Wrathage Interview

1.Can you give us an update on what has been going on with the band since the recording of the new album?
Scythe:
Well first of all thanks for the interest and the review, it was great after seven years of absence to read the first DISCIPLINE review \,,/
After the album was finished we of course started looking for labels for possible collaboration on the release and finalising the booklet designs and all the promo materials, shirts etc. and since we're a pretty much do-it-yourself band it all takes it's time to get things done. Also as we're not rehearsing nowadays for live performances we're already planning the next release and choosing the song drafts on which to work on. Also we're in the process of making a music video for the song "Walking to death" from DISCIPLINE.

2.You have a new album coming out in March, how would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recording and also how does it differ from the stuff you have released in the past?
Scythe:

There's a lot of that good old late 90's second wave black metal atmosphere combined with really cool guitar work and Finnish harshness. I think we complicated things a bit too much on Crawlspace antipathy just to make it sound more progressive or unusual, this time we weren't pushing to make everything sound unique or difficult, we just let the music take it's course and let it go where it needed to go and how we enjoyed playing the songs. So I think the song structures have a more constant feeling to them and thus propably a bit more accessible. Also we haven't been that big on guitar solos earlier so now with H.Beast and Viha on the line-up there's a lot of magnificent guitar porn on many of the songs.

3.This is the first album to be released in 7 years, can you tell us a little bit more about the gap between releases?

Scythe:
We have never been really efficient in producing material, we get a lot of ideas and drafts but a lot of good stuff never gets made into a song and released as we can't finalise them. Also this is the first full lenght album we have done and this time we recorded everything by ourselves and that was a learning experience. Next time I think it will go a lot more smoothly, I promise it won't take seven years this time :) There's also some really old stuff on this album, on "Distortion" there is a couple of old D.V Grim riffs from his 1999 song "Into the holocaust" which has never been properly released, I just really thought they went well with the other parts of the song and put the final song together, also "Walking to death" first draft was done in 2003 with a really heavy and slow sluggish touch where as the final version is a whole lot of different than what originally planned.

4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the newer music?
Scythe:
I could give it a go but I'll let Koba who writes all of our lyrics tell you about his take on Black metal and things.

Koba:
For me the reason I work in the medium of Black Metal is that I see BM still, though it's not a new thing anymore, in the frontline of cultural evolution. BM is a force driving progress, since it hasn't stagnated into a doctrine and it continues to challenge new boundries. Of course there was this misunderstanding that true BM is set thing, but that too was challenged. Rebellion is to me what drives humanity forward. This could be traced back to Albert Camus and his collection of essays titled the Rebel (originally in french: le'revoltee). Camus's philosophy of the Absurd is also close to my thinking.

Death in Black Metal is dominant as is Darkness and desolation. They all are imagery and symbols of the soulscape. Death is a part of life as evil, or whatever one decides to call it, is of the whole of being human. Religious and moral hypochrisy is to me appalling, and the cry for death and absolute annihilation is not: it is a real sensation, even if it is infantile and selfish. Most feelings are everything but exulting. This is not how I thought in the beginning or earlier on, but this is how I see it now.

The political aspects are new to BM, but I see it as a natural progress of evolution within BM to take on new areas and enemies. BM has nor a BM artist doesn't need to shout out the hidden death yearns or to showcase a prayer for destruction: destruction and death of the palnet are evident and humanity as a mass is working directly towards those ends. BM can move on to pin point the hypocrisy of polithcs and other codes of human conduct that are as absurd as dogmatized religion. Maybe politicians should come out in the open with their real intentions and the effects of their decisions on the course of all existance. 248 million years ago 99% of all living organisms were annihilated. Politicians have a way to go to achieve this, but they're on the right track.

5.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Wrathage'?
Scythe:
A bunch of immortal angry youngsters from Northern Finland gettin' drunk and playing metal music:) I came up with the name when I was like 16 years old and you know teenagers are always angry at something and it sounded cool so it was chosen as the band name. I think the original work in progress name was a really cheesy and cliche one called "autumnal dusk", it sounded nothing like us and thus wasn't chosen.

6.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?
Scythe:
The first one is always huge and we were lucky to be opening up for DISMEMBER with DEATHBOUND as our first ever gig so there was a good crowd there and all went really well. However the best ever respond has been in Jalometalli Winterfest 2007 with a lot of young metalheads banging their heads out and a couple of great moshpits emerging occasionally, it was an amazing feeling to perform to that crowd (cheers to everyone who were there \,,/). But what it looks like? I think a Half a dozen good looking fat metalheads from Finland :) HAHAHAAA!!!...\,,/ Well not that fat anymore. We enjoy playing live, I like both the making and performing of the music, however now as we have spread the band all over Finland we're not actively rehearsing and thus propably we'll be releasing new material more frequently.

7.Do you have an any or show plans once the new album is released?
Scythe:
Nothing now, we'll first see how well it is received and whether we receive any good offers, we haven't rehearsed in a couple of years at all so in order to get the live-performance solid we'd have to rehearse quite a lot and that needs a good motivation to get the crew together.

8.On the new album you did a Morbid Angel cover, what was the decision behind doing one of your own versions of their songs?
Scythe:
Actually I was thinking of doing Emperor's "With strenght I burn" but untill that was rehearsed Kuisma had already recorded the drums for the Morbid angel song and since it's a really bad ass song we decided to do our intepretation of it. It was also nice to hear and see H.Beast playing Morbid angel solos \,,/.

9.The new album is coming out on Maa Productions, can you tell us a little bit more about this label?
Scythe:
Well there isn't actually a lot to tell, the communication has been limited to facts about the release. But how we came into co-operations is that I noticed them releasing the latest "As light dies" album so I took contact to them and since they were interested in releasing the album and what I had heard from others they seemed to handle their business really well so we took their offer. And what I've heard Japan is one of the few markets nowadays where people are buying more CD's where as pretty much everywhere else the sales are plummetting.

10.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by both fans of black and death metal?
Scythe:
Based on our previous releases I think Sweden hates us:) HAHAHAA!!! (Please someone prove me wrong?) A lot of good feedback mostly, some of the more underground true black metal circles haven't been too fond of our style which can be understood but in overall we're really pleased to see how well people from across the globe have understood our vision of the Metal extreme.


11.What is going on with some of the other bands or musical projects these days that some of the band members are a part off?
Scythe:
Kuismahc plays drums in Kalmah which is currently composing new material for the next album and they're doing their first gig in Norway this year at may in Karmøygeddon Festival (http://karmoygeddon.no/).

I have actually been ramping up a new international online collaboration of sorts with some really cool people, stylishly we're doing a kind of a Jazzy-Avantgarde-post-metal-
rock-thingie, a lot of Ved buens ende, Virus and Yurei influences with maybe a hint of Arcturus to accompany the weirdness, really excited to see how people receive that material. This project goes by the name of "Selcouth" and will be made public soon. Currently we have people participating from Finland, France, Spain and Russia.

Also I participated a little on another online collaboration called Hécatombe Humaine with a couple of songs, I think the release will be mosly ambient but I made a couple of metal songs, one in the vein of Cadaver - Necrosis in 280Bpm \,,/. This will be a more underground release.

Tero:
I also play bass in a band called Liverbox.
We are a bunch of old men, (I´m the youngest and I´m 34), playing rock´n´roll. Currently we are mixin our forthcoming Ep, playing gigs and planning the future of the band.

12.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
Scythe:
Onwards, there's a lot of new songs already being composed for the next release and no drastic changes on the style anticipated, maybe even better songs \,,/

13.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your newer music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Scythe: The biggest influence over the years is definitely the second wave norwegian black metal from late 90's, grew up on those albums and still listen to them on a regular basis. Currently really excited of the new Dodheimsgard album "A Umbra omega", the one sample song they've released "Aphelion void" is just fantastic piece of art. I try to discover new interesting bands all the time, recently discovered a lot of great French avantgarde metal bands like Spekt, Igorrr, Smohalla, Pryapisme, Stagnant waters and Deathspell omega. Also I've acquired the entire Adversum catalogue - only quality releases there like Yurei, Delirium bound, Alpha obscura, Manimalism etc. I actually made a list of my favourite 2014 releases so I'll share it here:

Bloodway - Sunstone voyager and the clandestine horizon EP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMb5Sf-TaiU

Deconstructing Sequence – Access Code EP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngqgRaMx7co

Bölzer - Soma EP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qYVNcmZyLc

Thantifaxath - Sacred White Noise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w9TbulMd70

Execration - Morbid dimensions
https://www.youtube.com/watch…

Manimalism - Manimalism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbmEtfDBNOI

Mayhem - Esoteric warfare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d7cr-zdm1Y

Kampfar - Djevelmakt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtifXWB3IQQ

Thy darkened shade - Liber Lvcifer I: Khem Sedjet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6pqbDMKBt4

Necrophagia - WhiteWorm Cathedral
http://necrophagia.bandcamp.com/album/whiteworm-cathedral

As light dies - TLA vol1.
http://aslightdies.bandcamp.com/track/nemesis

The Deathtrip - Deep drone master
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ijl7crxqkg

Philm - Fire from the evening sun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAoBuFewYMs

14.What are some of your non musical interests?
Scythe: I've been into Ashtanga yoga for a couple of years soon which balances the extreme metal side nicely.

15.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
It feels good to be back! \,,/

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