THE DEVIL'S MOUTH Vol. 137: Ten Rounds with Dan Rock (Psychotic Waltz, Darkstar)
One of the leading prog guitarists in the world took us on a tour of a few immortal classics.
One of the most singularly important bands in the crowded prog metal world, Psychotic Waltz completed with their 2020 comeback album ‘The God-Shaped Void’ a five-pointed monument of releases that stand, now and forever, as towering achievements within the style - technical, emotional, powerful and absolutely unique. In the ‘90s, during a profoundly magical six-year period from 1990 to 1996, the band put out ‘A Social Grace’, ‘Into The Everflow’, ‘Mosquito’ and ‘Bleeding’, a quartet with a level of consistent quality that few other bands of any genre can boast. Incredibly, after years of hiatus (and some other related projects of equally brilliant appeal by some of their members such as Darkstar or DeadSoul Tribe), they got back together and delivered the fifth chapter in the saga in 2020, ‘The God-Shaped Void’, which is nothing more than nothing less what any perfect reunion should deliver - the album that could and should have come after ‘Bleeding’, yet updated for the 21st Century, powerful, evocative and transcendent in its created musical dreamscape.
This year, the band underwent a much-awaited process of reissuing of their entire back catalogue, with all their ‘90s albums - plus a compilation of their legendary demo material - given a proper treatment of remastering, edition in coloured vinyl and copious bonus outtakes.
To celebrate this renewal , TDM challenged guitarist Dan Rock to our usual Ten Rounds challenge. The talented musician and songwriter, not to mention a super nice guy as well, took us on a tour of some of the most timeless classics of rock and metal, and also gave us the most updated news and predictions on the future of the band. It’s been a pleasure chatting with Dan, and we wish him all the best. We are looking forward to that elusive future EP, Mr. Rock!
As always, to listen to the episode just follow this link or click on the first picture of the post.
If you don’t mind a few spoilers for the conversation, here are some of the screenshots for stuff that Dan mentions during the various chats:
While here you can see the little tour Dan gave us of his daughter’s room - a 14 year old that loves Queen, Bowie and The Beatles? Apparently they exist, yes! That’s what you get with good parenting, people. Dan is a little less proud of the whole Taylor Swift appreciation in the middle of all those, but let the girl be. As he says, at least not all the artists she likes are dead and not touring anymore.
Finally, just so there are no doubts, the Darkstar project that Dan had with Siggy Blasey in the ‘90s, with two albums released, of which we play a song at the end of the show, is this one, so you don’t get lost in the sea of Dark Star/Darkstars that exist or have existed since then. I heavily recommend giving the second album ‘Heart Of Darkness’ in particular a good listen if you’re not familiar with them. If you dig the song that we talk about on the show, do dive deeper here: