In 1983 Tom Araya was screaming "Evil Has No Boundaries". Nowl more than 20 years later, it seems that christianity slowly infects the brain of metalheads. After a strong following through the metalcore & hardcore US scenes, Jesus Christ found new adepts in death-metal. Yes you read it right ! Christian death-metal is possible. Aussies Mortification paved the way several years ago, now here's Sacrificium from Germany. Their second album is just released on Black Lotus. Here's an interview in december 2005.

Hi guys ! I just received your second & brand new album from the Black Lotus french promo-department. Would it be possible to begin this interview with an introduction of your band ? Where/when/why did you create Sacrificium ?
To keep a very long and confusing story short : Sacrificium was founded back in 1993 in Weinstadt (near Stuttgart), Germany by Markus Hauth, Sebastian Wagner and Oliver Tesch after they deceided to go for a death-metal style. Sacrificium was created to express our emotions, feelings and our believes. And it still it is that way. We recorded one demo-cd, one demo-tape “Mortal Fear” and now 2 full-length albums so far. After a couple, or shall we say many line-up changes, Sacrificium has now the best line-up ever and we're proud to be here. Those line-up changes are the main reason for the small output of recordings. Sacrificium is :
Cladio Enzler – Vocals
Samuel Herbrich – Bass
Mario Henning – Drums
Oliver Tesch - Guitars
Ulrike Uhlmann – Guitars

Let's talk about your new album "Escaping the Stupor". Where did you record it ? The sound is really massive & powerful. What kind of sound were you searching for ?
“Escaping The Stupor” was recorded/mixed at the Panicroom studios in Skara, Sweden and mastered at Criteria Mastering also Skara, Sweden by Plec at the end of january 2005. We met him through a posting he did on Andy Sneaps forum on ultimatemela.com. And after seeing pictures of the studio, hearing some samples we knew that this is going to be good. Soundwise we had a couple of ideas in our heads. Going from Malevolent Creation to In Flames to The Haunted to At The Gates and a lot more. So we basically let Plec taking care of that and tried to find something that sounds like Sacrificium and matches the songs the best.

Your style is a mix of old-school death-metal where melodies have a great impact. Sometimes, it even reminds me bands like old Amorphis (on a song like "Pierced By Death" for example). What are the bands who influenced your style ?
Everyone of us listens to a wide range of different music styles. Not just metal. So it is quite hard to name bands, but I guess the most influence on us have metal bands like Bolt Thrower, E

ntombed, Death, Malevolent Creation, Extol, In Flames and classic rock or metal stuff.

How do you compose inside the band ? Is it a common process ?
Usually it works like that, that someone has a riff or a rough structure of a song that he or she brings into the rehearsals and then we work on that until we have a complete song. So the completion of a song is always done with the whole band. Sometimes we manage it to jam a bit and if we have something that would be usefull we work on that. We also take ideas back home and work on them, just like doing homework. With the first release “Cold Black Piece Of Flesh” we wrote the songs mostly by having the lyrics first and wrote the music around it. This time we had the music first and made the lyrics or the vocal parts fit into the music.

I didn't have the chance to hear your first album. For those who know it, what are the main differences with the new one ? In which way did you try to evolve ?
First, the production is better. Second, we learned a lot from our mistakes regarding songwriting and arrangements. “Cold Black Piece Of Flesh” has songs from a long period of time. The songs “Escaping The Stupor” have been written in a shorter time. We wanted to write more song focused and to have the songs easier to get into. More straight and not to put 100 riffs into one song, just to sound “technical”. A big plus has been that we did demos of the songs to see if they would work on a record or if parts needed to be changed. We also spend more time on the vocals.


Lyrically speaking, what do your texts deal with ? I find you album-title a bit strange. Can you explain us the idea ?
“Escaping The Stupor” means to break out of a chained life. To get rid or fight against things that hold you back from evolving and growing as a person. We write about things we experienced, personal issues we accomplishes and stuff we care about. Since we are christians we write a lot about stuff that has to do with our faith and everyday life. “Canvas” for example is about who people want us to be. By telling us who a “good” christian should be like and projecting some weird visions on us. “I Am The Enemy” deals with the issue of building our own walls around ourselves and blocking ourselves from growing or overcoming personal issues. To realise that we do this to ourselves but blaming other people or god to be the cause for our misery. We don't want to preach to people. If someone can take profit from our lyrics or starts to think and asks questions, then it is fine with us. Some lyrics like “Relativation of Justice” also a have pretty black humor it and we like to provoke a bit, but we do this with a serious background but at the same time taking ourselves t

oo seriously.

Are you some socially concerned citizens ? What kinds of problems drive you mad ?
Yes we are. We are quite aware of what is happening around us, and things are getting quite scary in some way. Global and on a very small level like hometowns or local communities. “Relativation Of Justice” deals with the issue of executions because of laws. Which is quite a headline of last week news with the 1000th execution in the US. This is very upsetting. I'm not even mentioning the stupidity and ignorance of the american people by voting such a scumbag for president, again. Also stuff like the raping of minors or genetic engineering. Those are topics that we can get very angry about and sad at the same time, ‘cause as a single person it seems like you just can do enough to make things better. There are so much more things, that this would take days ;-)

Do you have plans for touring outside Germany these next months ? What kind of bands would you like to play with ?
There are no plans yet. But we hope to play shows wherever and whenever it is possible. We'd like to tour with basically very other band as long as they are down to earth and not behave like “rockstars”, you know.

Tell us about you local scene please. What are the bands you'd like to recommend us ?
Our local scene is still quite big actually. There are lot of bands with every music style that is possible. The Stuttgart area is known for a good music scene in general with good opportunities to get gigs. The main problem here, and I'm sure this is not a local problem is, to make people come to a show. Big acts don't have problem with that, but underground bands like us have difficulties with it. It's very hard to promote a gig and you have to invest a lot more time and money. More than it took 6 or 8 years ago. But it seems like it's getting better and the younger kids are more into metal again and it's not unusual to see them running around in Iron Maiden or Metallica shirts. As for the bands, I can recommend My Darkest Hate (brilliant death-metal band), our labelmates Luna Field, INK (very new band but with experienced musicians, something between old Paradise Lost and Machine Head), Mighty D (melodic death-metal), Might Of Lilith (black-metal), Dark Wire (black-metal), Stone Cold Crazy (dirrrty rock'n'roll), The Tyrants (death-metal), Final Breath (thrash-metal).

Well that's all, i hope my questions were not too boring & i wish you all the best. Thanx !
Thank you very much for the interview and for your support ! We hope to do shows in France soon. So if you want us to come over, just get in contact with us... Stay Heavy !



www.sacrificium.com
www.black-lotus-recs.com

R>

Interview done by DJ In Extremis

0 Comment

0 Like

Share

You must be logged in to add a comment