Line Up:
Olgierd Gontarczyk-Vocal
Jakub Komorowski-Guitar
Adam Dobosz-Bass
Jakub Kazmierski-Drums
Well,Friends of Aristocracy!
We speak again of our newsroom, where in a little while, we will have, in all its emotions, the interview 174 of the Aristocracy.This time, we talked to a Polish band that is starting their career. For that, they seek to talk about the current problems of the world, adding a lot of melody with energy and weight in their music.This young band goes by the name of Parahuman. They present us their album titled as Affliction. We want to thank Solid Rock for introducing us to this band. Let's go to a song of theirs to get this interview started.
A1:Talking about the composition work in Affliction?
Parahuman:Composition of Affliction was actually quite a long process. It probably started about three years ago,but back then we didn’t even know the song we wrote would end up on a longplay album. It ended up being the sixth track on Affliction, which is entitled Divided.
The process itself consisted of Kuba Komorowski, our guitarist, writing and recording a demo for a song.Those demos were either pretty much complete, like Antisocial or just a few riffs, like Inanity.Then, during the rehearsals, we played through those songs and collaboratively gave those tracks their final form.
A2:Why does melodic death metal best define the band's sound?
Parahuman:We wanted our music to not only be heavy, but also have an element of melody. We introduced synthetiser parts and melodic vocals besides the unclean parts typical to the death metal genre. In that we were inspired by some nordic melodic death metal bands, such as In Flames or Children of Bodom.
A3:What social issues inspired this album?
Parahuman:This is a pretty broad topic. There is a lot of ambiguity in the lyrics.It’s for sure about the technology and its influence on our life,our habits, living our life for show.We write about losing our loved ones, our battles with addictions, depression and suicide.We invite everyone who is interested in our lyrics to visit our FB page where we posted full lyrics to our songs.Also in the close future those lyrics will be available on streaming platforms that support lyrics.
A4:Is the context of your songs somehow pessimistic?
Parahuman:Yes, I think so. We touch upon topics which are traumatic to us.We wanted to make our lyrics as honest as possible, and what we’ve seen in our day to day lives doesn’t really make us optimistic. However,we are pretty cheerful people with a great sense of humor.
A5:What melodic element did you want to create on this album?
Parahuman:We wanted to create memorable melodic hooks, and they are present both in vocal lines and in instrumental ones. To add an additional melodic layer we included some extra synth parts in the songs as well.
A6:Judging by their songs, can we say that the human being as a species is terminally ill?
Parahuman:It’s hard not to see it that way. You could cite Agent Smith from the Matrix here: “Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet”.Looking at the latest events,it’s easy to conclude we’re heading towards self-annihilation.
A7:What addictions inspire this album?
Parahuman:There are a few dependency on technology, addiction to social media, alcoholism, narcism.
A8:Some literature or film inspire the band?
Parahuman:Each one of us partakes in a different film and literary genres. There are a lot of inspirations from books and movies in this album. Of those that had direct influence we could mention SF works such as “Bobiverse” by Dennis E.Taylor, Cixin Liu and trilogy “The Remembrance of Earth's Past”, Dmitrij Gluchowsky “Metro 2033”, Peter Watts “Blindsight” and “Echopraxia”. There are also some musical inspirations from 80s electronic music soundtracks on the album, especially from the works of John Carpenter, but also classics like Blade Runner or Friday the 13th.
A9:What´s the idea behind artwork´s album?
Parahuman:With this question,we can circle back to a previous one. Our album artwork was created by Łukasz Pach from Pachu Design, known for collaborating with such bands as Vader, Behemoth, Hate and Hostia,the latter of which he is also a singer in. He drew inspiration from Carpenter’s classic movie The Thing.
A10:What is the mini concept for the album?
Parahuman:The main motifs are afflictions we are touched by and social problems of modern people. We touch upon the problems connected to social media, the dangers of the internet, depression, hate and addictions. Each of the songs is a short study of a selected “disease”.
A11:Are these threats that the band sees on the internet due to the fact that they have given voice to some idiots?
Parahuman:It is an accurate observation.Sadly, the internet is filled with hate speech, angry people, and political extremists. Technology that was supposed to carry us into the future became a means to spread terrible sewage.
A12:Why the band have this name?
Parahuman:This name is a little bit deceitful. It alludes to our humanity and our individuality. Every one of us is a different creature. It’s sometimes very hard for us to understand others, and even ourselves. We think we all should live with respect to our and others feelings and opinions.
A13:How is Parahuman different from your previous bands?
Parahuman:It surely is a different genre. Previously,we used to play lighter music, but with growing skill and musical maturity we decided we could follow in the steps of more technical bands, like Decapitated, Lamb of God, or melodeath bands we mentioned earlier.Although it is also important to us to leave a backdoor for ourselves so we could introduce elements of different genres in our music.
A14:How to give weight in the songs?
Parahuman:Musically,we used the assortment of the techniques that became the staple of the genre. We use seven string guitars tuned to a standard and dense arrangements to achieve the wall of sound effect commonly associated with metal music. As for the lyrics, as mentioned before, we tried to draw from our experiences to make them more authentic and relatable.
A15:We understand that this album has a concept, but is it based on a true story just preserving the identity of those involved?
Parahuman:This album draws a lot from our recent experiences. Loss of the loved ones, our commentary on the reality around us and discussion of our problems. We wanted to be honest and share our point of view on the issues of the world surrounding us.
A16:Any comments to make about the first two shows to release this album?
Parahuman:Our first two shows came out great. They provided us with a ton of positive energy. We are happy to see the audience enjoying our music in the live setting. We see the people are enjoying our material, which motivates us to go even harder on stage!
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