AN NCS INTERVIEW: PONTE DEL DIAVOLO

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Mar 212024
 


photo by Cristina Ferrero

(Through the good graces of Season of Mist, the distinctive Italian black/doom metal band Ponte del Diavolo released their debut album last month (reviewed here by our own Andy Synn), and that provided the impetus for Comrade Aleks to reach out for the interview we now present.)

Even though black metal in its pure, true, and evil form isn’t associated with Italy, there are a few interesting bands there with their own authentic view of this genre. Sometimes their uniqueness is rooted in a mix of black metal with other genres, sometimes it’s their native aesthetic or cultural references, and sometimes it’s both.

Ponte del Diavolo was founded in 2020 by Abro (bass), Laurus (bass), Segale Cornuta (drums), Nerium (guitars), and Erba del Diavolo (vocals). Only Abro and Laurus previously played in different death, black, and doom metal bands; as for the other members, Ponte del Diavolo was a new outfit.

Season of Mist released Ponte del Diavolo‘s debut album Fire Blades from the Tomb on the 16th of February. These six stories of authentic and passionate romantic black metal with doom influences and female vocals are complimented with a cover of Nick Cave’s “Weeping Song”, another good reason to pay attetion to this album.

We had a talk with several of the band’s members about the new album and other things. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: IRON VOID

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Mar 132024
 


Photos by Robyn Benson / Black Earth Photography

(Last year the British doom band Iron Void celebrated their 25th anniversary and released a stellar fourth album, and in belated honoring of those events Comrade Aleks conducted the following very engaging interview with all three of the band’s members — Jonathan ‘Sealey’ Seale, Steve Wilson, and Scott Naylor.)

Iron Void from West Yorkshire is one of the most focused and active doom metal bands among those that present a “traditional” scene. Being formed in 1998 and disbanded in 2000, Iron Void didn’t hurry to record a full-length album even after their reunion in 2008, but here they are with four albums in the discography now, and the most up-to-date release IV saw the light of day in January 2023.

Yes, it happened one year ago, and we’re a bit late with this interview, but it’s never too late to support the band that deserves wider exposure. After all, heroic, quite old-school, and damn heavy IV was one of the best doom albums of 2023. Also, besides other things, you’ll learn from this interview what “Street Doom” stands for! Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: PUTRID TORSO

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Mar 112024
 

(Belatedly, we are still catching up with interviews conducted by Comrade Aleks at a time when our editor was too incapacitated by work to publish them in a timely manner, and today we catch up to his discussion with Ion Santos from the Basque Country brutal death metal band Putrid Torso.)

About a year ago we did the interview with Hopelessness, a melodic death metal band from Basque Country. And somewhere around November 2023 I got the message from their guitar player Ion Santos. He said that he’s also involved in the brutal death act Putrid Torso and that Trails of Hypnotized Human Veins had just been released by Pathologically Explicit Recordings.

And, honestly, brutal death isn’t my cup of tea (even Lovecraftian brutal death), but we’re just mere puppets in the hands of Ruinous Powers. So here’s the interview with Ion for those who are into extreme and misanthropic metal. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: STUPOROUS

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Mar 082024
 

(With agonized apologies to Comrade Aleks and the members of the Netherlands-based group Stuporous for our lamentable delay, today we present an excellent discussion among them, with a focus on the band’s debut album released in January by Void Wanderer Productions and War Productions.)

You should know Stuporous, as there was already a track premiere last fall at NCS, don’t you? It’s a killer band performing a mix of black and doom metal with jazz elements. Its members play different styles of extreme (and not so extreme) metal in Belgian and Dutch bands, some of which are members of the Zwotte Kring artistic collective.

Their first full-length album is Asylum’s Lament, so named after the experiences of the band’s vocalist Devi, who works in psychiatry, and you can easily imagine what kind of crazy stuff you can find here.

And here we have all members of this highly artistic outfit answering my questions with patience and passion. Or something like that. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ALKALOID (HANNES GROSSMANN)

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Feb 232024
 


Photo Credit: Christian Martin Weiss

(Delays of various kinds make this interview of Hannes Grossmann by Comrade Aleks later in coming than we would have liked, but it’s better late than never, as we hope you will agree!)

This interview was started by email in October 2023 or so, and why do we publish it now? Because things happen not as planned, and it took too much time to finish it, though even that didn’t help much, so I feel it is incomplete. And I bet that you already heard Alkaloid’s third album Numen, which was released by Season of Mist last September, so what else to add?

However, it was good to get a response from Hannes Grossmann, Alkaloid’s drummer and a super-busy musician who’s involved in a few more bands and projects. You can listen to some of Numen’s songs while you read the text. I think that it won’t take much time. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN KULTEN

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Feb 222024
 

(Anyone who has followed Comrade Aleks lo these many years knows that if any metal band is inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft he will eventually talk with them. As he did with Joseph Curwen from the Chilean death metal band Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and a good conversation it was.)

Chilean death metal band Unaussprechlichen Kulten was named after the fictional occult grimoire invented by H.P Lovecraft and R. E. Howard. And, according to its name, the band have continued to channel the will of ancient malign entities through their ferocious and macabre songs since 1999.

Their six album Häxan Sabaoth was released by Iron Bonehead Productions on the 2nd of February, and we made this interview with Unaussprechlichen Kulten founder Joseph Curwen (vocals, guitars) in the lead-up to its release. And, in my opinion, we had a pretty smart, even witty conversation thanks to Joseph. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: FUNGOID STREAM

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Feb 212024
 

(The Argentinian funeral doom band Fungoid Stream has four albums to their name dating back to 2004, but not much news in the last 4+ years, so Comrade Aleks decided to reach out and see what’s happening. The following conversation with vocalist Simon O. was the result.)

We interview bands when something important happens in their careers: a release of a new album, a reunion, or a big tour. But sometimes just nothing happens! No reports from the studio, nothing about reissues of the back-catalogue or anniversary shows. And that too is a good reason to try to get in contact, to see if they’re still alive there in their underground.

Lovecraftian funeral doom duo Fungoid Stream are based in Buenos Aires. Joseph C. (all instruments) and Simon O. (vocals) released four albums since the band’s origin in 2003: Celaenus Fragments (2004), Oceanus (2010), Prehuman Shapes (2014), and The Winds Among the Stars (2019).

As you see, it’s too early to worry, because the pause after the most up-to-date release isn’t critical yet. But I worry anyway, that’s why we organized this interview with Simon O., Fungoid Stream’s vocalist, and it’s a right time for you to check the band if you haven’t met it before. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: GÉVAUDAN

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Feb 162024
 

(The UK doom metal band Gévaudan put out a hell of a good album in Umbra last fall, so good that Comrade Aleks felt compelled to reach out for an interview, and the results are his very engaging conversation published below with Gévaudan bassist Andy Salt.)

The “Beast of Gévaudan” was a nickname of a semi-mythical man-eating wolf from French folklore. The creature made about 250 attacks on people in the Gévaudan region from 1764 to 1767, hence its name.

Several heavy bands are named after the beast, and the Hertfordshire doom metal quartet have carried it since 2013. Gévaudan was the first band for Andy Salt (bass) and David Himbury (drums), as Bruce Hamilton (guitar) had already performed in the stoner band Burn the Yeti, and Adam Pirmonhamed (vocals) had previously sung in the progressive thrash formation Manufacture.

First, the EPs Message for the Damned (2014) and Litost (2016) were released, then the group collected enough material for the full-length album Iter (2019), after which the presence of such a promising doom metal unit could no longer be ignored in the underground. So, by the end of 2023, Gévaudan came out with their second big work – Umbra. The album consists of one track with a duration of 43 minutes, and this is not nearly as scary and depressing as it might seem. This deep, emotional doom metal with epic (as well as progressive and psychedelic) touches has its original blend with recognizable traces of some classic acts.

A few of my doom-hooked friends recommended me Umbra, and it’s something each doom-head needs to know. Andy Salt told us a lot about the band’s and album’s backgrounds, so here we go. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: ARIS SHOCK

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Feb 152024
 

(After some unforeseen delays on our part, today we are honored to bring you Comrade Aleks‘ in-depth interview with Greek metal writer and historian Aris Shock, focusing on his two landmark books about Hellenic black metal, and with hints about the third one to come.)

It’s an extremely rare case, but today we’ll speak not with a musician, but with a journalist. The paper books turn into artifacts, the runs drop low, and you won’t get rich writing about underground metal bands, I know. But some metalheads turn to keeping the old-school attitude, and that’s why we have a kind of small vinyl renaissance, reprinting some old fanzines, and so on.

Today we’ll speak with Aris Shock, who started to release a printed fanzine Shock! Aesthetics in 2001 covering extreme music and horror movies. His interest in both led him to the idea of focusing on covering and supporting the local underground scene. Thus, the Rites of the Abyss book was written. As Aris’ first book explored and revealed the history of such phenomena as Hellenic Black Metal, his second work was the natural continuation of the first one, as The Serpent & The Pentagram is the biography of Necromantia, one of three core representatives of the genre.

We did the interview with Necromantia‘s spiritual leader The Magus a few weeks before this one  regarding his new album and this book [published here], so the interview with Aris is one more logical link in the chain of events related to the world of Hellenic Black Metal for me personally. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: URLUK

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Feb 122024
 

(Today we present an excellent interview that Comrade Aleks conducted with the two members of the Italian black/doom band Urluk, with apologies to all concerned for our delay in publishing it.)

The grim Italian duo Urluk was founded by M. (drums, vocals) and U. (guitars) in 2020. They started their underground career with the EP Loss (2022), followed by the full-length More after a formal one-year-long pause. Five new compositions fit into 34 minutes, slightly ahead of the first release in total duration.

More is the spiritual successor to Loss, and the main motives of these five compositions are identical: loneliness, despair, occultism, and obsession with negative states, clothed in the form of black doom.

It is worth noting that “Urluk” in the Lombard dialect means “tawny owl”, an owl often found in this region and, in the context of the album, associated with abandoned dwellings and forests. In this strange way, the duo demonstrates a close connection with their native land and emphasizes an interest in mysticism and darkness in various forms. Continue reading »

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