Track By Tracks: Nuckin' Futs - Abyss (2017)

General:

To begin, the lyrics of the album aren’t made to be something random, they come from some kind of idea, something that will be turned into the album in the future. As the writer and singer of Nuckin’ Futs I need to take inspiration from the musical content of the songs, how they move and how the riffs evolve all throughout the song, because doing that makes easier to represent and reinforce the emotional power that our bandmates developed creating the instrumental part, mixing the different musical influences from everyone and helping to bring cohesion to the final song. 

The upcoming list is the result of a complex work, full of tiny details.

For me personally the album doesn’t fit simply into generic thrash, it’s something more. I think that it is the evolution and convergence of the anger that we wanted to bring to the table in our past albums “Slavery” and “Evilution”.

1. Cradle of Hypocrisy:

I really like to express myself with metaphors, sayings and literal resources that describe reality as such, but also have room for free personal interpretation.

Even though i sometimes doubt or have trouble to clearly express myself, there are always things that motivate me and make me write more.

In this song, i wanted it to have a critic tone about the human pride. A society that crushes people’s dreams, preventing them to find happiness and regretting to not have lived life to the fullest by not accomplishing goals. “We’re meant to born, but we live to fail” is probably the most significant sentence of the song.

This is the type of song in this album where I wanted to explore the corners of the mind, the subconscious mixed with social criticism and science fiction. I like to think that someone who takes time to read and analize these lyrics, can relate to it.

2. Force of Will:

This song tells the story about someone who fights and manages to overcome a critical state, like a cancer, thanks to his force of will. The idea came from other members of the band that asked me to write a less destructive and negative lyric (ahaha). So this song is about solving life’s “puzzles” and surpass its obstacles with our Will, which is one of our strongest tools. And thanks to it, humanity has prospered and evolved until today and hopefully, forever. 

“A song for the victorious, the ones who will remain”.

3. Enemy:

The most powerful enemy we constantly face is oneself. If we look at this concept in a more extreme way, we find that each person is divided in two beings: the good - constant and creator, and the evil - destructive and selfish. This two are in a constant fight to possess control of the physical body, much like the biblical war of God against the Devil. But religious or not, this is inside everyone and each one trying to reach the best inner version. We people aren’t crazy, we just need something to attach ourselves on.

4. Abyss:

This is the title-track of the album, and the first song to have lyrics.

I wanted to offer here what i couldn’t do in “Slavery”, powerful backing vocals, aggressive lyrics and vocal dynamics. This song was actually longer written but due to the song’s content, many parts were cut allowing more instrumental passages.

One of the things i had most fun with was to do melodic vocals, a resource that hadn’t use in a long time. As for lyrics, this song is direct and blunty. It tells about the fear of not being remembered by anyone in the end, no legacy or memory left behind in the world. I think everyone thinks about this at some point in life.

“Blind by the insight flowing to your eyes, the echoes of past making you mortify” - These two are independent from each other, although they’re connected by a single and complete meaning. They refer to the last moment in death, where a vision of your past life appears in the mind.

5. Call of the unknown:

The fun thing about this one is that, initially, i didn’t know what to write about. So i asked my band mates to give me a single word. The same thing with our colleagues from Trallery.

Ultimately, those words became the essence of the song as they were used to form the main chorus and the most important parts of the lyrics. I also made a reference to my life with “I was raised in heaven to come to hell to fight” since i grew up in an island and played in some other bands, so i was very lucky to be able to come to Barcelona and find my band mates whom i’m living my dream with.

I was also inspired by listening to Pantera’s “Vulgar Display Of Power”, especially Phil Anselmo and the way some of his lyrics don’t rhyme. I remember reading his lyrics while writing my own, trying to find a metric that allowed me to do a similar approach. It was very enriching for me even if it didn’t match my style.

6. Chains of reprisal:

This is about something that should disappear from our lives : gender violence.

This idea came from Oscar, so i hope i matched his expectations. He wanted a song that condemned this situation where women were subdued by men in a violent way.  So i made a call for rebellion for every woman. Not much more to say - “Fight this motherfucker back”.

7. Primal:

This song starts with an Intro that was made by multiple voices i recorded at my place, inspired by Tibetan chants. Originally it was longer, but in order to merge the main song with this intro, we decided to shorten it.

This one is Science fiction based, it’s about a society that invokes a race from other time and dimension by a ritual. A more primitive and visceral race appears so this society is forced to hide underground, until they evolve and acquire enough strength to fight back for the surface once again. It’s when they return from the underground that they realize they have become what was once their enemy and suddenly, a portal opens in the sky… I think i don’t need to say anymore, right?

This adaptation and life makes us stronger, as long as it doesn’t cost us to become what we hate the more.

8. Tied to the past:

This is probably the most personal song i wrote in my life, and as it can be guessed, it was due a broken relation and all that follows. I think i was able to translate my feelings to the fullest and certainly many people could relate to this matter.

I needed concentration while we were recording so i asked my band mates to not be present in those sessions. I think we nailed the objective of a power ballad!

In conclusion:

A few months have passed since we released our second LP ABYSS, and we got very good reviews and also a couple negative ones, which is great! It means someone is listening!!

If you are someone who supports us or hates us, a big thanks! You’re collaborating so we can make a better product in the future.

For us, this is NOT a generic Thrash Metal album, if your first impression tells the contrary, i strongly recommend you try a second listening, even if you are not a fan of the genre but if you are, give it a second chance, for many little details and gems may be hidden!

Thanks for everything!

‘Tolo “Storm” - NUCKIN’ FUTS