Inevitable End | Interview with Marcus Bertilsson

When I first listened to Inevitable End’s new album “The Oculus” I immediately noticed how relentless and technical some of the new songs are. While the band’s first album “The Severed Inception” represented a true gem of death and grind music, this new album seems a lot more adventurous in style. The differences between the two records are immeasurable, so much that I could have easily mistake the new Inevitable End for someone else. We’ve asked guitarist Marcus Bertilsson to point them out.

Was this type of reinvention something you planned on, or did it just happened naturally?

“It was planned because it felt naturally one could say. We have evolved as a band from our death metal roots more and more towards punk and crust. Guess we got a bit tired about the competition on who’s the fastest and tightest band with the lowest guttural vocals that can hit as many weird words as possible in the shortest possible time. We wanted to go further and make an album that is more or less just a punch in the face.”

It’s also hard not to notice a more prominent influence from hardcore and its subgenres, were you aiming to take this new album somewhere into that direction or it was just the way the music evolved?

“I can only speak for myself here but I love the raw energy of the hardcore and punk scene much more then the sheer brutality of present day death metal scene. And we all felt that we wanted to progress both as musicians and as a band. We talked for two years about what sort of sound we wanted for the next album and then when we had pretty much agreed we started writing and this is what came out. Not all natural though because we like to push ourselves as far as we can.”

I’ve seen critics throwing some Dillinger Escape Plan analogies at the new songs, is that something that you feel comfortable with?

“DEP is a good band and they have played an important role in my life but that was like seven years ago or something like that. I think that for people that hear our album and finds it chaotic and intense and technical as hell, DEP becomes a natural reference point. I would say though that we took a lot of inspiration from Crust and Punk and just pushed it through some kind of death metal filter and it became what it is. Sure people can find similarities with DEP and I’m quite aware there are some but there is other stuff in there as well!”

With regards to creating music, how do the songs start to take shape? Do you usually approach the writing of the songs as a team effort or does any member take the lead role?

“Definitely as a team effort! We hook up at the rehearsal place and start to improvise until we have a structure of a song and then I go home and try to figure out some riffs in the styles that the song is supposed to have. So at the first state of a song like ‘Tell us, Parasites’ there was just some weird impro style parts that we put together with each one of us playing random stuff to Joakim’s drums and Andreas screaming random stuff just to get a vibe. Afterward is the actual writing of the riffs.”

As mentioned before, “The Oculus” evolved towards a more technical direction, some songs are extremely complex and full of rabid riffs. Was it an easy record to piece together?

“No, it was not easy. Easy has never been the road to walk for this band. We want to push ourselves forward at all time. This means lots of personal practise, searching for new interesting gear to create all the noises in our heads and just keep the inspiration going.”

Let me ask you about the significance of the title “The Oculus”, it seems a pretty ambiguous title that could have various interpretations right?

“Yes, it can have different interpretations. But the main thought behind it is that we are trapped in the “real world” and that’s not a very pleasant place to be. It’s full of shit actually. So ‘The Oculus’ stands for the search out of it unto something beautiful.”

Are there certain lyrical themes on which you tend to focus?

“On this album it is freedom from “reality” you could say. But the approach differs from song to song. A song like ‘Cadaver Inc’ is about the meat industry while ‘Chamber of Apathy’ is about the social welfare versus the state of being unemployed. ‘The Supreme Treachery’ and ‘Dogmaties Paralies’ are about brainwashing through religion. And there are some very personal songs like ‘Escaping the Black Hole’ and ‘Zen’ which basically works as an open window into parts of Andreas philosophical reflections.”

Are there any tour plans to support the new album? What’s the next step for the band?

“There are some tour plans and we really would like to do some proper touring for this album! Nothing is confirmed and booked at the moment though.”

More info at: www.inevitable-end.com