AN NCS INTERVIEW: GÉVAUDAN

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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 »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ARIS SHOCK

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Feb 152024
 

(After some unforeseen delays on our part, today we are honored to bring you Comrade Aleks‘ in-depth interview with Greek metal writer and historian Aris Shock, focusing on his two landmark books about Hellenic black metal, and with hints about the third one to come.)

It’s an extremely rare case, but today we’ll speak not with a musician, but with a journalist. The paper books turn into artifacts, the runs drop low, and you won’t get rich writing about underground metal bands, I know. But some metalheads turn to keeping the old-school attitude, and that’s why we have a kind of small vinyl renaissance, reprinting some old fanzines, and so on.

Today we’ll speak with Aris Shock, who started to release a printed fanzine Shock! Aesthetics in 2001 covering extreme music and horror movies. His interest in both led him to the idea of focusing on covering and supporting the local underground scene. Thus, the Rites of the Abyss book was written. As Aris’ first book explored and revealed the history of such phenomena as Hellenic Black Metal, his second work was the natural continuation of the first one, as The Serpent & The Pentagram is the biography of Necromantia, one of three core representatives of the genre.

We did the interview with Necromantia‘s spiritual leader The Magus a few weeks before this one  regarding his new album and this book [published here], so the interview with Aris is one more logical link in the chain of events related to the world of Hellenic Black Metal for me personally. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: URLUK

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Feb 122024
 

(Today we present an excellent interview that Comrade Aleks conducted with the two members of the Italian black/doom band Urluk, with apologies to all concerned for our delay in publishing it.)

The grim Italian duo Urluk was founded by M. (drums, vocals) and U. (guitars) in 2020. They started their underground career with the EP Loss (2022), followed by the full-length More after a formal one-year-long pause. Five new compositions fit into 34 minutes, slightly ahead of the first release in total duration.

More is the spiritual successor to Loss, and the main motives of these five compositions are identical: loneliness, despair, occultism, and obsession with negative states, clothed in the form of black doom.

It is worth noting that “Urluk” in the Lombard dialect means “tawny owl”, an owl often found in this region and, in the context of the album, associated with abandoned dwellings and forests. In this strange way, the duo demonstrates a close connection with their native land and emphasizes an interest in mysticism and darkness in various forms. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DETHRONED

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Feb 082024
 

(Today we bring you Comrade Aleks‘ interview with guitarist/drummer Barkayal of the German black metal band Dethroned, with roots in the ’90s and a new album released in December 2023 by Dominance of Darkness Records.)

Germany’s Dethroned was founded in 1991 under another name, Mysticism. They changed it to Dethroned only in 1995 and continued to record demos until their split-up in 1999. A reunion in 2007 wasn’t fruitful at first, and it took ten more years to record the band’s first full-length Bluontrunst. But six more years passed, and now Dethroned have returned with their sophomore work A Bridge to Eternal Darkness.

The band consists of its original guitarist and drummer since 2007, Barkayal, his bandmate (vocalist and guitarist) since 1995, Nebulah Danyal, another vocalist Golzarath, the guitarist John Never, and bass player Corpse. Together, they provided quite a convincing act of blasphemy, and Barkayal has a few things to say about it. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DUSK

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Feb 072024
 

(December 2023 brought us a new album by Dusk, one of the true cult doom bands from the ’90s, and it proved to be a tremendous full-length return to form, 28 years after their debut album. We proudly premiered a video for one of the new songs last year, and now follow that with Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Dusk co-founder Steve Crane – with apologies to the two of them for how long it took us to publish this.)

Back in the early ’90s, the North American death-doom scene was neither diverse nor rich. The bands that made this music in this period can be counted on one hand, but the first among them would be Avernus, Evoken, Morgion, Winter, and Dusk. Each band has its own history, and as for Dusk, they lasted only five years from their formation in 1995, leaving behind the now cult full-length …Majestic Thou in Ruin and a couple of smaller releases.

Somehow the band managed to reunite in 2015 with an almost entirely original lineup, only changing the drummer: Tim Beyer (guitars, keyboards), Steve Gross (keyboards, guitars), Steve Crane (vocals, bass) and Sean Smith (drums). Dusk recorded a mini-album Withdraw in 2018 and laid low for a while. It was a question of time, and now the second full-length album, Dissolve into Ash, was released in December 2023. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THEOSOPHY

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Jan 052024
 

(What follows is Comrade Aleks’ interview with one of the founding members of the Siberian black metal band Theosophy, whose latest album in a 20-year career was released last October.)

Theosophy is the black metal band from Barnaul, Siberia. Started back in 2004 this band released their first full-length album …Out of Decades only in 2010 and since then hasn’t stopped in developing their sound and concept.

Despite being located in that remote region, Theosophy play their stuff live whenever they have a proper chance, and so they performed not only in Siberia but also in the western part of Russia and in Europe.

Bleeding Wounds of the First and the Last is their sixth album, it was released by Epictural Production on the 27th of October, and this time they prepared something new. I’ll try to dig out more about the band’s music with the band’s founder Phantom (bass, vocals).

The interview with Theosophy was published in the Spanish magazine This Is Metal, and we are able to share it with you here. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEATHCODE SOCIETY

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Dec 282023
 

(In the interview we present here, Comrade Aleks spoke with Arnhwald R., vocalist/guitarist in the French band Deathcode Society, whose latest album Unlightenment was released on November 24th of this year by Osmose Productions, and is well worth your time.)

How many bands do you know that use deep-sea fishes on their artwork? Diceratiidae especially… And as Diceratiidae, or any other anglerfishes, lure small fishes with their bioluminescence, so the French black metal band Deathcode Society lures listeners with the image of a hellish Diceratiidae on their new album Unightenment.

It’s the band’s second album, and as Nicolas S. (bass), Grégoire G. (drums), David C. (guitars), Arnhwald R. (vocals, guitars), and Mike Barber (guitars) are busy with other bands and projects, it took some time before they finished this one.

Honestly, I’m suspicious of metal subgenres that are tagged as “symphonic”, but Deathcode Society’s Unightenment is balanced regarding the presence of orchestrations. The fish, the name of the opening song “Scolopendra”, the video they shot for it – everything points to the band’s creativity and artistic approach to their craft. Why not discuss this? Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE MAGUS

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Dec 262023
 

(Comrade Aleks has brought us another great interview as the old year draws its last breaths, and this one is his discussion with one of the founding progenitors of Hellenic Black Metal, Magus Wampyr Daoloth of Necromantia and now The Magus.)

The name of The Magus may sound new for us, but it’s the band of Magus Wampyr Daoloth that started after disbanding of the Hellenic black metal legend Necromantia in 2021. The Magus himself (bass, vocals) and two of his bandmates from another well-known act Thou Art Lord – Maelstrom (drums) and El (guitars) – continue to explore the territories inside and outside black metal borders and follow the path of Darkness or Light (depending on the perspective).

The band’s first full-length album Βυσσοδομώντας is just released. Its title translates as “building in the depths” or “conspiring in the darkness”, a proper name for this collection of occult practices and epiphanies.

We had a pretty good interview with The Magus done for the Spanish magazine This Is Metal, and I’m glad to share its full version here. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: VARATHRON

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Dec 222023
 


photo by Kostis Emmanouilidis

(On December 1st Agonia Records released a great new album by the renowned Hellenic Black Metal band Varathron, and in the time leading up to that release Comrade Aleks had an excellent discussion with Varathron‘s drummer Haris, which we are pleased to publish today.)

Varathron (translated from Greek as “extremely deep gorge”) is one of the three pillars of the Greek black metal scene along with Necromantia and Rotting Christ. Now, 35 years after the band’s foundation, only one member remains from the original lineup – Stefan Necroabyssious (vocals), but his colleagues Achilleas K. (guitar), Haris (drums), and Sotiris (guitars) joined Varathron almost two decades ago; and Stratos Kountouras (bass) has been in the group since 2012.

This is a strong, well-coordinated team of musicians, each of whom not only puts his soul into the black craft of Varathron, but also performs with other bands, giving free rein to different creative ideas. Their discography is replete with smaller releases, so the new full-length work The Crimson Temple is only their seventh in this line.

This album is a good example of infernal creativity and devilish devotion to the ideals of black metal, both in music and in lyrics, and our interview with Haris confirms this. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GUYOĐ

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Dec 212023
 

(Even as year-end draws near it’s still not too late to discover new music released this past fall. Comrade Aleks discovered the debut album by the Austrian band Guyođ, issued by Kult und Kaos Productions, and that led to the following interview with two of the band’s members.)

Guyođ from Austrian Graz is a relatively new band, and Heart of Thy Abyss is their first full-length since the band’s birth in 2020. Daikakuji (bass), Rehoboth (drums), Dohrn (guitars, vocals) and Ōjin (vocals) put doomed death metal in the fundament of the album, twisted it a bit with a few black metal turns, and decorated it with sophisticated lyrics adopted from Charles Baudelaire and Herman Melville. There are some tentacles in the Heart of Thy Abyss artwork, but – a shocking fact! – no Cthulhu was mentioned in Guyođ’s lyrics. And that was one of the reasons why we organized this interview! Continue reading »

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