Norwegian Vulture Lord is back. With "Desecration Rite" they deliver a hate-filled, pitch-black album of the very first order, which will not disappoint any fan of the band (review here). After the band has been battered by tragedies and setbacks, hopefully this is the long-awaited new beginning for them. I had the honor to ask front man Sorath Northgrove (thanks a lot for this!!!) some questions via email and learn a bit more about this somewhat mysterious band.

Michael

Hello Sorath, how are things?

Fine, thanks, enjoying good reviews, feedback and quarantine.

First of all, congratulations on the new album. "Desecration Rite" was announced again and again in the last years and then not released. What was the reason for the release being postponed again and again?

The main reason is several line-up changes and delays from ex-members that never delivered to set deadlines.

Why did it take so long to create a new album in the first place? After all, "Profane Prayer" is from 2003.

We also had the 4 track Blasphemy EP released in 2006 as well, but the main reason is that Nefas and myself decided to go back to the primitive roots of black metal and created Beastcraft instead. That was our main band together for years. On the side, Nefas and Diabolus still wrote tracks and made demos for a future Vulture album and it's more or less written right after Blasphemy, which was recorded in 2003. 2 tracks from 2003, 5 from 2005 and 1 from 2010, the same time we started talking about starting up Vulture Lord again. It took 5 more years and a death before the plans got in motion and even 4 more years until we started recording. The whole recording process took about 2 years, so we have been haunted by delays from the very beginning.

Apart from you, there is no band member who was involved in the debut. What are the reasons for this?

That is wrong, on the contrary, all the ones from the debut are still involved with the new album. Me and Uruz are still here. Diabolus left but is still playing lead and rhythm guitars on the last track of the album, 'Perverting The Bible', which he also wrote. Everything else is written by Nefas, who died in 2012. Never trust Metal Archives…

Who designed the cover? It looks really great. Can you tell a little bit more about it?

Jorge Vimendy from Sick Graphics designed it. I worked with him from early sketches into the final painting. We mailed ideas back and forth. I wanted an enormous graveyard with a church, all overthrown and enthroned by the Vulture Lord. One can see the church transformed into the lair or chapel of the Vulture Lord, the lord of death, with the vultures circling the sky. The actual Desecration Rite is the figures emptying the graves, unhallowing the ground and throwing the Christians into the Abyss. Really pleased with the outcome, he has the perfect style for it, bringing both new and old cover art styles into the design.

Why did you completely change your logo?

I wanted it old school and showing that it's yet another chapter in the book of the Lord. We had the first one for the demos, the second for the second chapter in the 00s and then the third and final logo in 2020. I got in contact with Benno Meijer after he showed me an alternative version of the Beastcraft logo and asked him to do one for my Deathcibel Productions and Vulture Lord. I liked what he did and decided to merge the wings from DP onto the VL logo.

You call your music death metal, because you think that the lyrics define the genre. I personally feel your music is more black metal, especially when I look at titles like 'Stillborn Messiah' or 'Burning The Kingdom Of God'. Apart from the lyrics, where do you draw the line between black and death metal?

Are Deicide and Morbid Angel black metal? We combine the styles of thrash, death and black metal, we have no set borders and define ourselves as black deathrashing metal. I can easily hear the difference between death and black metal, but it's hard to explain as it's mostly set by feelings.

'The Vulture Lord' is a superb song that goes pretty much into thrash metal. What are your main musical influences?

The decade of extreme metal from 1984 to 1994.

What (apart from the quality of the production), makes the biggest difference between "Profane Prayer" and the current album?

That's the only big difference in my book, but we also had better time in the actual recording process this time.

Are there any plans to perform live, hopefully soon?

Yes, it might happen next year in one form or another….

There are now more metal bands than people in the world. With some of the stuff that comes to my ears, I have the feeling that everyone who can play even one note halfway right is releasing a CD. Quite a lot seems incredibly artificial and not from the heart. What do you think about that?

I understand and share your point of view, but it comes as no surprise in this digital age. You can produce and release your song, album, music, video, whatever, from your own living room. Drum machines can easily be taken for triggered drums. The true metal feeling is compressed to soulless copies of weak plastic.

What principles, what attitude to life do you personally represent?

Stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours. Get in my way and suffer the consequences.

You are all also active in other bands. Is there any news to report from there regarding new albums?

Ulvehyrde has just released the debut album, Hagl is working on the next and we just talked the other day about reincarnating Faun again for a proper release.

The last words are yours!!!

Thanx for your support. Stay true to the underground and hail the fire!

Drift Into Black is the brainchild of ex-Grey Skies Fallen keyboardist Craig Rossi and "Patterns Of Light", is the fourth release from the band in the same amount of years. Not knowing much about the project, I decided to investigate and here are the results. Thanks for your patience Craig.

Tomek

Thanks for taking time to do this, how is everything going?

You're very welcome. Everything is pretty good. I've been slowly but surely revealing more and more from the new album Patterns Of Light but now it's out and I can't wait for everyone to hear it in its entirety.

Drift Into Black sounds like a name taken from a song title, where did it come from?

To be honest these days it's not about choosing a band name with meaning. The real challenge is picking a band name that hasn't already been taken. I picked the name Drift Into Black because 1. It sounded cool 2. Because I want my listeners to tune out the world for 40 - 50 minutes..........and Drift into Black

What can someone that never heard the band expect from the new album?

I think they can expect a dark ride. Not just musically but psychologically. The tracks range from melodic doom to melodic death metal with a hint of prog.

When I was doing a bit of research on Drift Into Black it came out in Gothic and Doom categories, you are saying that we should expect "melodic doom to melodic death metal with a hint of prog". What do you think about all this categorizing and putting tags on music?

Even though Drift Into Black tends to touch on different genres it tends to stay primarily in the doom metal genre. I think putting tags on music can be misleading because if you are going to listen to Drift Into Black wanting a total doom experience then you're going to be disappointed.

Let's switch places for a minute. What do you expect from the listener?

People tend to have short attention spans nowadays so if you're going to listen to a Drift Into Black song then listen from beginning to end. You never know you may want to listen to track 2 next.

Let's talk about your newest album. How long was the whole writing and recording process? Can you tell us about it, about the recording itself, and how satisfied are you with the outcome?

It took about 11 months to finish the new album and that is including the mixing and mastering process. The process was fun because I had a plan going into the recording and I am VERY satisfied with how it turned out. I started writing and recording guitars for Patterns Of Light in November 2019. By March I was writing and tracking keyboards. March - August I wrote lyrics and laid down all the vocal tracks. Klemen had drums recorded in a week and Paul had his bass parts done in a week as well. So, I would say 10 months in total not including mixing and mastering. The process for writing and recording albums has become very systematic but also enjoyable as well especially when I'm feeling creative.

Why did you name it "Patterns Of Light"?

Patterns Of Light is a concept album. The shortened version is a young girl and her mother living under the roof of an abusive husband/stepfather. The young girl is deaf and mute. Her only means of communication is through sign language. Her mother is the only person she signs with. The young girl sews tapestry......it's her hobby. She then begins to sew patterns into her work implicating her stepfather for the slow death of her mother while he slowly poisons her. She sews her own mother's burial gown revealing more patterns that implicate him. With no one to run to and no one to communicate with she has to make the grim decision to take her own life before he does.......but before she does, she sews her own burial gown. In the end her blood-stained past and years of abuse are revealed through her tapestries and her and her mother's burial gowns. The man is hung from his neck by the people in her town. "Light" meaning truth hence Patterns Of Light.

That is such a sad story, did you come up with it?

I had the vision of the young girl in my head along with the storyline. I contacted Alex from Mayhem Project and explained to him the entire story and when he revealed the album artwork to me it propelled me and ignited my inspiration even more. I like to have the artwork done fairly early when I have a concept for an album. Sort of like when a composer scores the soundtrack for a movie. They need the images in front of them to play too.

How long did you work on the new album? Can you tell us about it, about the recording itself, and how satisfied are you with the outcome?

It took about 11 months to finish the new album and that includes the mixing and mastering process. The process was fun because I had a plan going into the recording and I am VERY satisfied with how it turned out.

While composing and writing was there anything that influenced you differently, were there any non-metal influences?

Nothing influenced me differently but when you are writing a concept album you need to switch up the mood of the songs to match the tone of the parts of the story. There are always non-metal influences when I write. I wouldn't want to write an album that has no non-metal influences.

Do you create for yourself or for others? Which emotions do you have plenty of and which not enough?

I create for myself mostly. I share my music with the public. If you like it then great if not, then there are a million other bands out there that you will like. Emotions? Definitely plenty of depressive emotions in the music but I'd like to add some more dark and evil tones in the future.

What would you do without music?

That's something I don't want to think about. When someone tells me (which is very rare) that they don't listen to music I have to question if they're human.

What's next for Drift Into Black, is there a plan in motion?

No plan at all. I just plan on writing, recording, and releasing albums and just want to build a real nice discography with Drift Into Black. I want to evolve as a musician and as a songwriter.

CD, vinyl and cassette. What is your opinion about the physical media?

Well considering the new album will be released on vinyl I finally bought a turntable and all of a sudden, I'm starting to put together a nice vinyl collection. As far as a physical format vinyl is by far the best.

Thanks a lot for taking time to answer all the questions, last word is yours.

Thank you for inviting me for this interview. Thank you to all the people that have supported Drift Into Black! The new album Patterns Of Light was released on vinyl May 28th on Black Doomba Records!!!