Blog

Wes Borland may have found success with Limp Bizkit, but the guitarist has long been known for a desire to roam across musical genres. In 2016 he released Crystal Machete, a solo work described as the soundtrack to a movie that was never made – and it was most definitely a prog record. He explained his complex motivations later that year.

Best known for his work as the guitarist with Limp Bizkit (“It allows me to play this science fiction stuntman character”), Wes Borland is on a new musical journey.

Previously he’s fronted and recorded with the industrial band Black Light Burns. He also writes and plays with Queen Kwong. But he says his latest venture, his Crystal Machete album, is the first project in which he’s truly found his own voice. Not that you’ll hear him singing on the record: “I just don’t like my voice very much!”

Crystal Machete is an experimental electronica album written as a soundtrack for an 80s sci-fi movie which was never made. By Borland’s own admission, it’s a calling card to Hollywood – but also a snapshot of where he is now musically.

Ambitiously made almost entirely in isolation in his Detroit home studio, and eschewing any hint of electric guitar or conventional vocals, fans of John Zorn, Hawkind and even Radiohead will find something to like here; Limp Bizkit fans, less so. Though as Borland says: “That’s fine with me. I usually like people who don’t like Bizkit.”

Crystal Machete sounds like the name of a heavy metal band you might form when you’re 15.

There were elements of it that were kind of inspired by the 80s, with synthesiser soundtracks, and I was looking at different 80s movies and how they had the chrome logos – Predator, Blade Runner, Legend – and I was thinking of some kind of object like in Krull, the weapon in that, and it had to be silly but serious. I was thinking something Crystal, it couldn’t be the Crystal Sword, so it became the Crystal Machete. That’s what the album was sounding like to me.

You’ve said that this album is a calling card to where you’d like to be in the future. Does that mean film soundtrack work?

Absolutely. I’ve done some indie movies in the past, a few really terrible horror movies – Saw movies and a few Resident Evil films. I’m 41 and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less and less interested in the concept of the band. I don’t really enjoy working with other people. I don’t find other people’s ideas inspiring. I’ve gone into my own bubble.

It’s not that I don’t play well with others – I’ve been let down by people so many times and my schedule has been completely muddled and destroyed by other people’s inability to have a work ethic. I just can’t do it any more.

Is it different writing and working in Detroit as opposed to Los Angeles?

In LA the space is compressed. My studio there was claustrophobic. In Detroit I have a fully functioning studio – it’s in what was the ballroom. All the houses in my neighbourhood were built in the 20s and they have ballrooms and billiard rooms in the basement, so the billiard room is the control room, the ballroom is the live room.

Why move to Detroit?

I was just disgustedly sick of LA. Every single person is always going to be doing something next and it never happens. In Detroit, the people there really want the city to come back to life and there’s a lot of pride, some great people coming in, lots of development, great history.

At one point you were up for the role of live guitarist in Nine Inch Nails.

I decided to do Black Light Burns instead of being a hired gun, which was the wrong thing to do in hindsight. I’m happy I did BLB, but it’s a little more testosterone-driven than I would like to be in the future.

But you’re in Limp Bizkit! That’s the most testosterone-driven band in the world.

Yeah, but I just play that character on TV!

You’ve said you finally found your voice on this record.

I think it’s where I’ve wanted to be musically for years and I’ve just never been able to really execute it. I don’t want to make angry records any more. I want to make records that are fun, relaxing and a delight to listen to. I’ve also run out of artists that I want to listen to. I find very few things that move me.

So are there any artists who informed this album?

Air, Daft Punk, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher. John Zorn in all of his mightiness in all the records he’s made, from Naked City to Music For Children, all the amazing things he’s done. I’m a disciple of his. That first Mr Bungle album, he produced that – that’s how I found him. That album became the mark to meet for the rest of my life.

What do you think Wes Borland fans are going to make of Crystal Machete?

This is who I am… I’ve felt very misunderstood for years and I’ve also felt like I’ve been putting the wrong foot forward for a long time. It’s the little things, like it’ll take a while for Spotify to modify search results to where, when my name comes up, you don’t also end up seeing a band like Drowning Pool. I’m waiting for that day!

Tony Iommi, the founder of heavy metal guitar playing, will release his first solo album since 2005 this October.

The Black Sabbath axeman – whose pioneering band retired at a blockbuster show last July, two weeks before vocalist Ozzy Osbourne died – has returned with the song World Alone and announced that the eight-track effort From The Dark will come out on October 23 via BMG.

Watch the dystopian video for the single and see the album art and tracklisting below.

World Alone features Norwegian singer Jørn Lande (Masterplan, Avantasia, etc.), with Becky Baldwin (Mercyful Fate) on bass and Karl Brazil (Robbie Williams) on drums. The lineup performs every song on the new album, with Iommi and longtime collaborator Mike Exeter co-producing.

Iommi comments: “It’s an album we’ve really enjoyed making. We’re not trying to prove anything – it’s a great album, it rocks!”

Iommi screened the World Alone video and unveiled album details at a special event in his hometown of Birmingham this afternoon (July 29), where he took part in a Q&A with stand-up comedian Frank Skinner.

The new songs feature Iommi’s signature, down-tuned sound, which he innovated during the early days of Sabbath in the 1960s. It’s been widely reported that he pioneered the approach because he chopped the tips of his fingers off in an industrial accident, although he disputed this in a 2016 Classic Rock interview.

“I would have liked to have not chopped the ends of my fingers off,” he said. “It became a burden. Some people say it helped me invent the kind of music I play, but I don’t know whether it did.”

Sabbath’s 1970 self-titled debut album is generally regarded as the first metal album, due to its heavy, distorted guitars and unsettling lyrics inspired by horror films. Although it was a critical dud at the time of its release, it was a commercial success, reaching number eight on the UK charts.

Follow-up album Paranoid, also released in 1970, consolidated the band’s success when it topped the UK charts. Its songs Iron Man and Paranoid are now seen as classics, with Paranoid having amassed more than one billion streams on Spotify.

Iommi attempted to launch a solo career in 1986 with the album Seventh Star, although record label obligations led to it being released under the banner of “Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi”. He went solo in earnest with 2000’s Iommi, which featured a large cast of guest musicians including Ozzy Osbourne, System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan and Type O Negative’s Peter Steele.

His second and thus-far latest solo outing, 2005’s Fused, featured the more concrete lineup of Iommi, Deep Purple and former Sabbath singer/bassist Glenn Hughes and drummer Kenny Aronoff.

In 2021, Iommi released the instrumental solo single Scent Of Dark, promoting his essence of the same name, which he made in collaboration with perfumer Xerjoff. He put out a second single/scent combo, both called Deified, in 2024. The two songs will be bonus tracks on the CD edition of From The Dark.

Last month, the guitarist was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) as part of King Charles’ birthday honours. He received the honour for his services to music and charity across his near-six-decade career.

Tony Iommi: From The Dark tracklisting

1. Over The Violent Sun
2. Black Times
3. World Alone
4. Beyond The Dead
5. Stormwatcher
6. Death Wake
7. Return Of The Arbalist
8. Legacy
9. Scent Of Dark (CD-only bonus track)
10. Deified (CD-only bonus track)