tweaker‘s new album ‘call the time eternity’ will be released via Metropolis Records on October 23, 2012. Partnering up with programmer/guitarist collaborator Jesse Hall, the band’s mastermind Chris Vrenna (ex-Nine Inch Nails drummer and U2 / Nelly Furtado / Rammstein remixer) left his post as sticksman for Marilyn Manson last year and returned to focus on his own career. “tweaker has always been my passion project,” he explains. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have been overly busy in the last several years and had to repeatedly back-burner the new record.”
His third album and first since the critically-hailed ‘2 a.m. wake up call’ eight years ago, ‘call the time eternity’ sounds like an electronic journey through darkened paths, themed by machine-gun staccato percussion, strings and synths and occasionally punctuated with ethereal guest vocalists.
“Every tweaker record is a mix of instrumental music and vocal songs,” Chris describes. “During the writing and recording process, tracks will naturally evolve into one or the other.”
From the midnight stylings of the instrumental intro ‘ponygrinder’ that incorporates found samples into elongated drum n’ bass rhythms, to the creepy industrial soundtrack of a serial killer’s basement in ‘areas of the brain’ to the gauzy and pastoral ‘grounded (featuring KaRIN of Collide)’, the album blends multiple atmospheres alternative pop/rock and electronica into a densely cohesive mix. There’s also a surprising cover of Phil Collins’ ‘i don’t care anymore’. Vrenna says: “I do love Phil’s drumming! He really broke new ground both in the grooves he created, but also in the way his drums were recorded and sounded,” he explains. “While working on tweaker, ‘I Don’t Care Anymore’ began haunting me. For a few weeks every time I got in the car, it came on the radio. It happened so many times that I took it as a sign.”
Chris explains about the album and its title, “I have gone through several serious losses or ‘goodbyes’ over the last several years…the passing of my father, a bitter divorce, leaving Manson. And my close friends have all had similar experiences. Whether positive or negative, good or bad, happy or sad, final ‘goodbyes’ are always difficult and bring up many conflicting emotions. call the time eternity explores all of those things.”
Listen to the first tweaker record below:
Image: Dallas Stoeckel
