– Hello, lots of thanks for answering our interview. How is everything going into the BENIGHTED’s camp right now?

Hi! We’re fine and hungry for stage! We’re just on the preparation of the French tour coming out in 2 days! This will be awesome!

– You have just released your newest album, «Carnivore Sublime». How are things working with this release thus far?

We can’t wait for starting touring again to make discover our new such aggressive tracks on stage! We’re so proud of this new opus we recorded last summer at the Kohlekeller Studio! So far the reaction of all the people who’s been able to listen to “Carnivore Sublime” is extremely positive and enthusiastic! They were very surprised by the violence and efficiency of the new tracks! In my opinion we’ve simply released our best album with this one! The limited digibox edition was sold out in less than a week so everything is perfect!

 

– Starting to dig into this opus; would you mind to elaborate a little bit on its concept?

Like Asylum Cave, this new opus is a concept album about a man with a very particular pathology of personality disorder. The border-line personality is a current quite new pathology conditioned by the unconscious constant fear to get abandoned. In this album each song is about a trauma the character had during his childhood, symptoms of his disease or the sick reactions he’s got when he’s confronted to frustration. The cannibalism is just used as an increased symptom of his fear to be abandoned when he learnt that his girlfriend is accidently pregnant and that he’s got to share her. It’s totally unbearable to lose her and he’d rather kill her than lose her, and he eats some pieces of her flesh to keep inside of him forever.

 

– All your albums are based on psychiatric pathologies. If I’m not mistaken you have been working in a mental institute for over a decade now so, I guess that itself may be a huge influence for your lyrics but, have you seen any case like the one the main album’s character experiences?

Of course as everything I write for Benighted are based on true cases and patient’s stories. Carnivore Sublime is as well a concept album about the story of a single man with a very particular disease. The border-line personality is a current quite new pathology conditioned by the unconscious constant fear to get abandoned. In this album each song is about a trauma the character had during his childhood, symptoms of his disease or the sick reactions he’s got when he’s confronted to frustration. The cannibalism for example is just used as an increased symptom of his fear to be abandoned when he learnt that his girlfriend is accidently pregnant and that he’s got to share her. It’s totally unbearable to lose her and he’d rather kill her than lose her, and he eats some pieces of her flesh to keep inside of him forever.

 

– In fact still covering really tough subjects, they are quite real and you also manage to standout among most bands on this genre. Is this something important for you?

Absolutely, I try to propose in Benighted some lyrics really close to reality and show that even if most of people are afraid of what sick persons can do, they should not forget that they’re also the most vulnerable and that the first people they’re dangerous with are themselves. If there was any kind of message in Benighted, it would be this one!

 

– There are also several other elements that make you stand out, such as the guitar melodies you add to your songs. Is this something you strive for?

Not particularly. We still have the same way to write our stuff, one of the members brings some riffs and we build the structure of each track with all our combined ideas. Nothing is really planned before a track and we just look where our rage is leading us each time towards our music. Melodies cam in the same way, nothing is really thought before we start building a song altogether.

 

– Anyway you are always brutal, despite bringing some nice melodies you still are a Brutal Death Metal band so, how easy is to get a good equilibrium between melody/groove and aggressiveness? As moreover I could say this new «Carnivore Sublime» is one of your most aggressive albums to date.

I don’t really know how is happened but this time it seems that we were angry like never before! Hé hé! Some of the songs are pure death/grind core stuff while some others contain more dark and sick stuff. The fact that each track is created very separately, most of time in one or two rehearsals, makes the equilibrium rise from itself. I really like the fact that our albums contains lots of variety and by the way very easy reminding songs that fans can scream with me during the gigs!

 

– In general this is a really dark opus, in fact songs like «Les Morsures du Cerbère» show that perfectly with a melodic passage. Did you put special focus on the overall atmosphere? Is more present than ever before.

I agree with you, I think it’s because of Adrien and his very particular way to write music! He’s a real riff factory and as he never listen to metal outside of Benighted he’s got a very personal and dark side he can inject into our musci without being influenced by all the extreme metal classics.

 

– All this about «Carnivore Sublime»; how could you describe it in just 3 words?

Brutal, groovy, insane!

 

– The cover artwork was done by Sven (ABORTED) and Avernus Studios, the same team that did «Asylum Cave». How did they work on the cover? Did they work inspired by the lyrics and the overall concept?

I always give the concept to the person in charge of the layout to let him create his own visual ideas with what he reads. And this time again the artwork has been entirely made by our brother Sven from Aborted with Avernus Studios. He perfectly knows the kind of insane spirit we want to inject in our visuals to underline the insanity of our music! He made an amazing job, I just had to tell him the concept and the idea of having both covers to make a parallel between them and he followed his ideas! The result is awesome!!

 

– On the other hand, once more you went back to Kohlekeller Studio to record it, as you have done for your last 4 albums. After so many years with the same formula, is getting easier to get exactly the sound you are looking for? Do things get easier?

We went back to the Kohlekeller Studio in Germany where we feel like home! Our sound is born there and we never stopped with the help of Kohle to make it more powerful and massive from an album to another! Kohle is a very good friend and we feel in his studio like home! Together we always try to find some new stuff to make it better and better! For example on this new one, we paid a particular attention to the bass sound to make it more dirty, aggressive and disgusting! It’s very easy to work with Kohle as we know ourselves very well and know exactly what everybody has in mind! This connection is a great weapon to obtain the very effective sound we’ve got on Carnivore Sublime!

 

– On this album once more you have had guest artists, this time SHINING’s (Sweden) Niklas Kvarfort lent his vocals on «Spit». How did everything arise and what could you say Niklas brought to the song? I bet this may be quite a surprise for some people due to the really different sound and vibe of Kvarforth’s bands.

We are several in Benighted to be big fans of Shining and all Niklas’s work and vocals! This man has such an amazing approach of singing that I really wanted him to appear on the track “Spit” which is very fast and insane, with lots of sick darkness in it. Gunnar from Season of Mist helped me to contact him, knowing he wasn’t doing guest vocals anymore, but when Niklas listened to the track and learnt about the sickness of the concept, he immediately accepted. He insisted to come with us to the studio to make his vocal parts and the job he made was just awesome! His vocals made this track even more insane than anything we could have in mind! He even used his belt to strangle himself to make some rattles of a hung man! Sick! This man is an incredible artist and we spent a great time altogether!

 

– You have done a video for «Experience your Flesh»; how did the whole process go?

Absolutely, we’ve worked with Kick Your Eyes Productions, some friends of ours. I sent them the concept of the song and they had this amazing idea to create 3 different dimensions in the clip with old, sensual and gore, mixing each others and make it more and more violent along the song. I really adore the result of their work! The actor who plays the teacher for example made a great job!

 

– In fact this is a really tough song about the sexual harassment the main character of the story was victim of so, why did you pick this song for the first video? And do you plan doing any other?

We chose this song because it’s very fast and brutal, maybe the one with the sickest riffs of the album and with a crushing chorus! We’ll make another one in March but I cannot reveal which one yet! Sorry…

 

– And finally, what are your near-future plans? How does 2014 look like for BENIGHTED

We have a French tour starting in 2 days with our brothers from Loudblast, then we have got a Russian tour coming in April, then European festivals like Hellfest or Metaldays, and finally a whole month European Tour in November with great bands I’m unfortunately not allowed to reveal the names yet, but it will be devastating, believe me! We’ll have a very busy year and we’re impatient to tour everywhere to make you discover the new tracks of this Carnivore baby!

 

– That’s all, thank you once more for answering our questions. If you want to add some final words; feel free to do it.

Thank you very much for this interview too and hope to see you soon on tour!! Stay sick!!!

 

Tania Giménez

tania@queensofsteel.com

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