Augury: Part Of The Brave New Wave Of Quebec Metal

08/26/09 3:38pm

by Keith Carman (CHARTattack)

Montreal melodic death metal quartet Augury — vocalist/guitarist Pat Loisel, guitarist Mathieu Marcotte, bassist Dominic "Forest" Lapointe and drummer Antoine Baril — are in a celebratory mood.

Not only have they finally followed-up their 2004 debut effort Concealed with a raging blast of guttural power dubbed Fragmentary Evidence, but the album is slaying the Canadian campus metal charts and they've got a solid deal with major independent metal outfit Nuclear Blast Records.

Good-natured Loisel took a moment out of moving his personal effects to speak with CHARTattack about another move: going from representing Quebecois metal within Canada to the international stage and the band's refusal to release "a single bad note" between shuffling furniture and dishes.

CHARTattack: It seems like the members of Augury are quite busy right now.
Pat Loisel: I'm moving, I'm a teacher, I have a guitar building company and the band. I'm all for cloning. Then I could leave one of myself with the wife permanently.

How do you feel with Fragmentary Evidence being your Nuclear Blast — and therefore world — debut?
It's big, but it feels really good. It feels like, "Finally! At last!"

A few people knew us, but I've been in the music industry for 20 years. I was pushing at this forever and never getting answers. I feel like it's deserved because so many people gave up with far less resistance. My bandmates, well, it's far from being our first band, but we've never stopped trying.

It's a relief because Nuclear Blast, from what I've seen, are being completely professional. The promotion is top-notch, the distribution is top-notch and most importantly, the attitude is top-notch.

When I was younger, some bands wanted to avoid being signed because of horror stories about all-controlling labels and stuff, but Nuclear Blast took us exactly the way we are. We're still exactly the same band we were before this signing. Nothing has changed.

How do you feel now that you're ambassadors for Canadian metal, not just Quebecois anymore? You're representing us on worldwide level now.
We leave the political thing aside completely. We're all French-Canadian but we're everything. We're a Canadian band, a Quebec band.

When it comes to the metal scene, you find cool people everywhere and it doesn't matter. But there are great representatives from everywhere in the country. You have Rush in Toronto. That alone should make Canada proud. In Calgary, you have Into Eternity; in Regina, you have Divinity; we used to have Strapping Young Lad in Vancouver.

The rest of Canada is great, but I'm still proud of my little Montreal scene.

I wouldn't call the Montreal scene little. You've got a lot of great bands there.
Yeah, but when you're inside of it, you don't see it as that big. I have a friend who spends some months in Norway. He says their scene is a light in the darkness; a big thing. The Norwegian people are like, "What?" They don't see it. It's like people telling us (Quebec) is the new Norway. I doubt it. Seen from outside, it's easy to build up what something is but that's not the reality.

We push each other to do better. If we didn't have Voivod or Cryptopsy to show us the way to heavier, more progressive stuff, perhaps we would have stayed in the Maiden style of metal. You need precursors to push you. Quebec pushes each other to do stuff that is complex and fast.

Well, now you're the future of Quebecois metal. How you do you address that?
I think the only way we could do it is to not think about it. We wouldn't make an album thinking we have to do this or that. That would end up sounding artificial. Fragmentary, I found it very complex at first, but when I listened to the finished product, it still sounds natural.

If we ever make an album that leaves us scratching our heads or doesn't sound natural despite all the details, it'll be time to call it quits. You've heard those bands that have three good songs and then have to put five more together to make an album. That's something we don't want to do.

If it takes 10 years for the next album, you'll have a 50-year-old guy rockin' out in a wheelchair, but it'll be genuine. You can't yell at a flower and tell it to grow faster. This flower must blossom on its own. No one in this band wants to publish a single bad note.

Anything else?
I was going to get into the conspiracy theories that inspire my lyrics, but there are only 24 hours in this day so we'll have to talk about that another time.