DEAD CONGREGATION [Greece]

2008-12-21 17:57:25

***As far as I know DEAD CONGREGATION is a completely new band and has just in common a NUCLEAR WINTER title. How comes you didn’t continue with NUCLEAR WINTER ? What are the main differences between both bands ?

NUCLEAR WINTER died because all of the members from the original line-up had left the band. There are no ‘main’ differences between the two ; they are actually light years apart in all aspects. Completely different entities with different musical and lyrical style, ideology and musicianship. I cannot understand why people insist on comparing these two fucking bands simply because I played in both. I have played with half a dozen bands in the past why don’t you compare those with DEAD CONGREGATION ?

***You directly put out a MLP (on brother Berzerk’s own Necrocosm) without having recorded demos it seems... Or were these demos not spread ? Please tell us a few words about the band’s early days who is born in 2004 isn’t it ?

We didn’t have to record a demo because Konqueror Records (who released the MCD version of ‘Purifying Consecrated Ground’ before Necrocosm did the MLP) had already offered us a deal since they heard the last NUCLEAR WINTER demo. We had explained to them that we split up and we have another band now and they still wanted to release the MCD. They also advertised DEAD CONGREGATION as ex-NUCLEAR WINTER and that certainly contributed in the whole confusion between. Now 4 years have passed and I still get the same question in every interview. Anyway, as far as I know, demos are recorded as means to a record deal and since we already had an offer we didn’t have to record a demo. I had a few songs composed and when V.V joined in the drums I also asked my friend T.K to join in second guitar and that was it. The chemistry was there ; all the pieces of the puzzle went into place without an effort at all. We rehearsed and rehearsed until we felt it was time to enter the studio and the 5 song MCD finally got released in May ’05.

***This MLP had a great impact / response on the true death-metal scene since I read (and wrote !) positive reviews only ! Were you surprised of such a reaction ?

Yeah, to be honest we didn’t expect such a huge response. We knew that the material was good but we never thought it would be appreciated so much by so many people. It was flattering indeed.

***Three versions of this EP exist as it was available on CD...and tape on you own label Nuclear Winter Recs ! I’m glad to see you belong to people who don’t support the death of the tape industry ! What do you think about the MP3 / poor CDRs invasion ?

MP3s suck big time. Some say it’s convenient “oh I have a huge collection in my iPod” and blah blah but hell, half of the whole ritual of listening to music is having the album cover at hand, reading the lyrics etc. That’s how I see it at least. Tapes have always been a tradition in Metal but unfortunately I heard that all tape factories are shut down now so when the remaining stocks of tapes are gone tapes will cease to exist... By the way, ‘Purifying Consecrated Ground’ has just been re-released as a digipack MCD by Enucleation Records for exclusive distribution in the USA.

***Aaaargh the first full-length LP "Graves of the Archangels" is out now on NWN !! How were the recordings sessions ? Did you have great time when creating / recording the tracks ? What was the ultimate goal with this release ?

Creating Death Metal and Dark Arts in general is not about having a good time ; it’s a way to come to peace with the demons in you and channelling them to the outer world in ways that cannot be explained. The only goal is transforming the filth that lays in our souls into music that is nothing less than a mirror of the dark side of us. Recording the songs was a nightmare because of lack of professionalism from the studio’s side. It took us 14 months to come to a satisfactory result and believe me that it could have been better had we not been entirely worn out mentally and financially from the long time of pondering upon the same recording.

***Herr Ketola did once again a great filthy piece for the artwork ! I saw a T. K. in your line-up (Guitars), is it Mizter Davthvs hidden behind this T. K. ?

This is mere coincidence. T. Ketola is in charge of our artwork and he also wrote 2 lyrics for the album, one of them being the title-track. But the T.K. (he also comes by the name Psychaos in his other band BURIAL HORDES) who is on guitars is a long time friend of mine who plays a very important part in what is DEAD CONGREGATION. This band will not be the same if the trinity of me, T.K. and V.V. (drums) ever has to change. In fact, if one of them leaves then I will seriously consider if I will go on without them or if I’ll split the band because their creativity is a main source of inspiration to me, without a doubt.

***Again a vinyl version with the new album ! How did you get the deal with NWN ? Did you send bottles of ouzo to him ? Are you totally satisfied with Yosuke’s work so far ? How many LPs were printed ? I think 200 die-hard fuckers were pressed (included mine hahaha !!) weren’t they ?

I’ve known Yosuke from NWN for a few years now since we trade the respective releases of our labels. He showed interest to release our album and since he agreed to our terms we had no big doubts that it was the suitable label for us (even though the competition was tough !). Now I can safely say that it was a great decision, NWN has been very professional, fast, reliable and has met all of our expectations and then some ! So far 1000 LPs have been pressed (200 of them on white vinyl, die-hard edition) but it will not be a limited press. They will soon be sold out and NWN will press more. Same goes for CDs - they’ll be soon pressing the 3rd thousand of CDs.

***Very important side of DEAD CONGREGATION’s music : the lyrics ! So strange, dark and blasphemous ! What are your influences while writing them ? It seems you like deep and maybe quasi religious texts...

Since Ketola and T.K. also wrote lyrics for this album, I can only speak for myself and my lyrical contribution. Inspiration doesn’t come from any texts but from the obvious hypocrisy that lies within the Christian church and the joke that is western civilization’s biggest religion, Christianity. I don’t consider myself a lyricist so in the past I didn’t even attempt to write lyrics. This time while I was playing our songs on the guitar, inspiration for lyrics came on itself and I wrote everything quite spontaneously. You can say it was my final touch of embellishment to the songs. Since the music is dark and violent and blasphemous it was natural that the lyrics would turn out that way too.

***Musically I think you are perfectly on the thin line between Swedish- and American-sounding dark death-metal. One could guess IMMOLATION / INCANTATION and GROTESQUE / early GRAVE belong to the influences of the band am I right ? Which bands are responsible for your never ending thirst of darkness and brutality ? What about old and wild black-metal too ?

I strongly object to any references concerning Swedish Death Metal. Not that I don’t like it, in fact early GRAVE are one of my favourite bands of all time (many of the readers will want to kill me, you probably too, when I say that I never found GROTESQUE to be that special). But I really think that we sound nothing like any Death Metal band from Sweden. As for our thirst for creating darkness, it doesn’t come from any band at all anymore. In the beginning it was albums like ‘Dawn Of Possession’, ‘Failures for Gods’, ‘Diabolical Conquest’, ‘Altars Of Madness’, ‘Exterminate’, ‘Resurrection’, ‘Ancient Black Earth’ and quite a few others that worked like a trigger for us to create music with similar atmosphere and aggression. After a while the inspiration came from the band itself, rehearsing was enough for us to feel our blood boiling for more Death Metal Obscurity. We certainly worship all sorts of Metal and there are many bands that qualify as ‘DEATH Metal’ the way we define it but we don’t try to sound like any of them.

***As I suppose DEAD CONGREGATION slay on stage will you tour a bit in support of "Graves...” » ? For example in France hmmm ? And by the way how was your trip in Germany lately ?

We have had many offers for next year yet nothing is concrete until now. Unfortunately there are many factors that prevent us from booking gigs whenever possible as not only we have our day jobs to consider about but some of the band’s members also play in other bands that also have certain obligations. We need to arrange our schedule in a way that doesn’t interfere with plans that have been made already. And yes, France is within our future plans ! Germany was great. We played in Nuremburg and Chemnitz with our friends SLUGATHOR ; we really connected great with those guys and had a hell ova time during those 3 days. The main event was in Berlin of course, the ‘Triumph of Death’ festival with ASPHYX, DROWNED, NECROVATION, TRIBULATION and SLUGATHOR. Our performance was better on the previous gigs as we had some technical problems with our gear but the crowd was so intense that we forgot about all that, got in a zone and delivered our set the best we could.

***This rag is vinyl-obsessed to the bone as I’m a die-hard collector and a music überfan so is it the case with you ? If yes please tell us what are the gems you’re the most proud to own ? I know you’re always searching for old obscure releases from the cult underground, feel free to name here some of those...

I had been a die-hard collector until sometime ago. I was buying almost all the useless crap released just to have them on my shelf and feel that my collection is huge. I realised that the only purpose that it serves is to give you a hard time when you want to listen to something REALLY GREAT, since you have to browse through endless crappy CDs/LPs to find a REALLY GREAT one. Of course I have many many gems too but the day that I take the brave decision of throwing the rest in the garbage bin I’ll be a happier man ! Honestly, I feel that my collection is pretty complete so I’m now actively looking for anything at all. I am interested in getting an original copy of SADISTIC INTENT’s ‘conflict within’ demo, MONOLITH’s (UK) ‘tales of the macabre’ LP (I have it on promo LP without a cover and I’ve never even seen how’s the actual LP !) and BELPHEGOR’s ‘bloodbath in paradise’ MCD but it’s not that important really. Eventually I’ll bump into them !

***Hellas is a fucking metal place to go, dixit my metal brothers in LONEWOLF killer heavy / speed-metal from France, check them out !) ! I know there’s a lot of a heavy or black band but what about Death Metal ? There was ATAVISM, INVERACITY and your own now dead NUCLEAR WINTER. Are the first bands still alive ? Please share with us some killer DM band names which we should check out right now !

I don’t know about ATAVISM, INVERACITY is very alive. Their drummer is actually our drummer too and their guitarist is our former bass player, who still helps us with the bass if we don’t have another person to replace him. If you like INVERACITY (meaning tight US Death Metal quite inspired from the SUFFOCATION and CANNIBAL CORPSE School) you should definitely check out also EXTREME VIOLENCE, BLUSTERY CAVEAT and VULNUS.

***You’ve put out some fucking killer releases, so professional and perfectly packaged (I speak about the vinyl of corpse) on your own label Nuclear Winter Recs !!! Please tell us what your next projects are and what is still available. Forever hailzzzz for the KAAMOS godly 10’’ (and hailz and respect to K who seems to be in the line-up) !!!!

I prefer to separate my label from the band so I don’t want to advertise Nuclear Winter Records on a DEAD CONGREGATION interview.... I will list my current and upcoming releases without further descriptions or comments and if anyone’s interested they can try to look up more info at www.nuclearwinter.cjb.net

Available releases :

SATURNALIA TEMPLE (Swe) - ’Ur’ TAPE DROWNED (Ger) - ’Viscera Terrae’ 12"MLP DEVIANT (Swe) - ’Apathyphus’ 3"MCD KAAMOS (Swe) - ’Scales of Leviathan’ MCD SWORN (Swe) - ’Impious Beast Within’ MCD ACRIMONIOUS (Gr) - ’Perdition Gospel’ TAPE CORPUS MORTALE (Dk) - ’Seize the Moment Of Murder’ 7"EP PLAGUE BEARER (USA) - ’Rise Of the Goat’ 7"EP ACRIMONIOUS (GR) - ’Broken Bonds of Balance’ 7"EP DEVIANT (Swe) - ’Tools Of Termination’ TAPE DELVE (Swe) - ’Sentenced By the Unknown’ TAPE DEAD CONGREGATION (Gr) - ’Purifying Consecrated Ground’ TAPE (second press) NOMINON (Swe) - ’Blaspheming the Dead’ TAPE (second press) DELVE (Swe) - ’The Dead Amongst’ MCD

Upcoming releases :

DEAD CONGREGATION / HATESPAWN - split 7"EP CEREMONIAL EXECUTION (Swe) - (title to be announced) CD COFFIN TEXTS (USA) - ’Gods of Creation, Death & Afterlife’ LP

***I hope I haven’t been too annoying with my questions, end as you wish !! Support and hailzzzz from France !

Not at all brother, thanks for featuring DEAD CONGREGATION in your zine.