CZARCIE KOPYTO PEDALS & PRECISION KICKS TRIGGERS ENDORSEMENT, NEW HADAL MAW SINGLE & EP

After the cancellation of the Hadal Maw tour in August, the Freedom of Fear tour in September, and the Dyssidia/Alarum tour in October due to Covid, it’s nice to have some good news! I am very proud to now be endorsing Czarcie Kopyto pedals from Poland and Precision Kicks triggers from Melbourne. I announced this on my socials a couple of months ago, but I’m finally getting around to posting it here.

Here’s what I had to say about joining the CK team:

“I could not be happier with my new Czarcie Kopyto pedals - I was flying on these pedals straight out of the box with no adjustments! I'm not really much of a drum gear guy, but the engineering of these pedals is absolutely phenomenal. Everything is so easy to adjust and I can tell that these pedals will last pretty much forever. Now that I have my Czarcie's, nothing is holding me back now.”

I’m also loving the Precision Kicks triggers which sit underneath the pedals and trigger the kick drum sample when the footboard connects with the trigger head. Double triggers and misfires are now a thing of the past!

Hadal Maw have also recently released the first single and video from our EP which will be released on New Years Eve. After being a fan of Hadal Maw since their inception in 2012, it’s a pretty cool feeling to hear my drums on their music!

DYSSIDIA TOUR WITH ALARUM, PLUS SHOWS WITH HADAL MAW & FREEDOM OF FEAR

It’s been a while since I last posted here so there’s a few things to catch up on. Since the start of the year, Dyssidia have played two sold out hometown shows, one of which was a 70 minute set! Just playing a show that doesn’t get cancelled is quite a novelty these days. We were supposed to be playing the massive (sold out) Froth and Fury Fest this weekend, but that has been postponed due to the current Adelaide Covid lockdown which is coming to an end tomorrow with certain restrictions to remain. The following weekend was also supposed to be the start of the Hadal Maw tour, but those shows have had to be postponed as well with Covid cases all along the east coast. Quite a bummer to say the least.

On the plus side, Hadal Maw will (hopefully) be playing the always awesome New Dead Festival in Adelaide which still has some tickets available:

Dyssidia recently announced our belated double album launch tour with Alarum with shows planned in October. This tour was originally supposed to have happened in April/May 2020 so we are very excited to finally launch or albums properly around the country! I may be also drumming for Alarum as I have done in the past if they are unable to find a Melbourne drummer. Tickets available from alarum.com.shows

Finally, I will be playing with Adelaide’s Freedom of Fear (FoF) on the Disentomb tour in September. FoF is Corey from Dyssidia’s other band and features LOTS of blast beats…..fast ones too. These will be some challenging shows and I’ll have to make sure I warm up thoroughly before each set to make sure I can execute the speed and endurance required to play their songs live. I’m a pretty big Disentomb fan (perfect gym music) so I’m really looking forward to this one!

NEW IVANYI & DYSSIDIA PLAYTHROUGHS

Happy New Year! Late last year I recorded and filmed two playthrough videos in the Adelaide Uni Studio which is an amazing sounding room. The first was one of the new tracks from James Norbert Ivanyi’s latest album released in October 2020 entitled Omen Faustum. The track I chose is Rubik’s Grand Convolution which is quite possibly the most difficult track on the album. I had to write out the drum parts in guitar pro (shout out to the Music Speed Changer app which made it possible to transcribe the parts so accurately!) because there is so much crazy detail going on with the drums parts. For context, I have been James’ live drummer since 2016 but the drums on his releases have always been recorded by David Horgan who is an extremely creative and skilled drummer. So it took me about 2 months to transcribe and learn the parts to get them up to speed to film this video!

Head to the Transcriptions section of my website to check out the drum transcription for this track (includes PDF and guitar pro file).

The second song I recorded and filmed in this session was the track Infinitesimal by my band Dyssidia. This is the third playthrough I have released from our album Costly Signals, which was released in March 2020. As our album launch tour was cancelled due to Covid, we haven’t played live since 2019, but we will soon be announcing an Adelaide album launch show in March to commemorate the 1 year anniversary of the album release which I am very excited about!

VIRGIL DONATI COVER & SECOND DYSSIDIA PLAYTHROUGH FROM COSTLY SIGNALS

A couple of months ago I was in the studio tracking the drums for a new Adelaide metal band, so I thought I would make use of the studio time and prepare one of the toughest Virgil Donati songs that I had been learning over the past couple of months. This track 'Native Metal' is from the 1999 album Serious Young Insects by On the Virg. The whole thing is just a total obstacle course of terrifying fills and was very difficult to get down, but I’m happy with the result! Thanks to Jason Mildwaters at JLM Studios for editing the vid.

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After releasing the drum playthrough for the Dyssidia track ‘Thrive’ a few months ago (scroll down to see it), we released the second playthrough for the track ‘Metamorphosis’. Hope you like it!

On the gig front, I'll be playing my first show since January (due to Covid) next weekend with Voros at a seated show at Enigma Bar. Then the night after, I'll be filling in again for Attonbitus at a seated show at Jive next door to Enigma! Very much looking forward to getting back out there even if people have to remain seated :)

FIRST DYSSIDIA PLAYTHROUGH FROM COSTLY SIGNALS OUT NOW + COVID PRACTISE!

Stay tuned for the next playthrough video in the coming weeks. We have also posted a couple of videos with footage from the guitar, bass, keyboard, vocal and drum recording sessions on our YouTube channel.

Even though gigs haven’t been possible for the past few months due to Covid, I have actually really enjoyed being able to focus my time on learning some very difficult tunes by Animals as Leaders, Virgil Donati and Nova Collective by learning from the drum transcriptions made available by these drummers. There’s nothing more rewarding than approaching a piece of music that is initially so daunting, breaking it down and slowly increasing the tempo on the metronome until you can play the whole section or song. I have already seen my playing and improvisation improve drastically as a result of digging in heavily into these songs.

If anyone is interested in learning the music of Virgil Donati, he has a book called Ultimate Play-Along Drum Trax which has a bunch of charts and insights into how some of the mind bending rhythmic sections work. Matt Gartska (Animals as Leaders) also has all the transcriptions from the last two AAL albums available to purchase on his website.

Here’s one of the epic sections I’ve been learning by Nova Collective. The transcriptions including guitar pro files for their album are available to purchase at mattlynchdrummer.com. Highly recommend. Check out my Instagram for more.

DYSSIDIA RELEASE NEW ALBUM + HADAL MAW RECORDING

Looking at my last post, it turns out that 2020 won’t be such a big year after all! Gig bans due to the Coronavirus mean that the Dyssidia/Alarum dual album launch tour has had to be postponed to later in the year. On the plus side, the new Dyssidia album ‘Costly Signals’ was released not long ago on the 27th of March and has been met with some really great feedback and positive reviews! You can purchase the new album on CD and vinyl here and stream it/download it wherever you get your music. I recently filmed some drum playthroughs for a few of the album tracks, so I’ll be posting those over the next few months.

Shortly before the government got serious with the Coronavirus measures, I went to Melbourne to rehearse with the Hadal Maw guys and track the drums for a couple of new singles. I ended up recording 4 songs so it was a productive session! There’s a few videos on my Instagram page of the drum tracking, but here’s one I uploaded to YouTube.

Hadal Maw played in Adelaide in early January where we played the track Failed Harvest for the first time. Hands down one of the hardest songs I have ever learned…frankly, I’m suprised at how well I pulled it off! I posted it to Facebook and Instagram shortly after the gig but just put it on my YouTube channel:

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2020 IS SET TO BE A BIG ONE!

Happy New Year all! Since I last posted, I have played a couple more shows with Hadal Maw and also joined the band! Here’s the full set from the Brisbane show in October:

I’ve also been learning some new Hadal Maw material which has of course been very challenging. I’m looking forward to heading back to Melbourne in the coming weeks to start jamming the new tunes out with the guys. We will be playing an Adelaide show with my band Voros in a couple of days at the Crown and Anchor which should be an awesome show.

Dyssidia are preparing to release our new album around March this year with an Australian tour to follow with Alarum, who I will also be playing with (double sets seem to be the theme for 2020!). This album has been a long time in the making and we’re all really proud of the end result, so we can’t wait to get it out there and start playing some shows again.

Finally, James Norbert Ivanyi will be releasing his new album shortly after Dyssidia, so there will be tours with him to follow as well! 2019 was a bit quiet on the gig front, but 2020 looks like it will more than compensate for that with plenty of big shows!

Wishing everyone a fun and productive year and thanks for everyone who has supported me and my bands over the last decade :)

Footage from ALARUM & IVANYI shows + Fill in gig with HADAL MAW (Melb)

I’ve been extremely slack about posting updates this past year, but here’s a quick update of what’s been going on. The Alarum tour with Obscura back in late March was awesome - so cool to see Obscura and Sebastian Lanser (drums) show everyone what it truly means to be at the top of the tech-death game. Here’s some footage from the Sydney show at the Factory Theatre. There’s a bit of a drum solo at 1:47 if you want to skip to that bit!

The next few months following the Alarum shows were pretty quiet on the gig front, although Voros supported Phil Anselmo in March and played at the massive HEAVY SA Fest in April which were both great shows. I also kept busy by doing a few fill-in gigs with local reggae/alt rock band Attonbitus.

I was on Channel 7 recently as the James Norbert Ivanyi band was featured on the ‘Guitar Gods and Masterpieces’ show on 7Plus. This pro-shot footage was from the Melbourne PROGFEST show back in late January:

The IVANYI band just played the Melbourne Guitar Show last weekend which was a fun gig to play. The full set was posted on the Melbourne Guitar Show facebook page. We finished our set at 3pm on Saturday, then I went straight to the airport to play a headlining set with my band Dyssidia back in Adelaide! That was a big day.

The Dyssidia album is getting sent off to be mixed this week by renowned German engineer V. Santura (Obscura, Panzerballet) so stay tuned for more news on that shortly!

In other news, I will be filling in for Rob Brens in one of my favourite bands HADAL MAW at a new venue in Melbourne called the Geddes Lane Ballroom on the 13th of September. Rob actually played in Alarum and Ivanyi before me funnily enough! It’s been incredibly challenging learning the Hadal Maw set but it’s certainly been rewarding! Dyssidia will also be playing this show so it’s going to be another big day/night!