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Interview with Danish thrashers TERMINALIST

From Denmark, with riffs! Terminalist pushes the speedometer with their new album The Great Acceleration. Terminalist bring a frantic fusion of thrash metal and philosophy in their sound, and lots of quicky riffs too.

Terminalist guitarist and vocalist Emil Hansen goes One On One With The GRIM-1 in this email interview.
  What's your favorite song off the new album, and why?  Well, all of the songs are favourites but if I am to choose one, it would be ‘Terminal Dispatch’ which I believe is a total thrash banger. Or our progressive, blackened death/thrash opus, ‘The Invention of the Shipwreck’ with lyrics based directly on the philosophy of French thinker Paul Virilio who says that the invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck. It’s a magnificent quote highlighting the destruction of our technological bearings and I think the track delivers a similar sense of grandiosity.

 

Was there a moment when you decided to be a musician for the rest of your life? If so, when?

Not really. I’ve always played the guitar and always wanted to play but for many years I wrote about music rather than played it myself. This band didn’t come about until we made an active decision to do something about it. It was the right choice but will it last forever? Who knows.

 

What motivates you to up the speed dosage?

Thanks! And well, speed is motivating in itself. That’s part of the philosophy behind this band which we pull from the previously mentioned Virilio; speed is a source of eternal fascination even when destructive. I think we deliver on those premises even if we are not nearly as fast as many other bands. What other philosophy do you enjoy?  If we are to expand on the theme of speed and acceleration, the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa has written some great stuff about what he calls ‘social acceleration’. Where Virilio’s more focused on technological processes, Rosa is way more into how it affects our social lives, our sense of time and being in the world. Recommended stuff.

 

Name one album that changed your life.  An obvious choice in this regard would be Vektor’s ‘Terminal Redux’ which made clear how to play thrash in a way that is both progressive, modern, and expansive. We try to follow a somewhat same impulse but put our own spin on it.

 

What do you think is the most awe-inspiring thrash song of all time?  Well, Vektor’s ‘Charging the Void’ would be a good choice. Or, if we wanna go old school, we can go with Whiplash’s ‘Stage Dive’. Maybe not exactly awe-inspiring but, damn, it’s a cool track!

  Who are your heavy metal heroes? Okay, so if we go with the classics, an obvious choice here would be Ronnie James Dio who turned everything he touched into gold in the ten-year period from 1975 to 1984. Or his Rainbow counterpart Ritchie Blackmore whose songwriting, riffing and soloing skills were top shelf throughout the 1970’s. Him turning medieval still is one of the greatest losses for heavy metal.

What's up on the horizon for Terminalist that you're excited about? Well, playing shows! And, hopefully, we’ll be heading into the studio to record some more material at the end of the year.

  Any last words to the heavy metal maniacs reading this?

Stay strong, stay fast and check out our debut album ‘The Great Acceleration’ on Indisciplinarian. It’s great for philosophizing and drinking beer - or both! Listen to Terminalist The Great Acceleration here.


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