New Blood Rising

With an average age of 18, a freshly-inked record deal and a debut album just about to hit shelves, Army Rising aren’t your everyday jobbing Irish band. Having grown up on a steady diet of old-school rock and metal, including Jimi Hendrix, Lynyrd Skynyrd and thick slices of Thin Lizzy, the Tipperary-based foursome formed in school and quickly found themselves cultivating a sound that borrowed heavily from an era that raged while they were still in the womb.

Starting out so young meant that while the band have only recently found themselves treading the boards in pubs and clubs, they have also developed a confidence and collective tightness that marks them out as one of the country’s most promising talents. Of course, humble beginnings wouldn’t be humble without a nice rickety first instrument to kick things off. With that in mind, what kind of guitar put this band of metalheads on their road to rock?
“It was some shitty starter pack,” laughs vocalist and guitarist Noel O’Brien. “I can’t even remember the name of it. It’s long gone.”
With good reason. It’s hard to imagine an outfit as relentless as Army Rising with an acoustic guitar at the fore. So what is Noel currently shredding?
“An Epiphone Les Paul Black Beauty, but I’m moving on to a new one with active EMG pickups,” he enthuses. “I’ll probably go for the Epiphone EB Ebony. It has a metal neck with a black body and much more powerful pickups. We recorded [debut album] Impending Chaos with a very similar guitar, so I’m looking forward to getting one of my own. My current one just has stock pickups, it’s more of a standard Les Paul really. I’m looking for something with a bigger sound, and I have my guitar three years now so the wiring is a bit loose these days.”
Originally a five-piece, Army Rising once employed a devastating triple-axe attack but a change in personnel left the band one guitar down. Noel reckons it was a blessing in disguise.
“It wasn’t really working,” he recalls. “It’s very hard to craft that set-up, to get it right and master it completely. There’s no need for more than two guitars, is there?”
I’m sure plenty of metal bands would take umbrage with that statement.
“I suppose, Iron Maiden or whatever,” he shrugs.
Fair enough. So how do the guys make those two guitars count?
“I use a Randall RH150 head through a Marshall 1960A cab,” says Noel. “Tony (Myler, with whom Noel splits lead and rhythm guitar duty) uses an ENGL Powerball amp through a Randall cab. Mine is 150 watts, his is 100. They’re both very different. The ENGL has power tubes in it which gives it a warmer, more powerful feel, while my Randall is more old-school, but both give you a great metal sound.”
For someone with such an energetic vocal style, Noel is curiously reticent when it comes to discussing his hardware. What about the voice then, surely that’s an instrument in itself? Does he find his vocal style to be especially punishing?
“Yeah, it can be,” he nods. “They’re basic clean vocals with a bit of raspiness. It’s not growling. We all listen to growling and heavy types of vocals but our singing is a little softer. It still does the job properly though. It’s important to be melodic as well as being aggressive. We have that on the album, it varies. Certain parts are more powerful than others, others are softer when the song needs it.”
Ah yes, the album. Having signed to UK-based label Rising Records last year, the guys travelled to Essex to lay down Impending Chaos. Produced by label head Mark Daghorn, it’s a record that found the guys exposed to some brand new toys. Bassist Louis Rice notes that he wound up recording with Daghorn’s four-string, prompting him to rush out and pick up a Cort A4 bass upon completion of recording (he’s yet to upgrade his practice amp but assures us it’s high on his list of priorities).
Was it a tough process?
“We spent five days recording the drums, then three days triggering them to get the right sound,” says Noel. “It was a long process. Recording solos was a fucking pain! We’d switch around the vocal recording a fair bit so I could get a break from singing.”
With a UK tour just around the corner, the band are currently scouring music shops across the land to ensure that their gear matches their intentions; to tear the face off any and every audience member that comes out to see them play. The next time you hear Army Rising, expect some very big sounds indeed.

Impending Chaos is out on November 7 on Rising Records.