Hey brutal bangers,
in full lockdown I reviewed the long-held debut album of Hybridized, a Roman death/thrash/groove metal quintet that consists, among them, of the singer Marco Patarca, with which I worked together some years ago as an extreme metal DJ at a heavy metal club. So, it was a pleasure to review their work and, with the occasion, I saw also them on stage when they played at the Traffic Live Club in Rome on 25th September 2020, in a night where they were supported by a young prog metal band called Other Way Round, that replaced the original supporting act that was supposed to be the nu metallars Katana Banana.
As a coronation of all this, I thought well to interview Hybridized. The following is the chat, that I translated from Italian to English, that I had with them. Enjoy it!
Hey hi boys! How are you? Let's start with the most classic question: do you want to tell your story? And why did you put up this project?
I don't know you think but your moniker, Hybridized, is for me closer to an industrial band à la Fear Factory than to a band of your type. So, why did you choose a moniker like Hybridized?
Fear Factory are surely a band that is intriguing for us, and their whole idea isn't so different from ours; an idea in which a machinery fits in all of its elements. In addition to that, there is also the idea to combine the diverse styles represented by every member of the band. As it can be easily suggested by listening to our songs, very differents genres are merged, from groove metal to thrash metal, and from death metal to nu metal. So our moniker is used to underline this combination of styles.
The EP was simply an appetizer of the album, a self-released experiment very close to a demo but with a theme that tied the tracks; the mental connections. In comparison to "House of Nightmares" that is the same also on the album, the other two tracks were change. The EP version of "Live in a Lie" was about opportunism and selfishness, and both lead to the solitude but, in the album its about religion. Instead, "Subliminal Messages" was about society and its evolution. Every gimmick is perfect to give a message, but often it is wrong. The human being is the test case for the scientific and technological progress. Actually, "Subliminal Messages", at least in terms of music, is in the album under the title of "Voi".
Without a doubt, "The Girl of Panama" is the strangest song of the album. How was born it, and, for you, how is it linked with the other tunes composing the disc?
It isn't a case that we featured "The Girl of Panama" in the middle of the tracklist in order to give a fresh air useful to lead the listeners to the massive sound closing the album. It was born as an idea of collaboration with our producer and friend Antonio Maresca from Fourth Mile Studio. Before working with us, he had not so much experiences in metal music but, instead, he was closer to genres like the one we proposed into this song. Plus, we wanted to add some bullshits so to have a lot of fun!
"Voi" is another experiment but just because it is all sung in Italian. Why? Is it in mother tongue maybe because it contains some references to certain Italian (pseudo-)music? Do you think to offer other songs in Italian in the future?
"Voi" is a track addressed to many recipients, and surely the "pseudo-music" cited by you is among of them but it's also against a certain way to live the music, in which the lyrics are only a contour for the music. Essentially, it was born as an outlet of our singer Marco Patarca towards this idea, that all we share. It's in Italian just because we wanted that it was understood principally in our country where, as we think, an attitude of this kind is very common. Surely, the main language with which we imagine our songs is the English but we don't exclude to offer other Italian songs in the future.
Your music can be considered as a combination between thrash metal and groove metal with the addition not only of gloomy and dark atmosphere but also of death metal growls. Are you agree? What are your main influences? Lamb of God seem to be a clear influece.
As said before, our sound is generated by the mixture of different style since we are 5 people with different passions and, for us, it's right to give importance to every facet. We are surely influenced in large parts by bands like Lamb of God, Pantera and Slayer and many more, that, obviously, formed our background.
Exactly, what are the lyrical themes of the album? It looks that they are various, ranging from horror stories ("House of Nightmares") to brutal descriptions of the modern society ("New Generation Cannibalism").
The lyrical themes are a lot various and they take inspiration from the life vision of our singer, ranging from introspective subjects like "Run Away" to religious like "Live in a Lie" but they can also be historical like in "Slaughterer" or against the modern society like in "Voi" or "New Generation Cannibalism". Marco has a total freedom about the themes.
The cover artwork is a collaboration with an artist named Alessandro Castelli Gattinara, and the semi-robotic figure represent our music annihilating the "pseudo-music". We tried to offer a macabre representation since we liked the idea to create a mascotte, also to recover a visual style à la Cannibal Corpse... and we are intrigued about it for the future...
To promote the album with a videoclip on YouTube, why did you choose "New Generation Cannibalism"?
For us, the society is becoming more and more violent and disgusting because of the presence of characters with a doubtful value in terms of ethics and moral, so "New Generation Cannibalism" represents our outlet towards the rot. We chose it as a single because it is a crude and straight to the point song, that fits for the period we're living in.
Speaking about "New Generation Cannibalism", did you ever imagine that this 2020 "gifts" us a nice, global pandemic?
2020 is revealing a year truly interesting at a social level. It is allowing to understand and know many dark corners of every individual being that before were hidden. This pandemic brought out many rats from their sewers. Our album was released just in full lockdown here in Italy, and for a lot of time we asked if it was the case to release it in that moment. At the end, we didn't care about it because many lyrics reflect the society, especially in a situation of this kind.
Did the quarantine change you? And how, exactly? For you, was it useful in some ways?
The quarantine changed us in no ways. It was useful to confirm what we thought about this society and how it is evolving.
How was recording the album? Did you learned something from this experience?
We thank again Antonio Maresca for supporting and also bearing us in the realization phase. This experience was useful for us to understand how much we are perfectionists, and certainly we risked to stay much longer to modify something after every listening session. The fact to have a group with strong personalities allows surely to offer a big variety in the style but also more tastes to accomodate. However, we are very satisfied about the final result.
We missed a lot playing live but, unfortunately, the Covid situation and the rain, causing the cancellation of the two gigs before at the Traffic, prevented many people to come at our night. Firstly, We took it as an occasion to have fun but we hope to satisfying also the attendants that, despite all, came to see us.
I know that, apart Covid, you played rarely live. Why? How many gigs you did so far?
Effectively, we desired to play more during this year and, for this, we were putting up different gigs so to present the album but the pandemic blocked everything. Certainly, we played less than 10 times, we'd like to play every time but, because of job, study and money, we do our best. We hope to recover what we were organizing, maybe with some news, when this emergence will give us some space.
A question for Marco and Andrea: where are Discordant Hemispheres now? They were a lot promising!
Discordant Hemispheres is in a medically induced coma.
Future projects?
The pandemic changed our plans and, since the cancellation of many concerts, we decided to hunker down so we are working on new stuff for a second album. We have already some brutal ideas!
And that's all, folks! Now you are free to say what you want and thank you very much for answering to these questions! See ya!
Thank you for this interview and thank to all the people that came back to see us with their demonstrations of respect. Be prepared because this pandemic has made us more pissed off, and you'll realize this with our new effort!
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/hybridizedband
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3gbVZiCzevFzG-NL8TLE3g
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