Diabolical Talks

Diabolical Talks http://transcend666.com/ Metal Of Death en-us Nucleus CMS v3.64 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://transcend666.com//nucleus/nucleus2.gif Diabolical Talks http://transcend666.com/ RESURGENCY - Recapturing The Buried Essence Of Death Metal xml-rss2.php?itemid=9 Interview conducted in February, 2011.
(I apologize that it took so much time to post this scripture.)

"The only thing, that you might call evolution or progression,
is the inspiration and creativity process."

Hail DEATH METAL! Resurgency sounds completely the way I like, it’s intense art, full of violent, dark, blasphemous savagery with haunting solos of obscure Death while still retaining a very intelligent and mature states of how you are delivering such devastating music! What great power has made you to reinvent the metal of Death that can be heard on Dark Revival? What is the concept behind the band and its origin?
HAILS! from Resurgency, and thanx for the interest that you show to our music! All started by a mutual interest in old school Death metal and its aspect and expression. That was the motivating power that made us create this band, as the “truth” we see in music from our point of view. The concept behind all this is what we call resurrection of the past and the forgotten and the will to play music presenting it.

What does Resurgency mean to you? Why the name, Resurgency? It sounds completely fitting, like an obligation to an intention of a Death Metal rejuvenation and evocation of eternal spirits of Death Metal!
Actually we had a huge problem finding a name that could express fully what our music is all about. Resurgency came out as the one forfilling it as it means revival-resurrection, in this case the rejuvenation and evocation of eternal spirits of Death Metal like you mentioned!

Is Dark Revival your first demo? It sounds incredibly professional in every aspect. The sound, musicianship, songwriting. Do you have past experiences from any other Death Metal bands? Where have you gained your skills? How often have you practiced and how long did it take before you made the last final steps to finalize the four tracks?
Yes Dark Revival is our first demo. We all come from other death metal bands (Necrovorous, Stagnate and more...) and been a long time in the extreme metal scene. The demo was recorded after a year of existence practising in our own rehearsal studio. Among the 10 tracks that we composed so far, 4 of them are included in our demo after a preproduction that took place in our studio.

No one could really wonder if Dark Revival would be recorded in Morrisound studios it really sounds like if the ancient Death Metal masters (Brutality, Eulogy, Morbid Angel, early Monstrosity, Malevolent Creation /Retribution rules!/) at their best were back. Where did you record the 4 tracks? The sound is incredibly authentic, it just forces me to listen to the demo over and over. How have you achieved such sound and are you going to stick with it or do you think of going more into the modern-flashy way of sound?
Dark Revival was recorded, mixed and mastered in Incorporated M Studios here in Athens by Bill Pappas. Bill did an amazing job as he understood exactly how we wanted our sound to be, grabbing immediately the feeling of our music. Soundwise for the future we are aiming to stick on this, as it is for us how death metal should sound. Chaotic, violent and totaly devastating...

What are the responses so far? What do you think of the result? Has the demo fulfilled what you wanted to accomplish with it? Where do you want the band to move on?
The responses so far are very good. As you know we self released this demo and did what was possible to promote it. Generaly the feedback from people that have listened to the demo was pleasing. At the moment we are in a label hunt and already talking with some of them as we have 10 songs ready for a debut album. The goal of the band is to keep on expressing ourselves through death metal as it is a way of life for us.

The closer of Dark Revival is an instrumental Atmosphere In Chaos. Have you decided to close the material with an instrumental song intentionally? Why so? Do you think you can manage to create a better atmospheres using your instruments than just using and ending the release with ambient/keyboard stuff only?
We thought its the best ending for the demo. Atmosphere In Chaos is exactly what the title means. A hallucinative vibe, like getting lost in a black core of madness, leaving a dark feeling behind ... that’s why we used a hint of keyboards to make it more efficient. Its an outro for the demo but an intro of what’s to come...

...it is for us how death metal should sound - chaotic, violent and totaly devastating...

What has got you into Death Metal? How much and how long are you into the old Death Metal tradition? What does it mean to you? You certainly have many bands that have influenced you. You can name them now.
Influences vary in the band. From US Death Metal till frozen Finish death metal and more. Bands like Brutality, Gorguts, Morgoth, Autopsy, Deicide, Unleashed, Demilich, Utumno, Morbid Angel, Immolation, Napalm Death, Suffocation, etc. got us into death metal and made us follow their steps and play such music. We are many years fans of this genre and we think its the ultimate way to state what we stand for.

Death Metal has always meant to be obscure, diabolical & evil. What do you think about the new wave of predominantly technical bands which have put everything Death Metal means into dust and turned out to be just cheap, soulless technical outbursts? Or the so called (death)core driving influences from Death Metal? Do you see any reason why Death Metal shaped that way?
Well, all has to do with the music industry and money we think. It’s like a fashion that victims follow even if its not what they really feel. Seems like a big grinder mixing everything inside just to sell and become well known. For sure there is an evolution (depending how you see that) in music like in everything in life, and bands that present it are very good and real at it, but these are counted few. We believe that a 5 notes riff with feeling is more than a 25 complex, fast and technical one with nothing to express. We don’t judge anybody cause in the end its a matter of taste, but at least we keep it this way. For Resurgency counts the feeling and not to prove that we are hi-tech musicians...

Would you agree that the real skills to compose real hymns of Death Metal, which crush anything weak, seems to disappear by the new generation? It seems everyone just wants to be cool, open-minded and have fun but those people lack of focus, dedication and passion and also a will to sacrifice to the music, but I think Death Metal is kind of a priviledge to play and listen and not everyone can get into it with whole heart and soul. What do you think when looking at the uninspired bands and open-minded wimps in the current scene? What is the scene like in your area?
Difficult question to answer. We believe its totally personal what you listen and what you play. The right people for the right music is our belief. I think you understand the meaning of this. Death metal speaks for itself and for the ones who really feel it. In Greece the scene is pretty limited, so there is still an old school character kept. Death metal here is not so wide, and promoters don’t really speak the word for it considering exceptions of course. There are bands that managed to reach a respectful level, but believe it its very hard to achieve such a goal...

What does the term evolution and progression means to Resurgency as a Death metal band?
There is not such a term for us. Only that as long as we feel we’re gonna write and play music that speaks for us. The only thing, that you might call evolution or progression, is the inspiration and creativity process.

Where do you see Death Metal as such heading in the next, upcoming years? Which bands, do you think, nowadays are staying true to the roots and are making true Death Metal standing still proud and worthwhile?
No one can predict the future. Music is changing, people are changing but we strongly believe death metal won’t be lost. There is a few bands we can mention but more that released stuff after many years and have nothing to do with what they were. So, we wait and see...

Except the worship of everything obscure, many Death Metal bands have always portrayed philosophical and existential depth to their music. How important is this for Resurgency? Could you describe the way of Antinomian Left Hand Path thinking and how it mirrors through your music and lyrics?
The Occult is for sure one of our main influences. The Darkness and all the hidden truth behind the lines of society, religions and life. The Unknown and the ways to reach it is also a theme in our lyrics, as death and its existence in every shape. Lyrics are written second in our band as music comes first, but both are perfectly combined as a full result of our perception.

Death metal speaks for itself and for the ones who really feel it.

How about Resurgency and playing live? What was your first ever gig like? How tight the bands was and with whom and where did the gig take place?
Our first gig is gonna take place 27 of February 2011, so we’re gonna let you know then what happens! But considering from the rehearsals the band is tight as fuck!

Do you have any merch available, is the demo already available on some format?
Yes the demo is available in a CD format. You can contact us in our site (www.myspace.com/resurgency) for further information. (The demo is out as a split CD w/Desolator - ed.)

How do you see the future? What plans and achievements stand there for Resurgency? Is there a possibility of a debut album coming out?
The plans we got is to play gigs and promote our music to the ones that are into it. As we told you before at the moment we are searching for a record label,and we are ready for a full length release if all goes well.

Thanks a lot for your time! Keep Death Metal true & alive! It can’t be stopped, NEVER!
Thanx for the interview and support man! Keep it Sick...

Resurgency on Myspace]]> Diabolical Talks xml-rss2.php?itemid=9 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:56:22 +0100 HOUR OF PENANCE - Extremity Of Paradogma (pt. 2) xml-rss2.php?itemid=8 Originally conceived in March, 2011.

Hi Giulio. Not even two years course lapsed and there we have a new Hour Of Penance album. How it was like for you to move from the TVC album and start writing new material? The direction, the intensity, the song structure how has this all shaped for Paradogma? You truly seem to catch the best momentum of it all again. It seems you still know where your path is heading, well? Anyway, have you changed something when writing Paradogma?
Hi Ian, thanks for having us again onto these pages! I began writing Paradogma when I felt that it was time for The Vile Conception to leave room for some new tunes, that came along our need to write and play new songs and most of all our need to challenge ourselves musician-wise ... it always worked like that in our band and we’re still doing the same even if the line up changed a bit in the last year. To be honest I didn’t felt any pressure in writing Paradogma, I just started playing some riffs and the songs popped out in no time, that’s why I believe the new album sounds a bit more dynamic somehow and maybe more assimilable although still keeps the same brutality of The Vile Conception. Looking back now to both albums, probably the feature that makes Paradogma an improvement from the past albums it’s his atmosphere, which is made both by fast and slow songs, some melodic riffs and a different approach to the vocal lines... That’s the point someone missed in reviewing the new album probably expecting a copy and paste of The vile Conception.

What brutal Death Metal albums do you value a lot in terms of the flow and riffing? I can’t help myself but your last two albums do remind me of Despise The Sun and Cerrito’s songs for Hate Eternal if you know what I mean. How do you identify with those influences as a musician?
Speaking as a guitar player, Cerrito was an hell of a songwriter! I loved every single note on Conquering the throne and that’s why I always pick that album along some others if someone ask to me to name my favorite death metal albums. To be honest I don’t identify my way of playing with him (he was a beast) or with some other guitarist in particular, let’s say Hour of Penance although still sounds “modern” in some way is still sticked to the old death metal way to conceive and write songs and that’s why it’s hard for me to find a new death metal band that meets my tastes nowadays. But still ... you named already Despise the Sun and Conquering the Throne and I’ll had to that Millennium of Monstrosity, Covenant and Gateways to annihilation of Morbid Angel and Bloodthirst of Cannibal Corpse, those definitely were amongst the album that contributed in developing my way of playing and writing death metal.

As on The Vile Conception, are there some songs on Paradogma that were thought out in hours? The writing process seems to be quite fast overall, how much time is needed till everything’s arranged with the other guys in the band so that everything clicks altogether well?
Writing process of Paradogma was as smooth as the one for the Vile Conception. When you feel inspired a song can pop out in few hours, like Incontrovertible Doctrines or Incestuous Dynasty of Worms .This time was a little more easier than with Vile Conception as the band had a different feeling, we had more time to spend together practicing and we were on the same page about how the album should have sounded like. Everything become easier when you have the same line up for some years, the band grows up stronger and stronger live after live, it’s like having a well tuned car that you can push at its limit.

The songs seems to be sorted on the album in carefully picked-up ordered. Can you elaborate more on the actual order and the moves behind it? Paradogma just hits hard in the beginning with first three songs, then crushes the listener with a slow song and since then there’s some continually escalating tension of brutality and speed, which, to me, peaks in Spiritual Ravishment. Aim?
As well as with the Vile Conception, Paradogma is kind of a concept album with an opener song (Paradogma) and a closing theme (Apotheosis) - it’s my way to write an album... I start writing when I have a precise idea to develop and every song is a chapter of that idea, starting from the first song to the last one, the order you see on the CD is the same order the song came out. Any particular aim on it just the pure love of this kind of music and the willing to do a good death metal album! As I always say, we’re the first fans of our band and we will never write and record something we couldn’t enjoy listening and playing and most of all something that is not Death metal as it’s intended to be!

And yes we are at it, Malevolence Of The Righteous! This track is your first slow effort as a composer, a new realm to conquer for you, so to say. Could you run into details of the concept of that song. Did writing that song challenged you as a musician/band on a different level and how? What aspects (more than usually) did you pay attention to when writing this beast? And the way it interweaves with the ending of Woeful Eucharesty, these two songs are like twins. Was it also intentional from the start?
It was definitely challenging writing that songs since we don’t like writing slow stuff as you can hear from the Hour of Penance albums... I had those riffs sticked into my head for months and so I decided it was time to write a slower songs since a lot of people complained about the fact that Hour of Penance albums were just a blast-fest from start to finish, well you wanted and now you have a slow Hour of Penance song. That songs proves that we can write a good songs even without blastbeats.
Anyway what people says is not the point here, the song just came out as the other ones without any suggestions or stupid comments that forced me writing a slow song.
Malevolence doesn’t’ have any relation with Woeful Eucharesty... It’s right in the middle of the album because it gives a break to the listener’s ears, eheh.

What slow songs belongs amongst your fave? Actually, weren’t you afraid that the slow song could negatively affect the flow of the album, especially when placing it in the first half of Paradogma. To me, some albums has been ruined with slow songs just because they came in too soon and sort of destroy the built-up intensity of the raging speed.
Not at all, it depends on how that song is conceived - there are plenty of albums that have a slow song placed at the top of a tracklist without affecting the album intensity - I was just thinking at the aforementioned Covenant of Morbid Angel... “World of Shit” is a great example to that. Ironically I listen to a lot of “slow” music, Danzig first four albums are always in my stereo, not to mention the last Celtic Frost and Tryptikon albums... I love the way you can actually make a good song with few riffs and not necessarily complex or fast, that’s probably harder than write a fast and technical song.

Another thing, after Ulcerate “Everything Is Fire” album was out, many people compared the band’s music to Deathspell Omega, which despite some similarities is completely wrong as their music just comes from different background and heads to a different horizon. You have faced something similar with the Behemoth comparisons which are even less in place than the DsO comparison with Ulcerate. I can hear much more Rutans way of Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal, Krisiun-ish-thrill, even Gorgasm-like precision and crushingness in the background of this otherwise original record in a full sense of the word ORIGINAL. A story about how placing a singled out track from the album can make a completely worng impact should follow. Did you see that coming? You elaborate on the intetion of picking up Paradogma, the result it brought and how did that changed the way you will be selecting an album “single” in the future.
Yeah probably picking up Paradogma as preview of the new album was not the best choice we could have done, that song taken alone is completely out of the context if you don’t hear the whole album... Most of the people must have been influenced by that and maybe had a wrong view of the new album, although was still a success.
I read everywhere comments and comparison between Hour of Penance and Behemoth, someone even wrote that Paradogma is STRONGLY influenced by Evangelion... How?? Evangelion came out when our album was already recorded and ready to be mastered ... so most of the comments I read were pointless. As you said Hour of Penance and Behemoth, a band that I respect anyway, have different background and a different way to conceive music.

What can you say about the intro/outro and the use of some short samples/sounds inside some tracks? As time goes it sounds to me just way too flashy and rather disturbing and not really fitting at all into your music. It kind of adds a different, strange, in fact inappropriate feel to the music and myself I can’t really say it does anything special to me. The razor blade sound is cool in a fine Gorgasm way though.
Our old drummer was into that, so you probably will not hear those stuff anymore, haha.

If you wanted a painter to make an image that would correspond with the music on the album only, what would be your description of the desired result? Just don’t say, there will be a chapel with a falling cross of its top, that would sound familiar.
Ahah, I don’t know to be honest but I always love to have a cover that is tied to the lyrics of the album - although I love some covers of the 90’s I don’t think some abstract landscapes will fit into the music of an extreme death metal album... You can see the intention of our album by simply watching the cover of it ... hard to tell what you can expect from an album with a Seagrave’s cover... I know I’m spitting blasphemy here but that’s just my point of view.

Have you noticed that the cover of Paradogma would provoke some feedback from some conservative Italian (Christian) guys/parties?
That was our intention but none cared about us apparently! Jokes apart, Death metal and extreme music in general here is not even distributed in shops and most of the people that hear this music for the first time doesn’t understand what’s going on, so no side effects of our album cover unfortunately!

Francesco was relatively new to the band when The Vile Conception
...we will never write and record something we couldn’t enjoy listening and playing and most of all something that is not Death metal as it’s intended to be!
was released therefore the lyrics and concepts as well as vocal patterns were rather a collective effort, was it the same for Paradogma this time? Where have you moved with the lyrics concept? Overall the lyrics seems more venomous and to the point than before, it reminds me of Krisiun-like unholy spitting.
This time the lyrics were totally written by the hands of Francesco and I made some changes in the end, that’s why are different from the lyrics of The Vile Conception... We talked a lot about having a more evil vibe on the album and he started writing that kind of lyrics alone. I did not hear his work until he entered the studio and started recording the vocals, I was trusting him 100% and I absolutely loved what he did on Paradogma... Too bad he’s not a singer anymore!

Was it any harder to arrange the lyrics patterns into the music on Paradogma when Francesco did the lyrics? How did that worked out?
The way we work with lyrics is simple: we basically put some vocal lines without lyrics on the demo song and we start writing the lyrics on that, so everything fits perfectly to the music ... it’s a method we developed in years and it works fine!

Oh, could you please talk more about the instrumental song? How did that one come out and ended up on the album? What do you think of it nowadays? How about its Latin text, that’s some slight blasphemy again!?
It was funny to see how Apotheosis (the instrumental song) become one of the favorite song on the album for someone! I didn’t expect that, that song was intended just to be an instrumental outro of the album... As I already said before we wanted an opening theme and a closing theme for the album, and Apotheosis is just that. The Latin text was an idea of Francesco ... it’s a modified version of the prayer “our Father” and it kinda sounds scary with all those effects on the voice. It’s not a song I’m proud of, but simply because my idea was to write an instrumental outro not a song... And I believe the result was good... You always have to listen an album in its entirety to understand what’s behind of it.

Now let’s go to the earthquake within band’s ranks. What do you think of this, say, cleansing period? Half of the band is gone and you have found new replacements successfully. How are things settling down?
Earthquake, that’s exactly the right word to describe that situation, eheh. What I think... I don’t know to be honest... We were just in the middle of a tour and we returned home with a band with just a bass player and a guitar player. All happened in a sudden and although we had some arguments before with the old guys. I never thought that we could arrive at the point of splitting up with two band members. But seeing at the other face of the medal, we found in no time two great replacements and most of all two motivated guys as Me and Silvano. Hard times if you ask me, but now everything is great! We’ve signed to a new label (Prosthetic Records) and we have some great tours coming on starting with the Deicide tour this summer.

What have each of the new members brought up to the table? Paolo and Simone, both have black metal background, which could allow you as band to step into filthier, more blasphemous waters than on the last two releases. Do you see something like this happening?
Of course their different approach to the music will help the band in adding something to the music, Simone is a great drummer and he can play everything and that gives me the possibility of pushing further the limits of the band... Paolo’s voice has a different tone... So let’s see how this will turn out although I’ll be the only songwriter again!

I noticed that Paolo is pretty good guitarist as well. Is that a must for you to have a non-playing guitarist doing vocals? It certainly helps the rhythmical and phrasing accuracy which appears to me really important when it comes to duties that a HoP vocalist must be capable of to handle. How is Paolo progressing as a vocalist? I am not sure if anyone can replace Francesco in terms of diversity of the vocals but Paolo has certainly brought to table some new elements. Could you talk more about this?
Actually Paolo will do also guitars on the upcoming tour with Deicide, is indeed a great guitar player so it’s time for us to start playing with two guitars. From the first practice we had with him i was sure i was the right guy to replace Francesco, although the tone of his voice is different ... but that’s a good thing in my opinion so as you said we can bring something new on the table which is something we’re doing from our first release.

I noticed you were a guest musician on the last & amazing album from Aborym. I guess, there couldn’t be much more ideal part for you to be picked-up than the The Morbid Angel (Gateways!) driven part of the song, could be? I am eager to hear more about this experience and how did it all happen. Was the part of the track where your solo has been placed already selected or you were able to make your pick? How do you like the final result? Is actually Psychogrotesque in its entirety your cup of tea?
Paolo asked me to record a solo for Aborym on the last song of their last album, he sent me the track that was already recorded at that time and i started working on it. It was definitely challenging for me playing a solo on that kind of music ! I loved how it sounded in the end and i was honored to do a solo for them.

How many gigs have you played in support of the Paradogma album? Any highlights? When did the band sound the best in your opinion? Plus an old one, but do you prefer the studio works over playing live or vice-versa?
So far we have played almost 50 shows in support of the album and we will do more in the future, 30 on the Deicide tour and who knows ... maybe even more if we manage to fly to US this time... Although I have already started working on the 5th Hour of Penance album, Paradogma came just an year ago now and there’s still a lot to do with it!
Hard to say which gig i enjoyed most ... probably the one we had in Nantes with the old line up during the last tour with Francesco and Mauro, venue was packed and people went crazy!

Could you loose few words also on the management that stands behind HoP. How’s that useful for the band?
Indeed it is, Soundworks Management helped the band a lot! They definitely believe in this band and that means a lot to us...

Do you know the selling numbers of Paradogma and The Vile Conception?
I know the sales were huge but i still don’t know the exact number, we’re waiting to know that.

Third Hour Of Penance album is coming and the band can be found within Posthetic records bands rooster. Huge congratulations! How do you think this can move the band ahead? What things are you looking forward? Will you get some decent recording budget? No complaints, but it would be great to hear more naturally sounding drums on the next one!
Thanks! It will be the 5th Hour of Penance album over almost 10 years of career! Prosthetic Records will definitely help Hour of Penance in many ways, we have more budget for the recording and more support for tours and so on, signing with them it’s a big reward for all the works done in the past years and I can’t wait to record the new album and start to work with them properly. We weren’t expecting such a great offer, it was something we couldn’t definitely refuse speaking as an Italian, ahah.

What’s your opinion on the current state of Death Metal and it’s advancement in the future? Do you follow bands like Ulcerate, Ehnahre or do you stick more with the old school stuff? What was your personal highlight in 2010 when it comes to Death Metal?
Off of the newer death metal bands Ulcerate was probably the most interesting band that came out, hard to say how many new death metal band I follow, I’m more into the old stuff... It’s not a good thing to say but Death metal gave his best in the 90’s until 2002 to me. Lately I was asked by another webzine to do a list of the best albums that came out from 2000-2010 and I can’t lie but it was something really hard to do... 2010 sucked for me, probably just the Ulcerate and the Immolation new albums were the last good albums that came out. I really hope the situation will change, maybe the new Morbid Angel album will redeem the actual scene.

Giulio, thanks a lot for your time! I wish you still the same and even bigger dedication & deflagration for Hour Of Penance and Death Metal in general. Keep it coming, we are ready! Last words (before we commence another interview, part 3, after the new album will be out) are yours now.
Thanks to your interview Ian, it’s always a pleasure for us to be featured in Transcend666 ’zine!! All the best to you and hope to see you in Czech Republic soon!

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And interview from The Vile Conception era can be found here: HOUR OF PENANCE - Extreme Sonic Bombardment

]]> Diabolical Talks xml-rss2.php?itemid=8 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:41:29 +0100 Time To Have A Say... xml-rss2.php?itemid=11 There will be no space for reviews anymore, these were never intended to be a part of Transcend.
Content-wise. This is still going to be about Death Metal although not in a strict way. It's too much pretentious crap around these days and one has to look into slightly different territories.
Darkness and chaos will be praised and hailed on!]]> News xml-rss2.php?itemid=11 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:05:06 +0100 ULCERATE - Defying Tradition (pt. 2) xml-rss2.php?itemid=7 everything is fire just fits. In short, Hérakleitos is known for his theories about constant flow and progression that the universe (living) subordinates to.
Honestly, I had some misgivings about the follower to the 1st album Of Fracture And Fire whether it was the fact of the band becoming more induced with post-* elements or just overall softening the magnitude of their Death Metal vision. It was actually the first interview with Jamie that has already intimidated such ideas. Everything Is Fire is extremely unrestricted album in itself but very honest to the legacy of ie. Immolation and Gorguts. Ulcerate are now standing on their own pillar of the Death monument anyway. I perceive this as a path bands should evolve if they crave for real progression (the abuse of this word these days completely destroyed its meaning thus ‘real’ is added to) but still remain a unique and solid form of Death Metal art.
As you’ve certainly found out this is the 2nd Ulcerate interview conducted with Jamie Saint Merat. There was still a lot of things to talk about. Read on...
Originally conceived in 2009.
PDF version of the interview (old design).

Michael and you, Jamie, are masterminds of the band. Last time you talked pretty much about the ways you compose. For now, could you talk about lessons that you learned from Of Fracture And Failure in terms of the de—constructing/arranging your music? You know many things you sort of automatize and another pop—up and require you to pay attention in order to master them so the whole thing can evolve further. Also there should be things that you might avoid completely this time or those aspects you’ve just continued to incorporate into the music and/or improved them. Does something changed drastically within this process this time? The so called chemistry between you guys has to be really superb from what I read and hear.
How have your attitude to linear song—writing evolved as such with the new album? Isn’t it a bit bounding (I know it’s challenging as well) to be sticking with this formula?
Okay, well with the last album we set out from the beginning of writing to come up with a sound bordering on chaos and very suffocating in terms of breathing space (or lack thereof). So
this resulted in a serious amount of parts per song that all needed to be bridged together to work. Initially I guess you could relate the earliest written songs on the album to something like Cryptopsy’s ‘Whisper Supremacy’, whereby it’s more—or—less a string of shortish sections that make the whole. It wasn’t until something really clicked with us by the time we were writing the later songs on the album (Martyr, Defaeco etc) that we tried to tone that approach down a little bit.
So, with regards to writing this album, these approaches were the first that we worked on — Everything is Fire is a lot denser, but just written a lot more maturely. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s much more satisfying for us to play these songs than the older stuff, as it’s a lot more natural. We stretch sections out that need to be accented and really pay attention to flow and smoothness, regardless of how chaotic a part may be. So yeah, our writing chemistry is getting easier and easier as time goes by, because we’re getting more and more of an idea of where we want to go with this band. We’ve got the exact same taste in music, and there’s really no ego at all involved when we write.
The attitude remains the same in terms of linear writing — it’s the most liberating way of writing this kind of music. Bounding would be knowing that there’s a format already set out for a song before you sit down and write it. We’ve evolved how we approach this method of writing in that where possible, we try to write songs from top to bottom, one part after another, rather than a collection of riffs or patterns and arranging those. Not 100% possible all the time of course, but when it works, it seems to really make the songs grow themselves, and we don’t get hung up on trying to slot in a really good part into a bunch of riffs.

Also on the note of OFAF and EIF albums — it seemed that you literally let your instruments fight on OFAF over the top many times but on EIF everything is so incredibly fitting, compelling and compact, I just can’t get enough of this cohesive union.
Yeah, but that comes down to the production and playing abilities. The Of Fracture tunes are certainly not easy songs to play, and obviously 3 years ago we didn’t play as well as we do now. Production—wise, as I said earlier with the song—structure, we wanted the production to be smooth, organic, warm. Most metal albums these days are sterile, cold, mechanical with little or no atmosphere, which just doesn’t appeal to me at all. So if you take our approach of ironing out the chaotic vibe of Of Fracture and produce it as organically as possible, then we’ve hopefully gotten close to how we want to sound.

The atmosphere of the new album just doesn’t get a listener a space to breathe and I think you have silenced all those who were saying OFAF was souless and empty album, which apparently wasn’t at all! Hopefully the new one will help them to understand the old album as well, don’t you think?
For sure, everything’s just a stepping stone to the next album, so I’m sure you can hear what we were trying to do with Of Fracture. We didn’t always succeed, and a lot of the songs are too over—the—top for my liking these days, but without that experimentation, we would never have known what works and what doesn’t — and the same will be said with the next album.

■ Drown Within

The natural human desire of searching for solace amongst a proposed afterlife is the central focus here. Related to this - the control and exploitation of others through various parasitic means, to build a larger belief base to which more comfort over the fear of death can be derived for the preacher.

■ Withered And Obsolete

Withered and Obsolete' as a title, as well as within the lyrics, is a description of all religion in current times. Notably, the arrogance of religion in demanding an unjustified respect; religion being protected by taboo from scientific scrutiny, and reason more generally. 'Withered...' also touches on the fallacy of human morality being derived from scripture (or any other spiritual source).

■ We Are Nil

Amongst the unquantifiable vastness of the universe, human life and the scope of our knowledge is merely an insignificant grain of sand. 'We are Nil' expresses the realisation of this insignificance, also our ability to comprehend it and make the decision whether or not to delude ourselves in order to hide from it.

■ Caecus

Human beings have evolved the ability to reason. This process is an essential and critical part of our ability to, not only survive in the purest sense of the word, but to lead a respectable life on 21st century Earth. Unfortunately, a portion of society seem to choose not to use this ability to its full effect, resulting in a baseless reliance on others. 'Caecus' is about an absolute lack of sympathy and pity for these people.

■ Tyranny

The thirst for power among us is not all encompassing, and certainly not the sole human function in respect to social behaviour. I despise the use of 'Social Darwinism' as an excuse for a lack of empathy or compassion for others. We have developed altruistic traits through our ancestry for the betterment of the species, and ignoring these instincts is plain bigotry.

■ The Earth At Its Knees

Humanity and the Earth have been crippled as a result of the sentiments outlined in 'Caecus' and 'Tyranny'. 'The Earth at its Knees' depicts this decay and touches on self-reliance in a bid to better ourselves. Self-reliance from a political perspective is not automatically intertwined with totalitarianism.

■ Soullessness Embraced

As an extension of the first two songs, 'Soullessness...' outlines the acceptance of our insignificance in combination with the absence of an afterlife. Embracing the void and accepting ourselves as mortal.

■ Everything Is Fire

The cornerstone of the album theme. Everything is in a constant state of change. We cannot accept anything as face value. Question and rationalise everything, and always continue to.

Also what’s your attitude towards solos, any chances they will be brought to Ulcerate music in the future?
They’re not for us unfortunately. They don’t fit with the vibe of the material at all, and we just don’t need them as compositional devices. We already go pretty overboard with the amount of guitar tracks on the albums! We’re about defying tradition, and the guitar lead is just that, a tradition that stems from jazz and blues trading 4’s etc. It seems a little ridiculous that only the ‘lead’ guitarists take solos when none of the other musicians do (certainly not saying that’s a good idea, haha). I really enjoy certain bands with iconic solos who use them as compositional devices, but the majority of the time it’s just ego—stroking.

How exactly you work on the guitar layering. The guitar arrangements are just incredible, the tones, dis—harmonies come out just from another space. The dual attacks, the fresh riffs and advancements, man, that’s something what wasn’t here for quite some time in such an amount & pure creative spirit! How many tracks have you actually used in the studio when laying down the guitars?
We use 4 rhythm tracks (2 per channel) to thicken the sound, and 3 channels for overlaid counterpoint melodies. We spent a long number of hours working out counterpoint parts for the rhythm tracks — it’s pretty rare on the album that the L and R channels are playing the same thing, so this adds to the density. And in the really dense parts (end of Soullessness Embraced, Everything is Fire etc), we have the rhythms playing counterpoint, along with 3 separate overlaid lead channels also playing counterpoint parts. Not to mention the bass lines throughout the album very rarely follow the guitars as well. So, when you add this altogether that’s a lot of melody and harmony, and it gives it a very unified, thick and rich tone, that you can only get via this method. It’s a lot of work, but it really pays off. We also manage to get 90% of this effect live with our guitarist’s’ abilities to loop patterns and then play off of them.

Also when it comes to drum patterns, that’s something to be adored on Ulcerate as well, your style of playing is like painting (you called it layering in the previous interview). It’s like watching a colorful painting grow and entirely swallowing the listener. Where are all those ‘colors’ flowing from, man? I’ve read in another interview with you that you can’t play jazz but you definitely seem to understand and being inspired with it, don’t you? Would you agree you can use or try to use something from the jazz drumming ways, playfulness in Ulcerate? You know, the metal drummers are in majority of case 90% stamina but you seem to accent your way of playing from an opposite side as well.
It’s not so much a matter of being not able to play jazz — I just don’t play the style convincingly as I’ve only ever dabbled in learning it properly. Like any well—established musical form, jazz has a huge history that players draw from and understand — of which I only have an outside understanding. I’ve never been a huge fan of traditional jazz, I have a lot of respect for it, but the vibe does nothing for me. And besides, the style of drumming that I bring into a death metal context has more to do with guys like Marco Minneman, Benny Greb, Jojo Mayer, Gavin Harrison or Carter Beauford than any jazz drumming. So yeah, I like to colour and add a lot of subtleties (huge fan of closed hi—hat work!), Even if most people won’t notice it — and this just comes from listening to guys like the aforementioned — drummers with a very deep understanding of music that are able to play around and make their parts sound really alive and improvised. With great drumming, it’s the small stuff that sticks out and really grabs my attention. Anyone can do 16th note rolls for minutes on end, I’d rather hear broken patterns and embellishments on top of that foundation that are in a musical context.

Let me tell you the use of the deep vocals is something that I can’t find words for just to say how much I appreciate it. This is not my Death Metal narrow—minded conservatism (although I like it), I loved Ben vocals immensely, but I still have in mind vocals on The Coming Of Genocide and I was dying to hear the low vocals within the current expression of Ulcerate. How much effort needed Paul to invest into his vocal transition, how difficult the process was till his vocals got the right tinge? In the end, do you find a musician, who is doing vocals, more benefiting for the band in terms of phrasing accuracy than in comparing with ‘just’ a vocalist who isn’t instrumentally any skilled? Also, can you reveal how do you lay down the vocal patterns in the music?
Yes, we’re very pleased to make a return to that sound. It’s something we wanted with Ben as well, but we were willing to try out something a little different. But this time around, no, it needed to be done.
Paul put in months of practise coupled with a lot of recording sessions to mark the progress, but he’s totally mastered the art now and it really fits like a glove. Ironic given how long he was in the band before we even thought of trying this out... And yeah — a musician who handles an instrument at the same time has vastly superior phrasing and rhythm, it’s really tightened up that side of things. The vocals always land where they should live now, which makes the whole band a more powerful outfit.
Paul arranges the lyrics to the music — the order of writing is music first, lyrics second, then arrangement of said lyrics. So it’s just a matter of working out amongst us which parts feel right with vocals and which should be left free. The last stage of arranging happens at the tracking stage, where minor changes are made as need—be.

Another thing! The hell eruptive & destructive tension of the bass distortion you have played around for the first time on EIF! This is just another thing that makes the new album more Taupo (eruptive and moving). But how come you were not trying to mess with it/using it on your previous releases? Afraid of sounding to Mortician—like? In the end you have to be satisfied. In your own words, where has it moved the Ulcerate expression, how have it altered Ulcerate’s sound and the music feeling?
I think between the last album and this album we were exposed to a lot of bands not necessarily from metal that were using distorted bass in a really effective and crushing manner. It can be an absolute force in projecting monster tone, so we were keen to give it a go. Especially with the amount of slower sections on this album, it allowed us to really use the bass as a destructive backbone. We’re using quite rhythmically stripped—back bass lines on Everything is Fire against the guitars, and it gives a hugely solid sound — and it treats the instrument more like it should be — a rhythm instrument all of it it’s own, rather than a ‘3rd guitar’ scenario.

You ended up engineering/mastering/mixing the album. The fact that you know what you want and go for it at 200% is admirable as well as the result you got. How have you managed to master these operations? I think already OFAF had a sound all bands striving for organic/powerful yet clean sound could envy. What are your main concerns which you put the main emphasis on when you are at every single stage of these aforementioned duties? Plus, there’s also this thing, you know, it’s couple of times I heard from other bands that they would do these duties on their own but they don’t have the necessary distant look at the material recorded (this applies to mastering/mixing) and after spending hours in studio, they seem to think to perceive things differently — not as objectively as few weeks after recording is finished. Ho w do you keep up this distance and how exhausting it can be since you have to record your instrument to it etc.
Well, it’s just out of necessity that we handle the production side of things. The art comes naturally and I would never let anyone else touch anything that was trying to represent what we’re getting across. That’s just way too personal. The intent with this album was the same as the last, track and mix then send overseas to be mastered. Which we did, but the mastering was just never quite right, so we just fell back on some test mastering I was playing around with. Certainly not claiming that this is a highly professional job by any means, but it’s as close to what’s in our heads as we can get.
In terms of distance from the material etc — yeah, that is a pretty horrible part of it, knowing when to let go etc. Taking a week or 2 away from the recording straight after tracking is pretty crucial, and just trying to stay as objective as possible. Next time around I’m certainly keen to have someone else take a look at the mix side of things, we’ll see I guess.

I am not a fan of the 5.1 surround sound used for music, not sure how about you. But during few initial listens to EIF that idea suddenly spurt onto my mind, that album in 5.1 could maybe brought another overwhelming dimension to the listening experience...
The way I view music is that it’s a stereo artform. 5.1 would probably sound quite weird — although I guess for the more layered parts it could be effective. Would be a bastard to mix though, haha.

What albums productions do you see as real influence, something that you can learn of or just astounding productions worth mentioning for their significant mark on Death Metal? On the contrary what’s definitely a no—no production—wise?
The early Morrisound productions are all fucking amazing, even right through to albums like Angelcorpse’s ‘Inexorable’ and Suffocation’s ‘Despise the Sun’. Some of the Mana productions are really nice (not so much the latter outputs though, or at least to my tastes). I really enjoy a lot of the Swedish studio sound — Berno, Bergstrand, Nordstrom etc. Cult of Luna’s productions are immense and really great on the ears, although of course not death metal. For me, and for us as a band, it’s crucial that bands come across sounding like how they would in the room. Warm, acoustic sounding recordings are something to strive for with this genre, as lately, everything’ has become so digital and fixed sounding. That shit is an insult on the ears. Maybe if I wasn’t a musician who was so used to the recording process I wouldn’t have such a harsh opinion on this matter, but honestly, almost every album these days is just so processed and fake sounding. So I guess for me no—no’s with production are drum samples that sound like type—writers, drums that a quantised and aligned to a grid (so transparent, and just sounds like shit), and the ultra ‘clean’ and sterile mixes. Extreme music needs to sound extreme — or it at the very least needs to sound real.

I don’t know how intentional and conceptual it might be, but truth is all your three album covers have various contours of man, human body parts interweaving through the artwork and similar colors are used. Jamie! Time to reveal the secrets. Also how much is the lyrics of inspiration here for the art? Will you give it a try few albums later to get some Pantone ‘endorsement’ deal like renaming one of their brown swatches to Ulcerate?
Yeah, not intentional per se, it just comes from the lyrical subject matter — which has always been the surrounding human condition. The colour thing is also not intentional, just something that I’ve gravitated towards subconsciously. I guess I have very little objectivity with this kind of thing, so it’s always going to be a little self—indulgent. But I think first and foremost, the album art does reflect the mood of the music, so regardless of palette, it’s doing it’s job! I would like to point out though that the inner panel art for all 3 albums is pretty individual, and something I spend a great deal of time getting right.
Lyrics are the be—all—and—end—all of the art as they provide a context from which to work. Naturally, the lyrics come from the music, and the art comes from the lyrics, so everything is inextricably linked. The words on the page tell the story, and the music informs the delivery and tone — which I then try to illustrate via the art.

When we did the first interview, I got a great response about it from a guy named Goaters, he seemed to be great fan of the band. Later on his name ended up being listed as one of Ulcie members. What’s the story, how he did fit into the Ulcerate org? Any stories from his participation in the band? I’ve heard something like he fucked up some of your gigs because he set up some things differently or something. Anyway how much people were able to fill in the shoes for the 2nd guitarist spot? Having someone capable as Oliver, with a real metal name (the Saint one really needed an opposition) and really being a fan fired into the music you create; it couldn’t get much better, hm?
We found Oli just through various shows and him always showing an interest in what we were doing. He learnt a track or 2 and recorded him jamming it, and from there the rest is history. Up until this point his task has been solely just learning material, with the occasional live show here and there. Not sure what the rumours you talk of though are? But yeah, everything is working out great, it’s really tightened up the second guitar slot, something we’ve always struggled with other members.

This one is really something I would like to know. In almost all of the reviews you are compared to Deathspell Omega. Aside of the fact it’s a killer band, I don’t see this comparison too valid, what’s your opinion? Sure there can be found similarities, in my opinion maybe even more on OFAF due to the dissonance going on there but I definitely see your background somewhere else, do you? One of my friends have called you Immoguts, although you stand pretty much on your own with EIF, are Immolation and Gorguts the bands you would agree on as being the important influence? The Coming Of Genocide had also Hate Eternal traces for me definitely.
Well it’s a valid comparison for a few of the parts on the album, but it’s not intentional at all. Most of the album was written before either of us started to really pay attention to DsO. There’s possibly just an overlap of influence and ideas and intentions between the 2 bands, I’m not sure. But yeah, Immolation and Gorguts have obviously had a large effect on us, given that we inhabit that kind of sound. But we are trying to do our own thing, and the more we write, the more I think we distance ourselves from any band. Hard to say, time will tell I guess. But the earlier material definitely wears its influences on it’s sleeve a lot more, but that’s unavoidable when your like 21 just starting out.

It’s quite some time actually, but to me The Coming Of Genocide demo was a big promise for the future then, the potential was evident and already with OFAF I got more than I could’ve ever imagined and asked for. How do you view this Death Metal onslaught you created back then, what were you striving for with that demo?
We were starting to think along the lines of what we’re doing today, but there was a lot more emphasis on being tight and more classically death metal sounding. There’s bits and pieces of experimentation with melody and rhythmic ideas, but as I said before, we were just starting out trying to find our footing. The demo itself was purely to serve as a promotional tool, and for us to actually hear what we sound like. Production—wise, it was very minimal — for example the drums are mic’d with a single mic. The idea was tight and clean as possible.

What you think of following drummers and would you say they have some particular contribution to the style?
George Kolias
Very tight and very fast, great technique.
John Longstreth
Awesome technique player, and a pioneer for introducing different ideas into the standard 3 or 4 beats that death metal drummers use.
Brandon Thomas
Not familiar enough with his output to have a really solid opinion.
Alex Marquez
Kinda same as above, I’ve only really heard ‘Retribution’ with him on it — and it’s got that really, really solid backbone and sense of beat placement that lacks in latter day extreme music.
Derek Roddy, for Derek Roddy I would like to know your opinion on his ‘jazzy & improvising’ talent, since I think he is first and foremost a Death Metal drummer, when attempting at some improvising stuff it always sounded to me miles away from what it should be, it was like hearing him count than just letting the feeling and skill flow out.
Yeah, he has exceptional feel for blast beats that is really unmatched — and it would have been nice to see a couple more Hate Eternal albums with him. The jazz stuff I’ve heard him play sounds like what it, a death metal guy playing jazz, not necessarily a bad thing though. It translates awesomely through his DM playing — the bits and pieces on ‘I, Monarch’ for example where he drops the pace a little makes for some killer sections.
Alex Hernandez
The master, and possibly the best drummer to come out of death metal — not in a conventional technique sense — but in terms of creativity and beat placement. Also, his (or Immolation in general) ability to go for the slower groove rather than just constant hammering should be applauded and emulated more often.

Jamie, I must admit the beginning of Drown Within is completely melting actually one of the countless albums peaks right at its opening. Could you describe how have you come up with something so huge? Were you sure this one is going to kick off the album? When it comes to song order could you give an outlook on how have you picked up the songs when choosing their place on the album?
The hugeness just comes from layering — counterpoint and instruments playing off one another. We wanted something slow and lumbering to kick the album off, and hint at the dynamic content of the album (using the clean, haunting section after the first riff).
The rest of the album’s ordering sort of flows on from ‘Drown’ — ‘Everything is Fire’ was the obvious closer, and we just slotted in everything else by varying the pace and making sure the mood travelled well over each song — that there was no disjointed—ness.

What is the old Ulcerate vocalist, James Wallace, up to by the way? Does he recovered and doing some bands? Is he still keeping an eye on Ulcerate? Hope he does like the new album and so does Ben I believe.
He plays drums for a black metal / rock act called Creeping. We’re still buds, seem him regularly. I know Ben’s into the new stuff, most of it was written when he was still doing shows with us.

Jamie, time to close the talk down till your next album. Hopefully next time we will talk here about your shows in Europe and maybe the USA. Just keep on moving the Ulcerate thing, you guys made Death Metal do a step forward once again with EIF and that’s how it should be. Thanks for you time and input! A conclusion to this chapter is yours.
That’s the plan man — by the time we get back from touring this year we’ll be looking at album #3, we have no plans to soften the sound or dumb it down. Hopefully too we can get to the US in the next year or so and really start to get a roll on with touring.
Thanks again for the interview Jan, appreciate your efforts!
Cheers
Jamie]]> Diabolical Talks xml-rss2.php?itemid=7 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:07:54 +0100 CHAOS INCEPTION - Hellfire Blasts Detonating xml-rss2.php?itemid=6 Hail the new blood!
Originally conceived in June, 2009.
PDF version of the interview (old design).

Hey Cam! With which musical vision you’ve started Chaos Inception and how was the album material taking its form? It seems the album was written very smoothly over the course of a year in fact, wasn’t it!? I hope you still have your batteries charged and Chaos Inception won’t turn out to be one album band like Fleshtized...
Hey man first off, thanks for the interview and sorry for the delay in getting it back!! Work and school has been crazy!!
Well the CD was written over the course of about 6 months. When the band was formed, Matt and I already had a few songs written, or at least collections of riffs. So it was only a matter of weeks before we had a cohesive setlist down ... we actually played our first show with only 4 original songs. In the very beginning we played a few covers to round out the set. After a few months we had most of the album written. I certainly hope that CI maintains some steam ... all of the members are 100% dedicated, which turned out not to be the case with Fleshtized there towards the end.

How’s it been like jamming with Garry and Matt and putting music together? Are these two musicians any different in a way from what you were used to form your previous band mates?
Playing with Gary and Matt is great, we mesh together quite well. Chris too, of course, is a very seasoned musician and everything flows together nicely.

As for the music, how do you personally find the Chaos Inception music direction new, inspiring and challenging in terms of feeling and way of playing in comparing with what have you experienced in your past bands?
Well in my case, my previous band was Spinecast, which I feel had some good heavy shit, but nowhere near as fast and technical as CI.

How have the roles of each member in the band evolved since band’s inception and how it’s given now aka who appears to be main music writer, arrangements tweaker? Who has taken care over the lyrics content, by the way? I hope to Death lyrics will be as explosive as the music.
Out of the ten songs on the album, Matt wrote 8 and I wrote 2. Matt ends up tweaking most of my arrangements, which is fine because he is the superior musician. We all contributed to the lyrics, but Chris and Matt had the biggest share. Gary wrote the lyrics to “Regicide” and I collaborated with Chris on the two songs I wrote.

The speed! With the musical potential Chaos Inception have in its ranks you are attacking highest speeds in Death Metal while not omitting the song composition superiority at all. How important is it for you not to compromise the speed while still being capable to write songs that have a thrilling sense and not loosing direction? What bpm max did you peak on the new album?
Gary and I have long been a fan of what many people consider “excessive blasting.” We had talked about wanting to have a band that was blast-centric since the mid 90’s. We certainly strive to maintain (or exceed) a level of speed similar to bands like Origin, Krisiun, and Hate Eternal. A lot of people want to talk shit on bands like us because there is “no soul” or some such BS, but take a look at the success of the 3 bands I just mentioned. I think they are doing just fine. Since you asked, the peak BPM was on “The Scourge Infinitum.” I believe it was 244 (one footed at that) but no not quote me on that.

And also how about the guitar shredding velocities how much pushed Matt himself in that field on the record, the competition & motivation over there is quite strong, isn’t it, ahah?
Matt can certainly shred it up...his sweeping in particular is great on the album.

Could you say what are the most extreme songs on the album, you know those songs you went just wow when you were writing them since you just broke up into a space you didn’t think it was possible to? Did something like this happen or was composing of the new material a completely pro executed Death Metal dexterity? What songs are you looking forward to play live and why? You will have to come to Europe, Cam!
I would say that “Regicide” and “Pig Flesh Decimator” are the most extreme songs, based on the quantity of blasting. Both songs are probably 95% blast. I love it. Our current live setlist IS the album, so I look foward to playing them all!!! And yes we would love to play Europe, perhaps in time!!

Which bands are the real pioneers of the extreme speed in Death/Black metal and their contribution to the genre is sort of decisive for Chaos Inception?
In my opinion:
Morbid Angel (their early influence on every member of CI is strong, fuck what any haters say, Morbid Angel are to be credited with much of what makes death metal great.).
Hate Eternal (King of all Kings, really took it up a notch.). Vader, Origin, Krisiun, Behemoth.

While the speed supremacy is mainly a priviledge of the US/Brazil bands, what you think of the Scandinavian old DM classics, do you find this style, legacy of certain bands any beneficial for Chaos Inception?
I personally dont listen to a lot of old Scandinavian stuff, so I can’t comment.

Generally said, aside of the speed and extremity, how much attention you pay to musical elements which could and make Chaos Inception’s music more diverse – the Mithras-like solo overtones in Collision With Oblivion or Morbid Angel soulful soloing. Where are all these inspiration coming from? Do you see some more potentionally undiscovered fields for the Death Metal genre to go aside of speed?
I think the most important things for death metal bands is to just write good songs. There’s so much fucking garbage out there.

The sound of the album doesn’t seem to be harsh as the demo Collision With Oblivion track had or generally Spinecast/Flestized/CFW productions were but it’s even more dark and huge, this was pretty much aimed I guess, but could you explain it a little bit more why have you avoided of that kind of sound and what were you looking for ?
By the way, is there any explanation why Fleshtized, Spinecast even Convergence From Within sounded kind of similar on their albums, those marks of strange harsh raw sound these bands went for. Nothing wrong about that, I love it, just out of curiosity.
Well the difference in the production is because this was the first project we recorded at Stargate Studios with Lance Wright. The previous stuff had all been recorded at a different studio that, while decent, was not set up for death metal. Lance is a death metal musician and fan himself, and it shows in his production. Regarding the sessions, we recorded everything to a click...guitars were actually recorded first, then drums, then bass, then vocals. Everything took about a month, but most of that was Matt going back and tinkering with stuff, trying different sounds, and messing around with re-amping. Gary recorded the drums in 2 days, and I recorded the bass in a day. Most of the drums were done in one take.

As I sort of more or less follow you since the Spinecast debut you seem to be switching instruments a little bit. Why have you retired playing drums in Spinecast after the 1st album by the way and switched to guitar? How have it come you pursue quite a variety of instruments? Are you able to play another instrument besides guitar/bass/drums?
I switched from drums to guitar because I wasn’t really that great of a drummer. I just started drumming for fun and it kind of evolved into me playing drums in Spinecast full time. At the time, Lance was playing guitar in Spinecast and he was a great drummer, so we just swapped out. We traded gear and everything. So now Im pretty much just playing bass full time, but I still spend a lot of time on the guitar, just messing around as well as writing.

Momentarily what instrument are you focusing the most on in terms of mastering & improving it technically and compositionally as well? You know, those smaller things you feel need to go better.
Bass, without a doubt. On the next album I plan to do more in-depth stuff.

Generally what’s the drive which keep you going and pursue the Death Metal territories on? Why is the Death Metal genre, music in fact this worthy for you?
Death metal has appealed to me since I was 11 years old. Im 30 now and still love it just as much, if not more. It’s the darkness, the speed, and the challenge.

What you have in store next? What other musical projects or whatever are making you busy? What happened to Spinecast - there was an album planned to be released I think...
I am concentrating all my musical efforts on CI right now... Spinecast is basically no more because the members live in 3 different states. But there is a new band called Kings of the Killing Field which I played bass on, and contains other Spinecast members as well. The debut CD for that just came out.

We are nearing to the end, just run into album release details, how is it looking with the release, how many songs you put together, will there be any surprises on the album - ‘some’ cover? At which point – label, artwork - are things ‘stuck’ now?
Everything is done for the album, it is all in the label’s hands at this point. It is supposed to be out in a matter of weeks. There are no covers on the album....just 10 originals. (News is, the album will be out in fall -ed.)

Your opinions on those albums:
Cannibal Corpse – Eviscerated Plague: I was pleasantly surprised by this album ... it’s their best since Vile IMO.
Monstrosity – Millenium: One of my favs of all time ... so tech but so catchy. Jason Morgan is such a good guitarist.
Origin – Antithesis: My favorite album by them. The non-stop wall of snare and double bass is awesome.
Hate Eternal – Flames & Fury: Solid album, but I prefer King of all Kings.
Ulcerate – Everything Is Fire: From what I heard on Myspace i like it a lot. I plan to pick the album up at some point.
Krisiun – Apocalyptic Revelation: Love it, and probably my favorite Krisiun album. I have a signed copy LOL.
Morbid Angel – FFF: My third fav from them behind Covenant and Blessed. The atmosphere and speed on FFF is great.
Immolation – Close To A World Below: Not my fav ... I like Failures much more.
Fleshtized – Here Among Thorns: Awesome, and totally underrated. One of my top 10 albums of all time.
And if there was one more album you could add yourself, which one it would be?
Vader - De Profundis: Way ahead of its time in terms of speed and songwriting. Such a great album.

Thanks for the time, Cam! I hope Chaos Inception will fucking rise and reign! You truly deserve it for all the years devoted to extreme music whilst perfecting your skills and talents! As my friend Olivier is saying for years - Death Metal Eternal! Hails!
Thanks a lot man.]]> Diabolical Talks xml-rss2.php?itemid=6 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:06:49 +0100 DIM MAK - Deadly Strike Of The Past, Present & Future (pt. 1) xml-rss2.php?itemid=5 Conducted by Jan & Saint.rap
Originally conceived in August, 2008.
PDF version of the interview (old design).

Hi there Shaune, being chosen as a victim of our interview, we would like to start the stream of questions with this one. You are known for many people as a guitarist who abounds with one of the most original guitar styles. From our point of view, you do belong into the league of guitarists like Trey Azagthoth, Doug Cerrito or Denis D’ Amour. All those players have started their paths somehow and have been influenced & taught by other guitarists before they have come up with a more original brand of playing of their own. Tell us about your beginnings, please. Since when have you been exposed to listening to music? What genres and bands have introduced you to the world of music and metal later on? Have you got any musical education? Was guitar the first instrument you have ever played seriously - what has fired the magic, which has made a guy called Shaune Kelly to go and pick up guitar?
Well, first off thanks a lot for putting me in those leagues. It’s been a long hard road... I was first introduced to the guitar by my father. As I was growing up my father was always playing loud electric guitar. So I think he really implanted it in my head early... He played a lot of Beatles and Stones and some original stuff too. Early on I was hearing what he was listening to and not into music much yet. It was around when I was like 15, my aunt and uncle took me to an AC/DC concert and I saw Angus Young shred it completely and took a liking to hard Rock/Metal guitar playing. After that concert I started collecting metal records and practicing everyday... Judas Priest, Scorpions, Accept, Sabbath, Hendrix, Iron Maiden got me started which turned into the heavier stuff Metallica, Venom, Nasty Savage, Anthrax, Slayer, DRI, then on into the heavier darker realms of Kreator, Sodom, Bathory, Destruction, Pestilence etc. etc. into Death Metal. It was in the Metallica days, that I really began to practice hard and started to realize I wanted to be in a band seriously and did. I think the fact that my dad was good and always playing sparked me off early on. He showed me my first metal riff in Victim Of Changes by Judas Priest.

As we have found out, yours and Scott’s beginnings are connected with an allegedly heavy-speed-punk metal band called The Beast. Can you elaborate a little bit on the style of the band and the band in general? How did you met Scott? And how about the rest of the band’s members, did they participate in other bands worth mentioning after The Beast broke up?
Ah yes, The Beast... That was some fun stuff. It was like horror speed metal punk... Scott was more into like Rollins, Black Flag stuff and The Misfits back in those days. They were actually getting quite big at one point as Johnny Z signed them to Mega Force records. There’s a compilation record out there called Born to metalize that they were on before I got in the band. It was crazy because I was just like 16 playing with these older guys. How I met Scott Ruth... I was jamming with Brandon Thomas as a teenager in his basement. We were good friends... Brandon got an offer to join a pretty big band in the area called Dirge which was hard core. Anyway the bassist felt so upset that he stole Brandon from me that he hooked me up with Scott Ruth’s number who just happened to be looking for a second guitarist. I gave him a call and they gave me a tryout. We lived in the same town so I saw Scott around a lot at the local music store Jacks. I loved The Beast so I was excited about it. I ended up getting the spot and they called me ‘the kid’. I’m not certain what the rest of the guys is doing at this point but that was a great start for me being able to play in bars at 16 and get to learn from the older cats.

It’s kinda crazy, but during the time when you and Scott were in The Beast, we started to attend school. How would you describe the scene and its spirit back then to people like us? How do you look at those times nowadays, after all those years? Which bands do you remember as the real mates who were fun to play and hang out with?
It was a lot more genuine back then. All the music was fresh and just being created so things were more interesting. These days I hear shit that I’ve heard twenty years ago rehashed again and again. It was a cool vibe. It was really cool to actually be a part of the whole damn thing from the very beginning of Death Metal and still going. It makes me proud. As far as bands that were great to play with there were too many to name. I think we played with all my favourite bands at one point or another so it was just killer all around. We were very tight with fellow Jersey heads Revenant and Suffocation. That’s some cool bros.

Let’s move to the Ripping Corpse chapter. What things made you to start RC? How did you come up with the band’s name? According to the Kreator’s title song or that’s just a coincidence? What were your goals with the band in the beginning?
Well The Beast broke up in a pretty ugly way so me and Scott decided to stick together and make a heavier project... It was no coincidence. When I heard Pleasure To Kill by Kreator I had realized the direction I wanted to head. A more brutal fast way with twisted riffing and melodies. I loved it. It’s funny, I actually asked Mille from Kreator at a show we played with them if it was cool to use the name and he said yes. So I got the stamp of approval from the main man even... The main goal in the beginning was to make the sickest most musical shit possible... Evil Brutal and sick but with some talent and skill. We were really just doing whatever we wanted to do.

It’s interesting, where/how did you find other band members?! After all even Ripping Corpse demos are original and deliver so to say above-standard musicianship. All members were incredible musical individuals which we suppose were not so common at that time, was it? Finding such people and clicking together perfectly always seems like a miracle anyway...
Well like I said I grew up in the same town as Scott and Brandon Thomas was just one town over so I knew those cats already. Erik Rutan as well. As far as bassists we did some searching and found some interesting dudes and ended up with another local Dave Bizzigotti. Dave later left the band and we found another killer player in Scott Hornick. Also from Jersey. He knew of the band and liked the music. So after trying out a bunch of guys he was the one that stood out. He’s the bassist in Dim Mak now. He’ll be on the next record. I would say there was a lot of good musical talent in New Jersey and New York at that point which made it easier. Bands and styles progressed fast in a circle the past 20 years.

What is the story behind taking a second guitarist into Ripping Corpse? How did you met Erik Rutan and when did he join the band? Was there anyone handling the second guitar duties before him? Erik somewhere said he literally came to your rehearsal and said he is going to be your 2nd guitarist, is that for real?
Well sorta. He came to our rehearsals a lot... At first it was just me on guitar, we released the first 2 demos with just me as I didn’t even know Erik just yet... I met Erik through Brandon... They were friends and lived in the same town... Erik used to listen to me and Brandon jam a lot and me and him began hanging out a lot as well outside the jams. We became best friends pretty much. He had a guitar laying around so I started showing him riffs and techniques I was learning and he picked things up well. He finally got to a level where he caught my eye and expressed interest in joining the band so I got him a tryout. At the tryout he did great and the rest is History he was our second guitarist.

Well, there you have all the Ripping Corpse releases and below are special tasks concerning more in-depth look on every release from RC discography. In first case: Could you, please, provide comments on the interesting moments or whatever you can associate with recording and stuff of all those releases? Can you give us your opinion on how was the band doing during that time, how was your fan base and the name of the band growing, how did the relationships evolved in the band during those periods, whatever...
Secondly: How would you comment musical, compositional growth of the band? How about your musical experiences, the understanding to music as whole, the rituals of music creation, your first own playing techniques rising, changing & evolving during that era? There we go: Death Warmed Over - Demo 1987 - Splattered Remains - Demo 1989 - Demo # 3 - Demo 1990 - Dreaming With The Dead CD 1991 - 1992 Promo.
Death Warmed Over was the birth of it all... I remember recording that demo for like 200 bucks at some home studio in New Jersey... It was a good time when thrash metal was thriving and growing... As far as our skills at that point we were young and just forming a style so it’s a little mixed up. It was apparent to me that we were on to something though. Splattered Remains was another very cheap recording... We did that live on the fly for like 150 bucks. I think that’s when we started coming into our own style and direction. It was a little more solid and brutal. I remember the engineer stating we were going to hell for writing that music, LOL. It eventually got pressed to Vinyl in some underground demo series. We began to really kick ass at local shows at this point. Demo 3 was when Erik got in the band and we started becoming pretty brutal live and people were really starting to notice us. This was when we also got a Manager and the ball started rollin’... This demo got us our recording deal with Kraze records. I think with each recording we were getting better... Ahh, Dreaming with the Dead... All the songs I wrote growing up became a reality. Getting to record with a good budget and great studio was awesome. It really felt good and like something better was gonna happen. I remember many good times around that time as we were playing like crazy at that point. Getting to mini tour with Morbid Angel was around those times and the fans were just sick. I’ll never forget that.92 promo This was after everything was lost... The label we were on went bankrupt and the reality crumbled. We were shopping for a new record deal again... I think this is our defining moments as far as musicianship and where we wanted to be musically this is my favorite stuff still... Also This is when Erik was going to school for music engineering so he was actually an intern at the studio we recorded at so it’s like his first hand in production... In actuality these times were grim as it was when Death metal was dying due to many bad bands. It was oversaturated with death metal. This demo never did get us another deal so we ended up recording another record ourselves. There was actually another full length album we never finished but were in the process of recording... I have the rough mixes of the songs and it’s pretty disappointing we couldn’t complete it. I’ve got 12 rough incomplete tracks of me Brandon and Scott Hornick in my archives. The reason it never made the streets is the band combusted during the recording. The reasons were personal but lets just say it was time to end.

Can you cast your mind to the recording process of the album and share some memories? Why did you decide to make the production of Dreaming with the Dead yourselves? What was the role for sound engineers during recording/production process? Could you, please, also put some light onto the fact that despite the time when filthy sound was behind majority of productions your album showcases incredibly clean, kinda dry (I call it kokain-driven sound) yet dreadful, dynamically brutal sound? Was the production aimed fully to sound that way or did lack of experiences leave its spot there?
To be honest at that point I didn’t know anything about the actual recording process. We were young and green. We looked at a bunch of studios and picked what appeared to be the best one... It turned out to be Quantum sound in NJ... The house Engineer Bill Klatt had done some pretty big things so we trusted him... We just kinda went by ear as he never recorded anything that brutal at that time. Bill did a decent job. Recording processes were different back then. They didn’t have the luxury of Pro Tools to help. The shit was all live so you tried to get shit right fast. We did go for a brutal but clean and clear sound yes. Of course it could always be better but it was a good first record. Some people love the sound and some hate it so it’s a mixed bag. I was happy with it at the time and it is what it is.

In this context, could you unfold the way you set up the guitar sound and stuff? Eric is a great Marshall fan, which we could say about you as well, at least on behalf of your Marshall cap. What Marshall model do you use and consider the best one (why)?
I personally like the artist and the JCM 2000 as far as Marshalls go. The reason why is the crunch of the EL 34 power tubes. They have a heavy tone.
At that point me and Erik both used the Marshall artist heads. They weren’t very loud heads however only 30 watts so not the greatest live choice. They did rip in the studio however. Now these days I’m endorsed by Laboga amps out of Poland and I’m very happy with the sounds I’m getting from their Mr. Hector stack. A very Marshall like sound with total balls. I’m happy to be on board with them, their amps are total metal.
Could you think of things causing an impact on music creation, to which extent were Ripping Corpse influenced with any “state of mind changing” substances, and now we don’t mean just alcohol (you certainly drunk seas of it, ahah), but how about LSD etc. - judging just according the thanx list within the artwork of Dreaming with the Dead it must have been insane times. Which goods did you use and abuse and what for an impact it was leaving on exploration your music and sound? Well, many RC riffs sound definitely kind of three dimensionally to say the least. John McEntee told me that Brandon could get drunk pretty much before a gig and perform ungodly anyway, hehe.
Ripping Corpse was all about the mind altering experience. Insane and Twisted Absolutely. It was made for drugged out freaks. We all definitely enjoyed our share of beer and pot but it reached a stage where there was much LSD and other things induced. We developed some of those guitar techniques on Dreaming with the Dead by tripping and playing for hours just drifting off into regions unimaginable. It became addictive just tripping and jamming in this trance like state. So that’s part of the whole thing without question. I wrote 85% of those songs under the influence of mind altering substances. I was really able to create some disturbing shit all fucked up like that and come up with some original shit. I remember we actually did a show and we all tripped balls. It was intense. All I remember is I saw a pack of wolves in the crowd running wild at one point as we were going off on stage. Seriously, crazy shit.

How about the band’s management during all those years? How were these things working in the band before and after Gunter Ford’s arrival? How did the cooperation with Gunter Ford originated? It’s needless to say, that G. Ford was working for Morbid Angel in that time and there was Altars of Madness CD released on Earache and around for 2 years. He certainly had enough contacts... How did Ripping Corpse benefit from that in terms of album’s support, promotion etc.?
Well he got us the record deal and did get us a lot of hookups but Gunter didn’t last but for a year or so. Having a manager at that point really helped us no doubt but I think it became difficult once he got Morbid Angel too as far as what he did for us. We still talk to Gunter on occasion now and are friends but that’s that. There’s not much to be said.

Finally, how was the labels’ response towards Ripping Corpse? In the end you signed Maze America, which showed as quite fatal lately, have there been any other options besides Maze America? Speaking about Morbid Angel and your management above, were you also negotiating with Earache?
At first it was awesome. The label had us come to the office and made everything seemed great. They promoted it well and did everything they were supposed to except the going bankrupt part. It seemed excellent. At that point Earache was also interested and Digby actually flew over to see us practice. He offered us a contract but it wasn’t quite up to par. It was lame... When we requested some changes he basically backed away totally so we ended up signing with Maze. There was no way to tell us what sucks. Just out of nowhere we were told Oh You’re fucked the label went bankrupt. They ended up paying us with CDs so for a while we all had huge amounts of DWTD. They’re all gone now, thanks to you sick fucks.

Just a slight turn, does Dave Bizzigotti play somewhere these days?
Yes, Dave still plays bass. He has various things going on somewhere in California. He’s still playing bass. He runs one of the Ripping Corpse pages on Myspace. I run the other. I still talk to Dave now and then and he’s doing well and is still curious about what’s going on.

We know, this is going to be some dead horse beating for you, but we can’t omit the theme of Ripping Corpse break up. In fact the Promo 1992 was the last official release done by Ripping Corpse ever. From what circulates around internet, you have put together material, which sounds fantastic and unmatched by others even these days. It’s how it is but what were these inevitable reasons leading to the band’s split? There was the fact Eric was leaving the band, did that also make its part in disbanding?
All I really want to say about the breakup is that it was just time to end it man. It’s a touchy subject and a bummer. We worked long and hard and got little in return so tempers were flaring. It was very disheartening and combustable. As individuals we were also heading in different directions we just reached a point where something had to blow and it did. There was a huge blowout and the band broke up. That’s just how it went and that’s about all I wanna say. We’re all still friends now but as I say Let that Corpse Lie.

Tell us about following happenings after Ripping Corpse break up - to which extent were you (de)motivated in creation of new music? What for the heaven and hell were you going through as a band and as a person till you have released the Dim Mak demo in 1996 and album afterwards? Was the demo entitled Cobra’s Eyes or was it nameless?
In a way I felt freed and reborn. Not that I didn’t like Ripping Corpse but I just wanted a totally different project with a whole new way. I was totally motivated and never really stopped writing music after Corpse. I was just undercover for some odd years crafting new things... I was feeling deprived as a person of what I needed to do and that was play music. I knew I had to come back even more powerful... That first demo was nameless and it was our first experiment into a different sound and style. It was another inexpensive recording so the sound wasn’t that good but it had some fresh elements that sounded good. I tried to always make sure you knew it was me playing although the riffs and arrangements were different than Ripping Corpse. It felt good to get back in the game really at this point.

As of today, when one says Ripping Corpse, what comes to your mind first? What were the most memorable moment(s) of Ripping Corpse career for you and what things do you like to remember even nowadays?
I’ll be honest it’s kind of a bad nightmare to me. To this day we’re still getting shafted on that album. There was supposed to be a big re-release on Relapse records but another wrench got thrown into the works by Maze again so that’s not happening. I feel it just never got the justice it deserved at the time. As far as what I want to remember it was all the great shows we played with all the great bands and killer fans. I’m still here now doing sick shit so it’s just cool that people do remember it and appreciate it for what it was. I’m glad I could make an album with that kind of longevity too. But people must realize I am still here now and still playing in DIM MAK and HATE ETERNAL. I’m still here and more brutal than ever.

So next thing which followed was new band, new name, different line-up. How did you hook up with Dennis? As for the name, was the reason for its change the fact, that you have not reached the deserved success with Ripping Corpse and wanted to close that chapter or did you rather reflect a will to move musically/conceptually somewhere else - sort of a cleansing process? Focusing on lyrics from the Enter the Dragons’s song Drunk with the Demons: The streets are my graveyard - The gutter is my tomb - My mind it grows weaker - There is nothing I can’t lose - All my honor all my meaning - All my youth all my worth - Burn me bone to cinder - Release me From this earth. Could we look at these verses as a partial expression of your escape from the past?
It was a cleansing process... A change was needed. A complete makeover so to speak. It was time to move on into the future with a new band. It wasn’t for anyone but us. It wasn’t a sell out or aim to please the masses. It was to me a stronger more heavier forceful style. Less insanity and more condensed aggression. As far as those lyrics yes and no... All of Scott’s lyrics can take on double meanings and you can take them how you want. So maybe but that song in particular I believe was about what a crackhead whino types life is like as he was drunk with demons.

You picked up a label Dies Irae from Singapore for the release of Enter The Dragon. Why such a huge jump to Asian grounds? It had to be quite clear, that the label wouldn’t do much flexible job in distribution and all those things in the US, Europe. How do you value Dies Irae’s contribution to Dim Mak? Is there a chance to obtain Enter The Dragon somewhere? How about a re-release of that fantastic album for those who were sleeping in that time?
Well at that point we shopped that demo around and to be honest Dies Irae offered us the best recording deal. It was an awesome one off contract. We basically got everything we wanted except the distro. They were very much like Willowtip in that they cared about the quality of the music. Maybe not a big label but one that cared. As far as getting Enter The Dragon you probably won’t find it anywhere but Ebay if you’re lucky... I was actually thinking of asking Willowtip to do it as they just released Intercepting Fist so we’ll see what happens.

Why have you picked up the album name according to a Bruce Lee’s movie?
After Ripping Corpse I started really getting into the martial arts and reading tons of MA books. I started reading some of Bruce’s books and they really just started making me think a lot and actually started helping me in other areas of life besides the physical aspects. I think his writings were genius and his martial arts style was just totally complete. The whole Jeet Kune Do concept is a way of life really incorporating anything and everything that works as a means to simplify anything and everything in life. It’s much more than just that but you get my drift. It was just such an awesome concept that I decided to take this way and use it in my music. Hence came Enter The Dragon. The song Spirit of the Dragon is a dedication to Bruce Lee and his works.

Also was there a special reason for picking up gold and red colors for the booklet of Enter the Dragon? If not, still the digipack looks fantastic.
That’s a perfect example of why we went with Dies Irae even the package was nice... Actually Scott did some research and found out what important invitations and such look like in China. It turned out to be Red and Gold. It just has a nice royal look to it.

Production and sound of Dim Mak’s albums belong to another interesting topics. First album was produced by Stephen Deacutis, second album by Eric Rutan and the recent one by Stephen again. How come you joined with Stephen together for Knives of Ice? Anyway what was the reason of your return back to Sound Spa Productions?
Steve Deacutis is actually Erik’s Mentor as far as recording. Erik’s started his career as an intern with Steve... The main reason to go back to Steve this time was just the ease of doing it as Steve was just 15 minutes away from us. We didn’t have to travel far at all. I always liked Steve’s sounds and knew he would do a great job. I think we will be doing the new Dim Mak down in Florida with Erik again since I now live down here. At Mana Studios.

The following album Intercepting Fist has become much more heavier and faster than Enter the Dragon. Overall the music leaned towards a more extreme metal direction than its heavily-hard-core-influenced predecessor, even the Ripping Corpse legacy was breathing there much stronger than on the previous release. What made you to move to the more extreme branch of expression and as said, to a partial return to Ripping Corpse sound and techniques? How do you personally perceive those two albums, what does the achieved evolution between them mean to you?
I think it was more the recording than anything. I did make it heavier material but along the same lines I thought. On Enter the Dragon I only did 2 guitar tracks total so it wasn’t quite as dense in the guitar department as Intercepting where I did 4. Also you had Hate Eternal’s Mr. Rutan making it sound heavy as fuck so I think it just sounds heavier due to that but still similar in style. I remember on Enter Steve made everything clean and clear and that’s how we wanted it but we knew later on it wasn’t heavy enough and made it a point to get that stuff heavier on Intercepting. I personally like ‘em both. They sound different from one another and I thinks there’s a good progression there between the two and it just showed me we still were onto something all these years later.

Brandon left the band after Intercepting Fist. In which state did this act left Dim Mak? You’ve played with each other since the beginning of Ripping Corpse and you must have had survived many ups and downs together. What for the hell could happen that Brandon left after all? But it’s being said, that sometimes it’s needed to clear air in order to start again, what is you relationship like nowadays? In our opinion Brandon was and will remain an inseparable part of Ripping Corpse and Dim Mak as he contributed with his unmatchable drumming style to the uniqueness of Ripping Corpse & Dim Mak’s music and his return could be just a matter of time as everything...

When Brandon left I was in disarray. I didn’t know what I was going to do really. Just like you said there was tons of ups and downs with the whole band but I think at the point where Brandon left he needed to to clear his mind. I still talk to Brandon on occasion but haven’t seen him in a while. I’ll just say I wouldn’t hold your breath to long waiting for a Corpse comeback or even Brandon back in Dim Mak. It’s just not gonna happen. John Longstreth is now our drummer and will be on the next recording.

On a musical note, what comes to your mind immediately when speaking out name Brandon Thomas? What is your opinion on Brandon as musician and how it is like to compose & play with such a drummer behind your back?
On a musical note the first thing I think is, Damn he’s got some drum skills. As a drummer I always knew Brandon was awesome since our first jam when he blew me away totally... It was easy with such a powerful drummer behind me to take control of the situation so to speak and really do it. He learned songs real easy and had great ideas to incorporate.. At first when he left I didn’t know if I could get someone to replace him because his style was so unorthodox.

Which way did you come up with the material for Knives of Ice, were there any differences in comparing with previous releases? How and when did you come to conclusion to start using drum machine during the composing process? When you look back at it, did this way of composing bring you any positive elements and experiences?
Knives Of Ice is my proudest moment to be honest. There wasn’t much difference in the writing style except it was much faster. I really feel like I finally accomplished my goal with it. After Brandon left it left me little option but to create some devastating shit so I needed drum beats at my fingertips and bought a Boss Dr. Rhythm 2 Drum machine. It’s a great tool for writing now and I still use it. Also because I didn’t have a drummer handy to jam with anymore either. Truthfully this method is how I will always go now it’s like pre-production at the same time. I really get to focus on the impact of a song and how the arrangement is going to sound when heard instead of played. Getting to digitally record it at home and listen back for days sometimes is how I decide whether a riff is worthy or not to stand the test of time. Having the drum machine also keeps my timing dead on.

What events have led to John’s arrival to Dim Mak? How would you describe having John instead of Brandon behind your back?
Like I said. I knew I had to play with a drummer who was unreal after Brandon. So in my mind John was the only dude I was hearing at that point that was just out of control good. I knew I needed John in my mind so I had a friend email him and ask if he would be interested... He was and turned out loved the material and was also a fan of Brandon. So it was to me a dream come true. The rest is history. We got together and jammed and we clicked real well right off the bat so it was perfect. To be honest having John back there is even more explosive than ever. I think his performance on Knives proved that and when I let Brandon hear it he was blown away so it has his stamp of approval as well. Johnny’s just a beast behind his kit. A total pro. It’s sort of like having Brandon on steroids.

How much did John contribute to the writing process of Knives of Ice? John is very well known drummer especially for his insanely fast efforts in Origin. On the contrary Dim Mak are kind of known as masters of groove. Knives of Ice turned out as a hyper fast album, to which extend was this extraordinary focus on speed intended when you started composing with drum machine and no bone & blood drummer in sight?
As far as writing drum beats I basically told John to use the drum machine tracks as a timing guide but enhance them. If he had a killer idea we used it and he had a lot. He had total control over what he was going to play and played what he wanted to. The focus on speed was intended. Not because of the drum machine just because I knew Brandon was gone and I wanted to kick it up a notch. We covered the groove and slow route so I needed a rush of speed added. John also really made my vision a reality just being able to hit those inhuman speeds. His drumming is just another level of intensity.

Speaking of the groove Dim Mak has always had, nowadays accompanied with the lunatic drumming velocity, would you agree on us that you have kept the groove on in the music even if it blasts the most inhuman way? The use of two snares did help this a lot, in the end, when there are blasts going on (and not just in this case) two snares bring in incredible catchy drum patterns, it might be complex and hard to play but after few listens the catchiness and even the groove at the high speed shines through incredibly bright. Stupid but necessary question, are you aware of this and was it aimed? Not many, if even any, bands did achieved this in so extreme branch of music...
I think the groove is still in tact even in the speed. I’m glad you noticed. I make it a law to make your head bob so even in the fast stuff usually holds a groove. I am aware of the catchiness of the dual snare drumming. I’m not certain of its origin however. When I met John he had the two snares set up so it must be a drummer thing. It was also a goal of ours to be rememberable so we try to get some really rememberable moments in the studio. I told John treat it like Neil Pert treated Moving Pictures and I think he really did by adding all those crazy tricks. He really laid it on the table on Knives. I just remember laughing in awe when we were tracking the songs because he was just so damn intense. It was funny.

You’ve mentioned Moving Pictures by Rush. Are you a fan? How would you evaluate this band and overall their musical influence/inspiration they have had on you in a way? What you think of Alex Lifesson’s style of playing? Which albums belong to your fave ones and why?
Oh yeah I’m a huge Rush fan. I must say the older stuff however. Man, the first time I heard YYZ it just blew my mind. The precision timing and licks of all the instruments played on such a clean sound is just amazing. That’s when I started taking a liking to drums when I heard Moving Pictures. Neil Pert just shredded those songs with perfect timing and sick fills and beats. They had a huge influence on me as far as the shit you could actually do in a song. I loved Alex’s playing. I think he was kind of underrated in a way... He had amazing chord progressions and some pretty twisted leads. I would say Exit Stage Left is my favorite Rush record. They basically did some of their best tunes there. And of course Neil’s drum solo just tore it up.

As we mentioned, the two snares incorporation was great idea but can you tell us the complete background behind it?
I know when I met John he had two snares. I’ve seen it a lot now. I think only a drummer could give you the complete background of the whole thing. I do know John wanted to just really do some over the top stuff utilizing two snares. The effect was the same for me when I first heard it even. It’s pretty mind blowing stuff. It added a certain intensity level regular blasting didn’t cover. John has a lot of skill and is capable of playing lots of different things.

Fast parts of Dim Mak music remind of Hate Eternal to certain measure, this similarity dwell in the way you and Eric structure melodies and harmonies, would you admit there’s a similarity in your styles? In fact when Eric joined RC you did teach him all the stuff, didn’t you? That must have had an impact somewhere and actually it can be heard. Which things have you had in common with Erik as guitarists and on the other hand in which way did you complement each other, overall how did the “chemistry” work between you two?
I think there’s a similarity in the intensity level and speed no question. But I think topic wise and Scott’s vocals make Dim Mak a separate entity. Yes I did teach him the Ripping Corpse stuff and he learned it very well. We were also like best friends so the chemistry was great between me and Rutan. It still is now in Hate Eternal. Basically the way we compliment each other is by absolutely destroying together as a unit. Just the dual guitar attack is always killer and when you make it a dual death metal attack it’s even sicker. We just feed off each other live.

Admitting the influence Erik had drawn from you and Ripping Corpse could also refer to Ripping Corpse having a mark on Morbid Angel’s Domination, where Eric had been provided with enough space to compose and he has used that space phenomenally. Your point of view?
To me not really. If anything maybe the leadwork. I thought Erik really tried to write material that sounded like the morbid angel way and accomplished it. I thought his tunes were some of the standouts on that record and he did capture that morbid feel. The recording was awesome on that one so it was great to hear that guitar sound. Erik laid down some nice leadwork on there and really complimented Trey well. I think overall that’s a Morbid Angel product.

It appears as if Dim Mak has found real support for Knives of Ice in Willowtip. At last! Tell us about this story. How do you communicate with the label and how do you feel about having finally an album on a label which really cares and has the adequate tools to support the band properly? Does being under a well-running label have positive influence on the creative spirit within band?
Oh yes it’s a good feeling when your label cares. Willowtip/Jason Tipton is a very cool guy and treats us awesome. Willowtip is a great little label. The story is I was sending my drum machine demo around online to some people to hear and Jason caught wind of it and contacted me. I sent him a copy and he liked what he heard so he offered me a contract. That’s basically about it. We signed a 2 album deal so you’ll see another Willowtip /Dim Mak product. Jason is not just some business man he actually likes quality music so that’s what makes it great. He understands it.

As far as we know, you and Scott are big Bruce Lee fans and all what concerns eastern martial art maybe. What has made martial arts and stuff appealing that it fired a deeper interest in you? Do you find the wisdom useful for the daily routine one has to undergone everyday? Are you so big fans that you started to practice Do Jeet Kune?
As I was saying earlier yes it does. Bruce’s writings have helped me bigtime in regular everyday life. His self help theories and insight has been very useful for me. When I become in doubt I always turn to Bruce’s writings. It’s very empowering. I think the overall challenge and competition is what draws me to it. Just overcoming obstacles in essence. Not to mention I like fighting. But Bruce Lee was way more than just kicking your ass. I like the way he wrapped so much knowledge into his way. It’s deep stuff. I have practiced some Jeet Kune Do techniques on my own time at home but not in a Dojo. I have a heavy bag to pound on at home.

And overall how about the balance of your physical and spiritual sides, spiritually you may fulfil yourself with Dim Mak a lot, but physically are you any active in some sport, gym or whatever? How do you keep yourself in shape physically and spiritually?
Well luckily I’m in good shape from working manual labor for 15 years with Scott. I do some working out at home with weights so I feel strong but I’m not bodybuilding or anything. I’m not much into sports except MMA and Boxing... Playing live onstage with Hate Eternal is a whole body and mind workout. Shit’s very intense and takes some serious stamina to stand onstage while going off like that for over an hour in those lights. It can be grueling. To stay strong spiritually I usually read Bruce’s teachings or other Martial arts books. One I can recommend is called fighting spirit by Bruce Thomas one of Bruce’s students. It’s a great read. Here’s a link to that: Bruce Lee by Bruce Thomas.

Mentioning martial arts, do you follow some ultimate fights too?
I’m a huge fan of UFC and most MMA. I watch it all the time. At this point though there’s so many new fighters that I don’t follow as closely as back in the day. But I do still follow some choice fighters like Rampage and Fedor. I’ll always watch ultimate fighting and boxing just for the competition of it.

Can you describe your attitude and access when playing guitar and composing? What comes sooner a riff or the idea? You have evolved a very original style of playing, which is simply distinct and easily recognizable from other players. After the years is it hard to come up with something still fresh and not repeat yourself? Shaune “ghost hands” Kelley, I’ve read that somewhere and it immediately got stuck in my mind.
My attitude would be explosive, deceptive and dangerous like a ninja. I try to let everything I possess out when I play.. All energies positive and negative. Usually The riff comes first as I write most of my stuff right off the cuff. I usually just play and when I hear things I like I record them and keep them safe. Sometimes I get a whole song in one shot other times I just get a couple riffs. But I never sit there and plan out a riff ahead of time I let it come naturally while jamming. It’s not hard to stay fresh for me luckily I utilize so many techniques that I always got something up my sleeve. I try to treat it like a 20 year long song that way I’m always on the right path continuing the journey. Actually Ghosthands is one of the many forms of Dim Mak the martial art. It’s one of the more dangerous styles. A buddy of mine started calling me Ghosthands and it just stuck.

It’s often being told that as man gets older, gets more mature and calmer. We don’t know how much it relates your personalities but musically you seem to go whole different way, album from album, it turns out all more extreme. Could you give us some thoughts about it, think of all those stimuli that are not letting you down so you keep coming back with even more savage music?
Heh, Heh damn right!! I made it a goal of mine to never write pussy shit and be a poser. To get more and more explosive and sick, faster and heavier and just more skilled in doing so just like a fighter would. I always wanted to be that one MFR that never sold out and remained as brutal as it can get. Why??? I don’t really have an answer except that I’m kind of a pissed off serious type person all the time that likes violent and brutal things. Maybe I need anger management... Who knows but I’m keeping that shit as sick as possible until I stop. The way it should be.

Enter the Dragon derived lots of musical aspects from hard core, as time went your metal dedication has overruled, do you have any explanation for feeling it this way? Hard core and metal differ yet they can be cross-overed to benefit from each other. How does these genres inspire you and what asset do you think these ways of expression have brought into music as such?
I love hardcore music as well as Extreme Metal. The (real) live power and energy it holds. I’ve seen some awesome hardcore shows in my time where the energy in the pit was just fever pitch. There’s a raw real attitude in there that I dig. I wanted to add some of that into the sickness of death metal and see what my blend sounded like. I’m a fan of a lot of old school and new hardcore so it was not really to out there for me to add some to my style. After all I started out in a speed punk band. It actually brought in a whole new crowd of guys that like both styles of music so it’s beneficial.

Why Dim Mak has never had a second guitarist?
I really just wanted to show what I could do alone on this project. I just feel the material doesn’t require dual guitars. It’s straight forward and personal and allows me to do what I instinctually know needs to be done for my music.

What’s next for Dim Mak, Shaune? You said you have some material together even before joining Hate Eternal. Is there something to come out any soon?
Yes we’re recording another record for Willowtip at the end of the year. So you will see another Dim Mak album hopefully early 2009 I have all the material written and I feel confident that it will deliver a powerful, exciting musical attack. It will be the same lineup as Knives with Me, Scott Ruth, Scott Hornick and John Longstreth. I took a new approach in my writing style this go around. I laid down a solid rhythm foundation first for every song. Then went back and finished all the harmonies for all the songs I have. It was like structuring a pyramid. It kept it totally fresh for me and just was a lot of fun. So I’m totally looking forward to recording it and I’m glad Willowtip is putting it out. I have a few surprises in store as well. So keep your eye out for that next year.

This interview was done before you joined Hate Eternal, which is still just incredible for us! Why did you refuse to join so long? Anyway, how are you enjoying all the intense touring and travelling, playing, getting known to new places, visiting Europe?
It was always a tough decision to join Hate Eternal just because of the move, job, friends and family etc.etc. It was a big choice to make. Just very tough. I just finally reached a point where I wanted to really do music professionally and tour and do what I was meant to do. Dim Mak became more a project than a playing live band so it was just time to make it happen. Mr. Rutan would call me once a year with the offer and this time just happened to be the time. I was struggling in depravity in New Jersey and really had no band just a project. As he said certain things happen for a reason. Now that I made the choice I’m down in Florida, I’m loving life. Playing with Hate Eternal has been an honor and just a killer experience. Getting to see the world was amazing and getting to brutalize Europe was awesome. The fans over there were incredible and really made it a good time for us. It really makes it all worth it and I see now why it is my path. I’m very appreciative that I got to experience this in my lifetime. As Bruce Lee said: The key to Eternal life is first one must live a life worth remembering.

You are also doing the vocals on stage with Hate Eternal, how come and how much difficult is it to handle those duties for you? You also were doing some backing vocals in Ripping Corpse, so it’s not completely new to you, but still... Are you planning to do some backing on the new Dim Mak eventually?
Actually I did do some background vocs on Knives of Ice, the title track to be exact. That’s me and Hank Veggian (ex-Revenant’s singer) doing the backgrounds. With Hate Eternal I have quite a few spots live. Sometimes we’re playing so dam fast that it can be difficult to concentrate on the two things at once but it comes pretty natural to me. With Hate it’s also about making the live vocals sound sick so it’s just fun to let loose on the mike. There’s a lot of double tracked hi/low vocal spots in Hate Eternal so it was somewhat required of me. I do enjoy it and we’ll see about the Dim Mak it depends on whether Scott writes any background spots.

We’ve been talking about how it’s like to play with drummers like Brandon Thomas and John Longstreth behind your back but we kind of omitted Jade Simonetto. What is he up to as a drummer? How would you say he’s different to the other two drummers and what they have in common? In fact everyone of these drummers represents a different generation at least by age...
Jade is a phenomenon. His skill level for his age is pretty uncanny. He’s really got something going on with the combination of death metal and grindcore. He’s pretty much the perfect drummer. He’s young, he’s hungry and he’s got a lot of talent without being a prick about it. He’s really not that far off from Johnny meets Brandon. He treats drums like an athlete would and constantly practices endurance techniques and ridiculous double bass footwork. It’s pretty impressive. Jade’s already rather devastating at 24 so he’s got so much to bring to the table in the future and he’s very humble. He’s definitely a machine like John but has tons of groove like Brandon. That’s how I would put it. Another awesome drummer in the making.

As for the real life. What is the person Shaune Kelly like in daily life? What do you do for living, what things inspire and motivate you to survive and continue in fighting with life?
I’m just a regular guy in real life and onstage. I make sure not to act like an asshole to people. As far as what I do for a living right now I clean movie theatre seats for a chair company. It’s great money and probably the best job I’ve ever had. Before that I worked with Scott Ruth in New Jersey doing landscaping for over 25 years planting trees and shrubs. It’s nice to not have to totally bust my ass anymore where I’m at now in Florida. As far as what motivates me. I don’t need much I’m pretty motivated by nature but if anything I think it’s mostly music and art. I really love being able to create sick twisted music. I feel lucky to have this skill and plan on writing much more.

In the end, Shaune, there is not enough words to thank you for the interview and the effort you had to make in order to answer all our questions which have been stuck in our minds for ages. Nevertheless all we can do is to thank you gratefully for everything, for the patience, for the talent and for the incredible music, which especially nowadays means much more than “music” as you display a pure creative spirit of your soul in its great essence and strength. Only few are capable of that. Keep it coming. The last words are yours. THANK YOU!
Well I wanna thank you back for the in depth interview and say it’s refreshing to me that someone is still listening. I’ve been here doing this stuff in the shroud of secrecy practically for 20 years now yet it still finds its way through the cracks to people like you. I’ve been doing this for you guys all along and I’m glad I never gave it up and either did you. Thank you. I’ve still got plenty in store for you all don’t worry about that. The new tracks I have are more furious than ever and we’re gonna deliver another beast to you all soon. Thanks for all the support over the past two decades and I’ll see you out there.

Ripping Corpse @ Myspace (run by Shaune)
Ripping Corpse @ Myspace (run by Dave)
Dim Mak @ Myspace
Hate Eternal @ Myspace
Dim Mak Interview w/Scott @ Metalreview]]> Diabolical Talks xml-rss2.php?itemid=5 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:05:20 +0100 HOUR OF PENANCE - Extreme Sonic Bombardment (pt. 1) xml-rss2.php?itemid=4 – Giulio (guitar) was the one to answer, many thanks!
Originally conceived in May, 2008.
PDF version of the interview (old design).

Giulio, it was just a really tiny bit that divided already awesome Pageantry for Martyrs album from the ultimate precision achieved on The Vile Conception album, wasn’t it? How do you think you have continued your way to perfection with the new release? It can be ‘smelled’ there has been conjured something bigger than ever in your existence. How much involvement, progression & sweet as well as your creative fulfilment lies behind The Vile Conception?
Well, lot of things have improved since Pageantry for Martyrs both songwriting-wise and musicianship-wise. We achieved lots of experience thanks to the opportunities we had in the last two years, as the tour with Krisiun, we grew up as a band in a more professional way, becoming more mature I would say. That’s what basically lays behind The Vile Conception. Moreover, we had an important change of line up, Enrico founder and main composer of the band left Hour of Penance in 2005, so everything you can hear on the new album has been written mostly by me with the help of my band mates. So The Vile Conception can be considered the chapter of a renewed band by most of these aspects.
When we returned from the tour with Krisiun, we decided that a lot of things had to be changed in the band, starting from our style. What you can hear in The Vile Conception is definitely the result of a lot of work to let the new album sound perfect almost under every aspects.

Your songwriting has become top-notch over the years and you’ve become utmost effective in this area. What mistakes have you learned to avoid during the years and which things you keep constantly evolving? How do you envision the songs structures so that you make everything comes and fits into right place whilst still being that effective in retaining musical extremity at the highest level yet memorable without inevitable dull repetition, which I suppose is something you truly deprecate!?
Yeah you’re right my friend, the new formula we adopted for the new songs is trying to make good technical and memorable songs. We tried to avoid lots of clichés during the songwriting session, trying also to discover and use some different elements we did not use in the past and to break some boundaries. Obviously we didn’t sit at the table and said: The new songs must sounds like this or that, the new songs slowly showed up in a total spontaneous way.
Just for example, track four of the album Drowned in the Abyss of Ignorance was entirely written in almost 2 or 3 hours, and it’s one of the tracks that people prefer most on the album, and that’s definitely satisfying because it means that our new style is winner.
One thing I kept in mind while I wrote the songs was that I was writing Death Metal songs , and to be properly called Death Metal they should have some requirements, as to be violent and in your face. I love the kind of Death Metal that hurts you like a bomb-storming.

Man, I totally indulge in voice patterns on the new album. It’s not only about pitch range versatility but the overall tight phrasing is jaw dropping, not mentioning the inhumanly rampageous machinegun like cadency in places. Could you clarify a little bit how the vocals were treat by the band respectively by Francesco for this release and what doors closed you were able to open and literally enhance HoP style with having such a Death metal Pavarotti in the band?
Ahaah, Death metal Pavarotti... Francesco will be happy reading that! Well, we parted ways with our ex vocalist Alex basically because when we were practicing on the new songs we noticed that his voice was not proper for the new stuff we were writing. We were lucky to find Francesco in a short time, almost one month before we entered the studios to record the 3 track promo CD (which included the songs Misconception, Slavery in a Deaf Decay, Hierarchy of the Fools), at that time I wrote down most of the vocal lines for the songs, which now you can hear also in The Vile Conception, and Francesco was the only one able to sing in that way. From then, Francesco started taking care of the vocal lines of the new songs, obviously with a little help of mine, because since I’m the only composer in the band I had a perfect vision of how the songs should sound. Francesco is without any doubt the best singer we’ve ever had, he has a unique style and his approach on the new songs is one of the main features of our new album. I must say also that nowadays it’s not easy to find such a dedicated person to the music.

When it comes to recording. How have you evolved the band’s vision regarding the sound outcome over the years?
We always took the direction towards a professional sound, that lets the songs sound brutal but at the same time clean in order to let the listener catch every aspects of our music. I think that this helps also the album stand out from the overwhelming sea of releases... Most of the listeners want to hear what you’re playing, and moreover our style definitely needs that kind of production. Being a friend of Stefano and working with him at his studios, the 16th cellar, is also another aspect we can’t forget; it was like recording at home.

How did the recording as such worked out in studio this time – finding out the right sound for everything and stuff? How much time did you spend on tracking each instrument including vocals? What would you consider most difficult and smooth moments in the studio? Did you feel any pressure due to deadlines or studio budget, limited time respectively?
Recording Promo 2007 before helped us a lot in finding the correct way to record the new album after, gave us a complete vision of how the songs will have sounded on the album. The recording sessions took almost a month, we had some delays here and there caused by some computer problems and some routines problems but everything went smoothly. I think that the most two important moments in the studio are the choice of the right starting sound and the mixing session, in both you can fail . We did not have any kind of pressure during the recordings, and since this was the fourth time we entered 16th Cellar Studio with our friend Stefano at the mixing desk everything was really cool. We’re looking forward to enter the studios again soon!

In the end, you had prepared more songs than the actual 10 that were nailed onto the album, did those songs made it to the recording stage or did you drop them out before? Which song on the album did take most effort to be completed and which one was composed surprisingly fast for you?
Yeah we had a total of 14 songs ready before entering the studio, so we had the possibility to choose the best ones in order to let the album sound like a perfect thing. I did not have problems in writing the songs... The songwriting of The Vile Conception took almost a year, and everything went smooth and as I told you before in a spontaneous way.
Some songs as Drowned in the Abyss of Ignorance took some hours to be completed and I didn’t change anything on it before entering the studio, while I spent more time on Hideously Conceived or Misconception.

Could you pick up your most favorite song on the album and talk about it since the very inception and progression onto its final shape? What concrete things do you love it for etc.?
Well it’s hard to pick a favorite, but as far as I can tell you the song I had more fun to write was Slavery in a Deaf Decay because it was the first real new Hour of Penance songs since Pageantry For Martyrs. When I started back in writing the new stuff I did a couple of songs to let the other guys hear how the new songs and our new style could be. One of them was Slavery in a Deaf Decay.
I started with few ideas, and then the songs spawned after 1 or 2 hours in its entirety. What I love when you are in the songwriting mood is the flowing of the ideas, you start with a simple idea and then after other ideas comes and you have the full song ready to be recorded.

You have incorporated such a speaker blowing and eardrum shattering sound almost bordering on a detonation effect sort of. This is a pretty distinct part of some songs like Misconception, Liturgy of Deceivers it sounds like if a bass/tom are hit at once in a way, yet I doubt, the tom plays the part here, it seems to be bass only, do you know what I mean?
Eheh, it’s just a bass pad, it’s a common sound used in the studios to boost the bass in certain part of the songs. Most of the bands nowadays use that kind of sound if you pay attention, I would say it’s just a production-trick, eheh.

The Vile Conception has been sub-labeled as a Death metal manifesto against those who rule the earth through the power of lies and lead humanity to an inevitable end. As far as I know, besides music you have left nothing to any random brainwaves and there is a firm concept behind everything concerning the album, which includes the name of the album, the cover and the lyrics. Could you, please, run into details?
Exactly, there’s an overall concept behind the lyrics of The Vile Conception. We truly believe that the causes that are leading humanity to an end come from the interaction between politics and religion, their shoulder to shoulder policy of betraying people to achieve economical interests and not only. Just watch the TV, holy wars everywhere around the world...
The major issue is that most of the people nowadays still believe in false gods, in heaven and hell, while we have proven through the sciences that everything has its explanation.
As for the cover artwork of the new album, the awful woman that is raising the dead child to the sky is the personification of the Mother Earth, while the dead newborn represents our current century already doomed to an inevitable end.

Could be something improved when it comes to the fact that instead of focusing and deepening historical failures, mankind would rather took some enlightenment of them in the present day and avoid failures done so many times?
That could be a solution, but we’re impotent. We live in a free world where freedom is only a mere condition given by those who have the real and full control of our lives. Living in a sort of mental-cage is not the condition to achieve improvements...

On the topic of immaculate deception, it’s absolutely scary that a christian world, we are sadly a part of, is based upon such a primitive lie, pure nonsense, since the beginning. Actually it’s so frustrating seeing how easy it is to manipulate people and make individual-less sheep of them and in fact this is just a bottom line of the whole case, isn’t it?
Yes, you’re right. I would say anyway that in The Vile Conception we are not focusing only on christianity but on every religion, with the exception of buddhism. The immaculate lie is only a small chapter of all the lies every religion has...
Could be the world a better place without religion ? I would say defenitely YES. Just pay attention to the islamic countries, they’re sadly third world countries because of the moral their religion teach. People should open their eyes and realize that we ‘re not still in the medieval times.

Oh and by the way, you are living in Rome, next to Vatican. How it’s like to be so close to the core of real unpure evil of this world? Have you noticed they have done some exorcism symposiums few years ago? It’s just incredible in 21st century.
Honestly, I must say that the major fault, that helped the church growing so much and literally making joke of us, comes from their followers. How can you still believe in exorcism in 2008? Obviously the church uses that kind of tricky magic to gain more followers, luckily we’re not part of that kind of people. As the bible call them Sheep... What more exact term to describe their followers?

Could you make some retrospective look starting in the time when you got into metal of Death and name albums that were crucial for you in terms of breaking & shifting musical extremes and perfection to new levels since that time to the present day?
Well, for the fact that I’m quite young (22 , I’m turning 23 next June) I missed (unfortunately) most of the Death Metal of the 80’s and 90’s. I’ve obviously listened and bought most of the releases of that period, but I can’t talk about Death Metal as someone who really lived shoulder to shoulder to this kind of music since its inception. But as far as I can tell you there were loads of bands that really changed my life... I’m not that kind of metalhead that has only 4 or 5 favorite bands, each Death Metal band has something interesting for me, and the positive thing is that today I still discover new interesting bands.
I started listening to Death Metal when I discovered
Sepultura’s Schizophrenia, from then I felt in love immediately with Death Metal... I still listen to that album on a regular basis. Talking about my personal influences, I can name a few that really changed my mind and obviously my style of playing Death Metal... Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal, Suffocation, Nile, Angel Corpse and the almighty Cannibal Corpse of course.

Generally speaking, in which aspects could be the perfection and extremity in Death Metal pushed further? Do you still see paths unexplored? And on a theoretical base, do you see any ultimate border for the genre concerning that perfection and extremity?
Talking as musician, I think that Death Metal is one of the few kind of music that doesn’t have barriers. Although some Death Metal bands are similar, every year we have new bands that have something new in their style... I remember the first time I came across the first Spawn of Possession CD I was stoked by the freshness and originality of their musical purpose.
Honestly I have to say that I prefer mostly those bands that have perseverance in what they are playing... I don’t like the wave of newcomers Death Metal bands that embed in their music all that experimental stuff...
You guys in the Czech republic know what I’m saying, eheh. ;)

Where do you see Hour of Penance within the frame work of reaching musical perfection as individuals as well as a band? Do you have an idea which ways & lands of the extreme musical perfection of Death metal are you going to explore in near future?
Well, for me Death Metal is a way to challenge against myself so we will try to push forward and improve more every single aspect of our music. We’re totally satisfied with The Vile Conception, but I think that we still can do better and better. So that will be our primary aim.
As I told you before, we don’t like those bands that introduce experimental stuff in their music, we will keep playing this music without any kind of compromise.

How do you manage to be still motivated and inspired as a musician after all those years, you got a regular job I suppose, these daily routines are not really creativity supportive so to say, what is the way of how you literally charge your creative batteries?
Well, the fact that we had and we are having today a good feedback and a solid fan base it’s one of our motivation of still playing this kind of music. We don’t have a job, we are all students so we still have the time to focus on music. The power to keep playing Death Metal comes exclusively from our life and our feeling, hate is our real fuel.

How’s the situation regarding second guitarist in the band coming along? Any permanent member or live addition in sight? How about Francesco handling this duties since he’s actually a guitarist, however, I don’t have a clue how good.
Unfortunately we didn’t find a good guitar player so far so we’re still playing as a quartet since Enrico’s departure. Francesco is a good guitar player but it’s really hard for him to play and sing along the new songs. Moreover, I like the way Francesco interact with people at our shows, so you will never see him playing the guitar too in HoP.

When it comes to musical education, from my research I know Francesco has got some education backgrounds in music and maybe is still active student, not sure here. Generally, how are things with the musical education among the HoP members? What do you think is good/bad on being musically educated or just a self-taught musician? For how long do you guys play your instruments actually?
With the exception of Francesco, who studied music in the past, we’re all self-taught musicians. Being educated is obviously good but being a self taught musician helps you play and write music in a more personal way in my opinion.
I’ve been playing guitar for 7 years, same for Mauro maybe a bit more for Silvano.

Let’s talk about some worthy losses Death Metal has brought to you. Death Metal has certainly enriched you a in many ways being it either as a musician or just as a personality, but is there something worthy/beautiful you have sacrificed because of Death Metal and you don’t regret it at all or do you?
You have always to make compromises to keep playing this kind of music, that’s the real counterpart of being a musician and playing in a Death Metal band. Regarding material loss, money is something you have to forget, eheh, and this is something that most of the underground bands could tell you but it’s not a big deal because although you’re wallet is empty, you’re definitely a happy musician (this at least for me). This is one of the worthy sacrifice .
Another sacrifice is leaving your girlfriend home while you’re on tour... You know, disappearing from home for weeks could cause you some problems, but till today we were lucky with that, also because with the exception of the forthcoming tour with Origin and Impaled next June, we didn’t ever left Italy for over 2 weeks, eheh...

That’s it, Giulio, wish you real success with the new album, your dedication and hard work over the years should be finally fully rewarded with this one. Keep continuing your way to perfection of the most extreme musical expression ever, Death Metal, hope to see you on the road! Final words are yours.
Thanks a lot Jan for your interview, your support, and your cool words regarding Hour of Penance. Hope your readers will find this interview interesting, eheh, keep up the great work with your webzine!
For those who didn’t do it yet, check out our new album The Vile Conception out now for Unique Leader rec. and be sure to check out us on tour this early summer with Origin and Impaled too! –Giulio
]]> Diabolical Talks xml-rss2.php?itemid=4 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:00:16 +0100 PERVERSITY - The Reach Of Death Metal xml-rss2.php?itemid=3 The new album Beyond The Reach Of Heaven brings no trends, no light, no prayers to life as it’s real Death Metal essence doesn’t allow such artificial manifests. Check it out and now read on!
Originally conceived in May, 2008.
PDF version of the interview (old design).

Hi Dodi, how’s the band doing? We were not in touch for some time and I am kinda interested how you and the band have gone through all those changes, line–up problems over years. If I remember correctly, it was in the period of the 2nd demo Personal, when you had relatively problems with line–up and overall musical direction was not heading towards the way you & former singer were intending to...
Hi Jan. At the moment everything is OK with the band but we are incredibly eager about our new CD. Things are a little bit dragging now but the CD should come out definitely in the middle of March (came out late April – ed.). I know the album release will help us all to find new inspiration. As for your question regarding my persistence, I’m sometime wondering about it myself, hehe. I have gone through a lot of exchanges in the band and I have lost quite a lot of time with some ex–memebers. I learnt, for example, a drummer all songs for half a year in 1998 and he quit afterwards. When it comes to the period around Personal demo, the music indeed was not evolving according to my taste. There was a problem with drummer again, all of the sudden he lost interest in playing blast beats and creating brutal music in general. He kind of stepped up to the side of other two new members and Martin and I became a minority part within our own band. It was really difficult to find any new musicians during that period, at the end of nineties. Either one wanted to play and was really fired into underground music and stuff but lacked of musicians skills or vice–versa. Not to paint it all black, nowadays I like the Personal demo period. The music itself is all right for sure and has found its fans. Myself, I have learnt a lot from those guys and this goes also for the other following members which went through the band. 19 members have already come and gone through Perversity. A real troop, I think, hehe.

Two regular albums have followed after the Personal demo. When you look back at those times, what do you see, how would you describe & revalue this period? To which extent did you appreciate the release of your debut album through a foreign label and what kind of benefit it was for the band? And how about the band’s musical direction itself at that time as well as in comparison to a musical vision of your own?
The period between 2001 and 2004 was beautiful. I am really drowned in nostalgia when recalling memories of that time. We were like brothers to one another. It all started when I found drummer Marek Stašák and then guitar player Dan Kochaník and bass guitarist named Martin Kukoľ. Marek and Martin were starting playing their instruments but they made great and fast progress. In January 2002, we recorded our debut abum In The Garment Of Lust and began to spread promos around. We received a contract from Empire records and almost shit our pants but they were “gaming” with us only and nothing happened. An offer from French PQR was a nice surprise. It was a real entry into realms of worldwide scene for us. I regret a little bit the fact that there was no re–mastering of the record done as PQR intended to do it at first. It could have helped in reviews for sure. I still have some of those reviews where we are compared to Cryptopsy or Sinister, hehe. Second CD was released under the belt of indigenous label Forensick Music. We have received a better offer and we went with them. PQR were interested in continuing our cooperation as well but they sort of stagnated and soon went bankrupt. They made to release only 5 albums. I am proud of both albums appropriately and remember of our ex–members in a best possible way. I was satisfied to the max with the musical direction the band took on those two albums. Certainly they are comprised of the most technical stuff the band has ever recorded and I had grown up as a guitarist properly. Dano was the best guitarist I have ever played with.
To sum this period up again, all members except the bass player Martin have left Slovakia and thereby the band as well. At one hand a pity and my grief, on the other hand there has a new phase begun for Perversity.

Man, we are turning into old beasts. Perversity grew up to the age of 13, time is running away fast. You are actually the only one original band member of the band nowadays and you still keep on going. Such a persistence is quite unmatched in Czech, I ought to think bands are giving up easily which is sort of cheap as in the case when bands are just one step from a real success and they give up being satisfied that they almost did it in fact. What’s your opinion about it, you have seen many bands rise and fall during all those years, you know. What’s hidden behind the urge that doesn’t let you give up and forces you to go on, where do you draw motivation and inspiration from?
I have never been waiting for problems to solve it–selves. When something broke up I immediately acted, phone–called and reorganized things. The band is like energy to my life. There are moments when things are turning really difficult. I’ve also been lucky that I have not to travel abroad because of my occupation and I’ve met my wife and found a family and this is inspiration and backing for me. At this stage the moving engine for the band is the new line–up. We are all real friends and brutal dark Death Metal freaks. Yeah!

Would you have some suggestions, know–how or longevity receipt for bands, which just stand at early stages of their existence, of how to solve problems any band has to face now and then so that it won’t endanger their existence too much?
It’s hard to recommend anything. It all comes from the inside of an individual, the way one behaves, sacrifices himself and basically what one needs from life. I don’t know what to advise.

You are releasing your 3rd actual album Beyond The Reach Of Heaven in a slightly changed line–up again. Tell me about the path that led to the creation of the material placed on this album. You will most probably agree on the fact that the current effort represents most sombre face Perversity have ever had. Incantation and Immolation inspirations have sort of replaced the darkened brutal Death metal Suffocation influence. Where has this obscure urge embodiment arisen in you and actually how enjoyable this ongoing musical eclipse in the band is?
It all started with drummer Martin Horgoš coming to the band sometime in May 2004. Again, I am talking about the drummer, but it’s the most important thing which matters for a band. He is actually the person who has initiated our leaning towards darker realms. At last I’ve got a drummer, who wants to play fast, uncompromising Death Metal and is able to execute it for real, hehe. But even before, in September 2003, after Martin left the band, the frontman position changed with a new singer Juraj Handzuš, who is the demonic element in Perversity. He writes profane lyrics and loves hordes devoted to blasphemy. Last addition is the arrival of young guitarist Robert Vanya so we could run into more extensive creation of new material. Hearing new songs I finally felt that we’ve started playing real metal, hehe. Since then on it’s all a joy.

WE ARE ALL REAL FRIENDS AND DARK DEATH METAL FREAKS. THE BAND IS LIKE ENERGY TO MY LIFE.

How have you come across your new guitarist? Could you introduce his musical potential and personality a little closer? You have told me that he is really drawn to the spirit of pure Death Metal obscurity. In which ways has he enriched the band musically and humanly? How do you complement and motivate each other when composing?
I didn’t know Robert. He is like 6 years younger than me. One of our good friends have introduced Robert to us. He made a good impression on us all. Long hair, Nile shirt and solid skills. He’s really into Immolation, Cryptopsy and Nile. At this state I am really pleased he is getting involved in singing and we are checking out how two voices could work for us. He even did vox completely on one of our gigs when Jura was not able to attend. Musically, Robert tends to make guitar patterns more technical whereas I would take it more to simple areas. I mean, not simple guitar riffs but more straightforward songs’ structure. We all really comprehend one another.

Beyond The Reach Of Heaven sounds completely underground. In fact you have never been attracted to really clear, almost overproduced sound and have always kept on the filthy cult underground earnestness in your sounding. How important is such a sound for an image you want your music to transcend onto listener?
I have really took highest care so that we avoid the typical Slovakian sound. I think we have accomplished quality UG sound. I like that a little bit plaguesome, filthy and beautiful sound at the same time and we will stay loyal to this formula.

How have the Reach Of Heaven intermezzo made it to the album? Why did you place a fragment of some cantata under the almost–album–title? Who is the original author and where have you taken the massacre sounds in the background? I think its pomposity, drama and darkness corresponds with the raw Death Metal brutality at its best, would you agree?
We tried to achieve exactly what you are talking about, to come up with atmosphere and give a listener some rest. It really appeared as a cliche to us to use it as an ordinary intro besides it has fit after the 6th song as an intermezzo nicely. Juraj was the one who brought it. He had arranged it himself at home, I don’t even know how he did that. We also used some keyboards record of our friend Mr. Hellmeczy and mix it all together. It sounds rather like of reach of hell.

According the title, should your album symbolize some deliverance of religious values? Can we consider it a nihilistic catharsis of Perversity members? It appears to me like if the Reach Of Heaven track stands as a dividing line between belief–questioning part ending on the album with song Apocalypsis and then there is a part of two remaining songs left taking listener sort of “Beyond” that heavenly reach, could one perceive it like this?
Nice to hear about how you perceive things and how those can be explained with some imagination. We did not have any deeper reasoning when tracking the album, we wanted it to flow well and keep being interesting till the end. As far as lyrics goes, the main idea behind is Death, spiritual suffering, heresy and darkness of human mind. We are not aiming to be a Satanic band. Through artistic expression we tend to picture insanity of this world, at least we try.

How much fun or necessity means lyrics–writing to you, is it hard to catch all the thoughts and transcend them into words? Could you a little bit approximate the lyrical content on the album or at least those two texts you have written?
I was probably writing like 80 percent of lyrics to this day but Juraj writes good enough lyrics so it’s become his job. Sometime I have to amend him so that we are not like Mayhem or Deicide, hehe. Lyrics to Gods For Us is about a man who has a right to choose of thousands of gods and religions and that poor man is not able to choose any single one seeing only chaos and suffering of mankind. Irresistible Destruction is about a spiritual fight, about angels, who rely on their master. As master sins, unable to resist sexual temptation, angels are being punished and whipped. Metaphorically it’s a look at reality. One can decline and fail in his life and his surroundings, close friends, will suffer. It’s also interesting in a way that, in the past, I wrote more socially–politically driven lyrics which suited more into at that time popular fetus style, I was not forcing anything out of me, those were just my feelings yet nowadays – along with our new direction – dark visions are coming to my mind. Certainly I will put some of those visions on paper.

As I see you shot a band–photo in front of a church. How about your personal belief, do you consider yourself an absolute nihilist? And how’s it with other members of the band? How do you perceive the existence of church around you? How strong is the position of religion in your region and in which ways it does it affect a normal man?
The temple is about 100 meters from our rehearsal room. We went out to shot some photos and spontaneously we came across that place. Myself, I respect religious people, who needs religion for themselves and I accept religion when it is able to help, there are people out there who need it. Religion has large impact here in Slovakia but I am out of its reach. But for example I do not see anything wrong with 10 commandments, it’s just general politeness. Mind and character is what is dominant and if these are bad there’s nothing that could help.

I must admit you have picked up an excellent cover for the album, could you please talk more about the pleasure & hardship of finding it? Were you actually having an idea of the cover? Tell us more. I can only say for myself, I love such art, I am able to look at it forever.
It all went smoothly with booklet and cover issues. Juraj’s brother has started designing bands’ CDs and stuff, he works under the name Digital–Vortex. Since the very beginning, he was aware of what we are up to for album’s design. I really like his work, the cover illustration looks like if it come from middle–ages, of the inquisition period. Booklet’s content looks dark as well. Good thing is we don’t have to look for a graphic in the future, we’ve got one almost in the family, hehe.

Chaos, darkness, epic, melody, (dis)harmony, catchiness, technique, straightforwardness, simplicity. I know I am kinda balancing on the edge but anyway, how do you try to work with those elements, merge them in the music? Which of those are important for you more or less? Did I omit anything you would add?
Certainly we want the music to have energy. It’s hard to say how a song should sound before you actually create anything. Many times, we agreed on making slow, heavy track and it sounded completely different in the end. Darkness and brutality, those 2 are our elementary points, which we are going to focus on in new songs. First we have to be satisfied with a song itself, which means we won’t tend to change anything dramatically after playing it 30 times. Songwriting is a spontaneous process.

When we try to sum it up, how important, eventually demanding is to incorporate a feeling into music and work with it for you? Do you divide the instrumental and feeling aspects in your music? How do you work & treat those ingredients? How would you re–evaluate meaning of those elements for the band as time went.
Personally, I can say that when I feel intensive tension inside me and my bloods is about to boil then I am satisfied. Same when coming up with riffs at home, I always play to the state that feels similar to aforementioned state. As we play the song in our rehearsal room with addition of drums and second guitar we tweak and arrange the song. We read lyrics before we actually start the ritual of song creation. We were not used to do it like this in the past. Music came first and lyrics was adjusted to the song afterwards. We are much more satisfied with the new album in this direction as well.

I wonder how is your attitude towards rhythmical section’s sound. I mean, all your releases carry a distinct bass sound, which is not really too common. Generally speaking, bass guitar is not effectively put too ‘forward’ as it could be in Death metal and many times it just uselessly follows guitar patterns instead of drumming. What’s your opinion?
I like bass guitar. It’s a beautiful instrument. Bass player could even make a mistake while playing and it will sound good anyway, hehe. Martin Kukoľ was the man who recorded bass on all three albums. Even–though some reviews were not completely positive everytime bass was almost always well–received. Bass is laid a little back on the new album but it still can be felt anyway. Martin is no longer a member of Perversity he has chosen a jazz path to follow. We have a new bass player since September 2007. His name is Slavomír Kovaľ, he’s my ex–class mate. He’s a fingers player as well and his style suits our music even more. We have been always lucky finding good bass players for Perversity. Some bands indeed don’t aim at distinct bass patterns, I have no clue why, maybe their bass players use one string exclusively, hehe.

I have no clue what’s the situation like in Slovakia – probably you are doing a little bit better than our country does – but are you aware of the fact there’s almost no pure Death metal the way like Perversity are able to execute it. Well, Martyrium Christi resist the test of time here and from time to time they smear this art with some living water. This silence is stylish for a Death reign but it’s not great for the music. I just can’t get why soulless brutality wins over music, which instead of guts and piggy shrieks has got a soul. Can you comment on the current state and say if you see future any better?
I know what you mean. I would appreciate more Death Metal bands to come out in the future. Personally, I don’t orientate myself in so many gore–grind bands. Yet this situation could help to introduce Perversity to hungry Czech fans and Grodhaisn could contribute to it as well. However Slovakia abounds with some pure Death Metal bands of well–known names like Dementor, Contempt, Pathology Stench. We can be lucky that there are great foreign acts coming up from time to time, to name a few: Dead Congregation, Impurity, Drawn and Quartered, 9th Plague, Dissenter. Polish scene is doing well, the spirit is widespread there.

Perversity as a name could appear simple, cliche and cheap for some and maybe it is however it’s still actual and to the point. Do you look at it similarly?
To this day, I am still surprised I haven’t found another Death Metal band with the same name. There is one in Australia actually, but those guys play some hip–hop dance floor. Perversity is a hell of a universal word, hehe. I wouldn’t name the band like this nowadays but I am satisfied with our name, for sure.

Same goes about the meaning of Perversity logo in terms of importance as a property and sign. When you look at it, what it means to you as a symbol or whatever after all those years? Haven’t you been thinking about some slight redesign?
We have not been thinking about changing our logo in any way. I think it will be with us till the end. It’s like a testimony of our history.

Material for your new album was recorded sometime around middle of 2007. The whole process of finding suitable label and releasing the art broke into 2008. Except the question how do you look forward to finally holding the album there’s another question at hand aiming at Perversity’s future and new upcoming material. What we are about to expect and what not?
Firstly, we will dedicate our time to promote our new CD. I can tell you that we’ve got one new song ready and we try to cover some songs. There will be the addition of two vocals coming with new material. I want it all more demonic and aggressive. All in all we plan on having fun and joy of our music.

From a listener’s point of view, what is your major musical joy? Where do you see Death Metal heading in the form we adore the most? Aren’t you lonely for the old good times in these Myspace days?
I receive greatest delight thanks to all those old albums which I am adding to my collection in CD format. This makes my heart really beat. Last things I’ve got recently are Gorguts’ Erosion of Sanity and From Wisdom to Hate, Dismember’s Like an Ever Flowing Stream and Indecent and Obscene and Unleashed’s Where No Life Dwells. These albums are simply jewelry of Death Metal. As for the new ones, I really look forward to new Suffocation album although it’s announced for an August 2008 release but I will gladly wait. Return of Pessimist has pleased me a lot. I don’t have the new Diabolic CD yet. Whooa! It’s a lot of great stuff. When it comes to Myspace, I don’t surf there too much yet it is a great opportunity of how to get your band’s work & name out. It can never replace the old times though, especially the atmosphere, which was surrounding the scene neither the hunger for new bands from then. I remember curb markets which took place in that time and where gathered the whole metal communion from around Prešov. Gigs were precious feasts back then. I even remember how I recorded metal relations broadcasting on our radio through a microphone of my old cassette player. You do certainly remember that too, Jan (note – yes I do, I have always got tapes to check out from the lucky fuckers that had a player with recording function because I had only walkman, brutal, ahah). Also in the beginning, when Perversity started, there were more fanzines and I had been receiving letters from our fans. Last year I found in my box just one, actually two letters. One was from a guy from Ukraine who doesn’t have internet and the other one, kinda funny, from a guy who’s sitting in some Polish jail and did want our CD. Anyone send me a letter too, hehe!

Dodi, I will stop tormenting you here even though I did enjoy that pretty much. Hope, your new album will get the recognition it deserves with its abyssal Death metal darkness and the band will be in this stable line–up creating hell on. Thanks.
It was a cool interview indeed. Thanks, Jan, for your support. I am really glad we have pleased you with our existence. Regards to all Death Metal fans. If you are interested in anything Perversity related or you can arrange a gig, feel free to get in touch with us. Check out our web or myspace as well. Ave maniacs!]]> Diabolical Talks xml-rss2.php?itemid=3 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:58:47 +0100 9TH PLAGUE - Superb Underground Death Metal Art xml-rss2.php?itemid=2 Originally conceived in February, 2008.
PDF version of the interview (old design).

9th plague. Tell me about where the name of the band comes from, in fact, who and how have come across such a great name for a band? It doesn’t get more darker! Has the name predestined the bands direction back then and do you still keep the meaning behind the name in mind as a band? Exactly, it doesn’t get more dark, because the very meaning of the name is “darkness”, complete and total darkness. It derives from the ten plagues of Egypt as mentioned in the Bible. The ninth plague was darkness. Check Exodus 10:21-23 for the complete explanation. We decided to use it because of its symbolic value. As our lyrics deal a lot with the darkside and the Occult, we thought it was appropriate. The name didn’t predestined the band’s direction because we already had that direction. It was more a case of finding a band name that would fit with the direction. The direction has always been the same though. And I was the one who came up with the name.

Let’s move to the idea of your debut album and its title Apocatastasis Reversed. Could you explain the meaning behind the title itself? I think the cover illustrates that meaning in all the infernal beauty but again in wider sense could the title be comprehend as “Values reversed” in fact? Is there also expressed any common vision which runs through album’s lyrics? “Apocatastasis” is a tricky word. You got it wrong in your question, but I corrected it for you, haha! But I’m not surprised. A lot of people get it wrong. And it was a bitch learning to sing it, which I do in the song “Infernal apocatastasis”. Anyway, it is originally a greek word and it describes a state of the world after the apocalypse. A state when everything that is “evil”, or perhaps I should say “non-christian”, is exterminated and the kingdom of heaven unfold upon earth. The thought behind “Apocatastasis reversed” is of course that this state is reversed. The christians did not inherit the world. Instead the hordes of hell were unleashed and exterminated all forms of religion. It has to do with the fact that nothing is predestined. Nothing is certain. Just because something is predicted in a religious book, it doesn’t mean that it will happen. As for a common vision, the album is not some sort of concept album, but all the lyrics are dark, occult or even Satanic, so I guess that would be the “common vision”.

The hellucinative portrait of the cover is kind of a Satanic idea, I would say, and so are the lyrical views citing Satan now and then. Could you put some more “darkness” onto your personal philosophy - what Satan, Satanism stands for you personally and how about other insights on other gods and believes inspires you and takes part in creating your spirituality or may I say “Ego”? Sure, you can call it a “Satanic idea” because there are demonic creatures killing off christians, moslems and other filth. But the concept of “Satanism” in 9th Plague is used mainly as a tool, a weapon if you prefer, to agitate against organized religion. There probably was a time when I leaned more towards satanism than I do today, but I guess that was part of my personal growth as an individual. I am not a satanist, but I use Satan as a symbol because that is what has most leverage against all the organized religions as a whole. And I am very much against all forms of religion because I consider them to be the root of a lot of that which is evil in this world. To quote author Arthur C. Clarke: “Isn’t killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?”

And how about your explanation and imaginations concerning heaven and hell phenomena? “Heaven and hell” was a decent album by Black Sabbath. With this I mean to say that there is no heaven and no hell. At least not in the way that the religions tell us. Therefore heaven and hell is mere fiction, a title of an album made by a hard rock band. There is of course another explanation, something that you can experience on a more personal level. Emotional heaven or hell. Something that I have experienced quite a lot from unrequited love, for example. When you are with a person, it feels like heaven, nothing else matters and all that sentimental crap. Then when you are not with this person and you know that it can never be, then you experience a hell worse than anything else. Belive me when I say there is a fine line between heaven and hell, and my eyes have seen both!

What sickening art seen let you decide to go with Zig for the cover of Apocatastasis Reversed? How was it like working with Zig and how much effort & time has been put into the ingenious cover till your vision was fulfilled? When Butchered Records asked us what artist we wanted to do the album cover, I sent him a list of some artists who I thought could realize my idea for the cover. Jon Zig was actually my first choice and when Butchered told us we could get him, it was great news. Zig is a renowned artist and has done a lot of good album artwork over the years, so I wouldn’t say it was some art in particular that made me want him for the job. I knew he could do blasphemous stuff and that was what we needed. Plus, as he is also the singer for a band like Sarcolytic whose concept is also a bit occult, I knew he would be an appropriate choice. I had heard beforehand that he could be a bit slow because of his busy schedule, but he worked very fast. I was impressed. The artwork was finished before the recording actually began. And he realized my idea better than I could have ever imagined. He only made two minor changes after we had seen the first draft. And one of these was just something he added by himself. Originally we thought we would use a detail from the artwork for the back of the album, but when we asked Zig to isolate one, he sent us the design that we used in addition to what he had already made. And it was awesome! The man was great to work with and I have only good things to say about the whole experience.

Is there any prevalent procedure of how your lyrics come into form? How much are you aiming to go in depth when writing a text? Could you speak about the most influential literature as well as other major or minor sources where you draw your inspirations from? It usually start with a title or a couple of lines. Then the music decide which idea fit with which song and I take it from there. Sometimes you can not be as in-depth as you wish because a song can be too short for that, but I always do my research and am very careful in getting both my facts and my English correct. As for inspiration, this can come from almost anything. A couple of ideas came from isolated occurrences and some from personal experiences. There is even a song that was inspired by one single line one of the characters in the sitcom “Third rock from the sun” said. It of course has nothing whatsoever to do with this sitcom, but that line triggered an entire idea in my somewhat warped brain. So you see, inspiration can come from almost everywhere. As for literature, very few songs on “Apocatastasis reversed” was inspired by literature. But in those cases I guess the Bible and the writings of authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Bloch was the inspiration. Ancient grimoires was of course also used when writing stuff like “The God of Ekron resurrected” or “Betwixt and between”.

How have you learned to work with your throat as time went? In general, how do you think about your vocals, style & what moods are you trying to conjure? Aside the darkened deeper range, you’ve developed some higher layered, hellish-sputum range of vocals. At first these didn’t impress me at all sounding quite immature but now I’m swallowed within their spheres, it’s like a mad insane voice of an oppressed demon in one’s mind trying to cause complete lunacy. Is this kind of an impact you wanted to achieve? Ah, my vocals. Well, they have changed quite a bit back and forth over the years. When I started to do vocals in my first bands, I was not very good. I tried to sound deep and brutal but I wasn’t. Then I did black metal for a couple of years and had to sing brighter. This was not very good for my throat and my vocal cords so I developed a problem and couldn’t really sing for a while. After taking a break, I decided to give it a new try with 9th Plague. Going back to death metal proved a good thing for my voice as this felt more natural. The first demo turned out ok but then I got a job where I was exposed to car fumes all day and this made my throat quite dry. That was part of the reason why the vocals turned out crap on the second demo. I was to blame as well, because I went for an even more old school approach than on the debut demo, but that is a different story. Then I quit the job where I was exposed to car fumes and my voice recovered. When I started out doing the vocals for the third demo, it turned out too old school at first so I had to pull my shit together and change my vocal style a bit again. The result was great and I finally knew how I should sing. And this is the vocal style that I then used for “Apocatastasis reversed” as well. It did not fit that well for the songs that was originally performed with a different vocal style in mind, the songs from the two first demos, but it still turned out ok. As for the brighter vocals, I am not 100% satisfied with how they turned out, but it works. The idea was of course to use dual vocals the way bands like Hate Eternal or Internecine did, but at some places I tried to “cause complete lunacy” as you put it. For example some parts in “The God of Ekron resurrected” (especially the conjuration part at the end) and “De Vermis Mysteriis”.

Music-wise, could you speak about the ever-evolving progress in composition & attitudes shift in 9th Plague’s musical entity? What is the common musical vision you all share in the band and how are you concretely moving towards it? Hmm, I think the evolving process is just a natural progression. We never really sat down and talked about how the music should change. Well, maybe we tried some times, but the music that came out was still pretty much what came out naturally.

Who is the main writing force in the band? How creative you are as a band when it comes to polishing and finishing a song? Guitar player Kristofer Örstadius probably come up with the majority of the material. Bass player Johan Lindberg write music too. Then we all help out arranging the riffs into songs. I do 100% of the lyrics.

A description of a usual/unusual rehearsal of the band would be appreciated. Where is your catacomb of aural evil located? How does these evocations of darkness proceed actually and how often those rituals took place? Do you always bring some sacrifices for gods so he can endue you with pouring creativity? This varies. If we need to practice for a recording or a show, or if we are being very creative at the moment, rehearsals are more often. To call them “rituals” and speak of “sacrifices” would be wrong though. These are concepts more at home in religions and as I said before, we are against religions. They are mere rehearsals to practice or create music. I know some bands think of music this way, and it can be kind of cool, but it is not for us. Sorry if I disillusionize people but this is the truth.

Six songs on the album are taken from the three demos spewed during 2002-2006. How come you have embedded these tracks into the album? Since I don’t know majority of the songs originally could you reveal how much refining and rearranging these lava spurts were? Did any of those tracks really surprisingly stand out after the remaking was done? You said it yourself, you didn’t know the majority of the songs beforehand. We reckoned not that many people had actually heard all our demos prior to the album. So why not use decent songs again? Some of them needed to be recorded and even to be performed in a better way as well. Plus that some of them were changed a bit. “Visions of an unknown god” from the first demo lack a sample that was incorporated with it as an intro in the original recording. Otherwise it is pretty much the same. The lyrics were partly re-written for “Betwixt and between” since it first appeared on a demo, and it was pretty much the same with “Beyond the flesh”, only this was a more extensive re-writing. The remaining three re-recordings, the songs from the “Triumph of Diabolism” demo, was not changed that much as that demo came out in 2006 and the album was recorded only a couple of months after that. I added “the conjuration of Beelzebuth” from the Grimorium Verum at the end of “The God of Ekron resurrected” though. That was not on the original version. Another reason why we re-recorded six old songs was of course that we did not have enough material otherwise. But even if someone have all three demos, these are in some cases new versions and there are six new songs on it as well. As for one of the older songs standing out, I think “The Shrine of Satan” is a much better song now than it was on “Triumph of Diabolism”.

You have released 3 demos as said and then the album was unleashed. What aspects in your case led to the decision of releasing 3 demos first, wasn’t it frustrating being a “demo band” for over 6 years or so? Do you think this is a way bands should follow rather than to release a crap album after just one or no demo?
You’re on to something here. It was always our intention to do some demos first and build some kind of underground credibility before we did an album. We had album offers already after the first demo but that didn’t feel right. And we had offers after the shitty second demo as well, but we did not feel it was fair to have an album follow a shitty demo. “Triumph of Diabolism” was done with the intention to get us a deal and that is what happened. This time we were ready and it felt right. And that is why we now have released an album. But sure, it has been frustrating at times but the album followed the “right” demo, so to speak.

Doug Cerrito has composed the eponymous track - Spiritual Holocaust - on first Hate Eternal album. This track represents a mark of a highly influential infernal abomination. I know of some bands - Handful of Hate, song Livid; Eternal, song Fnatic Desire - drawing inspiration of the killer riffing and/or excellent rhythmical time signatures, which are sort of simple but so genius, one can’t get enough of these. 9th Plague is another example to the line, I’ve noticed the aforementioned influence in the song The Manifestation of Hell. Are you aware of this kind of distinct similarity? Anyway how much and why do you value Hate Eternal, and other bands like
Morbid Angel, Nile being such huge influences? No, I was not aware of that. Obviously without Morbid Angel we would never have existed, I am not even sure if death metal had existed in todays form if it weren’t for Morbid Angel. I know we have mentioned these bands as influences and it is of course correct, but we never deliberately tried to sound like them. It’s more or less just how things came out. And as the majority of reviewers use them to describe our sound, that is probably the way things are. More and more people mention Immolation as well, and I guess that is fair too. But none of the composers listen to Immolation. I listen to all kinds of death metal but I guess that is not the case with the other pussies in the band, haha... and as I don’t write music, it is probably wrong to actually say that a band like Immolation had an influence on our music. But apparently some of our riffs are in that vein. And vocally I am probably mainly influenced by Ross Dolan these days.

With what idea sound-wise were you going into studio to record the album. The sound turned out so raw and underground it’s incredible. The guitars just chants obscurity of magma heaviness and so on... I hope to Death you’re satisfied with the outcome!? Thank you! We are pretty pleased with the outcome. When you consider it was our first album and that we recorded everything but the vocals ourselves it turned out well. We didn’t really have an idea when we started recording. We just tried to make it as brutal as possible, in a way that would fit us. When we did “Triumph of Diabolism” we had an idea to try to get the guitar sound like on Hate Eternal’s “I, monarch” but halfway through the recording we discovered it would be better to try for Nile’s “Annihilation of the wicked”. In the end, nothing sounded near these albums and I guess that is why we did not try to get someone else’s sound for “Apocatastasis reversed”. It is 100% 9th Plague. Then if someone want to compare it to something else, that is probably fine as long as it’s not to a non-death metal band.

Tell me about the impulses & passion that have brought you to Death metal art and constantly keep you following it and later on creating it? How much time & thoughts do you dedicate to our precious and only art of Death? I only speak for myself here... I always looked for music that was faster and more brutal. When I discovered real death metal in 1989 I was hooked. I may not be too fond of some of its modern styles, like with pig/frog vocals, but I love death metal. And that is why I also wanted to create it, because I loved it so much. There was a time when death metal was my entire life and it is still a big part of my life, but other things in my personal life have made me, both voluntarily and involuntarily, change some of my priorities. Don’t get me wrong, I still love death metal, but sometimes things change with age and other things become more important.

What is your point of view on the state and evolution of Death metal nowadays when every other melodic HC-metal crap band refers to its music as Death metal or Deathcore or whatever? Personally I like brutal hardcore like Hatebreed or Full Blown Chaos, but hardcore should not be incorporated in death metal. I hate when you do that. I don’t like the pig/frog vocal style either and I don’t think you should use too many black metal influences in death metal either. Musically and vocally that is, to use Satanic lyrics is of course ok. Speaking of lyrics, I can’t say that I appreciate social awareness lyrics. Not really fond of the fascination for hacking and slashing or the serial killers and psychopath worship either. This does not stop me from enjoying a good riff though. The music is what’s most important.

What is this the future of the Death metal underground in this internet-globalization techno era? How do you approach the Myspace thing? Myspace is good, I think. You reach more people and potential listeners than you used to do. Today I would say I get 85% of all my mail through My space, 14% through my e-mail and 1% to my P.O. box. It is of course easier and this is how things are in 2008. A band would be stupid not to be a part of it. Unless the point is to remain obscure and only for the die-hards. We however want to reach as many people as possible with “Apocatastasis reversed” so we are a part of it. Don’t get me wrong, we would never sell out or anything. We are still 100% underground, but the underground is a lot different today than it was back in 1990 when I started my first band.

Your opinion about extreme right wing propaganda and pseudo socialistic thoughts which envenom Death metal and especially black metal but overall society these days? It is not for me. I don’t care for racial or political issues. I used to say that I hated everyone, only to a greater or lesser extent. But this is not true today as something happened in my personal life in 2006 that changed a lot of my values. But I still don’t care for right wing propaganda or socialism. I don’t think the right wing propaganda is that common in death metal as it is in black metal though. I wouldn’t say it envenom death metal. There are a couple of bands, but I don’t think of it as an actual “movement” or something. To mix nazi-stuff with Satanism is wrong though. All they could possibly have in common is the cliché “only the strong survive”. German soldiers back in the Adolf-days had to swear allegiance to both “God” and country just as American soldiers do today. And “real” Nazis don’t think too kindly of Satanists just as “real” Satanists doesn’t care for Nazis.

We are at the end of the talk. Thanks so much! Keep the metal of Death infernal & eternal, 666! Thank you for the interview! And remember: death metal is not dead yet! May it never die! If people want to check out our album they can do so at:
www.9thplague.com
www.myspace.com/9thplague
www.butcheredrecords.com

]]> Diabolical Talks xml-rss2.php?itemid=2 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:56:24 +0100 ULCERATE - Brute Force Of Death Metal Progression (pt. 1) xml-rss2.php?itemid=1 Originally conceived in Autumn, 2007.
PDF version of the interview (old design).

Hails of Death to New Zealand, Jamie. Tell us about your musical growth, how has it been like to grow into Death metal and then grow and evolve within Death metal? You know, it’s millions of other genres out there you could devour but somehow your way has led to a state of expression called Death metal, what perceptive urges brought you there and what has the music of Death brought to you as a reward for not following but for discovering and conquering its musical and spiritual territories?
Well, all of us first started listening to extreme metal in its various incarnations in high school, and at the time we were all playing in some form of metal bands, so it was inevitable that we’d end up playing the genre we were all most drawn too. I don’t know, the relentless attack combined with fairly high technical abilities of a lot of the players pushed me towards the style, away from other aggressive genres – there just seems to be something more pure and ‘music-focused’ than a lot of metal/punk/hardcore, which has a tendency to be more about posturing and scene-politics. All of us have grown up appreciating fantastic players from other genres, so to see a style of music that shares a similar approach was fascinating.
Playing this style of music and trying to do new things with it is extremely rewarding, all our playing has developed exponentially since we begun, and we’re always pushing ourselves to give a little bit extra and try things we can’t necessarily do. After all, the only way to accomplish anything great is to attempt that which seems out of reach, so we keep pushing till we get there. And to me, that is my favourite kind of music/art, regardless of genre limitations.

Considering you are relatively young band, can you talk a little bit about the other members, their musical talent, experiences and how do they fortify Ulcerate’s creative vision?
The other members of Ulcerate are the finest musicians I’ve ever played with in terms of passion, skill and creativity. We’re all on the same page musically, and we all want to evolve Ulcerate further and further, I really don’t see any limitations with what we can do with this band. We’ve all been doing bands for around 10 or so years now, so even though we’re young, we’re fairly experienced and know what to expect with each others playing. All of us have always been involved in other projects, most notably Graymalkin (guitarist Mike R’s amazing now-defunct grind band), Asphyxiate (punishing dark death metal, bassist Paul handles guitars and vocals for these guys) and Abystic Ritual (black/death, Paul and myself,
guitars and drums respectively).

There has happened a change on the singer spot with the debut album. Can you, please, go for some details? What particular skills Were you demanding from possible candidates? Were you intentionally willing to break away from lower laid vocal patterns and move towards a more high pitched vocal style?
Our last vocalist James Wallace developed a sinus infection that prevented him from doing vocals for an extended period, and we basically had to decide to go on without him as the album recording was looming. We needed someone that could match his formidable vocal talent, and we were already friends with Ben, who had always been an avid supporter of the band, so it was natural to ask him. We were definitely not aiming to break away from a lower style, but were more than willing to see how Ben would interpret our material, and it turned out that his higher register gave it a different angle of aggression that was very cool, so we went with it. In terms of demanding things from candidates, more than anything we needed someone who had impeccable vocal performance, someone who had played with bands as long as the rest of us, a great sense of an intense live performance, and perhaps most importantly, brought intense lyrical concepts and visions that we shared. And Ben brings all, in abundance…

Let’s move to your debut album Of Fracture and Failure. What was The coming of genocide demo intimating, Of Fracture and Failure literally turned into 3D. The progress there is undeniable. Could you describe and bring more insight onto your evilution shift on this album in terms of how have you continue your path in the world of dissonance merged with dreadful melodic patterns while maintaining those dual arrangements and volatile rhythmics, which all make the music fierce, complex yet memorable so firmly after one gave it few repeated listens. It has to be an incredible amount of work behind such an effort as Of Fracture and Failure is!? Especially when considering you are at the beginning of discovering & shaping your own musical identity. Well, the more painful it might all be sometimes, the more rewarding should be the outcome, shouldn’t be?
Well, we set out with this material not really trying to write a specific style or anything, we just wanted to make an album and a listening experience that crushes the listener, not in a typical death metal sense, but a more suffocating, though-out process. When Mike H. and I write, we’re utilizing two guitars, bass, drums and vocal lines at all times, certainly not in a conventional harmonic sense, but careful orchestration and counterpoint between all instruments. We’re very interested in the deconstruction of the given ‘norm’ of writing this kind of music, I think an apt metaphor would be ‘swirling’… All our songs discard the verse chorus and repetition formulas and attack a purely linear approach. Of course, we’re not the only band to do this by any means, but I think it’s what a lot of people have picked up on this album as being, intensely complex and absorbing on first-listen. For me, regardless of whether a person enjoys the ‘sound’ of Ulcerate, I think they will definitely be bewildered at first attempt to try and understand us, you really do have to listen to an entire song to hear the full gamut of what we present, we never play our entire hand in the opening bars.
In terms of work in constructing these songs, yeah, they take a while to work out all the bits and pieces, a lot of the ideas come from jams, and we nit-pick over every single note choice and how it interacts with others (this is no exaggeration, often we will spend an entire writing session on 4 notes!). We’re also very aware of mood and atmosphere, and while a lot of the Of Fracture stuff is very numbing and perhaps emotionless, it all serves a greater purpose. Of the reviews that we’ve had where people have said its just too over-the-top and soulless, I think perhaps they just haven’t sat down with the album enough and listened to each track within its own context. Its an album, not merely a collection of songs, the album shifts through a lot of moods, and I think to judge it off 1 or 2 listens, or 1 or 2 songs is not serving it justice.

When firstly encountering Fracture of Failure I noticed that aside from the Death metal feeling you have very sensitively added some new “Relapse hard core” dissonance, some ambient stinking ethereality and so called post-metal influence bands like Jesu make. That frightened me a little yet it’s incorporated amazingly but I just hope you won’t be following that musical direction even more in the future as it could be a few steps from losing the true Death metal integrity, the obscure feeling of death and somberness. Where do you want to aim your focus as far as band’s progression forward goes? What are the lands to conquer and what are the powers you want to protect & keep on?
Well, I understand your concern for sure man! We’re not about to compromise what we’ve worked this hard to achieve, I think we all have an image in mind of how death metal should sound, and that is pitch black at all times – there can be movements within this, but I’m sick to death of hearing ‘quirkiness’ in this genre, or the failed incorporation of it at least. We definitely haven’t consciously added a ‘Relapse’ sound, its just what we felt the composition needed, I like to try and think when we’re writing, we don’t see genres, or rules, we just see notes on paper to convey a feeling. I think a lot of that Relapse-ness might be with some of the drumming, more-so than note choice, but I’m of a firm believer that drums are drums, and I’m not afraid to not blast 24/7 if I think an area suits it, you know?
Bands progression? I think we’ve hit a certain mark with our playing and song-writing that has at least some sort of unique identity, so we’re pushing that forwards. Trying to make things more ‘Ulcerate’ if you get the idea…

This leads me to a question how hard or even limiting is to create within the framework of Death metal for you? Certainly you have to filtrate ideas which you come with and not just to use everything that comes your way. How much strict you are, do you actually censor yourselves a lot in the band and is there big amount of ideas dismissed when putting the sonic chaos into order?
We’re extremely picky and critical of the material we write. We record every section we come up with firstly as guitars only with rough percussive phrasings to follow, then in the rehearsal room we craft the drum patterns and try out new versions and timings and nuances that will enhance the section. This all gets laid to tape as we wrap up rehearsals. We listen, review and possibly alter what we’ve laid down over the next few days, then record the section again at the next practise until we feel that its hitting the mark so to speak. We’re not a band that will ever write and album in a month, we’re far too critical and believe that time and hindsight are vital components in writing music.

When looking at your music from an influential point of view, echoes and inspiration by bands like old Immolation, Gorguts, Hate Eternal are predominant but also hints of Neurosis & Isis are something I believe we can agree on. Maybe you can add some real influential band I missed out, but anyway, could you please speak about every above-mentioned band and pick up the most influential spot they had on you and basically on extreme music in your eyes?
For sure, every one of those bands are loved by all of us, and I think their influence is clear, not in a derivative sense, but that you can hear we’ve drawn at least some inspiration from them. We all enjoy listening to a lot of atmospheric stuff.
Blut Aus Nord, Bohren und der Club of Gore are a couple of names that spring to mind. Again, not in a ‘we borrow a and b from such and such band’ way, just the sheer fact that these kind of groups are creating music which I would call intrusive, you know they take a few listens until the uneasiness of their sound subsides a little and you can really feel the atmosphere. Also, we definitely can’t ignore bands such as Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Angelcorpse, Krisiun for their total ferocity and innovative power, something which we also try to pride ourselves on ;) In relation to the bands you’ve mentioned:
Immolation - Untouchable. Perfectly executed death metal. A band like Immolation for me sits at the core of what this genre is about - brooding, creepy, emotive and of course truly brutal. The word ‘brutal’ is beyond over-used in this genre, but I truly think that Immolation actually deserve that as an adjective. They are crucial song and album writers, not one bad song, not one bad riff! Every note choice is total Immolation, combined with perfect percussion (especially Here In After to Unholy Cult era) and powerful vocals and themes, in this genre possibly the only band to not sound like any other whatsoever...
Gorguts - As with Immolation, these guys were unbelievably cool. I would also call Gorguts intrusive as fuck - almost a horrible listen on first take (especially Obscura) - then slowly it all makes sense falls into place haha. Compositionally, tonally, harmonically and rhythmically 10 steps beyond most other bands, I still haven’t heard an album eclipse their later albums in terms of musical uniqueness.
Hate Eternal - Love them or hate them, these guys are the epitome of to-the-point death metal. Every riff is gold, and every song is unrelenting. Rutans riffing style is impressive, for me this band is all about the ‘riff’. And they did of course feature some very very talented drummers, Roddy/Yeung/Killerich putting in truly death metal performances.
Neurosis - Undeniably essential band in the heavy music climate. Possibly the ‘heaviest’ band of all time haha. The term ‘crushing’ springs to mind, and their juxtaposition with some amazingly beautiful passages is inspiring. Our string section think the sun shines out of these dudes asses. It probably does.
Isis - Genre defying and defining act. These guys cover all extremes seamlessly, extreme anger, sorrow, hope, tranquility, its all here. Possibly the best band I’ve ever seen live. Their command over dynamics is fucking flawless.

One thing are the influences and the second thing is the way one builds on these grounds and evolves into a more unique form. In Ulcerate’s case, the attitude to composition seems really as if you take the influential parts, dissect them into pieces, devour and put them onto darkness back in an unusual shape, always trying to reinvent & push the envelope further?! Is this reasoning any close to reality?
Yeah I mean for sure, this happens with anyone whose writing music. We never sit down and say, ‘we’ve got to have an Immolation bit here’, that would be total plagiarism. Influences if treated correctly are interpretations of what your hearing in your environment, they’re gonna come out in your music no matter what. No-one is un-influenced when writing, its all subconscious. We’re just writing tunes at the end of the day, writing stuff that we think we’d like to hear, and most importantly what feels right to play.

Music, in my opinion, remains ageless due to its feeling and nature. Since the first time I’ve heard Ulcerate, I was assured you all obviously do know it’s not only about math-driven riffing and brainless pummelling even though you would top many of these trying-hard, fly-by-night bands in this aspect easily with enviable style. What does “to create” means to you in general as well as to a personality expressing your feelings through music behind the drum kit? Is it hard to try & learn how to understand & perceive music without preconception in order to be able to transform the thoughts, part of yourself, into your own original audible creations?
I think any music that has the intention of just out ‘tech-ing’ or outplaying other bands in terms of technique/speed/heaviness is ridiculous, and this genre is suffering because of it. It’s not a competition! Who cares that your feet can play 246bpm or how fast you can trem pick.
For me, playing drums in this style is all about texture and rhythm, this is not a genre where a lot of feel and subtlety is involved unfortunately, but I think there’s a huge potential for some seriously innovative stuff to come out of this style. For me, to limit myself to 2 or 3 blast patterns and a standard time back beat with rolling 16ths isn’t very musical, so every time I write for drums, I attack it as a melodic instrument, either supplementing or playing-off of the other melodic instruments, rather than solely providing a back beat for the song. I’ve been playing for 10 years now, so drums are a part of me, everything I think of I think in terms of beats and phrases, so ‘to create’ is more like ‘to play’ - its just doing what I do hehe.

Let’s speak about the cover. Whose creative forces resulted into the cover and where did the original idea come from? It’s a strange collage of heartless human with head down morphing into octopus which could be recognized easily. What should the artwork portrait and what other elements are used in it besides those two aforementioned? Are there any intended connections between the artwork and the album title?
I began drafting ideas for the album art once we’d decided on the ‘Of Fracture and Failure’ title. This piece is a direct interpretation of that, not necessarily figurative or literal, just my interpretation of Ben’s lyrics and what we were trying to convey thematically. The idea that resonates throughout the album is the inevitable failure of mankind at it’s own hand, the extinction of our kind and the birth of the next dominating species, hence the portrayal of a dying human husk evolving or birthing a new being.

Coming onto the lyrical content of Of Fracture And Failure. First off it would be interesting to know how did you come up with the title of the album and the meaning it embodies for you.
Kinda explained that with previous question... The album’s lyrics form a sort of conceptual basis in the sense that they’re loosely chronological, the opening of the album is documenting man’s foibles and ignorance, leading through to tracks such as Failure (self explanatory), The Coming of Genocide (man killing his own kind) and Defaeco, which resolves the album and lyrically documents our end...

Anyway, reading through all your lyrics, I would say there are two general subjects pouring through the whole album.
It’s about weaknesses of man and his spirit that leads to subsequent failures of which the greatest are religions. Also there’s expressed the need to wash away these things from one’s mind I’d say. Myself I think some kind of revolution of the mind and soul is needed, but I’ve lost my teenage naivety long ago and really doubt any cleansing will start massively any time soon in today’s world of consumption and commercial hypocrisy but it’s good to start from oneself for sure. What are your thoughts on that? And what are your thoughts about lyrics placed on the album - which of the messages brought by the lyrics are the most meaningful for you and do you even have any text on the album which you prefer prior to others?
Yeah, you’ve more or less understood what we’re going for which is great! The angle we were taking more-so was that of objective observer, rather than saying we need to ‘cleanse’ or eradicate certain facets of humanity, we’re looking at the human condition from an objective angle, and notating that such events take place and are somewhat inevitable when human nature plays a role.
The lyrics on this album are nothing short of impeccable to be honest. I love Ben’s penmanship, always have. It was the first thing we looked for when finding a new vocalist, great ideas and themes that we could all endorse. I don’t really have a preference over the concepts or lyrics, but I’ll leave you with an example of a killer set of prose that’s fairly indicative of his style:

“Loathing saturates, sour and foul
Only to be eclipsed by the sorrow
To cut away those close and near
Pull back the hammer and let it swing
Let it swing”

What is the religious situation in New Zealand like? How’s the society there like in your eyes? Are the inhabitants there fond of religions a lot? On the other hand how much power has religion in itself there in order to practice their fiendish filth? Does any church attending on Sundays or whatever massive acts of virtue happen on regular basis?
New Zealand as a nation prides itself on its secularism, which is pretty awesome in terms of unbiased living. We have like any country have a minority that indulge in religious activity for sure, Sunday church-goers are certainly in abundance. But their ‘say’ over here
is fairly limited which is awesome.
Our censorship for the most part here is very sensible and liberal, we are pretty luck in that respect.

There’s a strong community of original New Zealand’s inhabitants called Maori. Can you tell me more about them, they seemed to have quite similar fate as Indians in America although not just so tragic. From what I’ve read, Maori community survived the usual missionaries and even though many of them are converted catholics, their traditions and stuff survived ages. Tell us how it is like to live with Maori “under one flag”. Is their culture inspiration to Ulcerate in any way?
The Maori here are fully immersed as with any other ethnicity here. I would liken their situation to African Americans more-so than Native Americans, not in a white persecution/slavery sense, but more in the greater widespread flourishing of their culture. In terms of Ulcerate, the answer would simply be ‘no’.

Can you speak about your personal view on belief and the philosophical aspect of how you threat and explain your own being?
From the small amount of reading / viewing / classes I’ve done, I align myself with quantum physics more than anything, not that I have a fully realised grasp on the concepts, but at a very base level it makes a lot of sense!

Let’s go away from all this spiritual/religious talk. How about sports? Do you practice or at least follow any? New Zealand is well known for rugby’s popularity there, do you share the passion for this game?
Personally no, drumming is all the exercise I need...

Overall, how it is like to live in a land of diverse and unique nature, of ancient Alps on one side and boiling volcanos on the other, in a land where prime minister is a woman and society is the least corrupted in the world? How were your ancestors brought to New Zealand by the way?
Its an awesome country man to be honest. The only downside is our isolation on a global scale, which is the common gripe of NZ inhabitants (us included!). The native scenery and national pride in our ecology is very cool. My ancestors are French and Swedish, who I assume came here in the late 19th century, probably very early in NZ’s colonial history.

Very superficial idea could be that although living in welfare the music you churn out possess savage & dissonant darkness which is quite contradictory in fact. Is there any explanation to this? To some darkness symbolizes negativity and stuff like that, but in fact who was the one to settle the meanings of darkness and light and the way it should felt like? And also, who said there’s light to save us onto eternity and dark to damn us and deny our divinity. Do you know what I mean? It’s horrifying, those explication and doctrines set up to present someone’s idea making it into a state of generally adopted by a mass. Why then the listeners of Death metal cult don’t go and just kill people as christians wasn’t afraid to do in order just to spread their human belief of love? You know this is just so twisted, inverted, whatever.
Oh exactly dude, I don’t think you have to have lived a tortured life to understand or appreciate a little darkness. A well balanced diet of light and dark is healthier than consistent repressing of the dark is it not? Yin and yang! We’ve all got broad palettes of musical and artistic tastes... I think for anyway to say that listening to extremely aggressive, violent music is ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or to judge the music as being ‘noise’ is ignorant and disrespectful to all parties involved.
As for your last point, any belief system or institution (read: cult) which allows its followers and practitioners to forgive murder, rape, paedophilia is indeed an inverted and non-instinctual way of thinking.

On a softer note. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu. Are the kids in New Zealand forced to spell and remember this name straight from the head? Have you ever been there? Has this mountain got any special position in New Zealand’s culture except it stands in the Guinness book for the longest name of a mountain or longest word in general? What 3 things would you recommend me not to omit when the winds would take me to New Zealand?
No idea dude! I’ve never learnt it or even know where it is haha.
3 things not to omit? Glaciers at the bottom of the South Island, the Desert Road/Mount Ruapehu (desolate as fuck!) and Ngaruawahia haha...

As a casual listener, how would you say your musical tastes evolved since the time you have started listening to music? In general what it takes to a band to gain your attraction, so that you will listen to its music repeatedly?
My tastes have broadened extensively, stepping outside of extreme metal and exploring what else there is. Listening more and more to emotive music of any kind, anything that makes you feel something.
I think there’s no one factor that a band can have to gain my attention, the majority of music that is released on labels is for the most part well-produced, well-played (or at least well edited) yet there’s very little that really grabs me, it comes down to X-factor and how you identify with certain elements of the sound. For me, I love bands with really progressive talented drummers, but this doesn’t necessarily mean the band writes amazing songs, which in the long-run allows for very little repeat-listening, which is crucial! In metal I want to hear fresh ideas, I want to hear a level of brooding and sinister element, doesn’t mean you can’t be melodic, fast, slow, heavy, soft, so long as there is an atmosphere and a mood that is considered and well orchestrated, it will generally catch my ear at least for a song or 2.
On the other hand what are you missing in music these days? What trends or whatever are not to your liking? You can broaden it for art in general.
With metal being thrust into the limelight in the last few years in a commercial sense, we’re starting to see a lot of ‘extreme’ bands that are more about the ‘mosh groove’ than actual substance, which sucks ass. A lot of the bigger labels latest signing are all this quasi-death metal crossed with hardcore, recycled riffs, Pro-Tools edited recordings and the obligatory ‘pig squeal’ vocals. It’ll die out like every other trend, but at the moment its pretty unbearable, not so much the style, but the abundance of bands that are doing commercially well and sounding like every other band, no originality. The whole ‘blast beats are cool’ and ‘sweep picking makes riffs’ trend amongst these pseudo extreme bands is pretty fickle, the amount of metalcore/deathcore bands that are putting these elements in to sound ‘crazy’ is completely fucked and immature.

We go to the semi-finals now. How important for you as a band is the complete artistic impression you want the band to leave on listener and a potential fan in fact? I mean, quality music is the most valuable thing but still it’s just a one thing to appeal to listener, the way the music is packaged is another important thing as well as the way you present Ulcerate on the net and communicate with the public etc... And I think you do everything top-notch. It has to be many work and sacrifices but fun at times too and hopefully it pays off in the end!?
100% important. We try to have as much control over every facet of what we’re producing, and for the most part, all the artistic outputs are covered. So yeah, hard work, but worth it, and infinitely satisfying when people such as yourself recognise the hard work...

Thanks and hails to you, Jamie, for the opinions, thoughts put into this stab of an interview. Let strong will, great experiences, perpetual creativity be with Ulcerate in good and bad, in the dark - in the light! Keep up your musical entity growing and the spirituality of Death metal burning stronger!
Cheers Jan for the in-depth questions, and for the support! We appreciate your efforts and anyone else who gives the time to check out our stuff...

Jamie | Ulcerate

http://www.ulcerate-official.com/
www.myspace.com/ulcerate

www.neurotic-records.com
www.thefloodrecords.com]]> Diabolical Talks xml-rss2.php?itemid=1 Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:20:29 +0100