Interview

"Flesh is heir" the third The Amenta album is most definitely the best Listenable Records released those past 3 months. Beyond the borders of death, industrial and avant-garde metal, the band bring out a tremendous metal with no compromise between power, technique and creation. Put your metalcore to the trash and taste the sound of Australian metal!

Weska : Hi guys, how are you?

Timothy Pope: Very well thanks. We are in an interesting time for the band. “Flesh is Heir” has just been released and we are currently fielding all the interviews and reading the first reviews. It’s both an exciting and a frustrating time. We’ve spent months and months on this album and we are extremely happy with it. It’s been completed for some time now and has just been waiting for a hole in Listenable’s release schedule to be heard by the public. So, while the album is new to everyone else, it’s old news of us. We are ready to move on to the next thing but then we have the excitement of all the amazing feedback which draws us back into the “Flesh is Heir” process. That said, though, it is amazing to get the appreciation and respect that “Flesh is Heir” is generating so it’s not such a bad thing to be forced to discuss the past.

First of all, i'd like to congratulate you for your EP "V01D" that is still free to download, and a great piece of death metal. Good work, Amenta is a name that lead nowhere but to the band by typing it on a search engine. What does it mean?

Thanks very much! We were very happy with “V01D” and a lot of the experiments of that release led directly to the sounds you hear on “Flesh is Heir” so you can understand how important that release was for us. It was also the first recording of this lineup of the band so it was a good chance to learn about what we were capable of and work out the best way to attack the full length.

The Amenta means “The Hidden Earth”. It is the doorway to the hall of judgment in Egyptian mythology. This applies to us in a couple of ways. The first is that the hidden earth refers to an “underground” or group of free thinkers who are not completely oppressed by life’s desire to see us all homogenized. We are some of the few people who are capable of using their own brains to analyze data and make decisions. We are the shepherds. You are the sheep. The other aspect is that our lyrics are constantly analyzing and interpreting the world within which we exist. The world is on trial, we are the judges and we find it wanting.

Wikipedia even says you all took some pesticides common names like: ethion, chlordane, diazinon... Lindane would be a grand name for a band, what do you think?

That’s old news and not relevant to the band as it currently exists. Those names, and most of those people, are not part of the new versions of The Amenta (and really haven’t existed since 2005). That was just an attempt to divorce ourselves from the music. We believe that the art should exist independently of the artist. We didn’t want to the past or future work of any of the band members to be taken into consideration by those experiencing our music. All music should exist, as much as possible, in a vacuum. Eventually, though, we realized that those names took on characters of their own and they did not prevent gossip and rumour. So we reverted back to our real names with the understanding that the band is separate from the players.

Let's Got back to music with your new record. If I should compare it to "V01D", I'd say that the music is way more complex and well mixed. What happened?

“V01D” was always a stepping stone. It was a re-recording of music from our first two albums plus a cover and a new song. We didn’t invest the time that we had previously invested in our full length albums as the release was merely meant to be an experiment and a way to keep the band name in everyone’s faces. “Flesh is Heir”, on the other hand, is a major work. We spent months imagining, creating and performing the songs. Full length releases have to be 100% correct, exactly as they have been imagined. The satellite releases, like “V01D (also “Choke Hold” and “Teeth”), were more about experimentation and trial and error. If they failed then that was ok. They were just potential directions for the band.

Both “V01D” and “Flesh is Heir” were mixed by our guitarist, Erik Miehs. I believe he did an excellent job with both. “Flesh is Heir” is arguable the better mix but I think he did a killer job with “V01D”. Considering the song, “V01D”, was a different kind of song it required a different kind of mix. I think that Erik’s mixes are becoming more full and organic as time goes on but that process was started with “V01D”.

You chose "Teeth" as a first video clip. This title may be the easiest to listen from the whole album and not that representative to me of your work. Is that track special for you?

Only special in the sense that they are all special. They all represent different ideas and aspects of the band. “Teeth” was a great song to choose as it is very immediate and provides a bridge between the work of our past and the new sounds contained on “Flesh is Heir”. This album has provided a lot of contradictory opinions (which I think is the mark of a great album). Some people think that “Teeth” is very indicative of the styles of the album. Others, such as you, do not. I don’t really care. To us it was the right song to choose. It worked for us for reasons that may or may not be clear. Regardless, it was our decision and we will live or die by it.


"Obliterate's Prayer" is the most interesting track to me. A blend of pure death metal and modern engineering and chaos. What this song is all about?

The theme of the song is about being subsumed and mentally destroyed by music. Some music is transcendent. If you allow it too, it can sweep you up and destroy your sense of self. While you listen to it you do not exist. All of your worries and troubles cease to exist. You become a void. This song is a song of praise for that music. I imagined music as a sea, you swim over the surface, towards land, and survive, or you can let the waves sweep over you and allow yourself to drown. We all have two opposing instincts. One of these instincts tries to further the self. This is the swimmer. We constantly fight for survival and to carve a niche from the world within which we (as an “I”) can exist. The other instinct needs to be swept up and have the “I” obliterated. We do this through drugs, alcohol, sex, religion and violence. This song is a prayer by that part of my own psyche. I wanted (and still want) to be destroyed by music sometimes.

What can you tell about touring? Is an European tour planned ?

There is nothing concrete planned as such. We are constantly discussing possibilities but we can’t announce anything at the moment. We’ve just come back from Europe on a tour with OBITUARY, MACABRE and PSYCROPTIC and we had a blast. We love Europe and would love to get back there at some time this year but obviously it all depends on the tours that are offered. We have to find the right tour at the right time for the right cost. Provided all that lines up we’ll get back over there. In the meantime we will be touring around our home country of Australia and we will be heading over to Indonesia for our first Asian show at the Hammersonic Festival which should be enormous.

Thank you very much for you answers and come to France ASAP !

Thank you very much for the interview and your interest in the band.