Three full-length albums, four demos, some splits and EPs, that is result of the Greek BURIAL HORDES during their 17-year career. But with the new fourth album, there was an interesting change when they moved from Black / Thrash Metal to a more modern Black Metal and it is so good I could not believe it. I've been thinking over the interview a long time ago, but after listening to the new "The Termination Thesis" material it was decided. Although our request for the interview ended in the spam folder, the band fortunately noticed it and finally they answered. As for the interview, my questions were a little out of the way for this band, but it does not matter at all, maybe the interview is more interesting. Cthonos (vox) replied to the questions.
Greetings to BURIAL HORDES band. What vision, dream or tendency was born the idea to form band from? What was the initial impulse and how long did it take to do it all?
Greetings.
The band was formed with a central purpose and philosophy to be a poison and a wound on the religion body /society while in musical level we want to explore different paths, totally in the contrary of the established Greek Black Metal traditional sound which had dominated the scene those days.
Referring to the philosophical aspect of the band, I have the feeling that it is an obvious answer. It is well know how strong is the influence of Christianity in the Greek society in all the levels for centuries now.
A society of fools who are poisoned till their core till nowadays and they are deeply submerged in a mythical belief. People who proudly accept the slave mark, kneeling in front of fake entities and objects giving power to human leeches.
That was the conditions that forged our personality and hate from the early years of our existence, so Burial Hordes was created as a weapon against them.
For the musical aspect it is necessary to make first, a briefly description of the scene in those days.
In the end of 90s and after the glorious days on the first half of the decade, the Greek Black Metal scene was in a decay.
Trapped by the ghost of Rotting Christ (of course it wasn't Rotting Christ's fault) the scene was overcrowded by multiple clones of them, with a result, an uninspiring period with bands lacking of will and ability to present something different. So subconsciously the band took the decision to walk in the opposite of the established situation.
Burial Hordes spawned and was doomed to explore colder, darker and more violent paths.
The new album is a little bit different from the previous two ones in some aspects, I personally would say it is your darkest but also the most artistic act, while you are moving musically forward, you are not stagnating. Was it a direct intent or the flow of your vision is just flowing thus in BURIAL HORDES?
Every Burial Hordes release is a reflection of ourselves in that particular time, a mirror to our thoughts, so as we evolve as persons, the same happens with the band.
If you examine our whole discography from our first demo till our new 4th album, you will discover that our evolution is occurring very natural. We don't have dramatic shifts on our sound or lyrics, between our releases, and each of them one after one are connected.
It could be said your music is on the one hand even more melodic, but it also causes chaos mainly by two different guitar lines. However, after listening begins to appear the horrible contour of sick harmony and disharmonic or grotesque shapes. Do you think disharmony takes a bigger part of it?
We have the ability to use every tool that is available to achieve the most accurate representation of our vision.
The last years that the band have started to dive in darker fields , it was natural to give more space to harmonic and disharmonic melodies to produce a deep feeling of hopelessness and despair.
That was one of the reasons that we begun to use 7 string guitars and 5 string bass.
We needed to expand our musical choices and to add more information in our songs .
But in the end everything depends on the concept and the atmosphere we want to capture.
Which track of "The Termination Thesis" album do you consider as the author to be the most challenging in compositional and atmospheric view? Can you see your songs individually and analyze them or do you perceive it as a whole?
As I mentioned above, the whole process begins with what concept we want to materialize and once the main theme is 'locked', it is the foundation which everything is build upon. In this case with (The Termination Thesis) album, obviously is a study about death and I must admit that it was the most challenging concept that we put to ourselves.
We submerged deeply to forbidden territories of human thinking, where reality and paradox collide and we truly tested ourselves. Working upon this album, I found myself to realize that you may be aware of your true fate and your inevitable ending, although the defensive mechanisms of the brain are very strong causing a war with your self. A necessary war, if you want to overpass the obstacles and dive deeper in your consciousness.
"The Termination Thesis" was a hard procedure almost exhausted I can say which hit the apex with the last track of the album "From Synthesis to Aposynthesis".
A 17 minutes monster, dark and merciless song with unbelievable flow and development created by Psychaos.
Personally, this track allowed me to break all my self boundaries and stand totally naked in the precipice of emptiness where even Reason is bend. Truly I embraced the void and the song guided me, to almost a frantic and intense writing. Surely one of my most extraordinary experiences I have ever felt during my course with Burial Hordes.
Greek Metal bands often implement to music some elements, or sometimes pure inspiration from traditional Greek music. Could you say you are either consciously or subconsciously influenced by it?
No, definitely not. Greek traditional music don't have any impact on us.
Would you say your current style is something modern, of course in terms of extreme Metal (work with extraordinary dynamics, composition, atonality, etc.), or you just enrich the old school by new elements that were not yet in the 80's or 90's significant?
The concept of the album, the music and the visuals are attached in all the Burial Hordes releases.
Therefore as we expand our philosophy to deeper and darker fields the same happens with the sound.
With the embodiment of death metal ingredients (low tuning, low vocals etc) and the addition of dissonant melodies we succeed to manifest accurately our vision, with lyrics and music to be absolute connected and so to consider each of our release as one entity. Not as concept albums with the strict meaning of the word but close enough.
Surely, I don't think that we have any modernity in our music.
Although in many reviews it is mentioned our combination of black and death metal as modern, I think the boundaries between these 2 genres ceased to exist years ago, so I don't find it true.
Burial Hordes is just an old school band with character and experience and with the ability to use every tool available effectively.
How do you write your own music? Do you have traditional established paradigms that work from the beginning or it changes over time? Do you take it as working with your inner being, perceiving your own dark world and dip into it?
Yes a creative pattern exists and is unchangeable for all the Burial Hordes releases with only a minor change in our new album.
The concept is the central point and the beginning of the process. We connect everything, from music, lyrics, the cover and the title in that way, until this idea takes shape in the most perfect way.
So, the first step is the concept, then N. E. C. R. O and PSYCHAOS compose the music, after that I write the lyrics, and the last stage before the recording is to fix every detail in all the tracks.
Usually the cover is the last matter that we take care after the recordings but for our new album we changed our steps and we commissioned the great Russian painter Vergvoktre to craft the cover, before we have started to compose the songs.
We took this decision to have, not only the concept as a beacon but also the cover, as an additional pillar of inspiration and it really worked for us ideally.
Vergvoktre presented us a masterpiece, "The Vortex of Doom", an ode to cold rationalism.
A symbolic image of human's grotesque reality, which gave us a clearer path to the abyss and to construct this nightmare called (The Termination Thesis).
Do you ever use a mindless way of music writing? Something like drawing by subconsciousness and then you are surprised by what gets out of it? Or it's all deliberated process with a clear vision...
I believe this question was covered with my previous answer.
Could you say if dreams, nightmares, sleep deprivation, sleep paralysis and other sleep disorders affect you at writing? What's your experience in this area? Have you ever dreamed a dream when you woke up in such a mood you could not concentrate on sleep again and the darkness made you annoyed?
Dreams and nightmares are a natural function of the brain and once you understand this, it doesn't affect you at all. Sleep paralysis is a natural disorder, proceed by an instant malfunction of your brain, so there are not any supernatural mysteries involved here, despite the myths that exist for this subject. I have experienced this once in my life but knowing what it is I overcame it smoothly.
So, as you understand the answer is no, these things doesn't affect me at all in inspiration level or anything else.
All my concerns exist in the conscious state.
How do you perceive death during your life? Do you think with increasing age you think of death more often? Is death a pure phenomenon and a mystery to you or you not pay attention to things that are the future? Do you believe death is a transformation?
The fact that we have created a whole album dedicated to Death and that in all our previous releases always played an important role, makes obvious that is a major subject for us in a personal way.
We stare at him in the eyes and even that is absolutely clear in our minds, who's gonna fall in the end it is certain that Death holds no fear to us.
I mean, we do perceive death as every human being deeply knows.
The difference is that most of human activity is a way for the mankind to deny the fact of his grotesque fate, with many ways such as the embodiment of comforting illusions of any kind. The instinct of self preservation is a major function of the brain in every human being, so they are willing to believe anything that provides better truths and fate.
As for us, we took the other road. We are aware that our road has an ending in some point as happens to all the things in the universe. Our road has an ending, but we are walking with dignity and we are not crawling behind illusive hopes.
Is Death a transformation?
Yes, you can say it's a kinda of a transformation, if you consider the fact that when a body is buried all the molecules infused in the nature and will be parts on another structure. This is the cycle of life, till Death vanishes everything into Nothingness.
What book are you currently reading? What type of literature do you prefer and which titles are the most interesting for you? The same thing I would have asked you about cinematography. Do you watch occult, psychological, historical movies and which are your most favorite? How much does art or philosophy shape you?
Art and philosophy are the best things that humans create and they play a major role in my life.
During my teenage years I have built a view of life based in Reason and my huge interest is to explore the mysteries of reality. My inner foundations are based in logic and most of my searching's are founded in the art of realism.
Literally realism, existential philosophy, history, science are the fields which I'm interested in and I explore.
Its impossible to know exactly in what degree art and philosophy had shaped me, but probably affect me in a million ways.
From the other hand I basically rely on my own thoughts, born from deep retrospections, experiences, observations while art and philosophy are used as a tools of this personal exploration.
Currently I finished the reading of Richards Dawkin's book "God's Delusion". A well known title which was published back in 2006 so I don't think there is a reason to be more detailed about this but undoubtedly it is a very interesting book.
Japanese movies from the period of 1950- 1970 are my favorites, which in my opinion are not only artistically perfect in all levels but each one is a precise lesson about human Condition.
Akira Kurosawa is the ultimate director and his films are a monument of the 7th art and in Burial Hordes we have used 2 samples on Incendium and Extinction albums taken from Kurosawa's movies "Throne of Blood" and "Seven Samurai".
What part of human history is closest to you and why?
All the parts of human history are equally important and interesting because each one paved the path that we are walking today.
Although I have a little bit higher interest for the period of the first industrial revolution until the end of 20th century. A crucial period which is responsible for the formation of our modern world.
Okay, from my side it would be all. Hope the questions were not too boring and wish BURIAL HORDES a lot of dark inspiration, thanks to the interview.
Thanks for your words and the opportunity to present Burial Hordes to your readers.
All the best to your activities.
http://burialhordes.bandcamp.com/
Cthonos 24. 10. 2018 Mortuary
Greetings to BURIAL HORDES band. What vision, dream or tendency was born the idea to form band from? What was the initial impulse and how long did it take to do it all?
Greetings.
The band was formed with a central purpose and philosophy to be a poison and a wound on the religion body /society while in musical level we want to explore different paths, totally in the contrary of the established Greek Black Metal traditional sound which had dominated the scene those days.
Referring to the philosophical aspect of the band, I have the feeling that it is an obvious answer. It is well know how strong is the influence of Christianity in the Greek society in all the levels for centuries now.
A society of fools who are poisoned till their core till nowadays and they are deeply submerged in a mythical belief. People who proudly accept the slave mark, kneeling in front of fake entities and objects giving power to human leeches.
That was the conditions that forged our personality and hate from the early years of our existence, so Burial Hordes was created as a weapon against them.
For the musical aspect it is necessary to make first, a briefly description of the scene in those days.
In the end of 90s and after the glorious days on the first half of the decade, the Greek Black Metal scene was in a decay.
Trapped by the ghost of Rotting Christ (of course it wasn't Rotting Christ's fault) the scene was overcrowded by multiple clones of them, with a result, an uninspiring period with bands lacking of will and ability to present something different. So subconsciously the band took the decision to walk in the opposite of the established situation.
Burial Hordes spawned and was doomed to explore colder, darker and more violent paths.
The new album is a little bit different from the previous two ones in some aspects, I personally would say it is your darkest but also the most artistic act, while you are moving musically forward, you are not stagnating. Was it a direct intent or the flow of your vision is just flowing thus in BURIAL HORDES?
Every Burial Hordes release is a reflection of ourselves in that particular time, a mirror to our thoughts, so as we evolve as persons, the same happens with the band.
If you examine our whole discography from our first demo till our new 4th album, you will discover that our evolution is occurring very natural. We don't have dramatic shifts on our sound or lyrics, between our releases, and each of them one after one are connected.
It could be said your music is on the one hand even more melodic, but it also causes chaos mainly by two different guitar lines. However, after listening begins to appear the horrible contour of sick harmony and disharmonic or grotesque shapes. Do you think disharmony takes a bigger part of it?
We have the ability to use every tool that is available to achieve the most accurate representation of our vision.
The last years that the band have started to dive in darker fields , it was natural to give more space to harmonic and disharmonic melodies to produce a deep feeling of hopelessness and despair.
That was one of the reasons that we begun to use 7 string guitars and 5 string bass.
We needed to expand our musical choices and to add more information in our songs .
But in the end everything depends on the concept and the atmosphere we want to capture.
Which track of "The Termination Thesis" album do you consider as the author to be the most challenging in compositional and atmospheric view? Can you see your songs individually and analyze them or do you perceive it as a whole?
As I mentioned above, the whole process begins with what concept we want to materialize and once the main theme is 'locked', it is the foundation which everything is build upon. In this case with (The Termination Thesis) album, obviously is a study about death and I must admit that it was the most challenging concept that we put to ourselves.
We submerged deeply to forbidden territories of human thinking, where reality and paradox collide and we truly tested ourselves. Working upon this album, I found myself to realize that you may be aware of your true fate and your inevitable ending, although the defensive mechanisms of the brain are very strong causing a war with your self. A necessary war, if you want to overpass the obstacles and dive deeper in your consciousness.
"The Termination Thesis" was a hard procedure almost exhausted I can say which hit the apex with the last track of the album "From Synthesis to Aposynthesis".
A 17 minutes monster, dark and merciless song with unbelievable flow and development created by Psychaos.
Personally, this track allowed me to break all my self boundaries and stand totally naked in the precipice of emptiness where even Reason is bend. Truly I embraced the void and the song guided me, to almost a frantic and intense writing. Surely one of my most extraordinary experiences I have ever felt during my course with Burial Hordes.
Greek Metal bands often implement to music some elements, or sometimes pure inspiration from traditional Greek music. Could you say you are either consciously or subconsciously influenced by it?
No, definitely not. Greek traditional music don't have any impact on us.
Would you say your current style is something modern, of course in terms of extreme Metal (work with extraordinary dynamics, composition, atonality, etc.), or you just enrich the old school by new elements that were not yet in the 80's or 90's significant?
The concept of the album, the music and the visuals are attached in all the Burial Hordes releases.
Therefore as we expand our philosophy to deeper and darker fields the same happens with the sound.
With the embodiment of death metal ingredients (low tuning, low vocals etc) and the addition of dissonant melodies we succeed to manifest accurately our vision, with lyrics and music to be absolute connected and so to consider each of our release as one entity. Not as concept albums with the strict meaning of the word but close enough.
Surely, I don't think that we have any modernity in our music.
Although in many reviews it is mentioned our combination of black and death metal as modern, I think the boundaries between these 2 genres ceased to exist years ago, so I don't find it true.
Burial Hordes is just an old school band with character and experience and with the ability to use every tool available effectively.
How do you write your own music? Do you have traditional established paradigms that work from the beginning or it changes over time? Do you take it as working with your inner being, perceiving your own dark world and dip into it?
Yes a creative pattern exists and is unchangeable for all the Burial Hordes releases with only a minor change in our new album.
The concept is the central point and the beginning of the process. We connect everything, from music, lyrics, the cover and the title in that way, until this idea takes shape in the most perfect way.
So, the first step is the concept, then N. E. C. R. O and PSYCHAOS compose the music, after that I write the lyrics, and the last stage before the recording is to fix every detail in all the tracks.
Usually the cover is the last matter that we take care after the recordings but for our new album we changed our steps and we commissioned the great Russian painter Vergvoktre to craft the cover, before we have started to compose the songs.
We took this decision to have, not only the concept as a beacon but also the cover, as an additional pillar of inspiration and it really worked for us ideally.
Vergvoktre presented us a masterpiece, "The Vortex of Doom", an ode to cold rationalism.
A symbolic image of human's grotesque reality, which gave us a clearer path to the abyss and to construct this nightmare called (The Termination Thesis).
Do you ever use a mindless way of music writing? Something like drawing by subconsciousness and then you are surprised by what gets out of it? Or it's all deliberated process with a clear vision...
I believe this question was covered with my previous answer.
Could you say if dreams, nightmares, sleep deprivation, sleep paralysis and other sleep disorders affect you at writing? What's your experience in this area? Have you ever dreamed a dream when you woke up in such a mood you could not concentrate on sleep again and the darkness made you annoyed?
Dreams and nightmares are a natural function of the brain and once you understand this, it doesn't affect you at all. Sleep paralysis is a natural disorder, proceed by an instant malfunction of your brain, so there are not any supernatural mysteries involved here, despite the myths that exist for this subject. I have experienced this once in my life but knowing what it is I overcame it smoothly.
So, as you understand the answer is no, these things doesn't affect me at all in inspiration level or anything else.
All my concerns exist in the conscious state.
How do you perceive death during your life? Do you think with increasing age you think of death more often? Is death a pure phenomenon and a mystery to you or you not pay attention to things that are the future? Do you believe death is a transformation?
The fact that we have created a whole album dedicated to Death and that in all our previous releases always played an important role, makes obvious that is a major subject for us in a personal way.
We stare at him in the eyes and even that is absolutely clear in our minds, who's gonna fall in the end it is certain that Death holds no fear to us.
I mean, we do perceive death as every human being deeply knows.
The difference is that most of human activity is a way for the mankind to deny the fact of his grotesque fate, with many ways such as the embodiment of comforting illusions of any kind. The instinct of self preservation is a major function of the brain in every human being, so they are willing to believe anything that provides better truths and fate.
As for us, we took the other road. We are aware that our road has an ending in some point as happens to all the things in the universe. Our road has an ending, but we are walking with dignity and we are not crawling behind illusive hopes.
Is Death a transformation?
Yes, you can say it's a kinda of a transformation, if you consider the fact that when a body is buried all the molecules infused in the nature and will be parts on another structure. This is the cycle of life, till Death vanishes everything into Nothingness.
What book are you currently reading? What type of literature do you prefer and which titles are the most interesting for you? The same thing I would have asked you about cinematography. Do you watch occult, psychological, historical movies and which are your most favorite? How much does art or philosophy shape you?
Art and philosophy are the best things that humans create and they play a major role in my life.
During my teenage years I have built a view of life based in Reason and my huge interest is to explore the mysteries of reality. My inner foundations are based in logic and most of my searching's are founded in the art of realism.
Literally realism, existential philosophy, history, science are the fields which I'm interested in and I explore.
Its impossible to know exactly in what degree art and philosophy had shaped me, but probably affect me in a million ways.
From the other hand I basically rely on my own thoughts, born from deep retrospections, experiences, observations while art and philosophy are used as a tools of this personal exploration.
Currently I finished the reading of Richards Dawkin's book "God's Delusion". A well known title which was published back in 2006 so I don't think there is a reason to be more detailed about this but undoubtedly it is a very interesting book.
Japanese movies from the period of 1950- 1970 are my favorites, which in my opinion are not only artistically perfect in all levels but each one is a precise lesson about human Condition.
Akira Kurosawa is the ultimate director and his films are a monument of the 7th art and in Burial Hordes we have used 2 samples on Incendium and Extinction albums taken from Kurosawa's movies "Throne of Blood" and "Seven Samurai".
What part of human history is closest to you and why?
All the parts of human history are equally important and interesting because each one paved the path that we are walking today.
Although I have a little bit higher interest for the period of the first industrial revolution until the end of 20th century. A crucial period which is responsible for the formation of our modern world.
Okay, from my side it would be all. Hope the questions were not too boring and wish BURIAL HORDES a lot of dark inspiration, thanks to the interview.
Thanks for your words and the opportunity to present Burial Hordes to your readers.
All the best to your activities.
http://burialhordes.bandcamp.com/
Cthonos 24. 10. 2018 Mortuary
interview
Death Is Omnipotent
