Interview with Julien from Gorod

1-First of all thank you for your precious time and welcome to metalitty webzine! So let's start by a little biography of the band 

Julien : Hello everybody ! Gorod was founded in 1997 in the region of Bordeaux. The only two founding members still in the band are Mathieu who is the main composer/guitar mastermind and Benoît, the bearded bass player who was previously playing in Voracious Grangrene with Guillaume (the first Gorod's singer I replaced in 2010). Nicolas (Arcania), the other other guitar player joined the band in fall 2010, soon after me, and Karol (Juggernaut, Hell in Town, Erlen Meyer) is our drummer since early 2014. Gorod released its first album « Neurotripsicks » in 2004, and we just released the 5th under the name « A Maze Of Recycled Creeds ». The band has been touring more and more, mostly since 2011 and now it's time to hit the road to promote our last effort !



2-You just released you 5th full length-album entitled "A Maze of Recycled Creeds", can you talk to me about this masterpiece ? 

Julien : This is a concept album including nine original songs. It's maybe one of the most technical and also the most flowing Gorod's album. Each song is really different from each other and this album needs couple of listening on order to start to get into it. It was 100% homemade. Mathieu composed the whole music and recorded it his own studio. I wrote the whole concept and lyrics and we worked with a comic books artist who lives very close to the band's area. It tooks a long time to create this piece, but it's finally done and we hope you'll enjoy it as much as we enjoyed doing it.

3-What do the lyrics deal with?

Julien : The actual main topic is that of what I call “self-indoctrination”. This phenomenon seems to affect many people, especially during hard times. In A Maze Of Recycled Creeds, I chose the example of the Rosicrucian Order in order to illustrate the main topic with a complete immersion in the life and work of a fascinating guru: Joséphin Péladan. He revitalized the sect at the end of the 19th century and succeeded in doing great things in spite of being quite a ludicrous character. Each song is a satiric piece confronting various points of view through many characters and their emotions involved.

4-"A Maze of Recycled Creeds" is your 5th Full-length album as I mentioned before! What makes different from your previous ones ?

Julien: To be honest, this new one is my favourite Gorod’s album including “Leading Vision”. This one is a bit different than all previous albums.  It is simultaneously more opened and more complicated than “A Perfect Absolution”, but it sounds like Gorod, reuniting most of the good recipes I used to enjoy when I was still not playing in the band. It feels like all the various influences are more accepted and unchained than in the past. Everything sounds more consistent and flowing in the end. Even if there are tons of informations and, this one is maybe slightly an easier listening than the two previous ones, but it's only my opinion, hehe!

5-Who inspires you to write such good music? And is there any particular process in writing it?

Mathieu : One of the biggest influence remains “latin jazz”. Classic jazz bores me most of the time, even if I can appreciate it sometimes. Traditional world music is also one the most important influence I have, and this one is particularly useful to make original music in my opinion, as it is often basic and rough in some way, and very far away from what we are used to listen nowadays. I like to start a song by picking up a chord progression or a theme from these genres sometimes. It just some kind of tributes, my goal is not to copy but just to spice the music with extra ingredients, to make it surprising and unexpected. On this last album, the Thrash metal influence is clearly hearable. There is a thrashmetal revival for some years, with new bands making the following of the 80's and 90's legends, and I'm totally into it. Bands like Vektor, Revocation, Angelus Apatrida or Municipal Waste are really enjoyable to me, because even if they are close to the older bands, they give a positive evolution to the genre. The songs “Inner Alchemy”, “Dig into yourself”, or “Celestial Nature” sound like thrashmetal sometimes. I think it's a matter of tempos. Drum patterns and guitar riffage are necessarily different at 160 and 200bpm or more. And the way of headbanging too! And even if thrash is older and maybe slower than Death Metal, it has a fast feeling and instantly dancing effect on me!

6-According to you, which is more difficult: Writing lyrics or composing music? 

Julien : It's both totally different and complementary. It's really not the same job but both need time to feel satisfied of the final result. Taking a global view is normally not an option and it needs time in the end. But I don't think that Mathieu is suffering as much as I do when he writes music, because it's pretty natural for him to compose this kind of complicated harmonies. Harmonization is by the way the a characteristic way of composing songs for Mathieu. But the fact is that he doesn't really leave room for the vocal patterns when the composition is over, it's very hard to find a place for vocals in such a rich music.

7-Tell me more about your news and upcoming events!

Julien : Next upcoming event is a Canadian tour in spring 2016. Hope there will be more tours to come. And I really hope that we'll play in Morocco someday ! As a windsurfer, Essaouira is a very famous place for me, and I'd love spending some time there, on day. We'll see !

8-Thank you again Julien! do you have any message to your Moroccan fans and Metalitty readers in general?

Julien : You're welcome ! Just hope to visit your country some day and can't wait to finally meet and hang out with metalheads in Morocco ! All the best !

Interview with Francesco Ferrini from Fleshgod Apocalypse

1-The kings of Italian technical death metal, the masters of classical music! Thanks once again FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE for taking a part of your time to talk to us and welcome to Metalitty webzine!

Wow, thanks for such an impressive presentation! Glad to be here ;)

2-As mentioned before, you're releasing your new album soon! Can you tell me more about it?

Since “Agony”, all our records have been ‘concept albums’ and “King” makes no exception.
The story is set inside an old court, where the King is the main character. He’s old and tired, but still carries on his shoulders all the integrity and devotion to old values he believes in..
He’s the only character with a strong positive vibe, surrounded by other figures (War Minister, Queen, Bishop etc) trying to affect his decisions for their advantage and often searching more power for their own, regardless of the suffering they’re going to create.
Each song is related to a specific character, so we built different atmospheres and soundscapes strongly related to their nature. For example “The Fool”, with its baroque, pyrotechnic vibe, was perfect for the Jester, while “Healing through war” recalls the violent, gloomy nature of the War Minister.

3-You mentioned before that the writing process was kinda different than the previous albums! Tell me more about it!


Well, this time we wanted a darker tone for the album and that leaves more room for the pure ‘Death Metal’ elements in our music. That’s why the songs are more guitar-driven, so to speak. In our previous albums we developed many ideas starting from orchestral parts, chord progressions or melodies. That’s because we wanted to explore the symphonic element in every aspect, treating guitars as a section within the orchestra. This time we tried a brand new approach, mostly using guitars as a starting point.
But our dense, complex orchestral arrangements are still there, playing a key role on several parts of the new songs.

4-What do the lyrics deal with?

This tale about an imaginary King’s court isn’t mere ‘historical fiction’, but it’s more archetypal I’d say. It’s out of time, it talks about human nature.
The main character represents the bravest, strongest part of ourselves, our devotion to solid values, integrity and truth, vital elements that we might have lost during our restless run towards the future. As I said, he’s the only positive figure on this story, so to speak. All the other characters in the court are depicting darker aspects of our own nature (like thirst of power, fear, egoism, vanity) that can lead us to the worst decisions in our life.



5-You're also making an orchestral version of the album! What a great idea! Did you focus this time more on the orchestral part than in the previous albums?

We’ve always focused a lot on the symphonic element of our music. Even this time, whereas most of the music was written using guitar riffs as a main guidance, the orchestral arrangements are carefully crafted and heavily layered. “King” features some of the best orchestral parts we’ve ever had! That’s why we thought about an orchestral release, and the guys at Nuclear Blast were absolutely enthusiastic about it. It’s the same album, but from a totally different perspective and I’m sure that even non-metal audiences will enjoy it.
.

6-You just released the first single "The fool" and the surprise is : the amazing voice of Paolo is back again after a little absence in "Labyrinth"! Does it mean there will
be a variety in the vocals?

Absolutely! Paolo is an awesome singer and his performance on this album is insanely good. He adds much more variety and intensity to our vocal lines.
But Veronica, of course, is still present, since the operatic parts are somehow a trademark for us at this point.
We also had different vocal guests on the spoken parts, so all the different characters are portrayed in the best possible way. We like to be musicians and storytellers at the same time.

7-Talking about vocals, after "Labyrinth", Veronica started playing live with the band! What did she add to your performances?


Veronica is amazingly talented and skilled, that’s why we decided to involve her more and take her on tour with us. Also, her presence on stage is… priceless! Performing songs like “The Egoism” or “Epilogue” wouldn’t be the same without her. She’s also taking that ‘theatrical’ aspect of our live performance to a whole new level.

8-So, Fleshgod Apocalypse found their final structure and line up that commensurate your music kind or are you thinking about adding a new member , like a cellist or a violinist?

That’s a great idea! For now we’re not planning it but… who knows? We dream of performing live with a full symphonic orchestra, but maybe hiring single players, or a small string section, would be a small step in the right direction.

9-Are you planning on making a new video?


Yes, but it’s… top secret for now! ;)

10-You guys are so creative, that's actually why I'm a big fan! You never stop surprising people! So what can we expect from Fleshgod apocalypse in the next few years??


Thanks! We always try to get the best possible result off what we do, and that involves both the music itself and the concept behind it.
For sure we’ll keep working hard and touring a lot, improving our show and our skills as musicians. I’m sure our fans will never be disappointed!

11-Thank you! Anything else you'd like to add?

Thanks to you!
Last but not least, I’d suggest listening to “King” as a whole album, and not just as individual songs in random order. That’s the best way to experience it, even if the trend is much different nowadays.




Roufaïda Lamrabet