Total artistic freedom results in unbridled creativity, and Soulmotor proves this on its second album, Revolution Wheel. Soulmotor -- bass guitarist Brian Wheat, guitarist Tommy McClendon and vocalist Darin Wood - will release Revolution Wheel on April 9, 2002, on Sanctuary Records.
The 14 songs on Revolution Wheel - a black, relentless and disturbing work of fierce bloodthirstiness - are: "Shutdown", "Brand New You", "A Man Made God", "Long Live The New Machine", "Lotus Throne", "Gods And Monsters", "Today", "Scream", "Staring At The Sun", "The Man Who Wears My Face", "18 Years", "What You Want", "Between The Eyes" and "Radio Doomsday".
The shockwaves generated on Revolution Wheel are rooted in Wheat's thunderous bass guitar and Luccketta's muscular drumming, but the sonic shadows-and-light textures are the result of Wood and McClendon overdubbing and layering countless vocal and guitar tracks.
"Revolution Wheel is definently heavier than the first record. That was the plan from the beginning. There's a definite vibe - an ominous feel - that was created by the density of the instrumentation," Mc Clendon explains.
Soulmotor's self-titles 1999 debut featured the radio hit "Guardian Angel", but the members are much more satisfied with the results on Revolution Wheel. The band has its own recording studio in Sacramento, California, so it wasn't handcuffed by time and budget constraints.
"With the first record, we were still finding who we were," Wheat explains. "We worked on Revolution Wheel for 18 months, wheras the first album was done in six weeks. The luxury of having our own studio meant that if you recorded something and didn't like it, you could go back and redo it. I don't like working with "the man" looking over my shoulder. There was no one meddling with us. We knew where we wanted to go."
Not long into the songwriting and demoing process, Wood realised that his lyrics were taking on a futuristic, cryptic science fiction-like theme and Wheat and McClendon encouraged him to continue this direction.
"We decided we were going to make Revolution Wheel more theatrical -little movies with sounds," Wood explains.
The men were on the same wavelength creatively, but they weren't afraid to rein each other in if they felt something wasn't going to fit in the overall picture. Egps are a zero factor in Soulmotor.
"We just experimented. We really crafted the songs, and we decided there would be no filler. The music is heavy, but it's also melodic and has a strong groove," Wheat says. "Revolution Wheel will blow people's minds."
