Torrefy returns with their new album Necronomisongs, pushing their signature "unorthodox black thrash" style further. In this interview, they discuss influences, themes, and their evolving sound.
1.
Congratulations on the upcoming release of Necronomisongs! How does this album represent
a progression or evolution from your previous release, Life is Bad?
“Life is
Bad’ represented the band finding its intended voice and style musically. We
are very proud of the “Life is Bad’ record, and used the formula we developed
for that album for “Necronomisongs” but in a more concise, confident and
polished way. The theatrical and eclectic blackened intensity that has become
the band's trademark has evolved organically from our first recording up to
this one. We all have agreed that this album is the truest form of the band you
can hear short of seeing us in a live setting. “Life is Bad” is the “A New
Hope” setting the stage and setting of our abilities and intentions, “Necronomisongs”
is “The Empire Strikes Back” taking the language of the previous work to create
something larger, more ambitious and aesthetically grand.
2. Your
music is described as “unorthodox black thrash.” Can you explain what makes
your approach to songwriting and composition unorthodox, and how that plays out
in Necronomisongs?
The adding
of the unorthodox addendum is intended to prevent the listener from being misled.
While our components within the band largely equate to blackened thrash, with screeching
ghoulish vocals, pummeling blasting drums, often tremoloing guitars and
breakneck relentless tempos, we rarely stick to a single style or even genre
within each of our tracks. Guttural rhythm driven sections saturated with the
death metal of the mid-90’s, powerful and triumphant riff movements from the
era of Rainbow and Blue Oyster Cult, moody sludgy bogs of the doom revival and
otherworldly macabre waltzes from the dsbm and post-black genres are just a
sample of the many musical acrobatics we perform in an effort to showcase our
passion not just for the sub-genres but the movement of extreme metal itself.
The central concept and sound of the band is the black-thrash one is likely to
picture when imagining the genre, Aura Noir, Immortal, Witchery, or Goatwhore,
but to simplify what we are trying to create to a single definition would be
disingenuous. However, Neo-Progressive Post-Blackened Melo-Death-Thrash sounds
pretty fuckin pretentious, so we say Unorthodox Black-Thrash.
3. The
album blends elements of thrash, black metal, and more, all while maintaining a
sense of memorability. How do you strike the balance between genre
experimentation and keeping the music accessible?
Thrash is
such an elastic genre, having it be our base for songwriting gives us a lot of room
for experimentation within the genres of metal. Thrash itself is the genesis of
the extreme metal movement that began in the late 80’s before its development
in to death and black metal throughout the 90’s, shifting gears between those
three genres while retaining coherency is natural, effectively creating a
timelapse of evolution from Thrash to Black to Death. Melody and musicality
remain important to us as a band, even when we let loose into our most extreme
or brutal moments we only go there as a contrast to the controlled sections
surrounding it. Our music skirts the edges of accessibility with its rapidfire
dynamic progressions, harsh yet varied vocals and ballistic tempos, but it all
comes together with the intent of creating a song not just a collection of
exercises in complexity. Nodding along with our tracks is not a difficult thing
to do, this is because regardless of every member specific influences, what
they regard highly in music is the language of a song having a coherent
narrative as a sonic whole.
4. Songs
like “Of Wind and Worm” and “Enslaved New World” have been approved for
airplay. Can you talk about the themes or inspirations behind these particular
tracks?
Every track
on the album is inspired by and written about a novel. Enslaved New World is
taken from the book “Fire Sea” the 3rd book in the “The Death Gate Cycle”
series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. The novel is set in the lava-filled
core of a frozen world where a race of sorcerous beings have resorted to
necromancy as a means to keep their dwindling society afloat. Unbeknownst to
them the rules of necromancy state that when a life is returned another must be
taken in kind, and so through their own hubris and misuse of their abilities
they have caused the near extinction of their own kind. Many of Torrefy’s
lyrics are critical of the misuse and wasting of resources across the planet,
and equally as critical of the people in power overlooking these condemnable
practices. Critiquing these fantasy novel characters proved not too difficult
once the parallels were easily drawn between the greed of sorcerers and the
greed of the real world's powers.
“Of Wind
and Worm” is a grand-scaled interpretation of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” series,
largely the first one, but with some references to the later books in the
series and their handlings of the concept seeing into the future. Lyrically
more broad and descriptive of the landscapes and harshness of the planet
Arrakis within the dune novels, with sections describing the overwhelming of
the senses one would experience with the power of precognition and near omniscience
gifted to those capable of surviving the consumption of a sandworms bile. This track
leads the charge of “Necronomisongs” as the first track written for the album,
the first single along with a music video, and the first track on the album
itself in order of tracklist.
5. The
album’s title, Necronomisongs, is intriguing. How did you come up with it, and
does it suggest a thematic connection to H.P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon or
something entirely different?
We were
aware of the Necronomicons lovecraftian associations but in all reality, it was
mostly the campy horror cult-classic “Evil Dead” that brought us to the album's
title. Quotes from the Evil Dead films are common at our rehearsals, and as we
progressed with the writing of the album and it became clear we were moving
forward with the book themed concept we began spit-balling title ideas.
“Torrefy’s Flesh Bound Book” became a pet-title and running joke until this accumulated
into someone uttering the term “Necronomisongs” as a pun to get a rise from
other members. The immediate reaction was an agreement that this should be the
album's title.
6. Your
album artwork by Blackstory really stands out. How did the collaboration with
Blackstory come about, and how does the artwork reflect the themes or
atmosphere of the album?
BLCKSTRY
had done several pieces for us in the past that we used as t-shirt art. Their grim
and detailed style spoke to us and was perfectly suited for the imagery we are
trying to evoke with our music. The art was a collaborative concept from all
the members of the band depicting a ghoulish conductor seemingly reading the
Necronomicon as though it were sheet music as an orchestra of reanimated
corpses play their instruments at his commanding whims.
Throughout
the art and lyrical booklet you will find summoning runes for different demons
who’s specialties reflect the songs within the album.
7. With
bands like Skeletonwitch, and Vektor mentioned as your influences, what
elements of their music have influenced Necronomisongs, and how have you put
your own twist on those inspirations?
The list of
bands that inspire us is both extensive and exhaustive. In order for each of member
individually to arrive at a point of creating and performing our style of music
we all had our lifelong journeys as music lovers. To say all 5 of us are
equally inspired by the same bands would not be true, each member has 100’s of
influences that shaped their abilities and then their own autonomy as an artist
to mold the finished product of their expressionism. Skeletonwitch was one of
the first bands that all 5 members held in a mutual regard, their style of evil
yet catchy black thrash was certainly endearing to us both as metal fans and
performers, alternatively Vektor’s complex otherworldly style of thrash mixed
with their epic song lengths allowed us to feel comfortable presenting our 8
minute plus blackened thrash epics on our previous albums. What we have landed
on with “Necronomisongs” is somewhere in-between those two takeaways from these
bands, while also bringing our own original and unique takes on the genre of
extreme metal as a whole.
8.
You’ve been working on this album for four years. What was the recording and
production process like, and how did working with Cody Baresich at Circle A
Studios and Brad Boatright at Audiosiege contribute to the final sound?
Cody was
there at the beginning of the process to record Dan as he captured the drums which
would be the albums backbone and reference point for the rest of the members
recording their parts. Cody was excellent to work with, as a musician himself
he understood some of the less than technical language we would use to voice
our requests and hopes. After the drums were captured we used our rehearsal
space as a studio while Dan captured and edited both guitars, the bass, and the
vocals. The band then mixed and edited the album to the point of being about
95% done before we brought it back to Cody at Circle A to finalize the edits
and mixes. The ease of getting the sound we wanted with Cody was extremely
satisfying, and with his recommendation we sent off these tracks for their
final polishing by Audiosiege as they mastered the album to allow every
instrument the space it needs to breathe and have its distinct voice while
working with all the other components to create the bigger picture of an
actualized album.
9.
Tracks like “Corpseback Rider” and “Apex Shredatorr” have particularly intense
and evocative titles. Can you give us some insight into the stories or concepts
behind these songs?
First and
foremost they’re both funny and kind of badass at the same time and we all are susceptible
to our senses of humor so that often plays the biggest part in most of our play
on words style titles. Portmanteaus have been a common thread in our titles
since the 2nd album, and there are a couple reasons why; the familiarity of a
common phrase or word helps the title feel comfortable even upon the first
reading of it, and therefore memorable. In today's market there is and endless
array of selection for the average metal consumer, youtube, spotify, bandcamp, and
various social media sites allow so much access to so many bands at all times that
simply describing your music may not be the best route to capturing someone's
interest long enough for a click. The art work, and titles, have to do a lot of
heavy lifting in that regard.
Hopefully
if a title can garner a reaction of any kind, whether it be a smirk, and
eyeroll or a full on laugh or “fuck yeah” then it has become more likely thet
track will get a new listener.
10. As a
black thrash band hailing from Victoria, BC, how has the local metal scene
shaped or supported your journey as a band, and how are you hoping to expand
your reach with this new album?
The metal scene on the west coast has been incredibly kind to us. It has allowed us to play shows with some of our heroes as well as our best friends. Victoria took a blow during the pandemic, many venues were lost and many bands did not make it through the 2 year shutdown, or much longer after it. However new bands of younger metal heads are beginning to sprout up like saplings after a forest fire, in no time i believe Victoria’s metal scene will be thriving once more. As I am sure it is with most band we want to expand our reach as far as it will stretch. With our label Witches Brew situated in Germany we have received greater attention from Europe these past couple years, as well with the Festival Circuit now back in full swing we hope to be able to bring our sound to our neighbors down south, and eventually to the other side of the pond where heavy metal was invented. We believe this album has the potential to draw a whole new wave of Torrefans into the world. Thank you for your time and this interview.
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