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 »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MONOLITHE

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Nov 292022
 

(On November 25th the French band Monolithe released Kosmodrom, their latest album in a 20-year career, and in this new interview we present Comrade Aleks‘ discussion with Monolithe multi-instrumentalist Sylvain Bégot.)

Monolithe went their long way from sci-fi influenced funeral doom metal with a unique approach and to their own original melodic death-doom from outer space. Their reputation at first was built around the Monolithe triptych (The Great Clockmaker concept) where each of this series of albums consisted of one huge epic track. The band developed their ideas further and made a step out of funeral doom territories with the next albums.

The lineup is remarkably large, as their masterplan demands a careful and individual approach where each of the band’s members plays his role: Sylvain Bégot (guitars), Benoît Blin (guitars), Olivier Defives (bass), Thibault Faucher (drums), Matthieu Marchand (keyboards), and Rémi Brochard (vocals, guitars).

The new Monolithe album Kosmodrom is a 67-minute-long journey to the brave past of the Soviet Space Program, the times of healthy competitions and high hopes which seem to be lost for us nowadays. This story was told with the universal tongue of death-doom, but some of its parts demand explanations, and Monolithe’s keeper Sylvain Bégot is the one who knows all the secrets behind it. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CAÏNAN DAWN

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Nov 232022
 

(Through a new album released in September by Osmose Productions the French black metal mystics in Caïnan Dawn invite listeners to immerse themselves and drown in watery vastness, and to help guide your way into the depths Comrade Aleks conducted the following interview with the band’s vocalist Heruforod.)

Caïnan Dawn from Chambéry, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes will celebrate their 20th anniversary the very next year, but their discography isn’t as extensive as you might suppose. The band took their time to evolve their ideas and had a four-year long pause after the release of the first demo In Darkness I Reign (2007), hiding in the depths of the French black metal underground.

The first full-length Nibiru saw the light of day only in 2011, and then albums started to appear regularly. Thavmial – in 2014, then F.O.H.A.T. — in 2017, and now after the quarantine-induced break we have something new.

Caïnan Dawn’s fourth album Lagu was released by Osmose Productions in September 2022. This material took the band further from the melodic black metal sound of Nibiru and they have tried their hands on its avant-garde branch. The album’s concept fits perfectly with this updated sound, and Caïnan Dawn’s singing vocalist Heruforod told us the story behind Lagu.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MYCELIUM

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Nov 162022
 

(Not long ago we had the thrill of premiering a song from the forthcoming second album by the fungal death metal band Mycelium, and now we have more delights to present through an extremely entertaining interview by Comrade Aleks of the man behind the mushrooms, Greg Edwards.)

And here we have a fantastic death metal project from Glasgow with lyrics telling stories of mushrooms and unspeakable horrors! Greg Edwards ran the black metal one-man band Necronoclast for ten years from 2003 to 2013 but then he had to take a pause and rethink his priorities. As result, Mycelium was born!

Greg started it in 2020 and the first album Scream Bloody Spore was released already in 2021, and now one more year has passed and one more album was recorded! Mycoticism: Disseminating the Propagules is to be revealed to the extreme metal underground on the 25th of November through the Swedish label Blood Harvest. And I hope this interview will pique your interest towards Mycelium and the magic world of deathly dangerous mushrooms. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: INNUMERABLE FORMS

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Nov 082022
 

(We’ve been closely following the progress of the Boston-based death doom band Innumerable Forms for the last six years, straight up through a very enthusiastic review by Andy Synn of the band’s newest album, released by Profound Lore in September, and now Comrade Aleks adds to the attention with this interview of the band’s founder, vocalist, and guitarist, Justin DeTore.)

Honestly, I don’t remember where I learned about this death-doom (with heavy emphasis on its death aspect) band from Boston, but I just couldn’t get past a band with such a name. So when I found their second full-length Philosophical Collapse released on September 16th by Profound Lore Records, I added them to my list of “need-to-interview” bands.

To my surprise my request was answered by the band’s founder Justin DeTore, who played in the heavy/doom metal outfit Magic Circle, which I loved, and also took part in Phil Swanson’s heavy metal bands Sumerlands and Vestal Claret! And I need to tell you that Sumerlands’ debut blew my mind! So that was a pleasant surprise, which turned into pleasant conversation.

You see how it was hard, but I did my best to focus on Innumerable Forms, and we’re close to learning what this name means. Continue reading »

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