The Black Dahlia Murder – Nightbringers

Band – The Black Dahlia Murder

Album – Nightbringers

Country of Origin – USA

Genre – Blackened Death Metal

Release Date – October 6th, 2017

Label – Metal Blade Records

Author – Deranged D

The Black Dahlia Murder formed in 2001 on Waterford, MI. Their name was derived from the unsolved 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short. They then released their demo titled What a Horrible Night To Have a Curse, and a four track EP called A Cold- Blooded Epitaph, through LoveLost Records. After a couple big shows, including Milwaukee’s Metal Fest, they signed to Metal Blade Records in 2003. After a couple of lineup changes, they were set for their first full length album Unhallowed. Two years later they followed that up with 2005’s Miasma, another beater for sure. After a few more lineup changes and a ridiculous touring schedule, they released Nocturnal in 2007, my personal favorite from them. Nocturnal led them to open for the likes of Cannibal Corpse and Goatwhore, along with a headlining tour of their own and a massive world tour. In 2009, they released their first DVD which was a documentary and some live footage from The Summer Slaughter Tour. This led to their next full-length album release in Deflorate, which went as high as 43 on the US Billboard charts. After a headlining tour with Goatwhore, they moved on to write and record their next full length album, as these guys aren’t the wasting time type of band. 2011 brought the release of their fifth full length album, Ritual, a highly anticipated follow up that definitely carried their legacy on and kept their sound and even evolved it to a point. On this tour they supported Amon Amarth and had another shot at headlining Summer Slaughter. After that, they had to look into replacing their drummer and bassist who moved onto other things. With that out of the way, 2013 brought a whole new full length in Everblack, which went as high as 38 on the Billboard charts. Then in 2014, they released a cover EP titled Grind Em All. Late 2015 brought the release of their seventh full length studio album, Abysmal, which stands to be the predecessor of their next and eighth studio album.

October 2017, brings the release of Nightbringers, the eighth full length album and now the latest thing from Metal Blade Records. Almost every one of their previous albums broke the barrier of the Billboard top 200 and they hope the same for this one. With a new guitarist and a brand new sense of kickass, this album comes in swinging hard. Annihilating drums lead the way with guitar riffs and non-stop tempo that seems to intensify the more you listen. From start to finish, this has you white knuckling your seat in anticipation for what’s next. The band doesn’t seem to have missed a beat, as they pick up exactly where they left off, but with some extra attitude included. The crystal clear production quality just adds an extra dose of amazing to this already awesome sounding album. Trevor just shreds your insides with his belting screams leaving you breathless and wondering what happened before you get to the next track. I obviously can’t get enough of this album. If you haven’t heard it yet get out and do it immediately.

Read on below for an interview with Trevor.

Recommendation: This is top notch death metal. Raising the bar for all up and comers.

Rating:  4.9/5

Interview with Trevor Strnad

Deranged D: I’m here with Trevor of The Black Dahlia Murder and he’s all set to go, so let’s get started…

DD: What’s up with you guys and what are your plans right now?

Trevor: Right now, we are on the eve of releasing our new album. It comes out October 6th. It’s called Nightbringers, it’ll be our eighth album with Metal Blade Records. So, right now we are slowly releasing songs to tantalize the public, the first one of which is
the title track. And the reception has been awesome, so right now we’re just trying to ramp up this new record and get the info out there. And it looks like it’s catching on in a major way, man, I gotta say. The pre-sales have been outstanding, we’ve broken the record for the highest pre-sales Metal Blade has ever done. So the future is looking really bright right now.

DD: So what made you decide on the album title?

Trevor: Nightbringers is like the continuation of an ongoing theme we’ve had since the beginning. Telling our side of the story as the villain. That’s metal. Tha’s death metal especially. It’s like looking over the shoulder of Jason on an adventure, like that kind of a thrill ride. It represents all the great hidden things that happen in the world of metal, in the world of nighttime, in the world of evil. Personal freedom, freedom from religion, freedom from weakness, it’s also kind of a vampiric lyric too. We’re always talking about vampires and werewolves and drinking blood. It’s really just the opposition of what is the normal perception. Or normal Christian or religious perception. We leave the daytime to them and the night is when we rule, when they sleep.

DD: How many of the new songs have you gotten to play live so far?

Trevor: We’ve only played that title track. We actually played it before the single dropped, trying to create some anticipation there. We’ll have two more songs out before the album drops to wet peoples pallets. I’m really excited to get the other songs out, because all the songs have a really strong individual identity. It’s hard to choose which ones to play first, but I think we made the right choice because “Nightbringers” has definitely created a lot of hype.

DD: Tell me about your first ever show together..

Trevor: Oh man, wow. I remember at the time we were fighting over the band name. We didn’t agree on it. Black Dahlia Murder was what I wanted. I wanna say on the flyer we didn’t even have our band name. It just said this new band hahaha. And I got right up on stage and said “Hello, We’re the Black Dahlia Murder”, and John our guitar player at the time just gave me this evil ass look. And I don’t know, that kinda just cemented our name right there. We were definitely terrible. We were horrible. We were just getting our shit together, playing the first couple songs we had written. We were so green. Ten minutes between each song, it was nothing you’d recognize as the Black Dahlia now. We’ve grown exponentially since then. We were pretty much your standard local band at the time.

DD: Can you tell me which song you’re most excited for everyone to hear?

Trevor: That would probably have to be the last track, “The Lonely Deceased”. I think that’s a really special song, it’s a really epic dramatic closer. Brian wrote it, probably one of the best songs he’s written in a long time. Super melodic. Got a cool black metal touch to it. And the lyric is about a this poor demented man who lives at the morgue and sleeps with the corpses, but not because hes horny, because he’s lonely and pathetic. It’s definitely death metal stuff, I like to put my twist on it, but like to keep it traditional as far as topical stuff. I just like what death metal is already. I try to represent it. I always keep it there with the blood and the guts and the artwork. I always go with that evil place artwork, ya know for the album artwork. I just pick some place you really don’t wanna be. That to me is just classic death metal. Trying to represent that.

DD: So other than home, where do you feel you get your best crowd response?

Trevor: It has to be the big cities you’d think of. New York, Cali, Philly. Definitely bangers. The biggest show we actually played was in South America. It was this huge festival. There was I think 60,000 people. A free metal fest. It was with Sepultura, the most people I’ve ever seen in my life. It was really cool because like 45 percent of them knew who we were coming into it. It was a lot of exposure. We’re trying to be everywhere. And we’re seeing responses grow here and Europe and everywhere.

DD: So with all this momentum coming of this new album, if you could open for any band who would it be?

Trevor: Obviously Metallica. That would be amazing. But I would settle for Megadeth. They were my first real love in metal. We played a couple festivals on the same bill. But nothing where they’ve acknowledged we’re alive. That would be really cool hahaha. I’m praying that we’ll open for a few big bands on the near future and extend our fan base. We still think like that. We’re still trying to grow and expand this thing to new levels. We still want to hit new heights. I think when this thing hits the charts in the coming weeks, it could really create a wave for us in that regard and that would be really cool.

DD: Where do you find your motivation for new lyric content?

Trevor: Like I was touching on earlier, definitely in the past of death metal, and metal as a whole. But there’s definitely no shortage of horror in the real world to take inspiration from as well. It feels like the world is becoming a less tolerant and more violent place over time. There’s a lot of unrest and heinous shit going on. For example, the second song that’s coming out is called “Matriarch.” It’s from the point of view of a woman who cannot get pregnant, but she wants to very badly. So she ends up stalking this other pregnant woman until the perfect time when she can cut the baby out of her and take it for herself, and basically leave her for dead. This is slightly based on an actual happening that happened in Denver, where these people would get pregnant people to come to their apartment because of free baby clothes or something like that. Yeah that really happened it’s disgusting. Real life can be scarier than death metal. I don’t know what to say.

DD: Tell a bit about a day in the life as a member of The Black Dahlia Murder…

Trevor: It’s mostly boring. The only cool part is the actual show. The rest of it is just waiting around, or traveling, waking up earlier than you want to, or being disgusting and gross living in a van. There’s tons of sacrifice. But there’s a lot of laughs too. I’m going around with my friends all the time. We have an awesome sense of humor together. We make fun of everything in the world and we take all the accomplishments in stride and celebrate them together. It’s definitely a group thing.

DD: What was your favorite personal band to tour with?

Trevor: I wanna say Revocation. They come to mind right away. We just did three days in Mexico with them. But man I love hanging with them dudes. We would party in our hotel rooms in between shows and shit. They’re just really hilarious people and I really enjoy being around them.

DD: They make some badass music too.

Trevor: Oh man they are incredible musicians too, every time I see them play I wanna quit. They’re just so dynamic and I’m so boring hahaha.

DD: If you could fill in for any band, what band would it be and what instrument would you play?

Trevor: It would have to be a brutal death metal band where I get to do all the gutturals and stuff. I think it would be Defeated Sanity. They are my favorite. I think they’re the best brutal death metal band to come out in eons. They’re very creative, very musical, for being a brutal death metal band. Very original I would say. I would sing for them in a dream for sure.

DD: Any up and coming bands you’ve been listening to lately?

Trevor: Yeah, there’s lots of great stuff coming out. There’s this brutal band called Ovarian Despoilment. There’s a band called Venenum. They’re from Germany. Black metal, kinda death with some old school flavor. But really dramatic. One of my favorites of the year. The album is called Trance of Death. Also, Temple the Void from here in Detroit. Like old school doomy death metal. Crushing production. It steamrolls you. Definitely recommend checking those guys out.

DD: Now that you guys have this new album coming out and you guys are one of the biggest bands on Metal Blade Records, how does it feel to be where you are now?

Trevor: It’s very exciting. It’s a testament to what we’ve built. This thing could keep growing. I mean here we are breaking records for Metal Blade and it was unexpected But it feels amazing. We’re gonna see how it unfolds after that first week of it being available. That’s when the big win comes.

DD: What is your biggest goal personally as a musician? And how do you plan to leave your mark in the business if you haven’t already?

Trevor: I think it’s just to maintain this thing, to stick around in the face of changes of musical formats and record sales. We’ve survived around through a lot of change already. And a few generations trends I would say too. So the idea is to stick around as long as possible. And it seems we still have people by the short hairs as far as anticipation goes after this first song release. Eight albums in, I think that’s a good sign things are going right. Bring new fans in. Keep the old fans happy. There’s really nothing more I want. My dream has been achieved long ago to make music and have a successful band and records that people can hear, and we’ve gone so far beyond that, and we can’t stop., I have to see this through. This is an amazing opportunity and we have to honor that and take it as far as humanly possible. There’s no shortage of inspiration, even this far in. If anything, the success has been inspiring. There’s no shortness of excitement on our end, and I think you can hear that in this record.

DD: Where is the best place to find up to date news, tour dates, merch and all that shit from Black Dahlia Murder?

Trevor: Definitely from the Facebook. We have our we have our store linked there. We sell through Indie Merch but you can get it there. I’m in the most touch there with fans. I can be found there to answer questions or whatever. I’m on Twitter too. I’m always recommending albums and stuff there, and you can get info on the band as well. TrevorTBDM. Facebook is definitely our most solid place, where most info trades hands.

DD: You have a final message for the fans as we finish up?

Trevor: Check out the new stuff, if you haven’t. If you have the means pick up the new record it will help us out. It makes a world of difference for us. Join the excitement man. It looks like things are going awesome. Just get in there we need ya! \m/ \m/