BIG69 is BIG beacause: Fleshgod apocalypse

Jan 14 • All Updates, Events • 4802 Views

Death metal is a very rooted genre, among its fans and how far it can develop without becoming any less metal. It’s probably so because when a wave of death metal bands emerge from one geography, they tend to standardize the genre and make their sounds the epitome of the same. It’s not always the band but sometimes the fans of the scene who make it so because they wish to preserve the scene’s sanctity, which is not always how it should be.

Fleshgod Apocalypse, an Italian death metal band, largely unnoticed until their 2011 release titled ‘Agony’, is now among the few rapidly successful metal bands who seem to be pioneering new elements into their genre. We’ve had Norwegian death metal titans Dimmu Borgir with their really extreme black metal style who incorporated orchestra music and pioneered the symphonic style into their music, who too had only a very niche audience. In 2011 they played a live gig in Oslo with 53 members of the Norwegian Radio orchestra and 30 members of the Schola Cantorum choir, all dressed in initiate clothes and holding a derelict candle in their hands as they played a set-list they believe will not happen live again. The only other time symphonies and metal went mainstream was with Metallica’s S&M live gig where they played and recorded an album with the San Francisco orchestra. What is it then, that makes our Italian band so good with their effort at writing Symphonic death metal music?

“Our business is to be consistent with ourselves and our musical mission, and we are. That is what really matters.” With 2014 being the release year of their latest effort, Labyrinth, they have further taken their sound from Agony into the more orchestraic compositional approach with more complex arrangements. “We took our time to define our style, like it happens for all the artists in history, and now we got some elements that we feel our own. But we never have to forget that all artists go through different phases.” Once you listen to a Fleshgod Apocalypse song you’re either forced to continue listening to the entire record, because of how new and good it is, or you immediately shut it off because it makes no sense to your elitist tastes. Agony was well appreciated because of its originality and how unpretentious the whole effort was, it almost seemed like a natural direction from their previous full effort, Oracles (2009), and it’s something the band is immensely proud of. What happened post release of Labyrinth then?

“In my opinion it could be even much more dynamic, since our music needs a more dynamic sound to be understood and also to be more powerful,” says Tomasso from the band. The one constant comment that webzines and review channels have been saying is that Labyrinth has a ‘softer’ mix and there seems to be repetitions from Agony, although the band thinks differently, “I’ve noticed that people that posts on forums, blogs or metal sites is just a little percentage of the actual fans that come to the shows and talk straight with us.” It was then we probed a little about fans that have been around with Fleshgod Apocalypse from before Labyrinth, fans who seem to be growing for the band as can be seen on their recent tours and international gigs. “Some people actually didn’t like Labyrinth. Maybe there’s also a lot of people who just needs to criticize randomly, but in any case, that is not our business. Our business is to be consistent with ourselves and our musical mission, and we are.” This attitude seems to work great with bands that are being subjugated to a scene where loose handles are formed whenever a band decides to do what is asked of them rather what they ask of themselves. In this industry major metal bands have lost their first listeners because of how badly fickle fans affect their psyche, metal bands who then release an album solely for the fans with no respect for how it reflects on their musicality.

It is very important for a band to respect and love their work, only then will they enjoy what comes of it. Labyrinth is a record that Fleshgod Apocalypse seems to hold dear because of a multitude of reasons; it got them into the mainstream metal world and also helps fund their new live theatrics which involves summoning a late 19^th century classical atmosphere. Even their new gear seems to have a lot of custom visual work done to make them look like classical instruments. “This last album had the role to re-confirm certain things about our musical style, our attitude and approach to music, and I think it worked really well: we had great sales and a lot of sold out shows, this year!” Another change in their visual appeal was their new logo which was introduced after their 2010 EP Mafia. Maybe a change in their thinking post their genesis into the symphonic realms had them rework their original logo into a more classic Serif style. “It wasn’t classy, in our opinion!” says the band immediately setting a tone that we only wondered about before. “We didn’t like the fact that it was unreadable, and we didn’t care about sticking to any ‘Death Metal rule about logos’” In fact Fleshgod Apocalypse has never been a straightforward niche death metal band with music that followed the traditional death metal writing. Their lyrics also explored metaphysical realms which started in this genre when Chuck wrote the lyrics to Zombie Ritual. “We are more interested in the understanding of our inner world, the path that every one of us needs to do to find its true self.”

Finally we got thinking about what a band like Fleshgod Apocalypse will be expecting from a country like India with a metal scene that’s got its niches everywhere. They come from the heart of the Papal church into a country governed by radical religious parties with their radical policies of depreciating everything but their religious services. But then again, it seems like both countries have their own similarities in a way. “Metal music in Italy is so underground that I think no one connected to the religious world even know of our existence,” which is the scene with Behemoth and other black metal acts in their country Poland. “We wrote a few lyrics that criticize religious institutions as well as political and criminal institutions, because we firmly believe that power change people into worse and make them think that they can control others to earn something for themselves, beside the credoes they use to do that, but we don’t consider ourselves “anti-theistic” in a general way.” It really doesn’t seem like Metal is treated any better in radical religious countries anywhere in the world. In certain Middle Eastern cities, metal bands are not allowed to sing lyrics that condemn religion nor can the crowd mosh or head bang to the music. It gets considered as blasphemy because they are worshipping outside of the religion of Islam. It’s something that all metalheads are standing up for now, with India still taking its time but getting there.

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