After listening to “Of
Martyrs’s Agony and Hate” a couple of months ago I felt quite impressed by the
music of Scent of Death that I really wanted to interview the band. It didn’t
take me long to think about the questions – done them all at work, as I had one
very quiet day and was able to write all of them of paper and think it through –
also Jorge didn’t toy much and gave great and informative answers. The result
is al good I think, but check it yourself.
I guess I should start
by asking you why the hell have you been so inactive for the past seven years?
What happened to the band after the release of the debut album “Woven in the
Book of Hate”? Have you had maybe some line up problems or label problems what
led you to stay a bit inactive? I’m just guessing here, but the truth is that
this CD went by pretty much unnoticed and not so many maniacs know it and Scent
of Death, right? Tell me, if I’m wrong and explain yourselves, please!
Hello from Spain!! Here’s Jorge, lead guitar of
Scent, ready for this third degree interrogation, hehehe… Well, a lot of things
had passed since we released “Woven in the Book of Hate”, we made a good number
of concerts after the CD release, working with live drum programming, but after
some gigs, we were very bored of this situation. We’ve found a local drummer,
Jorge, and began the rehearsals with this new member. We spend a lot of time
practicing with him. He never played death metal before (but he likes this
music a lot, obviously), so the work was very hard in the beginning. After some
months, we were ready to make the first live show with the new line up… The
songs of the CD were played in a slower tempo on these gigs, but the
performance was great, we thought that we’re building a good way to work faster
in the future. Later, we made a short tour with Dementor and Killchain, but the
speed of the songs was the same, we were completely blocked in this
aspect. We didn´t find a solution for
all these speed problems, so we decided to part ways; that was a completely
friendly separation, you know... He is now in a nu-metal band and I only have
the best wishes for him.
We began the search for a new drummer. The
first option was Alfred, who recorded the first album, but he was very busy
with other bands, recordings, clinics, masterclasses… Finally we didn´t find a
way to combine our agendas. A couple of months later we’ve found our actual
drummer, Rolando “demolition man” Barros, a legendary musician in the Portuguese
scene. We spoke with him and he accepted the offer to play with us. Rolando is a fucking grinding blastmachine;
you can hear his work in the entire album, it´s completely amazing!!!
During this time we had finished the
composition of all the tracks of the new record…time to search a studio. We
were in contact with a local producer, but this man was a fucking incompetent,
he works with delays and an evident lack of professionalism in all the aspects.
At the same time, our singer disappeared, we lost completely the contact, no
phone calls, no answer to the mails… Fuck, he only told us a couple of months
later that he was very busy and another shitty explanations (we still don´t
know the real reasons today!!!), after eight years of friendship and musical
affinity he left the band in the worst moment, in the middle of a new
recording… fucking situation, man!!! We began the search of a new vocalist. Rolando suggested us one of his friends,
Sergio (he is the singer in another brutal band from Portugal called Bleeding
Display (check this band!!!)).He learned all the tracks of the album in a
month, so he was ready to enter the studio in a record time!!! He recorded the
vocal lines in two days and all was great (finally!!!...). The incompetence of
our sound engineer was growing and growing and we decided that we will either
change the studio or we could kill
this “professional”. Once again, Rolando
gave us the solution. We spoke with the man who recorded the last CD of Grog
(one of the bands where Rolando is playing), a fucking genius called André
Tavares. This men saved us from all the incompetence we suffered in the past.
He works fast and with an incredible precision and patience. In two months the
mixing and mastering of the songs was made… Finally all comes to the end…
All the changes in our line-up made us stronger,
our actual formation is the best of all our years in our musical life… We have
the problem of the distance, but Rolando and Sergio are very talented
musicians, and only with a rehearsal we can be ready for a concert.
Yes, the CD is pretty unnoticed for now, but we
are beginning the work, man. You know, day after day we are busy in the
promotion; sending CDs, using the web to spread our name, working with promo
agencies like Viral Propaganda, answering interesting interviews like this one,
hehehe…
I actually meant that
the debut album “Woven in the Book of Hate” went by rather unnoticed and not
many maniacs would hear it and know the band’s name.
I see that some of the
band members, who recorded “Of Martyrs’s Agony and Hate” are new, they joined
the band quite recently – I mean here the drummer and vocalist… What happened
to the previous band members and how have you found the new companions, who
joined you in your antichristian crusade?
Well, I think that this question is answered in
the previous one…
I actually do have
“Woven in the Book of Hate” and I can say it is damn good album. I rated it for
80/100 at that time of its release. Tell me what reactions of the underground
have you seen on this CD? What happened to this album that it remained so
little known? Do you think it deserved more?
Thanks a lot for your words about our music, my
friend… We make music in a complete hedonist way, hehehe… fuck the new fashions,
we are here to play killing Death Metal in an obscure and technical style. We make music for ourselves, for our personal
pleasure and satisfaction, you know… All the reviews were very good; the people
really appreciated our songs and the effort in the design of the booklet and
the killer cover. We are proud of our edition; we think that our CD can compete
with any release of today in the extreme genre.
I don’t know if we deserve more recognition for
this new opus, I am not too worried for this aspect. Scent of Death was born in
1998, we are a part of the metal scene for 15 years, we still are here, our
unique intention is to make good music, the music that we like to hear… Obviously,
we are trying to promote our name around the world, but we are conscious that
our style is underground and the underground is a fucking jungle where it is
very difficult to stand out from the mass. Many bands work very hard every day to conquer
some recognition, and we are now in this situation. The personal satisfaction
of a well done music is enough for us.
With Pathologically
Explicit Recordings, aren’t you afraid that once again the album may not get
the deserved recognition? You know, I’ve never really heard of this label
before, so I’m afraid that their abilities as well as promotion, distribution
may be very limited. I mean, OK, they’ve released a number of brutal death
metal, mainly Spanish and US bands, but really I have a feeling like your album
may need a little bit more, but correct me if I’m wrong and actually
Pathologically Explicit is improving with their promotion?
Remember that we come from Spain and in this
country the situation is very fucked in all the senses… We trust in the work of
our two record labels, the conditions they offered to us were the best in my
country. Other labels only give us promises and nothing was clear with the
final result. I think that Bloody and Pathologically Explicit are making a good
promotion work within their means. We know very well the work of Fernando and
Dani (the owners), they are working hard for the underground scene and their
bands, you can be sure!!! The album deserves a little bit more? I don´t know, it
will be great to make a contract with Listenable or Unique Leader, perhaps for
the new record, hehehe…
And they also release
the LP version of “Martyrs’s…”. Ha, that must be great feeling to have
something like this released! And with that artwork it surely will look great
(and sound also of corpse!).
It´s very cool when you see your music released
in this format. The vinyl is the best representative of the metal music. After
some years of the CD supremacy the big format is coming again with strength,
that´s good!!! I think that the sound in this version is more “organic”, far
away of the “clinic” sound of the CD and near to the “real” sound. It´s great when you see a big size cover with
all the details.
Trick question now!
But I’m curious – is the misspelling in the title “Of Martyrs’s Agony and Hate”
intentional or it’s just a result of imperfect English of Scent of Death
members? I guess it is a bit sad that the album came out with the mistake in
the title…!
Yes, this is a trick question!!!The misspelling
in the title was a fucking incident! You can be sure that this mistake is not
intentional. It’s a sad situation, but I hope that this small error does not
represent a drag on the quality of the CD . Come as you see, the English learning
level in Spain is not the best, hehehe…
Seeing the titles of
both your albums and also reading a bit of the lyrics from the new CD I can
make an easy conclusion that Scent of Death is very antireligious,
antichristian band. Tell me something more about it. You know, Spain, just like
Poland, belongs to those very catholic countries, so is this fact actually
making you even angrier towards religions as you can see its hypocrisy in your
everyday life?
We are against all religions, my friend. Spain
is a catholic country, but we see year after year how the cult is getting
weaker and weaker. If you go to a church on Sunday, you will see that the ages
of the congregation are between 55-65 years. The Catholic Church doesn’t have a
young generation to continue the worship. I think that this religion is
condemned to oblivion. The other side of the coin is the Islamic
fundamentalism… They are fucking crazy, but their power and influence is
growing every day. They represent the real problem.
I wonder how your
families react on these antireligious views and the fact that you desecrate all
what’s sacred for most of the Spaniards? I know that your country is not just
very catholic, but also with big family bound. So, have you already been cursed
by all your grandmothers for being “the devils” hehehe?
Well, we never had any problem in this aspect,
some people can think that we are crazy or something like that, but the freedom
of expression in this country still stands strong. The best for our grandmas is
that they don´t know what we do hehehe…
The artwork for “Martyrs’s…”
is pretty symbolic… Dead Christ embraced by the devil in the ruins of church…
Say something more about it…
Our cover is a very strong and symbolic image,
that´s true. We like a lot the concept, where you can understand the
composition of the image like the triumph of the reason (symbolized by the
devil) and the failure of the religious dogmas. One of the strongest figures in
the Christian iconography are the martyrs, the higher expression of the sacrifice
in the catholic doctrine. All the faith and love of the martyrs can be turned
in the purest hate when they see that their god is only a lie. They spend their
lives for a false idol, and that´s a fucking situation!!! You can understand
the cover art in this way but it can also be seen like a simple satanic image.
Do you think it’s
possible that one day we’ll live in world without any religions?
I think that it´s impossible, my friend. The religious
yoke appears in all the aspects of the actual society, like a cancer in the
roots of the men through the history. The humanity needs to create a superior
“god” to justify its existence, that´s a fact. Even if the initial purpose of
the religion is good (to preserve a moral laws for the society), you can be
sure that sooner or later the doctrine will be distorted and perverted for the
benefit of an elite. It’s a sad thing,
but the mankind and the religion are united till the end of the times.
Technical, brutal,
modern death metal, but played in the way which still makes it memorable,
energetic and killer is not easy and common. But Scent of Death really managed
to get it done all right way. I did enjoy the album a lot, even if often such
music is not necessarily my thing. Tell me, what aim did you have while
composing “Martyrs’s…”? How did you want the music to be like and sound like
and how much are you satisfied with the final result?
We are very satisfied with the final result,
but as I told you in the first question, this album was a hard test for the
entire band. Once again, thanks a lot for your words about our music, I think
that you are our fan #1, hehehe… We spend a lot of time in the composition of a
new track, we use a lot of riffs and arrangements in our songs and this process
can take three or four months for each track. We try to use different tempos
and riffing style in the composition, it´s a hard work, but we don´t want to be
a band that is repeated on each album. Until now, we have two new tracks (“The
Lesser Evil” and “Sooner or Later”), and I can assure you that these songs are
a fucking storm of fast Death Metal!!!
Our personal tastes are varied. Personally, I
don´t like these new bands of “old Death Metal”, it’s a fucking metal fashion…
Most of these bands don´t contribute with anything to the old style, they only
make a “clonation” of the historic bands. Death metal must evolve with the time,
we must respect the old and the music of the pioneers, but if you base your composition
only to make a copy of other bands that isn´t good for the style.
I think “Ego Te
Provoco” is my favourite song, what about you?
Yeah!!! “Ego…” is one of my favorite tracks of
this album. Five minutes of a mid-tempo song with a lot of groove (something
like “Where the Slime Live” hehehe) and fucking explosions of brutal death
metal. The drum work of Rolando and the vocal lines of Sergio are amazing and
the solo work is very precise and clean. We are very proud of this track, I
think that this song is like a death metal symphony, with some kind of
orchestral atmosphere, you know…
Would you say that
bands like Suffocation, Hate Eternal, Nile, Morbid Angel, Severe Torture have
influenced you when composing “Martyrs’s…”?
Yeah men!!! We love all these great gods of
Death Metal (except Severe Torture, this band don´t represent any influence for
us). Immolation is a very strong influence for us, you can see it clearly in
our first CD, we love this band, but I must said to you that this band has lost
a lot of power and intensity when they replaced their drummer (Alex Hernandez)
for the actual (Steve Shalaty). Don´t get me wrong, he is an incredible
drummer, but he doesn´t have the creativity and the style of the previous one,
that´s true… The band lost a very important member… They lost the twisted
character in the composition and the arrangements. “Harnessing ruin” is the
first bad album of these gods of death metal and I think that they are fixing
this situation CD after CD, but I prefer albums like “Unholy Cult” or “Close to
a World Below”. We try to search a personal sound, but we are surrounded by
metal everyday and this situation can be an influence, hehehe…
What make you go to
Portugal to record “Martyrs’s…”? Was it because of the financials or you just
don’t have any proper studios in your area?
As I said before, our first sound engineer was
a fucking idiot… we left the first studios for this reason. The problem was the
men behind the controls, not the recording room, with very good equipment!! As
I said before, we were lucky at the end, because we’ve found the perfect men
for the work in Lisboa - André Tavares saved our asses, my friend!!
Arrgghhh, tell me
honestly – do you like Behemoth’s “Lucyfer” song?! And guess why am I asking
this question!
Hehehe… You think that I had copy the beginning
of the “Lucyfer” song, because it´s very similar , but this track was composed
in the times of our first CD, in 2006, so I
think that in this case, Mr. Nergal has stolen my riff, hehehe…
Who knows, maybe he
did hehe???!!! How do you remember the beginnings of Scent of Death and those
days when the band was formed? What led you to form this unholy legion? And
what about “Entangled in Hate” demo? Do you still enjoy what you’ve done in
your very beginnings?
We were younger and with more hair in our head,
I think… I founded Scent with Carlos; we were very active in the local metal
scene and our previous bands were dissolved so we decided to create this new
beast, hehehe… We are proud of our first tracks (even the ones which never were
recorded), and of course we love the “Entangled in Hate” MCD. That release
represents the first steps in our musical path, and songs like “Tortured Mind”
and “Living Structures” are full of hate, darkness and Death Metal violence. In
the first times we spend a lot of hours in the rehearsal room (time has not
changed that) and we were trying to find our personal sound and way of
composition, you know… We are still working in the same direction, but with
another point of view, perhaps more professional. Without any doubt, the old
times in the band were fucking great, but I prefer the present times, we are
very happy with our new CD and the upcoming t-shirts, with a incredible design
for all the die-hard metal fans!!! (some subliminal advertising, hehehe…)
Will you be playing
some gigs to promote the album, maybe a small European tour or something? Would
you be able to do something like this, or your day jobs, families and other
responsibilities don’t let you do that?
We are now working in this aspect, but a
European tour is very difficult in this moment. The distance between the members and the
economical aspect is a big burden. We only can make plans for gigs in our
country or a small tour between Portugal and Spain. Anyway, we prefer to make a
small number of concerts with good promotion to assure a minimal affluence of
public, we prefer quality before quantity. We only accept a European tour with
Morbid angel or Immolation, hehehe…
Ha, question I always
like to ask!!! Tell me something about the early Spanish scene, from early
90’s! What bands did you like most and why do you think they’re not so well
known? I do like such bands as Antropomorfia, Necrophiliac, Unbounded Terror,
Elbereth, Avulsed, Mythical, Sacrophobia, Fermento, Feretrum, etc,. How do you
like them? Why they all seem so little known? Would you like to record some
covers of such old Spanish bands? And from nowadays, what are your fave hordes
from Spain?
The old times!!!! I was a young metalhead,
always listening heavy metal and thrash… and beginning my way into the death metal.
We were very lucky in this time, because Galicia has a little but very strong
scene. I think that the best bands of the country come from my land: UNNATURAL,
SUFFER AGE, DEFACE, S.O.K., ABSORBED… you can hear their recordings and see
that they were one step beyond the rest of the Spanish scene (Check “Avowals”,
a three-split CD of Galician bands). The
bands you said from Spain are a legend in our metal history, but I must tell
you that I don´t like very much their music… sorry! We don´t have in mind made
a cover of these old songs, we prefer to spend our time in our music,
hehehe…
My fave bands from Spain are the old UNNATURAL
(the BEST Spanish Death Metal band of all times - check their MCD “Throne of
Anguish”) BAALPHEGOR, VERMIS ANTECESSOR, EPHEMERAL and UPCOMING OF DEVASTATION.
I recommend you all these bands, my
friend!!
I do also respect what
Dave Rotten did and still do for the scene. Oh yeah, this is the questions,
would you want to join the roster of Xtreem Music, which seems to be a good
label?
Xtreemmusic
it´s one of the biggest labels in Spain, sure… Rotten is a very active
figure in the underground scene in our country. This label has edited a lot of
CD´s and is one of the biggest portal of brutal music in the world… but they
don´t show any interest in us. We send a promo, but we didn´t receive any
answer from the label… I don´t know why.
Galicia, where you
live, is autonomous land, belonging to Spain. How do you feel about this? I ask
about that, as recently there was a lot of noise around Catalonia and Basque
and with the problems of Spanish economy maybe some would like to separate from
Madrid? Do you think it is good option?
This entire politic situation is stupid, my
friend… Some people in Catalonia and Basque Country want to conquer the
independence of the Spanish state. Here is the problem: some people, but not
all the people in these lands… the separatist are a minority, but they make a
lot of noise in the actual crisis. Spain in very fucked in this time… our Politics
are a bunch of corrupt motherfuckers, we have five millions of unemployed, the
public money are poorly managed. This situation makes stronger the separatist
opinion, but I think that the economic and social problems will not disappear
with this political option. We need to stand united in the present time, our
country needs a political cleaning, a purge in the institutions.
If I was a tourist,
interested in history, which historic but also some modern places would you
recommend me to visit in your area?
Ourense is a little city, but this fucking hole
in the ground has a good number of historic constructions, like cathedrals and
roman bridges. We have a lot of thermal waters, and this situation bring us a
good number of tourists. Is a very quiet place, you know, but in the cultural
aspect it´s a dead city.
OK, I’ll finish here
as it seems already a lot of questions on different topics have been asked. Do
you have anything to add? Maybe you wanna recommend the album or something, do
it freely now and take care! Thanks for this interview!
Well, thanks a lot for this great interview; I
hope that all the people who read these lines will be interested in our music.
All the metalheads can be sure that our new record don´t disappoint anyone! We are in a good number of places in the web,
check our links and stay in touch!!!
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