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Interview Interrogation: Mephisto (Cuba)

21/2/2021

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"We continue to combat the rejection of metal music as the authorities and the media do not understand this style of music and view it as a part of the ideological weapon of the enemy of the north."


When you think of the Caribbean island nation of Cuba, you tend to think of the ever-lasting Cuban cigar, rum, Spanish-colonialism and the historical Cuban Missile Crisis; fronted by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. But beneath that is a metal scene that's practically built on a DIY attitude, just like our ancestors did when they first created the boat to enable voyages across the seven seas.

Perhaps it's then fitting for the quintet Mephisto to deploy their Latin-infused style of Black Metal, a sound that would rival the very ferocity of a barraging hurricane. For a band that has been around since 1996, a revolving-door of musicians coming and going and their debut album coming 20 years later, you would have thought it was curtains for the band... alas you'd think wrong, they are set to deliver their second opus in the form of "Pentafixion". It was therefore fitting for Global Metal Apocalypse to grill the quintet and find out info relating to the album, why you need a 'can do, will do' attitude just to survive in the Cuban metal scene and why bands (like Mephisto) look outwards to Europe (in their case) and the USA for exposure.

This culminated in them signing with Italian label WormHoleDeath. Now whilst Mephisto plans a national tour of Cuba (slated for mid 2021) and a run of dates later in the year in Nicaragua, check out the birth of "Latin Black Metal" courtesy of Cuba's veterans Mephisto.

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Hi everyone, first of all tell us what is it like to sign with WormHoleDeath and what this means for the band?

     "Signing with WormHoleDeath means a huge step forward for the band. The visualization of Mephisto in the European and Asian markets, where I am sure that people from those regions do not even know that there is even a small island called Cuba in the Caribbean and even less that European metal is made on that island. This exposure is important as it’s what Mephisto does, although future fans will notice that the influences of the Spanish and African mix of our culture are noticed in our music.

     We have been ostracized for years due to the little attention that metal in general has in our own territory and the little we have achieved has been through perseverance, work and talent, so the opportunity to belong to the family of such a prestigious record company gives us a visibility on the map that we could not achieve with our own means or with the help of Cuban record companies that have little reach."



Not many people would associate Black Metal with the exotic climate of Cuba, what makes your style of Black Metal different?

     "Not having contact with other leading bands of the genre worldwide, not having access to international festivals and due to the scarce exchange on stage with bands from other countries, means that we have few external influences that mould our music, so our Black Metal takes on a rare originality. That is the reason why several bands in the world, when they go to compose or record an album, isolate themselves in remote places, so that their product is genuine. It happens to us for reasons of force majeure.

     The different musical tastes of each member also make a difference, the same in metal as in other musical genres, so do not be surprised if we are caught listening to Jazz. Also the amalgamation of Caribbean sounds that we are surrounded by influences us indirectly. In Mephisto you can find patterns that jump from 4/4 to 3/4 or 6/4 and 7/4, or the use of syncopations, Latin jazz patterns on the drums, and even the Cuban keys. Of course, deep down, if you know music you will notice."


 Arguably, the Caribbean has some pretty good metal scenes, but those in Europe are often not noted, what do you think is missing or owed to those in Europe who don't explore Caribbean metal?
 
     "Because death metal and brutal death abound. The consumption in Europe is mostly more in the symphonic styles, and even perhaps melodic or symphonic death metal. I think Europeans are more attracted to black, folk and death metal trends that I mentioned earlier. The metal market is in the USA, mainly Florida and New York, so the Caribbean bands try to enter that market. There is a rejection between both parties. In the case of Mephisto we have a special interest in Europe, because it is the market that suits us best. Although if we’d welcome success in America too."


Logistically, would we ever see a Caribbean Metal Festival take place? What is the general perception of metal music by the general public?

     "If you mean Cuba, well ... there are about 9 metal festivals throughout the island, but only some have an international character and few bands from the USA and Europe have participated due to the poor logistics of each of them. It must be taken into account that the government of the island, of a socialist nature, is not interested in financing this type of event for ideological reasons and all are carried out by a small but strong non-governmental organization called AHS that puts its funds to carry out these events. International groups that have an interest in acting on the island must do so with their own financing, and not everyone does that because it is a great expense.

     As for other regions, in Central and South America there are events that can afford to have first-rate bands, but let's bear in mind that they operate in a market economy where they invest and obtain benefits. That way everything can be done."


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1. Intro - Enter The Storm
2. Storming war anthems
3. Pentafixion
4. The birth
5. Rebellion
6. The falling
7. Curse of the pharaoh
8. The mighty ring
9. From Hobbiton toward the mountains of Gorgoroth

10. The last battle
11. The undivine blessing
12. Yavhe Sabbaoth (King of nobody)
13. Burning Fantoft

You are preparing to release your new album "Pentafixion", can you tell us what the album is about and how did you come up with the lyrics? Tell us about the process of recording the album.

     "Pentafixion is composed of songs from different eras of the band. Songs that were collected in poorly recorded demos, with a sound impossible to commercialize. Due to technological advances in music production we managed to make this recording with a lot of effort and group work. The sessions were held in my house (Mole's Home Studio) with minimal conditions that will seem impossible when you listen to the sound of the album. The orchestration was done with Kontakt software without acoustic conditions of any kind. But I repeat, you will not believe it when you listen to the CD since the software, plug-ins, etc., have helped to clean up the mix and give it the professional studio environment that you will listen to. As we have had the need, we have become experts in these software programs and in sound engineering. What else could we do with no access to professional recording studio in Holguin?

     Once the album was mixed, we took it to a private studio of another sound lover: Samuel P. Santiesteban (Botija Productions), who was in charge of the mastering. I was then charged to make the DDP file, guided by a YouTube tutorial. As I said before: necessity is the mother of invention. As for the letter of Pentafixion, it is simply the fact of the crucifixion on a pentagram for the performance of a ritual of evocation for the materialization of evil on earth (Mephistopheles). As for the other topics, I can summarize it this way:


  • Storming war anthems - the final war of evil against good, armies of the fallen angel with the help of his followers on earth against legions of God.

  • Creation of the magnificent. Act I-II-III: this trilogy is based on the poem Paradise Lost, by Milton about the birth of the angel Lucifer, his rebellion against the tyranny of God and his fall to the depths of the earth.

  • Curse of the Pharaoh: Based on the Lovecraft mythology about the jewel known as the glowing Tapezohedron with the ability to open a portal from another dimension and summon the demon Yog-Sothog. According to the story, the pharaoh Nefren-Ka took possession of it and built a windowless temple for this purpose.

  • The rings of Sauron. Part I-II-III: Simply the Story of the Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien, but with a change in the ending. In our version, the forces of evil triumph.

  • The Undivine Blessing: Again the influence of Lovecraft, this time narrated in the first person as someone who is or believes is chosen to invoke the old gods and help the destruction of the world.

  • Yavhe Sabbaoth (King of Nobody): Criticizes and mocks a useless and powerless deity who needs doctrine and its churches to make weak minds believe otherwise.

  • Burning Fantoft. About an event that occurred in Norway by the satanic organization Inner Circle, specifically at the hands of Vark Vickernes (Mayhem). In short, the burning of the Fantoft church.


Tell us what it was like to grow up as metalheads in Cuba, the challenges, the difficulties, how has COVID-19 impacted the country in general?

     "Difficulties have grown perseverance. Necessity is the mother of invention, and surrender is not an option for Cuban metalheads. It is not new history, the metalheads and bands of Eastern Europe went through the same thing and bands like Behemoth and Vader did not see the light at the end of the road until the fall of the Berlin wall. We are in the same situation and we have had to invent our equipment and instruments until we had access to branded equipment with outside help. There has also been the production of t-shirts with their own means by fans and a thousand other curiosities.

     We continue to combat the rejection of metal music as the authorities and the media do not understand this style of music and view it as a part of the ideological weapon of the enemy of the north. Of course, over the years some of these things have changed and there is some openness and some other space on radio and TV, but the anthropological damage has already been done in the population, so metal is still minority music.

The Covid-19 has achieved that in 1 year there are no metal events or concerts in the country except in our city, Holguin, where the rate of infected is lower, and there were a few months that it reached 0%. Of course, only groups from the city and other nearby cities have been able to participate, since the west of the country has not had respite from this new disease.


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Malecón, Havana, Cuba / Source: Wikipedia

Under normal circumstances (i.e., without a pandemic), what sights / attractions would you recommend to metalheads visiting Havana?

     "There is only one place: the Maxim Rock room on Bruzón Street, in Ayestarán corner, Plaza municipality. It's where the only metal concerts are held."


What are your plans for next year taking all things into account? Do you have any greetings or thanks that you want to send to friends, family, fans, etc.?

     "We are preparing another album, this time a conceptual work on the myth of Dracula. It will be titled Carpathian Tales. It's more of a remake of an album that we recorded in Cuba but we couldn't do anything with it due to the sound quality. Later we will do the same with our first two demos and while this happens (in a space of two or three years); we will be composing a totally new album with unreleased songs. 5 songs out of 10 that are in process are ready but as you can see, there is work for a while.

     Also, depending on the epidemiological situation, we plan to tour Central America and Europe, but we still have to wait to see what happens for now. It’s frustrating not being able to tour but we have the time now to effectively promote the Pentafixion album in all possible ways."



Official Website – https://mephistoband.com
Official Facebook Page - https://www.facebook.com/MephistoCubanMetalBand

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Interview Interrogation: Marax (Slovenia)

10/7/2020

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"Slovenia is such a tiny country you could visit several places in one day, from the seaside to the mountains."


Marax are a Symphonic Black Metal band from Slovenia whose lyrics revolve around Satanism... now to most metalheads the response will be 'not another Dimmu Borgir surely?' Well to answer this in the most cliche of responses, no they are not, they are their own sound and own style... probably what makes Slovenian Black Metal so unique, so much so Marax could not even explain why this is and thus just confirms that there clearly is something special about the said geographical variation of said genre. They have managed to deliver their debut album "The Witch" even in these dark times with the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc worldwide. Here they talk to GMA about the album, the Europe-wide reception, the Slovenian Metal scene and why (as said) it's hard to explain why Slovenian Black Metal is different to other geographical variations of Black Metal.

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For those who have not heard of Marax, could you give us a brief history of the band? What does the band name mean?

     "The band was founded in the winter of 2017 by guitarist Nord Slayer (Cordura, Cvinger, Cursed Be Thy Flesh), drummer Morgoth (Cordura, Cvinger, Kholn, Cursed Be Thy Flesh) and vocalist Anin Astaroth (Morana) to play extreme, symphonic black metal. They joined forces with violinist Žica for the first two EP's ("The Abyss Of Illusions" in 2018 and "Dance Within The Flames Of Burning Fire" in 2019). In late 2019, violinist Mors Violinis joined the band, and in April 2020 we released our first full-length album "The Witch". The name designates the daemon Marax (also known as Morax, Forfax or even Ma’at), who is, generally, the daemon of justice."


Symphonic Black Metal is such an overloaded genre, with that in mind how would you describe your sound without the use of genre tagging?

     "We aim to compose and perform extreme metal music. The sound of the violin (or, in the future, of various bowed string instruments) is always present, as well as some symphonic elements. Otherwise, we are pretty open in style, there are usually some more death metal elements in our songs, and we create what we feel."


Regarding your debut album "The Witch", what was the reception like? Has anyone outside of Slovenia bought the album; any surprising places?

     "In fact, even more people bought the album throughout the Europe (compared to Slovenia). For the digital format we cannot know exactly."


Talk us through the making of the album from the production to mixing and mastering, the whole process.

     "For the latest album, "The Witch", Nord Slayer first composed all the songs, at least the foundations. He wrote and recorded the parts for the guitars, the bass and the keyboards. Next, Morgoth composed and recorded the drums, then Mors Violinis composed and recorded the violin parts. Lastly, Anin Astaroth wrote the lyrics and recorded the vocals. For some songs, the backing vocals were recorded by Anin Astaroth and Nord Slayer, as well as some additional “instruments”. Everything was recorded, mixed and mastered in Studio Toplica by Nord Slayer and Morgoth."


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Ljubljana, Slovenia / Source: Visit Ljubljana

Slovenia seems to have a rather strong Black Metal (and related metal) scene, what is it that makes Slovenian Black Metal strong?

     "The answer to this question is much more complex than we could explain here. We think it could, on one hand, be do to with the nature here, or on the other hand, with the historical background."


On a broader note what challenges do Slovenian Metal bands tend to face these days? (ignoring COVID-19)

     "Probably it is relatively poor concert attendance, but still, it’s not so bad. There are approximately two million people in Slovenia, a minority of which are metalheads. In fact, there are a relatively large number of bands compared to the audience sometimes. But we don’t want to complain; as soon as this crisis is over, we cannot wait to perform again."


For metalheads visiting Savinjska Dolina, what sights / attractions and bars / venues could you recommend?

     "Firstly, the members of Marax are not from this region only (contrary to what the internet says). They are from the mentioned valleys (the towns of Velenje and Šoštanj) and from Kranj and Ljubljana. In the surroundings of every town mentioned you could just encounter nature, there are some forests, lakes, mountains etc. Slovenia is such a tiny country you could visit several places in one day, from the seaside to the mountains. In the valley of Savinjska Dolina, you could visit venues like MC Šoštanj or any bar actually. In Kranj, the most “metal” or alternative venue is Trainstation Squat Subart, and in Ljubljana there are several places like Orto bar, Metelkova or Kino Šiška where the concerts are held."


Do you have any thanks or greetings you wish to send to friends, family or fans?

     "Greetings to everyone who reads this! Keep supporting extreme metal \m/"

https://www.facebook.com/MaraxofficialSlo/
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Interview Interrogation: Black Pyre (Wales)

26/5/2020

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"The Welsh metal scene is doing well... we have quite a sense of community and comradeship, which is important"


It could well be that all Welsh metalheads have fire in their hearts and beer in their bellies, well they are of course from the land of the dragon, so it fits. However, Black Pyre bring to the fore the icy atmospherics of a snow-capped Snowdonia in their own brandished form of Black Metal. The quartet released their debut EP "The Forbidden Tomes" last year to international acclaim having scored coverage not only in the UK, but as far away as Australia and sold copies to metalheads across Europe and as far away as Brazil. GMA felt it was therefore only fitting we interrogated the spawn of Cymru and by this we don't mean the sheep or goats that marauder the hills (have you seen those horns?!?!?!?)... we simply mean Black Pyre.

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For those who have not heard of Black Pyre, could you give us a brief history of the band? What does the band name mean?

     "We originated from the dark realms (of Wales), forming aeons ago, and created a frosty EP by summoning a daemon and channelling his dark power into our music… We then walked the permafrost to find many other great bands to play with, such as Grá, Arvas, Uburen, Wolvencrown, Necronautical and many more, and even adding another wielder of strings along the way. What does Black Pyre mean? A pyre is a part of ancient funeral rites, whereby a body is burnt on a large pile of wood - the pyre is this fire."


You recently released your latest EP 'The Forbidden Tomes', what was the reception like? Did anyone download it from outside of the UK

     "Our frosty little EP was well received, and had excellent reviews and coverage from several outlets, notably Metal Hammer, South Wales’ Musipedia Of Metal, and Australian extreme metal reviewer Kelly Tee. We also had purchases and plays of the EP from Germany, Austria, Norway, Brazil, and Poland. So yes, you could say it had some global outreach."


How would you describe your sound without the use of genre tagging, given you play Black Metal; such a broad genre?

     "We take influences from the old school Norwegian sound, but also bring our own unique styles to the band. We all like a variety of subgenres of metal and other genres of music and so we like to allow that to influence how we write our Black Metal. Just think of what daemon shrieks harmonising with nails down a chalk board would sound like… That should give you a rough idea of our style."


What do your parents think of your music? Are any of your family members musicians?

     "Parents? Ah you mean the elder daemons who spawned us. Yes they approve."

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Cardiff Castle, Wales / Source: Cardiff Castle

Tell us more about the Welsh Metal scene, what challenges do bands face, is the scene vastly different in the south compared to the north?

     "The Welsh metal scene is doing well, both North and South. There are plenty of fantastic bands, and many of us know each other. We have quite a sense of community and comradeship, which is important."


Do you feel that British Extreme Metal is facing a massive revival or has it always been active in the background?

     "The British Extreme Metal scene is definitely having a bit of a comeback, but as you mention, it has always been active in the background. It is great to be part of this scene with so many amazing bands and fans."


For metalheads visiting Cardiff, what sights / attractions and bars / venues could you recommend?

     "In Cardiff there are many great places to visit. Fuel Rock Club is an amazing venue and bar which hosts some of the best underground and grass-roots metal gigs. Tramshed, and The Globe are both fine venues which put on excellent gigs for medium sized bands."


Do you have any thanks or greetings you wish to send to friends, family or fans?

     "We would like to thank: Timothy Vincent, Naomi Sanders (and by extension Metal Hammer), Musipedia Of Metal, Gavin Davies (Welsh Hagrid), Carl & Zoe, Sepulchre, Deus Mori, Arvas, Tim & Alyn, Olly’s Big Beard (for being so nice), Chris Bowes, Adam Bell, Janice Clonefield, Papa Johns (for their delicious buttery dip), Ben Smith, Kelly Tee, Victor Marot (he’s the reason Dominus has to take cold showers every day), Marco Silva (for the toilet party), Lewis Read-Jenkins, Jack Wilson, Tabitha Attwood, Step-hen & Gregus Maximus, Kate (I’m not sure what you’ve done but thanks anyway), Sean Bean, Father Grimster, Everyone at Fuel Rock Club, The Gryphon, Global Metal Apocalypse (😉), all our fans."

https://www.facebook.com/BlackPyreMusic/
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Interview Interrogation: V.I.T.R.I.O.L.: from Anaal Nathrakh (England)

20/4/2020

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"In the end though, nepotism will always be the most effective tool. So be good friends with someone influential, butter up or pay the appropriate people to get into the frame for the big tours"


Arguably you can place Anaal Nathrakh in the same bracket as Australia's The Berzerker and Canada's sorely-missed Strapping Young Lad, for being pure fucking extreme metal. For a duo who have been serving up nihilistic and downright filthy albums since 1999, Anaal Nathrakh have shown no signs of slowing down and with the forged relationship between V.I.T.R.I.O.L.: and Irrumator, they are unbreakable; no matter how many pieces of equipment they go through by harnessing their beautifully dark minds in synchronicity.

Album no.11 will see daylight sometime this year but due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is no clear cut release date, but what is clear cut is that it's destined to leave you needing fresh underwear. It was then only fair for GMA to interrogate V.I.T.R.I.O.L. about the unmovable partnership the band has, what he has been doing since the UK went into lockdown and how music distribution has changed in context with what challenges the band faced years ago to what newer bands could face these days... oh and having a question about the new wave of British Extreme Metal being answered in a unique way; the interviewee asking the interview; much love Dave :).

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Album #11 is coming out this year, is there a definitive title yet or are some ideas being bounced around; what stage is the album at?


     "Hello. Yes, everything is completely finished, we handed the whole album over to Metal Blade Records a while back. But then immediately after we’d done so, the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off.  So we’re in limbo to some extent now, and we don’t know what’s going to happen next. Presumably MB want to continue to release music, because people out there in the world in lockdown can still seek out and listen to new music – in fact music might be a particularly important thing for many people at the moment. I’ve been listening more myself, certainly. But at the same time, presumably the people at the label, the pressing plants, the distributors and so on are mostly working from home or furloughed. So yeah, the album is complete, but we’ve no idea what will happen with it next."


What can you tell us about the new album that has no relation to the previous album? e.g. themes, differences between this and "A New Kind of Horror"?

      "Well the last album had a lot to do with the First World War because of the time we were writing it, which obviously isn’t the case with this one. So in terms of subject matter it’s very different in many respects. There’s a lot in it, but I suppose you could say that a lot of it focuses on the position of the person or individual – basically, you or I, or a person we could very easily have been – in the world. That’s especially the case with the cover art, too, which is particularly striking this time. I’ve been thinking a lot more about art over the last year or so, and in working with Mick [Kenney] on the artwork for this album, we’ve really outdone ourselves. 

     But art aside, in general, I think we humans are increasingly subject to manipulation, for example even to the extent that the Government’s responses to the coronavirus crisis here in the UK were initially dictated not by experts on viruses, but by behavioural scientists. And it’s turned out that in many respects, even though the album was written before the virus came along, it’s just as applicable in the new updated global context. Musically it’s more direct, I think. For the kind of music it is, I think it’s probably more accessible – obviously I don’t mean it’s pop music, and something filled with blast beats and screaming can only be accessible in a relative sense. But even by our standards as a band you can latch on to despite the viciousness of the music, I think it’s even more immediate than before. But we won’t know whether that’s borne out in other people’s experiences until the things is finally fucking released!"



As a band you've been going 21 years now, (how time flies) would you agree the British Extreme Metal is experiencing a new wave of bands?

     "Haha, I’m not sure how the two halves of that question go together! When you’ve been doing something for ages, it usually means you have less of an idea what’s going on with people who have just started doing it, not more! I think perhaps your question would be better answered by a journalist like you rather than by me."
[Rhys: Touche Dave, got me there; the UK Extreme Metal scene is amidst a new wave for sure]


As the UK is in lock down, what have you been doing at home both musically and in other hobbies?

      "It’s a weird mixture of intentions and inertia. I think a lot of people have found themselves expecting and fully intending to get on with all the little projects they’d not got around to, but then in reality sitting in their pants eating shit in front of the TV. My mental escape has always been games, so I’ve been playing quite a lot. I’ve also been thinking about some philosophical stuff – I recently finished a really big piece of work, and it’s possible that I could polish some parts of it and seek to publish them, so I’ve been thinking about some problems that I’d have to solve to get them to publishable quality. 

     It won’t make sense to many people, but if you’re into that sort of thing, basically it’s about the roles of cognitive vs. conative elements of a hybrid metaethical position. But mostly I’ve been sitting on my arse and festering into an ever greater loathing of my fellow humans and the twats on the telly and the radio who act like they know what they’re doing, but who are actually incompetent, self-serving, arse-covering fuckwits. Just like everyone else."


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Birmingham skyline, England / Source: MeetBirmingham

Arguably you're one of the strongest metal duo's to be still active and so what is it that makes you both tick along nicely?

     "Tick along nicely? This is Anaal Nathrakh, not a long-running car boot sale or someone’s happily married grandparents. We do what we do together because when we get together and work on this stuff, the results excite us. We specifically don’t have a trick or formula that makes things smooth and easy. That would be boring, and alienate us from any creative satisfaction. There’s never any thought of ‘ok, back to the old job, and this time around…’, because every new thing we do is ad hoc and vital and expressive, not mechanistic. We have a significantly optimised approach to recording, for example, because we know what we’re doing, but despite that we haven’t recorded in the same place twice in a row in nearly a decade, we usually use different equipment, and the cares and concerns we have at any given time are fresh and immediate. 

     A band like Bolt Thrower could perhaps approach an album and say to themselves ‘OK, how do we talk in a slightly different way about war this time?’. And it worked brilliantly for them. But that’s just not how our minds work. Yes, when we work together on Anaal Nathrakh there’s a similarity or continuity with our previous stuff, because it’s us and it’s Anaal Nathrakh. But beyond that there’s no trick or method – we do what we do because we know who we are, we know we get on well, and we know if we focus and work as hard as we possibly can, we will think the results are fucking brilliant.  Even if nobody else did, haha!"



What (in your opinion) are the biggest challenges facing the new crop of metal bands coming up the ranks in the UK?

     "I have little idea, to be honest – you’d have to ask someone who’s in that position. If anything I’m sick of the solipsism that makes people feel entitled to comment on the predicaments of others without actually understanding the peculiar difficulties of others’ situations. It’s like an MP saying they could live on universal credit when they haven’t got a fucking clue about life outside their privilege.  Having said that, one of the big things must be how to adapt to the fact that the world has moved on in terms of distribution and performance channels. Nowadays a lot of music culture revolves around Instagram and so on in a way I find distasteful, but which is simply the norm to most people. That’s an issue for all bands, but it must be especially acute for those trying to build some initial recognition and rise among the plethora of others on Bandcamp or wherever. 

     It still applies if you have significant recognition among potential fans, of course, but if hardly anyone has ever heard your band name yet, it’s got to be harder. We had early success on mp3.com back in the day – it was more like an early YouTube kind of thing back then, not the corporate pop shit thing is it now – but nowadays you have to navigate a much more complex network of genre tagging, big-data-style keyword heuristics, game search results, all that kind of shit. In the end though, nepotism will always be the most effective tool. So be good friends with someone influential, butter up or pay the appropriate people to get into the frame for the big tours, and in the UK, be from London. Then you’ll soon be doing better than us and be more able to answer that question than we are."



What plans for the year ahead do you have (COVID-19 depending); did you have before this pandemic?

      "Well, it’s basically impossible to answer that question. As it happens, we were planning on keeping a somewhat lower profile in terms of shows, just playing key events. But now we don’t even know when the album is likely to come out, everything’s cancelled, and no one can book shows and tours at all. For example, just as the virus blew up in the West, we were in talks about a really big festival show in South America, possibly along with some tour dates on that side of the world. But that’s completely out the window now. Depending on how the prognosis for society develops, perhaps we’ll have to think of something innovative and unconventional to do. But for the time being, it’s a waiting game to see what will happen."


Do you have any greetings or thanks you wish to send out? Any final words?

"Thanks. Remain indoors."

https://www.facebook.com/Anaalnathrakhofficial
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Interview Interrogation: Ardek from Carach Angren (The Netherlands)

17/4/2020

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"the water... was real and so cold that we had to stop in between shots to try and warm up... I remember at some point I was like 'OK I'm going to pass out'" (on the 'Charles Francis Coghlan' music video)


In truth the Dutch Metal scene is as complex as it's train network - remember that a 'Sprinter' train service is slower than 'InterCity' and oh that most trains are double decker, the quiet zone at the top and the trains as quiet as Black Metal... anyway moving on from the differences in train services and onto one of the most prominent metal exports in Carach Angren, who are gearing up to release their latest offering 'Franckensteina Strataemontanus' on 26th June 2020.

But what is it exactly that makes this band run along smoothly, is it their inept ability to conjure up songs that are designed to make you sweat profusely or make you lose sleep at the rate of a thunderstorm's lightning strike? Whatever it is, it works and their own 'Horror Metal' style is not one for the faint hearted as Ardek explained to GMA.

We spoke to him about how Carach Angren got to where they are now, the forthcoming album (guts, bones, the lot), the eloquency behind the outfits and the torture the band endured in filming 'Charles Francis Coghlin'.... prepare for some serious goosebumps reading this.

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Carach Angren has been going 17 years or so, what is it that has kept the line-up so strong?

     "It always has been very natural, I remember when I started I played in a couple of bands and I started to write the composing part which was more than anything else, so with other bands I had to compromise of which sometimes would lead to really great stuff. But with Carach Angren I had my place as a main composer where I could make up compositions and Seregor, is really good at the guitar when it comes to the melodies and coming up with his act on stage; visuals, lyrics, but my brother was good with rhythm so all these things together were a natural combination; like a machine without discussion of who's doing what.

     This developed and I remember when we made the first release it would be cool to make one story and build everything around that - this stuck with us whenever we did research for a concept album. Unfortunately he (my brother) decided to leave this year, it's sad but I always say you have to like what you do, especially when it comes to music."



Focusing on the lyrics, were these all researched or were some based on stories you heard / learned over time?

     "It differs per album I know that, for example "Lammendam" is a story that actually took place near Seregor's place where he lives in Schinveld, it's a very small town and the legend was really unknown, but it always has fascinated him, he even wrote one song about it in previous bands. So when we got the opportunity to sign with a record label in 2007 (Maddening Media), the idea of a full length came up immediately and this story was right in front of us; that's why we picked that one.

    After that I read about the story of Van Der Decken (Death Came Through A Phantom Ship) which came through on a completely different album, it felt completely liberating to do something different and so with all of our albums they connect with us through maybe a movie, or a book or an idea and that's the cool thing about our band - we can do whatever we want within the ghosts or horror genre, story-telling of course and sure it's not easy, because you cannot just pick something random and do it, it has to connect with you and focus upon something inside ourselves as a band.

     This echoes with the new album 'Franckensteina Strataemontanus' whereby Frankenstein has been done so many times in so many different ways, it's so popular that for me it wasn't the case of 'lets do an album about Frankenstein', you know? That's not going to cut it. But through a really great way, I found a connection to the story via a nightmare where I was floating in a house and I heard distant piano sounds so I walked towards what seemed to be a portrait of an old-looking man, he was really angry (laughs) and then I woke up and I wrote that down, I was fascinated by this dream; I even made a drawing of the face that I saw and basically ignored it, until later when when I started to read about Frankenstein and was fascinated by it.

     So much so I researched it and came up with this theory that Mary Shelley originally was inspired by Johann Conrad Dippel, so I googled this guy and a portrait showed up in google images of him and he looked exactly the guy I dreamt of (haha). So that for me and Seregor became a lead, you need a lead that pulls you instead of pushing yourself, this was something interesting what we had - no one knew who Johann Conrad Dippel was, so we started making up stories connected with Frankenstein. This is usually how it happens with every album, but I have to say every album becomes a bigger challenge as you've already done so much and it's easy to go in the same direction, so I like a challenge (haha)."



Arguably with Carach Angren you've created your own sound in 'Horror Metal', do you hope that other bands will follow the same style?

     "That's a good question, I don't know but I see sometimes people are inspired by us and do covers, stuff like that which is really cool. The reason we choose 'Horror Metal' is because we didn't feel completely good with the 'Symphonic Black Metal' genre because especially to me, that genre has always felt like a big container of different kinds of things and bands. I felt we do several different things so 'Horror Metal' isn't really a genre in that sense, but if you have to give it a name then it's 'Horror Metal', but yeah we were inspired by bands and so we hope we inspire other bands and people, be it music, art, paintings, photography - there was no ultimate cause or effect, we invent all the time - art in that sense."


Arguably bands say their next / latest album is their best or favourite, out of all of Carach Angren's albums, which is your favourite?

     "It's cliche but it's the upcoming one (haha) because it feels closest to your personal development as a musician, because we always give everything when we write. When I was working with the music for 'Lammendam' I was a different person, I was like 23 years old and now I'm 36. I'm proud of every album and I thing that we've really done everything we could possibly do at that point, but of course when you listen back you will always do things differently; but that would be wise things because probably you would f*ck up and I think that every album has it's charm. "Death Came Through A Phantom Ship" was nautical, it has an adventurous tone to it and so the production was more film-score like, "This Is No Fairytale" is much more in your face-like, complex and raw but they're super different in that sense.

     But yeah what makes me proud of the new one is that basically, we took almost like an extra year to work on it, because usually it's a two year cycle - play play play, writing an album, releasing it and now I felt like this is too soon, it would not be fair to hurry an album... I felt like I need that extra time as sometimes you feel that you've lost that perspective, sometimes you need time away from it to gain new ideas."



Given that extra year, did that help you in researching ideas for the song titles too? How was the process?

     "It was a really in-depth process with what I did in 2018 and 2017, I started reading the book and other gothic novels and got fascinated by Frankenstein, the funny thing is in 2018 it was exactly 200 years ago that Mary Shelley wrote the book, so I found it to be my investigation. I went to a museum called Boerhaave Museum in Leiden, it's like a science museum and they had an exhibition about Frankenstein in an historical context; it was written in about Mary Shelley and also about the future of robotics, basically a projection of Frankenstein in this day of age and there was also a little exhibition of a woman called Ana Maria Gomez Lopez, she's a scientist but also a performing artist and she was planning an art performance of taking an organ out of her own body and bury it.

     This fascinated me so I wrote down her name and contacted her, had an interview with her discussing all these kinds of things and I got on a really deep trail; I started investigating laboratory experiments where they decapitated mice to find out brain functioning in the moment after death and I definitely found out that the separation between death and life is something that is mostly cultural, medically we say that the moment of death is when the heart stops beating and yet we see some cells in organ systems multiply after death; that was kind of fascinating that there's no clear line and that inspired me in the song-writing process in that I started writing some ideas, some fictional ideas - some ended up on the album like 'Operation Compass' and it was in that time that we slowly started gathering musical ideas and these ideas, but I never at the time had an idea of what this could become."



Are you surprised about how global metal has become and seeing bands from the likes of Syria, Botswana, Indonesia emerge?

     "I think that's really great that we are as a world, since the internet and everything going to more globalisation, it has some worrying sides maybe, but there is a very good side and music... if you see how accessible music is these days from bands in difficult regions, who are outreaching to global audiences, it's really great. So I'm excited about that and it's a fantastic thing."


The new album 'Franckensteina Strataemontanus' is to be released on black and glow-in-the-dark vinyl, was this your idea or Season of Mist's idea?

     "We worked together on these things and we will have a silver one on our web store, we also have a limited edition vinyl where we hand make little bottles of oil and I always try to come up with ideas to give the release something special, almost a four-dimension like we did with the last album - pitch black box, so we really try that but it's like an exploration because everything is possible, but not everything is a good idea, I think I have very good ideas but the label is like some of these aren't going to work commercially - we always have to find some kind of balance, but I am very happy what we have come up with altogether. By coming up with a great album it enables teams around us to come up with great ideas to match it - such as the artwork which is done by Stefan Heilemann, he's a brilliant guy and artist - I emailed him the entire concept story and before we even started recording he came up with this artwork."


Some people on YouTube have commented that Carach Angren should do their own horror movie, or music should be included in one, what are your thoughts on this?

     "Well the cool thing is that it already happened, there was a Canadian horror film called "Pyewacket" and they licenced one of our tracks 'There's No Place Like Home' and it's in the movie, so that's really cool; there's also some key visuals from us in the movie, so that's something to definitely check out, so what you see is it's already happening. Some Dutch people ask us do you want to make your own movie and to be honest I really like what we do, I like to make sound for non-existent movies in our heads and to make a movie would be something completely different, so why not, but it's not something that we are trying to do."


On the topic of videography, how demanding was it to make the music video 'Charles Francis Coghlan'?

     " (laughs) I want to forget about this, it was extremely demanding for everyone, we did it with Rick Jacops who is a film-maker from The Netherlands and a really great guy. But he is like us in his field, a perfectionist, it never ends with him nor us and basically we had to build everything ourselves; what you see there is built by the band, we did have some help from friends and family but besides that we did it over a period spanning 2 months. Literally the recordings you see we are in the water, that was actually real and was so cold that we had to stop in between the shots and try to warm up... I remember at some point I was like 'OK I'm going to pass out', like what are we doing here, we're crazy.

     To give you an example we had these shots like all day and then in the afternoon I was going to the other scene, to bury a hole for the grave because we needed to put a coffin and water in there and was also recorded in May - the weather was really nice and we only had very little time to record because we had to record at night as it was outside, so we were literally recording from like midnight to like 5am, stop and sleep for the next couple of hours and then wake up because we had to rebuild the set - it was basically horrible, I was dead at the end from sleep deprivation and all the crap. But I mean we were very proud of the end result, I don't know if we would do it again though, looking back at it it was too extreme, like a movie with a couple of people."

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Maastricht at night, The Netherlands / Source: Consilium Europa
It seems with each new album comes new on-stage outfits, what inspires you each time?

     " (laughs), I could come up with a very elaborate story but a lot of things we do in the band happen naturally, I'll give you two examples like first we have a story in The Netherlands where we love to go to check out clothes... which we have done since the beginning as we go there, we check out what's there and for some reason there's always something really cool and during the latest years Seregor has been getting better at customising some of the clothes that we get, so his touch is definitely on there. What is really funny is that people always contact us asking where do we have it made, where do you get this stuff? The funny thing is just it's commercially available, but we know very well what we connect with.

     I remember when Seregor and I once went to the store and there were these PVC / latex pants and we looked at each other and we were like 'I think this could be cool' but at the same time we said we wouldn't have done this four years ago, we would be like 'this is too much' and for some reason we tried them and felt like OK this is weird and not a Black Metal purist look, but it worked with what we were doing and that also made us move in different ways live... like almost Michael Jackson kind of moves. But it all happened in a natural way, another example is like last year we needed something to promote the headline tour - something for an instagram video.

     I had no idea and was literally out of ideas and Seregor called me and said well come over and let's try something, so I came over to his and he had a couple of masks and was fooling around and also said he had this fake tongue, so I said yeah why don't you just cut it or something and so we were just goofing around and filming with my phone and it turned out to be really something strange. So I took it home and made it a little bit darker, adding sound effects and it turned into this gross kind of thing, I put it online and it went viral. I said why don't you do that live, everyday you cut your tongue on stage, OK so we ordered like 38 tongues (laughs) and we had ordered the wrong ones because they were too sticky and so had to order different ones - nowadays like the mouth piece crisis we had a tongue crisis."



Regarding the masks we see around the 'Lammendam' and 'Death Came Through A Phantom Ship' era, are they still being made?

     "Yeah Seregor makes them and has his own web store, he sells them there and makes all kinds of masks - usually horror and that's like a little side business. He's extremely good at it and always comes up with new ideas in life and for the band as well sometimes, in the visual area he's very talented"


Given the COVID-19 situation, looking towards the back end of 2020, what plans do you have?

     "We're working on touring plans for the Autumn, USA hopefully after that Europe, we already have Mexico's Metalfest confirmed so with the virus it creates a lot of uncertainty, but we have really great booking agents and management who would try to be on that; making plans which I am really happy about, because that was the initial plan, we are really lucky that the album is coming out. But some bands had tour plans which they've had to cancel which is really bad, but music is now a secondary problem and sits behind personal welfare, societal health, etc., but our tour plans are definitely being drafted right now and hopefully we can be a bit more precise when this is all over."


For those metalheads visiting Landgraaf, what sights / attractions could you recommend?

     "This is actually a funny thing, Landgraaf is a town where we used to have rehearsals and our previous band, none of us actually live there. So somehow that name made it onto our Wikipedia page. But we are located in the province of Limburg. In general you have the town of Maastricht which is nice to visit, it's a nice town, that is something I would recommend."


Where there any ghost / horror stories you were told as a child?

     "Well I always remember our father would tell us fairytales and stories, but I have a funny memory as a child, I was sitting in the bathtub and I called out to my mother that someone was under the water by my feet; I have a vague memory of that so it was a cool ghost story."


"Franckensteina Strataemontanus" is out 26th June 2020 via Season of Mist on CD, vinyl and tape.

http://www.carach-angren.nl/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Carach-Angren/289371466833
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Interview Interrogation: Numa from Two Face Sinner (Peru)

14/4/2020

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Put the date in your diaries... 24th April. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Peruvian Black / Death Metal outfit Two Face Sinner unleash their third torrent of barbaric and bestial compositions through Non Serviam Records. The group has been around since 2006 and have had a few line-up changes, most recently the recruitment of bassist Set, but with each new member comes a new lease of life.

For Two Face Sinner, they feel that they are ready to smash the international metal market wide open and let the world know that the Peruvian Metal scene is alive and kicking. With their impending album, they hope to push onward and break new ground, GMA spoke to vocalist / guitarist Numa about the new album, what support they have in their national metal scene and the challenges Peruvian Metal bands tend to face.

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Guys for those who have not heard of Two Face Sinner, could you give us a brief history of the band?

     "Everything started in 2006, recording stuff that we were writing since 2004, after several rehearsal sessions we entered the studio to record and release a digital demo through MySpace at that time. After listening to 3 songs that we had posted, we received a proposal from this local producer to release our first record, after some changes in the line up, we completed 10 songs that would be included in our debut album. We had our debut show in 2008 supporting Rotting Christ and several local dates followed that, like some great supporting shows for Belphegor, Nargaroth and God Dethroned. Our debut album was released in 2010, we had an uninterrupted path since the beginning, with two more releases to our credit."


Your set to release your 3rd album "Spiritual Nemesis” at the end of the month, what did you do differently compared to your previous album?

     "I think we have reached the sound level needed to hit the worldwide market, musically it is a challenging album because we tried to be as darkest, melancholic and brutal as possible; you will notice that as soon as the first song starts playing on the CD - I feel our past album is like strong tentacles, but "Spiritual Nemesis" would be the main carcass. This album took two years to be created, we faced a lot of difficulties and we learned a lot about musical production facts, it was a very enriching experience."


Tell us more about the Peruvian Metal scene, what challenges are there, when did it start, what venues, labels, distro's, festivals, etc are there?


     "We have good bands in Peru, some of them have toured Europe over the past few years. I think the most challenging aspect is the lack of empathy in the scene, most of the bangers are divided, we are not a too big scene and all that division is not good for us. We have labels such as, Austral Holocaust, Gate Of Horror, Thrashirts and many more, two of them released our past albums. We have this metal zine called Cuero Negro, that comes from the 80’s and some big festivals like Lima Metal Fest or Metal Worldwide."


What are the challenges that Peruvian Metal bands face nowadays (excluding COVID-19)?

     "There are a lot, the main one would be that there will be no shows in Peru this year, plus some rehearsal rooms are not opening due to this social distancing thing, like all is being reduced to social media exposing, releases, sales and propaganda."

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Machu Picchu, Peru / Source: Forbes

It seems that the more extreme styles of metal are popular in Peru, what is your opinion on that?

     "Peruvian metalheads are very traditional when it comes to metal, I believe it is because of the huge influence that South America had in early worldwide extreme metal, it’s more like a collective subconscious."


For metalheads visiting Lima, what sights or attractions could you recommend (under normal conditions)?

     "I would recommend the Catacombs, Machu Picchu and Chan Chan ruins, fully historical places."


What are your plans for the rest of the year (COVID-19 dependant) and were there any plans postponed / cancelled?

     "We planned a couple of videos, we had already planned a release concert for the new album that will not be possible at least for 2020, we are already writing new music in this lockdown period, and this tear marks a decade since our debut album so we plan to do something special too, let's see what it could be."


Do you have any greetings / thanks you wish to send out to friends, family, etc?

     "We mainly have to thank Ricardo Gelok at Non Serviam Records for honouring us with this great opportunity to reach the world across his label and you, for putting your interest in the band, it means a lot to us, we appreciate it, thank you so much. Ave Sathanas."

http://www.twofacesinner.com
https://www.facebook.com/twofacesinner/
www.instagram.com/twofacesinner
www.youtube.com/numa2fs

https://www.facebook.com/nonserviamrecords
https://www.instagram.com/non_serviam_records/
https://non-serviam-records.bandcamp.com/
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Interview Interrogation: Henri Sattler from God Dethroned (The Netherlands)

13/2/2020

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No one could have imagined that 30 years ago in the small village of Bielen in The Netherlands, that a very successful Black / Death Metal band would emerge. 30 years on and God Dethroned unleash a barrage of hellish brutality with their 11th album 'Illuminati' having completed their 'War Trilogy' (Passchendaele, Under The Sign Of The Iron Cross and The World Ablaze) with such aplomb, especially with the latter album being a struggle as Henri went on to explain in our interview with GD's front-man, he divulged into the challenges of music recording, the Dutch Metal scene and customs checks they had to face, when visiting the UK...

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[The] 'Illuminati' were basically a secret society fighting for freedom, it's not so mysterious as it looks to many people."


Given God Dethroned's longevity and line-up changes, what in essence has kept the band going?

     "It's because I like to play live and of course make new albums, but for me especially nowadays the reason to make new albums is to be able to play live. Recording an album is OK but it's not the thing that I like the most, I like to go out to play at festivals and shows at the weekend, some cool tours here and there... yeah that's the main motivation and that's still there after all these years"


Having completed the 'War Trilogy' (Passchendaele, Under The Sign Of The Iron Cross and The World Ablaze), what convinced you to shift away to different lyric topic entirely?

     "Hehe well you know, back in the day I decided to write a concept album about WW1. I came to that idea because our guitarist Isaac Delahaye lives in a part of Belgium where a lot of the fighting went on; there's a museum, war cemeteries and monuments and things like that, it really intrigued me and so I decided to write 'Passchendaele'. That album was received very well by the media and fans alike, so I made the 'stupid' mistake to announce the fact that I would write a trilogy about WW1 and it all seemed to go very well. We did the second one 'Under The Sign Of The Iron Cross' and then I discovered it was a lot more difficult to write lyrics about WW1, because as you know most of the time people were just shooting from trenches to the enemy's trenches, so not much was going on.

     So by album two I covered most of the topics that I could find and then I still had to do album number three, so it was really difficult to write lyrics for 'The World Ablaze' and I was really happy that I could finish that album... but in the mean time our fans started requesting that we would go back to the dark side so-to-speak, to write lyrics about religion, occult themes, etc, so it was a no brainer to do that again and it felt like a relief, to be able to write lyrics about said topics; one topic per song instead of one topic per album, let alone three albums."



With respect to your new album 'Illuminati', could you give us the backstory behind each song title?

     "The track 'Illuminati' refers to the organisation from Germany, they were basically a secret society fighting for freedom, it's not so mysterious as it looks to many people. They were a society who wanted to read certain books that were forbidden at that time by other religious organisations at the time, they secretly fought against those religious organisations in the name of freedom in order to read those books that were forbidden, that's basically who the illuminati were. I created a story where it takes a mastermind to infiltrate and replace a new world without religion and that's the story I created around the illuminati."


What was it like working with artwork designer Michal Xaay Loranc (Nile, Evocation, etc), engineer Ortrun Poolman and Hugo Alvarstein?

     "Oh yeah pretty good, I mean Ortrun is our live sound guy so he basically did the setup for the drum recordings. Michal Loranc is the Polish guy who did our album cover, the management sent me a list of artwork designers and I liked his the best, so I contacted him and he wrote back to me saying that he is a long-time God Dethroned fan... what an honour it is to ask me to do the album cover. So he came up with this album cover right away which is really beautiful and said 'Henri, this is possibly the most beautiful artwork that I have ever did in my life' and then Hugo is the guy who did the mastering, he is also one of our live sound guys and has his own studio which is really good; the mastering turned out really great."


Focusing on the track "Eye Of Horus", did you dabble in Egyptian mythology for it?

     "Yeah I did, I read about the god or half-god Horus and basically the story is about the battle between good and evil, from which I made my own version of it. This is the song that our guitarist Mike Ferguson wrote and when I listen to the composition, it gave me this Egyptian feeling and I thought OK I'm going to write some lyrics that fit the feeling of this song that it gives me, that's how I came up with the 'Eye Of Horus'."


Out of the whole album 'Illuminati', was there any tracks that you could consider challenging and / or ambitious?

     "When it comes down to recording drums, bass and rhythm guitars, all of the songs are really doable, I mean when we record the basics, they are finished within a couple of days no problem. But usually when it comes down to trying different things with the vocals, like this album we have of course my main vocals, Jeroen's backing vocals and then we have the choirs (something I did myself together with some other people); that was challenging, along with the grunting and singing at the same time which was challenging. So you have to try different things and that it's not that you don't know how to do it, but if it's something you haven't done before on the songs and you are trying so many different things, then it takes a lot more time.

     It's the same with the keyboards, we decided to put a lot of keyboards in the music but not in the foreground, it's all in the background so to lift up the atmosphere and add more layers to the music; making the songs more interesting to listen to in the long term because you will discover more and more things in the music, again those are the challenging things because you're trying something and then you're trying something else here and there, and then decide what you're going to use, this takes a lot of time because this is something you cannot prepare beforehand."



Was the music video 'Spirit Of Beezlebub' easy to create and what is the story behind it?

     "Well we wanted to do something different instead of just a regular band video, so we looked at the lyrics and looked at the songs... lyrics that would be easy to put into a music video, so we chose three songs: 'Illuminati', 'Spirit Of Beezlebub' and 'Book Of Lies', all of these have been released with the latter in conjunction with the album release.

     What you see in the music video is a short movie which represents the lyrics of the songs and 'Illuminati' was already discussed earlier; in this case you see a priest who shows he wants to abuse children so we bring back to life a mummy who is going to kill the priest. 'Spirit of Beezlebub' is about trying to change and kill evil, but then it comes back to kill you. 'Book Of Lies' is more of a band video but features aspects of the illuminati and is more so about the bible."


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Beilen Railway Station, The Netherlands / Source: Wikipedia
Most bands form in either towns or cities, but for God Dethroned's origin is in the village of Beilen, what was it like in the beginning and what can metalheads do there?

     "Haha, there's nothing to do there at all. I guess that's why it was so worthwhile playing in a band because nothing was going on there and yeah I found my first musicians back in the day in the area. Nowadays I have to drive all across the country because everybody lives in a different corner of the country, but that's what you get when you get bigger, you get better musicians who live in different places. But for me it was a relief to play in a band back in the day because for the rest, you have just a few pubs and that's it. You just start a band and are not that good in the beginning, finding musicians who are on the same level and from there it develops and along the way you find better musicians; resulting in travelling a bit further."


Regarding the Dutch Metal scene, would you say it's strengthened and grown over the years?

     "Yeah I mean there are a lot of bands that are big, back in the day there was us, Asphyx, Sinister, Severe Torture and probably Pestilence, some of those bands sort of disappeared, are still on the same level or have gone up in the world. But in the meantime we have a new wave of bands such as Epica, of course they existed for many years but they grew slowly and steadily and now are a huge band. Another big export band so-to-speak is Within Temptation who are also huge, we have other bands like Carach Angren who play Symphonic Black Metal and are getting rather big at the moment internationally. So I guess we're doing quite well in this country and there's old bands and new bands, but luckily those new bands are getting big as well because one day they will need to fully replace the old bands. Overall I guess we have a pretty strong scene."


With regards to Brexit, are you concerned about the challenges you may face coming to the UK?

     "No I'm not, I mean OK we will be checked by customs but that's also the case now, even though the UK is still a part of the European Union (EU). Last year when we visited the UK on tour with Belphegor, we had to go through customs so it was already the case. I guess if we were to go again after Brexit, nothing's changed and I'm not worried about you guys, I'm pretty sure that the UK will manage to get new trade deals with all the other European countries again, the USA and places like that. I think you guys will be fine, of course it will feel like a new beginning but after that it will be business as usual."


Are you surprised about the global impact heavy metal has made, seeing bands emerge from far-flung countries?

     "No I'm not, you know in the past you wouldn't know if there were bands in Iran, Iraq, Indonesia or some other far away country from us. But of course there are people there who love to listen to and play metal, maybe for them in the past it wasn't a natural type of music to play... they have become modern societies, they listen to Western music and I guess as there are people who like to play metal, that's what they like now. I think it's great! Why not? You know the world has become smaller because of the internet and so I guess it makes sense."


Outside of God Dethroned do you have any other hobbies or interests?

     "Yeah I build guitars through my company Serpent King Guitars, that's what I do most of the time I don't play (The song 'Serpent King' was taken from Henri's company name). One of my friends always called me 'serpent king' instead of Henri so he would be like 'hey serpent king how are you doing', this is what he has said to me for many years, so when I founded my guitar company I thought 'OK what am I going to call it?' and then I thought 'of course, I am the serpent king so it's going to be 'Serpent King Guitars'."


Are there any guitars that you have made that you're specially proud of?

     "Basically all of them, but I have made some really special ones: one is called 'The Anubis', which is a really beautiful one... I play them all every once in a while and build a new guitar for myself, which I can show off by playing live and people see that, check out the website and give feedback and say they want to buy a guitar like that and that's how we do it."


Any finals words? Greetings you wish to send out?

     "I just want to thank the fans in the UK for following God Dethroned all these years and hope they will check out the new album and hopefully we will be able to play in the UK soon again."


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Interview Interrogation: Ksaltone from Massenhinrichtung (Belarus)

11/10/2019

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Like most of the countries in Eastern Europe, the metal scenes are thriving and delivering some remarkable talent, yet they get largely ignored by the West. Take for example Belarus, the Extreme Metal scene there is extraordinary and yet can you name one band from there without googling? No? Then the point just made is well and truly proven. Hoping to shake the foundations of metal is Pagan Black Metallers Massenhinrichtung, sure the band has been around for 15 years but they've steadily been gathering a following in the underground and have landed a deal with Darker Than Black Records 4 years ago.

Rest assured they are NOT a NSBM band (said record label has some bands associated with the genre on their roster), they may show Belarusian patriotism but let's be honest, aren't we all patriotic at times? Massenhinrichtung's drummer Ksaltone spoke to GMA about their national scene, their new music video and the sights of their capital city Minsk and other places in Belarus.

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"I could say that Belarusian Metal becomes stronger with every year."


Firstly could you tell us how Massenhinrichtung came about, who came up with the band name and what it means? Also why a German name and not a Belarusian name?

     "Hello! I created Massenhinrichtung in 2004 when I was extremely influenced by horror and wild Pagan culture. I decided to name that project as “Massenhinrichtung” (mass execution) because I saw it as the most extreme form of protest against the modern abutments. In my opinion, nothing is more cruel than mass killing. Why German? German sounds tough, while Belarusian sounds soft and melodic."


How would you describe your sound without the use of genres and what influences do you look towards for your music?

     "I would describe the sound of Massenhinrichtung as a reflection of deep emotional crisis and a hurricane of sad and aggressive energies. We just erupt tons of feelings via such kind of aggressive but eclectic songs. And yes, we are not into any genre, I think. It’s some kind of authentic metal from Belarus with blackened basis and surface. What about influences, so I take my inspiration from perfect nature and idiotic society."


You filmed your 'Distances' music video at some Orthodox locations in Belarus, how challenging was it to secure the permission to film at such sensitive sites?

     "We didn’t get any permission from anyone. We came and filmed our background for a video boldly, without asking any kind of authorities. But we don’t have to do it, actually! It’s ours, hehehe. Those places are symbolic to me so I decided this lyric video must reflect the atmosphere of ascetic Belarusian vast land as I imagine it."


Can you tell us more about the wider Belarusian Metal scene? What the challenges are, are there any festivals, venues or bars you could recommend?

     "To be honest, nowadays I have a little contact with metalheads, just with my teammates and old friends. We have been introverts for a long time. But anyway I could say that Belarusian Metal becomes stronger with every year. We have a small amount of annual festivals here, only 1 open-air fest, but almost every month we have there a gig of famous metal bands from EU and USA. Metal music has no cultural support here so every f*****g thing here is made by enthusiasts. Ideological enthusiasts. I could recommend you to listen to the bands Extermination Dismemberment and Serdce."

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Novogrudok Castle, Belarus / Source: Wikipedia

Outside of the band what hobbies or interests do you have?

     "My main and only hobby is music. Making / listening to / composing – everything. And maybe travelling, but fortunately we united that with my music hobby, when we had started playing gigs outside our country. And every one of us have, of course, has constant work to earn for a living."


For metalheads visiting Minsk, what sights or attractions could you recommend in seeing? Is it relatively easy to navigate Minsk?

     "I would recommend them to visit some calm Belarusian picturesque historical places instead of Minsk's stone jungle. Minsk is a big and wonderful city with plenty of attractions for the young blood, but personally, I like quiet places like ruins of castles (for example Novogrudok and Ruzhany) and lakesides like Braslav. I think metalheads will rate them better that our capital city. Minsk was destroyed during WWII, so all of the buildings are new and not prayed yet."


What plans does the band have for the rest of the year and leading into 2020?

     "Now we are in the progress of making a new record, we’ll do our best to release it in summer 2020. We will show some changes and refreshments in Massenhinrichtung and will film one or two music videos. Follow us on any social network, soon we’ll put out the fresh news."


Do you have any greetings, thank you's, etc., that you wish to send out to friends, family, fans, etc?

     "First of all a big thank you to Global Metal Apocalypse for an idea of making this interview! I’m sure European metalheads could be interested in discovering something new and extraordinary. In Belarus we have plenty of good music, so I recommend you to get to know the Belarusian Metal dialect. And of course cheers to all people in the EU who know us and support us! We appreciate it very much!"

https://www.facebook.com/massenband
http://massen.by/

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Interview Interrogation: Sahil Makhija from Demonic Resurrection

28/12/2018

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Demonic Resurrection are one of the leading metal bands from the Indian Metal scene, having been around since the turn of the millennium they have released 5 albums, 1 EP and 1 split and in that time played across Asia and Europe; most notably playing twice at Bloodstock where this year Sahil (vocalist/guitarist) had a chat with GMA about why he was putting not only the band to rest, but his other bands as well. He spoke about his YouTube channel, the scene going forward, what you can do in Bombay and what religion means to him.

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DR around 2016/2017

"Religion is very good fiction; they're great stories and it's unfortunate that people have taken them literally "


Demonic Resurrection has come to an end, could you tell us how this come about?

     "I don't know man I think after 18 years of doing this, I'm kind of a little tired and fed-up with the way things are. I don't mind the struggle and I'm happy to work really hard and put 110% behind what I am doing, but for me I feel like the struggle has been with the same things as opposed to being different struggles as you progress as a band. For me that's kind of where it sort of says it's not working; if you're struggling with the same thing you started 10 years ago then maybe you're doing something wrong. So I kind of need to at least for now just put this behind me and maybe focus on something that is really doing well for me right now, which is my Headbangers Kitchen YouTube channel, so that's the plan right now."


Regarding your YouTube channel, you recently become certified correct? And you contributed to a book?

     "Yeah we got certified a while back but we just reached 230,000 subscribers, so it's pretty much become my full-time job now and has kept me quite busy.

     I was approached by a publisher last year to sort of edit a book rather than write one, I wrote some stuff for this book but mainly edited a lot of their recipes too make them keto-friendly.

     Keto is a sort of way of eating where you deprive your body of carbohydrates and it goes into burning fat for fuel, it's sort of become one of the hottest ways to lose weight because it kind of lets you do it in a more of a free-approach to it, rather than being restricting yourself in terms of what you can and cannot eat; though you are, but it doesn't feel as deprived as most diets do."



Out of all of the dishes you have done, which is your favourite?

     "Oh that's a tough question man, I would definitely say one of my most popular dishes is the 'bacon bomb'; that is kind of my signature meat dish, but I'm also very proud of my buttered chicken. The 'bacon bomb' is half a kilo of ground pork meat seasoned beautifully with fresh herbs, stuffed with cheese, peppers, onions, wrapped in bacon, covered in BBQ sauce and baked. That would keep you going for the rest of the day."


So your other bands Reptilian Death, Demonstealer and Workshop are being phased out too?

     "If anyone has been following me, I think it was about 2 years ago I put Workshop to rest and then a year ago I put Reptilian Death down as well. I don't know man just things stopped working for the band and like I said I don't mind working hard, but when all the odds are against you then you just need to know when to let go. With Workshop we just come to a point where we were just unable to book shows because whoever booked shows didn't like our music, so eventually we were not able to book anything and it just sort of died down because there were no gigs we could play and the other members became busy with their other musical careers, so we called it a day."


With Kryptos carrying on, what does the future of the Indian Metal scene look like in your opinion?

     "Honestly I don't know, but what I do know is it will survive, it will go through it's up's and down's like it always has, I think as a genre metal still holds onto people in some way. Even though the Indian scene is not growing in the way it should, but you know we will have to wait and see the way it goes, but I do believe it will survive and have children always wanting to play metal, so you will always have some Indian Metal bands; whether they last or not, that's a different question."

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Ajanta Caves, Bombay / Source: Trawell

With the metal band Bloodywood mixing Bollywood music with metal, do you see this as a step forward?

     "Honestly, I don't know if that's a step forward but it is definitely a connecting point for people around the world to know that there's metal in India. I guess they've tapped into what I would call the 'YouTube Market' ,which is a huge platform for very creative content and creators to exploit, and I think they have found a formula what works for them. So I definitely think them as a band will do great things, whether they choose to go live or whether they choose to spend their energy on YouTube, it will definitely be and introduction for most people getting into the Indian Metal scene."


So how did Demonic Resurrection come round to playing Bloodstock this time? Do you keep in touch with past members?

     "Yes I think Bio-Cancer dropped out and my agent said I could book in for Bloodstock, so I was like let me check the visa situation because the last time we came here we had to get a work permit, which is really expensive, but it turns out that there is a cheaper option and I was anyway planning to visit the UK for friend's wedding so it kind-of worked out. Especially as we have two members in the UK, so that's two people that actually needed to fly in now for the gig; myself and Virendra. As of now we have Shoi Sen and Arran McSporran from De Profundis who play bass and guitar, they're our live session members in the UK.

     I'm still in touch with most of them yeah, they're always doing something or the other. Nishith Hegde and Ashwin Shriyan play in Bollywood, they're session musicians and as is Daniel Kenneth Rego, Mephisto chills at home and writes some of his own music but doesn't really put anything out so."



Could you tell us more about your last (and final) album "Dashavatar", what does it mean?

     "'Dashavatar' is basically about the the primary avatars of Vishnu, the Hindu god of preservation, it's actually funny that I even wrote something like this because I'm a staunch atheist and I have a lot of disdain for religion, but as stories there are interesting things here and my wife told me the story of
Narasimha the man-lion, and the way it was told to me was... it kind of showed a very brutal side to the story and the truth is I think, religion is very good fiction; they're great stories and it's unfortunate that people have taken them literally and f****d everything up, but they are great stories and they were stories that I thought would be good to tell through our music and I made sure that we didn't compromise the music that we made. I know we do have Indian instruments in the album, but they are there with a purpose, they are not us suddenly going all fusion, trying to create something, so that was an interesting thing to do."


For metalheads visiting India, aside from the Taj Mahal, what sights / attractions would you recommend seeing?

     "Well if you're coming to Bombay (Mumbai) it's always good to get a look at the gateway of India, there are these caves called the Ajanta and Ellora caves which are nice to visit as well, you can go to the beach, Juhu beach, Marine Drive, yeah you can go around and eat some good food in Bombay. Honestly I always never know what to tell people to go and see in Bombay because myself I don't really care for sightseeing and stuff, it's all about food."


Signing off are there any greetings or thank you's that you wish to send out?

     "Thank you for having me and for doing this interview, thank you to anyone who has listened to any of my music and bought a CD or t-shirt, I appreciate it!"

http://www.facebook.com/DemonicResurrection
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Interview Interrogation: Shayan from Trivax (England)

27/12/2018

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Although Trivax originated in Iran, the frontman Shayan S. moved to the UK in 2010 to pursue becoming a metal musician. The rest of the band members are from Birmingham with the exception of bassist 'S' who originates from Syria. So where East meets West and liberalist and conservative cultures clash, Trivax stands strong as a force of nature. Shayan spoke to GMA about growing up as an Iranian metalhead, challenges faced and what it's like being immersed in the British Metal scene.

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"If you're religiously or politically against what the Government (Iranian) do or believes in then you can almost be executed"


Trivax didn't form in the UK, so could you tell us it's origins? What is the Iranian scene like?

     "Eh no I originally formed the band on my own in Iran in 2009. I can't really say there's much of a scene because it's illegal over there to be doing this kind of thing. There are obviously some musicians who are trying to be active but obviously the quality of what comes out isn't quite as good because people don't really get to exercise the rights for music. So obviously because there's rarely any gigs or anything like that. As bands, they don't really have a great deal to offer but of course there's a lot of good musicians who have come out of there. From The Vastland is an Iranian Black Metal band formed by a friend of mine called Sina who is now based in Norway, and they're doing quite well at the moment.

     The name Trivax translates to 'storm'
, it's a transcription of a war, of a name that's in Farsi and yes it came about nine years ago as I mentioned in April 2009. I just decided that this was what I needed to be doing, I didn't really have the circumstances to be doing it at the time, it's just the hunger to create and play extreme music and to light up the fire that's in you."


So would most Iranian metalheads leave the country to pursue metal music careers, etc?

     "I wouldn't say most, no, they would like to but I don't think anyone can do it"


What can happen if someone in Iran was found to be supporting metal music?

     "Well it can usually just start off with getting arrested by the culture police which means they'll cut your hair, eventually they'll let you go on bail, or if you're playing live music without permission from the Government, then that can go very badly... they can break your instruments and things, finally if you're religiously or politically against what the Government do or believes in then you can almost be executed."


What do your parents think of you playing metal music?

     "I think they might have been slightly sceptical at first, but I have to say that they have been greatly, greatly supportive - it might not be something that they'd listen to themselves, but they really enjoy it, they support that it is something I believe in because they see that it's not just a hobby or just something for me to try to and impress my friends with. This is my life. They're open-minded about it."

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The Bull, Birmingham / Source: Birmingham Mail

Did you face any challenges when you wanted to learn to play metal music?


     "None really, it'd a different environment to what it is like here, I was that desperate to actually play and I learned that whatever difficulties that were in the way, I would push through them."


How does it feel to be at Bloodstock?

     "Feels pretty amazing, yeah so far everyone has been kind to us and we're very much looking forward to the show."


Do you get nervous when going on stage?

     "erm... I don't, I... it's a very strange state of mind, I'm not sure if I can really talk about it and have it make any sense, all I can say is that it gets very intense and excitement."


Do you feel metal music in general and not just Bloodstock, brings the world together irrespective of socio-cultural and political differences?

     "Absolutely, that's why we are here, we share this metal music together with people I've never met before, but we're all brothers and sisters in metal."


Are there any greetings or thank you's that you wish to send out?

     "Many thanks to those who have supported us over the years and devoted the time to come, we're only really getting started with Trivax and we're going to do our best to get out there as much as possible, and conquer each one of you".

https://www.facebook.com/trivaxband
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