REVIEW YOTH IRIA "UNDER HIS SWAY"

I don't remember exactly where I read it first, but when I took notice from a new black metal "supergroup" consisting of members from legendary bands such as Rotting Christ,Varathron, Necromantia, Thou Art Lord, Diabolos Rising and Ravencult for example, I was very excited how the final tracks would sound. Could the band fulfill the high expectations me and a lot of people have because of the prominent bandmembers and their glorious past ? To become concrete YOTH IRIA is Jim Mutilator (ex-Rotting Christ, ex- Varathron etc.), the Magus (Necromantia, Thou Art Lord, ex-Rotting Christ, ex-Diabolos Rising etc.), George Emmanuel (Lucifer's Child, ex-Rotting Christ) and J.V. Maelstrom (Ravencult etc).  

INTERVIEW PENTACLE

"All the lyrics of the album point to one direction: death !"

Pentacle released the new album "Spectre of the Eight Ropes" on Iron Pegasus Records some months ago. It's certainly no exaggeration to say that a lot of people in the underground scene, wherever they may live, could hardly wait until its release. A really good cause to do an interview with Wannes Gubbels, vocalist, bass player and lyricist of this battleship of dutch death metal. If you didn't know yet, you will realize in the course of this interview that Wannes is an real old-school maniac and has a lot of interesting things to say.

Hey Wannes, first of all congratulations for the great new album! Can you tell us something about the creative process concerning the creation of the new album? How were the reactions concerning „Spectre of the Eight Ropes“ in general ?

Thank you very much! Glad to hear you enjoy the album. I haven’t read that many reviews (yet), but those which caught my eye, are very much favourable for the band. It’s great to see people like the album. For sure, we create the music for ourselves first, but there’s no need to deny it’s satisfying when “Spectre…” receives positive reactions. We worked very hard to make this album happen. For a long time it wasn’t even sure if we would record a full length ever, but we made it happen and that’s something I feel very proud of. It’s truly a creation of dedication and hard work, not to forget inspiration. The road of creating “Spectre…” is very long one. In the beginning, it was uncertain what path to walk. After the “Five Candles burning red” MCD we weren’t sure what the next step would be. For sure we wanted to compose a new album. I always feel disappointed we weren’t able to create more full length albums for Pentacle, but I know the reasons why it didn’t happen and there’s little use to ponder too much about it. We decided to start writing new material and see how this would develop. A new Pentacle release could have been everything something in between an official rehearsal tape and a new full length album. After a long time rehearsing (I think it was a couple of years) we had written three new songs and at that point I decided to alter course. I was tired of little direction we followed and decided the next release would become a full length album and nothing else. This is what I wanted achieve and it turned into our focus point. I booked the studio with the knowledge I had to write five additional songs and all the lyrics. Not only that, we had to rehearse them as well to be able to record the material. This was a very big challenge for me personally as I am no fast songwriter. It can take ages to come up with decent stuff and now I had a deadline to catch. And a heavy one is was! So, I put on a very tight working schedule for myself. I wanted to create a new song every month: two weeks to come up with the riffs and arrangements and two weeks to rehearse it as a band. Then forward to the next one. And next one. And next one etc.  

INTERVIEW NOCTURNUS AD

"It either resonates with you or it doesn't !"

While listening to the new excellent Nocturnus AD-album "Paradox" I came to the conclusion that I should do an interview with the band. Nocturnus is a well-known and respected name in the history of extreme metal, also due to the fact that the band had some kind of pioneer role in integrating synthesizers in death metal. So I spoke with mastermind Mike Browning about the new album, his other (previous) bands and projects such as After Death, Acheron, Voodoo Gods and Morbid Angel, occultism and the death of ex-Morbid Angel guitarist Richard Brunelle (R.I.P.), who sadly passed away in the course of this interview.

The new Nocturnus AD-album "Paradox" was released some months ago, how are your thoughts and feelings concerning it afterwards ? Where would you place it in relation to the previous Nocturnus-albums "The key" and "Thresholds"?

The reviews and sales have been way past my expectations! I knew that we would have people that liked it and I was hoping that a few people would say that it is a worthy successor to "The Key", but I never expected for everything the record company made has sold out and in a second pressing already and the reviews are not just good, you can tell by reading the reviews that people are going in great details about the songs, lyrics and how it makes them feel when they listen to it and that it is the perfect followup to "The Key". It's really blowing my mind, but it is hard to judge your own songs because you never know how people will receive it, especially on the internet. 

To me it is the direct continuation of "The Key" lyrically and maybe even musically. "Thresholds" has always been a weird bittersweet album to me because I knew it was the beginning of the end of what I wanted Nocturnus to be when I started the band. I wanted "Thresholds" to be the followup to "The Key"- story and there is not one thing on "Thresholds" that continues from "The Key". It was a good album by itself on its own, but it was nowhere near what I wanted it to convey, so that is why "Paradox" is a real paradox!  

INTERVIEW MANGLED TORSOS

Some months ago I re-discovered both Mangled Torsos-albums in my collection and while listening to them I noticed again how good (and unfortunately underrated) this band from the southern part of Germany has been. So I found an "unofficial" Mangled Torsos-facebook page and got in contact via this page with ex-member Frank, who played bass for Mangled Torsos. So, to be honest, this page is maybe "semi-official", haha. And because I am this kind of nostalgic person, I like to do interviews with bands who ceased to exist long times ago very much, maybe because it reminds me to my own youth, and I think most people will agree, that youth is a very specific time in life that can't be repeated. Musicwise it has been the most intense and exciting times in my life,  discovering all this new and great stuff via tapetrading and so on. So enjoy this conversation about times where death metal began to start and thereafter to explode in Germany. A time where a label such as Nuclear Blast sent copied order lists in black and white via postal mail. Besides Frank, Patrick who played drums, answered my questions. Here we go...

Please tell the readers of Systematic Desensitization Zine who you are and some facts about Mangled Torsos: when did you start the band, what were the main reasons and inspiration for starting an own band and did you know each other or did you get in contact because of searching for musicians to start a band ?

Frank: Hi and first of all many thanks for your interest! I'm Frank and I didn't start the band but played bass in Mangled Torsos.

We all knew us before the band was founded, Patrick visited the same school like me, and as we were obviously metal fans, we got into contact pretty soon. We started hanging around after school and Oli was a good friend of Patrick so I also get to know him. We listened to everything we could get and were evolving our taste more and more from thrash metal (Slayer/Kreator/Sodom/Destruction... ) to death metal- and grindcore- bands like Entombed, Autopsy, Death, Carcass, Napalm Death, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Bolt Thrower... 

INTERVIEW CARNAL GHOUL

Dieses Interview von mir mit CARNAL GHOUL wurde vor ca. sechs Jahren im Legacy Magazin veröffentlicht. Die Band scheint es leider nicht mehr zu geben, auch wenn es wohl nie eine offizielle Auflösungserklärung gab. Personell hat sich auch einiges geändert, Drummer Tormentor spielt nun nicht mehr bei Desaster, dafür aber mittlerweile bei der deutschen Thrash-Institution Sodom. Das im Interview angekündigte Debüt-Album hat nie das Licht der Welt erblickt, so bleibt die starke EP "The Grotesque Vault" wohl die einzige Veröffentlichung der Band. Seit 2015 gibt es jedoch die ziemlich guten Demonbreed (Debüt-Album namens " Where gods come to die"), in deren Reihen drei ehemalige Carnal Ghoul-Mitglieder tätig sind.

 Alles kann, nichts muss.

„Die Idee, CARNAL GHOUL zu gründen, besteht schon seit einigen Jahren. Als ich noch bei Lay Down Rotten spielte, haben wir zusammen mit Desaster ein Festival absolviert, ich glaube, es war das Party San, und ich habe mich mit Tormentor darüber unterhalten, mal ein gemeinsames Projekt zu starten. Da Tormentor gerne mal was aus der Death Metal-Ecke probieren wollte, und dies sowieso meine absolute Leidenschaft ist, nahmen wir CARNAL GHOUL in Angriff. Jedoch schlief das Ganze dann irgendwie ein, bis wir Anfang dieses Jahres endlich mal Zeit fanden das Ganze in die Tat umzusetzen und Songs zu schreiben. Mit Fernando, Ritsch und Johannes, der übrigens auch Gründungsmitglied von Lay Down Rotten ist, hatte ich schnell fähige Leute an der Hand, die Lust hatten, sich an der Band zu beteiligen. Ritsch ist übrigens mein Guitartech bei Milking The Goatmachine und Fernando spielt dort Schlagzeug und singt“, so Daniel Jakobi zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Band.   

INTERVIEW AYNSOPHAR

In the vastness of the world wide web I found more or less randomly AYNSOPHAR, an one-woman-band, that plays excellent progressive death metal. Read, what Barbara has to tell about music, life and spiritual development.

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Hey, please tell us something about the person behind Aynsophar. Who are you, where do you live, what are your musical influences and when did you start Aynsophar ? And what is the meaning of the word „Aynsophar“ ? I think Death are a huge influence, am I right (you mentioned something about your record as the sound of your own perseverance…)?

At first I'm sending my greetings to the readers and thank you for this interview opportunity! Presently I'm living in England, I moved here a year ago. Great place and home of pioneer bands.
I listen to a wide variety of music and I try to get inspiration from different places. I try not to limit my interest, this way I'm hoping to create something „ear-catching“. Lately I got inspired by Carlo Regadas (Monstrance, ex-Carcass / Blackstar) a lot ,he is a brilliant player and I'm always amazed by his skills (even if he doesn't know or doesn't believe haha), he is responsible for my musical growth (haha) but it's obvious that Death had / has a huge influence on me. Actually I think 90% of death metal bands are inspired by Death at some level, haha. I think it's amazing. It's amazing to reach such a high stage musicially where you inspire such a big number of people with your work. Brilliant.Lately I'm inspired by such fantastic players as Yngwie or Becker. Obviously I don't even dare to dream a bout being able to play like them but inspiration is not only about abilities.