Blood Ages: Aniki Interview

After reviewing their awesome sophomore album, Godless Sandborn, I was able to catch up with the vocalist of French death metallers Blood Ages, Aniki!

All About The Rock: First of all guys thanks for chatting to me tonight! How is everyone in the Blood Ages camp?

Blood Ages: Hi Fraser! Aniki here! I’m the band’s vocalist. My pleasure chatting with you!

AATR: So we’re building up to the release of your excellent sophomore album, Godless Sandborn. [edit: at the time of sending the interview, the album had not yet been released. It is available now!] Are you looking forward to getting it out there?

BA: Yes, can’t wait to see it available. This album is a real outcome for us! We’re so excited to see how people will respond to these new songs. We’re going to play the whole album on stage this Thursday night (May 26th). This will be epic for sure!

AATR: Can you talk us through how the creative process for Godless Sandborn differed from At The Height of the Storm, your debut? BA: Well, the two albums are quite different. At The Height Of The Storm was a first draft, something rough and spontaneous. At that time, all the songs we wrote was inspired by mythology from cultures all over the world. Godless Sandborn is more structured, more mature and closer to how we want to create our music and develop our identity. This is a concept album in which each track corresponds to a chapter of a story. Sometimes it will be wild and epic, sometimes furious and tribal, sometimes more quiet and haunting, conducive to introspection.

AATR: Over the course of the two albums, who and what have you found your main influences to be, both musically and lyrically? BA: We love epic things. Reflecting the books we’ve read or movies we’ve seen, the lyrics obviously talk about mythology, battles, massive events or natural disasters (notably in At The Height Of The Storm). Many authors inspired us like H.P. Lovecraft, Franck Miller, Michael Moorcock,Kentaro Miura. About Godless Sandborn’s lyrics, I had the will to develop a whole detailed story, exploring the characters’ feelings, landscape descriptions and tragic moments. This is a story about war, thirst for power, knowledge and more broadly selfishness and men’s cruelty. As such, the main source of inspiration is mankind and its inclination to reproduce the same mistake again and again.

AATR: And are there any further concepts you’re looking to explore in future releases?

BA: Indeed, the Godless Sandborn writing process lead us to a different approach of music composition. In the future, we want to retain this narrative side, following the arcanist concept and its declination. Furthermore, we will try to create something darker and more atmospheric, highlighting the Middle Eastern influence and keeping melodic approach which is the Blood Ages basis, in my opinion.

AATR: You have a pretty unique sound that blends death metal, melodeath, death-core and that folky, Middle Eastern sound perfectly – how did you come up with that?

BA: Yes, we play death metal with a strong oriental influence, at the crossroads of modern and old-school death metal. I think we have a lot of different musical influences within the band, from the early old school death metal titans like Bolt Thrower to modern bands like Ageless Oblivion or The Faceless. But we are also non-metal listeners and we try to make an alchemy of all our influences (jazz, electro, classic, even world music and movie scores).

AATR: You played Hellfest a couple of years ago, what was that experience like? Something you’d do again?

BA: Actually, it was a Hellfest warm-up show in Toulouse, but the crowd was so excited and involved that we had the feeling to be part of this huge festival for an evening. Playing at Hellfest would be awesome for the band, that’s definitely a goal for each of us!

AATR: What’s your plan for the rest of the year? Tours, festivals, writing new music?

BA: Nothing specific for the moment, we’re talking with different partners about some shows and festivals but we already started the composition of the third Blood Ages album!

AATR: As I mentioned in my review of the album, France is not a country well known for its metal. What is the French metal scene like? Can you walk us through life in a French metal band?

BA: Well, the French metal scene has further intensified over the last couple of years with the help of various festivals (Hellfest, Xtrem Fest, Download …) and the support of many associations throughout the country. This permits to increase the number of shows, more and more fans and emerging bands. Being one of them is not an easy task. You have to work very hard the “non-musical” side of your project if you want to be part of bigger shows. However, any band which wants to take its chance live can do it, thanks to the associations I quoted earlier.

AATR: What bands are usually found cranking out on the Blood Ages tour bus?

BA: Each member of Blood Ages has his specific taste in music, metal or not. But we share the same passion for bands like Bloodbath, Behemoth, Whitechapel, Shades Of Black, Gojira and Gorod (the French touch!)

AATR: And what underground or unknown bands are you really enjoying at the moment? Either in France or worldwide?

BA: We still love a split-up band named Viatrophy, deathcore from UK. More recently, we really liked First Fragment’s debut album. Masterpiece of tech-death from Canada !

AATR: Thanks for taking the time to chat to me tonight! It’s much appreciated, take care!