AN NCS INTERVIEW: GRAVES FOR GODS

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 262023
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of the Australian death-doom band Graves for Gods, whose debut album was released in 2022 by Sleeping Church Records.)

The new releases appear one after another and sometimes we have to skip something or just don’t see it. I believe that I saw Graves for Gods’ name in 2022 but the year was a mess and I didn’t listen to their album The Oldest Gods, yet the title naturally stuck in my memory.

I took my time and listened to this album. It’s amazing – absolutely grim, monumental yet material. These four huge tracks bring the feeling of comfort as you hear in them something familiar yet still exciting, classic death-doom vibes,”Celebratory Funeral Doom” as they say.

And they are Jak Shadows (guitars, vocals), Matt Spencer (guitars, bass), and Ryan Quarrington (drums). Each of them has a proper background, as all of them played different kinds of heavy stuff in other Australian bands, and each of them is focused now on creating “music for meditation or violence”. Jak and Matt will explain it better than me. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CATACOMB

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 192023
 

(In late March of this year Xtreem Music released the monstrous debut album by the French death metal band Catacomb, and today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of the band’s co-founder Ben Bussy.)

Catacomb is such a cool and grim title that Metal-Archives shows us over ten bands with that name, though some of them have been inactive for years. I believe that Catacomb from Toulon, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur was one of the first who chose it.

This death metal crew started to praise the Ancient Ones in 1990 and was a quite active unit of the French death metal underground even though the band went through two splits in 1994 and 2003. However, its founders Ben Bussy (bass, vocals) and Tony (guitars) were able to resurrect the monster once more in 2018, and with the help of Bress (drums) and Ronan Kermarec (guitars) they started to record new stuff.

The result of this returning from the grave are the EP Back to Unknown Kadath (2022) and the fresh and meaty LP When the Stars Are Right from Xtreem Records. It’s mister Bussy who says today: “Ia Cthulhu Fhtagn!!!” Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SPORAE AUTEM YUGGOTH

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 182023
 

(On May 19th Personal Records will release the debut album of the Chilean band Sporae Autem Yuggoth, and it had a strong appeal for our friend Comrade Aleks, so he reached out for the following interview of the band.)

The Chilean metal scene hides a lot of secrets, and sometimes I’ve discovered some absolutely killer bands there. Doom bands usually. And Sporae Autem Yuggoth is one such band, which is ready to spread the Word of Death and Doom all over the world with their forthcoming release.

It was founded in Talagante, Santiago in 2019 by Alexis Gutiérrez (bass), Diego Guzman (drums), José Gallardo (guitars), Patricio Araya (vocals), and Juan Drey (guitars). Juan left after the release of the EP The Plague of the Aeons and Luis Morales took the vacant place of the second guitarist. He didn’t get there time, and the full-length album with the creepy title …However It Still Moves was recorded without him, but with Johanna Sánchez on keyboards.

Their death-doom is balanced – it’s old school, but it isn’t obsolete, it’s grim and yet it has its bright moments. As the press release says: “‘Dark as fuck’ is one way of describing However It Still Moves, but ‘bittersweetly beautiful’ is another, depending on what minute of the hour-long album you land on – many movements and many moods, but all dripping into (and reverberating back up from) a bottomless well of despair”.

That sounds true to the matter. I hope that you’ll like the album and this interview with  Sporae Autem Yuggoth‘s collective mind.

(Thanks to Nathan Birk, Suspicious Activities PR, for organizing the interview.) Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ZATEMNO (Затемно)

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 142023
 

 

(Comrade Aleks has it right — Затемно (Zatemno) is an out-of-the-ordinary black metal band. Almost everything about the band raises questions, and so Aleks asked many of them in this new interview.)

Russian black metal project Затемно / Zatemno (“After Dark”) appeared in Sergiev Posad in 2011. Back then its members were Vasily Suzdalsky (vocals, guitar, drums, accordion), VVurd (guitar), and Japetus (bass), who left the band in 2018. The accordion is not a typical instrument in this genre, although you might remember two bands that occasionally add it to their arsenal, but Zatemno is an atypical project in itself, even if we’ll leave the accordion behind.

The EP Into The Ashes / Во прах (2016) and the full-length In the Noose / В петле (2019), released by the British label Aesthetic Death, gave many black metal fans something that is now difficult to find – an original concept and non-trivial musical solutions that fit well into the black metal format and ideology without unnecessary antics and pathos. It’s something that’s better to be experienced personally.

Alcoholic delirium as a method of communicating with the other world, the voices of devils pushing for suicide, the gloomy spirit of the Russian hinterland, and black anger were also embodied in Zatemno‘s second album In Hell / В аду (2022). Vasily labels it as “obscurantism and cemetery jazz”, and we had a conversation with him, as I don’t really know what that means. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SÖNAMBULA

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 132023
 

(In early March of this year Xtreem Music released a new album by the Spanish Basque Country death/doom band Sönambula, and today we follow that with Comrade Aleks‘ interview with the band.)

The epic doom metal band Samarithan and the melodic death metal band Hopelessness were among the bands I interviewed in March and both of these bands are from Basque Country. And it starts to trouble me, as by some bizarre coincidence I made another interview with a band from Basque Country a week ago. This time it’s the bloodthirsty death metal monster Sönambula.

The band was founded in 2015 and its creators didn’t waste time: Two albums, Secuela (2016) and Bicéfalo (2018), appeared one by one; two more split-CDs followed them in 2019 and 2021, and the EP Infected Roots (2022) was another hard punch in the gut last year. And now the third full-length Estasis interrumpida is revealed to the world. Let’s try to take a look at what lurks within. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTRVIEW: MAZE OF SOTHOTH

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 122023
 

(We have been thoroughly enjoying the new album by Maze of Sothoth (see our review here), which has only been out a few weeks now under the banner of Everlasting Spew Records, and so we’re also happy to present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of band founder Fabio Marasco.)

This technical death metal band from Bergamo, Italy offers quite an intensive experience of dogmatic and morbid cosmic horror. Based in 2009 Maze of Sothoth declared a clear connection with the legacy of H. P. Lovecraft through the few songs of its debut Soul Demise (2017) and then the band disappeared from radars until 2023. Extirpated Light is their new full-length work — as grim, torturous and hostile as those creatures which inhabit the darkness of extraterrestrial plains.

Maze of Sothoth is the one of those rare bands with a relatively stable line-up; at least there weren’t any changes since 2012: Riccardo Rubini (guitars), Cristiano Marchesi (vocals, bass), Matteo (drums), and the band’s founder Fabio Marasco (guitars, synths). And naturally Fabio is the one who can tell Maze of Sothoth’s story better than anyone. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: STORMRULER

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 072023
 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks talked with Jason Asberry, one of the two people behind the St. Louis-based melodic black band Stormruler, whose most recent album was released to considerable acclaim last fall.)

Stormruler from St. Louis got the contract with Napalm Records right from the start. Their first album Under the Burning Eclipse (2021) and the second one Sacred Rites & Black Magick (2022) were both released under the Napalm banner. I believe that made the way for their epic and melodic black metal to reach listeners remarkably easier.

Jason Asberry (vocals, guitars) and Jesse Schobel (drums), with the help of guest musicians, conquered European crowds in a grand tour that started in March, but somehow they found the time to answer a few of my questions and shed some light on their black metal art. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MISANTHROPE

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 062023
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ extensive interview with Philippe Courtois, founder of the foundational French extreme metal band Misanthrope, who are still alive and well 35 years after the band’s inception.)

The ancient city of Angers, Maine-et-Loire, is famous with its rich history, and you may have heard about Angers Cathedral, Château d’Angers, and the Apocalypse Tapestry. At least you may have heard of the liqueur Cointreau and it’s not a bad choice after all. But the city is known to metalheads for another historical event – almighty Misanthrope raised its head when Philippe Courtois (also known as S.A.S. de l’Argilière) gathered the band’s first line-up in 1988 proclaiming his manifest of hate to mankind.

The band gained well-deserved recognition fast, as their avant-garde and technical death metal demonstrated a unique blend of influences stretching far from metal music. French lyrics, a highly artistic approach to the songwriting, and energetic live performances soon became the band’s trademarks, a features which differentiated Misanthrope from other death metal maniacs.

Besides that, Philippe played an important role in the world-wide metal underground as he’s a co-owner of the French metal label Holy Records alongside Séverine Foujanet. A lot of bands from the ’90s started their career with Holy – Nightfall, On Thorns I Lay, Orphaned Land, Septic Flesh, and more. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: LUNAR CHAMBER

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 312023
 


photo by Marissa Godinez

(On April 28th 20 Buck Spin will release the debut album of Lunar Chamber. As the label says, it offers “a deluge of jarringly brutal metal, overwhelming progressive physicality and instinctively accomplished memorability inspired by Buddhism, the East and esotericism.” It piqued the interest of Comrade Aleks, and he reached out for the interview that follows.)

20 Buck Spin just released two albums by the bizarre and progressive death/black crew Ulthar, and if you scraped your brains off the wall after listening yo their Anthronomicon / Helionomicon albums then here’s another challenge for people of strong spirit and thirsty minds.

Lunar Chamber’s debut EP Shambhallic Vibrations is a concept work of spiritual journey through the sonic plains of all things extreme and progressive. The album was mastered by Colin Marston of Gorguts and mixed by Greg Chandler of Esoteric; these two bands serve as good references to the avant-garde and complex music of Shambhallic Vibrations.

The band’s line-up is Timeworn Nexus (guitars, vocals, programming, songwriting), They, Who May Not Be Perceived (guitars, vocals, songwriting), Æther Lotus (fretless bass), and K. Paradis (drums). Right, the Lunar Chamber crew mostly keeps their anonymity and there’s no information in Metal-Archives yet, but Timeworn Nexus holds few secrets from our readers.

(Thanks to Jan of Sure Shot Worx for organizing the interview.)
Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HOPELESSNESS

 Interviews  No Responses »
Mar 282023
 

(We present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Ion Santos, a member of the Basque Country melodic death metal band Hopelessness, whose roots go back more than two decades, and who are now alive and well after a long recording hiatus, with a new EP released last year.)

The Basque melodic death metal outfit Hopelessness never hurried. Founded 22 years ago, this band lived through two splits and released only one album, Broken Tears in Solitude, back in 2005. Their road was rocky, but it seems that they found the way out and returned to an active creative pace. I found Hopelessness‘ EP Mukuru, which saw the light of day in November 2022, a decent example of melodeath, and I invite you to taste it right now as you’re reading this interview with band guitarist Ion Santos. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries