Josh Rundquist of That Drummer Guy recently conducted an interview with vocalist Francesco Paoli of Italian orchestral-death giants FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE about the band's forthcoming new studio album, "Veleno". You can listen to the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). On the current state of FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE: Francesco: "We had some dark times lately, like a couple of years ago, then we fixed it and so right now, we are now, some way, enjoying the best and it's probably the best moment, the best year for the band. Definitely stronger than before, more solid, more consistent and it's very cool to go around the world and see this kind of feedback. The album is doing well already with the two singles. The tour [with HYPOCRISY and ANIMUS] has been amazing so far. I can confirm: Everything is very cool now." On the songwriting process for "Veleno": Francesco: "We wrote the album in a longer than usual time-frame. We took a break from touring and we concentrated on songwriting. The songs, somehow, even if they, their only identity for each song is somehow created in the same moment. The spirit behind each song was singular in some way. This reflects technically, the feelings, as I said, the spirit of the band, so sometimes you write a fast song or you write a slow song, but the spirit is still the same. This time, we wrote the songs in three years' time-frame. Sometimes we were in the mood, sometimes we were in a completely different mood. In the end, when we started to create songs from these ideas, we were scared about this diversity along with the fact that the album as a whole thing — they are so different and maybe too much different, but it wasn't. In the end, diversity makes the album varied and dynamic and I think it's even better, the songwriting process because it's way more spontaneous. We always use the best inspiration and moments to create and we never force ourselves to finish a song or close the album, so from the first moment to the finish, the end of the album, it's all material that we picked up from a really huge mound of ideas. All the best we created in these three years' time-frame. I'm glad to hear that people are enjoying this diversity and like the fact there are differences between songs that make the songs unique in some way, but at the same time, fits very well together in the bigger picture." On FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE's live presentation: Francesco: "We are improving in all the artistical sides of the band. We improved music-wise with experience and of course, it's also better on the money side, sometimes. It might sound weird, but it's a problem for many bands. You need to reach a level where money is enough to get good production, so we are improving the production and improving performance-wise. Entertainment is the main focus of the show. The fulcrum of the show is not just the music, it's a concert and the music are the most relevant part, but at the same time, we like to entertain people with visuals and more theatrical shows. What we've done is we improved more and more and now are headlining, we have very good numbers that will allow us to bring almost a European production to America. What we expect to do and this is our dream and our goal is the bring the European production to America and finally American fans can witness a big production for FLESHGOD. We have many things going on and want to entertain for one hour and a half. It's our goal for the next year." "Veleno" is due May 24 via Nuclear Blast Records. Italian for "venom," "Veleno" marks FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE's first record in three years, since the release of the band's critically acclaimed record "King" (2016). The "metal part" of "Veleno" was recorded in Rome, Italy at Bloom Recording Studio and Kick Studio with long-standing collaborator Marco Mastrobuono, while the "orchestral part" — the ensembles — were tracked at Musica Teclas Studio in Perugia. FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE then took the effort over to Grammy-nominated Jacob Hansen (VOLBEAT, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, EPICA) at Hansen Studios in Denmark for mixing and mastering. The entire production of "Veleno" took, according to Paoli, about three months. Artwork for the album was created by Travis Smith (AVENGED SEVENFOLD, OPETH, KATATONIA).
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