “When I toured with NAPALM DEATH...”) I feel like I’m bragging when I’m not. Have to work
on that!”
Luckily, Old Man Jakobson was fortunate enough to enlist the help of another veteran elder of the Swedish metal scene, no less than former EDGE OF SANITY main-man and producer extraordinaire Dan Swano to help him prepare for and execute the recording of this new band. It turns out that Swano’s influence on COLDWORKER ranged from the selection of band-members (“he actually told me to look for people younger than me”) to influencing the music itself (“I actually used one of their CD’s when I tried to work out vocal patterns for a couple of the songs I wrote the lyrics to”) and of course the aforementioned production of the new album:
“His role (so far) has been to set up and sound check the equipment. He’s an experienced person and since we’re recording the album ourselves in our own rehearsal place on quite simple, but good equipment, we really wanted everything to be as good as possible. So he helped us with that and although his help has been huge his part of the recording process isn’t bigger than that. But, in the mixing process it’s quite bigger. Once we’d tracked everything we left the recording for him to mix in his Unisound Studios. This is the first time since NASUM’s Industrislaven from 1995 that Swano and I have worked together on, so it’s quite exciting.”
As for the music itself it is, Anders reveals that while the genesis of the band emerged from riffs and songs that he wrote on his own, the direction of the final product was the logical result of collaboration with his new band-mates: “When I decided that I wanted to have a new band, I had a couple of riffs that I knew could fit both a more hardcore based band or a metal based one. If I’d found a bunch of hardcore guys to play with I am sure that this band would have taken a direction towards CONVERGE with more blasts because that mix is something that I’ve seen as a possible new style for me. But the guys were metal-heads and that was fine too. The final metal nail in the coffin was when André joined the band and brought in his songs and style of playing. That sort of cemented the style and we went back to adjust some of our earliest songs to make them more metal.”
“As for songwriting, everyone is involved. In NASUM, I wrote my songs and Mieszko wrote his, and that worked. This time it’s more of a band thing. When we initially came together for the first rehearsal we had prepared a small library of riffs that we showed each other and worked on combinations between the different riffs. It’s really nice to work that way. Sometimes someone has a number of riffs that fit together from the start, and that’s cool too. André, who is a very creative person, often presents his ideas in little demos with beats and everything, which is kind of cool in its way. The lyric writing is divided by all members in the band, apart from André (so far...). So it’s a real collective deal this time and I like it. We can be very creative and productive in a short time, which our album will show.”
The name COLDWORKER itself is somewhat mysterious, but once explained becomes fairly obvious as to why the band chose it. “I stumbled into the term “cold work” as I was looking up some other suggestion I had. We worked very hard finding a good name for the band, especially Oskar and I who really brainstormed like maniacs. ‘Cold work’ is a form of industry when you ‘shape (metal) without using heat’ and I figured, witty as always, that we’re a bunch of snow-blind Scandinavians (no heat) creating metal. Also, according to the web pages explaining “cold work”, “cold working” includes operations that involve grinding, blasting, carving and other stuff, and - fuck me sideways - something that involves “grinding, blasting and carving” is exactly what we’re doing!”
As he did previously with NASUM, Anders found it of utmost importance to document the progress of this exciting new band on their website: www.coldworker.com. There, the interested reader can find pictures and journals of the recording process, as well as a forum for interacting with the group, all of which Jakobson feels is a very important part of band-fan relations; giving the listener (or potential listener) an exclusive inside look at the inner workings of a fascinating new project. “Doing studio reports and communicating with the listeners is a way for us to open up the doors and really show who we are. I’ve always been interested in the creative process and loves reading studio diaries, behind the scenes stuff and liner notes, and I’m sure there are a lot of people out there sharing this interest, so COLDWORKER will give people that from day one.”
As cliché as it sounds, the tragic circumstances that gave rise to COLDWORKER are effectively counteracted by the excitement circulating around this excellent new band. Within the space of two years, Jakobson has gone from the despondency of ambiguity, not knowing what direction his musical life was going to take, to a state of frenzied, eager excitement about his new band that must match if not exceed the enthusiasm of his younger cohorts in the group. One can practically hear the wheels turning (and grinding) in his mind as he discusses the next steps for COLDWORKER:
“Obviously we are eagerly waiting for the album to be released so we can start to play live for real! Right now we have nothing but our instrumental rehearsal tracks to tour with and that’s not really enough. I guess when the album is out we’ll start with going around in Sweden and Scandinavia to get the name around. Then a possible support slot on some European tour would be nice (considering our style, a tour with MISERY INDEX when they do their first European headline tour would be perfect). Then, of course, coming back to the US would be very fun for me. Perhaps we can introduce COLDWORKER for America on one of those metal fests that you have? Would be cool!”
Here’s to hoping the younger cats can keep up.
COLDWORKER’s debut album, The Contaminated Void, will be issued in Europe this fall followed by a US release date slated for late January. To tide you over until then, please visit www.coldworker.com where you can read the aforementioned studio journals as well as preview some raw tracks from the upcoming release.
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