Interview: Jonas Sanders (RESISTANCE)

I approached with a lot of reservations the new Resistance album, when I received the promo of "To Judge and Enslave". However, nowadays its getting quite difficult to find something good and to review it corectly. I didn't think that the fourth album by the Belgian extreme death metallers would stay for long time on my player, but after a huge struggle with myself and driven by professional duty – I decided to play it. In "To Judge and Enslave" you won't find any keyboards, clean vocals, dragons or muscular heroes and Vikings. In "To Judge and Enslave" you will encounter Nihilism, antireligious rage and pure hate. "The Descent" is the opener and it will take you immediately in the dark underworld of RESISTANCE. Then you will meet the one who present himself as "I am the Devil and I am here to do the Devil's work". Shortly after this Resistance will blow you away with "Make Belief Saviour". Brutalized" and my personal favorite - "ENSLAVED" (where guest is guest is Lief Jensen from Dew-Scented) will prove that RESISTANCE will be another favorite band in your collection. So don't be surprised if you play the album again after the end of "Clench My Fist to God". If you are fan of the extreme music look for this band! They have a lot of potential and they kick ass during live performance. Everyone who attended the show of Death Angel in Sofia some time ago will know exactly what I am talking about. RESISTANCE were part of the support bands and I certainly know that If I had the chance to see them again – I won't miss it.... But for now I'll just play the album again!

Rating: 8/10

Hello please introduce the band to the readers of RockLiveBg.com

Resistance was created in 2004 by Ben (Bass). After a 4 track demo and couple of shows supporting great band, Resistance released "Trauma" in 2006. This album put the band on great local bills and on big festivals in our area. In 2008 we released "2 sides of a modern world". This album gave us the opportunity to go on tour with All shall perish & later with Sepultura. After some line-up changes Resistance releases "Lords of torment" on Gsr music in 2010. The band travels all Europe for 1 year ½ supporting Kataklysm, Belphegor, Darkest hour, Death angel, Pro-pain, Vader, Krisiun, Misery index, ... on five different tours.

The band is back now with "To Judge and Enslave" ready to crush Europe harder than ever.

So why Resistance.. How that name did came up?

When Ben created the band, it was that time when all new bands came up with non-sense long names and having sometimes no connections with the content of their music. Ben chose Resistance because it sounds and looks familiar in nearly every languages, it's short and easy and was in connection with his view on what was going on.

From which bands are Resistance influenced?

Resistance is a big mix of each member's influences but the main current we try to follow is death. Touring with bands such as Misery Index, Kataklysm, etc clearly influenced us on this last record. Add to that some hardcore from our grounds and couple of really intense and sometimes melo riffing Oli and I really like.

To Judge and enslave is the fourth band album How can you describe it?

"To Judge and Enslave" is our mature album I'd say. After couple of years with a stable line-up and a year of intense touring, this album came out naturally and it is the first album of Resistance having a taste of each of us. We all took part in the writing, some more than others, but for once, we took the time to consider every submitted opinion or change.

Who is writing the lyrics and what is the concept of your new album?

The lyrics were written by Shaun (our new comer guitar player) and Miqe Lofberg (singer for In-Quest). The band came with title ideas, subject to discuss about and from there Shaun already took care of some songs (as Oblivious and E.N.S.L.A.V.E.D.) and the rest is coming from Miqe, sometimes edited by Shaun and Xerus too.

Lyrics are sort of a big SHOUT to what we don't agree with. Thoughts we have on life typical issues and so on. It globally follows the last 2 albums ideas.

How actually are you guys writing the songs for new album?

As said before, this album is a part of each of us. Some songs were written all together at the practice room playing and tasting each riff live, some songs were written by just one or two of us and just arranged by everyone but in any case, it has to be agreed by everyone. For the first time, everyone took the time to feel and be a part of the band and add his own thing to the record. "To Judge and Enslave" is the result of a band at its top, everything went has planned and the result satisfied every piece of the band 100%.

What is hidden behind the abbreviation "E.N.S.L.A.V.E.D.?"

Eridicate
Nailed
Slaves
Loathe
Abused
Vicious
Eridicate
Destruction

In your opinion what is the best song from the new album and why?

To me, I'd clearly name "Hordes of the Damned". First of all, it has some of my favorite riffs from the album and it's the track fitting with what I like the most in metal. And second, as I wrote the whole song from A to Z the moods present on the track are authentic and means something to me.

If I am not mistaking you are self releasing your album.... is that hard?

Well I could be, but fortunately we have some connections, great people working with us and after 3 albums out, the band has learned a lot. We had no that much trouble finding distributions and so far, it's one of the best decision we took.

As far as I know you will be doing a mini tour in Poland in March. So why did you choose Poland and what do you expect from this tour?

Since we are working with Massive Music (from Poland) managing Vader, they gave us the opportunity to join them on the next Blitzkrieg tour and we accepted that's it. 13 gigs only in Poland is something you can't refuse as the audience over there is crazy! The album is coming out end of January, the timing was fine with us and we needed a tour to promote "To Judge and Enslave". But after Poland, be sure we'll hit the rest of Europe and maybe more.

You visited Bulgaria as a support for Death Angel. What can you recall from your performance?

The tour with Death Angel wasn't easy. Mixing Thrash metal and Death metal on a bill is kinda weird but we made the best of it. Bulgaria was in the average I'd say but really crowded, I was happy to see that in some country, people still take the time to go to shows and enjoy live perfomances.

Are you planning to visit Bulgaria again?

Nothing is planned for Bulgaria yet, but we are currently dealing with some tour offers so, hopefully we'll pass by.

What is needed for a death metal band to become unique and to differ from the other bands?

That's hard...

I guess trying to do what you feel like is the main thing, we didn't really choose to do Death or Death core. It just came to us, obviously. And that's probably why we don't play straight pure death metal also. We just mix what we all like and try to fit everyone's tastes. The result we got with TJAE was the result of our constant evolution as a band.

How is the metal scene in Belgium going.. Are there other bands that deserve attention?

The Belgian metal is really ON for a small country. Bands such as Aborted or Enthroned are well known on the international scene. In the past, we had a huge hardcore scene led by Arkangel, Length of Time and Do or Die. And we have more and more great bands coming out on every field:

Age of Torment (thrash), Goliath (Math-core), Komah (Metal), ... Belgian scene is definitely worth checking.

Belgium is country with hundreds beer brands.. What is your favorite one and can you suggest us one?

Haha, yep we are proud of our beers. All of them are good but if I had to name couple of 'em, check out the Duvel, Triple Karmeliet, Chouffe.

What is your opinion for religion?

We don't really give a fuck

What is the freakiest thing that happened with the band during a tour, show or on the road?

Some many crazy things happens on tour it's hard to remind one :p but our first big European tour we made with Kataklysm was just crazy in the amount of alcohol we all drank, each of us in the band, going nuts every night on drinks and the friendship build with the guyz from the other bands didn't help to sober up!

What are the Resistance band members doing besides the band ..?

We all have jobs related to music or not. Oli has his own label > Ultimhate Records growing each day and getting more and more popular. I play drums in 2 other Belgian bands (Komah, Emptiness) and since October 2011 I also play with Pro-Pain. Shaun works in the IT field, Xerus in Insurances and Ben in Health services.

During 2011 there were a lots of great extreme albums released.. What is you favorite one?

Lock-Up – Necropolis Transparent without any hesitation.

Please leave your message for the readers of RockLiveBg.com

First of, thanks a lot for this, we are really happy to be present on RockLIveBg.com! And to all, keep it metal, show up to gigs, by cd's make this metal scene able to live forever! Horns up!!!

Author: Constantin Yovkov

Links: 

www.resistance666.net

www.myspace.com/resistance666

www.facebook.com/RESISTANCEBE