KATAKLYSM Frontman Says New Album Is 'Much More Aggressive' Than Its Predecessor

Denise Falzon of Exclaim! recently conducted an interview with vocalist Maurizio Iacono of Canadian extreme metallers KATAKLYSM. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Exclaim!: What was the musical direction behind new album "Heaven's Venom"?

Iacono: We just had a very tough three years internally in the band, not between us, but everybody in the band had personal stuff going on in their lives. It was very similar stuff and we connected really strongly on this record when we decided to do it. It came out really aggressive, but we didn't aim for anything; it just came out the way it came out. Songs like "Push the Venom" are not overly technical, but they go to the point and hit you where they need to hit you. For every song, how it was put together depends on the feeling. We tried our best to be real to what we do; we're not trying to become something that's in a trend area. It was a very natural record for us to make at this point in our career.

Exclaim!: Why the title "Heaven's Venom"?

Iacono: In the world we live in, there's always going to be good and bad, and bad and good, and it's actually important to have both because it levels off everything and it's a perfect balance to be able to move forward in life. Too much of something is not good, so having a little bit of stress in your life is important to be able to appreciate different things that happen to you. "Heaven's Venom" is just being in a place where you think everything's great and then there's this thing that you can't believe is there that makes it bad, and it's just about dealing with it.

Exclaim!: On some of the tracks it sounds like there is a return to the "Serenity in Fire" days.

Iacono: It's a much more aggressive record than "Prevail". It might not have some of the same speed elements, but unwittingly, we got a little of "Serenity in Fire", a little bit of "In the Arms of Devastation" and I think also some "Shadows and Dust". It was just a very pure balance of our last four or five records. In some places, we actually go way back, which when you listen to this album, there are a lot of things that need to be connected in order to understand it. You'll see another face of the record once you read the lyrics, because this album connects everything. If you understand the meaning behind this record, you're going to understand and appreciate it a lot more. It's a really deep record and it hits a lot of things that a lot of people go through in their lives and we're that type of band; we don't want to do anything that's meaningless. It's important to write lyrics that people can adapt to and understand what I'm going through. The musical aspect touches a little bit on "Serenity in Fire", but it touches also on a lot of different elements and that's what makes this record complete.

Read the entire interview from Exclaim!.