Interview with death doom metal band from Spain - SÖNAMBULA.
Answered Ioritz Rosa (guitar), thank you!
Translated Duzl, thank you!
Questions prepared Jakub Asphyx.
Recenze/review - SÖNAMBULA - Estasis Interrumpida (2023):
Ave SÖNAMBULA! Greetings to the Spannish underground. I hope everything is fine with you. It should be because this year you have released a third long-play full-length album in your band's career. I have to admit it has literally blown my mind. It is dark, energic and as if it cuts by the sharp edge of the knife. I can hear from the record you did a really good job and you added a big portion of the talent, too. How do you perceive the new album in comparison to the previous one? Where did you want to move and in what are these two records different?
Hi there! Thank you for your kind words! Well, we had been doing a more doom metal influenced music in our previous records, but we realised we wanted to move further and explore our possibilities as a death metal band. The addition of our bass player, Manu, who has played in several death metal bands such as Aposento did also make an impact on this album. Sound wise, it is way heavier and better produced than “Secuela” and “Bicéfalo”. In terms of composition, it is more complex and “technical” than the previous works.
„Estasis Interrumpida“ includes all attributes of good death and doom metal. For me personally, it represents the record, which I really like to listen to. How did you produce it? How look the writing process of new material in the case of SÖNAMBULA?
For the songwriting process, it was Rapha Decline who wrote the album almost entirely and recorded the demos at Eate Studios, so the rest of the band could hear the ideas and work on them in our rehearsal studio. These ideas were written between January and July 2022, so we did this album in a fast and more natural way. We guess this album is more driven by our repressed feelings from the pandemic.
I found out that Javi Félez signed under the mix and mastering of the new record. I have to confirm that the sound is literally killing. It still makes me add volume to the player. Javi Félez has created a sound that is cruel, raw and at the same time dark and organic. How went the work with him and why did you choose him? In which studio did you record it? How did the recording process look like?
We recorded the album at Moontower Studios in Barcelona. You’re right, the producer is Javi Félez, who is an outstanding musician and guitar player in a band called Graveyard. He also plays death metal so he helped us a lot finding our sound, creating the samples and adding other instruments and effects included in some tracks. We stayed at Moontower Studios for a whole week, living, eating and sleeping there, so we were absolutely submerged in the process of creating this album. We believe that’s been extremely important and influential for the process, and you can tell it by listening to the album.
An important part and a kind of extra bonus for fans today is the physical CD. You released the new album at CD in Xtreem Music Records, and it has a corpsy cover art. Who is the author? How did you choose the motif and how does it relate to the music at the record?
The author is Rudy Yanto. He’s a really talented artist from Indonesia. We wanted to make a real change with this album, so it was time to search for a new artist. The album itself is a “tribute” to the Alien 3 film. It speaks about dark and gloomy feelings involving the events that take place in the film. The artwork shows the planet “Fury 161”, which is a jail planet with two suns, used to incarcerate the worst criminals of the galaxy.
I have been wandering the underground for over thirty years and I still go to Spain for music with certainty. I think we have a similar nature and taste when it comes to metal. I like your bands a lot and I monitor your scene carefully. Maybe I envy you a little, because we only have a few death metal bands that are worth it. How do you explain that death metal are doing so well in your country? How do you perceive your scene, fans, labels?
We believe we’ve got an extremely good underground scene in Spain, but most of the bands are from the northern part of Spain, which is from where we are. The north of Spain has always been the most “radical” part of the country, which was heavily industrialized during the second half of the past century and therefore there were a lot of marginalised families living in poverty, crime and drugs. We think that what’s going on could be compared to what happened in the industrialized areas of Great Britain in the late 60’s and 70’s. As this movement happened afterwards, the children of the people that suffered those issues are now making awesome music in order to criticize what they had to live when they were kids. The fans - specially in basque Country- are great!!
You play doom death metal influenced by, among other things, the old school. Today, the band can't avoid comparisons, but I would like to know how the idea to start SÖNAMBULA was born, who was and is your metal idol? Where do you want to move your band? Are you attracted to large foreign festivals, for example, are you willing to go on tour with a more famous band?
Our main influence has always been Obituary, as we showed when we recorded our EP “Back to the Roots”. We’ve also been influenced by Incantation, Autopsy, Asphyx… Old school crushing death metal! We don’t have any aspirations as a band except from having a great time doing what we love, meeting new people along the way and enjoying ourselves. Of course we would love to make it to more people, and we’d never say no to touring or or playing in Europe or whatever. Nevertheless, that is not our main goal.
When I started my website six years ago, I had a vision that I would try to support bands that are not so much popular, or they are lost in underground. To let the world knows about them. I think I'm doing quite well, at least according to the responses. How do you approach the promotion of your music? Do you rely upon the label or do you send the CDs for various reviews by yourself? For example, I buy albums that I really enjoy. What about you? Are you also fans who often support your colleagues? Do you go to concerts?
We mostly rely on our label, for they’ve got quite more influence than we do by ourselves. We try to keep things “DIY” in other aspects like merchandising, and we love going to our friends’ gigs and concerts in order to support them by buying their music or merch. We believe we should help each other and make our community grow!
On the one hand, today the new band has a lot of opportunities to make themselves more known, but on the other hand, there are a huge number of groups and the fans are getting lost in this big metal sea. A lot of people just download mp3s from the internet and instead of to visit the concert they prefer to spit poisonous saliva on Facebook. How do modern technologies affect you as SÖNAMBULA? What do you think about downloading music, google metalists, streaming music, etc.?
As we said, we don’t have any aspirations, so we’d love everybody to listen and share our music the way it pleases them the most. Whether it’s listening to the CD in their car, playing the vinyl with a friend and a good beer or maybe jogging outside while they listen to it on their phone. Who really cares? We release the music and then anyone is free to do with it whatever they want. As long as they enjoy our work, we’re fine with any way of doing so. We highly encourage buying directly from the artists, of course, but we understand that might not be suitable for everybody due to personal issues or simply because they’d rather not do it.
I like to ask the musicians what doom death metal means to them. How would they define it, whether it is more the philosophy and lifestyle thing for them or "just" relaxation? What does it mean for you? How do you perceive and experience it?
Death doom is kind of an escape mechanism for us. We as humans have some dark feelings we often try to deny. Death doom is embracing those negative feelings and creating something positive out of it. We consider important to let those things out in order to live more freely.
Finally, a classic but important question. What is SÖNAMBULA planning in the upcoming months? Where can we see you at the stage?
We have the official live presentation of our new album in June. Until then, we’ll be rehearsing a lot and give a couple of gigs during the next months so we can prepare ourselves for the June concert. We don’t have much more planned yet, but we’re open to anything! Maybe we’ll write and demo some new songs or something, or record a new video… who knows?
Thank you so much for the interview. I wish a lot of success to the new album and let the number of your fans expand as much as possible. I will look forward to seeing you somewhere live again. I wish you a lot of success both musically and personally. I'm going to push „Estasis Interrumpida“ into my head again!
Thank you so much for your interest and for sharing our music! We’re glad that you liked the album! Hopefully we’ll meet each other sometime!
Recenze/review - SÖNAMBULA - Estasis Interrumpida (2023):
Recenze/review - SÖNAMBULA - Secuela (2016):
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