Song Of The Week: Into The Timewastes

Comic related metal songs are relatively few and far between. The lyric for "Into The Timewastes" by Dutch Death/Doom metal band Asphyx worked it's way into my subconcious after listening to their most recent album ("Deathhammer", 2012) a few times and it eventually hit me - this is totally the A.B.C Warriors, atleast in the start of the song.

"dive into the timewastes
at the speed of light
robot mercenaries
elite for hire
galactic warriors
ancient as space
serving and protecting
a weak organic race
universal empires
face the ultimate threat
disturbance in order
time meets death
sensors activating
defensive shields
encountering chaos
desorientating fields"

That appears to have ties to the Black Hole saga from the late 80's. The ABC Warriors, a band of old war robots, are dispatched into an area known as the Time Wastes to repair a problem that threatens to destroy Earth. Curious, I tracked down an interview with the vocalist to see if it was intentional:

Metal Blast: You guys have always had very interesting song titles; ‘Into The Timewastes,’ ‘Of Days When Blades Turned Blunt,’ ‘We Doom You To Death.’
Martin van Drunen: [Laughs] Yeah, it was just the fun of it. The thing is that we were trying to be original in the song titles, but also so you know what it deals with. ‘Into The Timewastes’ is non-existing, it’s like science fiction more-or-less. That’s what the song says, too. It’s about a bunch of robot mercenaries that travel throughout the galaxy and are constantly at war with all kinds of creatures, and they dive into this thing called the ‘Timewaste’ where time meets death and that is the end of the universe if they don’t fix that problem. That’s the idea behind it; I read too many comics sometimes, I guess.

No confirmation there of the inspiration, but there's a nod to comics at the end so it seems possible.

On to the song itself. It starts off relatively pedestrian - this is your basic straight-ahead Death Metal, and there's nothing subtle about it. Where the song becomes brilliant is at the 1:08 mark, when the breakdown is introduced. Sure it's a couple of simple riffs, but the groove to it is colossal. I defy any metal fan to not nod their head to it.

One of my favourite songs to come out of 2012.