You can call The Arcane Order what ever you want, Death-Metal, Black-Metal or Thrash-Metal, just don’t call them Metalcore because they don’t like it! And honestly, such interpretation really would do the band an unforgiving injustice as their second full-length album “In the Wake of Collisions” sees the Danish band setting a new course for themselves into a richly textured Metal mayhem that has hardly anything in common with a genre prostistuted far too freely these days. Guitarist and band founder Flemming C. Lund was nice enough to take his time and answer to our deviant questions regarding the band’s working ethics, ambitions and fondness for Spanish football team Real Madrid. Read on…

Danish metallers The Arcane Order have produced one of the year’s most exhilarating moments of extreme metal mayhem with their new work “In the Wake of Collisions”, which represents something of a remarkable contrast for the fashionable ways of merging Death Metal with Hardcore elements of recent times. Their 2006 Metal Blade debut “The Machinery of Oblivion” already showed a promising start with a band willing to crave a niche of their own, but it’s with its successor that The Arcane Order truly blossomed into an exemplar, technical and precise Extreme Metal machine that defies easy categorisation.
“In The Wake Of Collisions” is in many aspects more demanding, diverse and heavier than your debut album “The Machinery of Oblivion”, did you already planned this change before writing the new songs or was it something that developed naturally during the writing process?

“It was part wise something that we wanted to change and part wise something that happened naturally. You must remember that some of the songs on our debut album, which was released in 2006, were written way back in 1999/2000 and therefore they weren’t that “up to date” when they were released. I still think they are very good though, but I guess you can say they didn’t represent us 100% when they were released. So we wanted to change our sound a bit, become more extreme and try to find our own sound. And that’s how “In the wake…” ended up sounding like it did. When I started to do riffs for the album I discarded all old riffs. We only wanted new stuff. And when I started to write the new riffs I found a new approach to doing harmonies and riffs in general, and that more or less was the key element to the change in our sound.”

Is that the style you'll be leaning towards in the future? Do you think you’ve nailed The Arcane Order sound?

“Oh yeah, definitely! We certainly have found our own sound now and a sound from which we can evolve. We were aiming at finding our own special sound and a sound that we would love to play as well, and we really have!”

In my opinion, “In The Wake Of Collisions” shares some similarities with bands like Strapping Young Lad and I've already seen some comments reinforcing my opinion, does it piss you of when someone says that you sound like x or y band, or do you take it as compliment?

“It doesn’t really matter to me as long as people don’t think that we rip off other bands 100%. Today it’s more or less impossible to create music that doesn’t sound like other bands, because there are so many bands out there playing different kind of stuff. And I mean sure, we are influenced from SYL, but we are influenced from other bands as well like Scarve, Voivod, Red Harvest, Decapitated, Disbelief, Cult of Luna, The Amenta and others.”

So let’s say, who would you mind getting tagged with?

“Metalcore! I really keep wondering why, WHY, someone could mistake our music for being Metalcore! It may sound silly, but to me that’s an insult! We all come from a metal background and I have personally been listening to metal since the late 80’s so I can assure you there are no core-inspirations in our music. But luckily with the new album and very few still think we are Metalcore. :)”

Seeing that The Arcane Order is comprised of musicians involved in other bands and that you write all the music, do you think people will be tempted to perceive it as your band or project and not an actual concept of a full-band?

“I think so… at least I often get the question if we’re a project or a band. Or actually people did that more with our debut album. I think today people look at us as a real band, just as they should. We are a real band today, even though the idea of the band started as a project, but that was around 2000-2001.”

And being the main composer for The Arcane Order with a clear vision of how the band should sound like, I must ask you how much input are you willing to take from the other band members? I mean there are bands like Megadeth, whose main leader calls all the shots in order to not deviate from the course he thinks is best for the band?

“I do write all the music, but all the other guys always come with their input and ideas, and I always welcome them. The band is by no means a dictatorship or anything. I guess in the end I do call the shots, if we can’t decide in which direction to go, but I always ask the other guys for their opinion and if there’s something they want to do, that’s what we do. And Kasper does exactly the lyrics he wants or Morten does exactly the drumming he wants, etc... So everyone is happy about their role in the band. I do have an overall vision with the band and which direction I would like the music to take though.”

How would you compare your goals with the band nowadays against to when you started?

“Our goal has always been to just be able to release some records, play some shows, and just have fun and enjoy each others company in the band. And that hasn’t changed. We are not in the band to make money or be the biggest band there is out there. We take everything day by day.”

Enshrined with the preservation of Metal and its most remarkable characteristics, one of the greatest aspects of “in the Wake Of Collisions” is its proficient technical twists, with incredible old-schooled flavoured guitar solos, fast and complex drumming with great rolls thrown in, do the think these are characteristics metal music is losing with the current trend of fusing Death Metal with Hardcore?

“Yeah, definitely! And that’s a damn shame! Solos in metal are things that can take a song to a whole new level and make the song sound even more interesting. And the solos are one of the things we insist upon, and they will always be a part of The Arcane Order. I love playing guitar and I love playing leads as well, and for the next record there will be even more shredding! We try to push our musical abilities on every record, and our drummer wants to make his playing as colourful and interesting as he possibly can. Today it seems like most records are getting more and more mechanic sounding, which is a shame I think, and a lead can therefore add so much spice to a song.”

When you were starting up as musician, which guitarists did you look up to and would be called as inspirational?

“Great question! There was one guy in particular that I really looked up to, and that was George Lynch. Back then he was playing in the hard rock band Dokken. I have always had a soft spot for hard rock, I guess also due to the fact that most of these bands had great guitarists and ripping, bluesy leads. So George Lynch was definitely one of the most important guitarists for me, and today I still love his work. Other guitarists that were really important to me were Satriani and Malmsteen. Later on I have drawn inspiration from players like Jeff Loomis (Nevermore), Peter Lake (back when he was doing Theory in Practice and Mutant), Mike Wead (Memento Mori/King Diamond), Reb Beach (Whitesnake/Winger/Dokken) and others. I love shred, but not just for the sake of shred. You have to be able to put emotion and melody in the solos as well, and these guys really do that.”

From the information on your homepage, I know that you’re a very busy man, with a day-job and a number of other projects, besides being the main composer for The Arcane Order. How do you manage to do everything?

“Well, it’s not always easy, I’ll tell you. It’s actually very hard to find the time to do everything. And on top of that I would really love to play in 1-2 more bands, but time is just against me. It’s hard to allocate all your time in just one project and I love being busy, but I often wish the day had 48 hours instead of just 24 :)”

What role does music play in your life?

"It means everything to me… as do metal. Having the chance to play metal and actually have it released is an indescribable feeling. And when you have a full time job next to the music it’s really great to go home and write or play music, because you use your brain in a completely different way. I love being creative and the music is a great way to channel out all your feelings, both good and bad.”

Lyrically, what are these collisions you’re referring to on the new record? The human collisions of daily life perhaps, as men tend to be very conflictual?

“In the Wake of Collisions” is the title of a concept, which basically deals with various aspects of the main theme collisions. It is not a concept album in terms of having a thoroughly, ongoing story with the same main character, but more a concept album that portray the main theme in different scenarios, which are all open for interpretations. The collision theme is to be understood metaphorically. However the lyrics deal with identifiable human experiences situated or based on concrete clashes between ideas and pragmatism, values and moral standards, democracy and tyranny, wars and prosperity, love and hate, life and death, religions and secularism, culture and nature, etc.”

I understand the band haven’t been playing a lot outside their native Denmark, is that a scenario The Arcane Order is willing to change? With all the obligations of its members do you think it’s possible for the band to embark on a European tour?

“Oh yeah, we so much want to go out there and play. We are currently trying to set up a tour and festival gigs in the summer of 2008. We can’t wait to get out there and play for all our fans. We get tons of requests all the time, so it has to happen soon!”

Do you have any ideal partners in mind?

“We don’t have any ideal partners, but someone playing the same style we do, would of course be great. I guess playing with bands like Behemoth, Job for a Cowboy, Black Dahlia Murder, Decapitated, Scarve could be great. But also we would love to tour with other Danish bands like Hatesphere, Mnemic, Raunchy, The Burning, Dawn of Demise, Mercenary and Urkraft. We are all great mates!”

What do you think of Metal Blade releasing the album only on digital format on North America? I guess that you have experienced the tape trading phase seeing that you’re in your thirties, how do the see the evolution and easiness in each people can trade off music and bands can get their songs to be heard?

“Oh yeah… the good old days of tape trading. :) Well of course it’s not 100% satisfactory to neither us nor the fans that they can’t get the whole CD. We really get a lot of requests from people from the US who want to whole CD. But I guess you can see the digital release as an experiment to see how big the demand for the record is. If it goes really well, the CD WILL be released in its physical form over there. And also you most remember that a lot of people today, especially the younger, prefer to just download songs from iTunes or wherever. So the idea is okay, but hopefully it’ll end with the release of the physical CD as well.”

To end the interview, let’s talk about football as Flemming is fan of the sport just like I am. The guitarist has a soft spot for Real Madrid while I favour Barcelona instead, do you think Real Madrid will win the Spanish championship?

“Yes I still think so, although there only 2 points now (as I type this) separating the teams. We have had some problems with injuries with Robinho, Sneijder and Pepe being out for quite some time while Ruud Van Nistelrooy is in a bit of a scoring crisis, so we have lost some ground. But we will come back for sure… and of course beat Barcelona in the 3rd last game on Bernabeu! :)”

The strategy of Bernd Schuster and its model of playing is highly criticised by supporters for not having the fantasy of yore, do you think that’s important against winning matches?

“Winning matches if of course most important, but yeah, we love to see beautiful, creative football as well. But there are still a lot of young players on the team, and I definitely think that Schuster is the right man for the job. After all he has made the best results in a very long time. But I hope we can get some reinforcements in the summer break and get a new striker and midfielder.”

Find out more about a band destined to play the champions league of extreme music at: www.thearcaneorder.net

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Appearances can be deceiving and one glance at the band’s website and their press photos might lead one to think that The Arcane Order is one of many bands out there fusing Death-Metal with Hardcore elements. And sincerely the prospect of listening to another Death-core group wasn’t very exciting at all since my tolerance levels for this type of music is full to the brim.
Until the play button is pressed and leading track “Death Is Eminent” bludgeons from the speakers and completely blows way all my preconceived stereotypes. Beyond all the clean looks and elaborated imagery lurks a sound so ugly, so vicious and brutal that will shatter your world completely. Imagine the surgical precision of Suffocation, the dark atmospheric leanings of Strapping Young Lad, the raw brutality of Behemoth and the technical prowess of Death all masterfully combined in six plus minutes. I immediately knew that I was in presence of something really good! The musicianship is exemplar and above reproach, which might come as a no surprise considering that Denmark’s The Arcane Order is led by former Autumn Leaves guitarist Flemming C. Lund and features in their ranks some prominent names of the Danish scene like Raunchy’s vocalist Kasper Thomsen, former Autumn Leaves bassist Boris Tandrup, guitarist Kasper Kirkegaard from Submission and Koldborn drummer Mortem Løwe Sørensen.
“In The Wake Of Collisions” is in fact The Arcane Order’s second release, following the well received debut "The Machinery of Oblivion", which apparently was nominated as best debut album at the Danish Metal Awards in 2006. Its successor will surely consolidate The Arcane Order position even further as one of the most challenging and interesting bands around ‘cause throughout these nine tracks the quintet churns out a complex and precise blend of technical Death-Metal, hyper-fast Grindcore and Symphonic Black Metal that simply demands attention. (7/10)

Band info: www.thearcaneorder.net
Label info: www.metalblade.de

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One of the most anticipated releases for 2009 in Denmark is Submission’s second full-length album “Code of Conspiracy”, which follows a highly successful debut titled “Failure to Perfection”. Released by French label Listenable Records, their first full-length work received a hatful of plaudits including winning the categories for “Best Debut-Album" and "Metal Track of the Year” at the Danish Metal Awards of 2006. A feature that is becoming quite standard for the Danes considering they’ve already received a similar prize before. Looks like Submission will better start looking for a bigger shelf to store those Danish Grammy-equivalent awards for Metal, right?

“Ha ha ha...yeah well, let’s see if "Code of Conspiracy" will bring us another award. I must say that "Code of Conspiracy" is our most discussed album, and it has been underway for a long time, due to many unforeseen events, such as personal problems, problems with labels and such. You can almost say that we have been struck by bad luck these past few years, things just did not work out, like we wanted it to be.”

Although “Failure to Perfection” have garnered strong and amazing answers in their native Denmark, the sad reality is that Submission’s debut work with the exception of outstanding reviews in various magazines, have made little impact outside their nation’s borders.
What do think exactly happened in that camp, have Listenable Records failed to promote it to the maximum of their possibilities?

“Yes we think exactly that, because we felt like Listenable Rec. didn’t wanted to help with the booking area, and yes we know that they are not a booking agency, but there was so many other things they could have assisted us with, to get the music out to the listener, live, videos and commercials, you can say that they left us in the cold, with regards to that.”

Meanwhile, Submission has opted to leave Listenable Records and look out for a better deal. Initially the band was planning to issue the record thru Mighty Music, a subsidiary of Target Distribution, the biggest independent metal distributor in Denmark, but a recent turn of events have seen them switch to Blistering Records.
So, tells us what happened and how did Submission end up signing a record deal with the Swedish company?

“Yes, well we were on the lookout after the split with Listenable, but none seemed to be the right one for us, so things were put on hold for a while, and we fumbled with new styles of music, but ended up where we started, but on a whole new level. Then I contacted Michael from Mighty Music and he was interested, so we talked back and forth about a deal, and we finally got an agreement, and started recording "Code of Conspiracy".
But then Steven our former frontman decided to stop due to personal stuff, and that happened while the guitar recordings has started, so we were hit in the face again. We had tracks for an album and recording dates, but no frontman. Then we had to speed up an audition and in the nick of time we found a new frontman, Lasse Sivertsen. We recorded and finished "Code of Conspiracy" and everything was ready to go, then we came across a disagreement with Mighty Music and choose to part ways. Then I got a mail from Lars from Blistering Records who had heard the album on the "Popcom Messe" in Germany and was really interested. So we talked about a new deal with him, and we finally have, what we feel like the right deal for Submission.”

Bestowing a powerful and striking production, once again courtesy of Jacob Hansen at his Hansen Studios, “Code of Conspiracy” also introduces their extremely talented new singer Lasse Sivertsen, who takes over the position left vacant early this year by former vocalist Steven Qvist.
What led to Qvist’s departure and how did you find Sivertsen as his replacement?

“The main reason Steven choose to leave Submission, was due to personal things. During the recording of the guitars, we had to make an audition for a new frontman, and that was really in a bad time, but we held the audition, without Lasse showing up. And none of the guys who attended the audition had what we wanted for Submission, then a few days after I got a mail from Lasse, asking if he still could enter the audition. I then sent him two tracks from “Code of Conspiracy”, which he recorded REALLY quickly some test vocals on, and right away I knew we had found the right guy for us!!!”

Following several spins it’s safe to state that “Code of Conspiracy” is a bit more melodic and diverse when compared to previous work “Failure to Perfection”, in your perspective what are the main differences between the two works?

“During the “Failure to Perfection” time we didn’t really know which way we wanted to go and where we wanted to be, due to our differences in musical styles. But after our fumbling, we tried off very different styles and the end result is what you’ll hear on “Code of Conspiracy”. It seems that “Code of Conspiracy” is what Submission is all about and the way we want to go.”

There’s a particular theme that stands out for being something that Submission have never tried before, which the acoustic-driven “An Illusion of the Perfect Forever”.
So tells us how did the song developed into such of kilter signature?

“Yes.... Well, I have always wanted to do a song like that for Submission, just to move things a bit, and tryout some new stuff, there aren’t that many people that does that stuff in this genre. It’s actually a good story....It started with me having my 30th birthday, and my parents made me a scrapbook about my life, and included some old school photos and at that time I had already recorded some test songs for the acoustic track, but nothing seemed to have the right feeling, I then saw an old girlfriend in one of the pictures, and she was actually my first love!!!! Yes that was you Jeanette!!! (If you read this) That got me into the right mood and feeling, so the guitar parts is a tribute to the “long lost love" I had. I really missed her in my youth years, because she moved away, so the theme of the guitars is somewhat sad.”

Is there a theme running throughout "Code of Conspiracy "?

“No not really, just daily challenges and problems....And about all of the fucked up people that this earth houses.”

Submission's band members are also involved in other bands as well, like The Arcane Order and The Cleansing. How did you manage to find the time to work with all those different bands, especially Morten Løwe who drums for countless bands?

“It's a matter of priority, Submission was first around before many of the other bands that houses members from Submission, and surely that will cause some problems with time and tours, but again it’s a question of priority. If let’s say like The Arcane Order has a tour and Submission only have a few dates in that time, the priority goes to The Arcane Order of course, cause that’s the band who has three Submission members. Morten plays in lots of bands but usually as a studio musician, he is like a dog with a stick!!!!...Fetch the stick Morten...Ha ha.”

How would you describe the Danish metal scene of today? There’s a whole new generation of bands emerging in recent times like The Burning, The Cleansing, Crocell and Dawn of Demise that making some significant waves and revitalizing the Danish underground scene.

“Yes, a lot of those guys are on the climb and it’s really great to see all those Danish band move up the ladder, I’m sure that at some point Denmark will kick Sweden off the throne as the Metal country, but again this is not a contest, it’s all about music!!!”

How do you explain the fact that Denmark still hasn’t seen a metal act reaching a similar cusp of commercial success of someone like Mercyful Fate despite the immense talent displayed throughout the last decade?

“Well, those days were special, but everybody knows that time has changed as well as record sales, which I think is the main reason for the lack of Danish super bands like Mercyful Fate, etc, etc.
Everything costs money, and if the piracy users keep downloading there will not be any bands left to create music for them, so I would say the internet has done something. Plus the number of bands trying to breakout, is also a fact you have to incorporate, it’s really easy to record an album, with today’s home recorders.”

Which Danish metal bands would you stand out right now?

“My personal favourites are Scamp, The Arcane Order, Crocell, Vira, Dawn of demise and The Cleansing.”

What are the future plans for Submission?

“Making music, and try to get on some more tours outside Denmark, cause with “Code of Conspiracy”, Submission has taken a new turn and beginning!!!”

More info at: www.myspace.com/submissionragecage

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Copenhagen’s The Cleansing have a highly impressive pedigree, boasting former members of the Brutal Death-Metal act Usipian along with current members of well-known Danish bands like Corpus Mortale, Submission and The Arcane Order.
Loaded with the same vicious and brutal Death-Metal drive and intent of the defunct Usipian, “Poisoned Legacy” is the quintet’s first output, which is on the verge of being unleashed by US label Deepsend Records.
Given that Death-Metal style of The Cleansing isn’t too far removed from the one their former band used to practice it would be reasonable to start asking what kind of motives made you bury Usipian in the first place.

”You really have to see The Cleansing as a completely new band and not as a continuation of Usipian. I was only in Usipian for six months before we decided to call it a day, so I never really became a big part of Usipian. But we really wanted to try something new and that meant a new name and a new line-up. Jeppe, Toke and I wanted to push the envelope and also try to work with much faster tempos and make things a little more “crazy” if you will, which some Usipian members weren’t into.
To make a long story short we just felt like creating a new band and start from scratch, a new and fresh beginning and that was how The Cleansing was born. It just felt like the right thing to do.”

Comparisons between the two bands will certainly be made and are reasonably understandable, both owe their fair share to American Death-Metal drawing influences from bands like Morbid Angel and Immolation, yet something that listeners will notice is that The Cleansing plays a decidedly more technical style.
What was the band’s approach to the writing of the album compared to previous endeavors?
Did you brought any old riffs originally crafted for Usipian into the rehearsal room and rearranged them with the remaining members or “Poisoned Legacy” only features new material?

”We just wanted to make the best Death-Metal album that we possibly could! Everything just had to be right, the music, the lyrics, the musicianship and the production. The music for the album was written by Jeppe and me.
The first two songs we wrote together were “Insects in the Void” and “The Prodigal Son” and especially “Insects in the Void” with pretty fast and technical parts is a very, very good example of where we wanted to take things.
Since I only got to be a member of Usipian for half a year, it wasn’t until The Cleansing was born that Jeppe and I really sat down and started working on songs. We quickly realized that we worked very well together. When we started on “Insects in the Void” Jeppe already had two songs written that actually were meant for Usipian, but he had a hard time trying to make them work with Usipian. We spent about eight months writing the remaining eight tracks. So, about 80% of the album features completely new material.”

It’s known that while The Cleansing were at Hansen Studios recording “Poisoned Legacy”, vocalist Toke Eld was held in custody by the police and was unable to lay down the vocal parts.
Due to the tight studio schedule, The Cleansing have opted to let bassist Martin Rosendahl do all vocals for the album and even considered to re-record the vocal lines with Toke Eld behind the microphone on a future occasion, which ended up not materializing due to some problems with the singer’s voice.
Do you care to mull over such awkward episode and explain us what happened?

”Well there is not much to say about the situation that we haven’t already said. The official statement on our website and on our MySpace explain what happened and we are gonna stick to that.
Even though some people might remain curious I don’t see a reason for getting into details.”

There’s a whole new generation of Death-Metal bands emerging recently in Denmark like The Burning, Crocell and Dawn of Demise that are making some significant waves and revitalizing the Danish underground scene.
Although The Cleansing cannot be called exactly newcomers due to their vast experience in previous acts, do you still see yourselves as part of such promising movement?

”It would certainly be cool if people would consider us a part of such a movement and I do think The Cleansing has something to offer the death metal scene. Not just the Danish death metal scene but also internationally I think The Cleansing has something to say.
Not to say that we are offering some completely new elements to the scene, but we can offer well played, brutally sounding, aggressive and in-your-face death metal with catchy elements. Especially the catchy elements are something we have been working on. If you can mix brutality with catchy elements it’s a good thing, at least in my opinion. But I think a lot of death metal bands ignore that and that’s a shame.”

What do think it triggered or rekindled the enthusiasm of Danish musicians towards a genre that was once very promising with bands like Panzerchrist, Invocator, Illdisposed, Iniquity, Konkhra, Thorium, etc?

”It’s hard to tell. The scene never died but maybe there is a new wave of Danish death metal coming up. A lot of the bands you are mentioning are not that active anymore and some of them are gone by now. So naturally a lot of new bands are taking over, that’s just the way it works. Maybe Danish metal musicians are now more aware of the fact that you need to be damn good in order to be on an international level.”

If nothing fails and let’s hope not, The Cleansing already had enough bad luck with the recordings of the album, “Poisoned Legacy” is scheduled for release in early 2009. Is there a concrete date for its release, what can we expect from the band in the future?

”I can’t tell you the concrete release date for the album, because we simply don’t know yet, we will of course make it official when we know the date. I can only tell you it’s going to be in early 2009. The artwork was completed just recently and it looks amazing! Really cool stuff! We are going to play shows supporting the album in 2009 and we are really looking forward to that! And of course you can expect more quality death metal from The Cleansing in the future!”

More info at: thecleansing.net

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Currently unsigned, Sickseed is one of the new breed of Danish Metal bands that are poised to raise some significant waves in their homeland. The Danes are currently putting the finishing touches to their debut work with an aim to issue it next year, yet they still have to fetch the attention of a suitable record label capable of giving Sickseed the right push to see them breakthrough.
So, how difficult is it to make a name for the band in Denmark nowadays, getting gigs, securing a record deal, etc?

“We have chosen not to focus our aim at Denmark to begin with. At the moment our focus is set abroad, Norway, Sweden, Germany and The States and so forth, before we come back to attack our home country of Denmark.
As far as getting a record deal we are trying our best to get a deal through with a label that can get us some exposure where there is a market for our type of music. And hopefully we will be able to have our debut album "The Beauty Before Death" in stores in the first quarter of 2009.”


How do you view the Metal scene in Denmark right now and the rekindled interest over the more brutal end of Metal music?

“The way we see it, Denmark has never been stronger on the metal scene than what we see today. There are a lot of great bands who are approaching the scene in a unique way, and are really making a name for themselves and Denmark on the international metal stage. The brutal side of Danish metal has always been present, Konkhra, Illdisposed, Hatesphere, Iniquity and Infernal Torment just to name a few. And today you find new brutality in bands like The Burning, Koldborn, Dawn Of Demise, The Arcane Order, Submission, Crocell, Scamp and The Pilgrimz who all have their own way of making their tunes uniquely evil "from their guts to your ears" Slow Death Factory R.I.P. We will always love you.”

Absorbing the bile of Death-Metal, the fury and quirkiness of Mathcore and other genres ending in core, Sickseed evades easy categorisation.
Their sound is too viciously brutal to be Hardcore and too quirky and diverse to be labelled as straightforward Death-Metal.
Where do you think Sickseed fits into the extreme music scene?

“We've asked our selves that question many times.
Our music isn't overly complex but it is tough to box it down to one genre. The tracks on our album reflect which bands we were listening to when we wrote them. They were written over a longer period of time because we, unfortunately, made a few bad calls before we found Thobjørn our lead singer. The long time span is also why we have so many different aspects in our music since our interests in music, like most people, is constantly evolving. So the music consists of a lot of different genres mixed into one sound. We always try to keep the tracks interesting so we try to avoid repetition as best we can.”

What reactions do you hope to provoke in your listeners?

“If we get some heads rocking then we are more than satisfied!”

So what’s next for Sickseed, are you currently negotiating with record labels for the release of your debut record?

“We have not gotten to the point of negotiating with any labels yet, but we have high hopes for the future.”

More info at: www.myspace.com/sickse3d

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Featured in our recent coverage of the fast growing and spine-tingling Danish death-metal scene, The Cleansing is a promising new death-metal group comprised of former and current members of well-known Danish acts like Usipian, Iniquity, Corpus Mortale, The Arcane Order and Submission. Just like their partners in Corpus Mortale, their brutal and smashing approach to death-metal is easily recognisable as more entrenched in old school North-American standards than European ones. Almost every song featured on “Poisoned Legacy” is centred on a vicious, groovy and demolishing musical attack that bents on bands like Morbid Angel, Immolation and Hate Eternal.
Right from the opening song “Architectural Infinity” you can tell that the Danes are skilful musicians and their vast experience behind other death-metal groups have allow them to have a fine understanding of dynamics as this song and the remaining ones attain a well-measured balance between a captivating complexity and a reasonable simplicity, between a relentless and furious speed and a slow burning pace. “Architectural Infinity” opens with a barrage of unrelenting and rabid riffs backed up by an astonishingly deranged and precise drumming courtesy of the electric and omnipresent Morten Løwe, before slowing down to a more groovy stomp with a strong Immolation bound. The vocals of bassist Martin Rosendahl (Toke Eld is actually the band’s vocalist, but was unable to attend the recording sessions) are of a deep growling nature somewhat reminiscent of Morbid Angel and Immolation and perfectly suits the scorching and vile guitar riffs cast out by guitarists Jeppe Hasseriis and Andreas Lynge. There’s also a staggering guitar solo that is tastefully inserted and totally complements the song.
“Poisoned Legacy” is a solid, enjoyable debut that will certainly please anyone who likes their death-metal dynamic, brutal and downright vile. (7/10)

Band info: www.thecleansing.net
Label info: www.deepsend.com

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