INTERVIEW: Burial

Italian Death-Doom Metallers BURIAL are under the axe in this interview with the Lovecraftian fiends.

1. Greetings BURIAL! For those that have never heard you guys, I think an apt description would be Lovecraftian themed Death-Doom with the more Swedish Death Metal guitar tone. Who would you cite as your primary influences and inspirations? In addition, how does the HM-2 sound play its role in your music, which is probably not the obvious guitar sound for a more doomy Death Metal band?

Our primary influences as you said in the question are the 90’s Swedish/Finnish death metal scene with bands like Dismember, Entombed, Carnage, recent bands Krypts combined with old shool and new school of US death doom. Some bands that we can credit are Winter, Spectral Voice, Un and even Blood Incantation. Regarding the HM2 sound we‘ve chosen that particular sound because at the beginning of the band journey we were supposed to make only a standard swedish death metal. It simply stuck around as we loved how riffs sounded. Nowdays we use the HM2 more like a fuzz than a distortion, lots of bands use it in the amp overdrive channel but we prefer to use it on the clean channel. Notes and chords are more distinguishable that way and it creates a massive fuzz like sound that is perfect for the doomy sections.

2. To dig into your discography, you did things the old school way with 3 demos (but sadly only the 2nd and 3rd are available on tape), will the 1st ever see a tape release or is it merely history now? How would you say “Burial”, “The Forgotten” and “Presence From The Beyond” effected the growth of your band as a unit and also in spreading the name to the underground?

It’s possible but we don’t think it’s a priority right now. We were discussing about some vinyl releases a couple of days ago just because the opportunity has presented by itself, so maybe if someone would take care of the release we can talk about it. Still, I personally don’t think that the first demo would be a sell point right now, we had the compilation experience (“The Aeons Of Horror”) that spoked clearly to us: no one is much interested in the first demo.  As to reply to the other part of the question, I strongly think that the direction that we had before “Inner Gateways” was set by the circumstances and not by an identity, their part of us of course and they’ve done a great job to let people know us so far, but the album will be a whole new experience! 

3. Fellow Italian Death Metal maniac Dismal Fate Records handled your tapes (along with Goat Throne for “The Forgotten”), did these underground sources of spewing rot give BURIAL what you had hoped for? Personally I think both tapes from DFR look and sound killer! 

Yes and far more than expected to be honest. We’re still perfectly satisfied by those releases for how they’ve been handled. We thank both Dismal Fate and Goat Throne for the effort.

4. Before we progress to the current album, your 3 demos were compiled onto CD by Despise The Sun Records. Has this proved a cool addition to the discography for people who missed the tapes / prefer CD? 

We think yes. Andrea from Despise The Sun had a great idea and almost all the copies are gone. A compilation release so early in the life of a band is not the best idea in general but things have gone well and I think that that’s because of the years of experience Andrea has in the scene. He valued us really well and his trust was rewarded for what we’ve seen. We cannot be more satisfied and grateful than this. 

5. Now we are up to date on the history of BURIAL, your debut album is coming to all formats by Everlasting Spew Records. A label renowned for Death / Death-Doom Metal of high quality. Are you happy with their efforts in unleashing your debut opus?

Yes, happy and hyped beyond any imagination. We knew Giorgio and EVS from a while, Tito was interested in us from pretty much early 2019 so after some evaluation we came to the conclusion that EVS was the best choice for us. I suggest to everyone who’s in the same scene to give a chance to EVS if they propose to you, you’ll be treated really well. 

6. Paolo Girardi has adorned your album with a stunning monstrosity of an album cover with a gorgeous colour palette on a truly phantasmal and grotesque painting. What does this image represent and contribute to the album aesthetically and thematically?

It’s a visual take on the title, simply as that and complicated as this implicates. Lyrics in Burial are often abstract with some hints of context, we like to leave space for the listener to imagine things and add his vision to the overall experience.  We don’t wanna force anyone, it’s not in our style. And we think that Girardi nailed it even in this way. The artwork does a great job in communicating a sense of chaotic motion, like Leonardo guitar riffs. The organic elements are grounding the paint to a concrete level, as flesh is, but not entirely. The vorticous and almost chimeric nature of the artwork has a strong sense of oniric creation, impure Lovecraftian narrative style there’s a subject but it’s so loose that it doesn’t posseses a very precise form or apparence. The colors are spot on, it’s very nightmarish in every element, as we wanted.   

7. Interestingly, everything (except “The Forgotten” reissue) has been released by Italian labels with Italian artists doing the cover artwork. Is it important to you guys to have things to do with the band executed in a more local setting? If so, please elaborate on why that might be.

Not really: we work with who we think can represent better what we want, in that context, at that moment. “Presence” artwork was done by Manuscript Of Death for example and there is a tape release by Goat Throne. But they’ve gone so fast I think no one really noticed except our U.S. friends. We’re not too fond of keeping things in the same environment. That’s why we grow in the span of a year most of the times, as happened in between “Presence From The Beyond” and the album and in between “The Forgotten” and “Presence From The Beyond”. And now that our identity has been set in stone, we’re already thinking on how to carve more angles to it. We’re just like this.  

8. With a crushing debut album in your arsenal, I think it is only fitting to ask what is next for BURIAL? Will you be going right back into writing more music or riding the wave of offal from this LP? Perhaps a tour / some shows are in the pipeline? This is your chance to prepare us for the lurking beast in wait…

Shows are always welcomed for us and we’ve already written some riffs and put some basic ideas on the table. As we like to experiment ideas by contextualizing them in the “Burial landscape” , our creativity has to go wild if we want to produce something. This can be a double edged weapon but for now we’re still tight on the saddle of the writing process. The inspirational pool is quite wide as we drank from many many ponds, but the crude working aspect is not neglected. You gotta do the job to keep it simple. So we’ll cover all corners and push further and further, ‘till we can. 

Expect a strange ride…