Susperia

By Carl Begai

“We started in 2004, so we’re not the most productive band on the planet. At least to other people it looks like we don’t do shit (laughs).”

Which is how Dimmu Borgir guitarist Silenoz – born Sven Atle Kopperud – sums up life in his side project, Insidious Disease. To date, the band has only two albums under their collective belt: their Shadowcast debut from 2010, and the just-released After Death. The in-your-face line-up featuring Silenoz, vocalist Marc Grewe (ex-Morgoth), guitarist Cyrus (Susperia), bassist Shane Embury (Napalm Death) and drummer Tony Laureano (ex-Nile) has finally put an end to their extended silence in a big way, and if not for the all-too-familiar pandemic’s chokehold on daily life the band would be delivering their goods to the fans first hand on the touring trail. This will happen eventually, Silenoz assures us; it’s just a matter of time until that becomes a reality. The same thing that plagued the making of the new album: time.

“Some of the ideas are from as far back as 2011 or 2012,” Silenoz says of After Death. “For instance, on the ‘Divine Fire’ demo I used the heartbeat of my unborn son at the time as the intro, and we kept that. And, Marc’s unborn son’s heartbeat is at the end of the song. That goes back to 2012 and it’s probably the oldest song on the new album. There was a good stretch of time between the material that we had, which was about 16 songs, but we trimmed it down to these 10.”

Given that Insidious Disease was locked away for a decade, fans may be left with impression that Silenoz, Grewe and Co. were content with getting back to work if and when they had nothing better to do. Not so, says Silenoz.

“The thing is, the debut album just kind of got buried because we were eager to start touring and promoting it, and things just hit an anti-climax because I got busy with Dimmu. There was never a reason as to why we shouldn’t tour, but it just didn’t take off. I think we could have worked harder on that end, but we always wanted to have Insidious Disease and not my solo project. We want to do everything to promote this new album.”

By Carl Begai

Following up their respectable low-key 2015 debut, Behold, the German trio Fall Of Carthage return with a thundering second record that quite frankly puts album #1 to shame. Everything about The Longed-For Reckoning is bigger, better, and loaded with major league potential. Best to leave the genre-specific tags, stamps and brands in the box; Fall Of Carthage are a no-nonsense bordering-on-brutal metal band, as they encompass and embrace the groove and thrash that made Testament, Pantera and Machine Head go-to bands for rivet-heads the world over. Additionally, there are dozens of crushing moments reminiscent of guitarist James Murphy’s classic Convergence album. Quite the victory for guitarist Arkadius Antonik, who is currently celebrating a 20 year career under his belt as the frontman and brainchild behind folk metal veterans Suidakra. Fall Of Carthage gives him the chance to simply shut up and play, cranking out some of the juiciest riffs of his existence since Suidakra’s classic Emprise To Avalon album released way back in 2002.

And the song arrangements…. prepare for a rollercoaster ride thanks to drummer Martin Buchwalter, who goes beyond anything he’s done with Perzonal War. Grab a listen to “Turning Point”, “Dust And Dirt” and “Fast Forward” for an overview of what to expect, then prepare to be knocked ass over teacup as you wind your way through the record. Continue reading FALL OF CARTHAGE – The Longed-For Reckoning

Tag: Susperia

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FALL OF CARTHAGE – The Longed-For Reckoning