Interview with death metal band from Portugal - UNDERSAVE.
Answered Nuno Braz (vocals, guitars), thank you!
Recenze/review - UNDERSAVE - Merged In Abstract Perdition (2025):
Ave UNDERSAVE! Greetings to the Portuguese underground. I hope everything is going well for you. It should be, since you have released the third great album of your career this year. I must admit that it literally pinned me to the wall. It's dark, energetic, and cuts 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 works? Where did you want to go with it, and how do you think the recordings are different?
Hi Jakub and Deadly Storm Zine!! Thanks for the interview! This album can be seen as a natural evolution/regression of previous works. Not better, just different. Six years have passed since the release of Sadistic Iterations... Tales of Mental Rearrangement, and everything was composed afterward, it’s something natural; We don't strive to do something different, but we also don't want to repeat ideas that have already been used.
Regarding the recording, it was quite different. It was a much longer process, and we chose a new person to do the mixing and mastering of the album – Diogo Santana – Noise Portrait Recordings! Paulo Vieira had recorded the previous two albums, but for this one we decided to change!
"Merged In Abstract Perdition" has all the attributes of good death metal. For me personally, it's an album I love to come back to. How did it come about? How does UNDERSAVE compose new material?
It all starts with riffs. Basically, we start with some good riffs created at home to begin a song, and then in the rehearsal room, with the help of a few beers, we start developing ideas. The creative process is what attracts us most in Undersave. We need to test, record and listen, do and undo, and undo again until someone is satisfied.
Who is responsible for the sound? I have to admit that the sound is literally killer. It keeps making me turn up the volume on my hi-fi system. You have a sound that is cruel, raw, and at the same time dark and animalistic, almost analog. How did you work with it in the studio? Where did you record and how did everything go?
Diogo Santana! He's a long-time friend who has followed us since our first album. He's done excellent work with other bands, so we decided to record with him. Furthermore, we share a vision with him of how we like Death Metal.
Regarding the recording, the guitars, bass, and vocals were recorded by us in our rehearsal room, and the drums were recorded in the studio with him. Then the mixing and mastering was done at his studio, Noise Portrait Studio.
We try to avoid the compressed, undynamic sound that characterizes modern Death Metal. We've received good reviews of our sound, as you mentioned.
An integral part and a kind of bonus for fans today is the music CD (cassette, vinyl). You released it on Transcending Obscurity Records and it has interesting, dark cover art. Who is the author? How did you choose the motif and how does it relate to the music on the new album?
This is a painting by Nuno Zuki from Belial Necroarts. He has been doing very good paintings in various styles, so we were already paying attention to his work. As soon as he published the painting that would become our cover, we immediately decided to contact him.
The cover fits to us, seems to exude the feelings of our music - Despair, Anxiety and Perdition. This cover has received very good feedback.
I've been wandering around the underworld for over thirty years, and I go to Portugal for music because I know I'll find something good there. I think we have a similar nature and taste when it comes to metal. I really like your bands and follow your scene closely. Maybe I'm even a little jealous of you, because we only have a few death metal bands that are worth listening to. How do you explain the fact that death/black doom metal is so successful in your country? How do you perceive your scene, fans, and labels?
Portugal is a country with many good bands, but I don't think metal is successful in Portugal!
Maybe because we are far from the center of Europe, many bands never gain recognition and mature, and the bands break up after a few years. Another thing that doesn't help is that we are not a particularly rich country, so bands end up losing motivation. In the underground Black Metal scene, we have quite a few good bands! Regarding Death Metal/Grindcore, we have good examples like Holocausto Canibal, Grog, Bleeding Display, Dead Meat, and more recently Phenocryst, Tvmvlo, Pestifer, and Resurge!
Regarding Labels, we have some pretty good ones – Vomit Your Shirt, Larvae, Caverna Abismal, Helldprod Records, Selvajaria Records, Miasma etc.
You play old-school-influenced death metal, but at the same time, you are progressive in a way. Nowadays, bands can't avoid comparisons, but I'd be interested to know how the idea to form UNDERSAVE came about, who your role models were and are, and where you want to take your band. Are you attracted to big international festivals, are you willing to go on tour with a more famous band?
When we started the band, we were three cousins discovering Heavy Metal and beginning to learn to play instruments. We were around 13 years old, so our tastes at the time, when Nu Metal was booming, were quite questionable. But our main influences at the time were Sepultura, Slayer, and Pantera. The idea was to do a Thrash/Death Metal band, but something went wrong.
Our main goal as a band is to make music that puts us alongside the bands we worship. But this is a process of disillusionment because, since we haven't been able to achieve that, we must try again.
Yes we would like to do a proper tour someday. We are attracted to Underground Festivals! For booking us – undersave@gmail.com
When I started my website eight years ago, I had a vision that I would try to support bands that I thought weren't so visible. 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? For example, 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?
It's so important that there are people with your vision! Some of my favorite bands are quite unknown, and without promotion like yours, I probably wouldn't know them.
We did some promotion for our album, but between rehearsals, composing music, and concerts, we ended up having little time on the release date to promote it.
About the concerts, yes, I go to a lot and spend also lots of money on CDs, vinyl records, and beer! I really value the physical format!
On the one hand, a band starting out today has lots of opportunities to make itself known, but on the other hand, there are so many bands that fans get lost in the crowd. Lots of 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 UNDERSAVE? What do you think about downloading music, Google metalheads, streaming music, etc.?
In my opinion, everyone should listen to music from whatever source they want, but bands should receive fair royalties from legal streaming.
The strangest thing is that so much promotion should guarantee venues with larger audience and more underground concerts... but it doesn't.
I like to ask musicians what death metal means to them. How would they define it, is it more of a philosophy and lifestyle for them or "just" relaxation. What does it mean to you? How do you perceive and experience it?
I wouldn't just say Death Metal, but Metal in general. By the way, I'm listening to Bulldozer's “The Day of Wrath” right now, great album!
I'd say metal is a philosophy and a lifestyle, because some of our life decisions are related to it! And you can draw similar conclusions when you analyze a group of people devoted to metal.
Finally, a classic but important question. What does UNDERSAVE have planned for the coming months? Where can we see you in concert? If you have something on your mind and would like to say it to your fans, labels, promoters, here's your chance.
We have some concerts scheduled for the coming months in Porto, Barroselas Metal Fest, and Lisbon! And we're trying to organize some dates to promote the album outside of Portugal.
Thank you all for your support! Come to the concerts and buy us drinks!
Thank you very much for the interview. I wish you every success with your new album and hope your fan base grows as much as possible. I look forward to seeing you live somewhere and wish you all the best, both musically and personally. I'm going to listen to "Merged In Abstract Perdition" again!
Thanks Jakub! Cheers
Recenze/review - UNDERSAVE - Merged In Abstract Perdition (2025):
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