Interview with death metal band from Spain - INTOLERANCE.
Recenze/review - INTOLERANCE - Waking Nightmares of an Endless Void (2024):
Ave INTOLERANCE! Hello to the Spanish underground. I hope all is well with you. It should be, you have the second long-playing great album of your career this year. I have to admit, it literally drove me up the wall. It's dark, it's energetic, it cuts with a knife edge. It's very telling that you've done a great job and a great deal of talent too. How do you feel about the new record in relation to your first EP "Laments from the Dripstone Cave"? Where did you want to go and how do you think the recordings are different?
Hello and thanks, we’re really glad you liked the album! We remain in the same path we started with our EP and followed with our first LP “Dark Pahts of Humanity”, but this is the first record after the new formation of the band and that means not only a change in vocals but also the addition of a second guitar, both undertaken by P. Two guitars give twice the opportunities for texture and arrangements, and there has been a change in lyrics and vocals. That adds of course to the obvious evolution any band experiences, both as a whole and as the sum of every individual member. So we think there has been a general improvement from previous work, but we are still fans of putrid, pestilent death metal and that essence keeps transpiring naturally as songs take form in the rehearsals.
"Waking Nightmares of an Endless Void" contains all the attributes of good death metal. For me personally, it is a record that I love to come back to. How was it made? How did they compose the new INTOLERANCE material?
The process was very simple and natural. W. wrote the guitar riffs for most songs and that helped give continuity to this album compared with the previous ones, while we were still adapting to the new formation. Then, in the rehearsal place, we added all other instruments and focused on making those riffs sound cohesive while at the same time looking at the whole of the song: duration and order of segments, putting all together, that sort of thing. During that process P. would come up with some arrangements (doubled guitars, melodies and texture), and the place-holders for solos would turn into definitive ones. After that D. was probably the one who put the most care into depurating the sound: changing small breaks, suggesting different rhythmic arrangements or proposing the addition of a solo here or there, even whistling melodies haha. Anyway, although each makes his part, at the end everything is a collaborative process and everything is debated and consensuated. There’s also plenty of beer…
Who is signed under the sound? I have to confirm that the sound literally kills. It still makes me turn up the volume on my hi-fi tower. You have a sound that is harsh, raw and dark and animalistic at the same time, it feels analogue. What studio did you record in and how did everything go?
We’re hugely thankful for that to Javier Félez from Moontower Studios. He did an amazing job (as we knew he would!), and not only recorded and mixed but also had a huge role in production. A lot of texture in this album is there thanks to him. We added keyboards, effects, layers of guitar arrangements or some vocal oddities that wouldn’t be there if not by his suggestion and ability. He even played a whammy bar section in the intro solo for Rite of Passage. It was a quick jam but we loved it and there it is, right before P. enters with the tapping haha.
An integral part and a kind of extra bonus for fans today is a music CD (cassette, vinyl). You released it on Godz of War Productions and it comes with a deadpan cover. Who is the author? How did you choose the theme and how does it relate to the music on the release?
Juan Alberto Hernández is the author of the cover and we couldn’t be any happier with the result. P. was a fan of his work and had worked with him previously since he is a scifi and horror author and Juan Alberto has grown into a big name in that scene illustrating book covers. So P. brought him up and we asked Juan Alberto to do the art. He read the lyrics, listened to some recordings, and that was it, we gave him full creative freedom. The result was better than anything we could have suggested, which is possible mainly thanks to Juan Alberto being a horror and fantasy fan himself. The album lyrics are prominently about cosmic horror and space is the main scenery, so the dialogue between the art and the music is evident. We love it and we think people are loving it too!
I've been roaming the underworld for over thirty years and I actually go to the Spanish underground for music just in case. I think we have similar moods and tastes when it comes to metal. I like your bands a lot and follow your scene very closely. Maybe I'm a bit jealous, we only have a few death metal bands that are worth it. How do you perceive your scene, fans, labels?
Luckily there are plenty of bands gigging and recording really great stuff. Oniricous, Ataraxy, Apparition, Aposento, Orthodoxy… the scene is alive for sure.
You play death metal influenced by the old school. Nowadays a band can't really avoid comparisons, but I would like to know how the idea to start INTOLERANCE came about, who was and is your role model and where do you want to take your band? Are you tempted by big festivals abroad, for example, are you willing to go on tour with a more famous pack?
Intolerance was born and evolved from hours of listening to Grave, Asphyx, Autopsy, Incantation, Bolt Thrower, and that remains being the case. We all listen to all kinds of music, but that common ground keeps sounding like ‘home’. So the band will probably not stray far from that in terms of the music. But about temptations and aspirations on where to go and where to take the project, we are pretty simple and we just don’t plan. We like what we do: we want to play loud death metal in front of a crowd, and listen to the bands playing before and after us. That’s where we are and what we are. That of course means we’d love to play with bands that we’ve listened to as fans, and we’d love to go abroad and connect with the people there, given the chance. Last year we closed the night in Viseu Death Fest, our first time in Portugal and our first time out of Spain, and both the crowd and the organization were just a perfect bunch of good, crazy people, it was a night to remember. That is what we like and want, but we are not interested in reaching a big crowd just because… or by means that sound more like a business. We already have jobs to hate!
When I started my site seven years ago, I had a vision of trying to support bands that I thought weren't as visible. Let the world know about them. I think I've been pretty successful, at least by the response. How do you approach promotion? Do you leave it up to the label or do you send out CDs yourself for various reviews? I buy albums that I really enjoy, for example. How are you? Are you also a fan who likes to support your colleagues often? Do you go to concerts? Do you party?
Labels probably have more promoting muscle than we do as a band, but you gotta make your part. From being present in social networks, whatever that means, to putting your sticker in the toilet of every crappy venue of the city. It’s of course easier thanks to people like you, who do an honest work with often few or none compensations. Always important to thank that!
About the scene, it’s tiresome to always hear complaints about the quality or the health of the scene. Even if they’re true! In the end what you CAN do is to contribute. Buy the merch, go to the gigs, drink at the pub, comment and recommend. That is how scenes are made and maintained, and we try to keep doing that as we always have. Because we would, even if Intolerance did not exist.
On the one hand, a band starting out today has a lot of opportunities to make their presence known, but on the other hand, there are a huge number of bands and fans get lost in them. A lot of people just download mp3s from the internet and spit venomous spittle on Facebook instead of going to a gig. How does modern technology affect you as INTOLERANCE? What do you think about downloading music, google metal, streaming music etc.?
It gives you mixed feelings how all has changed. It’s great that a lot of artists get to show their work, and the overall competition surely helps rising the bar. But it is also true that a lot of times the noise is just too much, and the channels of distribution are overflown. It’s harder to navigate that and quality is not a factor in the algorithms: interaction and money are. That’s just plain sad. But thankfully we are still human, we have the ability to filter, to build criteria, follow critics and alternative sources. You know, maybe only the means have changed, but in the end is all the same. Maybe now that there’s more fish, you spend less time waiting with the fishing rod and more time deciding what to drop back to the water, so it kind of compensates.
The debate on illegal downloads, intelectual property and so on... For us, as Intolerance, all that sounds just far from an underground band. If you like our stuff and want to own it, that’s great. If you don’t want it that much, that’s ok too. Memento Mori and Godz ov War are streaming the album, it’s in youtube, bandcamp and spotify… there should not be restrictions. We want it to be heard, and expecting an income that makes any difference from record sales is just unrealistic at the time, anyway, so we just take it as it comes and thank those who spend money (gigs, albums, merch) or time (reviews, comments) on us. But really, we just enjoy playing our music.
I like to ask musicians what death metal means to them. How would they define it, is it more of a philosophy and lifestyle for them or "just" relaxation. What does it mean to you? How do you perceive and experience it?
P.: This is a very personal question. I believe that if you have a lifestyle you can define you’re probably doing more thinking than living, and I also believe philosophy is something way more complex and serious than what we do on the stage. But this music is also a lot more than a “way out” or a “release”. I mean, it’s mostly about the music, yes, about finding a way to discharge anger or whatever in a context of darkness and horror that feels just THE natural way to do so… But it is also about being the kid who likes the goriest, ugliest monsters in the toy store. And about finding other kids who are the same after long years of thinking there is something wrong with your taste. Maybe there is something wrong with all of us, though! Hahaha.
Finally, a classic but important question. What is INTOLERANCE planning in the coming months? Where can we see you in concert and when can we see you on tour?
We’ve already closed a couple of dates for after the summer and will be presenting the album in our city, Zaragoza, in autumn. It’s soon to tell more, but we expect we will be hitting the road a lot, so keep an eye open!
Thank you very much for the interview. I wish not only the new album a lot of success and may the ranks of your fans expand as much as possible. I'll look forward to seeing you live somewhere and may you thrive both musically and on a personal level. I'm off to get "Waking Nightmares of an Endless Void" back in my head!
Thank you, it’s been our pleasure. Play it loud!
Recenze/review - INTOLERANCE - Waking Nightmares of an Endless Void (2024):
Recenze/review - INTOLERANCE - Dark Paths Of Humanity (2022):
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