AN NCS INTERVIEW: GOLOD

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Feb 092023
 

(We thank Comrade Aleks for the following interview with Vadim (aka Holod), the person behind the Toronto-based black metal project Golod, whose newest album was released just last month via Ván Records.)

Little is known about Golod. “Golod” translates as “Hunger” from Russian. It’s a solo-project based in Toronto and it’s tagged as “black metal” and “ambient”. Its discography contains two full-length albums – .​.​.​to be Lost and Forgotten in Solitude (June, 2021) and the brand new Dnevnik (January, 2023).

It’s also known that the man who stands behind this project is Vadim, whom I interviewed about one month ago regarding another band – Hussar. So actually it was easy to find him and get more information about his lo-fi exercises in Black Art.

Well, do people use this definition in relation to this kind of music nowadays? However, let’s talk a bit about Black Metal Art! Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: AMPUTATE

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Feb 072023
 

 

(In today’s new interview Comrade Aleks engages in a very lively discussion with vocalist/guitarist Tom Kuzmic from the Portuguese death metal band Amputate, whose latest album was released last year by Massacre Records.)

The band’s name should tell you everything and you don’t need the crystal ball to learn what Amputate is about.

The core lineup of this Florida-styled death metal crew from Portugal located to Switzerland some time ago, but they keep on playing the same bloodthirsty razor-sharp stuff even in relatively comfortable Zurich. Their second album Dawn of Annihilation interested Massacre Records and these eight tracks of gore and the macabre have been available on CD and vinyl since October 2022.

Tom Kuzmic, the band’s front-man, consults us about sonic surgery and its contraindications. And how much of good old gore is left in Amputate? Let’s find it out. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: NIGHT HAG

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Feb 062023
 

(Below we present Comrade Aleks‘ new interview with the crushing Virginia-based death/doom band Night Hag.)

Night Hag‘s debut full-length album Phantasmal Scourge was released one year ago by Rotted Life Records. However the band was founded somewhere in Virginia in about 2010 and its discography is far from poor, as it contains three demos, an EP, a split release, and even live album.

Jon Ransom (drums, vocals), Joe Arida (guitars), and Sam Fox (bass, vocals) are fans of macabre and savage death-doom metal, so covers of Mortician and Necrophagia sound natural in Phantasmal Scourge. There was no big news nor a new album’s announcement since its release, but Night Hag was in my “need-to-interview” list for nearly the entire year, and here we go at last.

Joe Arida (guitars) is going to tell us about Night Hag‘s dirty deals. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SIRRUSH

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Jan 312023
 

(Last November, roughly 15 years after their inception, the Sicilian band Sirrush released their debut album Molon Labe through Non Serviam Records, and it led Comrade Aleks to reach out for the following interview with the band’s founder Otagron to discuss the band’s past, present, and future.)

Sirrush isa Mesopotamian hybrid, a kind of dragon you could see on Ishtar Gates, one of Babylon’s most remarkable monuments. And this Sicilian band indeed dedicated their blackened death metal to Sumerian myths back then in 2007 when it was founded.

Years passed, but not much happened in Sirrush’s lair, as the EPThe Era of Išhtar (2011) remained their only official release. Things changed along the band’s concept as Sirrush came back to life with the stories of 300 Spartans in 2022. The singles A Son Set His Father Free and Molon Labe proclaimed the release of the full-length with the same title of Molon Labe through Non Serviam Records, so the band’s founder Otagron (vocals, guitars) is here to shed some light on Sirrush’s story.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DREAM UNENDING

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Jan 272023
 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks talks again with Justin DeTore, this time with a focus on Dream Unending, whose second album was released last fall by 20 Buck Spin.)

We spoke with Justin DeTore in November – back then the theme of our interview here was his death-doom band Innumerable Forms and its up-to-date album Philosophical Collapse. Check it, the album is worth attention. And the problem was that we had this proper interview focused mainly on Philosophical Collapse released in September 2022 and I was very, very impressed with another project where Justin shares his ideas with the talented guitarist Derrick Vella  – Dream Unending.

Their second album Song of Salvation saw the light of day in the very same November 2022, and I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I needed to learn more about this piece. It’s a breathtaking death-doom-based psychedelic experience with an absolutely unique atmosphere and approach. If you believe that nothing new could be done in the death-doom realm then Song of Salvation proves you’re wrong.

I fought with temptation to do this interview for some time because I can’t interview Justin each time one of the bands where he plays releases a new album – Innumerable Forms, Solemn Lament, Sumerlands, or Vestal Claret are active in almost equal measure. But after all… why not? Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FROM BEYOND

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Jan 242023
 

(Those for whom Lovecraft is their nightmare food and for whom progressive blackened death metal makes a fine condiment will relish the following interview by Comrade Aleks of the duo who make up the Portuguese band From Beyond.)

I bet that we should thank Gordon Stuart for his poisonous gem of the VHS-era named after H. P. Lovecraft’s story From Beyond, for Stuart was the one who inspired a few bands with his video adaptation of that horrible story of scientific fanaticism, madness, murder, and nightmarish beings from another world.

Two guys from Portugal’s Porto founded a quite progressive band transferring their occult visions in a form of blackened death metal. Chronicler (guitars, bass, drum programming) and Innsmouthian (vocals) released their first album The Great Old Ones on the 12th of December 2022, and we’re going to talk about this work while it’s fresh and hot. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MARE INFINITUM

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Jan 182023
 

(Here we have Comrade Aleks’ very engaging interview with Georgiy Bykov, a key musician with the Russian band Mare Infinitum, whose newest album was released near the end of last year by Solitude Productions.)

I didn’t expect any new releases from the Russian doom-focused label Solitude Productions during 2022, because the label was put on hold after infamous events which started in February 2022. But somehow they managed to release Cryosleep, the third album of the Moscow-based band Mare Infinitum.

The band was founded back in 2010, and its albums Sea of Infinity (2011) and Alien Monolith God (2015) received a warm welcome, so the band often played live, joining almost all the local doom festivals during the past decade. After a seven year long break and some line-up changes Mare Infinitum returns, and their new material differs significantly from the good old death-doom stuff we expected from them.

The band’s founder Georgy Bykov tells how they lived through these seven years and passed the genre’s borders. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HUSSAR

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Dec 272022
 

(For our last interview of 2022 we present Comrade Aleks‘ discussion with vocalist/guitarist Vadim from the Toronto-based death metal band Hussar, whose powerful debut album was released a few months ago by I, Voidhanger Records.)

This time I pecked at the band’s name and their “death-doom” tag, and what do we have in the end?!

Alright, let’s start from very beginning. Let me introduce you to Hussar, a ravenous and dangerous trio from Toronto. The band was started in 2018 and its current lineup is Vadim Balanyuk (vocals, guitars), Nathaniel Reynolds-Welsh (drums) and J. T. (bass). It seems that the guys tend to keep their identities anonymous, but Metal-Archives knows!

This year having a demo, a live album, and the EP No Victor (2019) in their discography, Hussar struck back with the first full-length album, All-Consuming Hunger. The aggression and progressive constructions of this technical death metal with  minor death-doom elements represent the album’s title precisely, but there’s always more to learn and we’re here to dig out more about Hussar and its background. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DOOMOCRACY

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Dec 142022
 

(The Cretan Epic Doom band Doomocracy have recently released their latest album through No Remorse Records, and that provided a good occasion for Comrade Aleks to arrange the following interview with Doomocracy vocalist Michael Stavrakakis.)

Epic doom is a specific genre. Once Candlemass gave it a twisted and loud birth, nothing remained the same. Candlemass set the high level with the performance of vocalists like Johan Langquist, Messiah Marcolin, and Robert Lowe, so any new band which tried to choose the same path naturally needed a strong vocalist.

Doomocracy was founded in Heraklion, Crete in 2011 and it seems they have one. The band’s lineup has remained the same since it was born: Manolis Sx (bass), Minas Vasilakis (drums), Angelos Tzanis (guitars), Harry Dokos (guitars), and Michael Stavrakakis (vocals). And they succeeded, as according to Doom Chronicles the band turns out to be demanded by European doom metal festivals and just released their third album – Unorthodox.

We discussed Doomocracy’s past and present with Michael and here’s the result of our conversation: Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: AHAB

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Dec 062022
 


Photo by Stefan Heileman

(At last the leviathan Ahab has risen again from the watery depths with a new album that will be released by Napalm Records on January 13th, and we are most happy today to present Comrade Aleks‘ extensive interview with Ahab co-founder Daniel Dorste.)

It’s hard to believe but Ahab was founded 18 years ago. Back then the trio from Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg consisting of Daniel Dorste (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Christian Hector (guitars) and Stephan Adolph (bass) tried to make funeral doom a bit more exciting and added strong nautical lines in their lyrics and, partly, in their music. So naturally their first album The Call of the Wretched Sea (2006) based on Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby Dick was labelled as “nautical doom”.

Ahab strengthened their positions with the second album The Divinity of Oceans (2009), retelling this time the true story of the Whale-Ship Essex, which in November 1820 was sunk in an attack by a sperm whale before the men resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. Such a grim fate… and yet you can’t play funeral doom and develop the same theme eternally, and so the band turned in a more progressive and atmospheric direction with the next album The Giant (2012).

This time Ahab adapted the mysterious novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket written by Edgar Allan Poe, and the plot itself demanded another approach. The Boats of the Glen Carrig (2015) took the band even further to the shores unknown just as it was in William Hope Hodgson‘s novel of the same name.

But then the band sunk to the bottom of the sonic ocean just like some weird fantastic submarine. Seven years have passed and Ahab now returns with The Coral Tombs album, which will see the light of day on the 13th of January through Napalm Records. The band’s sound seems to adopt new influences, even as Ahab’s crew has remained the same since 2008: the band’s founders Christian and Daniel, Cornelius Althammer (drums), and Stephan Wandernoth (bass). It is Daniel who joined our discussion. Continue reading »

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