PRESS

Metal as Mastery and Execution

Bobby S. Gulshan | Submerge Magazine

During a particularly turbulent period of English history, the executioner Jack Ketch garnered a reputation for the often sadistic and cruel ways in which he meted out justice to the condemned. “The hangman’s knot is called a ‘Jack Ketch’ knot,” vocalist Nick Bakkie tells me. “We liked the feel of it, and it matched the dark tone of the music we play.” I met the guys from Jack Ketch at their rehearsal space, and our conversation journeyed from the famed executioner, to an epic space-opera, a house in the country and eventually to the music scene in Sacramento. We also talked about the state of heavy metal music in the world. Perhaps not since the “golden age” of thrash—when bands like Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Pantera pummeled the world with their sonic assaults—has metal been bigger. Bands like Mastodon have succeeded in bringing a new audience to metal, while also sparking raging debates about what truly deserves the “metal” moniker and what doesn’t. However, while some devotees believe the path to metal purity lies in exclusion and careful, often tedious labeling of sub-genre after sub-genre, Jack Ketch thinks otherwise. “Nowadays it’s metal to listen to hip-hop and metal at the same time,” says guitarist Corey Parks. “A kid won’t look at you weird if you are listening to a Lil’ Jon record and then immediately put on a Despised Icon record.” This idea of inclusion—of remaining open to all possible musical forces and never settling into a comfortable pigeonhole—fuels Jack Ketch in pushing their music ever further. While they may be best described as a “progressive-metal” band, the technical and complex approach found in their music is a means for exploring sonic and narrative landscapes rather than being an end in itself. After two years together and a new album, Bringers of the Dawn, due out in early August, Jack Ketch stands poised to create their own reputation as a band that combines brutal metal energy with intellectual sophistication and technical prowess.

You guys have a record coming out soon on Transmedia Records. Tell me a little about the record.

Squeek Jones (bass): The new album is called Bringers of the Dawn. It’s actually a concept record. Basically every single song is related and there is a theme going through the entire record. It’s pretty epic. Be ready, that’s all we can say.

Can you give us a preview of the concept itself?

Nick Bakkie (vocals): There are kind of a lot of different things going on, but basically it tells the story of an alien invasion of Earth, and there is this huge epic battle between the aliens and humans.

Corey Parks: One big idea in the story is that humans take advantage of what they have without much thought.

And the aliens come in and put us in check?

CP: Pretty much, yeah.

Metal often gets a bad rap from people outside of the scene, like it’s just loud, dumb music to get drunk and mosh to. Do you think metal can be a thinking person’s music?

SJ: Absolutely, I think it already is. There are so many different layers within metal and rock music. From the technical side, it’s a hard genre to play, and there are a lot of really talented, underrated musicians doing this kind of music, so there is a lot that can be done in this genre.

CP: Yeah, we are not trying to go for the whole thrash metal, go get beer and get drunk at the club kind of scene.

Garrett Garvey (drums): I feel like there is as much metal that is done wrong as there is done right. So it’s hard to stand out when you are in the same genre, so you really have to work to distinguish yourself. Having some music education and fusing that with metal is what brings the progressive elements and staying musically intelligent.

NB: Metal is becoming a lot bigger in the world, and Squeek and I have always talked about the entertainment value of it, but we want to push that entertainment value beyond just the music, bringing in the visual aspect and the storytelling aspect. We recently did a show in 3-D where we had 3-D visuals and passed out glasses. People got really excited with seeing something different. We always want to keep it fresh and entertaining as well as highly energetic and intelligent.

You guys mention Opeth and Dream Theater as influences. Those are two bands that are, like you guys, technically sophisticated and compositionally complex. How do you approach songwriting for such demanding music?

CP: I live out in the country [everyone laughs] and I watch a lot of really bad television and I listen to everything from acid house to death metal and I jam on my acoustic. I will come in with some riffs and Garrett and I will start arranging stuff on the white board and it goes from there.

GG: I’m always pushing the technical aspect. I came into this band under-prepared for how far we wanted to push it, so for me there is a challenge to see what Corey brings in and see how I can push it further. Then it’s just a process of complementing each other and compromising enough to where we keep the spirit of the tune and make sure all voices are represented.

And lyrically?

NB: I get inspiration from all these guys. Garrett will sketch out these little stories and it will inspire the actual vocal lines. We did that on “Decimated Deputation” on the new album, where Garrett and Corey had the basic concept and story, and I basically ran with it and developed the actual lyrical lines.

What are some of the lyrical themes? It sounds like you guys are doing more than just “boy meets girl” type of stuff.

SJ: That’s the next album [they all laugh].

NB: It all involves struggle and trying to figure out what is real, what is good and what is evil.

GG: The undercurrents are there. Like Corey said earlier, humans take from the earth, and that maybe the arrival of the aliens is a sort of reckoning, and human beings have to confront that they have been living blindly. That’s the metaphor of the concept.

So what is it that you guys want to communicate as Jack Ketch?

SJ: Ultimately it’s about pushing what you love. If you have a passion for something and it’s what you want to do, don’t settle. And the undercurrent in that is seen in the metaphor of the record, which is that life is a struggle. There is nothing easy about getting out of bed every morning and doing what you have to do.

Did you guys start out with this progressive metal approach or was there an evolution?

NB: Definitely a lot of evolution. When I originally thought of starting a band, I was listening to things like Poison the Well and Norma Jean—like hardcore bands. But when I got into the scene, the vibe wasn’t right for me. Then when we started putting the band together it moved into a more death metal vein. Corey came in and he is so good at technical death metal, but we wanted to keep it open to a lot of different influences.

CP: I really only listen to metal about 10 percent of the time.

The rest is Lil’ Jon records?

CP: Everything, classical, symphonic metal. I can listen to classical while writing a brutal metal song, and it will influence it in one way, and then I can listen to something else and I will catch some of that vibe. I don’t want us to be one of those bands that have the exact same sound all the time.

GG: There are bands that have standards; like every tune needs to be this BPM and the drums have to have this kind of approach. But for me, fear is limiting, and we don’t want to limit ourselves. So the progressive thing is an outcome of the approach, rather than saying from the beginning “Let’s be prog.”

Fucking Metal Album Reviews

DemiGodRaven | thenumberoftheblog.com

After what one could only assume to be the discovery of my somewhat glowing review of the group at the Misery Index show (that Despised Icon happened to be headlining…) Jack Ketch sent us an email with a pretty brief headline that asked us to please review their new release Bringers Of The Dawn. After having been somewhat won over by their performance during the show, which was impressive given the twenty minute set time I’ll admit that I was interested in picking up the review. Bringers Of The Dawn is an interesting listen that straddles the line between Tech-Death and the slower more crawling style that was made popular by the Florida scene for a little while. Bringers Of The Dawn is seven tracks long and each tune flows into one another, with some of the songs starting almost immediately after another has ended giving the whole release the feeling of being a far longer disc than it actually is; and helping to reveal the unifying theme between for the whole disc.

Jack Ketch are a surprisingly solid band, one that seems to have bucked the stigma that tends to come along when the word ‘local’ is used to describe the group. The band itself is pretty tech-death in it’s fundamentals although it doesn’t really come through in it’s playing on Bringers Of The Dawn. It really comes through live, though. There isn’t much in the way of the guitar wankery that has seemingly dominated the genre on Bringers Of The Dawn. Instead it is actual used mostly to keep the songs crawling along, or to create atmosphere with much of the more dynamic stuff being left to the drums as they blast through each song. The only way you can tell the genre that the group has fallen into is that they pack one hell of a bassist in their ranks (although this could be largely because he was in front of me the whole show), the group has chosen a sci-fi theme for this disc judging by the album art and song titles like ‘Enslavement Of Man’, and their love of constant starting/stopping in their tunes, as well as their love of shifting time signatures. For being a four piece it’s actually surprising how well the band nails their performances of these songs live including album closer ‘Gamma Ray’, which affords their lead singer the ability to get off the stage and mosh it out with the crowd for a bit.

Bringers Of The Dawn is an incredibly slow crawl, more akin to being fed into the gears of a machine. Even though only two songs clear the six minute mark (with the rest falling anywhere between two and four) and the album only bears seven track the band’s chosen mid-tempo speed makes them this release just seem to lurch forward. This is a very thick feeling disc with it’s movement speed closer to that of the blob than it’s much quicker death metal counterparts. The way the album sounds has quite a bit to do with the way it feels like an eternity has passed while listening though. Bringers Of The Dawn sounds a bit flat and it does the album a disservice as there really is some good music buried in here. The problem lay in the fact that the mix sounds a bit like the guitars are at 100, the bass is at 100, the drummer is at 100 and the vocalist loses out in this imaginary battle by being topped out at about 85. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some incredibly cool stuff happening on Bringers Of The Dawn, it just means that it’s a bit harder to find. It also means that this isn’t a release that will immediately grab you like a lot of more revered albums will, this is one that if you invest time in it you will find yourself enjoying but it’s also understandable where someone wouldn’t be willing to pay the price of entry to be ground up and spat out the other side of this disc.

One of the first tracks that actually really stood out and perked my interest on this release actually came way later on in the disc. The song is called ‘Hope For The Faithless’ and despite the fact that is in in large part just an interlude, the cool atmosphere created by the echo effect going on in the background really set up the following ass kicking that was the song ‘Gamma Ray’. Jack Ketch’s writing style is honestly one that if taken at face value seems to be kind of boring, it’s only when you really begin to notice the subtleties hidden in the music that you can find yourself really enjoying their brand of metal. At first it seems like Bringers Of The Dawn is a goddamn slow disc, but everything that happens on here tends to happen with a purpose. You just need to find it first. Any blast beats that happen on this release for instance, don’t happen because the guitarist decided ‘Holy Fuck! I’m gonna trem-pick my way through this tune!’ leaving the drummer with few options other than just gravity blasting his way through it. The drums here are much more groove focused as there’s much more emphasis on the double bass pedal being used to slam it’s way through the various riffs that are thrown out. Despite the previous mentions of the guitars being used a lot to create this atmosphere of being a slow crawl, that doesn’t mean they don’t get their time to shine as there are some smaller hidden leads throughout this whole release, especially in the latter movements of the album where he gets to use the clean channel a bit to make some acoustic sections. ‘Rise Of The New Order’ is a tune that pretty much exemplifies Bringers Of The Dawn though, with it’s slow leviathan-esque pace.

There are some flaws with Bringers Of The Dawn that prevent it from being a fucking incredible experience but it is honestly a breath of fresh air in a scene dominated by scene kid bullshit. Jack Ketch are a talented bunch of musicians that deserve at least a solid glance at, and hopefully will be one of the groups to escape the local tag. Bringers Of The Dawn is a fucking solid release by a fucking solid band, bar none. It won’t immediately grab you and it takes a bit of work to get into but after a bit it just seems to grow on you. The way it sort of shambles along like a zombie and then just seems to suddenly pick up for a bit before going right back to it’s much slower movements sets up a very dynamic release. It’s a seven track release that seems to be infinitely longer than that and it has quite the cost of entry but in the end Bringers Of The Dawn will pay off for you.

Score 4.5 out of 6

Weekly Dose Of Death Review: Jack Ketch – Bringers Of The Dawn

Scott W | hookinmouth.net

Jack Ketch. Sounds like just any other name, right? It’s actually an infamous name in history, but one you probably didn’t learn about in school. Jack Ketch was a 17th century executioner for England’s King Charles II. Unfortunately for Ketch, he botched a bunch of executions, sometimes bringing about undue suffering to the persons being executed. And there is your Hook In Mouth history lesson for the day.

Jack Ketch is a Sacramento, California based that delves in to a slightly progressive side of death metal. Bringers Of The Dawn is their second album and packs a nice punch. Honestly I kind of expected another deathcore band when I first started to familiarize myself with Jack Ketch. Of course that was before I had a chance to listen to their music. I’m certainly glad that I was wrong.

Bringers Of The Dawn has a nice mix of technicality and melody without going overboard and becoming redundant. Corey Parks does a nice job with his riffs and while his solos aren’t total overboard wankery, they flow nicely within the songs and feel well placed. Squeek Jones’ bass guitar feels like it’s in all the right places as well. His bass tone is soft and warm, whereas some death metal bands choose to keep the bass distorted and punchy which doesn’t always mix well. Garret Garvey’s drumming complements Jack Ketch’s sound while still sounding organic and not over-machined or triggered. Sometimes it is difficult for me to listen to a band when their drum sound and tone sounds too triggered and fast for their own good. Vocalist Nick Bakkie’s growls are good and audible, although I sometimes don’t like the layered effect they use with both deep and high pitched screams.

The concept of this album consists of what I can only assume is an alien invasion and how mankind will react and the effects of the invasion. The songs seem very stream-lined and flow well from one song to another. I’m not sure how their first album sounds, but if this Sacramento group can continue with their talent, I see nothing but progression in their future. Somehow they actually set themselves apart from most of the modern death metal bands these days. My only real complaint about this album is that it ends too soon.

Review: Jack Ketch, Bringers of the Dawn

Natalie Perez | barebonesmusic.com

One album down and another on the way Sacramento, Californians Jack Ketch is set to release their second album titled Bringers Of The Dawn. Since the release of In Articulo Mortis, (2009) the band has focused upon perfecting their progressive source of style and sound that they have maintained to develop.

As such, the follow-up is indeed quite impressive yet precisely progressive as their inscription precedes them to be. Take for instance the opening track “The Arrival”, after a 50 second mellow introduction you immediately get thrown with this fast paced atomic wave of energy that instantly explodes upon the title track. This tune keeps the energy maintained by progressing it forward with edgy guitar riffs hard hitting growls with fast beating drum tones that it bashes it altogether. "Decimated Deputation", provides an even faster rate of beats whereas the previous tunes just held onto it.

"Hope for the Faithless", express a flip-flop effect because it turns all of that progressive and flips it upside down by presenting this instrumental track that goes down the lines of sounding just like Opeth. But as soon as this tune descends the flip-flop is put back into effect with "Gamma Ray" a concluding tune that really rattles your bones right to the core.

If Opeth and Between the Buried and Me were to ever have a baby then Jack Ketch would be the new born on the scene and would forever cease havoc on our hopeless society.

Fucking Metal Concert Reviews

DemiGodRaven | thenumberoftheblog.com

Jack Ketch actually surprised me. Now I don’t know if it was because I was just tired of the deathcore stuff and these guys were more along the lines of progressive death but I found myself enjoying these guys quite a bit. They are a four piece hailing from Sacramento and have some pretty thick tunes. They don’t immediately grab you but they seemed to be able to get the crowd moving quite a bit. It helps that their bassist has a really good stage presence and is just flying across that fucking fretboard at certain times. During the last song their lead guy jumped out into the pit which was interesting to see. Judging by the band’s MySpace and their album art there seems to be a bit of sci-fi concept involved, although it’s going to take a deeper look for me to really understand it. Either way the band was able to win me over that night so it’s worth a shot to check out.

Your Music Magazine Interview

Jon Hermison | Your Music Magazine

You guys joined on to the Your Music Olympics last minute but the band has a new album coming out, right?

Nick: It’s our third release, but 2nd full length album. It’s called Bringers of the Dawn.

Squeak: It’s put on by Transmedia Records.

Was the recording done locally?

Squeek: We recorded everything at a studio in Portland called The Magic Closet; we spent a long time going back and forth.

Corey: It wasn’t that long - I did guitars in eleven hours. Nick: Yeah, I did vocals eight hours straight.

Squeek: Uh, I did bass for four days.

Ha! Where were you man?

Squeek: I was trying. So you have the release party and also releasing the album digitally?

Nick: Oh yeah, it will be on iTunes, Rhapsody, all the major online retailers. And where will the party be? Nick: It’s actually here (Boardwalk). October 1st with Despise Icon and Nightmare in Twilight.

Is this the original lineup for Jack Ketch?

Nick: No, we started with a different drummer and guitarist about two and a half years ago, and we’ve been with this lineup for a little over a year now. We’ve built more of a family and to us it’s the original lineup because we sort of started at square one because we rewrote everything and went a whole new direction.

So a clean slate?

Nick: We figured, why dwell on the past when we could just write something that could express the new lineup?

That’s available at the October 1st show?

Squeek: It’ll be available for pre-sale as well, you can find it on jackketch.com or anywhere on the web.

Do you find it difficult to have your own website with the social networking sites out there?

Nick: No, Myspace is kind of dying, Facebook is not entirely music, and it’s such a small piece of the picture throughout the world, so an actual website is a base for the whole world to come and see you.

Big plans for touring after the album hits?

Squeek: Mostly on the West Coast, San Diego, Vegas. Maybe three weeks at a time, hit the road, stay local. Cory: Trying to get more support before we do something bigger, so we don’t go out and stay broke the whole time.

Hell yeah, man. Bringers of the Dawn coming out October first, good luck to you guys.

OurStage Featured Artist

Jordan Munson | OurStage.com

Neighbors to one of the decade’s biggest and most prominent areas for brutally heavy music (aka: the Bay Area), Sacramento is trying to put itself on the map, and death metal band Jack Ketch is helping the city to do just that. With two incredibly strong and heavy releases in the last two years, Jack Ketch is pulling no punches and is out for blood. We chatted with them to see how things were going, and where the band is headed next.

Our Stage: Your album Bringers of the Dawn was released in October, it’s a bit different than 2009’s In Articulo Mortis. Do you attribute this more to lineup changes or a conscious decision to vary your sound?

JK: Jack Ketch: I think a little of both really, we are constantly experimenting and growing as a band. When we made the lineup change towards the end of 2009 we just wanted to come out fresh. We felt we had so many great ideas we didn't want to limit ourselves to the old sound and just create a whole new beast. We are not even close to done yet, we just keep on writing and evolving.

OS: You’ve drawn comparisons between your band and bands like Opeth and Between the Buried and Me, whom are significantly more “progressive” than your two albums. Do you see your band moving more in that direction in future releases? How about clean vocal parts?

JK: Those are two huge influences on us and helped push us in the more progressive direction we have gone. As far as future releases, who knows where we'll go? We have been working on some more progressive stuff as well as more brutal death metal stuff. Incorporating clean vocals is something we have been working on with some of the newer songs also. We write constantly and have so much depth and options that we can really take this any direction we decide, so it will probably come down to just which songs we feel are the best.

OS: Both of your albums have been released through Transmedia Records, how did you link up with them, and end up being their first release/band?

JK: Transmedia Records is a great start up label and fully supports us in everything we do. We recorded both albums up in Portland, OR at a studio called The Magic Closet. While up there we were referred to these guys in Berkley that were starting up their own label. We talked for a while back and forth about music, the industry and what we were both looking to get out of it. We just felt everyone was on the same page and could really benefit from working together and helping each other out. It's kind of a family and I see big things for both of us coming in the near future.

OS: You’ve played a lot of shows on the west coast, how long until you start planning shows further to the east?

JK: The West Coast is our home and we've just been working on building that solid foundation here before we start moving outward. I feel it coming soon though. Moving East is definitely something we are going to be looking to do, but it's nowhere near the end of the line for us. I just spent some time in Germany last month and talked about maybe heading over to Europe for a tour possibly next year. We were also hit up to play a huge festival in India this November, but unfortunately because of the dates we had to decline. Anywhere in the world is a possibility for us, we are just building up our name and trying to do things the smartest way possible.

OS: The artwork for Bringers of the Dawn is pretty intricate, is there a story behind it (and, does it coincide with the album’s content)?

JK: Oh definitely, everything about this album coincides with one another. We wanted to create not just a concept album but a bit of an experience. We put a ton of work into it and wanted to tell a story, not only with the lyrics, but also with the songs and the imagery. Reading through the lyrics it's a story of an invasion of the Earth with a battle for the survival of humanity. There are many more underlying ideas hidden within there, but that is for the listener to find and decide upon for themselves.

OS: After going through various lineup changes in your few years as a band, do you think you’ve finally settled on a more permanent one?

JK: Well we've actually only gone through one lineup change, but it consisted of the guitarist and drummer at the same time. We were surprised how quickly we picked up two new members and got back to things. But that just shows you how perfect this line up is for us. With everyone so focused and on the same page we couldn't be happier about the current lineup and have gotten such a great response from the new music.

OS: If you had to pick any three bands to share a bill with (alive or dead), whom would you choose?

JK: I'm sure we all would have completely different answers to this. The four of us listen to so many different varieties of music that it would be all across the board. I would probably say Iron Maiden, Corey would want Kamelot, I'm sure Garrett would pick Opeth, and for Squeek most likely Guns N Roses, but I'm sure they would cancel anyways. Haha! I know that's four bands, if GNR even shows up, but talk about an epic show!

Rhys' Re:Viewz Vol.40. - 40 Days & 40 Amps

Rhys Stevenson | truecultheavymetal.com

Seems very common these days for Deathcore bands to be emerging out of the USA in particular and they all seem to sound the same, apart from Jack Ketch that is, the Californian quartet return with their sophomore full-length entitled 'Bringers Of The Dawn', a blend of straight-edge Death Metal and the Deathcore that when mixed sounds too extreme, just how it is meant to sound. Blastbeats firing out till the machineguns round's are used up and a soprano of the heaviest proportions, it's like this, Whitechapel are corporate Deathcore, Jack Ketch are underground Deathcore, major difference is Jack Ketch are the 'Bringers Of The Dawn'.

8.5 out of 10