Who are you and what is your role in Disfigurement?
I’m Maynard and I play guitar in Disfigurement
Who are the other members? Do you all live in Columbus?
It’s me, Davis (drums), Anthony (vox), and Oji (bass). We’re all in Columbus except for Oji who’s up in Toledo.
Can you tell us the origin of the band?
It started with me and Davis, we’ve known each other for a long time and we both wanted to start a death metal band so we made 4 songs and got Anthony and Oji on board in July and that’s basically it.
Columbus has a reputation for hardcore and death metal crossover, (says the internet) do you agree and how did your local scene help shape your sound?
For the most part yeah I’d agree. I feel like it’s mostly hardcore here so when death metal bands play it just happens to be with hardcore bands and to a hardcore audience. I think it’s cool since I’m also into hardcore and being able to bridge multiple genres is cool.
Who are some big influences for Disfigurement?
In no particular order: Disconformity, Digested Flesh, Pustulated, Dehumanized, Devourment, Eternal Suffering, Disgorge, Defeated Sanity, Pustulated, Prophecy, GoreTrade, and more. We also take influence from hardcore bands like Swear to God, Six Ft Ditch, Shattered Realm, Hatebreed, etc.
Is Disfigurement signed to a label?
Yes, at the moment Truth in Action, the homies here in Columbus.
How do you describe your sound?
Slammy
What separates your music from other brutal death metal bands right now?
I think a lot of new bands are taking influence from the NY death metal and hardcore sound from the 90s which is super sick but a lot of these bands kind of shy away from blast beats and more “brutal” stuff like that. As much as we like hardcore, we try to keep our sound rooted in death metal with hardcore influence rather than the other way around.
Are there any non-metal influences that creep into the writing process?
For sure, primarily hardcore like mentioned before. We also listen to plenty of other music although I don’t think that really makes an impression on our sound.
What are your songs about? Who writes the lyrics?
Honestly nothing, Conquering Through Defiance is lyricless, but the new single has written lyrics. What it’s about is a secret..
I saw your music being described on youtube as "FUCKING BRUTAL". Would you agree?
I hope so.
Have you guys been enjoying playing the songs live?
For sure. It’s one thing to see positive reception online but seeing people mosh and talking to people in real life means a lot.
How has reception been for "Conquering Through Defiance" ?
Way better than I expected. I just thought it would be a small project we started for fun but it’s gotten more attention than I thought it would for sure.
Can you tell us about the artwork switch?
It was too similar to Asphyxiated’s artwork which we only really noticed after putting it out, so we changed it to avoid any beef or whatever. Plus the first cover was kind of eh. I make the artwork for the band and I’m lowkey just dicking around in photoshop.
How do you see the current brutal death metal scene in Ohio, or the Midwest as a whole?
Small but growing for sure.
How do you guys go about writing a song? Who records them?
Drums first then guitar then everything else. It usually just starts with me and Davis jamming together and recording whatever clicks. I record and mix the music.
Are there any tones or production choices you’re obsessed with getting “just right”?
For Conquering Through Defiance I wanted it to sound like Devourment with the roomy guitar tone and popcorn type of snare. The new single I didn’t have any sound in mind when going in really. For guitar on the EP I used an SNK VH300 line out into an IR I made of my Marshall 1960a with t75s. The new single I used a Crate GT1200H with my 1960a mic'd up with an SM58
What is next for Disfigurement?
Hopefully more shows, music, and merch!
Well we love what Disfigurement is doing and are very excited for what comes next!
Thanks again, Maynard, for answering some questions!!! Any last words or shout-outs?
Thanks so much for hitting us up, all of us are in other bands too: Push Your Luck, Our Love Lies Buried, Southover, Blunt Impact, etc. Shoutout TIA for putting us out. Support local music!
Who will be answering the questions? What is your name and what do you do in the band?
Hey this is Caleb from Volvulus. I do vocals for the band.
How did Volvulus start?
We formed Volvulus back in 2023. Brandon (our guitarist and other founding member) and I had been friends since middle school but had re connected thru Instagram that year. He had this band called Lambs to the Cosmic Slaughter a view years prior and I absolutely loved their shit.
One of us hit the other up because we both kind of felt stuck musically. We got together and made a few shitty demo songs just to kind of screw around and experiment for the first year or so to seeing what worked. Come 2025, we finally started taking things seriously. We dropped like 2 songs and then finally decided to expand and bring on our close friend John as a second guitarist/bass player/back up vocalist, and we been going hard ever since.
How would you describe your music?
Relentless guttural slamming. Alien tech slam. Heavy as all hell but fun at the same time I guess. We wanted to make brutal music that people can have a good time to. Fuck shit up to. That kinda stuff. We also pride ourselves on keeping things fresh and unique especially in a genre like slam which seems to follow the same formula over and over again at times.
How did you guys come up with the name?
We knew straight from the get go it had to be something related to assholes. We had too much of a “butty” sound not to. So Brandon texted me the name “Volvulus” and I was like “what the fuck is that?” Long story short it’s when the tubes in your butt get tangled up and you can’t shit and then you fucking die. Pretty brutal.
What has been some pros and some cons of writing and recording the album?
As far as the pros I’d say we all definitely put in tremendous amounts of time and effort into this project and it’s honestly made all 3 of us better musicians as a result. Each one of us spent countless hours at night up late as fuck trying to perfect this shit. It’s honestly been a huge pleasure to not only release something this heavy but to do it with such good friends. For the cons, we definitely ended up getting into it a few times and hit lots of roadblocks on the way. But hey, these things happen I guess.
How do you feel that the album has been received?
I think it’s been received pretty well so far. We have a couple thousand streams at this point and it’s growing steady everyday. We hope to be making some CDs very soon too so I’m sure that will help.
You guys recently played your first show! Congrats! How did booking that go for you, and how did the show go!
Thank you man we appreciate that. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. I just DM’d the guys from this other local band called Smog Breath. I really liked their music and I knew they had just recently opened their own venue like an hour away from our city. So needless to say , I made my move on that. The show went really well and we actually got asked to jump on a couple more!
Who did the album artwork?
Brandon had to go digging to find a good artist with decent prices. He finally found this guy on insta: @naufalalwy__ . He goes by Sadgrind Art but his name is Zahid and his art work is killer!
Who are some of Volvulus' biggest influences?
We pull from a wide range of sources as far as our inspiration goes. I know for me vocally I’m heavily inspired by Hugo Ojeda of Esophagus as well as Don Campan of Waking the Cadaver, Matti Way, Clay Lamanske of Cemetery Rapist, and of course my good friend Azerate from Ungraceful. He is a great guy and has taught me a lot about doing vocals over the past year or two. As far as our instrumentals go, we listen to a lot of Dying Fetus, Kraanium, cattle decap, peelingflesh, Wormhole, and Snuffed on Sight, so we take a lot of inspiration from those bands musically, but we also like to add techniques from other music genres and incorporate them into our songs however we can.
Anything new in the works yet?
Yeah we got some stuff we are working on. Concepts for now but we will start recording again very soon. Volvulus ain’t going no where. We love doing this shit and we are very committed to our craft.
Thanks a lot again! Any last words?
Of course! We appreciate this opportunity from you. As far as last words, I don’t really have much, but stay tuned for new music and hopefully merch soon. We aren’t signed to a label so we gotta do all this shit by ourselves. Everything we have done we built from the ground up so we greatly appreciate all our listeners and supporters. Thank you to everyone who’s helped us get this far. Peace !!
Regurgitated Devourer is a one-man-project out of Gothenburg, Sweden. Earlier this month, we saw the release of the 2nd full-length from RD, so I asked a few questions to give a little shine on the project! Enjoy!
Who are we talking with? How are you doing?
Hi! I'm Jens, I've been good, working on a lot of stuff recently
Regurgitated Devourer is just you? is this correct?
Yes, RD is just me, micturator left earlier this year.
How long has the band existed? Can you tell the origin story?
RD originated as Carnage back in 2021, as a goregrind project, before I renamed it because of a band that already existed under that name. In 2022, I changed genres, and created Regurgitated Putridity. And That project quickly disbanded.
About 6 months later, I started another project called Insatiable Perversion, but all of the music I recorded for it got Lost.
And in 2023, I started Swathed in Blood, a deathcore band that quickly switched to Slam, and I renamed it to Regurgitated Devourer.
How would you describe the music you make?
I would call it a Mix between classic slam, and 2000s death metal, with some modern finishes.
Who are some of your biggest influences?
my Biggest influences are Abominable Putridity and Analepsy.
Now the new album has been out for a week or so? are people liking it? are you pleased with it?
The new album is performing well so far, people seem to like it, and I really am happy with how the production sounds, and it's something I worked very hard on!
Who did the art for the new album?
Lordigan a.k.a Pedro sena! I love his works, and his art also featured on our First LP.
How did working with Fetal Chunk come about?
I posted a story on Instagram asking people if they wanted to be a feature on a song for our new album, the vocalist for Fetal Chunk Deformation messaged me and asked if they could hop on the track.
Maybe you've steered clear because of their name, maybe you thought the band was just a joke? Either way, you are doing yourself a disservice by not checking out TruckStop DickPill, Knoxville, TN's self-proclaimed Appalachian Boner Slam band. Yes, they are having a lot of fun, and yes, they are writing some killer music! Catch up below!
Hello and thank you for being willing to talk to me! Who do we have here? What do you do in TruckStop DickPill?
What’s good, man?! Thank you for having me. I know we’ve talked about doing this for a while so I’m stoked to make you wanna gouge your eyes out with these long ass redundant answers you’re about to read to your questions haha. My name is Corey aka Crack Burton and I am the gurgle goblin of Truckstop Dickpill. Vocalist in layman’s terms.
Can you tell the story of how you guys met, how the band started, and how you came up with the name?
So Dickpill started with my friends Chris (guitar), Kyle (guitar), Brandon (guitar), and Ryan (drums) who I’ve known for a long time. Ryan, Brandon, and I have been in projects on and off for years and have always wanted to get a full time band going and none of us would have guessed this would be the one that stuck haha. The band basically started as a side project by Chris and Ryan who were both in other bands and I was the last to join cause they needed a vocalist and the rest is pisstory.
Obviously the lineup has changed since the beginning. Our friend Toby later joined on bass, but tragically passed away back in March before playing his first show, and our boy Mikey (ex-Disarmer) joined once we found out that Kyle was leaving. Chris’s main focus is his other band, Quiescent Mantis, so that lead to him leaving as well. We are all still homies and support each other and that’s the way it should be.
Names were already being thrown around when I joined and the concept was always centered around dickpills so we kinda all piggybacked off each other’s suggestions until we landed on Truckstop Dickpill. I always search band names when spitballing ideas cause I wanna make sure it’s not taken and there were a couple of variations that were similar, but Truckstop Dickpill just sounded right. A lot of people will mention Gas Station Boner Pills to us, which is a party punk band from Atlanta, GA and they were one of the first to follow us once we got the Instagram page up and running and we immediately clicked and eventually played a house show together in Knoxville. So that was really sick. Homies 4 lyfe. We consider ourselves part of the “Dickverse” so any bands that have wiener jokes in their name we wanna do some shit with you haha.
So very sorry to hear about Toby! If you don't mind speaking a little about how he came into the band, were you guys longtime friends? It must be like losing a real brother! I'm sure he'd be pumped to see what the ol' dickpill was up to now and happy to see the 'dickverse' thick, veiny, and strong!
Thank you. Toby was the heart of the band for sure and always will be. He was actually a huge fan of the band and picked up a bass just to join and learned the songs super quick. He was so passionate and dedicated. We decided not to replace him and Mikey took it upon himself to get a bass rig so he can transmit a bass sound while simultaneously playing guitar. It’s really sick and we sound heavy as balls. I know he would be proud of us, but I also know he would want to be apart of it because that was what he wanted more than anything. We always have a donation box at our shows that goes to his family so, for those that have contributed thus far, thank you.
Let's talk influences. First off, for readers that may not know, what kind of music do you make? Then, what did you guys grow up listening to, and what bands have influenced the band?
We make Slam or Slamming Death Metal. We have called ourselves “Boner Slam” and have been referred to as “Party Slam,” so a big fat Slam sandwich either way you slice it. Slam is a sub-genre of Death Metal, but with a heavier focus on the curbstomp breakdowns that bands like Internal Bleeding and Suffocation pioneered. It’s essentially just ignorant ass music meant to channel people’s inner cave dweller and we are huge movie nerds so throwing in samples that make us laugh is always a plus. Nothing more satisfying than seeing people playfully beat the shit out of each other with a smile on their face cause they heard a Whitest Kids You Know sample that leads into a dummy riff.
As far as what I grew up listening to, I’m a Jew from Long Island, NY so obviously KISS is my favorite band of all time haha. Love the theme, the theatrics, and the lore. I’ve always greatly admired their impeccable marketing abilities and how they were able to make the band itself larger than life. They were like superheroes to me growing up, ya know? Like the epitome of who rockstars should be. I grew up in a musical family so I absorbed everything I heard, but KISS was the first band I listened to on my own. Middle school is when I got into the heavy stuff cause my brother is a few years older than me and his friends were all metalheads and knew I was into Horror movies and shit so we would trade CDs and that’s how I first heard bands like Sepultura, Cannibal Corpse, Hatebreed, and Morbid Angel.
We are all old so we grew up in the magazine/tape trading days before the internet was the go-to for music sharing. There were these mail order catalogues I used to get called “BMG Music” and “Columbia House” and you bought one CD and got twelve free or some shit, which was not as good as it sounded cause I remember my mom would pay an ass ton for those fucking CDs haha. You checked off the CDs you wanted and mail the list back with a check. I remember Metal Maniacs having an order form in the back for CDs also. I was a simp for magazines like Hit Parader, Circus, and Kerrang so I had an idea of what bands I wanted to listen to that I didn’t see on TV. I was an MTV kid growing up so I would stay up late to watch the Metal blocks when they played shit like Fear Factory and Exodus. They brought back Headbanger’s Ball with Jamey Jasta and that was sick. Then Fuse had the show Uranium that featured a lot of interviews with Metal bands at festivals so that’s when I really wanted to be in a band. Labels like Relapse, Metal Blade, Century Media, and Victory had compilation CDs with all their artists on it so that was another way I got into the more extreme shit like Skinless, Dying Fetus, Nile, and Exhumed. Once my brother got into heavy music too it created this bond that we still have today where we find the most crude and absurd song titles and send them to each other and laugh.
Our influences vary pretty heavily cause we all come from different musical backgrounds, but for me I would say my main influences are Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation, Terror, and Deicide. They’ve all influenced me creatively on and off the stage in so many ways. We all love the 80s Hair bands and Heavy Metal icons like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Dokken, which a lot of people would refer to as “Dad Metal,” but there’s nothing wrong with that. You can’t sit here and tell me that “Metal Health” by Quiet Riot and “Balls to the Wall” by Accept doesn’t go hard. Those are THE Heavy Metal anthems and always will be. Straight hard ass meaty in your face and up your ass riffs. Nuff said.
Your discography seems extensive for such a young band! You guys seem to stay hella busy, are there plans to slow down? Or the release of a full length?
Yeah so other than the “Hard as Fuck EP” and “Buc-eeverse Beatdown” I wrote those other EPs and shit myself. I’m not much of a guitar player, but once we had momentum, I got inspired and didn’t want to stop. I had so many ideas and just ran with it so that lead to doing the split with Fupa Goddess, the single with Buttholectomy, and the holiday EPs. I’m definitely not a producer either so they don’t sound the best, but Death Metal doesn’t have to sound super clean and professional to get the point across, necessarily. I just wanted to stay consistent and really establish what Dickpill was all about while maintaining the hype we were getting. So releasing over 20 songs in a year without dropping a full-length is nothing new, I still think it’s rad and it kept us busy.
As far as what’s next, we recently wrapped up our first tour through the Midwest and it was fucking awesome. We built the tour around our appearance at Slam Dakota Fest in Sioux Falls and man those are some amazing people running that fest. It’s truly like a family and we hope to be back next year. If you know Les and Sam, give them a fat fucking hug for us when you see ‘em. All the bands and promoters we worked with on tour were super chill and made our tour experience enjoyable. The podcasts we did were super sick too and we are grateful for the opportunity to be goofy as fuck when they press record haha. To the crazy Mothertruckers that came out to our shows and threw down and partied with us, we couldn’t have asked for better fans. Thank you.
With that being said, we took a short break after tour to sort out our home lives and everything, but we got a couple of shows coming up in August and have big things planned for our show at Smiley’s in Raphine, VA on the 23rd, which is an actual truck stop. So be on the lookout for that. Once we’ve concluded these shows we will be writing our next couple of EPs before we focus on a full length. I’m currently working on our tour video that will be released very soon exclusively on Patreon or something like that. All the footage was recorded on cellphones so that’s the best way to watch it cause it’s all at a vertical angle. I think it provides a unique viewing experience cause most people watch shit on their phones anyways and this way you don’t have to flip your phone landscape mode to watch it.
Reflecting on our tour, we definitely want to get on a label and possibly a management company so everything goes much smoother from here on out. We put everything we had and beyond into that tour and we made it work without a hitch, but now that we’ve accomplished our first successful DIY 2 week run, we want the next one to be bigger and better without any additional stress and uncertainty. That’s the main goal for us. So we aren’t slowing down by any means. We are just getting started.
Can we hear a crazy story of something that happened while on tour?
Oh man, the whole tour was crazy! Haha. A crazy story though was our last show at Joybomb in Indiana. We were driving through the piss pouring rain and we got word that the power went out at the venue and the show might be cancelled. Luckily we had our sound engineer homie Morgan with us cause he’s a licensed electrician so I was like, “if anyone can make something happen…he’s that dude.” So his idea was to use the generator from our RV to power the necessary equipment and salvage the show. Once Morgan and their sound guy Ben combined noggins, they made the shit happen. Everyone who came out stuck around and threw down and the bands all killed. Gotta give a huge shoutout to Adversary Enfleshed cause they worked their asses off to get that show booked and we didn’t wanna let them down. The power company showed up and worked on the lines and the lights came on right before our set. Everyone went nuts in excitement and it was a sick moment. It was crazy to see a scene like that work together and really deliver. The result was something special and a hell of a last show before we headed back to Knoxville.
Who are some of your favorite vocalists?
I have a lot haha. Frank Mullen of Suffocation is definitely my biggest influence, both vocally and performatively. He’s truly the GOAT of Death Metal. Obviously Corpsegrinder cause he not only has the best stage presence, but he’s a genuine ass dude. Glen Benton of Deicide. I call him “Death Metal Elvis” haha. He has the meanest sounding vocals straight from fucking Hell. Nergal of Behemoth. Love his range and lyrical abilities. He has such a way of enunciating words and emotion and is a great story teller. Very theatrical. Ross Dolan of Immolation for sure cause off stage he’s actually shorter than he looks haha. Cause on stage, he’s like 7ft tall the way he performs and not many can do that.
Who are the other 'weiner' bands in the dickverse with you?
Well I wouldn’t wanna say the dickverse is official haha, it’s more of a joke if we play shows with bands that have a dick reference in their name. Weiner reference sounds better haha. We played a house show here in Knoxville with Gas Station Boner Pills and Donkey Dick, who are also members of Pissrot and On My Life, so to us, they are members of the dickverse. We played a show with Putrid Smegma in Kansas City while on tour so they are definitely in, no question haha.
Alright, tour is done. what is next? new music? pump out a promo to the labels? or just sit back and take dickpills?
I feel like we’ve been sitting back and taking dickpills cause we’ve been taking a break since we got back from tour, but we are ready to get back at it. We wrote a new track before tour and are fine-tuning it now so be on the lookout for that. The new track will be apart of our next EP, which we will be taking the time to write that as well as another EP to follow it.
We have been shopping labels, but that’s a bit harder nowadays, because of streaming apps and digital music, a lot of labels don’t even have ways to submit music. Basically, if they are interested, they will contact you directly versus wanting us to send them an EPK and a demo and all of that. Hasn’t stopped us from sending shit out anyways, but the market is just different now so you just have to put yourselves out there and make yourselves known. It certainly helps to have well produced music, a decent social media following, touring experience, and some hype around you so, sources like what you do with Cerebral Reviewment really helps us out and we greatly appreciate that.
I’ve been a fan of your shit for a while now, so it’s awesome to get the opportunity to blab about Dickpill. I can’t thank you enough for having me and we are super stoked for everyone to hear what we got swimming in our balls. We are super grateful for all the crazy Mothertruckers that have supported us and all the bands that fuck with us. We will see yall soon. Toby Hurt forever. Thank you for your time, dude!
Toby Hurt forever indeed. Thank you crack for your time and honesty and thoughtfulness with these answers. Really cool to read about the a vibrant community and scene that is still thriving, despite the world of the internet seeming like haters rule the world. You guys are awesome, and I can't wait for more!
This 5-piece up-and-coming band, now resides in California. They are young, hungry, and going full-steam ahead with blasty grinding slammy BDM. The band's most recent 3-track demo is out now on NSE. Listen to it by clicking HERE, and enjoy the interview!
Who are the members of Intestinal Sodomy and what are their ages?
Daniel our vocalist is 19
James our guitarist is 19
Beckett our drummer is 19
Emrys our bassist is 19
Sam our second guitarist is 20
What is the origin story of Intestinal Sodomy?
It’s a long story, when I first moved to Houston from Cali in 2022-23 (I can’t remember the year) my girlfriend in Houston had a friend who was in a band looking for a guitarist. I’d always wanted to play live and shit so I hit them up and joined what was called ‘Cholera’ at the time. It was a shitty grindcore band but it was all I had at the time and eventually we got other members and played shows, while we sucked we had a lot of fun. Then I got tired of having members that couldn’t play their instruments (for lack of better terms) and the band went stale towards the end of 2023. I wrote a demo for what was gonna be a solo project and the vocalist of intestinal at the time (Rudy) hit me up to restart the band with a better drummer. I knew this guy named Beckett from another grind band in Houston called ‘ScxmFxck’ and decided to hit him up. He was down to record the demo that I had written, and that was our first demo.
We played more shows, did a tour with Impalement and throughout that wrote Erotic Exsanguination in early-mid 2024. We had Deago temporarily filling in on vocals in late 2024 and he recorded vocals on Erotic. We met Sam on the tour with Impalement and he was super supportive and fucked with the band, and later we met Emrys and Daniel from Virologist. Eventually all these guys joined and I moved from Texas back to Cali last year as well. As it stands now we’re all working on our first full length which we’re all very stoked to release.
How did you land on such a wonderful band name?
Haha, when we were still ‘Cholera’ I suggested a name change because there’s like 300 bands called cholera, and malignancy is one of my favorite bands ever, the name is from one of their songs off intrauterine. Wish it was a cooler story haha.
Ok wait so everyone is in Cali now? Anyone in school? What do you guys do for work?
James- Yeah basically everyone is in cali now. Beckett is gonna be moving out here in a couple weeks too.
Daniel-I’m not in school, and I just moved out from San Diego to Riverside within the week, so I’m still looking for work, but I have a pretty promised place at this warehouse pretty close to where I’m living right now.
Most (or all) of you guys are in 2 or more bands I believe. How do you juggle all of it? Does it just kind of all blend together like you are living in one big slammy grindy gurgly party?
Daniel-The two bands I’m currently in are Intestinal Sodomy and Virologist, as the vocalist it’s pretty easy juggling between the two bands, but most of my band mates are in multiple different projects, like Necrotic Infibulation, Regurgitated Entrails, Submerged like mentioned Virologist, Scxm Fxck, it’s definitely a big circle of people and bands, but it’s great considering we’re all pretty good friends.
VIROLOGIST
NECROTIC INFIBULATION
REGURGITATED ENTRAILS
Can you talk about the differences between the two demos? (LINE-UPs, GEOGRAPHIC CHANGES) What were the pros and cons of writing and recording each demo?
James- Yeah so the first demo was all written by me when I was like 17, Beckett learned the material I had written for it and Rudy was just on board with doing vocals. We weren’t technical or fast really but it marks where we started as an actual band. We recorded it at this jam room in Houston that was shared with like 7 bands.
Erotic Exsanguination was kind of the same story, Beckett and I wrote the material this time and we had Deago step up on vocals, we knew him through our good friends Necrogilistic Anomaly. we recorded in their jam spot and knocked it out in a few hours. Originally we were gonna have brutal mind do the release but then we got on nse!
NECROGILISTIC ANOMALY
When and how did you join the NSE roster?
Sam had been putting in word for us for a while and eventually Ryan gave us a chance and checked out the new material and apparently really liked it.
Well, I think everyone liked it! I cannot stop listening to Erotic!! Who did the artwork for the demo?
Cristian Castro did the artwork, he did a phenomenal job. Expect even sicker art for the full length.
Will you guys be playing NSE Fest in November?
Beckett- Yessir we’re going to drive down to Texas we also plan to play at least 3-4 new album songs,
What is next for Intestinal Sodomy? Anything you can tell us about things you may have planned?
Beckett - James and I have been planning to move in together for a couple months now. It’s been quite the process but we should be moved in together by the end of the month and we plan to get to work as soon as we move in together. The goal with the album is continue to push our sound adding more speed and keeping the slams disgusting, so far we have 1 full song for the album and it’s my personal favorite intestinal song. This was the first time me and James had other members contributing with the song writing process. I'm extremely grateful to have Sam, Emrys and Daniel’s input with writing music . I’ve been playing drums for 3 years now and every time me and James have sat down to write I’ve had something new in the arsenal to play for each release, I'm extremely excited for the album and I hope we don’t disappoint!
Thanks again for doin the interview guys! Any last words, now's the time.
Beckett - Just wanted to express my gratitude for giving us this opportunity for the interview. I’ve been telling James for months that I’ve always dreamed of doing an interview so we can tell the story’s of how we wrote the music and how the band came to be, THANK YOU!!
I was a massive fan of Legacy of Torment's first release, "Inherited Methods of Cruelty". Like, re-visit and re-listen weekly since it came out type fan. So I was fucking PUMPED to see the news about the new full-length AND the extra push that Inherited Suffering Records would give. Well, it has been a week or so since the release of "Ritual Exsanguination". It is everything I hoped for and more. Please go stream it, buy it, buy merch, support these guys. They are putting their all into it!
Enjoy the below interview with Legacy of Torment
CEREBRALREVIEWMENT - Boys, thanks for doing this!!!!
Real quick, for our readers who are not aware; Who is Legacy Of Torment? How did you guys get started? Where are you living? How would you describe your sound?
Benjie: Legacy of Torment is a 3 man slam band brought together by the powers of the internet. Sam originally made a post on the r/brutaldeathmetal subreddit that both Zsombor and I replied to. We made a discord chat so we could start sending ideas and songs back and forth and from there the band was born. I’m from the United States, Sam is from Australia, and Zsombor is from Hungary. When we started the band, we all got into it with the idea of making dumb, fun, caveman slam and I’d say we’ve stayed pretty true to that so far.
Sam: I’m Sam, I play bass in the band and I’m based out of Melbourne,Australia. I met the other guys through a post I put up on r/brutaldeathmetal advertising for an ignorant online slam band. Both Benjie and Zsombor responded, and immediately from the stuff they sent through it was clear they were both insane musicians and a great fit for what I wanted to make which was really exciting. I made the post because unfortunately there was/still is an absence of slam and BDM bands in my local scene so I felt like I didn’t have an outlet for this stuff in person.
Stylistically LoT is definitely your more classic slam band with an emphasis on groove above all else. We also made the conscious effort not to lean into the meme stuff or pick a hyper specific niche early on so that we had a fair amount of room to change things up stylistically and thematically without it being a huge problem. If I had to choose a current band who we sound like I’d probably say someone like Traumatomy or Deprecation.
The beginning of 2024 marked the release of your debut EP, "Inherited Methods of Cruelty". Over a year later, do you guys feel like that EP was well-received?
Benjie: I feel like most of the comments I saw online were fairly positive. I don’t know if I saw any reviews, but in general most of the commentary I saw was really encouraging.
Sam: Releasing anything independently always comes with reach issues but looking back I was definitely surprised by how many people liked it. I think I just assumed a handful of sweaty sickos would find it, jam it for a week and that would be it. However yeah from the comments I saw and conversations I had with people I was blown away by the love that EP got honestly especially over on YouTube. I think more than anything that EP was a test to see if this online dynamic worked for us. We all had fun making it and we all really liked the tracks so once those two boxes were ticked we didn’t really care what happened post release and I think that sentiment has stayed true for the full length as well.
Now we have the debut full-length, "Ritual Exsanguination". I've listened to it twice, and it has completely drained my blood already! (First time I've actually looked up the word!) Can you talk about your writing process and what has changed, if anything, between the EP and the full-length?
Benjie: Honestly, not much has changed about the core of our process beyond just getting more streamlined and tighter all around. We’re still doing mostly the same rigamarole of sending ideas, riffs, and sometimes whole tracks back and forth until we solidify a final version of the song.
Sam: Funnily enough my day job entails working with blood so I’m trying to make a conscious effort to suggest LESS blood related names cause the guys are definitely getting sick of them. I think the writing process is more or less the same as it was for the first release but just much more focused and refined. The basic rundown is we write and send each other tabs, whether that’s just a couple of riffs or a whole song idea, and then from there we suggest changes or revisions depending on what the track needs. For this release that whole process was just way smoother. We all have a better understanding of how we each write, everyone is really chill when it comes to making changes, and three members is just the perfect number for quickly voting on shit!
One big difference was that we were given the amazing opportunity to release the album through Inherited Suffering Records this time around, which was a really big deal for us. Originally we planned on a shorter release but when Alex reached out and said he’d be interested in having us on for a full length we jumped at the opportunity. Personally I felt like writing for a label definitely came with a new kind of mental pressure but I don’t think it affected the process too much.
The new album also has 3 AMAZING vocal features, Azerate Nakamura, Angel Ochoa, and Polwach Beokhaimook. How did you decide to reach out to them, how was working with them?
Benjie: Sam did most of the work talking with the guests and coordinating it all, but I do just want to pop in and say that Angel has been one of my favorite death metal vocalists for years and also one of my biggest vocal influences. Getting to share a track with him was kind of a dream come true. Azerate and Polwach were both awesome as well. I remember when we got their tracks in and they both blew us away. They both brought some real heat (with some super sick predator style vocals) and it’s a real honor to share a track with them.
Sam: Yes!! All those dudes absolutely crushed it too, still blown away by how sick those parts turned out.During production we basically put together a short list of who our dream vocalists were that we’d want on the album then just shot out some messages and hoped for the best! Once again I feel like expectations were low, especially since most of these dudes were coming off the back of major AOTY releases so we thought “yeah right, as if they’d have time to jump on our stuff”.
Can you talk about the art and imagery behind the band? Who did the EP art and the full-length art? How are the lyrics written? Is there a theme you try and stick to?
Benjie: The incredible Daemorph did the artwork for both of our releases and honestly, we couldn’t be happier with his work. As for the subject matter, it kind of came about pretty organically once we settled on the general idea of what we wanted the album title to be. For this release, the artwork was heavily inspired by the story told in the lyrics for the track Sanguinary Artifacts.
Regarding the lyrics, for the most part, they’re almost all written off the cuff. My process basically boils down to just listening to the same section of a song over and over until I come up with something that sounds good and then moving onto the next section. All of my lyrics are tied thematically to the title of the song and, usually, the title comes first based purely on the vibes we get from it. Every now and then we’ll come up with a cool theme for a song related to some piece of pop culture we enjoy or we’ll get a silly idea for a song that I then go crazy with. Cranial Collapse in particular is another one I had a ton of fun writing. It’s goofy and takes the typical subject matter of death metal and flips it on its head. So far I’ve written 1 song about Hellraiser and 2 about some real deep cuts from Star Wars and I can’t wait to see what else I can work in.
Sam: When it comes to lyrics Zsombor and I will chip in some ideas but Benjie’s the one with the magic touch for that stuff so he writes it all. Like I said we don’t really have a hyper specific niche so lyrics and concepts are always super organic and mostly just whatever strikes us as being brutal at the time.
This time around the Album had a pretty good range of stories from human atrocities, eldritch horror, medical nightmares, going back to the medieval ages all the way to sci-fi with some wild Star Wars deep cuts.
We still hone in heavily on a lot of gore and horror stuff but there has to be some kind of twist, peculiarity, format change or irony that makes it interesting and engaging rather than just the usual “Victim killed with a knife” route. It is funny to me that we do put so much effort into the lyrics and story only to immediately track them with the most brutal incomprehensible gurgles and crickets Benjie can muster but honestly I wouldn’t change a thing.
Both the album art and the EP art were done by Daemorph and we’ve been thrilled with both. I remember for the first release we barely gave him any direction, we just said “…you know cartel beheading vids? that but medieval.” And he absolutely nailed it.
The album cover this time was definitely more thought out and we felt what he delivered was amazing. The art is so fun, brutal, and in-depth but also clearly tells the story we were trying to tell! The man is insanely talented.
Thanks again guys! Loving the new album! Any last words to wrap up?
Benjie: I just want to thank everyone who checks out the album in some form or fashion! It means a lot to me that people would take time out of their days to check out our music. Cheers!
Sam: A huge thanks to everyone who has checked out the album, we really appreciate you guys! Of course a big thanks to Cerebral Reviewment for hitting us up and letting us talk some mad shit. We’ve already started to move on new material and ideas so hopefully you hear from us really soon!
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