Metal Anarchy

During an appearance on MetalSucks‘ “Quarantine Cast,” Veil Of Maya guitarist Marc Okubo offered an update on the band’s new album. According to him, the effort will likely be released in early 2021.

Okubo is still working on material for the record, but he said that he is kind of suffering writer’s block:

“For me, not everyone’s like this, but for me I like to be out and about. I like to see live music and get inspired by that or get inspired by my relationships and my friends and stuff. Without having that, even without having that energy in the room while I’m trying to write, it makes it a lot harder to believe in what I’m doing.

And also not knowing when concerts are going to come back is also not the most motivating thing, especially for this kind of music, this is music that’s meant to be played live. I grew up going to hardcore shows, and you don’t play that kind of music to sit in you room and meditate. It’s an aggressive, social thing.”

He also had the following to say about the group’s progress with the album:

“I was working in a studio last year on the album, and we were able to record skeletons of maybe like, eight songs, so it was kind of an incomplete album. And then we were going to finish after the tour, or on the tour and after the tour, and all this [the coronavirus pandemic] happened. So now it’s just kind of disenchanting to listen to it ’cause it’s not finished and I’ve already heard it a lot.

I mean, I guess right now I want to start from scratch and write as many new songs as I can and maybe go back and finish the old ones and have a lot of material. I guess that’s where I’m at right now.”

Okubo also had the following to say about the musical direction:

“I am feeling that remaining a heavy band is the move and kind of going back to our roots is the vibe. I know that there’s still going to be people that don’t like singing obviously, and I’m aware of it, but at the same time, we make a lot of new fans.

So I kind of want to have a few songs that do kind of have that technical death metal vibe that we used to, but at the same time I’d like to mix that into the progressive world as well.

I don’t know if going full radio rock is the move for us, I don’t think our fans will believe that. I know that it would be beneficial in some ways… trying to find a middle ground between all of that is what I’m working on.

But I feel like heavy is the move and if it’s catchy enough for radio, whatever, but that shouldn’t be the main focus of our songwriting.”

He then added the following about release plans:

“Realistically it will be very early next year just based off of everything that’s happening. Hopefully I have it written by the end of next month or so, that’s the goal. I can’t even play video games or watch TV cause I always feel like I’m supposed to be working on the album. I don’t like being pressured [laughs], I like hanging out and having it come… like [these songs] usually write themselves, you know what I mean? So I’m just out, hanging out with people and I’m like ‘Ah! Idea!’ And then, there it is.”