Scent Of Death has no time for vacation
Hello and congratulations on your new full length my friend. A real blast and I believe your top release so far. Tell me a little on the reactions you've had concerning "Of Martyrs's Agony and Hate". What's the feedback so far?
Hello from Spain!! Here Jorge, lead guitar of Scent Of Death. I’m glad to be here, in the great BRUTALISM, hehehe… Until now, we had received over 45 reviews from the entire world (and more to come!!!) and the feedback is fucking good, my friend. All the reviews are very spectacular, the range of the punctuation is between 8/10 and 7/10, which is great!!! Our new work represents a big step forward in our musical travel and I think (come as you said) that this new edition is better than our previous CD “Woven In The Book Of Hate”.
The cover artwork shows Lucifer (or whatever else the goatheaded angel is), holding Christ's body disemboweled and angels mourning and other stuff like that. So I assume that the theological matter is on your top list when it comes to lyrics. What other lyrical themes someone can find in your songs?
You are right… Our lyrical concept is highly influenced by the antireligious concept, and we try to speak about all the pain and suffering caused by the religious cancer. We can talk about this issue from different angles… ”The Fathers’ Sins” tells the history of the crusades against the “infidels” and all the bloodshed in the name of god, “Awakening Of The Liar” is a very strong lyric criticizing the religious dogmas, “A Simple Twist Of Fate” show us the insignificance of the human existence… Our lyrics try to escape from the clichés of the genre, or at least that is our intention.
You are a band active since 1998. In all these years you have two full length albums and an EP. It sounds kind of lazy hehe. So, is it laziness or inner band problems that stopped you from being more creative in these 15 years of existence?
The inner and external problems were a fucking constant since the edition of our first CD, my friend. Let´s do a little trip to the past, hehehe …Since we edited “Woven In The Book Of Hate”, we made a good number of concerts after the CD edition, working with live drum programming, but after some gigs, we were very bored of this situation. We find a local drummer, Jorge, and we began the rehearsals with this new member, but after three years we didn’t find a solution for all this speed problems, so we decided to take part ways; that was a completely friendly separation, you know...We began the search for a new drummer. The first option was Alfred, who recorded the first album, but he was very busy with other bands, recordings, clinics, masterclasses… finally we didn´t find a way to combine our agendas. We find a couple of months later our actual drummer, Rolando “demolition man” Barros, a legendary musician in the Portuguese scene. We spoke with him, and he accepted to play with us.
During this time we had finished the composition of all the tracks of the new record… time to search a studio. We were in contact with a local producer, but this man was a fucking incompetent, he works with delays and an evident lack of professionalism in all the aspects. At the same time, our singer disappear, we lost completely contact, no phone calls, no answer the mails… fuck, he only gave us a couple of months later that he was very busy and another shitty explanations (we don´t know the real reasons today!!!), We began the search of a new vocalist.
Rolando suggested us one of his friends, Sergio. He learned all the tracks of the album in a month, so he was ready to enter in the studio in a record time!!! He recorded the vocal lines in two days, and all was great (finally!!!...). The incompetence of our sound engineer was growing and growing, and we decide to change the studio, or we could kill this “professional”. Once again, Rolando gave us the solution. We spoke with the man who recorded the last CD of Grog (one of the bands where Rolando is playing), a fucking genius called André Tavares. This man saved us from all the incompetence we suffered in the past. He works fast and with an incredible precision and patience. In two months the mixing and mastering of the songs was made.
Since I am aware of your previous album, I have to say that this time you were really careful with the song construction. "Woven In The Book Of Hate" kind of fell in the trap of a loop and my opinion was that it kind of repeated itself. Your new one seems to have everything in place and as it should be. No unnecessary riffs and no loops at all. Did you have to pay extra attention on that matter or it just happened on the song composing process?
We are very careful in the matter of composition. We spend a lot of months in each track; we replace rhythms, melodies and arrangements searching the best option for the final result. We are always trying to find our own sound, we don’t want to be a copy of ourselves or other bands, and we must evolve our extreme death metal to new levels or quality and performance perfection.
As I said before, I think that this new CD is a big step forward when compared with the previous one… the general sound is better, the songs are fucking explosions of death metal and the design is completely professional.
Tell me a little about the song composing process you followed on "Of Martyrs's Agony And Hate". Is it a solo effort or does it take place while rehearsing?
The complete composition of the music of this CD was made by me, the reason? My band mates are lazy in this aspect, hehehe… All the structures are prepared before arriving the rehearsal room… anyway, the final result of the song needs the OK of all the guys of the band (this is a democracy!!!).
I´m always searching new rhythms and structures, so I spend a lot of time in the composition of a new track. We use a lot of riffs and arrangements in our songs and this process can take three or four months for each track. We try to use different tempos and riffing style in the composition. It´s a hard work, but we don´t want to be a band that is repeated on each edition.
Your riffs and the parts of each instrument in general on this new album require a lot of skill and tolerance from everyone! How difficult was to record an album so technical and what would you list as the biggest difficulty you encountered while on studio recording?
Well, we don´t are virtuous of our instruments, we use technical aspects in the music of our songs, but this aspect is only a way to make good compositions and arrangements, we don´t claim to be presumptuous with the technical skills, is another tool in the composition process. The most difficult aspect in the recording was to get everything sounds as clear as possible. The first step to achieve this goal was to play all the instrumental sections as clear as we can. That was a very hard and meticulous work, but if you don´t make a good recording base, your final product will be very weak and you will have a lot of problems in the final mix and mastering. The most difficult song to record was “Awakening Liar”, this track is very difficult to play in the right way, If your performance isn´t clear, I can assure you that the final result will be a fucking shit!!! No matter you have the best sound tech in the world, there are things that no plug-in or Protools can fix.
You are currently under the wings of Pathologically Explicit Recordings. That is a record label that has numerous great releases, yours included. How does it feel to be under such a label? How is the collaboration with them going so far?
We are proud to be with Fernando (the owner of the label), he is a very professional guy…He has fulfilled all the points of the contract, we never had suffered a delay in the editing deadlines. Unquestionably is one of the best labels of our country. Now we are making a new line of t-shirts together with the label. The design will be killer, and finally, the printing will be in full-color. Check the updates of our sites to know the release date of the shirts, you will love it!!!!
I don´t know if the new album will be released again through this label, who knows?...perhaps the new target for us are labels like Nuclear Blast or Listenable, hehehe…
"Of Martyrs's Agony And Hate" is a great album and a big comeback since your first full length dates back to 2005. What is your promotional plan for your new full length? Any tour dates or tour plans so far?
We must make a strong promotion of this album, this edition deserves all our effort, because the songs are powerful and intense, “Of Martyrs´s…” is a very special recording…we are sending digital and physical copies of this new opus to all the webzines and fanzines in the underground scene, we try to promote every the notice of the band through the social networks. Now we are using some promo agencies like Viral Propaganda, and of course that the band is searching festivals and gigs to make on-stage destruction, hehehe… Until now, we have a concert in May (“United in Brutality Fest”) and we had confirmed our presence in the fourth edition of the “Spain Death Metal Fest”. You can expect more shows in the next months.
What would a dream gig be? Name me 4 bands you would like to share the stage with, on the same day! And why?
A performance in which we do not lose money, hehehe… I think that we could kill to get a gig with bands like Morbid Angel (the fathers of all, but they has lost their mind in fucking experiments), Immolation (A big influence for us in the first years of the band), Behemoth (for me, today is the most professional band in the scene) and Origin (technical sickness at the service of the brutal music). We dream of sharing the stage with these bands.
The Spanish death metal scene seems to be growing fierce as the time passes. I personally have come up with several Spanish bands that kick serious ass on the death field! Name me some bands from Spain you would consider awesome for someone to check!
Well, the technical level and the composition quality are growing in the Spanish bands. The evolution in the brutal style was very slow, but today a lot of bands of our country can compete in the international scene.
I think that the best representatives of the movement are bands like Baalphegor, The Last Twilight, Upcoming of Devastation, Vermis Antecessor, Ephemeral, Nebulah and Legacy of Brutality. The bands of my country only need some attention for the worldwide metal scene, the times are changing for us and we have a lot of stuff to offer…
So how long do we have to wait for a new Scent Of Death album? 10 Years or more? Haha
Hehehe… I hope that our new album will not take so long, we have learned a lot with the problems through this years, and we know very well the way to work for the next album… I hope that the bad luck has run out. Until now, we have two tracks for the new album (“The Lesser Evil” and “Sooner Or Later”), and you can be sure that these songs are fucking masterpieces, hehehe…
What are the plans of Scent Of Death for now? Where does April of 2013 find each one of you? Vacations, composing new songs or on tour?
We are working now very hard in the promotional aspect, trying to spread our name around the world. We spend a lot of time in this job, but the composition of new tracks is our priority. We want the new album in two or three years at most. We had update all our presence in the net, some years ago, we only had a shabby Myspace, but with the new record we had design new pages in Bandcamp, Reverbnation, Bigcartel, YouTube and Soundcloud…. We work in new gigs, of course, as I said before, we will play in May the “United In Brutality Fest” and we are confirmed our presence in the fourth edition of the “Spain Death Metal Fest”, and you can expect more gigs to come... we don´t have time for vacations, hehehe…
A dilemma I like to ask lot musicians about, and a really hot subject of the music industry nowadays is downloading. Would you be in favor of, or against it?
The best solution for this problem is the search for search for balance in these areas. The music downloads are completely out of control, you can have all the music of the world on your hard drive very easily. I think that you can use the net to know new bands and hear their music, but if you like a band, buy their CD and support it!!... The underground scene is very fucking today, the people prefer to buy a shirt than a CD… buy a CD .. What for? If I can download it!!! … The day when you can download t-shirts from the net, all will be over, hehe… I don’t know the situation in your country about the metal festivals, but in Spain, you see one CD shop for each five or six clothes shop … I love my collection of CD´s, It's a reflection of my musical evolution and each record has his own little history …you only have a bunch of shit if all your musical collection is based on a lot of folders on your pc.
What are the outdoor activities you have, when not rehearsing with the band? Where would somebody find you hanging out on a Friday or Saturday night?
Everyone in the band have their own jobs, so this occupation spends a lot of time in our lives, hehehe… anyway, we try to live our lives the best as we can, you know… we try to go to all the metal concerts we can and of course, you can see us in a Friday or Saturday night sharing some beers (and local drinks like Kalimocho and Licor Café) with all our friends
Ok man that was it. Thank you for your time and congratulations on your new album. What a great comeback. The last words are yours...
Well, thanks a lot for this great interview and the support you offer us; I hope that all the people who read these lines will be interested in our music. All the metalheads can be sure that our new record don’t disappoint anyone! We are in a good number of places in the web, check our links and stay in touch!!!
Interviewer:
twansibon
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013
Next interview:
Nadimac, the violent art form of protest
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