New Zealand rock outfit Shihad sound younger and fresher on their upcoming album Old Gods, much more so than a band who have been around for just over three decades should!
Shihad have continuously churned out the hits, with songs like My Mind’s Sedate, Home Again, Pacifier and Bitter reaching another level on the live circuit which is where Shihad surpassed many over their contemporaries with each outing.
2014’s FVEY saw Shihad reclaim their heavier edge, with vocalist Jon Toogood venting his anger at world issues into a seething mass of venom that many claim to be Shihad’s finest – even more than The General Electric.
After a seven year absence, Shihad return on August 27 with Old Gods, another electrifying collection of sweat stained rock that proves Kiwi’s can get better with age.
Bass player Karl Kippenberger joined HEAVY to chat about the album and where the hell they have been for seven years.
"The last record we released was in 2015,” he offered, “so we kind of sporadically got together and jammed over those six, seven years before hand monthly in Melbourne and we picked the sonic bits that we liked. When we finally got in touch with Adam Spark from Birds Of Tokyo we narrowed down those sonic songs and Jonny started working on vocals. It took a long time to jam and get together but pretty much once we hit the end of last year we moved it up a notch."
The gap between albums is actually the longest period of time between releases in Shihad’s 31 year history, a fact Kippenberger doesn’t even try to defend.
"It feels like a long time too,” he agreed. “It's funny because I guess half of us ended up having families and a lot's happened in our personal lives over the last seven years but we just together and played shows and jammed and recorded stuff. Yeah, it's not really... I don't know why it took so long really (laughs)."
In the full interview Karl goes into Old Gods in greater depth, the subject matter of the lyrics, Jon’s vocal performance, still managing to rock after 30 plus years, their upcoming Australian tour, their commitment to rocking out on stage and more.