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THE ARCHIVES
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Morrigan's Pit has closed down as of November 2006. The site and its articles will stay online as an archive until September at least, but probably longer.
The Archives
2002-2006
» CD REVIEWS
» INTERVIEWS
» LIVE REVIEWS
» SPECIALS
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SUIDAKRA
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Marcus
July 2003
http://www.suidakra.info
In advance of the release of SUIDAKRA's sixth album "Signs For The Fallen" I got the opportunity to shoot at few questions at Marcus, bass player for Suidakra.
To those not familiar with the band, would you please briefly introduce
Suidakra and the musical vision.
Suidakra is a melodic death metal band with Celtic folk influences
located in the west of Germany, near Düsseldorf. The band exists almost
for 10 years now, has released six albums. Musical vision?! Maybe
making diversified music by mixing different styles to our very own
style.
Are you satisfied with "Emprise To Avalon" now after a year has passed
since it had been released?
Yeah, generally we are satisfied. The music is very epic and the worked
out lyrical concept is still something to be proud of. But the album
was also not as good as it could have been. Especially the sound is not
100% satisfying. This might be more obvious when comparing the new
record "Signs For The Fallen" with "Emprise To Avalon", because now the sound
really kicks ass!
I've seen you playing live twice last year, one show was in Düsseldorf and the
other one was at W:O:A, both of which showed you are a pretty great live band.
And at least I got the impression that Suidakra enjoy playing live. I
know that unfortunately that tour with Borknagar last year didn't work
out but how did you feel about playing at one of the largest festivals
in the world? Also, have you been touring or playing single shows
abroad?
We like playing live indeed. Only Marcel is quite fast fed up with
playing live as it means less time for privacy and job. That's why he
won't play a whole tour with Suidakra and we are looking for another
live guitar-player right now. Concerning festivals: Playing Wacken was
cool! We were playing in the tent which was fully crowded and with
fantastic reactions from the audience. Suidakra played in Wacken for
the second time and of course it's always a pleasure. But even cooler
was the Summer Breeze festival the same year, because there we played on
the large main stage in front of (I guess) 2.500 people. That was
excellent!
Gigs in foreign European countries have mostly been in Austria so far.
As you pointed out, the tour with Borknagar was cancelled unfortunately
so we're still waiting for our chance to present the new stuff on
stages European-wide.
How well known is Suidakra outside of Germany anyway?
"Emprise To Avalon" was the first Suidakra album released in whole
Europe, Brazil, Mexico and Japan. Since then we're getting reactions
from fans all over the world. But we really need a tour to get the band
more known outside Germany in the near future.
So now that we got last year's happenings covered, on to newer things.
There seems to be another line-up change...
Right after recording "Emprise To Avalon" I joined the band on bass. Our former
live guitar-player left the band and Marcel decided to be more involved
in the band again. Actually today's line-up is constant for more than a
year now. But as pointed out before we're looking for a new live
guitar-player who might also replace Marcel then completely in the
band. This is, within the band, an agreed thing for years now but
unfortunately no adequate substitute has been found so far. Marcel
stands behind the music, but for many concerts and big trips he simply
doesn't have the time.
Your new album will be called "Signs For The Fallen" which is going to
be released on 28th July. How would you compare it to the previous
releases and what is new?
The new record definitely contains the most worked out songs and the
most powerful sound. We had much more influence on the design this
time. The concept and basic ideas came from ourselves. What is new on
every Suidakra album is the mixture of the different styles. I think
the album reveals some more melodic death metal than the previous
albums. In addition there are some experimental and some progressive
parts now and then.
You once again recorded at Stage One Studio together with producer Andy
Classen. Never change a winning team?
Andy knows the band very well after 4 recordings at Stage One Studio,
so it's easy for him to get 100% performance out of each of us. Also
he's a very cool and funny guy - even if you've messed up playing the
same part for the 10th time, he's not getting upset or stressed at all.
This is important for a relaxed atmosphere during the recordings.
From what I have been able to listen to so far the sound appears to be
much rawer than on "Emprise To Avalon".
More power, more pressure, more ass kickin' -as I like to say =)
What can you tell us about the lyrics and the inspiration for them?
Feel free to comment on some particular tracks.
The lyrics do not follow a certain concept like on "Emprise To Avalon".
Some of the lyrics reflect on the title "Signs For The Fallen", which
can be interpreted in different directions. "The Fallen" - embodied by
the warrior in front on the cover, can, for example, stand for a
warrior fallen in war, for a person, which was expelled by society or
has gone to ruin morally, or also for the fallen archangel.
The lyrics were mainly written by Marcel who writes about a wide rage
of themes from personal reflections to current "world-problems" like
terrorism. I wrote the lyrics for the opening track "Revenant" which
means "The Returner", dealing with a person who finds no peace after
death, because something is binding him to this world. I'm reflecting
the thought that no deed ever is without any effect. Again a
parallelism to that guy on the cover, because the guy might be the
revenant.
The cover artwork by Mike Bohatch carries Celtic ornaments but does
have a futuristic touch at the same time. So how's the artwork related
to the content of the album and how did you get in touch with Mike in
the first place? How important do you think  is the visual package of a
disc?
The folky elements represent a trademark of Suidakra - the folk
influences. Also we consider ourselves to be a modern band. Seeing it
that way your interpretation of the cover is really the point =) As
said before: Those symbols stand for the "signs", the guy embodies "the
fallen". The cover and the whole artwork is to be seen as a
visualisation of the title.
We found a website containing a lot of cover artists. Mike was one of
them and his works really impressed us from the beginning. We didn't
even know that he had worked for other artists of our genre before.
We're really glad that the artwork turned out that excellent. A good
artwork is important for us because of two reasons:
1. We want the complete album, as a unit, to be as satisfying as possible for
ourselves.
2. In times of cd ripping and mp3-sharing a superior artwork
is something that cannot be found for downloading that easy. We want to
offer a good and worthy "product" for everybody who's spending his
money for our cd.
What's your favourite track off "Signs For The Fallen" and why?
I like everyone very much. There's no filler track on that cd. But at
the moment I would name "Bound In Changes", because of the great
harmonies and "A Vision's Demise", because of the ass-kickin'
catchiness to be my favourites.
I remember I once read that you considered recording an acoustic album.
Are you still interested in realizing this one day or did you lose
interest? Then again, there was also an acoustic show planned recently
(which was cancelled though), so there seems to be still a spark of
interest?
Arkadius and Marcel are still interested in doing an unplugged show.
Maybe this event will take place at the end of this year. A complete
acoustic cd? Well, never heard of that and probably we do not have the
time to manage such a project, because recording acoustic songs is more
time-consuming that anything else in the studio.
Any plans or details for touring at this point? I think it's time you
guys get the chance to play a proper European-wide tour!
Yeah! It's definitely time!!! We really want to get a European tour but
unfortunately there are no concrete plans  at the moment and previous
plans didn't work out.
Closing this interview, which albums have you been listening to
recently yourself?
Well. I didn't buy many new albums during the last time. I listened a
lot to my older death metal cds. But I can't hardly wait to get the new
Edge Of Sanity album! The last record I bought was "Dedication" of
Raised Fist - a real killer album.
Thank you for the interview! Famous last words?
Thx to you, too! Everybody feel free to check out our new album "Signs
For The Fallen". More info on our homepage http://www.suidakra.info. Bang your
heads!!!
submitted by Cora 12.08.2003
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