A few questions - interview with death metal band from France - NIHÏLANTH.
Ave, can you introduce your band to our readers? – When was it founded and what style of music do you play etc.?
It was formed about ten years ago by Rémi, Mathieu and former bandmates Vincent and Eugène, who met while they were students at the ATLA music school in Paris. But we didn’t have a singer for years, and Antoine, who played with Mathieu in Samarkand, filled in about two years ago. We play death metal, more of an old-school and proggy breed on this album, but we will likely take things in a different direction for the next one - it’s still going to be death metal though!
Where and under what conditions were you recording the new album? Who was in charge of sound, production and mastering?
We recorded the album at Hybreed Studios, in Fontenay-sous-Bois near Paris. Producer Andrew Guillotin, who has worked with bands such as Arkhon Infaustus, was in charge of sound, production and mastering. And he did a great job!
How many copies were released and which medium was used for this new edition (CD, digital, vinyl, cassette)?
The album was released on both CD (500 copies) and digitally, on the main streaming platforms. But tape and vinyl would be nice, so who knows!
Who is the author of the lyrics and how were they created and about what do the lyrics deal with?
Most of the lyrics were originally written by Rémi and Matthieu, with later editing from Antoine. In the spirit of classical death metal, they mostly deal with sci-fi horror, drawing from literature (H.P. Lovecraft), cinema (David Cronenberg’s The fly) and video games (Dead Space), amongst other things.
Who created the logo of the band, and who took care of the graphics and the website? What about you and social networks? Do you consider these things important?
The album’s cover is a painting by Mariusz Lewandowski (https://www.lewandowski.art/) whose art has been used by other acts such as Psycroptic and Bell Witch. The logo of the band and the graphics for Graceless Planet were handled by the amazing Grégory Lê, as you can read here.
Well social networks are a good way of keeping in touch with your audience but bands shouldn’t “shitpost” too much or the “magic” will kind of go away! Also “feeding” social networks is time-consuming, but also necessary. So it’s kind of a mixed bag, it’s not bad or good, just the world we happen to live in.
Which label did you choose for releasing your album and why this label? Are you satisfied by how your label represents you and takés care about you?
We sent the album to French extreme metal label Great Dane Records, which has a distribution deal with legendary other extreme metal label Listenable Records, they were enthusiastic about it so we went for it, and they’ve managed to get us a lot of reviews and interviews - like this one so it’s all good (so far, haha).
Which bands do you idolise and where do you get your inspiration?
For Graceless Planet we mostly drew on classical death metal acts such as Death, Malevolent Creation, Bolt Thrower, Massacra… which we love and also happen to be our main sources of inspiration. We’re looking more towards the tech-death scene for the next album, though. Of course other music, including outside of metal, gets thrown in.
How many gigs have you played? Which type of gigs do you prefer, whether it's (clubs or festivals) and which of your performances would you consider as the best?
We haven’t performed live yet with Nihïlanth, but Antoine has played clubs with Samarkand, Rémi played with Hex at the Post in Paris festival, which was pretty awesome, and Matthieu played at a lot of venues with Crushburn in Eastern France. We’d love to play open-air festivals but clubs are also great, anything but streaming concerts basically, haha.
What about your plans for the future? What do you want to achieve with the band?
We really hope Graceless Planet meets its audience wherever it is in the world. We want to play and hear the album live, and see how the crowd reacts to it! Playing open air festivals would also be a blast. With the second album we hope we can move a little further from Graceless Planet’s influences, bring in different ones (as previously mentioned with regards to tech-death) and refine our own personal sound.
How and where can your fans contact you? Can you provide some contact information?
Yes! You can follow us on :
- The band’s Bandcamp: https://nihlanth.bandcamp.com/album/graceless-planet
- Our page on Great Dane’s Bandcamp (where you’ll also find the full album): https://greatdanerecords.bandcamp.com/album/graceless-planet
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Nihilanthfr
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nihilanth_fr/
- Or good ol’ e-mail : officialNihilanth-fr@outlook.fr
Thanx for the interview.
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