Richard Johnson is a punk elder statesman. Throughout the past few decades, the Virginia musician has been a member of Enemy Soil and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and in more recently, he's brought his distinct guitar and vocal stylings in Drugs of Faith.
Rounded out by bassist Ivan Khilko (Immanent Voiceless) and drummer Ethan Griffiths (Embra), Drugs of Faith have issued two studio albums and one EP since first arriving onto the scene in the mid-'00s. Their latest release, Asymmetrical, just dropped late last month and finds Richard and company exploring everything from grindcore to noise rock to thrash and weirder points in between.
The 10-tracker was recorded at Developing Nations by Kevin Bernsten (Integrity, Full of Hell):
Today, we celebrate the release of Asymmetrical with a list Richard put together featuring some of its sonic influences. The picks definitely mirror the album's varied (and twisted) spirit.
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Killing Joke, Absolute Dissent (2010)
"Killing Joke rubbed off on me in a big way, possibly starting with our Corroded record in 2011, and I directly referenced them with some riffs and beats on Asymmetrical. Their observations on things like global trends, war, and corporate power read into the lyrics I wrote as well."
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Voivod, Killing Technology (1987)
"As with Killing Joke, there’s a lot of records from Voivod I could mention; this is just one of them. I’ve been pinching from, say, Killing Technology and Phobos off and on for a long time, and our new album is no different. And I haven’t even brought up Napalm Death yet.
"My influences haven’t changed much over the years, but we try not to, like, repeat ourselves too much or put out the same record all the time. Well, I have purposefully written riffs for one release in the style of what could have been on an earlier release of ours, but I was going for a sense of continuity there."
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Darkthrone, A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992)
"There’s a place or two on Asymmetrical that we referred to as 'Darkthrone parts' while we were writing, but it can also be a non-specific second-wave black metal influence. That’s part of what Ethan brings to the table on the drums. It didn’t sound like black metal to me but it did to him, at least somewhat."
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Morbid Angel, Altars of Madness (1989)
"This is an old-school touchpoint for riffs. I was taking influence from blast parts on this record in 1995, if not earlier, and I went back to this well on Asymmetrical. During the writing process, when I said what I was going for with one of the riffs, all I had to say was Morbid Angel and Ethan was on the same page."
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Helmet, Meantime (1992)
"If nothing else, it might be obvious to refer to our noisy guitar parts as coming from Helmet. I’ve had some of their records, like this one and Aftertaste, on repeat in the past, and I certainly wouldn’t fight it if Helmet rubbed off on us.
"I’ve said about some of our records previously that I don’t think we’re all that original in terms of what we write, because our influences might be glaring in places, but maybe what we do bring to the table is how we (hopefully successfully) put it all together.
"I could go on from here: Discordance Axis’ Jouhou, Opeth’s Ghost Reveries maybe, and perhaps Clandestine by Entombed, but I don’t want to get long winded."
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Asymmetrical is available now via Selfmadegod Records.
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Tagged: agoraphobic nosebleed, drugs of faith, enemy soil, our biggest influences
