AN NCS INTERVIEW: WOE UNTO ME

 Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 222023
 

(Not long ago the former Belarusian band Woe Unto Me, now relocated to Poland, finished a  tour of Europe in support of their exceptional 2023 album released by M-Theory Audio. At a break in the tour Comrade Aleks conducted an extensive interview of the band’s co-founder Artyom Serdyuk, and at last we present that today.)

Woe Unto Me (Grodno, Belarus) crossed the borders of funeral doom metal some time ago, but we label them now as a funeral band almost by inertia. Both the EP Spiral-Shaped Hopewreck that we discussed two years ago here with one of the band’s founders Artyom Serdyuk (guitars, vocals, keyboards) and the new, third album Along the Meandering Ordeals, Reshape the Pivot of Harmony carry us further to the territories of the progressive genre with the deep atmospheric feeling.

The band just returned from a mini-tour and now the guys prepare to start another one, so I’ve tried to catch up with Artyom again and to talk about the new album and the situation around the band. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WOE UNTO ME

 Interviews  No Responses »
Apr 052021
 

 

(In this interview Comrade Aleks posed questions to Artem Serdyuk, harsh vocalist and guitarist of the Belarusian band Woe Unto Me, whose new EP, Spiral-Shaped Hopewreck, was released on March 12th by BadMoodMan Music, a division of Solitude Productions.)

Woe Unto Me remains a most creative Belarusian doom band still, despite the social catastrophe which has happened in their country. The band was formed in 2008, and as their debut album A Step into the Waters of Forgetfulness (2014) was without doubt sheer funeral doom of epic scale, the second full-length Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed (2017) tended toward more complex, multi-layered structures and even avant-garde sound.

Their new EP Spiral-Shaped Hopewreck takes us further in a desperate sonic journey of doom, woe, and lethargy, but how far? The band’s founder and ideologist Artem Serdyuk (harsh vocals, guitars) is here tonight to answer this and other questions. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE: WOE UNTO ME — “AMONG THE LIGHTENED SKIES THE VOIDNESS FLASHED”

 Exceptions to the Rule, Premieres  2 Responses »
Sep 282017
 

 

When you see that a metal band is releasing a double-album, one thing you know without being told is that they must have had a lot of ideas. When you see that the total length of a double album is almost two hours, you’re inclined to resort to all caps, and at least one exclamation point: A LOT OF IDEAS! But what you won’t know until listening is whether there were enough GOOD IDEAS to justify the risks of such an imposing creation.

Because, let’s face it, in a fast-paced age plagued by famously short attention spans when many (if not most) single albums barely top half an hour, going THIS BIG can be a deterrent to listeners. Will they be as devoted in listening to the music as the band were in creating it?

The Belarusian doom band Woe Unto Me will learn the answer to that question, because they have taken precisely that risk. Their new album, Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed, will be released tomorrow (September 29th) through Solitude Productions, and we have a full stream for you today. It consists of two records, and together they are nearly two hours long. And they are indeed full of ideas — but they address big, timeless questions too, questions of such intrinsic weight and pervasiveness in the human conscience that you can better understand why they did what they have done. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WOE UNTO ME — “A YEAR-LONG WAITING”

 Premieres  No Responses »
Sep 112017
 

 

I learned of the new album Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed by the Belarusian band Woe Unto Me through the recent premiere of a very impressive track named “Triptych: Shiver, Shelter, Shatter“, which includes excellent guest vocal appearances by Daniel Neagoe (Clouds, Eye of Solitude, Shape of Despair), Patryk Zwoliński (Proghma-C, ex-Blindead, ex-Neolithic, ex-Antigama) and Jón Aldará (Hamferd, Barren Earth, Clouds). If you missed the song, and the 360° lyric video that accompanied it, you’ll have a second chance at the end of this post.

But the main feature today is our premiere of another track from the album called “A Year-Long Waiting“. As you will discover, it reveals a very different side of the new album — literally, a different disc, because Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed is a double album, and on the second record in this collection Woe Unto Me deliver music that features significant acoustic instrumental contributions. One of those tracks on the second disc is the song you’re about to hear. Continue reading »

AN NCS INTERVIEW: WOE UNTO ME

 Interviews  2 Responses »
May 112015
 

 

(Our Russian comrade Aleks presents this interview with members of the Belarusian doom band Woe Unto Me, with musical accompaniment of course.)

What do you know about Belarus? Okay, besides that it’s a post-USSR country and it’s ruled by the “last European dictator” as some impressionable ladies say… I think that Woe Unto Me is a good occasion to take a look at this corner of the metal scene and discover there some new names.

As for Woe Unto Me – the band plays solid and mournful funeral doom. They shared the stage with Shape of Despair in Saint-Petersburg a few months ago and I witnessed this great performance. We found some time to discuss Woe Unto Me‘s creative ways with Artyom Serdyuk (vocals, guitars) and Dzmitry Shchyhlinski (guitars). By the way, I also asked a couple of questions about Disloyal, a death metal band with Artyom on guitars.

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Salute! Woe Unto Me released its first album A Step Into Waters of Forgetfulness in February 2014. I have read somewhere that material for this album was being written for several years. What is its history?

Artyom: Greetings! Since the very inception of the band, we have focused on quality, striving to release a really well-thought-out, high-quality product at a decent level. Each of us had some guitar riffs and raw ideas, and we worked very carefully and meticulously on the arrangements. The last thing we cared about at that moment was time. We were not in a hurry; we wanted every idea to be thoroughly hatched in our heads, and to come to our minds naturally, through inspiration. Therefore, we decided to start the recording process when we had felt the integrity of each composition. Continue reading »