Chimaira Vocalist Mark Hunter Talks About "The Infection"

CHIMAIRA vocalist Mark Hunter recently spoke with MetalSucks about the band's new album "The Infection," set to be released April 21st via Ferret Music. Hunter spoke about the meaning of the album title, what the music sounds like and how it's different from the band's past material, the viral campaign surrounding the new website spread-the-infection.com, the band's morale, and a slew of other topics. An excerpt from the interview follows:

MetalSucks: Your new album is called The Infection. Who or what is infected?

Hunter: The title has a couple of meanings. Globally, we feel the album is very catchy and "infectious." Personally, it reflects a period in my life where I felt I was "infected" with way too much negativity. Yes, even I have my limits. Lastly, it's a great name to do fun marketing things with. We can have fun with our fans anticipating the release. We are just as excited as they are, that's for sure.

MetalSucks: Whereas with some bands you could take pretty much any ten songs from their discography and shuffle them around, each Chimaira album seems distinct from the last; while it always sounds like Chimaira, there's a very tangible evolution in sound from record to record, so that, say, a song from the self-titled album would seem completely out of place on The Impossibility of Reason. Do you feel like this evolution has continued on The Infection? And, if so, how?

Hunter: Without question this album is a departure from Resurrection. Certain bands have a way of putting out albums that are very familiar sounding to their previous. It's like hip-hop, you know what you are going to get. That's fine, and there is nothing wrong with that. We are not one of those bands. We like to raise the bar and challenge ourselves to think outside of the box all the time. We've never been limited as to where we draw influence from. We are six guys who have way different musical tastes and Chimaira's sound is a derivative of that.

I guess noticeable differences on this album would be the tempo. Without giving too much away, we have slowed down a bit. There are moments on this album that are speedy blast beat fun, but there are also moments where it's so slow you feel like you are drowning in quicksand and LaMarca is sitting on top of you. Now THAT's heavy.

MetalSucks: Has this musical evolution over the years been deliberate? Do you guys approach each album with a distinct vision - e.g., "This time we wanna make really long songs," "This time we want the music to be a little more melodic," whatever?

Hunter: Besides the obvious of trying to top our previous efforts, we don't really approach our albums with any specific goal. I can't imagine being in a band where dudes walk in and go "hey man, let's make our heaviest, yet most melodic album to date." That mentality is about as stale as the artists that say it. We don't know what is going to come out until it's done. Plain and simple.

MetalSucks: After working with Jason Suecof on Resurrection, why did the band decide to reunite with producer Ben Schigel for this album?

Hunter: It started with me watching our DVD, The Dehumanizing Process. I got nostalgic and wanted to work with him again. I brought up the idea of working with him again and no one disagreed. He knows the band so well and has been recording us in various bands for half of our lives. It was good to break away and gain new experience working with Jason Suecof, but, home is where the heart is I guess.

Read the full article at MetalSucks.net.

Source: MetalSucks.net