AN NCS INTERVIEW: ROGGA JOHANSSON (HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY)

 Interviews  1 Response »
Jul 242024
 


Rogga, photo by Jacob Johansson

(We present the following interview of Rogga Johansson by our Comrade Aleks. The initial focus is on the latest album from House by the Cemetary, released by Pulverised Records in May, but of course the discussion branches off into many other topics too.)

Rogga Johansson is a paranormally hyperactive Swedish guitarist and vocalist who started to conquer the metal underground with the death metal band Terminal Grip in 1994. I could fill the entire foreword just counting the bands and projects where he took part or which he keeps on running. But it seems that his most crucial band is Paganizer, the successor of Terminal Grip which has provided death metal since 1998 and produced twelve full-length albums and a good bunch of smaller releases.

However tonight we focus on the international death metal (of course!) project House by the Cemetary which he runs together with American vocalist Mike Hrubovcak (ex-Monstrosity, Azure Emote, ex-Vile, etc).

Their third album The Mortuary Hauntings was released in May 2024 by Pulverised Records, and if you missed it somehow, this interview with Rogga will close that gap. If you dig stuff with titles such as “Cadavers Emerge”, “The Realm of the Cursed” and “Opening the Gates of Hell”, this will please your tastes. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ROGGA JOHANSSON – “AS EVIL SEEPS OUT”

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Jun 042019
 

 

If the (often fractious) community of metal were a nation, Rogga Johansson would be rightly regarded as a national treasure. The Bard of Gamleby has left his mark through a host of bands and personal projects extending back into the golden ’90s, too numerous to count even if you used all your fingers and toes. Attempting to group all of them under the unitary banner of “Swedish death metal” is tempting (because he is Swedish and does mainly indulge in death metal), but the permutations in sound and style can evade the genre characterizations that usually spring to mind when seeing that label.

Of all the many endeavors to which his name has been attached, only one actually bears his name, and now Rogga Johansson (the band) has a new album on the horizon. Entitled Entrance to the Otherwhere, it will be released on July 19th by Transcending Obscurity Records. We had the pleasure of premiering a song from the first Rogga Johnasson album, 2017’s Garpedans (which was conceptually connected to the last Demiurg album), and now we have the opportunity to premiere a song from the new one. But before we get to it, how ’bout that fucking cover art?!? Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: ROGGA JOHANSSON — “AT MOUNTAIN GARPE”

 Premieres  7 Responses »
Mar 172017
 

 

As always, no one will stop you if you decide to scroll down to the bottom of this page immediately and start playing the song by Rogga Johansson that we’re premiering, but if you do that I hope you’ll still come back up here to the top and continue reading. If you don’t, you’ll miss an interesting story, and as a further inducement, I’ll tease you with the name Demiurg.

That band was an honest-to-god death metal super-group (and by using the past tense I don’t mean to suggest they are defunct, because that would be unduly pessimistic). The line-up included Rogga Johansson as guitarist and vocalist, Dan Swanö as lead guitarist and keyboardist, Ed Warby on drums and vocals, Johan Berglund on bass, and vocalist Marjan Welman from the Dutch goth metal band Autumn.

They released three conceptually related albums beginning with 2007’s Breath of the Demiurg. The last one was 2010’s Slakthus Gamleby. As I learned when I devoted one of our Rearview Mirror posts to a stupendous song from that album earlier this year, Gamleby is the second largest locality situated in Västervik Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden, and is Rogga Johansson’s home, and “Slakthus” is Swedish for “slaughterhouse”. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: “AT THE PLATEAUS OF LENG” BY ROGGA JOHANSSON’S MEGASCAVENGER

 Premieres  2 Responses »
Jan 082014
 

Rogga Johansson is a one man army. He has been a fixture or a session musician in so many bands that it’s easier to just send you to the list at Metal Archives rather than try to name them all here (even though that list is probably incomplete). One of his more recent projects is named Megascavenger, and today we’re high as kites over the chance to premiere the title track from the new Megascavenger album, At the Plateaus of Leng.

Rogga Johansson is also a death metal riff machine. Riffs roll out of his mind and fingers like weapons from an assembly line — black, oiled, loaded, and ready to spew destruction. At the Plateaus of Leng is packed with them. Although Johansson is also one of death metal’s most distinctive (and horrifying) vocalists, he has lined up a ridiculous collective of guests to vomit hate on this new album. This is a “who’s who” list so eye-popping that we will provide it in full:

1. “At The Plateaus Of Leng” (Vocals by DAVE INGRAM of Bolt Thrower/Benediction)

2. “The Festered Earth” (Vocals by KAM LEE of Massacre)

3. “And Then The Death Sets In” (Vocals by AAD KLOOSTERWAARD of Sinister)

4. “The Mucus Man” (Vocals by MARTIN VAN DRUNEN of Asphyx/Hail of Bullets)

5. “Like Comets Burn The Ether “(Vocals by DAVE ROTTEN of Avulsed) Continue reading »

EYE-CATCHERS: PUTREVORE, RIBSPREADER, AND JUANJO CASTELLANO

 Eye-Catchers  13 Responses »
Apr 042012
 

Putrevore is a joint project of Sweden’s Rogga Johansson (Ribspreader, Paganizer, Bone Gnawer, Demiurg, The 11th Hour) and Spain’s Dave Rotten (Avulsed, Christ Denied). I found out about them only yesterday via a message from NCS reader and occasional writer KevinP (he and I share a mutual admiration for Rogga’s work, which I presume is the reason for his alert).

Kevin’s message concerned that album art you see up there. It will grace the cover of Putrevore’s second album, Macabre Kingdom, which is currently being mixed and is projected for a late 2012 release via Xtreem Music. According to a press release, the instrumental parts were recorded during January/February in Sweden with the help of Brynjar Helgetun on drums, who is another Ribspreader alum.

Macabre Kingdom will initially be released on 12-inch vinyl around June — several months before the effort is made available on CD.

The artwork for Macabre Kingdom was created by the Spanish artist Juanjo Castellano. His name was new to me, but after a bit of research I’ve learned that he is responsible for a slew of artwork for other metal bands (a pretty complete list can be found here). After the jump, I’ve collected some of the other art, plus a song from Putrevore’s first album, Morphed From Deadbreath (2008).

But while researching Sr. Castellano’s artwork, I discovered — and fuck me sideways for not knowing this before — that a new Ribspreader album was released earlier this year by Vic Records. Continue reading »