ANAAL NATHRAKH – Anaal Nathrakh does not make nice fucking music

Ny skive er kommet ut nok en gang fra et av de aller mest extreme bandene i scenen i dag. "Hell is Empty and all the Devils are here" er den passende tittelen på skiva som skal være å finne i de fleste musikkforretninger nå. Jeg snakker selvfølgelig om britiske Anaal Nathrakh, bandet som ikke skulle bli et liveband, men som nå har spilt en del konserter, deriblant 2 her i Norge. Dette intervjuet ble tatt for ganske nøyaktig 3 år siden. Den gang var det "Domine Non Es Dignus" vi snakket om, og mens vi venter på en ny oppdatering fra V.I.T.R.I.O.L., kan dere lese dette intervjuet.

First of all let me congratulate you with yet another blasting masterpiece in Domine Non Es Dignus.

Thank you. We are very happy with it.

I would say that Anaal Nathrakh is more like an extreme metal band in the traditional way now than before, more influenced by the extreme metal bands like 1349, Zyklon, Axis of Advance and bands like that. Any thought on that?

Hmm, well we don't really listen to those bands, so it would be hard to be influenced by them. From what I've heard about them, 1349 sound pretty good, but we were doing Anaal Nathrakh before they were really around. And since we started, we have only really been consciously influenced by what we came up with ourselves. The same with Zyklon. And Axis of Advance I've never heard of, sorry! Our influences as far as metal is concerned tend to be older stuff – older Black Metal – for example Irrumator loved De Mysteriis, I love Tol Cormpt Norz…, plus some grind stuff and maybe a tiny hint if La Masquerade Infernale. And there are other more obscure influences. We sound more modern because we're not into copying what we listen to, and we think in a pretty modern way.

There are also more semi-melodic parts on this new album than earlier. You're not going soft, are you?

No. We do what we like, and what we want to hear. The parts on the new album that have a bit more melody are there because we decided we wanted them there, amongst all the guts and thunder that surround them. But there's also the fastest song we've ever done, and some sections which are the most horrible racket ever. Anaal Nathrakh does not make nice fucking music!

I assume that the interest in Anaal Nathrakh is bigger now on Season of Mist than it was on Mordgrimm? Are you happy that the deal between Mordgrimm and Anaal Nathrakh is history?

It does seem to be bigger. Whether that's because of promotion that Season of Mist have been doing, or because more people have heard of Anaal Nathrakh now than had before, or because more people simply pay attention to a label like Season I don't know. But for whatever reason, it's interesting to see how many people are sufficiently fucked up to appreciate what we do. We had our ups and downs with Mordgrimm, but I think we're on decent terms now, so we're concentrating more on what comes next.

How did you end up on Season of Mist?

They approached us saying they were interested. At the time, we were already talking to some other labels and it took us a while to get round to really considering Season. But once we were talking to them it was obvious they were the most enthusiastic and had the most belief. Some labels will try to bullshit you – they don't often actually lie, but they can often try to say things in a way that means they have the advantage. For example some American labels will try to deduct 10 % from all royalties. That's a clause that was originally included in the vinyl days to cover breakages in transit and it has no place at all in contracts any more. But whether or not they'll tell you that is another thing. Season did much less of that than some other people. I've never seen why dealing with record companies should be a complicated process – you have music that people out there in the world want to hear. So a company comes along who makes it available to them and promotes the material. Which means if people want to hear it, they can get hold of it, the band are able to release their music and get enough money so they can carry on making more of it, and a record company gets some money for making sure everything works, which allows them to do the same for more bands and so on. It's not fucking complicated. But there has been so much history in the record industry of fucking assholes trying to rip each other off that it ends up a hugely tricky business.

Is the contract only for this record or can we expect more in the years to come?

No, the current contract is for two albums. We didn't want a long contract – for example, there were other labels who insisted on longer contracts, and we didn't sign with them. If you sign a long contract and things don't go well, you're fucked. You're tied to a label run by people you wouldn't spit on if they were on fire, and there's nothing you can do. On the other hand, if you have a shorter contract you can always re-sign at the end of it if things have gone well. I have always been suspicious of labels who will only deal with longer contracts. With a 2 album deal we can find out how things go without being tied to something that lasts for years and years, like for example Deicide were with Roadrunner. Plus the label get to find out if they can handle us.

The sound and productions on Domine Non Es Dignus is finally what Anaal Nathrakh deserves. What are your thought on that?

Yeah, we're pretty happy with how it turned out. We have always recorded everything ourselves – Irrumator has the equipment to do it and it's much easier for us to work that way, because we know what we're doing and don't have to try to make someone understand what we're aiming at. For example, when we recorded our Peel Session at the BBC studios in London, we had some trouble getting one of the engineers to understand what sound we wanted. It turned out ok in the end, but it's easier not to have to spend time explaining. So Irrumator generally records everything and does a mix, and then we listen together and fine tune the sound – EQ, final mix, mastering etc. But each time we also learn to do things better. For this album, the advance from Season enabled us to get some new equipment and get a better sound. We had more tracks left over, so we could do things like the 9 part vocal harmony on "This Cannot Be the End" that we couldn't do before. And the equipment was generally better quality so everything sounds more the way we intended. It's also good to have some live drums on there; it makes things sound more natural. But it doesn't sound too clean; it's definitely a grimy, extreme sound. It takes a lot of effort and skill to make something sound so fucking horrible!

What do you think of the progression of Anaal Nathrakh?

The material for the Codex Necro and When Fire… was written around the same time, despite the fact that they came out some time apart. So the stuff on Domine is the first genuinely new stuff we've done in a long time. It's a bigger pool of vomit that we're staring into now, and deeper; with more chunks in it. We haven't changed the general idea of Anaal Nathrakh very much, but there is a lot more to the sound. There was one review of the new album that accused us of standing still, of treading water, but that's rubbish. We progress where we like – on the next album, there might not be any blast beats, or there might be parts so extreme they're hardly even music. But there will always be progression. And this time, the progression is like moving from looking through a window on to the necrotic insanity to seeing it from a mountain top stretching out before you – the idea is similar, but there's a lot more to it.

Is the live situation the same for Anaal Nathrakh, a might not happen thing?

Anaal Nathrakh is not a live band. If the right conditions came up then maybe we would play live, but it would have to be done properly, with session musicians and a real show. Otherwise we have no interest in doing it. It's not something we feel the need to do because we already play live with other bands – Mistress, Benediction and so on. So if we ever did do Anaal Nathrakh live, it would really be a fucking horrible show with projected images, smoke and fire and darkness. We're just not interested in doing an Anaal Nathrakh "gig" – it has to be a real event, otherwise there's no point.

I thought I saw the name Anaal Nathrakh featured on a tour with Mayhem and Decapitated last year.
Yeah, it was talked about, and at one point it looked as though we'd be playing on the tour, but it didn't work out. It was just something that was offered and sounded interesting, so we considered doing it. For example, one of the dates was in St. Petersburg – it would be great to go and play in places like that. But the dates we were offered didn't fit with other things we had to do, and it kind of blew over. Maybe something else will come up one day, maybe it won't. We shall see.

Anything else you want to add? One more thing, what is V.I.T.R.I.O.L. short for?

It's an old alchemy word for sulphuric acid, and it is also an acronym for a Latin phrase that's a reference to the philosopher's stone. Both those things are relevant to me and Anaal Nathrakh, hence the name. But I'm not explaining why!