Interview with funeral doom metal band from Georgia - ENNUI.
Recenze/review - ENNUI - Qroba (2026):
Ave ENNUI! Greetings to the Georgian underground. I hope everything is going well for you. It should be, since you have released the fifth great album of your career this year. I must admit that it literally pinned me to the wall. It's dark, energetic, gloomy, cutting like a sharp knife. It's very clear that you've done a great job and that you have a lot of talent. How do you perceive the new album in relation to your previous work? Where did you want to go and how do you think the recordings are different?
Thank you for the kind words. It’s always slightly unsettling when someone describes your music that intensely, but of course it’s good to hear.
For me, Qroba feels like a step forward, especially in terms of production and attention to detail. In the past, we sometimes accepted imperfections as part of the character. This time we were far more precise. We took the recording process seriously, almost stubbornly so. Nothing was left to chance.
Musically, I see it as a reconsideration of our earlier work. There is less emphasis on the death metal side and more focus on doom itself. On weight, atmosphere and that slow-burning melancholy that was always there, but perhaps not fully realized. Darkness and atmosphere became more important than aggression.
I wouldn’t say we are trying to evolve in a dramatic sense. It’s more about refining what we already are. The next album will probably be a bit more dynamic again, but I don’t think we’ll ever abandon this atmosphere. It feels too natural to us.
"Qroba" has all the attributes of good death and funeral doom metal. For me personally, it's an album I love to come back to. How did it come about? How does ENNUI compose new material?
Some songs came almost instantly, as if they had already existed somewhere and just needed to be written down. Others took much longer. I had to struggle with them, reshape them, sometimes even dismantle them completely.
The hardest part wasn’t writing the material. It was choosing what actually belongs on the album. There was a lot more music than what ended up on Qroba.
The balance between death doom and funeral doom was something I had to handle very carefully. On one side, I wanted enough melancholy and that sense of deep isolation. On the other, I didn’t want to lose the weight, the harsher riffs, the physical heaviness of doom-death. It’s very easy to lean too far in one direction and lose tension.
In the end, I think the album found its own internal equilibrium. At least it feels that way to me.
Who is responsible for the sound? I have to admit that the sound literally sends shivers down my spine. It always makes me turn up the volume on my hi-fi system. They created a sound that is urgent, raw, dark, and animalistic. How did you work together? In which studio did you record, and how did everything go?
The foundation of the sound was built in Tbilisi. We recorded drums, vocals and the acoustic instruments at Garden Sound Studio with people we trust completely. They approached the sessions with real patience and precision. Nothing was rushed. We spent time searching for the right tones rather than settling for something “good enough.”
After that, the material went to Greg Chandler. He handled the re-amping, mixing and mastering. What impressed me most was how quickly he understood what the album needed. We didn’t have to over-explain anything. In some places he even strengthened the arrangements with subtle decisions that made the music feel more alive and more physical.
So, the process was divided, but very cohesive. Local roots, then an experienced hand shaping the final architecture. That combination gave the album its weight and clarity.
An integral part and a kind of bonus for fans today is the CD. You are releasing it on Meuse Music Records and it has mystical cover art. Who is the author? How did you choose the motif and how does it relate to the music on the new album?
The cover was created by BenJ Winterkeep, an exceptional artist whose work immediately resonated with the atmosphere of the album.
For me, the image reflects the core idea of Qroba. The word itself can be translated as fading or vanishment. The figure stealing the sun became a very natural visual metaphor for that concept. It feels like the death of light, or at least the slow withdrawal of it.
There is also a subtle connection to our debut album Mze Ukunisa. That cover also featured a landscape with hills and a darkened sun. On Qroba, the last track is titled “Mokvda Mze,” which translates as “The Sun Has Died.” So there is a quiet connection between the two records.
The artwork does not explain the music directly, but it carries the same emotional weight. It feels like a funeral for light. Maybe also for certain illusions.
I've been wandering the underworld for over thirty years and, to tell you the truth, I don't know many Georgian bands. How do you perceive your scene, fans, labels? What about concerts?
The Georgian metal scene has always existed slightly in the shadows. Not because there was no talent, but because the country itself has gone through long periods of instability. In the 1990s, when there were wars, economic collapse and social chaos, people were still rehearsing in basements, recording on whatever equipment they could find, and trying to build something heavy and honest out of very little.
Metal here was never fashionable. It was something personal. Almost stubborn.
Today the situation is calmer, and you can feel a new generation growing. There is a strong interest in black metal right now, especially atmospheric and depressive forms. Concerts happen regularly, younger bands are appearing, and the audience is surprisingly dedicated. Compared to some other parts of the Caucasus, Georgia and Armenia probably have the most active extreme metal movement.
At the same time, we still lack infrastructure. There are fewer venues, limited promotion and very few labels that can seriously push heavy music. The scene survives mostly on enthusiasm and personal commitment rather than on any real system behind it. Maybe that’s also why it still feels genuine.
There are bands worth discovering. Askeesi represent a very focused and atmospheric side of Georgian black metal. Psychonaut 4 have built a strong international reputation while keeping their identity intact.
And there are also long-standing bands like Angel of Disease, who have been playing technical death metal for more than twenty-five years. They are a reminder that this scene did not begin yesterday.
So, the Georgian underground is not large, but it is persistent. It doesn’t shout very loudly, but it refuses to disappear. And maybe that quiet endurance is part of its character.
"Qroba" is an album with a very special atmosphere. Melancholy meets sadness, but also something else, something interesting and mysterious. It's as if your history and nature are imprinted in the music. Am I wrong? What are the lyrics about and who wrote them? Where did you get your inspiration?
You’re not wrong. Nature plays a much bigger role in this album than it might seem at first glance. When I was writing Qroba, I kept returning in my mind to the landscapes I grew up with. The silence of mist-covered mountains, the density of forests, the mournful beauty of migrating cranes disappearing into the sky before winter. There is a certain melancholy in these images. Not dramatic, not sentimental. Just inevitable.
Two of the texts, Antinatalism and Becoming Void, were written by me. Antinatalism is built almost entirely on negation. It describes existence not through tragedy, but through subtraction. It removes pain, loss, faith, hope, even joy, until nothing remains but the idea of non-being as the only state untouched by suffering. There is no anger in it. It is closer to a cold observation.
Becoming Void approaches the same idea from another direction. It speaks about dissolution. Light dying so that darkness may be born. Eternity collapsing into disappearance. It is less argumentative and more symbolic, almost epitaph-like. The final line, “Lux fuimus, nunc umbra sumus,” says everything in a simple way. We were light. Now we are shadow.
The other three texts are poems by the Georgian poet Konstantine Makashvili, written after the death of his daughter during the Soviet invasion of Georgia in 1921. These poems carry immense grief, but without theatrics. They express loss as something absolute and irreversible.
What strikes me is how little this language of sorrow has changed over a century. Parents still bury children. Wars still erase futures. The album doesn’t comment on politics directly. It just acknowledges that certain forms of pain don’t disappear.
You play old-school-influenced doom death metal. Today, the band can't avoid comparisons, but I'd be interested to know how the idea to form ENNUI came about, who your role models were and are, and where you want to take the band. Are you attracted to big international festivals, are you willing to tour with a more famous band?
I was always drawn to music that combines weight and tragedy. That combination felt honest to me long before we formed a band. In 2012, Serge Shengelia and I decided to create Ennui together. We had known each other for years, and we shared a deep admiration for bands like Esoteric, Skepticism and Khanate.
Esoteric in particular left a strong mark on us. They manage to combine extreme heaviness and slowness with technical complexity and a very oppressive emotional atmosphere. That balance between density, depth and structure is something we have always respected.
Other bands that influenced us include Shape of Despair, Tyranny, Evoken and Mournful Congregation. Outside of doom metal, I have always been a devoted fan of Immolation, while Serge grew up with Death and Cynic, which also shaped his musical thinking.
As for the future, we are open to touring and to sharing the stage with bands we respect. Festivals are of course attractive, but not as a goal in themselves. What matters more is the context and the atmosphere. If the right opportunity appears, we are always willing to consider it.
When I started my website ten years ago, I had a vision that I would try to support bands that I felt weren't getting enough attention. To let the world know about them. I think I'm doing pretty well, at least according to the feedback. How do you approach promotion? Do you leave it to the label, or do you send CDs out for reviews yourself? I buy albums that I really enjoy. How about you? Are you also fans who like to support your colleagues often? Do you go to concerts? Do you party?
To be honest, we’ve never personally sent CDs out for reviews. In the past, that was usually handled by the labels we worked with. Our current label, Meuse Music Records, has a solid promotional network and they do their job very professionally.
This time, however, we decided to strengthen the promotion a bit more, simply because of the long silence between albums. After eight years, it felt reasonable to increase the reach wherever possible. It wasn’t about distrust, just about responsibility toward the release itself.
As listeners, we absolutely support the bands we appreciate. We buy records, we buy merchandise, we go to shows. When I attend a concert and genuinely like the band, I almost always leave with a shirt or a vinyl.
Creating music, especially in a niche genre, rarely makes financial sense. Most of it is done at a loss, driven by conviction rather than profit. Because of that, I understand very well how much even a small gesture of support can mean to another band.
On the one hand, today's new bands have a lot of opportunities to make themselves known, but on the other hand, there are so many bands that fans get lost in the crowd. Many people just download MP3s from the internet and instead of going to concerts, they prefer to spit venom on Facebook. How does modern technology influence you as ENNUI? What do you think about downloading music, Google metalheads, streaming music, etc.?
We grew up in a part of the world where piracy was not seen as rebellion or theft. It was simply reality. In the post-Soviet space, access to music was extremely limited, especially underground metal. Finding unofficial copies was often the only way we could even discover a band.
Later, as the internet became more accessible and widespread, that culture of unofficial physical copies gradually shifted into digital downloading. The form changed, but the mechanism remained the same.
At the same time, if you managed to get your hands on an original CD, it felt almost sacred. A physical artifact. Something tangible in a world where everything else was unstable. It wasn’t about consumption. It was about devotion.
So, for me, the question of downloading is complicated. I remember very clearly that many people would first download an album just to hear it, and then later try to buy the original if it truly meant something to them. In that sense, piracy once functioned as a kind of unofficial distribution network.
Streaming platforms have partly legalized that experience. They make music incredibly accessible, sometimes almost too accessible. On one hand, that can devalue the effort behind an album. On the other hand, it allows people to discover bands they would never encounter otherwise.
In the end, it separates listeners. Some stay on the surface. Others go deeper, buy records, attend concerts, support the artists they respect. That decision is personal.
As for technology in general, it is just a tool. It amplifies both noise and substance. The real question is not whether music is downloaded or streamed, but whether it is actually listened to.
I like to ask musicians what death/doom metal means to them. How would they define it, whether it is more of a philosophy and lifestyle for them or "just" relaxation. What does it mean to you? How do you perceive and experience it?
Death/doom metal is probably music for people who are comfortable sitting with uncomfortable thoughts.
I wouldn’t call it a lifestyle. I don’t schedule despair between breakfast and work. But it’s a space where you don’t have to pretend that everything is meaningful, productive or inspirational. That honesty is rare.
It’s also strangely relaxing. Some people clear their heads by jogging. I prefer ten-minute riffs about human mortality. Same therapeutic effect, fewer injuries. :)
For me it’s not about posing or belonging to a scene. It’s about having a language that doesn’t lie. And sometimes that’s enough.
Finally, a classic but important question. What does ENNUI have planned for the coming months? Where can we see you in concert? If you have a message for fans, labels, or promoters, now is the time...
In the coming months, the focus is naturally on Qroba. The album is out, and we want to give it the attention it deserves.
We’ll be performing at Haunting the Castle in Belgium and then doing a small tour in the Caucasus with Shape of Despair. Those shows mean a lot to us. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have believed we’d be sharing stages with bands we’ve respected for so long.
Beyond that, we’re already working on new material. Slowly, without rushing anything.
As for a message… just listen carefully. If the music resonates with you, support the bands you care about. That’s really all that keeps this world alive.
Thank you very much for the interview. I wish you every success with your new album and hope that your fan base grows as much as possible. I look forward to seeing you live somewhere and wish you every success, both musically and personally. I'm going to listen to "Qroba" again!
Thank you very much for the thoughtful questions and for spending time with the album. It truly means a lot to us.
We appreciate the work you do in supporting bands and giving them space to speak in their own words. Hopefully we will meet somewhere at a show in the future.
Thank you again for the support, and enjoy Qroba.
Recenze/review - ENNUI - Qroba (2026):
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