(On December 7th Xenocorp will release a special 25th-anniversary compilation of remastered material across the long career of the Dutch extremists Inhume. In this post Vonlughlio provides a preview of the release, including music, and an interview of the band’s guitarist Ben Janssen.)
This small preview is about Inhume, a Dutch BDM/Grindcore band that was founded back in 1994 who have released albums and shorter releases that for some (including me) are classics. However, this project has not gotten the recognition it deserves, despite creating quality music that is pure raw aggressiveness and reminds us of a golden era in the underground.
They have released some demos, splits, and four albums that are fast, deadly, in-your-face BDM/grind; the band just wants to rip your face off. But their last release was the full-length Moulding The Deformed back in 2010, so you might understand that I’d given up on more music until I saw a FB status from the Xenocorp label that they would be releasing a compilation collecting all of Inhume’s demos and splits, tribute tracks, and previously unreleased material.
This was exciting news for me, since it enables Inhume fans to obtain a physical release of some of the band’s sickest songs, remastered, that were previously hard to find or unreleased. Xenocorp’s owner Nico is someone I’ve known from some time, and I had confidence this would be done with taste.
I’ve also been given the chance to listen to the compilation in advance, the title of which is Exhume: 25 Years of Decomposition. The length of this release is more than one hour, and ohh boy, it captures the essence of the band — and it goes fast. As a grindcore release, the songs range from 0:47 to 2:39, except for a live section that clocks in above four minutes. In all the songs the vocals sound vicious as fuck, and the nasty guitar and bass tone complement the drums, which are handled with cutting precision.
Overall, the compilation captures different stages of the band, and to have it finally in one release is amazing, accompanied by artwork that basically represents how these songs make me feel.
After listening non-stop I wanted to put a few questions to guitarist Ben Janssen to get to get a sense of what is going on in the Inhume camp and about the remastering comparison.
Q: “Hi, Ben! It’s been more than eight years since your latest full-length, Moulding the Deformed, was released. Why did you choose to release this compilation of previous hard-to-find material now instead of a new full-length?”
Ben Janssen: “Because it’s our 25th anniversary and we wanted something special to celebrate and many fans are asking for those demo’s and EP’s to be released on CD, so we thought it would be the right time to do it.”
Q: “While it features all the songs from your splits with LAST DAYS OF HUMANITY, SMES, SUPPOSITORY, and MUMAKUL, it omits the songs from your 1997 split with BLOOD. Why?”
B: “It doesn’t, in fact: the songs featured on the split with BLOOD were all taken from our second demo, which is on the album in full. They just got remixed for the split back then so it didn’t make much sense to have them featured twice on the album, but they are there anyway :)”
Q: “The album artwork is based on your second demo’s artwork. Why this specific choice?”
B: “It’s an artwork titled after our song “Cadaverous Abortion” that Misja BAAS did for us back in the day and which fits INHUME quite perfectly. Misja also did the artwork for our Chaos, Dissection, Order album. He became the art director for Dutch game studio GUERILLA GAMES since then. The collection album, Exhume, also features the “Da Vinci” artwork Roland CAMPS did for our debut demo. He’s also the one behind the INHUME logo and the hanging guy that’s in it and in our second demo. I personaly wanted the collection to have a kind of link with INHUME’s early years.”
Q: “The ‘studio part’ of Exhume starts and ends with 1995 and 2009 versions of the song ‘Tiamat’. Is this a kind of way to start and close a chapter in the band’s history?”
B: “Nah. It just happened to be the first song on the first demo and the song we’ve ended our sets with for quite some time now. It’s short, fast and explosive, just like we like it, and the ‘studio part’ closing with a 2009 rehearsal, it’s ending that way by pure coincidence.”
Q: “Where are the three live songs from?”
B: “Good question! They come from the I guess never-released Enjoying the Violence tape. We had a split live tape with SUPPOSITORY in ’96 which was available at our shows, and through some mail-orders (damn, no one still does that, these days!), and a bit after that tape, we did this other one featuring tracks from shows in Belgium and The Netherlands in ’96 and ’97 and a couple rehearsal tracks from ’96. I’m not sure what happened back then and why that Enjoying the Violence tape never got released in the end. I guess there’s only one or two copies left now, so it was cool to feature stuff from it.”
Q: “How did the remastering process go? What kind of material did you provide to the studio? Are you satisfied with the result? Is this the same studio that will do the Decomposing from Inside vinyl remaster?”
B: “We’re very happy with the work the CONKRETE studio has done. We had actually only one version of both original demo’s available so it was a ‘fingers crossed’ thing to have them sent to France and digitised… brrrrr… And, yes, this is the same studio who will do the remaster of the long-awaited vinyl version of our debut, Decomposing from Inside. We have to thank Nico and XENOKORP for getting both releases done, and he recommanded the studio based on his own experience with them.”
Q: “Why such a long silence since Moulding?”
B: “We had line-up changes, crap like health issues, and we were without a decent label, etc. so we didn’t record much during those past years besides some NAPALM DEATH covers we recorded for a tribute that never happened but that are released these days as a split 3″ CD with DR. D., but things look good for INHUME now and we’re preparing for the follow up to Moulding the Deformed. Get ready!”
PRE-ORDER EXHUME HERE:
https://xenokorp.bandcamp.com/album/exhume-25-years-of-decomposition
http://www.xenokorp.com/product-category/artist/inhume/
INHUME:
https://www.facebook.com/InhumeOfficialNL/