Celtic Folk and traditional metal are not exactly kindred spirits that one immediately conjures up when thinking of great mash-ups of musical genres. Slough Feg, who’s name is derived from a character in ancient Irish mythology, originates from Central Pennsylvania and relocated to San Francisco in 1990 in hopes of resurrecting the ailing ‘true metal’ scene in the United States. Think Jethro Tull channeled by a heavy dosing of Dio and maybe you have somewhat of an idea of what is going on here. It’s not going to be everyone’s thing. In fact, the band quickly gained a reputation as, ‘the band San Francisco loved to hate’ by taking a stand against the trends and incorporating stage savagery with strong visual imagery.
The band’s latest offering Digital Resistance was recorded with Justin Weis (who produced the album with vocalist/guitarist Mike Scalzi) at Trakworx in South San Francisco from January-October 2013 and marks the band’s first new studio album since 2010’s The Animal Spirits. When asked if the new album was a concept album, singer & vocalist Mike Scalzi explained that Digital Resistance is a concept album in the sense that The Beatles Sgt. Pepper is a concept album. “It has somewhat of a consistent lyrical theme that runs through several of the songs, but not every song— it is not a concept album in the sense that our Travelleralbum is.”
“Analogue Avengers/Bertrand Russel’s Sex Den” comes off as a pirate drinking song with metal guitar as the backing and definitely is acquired taste, yet it piques interest as to what will happen next. “Digital Resistance” is a very well constructed song both lyrically and musically which highlights the talent of the band and is a real standout which makes the listener want to give it more of a go. But, it’s an eclectic go at that and not one that feels very promising…
The story behind the album title Digital Resistance is an interesting one that touches on the topic of the digital age not only in terms of music, but how technology affects life itself. “Most of the titles for this collection of songs were invented by friends of mine, just sitting around shooting the shit, without any intention of them being song titles. Just statements made, mostly in jest, about things gong on in the world, or in the Bay Area, at the current time. Digital Resistance is one of those phrases. A friend of mine said to another friend ‘you’re part of the digital resistance, aren’t you?’ while asking him if he still owned a VCR, or something. I thought it was catchy and funny, and summed up my attitude towards the current digital revolution. I used to like technology, and still do in a poetic/literary sense, but the reality of it is becoming quite frightening. This theme then expanded to the role of technology in human evolution, etc. I am a teacher, and I watch students’ mindsets changing on a yearly basis—let’s just say I can’t say they are becoming noticeably smarter, with the advent of all this technology at their fingertips.” So, the concept definitely makes interest rise highly…keep going…
“Magic Hooligan” keeps the tempo up and the seventies epic rock story feel rolling. A bit of a “The Who” feel on this one gives it a more commercial tone than some of their other offerings and may prove to be a stronger candidate to offer up to initiates. But this is where I can no longer keep an open mind. The musicianship is there, but, the seventies laden, epic heavy stuff is being done so much better by bands like Mastadon that to praise this as noteworthy would be a travesty. There are some bright spots here and there but it’s not all that original, and it’s not all that interesting, which is a shame because the concept is cool. So what does Mike hope the listener will walk away with after listening to Digital Resistance? “Hopefully just enjoyment, entertainment. Perhaps a little bit of a lesson about the dangers of technology’s tendency to sort of dumb us down when things become so easy. The more we indulge in technology and allow it to do everything for us, especially allowing it to think for us (as in the case of looking everything up on your phone or computer rather than trying to remember and retain information), the more physically and mentally “flabby” we become. So there is somewhat of an urgent message, or complaint about this increasingly human tendency.”
Digital Resistance is out in North America on February 18, 2014 and will see SLOUGH FEG on the road with a few West Coast shows scheduled in March with the guys’ “sister band” Bible of the Devil, from Chicago. The band is hoping to do a short tour of Europe in May/June, and then hopefully to Chicago in July to do the “Ale Horn of Power” Festival.
History:
The band produced three demos in the early to mid nineties, which were followed up by a self-produced, self-titled debut CD released in 1996.
Scoring points for originality in the European underground, they aroused the interest of Dragonheart Records in 1998 and Twilight of the Idols was released in 1999 by the label. This was followed by the 2000 release of Down Among the Deadmen and Sci-Fi epic, Traveller, in 2003. In 2005 the band moved to the Italian label Cruz Del Sur and shortened their name to simply, SLOUGH FEG with the release of Atavism. 2007 brought the dawn of HARDWORLDER, and a slight change of direction to a ’70’s NWOBHM sound. 2008 saw the release of The Slay Stack Grows, a compilation containing over 30 tracks on 2CD’s, with Ape Uprising!(2009), The Animal Spirits (2010), and the live album Made in Poland(2011) rounding out the rest of the band’s catalog.
Enter January 2013: Slough Feg is signed by Metal Blade Records who re-released three of the band’s early albums that, until now, were only available as imports. Twilight of the Idols (1999), Down Among the Deadmen (2000), and Traveller (2003) were released as a 3CD box set and made available on their own digitally.
Keep up to date with SLOUGH FEG at the following locations:
https://www.facebook.com/sloughfegofficial
http://www.youtube.com/sloughfegofficial
https://twitter.com/slough_feg
http://sloughfeg.com/
