1. Greetings to Greece. If I should compare "Temples of Torment" and "Morbid Blood", I would say that during the four years, you matured a lot as musicians; especially in the sense of making your music much more compact and somehow bound together. Do you think that this is true? Do you feel more confident in what you do?
„Morbid Blood“ reflects our regressive tendency. Us being more experienced and determined resulted in creating a solid album, filtering all our lust for the Black Metal and evil thrash sound. „Temples Of Torment“ was more like straightworward Black Metal, scandinavian type. This time we moved in the black/thrash/speed axis and an 80s point of view, let’s say first wave meets second wave. What hasn’t changed is our way of composing and that is no other than ‚riff after riff‘.
2. Another thing necessary to mention is that the production of the new album is on a different level too. Did you this time work harder with the studio engineer or did you do all the work just by yourselves somewhere in your private place and nursed the album to perfection the way you felt it?
We recorded the whole album live in our rehearsal place, then mixed it and mastered it in a studio. Our intention was to capture the coincidense of the moment and the negative vibes of a raging black/thrashing feast performed in real time. We had been rehearsing all the new tracks for over a year, played them live too, so we did each song a couple of times and kept the version with the ‚magic‘. What we value most is the choice of natural, human performance with the least of aid from technology. „Morbid Blood“ was recorded and produced by ourselves as we had a complete vision of what the album should be like, having total control over the final result. This makes us proud as we know „Morbid Blood“ is really a product of real effort and not the result of an engineer fixing all the natural playing and human mistakes. Human factor is what makes it REAL. I hate this kind of „perfection“. The old bands were truly good players, because they had to take it right (remember analog) cause there was no computer to fix them playing like machines. I totally hate it when bands sound killer in studio but cannot play the same stuff live. It’s like cheating. I wonder why sloppy playing or minor mistakes are considered a curse, to me it’s magic. There’s a huge list of bands like Sarcofago, Bathory, mighty Venom of course, early Slayer that distance from technical perfection but will be always worshiped as evil gods because of their musical brilliance.
3. "Morbid Blood is from my point of view much more striking than "Temples of Torment". There is not a second that would allow the listener to take a breath in the constant uncompromising blitzkrieg. Fortunately, everything has its sense and order. I also like the number of guitar licks that tend to give the album a lot of energy. What was the main inspiration for the creation of the new material and what was the main idea or intention behind it?
The main inspiration is the uncorrupt ideology of the early scene and the real sound of the black metal originators. Each band makes some kind of statement with their releases and stance, ours is the preservation of bestial primitivism which has been missed for a long time. It’s pathetic to see the majority of metal bands trying to be super clean and perfect, having that ‚yes sir‘ attitude and being listener/press-friendly. In our age you have so many hybrids that is impossible to find something 100% metal unless you dive into the underground, which is still an oasis for the purists. There has been such a greed for rediscovering the wheel and trying to be ‚innovative‘ that most have forgot what this music originally sounds like. Our intention was non stop carnage with variations between tracks but only within our style. We would never include a filler riff not to mention a track, no matter how long it takes us to get there.
4. Did you spend the whole 4 years by writing the material or did you have a creative break and composed and recorded the album in a short time?
It didn’t take that long to compose the album, we worked for its preproduction for a about a year or so. We spent time playing live for the Temples Of Torment album until it made its circle. We toured for two weeks in Europe with Setherial and Corpus Christii, then did a summer tour with Krisiun and Rotting Christ in Spain, Portugal and Germany, also did festivals like Festung Open Air, Dark Essence fest in Bergen etc and single shows. As I said before, we did the „Morbid Blood“ completely on our own, that means there was no rush in the process. Plus we wanted to negotiate another record deal and these things always take time. We ended up on US Hell’s Headbangers Records which was our number one priority, depending both on their excellent status within the scene and like-minded roster. If you add a few creative breaks and the labels‘ heavy release schedules, you get an idea of the time needed to see „Morbid Blood“ released. The CD version is out since late March while the LP will be out in May 2011.
5. In the official line-up, there are three of you and the drums are handled by a session musician. Why is it so? Was Maelstrom the one playing drums? How do you do this when playing live and why do not you accept him to the band as a permanent member? I think that the band as a whole slays!
No, there is no session in RAVENCULT, there’s 4 of us and we’re all full-time members.
6. What is the main theme of "Morbid Blood"? Will I be far from the truth when saying that the whole album is teemed with death and a kind of an inner disease? Does the album have any concept message or fundamental principle?
There is no lyrical concept throughout the album. What has a sort of continuance in „Morbid Blood“ is the aura of negativity – nihilism – denial, the driving forces of RAVENCULT mentality. Most lyrics are personal and usually metaphoric. When music is raw and savage, you can hardly expect to find themes other than Darkness and the beyond.
7. When I look at the new album cover, the new band photography, the different logo, it all a bit evokes bands like Watain, Nifelheim etc. Could one say that you in RAVENCULT are absolutely devoted to black metal in its purest form? It even seems to me that you are more of a black metal band than you ever were... I do not know if you know how I exactly mean this. Is this still possible today? These days, when black metal is just being spat and thrown dirt on and the bands tend to steal from each other and even from themselves...?
It’s reasonable that with time the band gets more focused and straight to the point. The imagery is just additional to the musical context, however I think it has to be in a certain mood to justify the identity of RAVENCULT. We carefully select our designs and visual presentation so it completes our vision and character. Of course it is possible for real Black Metal to exist nowadays, as long as there is will, mentality and dedication. Originallity is not so important for me anyways, I can dig anything that sounds soulful to my ears even if there are similarities with other bands or pervious releases. It depends on the approach. It’s a different thing, stealing riffs and filtering influences; second is ‚healthy‘ first is not.
8. "Morbid Blood" seems to me like a tribute to the old school of black metal. To the bands that were ones of the first pioneers who had their roots in thrash metal etc and that is where they were drawing their inspiration from. Am I right? Are you trying to uphold the "legacy of the old days" so that it does not cease? Are you of the purists that like this particular music the most and therefore create it with their band?
In a way I agree, glorifying the morbidity of the ancient black metal sound is our mission, yet this is not done for any ‚public issues‘ of the scene like helping the specific sound from ceasing. It’s done to satisfy the hunger for sinister expression and to externalize negativity. The reasons are always personal, if others find themselves attracted to it, that’s good. We practically live and breathe for the true black/thrash/speed/death/heavy/doom sound and RAVENCULT is the mean to honour it our way.
9. You seem to put emphasis on shorter, yet much more in-your-face compositions. Do you feel better on this field or is it just the way the songs naturally come? Do you think that it is better to have a shorter song that is in its every second full of energy and does not have time to bore the listener than to try to create epic songs that sometimes tend to lose the direction in their own indistinction? Have not you ever thought about a distinctively longer composition?
It naturally comes out like this because we always think in constant-inferno-mode. We prefer fast and violent tracks. That also makes sense since we are a live band and speed works fine in such a case. We never compose anything that we cannot fully reproduce on stage. I don’t think we will have any epic, long tracks in the future, there is no such mood or need.
10. I have not done many interviews with Greek bands. Could you please in some way describe how is black metal understood and received in your country? Are good black metal bands valued or is Greece plagued by cheesy "artists" and good black metal bands and dedicated fans are more of a rarity?
It’s more or less like any other scene; there are good bands and dedicated people, but the majority is quite the opposite. There is a core of people with regular involvement in the scene but most metal fans are into the commercial stuff. Of course we have a good tradition thanks to the old black metal scene and bands like Varathron, Rotting Christ, Necromantia, Zemial and so on. There has been a rebirth of the undeground the last couple of years and bands are gaining more and more recognition from maniacs abroad. I think the new blood (post 2000) has proven the knowledge and skills to release great albums/demos, there are a lot of examples like Goatvomit, Dead Congregation, Omega, The One, Macabre Omen etc. However there is a tendency in our scene, people respecting the local bands if they first get respect from abroad.
11. Well, this is all from my I guess... Thank you for the time you spent with the answers and I wish "Morbid Blood" success by those by whom it should...
Write to: RAVENCULT, PO BOX 3747, ATHENS 10210, GREECE. Thanks for the support. Our proud hail goes out to the living history of Czech scene, ROOT & Big Boss. The primitive sound returns!
