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- Himsa

DEAL WITH IT from Leeds, U.K. recently dropped “End Time Propecies”, by far the best european hardcore/metal album of 2008.
Here’s our brief talk with frontman Atlas:

How are you guys?

ATLAS: Cold, tired and pissed off. I just got through 6 of these questions and accidentally went back a page and lost everything... Start again...We're off tour, trying to sort record matters, got money problems, and we're all working full time (except for joe who's a jobsworth cunt) so it's pretty miserable to be honest, thanks for asking!

You played Running Riot Fest in London just last weekend. How was that? I saw this years lineup. It looked good but not awesome in my opinion. Anyway, did you get a brilliant feedback?

Ha is that a polite way of saying it was a bit rubbish? I think it was ok, I feel bad for May because like 5 American bands pulled out, which would likely have been the bands to draw the crowds in and justify the ticket price. It's the sort of thing you can't really help, and we had a good time anyway. Our set was ok, everyone had been drunk since the afternoon and missed us, I think they thought Your Demise were on or something.

You also did a brief euro tour back in September with New Morality. How was it?

ATLAS: It was excellent. We honestly couldn't have found a better bunch of people to go on tour with. They're drunk obnoxious pricks and we got on like a house on fire. Trouble getting caused every night, even the shows with low turnouts were a blast. Nothing beats European hospitality either, sod those American crybabies, the mainland is where it's at! Also it was great to finally play Dublin and Paris, both shows were fucking off the hook, and it was even better to see the cities themselves.

So, you guys hail from Leeds, UK. I don’t know much about the hc/metal scene there, therefore I’d like to ask you, more in general, how’s the scene going in England. Any good bands around besides the already known ones such as Dirty Money and SSS? Is the Uk scene doing good these days? I heard it’s not going that strong lately.

ATLAS: You're probably asking the wrong person, as I'm pretty negative about these things, but I think shit stinks. Most people would disagree and say things are better than they've ever been, but those people don't know anything. If you're into boring bands with nothing to say, ten a penny friends, insta sleeves and hardcore cds in supermarkets, then you're probably happy as a pig in shit. But if you don't care about anyone or anything, and just want to smash the fuck out of dick heads then it's a bad slump. I still have hope though, bands like Mob Rules, Crowd Control (who are technically Irish) and Ironclad (who are technically Welsh). Those three bands could probably metaphorically kick the fuck out of every other new band poking their new eras out the fox holes.

Tell me about “End Time Propecies”. This record’s dropped few month ago and it definitely left a mark on the euro scene. It’s heavy and evil, that’s the impression it caused me. Definitely a refinement in sound from your former ep. Once you started writing the songs for it, you already had clear in mind the kind of sound you wanted to get to, or you just let yourself go and trusted your inspiration 100%?

ATLAS: Yeah man, we had like 15 songs written before we learnt them all together as a band. We very much knew what we wanted it to sound like from the start, I think in fact it was easier to write than our first record, World Coming Down. At the same time, I wouldn't say we see it as evil, at least we didn't intend it that way. There's a lot of people going for that whole 'holy terror' sound at the minute, and while there's nothing wrong with it, we wanted it to have much more of a New York vibe, even though it's very metallic.

I look at your myspace page and under the influences section, you give a good clue on your sound adding Cromags “Alpha Omega” and Leeway “Born To Expire” covers images. Those influences are surely reoccurring in album, but I also feel a more marked metallic, early thrash vibe to it. Is it only my impression or records like Metallica’s “Master Of Puppets” and Megadeth “Rust In Peace” are huge on “End Time Propecies”?

ATLAS: Yeah, we definately brought more to the table than our basic influences. Obviously, above all else we've taken inspiration from best wishes-era cro-mags to the extreme, but I think we brought a lot of different ideas to the mix. Bands like Life of Agony, Nuclear Assault, Icemen, Biohazard, Obituary, Metallica, too many to mention. I love metal, I've loved it since I was 13, and still listen to the same bands I always did (although a bit less nu metal). So while we're not a metal band per se, I've done what I can to put these influences on the table!

Anyway, if it gotta be Cromags influences, I must say the record is much closer to “Best Wishes” than “Alpha Omega”. Do you agree with that?

ATLAS: Oh yeah! (sorry) yeah defo more best wishes. I just hope Harley doesn't listen to it, cos he might send us a court injunction in CAPS LOCK.

The vocals are gruntling and evil. I think those evil laughs you threw in some songs are a great variation to the whole thing. How did you come up with these?

ATLAS: I actually just made most of it up on the day. I only had 3 evenings to do all the vocals, all of which I did after work, so I was just having to think off the hoof and bust out some free styles. The terrorstorm scream had been planned for a while though. In hindsight I wish I'd had a couple more days, because there's a few songs, vocally speaking, I'm not happy with, especially Atlas Shrugged. I think it should have been one of the strongest songs on the record, but it's let down on my part by a good idea badly executed.

Is there an underlying theme in the album lyrics, or should I dare saying, a concept idea behind the album? The lyrics and also the music spread a strong sense of instability for the human race, almost foreseeing a close end for it. The record cover definitely reinforce this idea…

ATLAS: Yeah it's sort of a semi-concept album. It's meant to be these images of Dystopia, of Apocalypse and destruction, seen through the eyes of dreams and visions. It's a combination of terrible things I've witnessed in waking life, real life issues that go on to haunt me in my dreams. This isn't just rhetoric, I genuinely feel haunted at times by the ridiculous amounts of misery you can see the world over. I felt it was the least I could do to try and outline some of them in the form of disposable 3 minute hardcore songs.

I guess I can’t avoid asking you about the amazing cover work done by Ed Repka. I’m sure you were fans of his previous works, so I’m not even asking you why you picked him to make the cover. Anyway, the image of the aliens taking over the human race perfectly fits with the record.
Did you give him any suggestions and on what you wanted or he just came out with this idea?

ATLAS: My initial idea was even more ridiculous than you saw, it was going to have Quetzacotl coming out of the sky with a cyberpunk anti war protest on his back and was swooping down to fight storm troopers in the background, and all these mutants coming out of manhole covers, etc etc etc. Ed very wisely cut out the bullshit and created the cover image to end all cover images. I honestly couldn't have expected anything like that, and was beyond thrilled. But yeah, I told him what I wanted in the first place, and he made the magic happen.

What are Deal With It future plans? I heard you were supposed to tour the mainland with Iron Age, but the tour fell through. You plan on doing another euro run anytime soon?

ATLAS: We've got a really cool European tour in the pipeline next year, although things are getting somewhat complicated, because I'm starting a postgraduate diploma in nursing in january, and I only get 6 weeks holiday, so we've got to be a bit more careful than normal. But in answer to your question, Europe has always treated us well, and in a way it's our light in the dark when things in England seem so stale. So we hope to come to Europe next year AT LEAST twice, maybe even get 3 tours in if we can.

Looking at today’s hc scene, that really seems to go in cycles. Life Of Agony had been rediscovered a couple years ago, and Cromags sound was what it was all about until a few months ago. Now it’s Biohazard’s turn. Which one do you think it’s gonna be the next big thing to be rediscovered in hc?

ATLAS: I'm not sure really. KoRn?

Which is the hc/metal album you would have wished to play on the most?

ATLAS: The Opposite of December by Poison the Well

Jon Josef or Harley Flanagan? Which side are you on?

ATLAS: It's so hard... I think JJ is the better man, and would have his back in a barfight, but Harley's myspace bulletins brighten up the most difficult days, and the 108 story is utterly ridiculous.

Humanity is History, that’s a fact. How should we deal with it?

ATLAS: Get a vasectomy and stop populating our planet. Let's die out gracefully.
By the way, thanks for the interview.

Leo