{"id":3039,"date":"2019-06-25T12:30:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T10:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/?p=3039"},"modified":"2019-06-24T18:54:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T16:54:35","slug":"portland-maine-doomsters-ogre-join-cruz-del-sur-music-thrice-as-strong-studio-album-due-this-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/06\/portland-maine-doomsters-ogre-join-cruz-del-sur-music-thrice-as-strong-studio-album-due-this-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland, Maine Doomsters OGRE Join Cruz Del Sur Music; \u2018Thrice As Strong\u2019 Studio Album Due This Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Long-running Portland, Maine doom trio OGRE<\/strong> has signed with Cruz\nDel Sur Music<\/strong> for the October release of their forthcoming fifth studio\nalbum, \u201cThrice As Strong\u201d<\/strong>. The album was tracked with Rowan Bishop<\/strong>\nat Garage Mahal Recording<\/strong> in Westbrook, Maine.
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\nPractitioners of traditional doom with a mix of \u201970s rock and proto metal, OGRE\n<\/strong>was formed in 1999 by Ed Cunningham<\/strong> (bass\/vocals), Ross Markonish<\/strong>\n(guitar) and Will Broadbent<\/strong> (drums). To date, the band has released four\nstudio albums, with 2014\u2019s \u201cThe Last Neanderthal\u201d<\/strong> their most recent.\nOGRE<\/strong> came to the attention of Cruz Del Sur<\/strong> through classic word of\nmouth \u2014 a handful of Cruz Del Sur<\/strong> bands put in the good word for OGRE<\/strong>\nto label owner Enrico Leccese<\/strong>. 
\n
\n\u201cOnce we started working on this album, we posted a few messages on social\nmedia, reaching out to any potential labels that might be interested in working\nwith us this time around,\u201d says Markonish<\/strong>. \u201cWill<\/strong> started up a\ncorrespondence with Butch Balich<\/strong> from ARGUS<\/strong> who then put us in\ntouch with Tom Phillips of WHILE HEAVEN WEPT<\/strong>, who works closely with Enrico<\/strong>.\nWe played with WHILE HEAVEN WEPT<\/strong> years ago at a doom festival in\nRochester, New York and we’ve also shared the stage with other Cruz<\/strong>\nartists, including ARGUS <\/strong>and APOSTLE OF SOLITUDE<\/strong>, so we couldn’t\nbe happier to share a label with all those great bands, not to mention SLOUGH\nFEG<\/strong>, another favorite!\u201d
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\nSince the release of \u201cThe Last Neanderthal\u201d<\/strong>, OGRE<\/strong> has kept themselves\nbusy with shows in Portland, while working on the material that would\neventually become \u201cThrice As Strong\u201d<\/strong>. The band even found time to make\ntheir impact abroad: \u201cOne particularly cool thing that we did\nrecently was travel to Arkhangelsk, Russia in October of last year to\nplay the Belomor-Boogie Festival<\/strong>, a Russian rock festival that currently\nis in its 25th year of existence,\u201d notes Markonish<\/strong>. \u201cArkhangelsk is the\nsister city of our hometown of Portland, Maine, so it was an amazing\nexperience to travel across the globe and represent the Portland scene for the\npeople of Russia. We made a ton of new friends and fans out there!\u201d \n\nAccording to Markonish<\/strong>, the \u201cThrice As\nStrong\u201d<\/strong> album title plays off OGRE<\/strong>\u2019s power-trio formation and is\ntaken from their namesake song, \u201cOgre\u201d<\/strong>, which is the first track on\ntheir first album, \u201cDawn Of The Proto-Man\u201d<\/strong>, which is also where \u201cThe\nLast Neanderthal\u201d<\/strong> title came from. \u201cAs our fans know, we really like all of\nthese self-referential details, as it sort of builds up the concept\nof an \u2018OGRE Universe\u2019<\/strong>. Not surprisingly, we are all fans of comic\nbooks, sci-fi and horror novels\/movies, and bands like RUSH<\/strong>, who\nspecialize in those sorts of geeky things.\u201d

OGRE<\/strong> is recording with Bishop<\/strong> because of his \u201cgood set of ears\u201d\nand the stripped-down feel of Garage Mahal Studios<\/strong>. Markonish<\/strong>\nsays the new songs are not a departure from the band\u2019s vintage sound, but fans\ncan expect a few different influences this time around.

\n\u201cWhen we first started working on this album, our original plan was to try to\nkeep song lengths down a bit,\u201d he says. \u201cReason being, our prior albums all\nfeatured at least one song in the 10-15-minute range, never mind our concept\nalbum, \u2018Plague Of The Planet\u2019<\/strong>, which consists of a single, 37-minute\nsong! While that proved difficult (a couple songs on this album stretch into\nthe 8-minute range), it still did inform our general approach to songwriting\nthis time around. 

\n\u201cI would also say that there is a bit more of an \u201880s metal influence on\nthese tracks \u2014 some MAIDEN<\/strong>, a little DIO<\/strong> perhaps, and also some\nof the more underground bands of the time, like CIRITH UNGOL<\/strong> and MANILLA\nROAD<\/strong>. Rowan<\/strong> even said he heard a little MERCYFUL FATE<\/strong> on some\nof the songs! The way I put it to someone, while our prior albums\nwere majorly influenced by \u201970s-era PENTAGRAM<\/strong>, this one shares some of\nits sound and ethos with the Victor Griffin<\/strong> \u201980s line-up that\nproduced the \u2018Relentless\u2019<\/strong> and \u2018Day Of Reckoning\u2019<\/strong> albums.\u201d \n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long-running Portland, Maine doom trio OGRE has signed with Cruz Del Sur Music for the October release of their forthcoming fifth studio album, \u201cThrice As Strong\u201d. The album was tracked with Rowan Bishop at Garage Mahal Recording in Westbrook, Maine. Practitioners of traditional doom with a mix of \u201970s rock and proto metal, OGRE was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1575],"tags":[1090,1420,1078,3,1578,92,751,1205,1576,387,59,1577,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3041,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3039\/revisions\/3041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruzdelsurmusic.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}