Interview with Die Entweihung, a solo project active since 2007, has undergone various transformations in sound and style, exploring genres like black metal, dark metal, and blackened heavy metal, while incorporating diverse elements such as bouzouki and synthesizers.
Die Entweihung has been active since 2007. How
has the band evolved in terms of sound and musical direction over the years?
Well, yes, for 16 years Die Entweihung, represented by myself, has gone through many
changes, whether it be music, style, sound, subject matter of lyrics, etc.
Initially it was raw fast black metal, which just as quickly became raw but
slow black metal, and several albums in the period 2008-2012 were recorded in
an experimental black metal vein, with many synthesizers, non-standard moves,
vocal sound. That is, the basis, the skeleton remained black metal, but each
time it was overgrown with a variety of flesh. Approximately 10 years ago, with
the album "The Cage" began a movement into a more structured style,
which was still raw and black metal, but with a more guitar sound (less synths
and other stuff), more classic heavy riffs, which led to the final change in
2015 year on the so-called blackened heavy metal. Since then, the skeleton has
been heavy metallic, but the vocals and the overall production sound gravitate
towards black metal.
Your first demo, "Demo 2007," received
positive reviews despite its low quality. How did that initial response impact
your motivation and determination to continue creating music?
As it's often the case at
the very beginning, a lot of desire and ideas don't keep up with the technical
component. At that time, I had enough free time, and almost every day I played
something, composed something, recorded something. I remember that the first
riffs were composed in May 2007, and already in September I posted the first
demo on the Internet (later there was even a label that wanted to release and
released this demo on CDR, haha!). Some people commented that it was cool that
the material was fast, given that slow depressive suicidal black metal with a
VERY slow tempo was in trend back then, others noted a funny cover of one
Russian pop song from the 90s. But, of course, the sound was extremely bad, and
in fact it was just a "pen test", everything was recorded and mixed,
as they say, 'quick-and-dirty', and I studied all these things in the process (after all, at that time there was very little information
on recording and mixing). To be honest, I didn’t really bother with the
reviews, I understood that there was no point in taking this recording
seriously, and just continued to make music, and soon another demo material
"The Last Nail" was recorded, which was done even faster than the
first one, I remember that a lot of crap guitar tracks were not even
re-recorded - I just wanted to record more and more, and not sit around
reworking these 4-5 songs for several months. The quality has improved a
little, but in general it has remained the same low. But this demo has already
been released on the Kazakhstan (at that time) label Satanarsa Records, with a
circulation of 200 CDrs and, as far as I know, some copies can still be
purchased.
"Desecration," your debut album, was
released in 2008. Could you share the inspiration behind the album and the
themes explored in its songs?
At some level after recording the second demo, I suddenly decided that the next
recording that was made would be considered the first full album. I decided to
make the highest quality album that I was then capable of. As a result, this
material became a transition between "fast" and "slow"
style - 2 new songs were recorded, in the same fast style, plus two songs from
the first demo were reworked, at a much slower tempo, plus I recorded a cover
version of the song by the Moscow black metal band Sinful, also in slow pace.
The quality has really improved, let's say I can still listen to this album
without putting some rusty nails into my ears, haha. There were, of course,
technical flaws here and there, but what happened is what happened. The lyrics
had no specifics, just another attempt to play with Satanism, different
"dark" stuff, and so on. Nothing serious, really. I know that some people
still love this album, and a couple of years ago it was re-released on cassette
along with the next album "Hypnotic Dreams".
Die Entweihung has experimented with different
genres and influences. How would you describe your current musical style and
the elements that set you apart from other bands?
The last 4 albums are kind of blackened heavy metal with middle eastern elements in the
guitar solos and bouzouki instrumental parts (bouzouki is something like an
Irish mandolin). Also, my style never stands still, and every time something
new appears, you can hear thrash, doom, punk, and hard rock, many melodic
stuff. I also consciously try to create music now so that it does not seem
modern, my actual label even put in the official description of the new album
that this is music with a strong vibe of the 70s. I hate today's
"fat" compressed sound, I would rather listen to, say, the Beatles
(which I do right now), anything from the 70's, 80's or 90's than modern albums
made from the same template. Of course, good-sounding albums are still being
created, but this is rather the same deep underground that I am in. I mean,
there are still bands that don't kill the dynamics, don't overload the record
with 666 tracks of guitars, for the sake of "more heaviness", that
still sound old school and nice (amongst more mainstream music I can notice,
for example, Steven Wilson / Porcupine Tree, or latest live albums by King
Crimson). But they are not heard in the mainstream, neither in pop, nor in
rock, nor in metal. But I don't think it matters to most, I've read more than
once that "Die Entweihung new album sounds like a demo". I understand
that position, but for me, such as they write, "demo version" is much
nicer than the sound like new Metallica, or In Flames, or anything else.
"The Hallucinations," released in 2009,
faced challenges during its recording due to your military service. How did
that period affect the album's creation, and how do you view it in the context
of your discography?
Oh yes, it was an interesting time! Immediately
after the recording of the second album "Hypnotic Dreams", in the summer of 2008, I was forced to go to military
service (Israel Defense Forces). All in all, it was an interesting experience,
albeit a drawn-out one (nearly three years is quite a long time), and I would
definitely not agree to repeat it for anything. Despite the fact that I still
had a lot of ideas and I went more and more into experimental music, I had to
work in rather strange conditions: now I was at home only on weekends, and then
not every week, so I had catastrophically little time to write and record new
music . Nevertheless, in about a year or so, I managed to finish the album
"The Hallucinations", which turned out to be perhaps the most strange
and experimental album, and if my project as a whole causes polar opinions
among people, then this particular album, perhaps , causes even more polar
opinions, hahaha. The album combines raw mid tempo / slow black metal, in its
most lo-fi form, with synthesizers that in places even resemble house and
eurodance music of the 90s, plus a bunch of sound effects, samples, etc., etc.
It sounds very strange in words, but for me this album has its own charm, I
think it is beautiful in its folly, schizophrenia, whatever you want to call
it. I remember in one of the reviews, the author wrote that maybe I was drunk
during the recording, and that the album does not lend itself to any standard
review, but the result came out very curious, haha. By the way, this album was
once released in a good edition of 500 copies on the Moscow label Nihil Art
Records in 2010, and it was in many distros around the world.
"At The Bottom" marked a change in the
music, becoming more melodic and understandable. What led to this shift, and
what was the driving force behind the album's lyrical themes?
This album was also recorded during my
military service, and partly due to a somewhat chaotic set of compositions,
there are purely synth things, and black doom metal stuff, and a 12-minute epic
number, and a ballad, and a cover of Joy Division. I didn’t fully understand
where to go yet, but the decision was definitely made to simplify the music in
general, and not have such a brutal lo-fi sound as it was on the previous
album. So, I just collected all the songs that I had written after recording
"The Hallucinations" and, if possible, recorded them when time and
opportunities allowed. The overall sound was based on my recently recorded
cover song for a tribute to the Belarusian band Apraxia, which did not get
there, but became the starting point for recording "At the bottom"
directly. On one of the editions, by the way, instead of a cover of Apraxia, a
cover of Impaled Nazarene was included, which was also prepared for a tribute
to this band, and which was never released (a common thing). If we talk about
lyrical themes - while working on "The Hallucinations" I watched the
film "Martyrs", which, to be honest, still excites the mind. Some
things from the film inspired some of the lyrics from "The
Hallucinations" and "At The Bottom". In general, in terms of the
lyrics, it is still nihilism, dark sides and other hell.
In 2012, the album "5 Circles of
Loneliness" was released, showcasing some electro elements. Could you tell
us more about this experiment and the inspiration behind incorporating ambient
and classical music elements?
This album is basically an experiment and maybe
it should have been released under the brand name like die entweihung project or something like that. At that time, many black
metal musicians began to attempt recordings in what is now known as
"dungeon synth", with references to Burzum's prison period and
Mortiis' early recordings. However, in my case, the situation is slightly
different - at that time I listened to Enigma and other projects in this vein a
lot. This music inspired me to write a couple of instrumental atmospheric
pieces. Unbeknownst to myself, literally in a few weeks, almost a whole album
was already written, plus at the end of my military service, I sometimes could
use a laptop on my base, on which I had the opportunity to finish something
else within this style. So, a few months after "The Bottom" I already
had an electronic album in my hands - without guitars and drums, but with a lot
of cosmic and other atmospheric pieces of ambient. The album went unnoticed, as
it was released only once in a very small circulation, and later a digital
release took place. In fact, this album
was the finale of my flirting with electronic sounds and synthesizers, since in
the future almost all music began to be based on a standard metal skeleton, and
there were very few synthesizers.
"The Cage," released in 2013, shares
similarities with "At The Bottom." How would you describe the album's
sound and the emotions it aims to evoke?
"The Cage" is a logical continuation of the
started course on "The Bottom", only more guitar-oriented, and with
almost completely formed new style, but with the same black metal sound and
atmosphere. Some did not understand it at all (or maybe no one understood it at
all), evaluating it as a black metal album. In fact, musically it is a more or
less standard mixing of heavy, thrash and doom, but sounding like black metal.
At one time, I had thoughts of remixing this material so that it would sound in
the spirit of the latest works. But it takes a lot of time and inspiration to
go back 10 years and try to work with that stuff. Therefore, while this idea is
on hold. But maybe someday I will do something like that.
Die Entweihung released a tribute album to Joy
Division in 2014. What motivated you to create this tribute, and how did you
approach interpreting their songs in the signature style of Die Entweihung?
Joy Division is one of my favorite bands, even
though I don't listen to them that much these days, but at the time I was doing
the tribute, they were one of the most important bands for me. The reason for
the tribute is simple: it was an opportunity to experiment. There is music that
is so conceptual and complete in its form that taking on covers is just
blasphemy, because in any case it will be either bad or just awful. Joy
Division is the opposite - cold minimalism of guitar, bass and drums + various
special effects + extremely gloomy, lifeless vocals, you can do a lot with this
material! Which is exactly what I did. I immediately decided that I would use
everything I could, each song would have its own sound, vocal delivery, style,
etc. In some places, the general mixing did not turn out very well, but
according to the arrangements, I think the material was a success, here both
raw furious black metal, and mid-tempo metal with clean and harsh vocals (I'm
not actually a vocalist, but here it seemed to me that I can perform), and
synth pads, and punk rock. In some songs, I even recorded two different bass
tracks, one led the main rhythm, the other gave out solos and riffs.
"Neverending Terrorism," released in
2015, saw a departure from black metal and a shift towards a melodic dark metal
style. Can you elaborate on the musical and lyrical changes reflected in this
album?
This album became a turning point, it was on it
that a new direction was finally chosen - which, by the way, was influenced by
the Rotting Christ album - "A Dead Poem". I won't say that I really love this
album or the band in general, but I really liked the specific style of this
record, and the album "Scum Brigade" by the Moscow band Stonehenge
(2003) should also be noted. I'm sure that few people heard it, but at one time
it influenced me stylistically - namely, a mixing of heavy metal bases and
black metal aggressive vocals. As I already noted, even on the previous album
"The Cage" there was a tendency towards this style, but then the
black metal sound production still inclined the material towards black metal in
general. "Neverending Terrorism" is both musically and
production-wise, the music is completely far from black metal. Then, to make it
easier, I just called this style Melodic Dark Metal, but now there is a more
correct definition - "Blackened Heavy Metal". The lyrical subject has
gone towards the awful modern reality, I describe what I see around, in fact,
without drawing any conclusions and I don’t teach anyone how to do and what to
do. Some people think that my lyrics are politically and socially charged, but
I have to say that these are all exclusively parts of everything that happens
in our world, as well as corruption, wars, humanity's dependence on the
Internet, phone and other devices (the computer mind has already won?!). Die
Entweihung is not a social or political project.
In 2017, you released the album "The Worst
Is Yet To Come." How does this album differ from your previous releases,
and what themes does it explore?
This is a continuation of the previous album,
both in terms of lyrics and music. Of the changes - in some compositions, I
introduced the "bouzouki" instrument, to enhance the Middle Eastern flavor in some places. A bonus on the album
is a cover of one of Doro's songs, it was preparing for the "Russian
Tribute to Doro", which .... right, again, was not released. The lyrics
continue to describe what is happening in the world, for example "The Holy
Land" is about problems in Israel, "The Plague of XXI" is about
Internet addiction (inspired by the case when I saw how a Facebook page for a
newborn was created, I just fucked up from this), "Nailed to the Worthless
Fate" - about the problems of regular workers who are forced to work for a
penny, while their boss is bathed in gold. If anyone is interested, the lyrics
can be found online and in the CD booklet.
Could you tell us about the process of
incorporating instruments like ukulele and bouzouki into your music for the
album "The Worst Is Yet To Come"? How did these additions contribute
to the overall sound?
In fact, the ukulele is there quite a bit,
literally in 1-2 compositions, and this thing sounds with some effects - just
when the ukulele appeared at my disposal, I thought "why not use this
instrument as well", it turned out quite well, but in I haven't found a
use for the ukulele since then (yet!). Bouzouki is a conscious step, starting
from "The Worst Is Yet To Come", bouzouki is an integral part of my
music, appearing not in such quantity as, say, traditional rock instruments,
but nevertheless, with each new album, bouzouki sounds more and more. The
appearance of the bouzouki can be attributed to my love for the local cult
"Orphaned Land", which, almost from the first album, use a lot of
Middle Eastern instruments that sound really authentic. I decided to try to
introduce bouzouki into my work, and it turned out surprisingly organically.
"Kings & Pawns" was released in
2021, followed by the forthcoming album "Strict Regime Country" in
2022. What can fans expect from these albums, and how do they build upon your
previous works?
These two albums are perhaps the most significant
of all that I have done in 16 years. For the first time, guest musicians were invited - in addition to my standard black metal voice, on the title track
you can hear the harsh and clean vocals of Alexander Ivanov from the Russian
thrash formation Jinx, and in two more songs - female clean vocals and growl
performed by the vocalist of the Czech group Nocturnal Pestilence - Alena
Krakorova. Among other things, on the cover of the song of the old Russian
black metal project Der Gerwelt, Anton "Shirl" (Tales Of Darknord)
was involved on bass, who at one time ... performed bass on the original of
this song. In general, the album sounds very diverse, in addition to several
types of vocals, there are bouzouki and acoustic guitar in several compositions,
musically it is still a stylistic mixture of hard and heavy, there is something
like doom metal, black / thrash, and much more. Oh yeah, this is the album
where I played my most meaningful guitar solos for the first time. The lyrics
of the album are about the confrontation: the people and the government, a
single person and society, a person and life time, which actually works against
him, etc. The album was recently remastered very well and I hope there will be
a re-release next year.
As for the newest "Strict Regime
Country" - this is a concept album dedicated to the protest events in my
native Belarus that took place in the second half of 2020, and actually split
the country into before and after. These were the first large-scale protests of
the people against the current dictatorial government (the president of
Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has been in power for almost 30 years), and the
security forces immediately rebuffed the unarmed people - since then, the
entire opposition had to flee the country (who could not or did not want to -
forced to serve prison terms), a huge number of protesters were eventually
arrested, someone got off with a fine, someone served the minimum term, someone
received several years of imprisonment. Almost all the musicians who voiced
their position, people of art and those who are simply not indifferent left the
country - the authorities destroy or squeeze out all the objectionable from the
country ... In general, with this album I wanted, as far as possible, to draw
the attention of listeners to what is happening in the country, news about
which are now mainly connected only with its complicity in the war against
Ukraine, exposing Belarus as some kind of aggressor, although in fact - you
need to separate ordinary people who have already been living in dictatorial
shit for several generations, and the president, who by any means keeps his
bloody throne. So it goes.
Musically, this is still the same melodic dark
metal / blackened heavy metal,
stylistic "mess" in a good way, female vocals were again performed by
Alena, although now she has already participated in 4 compositions out of 5
vocal ones. The main extreme vocal this time was completely performed by a
session vocalist from Turkey - Bilge "Serpent". He did an excellent job
of combining dark grim vocals and growling in some places. I limited myself
only to the performance of the musical part itself. Also, the guitar solo in
"Mayhem Of The Doomed" was performed by Filip Šuster from Prague (Noisebleed), and second solo in
"Yesterday" was performed by my old friend from Moscow - Marianna
Lukianova (VESSSNA, ex-Fright Night). Bouzouki still sounds in some songs, but
this time there was no place for an acoustic guitar.
As the sole member of Die Entweihung, how do you
handle the songwriting, recording, and live performance aspects? What
challenges and advantages do you experience as a one-man band?
I must say right away that there are no live
performances - this is a purely studio project. As a teenager, I sometimes
thought about how "it would be cool to form a real band, rehearse, play
concerts, record albums with a full line-up", etc. But when I became a fan
of black metal, I was imbued with the fact that many even at that time
(mid-2000s) created music on their own, or as a duet, all this, of course, was
influenced by the classics of the genre, like Bathory, Burzum, Darkthrone, and
many others . Plus, the style that I've been doing for many years - as for me,
it is absolutely not intended for live performances. Black metal is not concert
music at all, in my opinion. I've been to some black metal gigs and I've never
experienced anything but boredom from the constant drum/guitar noise. And if
listening to raw recordings at home on a good equipment you can really feel the
atmosphere, enjoy the melodies that are often hidden under strong distortion,
then at concerts it is usually chaos. Otherwise, after 16 years I'm so used to
working alone that, frankly, I can't imagine that I could make music with a
band. Yes, on the last two albums, the vocal parts were performed by other
people, but at the same time, the basis, some kind of demo vocal lines, were
still created by me, so even now Die Entweihung is as close as possible to the
concept of "band", in fact, it still remains my solo work. What
matters to me is control over my own music and no compromises. There is very
little freedom in our lives, so at least in music it should be present. As for
the challenges... well, for me, every new album is another challenge, almost
every time the overall sound changes, development takes place, whether it be
musical, performing or lyrical. I don't see the point in repeating the same
thing over and over, so each new album is like a blank sheet, which I fill over
and over again with new colors by myself, having already accumulated
experience.
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