Too much bands are signed by incompetent and/or opportunist labels only
one or two years after their founding. In the case of Immortal Rites, this is
a completely opposite adventure. These german warriors of metal have conscientiously
taken their time to define their own style. Even if we can clearly speak about
death-metal here, Immortal Rites don’t adopt the whole sacrosanct rules
of the genre. They like to brutalize all boundaries between old-school and new-school
swedish death-metal, between thrash and black-metal, and they slyly add a significant
dose of twisted melody from beyond the grave. Here is an interview with Ralf,
bass-player in march 2004.

1. Hi guys, can we begin this interview with a history of Immortal Rites
?

Hey Jean... How is life doing? Thanx for your interest in Immortal Rites ! Well,
the actual band history lesson ain\'t that special, cause we simply started as
bloody beginners back in 1995/96, so it has been our really first band experience
back as teenies in an age of 14 between 16, Ha! Everything started from below
zero... but it has always been a quest for melodies within us, I guess album
like "Tales from the Thousand Lakes" of Amorphis, "The Gallery"
from Dark Tranquillity or "Purgatory Afterglow" from Edge Of Sanity
impressed us in the same way as the brutal Florida side as well as some black-metal
acts. In the time between 1995 and 1999 we\'ve wrote 17 tracks, which have been
also promoted and tested live in different ways. We never did official demo-tapes,
just some live recordings for us and in order to get some gigs... That means
we\'ve already opened up for acts like Fleshcrawl, Mystic Circle, Apophis, End
Of Green, Dawn Of Dreams, Mirror Of Deception before we\'ve did the very first
cd. Yep, this one was entitled "Beyond the Gates of Pain", recorded
within 4 "hurry & chaotic" days in early 1999... I will tell you
later on more on this ! More gigs outsider our local area and also Austria/Switzerland
started. We\'ve did pretty much contacts inside the scene, appeared on cd compilations
of Ablaze, Chaos mag and Eternity. Back then we\'ve meet a really supportive
guy from France, called Laurent from Broken records, who promoted "Beyond
the Gates of Pain" really much in your country - Thanx a lot mate! He arranged
several airplays, distributions etc... Worldwide we\'ve sold 650 copies of the
cd version from "Beyond...", actually 150 in France, which hasn\'t
been bad for a sort of demo cd. In the end of 2000 Ketzer distribution/Beverina
productions even did a tape version of the old cd with some old live tracks
as bonus... It has been limited on 1000 copies and got traded a lot! Ketzer
said it\'s sold out, too... But now enough from the past!

 

2. Let’s talk about your style, i would say it shows a raw death-metal
feeling with some subtle melodic touches. It sounds mainly inspired by the first
swedish wave of the early 90’s, but not only. I noticed a raw thrash energy
inside. How would you define your metal to our readers ? What are your influences
?

Well, nowadays we don\'t limit our taste... It\'s simply the fact when you grow
older, especially our songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Philipp also explores other
genres, even classical or more typical rock classic elements. It makes songwriting
more effective if you can also look outside the 08/15 genre, but for sure we\'re
definitely still fucking metal and you\'re right - swedish death-metal makes
by blood go crazy! Not even the old stuff as "Left Hand Path" or "Like
an Everflowing Stream", "Spectral Sorrow"... It\'s also releases
like older & newer In Flames, Cardinal Sin, Dark Tranquillity, Opeth, Soilwork
(our vocalist loves them to death!)... not to forget thrashier stuff like Merciless
or The Haunted. The most godlike album for is in case "Slaughter of the <

BR> Soul". The other way around we also love the Florida sound as well some
black-metal classics; our drummer for example also loves the first Mayhem album.
On the other hand there are also some punk, hardcore and alternative faves in
our collection, we\'re not limited and the same goes for the material on "Art
of Devolution". It\'s obviously a melodical death-metal output, but there\'s
lots of room for discovering and some experiments as well, just compare the
tracks "United Scars Anthem" and "The Cadaverizer" with
each other.

 

3. So "Art of Devolution" is your first full-length album.
Why did you choose Alex Krull as a producer? Did you appreciate some of his
earlier works? Was it a great experience to work with the man ?

We simply love the old Atrocity albums... "Hallucinations" and "Todessehnsucht"
are classics! Production wise it was a huge step for us to work with Alex at
his Mastersound studio, cause it has been for us the most professional experience
so far, especially when I compare it with the recordings of our first cd. Alex
is really enthusiastic and he as well as the others Atrocity members involved
in the studio did the best to bring you further and to catch up your creativity.
The studio is situated in our local area, which means just a distance of 50
km by car, so it has been no problem to got to regular work next to the recordings
as well. We\'ve learned a lot about ways of composing and about our own musical
limits. It has been hard work and we pre-financed the 3 weeks studio from our
own pocket, cause we\'ve been unsigned, so it has definitely been a high risk,
too! Luckily we\'ve got the deal afterwards...

 

4. Immortal Rites exists for 8 years now. I’d like to know if
the 9 songs included on "Art of Devolution" have been recently composed,
or is it some old material you slowly brought to maturation since 1996 ?

The material on "Art of Devolution" has been written between 1999
and end of 2002, so it\'s actually a album of 3 years effort, which means also
a lot of different moods and emotions that hit the songwriting and lyrics during
those periods. I think that variation of the album proofs this, too.

 

5. Lyrically speaking, what kind of subjects do you like to write about
?

Basically it\'s not the typical death-metal cliché thing that infects
us, although we also love a lot of bands which support those feelings. Lyrics
like "Fatal Expoited", "United Scars Anthem" or "Digital
God" have a sort of social critic and hardcore touch, it\'s really personal
and basically deals with the position you as a normal person have in our sick
minded society, the role of money against the role of real values etc…
Other tracks like "The Other Dark" is more a sort of dark poetry mixed
with samples taken from nature to write with metaphors and different emotions.
"The Cadaverizer" is basically the track with the most common death-metal
words, but it\'s basic deal with the question of how much worth is a life in
our world... Is it just the basic economical worth or the human worth? It\'s
everything just our statements, which means we like that people should make
their own opinions about that issues.

 

6. "Art of Devolution" sounds really diverse and refreshing.
There’s a few clean vocals, even a Liv Kristine (ex-Theatre of Tragedy)
angelic appearance. Some guitar works are rather memorable & melodic. Don’t
you afraid to displease the die-hard death-metal fanbase and maybe sounding
too brutal for the more mainstream metalheads who like their metal catchy and
polished ?

Hm, you\'re right we somehow sit between those chairs, but on the other way we
do what feel to do and in the first wave we like to satisfy our own taste! I

think "Art of..." could hit a wider range of audience, but there are
for sure also brutal tracks in it, just take the neck wracking "Fatal Exploited",
which has an even thrashlike middle part. The album is a product of an evolution
and not made to satisfy a certain group of people, but we hope that people take
the time to make up there own minds, so feel free to check out the mp3s at our
hp: www.immortalrites.de

I think from rocking, groovy up to intense and blasting elements you can find
a lot to satisfy your personal pain, Ha!

 

7. How has your previous self-released mcd "Beyond the Gates of
Pain" been received through the german press? I didn\'t hear it, but do
you think Immortal Rites was sounding different at this period ?

I\'ve already mentioned some basic infos on "Beyond the Gates of Pain"
in the beginning... The basic of press reactions has been really cool to us,
we\'ve been often put into this Gothenburg box of comparison, but we felt and
still feel this as accepted! Personally I think that "Beyond..." was
darker, a little bit more black-metal based, at least musically; for example
the title track got often mentioned with Dissection as reference. The sound
was a bit different than today; cause on "Art..." we\'ve tuned the
guitars down to b., which means a more fat and devastating sound instead to
this cold black-metal like references. Lyrically "Beyond..." had some
more personal stuff, while "The Shadowsouls" was basically the only
lyric with at least a bit of "occult" touch, cause it symbolizes the
fight between light and darkness. We still have those roots in us and we still
play some tracks live form now and then. Presswise etc we\'ve became mail and
requests from all over the world; even some exotic regions like Asia as well.
We still have some copies left of the first cd... Get in touch if you want one...
Oh, the tape version has a different cover as the cd, but both artworks were
made back then from Maik Godau/Grotesque Glory arts.

 

8. I read that the US version of "Art of Devolution" will
include two bonus tracks from this previous mcd. Don\'t you think it would be
interesting for european metalheads to hear these two songs, too.

Well, we\'ve first signed a licence deal for north America and Mexico with Khaosmaster
productions from the States and his intention was to make something special
in his territories, so he did a digipack version of "Art of Devolution"
and his wish was to enclose 2 tracks from the first cd, too. The negotiation
with Morbid records actually started afterwards... But as I said we still have
some copies of "Beyond the Gates of Pain" cd left for those who are
interested in our past.

 

9. Did you think about a european tour ?

Yes, we dream of a tour, but the biggest problem is our daily working life.
Two of us do shift work and we have a limited time shedule and our drummer has
a own firm, so there are a lot of compromises as well. Morbid records will gonna
take care for tour offers, so maybe we can hit the road in autumn. Until then
we will play some more local shows and we are also booked for the label festival
Morbide Festspiele in september. We still hope to get on the billing for one
of the bigger summer festivals, but this is really a hard task... Keep your
finger crosses, cause we hope to play France as soon as possible!

 

10. Thanx for your answers, last words are yours.

Thanx a lot for giving us the chance appear in In Extremis! Everybody is invited
to check out www.immortalrites.de ! Feel free to sign our guestbook... Merchandise
is available, so take a look at the latest Morbid records catalogue... Good
Luck Jean for the future and keep it deadly & think free...

 

DJ In Extremis