Interview:Jamie Saint Merat
Empire of Death
empireofdeath.com
1)Let’s begin with the new release: can you describe quickly "Of Fracture and Failure"?
Of Fracture and Failure is our debut album for Neurotic Records, an album we’ve worked very hard towards in terms of writing, performance and recording… It’s a pretty dense listen in the sense that its 45 minutes of the darkest and dissonant material we’ve written so far, as well as making a step in the more atmospheric direction we’re looking to take Ulcerate. We’ve also written the majority of the album in a linear sense, so avoided any ‘song’ structuring, implementing an ‘a,b,c,d’ format throughout, so that the listener is always kept guessing as to what is going to come next. The album is 9 songs, 8 of those being fully fleshed death metal tracks, whilst ‘Failure’ is an instrumental that deviates from the aforementioned sound, but hopefully still maintains the suffocating atmosphere we as a band are trying convey.
2) What are the greatest differences and similarities between the new release and “The Coming of Genocide”?
Well the immediate difference is the performance and recording style. TCOG was recorded very minimally, yet at the same time we strived to make a crystal clean, and ‘tight’ sounding recording – as a demo I think this is crucial to get your point across when you don’t necessarily have the means to invest in an awesome production. So when we came to do the album, we took a step away from that ethos and wanted to create something that is very dense and very powerful, where clarity is not the be-all and end-all – the down-sides of that being that we perhaps come across now as not as ‘tight’ as previous recordings, but that’s not how we sound or play anyway. I’m not interested in making robotic quantized records, Ulcerate is and will always be about conveying the extremities of emotion, regardless of how bullshit that idea sounds within this genre.
3) Your sound is very complex and rich of modernisms: what are your greatest
influences?
Influences from a metal background: Immolation, Today is the Day, Gorguts, Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Hate Eternal, Necrophagist, Anaal Nathrakh, Shining, Gorgoroth, Blut Aus Nord, Origin
Outside: way too much too list anything and everything that harnesses some sort of extreme emotion… a few would be Bohren und Der Club of Gore, Isis, Jakob, Jesu, Godspeed You! Black Emperor
4)Are you completely satisfied by your new full-length?
Haha of course not! I don’t see ourselves ever being satisfied with an album … you do the best you can at a given time and hope for the best. I think in terms of writing, we’re very pleased, but performances and production can always be better, it’s just the way it goes! We’re still young, so mechanics such as performance are only going to get better and more fluent, so who knows, maybe one day we’ll be closer to nailing every aspect of an album
5)How would you describe your sound to those who don’t know your band?
Pitch black, dissonant and crushing death metal.
6)There are some track on “Of Fracture and Failure” that you prefer? Why?
Personally my favourite track from a performance standpoint is ‘Becoming the Lycanthrope’, a couple of other stand-out tracks would be ‘The Mask of the Satyr’ and ‘Martyr of the Soil’, but overall, every track is worthy of extended listens, I really don’t think we’ve written an album where skipping tracks is a necessity… The instrumental ‘Failure’ is certainly a stand-out as it really is the first ‘relent’ of the album, so it is definitely going to stand-out to listener, whether they like it or not haha
7)What do the lyrics talk about?
The lyrics follow a rough concept from track 1 to 9, the eventual extinction of mankind and the path that this will follow…
8)What is the meaning behind the cover and the title “Of Fracture and Failure”?
The cover art and layout reflect the concept – ‘Of Fracture and Failure’ is the term we have applied to describe the faults of our race and how we have managed to exponentially rid the earth of the majority of it’s natural resources and fellow inhabitants, and in the process unwittingly destroyed our own kind. Basically when I was approaching the initial sketches for the cover, I was looking to metaphorically describe the death and rebirth of mankind, or at least the failing of our species to fully develop, the shedding of our shell, and eventual domination by another species.
9)Can you describe the songwriting process?
Painful haha. Guitarist Michael Hoggard and myself flesh out the parts ‘acoustically’, generally 2 guitars, and practice pads for percussion, recording every jam and structuring and rearranging parts as we see fit. We both write for guitar, and both have input for percussion arrangements, so it’s a 50/50 split of ideas. Then when we have rough outlines, we begin to practice the transitions in the rehearsal room, figure out what is not working, what is not playable(!), and what flows. One song generally takes a month or 2 of fairly consistent work until we’re happy with it and everything flows well. We’re not about having 40 riffs in a song that all stop and start - we work very hard on our bridges and transitions, so nothing feels awkward. Everything must have a purpose.
10)What are your future plans?
Well, touring the album in NZ, Australia, Europe and North America at this stage. The idea of relocation is seriously on our agenda, being here in NZ is a total hindrance, so we’ll see how that works out. We’re looking to start writing for the next album within the next few months, so album no.2 is definitely on the way…
11)Why you begin to play extreme metal?
We were all drawn to and began listening to it in high school for whatever reason, and figured that we could all play it… At the time a lot of the ethos of extreme metal made a lot of sense, so it seemed like something cool to be involved in.
12) 2006 as been a great year for death metal: what are, in your opinion, the best releases of last year?
Negativa – Promo
Odius Mortem – Cryptic Implosion
Gorgoroth – Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam (black metal I know…)
Spawn of Possession – Noctambulant
Amon Amarth – With Oden on Our Side
The Interview is over...than for your collaboration, say what you want to the readers of EmpireOfDeath!!!
Thanks for the interview, awesome questions, and cheers for the support! We really want to get out there and play the ass off this album, so hopefully soon you’ll see us in Europe!
- Jamie
www.offractureandfailure.com
myspace.com/ulcerate
www.neurotic-records.com
