German occult death metal pioneers Sulphur Aeon released their new album, Seven Crowns And Seven Seals, via Van Records in October 2023. Guitarist / songwrter T recently spoke with MetalBite.com about the new record and the evolution of the band's sound. Following is an excerpt from the interview.
Q: What took it so long to release the follow-up to The Scythe Of Cosmic Chaos?
T: "First of all, I am not the fastest songwriter. I don't sit down and tell myself that I want to write an album now and set myself an appointment when it has to be finished. I can take some time: I play a lot of guitar, and when I do some riffing there is also a lot of crap coming around. So it takes some time until I have a good idea, but actually I don't know if it took longer this time than between the two previous albums. Of course, we had Covid so we weren't able to rehearse and apart from this the whole coordination concerning studio etc took some time and last but not least the pressing factories had these massive delays. At Ván Records, vinyl is the major medium and so it wouldn't have been an option for Sven to release the CD first, and half a year later the vinyl version. We sent the master tape last October and this was the deadline that it could be released in 2023. It was recorded some time ago and we had about one year since it was finished but it just wasn't released."
Q: With the new album you moved pretty much out of your comfort zone. Weren't you afraid that a lot of the fans might be antagonized with that?
T: "Of course in some aspects it is a little bit broader, but it doesn't seem to be a stylistic break. I mean you cannot write for the fans. If you do that, there is always the fraction who says that the first album is the best, what is absolutely okay and I know it from myself concerning some bands. What I really can't do is to do some stuff because it worked once well, and so I rearrange this stuff a little bit and rewrite such a song. It has to stay exciting for me. I don't do that to earn money but the music has to catch me. So if people don't like it, well… there are enough other bands, no problem. Not me or anybody else in the band wasn't afraid of that because this is the album which is the result of our work and which we all really like. Even if we would have said, just hypothetically, that we go back to the roots, there would have also been people saying that it is shit. You cannot make it right to everybody and that's fine."
Read the complete interview here.
Tracklist:
"Sombre Tidings"
"Hammer From The Howling Void"
"Usurper of the Earth and Sea"
"The Yearning Abyss Devours Us"
"Arcane Cambrian Sorcery"
"Seven Crowns and Seven Seals"
"Beneath the Ziqqurrats"
"Seven Crowns And Seven Seals"
Filed under blackened death metal, and inspired by the likes of Morbid Angel, Dissection, Behemoth, Emperor, to name but a few, creative mastermind T. gradually transformed Suphur Aeon from a duo project in 2010 to a much respected entity within the international metal circuit relying on quality releases first and foremost, and performing live selectively. Never shy of admitting their humble roots in the former industrial heart of Germany, T. and M., drummer D. - who joined the fold in 2011, and both guitarist A., and bassist S. who became members of the cult in 2018, have grown into an impressive, tight union poised to forge something unique and memorable.
