MOURNING BELOVETH (Eng.)
– Hi, thanks for your time. What are you currently up to? How is everything doing right now with MOURNING BELOVETH?
Hail’s to you and your readers, Frank here to bring all news and doomy tidings,
At this present moment we are getting prepared and rehearsing for our forthcoming gigs in anticipation of the release of FORMLESS, the last few months we are rehearsing SULLEN SULCUS tracks for our special set at ROADBURN for which we are excited to do as we haven’t played some of those songs in 10 years… it was a good feeling to relearn those song’s we hadn’t included in our set for such a long time, and for the new members in the band since SULCUS they are pretty excited to play those song’s too, as there are some really good songs on that release..
– First off, if you don’t mind, I would like you to tell us what’s the hidden meaning behind the band’s name.
Well I guess the name derived from one of the first songs we wrote (in mourning my days) the lyric( my life, my love, my mourning beloveth) it means that we yearn the loss of loved ones and all the has passion and meaning to us, we all have lost close family and friends and even at times the will to exist, not sayin we are morose and miserable people that look to the grave with envy, but at times life is hard to comprehend and seem futile. That’s why our music is so important to us, so we can vent our anger and distain, it helps us through tough time’s and takes us to a better place…
– You will soon release «Formless», your first album in 5 years. What have you been up to in the meawhile?
We have done a lot of gigs and touring with DISEASE FOR THE AGES having covered a lot of ground and new cities as we love to do, to bring our song’s and destruction to as many fan’s as possible and gather new one’s along the way, but as most will know we lost our old guitarist brian after that and we were lookin for some to take over that role in the band, we didn’t know how it would work out for us as we needed to find someone that would fit in with our style of madness and self deprication, haha, we took our time a bit with that so as to find the right person, so between that and starting writing for formless the last 5 year’s have passed so quick…
– If I’m not mistaken its release has been delayed a week so, could you please tell us the reason behind this?
There’s nothing much behind the delay only that there was few technical issue’s to clear up before the vinyl got to the pressing plant, as we wanted the cd and vinyl 
to be released at the same time it was best to push it back till they were both ready together… its not much of a delay, you’ll just have to wait a bit longer…
– Though «Formless» hasn’t been released yet it has already hit the press. How are the first reactions being? And how are your feeling being near to finally unleashed it? As it has been a highly anticipated one.
There has been a very positive reaction to the promo’s we sent to magazine’s and promoters, we are getting good feedback and good scoring review’s, not that that is very important about scoring but it always interesting to hear what people feel about any music that we release, it’s good in the way that we are so close to the recording and song’s that we have our own critical view’s, so an outside perspective is a way of stepping outside ourselves that so we can see it from a different angle.. it felt like forever since we released DISEASE, that we nearly forgot that excitement of finally after all the writing and recording and getting artwork and layout all done, 5 years is a long time… but at our age it still kinda flew past…
– With this new opus you have known how to refresh your sound without loosing your essence at all, creating more contrasts and providing more melody. Is this «renovation» (still being faithful to yourself) something you strive for?
Although we do I suppose have our own unique style, we have never consciously set out to write in a certain fashion, it is a very natural thing the way our song’s evolve, one could say its our apocalypse machine, I will spend a lot of time over 5 – 6 months churning out riff’s and then we get together in our rehearsal’s and pick through them and we will pen them to our white board, we give the riff’s names so as to remember them, you wouldn’t believe some of the name’s we give the riffs, usually something inane and mental, but it works for us, and sometimes we start jamming in the room and some riff’s are born there…So we start to piece thing’s together and having a new member pauric in the mix, he has a different influx of style that is invaluable, a fresh new view, so we try to get a feeling and atmosphere of how riff’s will flow, then we build on that… it’s a weird and wonderful thing that happens between us all as a whole… the song is the most important thing for us, no ego’s need to be stroked, we all want the best for each and every tune…
– I’d dare say with this new opus you’ve kept your heavy and thick Doom/Death basis but enhancing those acoustic passages and melodic parts, which I think has helped getting a more enjoyable final output. Why did you decide to explore those soundscapes a little bit more? Or did it just come out naturaly?
Well I do spend a lot of time with my acoustic guitar beside me on the couch, it’s like a housemate that sits on the couch beside me, so I will pick it up every time I get an idea or sometimes I just sit with it in my hands and pluck and stroke it, and in some of my lonely moments it spits out these sombre sweet passages that will fit and add a lot to some of our heaviest tunes, it feel it adds a smooth blend and as I said earlier every song is its own beast and sometimes a beast need to be tamed if even for a brief moment. Melody is most important to us, we don’t have over played solo’s or stuff like that, melody should come from the way a song is structured or how we put the vocals over it… its all in the blend that makes sense to the individual tune..
– In general you have emphasized both your ferocity as your most fragile side, what makes me wonder if contrasts and getting a good balance between those two opposite elements is something important for MOURNING BELOVETH.
Yes indeed it is very important, its like not to sound too much of a “cliché”, but our music is like a photograph of moments at that time in our lives, we try to capture the emotions of those moments. We all have our highs and lows and certainly angers and pains in life, so we tap into those emotions and try to emulate them into the feeling of the songs,theres a certain pleasure to be had when beating out those riffs when we play, its kinda therapeutic in a sense… then its like a breath of fresh air to break into a soft sombre or slow melody… we get to let out all that built up angst inside so as to be able to continue in the drudgery of existense….
– Anyway you have always added, subtly, new elements (and approaches) to your music, which makes everything more dynamic. Where do you draw inspiration from?
As I was just saying previously we all have our crosses to bear in this life, and we have lost so many dear things that we hold close, when you lose anything or someone that means so much to us, you need to express them in a positive way, we can either set ourselves to self destruct or deal with them, so we decide to deal with them through our music… music no matter what style of fashion is a great tool for that, but in another way art or great literature and even mind stirring movies that inspires us is another form of inspiration…all these combinations make for a broader view of this weird world we live in..
– In fact there’s also a nice combination of different atmospheres, adding to the overall dark and cold atmosphere some warm nuances with those aforementioned acoustic passages. What kind of role do atmospheres play on your music? What are you reflecting with them?
Atmosphere is first and foremost for our style, when you take a journey through our songs we try to draw the listener in to a trance llike state with a riff and just when you feel comfortable in that emotion we will break that hypnotic moment by a crushing heavy riff, just as life will, one moment you are goin along just fine and then bam life gives you a punch in the gut, and then the pain trancends and the sweet melody of pleasure in pain carries you to another plain of existence.our songs are like a short through pleasure and pain…
– Your music is pure sadness and melancholy (as I think Doom Metal is meant to be). Is this a mirror of your mood and feelings?
To a degree I suppose we do feel a sadness sometimes, but I think it’s a sadness of mankind’s ability not to strive to be better and be more understanding but we don’t go around with our heads hanging looking to the grave as a place to reside, we have our certain view of the world and try to express it outwards, we don’t try to make people feel misery with our music, its like we try to show those emotions to let people know their not alone in the world if they have these same views of the world we are plunged into…
– Talking about this kind of emotion your music expresses, lyrics fit perfectly but, what do lyrics on «Formless» deal with?
Well I think any lyrics are like a piece of art, the listener should take what they need from the lyric for to make their own perspective of them… but on a whole the lyrics deal with the view that we no one seems to listen anymore to make their own view of the world, that our livelihood and futures are bought and sold back and forth all wrapped in a different plastic, wars to keep man at bay, to control the masses, propaganda to keep revolution and change from uprising…. Keeping mankind down with a very powerful control…
– Production helps getting that heavy sound still clearly noticing all your elements, as it provides a quite clear sound. Would you mind to tell what kind of production did you go for and who took such duties?
With the stripped back raw cleanliness of A MURDERUOS CIRCUS and DISEASE FOR THE AGES we wanted to go back to the fuller melodic sound style of A SULLEN SULCUS, although I get the feeling of certain passages for our early demo sounds, it was the way the songs needed to sound, a full wall of guitars to carry the weight of the vocals.. it was the great work of chris fielding in foel studios in wales that was a good change for us, as I had worked with him in a previous project with another band 2 years ago that what I saw in him and how he works to get the best out of us, so it was a a no brainer to go to work with him….
– Cover artwork is pretty singular, what did you want to express with it?
The artwork on this release is one of my favourite of all our art over the years, we took onboard a good friend of our’s to take over that role, a very talented man indeed, mr peter rees, erin fire art, please check him out… the art expresses the image of the pupa nailed to the cross shrouded by the machine of existence never changing form, stagnant tormented and formless, decaying and living, breathing and dying, pulling and tearing for freedom but never quite managing to be free…
– Though he joined the band in 2009, «Formless» has been your first album with Pauric, how has everything going with him so far? And how has affected the fact of «loosing» a long time member like Brian?
Having worked with brian the longest, with us being in one of the first bands I played with before beloveth formed, I was a pleasure to have had him being part of our journey, it was a difficult transition to lose him, I won’t go into the semantics of that split. All hails to him for his contribution over the years. It took us a while to figure out who would replace him, we had a couple of guy’s in mind, but when we found pauric, we knew we had found something good, he fit in with us so naturally, even with him being so much younger than us he has the same views of how music should feel and he adds another aspect to our style that is only going to grow into something better in the future..
– All this about «Formless» being said; how could you describe it in just 3 words?
DOOM FUCKING METAL..
– Finally, what are your near-future plans? What can we expect from MOURNING BELOVETH from now on?
Well we are going to gig and tour a lot with this release for the next year, some summer festivals and probably a tour near the end of the year… we should be getting to write some more maybe for a new album at end of 2014… so watch this space for future doomings…
– That’s all, thank you once more for answering our questions. If you want to add some final words; feel free to do it.
Thanks to all our old and new fans the we meet over the near future, we commend you and hope to drink a beer and smoke a spliff with you when we meet.. if you see us out there in this murky world, we wish you all the best….. all hails from the beloveth camp…
