EL HIJO DE LA AURORA — “ORIGIN OF PSYCHEDELIC EVIL”

 Interviews  1 Response »
May 202014
 

(For the second day in a row, our Russian correspondent Comrade Aleks brings us an interview, this time with Joaquin Cuadra of the Peruvian doom band El Hijo de la Aurora.)

El Hijo de la Aurora (Son of the Dawn) is a Peruvian psychedelic doom project that was created in 2008 by Joaquin Cuadra, former drummer of another local band Don Juan Matus. Since then Joaquin has become the core of a new project, collaborating not only with local musicians but also with foreign ones. He explored the problems of the Universe’s laws in two previous works, Lemuria and Wicca: Spells, Magic and Witchcraft Through the Ages, and now the time has come for a third album by El Hijo de la Aurora.

The Enigma of Evil is the name of the new release and it’s already recorded; the only question is finding a proper label, so we’re going to discuss this question and others with Joaquin himself, plunging deep into the vibes of old school doom rock.

***

Salute Joaquin! How are you comrade? How have you spent the last three years since release of your second album, Wicca: Spells, Magic and Witchcraft…?

Yeap!! It was 03 years ago , it was so fast… Well , let’s get into my time machine  and configure the control panel for the trip to the past…

After the edition of Wicca… I had enough material to record two more albums, but the band had to face off  with the departure of  our guitarist Manolo (he  moved to Australia), my health problems, as a consequence of the “small amounts of meat in my daily meal” (I’m attempting to avoid meat, but my health does not respond well), and the most important task… looking for a new guitar. Continue reading »

SERPENT WARNING — “YOU HAVE TO SUFFER FOR YOUR ART”

 Interviews  1 Response »
May 192014
 

(Saint-Petersburg-based guest writer Comrade Aleks has delivered to us the following interview with Antti Koponen of the Finnish doom band Serpent Warning.)

Finland is well known for bloody good doom bands of every kind. Some like funeral stuff in the vein of Skepticism or Shape of Despair, some remember the old heretics of Unholy, and most of us know the traditional doom scene of Land Of The Thousand Lakes, Reverend Bizarre, Lord Vicar, and Fall Of The Idols, just to name a few.

But new blood comes our way as well, and we have seen the arrival of such bands as The Wandering Midget, for example. Samuel Wormius, a voiceman of The Wandering Midget, did a great work with his killer vocal lines for the first EP and full-length of the very promising band Serpent Warning — and Serpent Warning adds yet another glorius chapter of the Finnish national doom epos indeed!

I Hate Records educated me about the debut album, and I’ve gotten in contact with the band. As a result, Antti Koponen (guitars) is online today! Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: STEVEN FUNDERBURK (WRETCHED)

 Interviews  2 Responses »
May 152014
 


photo by Daniel Cunningham

(In this post our man DGR interviews guitarist Steven Funderburk of North Carolina’s Wretched, whose new album Cannibal will be released June 10 by Victory Records.)

 

I know many of the people who will be reading this interview will already be very familiar with you, but for the less enlightened among us out there can we get just a quick introduction as to who you are, what you play, and how long you’ve been with Wretched?

Hi Dave! Sure thing. I’m Steven Funderburk, I play Guitar, and I am one of the original members of Wretched. We started out in 2005, so almost 9 years now.

 

Cannibal actually marks the first one-word album title for you guys — after usually being in the three- to four-word range. Why did you guys settle on something as simple and straightforward as Cannibal?

Indeed! Well, from the get go, we wanted to write a straightforward heavy record from start to finish. We had nothing but heavy grooving in mind. It just made sense to have a title that not only fit with the lyrical content, but with the musical aspect of the record. We wanted to get straight to the point with the title, artwork, and everything behind this record. No frills, just straight-up in-your-face metal.

 

How’d you come around to the artwork for this album? It’s very different from the previous few.

The artwork on Cannibal represents Adam’s lyrical content on this record, as well as the music. We wanted something that visually represents our identity as a band, as well as remaining cohesive with the content of the album. Raf the Might did the artwork, and we could not be more stoked on it! Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JANI KEKARAINEN (SKEPTICISM)

 Interviews  1 Response »
May 092014
 

(Saint-Petersburg-based guest writer Comrade Aleks has delivered to us the following interview with Jani Kekarainen of the seminal Finnish funeral doom band Skepticism.)

Skepticism (Riihimaki, Finland) is one of most ancient funeral doom bands on Earth. The band did appear in far off 1991 and since then have slowly paced into the Hall of Doom Myths and Legends, even though they have only four full-length albums in their stock. The last grand work Alloy was released six years ago, and it seems that Skepticism are now waking from their slumbers and returning to active creative life. We got in touch with Jani Kekarainen (guitars) to learn some details about the forthcoming visit of Skepticism to Moscow and ask a question or two about the new album as well.

 

First of all I’d like to ask you about one big deal: It’s said that Skepticism started composing music for a new album about a year ago. How does your progress go?

Pretty well, I would say. It’s always a long process for us. We have been creating the new songs and basic structures and 80% of the songs are ready for the new album. Our target is to do the first demo recordings for our internal use during this summer. It will be used for fine-tuning the arrangement of the songs. I hope we will be able to record the new album around the end of 2014.

 

It would be interesting to know some details about the new stuff, considering that your last album Alloy was released 6 years ago. Will you reveal any secrets?

It’s still the same old Skepticism, but however, we have been trying some new methods and ideas. We have been focusing on the atmospheres of the songs, even more than earlier. Currently we are doing a song where there is less drumming and vocals than usually in our music. I’m pretty curious to see the final result of that particular song. A new “march song” has been written again and most probably there will be a new record label releasing the album. Continue reading »

REALMBUILDER — CHARGE OF THE BLUE FRAME BRIGADE

 Interviews  2 Responses »
May 082014
 

(Our Russian correspondent Comrade Aleks returns to our hallowed halls with an interview of Jeff Halberd of the band Realmbuilder, whose music you’ll get a chance to hear in this post.)

Realmbuilder (New York) is a well-balanced creation of two exclusively artistic persons. “Czar” Craig Zahler (vocals, drums) is known as a pretty productive writer and screenwriter, and Jeff H. Halberd (guitars, bass, keyboards, and additional miscellaneous instruments) is a music professor. It’s always exciting to find men with such backgrounds in the heavy scene.

This duo creates their own worlds based on fundamentals of old school heavy and traditional doom metal, somehow keeping its raw and restless spirit, a thing which is rare nowadays. The project released its third full-length album Blue Flame Cavalry a few months ago through I Hate Records, and it provided a good opportunity to ask Jeff Halberd himself a few questions about it.

 

Hail Jeff! Thanks for your time; I believe that you’re busy as always so it’s much appreciated! As we speak about Realmbuilder I have to remind our readers of the fact that I Hate records has released your third full-length Blue Flame Cavalry in December of 2013. How does your creative life go since then? 

Hail Aleks! Here’s J.H. Halberd. Czar is mired deep in the writing of his latest novel (he’s had at least two more published since we last communicated, including his spectacular horror-western Wraiths of the Broken Land).  My creative life is a little less rich than Czar’s, if only because I make most of my income as a professor instead of through the sale of my creative things, but I’ve had a pretty full last couple of years myself, writing a few new chamber works in addition to some recordings with my sleepy rock band bell monks and a lot of laptop improv performances. Czar and I are ramping up preparations for our next Realmbuilder sessions now, which are already about a year overdue because of a lot of the other work we’ve had going on. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JØRGEN MUNKEBY OF SHINING (NOR)

 Interviews  3 Responses »
May 052014
 

(Our man BadWolf sat down with Jørgen Munkeby of Norway’s Shining during the band’s recent US tour and files this entertaining interview.)

 

Jørgen Munkeby likes to check his watch.

Or at least that was my impression of him after I saw him tear up the Pontiac Ballroom on April 10 with his band, Shining. The man needs to be punctual—his unique blend of industrial, jazz, black metal, and progressive rock requires crackerjack timing. But Munkeby is far from being a heartless calculator-headed shredder. Whether picking on his black Gibson SG or playing his saxophone, Munkeby is an electric frontman with a piercing voice.

On the tour bus, he’s a different man entirely. Slender and contemplative, Munkeby comes across as a scholar, albeit a scholar that penned my favorite album of 2010, Blackjazz, and its pile-driving successor, last year’s One One One. I brought my friend Josh, a fellow Shining enthusiast, to sit with Munkeby and me after his performance and unpack the inner workings of this young master’s mind. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HAMISH GLENCROSS (VALLENFYRE)

 Interviews  10 Responses »
Apr 292014
 

(In this post, NCS contributor KevinP interviews Hamish Glencross of Vallenfyre and My Dying Bride and along the way extracts a track-by-track commentary about the new Vallenfyre album — Splinters — which is scheduled for release by Century Media on May 12 in Europe and May 13 in North America.)

K:  Ok, let’s get something clear right from the start.  How close were you to convincing Gregor to change the name of the band to VallenPorn ‘stache??

 

 

H:  Heh heh! Well, I wanted to keep the focus off the facial hair as much as possible as I could tell it would be a distraction, so I thought better of it.  I was a little concerned people would think my dad had joined the band!

 

K:  LOL, fair point.  Papa Glencross.  If I may ask, whats the genesis behind that thing in the first place?

H:  Simply my daughter wanted me to grow a ‘stache.  And if that’s the worst thing she’ll ever ask of me, I’d be doing ok. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: VILLE FRIMAN (INSOMNIUM)

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Apr 282014
 

 

(NCS writer DGR recently had the chance to pose some questions by e-mail to Ville Friman, guitarist, song-writer, and co-vocalist for Finland’s Insomnium, whose new album Shadows of the Dying Sun was reviewed by the same DGR here.)

 

Thank you so much for sitting down for this interview. How are you feeling as the official release dates of Shadows Of The Dying Sun move closer?

Ville Friman: No worries Dave, our pleasure really. It’s exciting times. Album seems to be doing well in the press, and we just found out that it made album of the month in German Metal Hammer, which is pretty big. Just hoping that people will like it and enjoy it as much as we do.

 

Shadows Of The Dying Sun is still recognizably Insomnium but there are a couple of shifts in sound. For example, I noticed a pretty big increase in tempo on a lot of the songs and the inclusion of some serious blastbeat work on the part of Markus. Insomnium have done fast tunes and more “traditionally” (if you could forgive a reductive phrase) melo-death songs before, but this album really sees the speed increase on multiple songs. Were you guys feeling in a faster mood than usual?

Ville Friman: Yes, I guess the blastbeats are bit of a new thing with us. We have fast songs on the album, but also a couple of slower pieces. So it’s a mix of things. We weren’t trying to be fast intentionally. I guess we just brought the tempo up a notch in general. And we were thinking about finding the best tempo for each song, and when we wanted to sound fast, we went pretty much as fast as we could. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: “J” (WEIGHTLESSNESS)

 Interviews, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 242014
 

(Leperkahn brings words of praise for an EP by a San Diego band named Weightlessness, and an interview with the band’s bass player and vocalist “J”.)

For me, the two most distinctive elements in funeral doom (and its cousin death/doom) are a slow pace and morose, somber atmosphere. The former is rather easy to nail down, and is done pretty effectively by pretty much every band who set their sights on the subgenre. The latter quality, however, is far more difficult to master, and tends to be the standard that measures how good a funeral doom album is, and what separates the men from the boys in the genre.

In the past year or so, I’ve been trying to familiarize myself a lot more with doom and funeral doom, going through some of the legends and the newest masters, such as Ataraxie, Thou (I realize they aren’t purely funeral doom, but it’s a large part of their sound), Evoken (still need to dig into them further), Thergothon, Mournful Congregation, Lycus, and more. What all of these bands have in common is that they’ve mastered both of those main tenants of funeral doom, and tied them together beautifully – utilizing glacial pace as a tool to communicate paralyzing grief and despondence.

Out of nowhere (specifically, sunny San Diego, of all bloody places), Weightlessness have aimed to build upon those achievements within the genre, and on their debut EP Of Lachrymose Grief, they’ve done just that, infusing some of the best, most despondent funeral doom I’ve heard all year with some of the best melodies that Orchid– and Morningrise-era Mikael Akerfeldt never wrote. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: NEILL JAMESON (IMPERIAL) OF TWILIGHT, KRIEG

 Interviews  6 Responses »
Mar 042014
 

(NCS writer BadWolf interviewed Neill Jameson of Krieg and Twilight, whose third and final album is due for release in a couple of weeks. To say it’s a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred discussion would be an understatement. You don’t want to miss this.) 

When it comes to the US Black Metal movement, few individual musicians have made as much of a splash as Neill Jameson. He released his first demo tape as Imperial in 1995—just a year after Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. In the nearly twenty years since, Jameson has produced raw and honest “bedroom” black metal as the sole member of Krieg. Many consider his 2004 LP The Black House to be essential USBM listening. There will be a new Krieg album this year on Candlelight, but first Jameson needs to live through the press cycle for the third Twilight album, III: Beneath Trident’s Tomb.

Jameson had his hands full recording III, dealing with a rotating cast of characters. Twilight has been blighted by negative media attention since the arrest of founding member Blake Judd (also of Nachtmystium). Judd is now out of the band, but Thurston Moore of esteemed noise-punk outfit Sonic Youth is in. Alongside them stands super-producer Sanford Parker, as well as Stavros Giannopoulos of The Atlas Moth and Wrest of Leviathan. These five musicians are giving Twilight the swansong the project deserves.

Jameson took time out of his busy schedule as proprietor of a record store (the man’s Facebook posts, often putting his own customers on blast, are among the funniest you’ll read) to talk with NCS about the tumultuous story of Twilight, from beginning to end. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries