HEMOPTYSIS Track By Bleeding Track Through Misanthropic Slaughter
November 3, 2011 by Rustyn Rose
Filed under Features, Hemoptysis
Masaki and Travis Reveal What Lies Behind Misanthropic Slaughter
This spring, Arizona based metallers Hemoptysis turned up in our Loud and Local section. Not surprising given the sheer brutality of their music. What is surprising is that after the release of their debut full length album, Misanthropic Slaughter, the band hasn’t yet been snapped up by a major label. The album is that fucking good! The 11-track assault was helmed by Grammy Award winning producer Ryan Greene (Megadeth, Authority Zero, NOFX).
This week the band released its video for the track “M.O.D.” which can be viewed below. Vocalist and guitarist Masaki Murashita said of the clip: “We are very excited to release the video for “M.O.D.” We shot the video in Vail, Arizona with Big Shot Studios, the same company that filmed “Shadow of Death.” We had a blast shooting this video and we hope our fans enjoy it.”
Also this week Murashita and drummer Travis Thune sat down to go through their skull crushing debut track by track.
1. Misanthropic Slaughter
Masaki: This song is about taking out your hatred on all mankind. It came together very quickly. It has many different styles of riffs throughout the song with an old school feeling.
2. Hopeless
Masaki: The song’s theme is self explanatory given the name of the song. I used to work like a slave at a retail store, dealing with bullshit everyday. The experiences I had there were the inspiration for this song. There are so many people who have no pride and don’t care if they screw over other people. I dealt with people like that every day. I would get in trouble for doing the right thing for the company. I did my job by the book of rules the company trained me on but customers would bitch about it, so I would get in trouble for not making the customer happy. These customers were scamming us and I had to let them. It was like there was no justice and you were stuck with this miserable, under paid and under appreciated job with the same crap repeating everyday. Most people don’t have the balls to try to attain their dreams or they give up so they can work in a meaningless job their entire lives. I can’t settle for that. I love what we do in this band. We have something that we can be proud of.
3. M.O.D.
Masaki: This is my favorite song off the album. The lyrics were written based on a bad dream I had. I had a dream one night that I was dead. It was so vivid. I was killed by someone that I had almost killed. Then I was offered a deal to kill in exchange for life.
4. Impending Doom
Travis: “Impending Doom” is about self-induced, crippling fear. It’s about a person’s fear and insecurity in life being so intense that it is personified by an giant, unstoppable beast whose only purpose is to destroy them. They don’t know when it will destroy them but they are certain it will because, in their mind, they feel helpless and doomed for destruction. No one else sees the monster the person sees because the monster isn’t really there. It is just a manifestation of their own fear that they created inside their own head.
5. And The World Dies
Masaki: This was one of the first songs we wrote when we got together to form Hemoptysis. This originally appeared on our Who Needs A Shepherd? EP. We rerecorded it for this album with producer Ryan Greene. It’s a very old school thrash kind of song. The lyrics are about lying politicians.
6. Interlude
Masaki: This was originally an intro for the song “The Cycle” but with a distorted guitar sound. Producer Ryan Greene suggested we arrange it as an instrumental track and use a sitar. Ryan Miller played the sitar. John Fielding added extra percussion and strings, giving it an eastern, ethnic feel to it.
7. The Cycle
Travis: “The Cycle” is about a circle of depression and despair in a person’s life that continues through their bloodline. It’s about a daily and lifelong struggle with sadness. High spirits are fleeting. The person is never really happy or satisfied because of their own negativity. The negativity eats away at them like cancer, leading to an early grave. The curse of their negativity continues after their death because it is passed along to their children, creating a cycle of depression and despair.
8. Blood Storm
Travis: This is my favorite song on the album. It has more death metal elements in it and it’s very heavy. It took a long time to decide how to arrange the riffs in this song. The lyrics are about killing everyone in a shooting rampage.
9. Shadow of Death
Masaki: I wrote this song originally for my solo project. It wasn’t intended for Hemoptysis. At one jamming session back in 2007, I was playing the riffs from this song and Travis asked me, “Who’s song is that?” I said, “It’s mine.” He said, “Why didn’t you tell me that!? That could be one of our best songs!” I thought he didn’t like the song since he didn’t say anything about it when I played it in front of him, but he just assumed it was a cover song because it was already completely written and it sounded so good. I like the trade off solos in the end of the song. This is definitely one of my favorite songs that I have written. An earlier, and much simpler version of this song appeared on the 2008 EP, Who Needs A Shepherd? We reworked the song and rerecorded it with Ryan Greene for this album.
10. Hadephobia
Travis: “Hadephobia” is about a person who was brainwashed their entire life by Christianity. Christianity controls people with the fear of hell, also known as “Hades.” The person takes the teachings of their church and community seriously because it is all they have ever known. The person believes that everything they do and think is a sin they must repent for. Their entire life is spent on their knees begging for forgiveness for living because they believe that if they don’t receive forgiveness, they could die at any time and be sent to hell where they would burn in torment for all eternity.
11. End of Sorrow
Masaki: This was the first song we wrote after we completed the Who Needs A Shepherd? EP in 2008. It has some major melodic death metal influences in it. It is the only song that Travis and I shared lyric writing duties on. It is a song about a person ending their sadness by killing the person that has been getting in the way of them being happy.
