Interview mit Menetekel von Ungfell

How well did you get through the pandemic and how is the situation with you at the moment?
Well I’m alive, so that’s cool! The pandemic didn’t really affect UNGFELL since we’re not a live band anyway. I could do without the pandemic nonetheless.

Your second album came out very soon after your first, but for „Es grauet“ you took a bit more time. What was going on with you in the meantime?
Good things need time. I was working on numerous releases for different bands as well. The music had been recorded pretty much a year after the second album but the whole thing with the illustrations and the cover took a while, not to mention the layout. I tend to be pretty perfectionist and that slows down the process.

You mentioned in a post that you had health problems with your throat. What happened and were you able to recover well in the meantime?
I impaled my throat on a halberd and that caused some damage on the vocal cords. No in all seriousness: I got mononucleosis pretty bad and almost couldn’t talk for a while (to everyone’s delight). I still wake up with throat pains, but I guess that’s the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle everybody is talking about.

Did you have to change your singing style because of the health complications? And is there a danger that such difficulties will happen again?
The vocals are a bit different on this album but not necessarily because of the illness. I somehow felt that the style used on this album fits the vibe of UNGFELL more. I wanted the whole album to sound rusty and warm so the high screaming just felt wrong somehow. I included more of those drunk half-clean vocals as well. Because they sound cool, ok?
I don’t think mononucleosis will come back for more. But you never know, maybe I get struck by lightning tomorrow.

While you set a selection of folk tales to music on your previous album, „Es grauet“ is a concept album. What inspired you to create a single whole narrative this time?
I just needed a challenge. It’s quite different to do a concept album instead of just loose tracks and it needs a lot of thought. An album is something very important to me and I feel like it’s a big achievement if you can make it sound like one big “thing” which almost takes on some kind of life form. I feel like we kinda succeded but I also think we can do better.

You work with some genre-typical narrative elements in the story – the action takes place in a small village, a witch is lynched, etc. Nevertheless, is there an element about the story that, in your opinion, makes it unmistakably yours?
The mayor of the city is pressuring the prostitute to only do “business” with him. He is able to blackmail her because he saw her do the deed in the devil’s position which was forbidden back in the middle ages. This detail is not something I came up with since it’s part of this particular lore, but I still feel that it is something which oscillates between the grotesque, the morbid and the historical. This kind of mixture is pretty Ungfellian to me.

The album again includes some short folk interludes. Have these become your trademark by now?
I think we’re too late to the party to trademark “folk interludes”. They are a part of the musical universe of UNGFELL though, yes.

What purpose do the interludes serve in the context of the storyline?
In regard to the storyline they are actually not less important than the “metal” tracks. I don’t really like the term “interludes” because it implies something incidental. I felt by attaching more meaning to them I could steer away from this misconception.

You generally have a very distinctive style that runs through all your albums until now. Is it difficult to work this sound into exciting songs without constantly trying new things and nevertheless not just repeating yourselves?
I’m trying not to be offended here because you seem to think we’re not trying out new things! I’d say we do but granted, it’s often on a very subtle level. Yes, it’s very difficult – probably the most difficult – to stay true to the sound you have created over the past years and still evolve. It sometimes feels weird if bands change their sound drastically from one release to the other. That’s why I’m trying to make the shift as unnoticeable as possible even though it is extremely important to me to evolve as a musician. The creative process is very weird sometimes; it feels like you are making your own boundaries but at the same time you are trying to overcome them. I don’t know if that makes sense, but to me it does.

I have the impression that „Es grauet“ again sounds a bit more polished than your first two albums in terms of production and performance. Do you think that you still have room for improvement in this regard?
There is always room for improvement. The improvement doesn’t come with a cleaner sound though but with the claim to make an album sound exactly as you want it to sound. Cleaner doesn’t mean better. Rawer doesn’t mean better either. There seems to be not much of thought in the scene in this regard because there are exactly two camps. I feel like you always have to ask yourself, if the mix serves a purpose. In the case of „Es grauet“ I feel like I managed to approximately get the sound I wanted. In that I didn’t succeed 100% there is room for improvement.

Perfectionism often isn’t a big deal in black metal – even roughly produced and rather clumsily recorded albums sometimes become classics. What makes a good black metal record for you personally?
I heavily touched on this with my previous answer. I feel like the worth of a (black metal) album stands or falls with the vision of the people behind it. If you don’t have a vision, you won’t know how to mix it, you don’t have a visual language, you don’t have interesting lyrics and it will end up being some generic bullshit as you can find en masse. A good album should really take you on a journey, as cheesy as it sounds. If it doesn’t take you on a journey it might still make you bang your head if it has cool riffs. No journey AND no riffs? Get out of my sight!

The title of the final track on „Es grauet“ suggests that the disaster that befalls the village will be overcome in the end. Is „Es grauet“ a black metal album with a happy ending?
If you’re calling the death of a whole village by a massive landslide caused by the curse of a witch a happy ending, sure!

Especially in folk black metal there is often a certain discrepancy: On the one hand the middle ages and ancient times are often romanticized, on the other hand dissenters and supposed heretics were persecuted at that time. How does that fit together from your point of view?
I think you are allowed to romanticize if you are aware that you are romanticizing. You can kinda build your own version of the middle ages and it will be some kind of fantasy world which might be completely off historically. There should be a place for this kind of escape into alternative realities in my view. The real medieval times are highly interesting though, and I love reading and studying texts from and about those times. I do feel that a lot of those black metal people really seem to want to go back to the middle ages. To them I say: please do! If you really think the world would be better off in the “glorious” medieval times, then please get your face smashed in by some rusty cudgel on the battlefield while you shit yourself and your home gets pillaged.

On your social media account you give the impression of being quite humorous and also open-minded towards other music styles than black metal. Do you think black metal is sometimes taken too seriously?
I would like to think that I’m open minded or at least I’m trying my best to be. In regard to humor: Many people in this scene seem to think it’s very cool and evil to always be grim and frostbitten. I don’t want to try and be somebody I’m not, just to please some frustrated “elite” asshats who have never written a decent riff in their lives and that’s why they have to compensate by assuring themselves that they “understand” black metal. I am very serious when it comes to what I do with UNGFELL. That doesn’t mean you can’t joke around from time to time.

What do you plan to do next with UNGFELL?
Music probably.

Let’s end with a quick brainstorming session. What comes to mind when you read the following words?
Rural life: Yes please.
Satyricon’s Munch exhibition: Sure, whatever.
Industrial black metal: Genres are complicated.
Sore throat pills: Carmol tut wohl.
Social media: Eh.
UNGFELL doing a folk record: Fuck off.

Thank you very much for your answers. Are there any final words you’d like to get off your chest at this point?
Thanks for showing an interest in our music.

Publiziert am 29. Juli 2021 von Stephan Rajchl