AN NCS INTERVIEW: THE GREAT OLD ONES

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Dec 122024
 


Photos by ©Daphnea Doto / Solweig Wood

(We proudly present Comrade Aleks‘ excellent interview with Benjamin Guerry from the French band The Great Old Ones, whose new album is set for release in January by Season of Mist.)

As you noticed, there were almost zero interviews with Lovecraft-influenced bands in the previous two months. Hard times for those who follow the Cult, indeed! But the patient ones will be rewarded, as Season of Mist proclaimed that the fifth release of French black metal heroes The Great Old Ones, Kadath, will be released on January 24th!

Fifteen years of boiling activity, four full-length albums behind, a damn lot of live rituals served – the band has solid luggage and this entire experience was reworked and channeled through a concept album based on Lovercaft’s most psychedelic and bizarre Dream Cycle.

Benjamin Guerry (guitars, vocals) is the only founding member who stood at the dawn of The Great Old Ones and who remains its mastermind; it was sheer luck that we’ve caught him and got the interview done in the most operative way. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ACCU§ER

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Nov 292024
 

(About one week ago MDD Records released a new album by the German thrash band Accu§er (or Accuser), whose roots extend back into the ’80s. In advance of the release Comrade Aleks reached out and conducted the following very good interview with the band’s founding (and still) vocalist and guitarist Frank Thoms.)

Teutonic thrash was a blast back in the ’80s; this entire movement inspired many metal bands around the world in a lot of ways. And this movement still rocks despite the passing of time, space, and whatever.

Accu§er joined the German thrash wave in 1986, and you see – they’re more than alive! The band’s 13th album Rebirthless came out on the 21st of November, and you’ll easily notice that this band has power in its veins and aggression in its fists.

So feel the wrath of Teutonic Titans! (and read the interview with one of the band’s founders, Frank Thoms) Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: DEATHWIND

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Nov 272024
 

(In this new interview Comrade Aleks conversed with vocalist Elina from the Moscow-based death-doom metal band Deathwind, whose debut album was released last year — and who plan to record a new one in 2025.)

Deathwind is a collaborative product of five musicians from different Moscow-based metal bands. Andrey (drums) and Vladimir (guitars) came from the black/death outfit Anotherside; Elina (vocals) previously sang in the doom band Gbvrh; Lepeha (bass) does speed/black metal in Unholy Night; and David (guitars) is from Vendel, with whom we did the interview two months ago or so.

All of them are united now by their passion for Bolt Thrower, Sacrilege, and Candlemass, and Deathwind is a product of this love. The EP Fall of the Phaeton (2023) and the full-length Triumph of Fear (2023) demonstrate that they’re good at writing and performing quite catchy and tense doomed death metal with a lady on vocals. And here she is. This interview with Elina will reveal some facts about the local underground and its life. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: APEP

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Nov 262024
 

(As you will see from the interview below, our Comrade Aleks had a quite extensive and very interesting discussion with vocalist Christopher Fleckeisen and guitarist Oliver Pikowski from the Egyptian-themed German death metal band APEP, whose newest album was released on September 13th by War Anthem Records.)

Each metalhead should know names like Apep, Jörmungandr, Python or Typhon. Each deity personified primordial forces of Chaos in some forms and have kept the ability to inspire men of art through years, so to say. These names sound good for extreme metal bands, so the German Apep chose the rare one, the right one, which is intuitively clear for those who can connect Egyptian mythology and death metal.

Apep’s first album The Invocation of the Deathless One (2020) helped the band put down a fundament for the band’s reputation, and they returned in September 2024 in full arms presenting the sophomore album Before Whom Evil Trembles (Goddess of Carnage).

You know, doing an interview isn’t a rewarding experience each time you do it, but a proper, in-depth conversation is always worthy of efforts. And we had a really good one with Oliver Pikowski (guitars) and Christopher Fleckeisen (vocals). In the name of Sekhmet!

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: NEBELKRÄHE

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Nov 222024
 


photos by Afra Gethoffer-Grutz

(On November 29th the Crawling Chaos label will release a re-recorded version of Entfremdet, the 2009 debut album by the distinctive German black metal band Nebelkrähe. What the production of that entailed, and how it came to be a reality, are among the subjects of the following interview by Comrade Aleks of Nebelkrähe‘s Morg.)

“Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret”. This quote from the Bible just popped up in my mind, when we finished the interview with Nebelkrähe’s guitarist Morg a few days ago and I learnt that NCS prepared a track premiere as well.

Actually, I interviewed Morg one year ago, because these German black metal intellectuals just released their third album Ephemer (2023) back then, and I was excited with it (although they didn’t have any song based on Lovecraft’s stories). This year the trio of Nebelkrähe’s founders re-recorded their first album Entfremdet (2009), and they had their reasons to do that.

As always, Morg proved himself to be an interesting and focused conversationalist.

Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: SORROW

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Nov 202024
 

(The NY death metal band Sorrow‘s first records were released in 1991 and 1992, and their third one followed decades later in 2023. How it came to be, and the dual meaning of its title, are among the subjects that Comrade Aleks discussed with three of the band’s members in the following very good interview.)

I think that I interviewed Brett Clarin for the Doom Metal Lexicanum project a few years ago, and for sure there was the interview with him here focused on his symphonic black/death metal band Journey Into Darkness. But his “main band” was the angry death-doom outfit Sorrow based in New York in the late ’80s and disbanded in 1993 after the EP Forgotten Sunrise (1991) and the LP Hatred and Disgust (1992).

A bad deal with Roadrunner Records disappointed the guys so much that they left without finishing the recording of the next full-length. And all of a sudden Sorrow’s original lineup returned in 2022 in order to complete that recording.

Andy Marchione (vocals, bass), Brett Clarin (guitars), Bill Rogan (guitars), and Mike Hymson (drums) released Death of Sorrow through Xtreem Music in August 2023, and I skipped it somehow. But support is never enough, and here we have the interview with Brett, Andy, and Bill discussing true death of Sorrow. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: BARATHRUM

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Nov 192024
 

(In this brief interview Demonos Sova, a co-founding member of the long-running Finnish black metal band Barathrum, answered questions posed by our Comrade Aleks about their new album Überkill.)

One of the oldest Finnish black metal entities Barathrum is here again, and as you saw in our Shades of Black department, Demonos Sova and his circle have not returned empty-handed.

The new album Überkill is out thanks to Hammer of Hate, and it’s easy to predict what you’ll get from it – a portion of concentrated black metal nihilism with savage heavy metal touches. So I welcome you to take a short quest to the Mountain of Bones to fulfill symbolic Ritual Murder through the Dark Sorceress’ Black Magic Rites and accept the Death by Steel for Überkill’s sake. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: JOSÉ LUIS CANO BARRÓN

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Nov 152024
 

(In the following interview, Comrade Aleks presents a very interesting discussion with Mexican writer José Luis Cano Barrón, the founder of Under Fire Records and the author of numerous books about metal. The main focus of this conversation (but not the only one) is his book about Bathory and Quorthon, an English translation of which has been released this year by Pagan Records.)

Bathory is one of the most influential extreme metal bands of the past, as Quorthon, its constitutor, was one of the first to lay the foundation for the black metal genre, and he was the one and only who formed the rules of viking metal. Almost each album he recorded differs from another, but even the most controversial of his releases, like those two he did in the mid-’90s, got recognition.

Quorthon passed away twenty years ago on February 17, 2004, and it felt terribly wrong that there weren’t books about his career and Bathory’s history. Yet, it’s easy to understand why, because he always avoided revealing details of his personal life and preferred to work alone, so there weren’t many evidences that could help to recreate some episodes of his life accurately.

Long story short: Pagan Records released an English-language edition of José Luis Cano Barrón’s book From Hades to Valhalla… BATHORY – The Epic Story. And I couldn’t ignore it, so here we have José, who not only shared his look at Bathory’s story, but also revealed some of his plans, which may excite other bookworms like me. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ANTE-INFERNO

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Nov 122024
 

(On November 22nd Vendetta Records will release a new album by the UK black metal band Ante-Inferno. Probably intrigued by certain Lovecraftian imagery hovering around the album, our interviewer Comrade Aleks reached out to the band’s lyricist, vocalist, and guitarist Kai, and that led to an excellent discussion, which we now present below.)

Founded in Scarborough, 2017, Ante-Inferno have performed their black metal almost without stop, and there’s just a normal two-year-long break between their second album Antediluvian Dreamscapes and the new one – Death’s Soliloquy.

This is a sort of concept album based on traditional black metal sound with atmospheric touches and a depressive message of self-destruction. Vendetta Records has scheduled Death’s Soliloquy for release on November 22nd, and the interview we’ve done with Kai (vocals, guitars) should shed some light on this grim dramatic work. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GÖDEN

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Nov 112024
 

(Delayed by both external events and our editor’s foot-dragging, we finally present our Comrade Aleks‘ interview of Stephen Flam, an original member of the seminal NYC band Winter and a founder of Göden, whose second album Vale of the Fallen (the main subject of the interview) was released by Svart Records last May.)

About thirty-five years ago, the heavy, rusty, clanking Winter thundered through the New York City underground. Over time, the young trio, making sloppy death-doom, entered the pantheon of genre pioneers whose names are known mostly to doom-heads, but then the band simply fell apart after their first album Into Darkness (1990).

Winter’s guitarist Stephen Flam returned with two confederates as Göden in 2020: Betty (“Vas”) Lakkas aka Nxyta (Goddess of Night) on vocals and Tony Pinnisi aka The Prophet of Goden on keyboards. With the new album Vale of the Fallen, Göden continued this year the direction they took on their debut, Beyond Darkness (2020): unusual, but uncomfortable and categorically gloomy post-apocalyptic doom with hoarse female vocals. Continue reading »

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