Today’s feature of “5 Albums That Influenced Me" comes Strychnia vocalist Kevin O’Laughlin. The band are in the studio working on a new EP which should be out in May.

1. The Cleansing - Suicide Silence

This album is easily my biggest influence when it comes to music in general. Mitch is also my biggest influence when it comes to vocals. I didn’t start getting into extreme metal until I was 16 or 17 years old and when I heard this album my mind was just blown, I loved it. It totally motivated me to want to learn how to do those demonic screams. I still don’t think any deathcore band has topped this album. Although, I really don’t listen to a lot of deathcore these days. The genre has gotten a lot worse in my opinion. I’m more into Death Metal, Thrash Metal, and Black Metal these days. And a lot of non-metal lol.

2. Scars of The Crucifix - Deicide

This album was huge for me when I first joined Strychnia. Not only was I being introduced to some new extreme metal… The vocals on this album really heavily influenced some of the overlaps that I do for Strychnia. This album had a lot of low screams with high screams overlapped, and at the time I didn’t really think anyone was doing that in Death Metal. I was new to metal and I had thought overlapping was more of a deathcore thing.

3. Ashes of The Wake - Lamb of God

This album was another big influence on my vocal style for Strychnia. When I first joined the band, I was really more of a deathcore-influenced Vocalist. I needed to change it up a bit and I needed to add more variety to the tones that I could scream. I didn’t do this consciously, but I definitely used Randy’s mid-screams as a big influence for my own “mid-scream”. I think another thing that led to this was the fact that we used to cover the song “Now You’ve Got Something To Die For” when we first started playing shows together.

4. Negation - Decapitated

Mmmm… good ol’ Decapitated. Haha. BIG influence on my low screams. I love that “e” sound combined with the foreign accent. I love doing Decapiated-style low screams on Strychnia stuff. Obviously I’ve made it into my own style, but these guys and this album are another huge influence.

5. Tomb of The Mutilated - Cannibal Corpse

This album was a huge influence for me when I was experimenting with a lot of deep guttural screams. Through my learning process as a Vocalist I always wanted to have a variety of styles. I never wanted to be that mono-tone guy. Even though that can sound great for some people, it’s just not for me. I just remember practicing “Hammer Smashed Face” and “I Cum Blood” for hours trying to get those crazy gutturals down.