Cripple Mr Onion
About Cripple Mr Onion from Auckland
Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Cripple Mr. Onion originally hail from Christchurch in New Zealand's South Island where Andy Woodd and former bassist Mike "Fud" Fudakowski founded the band in 1996 and where the band wrote, played, and developed their particular style (and a devoted following) until they relocated to Auckland in mid-2006.
Comprising Andy Woodd on vocals and guitar, Az Burns on guitar, Shoki
Kamishima on bass and René Harvey on drums, the band produces a
diverse offering of intelligent, atmospheric and powerful metal with a strong emphasis on musicality that has been described as
spellbindingly beautiful one moment and violently cataclysmic the next.
Antigravity, the first full-length studio album by Cripple Mr Onion is destined to occupy a landmark position in the history of New Zealand rock music, even based solely on the fact that it stands completely unprecedented within its genus in this country. The gestural reach of the album is tectonic in scope, expansive sonic vistas genetically infused with a local geographic essence (albeit tinted by a somewhat apocalyptic sun) that is easily recognisable by any who have a connection with some of the more unspoiled regions of the land.
The band have spared themselves no pain getting this right - producing an entirely self-funded album of this scale without compromise has required them to travel a long hard road in an uncomfortably cheap pair of shoes - the end result however radiates assurance that those who know the band from their explosive live performances will find that nothing went missing during translation to the studio album format. CMO have destroyed stages with bands such as Motorhead, Shihad, Blindspott, 8ft Sativa, The D4, and Stylus - a live Cripple Mr Onion set in full force is a thing that must be experienced to be believed.
Over the past dozen years the inimitable sound of Cripple Mr Onion has evolved into something considerably distant from its initial roots, their material always taking direction from the stylistic leanings of each band member as the line-up settled into its current composition.
In the live arena even songs that were written nearly a decade ago
have translated and evolved in keeping with this, allowing the older
material in their live set to stay fresh and to represent the sound of the band in the current era, which many including the band themselves would consider to be the quintessential Cripple style - primal, tribal beats and riffs, haunting harmonies and expansive atmospheric textures - each song becomes as individual as a living entity with it's own unique qualities, evolving organically to often epic proportions.
Aside from the new album, the bands original demo album Chronocide
(completed in 2001) yields a number of tracks that are considered by
all who know their music to be classic within the Cripple repertoire,
including the style-defining Six Days of Silence and electro-metal
crowd favourite A.I, and of the remaining tracks those that have since been displaced in their live set by more recent material nonetheless remain essential as a genetic lineage of the newer output that comprises Antigravity.
At the current time Cripple Mr. Onion are working primarily on getting Antigravity into the hands of as many people as possible who are likely to appreciate it around the world, meanwhile there's a large stockpile of new riffs and musical ideas brewing in preparation for writing new material, which the band members confess to being
extremely keen to get back into after such a long period of post-
production for Antigravity - those on the scene should anticipate a
few new shakings of the earth as the warmer months approach again...
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