Interview with Italian Death Metal legends; Sickening - Allesandro Materassi

 

"The Death King" marks the 4th full length offering from this Brutal Death Metal merchant out of Florence, Italy.  We were lucky enough get a few questions answered by the band's guitarist Alessandro.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview!  I have been a massive fan of the band since ignorance supremacy, and I am so happy to get to ask some questions!  Who am I speaking with today?  What is your role in the band?

Hi, Alessandro here, I'm the guitarist of the band, and founding member. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about our music, we really appreciate it and we are really pleased you like our music.

 

 

It has been 20 years since first promo, is that when the band started?  Tell us about how Sickening started!

 

Even if the first demo was released in 2005, the band was founded in 2003 by me along with the previous guitarist Marco and the singer Claudio. We were all crazy about brutal death metal and we decided to start writing music together, so we searched for a drummer a bass player and start the project.

 

 

What first got you into Brutal Death Metal?  it must have been a gradual transition to end up here?  What sort of music influenced you as a teenager?

 

I speak for myself, but “tomb of the mutilated” is probably the album that got me into this type of music, from that moment I started to listen to many brutal death metal bands, mainly from the usa, such as suffocation, deeds of flesh, gorgasm and so on.
Of course I started gradually and before that I was into heavy metal and thrash metal, I grew up as a kid with the classics (iron maiden, metallica, slayer) but I soon realized that I really liked a more extreme sound best, and so I started to listen to classic death metal until I found Cannibal Corpse, as I said before.

 

How has the writing process of "The Death King" been different from previous albums?  Everything gone smoothly?

 

The songwriting of the death king went different for the fact that we don’t have a resident drummer yet, so I wrote all the album by myself ahahah, even the drum parts (except for 2 songs where the drum was written by our old drummer), so it took a little more time to be finished. But I can say I'm really proud of how all the songs came out.

 

Is the band planning any live shows soon?

 

Yeah, for sure, the album was released on 2^nd of February, and now we are searching for gigs to promote it, and maybe a tour, who knows.

But we have various options that we will reveal in the coming months.

 

How to you think the current Death Metal scene is different from 20 years ago?

 

I think nowadays we have more bands but this doesn't mean more quality. 20 years ago every band tried to have its unique sound, while at the present moment it's difficult to find a band with a peculiar sound, and if you think about that you understand why many of the bands who played 20 years ago are still active and well known in the death metal scene today: because of their uniqueness.

I think having a clear style is fundamental in every type of music.

 

How has it been trying to keep the band active and writing all these years?  I'm assuming you all have families?  How is the support from your family and friends?

 

Well, our families always support us in playing music, and beyond that me and Claudio work in the music scene of our city, so is not difficult to keep playing in a band or more and working at the same time. Even Edoardo, our bass player, has a job that allows him to play in various bands. I think we are lucky for this, because otherwise growing up it's always harder to find time to dedicate to writing and playing gigs, with family and work  that can keep you busy all the time.

 

What up and coming Italian bands should we check out?

 

I will disappoint you but there aren't new good bands I can recommend you in Italy, just the old ones that continue to write good music, the scene is a little boring nowadays.

 

How do you guys go about writing lyrics?

 

The last two albums were concept albums so the lyrics are based on the plot of the original two movies. Our second album doesn't have any lyric while the first has generic theme like: death, suicide, hunger, classic death metal cliché ahahah.

Anyway our singer Claudio wrote all of them.

 

The Seventh Day-

We lose our life with joy This is a chain-letter And it is a message And it is the final word To end a very long struggle When you get this letter We are dead And we want you After you have sent As much copies As possible To the “not-yet-dead” To take your own life Without hesitation According to our realization: I die, therefore I am! Life is an illusion And become ridiculous Meaningless once we face it The one security Life has to offer is death We aim towards him We are promised to him And before there’s just Agony and absurdity Man comes alone And remains alone His life is an endless fight Put upon him A struggle against this Ancient desire The sweetest urge That holds all of us In its hands: Thanatos The longing for death All we demand of you Is to follow this longing It’s about time Life is an anachronism In six days God created heaven and earth On the seventh day He killed himself Let us die The gospel according to The Brotherhood of The Seventh Day

Are you all pleased with how "The Death King" turned out?

 

Yeah, definitely. We are stoked both by the artwork Armaada Art did and with the sound: we recorded the drums at MK2 Studio of Davide Billia (ex-drummer of Putridity, Hour of penance, Beheaded) and the drums were played by Marco Coghe (Devangelic, Posthuman Abomination) who did a really great work.

We recorded guitar, bass and vocals at our studio), while the mix was done by Jonathan Mazzeo at The Grid Studio and the master was done by Chris Donaldson of Cryptopsy.

The album sounds massive and powerful, is our darkest and fastest album for sure.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this!  Anything else you'd like to say to your fans?

 

Thanks again for the opportunity, i hope you will enjoy our new album. You can listen to it on our youtube channel and bandcamp page, where you will find all the merch also. We also have a facebook page and instagram where you can follow us for all the latest new and updates.

Stay brutal

 Thanks again Alessandro for taking the time to do this!  Check out Sickening with the below links!

BANDCAMP

FACEBOOK

YOUTUBE

Devitalized 2010 Promo Tracks R.I.P.

If the name Mario Di Giambattista sounds familiar, it is because he makes your favorite brand of spaghetti sauce.  Just kidding.  Mario Di Giambattista is the guitarist and drum programmer for Italian brutal slam death metal band Vulvectomy.  If you aren’t familiar with Vulvectomy, then you are missing out!

Anyway, he has decided to start his own one man project under the name Devitalized. I am really looking forward to hearing what he has in store. It is guaranteed to be something magnificent.



Devitalized, by the way, was a part of Ossuary Industries.

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"The project taken form in October 2010 by myself Mario Di Giambattista (also in Vulvectomy [Sevared Rec.] & Coprophiliac [Despise The Sun Rec.]) as a one man band brutality. Always surrounded by people who don’t share my same passion for extreme underground brutal music, I decided to create my own one man band and will remain so forever.
My great passion for Texas death metal sound bring me to compose first songs on Viral Load, Disfigured, Grotesque Formation’s style with a mixing of fast blastbeats riffing, sick slams and insane vocals!
Support Italian brutality and prepare yourself for the butchery!!”

Mario/DEVITALIZED

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2013 EDIT - Devitalized sadly no longer exists and to my knowledge the few songs that were released can no longer be found.

Created From Pig's Mutilation- Inception of Abhorrent Creation - 2011 Demo

I first learned about this band from this video of them in their rehearsal room.  I was immediately impressed by the feeling and writing of the track.  Also, it looks like they have a really great rehearsal room!  I was left wanting more and thinking to myself, “how does one pronounce CxFxPxMx?”

After some research into the matter I discovered the band’s full name,

COPROEXHUMOCOATHGASM

FISTOLECTONYCHOMICOSIS 

PARACOCCIGASTROVOMIT 

MUCOSPERMOSUBUNGUAL.

I was left thinking to myself “what the fuck?”



Since, they have changed their name to Created From Pigs Mutilation and they have put out a demo titled “Inception of Abhorrent Creation”




Overall, this demo feels like a rather well thought out and executed first take of a young bands attempt of an album.  Instead of pumping out a demo that feels like pieces to a few different puzzles, Inception Of Abhorrent Creation feels like the whole puzzle.  While it may still be missing a few corner pieces, it is proof that there are great things to come from this Italian three piece of self proclaimed ‘diseaseful slamming brutality’.
     

The first track, “Starting To Devour Human Entrails” starts with an intro of what sounds like the slaughter of pigs.  This intro was created by IntroMania, a production company that creates intros and soundtracks for bands or movies.  Then we have a pretty basic brutal death guitar, drum, vocal part that leads into a build-up that seems to promise a much harder hitting slam than it delivers.  This is fitting though, it feels like a warm up to the oncoming insanity.  This track really explores a lot of territory with tempo changes but not overwhelmingly so.  I really like when a band can do a lot with simplicity.  The drums for example, are simple in the most complex, precise meaning of the word.  It has become so easy and common to bypass the human drummer.  This of course has it’s pros and cons but that is a different discussion entirely.  Nonetheless, Alessandro Garofalo, CxFxPxMx guitarist and drum programmer, is a master at staying simple, tasteful, consistent, and just really good.  All of the above actually cancels out the word simple, but it was a necessary adjective in this case.  I really like the vocals also, at times reminding me of Martin from Kraanium.

“Purulent Sodomy Of Putrid Streetwalker’s Flesh” is definitely the best song name I’ve heard in awhile.  The song is very good as well and sort of reminds me of the Italian scene all together, with it’s great vocals and bass parts.   It is catchy, fun and relentlessly blasts forward with thick and slimy guitar riffs and a groovy bass line that sets you up for a sort of marching section where everything blends beautifully.  This song is complete with simple parts, complex parts in every instrument, and variety in vocals.

Italy seems to be a simmering crock pot full of brutal death/slam bands, be it one man or not, human drummer or not, they are almost always decent and seem to consistently pump out new music.  They also, like any region with a growing scene, have similarities.  This could be largely due to Mario Di Giambattista and his million or so projects.  Alessandro Garofalo also has more bands than one hand can count.  I am happy to see people being this active in their scene and showing such blunt passion for the music!
     

Sometimes it can be very difficult to include a track less than 30 seconds long on your demo when you are not a grindcore outfit.  Well they’ve done it here with “Precocious Dismemberment”, 14 seconds, actually, and it is still creative and has a lot within!  Then “Human Stew” comes charging at you with a brutal assault of guitar and bass slams.  The band again uses a simple concept often forgot about, dynamics.  The guitar gets more technical here but everything still blends into one huge groove!

“Fucked, Suffocated and Mutilated” starts off with a short sample of a woman who is probably being fucked, suffocated and then mutilated.  Then this song goes a few different places, all places we’ve been before but are happy to revisit one last time.  The bass is again really awesome throughout this closing track.  Especially when it has it’s jazzy solo right before our epic outro, where the vocalist pretty much goes crazy.  Everything fades out enough for us to hear more mutilation and moaning in displeasure.  Then I moan in pleasure at this demo and patiently await a full length release, out later this year on Ghastly Music.

CREATED FROM PIGS MUTILATION

INTROMANIA

PURCHASE