Sunday, June 17, 2018

REVIEW DEATHMACE "BLEEDING FRENZY"

Last week I got the debut album called "Bleeding Frenzy" from DEATHMACE. I haven't heard from this band before, but I guess this was a mistake. DEATHMACE from York, England exist since 2009 and play a really great mixture between death and thrash metal.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

INTERVIEW NORDLYS

"Of course the glory old days are great to remember, it was a really magic time when the whole Black Metal thing started in the early nineties, musically and spiritually. " (A. /Nordlys)

When I heard about the fact about the re-creation of an gig which took place 20 years ago including NORDLYS, LUNAR AURORA, NAGELFAR and MIGHTIEST I decided that I had to visit this, even if I and my attendance had to travel to Freiburg / Black Forest, Southern Germany. For the first time I visited the "Crash"-Club, the dark vault cellar is predestined for black metal gigs. LUNAR AURORA and NAGELFAR  ceased to exist, so the line up was completed by KERMANIA and a project band called WELTENGÄNGER (named after LUNAR AURORAs debut album). The concert itself was a great experience (here you can see some pictures published by the local news portal), so some months after I decided to do an interview with A. from NORDLYS.

First of all: how did you experience The „Past is alive“ concert at the Crash in Freiburg with MIGHTIEST, KERMANIA and WELTENGÄNGER ? In my opinion (and my attencance felt the same) NORDLYS was the „strongest“ band on this evening. And how exactly did the idea of took shape, who had the inital idea ?
It was a great event and experience, we really appreciated the effort the guys from Mightiest, especially Oliver, put into making this possible and as enjoyable as possible, not only the gig itself but also everything around it. The initial idea came from Mightiest to re-create an event that I had organized 20 years ago in Bad Wörishofen with Lunar Aurora, Nagelfar, Mightiest and us. First plans were simply to meet up after all this years but the whole thing turned out a bit bigger. Great to hear you enjoyed the performance, it went surprisingly well in regard of us meeting up for rehearsing only a couple of times before the gig.  

Saturday, May 26, 2018

INTERVIEW GRAFVITNIR

GRAFVITNIR from Sweden released their fitfth album named "Keys to the Mysteries Beyond", which is a a really outstanding black metal release. So I decided to to an interview with Niantiel- we spoke about black metal, occultism and their aversion to public relation - hope you like it.

First of all, how were the reactions towards the new album ? I think most of the listeners like it a lot, right ? In my opinion  “Keys to the Mysteries Beyond“ is one of the best black metal albums within the last years and I hope in some years it will be regarded as a classic! It can be described as fast tradtional Swedish black metal in perfection, I can hear similarities to Sacramentum, Svartsyn, Sorhin, Dissection and (old) Watain. Do you agree ?

Thank you very much for your words of appreciation. The reactions have been mostly positive, but what is most important is that we ourselves are satisfied with our creation, the rest is only a bonus. 
I would say that I personally can hear the similarities with Sacramentum, Dissection and of course early Watain (which at that time was hugely inspired by Dissection). The reason for this is probably because music usually is derived from the soul and music created by swedes tend to have noticeable characteristics that are audible and well documented. 

The cover artwork from Daniele Valeriani is a really outstanding piece of art as well, how did you get in contact with him? I have seen that this artwork also was published in an art book together with other cover artworks from other artists.

In fact, our good friend Daniele contacted us and offered us cooperation. When I later saw the first sketch of what was to become the cover art for "Keys to the Mysteries Beyond" I instantly knew that this was going to be what we were looking for. Our cooperation runs smoothly and we are extremely happy to work with such a magnificent talent that he is.  

Sunday, April 22, 2018

INTERVIEW DEATHSTORM

"Without Slayer nothing would exist." 
Deathstorm from Austria are a really cool band and a must-listen for maniacs who are into brutal thrash metal and worship bands such as Slayer, Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, (old) Sepultura and  the mighty Sarcofago for example. In the following weeks (May25th ) they will release their great Deathstorm third full-length record called "Reaping what is left" via german high-quality record label High Roller Records. So read what vocalist and bassplayer Marco Stebich has to tell us!


First of all, please introduce Deathstorm to the readers of Systematic Desensitization Zine. Who’s in the band and how did you find together ? Some other interesting aspects about the band? 
Hey and thanks a lot for doing this! We are Deathstorm and we deliver deadly deathrashing violence since 2010. We actually formed under the banner of Damage in 2007 and released two demos before turning into Deathstorm. We actually have known each other since at least 2001 due to school and stuff. In our early teenage years we picked up instruments and started playing music together due to the fact that the kinda music we were into was simply not available anywhere when it comes to the local musicscene. There was a lot of total crap going on and we simply got frustrated with it which led to the formation of Damage. Fast forward a few years and after releasing our debut record "As death awakes" we added Markus (Steindl) to the line up since we wanted to sound bigger when playing gigs. However a few weeks ago we decided to part ways with him which means Deathstorm is nowadays again operating as a three piece consisting of Ferdinand Reinbacher on guitars, Manuel Röxeis on drums and me (Marco Stebich) on bass and vocals. This is actually the first time we mention this officially besides telling the audience at the Raging Death Date-festival a few weeks back. 

Thursday, March 29, 2018

REVIEW ORTUS "WHERE SHADOWS GATHER"

There are some rare moments in life where you find a really outstanding piece of art, although you didn't expect something great....This case happened to me with the band ORTUS from Mainz (not to be confused with a Black Metal band named ORKUS from the Rhineland area, which split  up some years ago ).


ORTUS exist since 2013 and this EP named "Where shadows gather" is their first official release released by Worship Tapes. It contains of four relatively long tracks with a duration of ca. 29 minutes and is limited to 102 tapes.  

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

INTERVIEW KAT "SHEVIL" GILLHAM

"Seeing demo day era Cradle Of Filth and Solstice supporting At The Gates on their first ever tour in England in summer 1993 or pre-album Cradle of Filth supporting pre-album Emperor also in summer 1993 was very cool and special although at that time I didn't realise the significance of what I was witnessing, no one did...none of us realised what a worldwide impact a lot of those bands would later have!"

This time I conducted an interview with an prominent example of the UK underground community named Kat "Shevil" Gillham!

First of all, please introduce yourself to the readers of Systematic Desensitization Zine…

Hell-O. My name is Kat "Shevil" Gillham, I'm a 41 year old vocalist and drummer from North East England and I play in a few bands that play various heavy styles namely Winds of Genocide, Uncoffined, Lucifer's Chalice, Enshroudment and Thronehammer which you can read about in this interview. I have also been writing for a couple of well known music magazines over here in England for a while (Terrorizer Magazine and Iron Fist Magazine)as well as in the past year contributing reviews and interviews to the legendary german Voices from the darkside Zine website.  

Thursday, March 22, 2018

INTERVIEW DORNENREICH

"Dabei scheint Kunst generell immer wieder zu großen Teilen aus einer inneren Mangelerfahrung geboren und irgendwann, wenn die Bewusstwerdung voranschreitet, wird es möglich, dass sie aus innerer Fülle geboren wird." (Eviga/ Dornenreich)

Es gibt Interviews, die dazu führen, dass wenn man das Endresultat in den Händen hält (konkreter gesagt vor allem die Antworten), man direkt wieder spürt, warum man das Ganze unentgeltlich in seiner Freizeit macht. Dieses nun vorliegende Interview ist solch ein Beispiel, aber ehrlich gesagt hatte ich im Falle von Dornenreich auch nichts anderes erwartet, hatte ich von Bandkopf Eviga schon in der Vergangenheit einige interessante, tiefgründige und zum Denken anregende Sichtweisen wahrgenommen. Vielen Dank nochmals an Eviga, der dieses Interview trotz der momentanen Tour sehr ausführlich beantwortete. 


Was passiert momentan im Dornenreich-Lager? Ihr spielt ja momentan eine Tour, die auch in einigen Kirchen Halt macht. Hättet Ihr Euch das zu Euren Black Metal-Zeiten mal träumen lassen, auch wenn ihr schon damals nie die Black Metal - Klischees erfüllt habt? Und das nächste Album ist ja auch schon im Entstehungsprozess, was könnt Ihr zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt dazu sagen?

Bis April steht im Moment alles im Zeichen der laufenden Mystic-Places-Tour, die uns an nahezu jedem Wochenende in europäische Metropolen führt. Und unsere bisherigen Erfahrungen waren atemberaubende. Für uns sind Kirchen schlicht und ergreifend – und letzten Endes überkonfessionell gedacht – Orte tiefer Spiritualität. Und der Klangcharakter solcher Räumlichkeiten verbindet sich natürlich sehr, sehr gut mit unserem Ausdruck, der im Kern intensiv, mystisch und zeitlos ist.

Dass wir je in Kirchen spielen würden, hätten wir uns – sagen wir – zu unseren Demo-Zeiten gewiss nicht vorstellen können, ich denke aber, dass wir schon damals erfreut gewesen wären, wäre uns diese Möglichkeit geboten worden, denn wir waren, - wie du es ja bereits trefflich angedeutet hast -, nie eine Band, die sich im Rahmen irgendwelcher Genreklischees bewegte.