Interview - AZARATH - The main theme of this album is Death.

Interview with Polish legendary death metal band - AZARATH.

Answered Bart.

Translated by Markéta, thank you!

Recenze/review - AZARATH - In Extremis (2017)

Ave AZARATH! I have been listening your novelty named „In Extremis“ for some time and I am still discovering new and new pieces of darkness. To be honest I did expect a really good job from you, but I haven't expected that you will kick my ass as much as you did. I think that the album is really great. What feedback do you have from the fans, what about the reviews?

BART: Ave! Thanks a lot! We have really great feedback from the fans, and we got plenty of emails, messages or comments from them. The reviews are mostly good and very good. So we could be satisfied if someone else besides us likes our creations. 

Have you already played some songs from the novelty in concerts? What are the fans' reactions? Do you have any potential hit? My personal guess woult be the second piece, "Let My Blood Become His Flesh".

BART: Yes, your guess is good:) On Inferno Festival we’ve played “Let My Blood Become His Flesh” together with “At The Gates of Understanding”. For upcoming shows and tour we will also play “Annihilation” and “Slain God”. So those are the songs we’ve chosen to play live in the nearest future. 

Lyrics are sometimes being forgotten in death metal. You are singing about darkness, death, satanism. What are the lyrics on the new album about and who wrote them? Are you trying to communicate something by them, to convey some message?

BART: The main theme of this album is Death. The best way to understand the point is to spend some time with music and lyrics. All lyrics were written fifty-fifty by Necrosodom and Malahida (our friend). 

The new album has a really dark and sharp sound but still slightly different from previous albums. The album is signed by Haldor Grunberg, why this change? Your previous recordings was at famouse Wieslawskich. Personally, I have no comments on the sound, but I have heard the opinions that the drums are too forward and the vocal is not heard.

BART: We have recorded this album in several recording studios with several sound engineers, I mean each instrument in different studio. And finally with all recordings done we moved to Maq Studio to mix and master album with Haldor Grunberg/Satanic Audio. We’ve wanted to achieve dark and sharp sound with really powerful and live sounding drums. I won’t agree that drums are too forward. They just sound so powerful and live, not as plastic computer machine samples like in many present recordings. Talking about vocals I also heard that they are too loud, so you can see how different opinions, based on personal feelings, we can face :) 

The album has a great cover. The author is Marta Promińska. Why she? I have to say that the cover exactly expresses what's happening on the novelty. It is cool, raw, rough, as well as music on "In Extremis". How did you chose the theme? Was it from already prepared work or Marta Promińska heard your music and it inspired her? The last record cover made Zbigniew Bielak. Why this change?

BART: Great to hear that! Marta is Inferno’s wife so she was present at the whole creation process. Since we started guitars’ work, that me and Inferno always do at the beginning, playing riffs both together many times at their home, until recorded rehearsals and ready lyrics as well the whole album concept. So Marta was being inspired during all that time and I final work express exactly the main theme of the album. And I could say that seeing how the painting evolve was also inspiring for us. We are very proud and satisfied with this cover artwork. 

After the release of the album I read that the singer and guitarist Necrosodem is leaving. Nowhere did I find out why? There is also a question of what will happen next? Are you looking for someone else? And how will it be with live performances?

BART: Decision was made mutually. The reason is simple, if something is not working as it should, we cannot continue and getting tired of each other. So the best solution was to split-up. To make it clear, he did great job for this album and he is great musician. But our cooperation hasn’t worked well in personal issues.

So since about mid May we’ve started cooperation with Martin “Skullripper” from Embrional, who handle vocals/guitar from now. He will play all upcoming shows and tour with us and then we will made final decision. 

There has been a long six years between this album and the past "Blasphemers' Maledictions. Why, so long? Was not there time, money, ideas?

BART: We are an independent band, working under any pressure from any label and it’s very comfortable. We record when all music is ready to go and we are 100% satisfied with that. We started recording in March 2016,and mixed and mastered the album in November 2016, so there is 5 years between recordings process. When we had album ready we started talks with record labels and finally set up the deal with AGONIA Records. 

You're not a band that has performed too often. I do not know how in Poland, but I have not seen you on a tour for a long time. What about you and concerts? Will you also visit us in the Czech Republic in the near future?

BART: Yes, it was December 2011 when we toured Europe with Marduk and Triptykon. We don’t play often but we try as many as we can. Instead of Inferno we have ordinary jobs, we live in different areas of Poland, and we have to keep in mind our live session drummers schedule, so it is not easy logistically to play often. We will tour Europe in September, but I don’t know yet if Czech Republic is also planned. 

You are already witnesses today. When you compare your beginnings and the present, has the time changed a lot? I mean the approach of fans, labels, promoters. I often hear that "it's not the way it used to be." What do you think?

BART: At present you have big fans approach via social media, emails. At the beginnings (early 90’s as I started) there were personal traditional letters and they have a charm if you know what I mean. Shows were much more crazy, you could never expect what would happen. Nowadays everything is professional, or almost professional. Venues, equipment, promoters and all that stuff. Contact with labels, magazines, promoters is much easier, from the band point of view, and with the band as well from the others. The point is that if you have the metal in your heart and soul then elapsing time and present modernity really don’t matter. 

The phenomenon of the present era is the internet. Sometimes seems to me that some people do not live elsewhere. What is AZARATH's relationship to music downloads? Lots of "fans" just download music, watch the show on the youtube and the physical medium is just a matter for "old dudes". I wonder how do you perceive this "phenomenon" ?

BART: I still buy CDs. Of course I use the internet and listen to albums on youtube or online anywhere, but if I like the album I buy it. And we can notice nowadays the reborn of LPs, the selling of them is growing now. Maybe the physical medium is something like “old school”, for old dudies as you said, but we cannot fight with modern progress. If someone prefers to have the album digitally (downloading, spotify, itunes or so) it’s up to them. And it is noticeable that digital selling is big part of market nowadays. But as I said, I prefer to have the album and the booklet, lyrics, cover, graphics in physical form and I love the smell of just unpacked album. 

What about the plans of AZARATH in the upcoming months?

Bart: On 10th August we will play at Party San Open Air. Then for September European tour is planned as well Polish tour on Sept/October. All dates should be revealed soon. 

Thank you very much for the interview. I wish your new album good sales and gigs full of crazy fans and I'll look forward to meeting you again somewhere!

BART: Thanks! September is coming!

Recenze/review - AZARATH - In Extremis (2017)

Azarath on-line:
Facebook: http://facebook.com/AzarathBand
Webstore: http://www.azarath.pl
Band contact: azarathofficial@gmail.com
Press contact: promotion@agoniarecords.com

Agonia Records:
Website: http://agoniarecords.com
Webshop: http://tinyurl.com/agoniashop
Facebook: https://facebook.com/agoniarecords
Twitter: https://twitter.com/agoniarecords
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/agoniarecords
Bandcamp: https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/agoniarecordsof...
YouTube: http://youtube.com/AgoniaRec