The third aural strike from Heaving Earth is already upon us and infecting well, thus I felt the urge to get as more facts as possible on their nearly 50 minutes long creation. Guitarist Tomáš Halama responded to my questions and explained how this dark yet uncompromising death metal material was born.
"Darkness of God" is the brand new album by Heaving Earth. What is the response to it like so far? How's the album selling?
- Most of the feedback so far is really good. Seems that many people appreciate the way we are progressing. Of course with a slight change in direction you won't please everyone, but that's not our aim. We know what we are doing and will keep doing things our way. I don't know any numbers at the moment, but I guess we are doing pretty good considering we are not backed by any major or bigger record label.
For the recordings of "Darkness of God" you've recruited a guest drummer from Italy, namely Giulio Galati. How did you hook up with Giulio? Who will be sitting on the drum chair at the next Heaving Earth live shows?
- We were in contact over social sites. I was looking for a specific kind of drummer, the one who would be able to play extreme blast beats and also any kind of grooves/anti-grooves that we are capable of coming up with. Heaving Earth live shows are still an unsolved problem. I can't tell you more at the moment, maybe we will know more in a few weeks.
Your line-up has pretty much changed since the beginning. Could you please introduce the current members to the readers?
- Ok, I'm the only one original/core member at the moment. Martin Meyer joined us on lead guitar in the fall of 2014/2015 and did with us all shows until summer 2017 and "Denouncing the Holy Throne" line-up breakup. Marek Štembera took over vocal duties (he also plays guitar in Brutally Deceased and Somniate), bass was handled by Tomáš Ledvina, an excellent musician I've met in my daily job, but his ties to the death metal scene are very vague.
Vocals, guitars and bass parts were recorded at Davos Studio during 2020-2021. How was it to work there this time? Why did it take so long for you to complete this album?
- Well, most of the time we're talking about we were not that much functional as a band. All those recording sessions were separate entries. Anyway working at the Davos studio is mostly a fun time, but guitar sessions were kind of an exhausting experience thanks to a time schedule. But what needs to be done, needs to be done.
Lavadome Productions, a domestic label, was in charge of releasing the new stuff on CDs. How many copies were pressed in total? They've also issued your previous album "Denouncing the Holy Throne" in 2015. So please tell us more about your alliance and what kind of deal you've signed with them.
- Nothing signed on paper really, we have known each other with Jan for some years so we don't need to codify/signify any kind of deals. First batch of CDs were pressed in a number of 500 copies, hopefully vinyls will follow soon... No other news besides that. We got some other offers and hints of interest, mostly from strictly death metal labels, in the recent years, which is pleasing, but so far I don't see a reason for a change.
You took your band name from a Morbid Angel song that was the opener on their awesome "Formulas Fatal to the Flesh" album from 1998. Whose idea was to choose it? List us please all the influences that affected Heaving Earth in one or another way since the very beginnings.
- To choose Heaving Earth as a band name was a collective decision of the first band line-up. It's a cool song by a great band, sounds good and can be interpreted in many ways. At the very beginning we were influenced mostly by 90's US death metal, no groovy/core stuff – either brutal/technical or heavy and dark as hell bands. I think you and your readers can guess some names. In recent years I'm focusing much more on our visions and not on what others do or did.
What is the lyrical content of "Darkness of God" about? Who wrote the lyrics and what was the main inspiration for them?
- Some of our lyrics are dealing with topics like gradual transformation of faith and hope into hopelessness, abandonment and misery. You can see that being happening, so it's mostly a thing of an observation rather than some detailed study. I wrote some lyrics, our new vocalist Marek wrote some as well. Besides that, you can see many attempts to elevate religious beliefs above civil law and justice, and it only got worse this year with orthodox church, ex-KGB freaks playing a shameful part, but I'd hate to go political. You probably know what I mean.
What's the tune on your "Darkness of God" album? What kind of gear do you use for your live assaults, in the studio and at your rehearsal place?
- Tuning is in standard C. We used to play Mesa Boogie, Engl and Peavey amps live, nothing out of ordinary, same amps in the rehearsal room. In the studio we had been experimenting with SansAmp technology ("Denouncing the Holy Throne") and Axe FX 2 (I guess), but "Darkness of God" record is a combination of a Peavey 6505+ and Marshall 900. Seems that most producers do not trust or value profilers much.
You are from Prague. How's the death metal scene over there? Could you please recommend to the readers some cool death metal bands from the Czech Republic?
- I always fear this question. My perception is that not only Czech, but the whole scene is just getting older and older, so new bands are usually new projects of 40 plus years old musicians with past bands roster longer than your moms shopping list. So what I can tell – new Godless Truth and Cutterred Flesh records were released by Transcending Obscurity Records, lovers of a tech death should check Supreme Conception's EP (project of our guitarist Martin Meyer and former singer Michal "Sepp" Kusák). Besides that, you can check more black/death metal bands like Depths Above, Somniate, Mallephyr or Altars Ablaze. I'm sure that some new retro death/doom metal bands are doing just fine, but it's really not my bottle of beer, so I can't recommend it to anybody.
Last visions and darkened thoughts are yours. Please finish the interview by adding all the news you think might be interesting for our readers. Thank you!
- Thank you for your time and dedication. We're gonna start rehearsing some new weird stuff that I wrote in the meantime soon. Fingers crossed and inverted – we would like to play some live shows, but I can't promise anything at the moment. Especially in the fucked up times like this. So many dark and depressing events are going on right now. Stay strong!
