Probot

Description

Product Description Probot - Probot (Southern Lord / Roswell Records, SUNN30) - EAN: 808720003024 - Probot was a heavy metal side project of ex-Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters lead guitarist and lead-singer Dave Grohl. Described by Grohl as "a death metal Supernatural", the album mixes instrumentals recorded by Grohl himself with various metal singers which the musician idolized. The album was released in February 2004 by Southern Lord Records and featured one single entitled "Centuries Of Sin" / “The Emerald Law”. .com Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl has always been an unabashed metalhead--Nirvana were heavily indebted to Black Sabbath. Now the multi-instrumentalist indulges his adolescent fantasies by inviting a slew of '80s underground metal vocalists to caterwaul their original lyrics set to a dozen Grohl-penned instrumentals. None of the results rival "Ace of Spades" or "Paranoid," but as vanity projects go Probot is a hell of a lot of skull-crushing fun. Remarkably diverse, too, from the doom-laden dirge "Ice Cold Man"--voiced by Lee Dorrian of Napalm Death--to the hardcore thrash of "Access Babylon," a collaboration with Mike Dean from Corrosion of Conformity. Mainstream music lovers will only recognize a couple of names, but the most distinctive turns come courtesy of cult artists, particularly D.R.I.'s Kurt Brecht and his blood vessel-bursting bellow on "Silent Spring," and the creepy Goth intonations of Tom G. Warrior (Apollyon Sun/Celtic Frost) on "Big Sky." --Kurt B. Reighley From the Artist Dave Grohls breakdown of the Probot album selected tracks Wino (St Vitus, Place Of Skulls) Probot Track: 'Emerald Law "His band The Obsessed were from DC, where I came from. My hardcore band opened for them in '85, and I know that nobody in their right mind would want to go onstage after The Obsessed. Wino is the godfather of doom music, everything he does from St Vitus to Place Of Skulls has been mind-blowing." Lemmy (Motorhead) 'Shake Your Blood' "We recorded his track in LA in maybe two takes about a year and a half ago. Until then I'd never met what I'd call a real rock'n'roll hero before. F*** Elvis and Keith Richards, Lemmy's the king of rock'n'roll - he told me he never considered Motorhead a metal band, he was quite adamant. Lemmy's a living, breathing, drinking and snorting f***ing legend. No-one else comes close. King Diamond (Mercyful Fate) 'Sweet Dreams' "What King Diamond does with his voice is incomprehensible. I was a huge fan of Mercyful Fate's albums like 'Melissa' and 'Don't Break The Oath' ('83 and '84). What he does on the Probot album is so layered and theatrical, it's almost like a Queen record, It's difficult to explain how cool is it to have him singing on a song that I wrote. He's the King." Max Cavalera Probot Track: 'Red War' "I saw Max in Sepultura on the 'Chaos AD' tour. One of my favourite things about the Probot record is the accent of the singers. Being from Montreal, Snake from Voivod has a strong accent, so does Tom G Warrior (from Switzerland's Celtic Frost). Like Max, the fact that these guys have unusual deliveries only makes them more sinister. They sound like foreign military sergeants barking out orders. Sepultura were always an amazing blend of metal, punk and tribal influences. When 'Roots' came out it changed my entire perception of what was heavy." About the Artist For the entirety of the 21st millennium, rumors have been flying about how Dave Grohl was putting together some sort of "(death)-metal band". The name "PROBOT" became an instant flashpoint for the interest of music fans the world over. The secret sleeps no longer... The divine metallic inspiration and bloody roots of Dave Grohl will now be unleashed upon the world!! A epic compilation of monumental proportions and one of the most anticipated metal albums in history. PROBOT HAS ARRIVED!!!! PROBOT is the result of Grohl having recorded an album's worth of bone-crushing metal at his home studio, then sending individual instrumental tracks to his favorite metal vocalists from what was clearly an extremelyformative period in Grohl's past (specifically, 1983-1990) for vocals to be added. Each song features it's own throat, with lyrics and vocal melodies written by each of thee same vokillist. All collaborators were given absolute freedom to put their own metallic stamp on the compositions. Grohl usually didn't hear what was happening to the tracks once they left his studio, and remembers the return of tapes (with the new vocal additions) as being "like Christmas morning over and over again." Asked about the recording process, Grohl enthusiastically proclaims "It isn't about me - I'm just having the time of my life in a "metal fantasy camp" being able to create something with these people I listened to when I was young." With the help of Matt Sweeney (Zwan/Chavez), Grohl was able to hunt down most of his favorite singers - covering a lot of metal ground in the process. "There are some fast tracks - the Cronos (of Venom) track (Centuries Of Sin) is old-school fast thrash metal", says Grohl. "The Lee Dorrian (of Napalm Death & Cathedral) track (Ice Cold Man) is slow...with a certain dirge to it, the Snake (of Voivod) track (Dictatorsaurus) is reminiscent of an old Voivod track, the Mike Dean ( of Corrosion of Conformity) track (Access Babylon) is sort of like an old school metal-hardcore crossover thing." Indeed many of the songs come off as a perfect match for the vocalist in mind. Although the songs were not intentionally written in this manner, the combination of Grohl's instinctive song writing along with possibly the best performance of each singer makes for a definitive result. King Diamond's track ("Sweet Dreams") contains everything you could possibly want from the King. The trademark falsetto highs, haunting melody and ghostly low vibrato, its all represented. The same can be echoed about Lemmy's track ("Shake Your Blood"). A fist pounding rocker with (in addition to the vocals, of course) a special performance from the Icon of Filth himself on bass. The result is a jaw dropping fusion of Dave's' hardrock/pop sensibilities and Lemmy's undeniable iconic metal charm. As with Lemmy's track, the Cronos and Wino songs also feature instrument-addition from the singers. Cronos adds his trademark bass from hell tone throughout "Centuries of Sin" and Wino adds a blistering, intense lead to "The Emerald Law". Additionally, Grohl enlisted a few non-vocal contributions as well...including a shredding guitar solo by Kim Thayil of Soundgarden on the King Diamond track (Sweet Dreams) as well as contributions by Bubba Dupree from Void on Access Babylon.