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A new Textbook

New album and sound from A Textbook Tragedy for the New Year
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TextBook New Year A Textbook Tragedy will join Savannah and The Death Rays for a Hardcore New Year show on Sunday, Dec. 30 at Garfinkel's as part of Punk Night.

Who: A Textbook Tragedy

When: Sunday, Dec. 30, 9:30 p.m.

Where: Garfinkel’s

Tickets: $8

New album, new frontman and new label: It’s been quite the “new” year for Vancouver’s A Textbook Tragedy, coming to Whistler for the Punk Night Hardcore New Year’s Party on Sunday, Dec. 30 at Garfinkel’s.

“Our ultimate goal is to be on the road 10 months a year,” said guitarist Kai Turmann of his New Year’s resolution for 2008. “It will take a while.”

A Textbook Tragedy band members are well on their way with the Vancouver band signing on with Distort, a sub label of Universal. The label has helped build careers for bands such as Alexisonfire, Cancer Bats and Savannah.

A Textbook Tragedy signed with the label a few weeks ago after one of their agents heard their new album and watched them perform in Hamilton, Ontario.

“We’ve never had in store sales (of our album) before; we’ve always sold them at shows and a few online,” Turmann said.

A Textbook Tragedy’s new album, Intimidator , will be released and distributed in February or March of 2008 in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

The music on the new album is a huge departure from the band’s debut record, A Partial Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest. Like the name, the band’s music is more clearly focused.

“I like the one word thing,” Turmann said of the new album. “Our last album was super technical and crazy and spazy. Jazz was thrown in everywhere. It was definitely a metal album. With this album, we wanted to give our best shot at making a career out of it, so we focused our sound a bit more and made it more accessible.”

Fans need not worry; the loud, fast and screaming electrifying sound of A Textbook Tragedy still charges on.

“We kind of take metal and hardcore and mix it together,” Turmann said. “It has the energy of hardcore… We try to keep it fast and up beat and then it’s metal because it’s heavy and screamy and crazy.”

Dark would also be a good adjective to use when describing Turmann’s lyrics.

“I’ve always written really dark lyrics,” he said. “I am lucky I haven’t had a hard life with horrible things happening to me, so I just write stories I might see in a movie.”

Think The Hills Have Eyes or any of the Jason movies. Turmann’s lyrics always have some kind of villain, some kind of Freddy stalking through a musical slasher flick.

“(My lyrics) are like if you watched a horror movie and then wrote a poem about it,” Turmann said.

Fellow label mate Savannah, who is joining the Punk Night New Year lineup, also brings a new album to the show. The album is produced by Devin Townsend, whose producer portfolio includes the likes of Lamb of God and Gwar.

The Vancouver band is made up of members from legendary hardcore and metal bands such as Sidesixtyseven, Compromise and Misery Signals. For the past five years, Savannah has toured Canada and the U.S. with bands such as Hatebreed, Shai Hulud, 3 Inches of Blood and Death By Stereo.

Tickets are $8. Doors at 9:30 p.m. and show at 10 p.m.