Again we are introducing the band from Chile and again this is a very young band with a single recording. This is a purely female band called SEPULCHRAL RITES of which some may have some worry as for obscure Death Metal. No worries, this trio of women plays something you would never have doubted that their music would be in any way more melodic or finer. Their first demo, featuring two rotten and death stinking tracks points to a honest and orthodox approach with the darkness given to them right from the first moment. So I contacted Sataniclust (bass) and this trio told us something about their interesting band, but also about many other themes. If you have not met their work yet, I can only recommend SEPULCHRAL RITES and know the new material is slowly but sure arising...
SEPULCHRAL RITES is quite a new thing. Sure you have fresh memories of your beginning, so what purpose did you form the band for? Is there something missing in Death Metal scene what would you like to add to it by your vision?
First at all, we want to thank you for the space in this zine and your interest on our work, which really passionate us, the metal of death!!! Going to your question, la idea of forming the band comes from the time that we were teenagers, since our youth we were submerged in all this music world, there’re many things in our lives that match, we all came from families with musicians in it and music lovers in general and specially Rock fans Since we were girls (bass and drums) we play together always with the idea of playing metal, but the style develops through time, in between we were playing in other bands too, absorbing knowledge and learning about team work, until we meet Hellwitch, she also played among other bands when she lived outside Chile. We meet each other and rehearse immediately and there was a good feeling, kinda’ magical. After that Occulterror joined on vocals, which recorded vocals on our promo-demo.
The interesting fact here is we all going in the same way, our interests are the same about the lyrics or creating that obscure sound which speaks for itself, and is giving good results.
The reason for creating the band, is the need to materialize so many ideas that we have on our minds, the need of making music that push us, which gives sense to everything, that need to surround ourselves with darkness, creating sharp sinister riffs which passionate us.
SEPULCHRAL RITES name is actually speaking for it all. Why did you choose this name and what does it symbolize to you? The same thing I would also ask about your logo, though it is not especially sophisticated, but it contains magic symbols...
The name was chosen because first we focused on the concept and what we wanted to spread, writing about rites, sacrifices, energies, inexplicable things and little by little we reached the name which identifies ourselves. The logo was chosen as a group, we all are related with art in general, each one of us gives ideas for this and that symbolizes something very strong in a team work like a band, both in the art, lyrics and music.
The logo represents the night, soul, feelings, the obsessions, the forgotten hidden deep wishes of our beings. The moon describes our relation with the sacrifice like it is and shows our devotion to the nature which is very powerful. The inverted triangle no only represent the feminine side of the being, but all the adversary, the night, the left side, the darkness complementary of the light. Enemy and complement. The skull represents the concept of death, which is unknown for everyone and the fate of every living being. Death represent transcendence and evolution.
So far you have released the only "Promo-Demo" recording from 2017. Is it a direct reflection of what will follow? Are you a type of band that will play about what you have already shown, or it is possible you will also move in another direction, for example you will add more Black Metal elements?
Indeed, effectively the Promo – Demo is the only stuff recorded ‘till the moment and is a reflection of the things to come in the future, keeping the line of old school death metal as a basis, with black metal touches, that’s because we love different musical styles, like doom, punk, death, black and thrash metal, so it would be impossible not mixing those musical tastes and only keeping one way.
Talking about this stuff, it had a re-edition on pro-tape format, thanks to the Polish label Unpure Records, which should be arriving soon.
About what has already been shown by the band, we’ve changed the main vocals, keeping the same style and now we passed to be a power-trio, and guitars and bass will take care of singing, in order to add more chorus and stuff alike, and with the idea of recording a single soon and later get ready to release an EP at the end of this year.
I feel like you're not playing ordinary old school Death Metal, but you're adding a lot of darkness that always makes music something more. Where do you draw inspiration for this sinister Death Metal?
We inspire always in the old sound and we’re metal fans since we were very young. Our influences goes from Black Sabbath (Fathers of the darkest sound), metal on its very beginning, bands like Celtic frost, Venom, Bathory, to bands like Asphyx, Sarcofago, Autopsy,etc. Our idea is always keep an identity of our own which comes from each band member own influences, we all have similarities on this and the same time, some difference.
The main idea is to create a dense atmosphere and not necessarily virtuous but with a soul, which is based on the primitive side of metal.
The creative process born in a natural way in the band, following our musical line and letting ourselves go free by the feelings given by the music.
Do you visit some interesting places with a special atmosphere where, for example, you can feel a negative or mystical atmosphere, places with ancient monuments, crypts, old cemeteries, monasteries and the like? Can such places inspire you for writing music? What most special place have you visited and did you ever get from any place literally shivers or fear?
Oh yes, we’ve visited on our own different places where historically had happened too much suffering and strong energies lies there, some important places with architectural value where is very interesting to go and feel those energies of important and terrible events like slavery, misery, plagues, sickness and all sort of things alike.
At having these experiences our relation with those dense energies had always started by curiosity, it doesn’t provoke us fear or something alike, but it’s more a approaching to the obscure and unknown.
Our inspirations to create mainly had much to do with life experiences and our own dark side of your selves that we unleashed through our music.
Since when have you been interested in mystical, occult and spooky things? Was it even before you got to Metal Music? What caused your interest in things that cannot always be explained by common understanding? Did you experience something that has influenced you forever and changed your understanding of this sphere?
In general always attracted our attention all things related with the occult and mythical much before meeting with metal music, wanting to know about death and all kind of paranormal events, was in our interest since childhood, always thinking on what’s beyond and always self-asking so many things without explanation, like having a bigger intuition, feel presences, feeling darker energies on certain people, having experiences on dreams or sleep paralysis, etc. As individuals have many life experiences in common about that kind of experiences.
Sleep paralysis is quite an interesting phenomenon for some people. Science explains it as turning off certain parts of the brain when the consciousness is active, but the body stays in a "sleeping mode", the muscles are inactive. On the other hand, one has special feelings in these experiences, perhaps this has another occult explanation. Have you personally met with sleep paralysis?
We agree at having some similar experiences, in that state between sleep and awareness, all of them in different degree and living that in different stages of our lives, as a group our experiences are very similar. In general we’ve lived diverse sleep disorder in diverse moments of our lives and some unexplainable situations as for example, sleepwalking.
You are a purely female band, which is a bit unusual in Death Metal, although not quite unique, e.g. Mythic in the past. Is it your complete intention to be a purely female band, even if personal changes have occurred? Can you write about this, why only women? Have you ever felt anything like prejudices or, on the contrary, exaggerated praise for this?
Indeed, the band main idea is this should be composed only by women, because we understand each other in a better way and as you mention before, although the line-up changes, this is because our singer departure, the vocals will be taken care by our bass and guitar player and chorus by our drummer. So, it wasn’t necessary to look too much for a new member ‘cause the understanding between us three is in a optimal level. We think that women have a very different way of seeing things due our nature and at the same time developing this energy in a team work..
We’ve diverse experiences, some very good ones and other bad, some people see us with instruments and immediately think our music will be weak, until they hear it and say: “hey, you play like men” and we think: “the fuck that mean?”, “means it is good?” In our country still at these days is a lot of ‘machism’ on our society, but for us the most important thing is to do what we like, which is to create music and keep playing our style.
Do you think the fact you are composing, perceiving and writing as women can bring some interesting elements to Death Metal? Actually, first when I listened to your material, I did not know line-up of your band and I did not even think that women could stand for everything. That was the biggest surprise for me when I found the reality...
Clearly, we understand and know that is bit uncommon inside Death metal a band only composed only by women. We think that in all order of things while there’s discipline, hard work and goals you can get important things. Maybe at being women we’ve different energies and communicate each other in another way, we transmit our sensibility, but the main fact is to be able of feeling that dark energy as many other musicians had felt it, independent if its women or men.
Do you think Death Metal can be played even more interesting and creative? From my perspective this genre is mostly just recycling what was created in the 90's and only a few can bring a real flame and madness to it. How do you look at this genre from today's point of view and which bands do you think are interesting?
A musical style always can be interesting and creative while the mind don’t close musically speaking, you’ve to feed yourself with other many things without losing the essence, adding touches from other styles but always keeping your own style.
Interesting bands for us will always be those who play a primitive, powerful, intense and hellish death metal.
The Chilean Metal scene has been over the past 10 years at its best, so many great Death / Thrash / Black / Heavy bands are probably not in any other South American country. Do you perceive this phenomenon alike?
About Chilean metal scene having its best moment in terms of quality bands is totally true, there’re great bands here, but the places to play live, sadly aren’t the optimal for such musical quality.
With respect on more important bands here, there’re some Chilean old excellent bands which are a bigger influence for us and precursors of South American death metal like for Pentagram, and from other countries, like Brazilians Sarcofago and Sepultura are a great influence. In the death metal scene in our country there’re important and very professional bands like Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Ejecutor, Godless, and more newer bands like Horrifying which are at another level, which we admire as great references of Chilean death metal.
Ok, that would be all from me, if you have some words for fans in Slovakia, you can write. Thank you for this great interview and hope SEPULCHRAL RITES will do the best, once again thank you.
Thanks to you for your support and interest on our work, we’re very happy on answering this interview and we’ll keep our path of the rotten evil metal!!! So be aware of our upcoming new stuff soon!!!
https://www.facebook.com/Sepulchral.Rites/
Sepulchral Rites 14. 5. 2018 Mortuary
SEPULCHRAL RITES is quite a new thing. Sure you have fresh memories of your beginning, so what purpose did you form the band for? Is there something missing in Death Metal scene what would you like to add to it by your vision?
First at all, we want to thank you for the space in this zine and your interest on our work, which really passionate us, the metal of death!!! Going to your question, la idea of forming the band comes from the time that we were teenagers, since our youth we were submerged in all this music world, there’re many things in our lives that match, we all came from families with musicians in it and music lovers in general and specially Rock fans Since we were girls (bass and drums) we play together always with the idea of playing metal, but the style develops through time, in between we were playing in other bands too, absorbing knowledge and learning about team work, until we meet Hellwitch, she also played among other bands when she lived outside Chile. We meet each other and rehearse immediately and there was a good feeling, kinda’ magical. After that Occulterror joined on vocals, which recorded vocals on our promo-demo.
The interesting fact here is we all going in the same way, our interests are the same about the lyrics or creating that obscure sound which speaks for itself, and is giving good results.
The reason for creating the band, is the need to materialize so many ideas that we have on our minds, the need of making music that push us, which gives sense to everything, that need to surround ourselves with darkness, creating sharp sinister riffs which passionate us.
SEPULCHRAL RITES name is actually speaking for it all. Why did you choose this name and what does it symbolize to you? The same thing I would also ask about your logo, though it is not especially sophisticated, but it contains magic symbols...
The name was chosen because first we focused on the concept and what we wanted to spread, writing about rites, sacrifices, energies, inexplicable things and little by little we reached the name which identifies ourselves. The logo was chosen as a group, we all are related with art in general, each one of us gives ideas for this and that symbolizes something very strong in a team work like a band, both in the art, lyrics and music.
The logo represents the night, soul, feelings, the obsessions, the forgotten hidden deep wishes of our beings. The moon describes our relation with the sacrifice like it is and shows our devotion to the nature which is very powerful. The inverted triangle no only represent the feminine side of the being, but all the adversary, the night, the left side, the darkness complementary of the light. Enemy and complement. The skull represents the concept of death, which is unknown for everyone and the fate of every living being. Death represent transcendence and evolution.
So far you have released the only "Promo-Demo" recording from 2017. Is it a direct reflection of what will follow? Are you a type of band that will play about what you have already shown, or it is possible you will also move in another direction, for example you will add more Black Metal elements?
Indeed, effectively the Promo – Demo is the only stuff recorded ‘till the moment and is a reflection of the things to come in the future, keeping the line of old school death metal as a basis, with black metal touches, that’s because we love different musical styles, like doom, punk, death, black and thrash metal, so it would be impossible not mixing those musical tastes and only keeping one way.
Talking about this stuff, it had a re-edition on pro-tape format, thanks to the Polish label Unpure Records, which should be arriving soon.
About what has already been shown by the band, we’ve changed the main vocals, keeping the same style and now we passed to be a power-trio, and guitars and bass will take care of singing, in order to add more chorus and stuff alike, and with the idea of recording a single soon and later get ready to release an EP at the end of this year.
I feel like you're not playing ordinary old school Death Metal, but you're adding a lot of darkness that always makes music something more. Where do you draw inspiration for this sinister Death Metal?
We inspire always in the old sound and we’re metal fans since we were very young. Our influences goes from Black Sabbath (Fathers of the darkest sound), metal on its very beginning, bands like Celtic frost, Venom, Bathory, to bands like Asphyx, Sarcofago, Autopsy,etc. Our idea is always keep an identity of our own which comes from each band member own influences, we all have similarities on this and the same time, some difference.
The main idea is to create a dense atmosphere and not necessarily virtuous but with a soul, which is based on the primitive side of metal.
The creative process born in a natural way in the band, following our musical line and letting ourselves go free by the feelings given by the music.
Do you visit some interesting places with a special atmosphere where, for example, you can feel a negative or mystical atmosphere, places with ancient monuments, crypts, old cemeteries, monasteries and the like? Can such places inspire you for writing music? What most special place have you visited and did you ever get from any place literally shivers or fear?
Oh yes, we’ve visited on our own different places where historically had happened too much suffering and strong energies lies there, some important places with architectural value where is very interesting to go and feel those energies of important and terrible events like slavery, misery, plagues, sickness and all sort of things alike.
At having these experiences our relation with those dense energies had always started by curiosity, it doesn’t provoke us fear or something alike, but it’s more a approaching to the obscure and unknown.
Our inspirations to create mainly had much to do with life experiences and our own dark side of your selves that we unleashed through our music.
Since when have you been interested in mystical, occult and spooky things? Was it even before you got to Metal Music? What caused your interest in things that cannot always be explained by common understanding? Did you experience something that has influenced you forever and changed your understanding of this sphere?
In general always attracted our attention all things related with the occult and mythical much before meeting with metal music, wanting to know about death and all kind of paranormal events, was in our interest since childhood, always thinking on what’s beyond and always self-asking so many things without explanation, like having a bigger intuition, feel presences, feeling darker energies on certain people, having experiences on dreams or sleep paralysis, etc. As individuals have many life experiences in common about that kind of experiences.
Sleep paralysis is quite an interesting phenomenon for some people. Science explains it as turning off certain parts of the brain when the consciousness is active, but the body stays in a "sleeping mode", the muscles are inactive. On the other hand, one has special feelings in these experiences, perhaps this has another occult explanation. Have you personally met with sleep paralysis?
We agree at having some similar experiences, in that state between sleep and awareness, all of them in different degree and living that in different stages of our lives, as a group our experiences are very similar. In general we’ve lived diverse sleep disorder in diverse moments of our lives and some unexplainable situations as for example, sleepwalking.
You are a purely female band, which is a bit unusual in Death Metal, although not quite unique, e.g. Mythic in the past. Is it your complete intention to be a purely female band, even if personal changes have occurred? Can you write about this, why only women? Have you ever felt anything like prejudices or, on the contrary, exaggerated praise for this?
Indeed, the band main idea is this should be composed only by women, because we understand each other in a better way and as you mention before, although the line-up changes, this is because our singer departure, the vocals will be taken care by our bass and guitar player and chorus by our drummer. So, it wasn’t necessary to look too much for a new member ‘cause the understanding between us three is in a optimal level. We think that women have a very different way of seeing things due our nature and at the same time developing this energy in a team work..
We’ve diverse experiences, some very good ones and other bad, some people see us with instruments and immediately think our music will be weak, until they hear it and say: “hey, you play like men” and we think: “the fuck that mean?”, “means it is good?” In our country still at these days is a lot of ‘machism’ on our society, but for us the most important thing is to do what we like, which is to create music and keep playing our style.
Do you think the fact you are composing, perceiving and writing as women can bring some interesting elements to Death Metal? Actually, first when I listened to your material, I did not know line-up of your band and I did not even think that women could stand for everything. That was the biggest surprise for me when I found the reality...
Clearly, we understand and know that is bit uncommon inside Death metal a band only composed only by women. We think that in all order of things while there’s discipline, hard work and goals you can get important things. Maybe at being women we’ve different energies and communicate each other in another way, we transmit our sensibility, but the main fact is to be able of feeling that dark energy as many other musicians had felt it, independent if its women or men.
Do you think Death Metal can be played even more interesting and creative? From my perspective this genre is mostly just recycling what was created in the 90's and only a few can bring a real flame and madness to it. How do you look at this genre from today's point of view and which bands do you think are interesting?
A musical style always can be interesting and creative while the mind don’t close musically speaking, you’ve to feed yourself with other many things without losing the essence, adding touches from other styles but always keeping your own style.
Interesting bands for us will always be those who play a primitive, powerful, intense and hellish death metal.
The Chilean Metal scene has been over the past 10 years at its best, so many great Death / Thrash / Black / Heavy bands are probably not in any other South American country. Do you perceive this phenomenon alike?
About Chilean metal scene having its best moment in terms of quality bands is totally true, there’re great bands here, but the places to play live, sadly aren’t the optimal for such musical quality.
With respect on more important bands here, there’re some Chilean old excellent bands which are a bigger influence for us and precursors of South American death metal like for Pentagram, and from other countries, like Brazilians Sarcofago and Sepultura are a great influence. In the death metal scene in our country there’re important and very professional bands like Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Ejecutor, Godless, and more newer bands like Horrifying which are at another level, which we admire as great references of Chilean death metal.
Ok, that would be all from me, if you have some words for fans in Slovakia, you can write. Thank you for this great interview and hope SEPULCHRAL RITES will do the best, once again thank you.
Thanks to you for your support and interest on our work, we’re very happy on answering this interview and we’ll keep our path of the rotten evil metal!!! So be aware of our upcoming new stuff soon!!!
https://www.facebook.com/Sepulchral.Rites/
Sepulchral Rites 14. 5. 2018 Mortuary
Sepulchral Rites
interview
