Interview with death metal band from Norway - ABHORRATION.
Answered Magnus (vocals, guitars), thank you!
Recenze/review - ABHORRATION - Demonolatry (2024):
Ave ABHORRATION! Hello to the Norwegian underground. I hope all is well with you. It should be, you have the first 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 previous demo? Where did you want to go and how do you think the recordings are different?
- Greetings! Thank you for the kind words. I’d say the record shows a natural progression from the EP. The songs are more thought through, the vocals are better, the production is tighter, the drums more intense and we finally have lead guitars! I do really like the mix on the EP, but I think the production on the album works better for those songs. Just clean enough to hear the details, but raw enough to not lose any edge. I also think we managed to get a good mix of slow and fast, as well as a good ratio of standard to non-standard song structures.
"Demonolatry" contains all the attributes of good dusty 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 ABHORRATION material?
- Most of the album was composed in individual sections, where I would typically put together with 2-3 riffs, and we would play through and discuss what should come next. Arild also wrote whole sections to some of the songs this time around, which worked really well. We mostly did one track at the time, and the songs were written pretty much in the order they appear on the album.
Who's behind the sound? I have to confirm that the sound literally kills. It still makes me turn up the volume on the hi-fi tower. You have a sound that is harsh, raw and dark and animalistic at the same time, it feels analogue. How did you work with him and why him? What studio did you record in and how did it all work?
- Arild, the lead guitarist, recorded and mixed it. We did it over many weekends at his house, about an hour from Oslo, over a period of about 4 months. I agree though, it sounds best at the volume of 10 000 armageddons!!
We recorded one instrument at the time, but with the whole band playing together during the drum take, then adding guitars, bass, vocals and leads. No triggers, no snap-to-grid. We used a huge fridge sized Orange amp for the bass and two amps for each guitar, one ENGL powerball and one Sounds City with distortion pedals.
An integral part and a kind of extra bonus for fans today is a music CD (cassette, vinyl). You released it on Invictus 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?
- Kristian Valbo from Obliteration and Avmakt did the artwork, the logo and the demon on the inlay, while Rick Warkill did the evil creature on the lyrics side of the inlay. Kristian is probably the best artist I know, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him. The lyrics revolves around demon worship and idolatry, and the cover I believe is to some extent inspired by the lyrics, which will be evident if you read them. That’s at least my take on it, though I can’t know what Kristian's inspirations were. He also has an ability to really nail our style of the music graphically, so it could also be by coincidence that it suits the lyrics so well!
I've been roaming the underworld for over thirty years and I actually go to Norway 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. We only have a few death metal bands in the Czech Republic that are worth it. I guess it will be similar for you, right? Norway has always been all about black metal. How do you perceive your scene, fans, labels?
- At the moment there are quite a few good death metal bands from here. You have Dødskvad, Desolation Realm, Sovereign, Impugner, Filthdigger, Nedgravd, Obliteration (of course), Reptilian, and probably some I’ve forgotten. Death metal seems to be the preferred style in the underground these days, and shows tend to sell out, so the die hards are there! I do wish there were more good thrash metal metal bands though. There seemed to be an abundance of them 10-15 years ago, with Nekromantheon, Antichrist and Deathhammer at the forefront, but now I feel like most of what I hear sound generic. With an exception of Sphinx from Germany!
You play old school influenced death metal. Nowadays a band can't really avoid comparisons, but I'm curious to know how the idea to start ABHORRATION came about, who was and is your role model and where you want to take your band? Are you tempted by big festivals abroad, for example, are you willing to tour with a more famous pack?
- When I moved back to Norway it was clear to me I wanted to continue playing with Øyvind. We’d played together earlier in Condor, and after doing thrash metal since the age of 15 I wanted to do something else. I had been listening alot to Morbid Angel, Sadistic Intent, demo-era Immolation and similar thrashy styled death metal in the year leading up to moving, so it was a natural way to go. I regard that style as the best style, and Sadistic Intent and Morbid Angel the two best death metal bands to ever exist, in addition to Sarcofago of course! I also liked the idea of playing a style different from most new death metal bands. More thrash, more punk, more attitude!
We’d love to play more festivals, and would definitely go on tour with bigger bands, as long as they’re good!
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?
- We’ve never done much promotion ourselves other than sharing shows and new releases on facebook. The label handles most of it, as none of us are on social media much. However, for the album we made posters and flyers that we left at metal bars, record shops and concert venues, though I don’t know if it had any real effect or not.
Of course I buy records I like, but I don’t get anything purely to support a band, it’ll have to be good! I go to shows, but less often than before unfortunately. The last show I went to was Incantation and Left to Die, who both were great! I’m not a fan of big venues, so the bands I see are often limited to smaller, more underground bands. However, I did see Cavalera last year, and they KILLED! Partying is becoming a rarity though, hehe.
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 ABHORRATION? What do you think about downloading music, google and hipster metal, streaming music etc.?
- I agree. It’s easier than ever to make your music available, but I think people's attention span (including mine) are getting shorter, so maybe harder to stand out. We were lucky to have Invictus willing to release our stuff, spreading the word to die-hards, but as a brand new band it’s hard to stick out from the crowd. I’ve downloaded loads of music, but also bought everything I really like as long as it’s available physically.
Streaming is good for accessing a lot of music, but it has definitely affected my attention span when checking out new stuff. It’s too easy to move on to the next thing if you don’t get a great first-impression. When I used to download music I felt that I had to check it out properly, since I had gone through the effort of getting ahold of it. Streaming also makes it much easier (maybe too easy?) to discover very obscure stuff, which I have noticed impacts how the younger generation regard classic bands. I’m not sure if it matters, but it sure seems weird to me when someone who loves Blasphemy and VON doesn’t really know the first three Slayer albums!
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?
- This is a hard question. I don’t have any particular opinion on death metal by itself, but old metal in genera. Good metal is definitely a lifestyle. It impacts who your friends are, what you do to have fun, what you talk about, what you think about. Metal has been my lifestyle since the age of probably 14-15, and other than my family and friends it's the only thing I really care about. Without it, I have no idea what I would do with my life. Real metal is allconsuming.
Finally, a classic but important question. What is ABHORRATION planning in the coming months? Where can we see you in concert? By the way, you recently played in Prague. How did you like it in the Czech Republic?
- For the rest of 2024 we’re working on new material, and then we’ll play some shows in the new year, both in Norway and abroad. The only show currently announced is at the Host of All Fevers festival in Innsbruck, but more is coming up!
Tones of Decay was really good! Marek is a stand up guy, and we had a great time. Unfortunately I was sick for the whole weekend, with a high fever in the days leading up to the show, so my voice went out about half way through. I managed to get through, but it was exhausting!
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 be looking forward to seeing you live somewhere, and I hope you have a good time both musically and on a personal level. I'm going to go and get "Demonolatry" in my head again!
- Thank you! Listen to old metal!!
Recenze/review - ABHORRATION - Demonolatry (2024):
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