Horror God give comprehensive insight into our ‘Planet of Ruins’

Guitarist Bor and Vocalist Shamen took time to enlighten me on the values behind ‘Planet of Ruins’ recently released via Eclectic Productions. Underneath musically entertaining death metal there are actual influences from other sources as was explained in the later text. I also gained a valued insight into the concept of this album, the bands thoughts and values in regards current affairs, in fact Horror God are the death metal nay-Sayers to the corporation and there are a few views on western governments too.

Could you give me a brief background to Horror God, your music, your formation etc.?
Bor: Our band was created in 2006 on fragments of black metal collective. Everything began with experiments at the turn of death and black styles, and we eventually started to go further and further in the expanses of the avant-garde. At the same time with rehearsals and writing material we played mainly at the Moscow and the Moscow region, at 2012 we performed in Ukraine on a rather large in the CIS festival Metal Head's Mission. Our album ‘Planet of Ruins’ released on Eclectic production is second album in discography of the group, the first was ‘Cold Shine’, produced in 2009, so to say, it was a “test of the pen”.

I found many influences in your music ranging from the US scene (Morbid Angel, Malevolent Creation) and the European scene (in the intensity), in particular to some of the Polish bands. Would this be a fair assessment of your style and influence?
Bor: In principle, yes, partly. But I don’t understand, where the parallels with works of Malevolent Creation in our music are, I like this collective very much, but do not see anything similar. As for the European scene – we get more inspiration rather from the French black metal school, at least in the melody of some of the songs that can be traced. About Poland: the analogy has appeared, probably, for the song ‘Black Sun’ which was written during the time of ‘Cold Shine’ and really has some of black/death style colors.

"Planet Of Ruins" is a cool album, good work with that, what do you feel has progressed since you released "Cold Shine"?
Bor: Thank you for such estimation of our work! We really put a lot of efforts in the creation of this album. As I said above, ‘Cold Shine’ was a test of the pen, while the ‘Planet of Ruins’ had been thought over very long time even before we visited the Studio – from studying the music to uniting concept of entire album.

Did the addition of guitarist ‘Arte’ and a change of drummer help matters?
Bor: Of course, each of us introduced a lot of ideas into the album creation. In the process of writing material I brought frameworks of songs with the riffs, which supplemented to the full songs in result of common efforts. With the addition of Arte, melodies of the songs have become much more diverse, as there was a great scope for experimentation. Drummer Chudo made a great work in the elaboration of the drum parts and recorded everything in the Studio with his inherent expression and groove.

Was the song writing process for "Planet Of Ruins" any different to its predecessor?
Bor: Yes, as I wrote above, for the album we came up with much more seriousness and understanding of what we want. ‘Planet of Ruins’ is a concept album, there is some kind of narration from first to last song, which is justified by not only the lyrics and melody lines, but also samples- linkages between the songs. Also we got to the record better prepared in regard of instruments, which is also influenced on the final sound in some degree.

Where did you record the album and what were the bands input into the production?
Bor: ‘Planet of Ruins’, as well as ‘Cold Shine’, was recorded at Primordial Studio, this belongs to our friends, Hater and Stellarghost. The work was conducted in comfortable conditions, and we tried to work out all details. Our contribution in the production was made directly by our guitarist Arte, the samples-linkages between songs with using professional audio libraries. We decided to remain with this option, rather than pulling out the samples from films, as this more so fully reflects all our ideas we wanted to convey with this album, so you can understand everything even at the level of perception.

What has been the feedback so far, the album has been out there for a couple of months already?
Bor: The reviews that I saw on the Internet or heard from people, who listened to ‘Planet of Ruins’, were mostly positive. Of course, all is not pleasing and we are not trying to play something that would be fashionable or adjust specially your music to someone, but the album has definately found its audience, which we welcome.

I see you have a US distribution deal with Sevared Records, how did that come about?
Bor: It is all the merit of Evgeny Butenko, the boss of Eclectic Productions. He really does a lot for our group, for which we thanks him very much.

The artwork depicts an image that may be considered to be the US president, is that your intention, especially noting the particular area on the globe he is pointing too?
Shaman: Personally I wonder why the “Nobel peace prize” is given to the President of the state that is waging war in Afghanistan and increasing its military contingent, which organized the military revolution in Libya. After all, the life has not become better due to forced democratization there, the entire agro-industrial complex was destroyed, more about stability of political situation needless to say. It was the same with Iraq as well as in Libya, there was hard totalitarian regime, but has the war brought people happiness and freedom? The military-industrial corporations made good money on it though. The government regards the war as a profitable business and the deaths of people as production costs. The question arises: who instigated and supported the destabilization in the Middle East, in Egypt and Syria, and what will be with Iran? And there is a possibility that the authorities in these countries will belong to radical groups and then everything comes to a bad end.

Imagine that an armed man bursts into your home and says to you: “You're living wrong! I'll make you live right!” and begins to walk in his dirty shoes on your bed, tables, breaking all that you have been created for so long. He shot your dog, walked through the photos of your loved ones with dirty shoes, cleaned out your safety Deposit box, rifled you and left. Has he brought to you peace and freedom? No, he has done what is good for him. Truly the best of intentions never achieves with bad means.

There could be a man like any big political figure on the cover; it does not change the mater. It is them and corporations that start wars and the simple sensible person does not need the war - it is unnatural. And I'm sorry to American fathers and mothers who lost their children in these military conflicts, and even sorrier for the people by the method of which the “Peace” was brought about.

Do you feel that death metal sometimes misses the real world scenario in the lyrics by mostly being about..well..death!?
Shaman: I'm more interested in the subject of life and believe me; it is much more terrible than death.

Horror God is much more interesting and varied drawing comment on real situations. Is there anything you wish to pin point or reaffirm when it comes to your lyrical content?
Shaman: Thanks for that, I only would like to focus on the fact that the planet “Earth” is our common home and we need to protect it and to live in peace.

Do you have any shows or tours coming soon?
Bor: Yes, we often perform have concerts; just recently we had our album presentation in Moscow. In the near future we plan a tour to the North-East of Central part of Russia.

Do you continue to write new material or are you done for now and concentrating on promoting "Planet of Ruins"?
Bor: We are concentrating on new material, as we have a lot of ideas and outlines! New songs have become even more experimental and avant-garde. Though at live concerts, of course, we play only songs from the album.

What activities and interests do you have outside of Horror God?
Bor: we all have completely different interests: I for example entirely dedicated himself to the music, concurrently play in groups Membro Genitali Befurcator (brutal death) and Head Brain Blockade (old school death/grind), so I have not got enough time for something else.

If you have 3 songs or artists only in the world that you would recommend to listen too, who would that be?
Bor: It is difficult to choose only three names among vast number of coolest bands, but I'll try to mark out three at least from different styles: Gorguts, Death spell Omega and Napalm Death.

Thank you for your time, "Planet of Ruins" gets a big thumbs up from BRUTALISM.com, congratulations on your work!
Bor: Very nice to hear that our work is not unnoticed and pleases listeners! Thank you for your support, brothers!