Kerrang #361 - October 5 1991

CORONER

"The Coroner's Report"

by Jason Arnopp

Prologue
... And it indicates that foul play is afoot! Coroner's latest LP 'Mental Vortex' is, according to Jason Arnopp, their most accessible work to date, and (gasp of horror) contains few of the 'Malmsteem style leads' of their previous LPs! Has their Death Metal tag turned up its toes and died then, he demands of drummer Marquis Marky...

On an uncomfortably hot London Day, two figures seek refuge from the boiling sun beneath a tree towards the centre of Hyde Park. In the midst of this picturesque brightness, Coroner Marquis Marky and I are discussing the three things that make the Swiss trios thoughts click into creative mode. Aggression, depression and death. Yet Coroner can't be labeled Death Metal. Their quirky music is violent enough, but they remain independant - a bunch of one-offs despising cliches.

'Mental Vortex', out now, is their fourth and most accessible work. Having heaved a pile of outlandishly complicated compositions off their chests over the years, it seems that songs in the usual sense are more and more on the agenda. " We've made mistakes in the past. Our previous songs had too many different parts and guitar runs, and are hard to play live. These new ones are tighter, straighter and just... better!"

Could it be that you've grown bored with performing such demanding material? "Not really, it's just that we only use really technical ideas if they're necessary and fit in. Not for the sake of putting a million riffs in a song or something. There's still a lot of rhythm changes on 'Mental Vortex', and things that are hard to play, but they don't leap out and say 'Hey! Look at this'!"

Have Coroner ever felt wary of becoming a musicians band, that only musos might take an interest in? Some of the earlier material had an instrument showcase feel - particularly the (excellent) Malmsteem style leads... "That's exactly the kind of thing we don't like anymore. Now we prefer to just write good music, and I've personally never like guitar heroes 'n' stuff. They're probably interesting to other musicians, but that's it. Sometimes we've felt like a musicians band, definitely. We've had musicians at our shows standing with their arms folded, 'Oh, he played a wrong note...'. When we did our first album ('R.I.P.') we were influenced by classical music as well as technical bands like Mercyful fate, whereas now we tend to listen to bands like Sabbath and Zeppelin. We've always liked the old stuff; it's just that we haven't incorporated that style into our music before. We have more fun playing these days. The older bands are more relevant today than ever, because a lot of the new ones aren't putting a lot of feeling into their music. I think there's a real need to bring that back."

Their cover of Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze', issued on seven inch last year, explicitly revealed that intent, and 'Mental Vortex' sees them being so bold as to close the whole affair with their interpretation of the Beatles tune 'I want You (She's So Heavy)'. It's good, if over long. "We needed more time y'know?! The thing with doing cover versions is that the original version is always better. We played 'Purple Haze' faster and more brutal, and with 'I Want You...' we tried to play the song even heavier than the Beatles did. A lot of people ask why we're doing covers, but that's bullshit. We like it."

You'd think that such blatantly un-Death Metal doings would drag Coroner well out from under that particular label in people's minds, but certain factors work against this. For a start, 'Mental Vortex' was mixed at Morrisound Studios, Florida's funereal fun palace. "Yeah, that's been a problem, cos interviewers keep asking me if we went there to sound like Death or whoever, but that's obviously not the reason. Basically I don't care what studio we're in as long as the end result's okay. We had a good experience at Morrisound, and Tom Morris got us just what we wanted. I think it's a very special production. Not a typical Death Metal production, but very powerful. We actually talk about the same things as a lot of Death bands, it's just that we do in a different way. I don't talk about gore; I prefer to write about what's going on in a killer's mind, more psychological stuff."

Around the time of your 'R.I.P.' debut, it was clear that you were obsessed by death. Are you still? "Well... Yes! Basically yes, because it's one of the last big secrets and I still like to talk about it. 'Divine Step' on the new album deals with that, talking about what might happen when you die. Probably there's a big black nothing, and that's something I've always wondered about. 'Conspectu Mortis' means 'face up to death'. I've never believed in writing lyrics like a story, 'I-went-out-the-door-and-I-saw-this-guy-and-I-said-to-him...' You can read newspapers if you want stories!"

May I recommend Coroner if you want a different story?

Reprinted without permission from Kerrang #361, October 5 1991.
Transcription by Rehabitat.

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