(Late last week Hammerheart Records released the debut album from the Swedish death metal band Impurity, and today we follow that with Zoltar‘s interview of all four bandmembers.)
We’ve seemingly been buried under an endless stream of classic Swedish death metal sounding bands lately, old and new, as if one could never get enough of THAT instantly recognizable buzzsaw guitar sound and part-old-school-death-metal-part-crust dynamic, more than thirty years after Left Hand Path originally dropped, turning the scene upside down. Not that it is a bad thing, mind you but the downside of this endless outpour is that fans tend to stick a rather tunnel-visioned view of what Swedish death metal was/is.
Granted, Entombed, Grave, and Dismember all wrote the rules most of their followers to this day strictly follow. But once you started going beyond the mandatory Into The Grave or Clandestine, less-talked-about or cursed by the ‘wrong label’ plague acts like Necrophobic or Hetsheads had their own say about what Swedish death metal could also be about, with a meaner, darker, and even satanic at times edge to it.
All four members of Impurity weren’t even born when said bands were first active but that didn’t prevent them from fully embracing their elders’ (morbid) vision, yet without trying to play the retro card. As a matter of fact, while being recorded at Studio Sunlight – yep, THE Studio Sunlight where ALL Entombed, Grave, and Dismember early misbehaviors were put to tape and where THAT guitar sound was basically invented – their just-released debut album The Eternal Sleep goes the extra mile by truly tapping into something more sinister and menacing. And as you can read below, they know their shit alright!
First of all, Impurity is a rather common name in extreme metal, weren’t you afraid of being mistaken for another band?
Ville Esbjörn (guitar and vocals): When we created Impurity, we had no clue that there were websites like Metal-Archives since we were all very young. So we had a difficult time finding if we were alone to name ourselves Impurity. We don’t care about sharing our name with other bands, as it doesn’t hurt anyone.
Was the initial idea behind the band to somehow resurrect Swedish death metal’s rotting corpse yet only to make it more evil-sounding, satanic. and less influenced by D-beat and classic heavy-metal?
No not at all actually, we were very inspired by Morbid Angel, Bolt Thrower, and Death in the beginning and tried to copy those bands. As I started exploring death metal further by talking to my then teacher, I got enlightened about Entombed and At The Gates and delved further into Swedish death metal. Axel’s previous liking for the Stockholm sound combined with my and Liam’s new-found love made us decide to follow the path of those bands, continuing our deep dive into this genre.
You guys are rather new in the scene. What did you do before putting Impurity together?
Axel Ask (guitar): I went through multiple different musical endeavors with different instruments, ’til I found the guitar, which was my gateway to metal. I was in a series of non-serious bands up until the covid epidemic when I joined Impurity.
Filip Drægg (drums): I started playing drums when I was ten years old, so I’ve had time to be in multiple bands, e.g., Hatad, Mareld, Wan, Slaughter Coffin, Hellgoat, to name a few.
Liam Curcic (bass): I started playing bass in January of 2021. In October of that same year, Ville and I founded our first band called Eiktyrner, shitty black metal that never went anywhere…
Ville Esbjörn: I got my first guitar in February 2020, I was self-taught and in May of 2021 I joined a band called Skyllspectre on bass. I ended up getting kicked before our first show in October the same year. That’s when I reached out to Liam and we started Eiktyrner. Me and Liam started getting bored playing black metal, and decided to start Damnation, soon to be Impurity.
Do you think it somehow was important to actually be from Stockholm to reinvigorate this kind of death metal forever linked to this particular city?
Impurity would have probably sounded the same even if we were rooted in a small town. However, the easy access to record stores and other musical accessibilities made it much easier to discover and dwell further into this music and culture. This being said, Filip grew up one hour and a half from Stockholm.
Would it be fair to say that as far as influences go, you’re clearly looking for inspiration less at the usual suspects like Entombed or Grave but actually dug a bit deeper, like early Necrophobic, Hetsheads, and others more ‘evil’ sounding bands from the early ‘90s?
Yes, that is correct, especially Axel, Liam, and I have done deep research about the Swedish ’90s. We’ve got some favorites in common like Interment, Nirvana 2002, and Gorement. However I have fallen into a deep psychosis of Swedish death metal and am heavily inspired by bands like Evocation, Eucharist, and Darkified to only name a few out of my lengthy list.
Talking of which, am I stretching too far in spotting a potential tribute to the ephemeral band Utumno (with Jonas from God Macabre) with the title ‘Pilgrimage To Utumno’?
Yes, that is a reference to Utumno, other than of course reflecting the lyrical material. Utumno is one of my top Swedish Death Metal bands.
How important was it to get the album done at Sunlight? One could say it can be both a good and a bad thing… A good thing is that you give an instantly recognizable and massive sound. The bad thing is that, basically, said sound could turn out to be a tad restrictive, as too cliché, if you see what I mean…
We didn’t specifically choose Sunlight only because of all the great albums recorded there by Tomas Skogsberg, but simply because it offered us the opportunity to be completely isolated from society. Sunlight Studio is nowadays situated out in the woods north of Stockholm, and we had no real quick access to everyday accessories. We decided to turn off phones, and our only real forms of media were DVD’s and cassettes.
What would you answer to those who would say that Impurity is more or less stuck in 1992 and just a retro band?
We wouldn’t mind if anyone said that we sound like we’re stuck in 1992. It’s a goal for many new Swedish death metal bands to imitate the ’90s in one way or another. However, we would like to be recognized for our own sound and not just be another brick in the wall.
In May 2024 your drummer Filip left, only to return about in December of the same year, just in time to record the album. What exactly happened?
He needed a short hiatus after being burned out by many unrelated factors. After remodelling our rehearsal schedule, we found a way that enabled him to join again.
Ville, you’re also playing in Cadaveric alongside Birk from Xorsist, another band with whom you share some influences and who also recorded at the Sunlight Studio in 2023. Do you feel that there’s somehow a special bond between the two bands?
Xorsist and Impurity have indeed a very brotherly relationship, and on a personal level they’re some of my best friends. Birk and I created Cadaveric as an outlet for unused Impurity and Xorsist material whilst satisfying our wishes to create a more grind-inspired band, something both of us had wished to do. We were very inspired by bands like early Carnage and Carcass, as well as Crematory and General Surgery. Cadaveric was almost, in a way, a showcase of the brotherhood between Xorsist and Impurity.
Yet, we have no real intention of continuing Cadaveric at the moment. There have been small talks regarding it, however both me and Birk are way too busy with our respective bands. For an anecdote, if you listen close enough, you’ll pick similarities in between the Cadaveric track ‘Life Of Horrors’ and ‘Rectifying Pieces’ off The Eternal Sleep.
https://www.facebook.com/impuritysweden
https://hammerheart.bandcamp.com/album/the-eternal-sleep