We did the interview with Norwegian
band Devil just few days ago, so it’s natural to continue with
their Swedish neighbors Alastor for which debut album “Black Magic”
was released by Twin Earth Records recently.
Our chief editor Steve already
reviewed this record but I invite you to take a trip deeper in the
blurred and fuzzy realm of Alastor’s hypnotic and highly
psychedelic doom. Their guitarist H is our guide
tonight.
Hi
H! Thanks for the time you find to answer my questions. There
aren’t many facts known about the band, so how did it all started?
Alastor started like any other band
really. We started rehearsing in the summer of 2016, did our first
gig a few months later and recorded our first EP in late 2016/early
2017. Nothing special really.
Well, I didn’t find information
of Alastor’s current lineup, so who’s on board? What’s your
musical background?
We have all been active in bands
before Alastor but none who are relevant to Alastor. Who’s on board
or who isn’t is not as important as the music itself. Although I
can tell that music has been a huge part of our lives as long as we
can remember. Whether it’s playing an instrument, listening to a
record or seeing a band live. It’s what gets us through the day.
I found 7 heavy bands named
Alastor, and I can understand why this name is so popular. How did
you choose it? Did you have other variants back then?
Alastor was the first name we came
up with when the band took form. We knew that there were other bands
that shared this name but none of which bare any resemblance to our
music. The name ”Alastor” can be translated to ”enemy” or
”avenger” so we thought it was suiting to our music. Alastor is
in many ways our way of getting back at society.
Twin Earth Records is going to
release your debut album “Black Magic”, what’s the story of
your relationship with the label?
Twin Earth Records contacted us soon
after the digital release of the track Black Magic and wanted to
release the other tracks on the label. We felt that the label
understood us and the direction we wanted to take as a band so we
thought that we would fit right in with the rest of the Twin Earth
family.
Alastor – Black Magic
The album consists of three
massive heavy songs, how long did you work over this material and how
did it take this form?
The songs have all taken shape in
our rehearsal. Hours of jamming and jamming to get a form that we
feel satisfied with. In a way all songs form themselves over time,
the hardest part is to know when the songs are final, in some cases
they never are. The song Black Magic was in fact the easiest song to
write as it almost wrote itself. I guess the dark energies worked
through us on the day that we wrote that song.
I guess that we can tag Alastor
as psychedelic doom band, so what are your main “psychedelic” and
“doom” influences? What does inspire you to write this sort of
music?
Contrary to what you might think we
are not huge connoisseurs of doom music, sure there are exceptions
but overall there are not many new bands in the genre that we feel
inspired by. I think the main thing that drives us to play this kind
of music is the feeling of trance we get when we jam our songs in the
rehearsal. There is something extremely soothing and hypnotic about
standing in front of a high powered rig and drone on one riff for
hours and hours. Maybe we are all just to slow and lazy to play death
metal. As for psychedelia, Pink Floyd and Camel are huge inspirations
for me.
As it seems that you prefer
really distorted sound… well, what do you find appealing in
sounding like that?
Well the quickest answer to that is
that it just makes the music more analog and alive. We don’t strive
to achieve perfection when it comes to musical skill or sound, we’d
rather have a breathing sound with lots of distortion and feedback.
In a way you could say that there's an ongoing struggle between us
and the sound emitting from our amplifiers. We are just trying to
tame the beasts within them and I think that has a certain charm as
the songs will always sound slightly different each time we play
them.
“Black Magic” is the name
which is natural for heavy doom music, but what does it mean to you?
Do you believe into it yourself?
We wanted a short and concise title
for the album. We already had the song ”Black Magic” and thought
about naming the album something else but decided that the title in
many ways symbolize what we wanted to create. What it actually means
to us is something that we all have a personal bond with, something
that we are all interested in. Let’s leave it there..
What kind of message do you put
in your lyrics? What are your songs about?
We don’t try to limit ourselves in
what we feel falls under the moniker of Alastor. Some of our lyrics
deal with very personal experiences that we have gone through. It’s
a very cheap kind of therapy really.
Photo by Karin Haglund
What are your plans for 2017?
Write more songs and play as many
shows as we can. That and watch society crumble around us of course.
Alastor takes up much of our time but this is what we all want to do
even if it consumes us.
Words by Aleks Evdokimov and
H
