(Today we share Comrade Aleks‘ interview with Dmitry “Dym Nox”, the drummer, bassist, and vocalist of the Russian death metal band Pyre, whose latest album has been out for a couple of months on the Osmose label.)
Pyre is probably the most powerful and recognized Russian death metal band, and the release of their third album Where Obscurity Sways at the end of January on Osmose Productions was an event.
The previous album Chained to Ossuaries was recorded five years ago by Dmitry “Dym Nox” (drums, bass, vocals), Roman Rotten (guitars), and Fred Obsinner (guitars). It was a strange experience for the band: Pyre were then on a tight deadline, there were problems with the drummer, and they, as never before, wrote and recorded all the material in a year, and it was immediately released. And Dmitry considers Where Obscurity Sways as a spontaneous continuation of its predecessor, but on a different level both in general and in production.
According to him, the band is currently euphoric about the result, especially since the new material was recorded with drummer Oleg “Malleus”, with whom Pyre had been playing together for a long time and testing out ideas. The result is impressive. I interviewed Dmitry for the Dark City magazine, and as soon as the current issue is released, I’d like to share this interview with you.
Hi Dmitry! Where Obscurity Sways was released in January on Osmose Records, what are the band’s plans for promoting the album?
Greetings! Osmose, like most labels, has a fairly standard set of promotion tools. Nothing new or special: the label sends out promos to various magazines, radio, distros and other networks before and after the release of the album, so even before the release date we received requests for interviews and reviews. We also released two singles, filmed two videos: “Murderous Transcendense” was released as a single in advance, and the second “Chanting Ancient Incantations” on the day of the album’s release. Well, then – more interviews, reviews, promotion in social networks, also in support of the album, we are planning a tour in Russia in May; well, and there will be separate trips to festivals and concerts.
Pyre had one of first releases on the Spanish label Memento Mori, and foreign labels release your albums still, a rare thing for local bands. What advantage does being on Osmose give you today?
In addition to Memento Mori, our albums were released on the Dutch Soulseller Records and Dawnbreed Records, the Swedish Blood Harvest, the American Redefining Darkness, the Greek Martyrdoom Productions, the Indonesian Blasphemisia Produktionen, etc. The list does not end there and this all concerns both the releases and reissues of full-length albums on different media, and the release of splits, of which we have several. Russian labels re-released our stuff on CDs and cassettes too.
So we didn’t receive full-fledged offers from Russian labels, and we didn’t strive for it ourselves, since there was little point in it. At that time, Russia was open to the whole world, so by publishing abroad, we received more opportunities and recognition not only in our country, but also in the world, which is what we actually wanted. Basically, these were quite standard conditions, but this time we received a much more interesting offer to release two albums from a cult French label, which we are very happy about. I’m sure we would hardly have received such conditions and promotion from a Russian label.
At the same time, you were negotiating the release of Where Obscurity Sways in Russia. How did they end?
Nothing yet, it’s a complicated issue, and it will be decided later. But, of course, we would really like all Russian extreme metal fans to be able to easily buy the album in Russia on any convenient medium. We will try to sort this out as quickly as possible. But very soon we will have our copies, so for the time being there will be no problems with this.
How has the situation changed for Pyre after the almost complete closure of borders? It seems that after the pandemic and subsequent events, our metalheads began to attend local bands’ performances more lively. Is this effect still present?
For us personally, the closure of borders is more of a minus than a plus. Yes, after the pandemic, people were very hungry and attendance doubled, but then the well-known events happened and the import of bands from abroad was closed. Frankly, this also gave a big boost to the domestic scene and much more attention from the Russian audience. Many bands have grown noticeably on this.
But at the same time, people are forced to be content with only a limited number of our bands and this, of course, is a deprivation of the usual diversity for the vast majority of fans. For us, this is an absolute minus in terms of the possibility of simply obtaining visas and unhindered travel to Europe for concerts and tours, as it was before. Unfortunately, this has been going on for 5 years now.
One of the festivals with your participation a couple of years ago was closed by religious fanatics. How relevant is this problem today? It seems that the church is again promising punishment for “Satanism”. Have the organizers yet bothered you with any specific demands in this regard?
Yes, it happened, in Moscow the “Sorok Sorokov” movement almost stormed a club, the police arrived, and, in the end, after a long investigation and delay, the concert was cancelled. The musicians, organizers, and the audience all suffered huge losses and moral damage. But there were no complaints about Pyre. This has never happened again, at least to us, and I hope it won’t happen.
And regarding the possible ban on “Satanism” – I want to ask ironically: “Is this already an inquisition or not yet? Will there be bonfires?” Seriously, I don’t see any threat from fictional Satanists, and those who draw pentagrams on fences – it’s ridiculous to take into account.
Almost everyone in Pyre has rich experience in the extreme metal underground. How much did this experience make the work on the album easier? Was it easier to achieve the desired result in the studio or was there an urge to polish the material further until you were blue in the face?
From what you said, we can conclude that the album was polished, haha. In fact, if we are talking about the sound, no one was going to polish it, we always have a clear vision of how everything should be. We always walk the fine line between the “basement” and “plastic”. To get such a maximally lively and dirty, but at the same time high-quality, sound and not go into “plastic” is very difficult. But we did it, I think. We are very pleased with the result.
As for the material in general, we try to bring the songs to mind and hone them during rehearsals, all the songs are always as ready as possible before going to the studio, where fully formed solos, additional melodies and intros, well, and vocal nuances, appear from the additions. And yes, many years of experience certainly contribute to this. Then you just enjoy the process, despite the fact that it’s hellish work, and, of course, the result itself in the end – like catharsis.
In Where Obscurity Sways you continue to cut old-school death metal, but despite the fact that the laws of the genre are carved in stone, there is a feeling that Pyre have become more technical, more focused, more evil. How does it feel from within the band?
That’s true, we have become more technical as musicians, but we had this technique before, it’s just that this time we gave ourselves a little more freedom and allowed ourselves to use things that we previously considered inappropriate, slightly expanded the boundaries of our style, so to speak. At the same time, there is probably less unbridledness, compared to older records. But I think we’ll come back to this.
What are the lyrics of Where Obscurity Sways about? For you, is this just a cultural code, composed of images understandable to fans, or a consciously composed manifesto in the name of the Ruinous Powers?
The lyrics on the album, as always with us, are not just stupid cliches and hackneyed phrases, we try to put much more into it, so I think it’s closer to your second thesis. But there is no specific conceptuality in the lyrics and I would definitely not call it high poetry. These are all themes of death and beyond it in a broad sense, death cults, dark aspects of religious themes, afterlife aesthetics.
Yep, everything that we adore in death metal. What is the essence, the philosophy of Pyre? What keeps bands afloat and sows the seeds of death metal?
Clear adherence to our common cause and given path, mutual desire to create exactly what we agreed to do from the very foundation of the band, based on common preferences and desires. And love for Death Metal!
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