AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE GRIFTED

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Jul 122023
 

(If you’re a death metal fan and you haven’t yet heard The Grifted‘s new album, released in April by Personal Records, you have some excellent listening ahead of you, and you’ll probably be even more interested after you read Comrade Aleks‘ excellent interview with guitarist Stefan Lagergren.)

NCS’ constant followers will remember The Grifted‘s track premiere in March (here). This absolutely classic sounding death metal band from Stockholm drew our attention not only with the killer single “The Maggots Feast” and their debut album Doomsday & Salvation itself, but also with heir shockingly civilized image, very organic and impressive.

The Grifted was founded in 2020 technically, but it’s the renamed version of the Mr. Death collective which used to record two proper full-lengths works and two EPs in a period from 2007 to 2020. Moreover, Juck Thullberg (bass) and Stefan Lagergren (guitars) were founders of the pre-Tiamat band Treblinka and took part in recording of Tiamat’s debut Sumerian Cry (1990).

And it’s right to note what their colleagues Jonas Ohlsson (drums), Jocke Lindström (vocals), and Staffan Skoglund (guitars) certainly know a few things about how to turn everything upside down and unleash the sheer death metal madness upon our doomed world.

This interview should have been done earlier, and I kept it on my mind for almost four months, so I invite you to join our conversation with Stefan Lagergren with a sense of relief and the feeling that the right thing is done. (And thanks to Nathan Birk, Suspicious Activities PR, for organizing this interview.) Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: COFFIN MULCH

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Jul 052023
 

(Comrade Aleks admits that he has a tough time getting into death metal, but he has succumbed to the rough charms of Scotland’s Coffin Mulch, and you’ll get a sense why when you read his interview with the band’s vocalist Al today. The interview was conducted before Memento Mori‘s release of their debut album, which happened just a few days ago.)

Members of the Scottish death band Coffin Mulch played anything but death in their old days. The band’s bass-player Rich was doing traditional doom, new guitarist Derek (who joined in 2022) plays stoner still, drummer Fraser is in a sludge band, and vocalist Al sang in a couple of local bands too. But for five years now they have been cutting furious, sophisticated, and charged death metal with psychotic enthusiasm.

Spectral Intercession is their first full-length album, but even before that, the band did not sit idly and released a demo, and then a damn good EP. Coffin Mulch will enchant fans of old fashioned Swedish death metal and bands like Autopsy and Asphyx. Their focus, their passion, and their punk DIY vibe impress as well, and so I, a person who has a hard time getting into the cadaverous charm of death metal, strongly recommend you Spectral Intercession.

This killer interview with Al is another reason to pay attention to Coffin Mulch. (We thank Nathan Birk (Suspicious Activities PR) for organizing the interview.) Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BRETWALDAS OF HEATHEN DOOM

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Jul 032023
 

(Metal-Archives’ stitching together of “heavy metal, doom, black metal, and crust” is a pretty good signifier that the music of the British band Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom isn’t easy to pigeon-hole (and those multiple labels still don’t go far enough), but it’s a hell of a lot of heavy, sinister, head-bobbing fun. With their new album fairly fresh out, Comrade Aleks decided to reach out, and landed a very engaging discussion with band bassist/vocalist Wartooth.)

The duet of Dagfari Wartooth (bass, vocals) and Sceot Acwealde (aka Arcwielder) (drums, guitars, vocals) keep on playing their pagan hymns for 22 years now. Started in 2001, Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom performs an angry and vivid mix of doom, heavy and crusty pagan metal, and their fourth album Summoning the Gatekeepers was released on the 1st of May (Beltane, you know?).

You may still buy  the rest of the CDs small run, ordering it right from the band’s own label Old Man’s Mettle. And here, in this interview with Wartooth, you’ll learn why this album is worthy of your money. And I truly hope you’ll enjoy this authentic album as I did, for the will of the gods is a great power. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEATH OF GIANTS

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Jun 292023
 


Photo by Viviane Eriksen

(Over more than 10 years (yes, it’s been that long!) Comrade Aleks has brought us a great many excellent interviews, but the one that follows is among the very best. It’s a discussion with Morten Søbyskogen, the man behind Death of Giants, whose remarkable debut album was released this past May.)

There’s a tragedy behind the epic and gorgeous Death of Giants debut album Ventesorg. This project of multi-instrumentalist Morten Søbyskogen, who managed to perform one of most remarkable gothic death-doom albums of 2023, is a tribute to his wife Sandra, who passed away from brain cancer in 2018. Morten‘s grief took the form of six grandiose tracks filled with real pain and sincere regret. Ventesorg absorbed all of this sadness and frustration and transformed it into something new and touching.

The album was recorded with participant guest musicians, and moreover Morten performed a few gigs with the session lineup, so there are signs pointing toward Death of Giants becomes something bigger and more global. We talked with Morten, and this honest and long conversation is here before you now, along with a recently premiered video near the end of the band’s live cover performance of  “Horror” by W.A.S.P. at the Oslo release show for Ventersorg. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CRYPTIC BROOD

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Jun 282023
 

(In the following interview Comrade Aleks caught up with drummer/vocalist Steffen Brandes from the German metal band Cryptic Brood, and covered a lot of the ground that has passed by since their last discussion 3+ years ago, plus taking a look into the Brood‘s future.)

Steffen Brandes performs drums and vocals in the German death metal (with a bit of doom edge) band Cryptic Brood. We did an interview with him in January 2020, and that was fun. And three years later, during January 2023, I found that I somehow skipped Cryptic Brood’s newest release, the Caustic Fetid Vomit EP produced by Lycanthropic Chants in September 2022. That’s just a two-song-long recording, but there’s always something to talk about with the deep underground dwellers.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FORMLESS OEDON

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Jun 262023
 

(Not long ago we had the good fortune of premiering a tremendous song from a great debut album by Formless Oedon from the Philippines, coming out July 24th via their label Memento Mori, and now we have more good fortune — an interview by Comrade Aleks of all the band’s members.)

It’s a really curious case as all of our respondents today — Andrei Alemania (drums), Jonathan Miranda (guitars, bass), Rozel Nikko (vocals, guitars, bass), and Jayson Gonzales (guitars) — play in three different bands at the same time all together. They perform death metal in Nullification, they practice a sort of death/thrash metal in Desolator, and Formless Oedon became a vessel of their death metal ideas with slightly progressive and doomy edges.

Being formed in Laguna, Philippines, Formless Oedon seemed to have caught some luck and signed with the Spanish extreme metal label Memento Mori, which is preparing to release their Streams of Rot full-length album in late July. However, right now you can not only listen to their first tracks “Heavenly Abomination” and “Calcine Purification“, but also read this interview with Formless Oedon members. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MEGALITH LEVITATION

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Jun 232023
 

(Today we present Comrade Aleks‘ interview of SAA, vocalist/guitarist of the Russian band Megalith Levitation, whose newest album has now been out in the world for less than three months.)

Megalith Levitation stands firmly on Chelyabinsk’s soil, remaining one of the few most active Russian doom/stoner bands. The three musicians keep hiding their identities and are known as SAA (vocals, guitars), PAN (drums), and KKV (bass, contrabass). Their third album Obscure Fire was released by Aesthetic Death on the 31st of March, and you see the master plan behind it when you witness the album’s sick psychedelic artwork and its inner layers. They truly know what they want to so, so Obscure Fire will burn you with the vibes inspired from beyond this world.

Let the grim psychedelic pilgrimage start with the guidance of the band’s singing guitarist SAA. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE PIT

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Jun 142023
 

(Just two days ago we had the good fortune to premiere a song off the ferocious, dark, and demented new album by the Mexican death metal band The Pit, which will be released next month by Personal Records, and now we present a timely interview by Comrade Aleks of the band’s co-founder and guitarist Antonio Nolasco.)

Well, The Pit… There’s a deep meaning in this title, and as this band from Querétaro performs pretty violent death metal you can only imagine what goes on in The Pit‘s horrible depths.

The title of their debut, Disrupted Human Symmetry (2008) could give a hint about their ideology, but the fresh second album Of Madness and Evil Whispers seems to be something different.

A fifteen-year-long break between the albums may really promise radical changes in the band’s sound, but The Pit‘s core is the same since its foundation in 2004: Antonio Nolasco (guitars), Octavio Olachea (bass), and Guillermo Galvan (vocals), who play in a few more extreme metal bands, now also Angel Villegas (guitars) and Maw VillAlt (drums) who both joined the band in 2019.

Of Madness and Evil Whispers will be out on July 15th, and I’d like to introduce you to the band in case you missed track premieres, including the one from our own site. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: VOIDCEREMONY

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Jun 022023
 

(In the following new interview Comrade Aleks spoke with Garrett Johnson (a/k/a Wandering Mind), guitarist/vocalist of the international band VoidCeremony, whose newest album Threads of Unknowing was released in April of this year by 20 Buck Spin.)

Californian prog-death/black-metal outfit VoidCeremony was formed by Garrett Johnson and Jon Reider in the summer of 2013, and now after a few line-up changes the band consists of Wandering Mind (guitars, vocals), C. Koryn (drums), The Great Righteous Destroyer (bass), and Hyperborean Apparition (guitars, vocals).

There’s nothing impossible now, and thanks to Metal-Archives we can figure out that Wandering Mind is Garrett himself. C. Koryn is Charles Koryn who’s known for his drumming in bands like Ascended Dead, Ghoulgotha, Vrent, and more. The Great Righteous Destroyer is Damon Good himself, the founder of one of the oldest Australian funeral doom bands – Mournful Congregation (as well as Cauldron Black Ram and Stargazer) — and that fact makes VoidCeremony an international project, as well as the residence of Hyperborean Apparition, who’s Philippe Allaire-Tougas, “multi-instrumentalist, producer, recording engineer, and guitar teacher” from Canada. He performs with Chthe’ilist, First Fragment, and more.

As you see, here we have a bunch of prolific and talented musicians performing a different kind of extreme metal, and if you heard VoidCeremony’s debut Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel (2020), then you know where they can lead. The band’s sophomore album Threads of Unknowing was released on the 14th of April and it won’t disappoint fans of intelligent progressive extreme music.

These deconstructive tunes of primordial (crawling) chaos aren’t something you need to talk about but rather to experience, and yet we tried to discuss the  contrasting sonic canvases of Threads of Unknowing with Garrett. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FALL OF THE IDOLS

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May 242023
 

(In this interview Comrade Aleks communicated with two original members of the Finnish doom band Fall of the Idols, which returned from a long hiatus with a new album in 2022, and appear to have one more album in them before bringing the band to a final end.)

Finnish doom metal band Fall of the Idols was born in 2000. They progressed slowly towards the point when their first full-length albums The Womb of the Earth (2006) and The Seance (2008) were complete. Their tragic and pretty traditional worship to the Doom Cult reached its catharsis with the third album Solemn Verses (2012), but it was released a year after the suicide of the band’s drummer Hannu Weckman, who was a huge creative force alongside the other members.

Ten years ago Fall of the Idols said that they had enough material for one more album and that it would be the last one in their discography. Years passed but nothing happened until November 2022 when I Hate Records released it – the band’s fourth full-length, Contradictory Notes.

We tried to do this interview back in 2022 but it took some time, so forgive us for this welter, there was no better choice. These songs were recorded by the band’s original members Vesa Karppinen (bass), Jyrki Hakomäki (drums, vocals), Rami Moilanen (guitars), and Jouni Sihvonen (guitars) (also you can hear Hannu Weckman‘s drums in the first track “Vicissitudes”), and we have two of them tonight. Continue reading »

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