Desecrator are heading to Ballarat’s Blaze Music Fest

Melbourne thrash-metallers Desecrator have recently released their newest single ‘Manic,’ a fast and brutal triumph that has been born from the bands most relaxed year to date.
“It’s mainly been a writing year for us. We really wanted to get into a creative space with what will be the next album,” reflects Riley Strong, the bands front man and lead guitarist.
“We’ve been a heavy touring band for a long time now, we’ve pretty much done international tours every year for the last six or so years, which has been a phenomenal experience and a ride I wouldn’t change but at the same time there is a certain amount of cattle-gating touring does to your creativity. Especially when we are all leaving a life behind at home. It becomes something we constantly have to work to improve whenever we do return.”
Speaking more on the new single Riley expanded, “Manic was written as a standalone track, before we really delved into the sound we are going to be tackling for the album. There’s definitely a tone to the new song that shows a direction of where the band is going in future.”
Manic was released alongside two covers, one of which was ‘Animal’, originally by Airbourne, a band who is very close to the hearts of Desecrator after touring exclusively with them through Europe late last year.
“We’ve toured with a lot of bands overseas, but normally we aren’t the extremity of the tour package. When we toured with Venom Inc. ‘Vital Remains’ were playing after us and those dudes pretty much reinvented brutal in the 90’s and when we toured with Overkill, Crowbar were the extremity of the tour,” he explains. “Especially because of our clean vocal style of trash-metal, we have always been in the middle ground of the tour package.
“Airbourne was only a two-band tour and we were that extremity so it was nice to have that impact. With Airbourne having that classic Aussie rock sound that’s what everyone was there to see, but all the European fans were turning up with Metallica and Slayer patches on their vest so to be able to go out there and be the hard-hitting band of the night was a really cool experience for us and created a really dynamic tour package.”
Expanding on the notion of dynamic tour packages, Desecrator will be amongst Hadal Maw, Whoretopsy and Dead City Ruins as the headliners of next years Blaze Fest in Ballarat.
“Blaze Fest is going to be cool man,” he beams. “Ballarat has been a dot on our touring map for a lot of years now. A lot of metal bands don’t stop in to regional towns as much but we have always found that it’s the towns like Ballarat and Geelong and other regional towns who have always been incredibly supportive to us. But to bring a proper multi-band, multi-stage festival is something that I feel Ballarat has been missing for a little while,” he says. “Geelong has River Rocks, but Ballarat hasn’t had something for a little while, so when the same organiser who did Brutality Fest in Melbourne put her hat back in the rink and said ‘I’m going to bring this to Ballarat’, it’s a really cool thing.”
When & Where: Ballarat Blaze Music Festival @ Karova Lounge, Ballarat – January 26 2019
Written by Alex Callan