BENEDICTUM - Dominate Tricks
By Carl Begai
Arizona-based
BENEDICTUM are six years and three albums into their career and going stronger
than expected. They’ve slogged through early stage indifference of the
US market – which has since woken up and smelled the brimstone – line-up
changes, and the all too familiar label woes, resurfacing from two
years of silence with an obnoxious slab of old school metal entitled
Dominion. No death, black, prog or screamo prefix stapled to their
collective forehead,
Benedictum remain an oddity in a world populated with female fronted bands wishing
they were next EPICA or ARCH ENEMY. This time out, however, they are
being watched with a serious eye by metal fans and the media rather than
the fickle attention usually reserved for a Saturday night bar band.
“I’m
extremely grateful because, one way or another, people are sitting up
and taking notice,” says vocalist Veronica Freeman. “I think a lot of
that has to do with our new label (Frontiers Records) and just being
able to get out there and do press. I’ve been quite happy to go and do
these little radio station takeovers and whatnot, it’s great. The
reactions in the UK, the Netherlands, especially the US have been super
positive, but there have been some bad reviews along the way. In fact, I
think one of the worst reviews I’ve ever gotten came out of Germany. I
get where the people that don’t like it are coming from, though, because
I think some of them were a little shocked by Dominion. It’s still
traditional, just heavier and darker, and I guess that rubbed some
people the wrong way.”
Adding to some people’s consternation
might be the fact that Freeman, who is quite obviously a woman, has a
vocal range and depth that crushes any preconceived notions of her being
a prissy School-Of-VIXEN Barbie doll. Simply put, her voice is so
powerful there are moments she sounds like a dude.
“I wanted to
really be able to… yes, I wanted to go there. I have a loud voice and I
have that low register thing that I do, and I wanted to develop it even
more. I still want to be understood, though. It’s the other end of the
spectrum from the operatic vocals, that growling stuff – which is
amazing – but it’s not me either.”
“I get that a lot,” she says
of the male vocal comparisons, “but that’s cool, and I guess it’s
because the vocals are more raw on Dominion compared to Seasons Of
Tragedy and Uncreation. And I have to be honest, I was encouraged to go
there by our producer Ryan Greene . He was like, ‘No no no, bring it.
Don’t get mad, just bring it.’ Which I did (laughs).”
“I
was mad, though,” Freeman admits. “Mad and frustrated because it took
so long to get things together for Dominion. I’m relieved the album is
out because it’s been tough getting here. It’s been like giving birth
this time around. Frickin’ labour pains; ‘No, not quite yet. Nope,
almost…’ I’m so glad we have it out and on a label that’s behind us. You
have no idea…”
As rooted as
Benedictum is in traditional metal, they’ve always been up for stepping outside
the box. Dominion continues their personal tradition of offering up
something other than the four minute anthem. Freeman, it turns out, is a
shameless prog fan.
“Yep, you’ve got it. People are actually
starting to get that about us, because from the very beginning, when we
were working with Jeff Pilson (producer / ex-Dokken bassist) on
Uncreation, that was my thing. I cut my teeth on stuff like RAINBOW’s
‘Stargazer’ all the way to the RUSH stuff. I was weaned on the songs
that you could put on, go outside and wash the car, and when you’re done
and go back inside the song is still playing (laughs).”
Resulting
in two crushers on Dominion; a cover of ‘Overture’ / ‘The Temples Of
Syrinx’ from the Rush classic ‘2112’ (which deserved its own story and
got one
here) and the all-original
‘Epsilon’, both of which Freeman had a hand in building. She dismisses
the suggestion that her bandmates composed the music while she kept her
nose out of the creative process beyond laying down the vocals.
“No,
it’s not like that. We decided that we’re going to have what we call
our epic song – a long song over seven or eight minutes – on each album.
On Uncreation it was ‘Valkyrie’, on Seasons Of Tragedy it was the title
track, which was even longer. On Dominion we have ‘Epsilon’, and you
should have heard the original demo. We shaved a minute-and-a-half off
it. The original intro was two minutes thirty seconds before you hit any
vocals.”
Bottom line is that
Benedictum’s idea of traditional or old school metal is rooted in the ‘70s, when musical diversity was king.
“One
thing I really like about this album, which not everybody does, is that
at least when you have this album in your car stereo you’re going to
know when the song is done,” says Freeman. “You’re not going to catch
yourself saying ‘Oh, is that a different song? It sounds the same as the
last one.’ There was definitely a conscious effort to keep things
interesting because of how much that repetitive stuff bothers me. If
every other song has sounds the same or you take a variation of what you
just did, you didn’t put a lot of effort into the music and that bugs
me. Some people like the familiarity of it, and that’s fine, but I’d
rather shake things up.”
Dim 25 Nov - 0:26
), Criss Oliva (SAVATAGE) and the equally underrated Pete Lesperance (HAREN SCAREM) as Dominion plays out.