AN NCS INTERVIEW: PANTHEIST

 Interviews  1 Response »
Apr 192024
 

(In March of this year Pantheist released a new album-length EP, and Comrade Aleks found it tremendously good, and he reached out to conduct the following excellent interview with Pantheist‘s Kostas Panagiotu.)

For the past 24 years Pantheist has provided us with the one of most thoughtful and intelligent examples of doom metal in almost every form. They started with funeral doom in the days of O Solitude (2003), they turned to sophisticated death-doom on Amartia (2005), and further on the band moved towards things even more melodic and progressive.

Pantheist’s previous full-length album Closer to God saw the light of day in 2021, and this year the band returns with the 50-minute-long EP Kings Must Die. What’s good there? Believe me, that’s an album that’s worth listening to. And I believe this interview with the Pantheist’s founding member Kostas Panagiotu (vocals, keyboards) will only prove this statement. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PANTHEIST

 Interviews  No Responses »
Dec 172021
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks catches up again with Kostas Panagiotou, mastermind of Pantheist, whose latest album Closer to God was released earlier this month.)

Years ago Pantheist was known as a funeral doom metal band, international to some degree, and sometimes experimental. Twenty years passed since the release of their first demo 1000 Years and Pantheist went far away from the point where they were back then. 21 years, 24 different members, 6 full-length albums, and one man who holds this project on his shoulders – it’s obvious that he’s free to do whatever he finds necessary to this creature, whatever he feels right.

It’s Kostas Panagiotou who not only performs the duties of vocalist and keyboard player, but also writes music and lyrics and produces Pantheist. Is it a one-man band indeed? We’ll know it soon, of course. The new album Closer to God was born during this anxious and stressful lockdown, as Kostas lists the ingredients of the new material — “the ghost of Ennio Morricone; the soundtrack of videogames endlessly played; an unfulfilled need for connection; an acute awareness of the futility of it all…”

The album was planned to be a single track, but after all there are four gorgeous tracks on the verge of different genres yet based on a funeral doom fundament. The result of Pantheist‘s recording sessions is inspiring, the band gives some food for the soul and the brains, and Kostas serves it for us in this interview. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KOSTAS PANAGIOTOU (PANTHEIST, TOWARDS ATLANTIS LIGHTS)

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Oct 012018
 

 

(Comrade Aleks brings us this interview of Kostas Panagiotou of Pantheist, whose latest album was released on September 14th by Melancholic Realm Productions, and Towards Atlantis Lights, whose first album was released earlier this year by Transcending Obscurity.)

I bet every doom metal fan knows Pantheist. Started as funeral doom studio project in 2000 by Kostas Panagiotou, it has grown to the size of a full band and went through a series of stylistically metamorphoses. After seven years of secret workings since their last album, Pantheist have returned with an updated lineup and a new full-length album, Seeking Infinity. Besides that, Kostas managed to take part in the international doom project Towards Atlantis Lights, whose first album Dust Of Aeons saw the light of day in March 2018 through Transcending Obscurity Records.

In light of these events, it seemed there were several questions that we should ask Kostas, and so we did. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: WORMROT, AETHERIAN, VIRVUM, MORDOR, PANTHEIST

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Jul 232016
 

Wormrot-Voices

 

Getting a very slow start on this Saturday.  Went to sleep very late last night without having begun writing the post you are now reading, and then slept for 9 hours — and still didn’t want to get out of bed. I can’t remember the last time I slept for 9 hours, or anything close to that. I felt groggy as shit for a couple of hours after waking up. Pretty sure that was sleep grogginess rather than the after-effects of all the wine I consumed last night with my spouse and some friends. Pretty sure.

Either way, I now feel more alert and invigorated, having listened to the music collected in this post. This collection doesn’t really make much of a dent in the long list of new tracks and videos I came across since the last round-up I assembled. As usual, there’s not much rhyme or reason to why I picked these selections rather than others. Austin Weber also contributed one of these items, as you’ll see below.

WORMROT

On July 20, Singapore’s Wormrot announced that they will be releasing a new album named Voices on October 14, and they revealed the great cover art you see above by Zahir Sanosi (aka Kilas). Voices comes five long years since their last album, Dirge. Wormrot made a video to announce the new album, and it includes a new song from the album called “Fallen Into Disuse”. Continue reading »