Click above to watch Hemlok perform "Nyarlathotep" @ Club Hell! Video comes from TRS live screen feeds from the performance.
For all our longtime fans, the past year has seen many great new songs added to our set.....none more challenging and devastatingly oddball than "Cybernaut". Taken from crowd shot footage, this audio is LOUD! But's it's worth it.... This Performance also features Kevin on bass.
We played the New England Punk, Goth, and Metal Festival - If you missed it, then check out the pics from the show on our Photo Page!
Instrumentation
John McGrath - Guitars and Devices
Chris Whittier - Vocals
Kevin Williams - Bass, Guitar, and Additional Vocals
Jay Myers - Drums and percussion
Bri Alves - Electric Violin & Keyboards
Dave McNally - Keyboards, Theremin (Studio and occasional live performance)
Biography
An epic continues...
Hemlok was formed with the thought of creating different music that would lend itself to dramatic live performance. Taking cues from bands such as A Perfect Circle, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and Alice In Chains writing began on songs that had one foot firmly in solid rock and the other in textural detail more in line with bands like Radiohead, The Cure, and Tool. Songs could open with a dramatic, droning bowed guitar fanfare and quickly give way to schizophrenic band interplay, held together by standout vocal or instrumental themes.
Put simply....well, there isn't much simple about this band. You've a drummer who's totally at home warming up with Rush songs....A guitarist who attempts to make every song an aural equivalent of H.R Giger, and seems fond of ditching his pick in favour of violin bow or E-bow.....A violin player who can jump seemlessly from violin to keyboard in the space of one song.....A vocalist whose range is as unreal as most of the material......and a bassist who somehow not only manages to write lines just as oddly dark and melodic, but make it fit perfectly.
The strength of their material and performances afforded them the opportunity to begin professionally recording at Oxbow Studios in Wayland, MA with engineering and production duties handled by David Butler (Boston, Led Zeppelin). It was now that John's original musical cohort Dave McNally staged a grand return, helping with production duties and providing remakable keyboard arrangements that truly gave Hemlok's music the "widescreen treatment": Songs that before hinted at grand ideas now had lush mellotron orchestration and otherworldly moog synthesizers and theremins to help fill out their epic intentions. It was also now that small, living room-sized club shows began to be replaced with more urban and ambitious bookings, ranging from a packed fetish club in Providence, Rhode Island, the Keene Music Festival in New Hampshire, and now the Emergenza Festival as well. Their music has had a constant online presence through their own website's soundpage as well as a stint as a "Band of the Week" on European radio in Amsterdam. The musical adventures continue, with a nomination in the Phoenix music poll and a slot on the Mew England Punk, Goth and Metal Festival.
Which brings us to the present. Continuing to serve their ambition, Hemlok now continues to develop their live show and bring to a close their first proper CD recording (A demo had previously been circulated for booking purposes). What Hemlok bring to the table are an unbeatable, musically theatric live show which grabs the audience through moods chilling and fantastic, spacey yet immediate. Acquire the taste now, and experience an act unlike any making the rounds today.
Website http://www.hemlok.com
Discography Tracks from our forthcoming CD are available for both download and streaming audio at www.hemlok.com
Recommended tracks: "Cybernaut" and "Astrology"