WayTooLoud.com recently spoke with KATAKLYSM frontman Maurizio Iacono about th eband#s new album, Prevail. The following is an excerpt from the interview:

WTL: What can we expect on Prevail? I’m wondering if should ask this, because I just saw that the album is being streamed on MySpace...

Maurizio: "For those who haven’t had a chance to hear it, it’s a really hard-hitting record. I don’t think a lot of people expected us to come out with such an aggressive record right after In The Arms Of Devastation, a catchy, melodic groove record. I still think we have a lot of those elements on this record, and it just felt right for us to do it right now. It came real spontaneous, and I think that this album is built around the live aspect, and I think it’ll hit harder when we play it live. It’s going to be up there as far as one of the most extreme records, but it’s not going to be the most over-the-top album we’ve ever done. I think the heaviest parts are the heaviest ones so far, but I guess it depends on how you interpret it."

WTL: What’s the writing process like?

Maurizio: I live in Chicago, and everyone else is in Montreal, so it can be difficult to get together and do the things that we usually used to do, but for this record, we decided to work together more, and I flew to Montreal and wrote a lot of the record with the guys. It was cool to have us four in one room and write together again. The last two records, we kind of did it long distance with computers and samples, which was a little harder. It was really cool to do it together like this, and it came together so spontaneous. We’re the type of band that believes less is more, and we didn’t want to put too much into something, because then you can lose the magic of the song, and this record came together quick and strong."

WTL: Speaking about simplicity, I’ve noticed that Kataklysm doesn’t have too many guitar solos. Does that help simplify things?

Maurizio: "I like ‘em, but my guitar player doesn’t because he has to play them live! (Laughs) But we’ve never had a lot of them, and I think it’s more because we didn’t have the right spots to put them in. We didn’t feel comfortable with it, and we have one guitar player, and he decides where to put them, but we’ve done a lot more on this record, and we have some special guests as well. There’s about six solos on this record, which is more than what we usually do, which is 2 or 3. It’s up to him. You’ve got to feel it, and if you don’t feel it, you shouldn’t put it in."

Go to this location for the complete interview.