Nemtheanga speaks...
- Thread starter General Zod
- Start date
Evil?
omghaxlol!1
Demilich
Remember
hey, it might have been feasible before half the board start spreading their seed around like the manwhores we always knew they were!
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Alan Averill is a very focused man.
That focus is part of the reason his main band, Primordial, have reached the point they are at today a band whose mastery of their own muse over the past 20 years has raised them up to the position where, as evinced by the crowning glory of their inaugural Redemption Festival this year, they are the most unique and essential Irish Heavy Metal band of the last 20 years.
You can (and probably will) argue that with me, but youd be wrong.
But what forged that success, what was at the core from the very start, was a singular vison of how that band wanted to sound, what they wanted to embody with their art. They began with a simple drive to bring a particular personal vison to life before.
Toiling privately in a rehearsal room somewhere in Dublin city centre over the past few months , that same drive to bring a personal, idiosyncratic approach to music alive has given birth to his new band Dread Sovereign.
This April, the trio of AA (adding bass to his usual role here), drummer Simon OLaoghaire, and guitarist Eoin Bones Houlihan break their cover with the double whammy of a debut peformance at the by now legendary Roadburn Festival and a three song 12″ to be released via the festivals record label.
Theirs is a more primal take on the classic Heavy Metal template than you might expect. Blending doomed riffing and primal structures with a lyrical walk through the bloodied back streets of (Anti) Christian history.
The sound is as dark and opressive as the name implies. With the arrival of this atavistic sonic presence imminent, it seemed only right for Metalireland to get to enter into the darkened halls of the Sovereigns kingdom and seek an audience
Ive been butchering the guitar for years more or less, just writing songs and playing riffs begins Averill when I ask him about the genesis of the project.
Over the years Ive tried to do various things with various people that always seemed to fall apart, and then last year myself and OLaoghaire started to jam together with me playing the guitar.
Eventually the riffs began to form, and Id thought about the idea of getting somebody to play the bass and sticking with the guitar..we found Eoin and started to jam last September.
And when this formation began to gel, did the newly minted trio formation change or alter the material he had been working on all this time? It would seem not.
Ive written every single bit of it, music and lyrics. Ive had this backlog of ideas and riffs that Ive been thinking about on my own anyway, it just needed to come out anyway.
It just so happened that Eoin came along and proved to be the perfect foil for the ideas. He brought the tone. As it goes along Eoin brings his own personality, Simon is free to do what he wants on the drums.
Tone, ideas, whatever it is..the recipe has produced some compelling results: Dread Sovereign are an atavistic, utterly opaque take on the kind of heavy metal Averill himself grew up on.Familiar sounding yet not as derivative as the man himself might have you believe, they take the menace of the good old bad old days of the 80s but drive it into a bleaker place than those bands ever did musically:
Its starting to have its own definite sound, but it took a few months to find that. For me, the blueprint is Venom, Cirith Ungol, Hellhammer, early second wave black metal like Rotting Christ, Masters Hammer, with a touch of Pentagram, Mercyful Fate..just to make it really evil sounding, really dark and horrible. To make it purposefully full of the trappings of traditional heavy metal, with very serious blasphemous lyrics.
The immediate thing that strikes you of course over all this dark and horrible instrumentation is the vocal aproach he has adapted here.
While Alan has an instantly recognisable voice, in Dread Sovereign he at times reaches into a higher range than normal, and most interestingly of all adapts an almost Ozzy-esque tone.
I had to change my voice.By now trying to find another voice for me is difficult. We toyed with the idea of having somebody else sing, but I knew Id be such a pain in the arse to them and it wouldnt be worth their while. Simon might sing some bits in the future because hes a great singer, but this strange 70s style nasal odd high voice..I just decided to see how it would come out.
Similarly, in so far as his voice sounds different here than it does in Primordial, theres also a huge difference in the aesthetic and lyrical content in Dread Sovereign.
The historical edge hinted at in some of his main bands work is still here to some degree, but taken from a far more diabolical perspective. The name alone is an indicator that were getting into more sinister terrain:
It basically means feared ruler. Its a reference to the early settlers in America,its in the Mayflower Edict, they refer to King James as the Dread Sovereign. I just thought it had a cool ring to it.
Take the song 13 Clergy from the upcoming EP as an example. Far from the first person take of some of the day jobs finest moments, here Averill is in narrator mode:
Its about the first burnings by the inquisition in 1022 , the church of St Albi in France which was burnt down in the year 666AD. The point was to make absolute heavy metal references but not in a tongue in cheek way..but for people to look at this and go this is actually about something
I wanted to sidestep any irony, any sort of allusions that anyone could make to any of the things Ive done before, in that the lyrics are satanic/occult, but done in a very traditional heavy metal sense: without a hint of irony or of it not being meant. Its completely and utterly meant.
And also its so not Irish. I find nobody is generally serious enough anything like that seems to be taken with a pentagram in one hand in the other, and I wanted to avoid that kind of thing
Indeed, is it fair to say the subject matter and tone is what fuels the Dread Sovereign cauldron? The freedom to explore these topics in a more explicit manner?
I always had a great interest in occultism or what I suppose we called Satanism when we were idealistic 20 somethings or teenagers. For me I always had more of an interest in that even than I had in Irish history or culture, and one stepped into the other with Primordial, whereas with the others that was never something they were interested in.
So this sort of Occult tradition was something that I always wanted to write about. The artwork is very similar, very crude medieval imagery. And also I just think Ireland needs a fucking evil doom band that isnt taking the piss.
With this more primitive, traditional approach from these three players some will perhaps be perhaps surprised. Clearly, there is an underlying rule here that Dread Sovereign is a HEAVY METAL band first and foremost not doom, not black metal, not any other microgenre you care to throw at them. But is it innovative? Perhaps not. Does that matter? The fuck it does.
When quizzed on wether or not the trio have a specific set of lines not to colour outside of, the frontman is clear: Personally, the limitations are on the way I play or write.If I wanted to make something more complicated I couldnt anyway.
Similarly, to those who may point the finger that the sound is a little too traditional..the response is as defiant as youd expect.
We already proved ourselves in our other day job, Primordial is original already, has a synonymous sound. I dont need to do that here. So I dont care in this if someone says that riff is half inched from Venom. Good.I dont care. So long as people dont say its pastiche, because I hate that kind of thing. But thankfully we seem to have found our own little style, its more noisy, more rough, more raw. Its taken on a bit of a life of its own
So sharing two members with a large and established band in itself might be a problem for some. But in Houlihan, they also have a guitarist who currently plays in so many other projects I couldnt actually count them correctly. How, if it all, will Dread Sovereign fit into to the members schedules?
For me its not a problem, Primordial rarely rehearses. Its interesting for me and Leary to be able to step back a bit. I look forward to playing smaller places and bring out a different sound.
And for the hyperactive guitarist? For Bones..if he was a person with slightly less energy it would probably hard.But seeing as he has enough if not more energy to do half a dozen different things.. hes also a decade younger than me and Leary. But I think for him being in a band with people like me or Leary.. within its framework I dont fuck around.I dont wait for anything.
Which is why, presumably, the band are playing their first show at a packed festival. How did this unorthodox first gig come about?
Im not interested in being hometown heroes. I make things happen; if I say something is going to be done it will be done tomorrow, I wont wait around six months. So Primordials playing, I said to the guy two of us are going to be there, for one more flight you can have this exclusive gig. That morphed into the 12″. The whole thing was done, artwork and recording within 3 or 4 weeks. I think he was a little bit taken aback by it..
If you cant make the festival however, fear not. The band recently recorded five songs at Dublins own Sun Studios with producer Ola Ersfjord (who also recorded the upcoming debut lp by Swedens Dead Lord there), and the first fruits of their labour is of course that aforementioned upcoming three songer slab owax.
The 12″ will be out at Roadburn. I dont assume 500 will sell out at Roadburn. I think the other two songs will be another 12″. Im under no illusion that were going to go out and sell a lot of records or anything, thats not really the point of it . Hopefully well be able to go on tour with it.
And there it is in a nutshell. It would be pointless to pretend that Alan isnt steering the ship here: with no ill respect to his bandmates, this is his baby largely and they would probably be the first people to tell you as much.
In closing, think back to what I said about focus. Averills final words as we close off our conversation sum up nicely his drive to turn his will into action.
Sometimes I think with things people are too democratic. Five different voices in one band, if everyone is listened, is like Italian parliament or something. its functionless. You need one person whos in charge of a certain thing.
In Primordial everyone filters into their different roles and that makes sense to, me. With this, I kind of said the name, the art the lyrics..thats what Im going to do.
Ill show it to you, and if you really object thats fine but youve got to trust the fact that I have the taste and the vision, and the sense of aesthetics and that its going to make sense. And then you just go and do it.[/IMG]
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Evil?
omghaxlol!1
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Why not also release it on 8-track before releasing it on CD. I'm not sure how it makes sense to release something on the least ubiquitous format first (unless it's somehow an anti-piracy) thing first.
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Twilight Of The Gods are premiering the lyric video for new track ‘Fire On The Mountain’ with Terrorizer.
The track is taken from their forthcoming debut album of the same name, due for release on 13 September via Season Of Mist.
Initially formed to pay tribute to Bathory, Twilight Of The Gods sees Primordial’s Alan Averill (vocals) joined by Aura Noir’s Rune Eriksen (guitar), Thyrfing’s Patrik Lindgren (guitars), Einherjer’s Frode Glesnes (bass) and Lock Up drummer Nick Barker.
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Tranquillian
Svartmetallist
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Vocalist and bass player, Nemtheanga commented: Things come together fast on the surface but the DREAD SOVEREIGN album has been dwelling in my subconscious for years, playing riffs to myself over the years. It's only in the last 15 months that I've put flesh on the bones with a proper band and here we are with an album ready for Ván Records to release. The aspirations are difficult to explain as it's been a form of catharsis to finally get the demons out after all this time but here it is; some gnarled and evil old school Doom Metal - a few surprises and different elements here and there - but nothing more and nothing less".
"All Hells Martyrs" tracklisting:
01. "Drink The Wine"
02. "Thirteen Clergy"
03. "Cthulu Opiate Haze"
04. "The Devils Venom"
05. "Pray To The Devil In Man"
06. "Scourging Iron"
07. "The Great Beast"
08. "We Wield The Spear Of Longinus"
09. "Cathars To Their Doom"
10. "All Hells Martyrs, Transmissions From The Devil Star"
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
J.
Old Fart
i must be the only one not blown away by nemtheangas vocals. i like primordial but only love up to Storm Before Calm before he got all dramatic vintersorg-esque. he does much better in a black metal sounding band. then again, the riffs and music in SBC, A Journeys End, and StEA are stellar, and superior to everything after imo
J.
Old Fart
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