GRAND MAGUS new album

GRAND MAGUS - “We Are The Real Fucking Deal”




By Greg Pratt



Sweden’s GRAND MAGUS are a true-blue metal band, all blood sweat and
tears, triumphant riffs, and grizzled attitudes to show for it. On
their sixth full-length, The Hunt, the band once again combines old
school trad metal, galloping stoner, and heavy doom, to create a sound
that, on this album, flows better than ever before.






Guitarist/vocalist JB Christoffersson says that he’s very happy
about The Hunt because there’s been such good response to it. But he
adds that this time out, the responses are quite varied.



“I’m also quite curious because there has been many different
responses to it and I think that’s a really good sign,” he says. “If
something is too streamlined and predictable it’s usually quite
forgettable. I think The Hunt has the potential to stick around for
quite some time.”



Christoffersson says that The Hunt is the perfect follow-up disc to
2010’s Hammer Of The North because it takes what the band learned from
that album and adds what they thought was missing from it.



“I think all our albums are connected in the sense that they’ve been
reactions to the previous one, you know? Of course, they are connected
lyrically and musically, but also emotionally,” he says. “After Hammer
Of The North we wanted to have a bit more variation and dynamics and a
bit more ‘open’ songs. This would probably not have happened without
Hammer Of The North, if you know what I mean.”



The chorus of ‘Starlight Slaughter’ is about as open as it gets, as
in ready for the huge open-air fests o’er in Europe. The song—especially
that amazing chorus—brings back great ’80’s metal moments and makes me
assume that the band are big fans of ’80’s metal, both assumptions which
turn out to be correct.



“Yes, I agree,” he says. “And yes, we are. To me that means JUDAS
PRIEST, MANOWAR, SAXON, MOTÖRHEAD, VENOM. Leather, studs, denim and
patches. The good stuff. No fucking emo hairstyles, no crying in
interviews about how tough your life is and, most of all, fucking
awesome music, with power and strength and heart.”






Really, one of the amazing things about the band is the
tightrope-walking act they lay down. On one side, glorious classic metal
elements; the other, total cheese. They never fall into the cheese. How
do they do it?



“Because we mean it,” says Christoffersson. “We are not an ‘’80’s
tribute band’ or a ‘retro band’. The lyrics are honest and heartfelt.
They are not tongue in cheek and the music is not made for Guitar Hero
and we don’t dress the way we do to be hip and get in fashion magazines
or have some ‘I’m in the know and I have a blog and I can dictate what
is cool or not’ amateur poser give us some kind of approval. We are the
real fucking deal. And we have been since we started. All bands we’ve
toured with know this. And all the people we’ve played to know this.”



But that doesn’t mean that the band fits in. Really, in today’s
metal scene they stick out, like a sore thumb. Between doom and stoner,
retro and hip, classic and modern… the band really are on their own out
there in one way; in another way, they have the spirit of true metal
bonding them with other bands flying the flag high.



“We’ve always been an outsider band in the sense that we’ve never
been part of any movement or trend,” he says. “But we have many kindred
spirits among other bands. All of them real, and all of them worth
respect. They know who they are.”