CRETIN bassist Matt Widener discusses his band's unusual lyrical direction in the new issue of Decibel Magazine and forthcoming Resound Magazine.
"The world of Cretin is a strange, funny, sad and scary place." Widener elaborates; "Our lyrics and themes often combine all of those elements at once, because when you layer and compact things with subtext and emotions, the reader, when unpacking them, interacts with the story, inserts themselves into it. That's a well-known concept in poetry, and I don't think it's any different here. I figured, hey if country music can get away with it, how would a death metal band go about it? Our lyrics are little stories. Inadvertently, we created a weird world stocked with strangely empathetic characters."
"Many of the songs deal with the marginalized and misunderstood, so they're really sad," opines Widener in the April issue of Decibel. "It's not enough to have a guy masturbate on department store mannequins-you have to make him weep when his favorite dummy goes missing; you know, show his pathos, how lonely he is."
"If a feral child raised in a chicken coop escapes into the forest, I empathize that the little guy [in album opener "Tooth and Claw"] gets scared by the dark and wants to go back to his cage. How tragic."
"Ever try to help someone and just fuck it all up? In "Uncle Percy", poor Percy digs up the family dog after having an Of Mice and Men moment, and wears its pelt to cheer up some kids. Percy is the avatar for failed intentions and monumental screw-ups; but he's also an exemplar of the indomitable human will to do good acts. When Uncle Percy ends up frightening the very people he's trying to cheer up, we're all at once stung with the pathos and tragedy, as well as laughing at the irony. At least I do. But maybe that's what makes me such a cretin."
Widener continues, "We have a song about walking a midget on a leash that's actually a vehicle for friendship and acceptance. This might be the most positive song in death metal. The midget learns to do tricks because he's tired of people cautiously avoiding eye contact. He even has a training montage, and that's exciting to me. I not only identify with that, but I cheer along. Go midget, go!"
Freakery is CRETIN's first full-length effort after a well received 7" EP (Cretanic Grind Ambush). Freakery was recorded entirely by the band (bassist Widener, guitarist Dan Martinez and former-Exhumed drummer Col Jones) at their Tillinghast Workshop studio. The final track listing for Freakery is "Tooth and Claw", "Tazer", "Daddy's Little Girl", "Uni-Tit", "Cook the Cupcake", "Cockfight", "Object of Unity", "Creepy Crawlies", "Walking a Midget", "Uncle Percy", "Dirt Eater", "Mannequin", "A Fowl Fetish", "Making Roadkill", "The Yawning God" and "Profane".
An e-card for Freakery, featuring sneak peeks at the lyrically-inspired album art as well as the tracks "Tooth and Claw" and "Walking A Midget", can be accessed at www.Relapse.com/ecards/Cretin.
Freakery is scheduled for an April 18 North American release. The record will be released throughout the rest of the world on April 24th.
Date: Mar 13, 2006
As Reported by: Will OConnor
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