Interview with Svarthart
Tell us about your latest release: the main concept; what fans should expect; what were/are your goals with it:
Our latest release “Awaiting the Return” is released two years after our first release “Emptiness Filling the Void”. While we were still looking for our sound on the first record, we have a more updated and solid sound on the new release. We did everything using a new studio program to update our sound and make it more agressive compared to the sound on Emptiness. The music itself is comparable to what we did earlier, doom/death metal with a lot of melody. On Awaiting there are more fast parts using double bass to have some more tempo changes to keep things interesting. I think we did good to improve our sound like we wanted it to be, but of course there is always room for improvement.
Did you have a specific sound in mind when you formed the band, or did that grow and evolve as you played together?
We had a focus on 90’s doom/death metal in the style of My Dying Bride, Katatonia and Anathema. Of course, when we played and recorded some demo’s we wrote, things started changing. Riffs change, lyrics change, but basically our main concept always stayed during our career.
How does your writing process normally work out?
Mostly our lead guitar playes writes the basis for every song at home in his spare time. He also writes lyrics and drums, but when we play the song during rehearsals, riffs change a little, our bass player changes his bass lines over time and our singer changes the lyrics. So, the basis always stays, but every song tends to change as everyone gets their personal input in it. The result always turns out into a great song in which the flow just feals natural for us. And that is the final version which we record and play live.
What are your ambitions and how far do you want to push your band?
We now have two records, we are currently playing some live shows (in Belgium and the Netherlands) to do some promotion for our band. We are now looking to play some bigger live shows than we have now. We hope we can do some shows in other European countries as well and maybe make it to some international doom festivals. We know it is not easy in the doom metal scene nowadays to do the things we want, but we are working on it.
What are your influences/musical references and the impact those same influences had in your sound?
I am a very happy person in life, but like everybody I also have my deeper and more sad moments. I always tend to use these feelings to create music. These feelings are the biggest influence to create melodies or sounds. It can be a feeling I personally have or things I witness that hapens to other people which makes me sad or angry. Doom metal is the music in which I tend to relate to the most while writing music from the heart.
What’s next for you?
Like I said before, our main focus now is gaining some more and bigger live shows than we play now at the time. Of course everyone in the band has a full-time job, so we still need to combine both.