{"id":880,"date":"2005-06-16T16:55:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-16T16:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/?p=880"},"modified":"2024-04-03T16:56:07","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T16:56:07","slug":"escape-from-yonkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/?p=880","title":{"rendered":"Escape from Yonkers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Immolation makes a long-overdue return to Sacramento<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"A
A death-metal band with long hair, black clothes and grim expressions? How unusual!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

8:30 p.m. Thursday; with Deicide, Skinless, the Misery Index and With Passion; $22.50; all ages. The Boardwalk, 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale, www.boardwalkrocks.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After several thwarted attempts to speak with Ross <\/strong>Dolan, the bassist and vocalist for Yonkers, N.Y., death-metal band Immolation, I almost decided to pack it in. As the band\u2019s current tour made its way through parts of Canada and onto U.S. soil, it seemed like our 15-minute interview would never come to fruition. Nevertheless, after the tour manager\u2019s sincere apology, I finally caught up with the band\u2019s fearless leader in the lovely town of Prince George, British Columbia\u2014during sound check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been way too long since Immolation has played Sacramento. \u201cMan, we haven\u2019t played there since about 1997,\u201d said the enthusiastic frontman above the din of a bass-drum sound check. \u201cI forget the name of the place, but it had a barbeque and shit. We were on tour with Six Feet Under. \u2026 I guess it was Bojangles?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right. It has been a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the better part of 20 (gasp!) years, Immolation has been releasing quality albums and demos that continually push the intellectual boundaries of its commonly ridiculed genre. To the outsider, Immolation is merely another death-metal band with Cookie Monster vocals. Upon further inspection, nothing could be farther from reality. Immolation\u2019s sound\u2014a quirky mixture of extreme metal with British metal\u2019s chord structures and odd phrasing\u2014is anything but typical fare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immolation\u2019s devoted legion of fans is growing in number. Many seem drawn to the band\u2019s obvious disdain for Christianity and organized religion, evident on its latest recording, Harnessing Ruin<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019ve read really positive and really negative things about the record,\u201d said Dolan. \u201cThe fact is you\u2019re never going to make everybody happy,\u201d he added with a hearty, evil laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s even a bit of politics on the band\u2019s latest long-player, out now on Olympic Recordings. As Dolan explained, \u201cIt\u2019s very subtle because, again, we\u2019re not a political band. Yeah, you could interpret [the lyrics] how you wish. It is very vague how we address topics, but the new album addresses what\u2019s going on in the world and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although most bands rise to notoriety on the coattails of others, Immolation actually has headlined most of its tours. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually been headlining since the Failures for Gods<\/em> record [in 1999]. We\u2019re enjoying the support slot this time around,\u201d gloated Dolan. \u201cAt times, we would get the \u2018headlining blues\u2019 on an off night, since there are always kids that have to get to work the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their current tour finds the members of Immolation\u2014Dolan; guitarists Bill Taylor and Robert Vigna; and the newest member, Steve Shalaty on drums\u2014playing direct support to Florida hate machine Deicide. \u201cDeicide has been really cool to us on this tour, and so have the other bands,\u201d Dolan said amicably. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping to land another support gig near the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out that the addition of Shalaty, though the band most likely would disagree with the wording, was a godsend. \u201cSteve did such a great job. He just became \u2018the man.\u2019 On our first tour with Steve, we only had four or five days for him to learn the material, and he even learned two more songs on the road. Even now, we had a bunch of older songs that he didn\u2019t know, and we\u2019d go to his house, and he\u2019d nail them,\u201d Dolan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, getting the band together these days for practice isn\u2019t as easy as it used to be. \u201cBob and I live in Yonkers, 15 minutes north of Manhattan. Bill lives in Tampa, Fla., and Steve lives in Ohio with a roommate,\u201d he said. \u201cBob and I drive to Ohio on any given Friday [almost 10 hours away] and drive back on a Sunday.\u201d If that isn\u2019t dedication, what is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very passionate about what we do and think the world should be handed to us,\u201d Dolan said in closing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insane might be a better word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SN&R)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Immolation makes a long-overdue return to Sacramento 8:30 p.m. Thursday; with Deicide, Skinless, the Misery Index and With Passion; $22.50; all ages. The Boardwalk, 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale, www.boardwalkrocks.com. After several thwarted attempts to speak with Ross Dolan, the bassist and vocalist for Yonkers, N.Y., death-metal band Immolation, I almost decided to pack it in. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions\/881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}