INTERVIEW SOULBURN

Soulburn from the Netherlands released their fourth album called "Noa's D'ark" these days, which should definitely be heard by fans who like Asphyx, Celtic Frost, Pentacle and listeners who like Death / Doom and prefer high quality dark music in general. Apart from that, Soulburn have of course long been a brand in their own right and need no comparison with other bands. Furthermore, l would like to point out that the lyrical concept of the new album perfectly reflects the state of our times, which are characterised by climate catastrophes, pandemics and environmental destruction. But more about this in the interview. Guitarist Eric Daniels answered my questions. 

Hey, how are you doing? How are the reactions concerning the new album?

Hey there, we are doing very well, thank you. The reactions on our new album "Noa’s D’ark" are very overwhelming. People like the new album as much as we do, we see a lot of reponse and it makes us proud and happy to see our fans like our new album very much.  

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 INQUISITOR

22 years after the release of the cult debut "Walpurgis-Sabbath of lust", INQUISITOR from Harderwijk ,The Netherlands are back with their brandnew release "Stigmate me, I'm in misery" ! Join us on our trip into the darkest past...

Hey, first of all, how are you ? How are the reactions towards the new album?

We are doing alright at the moment on this rotten doomed planet. And so far almost all of the reviews/reactions to the new album are exceptionally good. We have no reasons to complain.

What was the reason for the split in 1997 ? And what was there a special reason for the reunion ? In the meantime some members of INQUISTOR founded CENTURIAN, so can you tell us who exactly started with INQUSITOR, who was in CENTURIAN (they were called NOX for a while I think) and who is now in the band?

Splitting up is almost never a great thing to happen but in the end it is often inevitable, and in our case, the reasons don't matter anymore 'cause we're back together. In 1996, INQUISITOR slowly fell apart, however, Wim continued INQUISITOR with Rob Oorthuis on guitar but the sound changed and due to this, a new band emerged out of this which became CENTURIAN. Wim van der Valk was the only former member of INQUISITOR in CENTURIAN. CENTURIAN existed from 1997 until 2002 and reformed without Wim van der Valk in 2011 till 2015. After CENTURIAN ceased to exist in 2002, NOX was formed which was more or less a band/project with ex-member(s) of CENTURIAN.
The current line-up of INQUISITOR is the original line-up which also appears on the early Demo's and has the following members: Alex Wesdijk – Vocals, Erik Sprooten – Guitars, Alex Bakker – Bass, Wim van der Valk – Drums. This line-up started INQUISITOR.