Official press release:
Technical metal pioneers Starkweather will see the reissue of their classic underground albums Crossbearer (1992) and Into the Wire (1995) as a deluxe, 2xCD package on April 21 via Translation Loss Records. The groundbreaking records have been remastered and repackaged along with tons of long out-of-print material; the end result is a teeming testament to the Philadelphia band that both pioneered the hardcore punk/heavy metal crossover sound and influenced many of today's top selling hardcore/metal bands, including The Dillinger Escape Plan, ISIS and Converge.
Starkweather formed in 1989, deriving its name from Charles Starkweather, a late-1950s teenaged spree killer. In the years that followed, the band trail-blazed unexplored musical paths, creating a cerebral, yet visceral, quasi-metal / hardcore hybrid; the perfect blend of post-metal, technical death, hardcore and avant-garde. Equal parts guitar skronk and frenetic fretboard gymnastics, vocal savagery and superhuman drumming, Starkweather's violent, unrelenting marriage of brutality and technicality crossed wires of styles and transcended sound beyond language limitations. Starkweather songs never followed traditional verse-chorus-verse structure, the group preferring a "narrative or cinematic flow", where compositions emphasized an ongoing development of themes and motifs. Allmusic described the group's music as "dissonant, jagged, angular, and discordant as well as abrasive, noisy, violent, claustrophobic, and dense" and an "extreme sensory assault". The band described their process of creating music as, "part therapy, part bloodsport" and the sound of their creation as, "isolationist music for the disenfranchised individual" and "a misanthrope's internal monologue interpreted through primal scream therapy". The most accurate description, however, would be "the archetypal embodiment of extreme metal's future".
To this day, these standout pieces of the band's wildly-influential catalog remain a crucial yardstick by which daring, ambitious, and progressive metal records are measured. The revamped reissue includes all new cover artwork and packaging by BCHC.
Translation Loss Records' celebration of Starkweather's classic albums portends future activity between the band and label.
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