In recent years a virulent plague of old school dirty death metal has sweeped across the metal scene once again with Autopsy and ancient Swedeath worship happening aplenty in all dark cobweb filled corners of the globe and in countries that were not so well known for producing much noteworthy death metal in the past such as Italy...well that country has now been put firmly on the death metal map and that is because this weeks band of the week Undead Creep, from Palermo have been creating quite a buzz for themselves in underground death metal circles with the release of their debut full length album "The Ever Burning Torch" which was unleashed recently by the prolific underground American, Colorado based death metal label Dark Descent who have also recently brought out excellent releases in hte past few months by Miasmal, Gravehill and Corpsessed and is a label definetly at the forefront of the current underground old school death metal scene along with the Detest, Me Saco Un Ojo and Blood Harvest labels.
The bands debut album is a fierce 10 track affair (with the Demo 2010 tagged onto the end as a bonus featuring 4 non album tracks) which comes bursting out of the speakers with a song ("Immolated for Reincarnation" that wouldn't have been out of place on Dismember's debut album "Like An Ever Flowing Stream", this song also comes complete with a great eerie style keyboard swathed part, reminding me of the middle section of "Left Hand Path", the bands unashamed and blatant old school Stockholm-Swedeath worship continues throughout the album and they also throw in plenty of nifty Autopsy worship and some morbid slow doomed passages which is always a pleasure for my ears to listen to in these days of over technical and overpolished metal.
The band state in their bio that they formed because they were pushed by the urge to bring back the spirit of old school death metal the way it was meant to be and they have most definetly succeeded in doing what they set out to create as this album just reeks of the old school sound and vibe...coming across pretty much like the deformed bastard ovechild of early Dismember and Autopsy and I really can't recommend "The Ever-Burning Torch" enough to those out there who are seeking good old filthy putrid death metal/who is a fan of old school death metal, these guys can also write a great catchy tune and riff, something I always think is VERY important in such music, vocally Sandro sounds like a mixture of Chris Riefert and Matti Kärki , his lungs relentlessly spitting forth gruesome growls and lyrics, I sent some questions to drummer David Lucido and dared to delve deeper into the dark stinking underworld where the undead creep lurks in the shadows....
The band state in their bio that they formed because they were pushed by the urge to bring back the spirit of old school death metal the way it was meant to be and they have most definetly succeeded in doing what they set out to create as this album just reeks of the old school sound and vibe...coming across pretty much like the deformed bastard ovechild of early Dismember and Autopsy and I really can't recommend "The Ever-Burning Torch" enough to those out there who are seeking good old filthy putrid death metal/who is a fan of old school death metal, these guys can also write a great catchy tune and riff, something I always think is VERY important in such music, vocally Sandro sounds like a mixture of Chris Riefert and Matti Kärki , his lungs relentlessly spitting forth gruesome growls and lyrics, I sent some questions to drummer David Lucido and dared to delve deeper into the dark stinking underworld where the undead creep lurks in the shadows....
Undead creep was born in 2009 from an idea of mine and it's meant to be a side project of Haemophagus (main band of Giorgio and me). it's a tribute to old school Swedish death metal. Daniel Ekeroth’s book gave me a strong input and also gave me the opportunity to know lots of underground bands. the original line up was with me on drums, Giorgio on guitar and later Maso (bass) and Sandro (vocals) joined the band.
You have recently had your awesome debut album "The Ever Burning Torch" unleashed by Dark Descent on CD, please tell the readers a lil about this album? Are there plans for it to be released on vinyl? Are you pleased with how this recording came out?
Yes, we’re lucky to have our debut album released by a label like Dark Descent Records, I think it’s the best deal we could eventually find for a band like ours. “The Ever-Burning Torch” can be described as a blast from the past, just nine tracks of putrid old school death metal mainly inspired by bands like early Entombed/Nihilist, Dismember, Grave, Unleashed, Autopsy, early Death, God Macabre, Crematory and many others. The album has been released on vinyl as well by Iconoclast Records, an Italian label officially distributed by Agipunk, 500 copies with a limited edition of 100 black splattered red ones for all the maniac collectors. Yeah, we’re very satisfied about this recording, done in few hours in a small studio in Palermo; we like how it sounds, we didn’t use any editing or triggers on the drums, no effect on the vocals except some delays so you can listen exactly what we have truly played and what we can play on the stage.
How did you hook up with Dark Descent?
I’ve known Matt from Dark Descent thanks to Dave from Unconsecrated who runs also a label, Dark Blasphemies Records. Dave and Matt proposed us a co-production for the release of our debut album after they got our demo, but some months after Dave cancelled the deal due to budget problems, so we remained with Dark Descent Records only.
Your music is very old school Swedish sounding with some obvious Autopsy influence, what bands would you say fuel and shape the sound of Undead Creep?
Yeah, Autopsy and the whole Swedeath style are the main influence, but we also took inspiration from old bands like Celtic Frost, Incantation, Winter, Asphyx or to stay in a Swedish context, Expulsion, Runemagick… so you can understand we also appreciate doom/death style, something that you can clearly hear in some songs of the album
You released a demo before this, is it still available?
The demo is not available neither on tape nor on cd-r, but all of its songs have been included in the “The Ever-Burning Torch” CD version as bonus tracks, so you can get everything we've ever done.
What would an Undead Creep look like in your imagination?
The slow gait of a stinky living dead… we’re obsessed by this stuff.
Lyrically what themes do you write about? You have very cool morbid songtitles! I guess stinking ancient cemetaries, old Italian horror/zombie movies are part of lyrical inspiration?
Yeah, macabre and horrorific themes inspired by horror/zombie movies or books are what we think about when writing lyrics to our songs, but we also take some hints both from scary and terrifying events of real life and from spooky visions carried out by our minds. Anyway I’m not the songwriter so I can’t give a detailed description of this process.
Describe Undead Creep in 5 words
Distortion Pedal BOSS Heavy Metal.
Do you play many gigs? Any plans to play outside of Italy/ What can people expect from an Undead Creep live show?
no actually we only played 3 gigs in sicily, but we're in a stalemate right now because some of us moved to northern Italy and we're also doing some line-up changes. We’ll give some news about this situation soon. Anyway our show is just a raw ears massacre, no frills just pure death metal in your ass!!
Please tell us about your local underground scene and Italian scene in general, what bands could you recommend to the readers? Any other old school Italian death metal bands?
To talk about a local scene here in Palermo is quite impossible, there are some good bands but we live in a very hick context, people are often narrow minded towards the underground movements, that’s why I feel better when I travel out of here and that's why I moved to Bologna last spring. The Italian scene is not that bad in general, I can surely recommend some very good old school bands like Eroded, Voids Of Vomit, Profanal, Bunker 66, Noia, Barbarian, Blood Of Seklusion, In League With Satan, Necro, and some others, but the main problem is the lack of a d.i.y. spirit in the scene with some exceptions, something that could balance the crookedness and the incompetence of some booking agencies…
whats your opinion on the current worldwide death metal underground/scene? The old school style seems to have became more popular again in recent years after going back into the shadows of the underground, why do you think this is?
I think that the current death metal underground is wonderful, there are a lot a new bands who play death metal the way it was meant to be, and also old bands who reformed or just musicians from the past who come back with new project in this vein. Of course, I’m sure that all this is not comparable to the genuine truthfulness of those bands who created this style between the end of the 80’s and the beginning of the 90’s, but, if we accept that this a revival animated by a true passion, it’s ok for me. I sometimes listen to some bands who are not particularly original, with riffs and arrangements totally or nearly ripped off from old ones. However this is inevitable if you want to reproduce that typical style, and we can probably be included in this kind, hahaha.
Some of you guys play in another band Haemophagus, whats up with this band, I understand you just did a split with the might Bonesaw? What other bands are members currently involved with?
Yes, Giorgio and I are also the founding members of Haemophagus, which is , as I said before, our main band and we’ve been pretty active lately, we just did an European tour with Canadian grinders Mesrine which started off at the Obscene Extreme Festival. And yes, we did a split with the mighty Bonesaw, with whom we’ll play the Bloodshed Festival in October. I love their stuff, they are totally Autopsy worshippers but they have also a personal sound, so I’m very satisfied with this split. The CD was released on May and it’s going to be released on vinyl as well soon, again under Aphelions Productions.
what are you plans for rest of 2011 and into 2012?
We have to consolidate the line-up now, so we have no plans for the immediate future, but we’ll surely set up some gigs to promote the album by the end of the year and in the next one. Later we’ll think about doing some new stuff, but we have no rush for this.
The last words are yours David! Thanks for the interview!
Ok, thank you so much for this interview and thanks to the people who’ll read my shit here. Support our labels, Dark Descent Records and Iconoclast Records, and stay tuned with us on myspace (dead?), facebook and all those bullshits on the web.
of mine on the Terrorizer Magazine website http://truecultheavymetal.com/blog1.php/2011/09/12/kat-s-band-of-the-day-undead-creep. |
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