Interview with death metal band from New Zealand - HERESIARCH.
Answered N.H. and C.S, thank you!
Recenze/review - HERESIARCH - Edifice (2024):
Ave HERESIARCH! I am listening to your new album „ Edifice“ and I have the perceptive feeling that I am at an evil black mass. You play black death metal and this is your second full length album. Can you tell us how the new recording was made and in what direction did you want to move from the great previous albums? Did you want to be even faster, darker, more evil?
We set out to write something that surpassed our previous releases. Edifice is written as the predecessor to our first album, Death Ordinance. In that album, malformed and disfigured people fight mercilessly for the scraps in the fallout and ruins of civilisation.
Given how harsh and violent that album was, Edifice needed to be crueller, more hopeless and more oppressive to lead to that conclusion. It’s the last remnants of human dignity being beaten out and trampled to get to that state.
With Edifice, we wanted to amplify everything. Darker, more violent, more dismal, more pronounced doom, with more chaotic and fast sections. Our writing expands simultaneously in opposite directions - the most primitive material we've released is coupled with the most complex and nuanced.
You know what hit me into the face? Sound of this new record, It's organic, rainy, the album has a black spark. Nowadays, between overwhelmed and compressed formats it is literally refreshing. This is what I think is true hell! Please tell me where and how did you recorded? How did you get that sound?
The album was tracked by Raj Singarajah and Cam Sinclair at Dynamic Rage and mixed by Cam using a mixture of analogue and digital equipment. Working with them was crucial to the sound of the album, as they have the knowledge, skills and equipment to facilitate our goals.
Our approach to tracking is to get the tones and sound dialled in at the source so that we can capture the raw material as honestly as possible. For example the rhythm guitars were recorded in one session with an emphasis on using single takes of tracks. It was essential for us to capture the atmosphere, violence and aggression of our music whilst maintaining clarity. There’s no point spending lengths of time writing music only for it to sound like a load of bloated and muffled shit recorded in another room. At the same time, we actively avoided an over-produced, sterile sound.
The raw tracks themselves sounded excellent, and this upfront method made the mixing process much smoother and yielded better results than compromising, dramatically changing the character of the recording or half-assing it. The mastering was completed by Luke Finlay from Primal Mastering, so from that perspective all the sound aspects were handled in New Zealand. This configuration works well for us.
I'm the kind of old school fan who approaches music by buying a CD and a T-shirt when he likes the album. I have to say that the motif on the cover of this year's album is really good. That's how I imagine real hell. Can you tell us how you chose the motif, who's signed and how it relates to music?
The cover art is done by Khaos Diktator Design who has produced some real standout art over the last few years. He's also passionate about this style of music which meant he understood the vision and intent very clearly.
It’s a statement of control, subjugation, and futility before the looming edifice. The cover signifies the lengths people will take to survive and appease those with power, a statement to both human cruelty and weakness before an uncaring monument built to their oppression.
Ultimately, it represents how people can be manipulated to commit acts that go against our morals and principles. This ties in with the lyrics and narrative of the album well, as does the inner art.
When I look at your line-up, you're a band that is made up of experienced musicians. How do you create new music? What about the process of creation new material? Do you have any problems - after all, experience is sometimes an obstacle. You know - ego etc.
The vision and objective are more important than the individual contributions, so we don't let ego be an obstacle. Nothing is ever off the table in terms of improving, saving for later or scrapping completely, the main priority is that it serves a purpose within the greater vision.
A lot of the riffs and initial musical ideas emanate in a completely natural fashion. In a way, it is as if they plucked from the unconscious. After the base material is formed, there is a calculated phase where the material is fine-tuned and structured. We do not have problems, but this process can take a long time.
We strike a balanced approach between thinking and feeling when creating new music. We’re not forcing riffs, noodling around, or jamming. Often, we will have an idea to build on or manifest something as before mentioned, we then tweak it and improve it. It's important that the music sounds like a complete body of work, with an attention to detail that doesn't affect the atmosphere or rawness of the music. We intentionally create music that is at times challenging for the listener and remains unpredictable.
As we continue to evolve, there is always a strong influence and recognition of our previous works. We are self-influenced more now than ever and will continue to explore this more in our next release.
For me, the Australian and New Zealand school of death metal has always been associated with a certain darkness. Even when I was young I used to be fascinated by references to Satanism, the kind of filth, the rottenness that could be felt in the work of your bands. How did you get into that style?
We were naturally drawn to the more violent styles of Metal and completely skipped a lot of the more watered down “extreme” bands while still retaining some influence from wider genre classics. This meant we always had less focus on hooks and conventional pop structures, this is most evident on Edifice.
While we definitely have some similarities in sound to other bands from our region, our initial influences came from Canadian, US and Finnish bands.
I wonder what it's like in New Zealand as far as music is concerned? How did you get into music and who were your role models? What about your scene, clubs, fans?
We grew up around Wellington, often running into each other at all ages shows and the occasional R18 ones. We were considerably younger than most others around at that time and were starting to make our own music independent of what others in that scene were doing. We knew each other for years before starting to work together and it has been very straightforward in terms of communication and collaboration between us.
With regards to the current scene, clubs etc we are not particularly connected or interested. Exaltation are another NZ band to look out for. Backyard Burial was one of the cornerstone bands of Wellington, and Blaps (RIP) was an exceptional frontman in particular. It's exceedingly rare to see someone with that same presence perform.
You are also very dark in your lyrics. Of course it belongs to death metal and I like it, but I'd be interested in the origin and origin of the lyrics. How did the lyrics for the new album come about? What are they about?
The narrative and story were plotted out in advance but writing the actual lyrics always comes last. As mentioned before, it ties in as a precursor to Death Ordinance and is set in the near future.
There are several coinciding storylines within a greater piece. One who perceives themselves as the warrior of overcoming, stoicism, and conquest effortlessly killed by that which they wish they were. Insights and visions of the oppressed, oppressor and a more removed 3rd person narrative of the world. The stories are collected and presented in a fragmented and unhinged retelling, similar to how we draw upon stories from the past.
Regaring literature, Nietzsche “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, Huxley “Brave New World”, and Junger “On the Marble Cliffs” had some influence on the lyrics, along with the writings of Tacitus, our own imagination and real world events throughout history.
The present day atrocities commited are a poignant reminder that our observations of humanity are correct.
“Barbed ouroboros of eternal misery
The recurring eternal of warfare
The somatic form trampled, a mere vessel for survival”
There have been many times in the history of metal that bands have been banned because they were shocking or had different views from the mainstream society. Have you ever had problems? In this day and age of the internet, it's awfully easy to immediately condemn someone, to start a rumour, to destroy them.
The internet is the perfect tool to give otherwise unremarkable people a sense of accomplishment through minimal effort.
There's a level of controversy one can expect with art of a confrontational nature, it can manifest in many forms. There are of course many who make a hobby of creating controversy and feigned moral outrage through presenting over a decade old information as current, which is often disingenuous and counter-productive.
You can’t please and placate everyone and this is not a priority for us. If people are looking for us to promote obsolete doctrine or validate their irrelevant worldview (Nazism, Communism, religious or racial superiority) they’re looking in the wrong direction.
Have you had to change your approach to music in any way thanks to new technologies? Thanks to the internet the world is completely different, bands have to approach everything in a completely different way. How do you perceive these changes?
Technology has no impact on the way we approach our music. Obviously we utilise modern technology to an extent, but this is only a means to produce something that is ultimately primitive and organic. An over reliance on modern technology to produce any art is pathetic, but it is even worse in the case of Death Metal/Black Metal.
We will never credit a drummer for programmed drums or completely replace and quantise the human element. We’re not dependent on technology to fix our lack of ability or asking people to fund our endeavours with subscriptions and exclusive “content." There’s too much “content” demeaning the value of art today, emphasised by bands churning out vapid releases with terrible AI “art.”
What about HERESIARCH and gigs? I noticed you don't get out so often. Do you like the tour over the Europe? I could imagine you alongside such POSSESSED, DEICIDE, as they come to us quite often.
We haven’t played since 2019, touring isn’t a priority now and that will remain the case. The benefit to this is we can purely focus on composition without rushing or compromising, we're not churning out releases as a means to travel.
It would be good to get to Europe at some point as we’ve never played there. It’s most likely we will play a single show in New Zealand this year at this stage.
What does death metal, black metal mean to you? How would you define it and how do you perceive these styles as an experienced musician? I do not want you to describe the technique of playing, I would rather be interested in your gaze, feelings, transmitted energy etc. Try to be a philosopher for a while.
As a band that draws influence from both, we're not particularly caught up in the absolutes of genres. It is also difficult to qualify and quantify, given how vast the genres are and the varying levels of interest we have in them as individuals.
Too much focus on tradition can dilute the music, your attention turning from creating fulfilling art to pleasing others. If you go too far out of the bounds you can head into pointless experimentation and pretentiousness.
This music has the potential to present creation, destruction, or both simultaneously, depending on the intent of the artist. When intent is only directed to the aesthetics or promoting a message, it often musically falls short and when there is no intent there at all, there is no real purpose for it to exist. A lot of mediocre music exists due to this and the obsession with relevance and “content” as seen with bands pumping out insipid garbage or retreading the same ground. Finding the right balance is up to the bands and their vision and people have the choice to engage with it or not.
It goes beyond playing an instrument in a specific way to achieve a specific sound as you've alluded to. Something as individual and experiential can be hard to put into tangible terms, you feel it or you don't.
Thank you very much for the interview. I really appreciate you taking the time for our web-zine. I wish your whole band a lot of hell inspiration, sold out media and enthusiastic fans. Good luck in your personal life. I hope to see you live ...
Cheers Jakub, the album seems well received so far and we are working on our next release currently. It shouldn’t be 7 years between albums next time.
Recenze/review - HERESIARCH - Edifice (2024):
Recenze/review - HERESIARCH - Death Ordinance (2017):
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