Interview with Serbian death metal band SACRAMENTAL BLOOD.
- answered Milan Dobrosavljević.
translated by Markéta, thank you!
Ave SACRAMENTAL BLOOD! I didn´t
find any interview with you in Czech. So, I would like you to tell our readers,
who don’t know you, something about your band. You can start from the beginning
and tell us the whole SACRAMENTAL BLOOD´s history.
Sacramental Blood was risen from ashes of my previous
band Androphagous, in January 2002. We did few unofficial demos and in 2005 we
signed deal with Walk Records for recording and release of our debut demo
"Inception of Ceremeony". It came out in 2006 as a part of split cd
with Ophiolatry from Brazil. Both bands hit the road together few months later,
playing European Blastour 2006. In January 2009 we started recording of our
debut album, taking short break for playing "Storming the Balkans" tour
with God Dethroned and Fleshgod Apocalypse. The recordings were finished after
the tour but some disagreements between band members forced me to put the band
and album on ice. In 2011 we recruited new vocalist/guitarist Srdjan Todorovic
and recorded demo "The Second Death" for the promotion of upcoming
"Disgorging the Balkans" tour with Mexican Disgorge and Natron.
Srdjan's vocals gave us whole new sound so after the tour we decided to
re-record all vocals on album and most of guitar solos. Album was reamped,
mixed and mastered in 16th Cellar Studio (Rome) by Stefano Morabito and
released in 2016 on different formats by 3 different labels: Ghastly Music
(Japan), Miner Records (Swiss) and Rebirth the Metal (Germany). By the time
people you publish this interview Brazilian labels Insane Records and Lab6
Music will also release digipack for territory of Brazil.
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Last May you published your new
album “Ternion Demonarchy”.How do you feel about it now? What are the fans´
reviews? And how about the critics?
It feels great releasing it after so many years
working on it and waiting for release. Reactions are great. We haven't seen any
single bad review and everybody seems to like it. It ended up on several lists
of best releases in 2016 so we are more than happy with response to it.
How did you create new material
for “Ternion Demonarchy? How do SACRAMENTAL BLOOD compose?
Material was composed during period of many years. 1-2
songs I composed even before composing songs from the first demo, but I kept
them for the album. Basically I write the riffs at home and others guys from
time to time show me what they wrote and I turn at home all those riffs into
songs. Once I think the song is finished I show it to drummer, we work out
details and then the rest of the band learns the song and maybe add something
to it. Riffing is bit more complex and intricate so there's no chance we could
come up with such riffs and arrangements together, jamming at rehearsals. It
takes lot of mental work and not only playing, for which I need peace of my home
and enough time to work on details.
Who is the author of your lyrics?
And what are your lyrics about? Where do you find inspiration for your songs?
I wrote all the lyrics on this album. They are dealing
mostly with religion and destructive nature of mankind. Some of the topics are
also touching subjects like mental and social alienation, cloning and sorcery
but those songs are multi layered, having horror stories in the first plan
carrying some deeper thoughts between the lines.
Who is the author of the cover
for “Ternion Demonarchy”? I really like his work. How did you chose the cover?
Cover artwork was painted by amazing Spanish artist
Juanjo Castellano Rosado, also known for his artworks for Revel in Flesh,
Avulsed, Vomitory etc. I like his paintings a lot so I contacted him and asked
if he was interested to make cover for us. I gave him some ideas about concept
of it and he came up with this amazing piece of art. It's definitely one of his
best artworks ever.
The sound of the album is great.
It is dark, cold and sharp at the same time. Which studio did you chose for
recording? Did you have any opinions about the final sound and mastering, were
you able to change anything?
The album was originally recorded completely in Wild
Cat studio in Kragujevac (Serbia). Later we went through some line up changes
and decided to re-record vocals and about 60-70% of solos and that was done
mostly in Archsound Studio in Belgrade. Complete album was sent then to 16th
Cellar Studio in Rome (Italy) where Stefano Morabito (known for his work with
Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hour of Penance etc) did re-amping, mixing and mastering.
We told him what kind of sound we would like to have and then he worked on it,
sending us different versions until we thought it was good enough. It was him
doing it all but we also had our saying, couple of times asking him to go back
and start again from the scratch. Personally, I wish we had more old school
sound, more organic and less triggered and compressed but on the other hand it
was our decision to make album that way, to avoid typical shitty Serbian sound.
Lot of people praise the album because it's early 90's death metal with modern
sound that doesn't sound like we are recycling anything so we are happy with
the final result.
The new album was published by
Japanese Ghastly Music. Why this label? Were you satisfied with their work?
They gave us the best conditions, that's the only
reason. We talked to few other labels and some big labels also showed interest
but at the end nothing happened so we signed for Ghastly Music. The contract
gave us opportunity to give license to other labels as well so we used it and
released it through few different labels, to make sure we have better
distribution and all formats fans could be interested in. Rebirth the Metal
from Germany released it on tape, Miner Records (Swiss/Serbia) released cd for
ex Yugoslavia territory and some day hopefully they will release vinyl too.
Finally, Insane Records and Lab6 Music from Brazil will release in 2-3 weeks
digipack for Brazilian territory.
You have been playing since 2002
which is a long time for a band. We can say that you are legends now. How was
the beginning of your band? How did you create the band and what was the first
impulse to build something death metal?
Ha, I wouldn't go that far calling us legends. That's
bit too much but thanks anyway. I always wanted to play death metal and that's
why I picked up guitar, so I could form my own band. From 1994 to 2001 I played
in band called Androphagous, with short stints in Heretical Guilt and Stone To
Flesh (The Stone). In 2001 I disbanded Androphagous but few months later
original drummer of Sacramental Blood contacted me asking to join Androphagous.
I had no interest in it but later I suggested him to start completely new band
and SB was born. My love for death metal was and still is so strong that I had
to find the way to make this happen.
“Ternion Demonarchy” is your
first long-played album in the history of our band. That is not a lot
considering the time you have been playing. Why is that? Was it because of
money or time?
It was mostly due to lack of money and good studios in
Serbia + some line up changes. Songs for album were ready in 2008. We tested
some other studio before we decided to go back to Wild Cat studio, where we
recorded "Inception of Ceremony" demo. Studio was overbooked so we
could record only few days in a row every 5-6 weeks. During that time we
changed vocalist and went on tour with God Dethroned and Fleshgod Apocalypse so
we had to put album aside and prepare new guy for it all. Once it was finally
recorded we didn't like the sound and decided to send it to some other studio
for mix and mastering but bad blood between some member forced me to put
everything on ice and wait for some better times. Once we gathered new line up
and recorded new demo we realised it was time to complete the album and then it
took us lot of time to get money, to get time in studio and then again to find
proper label so it turned into 6-7 years long project.
Nowadays, a lot of people
download new albums online and they use digital form of music. How do you feel
about this as a musician?
I'm not happy about it. I understand when fans don't
want to make pre-orders since there are so many shit albums that are advertised
as masterpieces, but once you realise you really like some stuff there's no
reason not to order it. Especially because we don't live in early 90-ies
anymore, when it seemed that every released death metal album was amazing.
Today, with very few albums that are true diamonds, sales of such albums should
be much higher. But even that is ok, if you are at least going to show up at
concerts and support bands that way, but then again so many fans prefer
drinking beer in front of club and bitching how they can't afford to buy
tickets and that scene sucks. Another awful thing that is caused by low sales
is expanded offer of "merchandise" that more and more bands start to
sell. I'm talking about selling of bands' branded beers, wine, spaghetti,
cheese, underwear and what not. So many bands started whoring their image and
themselves that it makes me sick. I understand that some of them are doing this
for living and they need somehow to compensate low sales but still it's
disgusting.
I really believe that “Ternion
Demonarchy” would be great as a vinyl. Do you think about it? How do you feel
about LP albums and their sound? Are you a collector?
Yes, we thought it deserves to be available in all
formats so Miner records got the rights to release it on vinyl. It seems like
these days everybody can release cd so getting LP is something special.
Unfortunately I don't collect them but I definitely prefer their sound more
than sound of cds.
In the Czech Republic, there is
not a lot of people on death metal concerts. How about in Serbia? Do fans
support bands? Do they buy CDs, merchandise, etc.?
It depends on the kind of shows. Some shows are well
visited and some others are fiasco. Things were lot better when we were
starting the band as we could easily over 300 tickets at our shows. "Ternion
Demonarchy" is selling good for our standard and fans are ordering merch
from us but I'm sure it could be lot better.
Do you have any albums which have
caught your attention recently?
I've just discover band Resurgency from Greece. It's killer
old school death metal and album is called "False Enlightment". Check
them out. Bolzer is also interesting band. I heard the name some time ago but
didn't check them until recently. Latest Asphyx is also surprisingly good, I
played it a lot last few weeks.
Do you know and listen any Czech
bands?
Of course, Czech Rep always had some killer bands.
Dark "Sex 'N' Death" is still one of my favourite. I'm also big fan
of Krabathor ("Lies" and "Orthodox"), Hypnos (especially
"The Revenge Ride" and "Heretic Commando"), Root ("The
Book" and "Black Seal" are amazing albums). I know many other
bands like Pandemia, Fleshless, Intervalle Bizzare, Heaving Earth, Godless
Truth and bunch of grind core and black metal bands that I don't listen to.
What are SACRAMENTAL BLOOD´s
plans for the next few months?
We want to keep busy playing as many shows as possible
in next 2 years. We had to stay off the road due to drummer's issue for too
long but now we are complete and we want to play wherever it's possible. It
seems this is going to be busy year for us as we already have around 15 shows
booked in 2017. I'm working on new dates all the time so we will visit many new
places this year, including performance at you festival. In September/ October
we will tour Balkans with Deranged so it seems it's going to be good year for
us.
18.03.2017! This is the date when
you play on DEADLY STORM IN BOŽKOV festival in the Czech Republic. I am so
excited to have a beer with you! Do you have any surprise for fans? Like a new
song or something?
We can't wait to get there and finally play our first
show in Czech Republic. We hope this show will open some new door for us and
that we will play lot more shows there in future. We are also booked for
Anti-trend festival in August so I hope we are on good way to achieve that. No
plans for something special except maybe playing Ternion in it's entirety. Like
I said it's our first show there so any set list will be never seen there
before :)
Thank you so much for the
interview and I wish you a lot of sold CDs, hundreds crazy fans and tons of
great ideas.
Thank you for all support and nice wishes. See you
soon on Deadly Storm! It's going to be blast!
