After a lengthy hiatus following an intense spell in both the critical and commercial spotlights - and with the quarter million sales of 1995's landmark album "Stacked Up" - metal/ punk/ rap/ dubmeisters SENSER return to the fray, raging full-on as ever with their long-awaited third album "Schematic" and recent pair of righteous, bile-spewing singles in the limited edition "Bulletproof" and the furious new release "The Brunt." Anger? Activism? Positivity? Whiplash musical fury? Yep, they're all still present and correct in Senser's current climate, but W&H discovered a affable, mature and wisdom-fuelled character when we got on the 'phone to singer/ lyricist HEITHAM AL-SAYAD to mull over a world that's got considerably scarier since they were last in the charts.
Hello Heitham. It's good to have Senser back, but it seems the band's supposed 'split' ended up more as an extended sabbatical as you all ended up collaborating on the back catalogue album "Parallel Charge" in 2000 anyway. Was it this move that gradually led you to reform properly as Senser again?
"Yeah, well "Parallel Charge" was really more of an opportunistic move by our old record company," reveals the laid-back, but fiercely intelligent Heitham.
"At the time we all wanted to put something new out, make a brand new record, but they wouldn't give us any money for that," he sighs.
"And really that record's rubbish in that there's nothing there for anyone who has the first two albums anyway, but it was a good thing in that it made us realise we were up for carrying Senser on and making a great new record as soon as we feasibly could."
"I think there's a lot of misinformation as to why we 'split' actually," he continues.
"I mean, for me, it was more that I needed to go off and do my own stuff for a while, with Loadstar, and so on. I think if we'd have been a bit more mature about it at the time we'd have seen that we coud have taken a year off from Senser and come back to do it again refreshed. We should have calculated that better....it wasn't as though we'd stopped being friends or anything."
OK, well the newly-energised Senser's limited edition single "Bulletproof"/ "Crucible" wasn't a bad re-introduction: the first track especially re-cementing the band's on-going relevance with rapid fire polemicism, Eastern motifs and the eeerie dubby bits all stirred into a rejuvenated brew. Do you feel you're angrier than when the band were around the first time?
"No, I don't think so in terms of anger," Heitham muses.
"If anything's changed it's that we have a broader vision rather than a community-minded one. A Global vision, I suppose. Of course there's still anger, though - it's there when you read the newspaper every day. That's enraging in itself and I don't know how most people cope keeping that anger locked up inside them all the time. I mean, I'm not sure I could contain that anger if I didn't have music as a vehicle to let those emotions out."
The coiled swagger and barely-controlled scattershot invective of new single "The Brunt" makes the band's (and any sane person's) anti-political terror stance only too apparent. I especially like that line about "White Hillbilly Caesars" referring to the good old Republican leadership. Is there a parallel between Dubya's administration and the fall of the Roman Empire, do you think?
"Undoubtedly," says Heitham, barely missing a beat.
"They take this horrible Imperialistic view and actually talk about the situation in those kind of terms. They perceive themselves as Emperors."
"I mean, they pursue their interests like a bunch of naughty schoolkids," he continues, almost incredulously.
"They've moulded the world into a mess and yes, it warrants as many people as possible making a stand and screaming about it."
Certainly, I feel the line "Acceptable losses with no tribunals and no due process" is also especially with the images of abuse we are being confronted with at present. The pawns will be punished, but not the top dogs like Messrs.Bush and Rumsfeld, or am I wrong?
"Well, certainly they (Bush and Rumsfeld) were on the ropes there for a while at least," replies Heitham.
"And it was good at least to see the nasty Cabal of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld actually on the back foot for once," he continues with relish. "Though I think it is important to make one point that people miss: Bush is actually implementing a lot of social changes - such as the privacy laws - that Clinton started on."
"Not that I'm excusing Bush either," Heitham presses on.
"I think he will go In November, because Americans aren't stupid people and all right-thinking citizens know what's really happening and even a lot of Republican supporters can sense he's trouble and has brought us all nothing but trouble. The polls (currently showing Bush at only 34% per cent as I write) demonstrate he's not well like or even believed."
I've only just started to take in the new album "Schematic", though it sure seethes with rage and cranked musical invention after only a cursory listen. Tell me more about some of the other new songs: "Return To Zombie Island" for instance?
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"It's kind've inspired by a number of things, that one," Heitham considers.
"It's partly inspiration drawn from Romero films, my thoughts on England as an island (Heitham lives in Paris mostly these days) and also Zombie fims themselves. I should say my thoughts on England are more stream of consciousness, though, it's not a manifesto or something. I like the musical ideas on that one, too - the keyboards have the same feel as the old Open University TV programmes, which works really well."
"I like a lot of the new stuff," he continues, after a pause.
"I like "Bomb Factories" a lot and also "The Brunt" - I'm really into the way it changes and shifts around the one pulse, I like the way it moves ahead. To be honest, though, I'm not one for sitting back and listening to what we've done afterwards. I like to look ahead to the next one, that's really my priority."
Were you surprised by the response at your recent round of small venue shows in the UK? We reviewed the Glasgow gig and apparently the crowd went nuts. Were you eve worried people would have forgotten about you? This is a notoriously fickle business, after all...
"I know what you mean in that in England there is a very high turnover of bands and cultural trends," replies Heitham shrewdly.
"But in itself I think that's healthy in that it keeps things fresh. It can be dangerous to come and go if you're worried about your profile, though," he concedes.
"With Senser, though, it's really not about profiles or careerism. I suppose it's a cliche, but if there are 5 people there, that's enough for us to be motivated. Believe me, we'd have gone about this a very different way if we cared about a career profile and simply making money."
Well said, and I notice on the Senser website www.senser.co.uk you also have links to the likes of not-obviously rock'n'roll-related characters as anthropologist/ Ethno-Botanist Terence McKenna, Michael Talbot (The Holographic Universe) and the Tbetan Book of Living/ Dying. Is there a pronounced gentler, metaphysical side to Senser the public miss out on?
"Well, I think it's up to us to bring that side to the forefront at times," says Heitham.
"It's always been there with us and it's up to us to address it through useful channels such as these. I mean, these are just signposts for people and we don't advocate wading in with no manual with any of them, in the way it's important to differentiate between the possible healing potential between psychotropic plants and synthetic drugs or whatever. All we're suggesting is that you should check these kind of avenues out for yourself."
On a more basic level, one comparison that continues to fly around relating to you is that Senser are the "British Rage Against The Machine." How does that sit with you?
Heitham giggles.
"Sorry, I was just laughing because my friend here heard that and called them Rage Inside The Mansion...." he laughs again.
"But no, I really liked the first RATM album because it was powerful and very immediate, but...well, I'm not hugely into their riffs and find them a bit one-dimensional, i suppose, though I don't want to get drawn too deeply into that. I tink musically we're very different anyway - we have so many levels with a DJ, female vocals, programming and so on. We're not just a straightahead rock'n'roll band."
Gotcha. But before we sign off, what about the near future. After "Schematic"s release, will it be summer festivals a go-go for Senser?
"Certainly we're doing European festivals, but I dunno about England yet," Heitham reveals.
"The trouble with a lot of the English festivals is that they've become very corporate and sewn-up, even Glastonbury, so that scene's changed a lot. It was brilliant back in the 80s when it was evolving from being the original hippie festival, but now it's so kitschy they even allow people like Tom Jones and Robbie Williams on. That's cabaret, not the sort of change we're about at all."
That's good to know, Heitham, it really is.
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