Decade Of Aggression - 10 Years Of Invictus Productions

Invictus Productions have been releasing broadside after broadside of high quality releases for a decade now. The label, founded by Corkman Darragh O’Laoghaire back in the halcyon days of 1999 stands alone as being the only Irish label to have sucessfully operated as a metal label for such a period, signing international acts and garnering a reputation for purveying some of the finest Black/Death Metal acts out there bar none.

The mission, to which the label has stayed true all these years, was and remains to provide ‘music for underground maniacs, heathens, heretics and headbangers.’  Indeed, the Invictus stall with its grinning operator shouting abuse at anyone recognisable within earshot has become an integral part of major Irish metal events.  

With ten years down, over 18 full scale releases under his belt and an uncalcuable amount of wheeling and dealing done in the name of heavy metal, Metal Ireland sat down with Mssr. O’Laoghaire for a look back at where it all began.

*****

M.I. – Give us a bit of context to the foundation of the label.

D - Well I’m originally from a town from the back arse of nowhere in Cork, and like many people I eventually moved up to Dublin in the nineties. I had done tape trading in the past. I’ve never played an instrument but previously, I’d done two fanzines. In the early nineties, there was one called Ancient Wisdom, which took forever to put together. I can’t even remember who was in it! Trying to write to all these different bands took forever. I think I started it in 1994 and eventually got the thing out in 1996. But the second one was Lú Ceanghaill Fuil, which I did with Alan (Primordial) and which means ‘Bond of Blood’. That was a zine that was very much of its time, in terms of the climate of Black Metal. It was taking things to this almost pseudo-intellectual level. You almost were expected to be somewhat intelligent and developed as a reader.

M.I. - These are the years when Misanthropy were particularly active?

D - Yeah, exactly. But then there were the likes of Isten magazine, from Finland, which had a fantastic level of writing, even in comparison to the mainstream metal magazines like Metal Hammer or Terrorizer. Isten was always far superior.  It would have had a pretty big effect on how we went about things. We did a bunch of interviews and articles, and in a sense what we put together was an art house Black Metal fanzine. But it was full of tongue-in-cheek humour too . At that time, Primordial were on Misanthropy and Alan was busy with that. So I thought to myself, ‘What am I going to do now?’ And it just occurred to me. ‘Fuck it, start a label.’

M.I. - When you do look at the first swathe of Invictus releases, it stands out that there’s a lot of Australian stuff there. How did that come about?

D - A quirk of history and a quirk of fate really. In 1999, when things were really starting to change for Metal in Ireland, Simon who played bass in Destroyer 666 around the time of their ‘Cold Steel…’ release, moved to Dublin on a whim. He ended up with nowhere to stay. He ended up in Fibbers wearing a Sodom shirt, and of course ended up talking to Alan, and that’s how we got to know him.

M.I. - You say things were changing for Metal in Dublin around that point. How so?

D - It’s hard to describe. From around 1994/1995 up until even 2000, Ireland was like a cultural void when it came to Metal and Punk and that sort of thing. Dance music had literally wiped it all out. There was always us bubbling away under it though, and the scene was eventually reconstructed out of nothing. There were gigs on in Slatterys, with bands that would eventually become Mael Mórdha and Primal Dawn. These were gigs that were on weekend nights, between 50 and 100 people at them, always the same people. There was a regeneration in sense, metal seemed to be picking up, something must have been filtering down from the mainstream at the time.

M.I. - So Simon from Destroyer as well as Steve from Slaughter Lord (Australia’s lost sons of relentless thrash) had moved to Dublin around then. From my tape trading years, I had the old Sadistik Execution stuff, the Slaughter Lord stuff, and I had bought the first Gospel of the Horns demo (The Satanist’s Dream) in a second hand shop in Cork of all places. Someone had obviously bought it, didn’t like it and I swooped in. But those two guys really brought it to my attention. Simon had a tape with him, which I still have, that had the Destroyer 666 demos, the Razor of Occam demo and the Gospel of the Horns Sinners demo, and all that really good stuff.

Now a lot of these demos were actually quite new, and had only come out in 1998/1999. So I just said ‘Fuck! This stuff is really exciting.’ And it really started again from there.

M.I. - So it was through Steve himself that you got the idea for the first release, Slaughter Lord’s ‘Thrash ‘Till Death’ compilation?

D - Well, Steve had come over from Australia with the idea of getting a label to release it. It was big long process in the end, which we did in Trend Studios in Dublin. He’d come over with the original DAT tapes, and shitty little cassette tapes with ‘Slaughter Lord’ written on the side from their rehearsals. So myself, Steve and Alan and maybe a couple of other heads went into the studio in town, and literally listened to what you hear on the CD, cut according to how Steve directed and mastered the whole thing there. That was how it came about.

M.I. - When you were putting it together, had you already got a concrete idea in your mind of Invictus, the label, coming into being with this first release?

D - Actually, when I had first got the idea of doing it, with a few other people being somewhat involved, the idea had been to put out the Morphosis (Ire.) demos. Morphosis had since broken up, but those two demos that they released from the nineties will always be classic to me, as Death Metal releases in their own right. I thought that would be a good launching pad.

It’s important to realize that I did not have a fucking clue at this point. It was seriously all just hoping for the best. The Morphosis demos were remastered, but to this day they haven’t come out. Stephen O’Malley (Southern Lord Records, Sunn O))), Burning Witch etc) actually did a really cool artwork piece for it, but that’s since been lost. It hasn’t been replaced, and it won’t be coming out on Invictus, but if they ever surface, It’d almost certainly Sentinel Records putting them out.

MI: The second release you did is one you wouldn’t really associate with the Death/Black Metal bands usually found on Invictus, that being Solstice’s ‘Halycon’ EP. It’s an epic Doom Metal release that somehow found its way onto the label. Did Rich (Solstice head honcho and Miskatonic founder) approach you to do it directly?

D - When we were starting the whole label, it was a case of ‘How will we approach things and what will we decide to release?’. Again, it was a case of me not having a notion and winging the entire thing, but Rich has always been good to me. I actually knew his wife, Lucy, before I got to know him. We had brought Solstice over in 1999 or thereabout and I was a fan of them. It’s quite a contradiction really, because I generally don’t like Doom or Heavy Metal. It was a freak occurrence that I really like ‘New Dark Age’ and ‘Halcyon’. So Rich asked me would I like to release it, considering how I was just starting a label, and I thought it was a cool idea. And it would be something different as well. It’s the one release that really stands out from the rest. In fact, a couple of years ago I said to him that I wouldn’t mind repressing it, but by that stage it was already in the process of being redone so that was fine. It think it’s good to have it there though, and it shows that the label doesn’t have to conform to exact modes or genres.

MI: 2002, two years after Solstice, saw you release both the Vomitor 7” and Gospel of the Horn’s first full length, ‘A Call to Arms’. Would it be correct to say that ‘A Call to Arms’ was a real step up for the label, in terms of what you were doing as an organization?

D - Completely. I suppose I should contextualize things, in that the Slaughter Lord and Solstice releases came out while Invictus was working quite a bit with a Dutch company called Hammerheart Records. This kind of gave the label a false start in many respects. What was happening was Gido, the guy who ran it, came over to see Primordial one time and told me if you press a thousand CDs and do this and that, this is how much money you make.

And I was like ‘Fuck, this is easy!’. But it’s hard to under-emphasize how much more difficult it is to run this from Ireland. He happened to be based in Maastricht, which gave him such easy access to the likes of Germany, France and Belgium. He might have had to drive 5 hours to get somewhere and set up a stall, but continental metal heads have a lot of disposable income, and there’s much lower shipping costs for him. He had a network built up and it looked so simple. But here, we never had this demographic here to support sales. So in 2001 I basically didn’t release anything at all, I was set adrift, and I had to build everything up myself again.

But I had got my hands on Gospel of the Horns’s mini LP and heard that they’d be touring Europe in 2000, so I booked a gig for them in the Gasworks here in July 2000.  And they had such a good time here, when they got back to Belgium at  the end of the tour, two of them hopped on a flight back to Dublin just to hang out.  We really hit it off, so they eventually rang me up and offered the full-length to me. They just asked me out of the blue would I like to do the album, which was great because I was trying to kick-start the label at that point. The only way I can describe for me is if it’s 1983 and Metallica have just rang up to ask if you want to release ‘Kill ‘Em All’. I was just like ‘Fuuuck’. It was huge.

So they recorded it by themselves in Austrailia, and I paid for it. It cost four and a half grand. When they actually did call me to ask if I wanted the album, I was actually in the process of moving to the Netherlands. I had money saved up as I was fed up in Dublin, and I moved over and lived with Destroyer 666 there for six weeks. That didn’t work out for me at all, in fact it was a complete disaster, so I came back with my tail between my legs and went straight into trying to get the Gospel record together. It was like scaling Everest. But then when I had it in my hands it was fantastic, but that’s when the real work starts: getting the fucking thing out there.

M.I. - How did you go about that?

D - I had a guy in Poland who helped me out a lot with promo which was very handy. I had my first big promo attempt, getting them interviews in magazines and reviews everywhere. They were featured in some of the bigger magazines too, but interestingly Terrorizer never touched them.

M.I. - How about the Vomitor release of the same year?

D - I had met the guys from Vomitor in 2001, at the Wacken Open Air festival, which they’d come over for. I had their demo and I had their 7” tracks on cassette previously. I met Rob, their guitarist and vocalist, and I was pissed, just singing the lyrics to him,  and I said I’d love to release it. And he said that I seemed to be really into it, so why not just go ahead and do just that. Which I thought ‘Excellent!’ That’s the very simple way it came about.

M.I. – And what’s it like seeing bands actually take that name of that release (Neutron Hammer) as their actual band name?

D - It’s kind of bizarre seeing the legacy of it alright. Obviously the guys in Neutron Hammer  are quite young, but to be so influenced by it, it’s strange seeing it having such a continuity. That Vomitor release would have been the first vinyl release I’d have looked after completely myself, but there were previously vinyl versions of both the Slaughter Lord and Solstice.

M.I. – After the release of ‘A Call to Arms’, the next thing in to be released by Invictus  was one of those other bands that you really can associate with the label; Allfather, from Canada.

D - Yeah, their 10” (self-titled) in 2005 was next. When I started the label, the three bands I really wanted to sign on was Gospel of the Horns, Allfather and Dawn of Azazel from New Zealand. I had a Dawn of Azazel demo and I fucking loved it, and was in contact with them and distributed it over here. These three bands were what I wanted. I got in contact in Allfather and just kept emailing them and emailing them, I was basically chasing them down.

Dawn of Azazel subsequently signed with someone else and went down a route I wouldn’t be a big fan of, but I kept hounding Allfather. They were quite active back then, gigging a lot, they had another demo and a four-way split under their belts too. Then they recorded the album and it was all going fine, but at that exact moment, the drummer left to go to college, Justin (guitar) left to join 3 Inches of Blood, and Adam the bassist also went to college. So it was just Chad (vocals) left, who said ‘What the fuck?’ and left. The band does still exist, and I’m going to re-release the ‘Weapon of Ascencion’ album soon as well as a compendium of all their previous released material at some point in the future, complete with the demos.

M.I. – The Urgrund release, ‘Battle Skin’, is the one that’s slotted in between the two Allfather releases in the Invictus history. At this stage was word getting out about the label?

D - Well yes, by then, the label was starting to attract some proper attention, especially with the Gospel of the Horns album. People were kind of saying ‘What? You’re on an Irish label?!’ when they heard about who had put it out. The really pivotal thing about the label that happened previous to this was when I announced that I was going to release ‘A Call to Arms’, and Osmose put in an offer to the band over me.

M.I. –  Probably not a great feeling.

Yeah, I assumed that the band would sign with Osmose. It would have made perfect sense for them and I wouldn’t have held it against them. After all, I was only getting my shit together at that stage and figuring things out. And Osmose could give them proper distributions and tours. At this stage, Osmose had recently lost Marduk and Immortal, their biggest bands, but they still had their eye on the ball, signing stuff like Axis of Advance. They had enough push and pull to do good by Gospel.

So I rang Cozy from Gospel, and I actually got him out of bed at whatever time of night it was over there. I rang him from my parent’s house and I’ll never forget it. So I just said ‘So yeah mate, Osmose…’ and he said ‘Ah yeah mate, we’re not fuckin’ doin’ it with them, we’re doin’ it with you!’ And I asked him if he was serious and he said he’d given me his word hadn’t he. And I said I didn’t doubt him and he was almost offended! So they were still completely on for me to do it and I hung up the phone so elated. To know you won out over Osmose, I was still scratching my head wondering how it had happened. That’s why I’ll always respect them and be mates with them. Without them, Invictus wouldn’t  have become what it is today. They’re of paramount importance  when it comes to accrediting people for what the label has become. That’s my Oscar speech!

M.I. – The second Allfather release, ‘Weapon of Ascension’ was really a fantastic record in my opinion. Even down to the production, it’s just perfect and so lethal sounding.

Yeah, they paid for it and recorded that in Canada, sent it on to me, we handled it in the usual way with their royalty percentages, but we agreed if they wanted to release it through someone else that would be no problem. They wanted to retain ownership of the record which was fine, after all this is the underground.

M.I. – After the Allfather, the Kill release came next, ‘Horned Holocaust’.

It did, and that’s one I’m planning to reissue in the near future as well. We’ve been talking about it for ages, and were looking into getting new layouts and everything, but that might not happen. But it’ll be coming out soon enough again, as they have a new album coming out, I just need to slot it into the schedule.

M.I. – This would be around 2005 now. Were things beginning to build up a head of steam with the label, between Gospel of the Horns and Allfather being done and word getting out?

Actually, at that point in 2005, I was quite close to packing the whole thing in! I was working full-time as a manager, and that job happened to be ridiculously demanding. I was working weekends and back in on Monday morning, and I was up at 8 every morning mailing out promos and getting zero response. I was having perennial problems with my website in that someone agreed to do it and it wasn’t working out, even to get a single update on it was a nightmare.

I had no proper mail order, unlike now. Someone would mail me ordering something and I would have to mail back saying ‘Sorry mate, that’s been sold out for six months.’ There were always problems. But it looks great now due to Lindsay, who I got to know through the Allfather lads, and she’s been a lifesaver with it. So 2005 I had many conversations with friends saying ‘I should knock this on the head’. But they knew if I did I’d be even more of a pain in the ass, as I’d have no creative outlet then. Also, the name of the label is Invictus, which means ‘unconquerable’, and I thought you just have to baton down the hatches some times and get on with it. It’s not going to be easy but it can be done.

M.I. – The actual name of the label, Invictus, was it at all inspired by the Henley poem, ‘Invictus’? As a poem it’s completely applicable to someone at their wit’s end with a label in Dublin.

D - No, it wasn’t, but it’s very applicable alright. The name was chosen from the Virgin Steele album of the same name, and also there some influence from Order From Chaos (see opening track from ‘An Ending in Fire’). The word was stuck in my head and that Virgin Steel album is very strong and triumphant sounding. But that W.E. Henley poem, is only something I became familiar with much later on. The words of that poem definitely attest to someone holding their ground and standing firm in the face of adversity , and I think that’s something which is important in all aspects of life. Remaining resilient. 

M.I. – The next release was the Sol Axis 10”, a Dublin Black Metal band which you were actually involved with yourself. How did that come about?

D - Yeah, I was asked to join the band after the vocal spot became vacant, and I went ahead and did. We did two gigs with myself on vocals, one with Marduk and one at the Tyrant’s Fest in Whelans (w/ Secrets of the Moon, Morrigan, Razor of Occam and more), the second one being a lot smoother. But it didn’t work out in the end. I’d always liked the band though, there was a really cold, distant vibe about them, and they were a real cut above most Irish bands of that style. I liked the sound and aesthetic, and I had agreed to do the 10” before I had any other involvement with them, so I was happy to facilitate their growth.

M.I. – Also in 2005 was another landmark release for the label, Sigrblot’s ‘Blodsband’ album, which has attracted serious praise. It’s somewhat different from the other bands in that they were two anonymous individuals from Sweden.

D - That came together through the underground network. Literally just from talking, emailing, through MSN, the thing just came together. I touched base with them way back when for something unrelated, kept talking for ages and eventually the idea for Invictus doing the vinyl came up. That was how it came about, pure underground talk until it happened.

There was a lot of problems though, with the pressing plant, with the inserts, with the patch that came with it. So people were ordering it and I was getting it in bits and pieces, so it sort of lost its impact that way. And a lot of copies are still available without the insert due to a fuck up on behalf of the postal system. It’s very Irish in respect that these things are out of your control, because of where you’re based you often get the shit end of the stick. It’s irritating, you often stop and say ‘Would this happen if I was in Sweden?’ No it wouldn’t, things would be efficient.

M.I. – Where does Invictus get most of it’s vinyl done up?

D - GZ in the Czech Republic is where I got those done up. It’s funny actually, a lot labels from Germany that get things done at GZ actually drive there to pick up them up from the factory, avoiding shipping and taxes, especially before the Czech Republic was in the EU. Petrol is your only cost. They’d just cover them up in the car and if they got stopped at the border and found out, they’d just pay the taxes, but often they’d get away with it. I can hardly jump in my Volkswagon and do likewise, unfortunately.

M.I. – The Vulpecula full length came out next, ‘In Dusk Apparition’. It was Chuck Keller from Ares Kingdom and Order from Chaos’ Ambient/Black Metal side project.

D - That’s right. He had previously released a couple of demos and the ‘Fons Immortalis’ EP which we thought was fucking great when it first came out. Really spacey, ethereal, occult sounding stuff that was sort of Black Metal, and really experimental with a small ‘e’. Very different from what he’d done before, but myself being a huge Order from Chaos fan, it was a honour to release it. It was a bit left field for Invictus but from an individual that I had such respect for. I was very happy to put it out.

M.I. – We’re up to 2006 proper now, and the next band that you had strong ties with was Spearhead, who were known as Yersina Pestis back then. You put out their debut, ‘Deathless Steel Command’ and had them support Destroyer 666 and Revenge at a gig in Dorans in Dublin too.

D – Yeah, we started with them emailing me, sending me mp3s and the like, which I must admit I didn’t really give much time because you get so much of that, bands emailing you saying ‘Check us out!’. A lot of the time it’s drivel. If you look at my Myspace I have is 132 unread messages from bands wanting you to listen to them. What I trust is people who I know who have a good taste in music, or either link trawling myself. It’s easier with forums now too, and other people pointing out great bands. There’s billions of band who should have a law made against them playing.

M.I. – So what turned Spearhead for you?

I was really impressed with ‘Deathless Steel Command’, which they recorded themselves. It had this sort of hybrid Black/Death Metal thing, and a War Metal vibe which I really liked. They were more Black Metal at the start seeing as they wore makeup, but I thought it was a really good starting point for a band. They were actually supposed to release it through an American label called Regimental, but for some reason it appeared that Regimental weren’t putting it out, I’m not sure of the circumstances, but I said that I would do it.

D - We had the whole Grand Belial’s Key fiasco a few weeks beforehand which they were supposed to play, so when the Destroyer slot came along they were keen to come over and I asked them to. I don’t think they were too happy with the night, but they had the Impiety tour which came over here too, but as of last September we agreed to go our separate ways.

M.I. – Along with Spearhead’s last album in 2007, you had ‘Realm of the Damned’, the most recent Gospel of the Horns. Another big release for Invictus?

D - Yeah it certainly was. I didn’t actually do the vinyl, I licensed it to Keith from Destroyer’s label (Black Ace Records) because I’d done the Sol Axis, Allfather and Sigrblot LP all at the same time and that was a serious cost. And wonderfully, An Post had decided to bump up their fees then, and did away with surface mail, so I was going to be utterly arse-raped for money at that point. There’s only so much you can charge people for these things.

M.I. – It sounds like another example of all the services that the label has to rely on, like budget airlines and postal services, causing the major amount of grief.

D - Well this is where the whole ‘Heathen Resistance’ thing comes from. Opposition to the banal, conservative, mainstream culture that is just determined not to let something like this breathe. It’s never going to be big, or something you’ll read about in the Irish Times (thank fuck), but it’ll remain resistant to all the bullshit that comes around like this. All these things that get in your way. It’s a real labour of love sometimes, but a source of immense frustration.

M.I. – Around this point you had ‘Realm of the Damned’, but you also had the Tyrant’s Blood EP, ‘Prophecy’, and you were handling the Diocletian demo. It was a pretty busy period for you.

D - Yeah, you get to a point where you’ve built up a sort of charge, and you’re trying to capitalize on that and keep momentum going, but there are always limitations. They can be personal or whatever, but after ten years of this, I’ve got a degree of functionality now, with the webstore where people can buy directly, and a huge trading network. I’ve got the basis I need for the label to live on, so you can get a better turnover and it’s somewhat easier.

M.I. – Sentinel Records would have been establishing the shop in Dublin around this point too. You’ve really managed to strike up an alliance there.

D - Oh definitely. There’s a lot of new, younger people who’ve come up over the years, who might not know Invictus but will see the stall in the Sentinel shop and pick stuff up there. I do try to keep my prices low, and I think that €10 is a good price for a CD which helps. If you’re out at a gig with €50 in your pocket, you can pick up a CD from the Invictus stall and still have the cash for a few pints. Even if I’m at a festival, I’m so much more likely to pick up something I’m not familiar with if it’s that cheap, rather than €20 or so. But Sentinel has been a great help alright, especially helping to get the name out a bit more.

MI - We’re getting towards the end of the history of releases now. New Zealand’s Diocletian really started to rear their heads with a lot of releases between around 2007 and now. You’ve just released their first album, ‘Doom Cult’. Are you happy with how it turned out?

D - I am, of course! I’m very happy with it, especially as it’s been a long time coming. I agreed to work with them a few years ago, and we worked out a specific way of doing so, allowing them to work with other labels for their demos and EPs. That’s helped to get their name out there. This is the way it needs to be done now in my opinion. Gone are the days of the label carrying everything ; bands create their own buzz and interest. So many labels are out there selling bands, with their own labels and catchphrases, saying ‘Why you should buy it!’.

There’s a certain disbelief on behalf of the customer because it’s coming from a label, but when a band actually is out there pushing themselves it’s different. The album’s been in the works for some time, I only got the master a couple of months ago, it’s been almost two years since I paid for the recording, but sometimes, as cheesy as it sounds, the best things come to those who wait. I haven’t seen them live yet, but hopefully some day.

M.I. – That brings us right up until the present day. Going on what you’ve said thus far, it’s almost impossible to answer if you see yourself doing the same thing in ten years time, would it?

D - Yeah, to be honest, if I don’t continue this for the next ten years, I know I’ll be involved in something else creative. I know there’s only so far this can go logically, with the demands of the real world it’s a matter of just finding time. And sometimes you have to be logical and say that this chapter is over and be proud of what you’ve achieved, but not get too nostalgic about letting it go if and when the time comes.

M.I. - That being said, there seems to be plenty on the horizon looking, with the likes of Apocalypse Command and Sanguis Imperum becoming closely associated with the label.

Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff I’m planning. Witchrist, which has members of Diocletian, Apocalypse Command which features Gene from Angelcorpse, and there’s also the next Tyrants Blood album which has already been recorded. There’s the second Diocletian album and Slutvomit from the States. There’s another band from Canada too, called Antediluvian who possibly might be involved.

M.I. – A lot of stuff in the burner then.

D - Yeah, it’s when the label has got to this stage, and there’s enough money being turned over to allow you to look at more possibilities. That’s the fundamental point here, it’s a financial entity in the end. I’m not going to put thousands into if it can’t sustain itself. It’s not only not viable, it’s nonsensical and anyone in a business context who does that needs to address what it is that they’re doing. I won’t say for definite that does releases are going to come out shortly, but they’re planned and certainly lined up.

M.I. – There’s a list of people beyond yourself directly involved on the Invictus website, have you been fortunate with people helping you out with the label over the years?

D - Oh yeah, it’s been integral. My girlfriend Elaine, Charles, Tony, Purcell and Wes who will be back helping now that he’s finished his final exams in college. They’ve been totally supportive, be it with the stall or driving to Day of Darkness with a car jammed full of stock or whatever. When they’re standing behind the stall wheeling and dealing while I’m off being pissed. It’s almost a collective in that sense, people have always helped out when they feel like it. And if they don’t feel like it, they just tell me! And sometimes they’ll suggest they can do things. Without their participation there’s a shitload of basic, essential things I just couldn’t do.

M.I. – There seems to be a raft of really good Death Metal out there at the moment, music in general that Invictus itself is well connected with. What do you think is the best stuff coming out at the moment?

D. - Well I think the new Destroyer 666 album coming out shortly is excellent, I’ve actually heard it already. The new Asphyx album too, and Teitanblood, Funeral Mist, obviously Diocletian. I think this year there’s been so much good stuff that’s come out that’s really set the precedent. It’s interesting how things go in cycles.

Like the Thrash boom that arrived a few years ago and is pretty much dead now. Swedish Death Metal seems to be the flavour of the month now. The other thing is that a lot of these bands from Sweden are really young, between around 16 and 21. They weren’t even born when Left Hand Path came out, so they think it’s great and want to play like that. And I think that’s very important, because I don’t give a flying fuck about reinventing the wheel. I don’t care what anyone says regarding that.

Someone can argue, why do you need another Asphyx album, when you have the classic ones with Van Drunen? That’s nothing to do with it. If that’s how you view music, in a context like that, then you’re limiting yourself entirely. I hear the new Asphyx album in 2009 and know it’s great that there’s this bunch of old farts playing it and into it. When you put your headphones on, and you’re on your way to college or work and you just hear that CRACK, you know it’s good to feel alive. To paraphrase Keith from Destroyer, who I believe ripped it off from Nietzsche, music is a narcotic and I’m an addict.

****

To celebrate a decade of poisoning the world with sonic filth, Invictus Productions will be hosting a 10 year anniversary party in Dublin on Saturday, September 26th. Austrailia’s finest black thrash exports and key players in the Invictus story, GOSPEL OF THE HORNS are set to headline as part of their final ever string of European dates, and it promises to be a night of unholy metal and beer-soaked celebration. Keep an ear to the ground in the usual spots for more lineup annoucements, as well as venue and price information:

Interview by Lorcan Archer
Photography by Emmett Connell

www.invictusproductions.net

www.metalireland.com