BraveWords had the honour of catching up with legendary Atrocity and Leaves’ Eyes visionary Alexander Krull on the recent 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise and the Streaming For Vengeance video interview will air tomorrow (March 11th) at 3:33 PM EST. The grand finale of Atrocity's Okkult trilogy, Okkult III, is out now via Massacre Records and the final chapter is a bloody horror, detailing as Krull says, “the dark side of humanity.” We start by telling a famous quote Slayer’s Tom Araya told us once: “We've lived on this planet for thousands of years and we still can't fucking get along."
"You see, that is actually what I have to say, I have the same thing in mind,” Krull agrees wholeheartedly. “That is the concept of Okkult. It's the dark side of humanity, it's the dark history of humanity. Of course, the mysteries like necromancy, ghosts, and paranormal stuff, and supernatural, that's all also part of that. But also conspiracies, throughout human history if you see what was going on with murders, and all for power, greed, might, to control people, to manipulate them. You know, the biggest thing, you see it also nowadays, to manipulate everyone, is fear. Whatever political system, whatever religion. You control people with fear. And that is also something going on also nowadays, and that’s how the fire ignites. The world is on the cliff. It can totally swap and we erase ourselves from the planet. We are facing this in fact, since the Cold War. People were swearing, 'No more war! Never ever going to happen again', and here we fro again, and the whole world is affected by that. And every day you've got new, horrible news about war crimes and stuff like that, and I have to say, the metal community, the metal family, we have like 71 countries on the boat, right? Everybody gets along. We get along, We have the music to celebrate. Of course there are discussions, like, 'This band is better than this one', or whatever, and backing or it's over the top, but in general, that's the best example of how the world could go. People find a level, and in this case it's our music and our lifestyle, to get along with each other. I'm not saying heavy metal is a religion, but in metal the law number one is Breaking The Law - it means there is the freedom of creativity, of art, of lyrics, of all that. And we live the dream. We know that we are having a special gift with this scene. Especially at times like that, I don't take this for granted. I am absolutely thankful to visit fifty countries, five continents. I would never have seen any of this. Meeting people like you from the other end of the world and being in Australia or El Salvador or Japan or China, or in Russia. I've been there and if people want to tell me now that all Russians are assholes, well I say no. Because I also know, friends of ours, who don't agree with the regime. And they are in danger, they've even gotten imprisoned. We have two crew guys in Kiev. We have Ukranian crew. From 2009 on tour with Atrocity, they were with us. And they're sitting in the tour bus and they're telling me already about what's to come. This oligarch, mafia regime, they will invade."
You can catch the entire interview tomorrow (March 11th) at 3:33 PM EST.
You can watch/listen Streaming For Vengeance on the BraveWords Facebook page and the BraveWords YouTube channel.
Guest musicians on the Okkult III album include: Elina Siirala (Leaves’ Eyes, Angel Nation), Zoe Marie Federoff (Cradle Of Filth, Catalyst Crime), Robse Dahn (Equilibrium), Misstiq, Jonah Weingarten (Catalyst Crime, Pyramaze) as well as Igor Górewicz.
Killer production by Alexander Krull at Mastersound Entertainment. Striking horror sound effects provided by Emmy Award-winning Canadian sound designer Katie Halliday (Saw, Stranger Things, Star Trek: Discovery).
The lyrical concept about the dark side of human history, obscure stories and mysterious places is spun further on Okkult III. "We look deep into the mental abysses of the serial killer Józef Cyppek from Szczecin, Poland, in the 1950s ('Cypka'), experience the great conspiracy of the Schwarze Reichswehr after World War I ('Born To Kill'), dive into the world of modern ghost conjuring ('Faces From Beyond') and into the occult machinations of the Vatican and the Order of the Knights Templar ('Bleeding For Blasphemy')," says Atrocity.
Okkult III is the culminating conclusion of the Okkult trilogy, and a self-proclaimed German death metal masterpiece.
"Fire Ignites" video:
"Malicious Sukkubus" video
"Desecration Of God" video:
"Born To Kill" video:
"Faces From Beyond" video:
(Photo credit Stefan Heilemann)
