The Total Sound Of The Undergound

Lelahel Metal

Dutch blackened death metal band Slechtvalk returns after an 8-year hiatus with "At Death's Gate". Frontman Shamgar discusses the album’s dark themes, intense sound, and personal struggles.

1. Congratulations on the upcoming release of At Death's Gate”! After an 8-year hiatus, how does it feel to finally unveil new material to your fans?

Shamgar: Thanks! Initially we planned to record the album late 2020 and were aiming for a release in 2021. But then the Covid Pandemic happened and all the government regulations ruined our schedule and our ability to rehearse together as a group. We had to postpone our studio booking several times and in 2021 our bassplayer Dagor decided to emigrate to Portugal, so that set us back some more. At last in 2023 we were able to go to producer Lasse Lammert’s studio to record the new album. As we were an unsigned band at the time, using the finished master to find a suitable record deal took some time and of course MDD Records had their own release-calendar that was already planned out 7-8 months in advance. So we have been eager to get this album out for a long time and are thrilled that moment is almost there.

2. Your last album, Where Wandering Shadows and Mists Collide,” was released in 2016. What inspired the musical and thematic direction of At Death's Gate” during the time between albums?

Shamgar: Shortly after the release of WWSAMC our long time drummer Grimbold announced his departure and we found a replacement in the young Hamar. Though Grimbold was an exceptional technical drummer, he felt his age and existing knee injury was taking its toll and didn’t feel like to continue pushing boundaries. With Hamar we could work out some ideas we knew Grimbold would object to due to the taxing speeds and combined with our desire to keep pushing our boundaries, this resulted in an album that is a few notches faster and brutal than the previous.
Lyrically, ever since our 2nd album “The War that Plagues the Lands” (2002) I’ve constructed short stories around the lyrical topics I wanted to write about. These short stories are based on a fantasy book series I once began writing (but never finished) and after finishing up WWSAMC I already had knew which story line I wanted to focus on for the successor. But much has happened in our personal lives between the writing process between WWSAMC and “At Death’s Gate”. On “A Forlorn Throne” (2010) I already wrote about my own struggle with suicide and in the years after WWSAMC I was confronted by several more (colleagues, friends of friends and of course a whole slew of celebrities). It always brought back vivid memories of my own struggle. The Covid Pandemic proved to be the final nail in the coffin of several friendships I neglected, so by the time I started writing lyrics for the new album I wasn’t in the best of moods. Then a close relative committed suicide and I decided to focus a good deal on the lyrics on my own struggles.

3. You’ve mentioned that this album will be more extreme and brutal than ever before. Can you elaborate on the elements that make this record stand out in terms of intensity compared to your previous work?

Shamgar: Some bands tend to go for a more mellow or accessible sound as they age to the point they’ve become a shadow of their brutal self. We decided we don’t want that to happen to us.
Because we had to postpone the studio-recordings several times due to the COVID regulations, the songs we wrote had time to mature. During rehearsals we often goof around and sometimes intentionally play songs way to fast. But if you do that often enough, the original will start sound sluggish.
When the COVID regulations were finally over, we started revisiting the songs we wrote. Some songs were fine as they were and only needed little tweaks to freshen up, others began to feel dated in their original form. Some we scrapped, some we overhauled, but more often than not we increased the tempo a bit.
Tomrair joined Slechtvalk on bass in 2021 and he also had a preference for the more extreme/brutal tracks instead of the slower atmospheric ones. By the time we went to the studio it was clear this new album would be much more blackmetal than the previous one, so we were looking for more vicious guitar sound compared to the previous album and that’s where producer Lasse Lammert came in. He has a big collection of amps & cabinets and he helped us find a guitar sound that sounded vicious, but still had balls. Ultimately Dimebag Darell’s signature amp the Krankenstein+ became the backbone of our guitar sound. Combined with the darker lyrical themes, the new album overall is more intense and brutal than the previous. Even a slow ballad like ‘Enshrouded’ feels more intense than a slower song of WWSAMC, but perhaps that’s also because it lyrically hits home for me.


4. The album’s atmosphere has been described as dense and dark, with a mix of melodic and bludgeoning moments. How did you approach balancing these contrasting elements in your songwriting and production?

Shamgar: We tend to get bored doing or listening to the same thing over and over again, so when we work on new songs, we like to get some variety between songs overall, but also in a song by itself. I’ve always been a sucker for melancholic melodies and atmosphere, Seraph always wants to make things faster and more technical. After working together for almost two decades now, we tend to anticipate each other’s preferences when we write songs individually. So at one extreme we have a song like “Night of the Locusts” that is bludgeoning and relentless and at another extreme we have a slow melancholic hard hitter like “Enshrouded” and all sorts of variations in between. So if you look at the album as a whole it fits (also because of the unified sound), but I can imagine that if you don’t know our previous work and only heard these two extremes, you might get confused whether it’s made by the same band or not.

5. What themes or concepts did you explore lyrically on At Death's Gate”? Is there a particular narrative or message that ties the album together?

Shamgar: I initially planned to make another concept-story-album, a continuation of the events of “Where Wandering Shadows and Mists Collide”, but as I mentioned previously, being confronted by various suicides during the past years, including close family and colleagues, I decided to focus a good deal of the lyrical content on my own struggles with depression and suicide. For me most of that struggle lies in the past and discovered how to break through that spiral of negative thoughts, but the past years I’ve known several people who suicided and that brings back vivid memories of my own struggles.
People who contemplate suicide rarely talk about it, often think no one cares or they’re better off without having to worry about them. They don’t see (or wilfully close their eyes to it) that there are so many people around them who want to help them or that life has nothing to offer but misery.
I’ve overcome most of my own struggles with the support of others and by continuously making a rational choice for life instead of allowing myself to soak in my misery to the point my emotions cloud my own judgment and decide my fate for me. Throughout the years I also learned to value the good things life has to offer and that experience also makes it easier for me to get out of a spiral of negative thoughts.
Though the lyrics deal with the dark subject of suicide, they also convey some hope, because I’ve managed to deal with it myself. My main message with this album is to encourage people who suffer from depression to talk about it and make active choice for life.

6. As a band that’s been active for over two decades, how do you maintain your creative edge and continue to evolve while staying true to Slechtvalk’s core sound?

Shamgar: I’m sure there are plenty of people who think we deviated from our core sound, because with “A Forlorn Throne” (2010) we shifted from Symphonic Blackmetal to more guitar-oriented Blackened Deathmetal. Part of our decision to not become another band that becomes soft as they age, we continuously try to push our boundaries. We’re also a band that likes versatility: Doing the same kind of thing over and over again becomes boring, so we try new things, like different vocal techniques. Sometimes listening to other music also opens up new avenues of creativity, but due to work and family I don’t have as much time to listen to music like I used to, but that also makes it easier to preserve my own musical identity.

7. What can you tell us about the process of creating and recording this album? Were there any significant challenges or moments of inspiration that shaped its final outcome?

Shamgar: Usually one of us writes a (near) complete song, shares it with the rest and then as a band we start rehearsing it. Then as a group we gradually make some minor alterations. We wrote a slew of songs before the COVID pandemic, that were waiting to be rehearsed as a band to finalize them, but due to the government regulations rehearsing as a band became nigh impossible for well over a year. So instead of finishing up songs, we tend to write even more songs. By the time we started rehearsing again we had to make decisions which songs to focus on and which to save for another time. It’s always difficult to decide between an older song you loved working on that is solid, but now know a little too well versus the latest song idea with lots of potential, but still needs work. When we set a date for the studio we selected 13 songs to focus on and as the studio date drew nearer we gradually dropped songs that felt sub par or needed too much work to finish up.
Shortly after COVID we also had a line-up change: Bassguitarist Dagor emigrated to Portugal and we were joined by Tomrair, who was also a bit more outspoken in his preferences.

8. The cover artwork for At Death's Gate” plays an important role in setting the tone for the album. Can you share the story behind the artwork and how it connects to the music?

Shamgar: Initially we had some other ideas (based on the concept story of a couple lyrics regarding “The White Raven”), but after the first draft design by Mark Erskine, we discovered that wasn’t at all what we were looking for. At the time I was dealing with the aftermath of another suicide of a close relative and felt it was important that the artwork should convey the struggle with suicide most of the lyrics deal with. Based on the song title “At Death’s Gate” and Mark Erskine’s previous works that appealed to me most, I visualized this menacing, yet intriguing looking gate. I talked about the idea and shared some of the backstory behind it with Mark Erskine and he came with some suggestions as well.
“Death’s Gate” symbolizes the threshold between life and death we all will traverse at some point. Death can seem welcoming, intriguing and for some people even a new spiritual phase of exploration, but on the other hand it’s also haunting, threatening, but most of all: finite. Once you go through that gate, there is no turning back.
Someone who is depressed and contemplates suicide spends a lot of time pondering about traversing and the lone wanderer in artwork resembles that person. Meanwhile there are also things at work that try to drive you through or away from it. These could be spiritual, but also social, like people who don’t take your issues serious or think you’re weak/pathetic for even having them, while others try to help you. And some people suffer from a chemical imbalance that influences their thoughts and emotions. The ghostly army in the artwork symbolize these other factors, they’re there, but it’s unclear whether they’re simply onlookers or that they try to force the lone wanderer to enter the Gate or try to warn him.

9. How do you feel At Death's Gate” compares to your earlier releases in terms of both sound and overall impact? Do you see it as a continuation of your journey or a new chapter entirely?

Shamgar: The release of “A Forlorn Throne” back in 2010 marked a new era in the history of Slechtvalk. Before that, Slechtvalk was best described as a symphonic blackmetal band, with also female vocals and there were indications we would jump the folkmetal bandwagon. After some line-up changes and internal discussions we decided to shift our focus to blackened deathmetal. “A Forlorn Throne” was the first chapter in that era. With “At Death’s Gate” we continue down the path we initially took with “A Forlorn Throne”, but I think we’ve grown musically and we continue to do so with new material we write. Lyrically I think we’ve become more aware of the life experiences we have that could benefit others. We’re no longer angry teens who throw a fit, because our parents denied us something or things don’t go our way, but now we’ve become fathers ourselves we know that some boundaries were imposed to protect us and some things simply happen, whether we like it or not, while we try to protect our children in a world that is getting more disturbing. Suicide has become the main cause of death for teenagers in our country and it appears that in all age-groups people are more depressed than two decades ago. Several of us survived our own struggles with suicide, so if our experiences can help others, we are happy to share them.
And even though we’ve been around for over two decades, we have still decades of potential ahead of us and we’re currently working on new material where we explore new avenues and try to further our past achievements.


10. With the release on October 31st, what are your plans for promoting the album? Can fans expect any special live performances or tours to accompany this release?

On Saturday November 9th we’ll present our new album at the Blast of Eternity festival in Heillbron, Germany, while a week later on the 16th we’ll present our new album at our home base: dB’s Studio in Utrecht, The Netherlands. dB’s Studios was originally a rehearsal studio complex we frequent since the early 2000’s and since then it has grown into a musical hub, with it’s own pub and stage that also welcomed bands as “Winterfylleth”. After that we’ve nothing planned yet, but we’re looking in getting a decent amount of bookings during the festival season of 2025.

Slechtvalk Official website - Death/Black metalband from the Netherland


 

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