GHASTLY

Who are you and what do you do in your band?

I'm Ian J. and I play guitars, bass and drums. I also compose all the music. Obviously when playing live I can't do everything, so when performing live I concentrate on guitar.

When was your band formed? 

Ghastly was formed in 2011, August if I'm not mistaken.

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

I have always loved mid-tempoish death metal and I had loads of riffs and ideas but not a band. I decided to do few songs and when me and Sam (vocalist) bought a 4-track tape recorder, we wanted to test it and so we recorded our demo "Death is Present" in 2011.

How do you compose your music? Does only one guy do everything or does everyone contribute?

I compose the music, play drums, bass and guitars. Vocals and solo guitars are not my cup of tea, so that's why I have dedicated friends to help me with those things.

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

All lyrics are done by my good friend, Andy Gordon. Usually I have some idea for a song and I want to have specific lyrics for it, so I pass my idea to Andy and he does really good job on writing lyrics for this band. Sometimes Andy has his own ideas for lyrics and usually I like everything he writes.

Many lyrics are based on a movie or a tv show. Some lyrics have been inspired by natural disaster or even a folklore tales. Things Ghastly will never sing straightforwardly about are politics, war, surgery or ultimate gore. Useless topics to me.

Is there an ideology behind your band?

Nope.

How do you see the state of Death Metal music these days in your country and in general?

Generally it seems to be in a good state! Old bands coming back, new killer bands emerging all the time. It's a fucking good thing. There are really awesome bands in Finland these days but of course there are crappy ones too, like in every genre. 

What are your long term plans as a band? What do you want to achieve?

Well, first of all to get this debut album out. "Carrion of Time" was planned to come out last year but got delayed and now it's finally coming this year. My motivation is low at this point for doing death metal, but that doesn't mean Ghastly is dead, no fucking way. It's just slumbering at this time. 

To get a solid lineup would be top priority for this band.

Other plans? To have fun, of course!

Name an other Death Metal band from your country that everyone should hear.

Stench of Decay, Krypts, Lantern and Swallowed.

Free word.

Drink lots of alcoholic beverages and listen to good music.

CUT WIDE OPEN

Who are you and what do you do in your band?



My name is Osku and I'm the lead vocalist of Cut Wide Open.


When was your band formed?
Jonttu (guitar), Lehtonen (bass) and I had been playing together since 2001. CWO was formed in 2009 when we asked our old time friend Martti to play drums.


Why did you choose to play Death Metal?
It’s a long trip you could say. We’ve all been digging all kinds of heavy music since teenagers, so death metal came along somewhere in the way. We never sat down like, ”hey let’s play death metal.”  You could say that Death Metal is one of the ingredients among Thrash Metal and Hardcore in our blender.


How do you compose your music? Does only one guy do everything or does everyone contribute?
Jonttu brings the most of the riffs. Usually we do bass and drum parts together in our rehearsal space. When the instruments are done I fit in the lyrics. 


Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.
My lyrics are influenced from what I see in the surrounding world. War, violence, hypocrisy of religions, greed, shark culling and despair of people.


Is there an ideology behind your band?
No, not really. We give the middle finger equally to everyone. 


How do you see the state of Death Metal music these days in your country and in general?
Death Metal is struggling to get attention just like any other style of music. There is a big EDM and rap boom in Finland, so you could say that Death Metal isn’t hitting the Finnish charts right now. It’s all about going to live shows if you want to build a scene. In this matter, Death Metal bands should work together in Finland and all over the world.


What are your long term plans as a band? What do you want to achieve?
We keep on writing songs and we'll release an EP somewhere in the future. Too exact deadlines only stress you out, you know? Meanwhile we’re going to do some gigs in Finland.


Name an other Death Metal band from your country that everyone should hear.

That’s a tough one, but here's a couple of brutal ones. We’ve done some gigs with Creinium and God Disease. Those boys can deliver when it comes to death metal.


Free word.

Go to gigs, buy a T-shirt and recording if the band has them to offer. It really makes a difference. Otherwise, stay insane and keep your fist in the air!

VOID CREATION

Who are you and what do you do in your band?

Hi, we are Alex (voc), Berna (bass), Berni (drums), Gilli (guitar) and Piz (guitar) from Void Creation.

When was your band formed?

The final line up of Void Creation was formed in 2006. Void Creation consists of ex-members of the bands Diabolica, Saviour and Seeds Of Sorrow.

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

There was no real “decision” to play Death Metal. It starts with a mixture of styles which everyone in the band listens to and evolved from Thrash to Death but influenced by the musical roots of each member. So you also can hear some elements of Grind and Hardcore in our music. It tooks us several years to find our style. Now we are lucky with it and we hope everyone enjoys our music.

How do you compose your music? Does only one guy do everything or does everyone contribute?

Our songwriting process is quite collaborative. If one person comes with an idea we try to work it out together. This guarantees that we all have the same feeling about a song, which makes it to an ear-bomb for the audience.

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

Most of the lyrics deal in a critical way with the modern society and the things it brings to each single person, the whole mankind or its environment.

Is there an ideology behind your band?

If you say playing for fun and to do one’s own thing is an ideology, than I would say yes.

How do you see the state of Death Metal music these days in your country and in general?

There is a huge underground scene in austria for all genres of metal music. There are also a lot of good Death Metal Bands. Nowadays a lot of Death Metal bands sounds too perfect. They are technical perfect and also their music is mixed perfect, the sound is surgically clean. I think music has a lot to do with emotion. This emotions gets lost in a pefect environment. With this notice in our mind we recorded our album. Its not perfect, but its honest.

When seeing the big picture, the Death Metal scene seems to decline a little. At least when speaking of live shows in Vienna. Many bands that played in mid-sized to big clubs a few years ago now play in rather small clubs.

What are your long term plans as a band? What do you want to achieve?

There is no masterplan like getting rich or be famous. We want to make music in our way and play a lot of gigs inside and hopefully outside of Austria. We want the audiance to have a good time with our music and in best case having a hurting neck.

Name an other Death Metal band from your country that everyone should hear.

Catastrofear, Mastic Scum, Scarecrow N.W.A.

Free word.

Thanks for your interest. Respect for your work and your love for Death Metal. To you and our audience: Enjoy your live, our music and keep your heads banging \m/

INFECTED PRIEST

Who are you and what do you do in your band?

Hello, I'm guitarist Pekko, one of the founding members of our band. From the beginning singer Wellu and bassist Joni has been with the band. Guitarist Ville joined us in the summer of 2014 and we just have started to train new songs with our new drummer Otto.

When was your band formed?

Actually we put the band together in the Autumn 2013, but there was long hiatus on 2014 due the split up with our former drummer. We got active again in the end of 2014 and recorded tracks for our first release, "Hammering Nails To Fragile Bones", which will be released in end of February 2015.

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

After hearing thrash metal like Slayer and Megadeth I become somewhat obsessed with more sinister stuff. The raw brutal power of death metal was very inspiring for the young mind, but it was rather late, I was 18 years old when I heard first time Amorphis' “Karelian Isthmus”. Soon after that there came Carcass, Deicide, Death, Grave and Nile. Possessed's “Seven Churches” and At the Gates' “Red In the Sky Is Ours” were pretty mind blowing records for me.

How do you compose your music? Does only one guy do everything or does everyone contribute?

Right now I'm to blame for Infected Priest's fast paced satanic gore grind, or whatever genre you prefer to put our music into. Lyrics we write together with our singer Wellu.

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

We are inspired of perversions, anti-religious themes, filth and insanity. Human behavior can ascend such a grand measures in ignorance and malevolence, that there will always be subjects and ideas to write about.

Is there an ideology behind your band?

Not really, we don't want to preach about subjects. Rather we want to point some things in a sarcastic way to show how ludicrous can certain things be when put into right point of view.

How do you see the state of Death Metal music these days in your country and in general?

Death metal is doing pretty strong, it seems at the times that there are at least three times more death metal bands than thrash and power metal bands combined in Finland. Most typical division among death metal bands is to two subgenres, more commercially inclined technical bands with insanely good players and very polished production, maybe some keyboards and clean singing, the other subgenre would consist more old schoolish(that's not even a right word, but what the hell) approach with bands playing filthy and guttural death metal in vein of Autopsy, Hooded Menace and early Death. Globally death metal is doing very good, old bands are still touring and doing good music, and there is constant stream of new bands, more than there is time to listen to.

What are your long term plans as a band? What do you want to achieve?

We really don't have concidered our future. Right now our most important task is to write more stuff and to get our new drummer ready for some gigs.

Name an other Death Metal band from your country that everyone should hear.

Stench of Decay, Ghastly, Assatur, Malicious and Swallowed for the starters. There is just so many good bands right now, that I cannot name just one.

Free word.

The best death metal lyrics I have heard so far in a song consisted of only one single line: ”Fuck you, you die in hell!”

CONCEIVED BY HATE

Who are you and what do you do in your band? 

My name is Jorge Montesino (A.K.A. Morbid) and I am founder of bands like CONCEIVED BY HATE (Death/Thrash), DISORDER (Thrash/Black) and MORBID STENCH (Death) all from El Salvador in Central America. In all these bands I play guitar and sometimes bass for recordings but live only guitar and in all I am composer also.


When was your band formed?  

CONCEIVED BY HATE was originally baptized as SPIRITUAL DEMISE and I formed it in late 2002.


Why did you choose to play Death Metal? 

It is not something I decided it just came as an impulse, not sure about why but maybe because when I was younger the main stuff I was able to get on the tape trading back in the day (90s) so I imagine was the style that hit me hard in terms of influences. Also I think its a very aggressive music with obscure and evil nerve always present so that's something I like. I play it because it feels natural with my vision of music.


How do you compose your music? Does only one guy do everything or does everyone contribute? 

Regarding the root of composition I do it almost all but you need to give credit also the effort of each member on putting some arranges here and there with their instruments. Regarding lyrics I mainly write all of them and sometimes if the song was composed by another member he tells me the concept and I arrange the lyric and way of singing it.

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

I usually write lyrics at night or early morning since that is the time on which no one is bothering, there is no particular ways of inspirations, I could say that if there is a topic or an experience that really gets my attention then is a good topic for a lyric. This has to do also with the environment on which you normally live or see.


Is there an ideology behind your band?

I have tried to put a unique ideology for the band as a force but I have noticed that since we are all different individuals with different points of view on how life should be managed it is a difficult task, more when we are talking about 6 members then I can only speak by myself, my ideology or vision for this band is to try to make something honest but outstanding from the reality of the scene from which we come from. I mean we are from a country that lacks a lot of resources so then in many cases totally unknown and that could be considered as an stigma that there is no talent or there could not be something outstanding coming from here. I try to walk a path and live the tracks for those who follows, this is not about success on getting famous or earning money but for doing something humbled but valued in places with better resources and environments than ours.


How do you see the state of Death Metal music these days in your country and in general?

I personally love this metal genre, I think that in the last 3 to 6 years there have been a new wave of old school death metal bands specially from Europe (Sweden, Finland, Germany, etc.) that are having a great response from the public and this may be the reason for big labels signing this bands and putting out their records in different formats, I think there is a revival of this style in a massive way and also I notice people purchase the stuff specially vinyl versions, some of them sold out very quick so in general I think Death Metal is having a very good era with fresh bands and also with some legendary ones that are still putting out great music. On the other hand I think this style is very well received in my country, there is a lot of people that likes aggressive metal instead of heavy metal or Symphonic/Gothic stuff.


What are your long term plans as a band? What do you want to achieve?

In short terms I expect to continue writing new material and release it with better distribution. Also working on international support tours to get better exposures in countries with a more loyal fan base.


Name an other Death Metal band from your country that everyone should hear. 

I would say Antares Death.


Free word.

Thanks for the questions and interest on this band. Until we meet again!


https://soundcloud.com/morbid-skull-records/01-cbh-devotees-of-death-cd?in=morbid-skull-records/sets/conceived-by-hate-akheron-split/s-lrREl

CAULDRON OF HATE

Who are you and what do you do in your band?

I'm Matti/Murder, I'm the main vocalist and I play bass  .


When was your band formed?

Originally it was formed somewhere in 2008, but the current musical form was forged through blood and pain in 2012


Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

'Cause it has everything I like in music: pure hatred and brutality, annihilation and slaughter of those who detest your way of life...


How do you compose your music? Does only one guy do everything or does everyone contribute?

Me and my brother Jaakko/Exhaust compose the songs, then we talk about some different ideas before showing 'em to the rest of the band, who in turn are allowed to throw in some ideas...


Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

Usually most of the stuff just come from my mind without much of an inspiration.
But sometimes after a good book (usually Lovecraft or Stephen King) things start to generate into something that I try to organize into something useful.


Is there an ideology behind your band?

Not actually, it's pretty much just about doing what we want to do and how we want to do it and of course annihilation and slaughter of those who detest our music...


How do you see the state of Death Metal music these days in your country and in general?

It's been kind of a quiet on the surface, however it doesn't take much digging to find great bands...
I guess the sort of a boom (if there ever were any) is now gone and now we see who remains in the field and who dies out and forfeits.


What are your long term plans as a band? What do you want to achieve?

World domination...


Name an other Death Metal band from your country that everyone should hear.

It's hard to name just one thus there are so many bands in Finland who should get more recognition, some of which we have played with: The Jasser Arafats, God Disease, Amputory, Refusal, Pit Messiah, Hatefury

Free word.

Go to gigs, support local bands, stay fucking brutal and keep those fists high!

DEVENIAL VERDICT

Who are you and what do you do in your band?

I am Riku, I am the vocalist and lyricist for Devenial Verdict.

Antti here, the bass player and backing vocalist of DV.

I'm Sebastian, guitars and most of the composing in DV.

When was your band formed? 

Riku: DV was formed in 2006 and I joined the band in the fall of 2008. Devenial Verdict as it is today was born in 2012 simultaneously to the Unborn God-demo when Antti joined the band to fulfill our bass duties.

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

Riku: As far as I know the boys played some thrash metal before I joined. Death Metal is kind of natural progression from thrash, and, in my opinion, the right choice. Death Metal is just awesome, that’s it.

Antti: For me personally it was hearing Death Metal for the first time that I knew that this was the style I wanted to play and enjoyed the most. Simple as that. 

Sebastian: Death Metal can be very brutal, or very very beautiful. It can be super fast, or veeery slooooow. And the best thing is: it can be all those things at the very same time. Death Metal, in my opinion, has no boundaries. Maybe because nobody knows, what is the actual sound of death. Just a few point of views that makes it so fascinating to play Death Metal music, the music of the unknown death. 

How do you compose your music? Does only one guy do everything or does everyone contribute?

Riku: Sebastian writes most of our material nowadays, but we all do contribute. I just concentrate on writing the lyrics haha.

Antti: The main parts of the songs are somewhere inside the head of Sebastian and he brings them to the practice place, where we then shape them together and see what kind of new ideas his riffs spawn with rest of us. Yeah lyrics are solely in the hands of Riku. 

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

Riku: Most of our lyrics are anti-religious but I try not to write the lyrics in the easiest way. I use lots of metaphors and allegories, though sometimes you just have to say things bluntly, fuck Jesus and stuff like that.

Is there an ideology behind your band?

Riku: We just like to play crushing and hateful Death Metal. Other than that we like what we do and have fun doing it.

How do you see the state of Death Metal music these days in your country and in general?

Riku: World-wide Death Metal is doing great. Great bands like Ulcerate, Wormed and Behemoth are doing great things to the genre.

There are lots of great bands in Finland and in the Helsinki area. It seems that the current trend is old school Death Metal and most bands stick to the tried-and-true style. I don’t think that’s necessarily bad, but music needs to evolve and explore new paths.

Antti: You can see the old school revival going strong at the moment outside Death Metal too. Death Metal is doing fine in Finland at the moment but haven't yet seen any names that would join the company of more established acts like Sotajumala or Torture Killer which is a shame. Definitely want to give credit to newer bands Vorum and Swallowed, check those guys out.

What are your long term plans as a band? What do you want to achieve?

Riku: We’re recording some pre-production stuff for our next record. We want to do records, lots of shows, play at festivals and continue to play Death Metal.

Antti: Keep making records that people hopefully get to hear and enjoy and also play/tour internationally.

Name an other Death Metal band from your country that everyone should hear.

Riku: Lots of great bands at the moment, but a few bands to mention are Bastinado, Church of the Dead and Cauldron of Hate.

Antti: Haha thanks Riku for saving me from the shameless self-plug (since I play in Church of the Dead also). Besides the bands previously mentioned I'd recommend everyone to check out Maveth and Corpsessed.

Sebastian: Young overdosed death metal act Spreading the Paranoia, and the mind-blowing IA, BOOM!

Free word.

Riku: Stay true to the underground and keep supporting metal. And buy our EP haha.

Sebastian: Listen to music and be happy!

http://devenialverdict.bandcamp.com/releases