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Amongst
the best thrash metal bands in history Xentrix stands out as the best England had to offer.
Their powerful debut Shattered Existence proudly rivals
anything offered by the SF Bay Area scene of the late 80's early
90's. With the release their worthy second album For Whose
Advantage the band secured its spot in the annals of metal.
Then Kin followed, and to say that was a misstep is an
understatement. With their three first classic records currently
being re-released by Metal Mind Productions we couldn't think of
anything better than revisiting the story of Xentrix, without a
doubt the most classic thrashers from England.
‘You don’t know
me, my name’s Stan, I believe your looking for a guitar player’’.
It was this phone call back in 1985 that was the start of one of
the U.K.’s most underrated thrash metal bands.
Chris Astley had started Sweet Vengeance when he was still in
high school and had embraced the NWOBHM that was changing the
sound of Metal that until now had been dominated by Rainbow,
Deep Purple and ACDC. Sweet Vengeance went through many line up
changes in its brief history, including bass player Peter
Hiller, drummer John Brennan and vocalist Sean Owens. But it was
only when the drummer at the time, Dave Catchpole, invited
Dennis Gasser down to a rehearsal (because he was planning on
leaving the band) that Astley and Havard realized that with Den
on board they could become a force to reckoned with. ‘I
remember we used to do a cover of cold sweat by Thin Lizzy and
Dave said to Den do you know it? And Den got behind that kit and
smacked fuck out those drums, it was twice as loud and played a
million times better and I said to Chris we’ve got to get this
guy in our band’ recalled Stan.
After Gasser was on board they set out to make their first
demo at Amazon studios in Liverpool. The Hunger for demo session
included the tracks “Blackmail”, “Hunger for Death”, “Nobody’s
Perfect” and the instrumental “G.A.A.F”. The band went on to
rerecord the track “Blackmail” for a compilation album of
unsigned acts entitled Full Force, but then they started
to encounter problems with bass player Ste Hodgson. ‘We
wanted to progress into a more of a technical direction and Ste
just couldn’t keep up’ said Dennis ‘so we called upon the
services of my brother Mel to step in until we found a
replacement’. Vengeance did a handful of shows with the
Gasser brothers in the rhythm section including a gig in
Coventry supporting the pagan thrash outfit Sabbat, until Paul
‘Macka’ MacKenzie answered an advert in Kerrang magazine and
joined what was soon to become Xentrix.
‘Hunger for
demo’
received a storming review in Metal Forces magazine and this led
to a phone call from Mark Palmer of Roadrunner UK asking as to
why they had not yet received a copy. This was quickly rectified
and after playing a showcase gig to an audience of just one
(Mark Palmer) they were offered a recording contract and set out
to write their first album. ‘We told Roadrunner that we had
an albums worth of stuff already written but the truth was we
had about five songs, two of which we didn’t like’ said
Xentrix front man Chris Astley.
Late nights, the odd argument and a lot of cigs and beer
aided in writing the album Shattered Existence and in the
summer of 1989 they went into Gas street studios in Birmingham
with producer John Cuniberti, who had just finished the first
Forbidden album and was half way through producing Flying in
a Blue Dream for Joe Satriani. The album was recorded and
mixed in ten days and was released in September of the same
year. A U.K. tour with Sabbat gave Xentrix a chance to reach
bigger audiences and make their mark on the developing U.K.
thrash scene. ‘That tour was amazing’ Macka recalls
‘it was the first time we got to play in Ireland and those gigs
at McGonagles in Dublin were fucking insane, the stage diving
was mental……it was awesome’.
BBC radio one’s Friday Rock Show wanted Xentrix to go into
their studios in Maida Vale in London and record a session.
‘I remember we were really excited about doing a Rock show
session,’ said Dennis ‘but we didn’t just want to go and
record just tracks off our album, so we did an old song called
“Interrogate” a song from the first demo called “Nobody’s
Perfect” and this cover we had been doing live which was
“Ghostbusters”, the Ray Parker Jr. song from the movie. Humour
was a big part of the band, we all took the music seriously, but
to us it was important to have a laugh and enjoy ourselves.
Roadrunner saw an opportunity to release the track as an EP and
after a threatening letter from Columbia pictures regarding the
original sleeve artwork it was released in 1990’.
Opening for Bay area thrash giants Testament at the legendary
Hammersmith Odeon was a dream come true for guitar player Stan
‘They were one of our favourite bands, we used to cover
“Curse of the Legions of Death”, so to get a gig with them was
amazing. But the one thing I’ll never forget about that gig was
walking onstage expecting it to be half empty, because we were
on so early, and then hearing the roar from a packed out venue
at the end of our first song, we even had people singing along
to “Balance of Power” and “Crimes”.
For Whose
Advantage
was the title of their second album. Recorded at Loco studios in
Wales, this saw the return of John Cuniberti in the production
role and the addition of engineer Mark Flannery. A five K review
in Kerrang magazine, a video for the title track and a European
tour with label mates Annihilator meant that 1990 was a busy
year for Xentrix.
‘After the ‘for
whose advantage’ touring we had these two song that were a bit
of a departure from the straight forward thrash thing’ recalls Chris ‘so we decided to record a gig in our home
town and release a part live, part studio E.P. and that became
Dilute to Taste. The usual thrash metal monster faced
pictures that people expected to see on inner sleeves were
replaced by baby photos of the band, and all the people at the
gig signed a guest book and are credited as live backing vocals.
1991 saw a headlining U.K. tour, taking out the new band Skyclad
and a return to Hammersmith, this time opening for Brazilian
thrashers Sepultura.
‘In ’93 the
U.K. thrash scene was more or less finished, Onslaught, Acid
Reign, Sabbat and Slammer had all called it a day, so we decided
to try a different approach to writing and recording our next
album - Kin.’ said Macka ‘we all have a love/hate relationship
with that album, it’s got some great songs, but it lacks in
passion and energy.’ Kin was recorded in four weeks (the
longest time the band ever spent in the studio) back in Loco
studios and saw Mark Flannery in the producer’s chair. After a
European tour supporting German drinking band Tankard the band
returned to the U.K. to play, what would be their final tour
with Chris at the helm.
Rather than try to replace Chris the remaining three members
opted to get a guitar player and a separate vocalist. They
enlisted the talents of Simon Gordon (Vocals) and Andy Rudd
(Guitar) and set about to reinvent themselves. In late ’95
Xentrix secured a deal with Heavy Metal Records and went into
their studios in Wolverhampton and recorded the album Scourge.
After only a handful of gigs it was becoming obvious that the
once energetic metal scene in the U.K. had turned on them, and
this realization led the band to finally call it a day.
Xentrix Official Site
DEAF SPARROW Zine would
like to thank Xentrix guitarist Kristian Stan Havard
for letting us 'reprint' this biography. |
