Divine Element
Wywiad przeprowadził Wouter Roemers
Greece is a country forever tied to the early black metal scene. For the last couple of years Hellas has been responsible for some of the most extreme and/or forward thinking death metal acts in recent memory, be it the blunt force approach of Inveracity, the cerebral stimulation that is Cerebrum or the post-modernist and abstract dabbling in death of Sickening Horror. In the dark and atmospheric metal pantheon the young fellows of Divine Element are now establishing itself to be one of the genre's more promising prospects. Having recently released their self-titled debut these Greeks are doing something fairly exciting with a genre too long written off as stagnant. Divine Element's Cris Alchemist (vocals, bass) and Jarhold (guitar) were enthusiast to answer our questions about the formation, inspiration and trouble the band faced in getting their debut out and how they perceive their future evolution in the Hellenic metal scene...Hi there! How's everything in sunny Greece? Your latest album impressed me quite a bit, so here I am with an interview for you guys. How have the fan- and press reactions been to your recently self-titled offering – is it exposing Divine Element to an audience that you didn't reach with the first demo?
Hi there, everything's just fine in our side of the sunny Greece you mentioned. At least it's fine, as long as tourists continue throwing their money here and there to briefly recover a quickly dying economy, but let's not digress so yet. Your first question is somewhat funny to us, because this is the first “real" interview for this album, (we've only had a really short one for a local magazine years ago). Your mag has been among the first to respond, our "fans" are almost indistinguishable from our personal friends, so I suppose there's not much of an objective standpoint to judge upon. I take it that if you like the album and offer us an interview though, that's a good start!
Divine Element formed in 2002 in Attica (Athens), Greece. Tell us something about the first few years in the band's existence. Was it difficult finding the right members for the first line-up, arranging rehearsals, doing promotion locally and eventually writing the first Divine Element songs?
Everything was difficult in our first days as a band, taking into consideration that for the most of us, this had been our first experience of such kind. Arranging our musical phrases, trying to find a middle ground between our several and sometimes conflicting influences, not to mention all the practicalities that range from setting up and actually attending and performing meaningfully at a rehearsal, to connecting your guitar through the effects pedal with the amp in the right manner, to finding a good gig to play in. In a sense, we got most of our musical knowledge and skills (at least, metal oriented) through the band. We never found the "right members" for the first line up, which is exactly why it disbanded, at least for the most part. The reasons were typical for newborn bands, some people have low aspirations and are in for the fun part, other people have difficulties to communicate properly.
After the “Demo 2005" both guitarist Jerry and drummer Skullblaster left Divine Element to pursue other projects, was it difficult for you to find a new second guitarist and drummer? Was violinist Giorgos Manthos merely involved as a session member for that demo?
I can't say it was difficult, as both of them were already our friends and had played with us in other bands and projects. Manthos of Art of Simplicity was a session performer indeed, as the previous incarnation of the band had a violinist in it, who left shortly before the recording and shall remain unmentioned, for several reasons. We had decided to keep the violin lines back then, something we considered unnecessary when the recording of the "official" recording was at hand.
This new self-titled album re-takes the three tracks from the demo, omits the Arckanum cover while keeping the Necromantia cover intact and introduces two completely new tracks. 'A Day For the Hunter...' and 'Crossing the Rubicon' are truly amazing.
Thanks, it's really interesting to hear that about the new tracks, we think too that they're one level up in terms of songwriting comparing to the demo tracks. In a sense, they're much more typical of what Divine Element is (and shall be) right now than the older tracks. I haven't seen your review yet, but I can imagine you witnessed this distinction between very disparate material, which shows some of our musical progression between all these years. Oh, and one trivia about the Arckanum "cover" on the demo: this was initially something we've come up on the studio, its part "cover" and part ours, and was intended as a short interlude to play at live performances before 'Ancient Pride'. It wasn't really serious but we recorded in the rehearsal demo for fun and finally decided to include it. Interestingly, we sent an email to Shamaatae to get his "blessing", but instead we got his cursing as he thought that the "cover" diluted the essence of his original track or something, quite logical considering it wasn't much "cover" either.. We had already given a few copies with this track included though, so I suppose this constitutes a bootleg/rarity of some sort.
There's a five year gap between the first Divine Element demo and this newly recorded opus. Besides the obvious changes in the band's line-up and the resultant chemistry and creative boost that brings - in what ways were the tracks or their arrangements different on the demo compared to this record?
You are correct in assuming that new members have brought additional elements and influences. We've had a much more technical and fast guitar department after the arrival of Jahrold, and a more musical with that of Loukas. I'd say the tracks are so different between these two releases it's like totally different songs. This demo recording was basically four people playing live (the violinist had overdubbed) some compositions that were not conceived beyond this personalized space at that time, and thus were very limited in their instrumentation and articulation. Although the demo still has its charms, recording the full length album had been a very different procedure with very different aims and aspirations. Recording an album is like building a tower brick to brick, you can see its structure as it unfolds between your eyes, both as vision and as actualized music. The vision is actualized by breaking the whole into several little parts and arranging them together, and is in turn changed itself when the little parts overcome their function and, with their treatment as separate units, grow further. In other worlds, a lengthy recording progress such as our own (which took more than a year) had changed the songs a lot, as we strived to improve the songs and became better musicians, the material followed too. The tower became much bigger and more intricate.
Besides combining majestic sounding death/black metal with labyrinthine riffing and rasped/heroic vocals you also throw in the occasional Greek sounding section. These sections full of beautiful acoustics, Hellenic melodies and ethnic instrumentation greatly add to the epic atmosphere of the recording. Are you planning on expanding upon and further integrating these sections into future material to an even broader extent?
Thanks for the description, again. We love folk music, Greek or not, any musical tradition that has a background of hundreds of years and bears the culture, the thoughts and emotions of a people is, to say the least, interesting to my ears. Although I'd say such elements can be mostly witnessed in the Necromantia cover and show up in rare moments throughout the rest of the tracks of the album, these kind of influences had been prominent in our sound in the very beginning. I think the crossing of metal and folk music aesthetics is one of the best things that happened throughout metal's history, and that metal greatly benefits from the emotional sincerity and clarity that traditional music carries. (Although all the pagan clichés have become very tiring at this moment, who says you have to dress up like a Viking and wear tourist shop paraphernalia just because you appreciate old time Norwegian music?) It's a bit soon to speak about future material, but I think such elements will indeed remain in their place, not at the front, but in our back arsenal in a way. I think the music is getting more intense, more focused, more technical, more concise. But we all continue to share a fondness for epic songwriting and melodies.
The record was mixed and mastered at Baseline Studios (Burial Hordes, Sickening Horror) and was otherwise completely self-recorded. I must say the production is killer: organic and warm but never muddy or unclear. I take it you are proud having achieved this production on the band's own terms?
Thank you very much for your kind words, we're moderately proud. When we started preparing for the recording sessions of the album we visited a lot of studios and talked to many promoters, but no one could fully understand the perspective and the sound or the feeling of our songs, so we decided to study the basics of recording and sound engineering and try to create something on our own terms. Although not everything went as great as we aspired to, it was a win situation in the end.
For the artwork, which was completely handdrawn, you worked with ADMC07 Graphics. Truth be told, I never heard of them prior to receiving your promo parcel. How was it working with them and are they known in Greece?
Andrew is known in the underground scene, and I think he's only just started recently. He's quite known for his musical contributions in bands such as Revolting Breed, Bohemian Grove and a thousand other ones I don't remember right now. He's more crust/punk oriented in terms of aesthetics, so it was an interesting experiment in terms of crossing boundaries, and it worked great. It was also very helpful the fact that we met in person and talked a lot about the feeling and the connection of the artwork with the music.
You also run the record label/distribution company New Age Dawn Productions, which also functions as a booking agency for the territory of Greece. How is that working out?
You're quite well informed, I see. It's not working out at all though, I'm afraid (blame defunct MySpace pages that everyone's too bored to delete). New Age Dawn was an idea that we had to extent the DIY philosophy in the record producing area and general "scene" activity, but it did not materialize mostly because of our day jobs and university studies, with the exception of 4 limited cd-r releases from Stellar Auditorium Productions, which was supposed to be the experimental branch of the label. The label was inactive by the time we were finishing recording the album, so we decided to self-release it simply, without any logos and pretension. Stellar Auditorium MIGHT release something in the future, we shall see.
Greece is mostly known for its legendary black metal scene with bands such as Astarte, Necromantia, Rotting Christ, Septicflesh and Zemial. Death – and dark metal seems on the rise as bands like yourself, Cerebrum, Inveracity, Sickening Horror and the recently reformed Nightfall serve to prove. What has kept death metal so low key for the longest time?
There are excellent death metal bands as of late, I'd also add Dead Congregation by the way. Black metal is generally a lot more popular than death metal, and we could debate over "why" for long. As for the Greek scene though, the influence of the early 90's bands (Rotting Christ, Necromantia, Varathron) must have had something to do with this. Perhaps Greek culture's tendency over the mystical and the ancient was a factor too. I'm not too familiar with the death metal scene to answer this in a better way than referring to its counterpart though.
Thanks a lot for your time! Hopefully we'll hear more of Divine Element in a not too distant future. If there's anything I've forgot to mention – here's the space!
Thanks for being interested in us and our music. I think and I hope you will. We have some raw material between the paths of 'A Day of the Hunter...' and 'Crossing the Rubicon', more skilful and heavy, but epic for sure. Because of Alchemist's and Chris' obligation to go to the Greek army we are currently unable to play live, rehearse and record. As soon as we are free again with the appetite for creation we will start working.
Info/booking: www.myspace.com/divineelement
