A few weeks ago The Netherlands knew the return of Krisiun, an event both parties always look forward to. And this time I was even more excited as usual, since their last release, ‘The Works of Carnage’, is their best so far.
Once I found my way in the backstage labyrinth, and entered the right dressing room, things could get started. And after the somewhat standard questions about the new album we had an interesting conversation about some less music-related subjects, where the three brothers in Krisiun turned out to be very relaxed & social guys, with a great interest in foreign cultures. And even though they hardly have the chance to set one foot outside their nightliner, they knew a great deal about the Netherlands. And the questions about the resulted in some remarkable answers, by the way. Krisiun & straightforward’ Not two words that I would associate very easily, or expect to see in the same sentence, but this occurred over & over again.
And so, while consuming a lot (!) of snacks and yours truly emptied quite a few bottles of, according to the band, Holland’s best beer; Heineken, we talked about many subjects. For instance; Football. Despite the fact Brazil is famous for football, it was a surprise to enter their dressing room and to see the television showing the game between Manchester United and Aston Villa. It was a nice way to end our meeting though; the band laughing their asses off, and kept handing me beers, to relief my pain of Brazil beating the Netherlands on the World Championship of 1994.
The reason that the answers are so comprehensive was because both Alex, Moyses and Max wanted their answers stated, hehe.
The obvious first subject was Krisiun’s new album. On the contrary their previous effort, I haven’t read a single bad review about this album. The band itself also seems happy with it, and obviously like receiving compliments: Congratulations! I never ever expected you could possibly top ‘Conquerors of Armageddon’, but this new album is the best Krisiun album I ever heard.
All right! Though that was obviously our intention, it still is good to hear things like this! We appreciate this.
‘Works of Carnage’ is in my combination the perfect blend of the more technical direction you took with ‘Ageless Venomous’, and the unrelenting brutality of the ‘Conquerors of Armageddon’-era’ Do you agree on this?
Sure, man! I think ‘Ageless Venomous’ was a big step forward for us, because I think we grew a lot as a band when we recorded ‘Ageless Venomous’. That sure was a big push for us.
Due to the drumsound on ‘Ageless Venomous’ you were falsely accused of working with triggered drums & even a drumcomputer. As we all saw during live shows, those are nothing but false acquisitions…
Right! Fuckers!
…is that one of the reasons the drum-sound on ‘Works of Carnage’ sounds more natural and somewhat heavier?
Somehow yeah. It was indeed an influence to come back to something more aggressive, something more natural. There are a lot of differences, and not just for the drum-sound. We also chose to put the guitar more in front, just as the bass. When we recorded ‘Ageless Venomous’ we wanted to do something cleaner. We wanted people to hear every single detail, to let them hear what we were capable of. But now we wanted to do something different. We have been playing Death Metal for quite a long time, and it was a good experience for us to do this album. We kinda went back to our roots, kinda more straightforward. Some people hear a clear drumsound, a cleeeeeeeeck (© Southpark), bassdrum-sound, and therefore they think it’s electronic, it’s triggered! But they have no idea what they’re talking about. We are fast, so to them it’s clear that Krisiun uses electronics. And I don’t blame anybody for saying stuff like that. Hell no, I put their names on the guestlist and invite ‘em to a Krisiun show, haha.
Then about the duration of the album. Even though the European version will have an bonustrack, it lasts about 32 minutes..
Right
and that is including an intro, ..
Right
…an outro..
Right
…and a Venom cover.
Right
Most bands say that if an album is as extreme as this, lasts too long, it loses it’s impact.
Right again, haha
But hey, ‘Conquerors of Armaggedon’ was pretty intense & extreme, and I have no trouble listening through that extra quarter. So, what was the reason for not recording an extra couple of songs?
Well, I think the main difference is that the songs on ‘Conquerors of Armageddon’ are longer. And on ‘Works of Carnage’, we wanted to do something more straightforward, more natural. Most songs were the result of jam sessions. Fucking around a bit, with guitars, drums. And, for maniacs as you, the album being short has a major advantage by the way, you can now play it more often in a row. With long albums people don’t tend to do so, hahaha! A lot of bands are releasing ‘long’ albums, with a lot of keyboards, and on this album we purposely choose not to do so. And as for those albums, if you take away the intro’s & outro’s, their albums don’t last over 28 minutes either. We have 32 minutes of real Metal.
And if you hear Slayer’s Reign in blood that one does not even last 30 minutes.
I like the Venom cover..
Yeah! We love Venom! That’s one of those bands that we grew up with. They really inspired us.
…and you kept the original feeling to it…
Hehe, we did huh? Even though we played it a tííííny bit faster, and more brutal, but it certainly has the same vibe.
It’s certainly a bit more original then another Slayer cover. Why did you choose for this song particularly?
No reason, actually. We just had a good time jamming, the song is quite simple and before we knew it, it was on the album. And there we go again, the song was really..
Straightforward, I guess?
Huhu, yeah.
What’s the function of the intro & the outro? And what exactly are we listening to? Sounds like wind blowing…
Well..no. Nice try, but still; no. Hehe. Those are sounds that we made ourselves, they were created during our wah-wah torture sessions. And not as everybody thinks, keyboards or computers. Those Wgggwhwgeeehgahgagwwgwaargh sounds represent real chaos. I agree with you that it sounds like wind, though.
Despite the fact that Krisiun hardly is home anymore due to their busy tour-schedule, they still have a good view on the situation in their home country, and this is probably lyric-inspiration source #1. My promo did not contain any lyrics, but with song-titles as ‘Ethereal world’ & ‘Sentinel of this fallen earth’ I was curious what the lyrics are about, and the band grabbed this opportunity with both hands…
This is about our ways, the apocalyptic visions we have in our albums. We particularly deal with the real world, the actual facts we see today & we had in the past. We believe in what you see is what you get. So, hehe, we are not telling a bunch of demon-stuff, or a lot of fantasy but we talk about mass-murdering, about war, about Christianity. About things we see, about war-problems, political problems, taking over the world and making people suffer or die. However, we have no intention to save the world. We are just human beings, believing our time here is short, and it is not really our problem. Just follow what you feel. Witness what’s happening. We are in the world of musicians. Our music is brutal, it is dark, and it has aggressive feelings. And so are the lyrics too. We do write lyrics that match with the music. We cannot sing about love, haha. Or about partying. No, we sing about murdering, and vengeance. What we sing about is reality. The reality is darker than fantasy.
Is it worse in South America compared with Europe?
Yeah, definitely. Brazil is different. Brazil is the third world. We see a lot of misery, a lot of pain. We have a lot of problems that do not occur over here. The Netherlands are fantastic country. A calm small country, everything works, an old country. Brazil on the other hand only exist for four hundred years, when we were discovered by pirates. Then a lot of Africans were brought in, and after that the Spanish and Portuguese people started taking over. You know, the black or foreign people in the Netherlands or the US get something from the government, but in Brazil no-one cares for ‘em.
Of course we also have a good side. People with money, the beautiful landscapes, our football, haha. Brazil is full of ups & downs. But the bad side shows kids from twelve years old, carrying guns, ready to kill people, and how strange this may sound, this really inspires us. This is the real thing going on. But what you see nowadays, the wars, those have nothing do with Brazil. So, luckily we don’t have those troubles too. We are busy enough with our own shit.
And, when looking at the cool artwork, I wondered what the relation is between the band and snakes’ Both poisonous, deadly & suffocating, or do you too like to eat rats, hehe?
Hahahaha, fuck no man. A snake represents so much. It’s the beginning of a lot of ancient myths, the ancient Egypt, the ancient Celtic, and even the ancient Aztec myths. The snake was a pride symbol, representing science, mathematics. A lot of stuff banished by the Christians, inner intelligence. Christians fought against science, because it proves the fact that the entire Christendom was based on myths, and not on actual history. The snake was declared the symbol of Lucifer, of evil.
There are but few extreme metal bands that have the chance to visit countries all over the world. I do not know about other people, but that sure as hell is one of the things I would like about touring; sightseeing. At least I thought so, because is there actually an opportunity at all to see something of those countries?
Mostly we stay on the venue, simply because we don’t have time to go out. Except for the Netherlands of course, haha. Hey, your weed is the very best there is, man. Tilburg is a very nice city. We were walking downtown, everybody is friendly, telling us tourists what to visit. One thing though; you guys better be kidding to call this horror Carnival! Where are the women!?
Don’t you regret that? There are not that much people that have the opportunity to see the entire world.
Sometimes, yeah. But, you have to understand that we’re so happy to be able to do the things we are doing right now. We never, ever expected this when we once formed Krisiun. But hey, we just keep on going and who knows, one day. And now we’re touring again with Morbid Angel! That’s amazing. We would like to play with the classic three one day, Slayer, Mötörhead and Venom someday, but we’ll see.
Ageless Venomous, hmm?
Fuck yeah, we are!
I recently talked with Pat from Cannibal Corpse, and we agreed on the fact that the guys of Slayer are not very much into Death Metal..
We know, but; fuck! They released ‘Reign in Blood’! We learned so much from that album!
Yesterday I saw the DVD by Occult, and you were on it, too. Learning how to swear in Dutch, haha. Have you in the meantime learned more about Holland, and what do you think of it?
Really’ Huhuh, euh..well..don’t remember that. I guess we were drunk. But it’s cool. It was an awesome tour. And about our Dutch, we actually start picking up some other languages besides Portuguese and English. Not much though, but it’s a start. And yeah, we can play drunk, smoke a joint before a show, but we hardly do it. Those days are over.
I read something about a Krisiun DVD?
We are gonna release a DVD this year, hopefully in a few months. Not sure though, but we try, haha. The DVD is gonna have some shows of the past two years, from the ‘Ageless Venomous’-tour and there’s gonna be a show we did for ‘Works of Carnage’ we did in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We have like 5 camera’s, the sound from the soundboard, it has a really good sound. Besides this there are some shots from the band recording ‘Works of Carnage’. It’s gonna be a complete material-overview for the real fan.
I take it the crowds in Sao Paulo are a lot more enthusiastic as they are over here?
Yes, it’s one of the best places for us to play. We played by ourselves in Sao Paulo, and we draw more than a thousand people. It was a really good turn-out.
I just saw the video for ‘Murderer’. Doesn’t it feel strange to perform in an empty hall, banging your head off?
Haha, no, it wasn’t. You should see us practicing, haha. Our necks grow bigger and stronger each rehearsal. So, it felt naturally.
What can we Europeans expect from the extra footage on ’Works of carnage’?
We put some Japanese songs on the album, our Slayer cover ‘Silent Scream’, and the videoclip you mentioned. And the American version has ‘They call me Death’, and some other stuff.
I once read a quote that Metal bands that only consist of three members, play pure Metal, simply because they lack the additional arms to start fuckin’ around with other, unnecessary instruments. What’s your opinion on that quote?
Very good man, that’s so true! We are a three-piece and are Metal to the bone! On purpose. We just wanted to be as Metal as possible. I’m not saying Krisiun is the ultimate, the best or fastest band on the planet, but we just do it our way, we do what we wanted to do. We are a three-piece and I cannot imagine us being something else.
