ABSOLUTE POWER — the traditional metal project built by NAPALM DEATH bassist Shane Embury and producer/vocalist Simon Efemey — has shared the title track of its second album, "Needs Must When The Devil Drives", due November 6 via Time To Kill Records. The song features former JUDAS PRIEST and ICED EARTH vocalist Tim "Ripper" Owens, back after appearing on the band's 2011 debut.
For Embury, the track is autobiography as much as tribute. "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 said. "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, and it wears its influences openly: JUDAS PRIEST, SAXON, BLACK SABBATH, DIO and the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Efemey is blunt about the point of it. "I want people to have a good time in the old school way," he 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."
Alongside the title track, "Saviour" and "Kernschmelze" are the most direct songs on the record, "Mountain Of Hope" pushes the epic side, and "Within" strips the heaviness back for something closer to the hypnotic drift of BLACK SABBATH's "Planet Caravan". The album also includes a reading of QUEEN's 1978 track "Sheer Heart Attack", chosen partly out of irritation — "the drums sounded terrible on it," Efemey laughs.
The guest list runs beyond Owens. THE MISSION and TRICKY guitarist Mark Gemini Thwaite adds texture across several songs — "he added a little goth flavour," Efemey said — with NAPALM DEATH's John Cooke on guitar and Carl Stokes (CANCER, THE GROUNDHOGS) on drums also appearing.
Efemey's production credits take in PARADISE LOST, THE WILDHEARTS and NAPALM DEATH; Embury has spent nearly four decades pushing NAPALM DEATH's extremity outward. Both grew up going to shows at Birmingham's Odeon. "We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we're serious about the music," Efemey said. "Every song needs a good riff and a catchy melody."