Absolute Power, the project run by Napalm Death bassist Shane Embury and producer Simon Efemey, have released the title track from their second album, with Tim “Ripper” Owens on guest vocals.
Needs Must When The Devil Drives is due on November 6 through Time To Kill Records, fifteen years after the pair’s self-titled debut in 2011. Owens, formerly of Judas Priest and Iced Earth, also appeared on that record.
For Embury, the song is about where he and Efemey come from.
“This song, whilst being title track of our new record, also talks about how both Simon and I grew up in the West Midlands listening to heavy metal of 1980s — all the classics as you would expect,” he explained. “The areas where we both came from were very much industrial areas. Working-class families and for us, as teenagers, heavy metal was our escape from the everyday realities of our areas — you did what you had to just to get by. Needs must when the devil drives!”
The album took five years to make. Efemey, who produces as well as sings, was direct about what he wants from it.
“I want people to have a good time in the old school way,” Efemey said. “I want them to forget the mundane, boring or horrible parts of their jobs. I want them to forget themselves for a couple of hours. That’s what good music should allow us all to do.”
The project started from the same impulse that produced the first record.
“When we did the first album, we wanted to make songs like our heroes — Judas Priest, Saxon, the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal — everything we liked as kids,” Efemey added. “When we were on tour buses, we’d have a few drinks and start blasting old-school heavy metal like Black Sabbath or Dio. One day we said we should write our own tunes like that.”
The album title comes from an old proverb the two of them kept repeating to each other during the sessions.
“Saviour” and “Kernschmelze” sit at the album’s fastest end, while “Mountain Of Hope” pushes towards something larger. “Within” drops the weight for a more atmospheric approach in the vein of Black Sabbath‘s “Planet Caravan“.
The record also includes a version of Queen‘s “Sheer Heart Attack“, the Roger Taylor song from 1977’s News Of The World, keeping the punk pace of the original.
Besides Owens, Mark Gemini Thwaite of The Mission and Tricky plays on several tracks.
“I’ve known him for years,” Efemey said. “I recorded a demo for his old band years ago. I sent him some tracks and he put some magic on them. He added a little goth flavour to some of those tracks. It took it further than the first album, which was just straight-down-the-line traditional metal.”
Napalm Death guitarist John Cooke appears, as does drummer Carl Stokes, whose credits include Cancer and The Groundhogs. Joe Taylor plays additional drums, with Dominik Gryzbon and Ilsa Nielson on lead guitar.
Embury and Efemey both grew up in the West Midlands and both spent their teens at the Birmingham Odeon before their careers diverged, Embury into Napalm Death, where he has spent close to four decades, and Efemey into production, working with Paradise Lost, The Wildhearts, Napalm Death and, earlier, The Wonder Stuff.
“Over the years our paths crossed, and we realized we had a similar love for music and a similar sense of humor — ‘Monty Python‘, ‘The Young Ones‘, really dark humor,” Efemey recalled.
He has never seen the producer’s job as a passive one: “You hear the stories from back in the day about these legendary bands and the mad stuff they’d get up to,” he continued. “For me, that’s part of rock ‘n’ roll. I never wanted to just be the guy sitting there in the studio nodding along with what bands say. It was more about entertaining people and entertaining ourselves.”
On the standard the songs had to clear: “We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we’re serious about the music. We reject ideas that aren’t good enough. Every song needs a good riff and a catchy melody. I wouldn’t let anything go out that was just fodder. That approach has always been prevalent in my work.”
And on where they sit now: “I can’t think of many new British bands doing what we do. I think people like our stuff because it’s old-school with melodies you can sing along to. We use the formula from the 70s and 80s because we know it works. We make this kind of music because we love it and we want people to sing along with us.”
Needs Must When The Devil Drives Tracklist:
- “Needs Must When The Devil Drives” (feat. Tim “Ripper” Owens)
- “Saviour”
- “Kernschmelze”
- “Stand Up And Be Counted”
- “Within”
- “Mountain Of Hope”
- “Insanity”
- “Hammer Of Justice”
- “Praise The Fire”
- “Sheer Heart Attack”
- “Orphans Of The Storm”
Efemey sings and Embury plays bass and additional instruments.
