The Dead Centuries push into the future
Ottawa instrumental prog-metal trio The Dead Centuries released their latest album, “Race Against Time,” earlier this year, and they’ll be bringing their guitarheavy, futuristic sounds to Waterloo Region for the very first time with a show at Harmony Lunch tonight.
Driven by the twin guitars of Adam Tremblett and Jacob McSheffrey, along with Bryant McNamara on drums, the group’s lack of vocals may be a little uncommon for your typical rock and roll band, but it’s not such a rarity in the band’s chosen genre, said Tremblett.
“We’ve got some crazy guitars, some complicated technical parts, and it’s just trying to (push) forward musically and really improve ourselves as a band, and try and push the genre forward as well.”
Though the album’s title and retro ’80s cover art suggest a dystopian concept album, Tremblett said there’s no cohesive theme that unites the record’s 10 songs, and that most of the material was influenced by listening to bands like Toronto prog-metal giants Protest the Hero and fellow instrumental acts like Intervals and Plini.
“For most of the songs, they don’t really have a narrative per se, but a lot of it came down to songs that I was listening to, or bands or musicians I was listening to while I was writing that had an influence on me,” he said. “I’d find little bits here and there that really inspired me to pick up the guitar and play something. And that’s where a lot of the ideas started, and then from there it was just building on some of those ideas to flesh out full songs.”
That said, the songs “Attack of the Mutant” and “Attack of the Mutant Pt. II” are connected musically, as their names might suggest.
“Those tracks share a chorus part, and I guess the idea behind those was to have two contrasting songs,” said Tremblett. “So if you listen to the second part, it’s a lot
lighter, it’s not as heavy as “Attack of the Mutant Part One,” but they both share the same chorus section, so that kind of brings them together. I felt that they were kind of opposite songs with a common thread.”
In keeping with the band’s already intense musicianship, Tremblett said he’s been dedicating himself to studying his craft and improving even further.
“None of us are classically trained, but in recent years I’ve been spending more time working on music theory and developing myself as more than just a guitar player. For a while, like when I was a kid learning guitar, it was basically learn a song and listen to a song that I was into at the time and try and learn it, pick out things that I liked, but more recently it’s trying to figure out what makes the music that I like so appealing to me and trying to emulate that kind of thing in my own music,” he said.
Tremblett said the band originally formed as a five-piece with a female lead singer, before slowly evolving into their current lineup, which was completed with the addition of McSheffrey about a year-and-a-half ago. Though the band is happy with their current setup, Tremblett said they’re not averse to adding new sounds along the way.
“We have a great chemistry together and we really get along with one another both personally and musically. Since Jacob joined the band as another guitar player, it’s really been a lot of fun for all of us. Speaking sonically, though, with different textures and instruments, that’s something we’re always open to, is adding different elements be it keyboards or different sounds like that,” he said.
One instrument the band won’t be adding to their lineup in the foreseeable future is bass guitar. Tremblett played all of the bass on “Race Against Time,” and said he or McSheffrey can handle four-string duties in the studio going forward. And besides, not having a bass player does have one upside, said Tremblett.
“Live, we just play back the prerecorded tracks and play along to that, which in the beginning was a little difficult but we’ve gotten used to it now and I think it sounds pretty good. The bass player never messes up!”