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Decapitated.
Only a few weeks ago, Polish death metal band Decapitated released their third full-length album, 'The Negation': an impressive achievement for a group whose members are all still only in their early twenties. Such success, however, has not come overnight, as Martin, the band's surname-less bass player, implies when giving me a brief run-down of the group's history.
"We founded the band in the middle of '96", he explains. "In those days, there was nothing special about the band; we just recorded two demo tapes. After that, we signed deals with a couple of Polish labels, and then got an offer from Earache Records. We have now released our third album for them."
The band's first full-length work was entitled 'Winds of Creation', followed by 'Nihility'. One thing that struck me about the latter release, 'Nihility', was how appropriate its title was, as the lyrics seemed to be uniformly depressing: essentially odes to nothingness, in fact. The title of the new album suggest that the band are intent on continuing in this soul-destroying vein, and I discover that this is indeed the case. "'The Negation' is just a continuation of the whole lyrical concept behind 'Nihility'," explains Martin. "In fact, I think that the lyrics on 'The Negation' are even more pessimistic and brutal. You know, when you listen to death metal, you don't want to think about flowers and shit, no; death metal is really, really brutal music, and the same goes for the lyrics; they just have to be as brutal as possible."
Musically, the material on 'Nihility' struck me as fairly technical - an impression that I learn many other music journalists also came away with - as well as rather old school, and I ask Martin what musical influences he considers the band to have had, hoping to be given a few names that will confirm whether my latter impressions of the group's music are near the mark or not. Martin declines to give any specifics, however; instead, as he puts it, "We all have a lot of influences. We all listen to many kinds of music; each member of the band has something, a special something, that just he likes. Of course, we all listen to a lot of death metal because that's what we play, and it's necessary to know what's going down in that scene, but, as I said, we listen to many kinds of music. We all attended music school, and when we were there, we had to listen to and practice a lot of stuff like classical music and jazz. That's something we still do to this day, in fact. It doesn't have to be brutal music; it just has to be good music. It's all about good music."
A scan of the band photo suggests that the group has added a new member to its earlier four-man line-up, but this turns out not to be so. "He's actually not a permanent member," says Martin of the second guitarist. "He's just a guy who helps us out during concerts. He didn't record anything on the new album; plays with us during shows because we need two guitarists then, just so we can play as hard and brutal as possible. He plays in two other Polish bands, so we didn't want to force him to be a permanent member of ours as well."
On the subject of shows, I ask Martin if the band has done much touring. "We have," he affirms, "and we are now on our first tour to promote 'The Negation'. We are in the UK right now. After 'Nihility' came out, we did a couple of long tours. We went to the States, where we toured with Incantation and Impaled; that was a really, really big experience for us. We also played a really long European tour; we performed with Iron Maiden and Krisiun on that one."
Finally, I have to know what the metal scene is like in Poland. "At present," says Martin, "most of the metal bands in Poland are death metal ones. Many journalists have asked me why death metal is so popular in Poland. It's hard to explain; I was born in Poland - it's my homeland - but I don't know why death metal is so popular there. It's a really good scene, though. There's no competition or jealousy between the bands; we are all great friends, and try to support one another. We play together as often as possible."
James Brazel
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'The Negation' is out now through Earache/Shock.
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