AFTER FOREVER Guitarist Discusses HDK Project; Audio Available

On December 30, radio DJ Sheila Doki conducted an interview with AFTER FOREVER co-founder, main songwriter and guitarist Sander Gommans about his HDK (formerly HATE DEATH KILL) project. Listen to the chat in two parts below.

HDK will release its debut album, "System Overload", on February 23 in Europe and on April 21 in North America via France's Season of Mist.

The track listing is as follows:

01. System Overload
02. Request
03. Let Go
04. Terrorist
05. Pedestal
06. On Hold
07. Breakdown
08. March
09. Perfect
10. Fight Or Flight
11. Fine Lines

Check out the artwork below.

Commented Sander: "The artwork of the HDK album represents the crucial fragile part of a human being: the brain. Since the whole album deals about stress, the brain is an important part of that subject. It's amazing how much a brain can take, but also how it reacts if it's overloaded with information. The artwork is based on that situation. With the use of brain scans and other medical pics, the atmosphere of the booklet really matches the atmosphere of the music!"

Regarding how the project came about, Sander previously said, "AFTER FOREVER has always been a band that is diverse enough for me to write music for. The stuff I've written for AFTER FOREVER contains a lot of metal and non-metal styles, the great thing about this band being that people expect every album to be different, so it's always interesting to write a new album. However, since our first release, I felt the need to write more extreme stuff. AFTER FOREVER is already one of the most aggressive bands in the female-fronted genre, but I didn't want to use the extreme stuff I had in mind for the band, since that would not fit at all. Writing for AFTER FOREVER has often been a result of positive energy, and I needed to do something with the negative energy I was beginning to feel after some problems we encountered with the releases of 'Invisible Circles' and 'Remagine'. As this frustration was growing and growing, I just decided to transform it into songs, and they turned out to sound much more aggressive and experimental than the stuff I had done before.

"Since the songs sounded more extreme than I thought and contained a lot of the heavier metal styles, I thought it might have to become a very over-the-top project, in a cynical way. 'HATE DEATH KILL' was a name that suited that cynical idea, but I started to realise the music actually represented a very important part of myself and my life, so it became much more serious. I changed the name to HDK, asking Amanda Somerville [the American singer-songwriter and vocal coach who is better known for her collaborations with various European metal bands, including EPICA, AFTER FOREVER and EDGUY — Ed.] to write the lyrics for the project, based on the subjects I already had for each song. They are all very personal and describe what happens with somebody who is under too much pressure. The funny thing is that, when I got my burn-out (which caused me to take a break of a year of everything I was doing),reading the lyrics made me aware of where it went wrong. The collaboration with Amanda worked out really well, together we also wrote the vocal lines and after that I started searching for guest musicians.

"I didn't want it to be 'only' an album with grunts, or clean male vocal, or screams, or female vocals. I wanted to have a combination of all of those, since they all represent emotions in their own way. I think that's the unique part of the project, you have to think 'out of the box' when you listen to it, it doesn't fit in any style but I think it gives a combination of all kinds of metal styles in an extreme way. Working together with all those great musicians was a fantastic experience, without them I could never have made this intense album. This album shows a different side of me, and I'm thankful to be able to release it together with Season of Mist.

"If you are into different kinds of (extreme) metal and you are searching for a combination of those in one album, you might want to check out this album."

HDK features contributions from the following musicians:

Amanda Somerville: Vocals
André Matos (ex-ANGRA, SHAAMAN, VIRGO): Vocals
Ariën van Weesenbeek (GOD DETHRONED): Drums
Joost van den Broek (SUN CAGED, AFTER FOREVER): Keyboards
Jos Severens (SUSTAIN): Vocals
Patrick Savelkoul (CALLENISH CIRCLE): Vocals
Paul Niessen (I WITNESS): Vocals
Peter Vink: Bass
Sander Gommans: Guitar, Vocals

For more information, visit www.myspace.com/sandergommans.

Part 1:

Part 2: