AN NCS INTERVIEW: MALAURIU

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Jan 252022
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks had a conversation with Schizoid, the mastermind of the Italian black metal band Malauriu, whose latest release was a 2021 split with Malvento and Abigail.)

I have a very vague impression regarding the Italian black metal scene, and this interview with Schizoid (a.k.a. Asmodeus) helped me to learn a bit more about the Sicilian non-doom underground.

Schizoid started in the thrash / black duet Urlo Nero in 2011, then after its disbanding in 2013 he founded Malauriu (black metal) and its far less productive twin Sintenza (black metal). A year ago he returned to his thrash / black roots with the Ossario band, but after all Malauriu remains his main creature.

So how do the dark powers work through this band? Schizoid knows. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FELLED

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Jan 112022
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks talked with members of the wonderfully multi-dimensional Oregonian black metal band Felled, whose debut album The Intimate Earth saw the light of day last summer via Transcending Obscurity Records, and which we reviewed here along with a song premiere.)

Transcending Obscurity Records has given a big push to a lot of great extreme metal bands, choosing from among the best of the worldwide underground. Folk / black metal band Felled from Eugene, Oregon is one such band.

Cavan Wagner (guitars, vocals) and Jenn Grunigen (drums, vocals) started as Moss of Moonlight in around 2010 but the project was renamed in 2014, and soon Isamu Sato (bass) and Brighid Wagner (violin, vocals) joined them. Since then only the 2017 demo Bonefire Grit was published until The Intimate Earth full-length album was released in July 2021. It was worth of the wait, with five tracks presenting to listeners the dramas of Nature and the anguish of its witnesses, showing the best of “Cascadian black metal”.

True to tell, I didn’t know this genre name before… well, I knew bands like Agalloch or Wolves in the Throne Room but I didn’t have a clue what “Cascadian BM” was. Thus we got in touch with Cavan Wagner to sort it out, along with other matters, but in the end other members contributed to this interview too. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ELDERWIND

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Jan 072022
 

 

(Comrade Aleks delves into atmospheric black metal with this interview of Vyacheslav Oboskalov, founder of the Russian band Elderwind, whose latest album is 2021’s Fires.)

You can’t avoid atmospheric black metal nowadays. It’s sort of a cultural phenomenon, a friendly offspring of the most scandalous and extreme metal genre (as it was in ‘90s) which nevertheless doesn’t lose its connection to what came before it. Most of these bands prefer to channel different aspects of Nature through their music, some declare “a celebration for the death of man” and it seems to be a logical development of the genre. The growing popularity of atmospheric black metal, its connection with ambient and post music, just proves a suggestion that the scene lives and grows on its own.

The Russian atmospheric black metal act Elderwind was started by Vyacheslav Oboskalov twelve years ago. His home city Yekaterinburg is located on the Iset River between the Volga-Ural region and Siberia. A good place to play black metal. Elderwind’s albums’ titles Volshebstvo Jivoy Prirody (“The Magic of Nature”) and Chem Holodnee Noch (“The Colder the Night”) demonstrate the band’s ideology, and Elderwind built a good reputation with those releases — good enough to release a new album, 2021’s Fires, DIY and continue to get new listeners despite a lack of big labels behind them. It may be early to tell about the new album’s success, but if it is a success, then it’s well-deserved. Vyacheslav is here tonight to tell Elderwind’s story. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: KANONENFIEBER AND LEIÞA

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Jan 062022
 

 

(Comrade Aleks delivered to us this interview of the German artist Noise, who is the man behind both Kanonenfieber and Leiþa, and a project named Impious. Due to no fault of Aleks or Noise, we allowed more than a month to go by before publishing it — but reading it now (and listening to the music) makes for a very good way to help begin the New Year.)

Black /death metal one-man band Kanonenfieber, which is focused on themes of World War I, and the depressive black metal project Leiþa have common origins – both are based in Bamberg, Bavaria and both are run by Noise. He launched Kanonenfieber’s first full-length Menschenmühle in February 2021 and Leiþa’s Sisyphus followed it in June 2021. It’s not just cool furious outbursts of anger and desperation but two very different works with very different stories behind them. And I’m glad what we managed to do this interview with Noise, which is here for you to read. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: MEGALITH LEVITATION

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Dec 232021
 

 

(In this engaging interview Comrade Aleks spoke with vocalist SAA from the Russian occult psychedelic doom band Megalith Levitation, whose newest album Void Psalms was released in the fall of this year by Aesthetic Death.)

If you remember our interview with Moscow-based coven IL and their heresyarch Vlad, I mentioned them as “one of three most solid and impressive Russian doom bands nowadays”. And as a second one, Dekonstrutor, don’t answer interviews (shame on you guys, shame on you Mitya!), then it’s much easier to get a response from Megalith Levitation.

This occult, psychedelic and ritualistic act grew on the poisonous soil of industry giant city Chelyabinsk, under its smoke-covered skies. This environment can break or inspire in some way, and Megalith Levitation took the best they could find there and effectively channeled it through their second album Void Psalms (Aesthetic Death, October 2021). Traditionally we get in touch with the band’s singing vocalist SAA. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ASCIAN

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Dec 212021
 

 

(This time Comrade Aleks has shared with us an interview of one of the guitarists from the German band Ascian, who released an excellent debut album last year and, as you shall see, are hard at work on the next one.)

Another promo album which I almost lost in the maelstrom of 2021 is Ascian’s Elysion, released on October 2nd, 2020. The time has come, I’ve opened the necessary folder, and was fascinated with their very first song ‘Misery Seeds’, which offers to listeners a flawless, solemn, doom death mass with emotional delivery of combined clean and growling vocals.

The entire album grants pure pleasure, with a slow dive into the melancholic void this German quartet easily create with their instruments. And then I found the official video for Ascian’s ‘Dead Will Carry the Dead’… Who could expect that such a young band pays so much attention to visual aspects as well?

Now that you’ve got an idea what Ascian is about, I believe I can hand it over to the band’s guitarist P. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PANTHEIST

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Dec 172021
 

 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks catches up again with Kostas Panagiotou, mastermind of Pantheist, whose latest album Closer to God was released earlier this month.)

Years ago Pantheist was known as a funeral doom metal band, international to some degree, and sometimes experimental. Twenty years passed since the release of their first demo 1000 Years and Pantheist went far away from the point where they were back then. 21 years, 24 different members, 6 full-length albums, and one man who holds this project on his shoulders – it’s obvious that he’s free to do whatever he finds necessary to this creature, whatever he feels right.

It’s Kostas Panagiotou who not only performs the duties of vocalist and keyboard player, but also writes music and lyrics and produces Pantheist. Is it a one-man band indeed? We’ll know it soon, of course. The new album Closer to God was born during this anxious and stressful lockdown, as Kostas lists the ingredients of the new material — “the ghost of Ennio Morricone; the soundtrack of videogames endlessly played; an unfulfilled need for connection; an acute awareness of the futility of it all…”

The album was planned to be a single track, but after all there are four gorgeous tracks on the verge of different genres yet based on a funeral doom fundament. The result of Pantheist‘s recording sessions is inspiring, the band gives some food for the soul and the brains, and Kostas serves it for us in this interview. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: HLADOMRAK

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Dec 132021
 

 

(Today we present another interview by Comrade Aleks, and this one is a discussion with the founder of the Swedish black metal band Hladomrak, whose latest album was released this fall by Non Serviam Records.)

From a first look Hladomrak is Swedish band which is tagged in Bandcamp like “pagan black metal” and even “Scandinavian black metal”. That’s simple. But the band’s name consists of two Slavonic words Hald (“cold”) and Mrak (“darkness”) and its mastermind Evgenerator started his underground career in he Latvian black metal band Nightwing twenty years ago.

And that’s another story, as nowadays Hladomrak has its third album Archaic Sacrifice out on the well-known Non Serviam Records, and the very fact of that guarantees them proper exposure. They keep the dark flame burning using the occult language “Reithariil” in their lyrics. In addition, they sound “true” and they sound “evil”… so why not to try to find out more behind this story? That’s what we were trying to do during this interview with Evgenerator himself. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: CENOBITE

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Dec 092021
 

 

(Comrade Aleks has brought us this very lively interview with Kostek Dolganov from the Russian death metal band Cenobite, whose Hellraiser-themed debut album Dark Dimension was released in the fall of 2020.)

It’s strange but Metal-Archives indicates that only three metal bands bear the name Cenobite, and it seems that only the Russian followers of Hellraiser’s Leviathan cult are active.

The Russian band was formed by Chamber of Torture members – Kostek Dolganov (bass, vocals), Sergey Necrom (guitars), and Nikita Stepanov (drums). Well, actually there were three other drummers in this lineup, and the lineup who recorded the Dark Dimension album a year ago consists of Kostek and Sergey alongside Andrey Andrianov (drums) and Paul Skallig (guitars), who have already left the band.

But the lineup’s changes are the last thing that should interest our good readers, so it’s better to point out a far more important thing – that Cenobite perform pretty strict and thick death metal, and they do it well. As for other stuff… Kostek Dolganov is the one who can tell this story better. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS

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Dec 082021
 

 

(We present Comrade Aleks’ interview of Brett Clarin, the main man behind the symphonic black/death metal band Journey Into Darkness, whose latest album (which we premiered and reviewed HERE) was released in September 2021 by Spirit Coffin Publishing.)

Brett Clarin was one of a few guys who started the death/ thrash / doom act Apparition in 1988. They changed the name in 1991, becoming Sorrow, and got a contract with Roadrunner Records for a full-length album. Some may suppose the guys were lucky, and indeed the album Hatred and Disgust saw the light of day in 1992. But as it happens sometimes with some labels, Roadrunner switched their attention to something more appealing for them and Sorrow didn’t get their deserved exposure.

Sorrow was soon disbanded but Brett started that strange project Journey into Darkness. His first solo work under that name, Life Is a Near Death Experience (1996), was an experiment, something like darkwave, a kind of sympho black metal without vocals and actually without guitars or typical metal instruments at all. Brett left the project for 14 years but now there are two more albums in his discography – Multitudes of Emptiness (2020) and Infinite Universe Infinite Death (2021). It’s okay now!

With Jei Doublerice on vocals Brett provides us symphonic death / black metal and it’s something we’re going to talk about with him. Continue reading »

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