For many years it was rather quiet around the black metal band CRIMSON MOON, before they managed to come back with „Oneironaut“ in 2016. With the follow-up record „Mors Vincit Omnia“ the new line-up has finally proven their long-term return. In the following interview, mastermind Scorpios Androctonus answered questions about his personal approach to black metal, his recent exploration of the Vanitas motif and the use of a wooden recorder on his new album.
Greetings! I am glad that you are able to answer a few questions. How do you do?
Quite well, thank you. We are three days away from the album release date and just finished our last festival performance for the Summer, so now I have the time to work on writing new material.
CRIMSON MOON haven’t been that active for a long time, however, in recent years you have reactivated the band. What motivated you to get the band going again?
I was basicaly preoccupied with other bands and though still working with CRIMSON MOON material in the background. As I was playing in Melechesh for some years, it consumed a lot of time with touring and the hassle of constant line up changes in that band. I guess I just started feeling burnt out with where things were going in that band and in 2016, I decided to quit and focus mainly on CRIMSON MOON, which is the best choice I have made and has been a lot more lucrative and rewarding in several aspects.
With „Oneironaut“ you released your first full-length album in more than ten years in 2016, the successor „Mors Vincit Omnia“ is now being released three years afterwards. Do you think you will be able to continue to release new material regularly?
Definitely. I was very pleased with the whole writing and recording process of this last album, and I am eager to get material prepared to get back in the studio. I have rough sketches of about four new tracks so far, so the idea is to write more than what will be needed for a full length to have a choice of the most fitting material to put together. Althogh I am not quite there yet, I feel I am getting closer to discovering the overall concept of what the new material will be.
Agreas and Sabnoc have become the band’s new guitarists a while back and recently Blastum joined as a permanent drummer. Why did it take you this considerable amount of time until you had a permanent line-up?
I live in a rural area and I’m not much into social gatherings, so this makes finding suitable musicians many fold more difficult than it already is. In 2015 Sabnoc got in contact with me, and it turned out he is living in a village about a 30 minute drive from me. So from there, we able to establish a solid line up. I have had the oppurtunities in the past to work with some great musicians and also some real assholes adorned with gargantuan egos and mental issues. CRIMSON MOON has always been a very personal entity for me, so I have maintained a very high standard of who I am willing to work with in the band. Basically everything just fell into place since 2016 for CRIMSON MOON and I couldn’t ask for anything more in the current lineup. Working with the wrong people is a pretty miserable experience and really drains and taxes creativity and motivation. So it was when I left Melechesh that I decided to put all my focus into the „Oneironaut“ album and do things all on my own save for the guest musicians on the album. It was really like starting over from scratch and taking a dive into unknown waters head first. I guess it’s one of those things, when you are on the right path, you get a feeling about it and things start to gain momentum in your favor.
How did the new line-up affect the creative process of your music?
For starters, it allowed me to focus more in depth on my areas of songwriting, Bass and Vocals. Both guitarists contributed some parts for the songs „Vanitas“ and „Upon A Pale Horse“, which played key elements in the writing of those tracks, and Blastum really pushed us to a new level with his performance on drums. So at this point getting the first album with this linep done, we are starting to find more and more effective ways to create new material.
„Mors Vincit Omnia“ is a bit shorter than your last two albums. Was it important to you not to overload the final tracklist?
I never really noticed/paid attention to the album lengths that much, to be honest. We ended up with a few extra tracks written at the time and just picked what worked and fit together best.
As one can tell from the title and the artwork, your new album „Mors Vincit Omnia“ as a whole is dedicated to the Vanitas theme. What gave you the idea to dive deeper into this subject?
I started writing the material in autumn and throughout the winter, which are very intense seasons in nature here in Germany, and really gave a lot of inspiration. Aside from that, I experienced a lot of deaths around that time, pets, a family member, a close friend, so I was really absorbed in death you could say.
The Vanitas motif is often characterized by a criticism of vanity because of its futility in the light of its transience. Do you think that people have become more vain these days?
Yes, I think so. People increasingly feel the need to have more and more things to live to the point it consumes their lives and probabably would not know how to survive without their modern day conveniences. Just think how it was before smart phones, or before internet in recent history, or even back to how it would have been without electricity for that matter. I think people who actively spend time stripped down from these modern technologies are able to experience some of the best qualities of life. This is one of the many reasons I enjoy spending so much time in nature, where there is no mobile network, and you learn what truly is essential to survive.
In which way does the eventual certainty of death affect your own way of life?
Well, it is someting that can happen at any given moment and next to nothing can be done to avoid that. Time is indeed limited, so it should not be wasted and it should be spent doing what brings pleasure.
Going back to your new album: For the vocals you have worked with quite a few guest singers. Why was it important to you to have a larger vocal range on your new album?
Three guest vocalists, two of which were on the same track. I felt this added some new elements to the material which fit very well. „Oneironaut“ had two guest vocalists as well, and I liked the results so decided to continue with this approach.
At the moment it seems to be popular in black metal to incorporate elements of church music and to present live shows as masses. You yourselves often use evocative choral singing and organs. Do you see yourself as part of this movement of black metal?
The intentions of the pipe organs and choir vocals were related more to the funeral aspects they evoke. This isn’t anything new to hear in black metal, look at Opus Nocturne or Emperor up until „In The Nightside Eclipse“. I won’t comment on what is popular right now in black metal because I simply don’t follow things that closely in what’s going on this day and age in the ‚scene‘. I don’t see myself as part of any black metal movement. I express myself through the music and that has no relationship to what other bands do.
Why do you think so many listeners are currently interested in this kind of black metal masses?
I really don’t know. Some people simply like dark music and the atmosphere it evokes.
On „Parcae – Trinity Of Fates“ you even use a wooden recorder – a pretty unusual instrument for a black metal band. What was your idea behind that part?
As the track is amount Ancient Roman mythology, I wanted the ending to leave an archaic, haunting atmosphere. It’s not the first, nor will it be the last time we incorporate unusual instruments in the music.
I have the impression that although you incorporate atypical sounds into your songs, you never get too far away from black metal. What do you think about bands that rely more on their other influences like symphonic or folk music?
I have always looked at like this: We are a black metal band and not trying to reinvent the wheel. That’s great when bands incorporate folk or other influences and execute it well, to each their own. I think one of the biggest challenges in making black metal is to attempt to stay creative without totally losing the essence of what was there in the early days. A lot of bands over the years have totally strayed from their roots, in some cases with good results and also with approaches which I found to be less than desirable. I came across one review on the new album stating „it’s black metal, nothing new“, or something along those lines which, I guess, was intended as a sort of criticism, but it was exactly our intention, to create black metal… which ultimately is a style of music that wasn’t intended for the masses.
On the other hand, there are also many black metal bands who just play an already established style without any special features. Do you think such an approach is unimaginative or is innovation not that important to you?
There are a lot of clone/copy cat bands which for the most part I find boring. How many bands are there sounding exactly like Darkthrone in the late 90’s? Some do it quite well, but when I hear that stuff, it makes me just prefer to listen to Darkthrone. There is also a lot of music in ths genre that tries to follow a certain sort of standard, but comes across to me as insincere, so it’s like a facade of something interesting but empty when given a closer listen.
The final track „Tempus Fugit“ with its dark ambient sounds seems to be more of an outro. Intros and outros, unfortunatelly, are often just skipped by many listeners who deem them unnecessary. Why do you think this track is still an important part of the album?
The CRIMSON MOON releases have a sort of history of long intros and outros. It’s an element I still enjoy in a lot of older albums and seems to always get mixed responses from listeners on two opposite ends of the spectrum. I recently got my old stereo setup and back in order, and was pleasently reminded how it is to listen to music properly as oppossed to this digital day and age, where you can usually just skip to whatever you want to hear with one finger. „Tempus Fugit“ was basically the ending of the last track „Funeral Begotten“. We actually split the outro seemlessly on the album so it’s convenient for both types of listeners who like or dislike such parts. It started with just a few seconds of pipe organ that continued at the end of „Funeral Begotten“ and turned out to be a perfect space for Annuna Ki from Akhkharu to add his work to.
The artwork of your latest record was created by Daniele Valeriani. How did you get to know him and his work and why did you decide to let him do the visualization of your record?
It was another instance where things just fell into place.
Johan from Aeon Sophia Press got me in touch with Daniele when I mentioned we were looking for a new artist, as he has some excellent artists for his publications. Daniele Valeriani doesn’t really do any commissioned work for bands, it was more just our luck he was already fond of „Oneironaut“, so basically it was him choosing us. I was already familiar with his artwork and he is definitely one of the best there is active today in my opinion. We wanted to originally hire him to do the entire layout, but he simply was too busy. In the end we had a bit of a curse with the layout which caused some delays and went through two graphic designers who were not able to get it right, so at the last minute Daniele stepped in, while in the middle of completing the Mayhem artwork and layout and got things completed correctly. It was a bit of a headache using the die cut design and the exact specs for the factory, but the results are amazing. I actually just recieved the slip case sleeves now in the post for the limited edition vinyl, so that was the only thing missing for the release and now seeing it all complete is amazing. The layout is something magazines and reviews do not get to see from the digital promotional copies and it’s truly above and beyond.
For the release of „Mors Vincit Omnia“ you worked with the label Debemur Morti. Why did you choose this particular label?
We were looking for a label that would be suitable for our intentions to grow as a band. Debemur Morti was one of our top choices which came highly recommended by our now current labelmates, Archgoat. So we submitted two demo recordings from the new material and once again, things fell into place, which has started to be a routine cycle in operations.
Let’s finish the interview with a short brainstorming. What comes to your mind about the following terms?
Life after death: The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can’t be created or destroyed. It can only change forms.
Batushka: I never gave them a proper listen, what I did hear I don’t remember much from, I just hear/heard a lot of hype about them, which gives me a sort of knee jerk reaction to not want listen to it.
Baroque: It’s interesting in many aspects from music to architecture. Something I enjoy commonly.
Dark ambient: It’s a style of music I go through phases of listening to, usually in the darker times of the year. Like any music. For me it’s something I have to be in the right mood for.
Germany: I have lived over half my life here, so it feels like home, but still feels sort of new to me in some ways. I think that is an advantage of moving to a different continent, you tend to take less for granted.
Beauty: I believe nature is the immaculate form of beauty, so I am fortunate to be able to spend so much time surrounded in it. It’s the first place I go to after getting back from a trip to perform live.
Thanks again for your answers. I would like to leave the final words to you:
Thank you for your interest in our work. As the release date for „Mors Vincit Omnia“ approaches (30th of August) a chapter closes and our work towards what the future may bring continues.
16. Dezember 2019 Stephan Rajchl
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