Bands like Taint from Wales and Trigger The Bloodshed from the UK (who are now touring with Meshuggah!!) are taking names and revering their craft, while the surreal metal onslaught of France’s Gojira seemingly can’t be stopped. Other French bands like the Quicksand meets Shellac of Sleeppers (two P’s!) and the musing and bruising of Le Mans' Powell truly shine as bright lights not to be overlooked at any cost, while the nation of Portugal, in particular, is just kicking ass lately. While established legends Moonspell are probably the best known heavy export of that country, recently wowing and slaying the metal hordes with 2008 magnum opus Night Eternal, other acts like the bewitching Ava Inferi and our subject for today’s interview, metal brawlers Crushing Sun, are gathering steam by enriching and enlightening while honoring metal and experimental music’s wide ranging palette.

Crushing Sun are standing at a crossroads, stylistically encompassing death metal, rock 'n’ roll and power charging heavy metal into a whole that is quite satisfying and furiously undeniable.
Vocalist Bruno "Jezus" Silva, has one of the best growls you’ll hear in ages, commanding and overflowing with conviction on the band’s new Major Label Industries release BIPOLAR. A split with fellow heavy-addicts EAK, who are more hardcore influenced, the BIPOLAR record is a testament of research, personal creativity and near overbearing catharsis you’ll love giving in to. Also of Portugal and responsible for one of the coolest feedback drenchers of the year, the Will Haven-esque song “White Rose”, EAK are a formidable pairing with Crushing Sun. BIPOLAR should be heard by a lot of whining emo brats and give them something to really cry about, motherfuckers!!

Crushing Sun’s standout “Sphere” revels in dissonant chord phrasings and relentless chug, hammering it’s energy home with a dark precision that is almost too much, forcing the listener to bow their head and grit their teeth like they were walking through a hail storm. Marco Silva on drums is a bad ass whirling dervish of chaos!

With Crushing Sun’s full length debut expected in 2009, start studying this act now. The BIPOLAR split is so much bang for your buck that it’s scary. Your neck will be so sore from head banging your friends and co-workers will wonder if you’ve been moonlighting as a “lot lizard”, aka. truck stop whore, from the mandatory whiplash recovery neck brace you’ll have to wear to the office!

I talked to Bruno Silva about Crushing Sun’s onslaught, their friendship with EAK and all the different sides and shapes of metal and rock n’ roll.

MORGAN Y. EVANS: Ok, Bruno! I love the BIPOLAR production, particularly on your side of the split CD. The sort of dry drum sound you’ve gotten this time around is great, almost a more stoner rock sounding snare. The production is cool, almost like a death ‘n’ roll band’s production, but you’re way more death metal in the influences. Parts remind me of Entombed a little bit. I vastly prefer your production and sound to, like, that band Despised Icon for instance, in that, while they have some good performances, your drums feel feasible and the recording doesn’t sound way too slick. It punches the guts.

BRUNO SILVA: Hey Morgan! We’re glad you liked our sound! We tried a different approach, production wise, because we felt that nowadays almost every “heavy” band has, what we call, a “plastic” production. We tried to sound as natural as possible without losing strength and “heaviness”.

MYE: Yeah, it works great!

BS: Thanks. That’s why we chose Dan Coutant from West West Side Studios to do the mixing. Since he comes from a rock ‘n’ roll/punk background, we thought that he could help us capture what we wanted, that death ‘n’ roll sound you pointed out. We wanted the drums to sound powerful without using triggers and too much “studio tricks”, so we tried to take advantage of the great acoustic sound that the drums we used had. About us sounding like Entombed at times… that’s one of the biggest compliments you could possibly do for us! [laughing] I love that band, their album Wolverine Blues is one of my favorite albums. But, even though we like that band, I can’t say that they were a major influence to our sound.

MYE: Well, on to the vocals. They remind me of death metal, but also sort of growling doom qualities. Have you heard the band November’s Doom? I could hear your band on a bill with a band like Taint as well as more straight up death metal bands.

BS: It looks like you know my taste in music very well! I love November’s Doom!! My musical background comes from death metal, mainly, but I love doom, sludge, and experimental. All of those genres are an influence to my vocal style. It’s curious you pointed out that we could “fit” in a bill with bands like Taint (I love them!) and death metal bands, because that’s precisely what happens with us!! Last week we played with a Swedish band named Icos, and they played a mix between sludge, doom and some Neurosis kind of stuff at times, and we loved sharing the stage with them, because there was a great chemistry between our sound and theirs. But we will also play in October with bands like Benediction and Nominon, who are death metal all the way, and I’m sure we will have that same chemistry with them as we had with Icos. I’m certain that it will be a killer show! In the past, we’ve played with bands so varied as Knut, Mumakil, Fleshcrawl, Brujeria, Enslaved, Mnemic, so you are right when you say that we can “fit” a bill with different sounding bands, because our sound combines different elements of different genres!

MYE: You played with Enslaved? Wow. They rule. I love their song “Entrance-Escape”, so epic and bleak. As for you guys, the song “Longoria” has an intro that’s very cool; it’s atmospheric but then explodes. Soon you will be doing a full length. People’s full realization of a band is often limited, especially now that less attention is paid to full albums. People often only hear one side from one digital download. What can we expect from a full-length full debut to expand to listeners what we know of Crushing Sun already?

BS: Well, we’re planning a late 2009 release, regarding our first full-length. We are currently writing some new material, and from what we’ve done already, I can say that the songs are more “mature”. It’s a logical evolution of the bands sound. I really love what we’re doing right now. You can expect a lot of heaviness, experimental, slow, fast, ambient, brutal, melodic stuff! [laughing] That’s our “trademark”. We try to combine different elements. We just do what we feel like doing without being “attached” to one particular genre, and that will be more noticeable in our next release.

MYE: You are a four piece, but the sound is very big. I always admire bands that can do that, be they power trios or four pieces. Motorhead or Unsane is a good example or Jucifer as a two-piece. I love when bands can be huge while being economical about personnel.

BS: I agree with you! Many times I think to myself, “less is more!” In our case, we were always a four piece: one guitar, one drum, one bass and one vocal. We never felt the need to add another instrument to our sound, and even if we do, we will use what we have! Crushing Sun is and will continue to be a four piece, it’s always been the four of us and I can’t see any other person being involved with us. You should check out our good friends Concealment. They are one of the most creative power trios I’ve heard in a long time.

MYE: I will! You’re playing Barcelona soon, which is known for its beauty. I also just saw the new Woody Allen film Vicky Christina Barcelona and among other things, it shows that Barcelona is an ideal place to have a threesome with Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansen, though, I wouldn’t care where that happened as long as it was anywhere! And don’t worry; they don’t have it with Woody Allen in the movie! But, is it ever strange visiting places like there or being from a beautiful place like Portugal and channeling such dark feelings in your music, or is it just a reflection of life’s duality? What’s it like where you are from in Portugal?

BS: A threesome with Penelope and Scarlett would be sweet!!! I would die a happy man! [laughing]

MYE: I would die during it. [laughing]

BS: Actually, we aren’t a very “dark” band, at least lyrically speaking. We talk about biology, time-traveling, interpersonal relations… but it’s not in any way influenced by our surroundings, or the place we live. Even the instrumental stuff isn’t influenced by it. We just grew up listening to rock ‘n’ roll and metal, and that’s the main reason for sounding like we do. If we were to be influenced by the place we live in, we would probably be some sort of a modern day Beach Boys because we live by the sea! [laughing] But It’s great living in Portugal! It’s a beautiful country with beautiful women, great beer and great food. How could we ask for more?

MYE: Who are some of the main artists you looked up to getting into this and how did the band form? What are some of the main ideals or obsessive thoughts in your brains that led to not being able to stop taking the musician’s path?

BS: Like I said, we grew up listening to rock ‘n’ roll and metal. Bands like Black Sabbath, Cream, Pink Floyd, Sepultura, Pantera, etc. were the ones that “lured” us to this sound. Later we “discovered” bands like Meshuggah, Nile, Gojira, Intronaut, Black Sheep Wall, Decapitated, Five Star Prison Cell, Mastodon, High on Fire, just to name a few that we currently admire, and, at some level, inspire us. About the obsessive thoughts in our brains [laughing] that made us want to be a part of this wonderful world that is music, we got tired of being just on the receiving end, just listening and admiring and not creating. We got together because we felt the need to channel our musical creativity, the need to create something that we all could listen and enjoy as much as the bands we admire.

MYE: How did you get involved with Major Label Industries, and also, how do you think you have most grown as a band since your earlier demos? Some of the guitar sounds seem to have expanded some, whereas the older stuff I’ve heard sounds a little more traditional. Not totally stringent, but a little more.

BS: Our “relationship” with M.L.I. was born when some of the guys at the label saw us live. They liked our sound, so later, they approached us with a realistic proposal, unlike other contract offers we had. They offered us everything we needed to pursue our goals. Their project is ambitious, they are still growing, and we are just like them, still growing and very ambitious. About our earlier stuff, we were still searching for “our” sound. We hadn’t that much experience, so we were trying to find our place, exploring what we could do. Naturally we’ve been evolving since we recorded our first demo. We’ve matured.

MYE: I like the band name. You are CRUSHING SUN and we are CRUSHER!!! But...Back to above where I talked about beauty, I hate it sometimes when it is a nice day but I am really depressed because it seems like the weather is mocking me, though that’s better than having hurricanes or something tragic, I guess. [laughing] The flipside of a sunny day is to remember there is always a bright side, but it is hard in life sometimes. Your band name reminds me though how sometimes daylight can feel very harsh and omnipresent but there’s another side where your band name could mean, like, light illuminating hidden secrets or corruption being crushed out by flames of truth, scouring, or something. Or it could mean the environment or global warming! A very interpretive name!

BS: Indeed! [laughing] Our name has a lot of possible interpretations, like you said, but probably the one that suits us best is that, metaphorically speaking, the light, the sun, the truth can sometimes be a little bit overwhelming… crushing!

MYE: You were together for a while before, how did the BIPOLAR split come about with the hardcore influenced band EAK? Was it set up by the label, and were you worried they might pair you with a not so great band, or did you know and like EAK ahead of time? It seems like most of the bands on your new label are pretty good and cool. I know in the scene over there in Portugal, a lot of bands know each other already, though I’m not sure where Eak are from. Eak are pretty fucking punishing and great, though. Their singer sounds crazy and reminds me of this band Behead The Prophet, No Lord Shall Live, a little bit combined with like, I dunno, Lamb of God and V.O.D. , a sort of fusion of low screams and cage rattling higher pitched scratchy throat screaming, like Converge also. You guys are more growling and booming and more metal overall, definitely, but it works!

BS: Funny story about this split… Fernando from Major Label, asked us if we were into the idea of doing a split CD, but he told us that he didn’t know, yet, which band we would be paired with, so he asked us to think in a couple of suggestions. We were long time friends with the guys from EAK. We shared the stage so many times with them, and we loved/love their sound, so immediately their name popped up in our heads to be the band we would “share” this split CD with. So when we were about to tell Fernando our suggestion, he sent me an e-mail saying that he already had found the ideal band for this project. So I called him over the phone, and he asked me what I thought about EAK being the “other half” of the split CD. I was like “Fuck yeahh!” [laughing] Fernando didn’t even know that we were friends with them, so it was pretty amazing, that all the parts involved were completely on the same page regarding this issue.

MYE: Wow, that’s a wild story! For the album, who did the artwork of the man struggling on his back, seeming to be choking, that adorns the cover of the split? Did the two bands have a hard time agreeing on an image they both liked and felt represented them?

BS: The artwork was designed by this guy Carlos, who, besides being one of EAK’s guitar players, is also a tattoo artist. He designed a couple of sketches, but when we saw the drawing of “Fatso”, the chubby guy, we immediately fell in love! [laughing] Between us and EAK everything flows naturally. We’re like brothers, so we were always on the same page about every major decision we had to take about this CD.

MYE: Did the split name BIPOLAR represent how you are different personality sides of heavy music?

BS: Exactly!!! EAK and Crushing Sun are like two sides of the same coin. Even though the bands sound different from each other, they both converge to the same thing: heaviness!!! [laughing] It’s like both bands have their own identity and personality but both live in the same tormented “body”, thus the name BIPOLAR!

MYE: What is inspiring to you nowadays in art or culture or society and what do you think are some of the biggest problems the music world or metal scene faces these days that needs to be addressed? Also, lastly, what do you hope people take away with them after spending time with your music/art?

BS: Well, it’s inspiring when I meet and get to know people that fight for their dreams—people that, thanks to their imagination and creativity give me the chance to read great books, listen to great music and watch good films. But my true inspiration comes from the little things life and nature have to offer—a beautiful sunny day, a smile, a cool breeze. You get the picture! [laughing]
As for the biggest problems the metal/music scene faces nowadays… I really don’t know! [laughing] I hope that any person who gets to know our music buys it! [laughing]

MYE: [laughing] That’s great! Aha!!!

BS: Seriously, I hope that with our music we can offer a satisfying time to anyone that listens, that we can inspire and that we can “provide” different emotions and different states of mind! All the best to you all!