Mar 132024
 


Photos by Robyn Benson / Black Earth Photography

(Last year the British doom band Iron Void celebrated their 25th anniversary and released a stellar fourth album, and in belated honoring of those events Comrade Aleks conducted the following very engaging interview with all three of the band’s members — Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale, Steve Wilson, and Scott Naylor.)

Iron Void from West Yorkshire is one of the most focused and active doom metal bands among those that present a “traditional” scene. Being formed in 1998 and disbanded in 2000, Iron Void didn’t hurry to record a full-length album even after their reunion in 2008, but here they are with four albums in the discography now, and the most up-to-date release IV saw the light of day in January 2023.

Yes, it happened one year ago, and we’re a bit late with this interview, but it’s never too late to support the band that deserves wider exposure. After all, heroic, quite old-school, and damn heavy IV was one of the best doom albums of 2023. Also, besides other things, you’ll learn from this interview what “Street Doom” stands for! Continue reading »

Mar 112024
 

(Belatedly, we are still catching up with interviews conducted by Comrade Aleks at a time when our editor was too incapacitated by work to publish them in a timely manner, and today we catch up to his discussion with Ion Santos from the Basque Country brutal death metal band Putrid Torso.)

About a year ago we did the interview with Hopelessness, a melodic death metal band from Basque Country. And somewhere around November 2023 I got the message from their guitar player Ion Santos. He said that he’s also involved in the brutal death act Putrid Torso and that Trails of Hypnotized Human Veins had just been released by Pathologically Explicit Recordings.

And, honestly, brutal death isn’t my cup of tea (even Lovecraftian brutal death), but we’re just mere puppets in the hands of Ruinous Powers. So here’s the interview with Ion for those who are into extreme and misanthropic metal. Continue reading »

Mar 082024
 

(With agonized apologies to Comrade Aleks and the members of the Netherlands-based group Stuporous for our lamentable delay, today we present an excellent discussion among them, with a focus on the band’s debut album released in January by Void Wanderer Productions and War Productions.)

You should know Stuporous, as there was already a track premiere last fall at NCS, don’t you? It’s a killer band performing a mix of black and doom metal with jazz elements. Its members play different styles of extreme (and not so extreme) metal in Belgian and Dutch bands, some of which are members of the Zwotte Kring artistic collective.

Their first full-length album is Asylum’s Lament, so named after the experiences of the band’s vocalist Devi, who works in psychiatry, and you can easily imagine what kind of crazy stuff you can find here.

And here we have all members of this highly artistic outfit answering my questions with patience and passion. Or something like that. Continue reading »

Mar 072024
 

(We’re grateful to Daniel Barkasi for reaching out to Gost, and to Gost for participating in the discussion with Dan that we now present, on the eve of release of Gost‘s new album on Metal Blade. We’ll present Dan‘s review tomorrow.)

To those familiar with the darker side of synthwave, no doubt Gost has crossed your listening pathways. Also known as James Lollar, the Texas native exploded onto the burgeoning synthwave scene with a highly unique take on the genre with debut EP Radio Macabre in 2013, soon followed by Skull. Since then, Gost has – along with the likes of Carpenter Brut, Perturbator, and Dance with the Dead, among others – spearheaded the darksynth style into existence, and ultimately, the prominence it has ascended to today.

Always on the creative forefront and never stale, Gost has amassed an impressively eclectic discography. The worlds of electronic music and metal also merge with Gost, who has dabbled in metal projects in the past, and has toured with the likes of Mayhem and Katatonia. Even a heralded performance at Maryland Deathfest in 2017. Gost stretches the boundaries of what’s possible between the two genres.

Now, with a brand new album in the form of Prophecy, Gost has returned to his bombastic early days, while not losing the industrial and gothic influences that have been integral components of his more recent work. He was gracious enough to have a chat about how the new record came to be, the contentious climate of the world today, his connection with metal music, and a variety of other interesting topics. Continue reading »

Mar 042024
 


photo by Camilla NessetKnut J. Berget

(Our old friend KevinP has rejoined us at NCS with a very special interview of Agnete M. Kirkevaag that we’re very happy to share with you now, about one month after the release of Madder Mortem‘s latest album [enthusiastically reviewed here by Andy Synn].)

It has been 8 years since we’ve last sat down with Agnete Mangnes Kirkevaag, lead vocalist of Norway’s Madder Mortem. An abundance of things have transpired in her life since that time; 2 full length albums and a documentary about the band have been released, coupled with personal loss, mental and physical transformation.

Please join me again as I delve into the psyche of an enlightened and articulate gem of a human being. We discuss the new album, Old Eyes, New Heat (released January 26, 2024 via Dark Essence Records), how growing up in Norway and cultural norms shaped her life, who we have to thank for the band’s existence, and her journey of acceptance and gratitude. Continue reading »

Mar 012024
 


photo ©Jolanda Siemonsa

(Our old friend Ben Manzella returns to NCS with the following interview of Rune Eriksen. The focus is on Vltimas, whose new album EPIC is set for release on March 15th by Season of Mist.)

While there are still a few weeks until Vltimas’ fittingly titled next LP, EPIC, is released, I’m grateful to present this brief conversation with Rune “Blasphemer” Eriksen. After editing it for clarity and reading over his answers from our email exchange, I only wish we could have met in person for this conversation. He offered plenty of info, I think, for the few questions presented here.

If you have yet to pre-order EPIC through Season of Mist, the time is now. This rollercoaster of personality in recorded form hit me like a train from the first listen. The creative trio of David Vincent, Flo Mounier, and Rune is hard to match and even describe. They have crafted an extreme metal record that will stand out not only in the year 2024 but in general, and I would not be surprised to see it on many year-end favorite lists. EPIC is due for release on the 15th of March. Continue reading »

Feb 232024
 


Photo Credit: Christian Martin Weiss

(Delays of various kinds make this interview of Hannes Grossmann by Comrade Aleks later in coming than we would have liked, but it’s better late than never, as we hope you will agree!)

This interview was started by email in October 2023 or so, and why do we publish it now? Because things happen not as planned, and it took too much time to finish it, though even that didn’t help much, so I feel it is incomplete. And I bet that you already heard Alkaloid’s third album Numen, which was released by Season of Mist last September, so what else to add?

However, it was good to get a response from Hannes Grossmann, Alkaloid’s drummer and a super-busy musician who’s involved in a few more bands and projects. You can listen to some of Numens songs while you read the text. I think that it won’t take much time. Continue reading »

Feb 222024
 

(Anyone who has followed Comrade Aleks lo these many years knows that if any metal band is inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft he will eventually talk with them. As he did with Joseph Curwen from the Chilean death metal band Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and a good conversation it was.)

Chilean death metal band Unaussprechlichen Kulten was named after the fictional occult grimoire invented by H.P Lovecraft and R. E. Howard. And, according to its name, the band have continued to channel the will of ancient malign entities through their ferocious and macabre songs since 1999.

Their six album Häxan Sabaoth was released by Iron Bonehead Productions on the 2nd of February, and we made this interview with Unaussprechlichen Kulten founder Joseph Curwen (vocals, guitars) in the lead-up to its release. And, in my opinion, we had a pretty smart, even witty conversation thanks to Joseph. Continue reading »

Feb 212024
 

(The Argentinian funeral doom band Fungoid Stream has four albums to their name dating back to 2004, but not much news in the last 4+ years, so Comrade Aleks decided to reach out and see what’s happening. The following conversation with vocalist Simon O. was the result.)

We interview bands when something important happens in their careers: a release of a new album, a reunion, or a big tour. But sometimes just nothing happens! No reports from the studio, nothing about reissues of the back-catalogue or anniversary shows. And that too is a good reason to try to get in contact, to see if they’re still alive there in their underground.

Lovecraftian funeral doom duo Fungoid Stream are based in Buenos Aires. Joseph C. (all instruments) and Simon O. (vocals) released four albums since the band’s origin in 2003: Celaenus Fragments (2004), Oceanus (2010), Prehuman Shapes (2014), and The Winds Among the Stars (2019).

As you see, it’s too early to worry, because the pause after the most up-to-date release isn’t critical yet. But I worry anyway, that’s why we organized this interview with Simon O., Fungoid Stream’s vocalist, and it’s a right time for you to check the band if you haven’t met it before. Continue reading »

Feb 162024
 

(The UK doom metal band Gévaudan put out a hell of a good album in Umbra last fall, so good that Comrade Aleks felt compelled to reach out for an interview, and the results are his very engaging conversation published below with Gévaudan bassist Andy Salt.)

The “Beast of Gévaudan” was a nickname of a semi-mythical man-eating wolf from French folklore. The creature made about 250 attacks on people in the Gévaudan region from 1764 to 1767, hence its name.

Several heavy bands are named after the beast, and the Hertfordshire doom metal quartet have carried it since 2013. Gévaudan was the first band for Andy Salt (bass) and David Himbury (drums), as Bruce Hamilton (guitar) had already performed in the stoner band Burn the Yeti, and Adam Pirmonhamed (vocals) had previously sung in the progressive thrash formation Manufacture.

First, the EPs Message for the Damned (2014) and Litost (2016) were released, then the group collected enough material for the full-length album Iter (2019), after which the presence of such a promising doom metal unit could no longer be ignored in the underground. So, by the end of 2023, Gévaudan came out with their second big work – Umbra. The album consists of one track with a duration of 43 minutes, and this is not nearly as scary and depressing as it might seem. This deep, emotional doom metal with epic (as well as progressive and psychedelic) touches has its original blend with recognizable traces of some classic acts.

A few of my doom-hooked friends recommended me Umbra, and it’s something each doom-head needs to know. Andy Salt told us a lot about the band’s and album’s backgrounds, so here we go. Continue reading »