Today I welcome Daniel of Eye of Solitude, a UK-based doom band that has recently given me the wicked thrills with their album Sui Caedere. This has got to be one of my best finds for the past year, and I'm a huge fan. Their music is perfect for me when I'm writing and need sounds that are atmospheric and bone-crunchingly dark and heavy at the same time.
Daniel, you've got exactly 16 words to tell someone who's never heard of Eye of Solitude before, let alone doom metal: go!
Doom death with inhuman vocals, heavy fucking riffs and soul crushing melodies.
Textured, layered... Your music suggests a sonic landscape laden with despair. How has your sound evolved since you first laid down tracks?
We have evolved enormously since The Ghost, our debut full length.The music has taken on higher levels of composition,firstly, and with that, elements like atmosphere, both on record and live, riffage, approach towards the public etc, have been increased, exploited and analyzed carefully for a good interpretation on both sides, the band and the public.
Where would we be without the public and vice-versa? Haha! We try to create a good atmosphere, even though the textures and layers on the album are very hard to reproduce live, but so far everything went extremely well, we are very happy with the live sound, we are happy with the record sound, so I guess I couldn't wish for more than just to expand our horizons even more.
I have to ask about the Sui Caedere cover art, which makes me think of a Max Ernst painting. Can you elaborate a little more on your choices of visuals? And perhaps also share a little about the album's particular underlying themes.
The artwork has been created by Giannis Nakos of Mortal Torment from Greece. He's a very close friend and a fantastic artist, he actually made the first half of the front cover in just one night! That was amazing,coming to work in the morning and finding out a whole bunch of artwork files in my inbox.
Right, the cover is a bit tricky to explain, it resembles a hung angel, in a desolated kind-of background.
I would call it a typical sort of artwork for a band that plays what we play without falling into a stereotypical asset specific to bands.
It represents the highest form of divinity close to a deity. And just like all divinities,they should be pure and free of negativity and such, and yet it commits the deadliest sin in history. Sui Caedere is Latin for killing oneself. Suicide is one of the worst sins,but suicide can be interpreted in oh so many ways.
We would like to leave the listener to decide what they understand by suicide.
And the question that most musicians hate to answer... What's your musical background? Who got you excited about music before you knew you had to create your own? Who're you listening to now?
Haha, no worries. My background varies from classical music to brutal death metal, to shoegaze and cascadian black metal, post metal, post rock and so on.
The other boys in the band have their own influences, but we do have quite a few in common,which makes us understand the music better and feel it with the same intensity. In my opinion, this is the best things that can happen to a band. having more in common means a better collaboration, a better perspective and a better congruence when it comes to writing the music.
For my readers based here in South Africa, what's the metal scene up to in the UK? Which bands do you share the stage with?
There are quite some things happening in the UK right now. Recently we participated at Doom Over London, where we have supported Ahab, Officium Triste, Faal, Indesinence and others, that was truly amazing!
In the past we have shared the stage with the likes of Saturnus, Esoteric, Decemberance and so on...so things are going well for the UK (doom) metal scene.
In the future we hope to share the stage with other great bands worldwide,there are sooooooo many of them out there!
Go check out Eye of Solitude on ReverbNation, Facebook, or on the Kaotoxin Records site.
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