Here’s a chance for you to tell our readers about your new album “Progression”.

But could you please start off by introducing the readers to The Last Warning?

The Last Warning – Hello everybody. We are the Austrian Thashers THE LAST WARNING and end of June we released our new album “Progression” over Massacre Records. The band exists since 1999 with the same line up. Progression is our fourth album and in the last years we hanged out on stages throughout Europe and Asia.

We really have our special style and sound which is really important for us. We don´t want to sound like all the other bands out there.

Could you please give us some info on the album: Where did you record the album and who has produced and mixed it?

The Last Warning – We recorded the Album at the Prophecy & Music Factory Studios in Kempten (Germany). The new album was produced by R.D. Liapakis, who is the singer of the bands Mystic Prophecy and Devils Train and who is the producer of the bands like Suicidal Angels, Firewind and Chrystal Tears. The album was mixed and mastered by the sound engineer Christian Schmid with R.D. Liapakis what worked out very well. We really love the sound of the whole album.

And now onto ” Progression”… track-by-track, what inspired you, and what do what to express with this song etc.

01. The Beast

The Last Warning – It is a song which we musically worked on for a very long time. We changed the arrangement for so many times that I can't count it. Everybody in the band hated this song, but we have still kept it. And now it is our opener on the album and we made a music video for it, so the hard work paid off.

The lyrics of the song were inspired by the life of Jack Unterweger, an Austrian serial killer who was captured by the police and kept in jail and then they set him free after psychiatrists said that he made a recovery. They were wrong because the murders started again. In the end he committed suicide in jail, here in my hometown Graz.

02. Devil Inside

The Last Warning – A very fast and straight-in-your-face song. This song is about the duality of the human nature and how we see things in a positive or negative way. Sometimes live or situations change within seconds. Everything is depending on how we see the things. You can see everything in a positive way or in a negative way, we are creating our personal reality.

03. Progression

The Last Warning – This song starts with very cool guitar work that has some epic touch before it becomes a real fast and mid tempo thrash metal song. The lyrics of the song are really inspiring for me because they are about the progression in life as a person, as musician and, on a different level, the progression of the society.

04. The New Sign

The Last Warning – There are always days in my live when everything seems to be too much. In these dark days of my existence I really like to write lyrics because I can express myself in a positive way. We all are going through such hard times and after we overcome it, we have more power than before. The song has a very cool solo and the refrain is really catchy.

05. Pain and Hate

The Last Warning – This song is a real monster. It starts very slowly and goes beyond in a very fast tempo. I start to growl very deep and then cry very high; it is really fucked up, I love it. Think the whole lyrics of this song are very rough. There is also a really great solo in the song and you should listen to the drums, they are really special. The inspiration for the lyrics came up when I kicked my TV out. Someday I watched the news on TV and I was really pissed off about the things that happen in the world. Then I recognized that there is too much shit on all these television channels for me, so I decided to kick the TV out of my live. Seems strange eh?

06. Awake the Red Lion

The Last Warning – Since I was 16 I read a lot about old philosophies and secret wisdoms. One of these old secret teachings is alchemy. I learned that in alchemy everything is about how to change the personality. To transform your mind for a greater understanding of the world. To transform your base metal into gold. The red lion is an old symbol of this process.

Awake the Red Lion has also a very catchy refrain, if you listen to the song for some times it will stay in your head the whole day.

07. Run

The Last Warning – Run is a great neck breaker. It has the perfect tempo to bang your head for the whole song. In the last years I became an extreme runner, think that is a sort of addiction. There is no deeper philosophy behind this song it's just about running and the pain you experience when you run beyond your limits. IRON MAIDEN has the song “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” and THE LAST WARNING has the song “Run”, that makes sense or not, haha?

08. Down to the Ground

The Last Warning – Like “Pain and Hate” this is a song with very personal lyrics. It is about the struggle in life and that we have to fight day by day. The truth is that we need this fights in live, because it is the best chance for us to grow. Look at our own live, after each crisis you become stronger. Musically the song has a melodramatic undertone, so it fits to the lyrics.

09. Haunted

The Last Warning – A lot of people like this song best on the album but I really hate it. Maybe because I freaked out in the studio for so many times when I did the lyrics for the song. The topic of this song is the whole advertising industry that hunts us and wants to sell us stuff the whole day. We are no longer humans, we are just consumers.

10. Now I Bleed

The Last Warning –

It is a song about the human relationships. Sometimes you meet a person that hurts you. This person doesn't hurt you physically but hurts you inside. Often they hurt your heart. That’s the reason why I gave the track the title “Now I Bleed”. I don't want to blame anybody, think that is normal to get hurt. We all hurt other people. Sometimes we are victims and sometimes we are the offender.

When you listen to it you can feel that there is a mixture of depression and aggression inside the whole track. There are also great solos and background guitars in the song together with attacking growling and shouting.

11. Fake Blood

The Last Warning – After the little bit depressive song Now I Bleed, Fake Blood is a song that gives you power again. The song has so much unique riffs and I sing it with a very brutal voice, the song really kicks ass. It is a song about our fellow human beings, who love to gossip. Do you by any chance know such people? Their life is that much boring that they must talk bad about others. I say that this gossip is not real; it’s just a fake blood, the blood that is shed.

12. Say Goodnight

The Last Warning – This song is dedicated to the financial crisis that we hear about every day. We should do this and that but nobody knows a way out of the crisis. So the refrain says: “See the ash of your cash, in this fight say goodnight”. Because we all are part of this system and it seems that we can't do anything against this stupid financial system what slowly breaks down. It is also a very fast song in thrash metal style.

Tell us a bit about the artwork – who made it etc. and how important do you feel it is to have a cool artwork?

The Last Warning – The artwork is a symbol for the system we live in. On the cover you can see the dead king who stands for our rotten financial and economic system. We know that the king is dead, but we keep him on the throne because we don’t know any better or we don't want to change anything. Inside the booklet, you can see the band members surrounded by skulls and bones, what is also a reference that we are surrounded by a dying environment.

We found Anestis Goudas, a graphic guy in Greece over our producer Liapakis. We talked to him about the ideas we have and he created the artwork like this, what we really like.

I think it is really important that you have a good artwork because it’s the flagship of a band. For me everything should fit together, the music, the lyrics and the artwork.

Any last words you want to round this interview off with?

The Last Warning – Thanks for reading this interview. Check out our new album “Progression” and our two music videos for the songs “The Beast” and “Devil Inside”.

Kenn Jensen, July 2013