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A new review section: Buried by Time And Dust

We added a new review section, coincidentally another Mayhem reference following 'The Past is Alive', with the title 'Buried by Time and Dust'. Over the years, a lot of promos have been gathering dust simply because a fresh wave of promos arrived the following month and they were consigned to oblivion. We will review them here to make a clear distinction with our other reviews. We will also use it to complete a discography in terms of reviews. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit your music or would like to join the staff.

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Kringspiertyfus – “Who or what is this “Morticion” everyone keeps asking us about?”

If there’s one expression that would fit this interview, than that would obviously be; better late then never. Having the big media attention behind their backs, Kringspiertyfus had now finally time to answer my in-depth questions. However, iIve to admit that it took me way too long to get things finished, and therefore my apologies to the band for the delay.

 

I’m afraid I can’t skip this one, since you are, despite the good reviews and internet selfpromotion probably not that well known outside the area of West-friesland, so could you give us a quick overview of the band?
Kringspiertyfus was founded about a year ago and makes the most brutal death metal ever. By the way, we are probably more well-known outside of West-Frisia than inside.

How did you manage to sound so utterly lomp?
Like our grandma says: It’s a gift dear.

How do you plan on playing life with those computerdrums? (Maybe you can give Krisiun’s lad a call..?)
Actually, we don’t think the guy from Krisiun could pull it of, but we’re perfectly satisfied with Elmer’s drums.

And how did you plan on solving the ‘problem’ that you’ve got no more then 11.40 minutes of material?
What problem? In 15 minutes we will deliver more brutality than all of those unoriginal mainstream Suffocation clones combined.

Most samples sound absolutely hilarious, and although I recognize quite a few of them, could you please tell us the names of movies they’re from?
Movies?
For our non-dutch readers, could you please explain what’s a kontsnor or, ‘ass-moustache’?
Put down yer French fries, drop yer pants and bow down with yer ass facing a mirror. In between the mushy chunks, you may be able to discover some hair. Congratulations, you’ve just discovered your kontsnor.

Can you tell our non-redneck readers (in case we have any) what john deere 9600 is and why a john deere 9600 is so severely cool?
John Deere is the best tractor brand ever. When I used to work on the apples and pears farm, I used to drive a Deutz Fahr and a Fendt, but those 2 absolutely can’t compare to a John Deere, just ask Billy Bob Pendleton. The John Deere 9600 is one of the most brutal tractors ever. It even has a straw chopper! Everybody in our village is crazy about John Deere as well. Our neighbour just bought one the other day. And during the yearly All American Sunday, I bought a real John Deere license plate. I immediately put it on my car, but since the police wasn’t too thrilled about it, I had to remove it recently.

Which bands in the Dutch scene are cowboy queers?
We actually don’t know. We don’t listen to cowboy queers.

Yo’ momma is stabbed to dead and fat. Why not eat hear? That ‘ll teach them women!
Jesus, it’s just a drawing you idiot! What kind of perverse and twisted mind would kill his own mother and eat her?!? You sicko!

A or B, and why?
1. Are you three a: brothers or b: lovers?
both
2. A: Beer or b: Scotch?
both
3. A: Johnny Cash or b: Johnny rebel?
Johnny Walker
4. A: You wanna be just as bad-ass and cool as Mortician. b: You will be even more bad-ass and cool as Mortician.
What the difference between those choices? And by the way, who or what is this “Morticion” everyone keeps asking us about?
5. Your show, ‘The Tyfusses’, will replace Ozzy’s show. a: yes b: no.
No. The reason this show is such a success, is undoubtedly Kelly. Unfortunately, we don’t have such a beautiful woman with such a fantastic voice as a sister. Although our mom can sing a great version of the star spangled banner.

Kringspiertyfus

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Negură Bunget – “I’d say there are still some amazing spiritual practices perpetuated in our day”

NEGURA BUNGET are busy bees but as you quest for their releases they’re not easy to encounter at all. These problems will be gone with their new alliance with the Italian label CODE666. In their latest work ‘N CRUGU BRADULUI they combine raw black metal with a mystic and nature bounded atmosphere. It looks like a life work when you see and hear the result, so I did a little interview to clear some things up.


NEGURA BUNGET, a rather unknown but busy act from THE land of Vampires Romania. Over the years you have been a very busy band but despite of all the efforts I only had a chance to get my hands on the Zirnindu-sa CD. What’s the reason of the bad distro of your earlier works and do you hope that all this will change with your new work?
We worked from the very beginning with Bestial Records, which was actually founded initially just in order to release our first album. We worked really fine with them, being quite good friends, and they did their best to promote us, but in the end that was not enough. They were just a small Romanian label, with limited capabilities. They did though quite a lot for us. I’m confident the things will change quite a lot now that we’re on code666 Records. Actually they change a lot already…

What caught my attention almost immediately is the strong union with nature and mysticism in your artwork and lyrics, what are you trying to bring the listeners?
On the last album we tried to present the fundamental characteristics of the Romanian traditional spirituality. For that we based on a conceptual 4 tracks structure, with each track symbolically representing a season in their 1 year frame evolution. “’N crugu bradului” as a title creates a connection with an actual natural place, as we found the best place where some of these spiritual essences are kept even today alive to be the heights where the fir trees grow (that’s what the title refers to). In the end the album is one about places, peoples, tradition… about the whole of which this spirituality emerges from.

In witch extend is your Transilvanian ascendance an influence on your music and views, is their a lot of spiritualism left in your region rather extinct beliefs who are still practiced?
The local influence was always something fundamental in our work. We see a clear and natural process the one through which we as individuals got involved intro what’s Negura Bunget. It was something we think was meant to happen. We were just at the right time and place. So we see not as us talking about some local matters, but more like these local matters taking us up and guide us on their own paths. I’d say there are still some amazing spiritual practices perpetuated in our days, but they’re quite hard to discover and even harder to understand. There’s also quite a lot of content which is already lost by now. For us it is a fascinating endeavor to discover and revitalize such amazing elements. It’s a hard job, but we enjoy very much doing it and take it very seriously!

Musically I must say you walk a different path then most of the “black metal” bands, in how far do you see yourselves as black metal perse or do you rather use another term for it?
We consider Negura Bunget to be a Black Metal band. At the same time we have quite a personal concept about what Black Metal really represents, so that’s why I think our music may be a bit different. We’re aware of this, but we always tried to keep all our influences, especially the musical ones inside Black Metal, sometimes practicing a severe censure.

Also the duration of the songs is long but do not tend to get boring, how do you start writing a song with that longitude and isn’t it hard to keep it al interesting?
In deed some of our songs tent to take a while, especially on this last album. Making them like that was in the end a natural process. We didn’t start with the fix idea of creating 15 minutes long tracks, they just evolved into that. As we always really tried to find ways rather to limit the duration, not to extend it, we’re quite confident we didn’t make them like that just to take some more time.

I must say that ‘n Crugu Bradului looks and sounds very professional, even the clip is from good quality I can imagine all this work wasn’t done overnight. Tell us something about the process of all the work you had to do to accomplish the result.
We really worked a lot on this album. It was something we had in mind almost from the beginning of the band, and we decided the time came for it with about 1 year before recording it. That year following was totally dedicated to creating it. Apart of doing 5-6 rehearsal ever week we also studied lot of legends, history, folklore, mythology in order to create the lyrical part of the album. We also did 2 extensive filming expeditions around the country in order to acquire all the images we needed for the artwork (cd cover, multimedia, website, posters, promos…). We had some really cool experiences creating everything for this album. Sometimes there were consuming experiences, other times just enjoyable ones (for example we had to carry up home a 5 meters long dried fir tree with some nice patterns on it from the middle of the mountains, in order to use it on the album inlay, the same time we also had to carry from hundreds km away 3 whole fir trees to use small pieces of them as a special thing inside the CD box).

How is the metal scene like in your country? To me it looks rather quiet and calm, or am I wrong?
The Romanian scene is quite a surprising one. Though there are not many concerts, clubs, festivals, magazines and other elements to help promoting the bands, there are quite a few good quality dedicated bands, surviving under really harsh conditions.

And last but not least, what are the future plans? Touring? New CD?
For the moment we’re quite into promoting this new album. We’ll play some gigs, festivals… stuff like that, and of course there are many interviews to be answered. There’s no tour planned yet (though code666 tries arrange us one), but we’re always ready for one! We also already started working on a new album, but it will take us some time to finish it.

If you whish you may put here some final words for our readers.
Thanks very much for the support! Stay Black! And may the ZSALAMOLKXISA lead your path!

Negură Bunget

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Hangöver – “Don’t be a dick, beat up your chick”

I prompted this beer-fuelled metal band a few days ago and was totally amazed of their fury and power. So I though it was time to take this band to Vampire-Magazine. And well, it became a real cool interview, enjoy!

 

As can be read on your website, Slut Eviscerator left the band. I like to start of with asking why he left the band?

Actually he didn’t leave the band. He left his house. He went to have a beer or sixteen in spring 2002 and never came back so far, so I’ve put the band to ice, because he’s the major part of Hangöver and I don’t wanna drag it without him. He is a great companion and true metalhead, so fuck the rest. Right now he’s more or less homeless and it would be impossible to work on anything related with music. I don’t know if he’ll be coming back, but even if I decide to record another demo with someone else on six stringulation, Slut Eviscerator will still be in the line-up – respect.

You started a band called Necroslaughter together with Daniel (Nocturnal/Frontbeast), tell me something about this band.
Necroslaughter is a pure old school death/thrash metal inspired by the old ways of Sarcofago and Beherit. It was Evil Avenger who created the band and I got invited to join the line-up on black blood vomits so I did. We were supposed to release a debut seven inch on Canadian Goat Warrior Records, but the label seems to be as fast as early Xysma, so we stopped to consider them serious and released the demo on cassette ourselves. Should be available from our addresses anytime soon, so write to us, you pathetic cunts.


— Necroslaughter —

Is Slut Eviscerator going to join or start any other band, as you know?
Yeah well, as you already might figure, he isn’t going to do much apart from getting his life straight again. Then we will see. He’ll surely be back in Hangöver and that’s all he cares about when it comes to playing.

How do you see the future for both Necroslaughter and Hangöver?
I don’t foresee shit. We live day by day. No plans. Necroslaughter is releasing a debut demo finally and then we’re starting to beat up our instruments and torment the voice chords creating a full lenght material for the label unknown. Something may happen when I travel to Germany this spring to stay for a couple of weeks, although I’d rather foresee drunken irresponsibility and grave desecrations than actual song composing.

Are you participating in any other projects, or did you in the past?
Right now beside Necroslaughter, I am continuing the scumfucks traditions in a band called Backstage Sluts which is more or less a dirty and primitive punk’n’roll with harsh vocals and obscene lyrics. Our debut demo (on CDR or maybe a tape) entitled “Trisexual Nunwhore Cumsquad” will consists of three scrotumtwisting necrohits (plus GG Allin cover song) to smack you with. The band consits of me, the (oral abuse and six stringulation), R. Insulter (fists of terror on your ugly face) and Dale Wifebeater (panzerwaffe maggotpen). Besides, I am usually doing something on my own or with friends, but nothing official to be told… I am working on my Wolfpack ‘zine and have some more interests to waste my spare time on.

I saw on the Hangöver website that a lot of merchandise isn’t for sale anymore. Are you going to print new shirts? I just wanted to order one…
I think they are available from Deathstrike Records nowadays… We don’t bother to put updates online as I am too lazy, plus the shirts are so popular that they are more or less sold out in the moment I get them from printers… I am posting a few last shirts to Deathstrike nowadays, so write to Evil Avengah and get one for yourself to be prettier, healthy and not so fucking wimpy anymore.

Back to the music, I said bands like Sodom, Destruction and Motörhead must’ve influenced you, do you apply this?
Yeah whatever. If we only knew how to handle our instruments properly I might agree with you, but we barely know how to play, so I wouldn’t say we were so much inspired. Fuck my ass if we ever reach the level of Sodom or Destruction. Motörhead… Ahhh…

Nergal (Behemoth) did a guest appearance on “Fag Killer”, how did this happen? And how was the co-operation?
This sorry rockstar was around when we were recording the shit for our demo. He didn’t record anything in particular, we just added some idiotic drunken screams during one of the songs (“Fag killer” methinks) and it stayed there. It has commercial value now, but we ran outta money when wanted to print “with guest appearance of Nergay” on the cover.

There are two more guest appearances on Terrorbeer, H. Beherit and BlackBielack, I never heard of both people, tell us something about them.
Hrimgrimnir Beherit is the sound engineer of Behemoth. We recorded the demo with him here in our city. He’s a longhaired dirty metalcoholic – that was enough to choose him. In fact he barely enginereed anything as he kept falling asleep all the time, this way every song sounds different, we had to fuck around with it ourselves, and we weren’t too sober as well, as we would never dare to play music in sobriety. BlackBielack is (was?) a very skiller guitarist from our city. He recorded some solos on the demo, ’cause fuck me if we knew how to. He works in the porn business now and has no time to touch the guitar. I figure! Bastard…

It’s well known that the Polish underground scene is quite healthy. Could you tell us something about this?
You’ve mistaken scenes. Polish undergound is nothing but Jewish conspiracy and life metal worship.

Any last words?
Don’t be a dick, beat up your chick!

Hangöver

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  • Bands: Katafalk
  • Review Date: February 11, 2003

Katafalk – “People are getting tired of all this MTV crap and go and look for the real deal”

Katafalk is an aggressive Dutch death metal band that already has been operating since 1995. Since then they’ve did quite a lot of gigs within Holland, gaining lots of goodwill and building up quite a reputation, and they’ve only recorded one real official release, which was there “Promo 2001”. In 2002 the nice people of Cold Blood Industries realised what quality Katafalk had and they offered them a record deal. The result is their debut album “Storm Of The Horde”, which is a debut one can be proud of! Guitarplayer Christiaan gives you the low-down on Katafalk…(DannyB)

Hello there Chris. As probably lots out there might not know you (shame!), can you tell us the story of Katafalk?
Katafalk started out in 1995. After a demo in 1997 and some line-up changes we released a promo in 2001 which did really well. God Dethroned invited us to tour with them in support of their Ravenous album and Henri (frontman God Dethroned) offered us a record deal for his label Cold Blood Industries afterwards. Then again some line-up changes but we got signed anyway, recorded our debut album ‘Storm Of The Horde’ late 2002 and it’s out now!

What does the bandname “Katafalk” mean?
Katafalk is a Dutch word and means hearse. It’s coming on wheels and it’s bringing death, exactly like we do when we come and play somewhere! Death on wheels, Rock ‘N Roll!

You excist for almost eight years now, but you’ve only recorded two releases, of which one is your “Promo 2001” and your debut “Storm Of The Horde”. Why did it take so long for Katafalk to record it’s first release?
Like I said, we’ve been through a couple of line-up changes. At the end of 2001 some guys left the band so replacements had to be found. Also we wanted to be sure of a record deal  before actually recording a whole album. Some bands spend a lot of money in the studio and don’t get signed after all. We made sure we got signed first and we did.

How did you get in touch with Coldblood Industries? Probably because of your promo I think…
Not only because of the promo, Henri knew Katafalk for some years. He saw us live a couple of times, liked us, invited us to tour with GD and decided us to sign us, because he had started his own label.

Are you satisfied with the work they’re doing for Katafalk, and can you name a few examples?
We’re very satisfied, they’re doing a great job.’Storm Of The Horde’ is distributed in Europe, U.S.A & Canada and CBI has arranged a lot of interviews for us worldwide. Right now we’ve done over 40 and we’ve got reviews in all big zines. All great.

It seems your album has been delayed a few weeks. First it was coming out the 10th of January, then it became the 28th. Can you tell us why this is? Just a regular delay, that happens all the time?
This was because of press-releases. The date of release was delayed so it would match the release of big magazines such as the Dutch Aardschok. Apparently something went wrong cause our review wasn’t in the supposed edition of Aardschok but shit happens. Some stores had the CD for sale a week earlier than the official releasedate, for instance in France.

Just recently you have a new vocalist. How come? And while you’re at it, introduce the new guy.
The vocals on the CD were done by former singer Wokkel, who also appeared on our demo and promo. He helped us out for the album, but had already left the band. Our new singer’s name is Niels and he’s also known as the guitarplayer in Dutch death/grind band Prostitute Disfigurement.

For as far as I know, up to now you only received (very) positive reviews on your “Storm Of The Horde” album, including of me! What are the most remarks/credits/praises you’ve gotten so far?
In general all reviews were very positive indeed, an average of about 80 points or higher. Most people like the energy and intensity of the album and the live feel of it. Also the songwriting (riffs, melody, choruses) is often appreciated, as well as the mixing of extreme styles like death and thrash. Some negative remarks (mostly from people who aren’t into extreme metal) were that it’s too fast or too alike. But there’s enough variety in it and this debut album was supposed to be fast and brutal in the first place!

Are you all satisfied with the result? And why so/not? Can you tell what you would have done different looking back, or what will be done diferent the next time?
We’re very satisfied with this album. It’s got a great sound with a cool live feel to it. All good songs and recorded well. Of course there are always little things bit you can’t change them anyway, so not worth mentioning! One takes learning from every step so next time things will be even better. Maybe our next album will be more varied, we’ll see about that when we’re ready.

The cover reminded me of a movie, namely “The Lord Of The Rings”, and then I mean the Nazgul. Is this cover chosen to represent these entities because you all like the story or ’cause it’s a popular movie at this time, or is it a total coincidence? What’s the story behind the cover?
The idea was chosen by the band and painted by singer Wokkel. Our American friend Rodney (who wrote three lyrics for the album) came up with the title ‘Storm Of The Horde’, also the title of one of the songs. We all liked this title as it is very fitting for this album. We could pick a ready-made cover but those didn’t fit so we decided to design it ourselves. Of course we had all seen the Tolkien movie and the Nazgul were a perfect example of a horde storming, so we used that idea for the painting. The painting turned out blue, and with the horses and ‘Storm’ in the title it’s reminding of Dissection too.

Can you tell us what kind of lyrical subjects Katafalk uses in their music? Is there perhaps a red line to be found?
The lyrics of the album have both fantasy and reality subjects. Wokkel wrote mainly reality lyrics and they’re mostly about the desire to be free, being yourself and not taking shit from anyone. That’s the red line in some of the lyrics. Songs like “Birthmark 666”, “Baptized In Fire”, “Succubus” and “Storm Of The Horde” are fantasy stories of course and have the tradional metal subjects.

One thing I noticed, is that you have quite some chorusses in your songs, something you do not find that often on death metal releases anymore. I think this worked out pretty cool. Is this done on purpose, or is this just Katafalk’s way of writing songs?
Yep, this is Katafalk’s way of writing songs. I like real songs and strong choruses and are cool indeed (me too; DB)! The ones in “Redeemer” and “Storm Of The Horde” turned out great, very metal!

And how exactly does the writing process go with your band?
I wrote ten songs of the songs on this album, our old bassplayer contributed two songs and our new bassplayer wrote one too. Basically I write the songs at home. In the rehearsalspace we work out the drumlines and cut and paste some parts if necessary. Everyone has their say so the whole band is involved in the final result.

I discovered that your main influence comes from aggressive death metal bands, not really the brutal American death metal, am I right? I also found that you usethrash as well as black metal in your music. Can you tell us what is of great influence to Katafalk, and how close comes this to your personal preferences?
Well I grew up in the eighties with all those thrash bands and later the early death metal bands. I’ve never been much into the gory stuff. Some influences are Slayer, Kreator, Dark Angel (Hell yeah!!!; DB), Possessed, early Death and Morbid Angel. Later bands such as Dissection and Emperor. You can hear all those influences in Katafalk and even some traditional metal stuff too!

You said to have done a lot of gigs. Can you give us an estimate on how much?
Last year 2002 we did 15 gigs in 8 months. We didn’t have an album out back then, so that’s pretty okay for a Dutch band. Also we had just replaced members, as three of them had quit 4 months earlier. We did about 20 gigs before 2002.

And can you name some memorable gigs, with cool crowds and/or bands, or lotsa beer and groupies?
One of the gigs on the God Dethroned tour was in our hometown Groningen. The venue was packed and the crowd was really loud, it was great! Playing in 013 Tilburg with Hypnosia was great too (yeah, that was a cool gig indeed!: DB), too bad they broke up! But almost every venue was cool, there are always these maniacs who go crazy and we really appreciate their support! So if you maniacs read this: thanx! you guys rule!

You are yet another example of the ever growing Dutch death metal scene. It seems like one quality band follows right after the other. Do you have any explanation why this is, why there are many good death metal bands in our small country and why the scene is so big nowadays (compared to several years ago for instance)?
No I don’t know. Maybe because the standards are getting higher, bands are getting better. There are many bands and so if you want to get somewhere you have to push real hard it think. Also metal is more popular in general compared to a few years ago. People are getting tired of all this MTV crap and go and look for the real deal.

The region you are from isn’t known to my knowledge for spawning a lot of bands. How is the scene up north in Holland? Can you tell us some more about that?
The scene is pretty good up here in Groningen. We have a strong local scene with good bands such as Seizure, As It Burns, Winter Of Sin, Obtuse, Monastery etc. There’s an organization called Grunn Metals Combined which arranges stuff like festivals and compilation CD’s. Check out www.metalscombined.nl

Now that your debut album has been released and you got your cd presentation awaiting you, what more can we expect from Katafalk in the future?
We hope to do a lot of gigs, get on some big tour or something and of course record another album! We have some new shirts too.

And here it ends. Thanks for the interview. If you have anything you haven’t said and really want to mention, you can put ’em down here, no censorship whatsoever…
Thanks for the interview! A message to the readers: Go buy and listen our CD ‘Storm Of The Horde’, check us live whenever you can, drink beer and bang your heads! Check our website www.katafalk.com for news, tourdates, mp3, merchandise and other stuff. Cheers!

Katafalk

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Paganizer – “I can´t imagine why so many talented musicians waste their time writing melodies that other bands already played a hundred times…”

Promoting total Death from Sweden…and more importantly Rogga reveals why he married Britney Spears while he knew that Shakira had a secret crush on him!

Hello, this is Vincent from Vampire Magazine. How’s everything going with the PAGANIZER team?
Everything´s going quite well at the moment! We´re currently rehearsing the second part of the material for the next PAGANIZER album. We have already recorded five songs and will record four more in mid february in Soundlab Studio together with Mieszko Talarszyk from NASUM.

We know PAGANIZER as we have reviewed your two latest albums, but could you please tell us something of the history of PAGANIZER?
The band started out back in ´98 as a Thrash Metal outfit with me on vocals and a bunch of other guys writing the music. This lineup recorded the debut album “Deadbanger” before splitting up in ´99. Then I simply reformed the band with new members since the bandname was mine and we continued to play death metal as I´ve done in my previous bands before PAGANIZER. The new lineup then recorded our second album “Promoting Total Death” which I concider to be the real debut album of PAGANIZER.

Your new CD, “Dead Unburied” has been out for a few months now. How has the initial response been?
Killer! Everyone who´s heard it have been totally blown away by it and that is the best response I can imagine. I think of all reviews I´ve read or all opinions I´ve been told there has only been one guy who thought the album was ok and not great! We´ve done a shitload more interviews on this album than on the previous ones combined so I take that as sign that people enjoy the music.

How do you feel about the final product? Is this your most perfect record or are you already thinking about the next steps?
We are definetly satisfied with the production and the overall outcome of the album. As always there are some stuff we might have changed when you think of it in retrospect but no question about it, this is as close to a totally satisfying recording we´ve ever come with any of our bands. Of course we´re thinking ahead, and as I mentioned we´re busy already rehearsing and recording the next album…

There are some guest vocals by Jorgen Sandstrom from GRAVE, how did you contact him?
The idea was initally that Dan Swanö/ex EDGE OF SANITY would do some vocals but he didn´t want to wreck his voice with Death vocals again after all these years of singing in NIGHTINGALE and his other softer bands. So then I simply called and asked Jörgen since he´s my personal fave Death Metal singer and he thought the idea was cool. He came down to Sunlight Studio when we´ve finished the music and put down his parts in an hour. Hearing him sing was fucking great, I´m still concidering the first three GRAVE albums the best Death Metal in the world.

What are the main lyrical themes of PAGANIZER, and where do you get your lyrical inspiration from?
Quite early on I decided that if we´re playing death metal we should sing about related topics, I have problems relating to environmental issues when listening to blastbeats and downtuned guitars…haha! As for inspiration I don´t think there is any shortage, just switch on the tv or rent a video and out pours ideas for atleast a couple of death metal lyrics! Personally I´m quite intrigued by the kind of atrocities displayed in films like Hellraiser and the likes, you know the kind that fucks with your mind and makes you afraid to die…haha! I´ve had some problems with bad drugs combined with too extensive horror movie watching so that´ll probably provide me with lyrical inspiration for some time…

Does everybody involve in writing the music or is every note from one person?
I pretty much write the music but occasionally our leadguitarist comes up with a couple of riffs which I incorporate in the music aswell. I don´t know why I tend to do the music myself, maybe I´m just the natural dictator in the band! Anyway, I think it fits our concept to do it this way since I think the overall sound benefits if all the music is written in the same vein.

Your first release was released by Psychic Scream, a label from Malaysia. Before you went to Forever Underground you was supposed to release “Promoting Total Death” through Psychic Scream. Could you tell us what went wrong?
Psychic Scream got into some serious cesnorship trouble pretty much at the same time we were supposed to release the “Promoting…” album. Since we´ve already recorded the material we just put it on ice as me and the drummer played in our other band CARVE at that time. Then after hearing a PAGANIZER track on a compilation album Bill at Forever Underground decided he wanted to put the album out for us and then things pretty much just evolved from there. When it comes to the current status of Psychic Scream´s activities I have no idea, the last time I was in contact with them was maybe a year ago and then Eric at the label told me he had been arrested by local police simply just because he was into metal…

Are there any bands that you consider to be your role models when it concerns the music of PAGANIZER? And are there any bands that you admire?
When it comes to role models/influences for PAGANIZER I think you can hear the influence of most early Swedish acts like GRAVE, CARNAGE HYPOCRISY, and ENTOMBED among others. Two bands that I on the other hand admire tremendously are VADER and MORBID ANGEL, but their music hasn´t had much impact on PAGANIZER I think. Other bands I really like is the Swedish Death/Crust groups DRILLER KILLER and DISFEAR, who are directly responsible for influencing big parts of my songwriting which is audible in songs like “Even In Hell” and “Flesh Supremacy” for instance.

Your previous albums were a bit more in the Retro-Thrash Metal corner, although the band’s roots lie in old school Death Metal. Why the change back to old school Death Metal?
I suppose you refer to the “Deadbanger” album, so as I said previously the lineup and concept back then was completely different. I´ve been into the Death Metal scene way before the release of that album and honestly can´t say I´ve ever been into the Retro-Thrash wave at all. Before joining PAGANIZER I played in TERMINAL GRIP and MOURNFUL which both were Death Metal acts in the more oldschool vein. Actually I´ve been thinking about re-recording some old stuff by those bands with PAGANIZER in the future, since I still think many of the songs are pure death metal classix, haha!

The old school Death Metal scene has been a bit silent in the last few years, but seems to be on the way back. What do you think is the main reason for this?
All styles of music comes and goes in cycles I think and now when people are maybe a bit fed up with the recent overmelodic Blackmetal crap and KORN Metal it´s easy to revive something harder like Death Metal. I only speak for the newer bands and listeners of course, the diehard fans has always been around to listen and play this kind of metal so I think the scene is quite the same as always only more in focus again like back in the ´90s.

The Swedish scene is very big and respected. However, I feel that many bands get contracts just cause their Swedish, which kind of clogs up the scene with below par bands. How do you look upon this, and do you find that certain genres have had their creative peak?
I think that´s a common misconception actually, can you name one band that´s Swedish that has been signed and sound like shit? Maybe you can but I still think it´s unfair to say that Swedish bands get signed on their nativity, I know a shitload of Swedish bands that kicks serious ass which haven´t recieved a single offer from any label, small or big. On the issue with genres that´ve reached their peak I must say that the so called Gotheburg scene deserves to be put to death real soon… I can´t imagine why so many talented musicians waste their time writing melodies that other bands already played a hundred times and then top it of with the standard AT THE GATES vocals. Anyway, it seems that the groundbreaking bands in the genre (IN FLAMES, DARK TRANQUILLITY)) have moved on to other musical vistas so let´s hope their mindless spawn will do so to in a near future…

Are there plans for a tour as promotion of the new album? And are there bands you’d love to tour with?
There was a tour planned for us now in January but our booking agency seems to have disappeared mysteriously… This is the normal thing when it comes to underground music like death metal, there are a lot of plans and decisions made but when the time comes to realize them people have a tendency to disappear or change their minds! Anyway, shit happens and in this scene it happens quite frequently so we don´t really care that much anymore but a tour would nevertheless have been real good promotion for the album as people seems to like a lot. I´d love to tour with any band that are worse musicians than us, then we could impress the audinece when it was our turn to play…haha! Seriously, playing with the recently reunited GRAVE or DISMEMBER would fit us perfectly I think, don´t you? (Vincent- That would indeed be a killer tour!!)

What are the ultimate goals for PAGANIZER?
That would be total and utter world domination I think… or just to be signed by a bigger label and given the opportunity to tour and record albums like more established bands in the genre. We don´t ask for much you know, but the world is a cold and cruel place…haha!

I know Rogga also plays in CARVE (which we reviewed too) and was a session-vocalist with DERANGED on their European tour with IMMOLATION…are there maybe some other projects?
Yes there is actually, I (Rogga) Oskar (bass, PAGANIZER) and Tobben, the drummer of VOMITORY has a new band going called RIBSPREADER. We have most material for a full length album and will begin rehearsals late february. The music will quite obviosuly sound like a mix between PAGANIZER and VOMITORY with a big dose of EXTREME NOISE TERROR and VADER. Apart from that Dea (leadguitar) is recording a mini-CD together with Dan Swanö, I think their band is called ANOTHER LIFE.

What is your opinion on the Sweden’s scene? I’ve also read Rogga is not really a big fan of the US Death Metal…
I think the Swedish scene is as good as ever actually with lots of great bands like PRIMITIVE SYMPHONY, NOMINON, STRANGULATION etc. Most the old Swedish bands are still great aswell with some exceptions… I don´t like the new UNLEASHED and to be honest the new GRAVE is too slow and unimaginative compared to their old stuff (Vincent- yes! YES!! I can’t agree more!). And you´re absolutely right about me not being too fond of the (new) US styled Death Metal…haha! I really love old stuff like DEICIDE, MORBID ANGEL, MASSACRE, CANCER and stuff like that but I´m simply too slow in the head to grasp the music of bands like CRYPTOPSY, DEEDS OF FLESH or PROPHECY for instance… that kind of music just doesn’t appeal to me at all since I need more straightforward in your face brutality! After half a song by CRYPTOPSY I´m totally numb in the head screaming “give me some fucking Into The Grave or Left Hand Path!!” Haha!

Is there a final question that you have never been asked but would like to be asked? And what is your answer to it?
That would be “Why did you marry Britney Spears when you knew that Shakira had a secret crush on you?” My answer to that would most probably be… “I married her because of the money, I can always have Shakira on the side…” AArhgh, that was a way too hard question so I went for a stupid answer…haha!

Thanks for doing this interview with us. Are there any final comments you’d like to share?
Only death is real! In our case that equals oldschool Swedish fucking Death!!!

Paganizer

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Funeral Winds – “You should never alienate the roots you grow from…”

When a certain band exists for more than a decade by releasing their own music-style (pure Black Metal) they deserve the recognition and respect as any ‘famous’ band out there is getting. Therefore I took the opportunity to interview the men of Funeral Winds. The core of their power lies within the aggressive feeling and old-school ravage Black Metal has to offer. Welcome to YOUR funeral!

Darkened hails to thee Funeral Winds! After having met some of you earlier last year, before the Behemoth concert in ‘Baroeg’, you agreed to participate in this interview. So here it is, finally. Introduce yourselves and the history about your band as well for starters.
V.XUL: People should know this by now… In short… Founded in 1991. Since then spawned three demo’s, a 7″ep, a live video, a split cd with Abigail, a full length cd, several t-shirts, several live shows, several line-up changes, and there is unofficial bootleg material, like a split LP with Demonic and a split demo with Moonblood.

Thanks again for giving me that special cd ‘Godslayer XUL’ that contains various songs from different time-lines; old and new material. I believe that after a decennium some changes in the line-up are in order. If this activity has been relevant to your status, what where the line-ups in the years ’94 and ’95, what happened to the original/session members and why did they leave in the first place?
V.XUL: The old line-ups are not relevant to Funeral Winds as it exists now, and we don’t care what happens to most of these former members. Funeral Winds is now Hellchrist XUL (guitar, vocals), V.XUL (guitar), Balgradon (drums), and Moloch (bass).

On your website I detected some other Dutch extreme bands on the ‘Links Section’. So what’s the deal with Domini Inferi, Israthoum and Lanz? Do these bands play Black Metal the same way as Funeral Winds does, and do they include any of your breed in their line-ups? Do some of you have any side-projects or entirely other bands at all you’d like to mention?
V.XUL: Domini Inferi is a solo-project of Hellchrist XUL, and brings extreme Black Metal in the vein of early Beherit and Von. It will release a split 7″ep with Botulistum early 2003, and is preparing a split 7″ep with The Parents Of Oude Pekela for later that year. Israthoum is a Black Metal band that has V.XUL on guitar, musically not comparable to Funeral Winds at all. This band released a demo-cd some months ago. Bassist Moloch is also active in Weltbrand, industrialized Black Metal, and Dark Remains, Death Metal. Dark Remains recently released a full-length album. Balgradon is also active in Corpsecandle, Black/Thrash metal like Dissection, released a demo-cd recently, and Infinity, (melancholic) underground Black Metal, which will have a full-length album released early 2003 by Spectral Arts. These are our bands… Lanz is an ancient misanthropic hate music band of Paranoia from Rotterdam, who is also behind the Black Metal project The Parents Of Oude Pekela…

Does Funeral Winds have anything to say about our own small Dutch Black Metal scene? What is your opinion concerning bands such as Cirith Gorgor, Onheil, Salacious Gods and Sauron, whom are certainly no strangers within the Dutch Black scene nowadays.
V.XUL: The Dutch Black Metal scene is a disappointment, with a sickening level of tolerance among its people.
H.XUL: Onheil is definitely not Black Metal, it consists of total losers who don’t have a clue what Black Metal is all about, they even socialize and support Christian scum! Some Dutch Black Metal bands worth to be mentioned are Hekel, Tartaros, Infinity, The Parents Of Oude Pekela, Kerberos, Fluisterwoud, Satanic Blood, and some more… The trend and traitor bands will be blotted out soon! NO MERCY FOR TRAITORS!!!
Moloch: The Dutch scene is one of the worst to be found in Europe. Full of incompetent losers claiming to be Black Metal, yet spending more time socializing with every faggot to be found in the metal scene on the internet and such, accepting and supporting bands that are betraying the very essence of Black Metal, even so called Christian ones!! I’m not saying the Dutch scene doesn’t have sincere and honest people in it, but unfortunately they are a minority. About the bands: The ones I do/don’t support know my opinion already and everyone who wants to see his band named in a Funeral Winds interview should get an aids-injection!
Balgadron: Most of the bands are fake, especially Onheil, they are a disgrace for the Dutch Black Metal scene.

What’s your opinion as cult Black Metal band about the ‘development’ of other cult-bands such as Mayhem, Immortal, Emperor (before they died), Satyricon and Behemoth. Don’t you agree with me that – especially concerning the last three – black and death are combined more often these days to produce something original, and NOT maintaining those Black Metal roots they wore so proudly back then. Personally I think this phenomenon – to make their kind of music ‘easier’ to listen to for a larger amount of consumers worldwide, since they already have made their reputation as trademark – is rather trendy thus commercial in several ways.
V.XUL: Why should I care what other bands do with their music? As long as they do not betray their Black Metal past (or the people that still hold that past in high regard), and more important, as long as they do not betray their Satanic past!
H.XUL: All bands mentioned turned into money making machines, they all turned their back against Black Metal. They all lost the true essence of Black Metal. The mentioned bands are so fucking boring!
Moloch: I don’t give a fuck. I don’t have to buy the music if I don’t like it, neither do I have the duty to continue to support bands whose music turned into shit. Some of the bands you mention I can still listen to, others suck dick. And if you are reading this because you need an opinion to check if the CD you bought yesterday at the record shop is okay, you are weak as well.

Nostalgic, more and more bands try to accomplish giving birth to the torch that has been passed on since the superior ’80s in Black Metal and other genres. What are your motivations to resurrect these ancient vibes into your music as you’ve clearly stated on your website to be inspired by Venom, Sodom, Mayhem etc. Why isn’t Funeral Winds charmed for instance by ‘extending’ their music such as those Norwegian cult-bands have done before you, introducing a keyboard fanatic extreme, or maybe turning more Satanic Death Metal alike, such as Dissection and Deicide?
V.XUL: Funeral Winds has always been inspired by these bands. You should never alienate the roots you grow from…

Are you going to put some lyrics on your website? Though the lyrics are pretty understandable it’s always nice to read what they’re really about. Besides the Satanic aspects, are the aspects sodomizing women, war and earthly cleansing of the human race your type of writings; what are your lyrics all about?
V.XUL: No, they will not appear on the website. People that want to read the lyrics should buy the album. Funeral Winds is Satanic, and our misanthropy and hatred are connected with this. Satan is our master. That’s what we write about.

Now that we’re talking about music, what do you think of the drastic changes in songwriting material when it comes to the elder thrashers such as Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer And Anthrax? Maybe you neglect any other type of music that cannot be described as pure Black Metal? Surely these bands with their outstanding music back then must have been an influence one way or the other.
V.XUL: Your assumption that we neglect other types of music is stupid. You’re an idiot to assume things you know nothing about. How would you know what we listen to? Do you know us that well? The fact that these things don’t turn up in our own music, is our choice, and not a result of narrow-mindedness…

Here it is again! Give your vision on the subject Nazism in metal nowadays?It seems that more bands – especially underground Black Metal – are getting familiar with this aspect nowadays. Maybe to enhance their utter vileness and becoming more extreme? Were do you stand on this subject by the way?
V.XUL: Sincere hatred in whatever form is healthy.
Moloch: Black Metal is all about extremity in every form, so what’s the problem if some bands are spitting out their hatred against immigrants or anything? Fuck off to those who hail the Circus Maximus for killing Christians because of their belief, and at the same time are whining about some Hebrew Pigs who ended up in the oven. WW2 was the most destructive period in Europe in the last century!

In ’94 Funeral Winds was invited to Poland to headline – together with the Polish bands Kat and Vader – on a big festival called “Sthrashydto ’94”. How was this experience and how did you arranged to play alongside with Vader?
H.XUL: Everything was arranged by Pagan Records, who released our “Resurrection…” demo back then. The experience is one to be remembered.

It seems Funeral Winds doesn’t ‘get out’ much for it has been a while since you last performed. Luckily I’ve been to this very occasion (‘Black Babylon’) to see you perform alongside with Cirith Gorgor and Sauron. Have you got any more gigs planned for the (near) future or maybe to rape a festival or two? I reckon Baroeg will be a nice place to put some old-school Black Metal programme together to begin a new tour aye?
V.XUL: We have none planned. We don’t like festivals. We don’t like touring. We don’t like playing live that much, period. We narrow that down to once or twice a year. I don’t think the Netherlands are going to see much of us on stage…

Did you like the review VM put up on your ‘Godslayer XUL’? Maybe you’ve noticed I was under the impression that this year your re-released a version of this CD. Are there any more releases planned for next year through Death To Mankind Records in the vein of the 1980s Black Metal? How did you came in touch in your Death to Mankind Records anyway?
V.XUL: ‘Godslayer XUL’ was scheduled to be released late 2002, but it will probably appear January 2003. After that we will release new material on a full length through Death To Mankind. When there is more concrete news about our upcoming releases, it will be revealed somehow…
H.XUL: Sombre Records will have some vinyl (LP format) out soon with old Funeral Winds recordings, and a split 7″ with Apolokia from Germany.
Moloch: I don’t know about the review, I didn’t read it so I can’t say anything about it.

Especially the production I heard from the ’94 material is raw compared to the rest I heard and reminds me of Dark Storm’s ‘Four Lucan Emperors’, yet the material from ’02 is just as raw as it sound less thrashy overall than on ‘Godslayer XUL’. How do yourselves look back on the older material compared to your new material. I detect for one that there are a lot of Infinity-like riffs used within the new stuff. For instance, ‘From the Depth of the Earth’ resembles their ‘Corvus Corax’ and the overall sound and tunes are also quite matching. Is this due to the fact that Funeral Winds recruited the drummer from this band?
V.XUL: Soundwise we have deliberately taken a step back to the older material, to the rawer underground sound. ‘Godslayer XUL’ is a great album, but could have used a more traditional Funeral Winds sound, personally speaking… The Infinity release with the ‘Corvus Corax’ track was musically not that different from Funeral Winds. About the comparable sound, that’s probably because they’re both rehearsals… Since we all contribute to new compositions, it is inevitable to hear resemblances. But we really don’t care; it is still Funeral Winds.

Anything Hellchrist XUL likes to mention concerning the attempt for this manslaughter-thing I’ve been reading on the web? Any propaganda/warnings to enemies worldwide at all?!
H.XUL: The guy deserved it! … Anyone claiming to be Black Metal risks to get hunted down, beaten up or worse, if they turn out to be false! Traitors will die! HAIL THE BLACK METAL CULT!!!
Moloch: ??? Trying to get some sensational answers? FUCK OFF!!! To those who H.XUL pointed at: we know who you are, we don’t forget, we don’t forgive!

Thanks for the interview!

 

Funeral Winds

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Abscess – “We also felt we couldn’t call it Autopsy without Eric Cutler’s guitar work.”

Autopsy is dead, long live Abscess! The creators of filthy and chunky Death Metal are back with a new album, and it took a while to get these answers back from the Abscess guys. But here they are, read all about an Autopsy reunion, what they think about US Death Metal, and becoming the Rolling Stones of Death Metal.

I must admit that the new album ‘Through the Cracks of Death’ is the first Abscess album I’ve heard in its entirety. I have heard tracks from Abscess before, but never a complete release. So although I can’t compare it with the older ones, I can compare it with your previous band, Autopsy. I must say there are quite some similarities between the bands, although Abscess seems to write longer and more refined, better-arranged songs than Autopsy.
Clint: People really notice that we have improved the quality of our recordings on ‘Through the Cracks of Death’. That’s great to hear because our first two Relapse CDs were really low budget, ‘Urine Junkies’ being a collection of demos, and ‘Seminal Vampires’ was recorded and mixed in a marathon 24-hour session. We spent more time on our third CD ‘Tormented’ for Listenable. Now we are really trying to use the studio to explore Metal’s limitations.

In short, what this whole introduction really comes down to is: why did you disband Autopsy and start Abscess while the musical style and sound really don’t differ that much?
Clint: Abscess started out as a melding of Immortal Fate (Freeway), Hexx (me), and Autopsy (Danny & Chris). Abscess is much different as it has two lead vocals, mixing the vocal styles of Hexx and Autopsy. In the beginning of Abscess, all four of us did vocals. On ‘Seminal…’ we lined up four vocal mics and did all the vocals live, one take, good fun that was. The whole concept of Abscess was different; we were trying to leave behind the seriousness of our other bands. We made a point of making our live show destructive and unpredictable. We also felt we couldn’t call it Autopsy without Eric Cutler’s guitar work.
Danny: We are banned from the first six clubs we played due to the bloody mess and colourful destruction we left behind.

I mean, two-thirds of Autopsy (I say two-thirds because you always had a different bass player on each release) is in Abscess. Why the new name, while you know people will always compare it to Autopsy?
Clint: Make that one half now that Joe Allen has rejoined the band. Joe played bass on ‘Tormented’, the Abscess/Deranged split, and you can also find Joe on the re-release of the Von recordings.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any lyrics with the promo, but are the lyrics in the typical gore vein as we’re used to from Chris Reifert? You also used a drawn/painted cover – why not an explicit picture of mutilated bodies like many Death Metal or Death/Grind bands these days?
Clint: The lyrics and the album cover are one and the same. Miran Kim did a great job of painting the lyrics and song titles into the cover. Take another look, it’s all part of a dark spell.
Danny: Why follow what’s been done to death? Prepare for the psychedeathic shotgun to splatter your brains into a multicoloured mindfuck.

You have to tell us how you get those sick vocals out of your throat, they really rule! Do you use some effects occasionally, or are they naturally that sick? What do you do with your voice to be able to growl in this manner for so many years?
Clint: No, nothing fancy. I don’t use any effects on my vocal parts, nor does Chris, aside from a little reverb to liven up the room. Those vocals are live and uncensored, we are strong from a diet of Jim Beam and raw meat.

Another thing that reminds me of Autopsy is the new bass player. How many bass players have you already had in Abscess? Probably not as many as in Autopsy – or perhaps even more? Why is it so hard to find a good and permanent bass player?
Clint: Just two. Freeway was the original bass player on ‘Urine Junkies’ and ‘Seminal Vampires’, then Joe took over for ‘Tormented’ and is currently working with us on new Abscess songs.
Danny: You forgot Jim Mack, we played one live show with him – no recordings though. Bass players are weird!

You’ve signed to Peaceville after being on Relapse for a while and on Listenable for a short time. Did you feel that Relapse and Peaceville never really did enough promotion for the band? How many albums is the deal for?
Clint: Peaceville seems more interested in helping us improve and grow than other labels we’ve been on. Most labels get swamped by giving minimum effort for a whole pile of bands instead of deciding on a few bands to believe in.

Now that you’re on Peaceville, will you also do some European gigs or perhaps tours? Would you prefer a headlining tour or a tour where you’d be one of the support acts?
Clint: Yes, a real horror show, just looking for the right line-up. Probably a supporting spot this time.

By the way, do you ever play Autopsy stuff when playing live? I can imagine people scream out for some of that old stuff.
Clint: No, we have trouble cutting some of the Abscess songs. We have to play ‘Die Pig Die’.
Danny: We love the old Autopsy stuff, but that was another band and we don’t need to milk the old beast. We have so much essential new horror for your gore-hungry minds.

In an interview in the early 1990s (which was with Wim Baelus for Dutch Aardschok/Metal Hammer, by the way), there was some discussion between old-school Death Metal bands like Autopsy and Incantation on one side and newer blasting Death Metal bands like Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation on the other. Do you remember this, and if so, do you still feel the same way?
Chris: Yeah, pretty much. It’s all fun and games until you forget there’s a song going on. So bend your mama over and let me in.

If you still feel this way, you must consider the current US Death Metal scene a huge bore, as there are many bands without much variation who seem to be doing a contest of blast beats. What’s your opinion on such bands?
Clint: I find it hard to listen to a whole CD that stays in the same tempo. Two or three songs of extreme speed is OK, but I like to hear a groove I can hook into, a foot-tappin’ part.
Danny: Foot tappin’!?!? Ha ha ha! (Much laughter ensues.) There are so many bands I lose track and interest. Only a few great ones still capture my interest and imagination.

Another thing I remember from that same interview was that you didn’t like the newer Morbid Angel stuff because the production was too clean. You also claimed that Death Metal bands shouldn’t make video clips of their songs. Do you still think that way?
Clint: I found Morbid Angel’s ‘Gateway to Annihilation’ on 12″ vinyl and I think it’s a great record, true defenders of the faith. And remember, video killed the radio star.

To what music do the band members listen? To what musical styles, besides Metal, do you listen?
Clint: I started out listening to Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Uli Roth, Scorpions. Then came Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Sex Pistols, Judas Priest. Later came Voivod, Sodom, Slayer, Venom, and Celtic Frost. ‘A Clockwork Orange’ turned me on to classical, and the Rolling Stones turned me on to the blues, Chess recordings like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters.

Can you name your current five favourite albums? Perhaps a top five of all time?
Clint: I listen to vinyl mostly. I have here next to the turntable: The Kinks – ‘Misfits’, Kreator – ‘Endless Pain’, Black Sabbath – ‘Technical Ecstasy’, Venom – ‘At War with Satan’, Slayer – ‘God Hates Us All’.

It seems Abscess doesn’t have a website. Why is that? Are you not into the Internet, or don’t you believe it to be a useful medium?
Clint: I don’t have a computer, but I’m not against the medium.
Danny: Chris hates it, but I like it, great porn!

A personal question: it’s a well-known fact that Chris Reifert played on the first Death album. Did you stay in contact with Chuck over the years? How shocked were you when you heard the news about his untimely death?
Chris: Yeah, we always remained friends. Of course it sucks that he died, but it’s better than living in agony. Rest in Metal.

The revival fever seems unstoppable – many old Metal bands are reforming. Do we really need all those bands back while the current scene is already quite flooded? The last one I heard to reform was Suffocation. Any comments on that?
Clint: It’s only rock and roll, but I like it. As long as it’s good or better, do it.
Danny: Ninety percent of everything sucks. If you can be that ten percent exception, if you can destroy your audience and break musical ground, then play on.

An inevitable and irritating question: is there a chance that Autopsy will reform? Or do you consider that chapter closed and buried in the past? Don’t you ever get bored that the band is always being brought up by fans and press?
Danny: Ha ha! Chris hates it, I love it. But no plans on that front. The band is dead, but there are always zombies!

Autopsy enjoys a cult status, and as there are a lot of resemblances with Abscess, you’d think Abscess would get a lot of recognition too. Unfortunately, it seems that Abscess doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Any idea why?
Clint: There’s such a saturation in Metal right now that I think it takes longer for the good ones to be noticed, but the infection is growing.

Ravenous just signed to Southern Lord. How about your other projects? Any news?
Clint: We’re recording the new Ravenous in December and January. Then Abscess becomes malignant.
Danny: Beware, ‘EatMyFuk’ is coming soon!

I don’t want to sound disrespectful, but for how long will you continue making Death Metal? Or are you aiming to become the Rolling Stones of Death Metal? Is there an age at which you’ll stop, or will you continue until you can’t bring it the way it should be brought?
Danny: First off, the Rolling Stones rule! They’ve been around longer, play better, and have more energy than most younger, pre-Madonna, contrived, untalented, studio-created crap bands. I will continue to slay old and young alike. When I’m dead, then you can write my epitaph!

Anything you wish to say we haven’t asked, the famous “last words”?
Danny: Prepare to have your conscious mind destroyed. Open the doors to ‘The Cracks of Death’ and fall into musical dementia, you will be changed!
Chris: Live, fuck, puke and die.
Clint: You’ve got to believe in something, anything. Believe in something and give it everything you’ve got. Always believe in yourself and die with no regrets, at least too few to mention.

Abscess

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Limbonic Art: “Well, if one us does not agree, it is not done; you have no real democracy. “

Limbonic Art was formed in 1993 by frontman Daemon; after a try with other members the Limbonic Art as we all know it came to life (or death, whatever you like) when Morfeus entered the band’s line up. In a scene dominated by an aversion towards anything that is electronic this band can be seen as the pioneers in Black Metal for using the computer for the drum, bass and other sonic effects.

In September this year the band came up with their fifth album (and fourth if you don’t take ‘Epitome of Illusions’ as a true, full length album), ‘The Ultimate Death Worship’. Again an intense album in the typical, yet evolving Limbonic Art style. After several tries throughout the promotion (Khaoz) and almost virtually stalking Morfeus, VM finally got a chance to talk with Morfeus about the latest developments around Limbonic Art and the album…

Hi Morfeus; this is Neithan from VM speaking…
Ah, finally
How’s life in Norway?
Ehm, cold…
Of course
Yeah, and snowy, and life and shit, a fucking lot of people everywhere…
And Christmas is coming, Jinglehell all the way…
Yeah, haha
Okay, let’s get it started then… A wait of almost three years (and side project Zyklon for Daemon and Dimension 3FH for you); you must be all charged up by now!
No! Not really… At the moment it’s like that we spent almost a whole year doing the album. It would be an exaggeration to say that we worked on it night and day, as a day has 24 hours and we too sleep, but most of the time went into this new album, we worked a lot. So at the moment we are kind of showing out and having a break, doing shitty interviews and so on, haha
Okay, I will try not to ask too dumb questions…
Just don’t ask me whether I lock the door when I go to the toilet…
Hahaha; have people seriously asked that?
Yes
My god.. What did you say? “Here in Norway we go out and shit in the woods”?
Yeah, yeah, I go outside and I have like 15 people standing around me, stuff like that
Sorry, I have way different questions…


If I compare your three official albums it strikes me that you have become less ‘organic & atmospheric’ (which ‘Moon in the Scorpio’ is in my opinion) and that little more influences of Thrash have sneaked into your music; it started on ‘Ad Noctum’ and goes further on ‘The Ultimate Death Worship’… Correct me if I am wrong, but I have never heard the band play so aggressive!
No, that’s right. I think that basically it is due to the fact that we have always liked real extreme music. ‘Moon in the Scorpio’ was extreme in its time, you know. Nobody at the time used electronics in keyboards and drums like we did. And also it was at that time that all the hard bands started to get softer, they started to mature, more adult orientated, that kind of shit.  And so we thought that we should become only harder. Then that is what became our aim.
And then, at the times of ‘Ad Noctum’ the hard bands got harder again, you know, that went softer at first, bands like Testament for instance. And then that was where we said that we should become even harder.
So it has nothing to do that Black Metal in Norway is going downhill a bit and a return to the roots by Limbonic Art?
Well, of course a little bit of that is in the back of our heads you know, that kind of roots is still within our heart, but basically it is all about doing the music in a way that we feel as being right, just whether we think it is cool or not. It is certainly not like ‘this is a Black Metal thing and that is a Death Metal thing’, that is not important to us.
So you don’t give a shit which genre people would like to hear or call it?
Yeah, basically.

The intro of second song (‘Suicide Commando’); what kind of sound fragment is it? It is hard to be understood, yet it has the sound as if it is from an old NASA-fragment… In an interview from August this year I saw that it was about an execution? You could have fooled me… Why did you use it?
I believe the idea came from me. Basically because it fits well to the song, and it belongs to the track ‘Suicide Commando’ (Neithan: on the album it is in between those two songs).
That is what I wanted to talk about; a being a part of an execution, it would be the! fragment fitting to the title track (death penalty as the ultimate death worship)…
Yeah, in that way it could also be seen as both outro/ending and intro.


I saw Attila from Mayhem participates on track six : ‘From The Shades of Hatred’. I would have thought that the timbre on the track before (‘Interstellar Overdrive’, the ‘humming’) was by his throat…
Hehehe, no it isn’t, yet you are close. Daemon has always a fan of Attila’s voice ever since ‘De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas’, so that’s how. I think he is able of doing that kind of voice now. Sometimes he uses it; Attila is an inspiration to him.
Attila and Daemon are indeed on ‘Shades of Hatred’, I believe somewhere in the middle where he and Daemon have some kind of duet, singing along each other. It is Attila and Daemon doing some kind of vocal overlapping.
Thanks for clearing that one out.

When I saw the title ‘Suicide Commando’ I first feared that Limbonic Art would break with the tradition of dark poetry and write about something that is very actual worldwide (terrorism)… Done on purpose or coincidence (the title)?
First of all, I have nothing to do with the lyrics, yet knowing Daemon it is definitely a sheer coincidence. I think it is probably more personal, yet Daemon will stay within his style of dark poetry. I never saw Daemon write anything political you know.

Now from previous interviews I feel that you don’t care much about the lyrics and that is where you often refer to Daemon – like you just did once more. Do you have any input at all or do you have go’s and no-go’s about the lyrics somehow (what if Daemon came up with a hippie love song?)
I probably wouldn’t kill him, but I would direct him to some mental institution. I would say ‘Hey Daemon, something really happened to you now and you must check it out’… No, I don’t care about the lyrics that much, I think I was more concerned and involved at the time of the ‘Moon in Scorpio’ album, it was our first album. Yet we always have gotten a good response on our lyrics, so it is something that I just enjoy in a relaxed way, I know Daemon will come up with good lyrics.
Of course sometimes I see a line or something, but that is hardly ever necessary.
Yet about the question go or no-go…
I would tell him when things would be totally fucked up, yet that doesn’t happen!’

Has Daemon also been writing poetry apart from Limbonic Art?
Well; he writes…. You know these songs without any guitars, like ‘Purgatorial Agony’…
As a matter of fact I had a question about that one and ‘Last Rite For the Silent Darkstar’, yet do talk on…
These songs emerged from lyrics he had written. He came to me and said ‘hey, I have some lyrics and I want to do something with it’. That is how it went.
Good, now I understand these tracks and why they are on the album… After all 46 minutes in six songs would have been enough too, so the reason can’t be that you wanted to lengthen the album…
No, we never had fill-ins! It was a really cool idea to do. Normally we will start with the music first, and then vocals after. And there is where we added the screams and chains to it. Coincidentally I had been recording those chains in a forest just a few weeks before, and these came in just right for ‘Purgatorial Agony’, as we wanted to express that very feeling in the atmosphere.


In that same interview I saw you were planning to tour as a trio, where the third person is not a musician, yet more some kind of sound roadie, running around to operate the electronic equipment…
So it will be two metal dudes; any special sound or art effects (like computerized arts)
Well, I think you probably misunderstood… Basically there is not coming a tour at all; due to financial reasons. We have things we want to do on stage, and that is not possible. The money is the bottleneck…
So it has nothing to do with Limbonic Art being tired of touring?
Well, at the moment it is so, yet basically it is the money. We’ve got our own expenses too, you know. And I can not get used to that new currency, the euro. We are used to the Deutschmark. And a funny thing there is what we get paid. For instance, when we were doing our first tour as support of Emperor we got paid 500 Deutschmarks… Fine with us, yet after a while, when we got bigger and also got the ability of drawing people to venues because of our own name, and we still get paid that very same amount. That was on our last tour.
And then the inflation of course throughout the years…
What?
Well, Norway is not cheap and certainly has not become cheaper lately; just think about the beer prices…
Yeah, just bring your own beer, haha
I understand, same as what I hear from other bands, like Forlorn who had to cancel the European performances (Belgium and Holland) in December and other bands looking at too high the costs… No matter how much they love to play, they can’t bear all the costs!

So does this mean that Limbonic Art will become or already is a studio-band?
At the moment we are, yet if things change in the future regarding possibilities and so on…

How difficult is it to play live when the basics are laid down by electronics (no bass & drums); it seems very hard to me to adjust those in case you fuck up or feel like improvising?
Well, it is really easy because we’ve been doing it for ten years, so… that is how things go. Like when we played at the Metal Fest, we had like only two rehearsals. The songs are kind of in our blood.
Improvising for us is playing a riff differently. Also I would say that 99,5% in the metal scene does not improvise (that much). Hardly ever a metal band improvises.
It was more for the hard rock bands in for instance the seventies…
Yeah, and you have bands like for instance Dream Theater, doing kind of improvising only… But I don’t believe that much in the improvise-thing; it even kinds of confuses the audience, so why bother…

Do you have any profit of using drums and bass in a programmed way concerning the studio-costs? In other words; you have less need for money from the record company and therefore less pressure as if the album will yield its costs; a benefit for the position of the band compared to many others…
Yeah, basically it is just us doing guitars and vocals that takes the time in the studio, as the rest is already finished. It just takes us two hours for the drums, where as a drummer would need one or two weeks.

Samoth’s label Nocturnal Art Promotions; what about it… 4 bands, Apotheosis, UK Void, Red Harvest and of course Limbonic Art… As Emperor no longer exists, does this mean he will put more time into his label activities and therefore for these bands?
No, not much really… I do think that he has a steady focus all the time, even in the last days of Emperor, so it did not change that much. Now that Emperor is over he is sort of kickstarting Zyklon. Personally I would say he focuses more on Zyklon than he did on Emperor, also because he knew it was gonna end with Emperor eventually. But he is very focussed on Nocturnal Art Productions all the time. That goes eitherway..
How much of advantage is it to have a label boss that knows the scene and your music so well?
He never ever told us what to do; sometimes he said ‘maybe you should do this or that’, but he never puts his finger down on saying things like ‘no, you have to do it like this’ or whatever… We have a lot of freedom. Not even when like you said, that he would urge to do another album after three years. We can do it pretty much the way we like it to..

You said in an interview that the chance that Limbonic Art will ever be again more than 2 members (like 4 in the past) is very very small…Does that have to do with the aspect that it is hard to come into a well trained duo or are there other reasons that maintain the band at two…
That chance has even become smaller… even less possible. We tried a drummer a while ago and I could kind of see that it was going nowhere, it did not feel right. So I think that Limbonic Art is just the two of us. The whole feeling of it was ehm… ehm…  Well, it would be lost somehow. It would be very different.

In many questions there is being asked about the band name… I won’t ask it again, yet there is some addition of mine. The word Art!
About the name, you said: Limbo, to me anyway, is kind of a waking place between life and death, on the borderline.  Limbonic Art is the art being made in such a state of mind.
Does that art perhaps also refer to your love for artistic activities (cover design) I never saw that being mentioned in combination with the band’s name…
No, the name was already there when I entered the band. But it is suitable, haha!

Which side of L.A. is more satisfying to you; the musical or the artistical side?
Of course the music. The artwork is something cool to do for me, another personal input into the band.

To put it simply: Daemon is the lyrical artist and you are the visual artist; do you have to take into account on what the other one is working to remain within the Limbonic Art concept?
I think that is a kind of on it’s own you know. We’ve been working together so long now… Usually I know most of the lyrics and so on, so I start doing the artwork.


It seems like your completely crazy with computers; you design your art with it (I’ve read), write and record your music with it… Do you also use it for information about metal on the web?
No, not much! How do I say that… I am not fed up with metal or so, yet I am not that much into looking for new bands or so… More when it concerns my life on a daily basis. I don’t need to know every little detail within the scene or about a band so to say. Sometimes I search Google to see what I can find on Limbonic Art, shit like that.

The Emperor has died; do you believe this will get you out of the Emperor-like band corner or not and in what respect?
No I don’t think so. No that they are gone and the Emperor is dead, everybody starts looking for the new one! You know, who will overtake the Emperor’s throne, shit like that. Like we go back in time, when we were compared to Emperor, as we strated with them on tour.  After a while that silenced a bit, but now again.
Well, there are similarities; both being very technical Black bands from Norway, becoming more and more riff and technique orientated. I don’t take the label link with Samoth into account.
I have not made you mad yet?
No no, go on…

In the news we published on March 24th this year it stated that “‘The Ultimate Death Worship’ has been eagerly anticipated since Limbonic Art made their live debut at the 2001 Milwaukee Metal Festival. Fans from around the country witnessed the band’s dominating yet unique performance for which the duo selected material from their three previous albums. Moon in the Scorpio, In Abhorence Dementia and Ad Noctum/Dynasty of Death have since been made domestically available in the U.S. via the license between Nocturnal Art Productions and Candlelight Records.” A wrong news statement we had received or does this mean that you wish to stay away from third album ‘Epitome of Illusions’, which is a reflection of your demo-era (old material)?
No, that was basically because of the time issue. And apart from that, we were supposed to play five songs there, yet we had only time to play four, hardly a real show, that’s nothing.
I still look back on that one (‘Epitome…’) with pleasure, we had some really killer tracks.

You also have an interesting opinion on the war- or corpsepaint; in short, you said only few had the capabilities of doing it right. What is the right way and what does the paint stand for in your opinion?
When I am speaking of that I mean that there are few that made it look good.  I see a lot of pictures like that and usually, they just look funny…
Like Bozo the Clown on LSD?
Yeah. It’s like I ask myself whether how come they don’t see it when they would paint their faces in this way it would look much better or frightening.
We sometimes get an idea of panda’s…
Huh? Oh, you mean like those bears… Gheghe, cool!

How tough is it having an argument in a 2-piece band; it’s always 50-50%. And I don’t believe you settle them by throwing up a coin, or am I bringing you to an idea now?
Well, if one us does not agree, it is not done; you have no real democracy. If one guy says no, and then you just have to cope with it.
About the coin, haha! I never thought of that actually. Maybe we should introduce that one. ‘Listen up here, we’ve that crazy idea from a Dutch guy who said we should throw a coin up and play heads or tales, maybe that works…

Anything about the album we did not ask yet you want us to know, apart from the fact that we all have to buy it?
Nope, that is the most important issue; BUY THE ALBUM!
Thanks for calling me and having that much patience with me..
No problem, I will just spam you back
Good luck, I have cable and a large mailbox!
Me too, haha

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Severe Torture – “…they said we were anti-female and pro-violence, just by seeing our cover. A local journalist did an article about it and the promoter was forced to cancel us”

Severe Torture is a very hardworking band that over the years (five to be exact) built themselves quite a reputation. After a lot of shows (and I do mean a lot!) and a couple of releases, including their debut album “Feasting On Blood”, I think it’s safe to say that we’re dealing with the leading 100% pure death metal band in the Dutch scene. Their second album, “Misanthropic Carnage” has been released some time ago, but the band had a very tight schedule, including a European tour with Cannibal Corpse! Now they’ve been back a while, and guitarplayer Thijs found some time to give a word to Vampire-Magazine.

Your new album has been out for quite some time now. I think it’s a very good album and I can only give you credit here! Better than it’s predecessor even. How do you and the band look upon this and how have the reactions been so far, both fans/listeners and media?
Well, the reactions have been very good and also sales wise it’s doing better than ‘Feasting’. We are very satisfied with ‘Misanthropic…’ because we accomplished to change all the things that we didn’t like on ‘Feasting…’ in a positive way.

The recording and production have been done at the same studio with the same people, though I find the result to be better than “Feasting On Blood”. Especially the bass, which is a important factor in Severe torture’s music, is more emphasised. What significant changes took place to accomplish this, or did everything went the same way?
That’s because there were some things on ‘Feasting..’ we didn’t like, like the bass sound, the guitar sound and the drum sound. We worked harder on the guitar sound, tried different amps and guitars and I think we succeeded! With the drums we only triggered the bassdrums and that sounds more natural. We also used extra hours for mixing to get the bass perfectly in the mix. The bass is very important for Severe Torture, it’s not just there because it’s usual. The bass makes the sound fatter and the guitar- and bassparts sometimes differ and it’s very important that everything is audible.

Though the titles actually speak for itself, can you give a gruesome and bloody explanation to what the songs are all about?
Well, here we are on Seth’s territory so it’s very difficult for me to explain the individual lyrics. I can explain the whole concept. We see how a lot of people don’t live their own lives but live in the name of god, allah or whoever. They follow their saviour as blind slaves in stead of living in the real world, which is fucked up, but no reason to believe in something that doesn’t exist. In our lyrics a lot of those people are being killed. We think a lot of people are useless because they don’t have a goal, just live their day-to-day life and they ain’t happy with that life. And still they breed like rabbits and more and more useless people step in to this world.

On “Misanthropic Carnage” you still rage like a  but I do hear certain musical changes compared to your first album. For instance more slow(er) parts, Dennis tries more with his throat, more variation within a song (riffing and breaks) and this time there are also long(er) songs on the recording, of which the shooter is of course “Your Blood Is Mine”. Were these all natural changes or artificially brought in for the necessary variation?
We tried to create a bigger contrast between slow and fast parts. A slow part is even slower if you put it between 2 fast parts. We really tried to make even more slow parts but that just isn’t our style, maybe on the next album, who knows. We also wanted Dennis to sings less low because on ‘Feasting..’ the vocals sounded as one level. On ‘Misanthropic..’ he uses screams and low vocals and I think it’s much more interesting now to follow the vocals. About the length of the songs, that’s just a coincidence. It’s the way the songs turned out.

What more of these changes can we expect musically in the future of Severe Torture? Anything particular you guys are thinking of/working on?
I think we will try to create a even bigger contrast between slow and fast and maybe try to build in more slow, catchy parts (headbang-parts) without losing brutality of course! I think we also will spread more hate in the lyrics and artwork. The world is asking for it…..

I heard that you are being censored in Germany because of the shocking artwork on “Misanthropic Carnage”. Can you tell us more about this, the why’s and how’s and how you as a band look upon this? And how did the people in Germany reacted to this during your gigs there?
In Germany the big distributor will not carry our cd with this cover. That’s why Hammerheart decided to release the censored version with a black cover. I think it’s stupid because behind the black cover you can find the original cover and if people read something about censored artwork it’s a stimulance for them to buy it in stead of rejecting it. I hate all forms of censorship because censorship makes people blind and ignorant to reality. But the Germans fans were pretty cool on the tour. We sold a lot of un-censored versions there…..

Here we see the cover in question. Can you tell us what it depicts and what was found to be so profound that it had to be censored? Personally I think it’s a cool cover. Done by Joey Malone, right?
Yep, it’s done by Joe Malone, the same guy who created ‘Feasting on Blood’, and we  really like this cover because it’s more direct and in-your-face than ‘Feasting on Blood’. But I think that’s the point why it is being censored. Some people even thought that it was meant to be a women on the cover (I don’t understand why that is more brutal than slaying a man?) but it is just a human being. You can see that human as symbol for ‘all useless people’ and that symbol is getting butchered by a stronger force.

Do you think something like this brings along extra publicity? After all, bad publicity is also publicity, and I think that something like just makes you more curious and especially in the extreme music scene it’s accepted with a smile. Tell us your opinion.
I think it’s positive publicity! It only sucks for the people who go to cancelled gigs or whatever but in totality it gives us more promotion and that means more people get to know us and maybe buy our cd’s. For kids it’s also much cooler to buy censored or forbidden cd’s so it only supports the metalscene!

I think of you as one of the most hardworking bands in the scene I know, with all the shows and especially the tours (two in the US and three already through Europe!) you have already done and will do. Isn’t this hard on all of you, concerning work and all? How do you achieve all this?
We don’t have ‘career-jobs’ so we will even quit a job if it’s not possible to tour. I have a real cool boss so I can go as much as I like and the rest also doesn’t have a real problem. And if you know these tours (about 4 months in total) are done in 2001 and 2002 there are alot of days left to work…. Sometimes it’s hard to get it organized financially but that’s only a small problem compared with all the cool things we do.

The latest tour was a European one with Cannibal Corpse as a headliner. You all never made a secret out of the fact that you all like Cannibal Corpse very much and are fans of their music, and now you got the opportunity to go on tour with them. How was this as an experience and for the band on it’s own?
We got the chance to watch Cannibal Corpse 29 times in a row! It was also very cool to tour with them because they are real cool guys and we had alot of fun with them, Dew Scented and Viu Drakh.

How did the crowd react during your shows? Did you notice anything different perhaps then the last tour through Europe with cultband Macabre?
The crowds were bigger than with Macabre and this time we weren’t opening band so the place was filled every time we started. We had really big moshpits and headbanging people every day! Every day the crowd asked for more so that’s positive.

 

Can you tell us more about the tour you recently rounded up with Cannibal Corpse, Dew-Scented and Viu Drakh? Any cool road-stories or experiences you guys had on the road this time? The food, days off, merchandise sails, very ashaming moments (heheheh…),… whatever you come up with. Do tell us.
Well, we had a lot of alcohol, our bus broke down so we had to wait for a new one, Corpsegrinder was a big help bringing us drunk boys to our bunks in the bus, Steve DiGiorgio untightening Patrick’s shoelaces (on stage) during our show, bad food in Paris that gave 5 of us stomache illness for a week, male fans who bought girlie-shirts and wore them, Dennis vomiting in Barcelona and Madrid, almost not make it to the Prague show were like 700 crazy fans were waiting, and more you readers will never know….

As righteous pigs first censored your artwork in Germany, on tour you were even banned from playing the Z7 in Pratteln, Switzerland, again due to your explicit artwork! Can you tell us more about this? Was this a decision of the venue owner or the cops…?
They also thought it was a woman on the cover and the said we were anti-female and pro-violence, just by seeing our cover. A local journalist did an article about it and the promoter was forced to cancel us.

Can you give us a brief info on your previous tours? This ’cause of my next question, so it will make more sense (plus you get to show off your carreer of course…)
Our first tour was a 10-day European tour with Damnation from Poland in 2000. Then we did a European tour with Macabre, Broken Hope and Die Apokalyptischen Reiter in 2001. In April 2001 we visited the US, did some shows and played at the Ohio Death Fest. In April 2002 we visited the us again, did 25 shows in the US and Canada and played the New England Metalfest and again the Ohio Death Fest. Last tour we did was the 5-week tour with Cannibal Corpse, Dew Scented and Viu Drakh last september.

As you have been on both the main continents of touring, Europe and America (and Canada partially), can you tell us what some of the biggest differences are between the two? For instance, where is the crowd more enthousiastic, distances and where is it better to tour, better booze…?
The crowd is enthousiastic everywere you play. Touring Europe is more comfortable because you get treated well by the venues (breakfast, diner, a lot booze and dressingrooms) and you usually travel with a big bus. In the underground, touring the US is more of an adventure. You have to rent a van and drive it yourself (or hire a driver; expensive) and you have to drive very huge distances (1000 KM between 2 shows is common). If you are lucky you will get a dressingroom and free drinks in the club but usually you get nothing but the door money they make. You also make money by selling merchandise but all the money go to the rental-van, food, drinks, off-days, motel for showers and your flight-tickets. But all-in-all touring the US is very cool because it’s a beautiful country and you see things you will never see in Europe. Canada is more like Europe (French speaking part) but the fans are more crazy.

You seem to be very popular here in Holland, as well as abroad. What do you think the key to this is as a band: to achieve so much goodwill from both fans and media?
Play a lot live shows, stay in contact with the fans and magazines and never try to be popular.
Keep in mind that succes can be over in a second and always respect other peoples opinion about your music!

You are working for a long time now as a four piece band which is working out very good, but.has the thought ever came up to recruit a new second guitarplayer again and be a five piece band again (though I don’t think it to be necessary at all), for live shows for instance, and why not/so?
We are always thinking about getting a extra guitar player. But it’s very hard to find the right guy who can technically play all the songs and also gets along with us (which is very hard). We don’t really miss a extra guitar on stage but sometimes it can sound better with 2 guitars and maybe in the future we will be a 5-piece, who knows…..

What lies ahead in the (nearby) future of Severe? Are there alresy plans/songs for the recording of a third album or are you taking things somewhat more easy now?
We are writing new songs and we will be on tour again in Europe in march 2003 together with Lividity and Damnable. Hopefully we can get back to the US at the end of 2003 but we have to wait for the reactions on ‘Misanthropic’ which will be released in feb 2003 in the US. We want our third cd to be the best and blow everything away with it so we have to work really hard on it.

This is the end. Thank you for the interview and any last comments you got you can all put down here.
Thanks for the interview! To anyone who hasn’t heard the new CD, go fucking buy it! Visit our shows and visit our Website at http://www.severetorture.com/

Severe Torture

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Incantation – “I’ve had a vision, already back in the eighties of the style of Incantation, and I always stuck to that vision.”

If you’ve read my review of ‘Blasphemy’, Incantation’s latest effort, you might get the impression that I’m quite fond of this band. Well, that impression is correct. Thus I was immediately enthusiastic when chief editor Ricardo offered me the opportunity to interview mastermind John McEntee. After a few uncertain days, I got the confirmation of the interview two hours before John would call. Luckily I had my questions ready and John called me right on time. After trying several phones for the best possible connection, we kick it off…

First of all congratulations on the new album, in my opinion a real killer. How do you look at is yourself?
We’re definitely really satisfied. Everyone in the recording is really satisfied. Also everything between the band. Bill Korecky, who helped us produce and engineer the album, thought it came out really good. The record company seems to like it a lot too. We’re really happy with it, we feel this is the closest we can get to the perfect production for Incantation. It’s distinguishable, but still has the raw edge to it. Perfect for our style, you know, both legible and the raw heaviness, the sickness in the sound. We’re also really happy with the songs, and to have Kyle (Severn; Stijn) back in the band. It’s always a great vibe when Kyle and I play together. I think Kyle is the perfect drummer for Incantation.

I myself see Incantation as a band with an own identity, is this something you consciously try to maintain?
I guess you could say that. Well, there is no massive plan to keep it the same. I don’t think about it. It just comes natural, what to do. We’re very much focused to it as a band. We don’t work to keep it as the same style, it’s just in our blood.

74 minutes of ‘Blasphemy’ seems quite a lot, but the last 25 minutes aren’t Death Metal. What was the reason for putting it on the album?
We were really satisfied with the album. Real happy, the songs kick ass. So we felt we just had to put something fucked up on it, something useless. Because we thought the songs were so good, we wanted to put some crap on it, too. We just wanted people to get pissed at us for wasting like twenty minutes of their time.

That’s a reason…
Yeah, we’re fucked up like that. We realized we’re never gonna be accepted by the popular critics and everything. So it’s like a ‘Fuck off’ to them and to trends. It also has a special meaning to us. Relapse likes this kind of stuff on the albums they bring out. Back then Repulse had the rights to released “The forsaken mourning of angelic anguish” but Relapse turned it around and ended up with the rights to release it. Therefor we never did anything stupid like those sounds on Relapse. And now we’re off it, we do. I don’t know, we’re just weirdos.

On your home page, you put some tablature of Incantation songs. Do you like listening to people play your music?
It’s cool, it’s a great compliment. You mean them listening to it?

No, I mean other bands playing Incantation songs…
O yeah, that is totally cool, and killer. A couple of times we’ve played with bands that did Incantation songs, but never when they played with us. Too bad, I think it would be awesome to hear it. I think the closest I ever got to hearing Incantation’s music without me playing it was when I broke a string or something. But it would be awesome, I’d like to play with a band who plays one of our songs. That would be great.

How was the ‘Blasphemy in Europe’ tour?
It was cool. Small, only about a week or so. But it was definitely a great experience. I wish it had been longer, so we could have played more shows. It’s always great to play in Europe, because we hardly ever come there. Relapse always worked against us when it came to Europe. The people in Europe seem to be more diehard Death Metal fans, real sick Death Metal warriors. Here in the US people are more into experimental stuff instead of grinding Death Metal. There’s not really a market for extreme Death Metal. But who knows, it could be totally different in two years.

Vincent Crowley (Acheron) did the vocals on the tour, how was touring with him?
Cool, he is a totally cool guy. We’ve been friends for so long, it’s almost sick. Something like 12 or 13 years or something. It was good to have him with us, helping us out. He did a good job. The tour in Europe was better than the US tour, because it took us a while to get used to playing with one guitar and him on vocals. But it was a cool opportunity to tour with him. But it is just something temporary, nothing permanent.

Besides ‘Blasphemy’, what other Incantation album is your favourite?
That’s impossible to say. All our albums have aspects that mean a lot to me. I’ve never released an album that I wasn’t comfortable with. So there isn’t really one favourite album. I mean, I really like ‘Blasphemy’ and I’m really satisfied with it, but I can’t name one favourite. They all represent a different time in my life, with different memories.

Incantation has had many line-up changes over the years. Was there ever a time you thought: “fuck this, I’m just gonna do something else”?
There was, actually. In the mid-nineties I really considered it. But it seemed useless to quit and do another band. This style is such a huge part of me. I’m in a band that’s based around my songwriting , and it would be like changing the name on the same stuff. I’ve had a vision, already back in the eighties of the style of Incantation, and I always stuck to that vision. I was very sincere to myself back then and I made a decision. It’s not a fase. I would only quit the band if I wanted to change styles like Amorphis or The Gathering. But I want to play brutal grinding Death Metal, it would be silly to change. When I would play in another band, people would expect it to be different…

But it won’t be?
No, so it would be silly and deceiving. This style is very true to me, it’s not like a gimmick to make money or something.

What will ‘Blasphemy’ do for Incantation?
I don’t know, I hope it will satisfy the brutal Death Metal warriors who support us. I hope they look at it as a highlight in our career. I just let it take it’s course. I want to push the band to what it can be. I can’t see us becoming as big as Morbid Angel, although I think our music is great. But unfortunately, we just don’t have the label support for that at the moment.

But you are satisfied to be on Necropolis/Candlelight?
Yeah, our only other option was to stay on Relapse, and N/C is a lot better. Any label sometimes does stuff you aren’t happy with, but we hope for the better. Necropolis put a lot of time and effort into promoting the band. I don’t know about Candlelight, they didn’t do very much for us on the European tour but they arranged interviews for us.

How do you look at the release of ‘Blasphemy in Brazil’, because I understand it’s not really an official release?
First of all I am really happy with it, Mutilated records did a great job, with the artwork and all. It certainly wasn’t official, but we played that show and it was going to be bootlegged anyway. We could work with them or not, but then it would come out like crap. So we thought ‘why not’? We can make it sound good, it was recorded through the mixing table, I guess on a DAT-tape. It’s raw, it’s live, it isn’t perfect. But when you play for a crowd like that, some of the sickest Death Metal warriors, things can get crazy, it gives it the personality.  What do you think of it?

To be honest, I haven’t heard it yet. Is it hard to get?
Oh, that’s OK. I have some copies for sale on the website. It’s an underground release, I guess you’ll have to look for it, in distros and stuff.

Well, I will. By the way, have you already read our beautiful webzine?
Yes I have, it really kicks ass. I also appreciate the review (there goes another feather up my ass; Stijn) it was really good. I liked reading all the extra info, the forty band members or something. It’s really good, really cool.

You know, I have interviewed you before, by e-mail…
I actually remember that. When I got the info for this interview and read the e-mail address it sounded really familiar. Cool.

That actually was my last question. Is there anything you’d like to add?
First of all, thank you, I really appreciate the opportunity and the exposure. I’d like to thank everybody out there for the support, you show Death Metal still lives. And look out for us on the road, we hope to do a lot of touring, to brutalize and spread our blasphemy.

Incantation

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