Western Australia, despite - or perhaps because of - it's geographical remoteness, has always been a hotbed of top shelve music across all genres, from Make Them Suffer and Karnivool, to Tame Impala and Pendulum.
One of the freshest acts from the Perth extreme metal scene making some serious noise is five-piece Allocer. Boasting a sound that pulls the best parts of the modern death metal world, their debut EP The First Offering is a surefire hit for anyone that loves blastbeats, guttural vocals, crushing breakdowns and explosive guitar work. We got to chatting with the hotly-tipped group and learned about their past, present and future plans.
Welcome to Wall of Sound! Please tell us, how did Allocer form, and have the band members been in any acts prior?
Getting the right lineup for the band has been a gradual process over the years with all of the current lineup having been in bands prior. Our guitarist Aaron played bass in the bands Ascension, our bassist Zac played in a band called Aviscerus, our drummer Hex played in Obscenium, our vocalist Joel used to play bass in Against the Tide and currently also does vocals for Paradise in Exile and our other guitarist Grant played in a band called Lessfaith and another called Constructs.
The band’s first incarnation started in Joel’s living room almost 10 years ago when he started jamming with a fellow metalhead he found at work and it continued to grow there over the years until our guitarist Grant joined around 5 years ago and helped guide the band’s sound to what it is today. With lots of lineup changes over the years we have finally gotten to a place where all of our members have the shared vision of pushing our band to be the best that it can be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVYF0_A1y5o&t=253s&pp=ygUMYWxsb2NlciBiYW5k
Your band name was inspired by the mythological fallen angel Allocer, who sports a lion's head and breathes fire - what drew you to this entity to be the namesake of your band?
Joel had the name for the band before he had any members for it and had two criteria when it came to naming the band; it had to be one word and it had to be named after a gnarly beast. Allocer fit the bill perfectly. There’s a lot of mythology and really interesting aspects to the demon Alloces (we use Allocer and a pro tip if you want us to think you’re cool is to pronounce it ‘Allo Sir) that we may end up exploring in the future for song inspiration. Also who wouldn’t want their band named after a Duke of Hell.
Your latest EP is fantastic. For those who missed it, The First Offering dropped back in June. What can you tell us about the songwriting process?
Almost all of the EP was written by jamming in the room with all of the current members at the time. We never really did any pre-production and would just build the songs each week and looking back it may have helped give some of the songs a bit more of an organic feel. We are really proud of each song we wrote in those sessions. we still have the old sheets of paper with the song structures and working titles on them. 'Rodent Vision' is a particularly funny one to look back on with the working title being “Bam Bamz” and the chorus’ being referred to as “Rompin” and “Stompin”. We’ve come a long way since then and utilise a lot of the modern tools available for songwriting and pre-production but we do try our best to stick to our old habits when it comes to songwriting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6yerBY19ZQ&pp=ygUMYWxsb2NlciBiYW5k
There’s a fair few different flavours of death metal on The First Offering - blackened, melodic, deathcore - who are your biggest influences as a band?
It’s a pretty vast canyon (crown) of influences we have as a band ranging from grindcore to deathcore and everything in between.
We think the mindset we had at the time was trying to create our own lovechild of The Black Dahlia Murder and Aborted but not being afraid to let a bit of our love for bands like Aversions Crown and Fit for an Autopsy bleed through into the songwriting process as well.
We wear our Black Dahlia Murder influence on our sleeve and aren’t afraid to show it but we think the main thing that we try to directly take from Dahlia is simply their sense of having fun listening to something that’s brutal and we hope we have achieved that with The First Offering and hope we continue to have in all of our songs. We hope that listeners can experience a story with every song and hopefully get transported to the dark little worlds we try to create each time they listen to them.
Blackened and symphonic-influenced death metal/deathcore has exploded in the last few years - what’s (in your opinion) the next step for the sub-genre?
There is a plethora of bands doing that sound currently, we think the new Mental Cruelty album Zwielicht has done the best job blending the 2 styles together [so do we!] - instead of the “here’s the black metal bit” in the middle of a straight deathcore or death metal song that some bands have been guilty of in our opinion but we believe it will likely continue to meld together over time and maybe end up developing some more defining features to create a completely new sub-genre.
Definitely can’t deny the impact Lorna Shore are having on the scene at the moment as well and they completely deserve it, the heaviness of that band is only matched by their talent as musicians. Lastly, to quote the almighty fallen one Trevor Strnad from The Black Dahlia Murder's 2009 Majesty DVD, it’s all probably going to end up in a contest between bands for who can blow raspberries into the microphone the heaviest.
Perth's heavy music scene is incredible to witness from afar, but what struggles would you say your band faces in comparison to others on the East side of the country?
Touring would have to be the biggest struggle, it goes both ways too, us getting over to the east coast to play and getting bands to make the trip out west to play shows here. We are fortunate to have a great heavy scene here in Perth though and we have some equally great venues to play so hopefully if we continue to grow bands will make the trip out to us on tour.
We have plans to get over to the east coast as soon as we can so hopefully you’ll be seeing us bring The First Offering over there sooner rather than later.
The First Offering packs some serious pace and massive breakdowns; metalheads always love to argue as to who was first to include breakdowns into death/extreme metal - who was the first act/s you heard combining beatdowns with blastbeats and other brutal elements?
Some of the first bands that come to mind would have to be bands like Dying Fetus, Suffocation and Despised Icon. ‘Furtive Monologue’ comes to mind as standing out from that time. Then when bands like Whitechapel, Carnifex, Job For A Cowboy and All Shall Perish came along that’s when the transition from death metal to deathcore became a bit more apparent.
We're keen for more from you all - what’s next on the horizon for Allocer following the release of The First Offering?
We’re currently hard at work recording our new single that’s a track that didn’t make the cut for the EP but has been completely rewritten with input from the current lineup and will be the first song from us to feature Zac and Aaron on it. Then we’ll be working on a 6 track EP split over 2 separate releases with each half designed to be a bit more of a focused sound, genre-wise, and showcase 2 different sides of the band and hopefully give people an idea of how we are wanted to push ourselves musically.
We also have some not yet announced gigs in the pipeline and plans for a music video that we’re going to try and make gnarly enough that it gets us kicked off YouTube.
I like the sound of that. Any final thoughts?
Hit us up on the Facebook and Instagram pages, we appreciate the like and or follow but we’re also all big music nerds so if you have any questions for us about the band, the songs, or just want to have a chat about guitars, blastbeats, proper guttural technique or Sawney Bean and his Inbred Horde we’re always down for it.
We’re all death metal merch fiends in the band so we hold our merch to a high standard and we think we have some pretty cool stuff on our Bandcamp that you should check out if you like the band.
We’d been sitting on this music for what felt like a lifetime and it felt amazing to finally have it out that for everyone to listen to. A massive thank you to everyone that’s listened to it, bought some merch and headbanged at a show. Hopefully we get to bring the good word of the ‘Loce across Australia and be the cause of some headbanging-related injuries soon in a city near you.
Interview by Andrew Kapper @Andrew Kapper
Allocer is Joel Pears on vocals | Aaron Cicanese on guitar | Grant Withers on guitar | Zac Kay on bass | Hexen Pannoz on drums
Stream ‘The First Offering’ here
Find the band of socials: Facebook | Instagram | Linktree
Allocer – The First Offering tracklisting
1. Canyon Crown
2. Cyanide Sleeper
3. Of Madness and Mercury
4. Rodent Vision
5. Crimson Countess
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo2bPV8XfF0&pp=ygUMYWxsb2NlciBiYW5k
