Scarlet Anger: Thrash Attack from Luxembourg

Scarlet Anger: Thrash Attack from Luxembourg

Meet Scarlet Anger, presenting an almighty thrash attack from deep in the heart of Luxembourg!   The band has just unleashed two new singles entitled Hunger and No Time, placing the pedal to the metal for their upcoming Martyr full length manifesto.  The band has been raging relentlessly since 2007, and are committed to unleash their sonic assault force to metal fans all over the world.  Highwire Daze recently caught up with bassist Vincent Niclou to find out more about the super intensive music of Scarlet Anger!  Read on…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Scarlet Anger, and how long the band has been together.
Hi, I’m Vince, the bass player from Scarlet Anger. The band was founded by our singer Joe and our guitar player and main songwriter Fred in 2007. I wasn’t a founder of the band, but the first member who joined the band in 2007.

Where is the band based out of and what is the local music scene like there?
We’re all from Luxembourg, Europe, except our drummer Rod who is a French guy living in France just behind the border. As our country is only 2586 km2 (998,46 mi2), so you can say that we all are based in the same area. Without a traffic jam, you can drive in between 1 hour through our country.

I think our music scene and of course the metal scene is very strong regarding the size of our country. There are many metal bands in Luxembourg, not as much as in Scandinavia, but with 144 metal bands per million people we’re far over many other countries (Encyclopaedia Metallum, 2016). Besides us, there are long lasting bands with an history longer than 10 years like Desdemonia, Sublind, Cosmogon, Abstract Rapture, …

Is there any overall story or concept behind the album title Martyr?
Our last output Freak Show was a bit of a conceptual album with stories from old horror movies. Horror and B-Movies are big influences for Fred and Joe. Fred even created a cover for every song on the album. Check the booklet, it’s worth seeing it. But, we’ll see where our new album Martyr takes us lyrically. The music is written, but some lyrics are still missing.

Select two songs from Martyr and what inspired the lyrics?
So I pick our 2 singles those are already published on all the current streaming platforms.

The first one was “No Time”. There’s an old man whose time is about to expire. A depressing and oppressive situation. He couldn’t use his time properly in today’s society. They often sacrifice their precious time for things that don’t matter, forgetting that we only have a certain amount of time in life to use it properly.

The second song is “Hunger”. The song title refers to the central theme of the song, which is the insatiable greed and inner hunger that drives us. The term “Hunger” symbolizes the intense longing and desire for more, whether it be material or immaterial.

Who produced Martyr and what was it like working with them?
Fred is not only our main songwriter, he’s also our producer. Fred is very talented and actually very pedantic when it comes to the sound of the songs. As a result, our albums always take a little longer to be released, but at the end of the process we are all always very happy with the result.

However, we continue to leave the actual mastering in professional hands. On “Freak Show” this was Jens Bogren and on “Dark Reign” Jeff Waters. We still discuss who will do the mastering for “Martyr”.

Who did the cover art for Martyr and how much input did you have on it?
The cover art for the album isn’t done yet. Maybe we’ll take, for the first time in our history, a cool picture from us, but we’ll see.

The singles “No Time” and “Hunger” had their own covers. That was actually a German painter from the 19th century. By the way, Joe has the originals in his home.

When you look back on your first album Dark Reign from 2012, what do you think of it now in retrospect?
We’re still very proud of it. It was really thrashy and catchy. It was fresh as it was our first LP. Maybe the production isn’t as good as the new album will be, but we still really like Dark Reign. We still play a lot of songs of the album. “My Battlefield” and “New God Rising” are live “classics”. “Prince of the Night” is perhaps the thrashiest song we’ve done till now.

What could one expect from a live Scarlet Anger show?
It sounds trite, but we always give 110%. We all have our day jobs, so we enjoy our shows to the fullest without any financial issues. Even if there were fewer people, the main thing is that the people who were there had a good time with us.

If Scarlet Anger could open for any band either now or from the past, who would it be and why?
For Jeff, Rod and myself it would surely be Maiden. For Joe and Fred it would be Metallica. You see, even in our band, there is still a discussion who of the 2 bands is actually the bigger metal band. We grew up with the bands and everyone of us has so many memories connected to those 2 bands.

Are you involved with any other bands or projects outside of Scarlet Anger?
Jeff has together with Rod his own Maiden tribute band “Edhunters”.  Joe and Fred are writing music together for their whole life. They are so used one to another that an engagement in another band is unthinkable ;). I used to be in other bands, but today I’m not involved anywhere else. Honestly, there should be a really cool project presenting to me that I’ll engage myself once more for a second band.

What’s up next for Scarlet Anger?
Playing some shows in summer and finalizing the album to finally be released at the end of 2023.

Any final words of wisdom?
Have a good time, enjoy summer. Cheers.

LINE-UP:
Joe Block • Vocals
Jeff Buchette • Guitars
Fred Molitor • Guitars
Vincent Niclou • Bass
Rod Sovilla • Drums

(Interview by Ken Morton)

Scarlet Anger on Instagram