On May 31st, Nuclear Blast unveils the album Humanicide from one of the world’s best metal bands; Death Angel. I have been listening to this album non-stop and it is easily one of the best metal albums of the decade and certainly a top album for 2019. When the boss here at Metal Wani asked if I’d like to talk to Death Angel founder and guitarist Rob Cavestany, I said “hell, yes!!”. Rob was gracious enough to spend a few minutes with me talking about Humanicide, the collapse of civilization and breakfast.
We started off our conversation with the title track from the album “Humanicide”. This song is scorching, not only in the blunt force delivery of the riffs but the dark message of the end of the human race. I asked Rob if he and the band feel that we are approaching the collapse of society as we know it. “Nah!!!” laughing was Rob’s reply. “I mean hopefully not, but you know there are a lot of clues out there that it is heading in that direction. The writing is on the wall.”
Thrash music like a lot of metal tends to include a lot of thoughtful perspectives on humanity and the world we inhabit. I inquired whether Rob feels that the overall tone of Humanicide is actually positive in nature. “Part of it does, but part of it is pointing out the f*cked up situation in a not so optimistic way” added Rob.
There is so much to love about Humanicide. In particular, the guitars on this album reek with aggression and have that sonic quality that makes you want to clench your fist and makes that grimacing metal face. I asked Rob if the band set out with the goal of trying to get even heavier than The Evil Divide. Rob responded “More so the goal musically, stylistically was to have a lot of variety. More of a varied musical-scape. But, in doing so, we ended up with the some extremely, extremely heavy songs.”
Mark’s vocals on Humanicide are outrageous. He sounds genuinely pissed off on “Divine Defector” and then glows with power and melody on “Immortal Behated” and “Revelation Song”. I wanted to know what the band’s reaction was after hearing Mark’s efforts on the record. Where they all left with their mouths agape I pondered? Rob answered “By the way, you are making Mark smile very much right now as he heard what you just said” Mark then laughs in the background and yells “Thanks!”. Rob continued “Mostly what is happening at that moment is that I’m so overcome with the emotion of how stoked I am for how f*cking killer it is sounding, that I usually end up getting choked up and given Mark a big hug”
With the current formulation of Death Angel (Rob Cavestany – guitar, Ted Aguliar – guitar, Will Carroll – drums, Damien Sisson – bass, Mark Osegueda – vocals) having been together for 10 years, I wondered if Rob felt that this lent the band greater confidence as a whole to keep increasing the quality of their music with each new release. “Yes, absolutely. Every album is another three years or so that we have been touring, playing so many shows, living together on the bus and backstage, everywhere; experiencing the world together. Everything that happens definitely brings you closer.
Death Angel has stuck with the same recording formula over the last four albums and again have Jason Suecof doing his awesome work in producing. I asked if the band ever considered changing things up; either in the recording process or in song creations. Rob indicated that the band basically assumed that they would continue to work with the same production crew given they were happy with the results on the prior albums. As for songwriting, they have a process that works and they don’t see a need to change that.
Death Angel will be hitting the road again shortly supporting the legendary Overkill who also have a killer new album out. I asked Rob if he thought that the band would do any headlining in support of Humanicide. He quickly responded “Yes. It’s been a while since we did a proper headlining tour. So, it’s in the works”.