HEAVING EARTH

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

Hi there. My name is Tomas and I´m musician and songwriter, who happens to handle guitar duties in death metal band Heaving Earth. We have recently released our 2nd album Denouncing the Holy Throne, so everyone into some real dark death metal stuff should check it.  I also play guitar in other very swedish OSDM inspired band Brutally Deceased and bass guitar in surprisingly other death metal band Feeble Minded.

When/where was your band formed? 

Heaving Earth came to life in fall of 2007/2008. We used to play in other death metal bands before and mostly knew each other, but I guess guitarist Patrick was the one, who brought us together. We have released 2 full lenght albums since, toured Europe with Immolation/Marduk in 2012 and did some other stuff. So thats about history of our band. Of course lot of line-up changes happened during those years, but who wants to read this?

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

I would not say that I choose to play something. I was more asked to join in by the music itself. Death metal is all about freedom of expression with lot of space for creativity, living language you learn to speak with. That is the main reason, why it still attracts me after so many years of listening to it and being on scene.

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

I am the one who brings in ideas and builds song structures upon them. We used to develop ideas together with former guitarist Patrick, but since he left after our debut album it is my job to take care about songs. I guess I´m doing pretty good.

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

Hard question. There is a lot of music and sounds that have impact on my perception of music context, phrasing, sound scales etc. It could be some classic death metal, but modern classical music as well, ambient, jazz, whatever brings some new experience and sounds reasonable to me. The final outcome should be some sinister dark death metal of course, but that doesn´t mean there shouldn´t be any contrast. Lyrics pretty much follow the line of our sound, with, speaking in general, some anti-religious (anti-christian) themes. It´s hard to believe how many people still live their lives based on some bronze age myth and it´s only getting worse with all these stupid fascist religion-based violent acts, that you can read about everyday, assaulting basic civil rights.

Is there an ideology behind your band?

Death metal is the only law. No politics, no ideologies, just pure love for death metal.

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

Czech death metal scene is somewhat stagnating I must regretfuly say. We have some few scene veterans that hold it together for some decades already, but not much of a new blood. Other extreme styles of music are much more popular, especially grind core scene is much stronger. In general it seems better for death metal with other countries producing quality death metal bands, but what I know about concert attendances in general, we are pretty much stuck at the bottom of a giant lake. Good thing is, that it can´t be any worse, only better.

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

We want to produce some killer death metal as long as we have a fun and good support from fans. That means there has to be some progression in our music, otherwise it don´t make sense for us. If I´ll find out I´m empty of new ideas resulting in writing stereotypical thousand times heard riffs, I´ll know it´s time to call it quits.

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

Check out our label mates Destroying Divinty. Some blaspemous death metal darkness. If you are into this swedish OSDM you should check Brutally Deceased. To throw some other names you may check these bands: Dissolution, Mortifilia, Feeble Minded, Keep on Rotting, Martyrium Christi, Hypnos, Perfect Citizen.

Free word.

Thanks for opportunity to introduce Heaving Earth to your readers. We are very serious about death metal, so everyone may take a notice, because there is much left to be told from our side. We will stay around on scene for great deal of time disturbing still waters.  

SHRAPNEL STORM

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

Ville "Ykä" Yrjölä, I do the main vocals and write most of the lyrics

When/where was your band formed? 

Shrapnel Storm was formed in 2007 at Tampere, Finland by Our drummer Mikko and an ex-member Matti. They started by jamming together and after a while that evolved into a band.

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

I think we didn't choose Death Metal. Death Metal chose us, haha! We've been playing it from the start and we haven't questioned that should we change our style. DM is the best form of metal, at least that's what all of us think.

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

Typically our guitarist Aki composes the structures of our songs with few riffs, and brings a demo to rehearsals. The rest of us join the process of making after that. Normally the structure goes somehow upside down, and some riffs are modified. Sometimes it is a difficult equation because we have quite democratic atmosphere in our band, so the creative process can take a while...

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

The lyrics consist of stories and narration about all aspects of war, the glory and the cruelty of it. We don't admire or idealize war, we just tell stories about it and its consequences.

Is there an ideology behind your band?

Nope. We're just five guys making this for fun and passion for music. Some time ago somebody asked that does your band abbreviation (SS) and lyrics lead to some kind of ideology? Well what to say? We just laughed.

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

It's not quite what it used to be back in the 80's and 90's. Since then most of the bands that claim themselves as a death metal band are usually something between metalcore and nu-metal. Sure there are still a lot of good death metal bands out there, but the old school style that we prefer, is more and more uncommon, at least the way we do it. Maybe it will do a comeback someday and we will be proud being a part of that.

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

The number 1 goal about a year ago was to release a debut album and possibly with a label, to get professional promotion, some marketing and financial help etc. That is becoming reality in May 2015, we're releasing our debut titled "Mother War" via Witches Brew records. After that we don't have any long term plans, but of course it would be cool if somebody liked the album and we'd get some recognition in the Death Metal scene.

I believe that I speak for us all, when I say that we want to continue composing, releasing and performing death metal. Also, drink together some Jaloviina beside that!

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

 We've done some amazing shows with amazing UG names like Purtenance and Torture Pulse, just to mention. Besides these I'd like to lift up my other band called "Kruor". Check it out if you're not done it yet!

Free word.

Stay tuned for our debut album "Mother War" that hits the shells late May 2015! Also check out Shrapnel Storm on Facebook. See you on frontline trenches!

www.facebook.com/shrapnelstormband

www.shrapnel-storm.com

UNDERGANG

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

- I go under the moniker D. Torturdød and I play guitar and do vocals in UNDERGANG. I'm also the one responsible for most of the artwork used for our releases and merchandise.

When/where was your band formed? 

- UNDERGANG was formed in June 2008 by the same three people who lurks within our lineup. We're located in Copenhagen, Denmark, where we try to present our own take on extremely heavy and rotten sewer death metal. We call it Kill-Town Death Metal.

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

- Death Metal has been a big passion mine since my early teens and once I finally felt comfortable with my guitar playing I spoke with friends and we got the band going. Death Metal is the only way.

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

- I've composed almost all of our riffs on my acoustic guitar at home and when I have enough riffs ready to present a more or less complete song to the others I bring it down to our rehearsal and our drummer (A. Dødshjælp) and I arrange the riffs into the final song and then have our bassist (K. Ondsind) get involved. Once it's properly rehearsed and I have ideas for the vocals I write lyrics based on the mood of the song and make them fit on top of the music down at the rehearsal. Occasionally we jam a bit at rehearsal and something comes out of it or at times our A. Dødshjælp picks up the guitar and comes up with ideas for riffs that annoys me and I then take over the guitar and turn it into UNDERGANG riffs, hehe. He is an even more skilled guitar player than me know, our styles are just different.

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

- Death Metal lyrics to me should be about death. So our lyrics deal with child murder, torture, the process of decomposing, necrophilia, suicide and other lovely subjects.

I've always loved horror movies and comics, so a lot of the inspiration comes from that at times. Or it could just be with the intention to gross one out when reading the lyrics, even though it's all in Danish so maybe not that many of our listeners really understand what they are about. They are all rather tongue in cheek too.

Is there an ideology behind your band?

- Not really, we're play Death Metal for the sake of playing and performing Death Metal.

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

- When I got into Death Metal it wasn't really popular, but about the time we got UNDERGANG going, It seemed like there was bit more interest in death metal again. But by now it also seems like it's slowly fading away again. I used to do an underground death metal festival here in Copenhagen with some friends, called Kill-Town Death Fest for 5 years and arranged the funeral for it last year. We had pretty decent attendance from all over the world but a really low percentage of actual Danish visitors. Our shows in Denmark usually have quite low attendance too, but that of course might also be because we suck. But in general I see fewer and fewer people at Death Metal shows, unless it's something like MORBID ANGEL, who still seems to drag a pretty big crowd here in town. Internationally I don't really know. I think it's about the same but still with Copenhagen being a bit lamer. But who cares, the ones who really care for Death Metal will stick around and the wimps needs to be herded out once in a while occasionally too. What I personally do have always been driven by passion and not based on popularity.

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

- Continue having as much fun with what we do as possible, record albums and do sick tours all over the world. I love playing in UNDERGANG, it's a big part of my life and I love all the possibilities the band gives us to travel to foreign countries, play with sick bands, meet cool new people and pen pals, work with cool cats in good studios and have our music released by great labels run by people I consider my friends. So pretty much what we do now just continued for years to come.

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

- EXHAUST (old) & DEIQUISITOR (new)

Free word

- Thanks for the interview and your interest in our band.

We'll have our third album called "Døden Læger Alle Sår" released July 10th 2015 by Me Saco Un Ojo records (LP) and Dark Descent records (CD) and promote it on a European tour with Australian STARGAZER from July 9th-27th. So keep an eye out for shows on that! More new songs are in the works and we'll keep rotting till we collapse.

Listen to Death Metal, support the bands you like and generally just don't be a dick.

Sneezing pus,

- D. Torturdød / UNDERGANG

April 2015

SYMMETRIC ORGAN

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

This is Philip. I am the vocalist and bass player.

When/where was your band formed? 

 

Philip:  We originally formed the band as a

side-kick in the late 2000´s. 3 of us played together in a different Brutal Death Metal Band since 2003. Symmetric Organ became „serious“  and stepped out into the spotlight in 2013 after we managed to complete our line up by getting lead guitarist Ivar into the game. Our Hometown is Dortmund in Germany.

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

Philip: Simply passion! We try to express ourselves in the most intense and precious way we can.  And harsh Death Metal (sometimes on the edge to Grindcore ) is what comes out when we do so.

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

 

Philip: When it comes to composing, we're more a team player-band. Anyone can contribute ideas... And a song is not done until we're all happy with it. But every once in a while one of us comes around with an almost complete idea. For example Ivar did that twice until now. By the way a lot of ideas come from Andreas (Drummer) and myself...

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

 

Philip: Some friends of mine had a Death Metal Band in Switzerland back in the 90ies. They had a song called „Nothing is more brutal than Reallity“ That's a slogan that sums up the lyrical inpiration pretty well. A lot of the lyrics deal with freedom and state against the diffrent forms of hidden as well as obvious opression. There's alot of of real life horror out there that fits perfectly into Death Metal. But Death Metal without Zombies is not Death Metal. That's why some lyrics also deal with the living dead...

 

Is there an ideology behind your band?

Philip: We don't have any certain relgious or politcal agenda as major topic for the lyrical side of Symmetric Organ. And we don't want to preach in any way. But we do use our lyrics for criticism on society and the rotten world of today. At least to us that's no contradiction in terms.

 

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

Philip: We've got tons of great (new or not not too new) bands and a lot of creativity here in Germany coming from the underground. But we're still far away from the hype of the Mid-90´s since 60´s/70´s Occult Rock is even bigger in the German Metal Scene of today. In General I think Death Metal is growing back to old strength with a lot of exiting stuff from all around the world. Especially the smaller countries of South America and Asia have brought up a few great bands in the past three to five years or so. And the technical level increased so fucking much... The climate for extreme music seems not too bad at all!

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

Philip: Music is always ment to be played and heard. That's what really thrills us may it be as listeners or as a playing band. Doing that is hell of a privilege and great fun. We want to keep that up as long as possible. Anything else time may bring.

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

Philip:  World Downfall, Defeated Sanity, Deadborn, Sophicide, Sufferage, Phobiatic... to name a few...

Free word

Thank's for having us here! Horns up and keep it brutal!

STATUS ABNORMIS

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

I am Nikke and I lead the choir, play glitchy guitar parts and export my thoughts to sounds to use as background ambience. 

My name is Joke and I play the bass guitar, scream and come up with additional backing track material and intros.

My name is Antti Teirioja, I play drums and write the lyrics.

I'm Jere, and I play guitar and spout some sort of vocals. 

When/where was your band formed? 

Nikke: It started as my silent soloproject on 2009ish. We started to play as a band in late summer 2011.

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

Nikke:I don't know if we are any near of traditional Death metal but I guess some of our riffs and parts have pretty death metal kind of colors in them. People are calling our style as Industrial Deathrash something. Even I don't know... 

Joke: I was a angry death metal nerd as a teenager, indentifying with the brutality of the genre, and I learned my (poor) techical playing skills going through those maggotry riffs. Then coming out of puberty Nikke asked me to join the band, which I did despite the fact I had moved forward in my musical journey. Lately I've been stumbling on great bands that could be called death metal and it has revived my enthusiasm. I guess it's the second puberty hitting.

Jere: I guess we all had our intimiate relationships with death metal years back. I think this band has a solid base on death but a great lot of other influences are built on top of it. 

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

Nikke: Well I have been the main composer these years but every protosong gets a whole new form when we start to arrange them together so everybody brings something in. 

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

Nikke: To me inspiration can be state of mind, emotion or feeling that I have to handle with something. Weather, sound, some sort of event from my near past or future. Everything overally can give me the spark. It depends.  

Antti: The lyrics of Status Abnormis songs deal mostly with the dark side of humanity. Apocalyptic themes, fear, hate and general self-loathing are quite common. My writing process is pretty much listening the demo versions of our songs over and over again, trying to find out what they want to say and conveying that as honestly as I can. It's a slow and sometimes frustrating process but I think it's worth it.

Is there an ideology behind your band?

Antti: I don't know if it's even possible to have a common ideology since our tastes are so different. Maybe we are just four guys in a band and the songs are simply a product of that interaction.

Joke: Although our personal ideologies leak through here and there when the social tension acknowledges those ideas to be polyharmonic.

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

Nikke: Call me an asshole but I think it has lost it's edge. I might be ignorant because I don't listen too much newer metal music nowadays. Bloodbath is still great! 

Joke: There's shit and there's shit made gold. As I wrote earlier there's something good happening.

Jere: Digging deep enough into the shitdungeon will reward you highly.    

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

Nikke: To me it is to make music with good goofy friends. Some sort of tour could be awesome of course! 

Antti: New albums, gigs, fearless musical exploration.

Jere: Going with the flow and hoping it will reward us in gigs and rad collaborations with cool people, bands and venues. 

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

Nikke: I'd say that our friends in Raster Density should get some more recognition! 

Joke: Obscure Burial

Antti: Casket Soil make quality shit, check them out.

Jere: Not quite death but Hävitys dbeat hunger. 

Free word.

Nikke: Our second Diy Full lenght album is coming out hopefully soon enough.  Go and check those two songs which we already put out in youtube and stay tuned. Next gig is at Hevimesta, Oulu april 25th. Come to check out our live appearance.

Jere: Check our band out, subscribe to Facebook & Youtube, spread the word, invite us to play.

REVEL IN FLESH

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

Haubersson: Hail to all stench sickos from the grave! Here is Haubersson, vocalist of REVEL IN FLESH from Germany! If you like your Death Metal with a sort of 90´s spirit and driven by  the Swedish styled HM2 Pedal distortion inferno, then make sure to read this interview until the last line! For all those who have not heard of REVEL IN FLESH before check out our latest album “Death Kult Legions” (CYCLONE EMPIRE) while reading these lines!

When/where was your band formed?

Haubersson: The idea of REVEL IN FLESH was more or less born in late 2011 when my old band IMMORTAL RITES was falling apart. After starting to work on first demo versions with Maggesson at his VAULT M. Studios the idea quickly grown out of a project thing into a more real band. We have released our debut album “Deathevokation” (FDA REKOTZ) in early 2012 and shortly after that we already prepared a proper full line – up for live assaults. Already our third show took place at the here in Germany well known PARTY SAN festival, on which we have got the chance to get a slot on their underground tent stage. Well, more than three years later our discography consists of 3 full length albums, 5 split 7”Eps, a tribute sampler contribution and be sure that we’re still dead fuckin’ hungry for more Death Metal madness straight from the grave!

Why did you choose to play Death Metal?

Haubersson: We’ve grown up with the 90´s Death Metal scene and this music still delivers to us the most honest and raw sounding spirit and energy! We see ourselves as “to the bone” fans of the genre and REVEL IN FLESH is our authentic way of ultimate Death Metal worshiping!

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

Haubersson: It’s a mixture of both of your suggestions in our line – up! I think it’s essential to have in a band some sort of “brains” that can really unleash the beast, but if you like to create music that expresses the feeling of a real band it’s urgently necessary to have the whole rat pack being involved in the process writing, creating and expressing!

Tell us about your lyrics, writing, inspiration etc.

Haubersson: I write Death Metal lyrics that are dedicated to the dark side of our existence! Death Metal lyrics to me need to go hand in hand with the music and I like the atmospheric touch of horror combined in music and lyrics. Having a strong union of music, lyrics and artworks is relevant to us! For myself I can’t understand bands being label as Death Metal when they deal with social issues or having lyrics about excrements and dull porn grinding rubbish!

Is there an ideology behind your band?

Hauberrsson: YES, ultimate fan like Death Metal worshiping!!! Hail the the Deathkult!!!

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

Haubersson: Totally overloaded! You have too much of everything! I think this so called new wave of Death Metal already reached its peak a while ago. Nowadays you have too many releases, of too many bands dealing with a similar sound, similar coverartists and you have labels that try to cash in on the back of their bands as much as they can. In generally Germany is still a good country when it comes to possibilities to play live, festivals etc.; but  if you have each month like 10 to 20 Death Metal releases popping up or touring around you can easily notice that the market is shitloaded! Beside this, there is also a lot of hype around certain stuff created by hype magazines, hype labels and guys that love to cash in! To us as a band it’s important to simply do it OUR way!!!

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

Haubersson: Creating and spreading our vision of Death Metal in the way we wanna have it and forget about the rest! In first line we still to do this band for ourselves and it’s still a challenge to make things better, having releases out etc.!!! Dedication is the key!!!

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

Haubersson: I personally rather stick to the 90´s scene from Germany! If your from a foreign country you should truly spent some time on checking out those German classical Death Metal bands: FLESHCRAWL, BLOOD, OBSCENITY, DEAD, PURGATORY and also classical albums like “Hallucinations” (ATROCITY), “Cursed” MORGOTH or the albums from TORCHURE. Enjoy!

Free word

Haubersson: Yeah! Buy vinyl and make sure to buy your stuff directly from the bands since in this business scenery the best way to support a band is buying it directly from the band!!! Cheerz & Thanx for the interview!