Tim Williams – vocals Matt Baumbach – guitar Mike Kennedy – guitar Mike Fleischman – bass Brendon Cohen – drums
The sound bursts out of the speakers and immediately hits you in the face like a fistful of nails. Raw, uncompromising, walking a knife-edge of intensity that few bands dare to travel, there’s no mistaking – wait a minute. What band are we speaking about here exactly?
That’s right. Vision Of Disorder. Same five guys from Long Island. New album. New label. And a new sound that never disrespects the band’s trademark viciousness, yet takes them into darker, heavier, more powerful, and yes, more diverse terrain than ever before.
"As far as I can tell, I think that our record doesn’t really sound like anything else," says lead singer Tim Williams of the band’s third full-length album, From Bliss To Devastation. "It’s got its influences – what record doesn’t – but all in all, I don’t think it sounds like anything else out there, which I’m pretty psyched about."
The result of two years of painstaking rehearsal and writing, all while the band was, as Williams puts it, "cleaning house" – parting ways with both their previous label and old management – From Bliss To Devastation lives up to Williams’ claim. Just as the rap-metal treadmill is slowly winding its way down, Vision Of Disorder has created a slab of haunting, oppressively heavy and unapologetic metal that retains the band’s original hardcore attitude but finds them crafting the most cohesive and groove-laden songs of their career.
"It’s definitely not the norm, because basically what you’re doing is trusting your music," says guitarist Matt Baumbach about the band’s risky decision to ask for a release from Roadrunner Records after two albums, their self-titled 1997 debut and ‘98’s Imprint. "We had enough faith in our music to say, ‘you know what, we can get released from our label and we’ll still be okay because we know we’re good enough to get signed again.’ At first, when we got off, it was scary as hell. We had to regroup and decide whether or not we wanted to do this for real, and we said, ‘hell, yeah.’ It was hard, a bunch of us had to get jobs, but we always believed in the music and knew that eventually it would work out." Scattered rumors of the band’s demise two years ago were inaccurate, although they admit to going underground. "We felt we all needed a break from the music industry, so we just went into a little studio with minimum rent – there were literally cockroaches on the floor -- and started putting together some new songs," recalls the gravelly-voiced Williams. "We weren’t playing any shows, we had no deadlines, and no one was breathing down our necks. The stuff on the new record is the best stuff that came out of something like two years’ worth of material. We just played for ourselves – we didn’t play for hardcore kids or metal kids, but we just played what made us feel good."
An EP on Go Kart Records entitled For The Bleeders kept the band’s name out in front of fans, while allowing them a peek at the music the band was working on in the form of three new songs. But even that sneak preview was only a small taste of the Devastation to come.
"The biggest thing ever in the progression of this band’s sound was that we said to ourselves, ‘we can come back new, because there is no perception of the band now. We can do whatever the hell we want,’" says Baumbach. "So we really said, let’s do something new and inventive, write something that we think is different, but also still very credible at the same time. We basically wanted to groove out a little more, slow it down, and really concentrate on writing. Not just writing a good part, but writing a good song in the classic songwriting sense."
From Bliss To Devastation, produced by Machine at Water Music in Hoboken, New Jersey, is one of those rare modern heavy rock albums that is packed with good songs. From the grinding opener "Living To Die" to the jungle-drum assault of "Itchin’ To Bleed" to the doom-soaked apocalyptic blues of the title track, the album reflects Vision Of Disorder’s desire to stretch themselves and their music beyond any previous limitations.
"A lot of it also has to do with the influence of music we were listening to," continues Baumbach. "We really started getting deep into Black Sabbath, Soundgarden, even the Beatles. We really got influenced by very good songwriters, so that in itself affected our sound."
"Vision Of Disorder has always been about change – we never really went with the norm," says Williams. "A lot of shit sounds the same these days, so I knew we’d have to progress and do something different."
The band’s unwavering confidence in themselves and their music stems from their longtime relationships with each other. All five members of the band grew up within fifteen minutes of each other in the Long Island towns of Baldwin and Merrick, where they raced bikes, played sports, hung out, and listened to music. Inevitably, the idea to form a band was hatched, and before anyone knew what was happening, Vision Of Disorder was opening for bands like Sick Of It All and headlining their own tri-state area shows in front of four hundred or more people.
A seven-inch single and track on the acclaimed New York’s Hardest compilation led to the release of their first full-length album on Supersoul Records, which was distributed by Roadrunner. A slot on the second stage of the inaugural OzzFest tour cemented Vision Of Disorder’s standing as a band to watch, which was only further enhanced by the release of Imprint in 1998. And now with the release of From Bliss To Devastation, Vision Of Disorder is ready to be catapulted to the frontlines of heavy rock.
"We’re ready for the main stage now," predicts Williams. "We’re older, we’re more mature musically and as people, and we’re ready to take it all the way. I think our personalities are ready for it. In the past, we might have been too young and our heads weren’t in the right place, but with the record we have now, we’re sitting in a good spot."
