Brand New Sin
by Rick Florino/photos by Laura Brazak
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Great guitar riffs have an inherent power to stay in your head long after you’ve heard them. Think of any great riff that you’ve heard, whether it's Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” Pantera’s “Walk,” or Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” Those riffs all remain extremely memorable long after their respective songs have ended. Unfortunately, ever since the advent of nu metal and the growing popularity of extreme metal and dissonant hardcore, riff-based hard rock bands have become harder and harder to find. However, on their latest release Recipe for Disaster, Syracuses’s Brand New Sin have cooked up the tastiest batch of riff rock since Down’s masterpiece Down II: A Bustle In Your Hedgerow.
About their style, Brand New Sin vocalist Joe Altier comments, “Ninety-five percent of everything that we write stems from the riffs. We’re a riff-oriented band. The primary people who put the songs together are our guitar players, Kris Wiechmann and Kenny Dunham. Not many bands are doing that riff thing. I love riffs, and we all grew up listening to riff-oriented bands like Sabbath, Maiden, Priest and Danzig. There’s not enough of that right now.”
Brand New Sin have stepped in to fill that vacancy and consequentially they have grown immensely since their self-titled debut. Their new record features some infectious riffs that seriously groove unlike anything else out there, especially tracks such as “The Loner,” Brown Street Betty,” and “Days are Numbered.” Moreover, like all great rock bands, Brand New Sin possess the diversity to write some great melodic songs, including the acoustic “Running Alone” and epic bluesy closer “Wyoming.” To match the dynamics of the songs, Joe sings with charisma, while achieving incredible melodic heights at all the right moments.
The band has been evolving over that period of time, and they have completely embraced their hard rock roots. Joe analyzes the band’s evolution saying, “This record has found what Brand New Sin is going to be all about, which is more or less a bunch of headbangers that play rock and roll. We’ve got a little bit of metal and a little bit of rock. We just try to take the best of everything from all of our influences and what had happened to us over the past couple years. During this process, I think we really matured as songwriters and as friends. It really comes out on this record and will definitely come out in the future as well.” Their evolution truly becomes evident over the course of Recipe’s 15 tracks, especially during the captivating closer “Wyoming,” which showcases the band’s songwriting talent.
Joe exclaims, “Wyoming’s one of our favorites songs on the
record. That’s one of those songs that we had written and it just
got shoved away for a little while. One day though, our bass player Chuck
pulled it out on a disc and wrote some lyrics. At one time all of us we
were really into watching classic westerns like The Good the Bad and the
Ugly and movies along that line and the lyrics are kind of based upon
that. Chuck got a really good idea and it fit the mood of that song. It
was really dark and wide open and we were looking for a song like this.
All of our favorite records always had this ending song that just caps
everything off, an opus more or less and when we finally got the finished
Wyoming we realized that was the song.” The song itself serves as
the perfect ending for the album’s hard rock journey and could not
be a better way for these hard rock gunslingers to show their evolution.
Brand New Sin at heart have a real honesty and purity that’s all too often absent from music these days. Joe acknowledges his band’s different nature in the scene, “There aren’t many of us out there doing this. The reason why Brand New Sin came about was because most of my guys were in a more metalcore type band and everyone wanted to branch out and do something different, a little bit left of center. That’s basically where Brand New Sin was born. We’re just looking to write really good music. The first record got good reviews and everything else, but a lot of people would either call us dated or just didn’t really know what to say. There’s not many of us doing that hard rock thing, but I think there’s a slow turn now. Definitely with the growing popularity of Black Label Society and the return of Corrosion of Conformity, there are a lot of people out there who want that. A lot of the younger kids are starting to get into that as well. Fans are just sick of hearing a million cookie cutter metalcore bands right now. Everyone’s looking for the next thing and we’re hoping that it’s this.”
That being said, the band’s pairing with Black Label Society for a fall tour could not be more perfect. Both bands are hardworking touring bands, and they plan on destroying this fall, while maintaining a family vibe. About the tour, Joe says, “We got a phone call in the middle of July from Zakk and his manager saying, ‘We’re going out this fall and we really want to do a family tour and bring out some friends.’ This time we can do it right because the last time we went out on tour with BLS it was only about thirteen days. However, this is the opportunity to play some thirty shows, a little over five weeks, and play to much larger crowds. So when they asked us if we wanted to do a tour, it was a no-brainer.”
These bands both keep the fire of pure hard rock alive and anyone that experiences the show won’t soon forget it. Brand New Sin looks to bring their own brand of hard rock to the general public, and this tour is the perfect launch pad. Joe states, “I think the Black Label tour is going to be really the starting point to this whole process of our record and getting it out to people and getting record sales up and exposing ourselves to the masses.” Joe and the rest of his cohorts remain patient and focused on being in this for the long run.
Altier also realizes the inherent power in his band to provide fans with a reprieve from everything else. He exclaims, “Living in this world right now is probably scarier than it’s ever been. We’re at war, always having to worry about terrorism, the gas prices are through the roof, good jobs are hard to find. All of our industry back home has pulled out over the past ten years, and it’s a very bleak environment. Then you see things like Hurricane Katrina. It’s a very dark time, and metal is not happy, it’s dark and always has been. People are trying to find an outlet, either getting it out of themselves by playing in a band, or second of all, listening to something to get their aggressions out and not do something stupid.”
However, Brand New Sin separate themselves from many of their whinier,
more self-absorbed contemporaries. Joe states, “We write about a
lot of good things. We don’t really whine about how horrible life
is, that "mommy and daddy didn’t give us enough attention when
we were kids, school sucked," and all that. We want people to come
to our shows, have a couple of drinks, and just forget about things for
a little bit. I know when I go onstage regardless of what’s going
on in my day, there’s that 45 minutes that everything disappears.
It’s the best drug there is. When you get done you feel good and
you can take a breath for a little bit and hang out with all of your fans.
That’s what we do.”
If any band can keep riff rock alive in the 21st century, it’s Brand New Sin with their tireless work ethic and reverence for the genre. Joe states, “We’re doing what we’ve always wanted to do. We go up onstage just as we woke up in the morning, and I think the realism that comes from Brand New Sin is that we’re just down to earth dudes. We take our personalities and turn ‘em up on a little bit on stage. There’s nothing fake about it, no fancy light shows and elaborate stage setups, we just walk in and play.” Anyone that catches them live will realize that’s all this band needs to do, and that this is hard rock that does everything right.
