Hatebeak
Face-crushing guitars, head-pounding drums, bass so low you’ll vacate your bowels, and vocals so scorching, so extreme they simply can’t be human! They’re not. This death metal outfit with a parrot for a singer makes trashes the pathetic birdfeeder you call the metal underground!
That’s correct, a parrot for a singer, savaging you with feathers of razored steel! This is not Jimmy Buffet’s parrot - be warned! Try as one might, they will not escape the claw; nothing can dodge the talons of hate!! These three songs are an ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY beak in the ass of all things sacred in the underground. The holiest shrines of metal and hardcore seriousness are duly trashed, burned, laid to waste, smeared in Avian excrement. The pecking order has been established! For the last time, it really is a parrot, not the loser from Six Feet Under.
Groundbreaking, nest-crushing, egg-shattering! You can run, but you can’t fly.
From a recent interview:
How do recording sessions look like? What tricks do you use to make Waldo sing the way you want him to? Or maybe you record his vocals first and then try to mix it with the music?
WALDO is quite talkative and has always responded to music in general. We can tell he likes metal because he stands on one leg when he’s happy. This happens anytime we play Carcass, Left Hand Path by Entombed, pretty much anything from the early Earache catalog (except Scorn). He’s also a big Tomas Skogsberg fan. No Scott Burns, though, he gets cranky and soils his cage if we play Deicide or Obituary. He gets very hyper and talkative when we play music he likes and we usually record his outbursts following an extended listening period. We take the best parts and track them with the rest of the music.
Does Waldo know he’s a death metal vocalist? Did you play him Hate Beak? What was his reaction like?
I think he’s happy to hear the sound of another parrot, even though it’s really his own voice. Sometimes he bites the cage or my finger, but he does that on a regular basis anyway. He knows he’s part of the band though. We don’t like to talk about royalties and merchandising too much when he’s around, he’s more of an artist than a business parrot.
| Hatebeak / Caninus “Bird Seeds of Vengeance” REP090  |
TRACK LISTING:
CANINUS: |
ULTIMATE ANIMAL FURY!
HATEBEAK teams up with Caninus to bring you this 7″ assault.
CANINUS, the fucking pitbull hardcore band bring the pain, with paws.
| Hatebeak / Longmont Potion Castle “Beak of Putrefaction” REP077
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TRACK LISTING:
LONGMONT POTION CASTLE: |
HATEBEAK is a fucking metal band with a parrot singing, no fucking joke.
LONGMONT POTION CASTLE, the god of prank calls, returns with two blistering tracks straight from the school of old thrash. Hyper fast, LPC puts you through the shredder, picks up the pieces and shreds you again. The metal interludes on the previous CDs are nothing compared to this. You are going to be tumbling through metal mayhem very shortly, how does that grab you? These songs rip your face off and attack you repeatedly with a claw hammer. Why don’t you come down here and buy a fuckin’ record one time?
ALBUM: Hatebeak/Caninus REVIEWED BY: AndrewAnti5 MAGAZINE: Aversion Online
A novelty? Hell yes it is, but no more perfect a novelty 7″ has ever existed. Do the math: Hatebeak is members of Triac with a parrot (Waldo) on “vocals”, and Caninus is members of Most Precious Blood with two pitbulls (Budgie and Basil) on “vocals”. Hatebeak’s side of the record mocks Nile with “Birds Seeds of Vengeance” (their logo mocking that of Hatebreed), and Caninus takes the cover of Napalm Death’s “Scum” and replaces the logos of enormous multinational corporations with the logos of unhealthy/animal-unfriendly pet food companies like Alpo and Iams for their half of the EP (dubbed “Wolfpig”). Admittedly I didn’t fully appreciate the value of Hatebeaks’s humor when their demo hit the streets, but now it’s all too apparent just how hilarious they are. They take side A with three quick tracks of brutal death/grind that blends the sounds of mid-period Carcass with classic Swedish death metal, so expect everything from thick and speedy tremolo picking to slow and crunchy rhythms with lots of grit to the guitar texture – plus occasional lead lines or noisy textures. And, of course, the squealing, squawking parrot “vocals” – sometimes arranged more closely to the music than others. “Feral Parrot” gets a little more technical than the other songs, almost leaning towards a Death circa “Individual Thought Patterns” kind of thing at times. My only minor complain on this outing is that Waldo the parrot, while the star of the show, is mixed too loud, so the already noisy recording is clouded a bit more. They pull off the programmed drums very well, but most of the basslines gets lost and the more intricate guitar work is definitely a little bit of a blur on occasion. Caninus follows on side B with five tracks of their own brand of drum machine grind, which happens to be slower and moshier, but still possesses some eerie melody (not unlike Hatebeak, but certainly sounding quite different overall). Most of the “vocals” are growls and snarls, if not barks, and it’s of course safe and obvious to point out that there’s no truer use of the words “growl”, “snarl”, or “bark” in reference to a band than this. Samples appear on occasion as well, more so than with Hatebeak, and add texture to largely instrumental tracks like “God Eat God World” and “Sensationalize : Demonize”, which let dirty basslines play a more prominent role backing the samples. Their recording also leaves a little to be desired, but surprisingly the drum machine once again works well. It’s the rigid and unnatural guitar tone that kind of kills a bit of the force this time out, as a heavier guitar sound would balance the guitar work much better against the “vocals”. The packaging looks sort of rough but the humor value makes up for all of that, with Caninus going so far as to include fake lyrics. It’s not the kind of record you’re gonna listen to on a regular basis, but it’s fucking hilarious and worth the price for the very notion alone. I imagine this thing’s gonna sell fast as hell, so pick one up now, because if you wait it’ll more than likely go out of print.
ALBUM: Hatebeak/LPC REVIEWED BY: ??? MAGAZINE: Aquarius Records
It had to happen. And of course, the minute we heard that it actually had happened, we knew we had to have it. A death metal band… with a PARROT on lead vocals!!! How completely and stupidly brilliant! We love it! And so will you. The music is furious and blasting death metal, grinding riffs, pounding drums and crushing bass. Only, the usual cookie monster grunts are replaced by the evil squawks of Waldo the parrot. And Waldo does a pretty decent job, offering lots of unintelligable grunts and growls and other birdlike vocalisations. Our pal Brian at WFMU tried to get Hatebeak to perform on his show, but apparently Waldo can’t really handle loud sounds (death metal included) and records his ‘vocals’ separately, so Hatebeak will sadly remain a studio only project. The artwork is pretty inspired as well. They appropriate Judas Priest’s Screaming For Vengeance metallic bird cover, change Hatebreed’s logo just a litle bit (and include a little bird-hatching-from-an-egg graphic) and title their side of the split Beak Of Putrefaction (a play on Carcass’ Reek Of Putrefaction). Awesome! And there’s a rumoured upcoming split with a band called Caninus fronted by a dog! We kid you not.
The other side of the split comes courtesy of AQ fave crank calling phenom Longmont Potion Castle, who instead of his usual phone prank schtick, offers up two “metal interludes”, all instrumental blasts of blazing noodly metal! The perfect compliment to Hatebeak. And he’s also sampled at the beginning of the Hatebeak side. Maybe the best split 7″ of all time (at least until that Hatebeak / Caninus split)!
