Well,Friends Of Aristocracy!
Lucid Grave Line Up:
Malene On Vocals
Casper On Guitar
Kriller On Guitar
Jon On Drums
Alex On Bass
We speak again of our newsroom, where in a little while, we will have, in all its emotions, the interview 134 of the Aristocracy.This time, we talked to a band that joins the dark of Doom Metal with the speed and aggressiveness of punk allied also to gothic along with Stoner Metal, the band's most outstanding characteristic. It's a band that is still starting its career, but we can to say without fear of error, it is a start of respect and their future is very promising.We are talking about a Danish band. This band is called Lucid Grave.Prior to this opening album, they released in 2020 an EP that was titled as Goddess Of Misery. In 2018, a demo bearing the band's name was just a small taste of what they were capable of. Back in 2022, this first album shows all their influences and some interesting brushstrokes of Desert Blues and Space Rocks. We will start now after a song our interview with them.Not without first, thanking the band for answering our questions and the website doomed-nation for introducing us to this young Danish band. Now, yes, their music and starting the interview.
A1:Talking about the composition work in Cosmic Mountain?
Lucid Grave:The songs have all been developed by the band together.Most songs start out with a fairly basic idea like a riff or a chord progression. Then we play them together and see what happens. If we need something more, we add it along the way. Malene usually has some words already and tries to fit them to the song.On the song, Stay Away it was the other way around though. We started with vocals and a melody and made the music to fit it. But generally, the process is the same; play around with the song, talk about it and change what we want to change.This process doesn’t stop until the song is recorded. This time around we even got the time to play with some synth on a few tracks and an acoustic 12-string that was in the studio.
A2:What kind of occult cinema influence this album?
Lucid Grave:It’s no secret we love cheap horror movies.Even badly made shark movies,Not to be confused with JAWS.But to describe an occult cinema influence, it must be Lucio Fulci’s mysteries and haunting universe and Mark Of The Devil by Adrian Hoven from 1970.
A3:How to fight a fog of demons with psychedelic tendencies?
Lucid Grave:The lyrical universe comes from Malene´s way of working through her past. You can’t run from your past or your traumas, you're going to have to tear it up and dig into it, find the root of it, and that is typically not pretty but rather sad and painful.When you come out on the other side though, it's a little like the day after an acid trip.Your body and mind are lighter, it's easier to appreciate the little things and you feel freer.You've experienced something magical and it's an amazing feeling. Malene often packs her personal experiences into a demonic horror film universe as it helps to describe all the painful things in a more dramatic way. She also lived in the desert in California and uses the harsh desert wilderness as symbolic imagery in her lyrics.
A4:What´s the idea behind artwork´s album?
Lucid Grave:The artwork is created by CLLK ARTWORK or Cyril Lawniczak who came up with the basic ideas. We sent him the lyrics to Cosmic Mountain and explained a bit about our style. At one time,Malene lived with a shaman who told her that her body was like a mountain and that she should go on a journey into it. Malene thought she had done this many times before, so she wrote a song about her first DMT trip.That is where the image of the mountain came from. We didn’t tell Cyril exactly what to do though.We commented on his work along the way and got to the result that way.I think it speaks into the psychedelic themes a lot though. It shows the cosmic mountain as a portal to something.Something unknown. I guess you will have to listen to the album to see where it leads you.
A5:For some time now, punk and stoner have made a great partnership not only in your sound, but in other bands as good as you. Is this trend generated by the capacity of the bands or do the influences overlap?
Lucid Grave:I think that punk and stoner rock have always been connected. Bands like Kyuss and Fu Manchu came out of 80’s punk.Similarly, a lot of doom leans towards punk. The simplicity and the noisy parts of the music fits well with punk aesthetic.And then there's just the whole attitude that we don't play by rules,we don't play by a template,we play with all genres as we see fit. and punk is close to our hearts. The wild aggressiveness is liberating. That Being said I would never call us a punk band. We are definitely based more in stoner. So yes, the influences definitely overlap. Guitar-driven rock that has a little more edge it all flows pretty well together.
A6:When the haunting inspiration emerges?
Lucid Grave:We like to do long narratives in our songs with slow intros that build up a dark mood.We like playing around with slow, doomy,effects-laden guitar riffs and ambient horror soundtracks that give you a haunted feeling.Malene's vocals have a sound, a pain that echoes, and sometimes gives you the chills.Malene has gotten much of her inspiration from the singer from Christian death. Christian Death's style is considered gothic rock and art punk, that has a very dramatic theater like feeling to it.
A7:Some literature inspire this album?
Lucid Grave:There is no specific literature that has clearly inspired the album. but if I was to describe the album from authors, I would compare it to Clive Barker's horror universe along with some abstract realism by Dostoevsky.
A8:Is this cosmic mountain metaphorical?
Lucid Grave:Yes, I guess you can say that it is the portal to what is inside. In that way I guess it is a somewhat introverted album. It is more about what goes on inside a person than what happens in the world around us. So maybe the cosmic mountain is the way to get there.
A9:I believe it's their debut album, but the band's ability to play doesn't sound like a debut. Why do I have this feeling besides the fact that I like the band?
Lucid Grave:Well, we put out an EP in 2020 called Goddess of Misery. It is pretty long, and we weren’t really sure whether or not to call it an album. But it is definitely not as coherent as the Cosmic Mountain so in the end EP made more sense. It’s more a collection of four songs than something that is meant to go together. I feel like we managed to make Cosmic Mountain fit pretty well together and if not tell a story at least have a nice flow to it. But I think Goddess of Misery is worth checking out, especially the song I Was A Devil which also has a nice homemade video of us fooling around despite it being a pretty dark song. So,I guess that is why Cosmic Mountain doesn’t feel like the first thing we are doing.Because it’s not.
A10:How is Lucid Grave different from your previous bands?
Lucid Grave:That is very different from person to person, I think.We have played punk, Thrash, 70’s rock, space rock and more straight up doom. This is probably a little less focused on being one genre than most of the bands we have played in before. It is fairly open in terms of what we want to do.So,it will be fun to see where it goes next.
A11:This album is conceptual?
Lucid Grave:It’s probably a bit much to say that it is conceptual but Malene, who has written all the lyrics, definitely has a lot of the same themes popping up in what she writes. Most of what she writes comes from things she has experienced, so it all ties together. And since the music and the lyrics have developed in a symbiotic relationship, this also carries on into the music.
A12:Explain better this term:drugs of life,please?
Lucid Grave:Over time Malene has experimented with different substances.I'm Still High from the new record is about her having had an overuse of weed for several years, and even though she's stopped, because it fucked with her head, it's still a huge part of her mindset today and of her way of moving.She's also had a journey down the psychedelic world that has helped her clean up a lot of different traumas. Everything must be done in moderation and at the right times in your life. Love and adrenaline can also be drugs.Love can become obsessive and take over all reason, therefrom it can develop into controlling psychological violence. That is described in the song Stay Away.
A13:In Brazil, we sometimes call your country Dinamáquina. Because of your country selection, can we say that at Stoner, you are also a Dynamáquina?
Lucid Grave:I’m not sure I understand this term correctly. Is it a dynamic machine? It sounds pretty cool. I think it fits pretty well with us actually.There is a lot of dynamics in the music. Lots of changed both in the songs themselves and from song to song. We also work very well as a unit so maybe, you could call us a machine. Maybe we should change our name to Dynamáquina.{haha.}
A14:Surfer Bat was the first song made by the band? If so, was it inspired by anyone?
Lucid Grave:No,more like the 8th or ninth 9th….who knows. Before we put out the EP Goddess of Missery we also put out a three-song demo-tape. We have never really talked much about any specific bands that we wanted to sound like when we talked about what we wanted to do.We just always wanted to play sort of the same kind of music and we have just been playing together, making songs together for a few years now.And in my opinion,there is definitely a development from the demo to the EP to Surfer Bat and then to now with Cosmic Mountain. And luckily,I think we are getting better.
A15:Because of social media, do we live in the most lying time in the world?
Lucid Grave:I don’t know if social media has increased lying. A lot of people can put their opinion out there and that might not matter much to you, but it can certainly make it hard for you to find people you do want to listen to. You might feel that a lot of people in power use SM to manipulate people, but manipulation of this kind has always been there, and it is hard to tell whether there is more or less lying now than then. There is a lot more communication so there probably is more lying, but at the same time there is probably also more honesty. There is just so much communication. I think our way of communicating on social media is pretty honest. But maybe the most interesting thing about SM is not if it is spreading dishonesty but rather what it is doing to the way we experience the world and the way we interact with each other. All these things are still very new and how much good or bad it brings us only time can tell, but there are definitely scary things about smart phones and social media.
A16:How band arrive to Eletric Valley Records?
Lucid Grave:We put out the Surfer Bat single and sent it around. A few months later, Marco from Electric Valley contacted us and asked if we wanted to sign with the label. We said yes and then stated working on finishing the album. At that time, we were already pretty far with writing new songs, so it didn’t take us long to get ready. Due to corona, our time in the studio was super pressured and we ended up recording the whole album in one weekend and only having a few weeks to mix. We were luckily well prepared, so we are pretty stoked with the outcome. As mentioned earlier we did get time to play around with some extra overdubs.
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