Interview with Crematory

Would you say that your new album is a response to all the chaos of the past few years, much like the previous one?
It is indeed, the time deserves more straight, in your face songs, that’s our way to get over the last two years. Much of frustration and anger was around, when the songs were written, so we decided no more clean vocals.

Is survival an important theme in your songs?
That’s a huge part in our lyrics, we’re a band people talk about, in good and bad ways, but we’re still here and firing from all cylinders. So, yes, the band is proud being 30 years in business.

Would you say that some of your songs like Inglorious Darkness, Unbroken or Sound of my Life are your take on self-empowerment anthems?
Absolutely, as I said, we’re proud being still alive. So this circumstance needs some glorification. 🤣🤣🤣

What are the other important themes for your new album?
Many themes are about dark feelings, sometimes misanthropic views on mankind. The time proofing it.

Your new album takes inspiration from many different subgenres. Would you say it’s important to have a very varied and diverse sound?
It’s boring to do always the same stuff, when I was younger, I only listened to metal and hard rock, but you get more open minded during the years.

There’s no time for boring music. Good music comes from so many directions and is so worth to get heard.

What other artists would you consider an influence to your sound? And how would you say you turn your influences into a style of your own?
I personally think, we created our own way of sound, but of course, we have many influences from different styles and music.

You started as a death/doom metal band in the 90s, then added more industrial and gothic influences to your sound. What motivated you to change your style so radically? 
It’s all about growing in the music, I think it was a logical step on our way.

Did you know at the time that you were about to create a new subgenre of metal?
Of course not, we did what we want, that’s all, later in the years many bands told us we were something like a role model for them. We were perplexed but also very proud of this.

Was it a big risk to take? Were you convinced it would succeed, or did you fear it would fail? Is that why self-empowerment is a common theme in your songs?
At first no one thought it would become so huge, it was a surprise, but we strongly believed in our music, it had something special and we did it at the right time and the right place.

You often sing about your love for dark themes and dark music. Was it one of the things that led you towards gothic metal? And do you think this love of darkness is the reason why there is so much overlap between the goth and metal subcultures, or between horror and metal fandoms, the gothic metal fandom and the black, doom or death metal fandoms?
Personally, for me the scenes are not so different, it’s so much in common over the decades. At the beginning, it was different, many goth people had a little problem with the harshness of our music, lyric wise it was ok, but they had to learn many things about hard guitars.

So, you’re a band who experiments with music genres and loves to sing about how they love their dark music and how awesome they are, in order to survive. Does it seem like a good description for your music?
Good description, as I said, we’re proud to be a unique thing…

Love us or hate us… We will survive.

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