ESSENCE OF EXISTENCE – Interview with n-gh

Creations Of History Reveal The Future Where The Daemons Hide Their Legacy

You exist 10 years! I heard only your last album “Terra Mentis”. Did your music evolve during these years, comparing with previous albums?

Of course our music evolved, it would be unnatural for us to create three albums in the same way. But we were not taking any chaotic revolutionary steps between our records, I would rather say that we went through natural evolution.

I associated your music with CRADLE OF FILTH. But and I would mention EMPEROR, BAL-SAGOTH or a bit CHILDREN OF BODOM yet and them similar bands. Did these type of bands have on your works some influence?

I believe that anything that you go through in life has an effect on your future actions. So of course we know these bands but we listen also to many others also from non metal genres. When we create and shape our songs we always try to add our own unique seal to them and form the song into a new entity.

You are not classic Black Metal band, what is visible and is audible. For me this is Progressive Symphonic Black Metal. How do others define your music?

We already heard a lot of different opinions that tried to create some box for our music or put us in an existing one. Comparisons like black doom of death, doom metal with black metal influences, symphonic black/death metal or progressive symphonic black metal as you call it and some others. They all can work but we simply call it Metal Art 

In your music use the feminine singing among black/death growlings, apart from a lot of guitar-key melodies. This all does not reduce a heaviness and an aggressiveness of whole music. The tracks very are developed. How does an individual track come into being?

Technology or Astral creates whole song on their own at the start and bring it to the others. Independently of the music I prepare the lyrics sometimes before, sometimes after the music is created. The song goes then through long process of maturing – musical and vocal arranges, change or upgrade riffs or change their order in the song. We want to give life to each song. When this is done (it takes us usually several months sometime even years) we start the recording which is really different process. It is common that the songs go through changes also in this process. The vocals are crucial at this point. If necessary the lyrics are changed to improve the final result. Obviously the mix and mastering are very important to finalize the songs at the end. We pay big attention also to the context / order of songs on the album, because they are just elements of a bigger picture.

Is the woman who sing guest only?

The female vocals are done by our keyboard player Fear, who is with us from the very first record.

We are very glad she is with us for her personality and great skills of a singer, keyboardist and songwriter.

“Terra Mentis” looks like conceptual album. Would you bring closer a subject-matter of album?

As well as on on previous albums, songs Terra Mentis are tied together by a concept. Terra Mentis continues where previous album Ephemeris Sun finished. The last song on Ephemeris Sun is Innovation Of The Ruins and is about recreation of the Multiverse. That is exact place where the story of Terra Mentis starts Creations: Born 1010011010. The story of Terra Mentis is about a civilization that creates its own gods who terrorize and exploit them and has to flee from its own planet to a space colony. After several generations of space flight towards the unknown the descendants of original refugees forget why they live on a spaceship. But I do not want to reveal the rest of the story.

Does the album have some message? The whole oscillates in pretty mystical and futuristic climate.

You can find one small message encoded in names of Terra Mentis parts. It is sort of a secondary title of the album. The lyrics can be understood in different ways, one can perceive them as a part of a painting. Music and melodies are the colors and the lyrics are the shape or vice versa. The important thing is that we do not want to make a one use / disposable music, I mean for one listening. We want that our fans can find new things in our music and it does not matter if they listen to it for the first time or for the 100th time. We believe that Terra Mentis is such a piece of metal art. If you take a closer look you will see that the pieces of the album are like a puzzle and they are nesting. You start with the intro: Creations where industrial orchestrations meet blackened riffs and smoothly merge with first track (Spiritless) of Of History part where it continues in black metal mood. The name of this part refers also to our previous works. Second part name Reveal The Future suggests more progressive tracks and that is exactly what you can hear. It is not hard to guess what to expect in Where The Daemons Hide part dark, almost doom metal mood and atmosphere once again reflected in the lyrics. The final piece outro Their Legacy: Components Of God is like a last breath of the album. It is simple, stripped from vocals and guitars.

The album released Spanish label Mondongo Canibale Records. How did Slovaks hit to Spanish label?

Mondongo Canibale liked already our previous work Ephemeris Sun. Weve sent them the Terra Mentis promo and they were interested. We were fine with the contract conditions they had proposed to us so we signed. Metal was always a global issue and I do not see anything strange when Scandinavian bands are with Slovak labels and Slovak band is with Spanish label etc.

I noticed your previous albums are sold out. Don't you repeat editions? What is interest your music in Slovakia and in other countries?

Well they are really sold out. At the moment we do not plan any re-editions. The interest in our music is I would say normal for a metal band from Slovakia. There are some metalheads that want to buy our albums, there are a lot of downloaders who want to hear our work, in fact there are more than ten thousand downloads of our songs only from our official site plus some hundred listens on our myspace web. We are very glad with the global promotion of Terra Mentis that is done by Mondongo Canibale. There is a big possibility that Of bloody Tears will be available on our official site for free download in the future.

I thought Slovakia and Czech Republics have Death Metal scene mainly. But I know scenes in these countries always were very strong. What is in Slovakia at present?

Honestly I do not know because I live in the Czech Republic for several years. I heard that there are some new bands and new young blood flows into the scene. But I did not hear about any new breakthrough band from our country.

What is your concert's plans for 2008 year?

At the moment we are more a studio band than a gig band and none shows are planned/scheduled. It is caused by geographical locations of our members: Astral (guitar, vocal) is still in our hometown of Trencin in Slovakia, Fear (keyboard, vocals) is in Bratislava and Technology (guitars, vocal) and me n-gh (bass, vocal) we are located in Prague, Czech republic. So it is very hard for us to rehearse and make shows at the moment.

But I think it is hard to play concerts with so complex music.

If you practice a lot and the sound engineer allows you to hear what you need to hear through the podium monitors it is not a big problem 😉

Fanatic metalheads often do not like bands like CRADLE OF FILTH or DIMMU BORGIR. These fans are orthodox mainly. But I think you have not problem with frequency on shows?

The musical taste of metalheads differs and I do not have anything against it. If someone does not like the band on the podium he can always leave the show or wait for the next one.

What concert did you remember the best?

It was in Bratislava several years ago. Several hundred fans came just to see us. It was a great feeling and hell of a show.

And this is all. Traditionally I always give an end of interview for band…

Stay metal and embrace the music with open minds. It usually pays back.