Polish extreme metal veterans Decapitated are making significant progress on their next album, with guitarist Waclaw "Vogg" Kieltyka revealing that he's deep into the writing process. During this year's 70000 Tons of Metal cruise, he shared an update on the Brutally Delicious podcast about the band's upcoming music.
"Yeah, I'm working on it. I'm working on the new songs. I have already, let's say 50%, I guess, of the new Decapitated record," Vogg said (via Blabbermouth). "And, yeah, after this 'Nihility Across America' 2025 tour I'm gonna continue, because sometimes I've been working on new ideas on tour, but I don't really like it, because it's just not a place to focus on ideas. It's a mess — people are running around, it's, like, soundcheck, and then you need to go out and look for food. It's not really a place to focus on writing music."
Rather than writing on the road, Vogg prefers to work at home, though balancing creativity with family life is no easy feat.
"I'm working at home. I have my room, so I can separate from the family, from kids. But still, I can hear them. So it's not maybe the perfect place, but I learned over the years. I already made, I think, four albums at home, with the small kids, with the family life, all these things, which I needed to somehow learn how to take my head out of everyday life. But after the tour I have a plan to just go to our rehearsal space and just work on the material there, to be completely out of everything, separated. And I believe it will work well for that."
When asked whether he approaches each album with a specific theme or just lets the music evolve, Vogg explained: "Something like the latter. Yeah. Anything can inspire me. And just hunting, fishing for the riff. I just spend time with the guitar, playing and listening to what's going on. And then suddenly, 'Oh, maybe this is gonna be a good idea.' And then work around this and add new ideas around. It's a long process."
Vogg also discussed the challenge of balancing songwriting, performance, and maintaining technical proficiency: "It's weird because I'm performing. I'm a guitar player, so I'm an instrumental guy. Plus I'm composing the stuff. I'm performing on stage. It's a few things you need to connect. And it's not that easy, and you need to find the time for this, for this."
"Also, I need to practice a lot to keep in shape myself, and it's not possible. If you play Decapitated, you can't stop to practice. You can stop practice for one week, but then you need to practice even more to go on stage and perform this kind of stuff," he added.
One thing he's not worried about? Repeating himself: "I don't really think about it. And actually every Decapitated record is different… I don't have to put much effort into making sure they're not the same kind of ideas as what we've done in the past. Somehow it becomes naturally that it's different. I had a moment that I was in trouble because I thought it's, like, this is something like a completely different band right now, and what would be the reaction for the fans? Like how would they take it?"
"Every record is different, but with Blood Mantra, for example, we started to do something really different, something groovy, something thrashy — I don't know. And our new record will be, I think, also bringing in new, fresh ideas, which will be surprising to fans. And you know what? It always worked that way. You play traditional kind of classic death metal, and then come out with an album which is different — it's modern, it's completely alternative to that. And you can see some kind of voices that, 'This is not the band anymore. I don't like it. I'm quitting to be your fan.' And then after five or eight or ten years, these people are, like, 'Oh, this album is like your classic. It's the best album,'" Vogg explained.
He compared this kind of delayed appreciation to his own experience with certain albums: "It's like — I don't know — when Metallica released the Load album, or Sepultura released Roots Bloody Roots, I was, like, 'That's it. I'm done with this band.' And then right now, it's, like, 'Holy shit. It's a good jam.'"
In addition to their upcoming tour, Decapitated recently released two live performance videos, featuring "Names" and "Eternity Too Short," filmed straight from their rehearsal room.
With Vogg's track record of evolving Decapitated's sound while staying true to the band's roots, seems we can expect the next album to be both a bold new step and a worthy addition to their catalog.
