Interview with death metal band from Italy - SHRIEKING DEMONS.
Answered Giorgio (guitars) and Gabri (vocals), thank you!
Recenze/review - SHRIEKING DEMONS - The Festering Dwellers (2025):
Ave SHRIEKING DEMONS! Hello to the underground of Italy. Let's get straight to the important stuff. Your new album "The Festering Dwellers" is out and it is literally packed with honest, dirty death metal. How was the album made and how do you feel about it? What direction did SHRIEKING DEMONS move in?
GIORGIO – Hi Jakub and thank you for this opportunity. Well, this new album is far from being perfect, but which debut album is aside from MELISSA, SCREAM BLOODY GORE or BLACK SABBATH's S/T anyway? Our direction is eternally backwards. We play death metal the way we like it. We love conveying the cold feeling of finding yourself trapped in spiderwebs of doomy, worm-infested riffage.
GABRI - Hell-o there! I must add that, speaking about myself, I am pretty satisfied with the latest recording... I tried to do it as raw and spontaneous as possible (as Underground extreme Metal should sound in my opinion), but precise and "professional" at the same time. I am very pleased also with the other musicians performance of course, even if it's not 100% perfect it sound not so different from many of the Death Metal album we love and we are influenced by... but without losing our personal touch, originality it's something that lacks in many modern productions in my opinion, even if the music is played well.
I'm listening to the album right now and I have to write that this time it took a while to get into my blood. I put the album in my player, I'm listening to it in the car. I like the sound a lot. It's lively, organic, old school, and at the same time it's easy to hear. I find it different from the previous EP "Diabolical Regurgitations". Where did you record and who is responsible for the sound?
GIORGIO - We just wanted to push the envelope of realism with this one, so we decided to record it live in the room. All master takes were done like that with only vocals, solos and some acoustic guitars being overdubbed. All in all, it's a pretty honest snapshot of who we are at the moment. The album was recorded at the Art Distillery studios in Modena (ITA), engineered by Claudio Mulas, mixed by our bass player Nino and mastered by myself. The album has a wide dynamic range so the output volume is much lower than industry standard. Make sure you crank the fuck out of it when you play it.
GABRI - Actually I like the 4 songs of the EP a lot, everytime I listen to it I remember about the excitement of the period we recorded that - being something totally new and unexpected, I think it turned out pretty well (I did just 2 or 3 rehearsals with the other members before recording the EP, keep that in mind ahah).
That's why I am pretty sure we will keep playing some of those songs live, also because we didn't have many chances to play live before the release of this new album.
You'll probably agree with me that the cover sells. You guys have made it interesting this year, with such a strange vibe I guess. The author is Roberto Toderico Art. The motif is a meeting of the undead? How did you and Roberto get together and what exactly is the motif supposed to express in relation to the music?
GIORGIO – Roberto Toderico is an outstanding metal artist and we have been aware of his works for many years. He even did the cover art for a death metal band I was in called Grevia. We love his style and deemed it perfect for what we were aiming at. There's a big GORGUTS – CONSIDERED DEAD influence in there. We wanted to have something to represent our own lost souls dwelling deep into the underworld of our fucked up dreams of death...
What are the lyrics on the new album about? Where did you get the inspiration for them and who is the author? Do you put a lot of emphasis on the lyrics?
GABRI - I have written all the lyrics of the album (and of the EP as well), being the singer I think it's normal to be like that even if I welcome other members to write lyrics too if they like. Shrieking Demons don't have a "main concept", actually I write lyrics based on what the musical compositions inspire me, so every time is different. They could be dark and introspective, or inspired by other authors (from the tales of Lovecraft to stuff like grimoires or old Magic/ Witchcraft books) and movies, sometimes even stuff like weird & gorey manga/anime/comics. All this being filtered inside my rotting brain, I try to visualize images while I listen to Giorgio's de-compositions... and then I try to put into words again and again, until everything kinda makes sense. Don't know if this is like a "standard" process or anything, to be honest I don't care so much about the others... I've been trying to have my unique style for years, seeking to be as original as possible within the boundaries of the genre. Being influenced by something is different from doing copy-and-paste cluelessly because, basically, you have nothing to say.
I put "SHRIEKING DEMONS" over and over again in my head and I think what I like most about the album is probably that hard to describe old school death metal feeling. Then I look at your promo photos and one of you is wearing a t-shirt of my favourite SADISTIC EXEKUTION. Looks like we're of the same blood. Who was and is your role model? Every musician started out somehow, there are role models that shaped their signature. What were yours?
GIORGIO – my 3 favourite guitar players of all time are TONY IOMMI, RITCHIE BLACKMORE and MICHAEL SCHENKER. My entire, twisted universe is nothing but a product of my veneration for this unholy trimurti.
GABRI - I am the one with the SAD EX t-shirt ahah, I've been loving that band for many years. I like original and fucked up bands like them and NUCLEAR DEATH, IMPETIGO, MACABRE, UNHOLY (FIN), DECOMPOSED, CIANIDE, MORPHEUS DESCENT, THOU SHALT SUFFER... well, the list could go on forever, you know.
I don't know if all these bands inspired me directly in my vocal work for SD, for sure I have listened so many hours of music and read so many lyrics that my brain is like a (old & malfunctioning) database ahah.
Do I have it set up that if I like a band, I want to see them live, to confirm how the songs sound in concert? How do you enjoy going to concerts? And how do the new songs work live? What kind of feedback do you get?
GIORGIO – we haven't played many gigs yet but the reactions we've had so far were mostly positive. People seem to get easily into this material, maybe because it's pretty straight, no brainer stuff. Although we are influenced by a zillion bands, if you're into AUTOPSY as much as we are then you'll surely get what we're at.
How do you look at the current trend, widespread mostly among young bands, where they try to play as technically as possible, often putting into death metal, for example, saxophone, various keyboards and generally finding their way in a very complicated way. Do you enjoy such bands? I'm confused sometimes when I go to a gig and someone like that is performing. It seems like a jazz school exercise, but I end up not remembering anything at all. What about you and the current trends in death metal?
GIORGIO – technicality is useless if your songs don't work. If you're playing rock-based music then you've got to have RIFFS because they're all that really matters at the end of the day. Still, we are not supposed to tell anybody what to do. If you're into weird stuff, then go for it. We listen to a shitload of crazy music of all sorts, but as far as death metal is concerned, this is the way we want it to be and we are not into throwing in whatever you're into just for the sake of being avant-garde. Death metal, for us, has to retain something savage and some primal immediacy, otherwise it's just... boring.
GABRI - I would say I am definitely more into the rawer and "punkish" side of Death Metal (from the historical bands like SLAUGHTER, ABSCESS, NUNSLAUGHTER to newer acts like REPUKED and NEKROFILTH), but to be fair I like also more technical bands like SUFFOCATION, DEMILICH or "progressive" like EDGE OF SANITY or PAN-THY-MONIUM.
So what I really care about isn't the band being technical or not, but if it does have something particular that captures my attention.
The scene in the Czech Republic is so closed. The band and the fans more or less all know each other and to be honest, I feel like not many people go to death metal anymore. The younger ones listen to something completely different. You're from Bologna, what's your scene like, what are the clubs like. And the fans? Do they support bands, do they go to gigs?
GIORGIO – actually, we're based in Bologna but we come from different places. David and I are from Palermo, Sicily, whereas Valentina is from Crevalcore (roughly half way between Modena and Bologna) and Gabri and Nino are from Modena. There are big differences between Bologna, a big student city with many concerts happening all year round, and Palermo. There's a decent death metal and grindcore scene in the Bologna area but, generally speaking, it's the go-to place for metal gigs in Northern Italy and that's what it's famous for, at least in our scene. I think that aside from a bunch of huge cities in Northern Europe or in the US, extreme metal circles are quite small everywhere in the world, aren't they? Palermo, on the other side, has had its ups and downs. Its location on the map makes logistics much more complicated compared to the rest of Italy but thanks to a handful of brave friends the local metal and hardcore scene is quite lively with a quite rich concert calendar, some squats and one good venue.
GABRI - Talking about my town, Modena, there are quite a few good Death Metal and Grindcore bands, but I don't think you could talk about "a scene". And it's always the same people since many years actually, newer generations probably are not interested at all.
We're coming to the end and I always ask a slightly philosophical question. How would you define death metal and what does it mean to you? I don't mean now the technique of playing, but rather what it brings to you, takes, how you perceive it in relation to the fans. Did you grow up on it?
GIORGIO – death metal is for those who feel dead but dreaming. All in all, heavy metal's mission is to take your imagination places.
Thank you very much for the interview. I appreciate it. Now let the music do the talking. I'm gonna go play "The Festering Dwellers" really loud! I wish you all the best with the news and that all is well in your personal lives. Thank you!
GIORGIO – thanks to you Jakub for the nice chat. Let's rot!
GABRI - Thanks & cheers - Only Death is real!
Recenze/review - SHRIEKING DEMONS - The Festering Dwellers (2025):
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