As heavy metal veterans Slough Feg return with their ninth full-length, Digital Resistance, the title track is launched. The album is set for release in North America on 18 February 2014.
Digital Resistance will be Slough Feg’s first new studio offering since 2010’s The Animal Spirits. The album was recorded with Justin Weis (co-produced with singer/guitarist Mike Scalzi) at Trakworx in South San Francisco between January and October 2013.
Discussing the vibes and the purpose behind the album, Scalzi says: “[It is] just enjoyment, entertainment. Perhaps a little bit of a lesson about the dangers of technology’s tendency to sort of dumb us down when things become so easy. The more we indulge in technology and allow it to do everything for us, especially allowing it to think for us (as in the case of looking everything up on your phone or computer rather than trying to remember and retain information), the more physically and mentally ‘flabby’ we become. So there is somewhat of an urgent message, or complaint about this increasingly human tendency.” Nevertheless, it’s not a concept album this time: “It has somewhat of a consistent lyrical theme that runs through several of the songs, but not every song- it is not a concept album in the sense that our Traveller album is.”
More specifically on the title track, Scalzi elaborates: “This song represents a last ditch effort to escape the inevitable. There will be no victory over technology– nor should there be in a broader sense— but I do fear what we are becoming. Biological evolution moves so slowly that we cannot perceive it. But social and moral evolution may come in great jolts or leaps. This can be dangerous to the preservation the species, biologically and morally/socially. But it’s also just fun to sing about ‘killing technology’ (like that other band from Canada did a long time ago). It’s a very dramatic subject. That’s why I call it Voi-Vaudeville.”
