Australian black/death veterans ABOMINATOR return with The Fire Brethren (out October 31 via Hells Headbangers), their first album in a decade. We caught up with Chris Volcano to talk about the band’s legacy and this raging new chapter.
Hail! It’s been a decade since Evil Proclaimed and now another long march to The Fire Brethren. Are these silences just the natural rhythm of Abominator, or do you view each return as a resurrection?
It could be seen as a resurrection, once again the embers of chaos reverberate across this cursed land at the surmounting advent of our latest effervent emanation. For me the long periods of silence are not at all natural, its only the time it takes everyone else to catch up to me. That can be a tall order, especially for Andrew who has committed his time to family life and running a business as well as try to maintain Cemetery Urn. Alot has taken place over the course of this time and life gets in the way of black metal, death metal gets in the way of black metal and everybody else’s needs come before mine, so it would seem.
The Fire Brethren feels like it summons fragments from every era of your existence – from demo filth to early 2000s firestorms. Do you consciously channel different eras when writing, or is it simply the inevitable sound of Volcano and Undertaker in 2025?
You could say thats the way we did it, but you would also have to mention the way in chich the chosen elements have been constructed, we wanted everything to be done with the correct balance to create the ultimate bestial black metal album that is not only raw as the style should be, but also interesting enough to be considered as a progression from the last album. The ebb and flow is inevitable, given our history and the ground we have covered in order to draw influence from. I don’t think we have done that better before this new album, given the running time which is longer, but even that was a conscious decision.
Looking back over thirty years, what’s the most significant mutation in Abominator’s DNA – and what has remained completely untouchable?
I think the development in our sound in riff, song structure and lyrical approach were significant advances for our sound, but you always have to maintain a certain primitive element from the early days of the band to keep track of the spirit in which you created it with. We have developed what some have described as an inventive approach to songwriting, but to us that is a mere consequence of perseverance within the style. I have also developed the lyrics into more intelligent and reflective pieces of demonic poetry, with the latest album possibly being my most introspective lyrics at times.
You both have remained the unbreakable core. After decades and lineup storms, what is the blood pact that keeps this alliance alive?
I think it could be just the sheer amount of time it takes to produce an album such as this, given our age and the commitments and obligations we allocate our time to in life. But there is only so much time, I have foreseen a time where I may have to continue this caper under a new name with a different line-up, even just to give the original concept a new energy in a new beginning. That time, will be alot sooner than anyone expects, so I want to avoid overlap as much as possible. The storms keep raging, but they don’t dampen my enthusiasm to create this bestial style. The scene here is always evolving with old bands dissipating and newer one coalescing from the remains, we are not immune to that, but as long as its onwards and upwards.
You’ve worked with Necropolis, Osmose, Displeased, and now Hells Headbangers. After all this time, what does a label mean to you – is it still a banner of war, or just a practical outlet?
Well, I would see labels as important if we hadn’t had to deal with so many of them! It is just a practical outlet as you say, to assure physical releases are produced. I think certain business models were introduced into the record label ethos which no longer benefitted the artist, and this may have been a plan orchestrated by powerful interests to make sure the average musician has less opportunity to get ahead. The rich and powerful hate it when slaves escape their grasp.
In the mid-’90s Australian underground, extremity wasn’t fashion but survival. Do you think that feral hunger still exists today, or has it curdled into safe “retro” worship?
It exists still, but not in the form we once knew it as. Back then we had less, and we knew how to use it, pardon me if that sounds like a half-baked analogy. I myself am a survivor, as is anyone who travels this path with me, so I was made for it, I still feel it, the fire still burns as the song goes. It doesn’t always have to be considered ‘retro worship’, it all depends on your knowledge of styles and your synthesis of them into your own sound. We all have to work on it to get good, but its a choice, you can choose to be more original if you want to be.
People often talk about an “Australian sound.” Do you feel that actually exists, or was it simply a handful of maniacs pushing further than anyone else dared?
It has very much become ‘the maniacs who are left over’, they should be saying Australian sounds plural. We have developed our own direction in many forms of metal but only a handful of us have dared to take it as far as we have, not even Destroyer 666 could claim to become as dark and brutal as we did, and it could also have something to do with the lack of need to appeal to short-attention span specimens, that has been part of the Aussie approach since the dawn of time.
Abominator’s violence has always carried purpose – not just chaos-for-chaos’ sake. Where does that discipline come from, and do you feel contempt when bands mistake incompetence for extremity?
The discipline is just how our ethic developed, what we had to do to keep it going, to keep it interesting, to never stray too far off the bands original intent, and also understanding that we played one of the most extreme styles there was and that it would often go over peoples heads, thus the discipline also arises from passion for bestial, primal and chaotic tunes. I try to understand a bands approach in the feeling of the music, and sometimes it isn’t always the tightest. I don’t judge anyone for how tight their approach is, we’ve got our ways and they have theirs….
Moyen’s artwork for this album steps outside his goat-warrior pantheon into something more mythic, almost Necrolord-esque. Did you steer him toward that vision, or was it an instinctive convergence?
Yes that is exactly what I did! You hit the nail on the head there, there’s not much else I can elaborate on here…everybody loves Necrolord! From his days in GROTESQUE/LIERS IN WAIT to his savant-like abilities as an artist. Chris Moyen is the same so it should surprise nobody that he is also capable of purporting these ghastly visions too.
Toyland Studio has been part of Australia’s extreme metal fabric for decades. What made it the right forge for this record, and what does that space bring out in Abominator that others can’t?
Its just Adam Calaitsis and his mixing know how that makes all the difference on this album, at the beginning of the process it was actually hole and corners where we recorded the drums, but the floor of the studio flooded the following year due to it being located in an awkward floodplain type street in South Melbourne, thus other facilities had to be found. The entire album was mixed at Toyland, but the studio has ceased to be since due to excessive rents in the Northcote area. We are running low on facilities, running low on high-quality bands and venues to perform at. What a time to be alive in Melbourne!
You’ve watched your early works shift from “too extreme” to “cult classics.” Do you embrace that canonization, or does it feel like being embalmed alive while you’re still creating?
Of course we embrace it, even though our music is still too extreme for most of the folks who claim to be into our style. I suppose some re-issues of old albums is in order if that’s the case, time to put that theory to the test! ABOMINATOR has never been for wimps or trendies, so it hasn’t affected my will to create in the slightest, I don’t feel like we’re being led to a premature burial, as long as the bestial black metal style still proliferates and I’m still doing it in whatever form.
The old underground lived on xerox zines, dubbed cassettes, and postal blood-pacts. Now it’s Bandcamp feeds and Instagram reels. Do you think true extremity can still survive in this ecosystem, or has the underground itself been commodified?
I’m not a fan of social media and the insane obsession to relinquish all your personal details to the god of the internet. I do like Bandcamp though, it sure is a fast track to checking out almost any known band, so it makes it alot easier to keep track of the latest and greatest, Instagram can fuck off though. Extremity will always depend on the individual’s will to create and not how marketable it is on TikTok, so that’s hardly a quantifiable factor. Zines still exist, as do tapes and petty squabbles between bands as well. The underground still remains despite any attempt to commodify it, although that does seem like an impossible task due to its limited appeal, most of us don’t consume, we create.
Chris – as both drummer and vocalist, do you see yourself as a drummer who screams, a vocalist who plays drums, or is that division meaningless inside Abominator?
I am a drummer who found the primal voice, the primal spirit, the state necessary to bring forth this black chaos. There are lots of vocalists who play the drums but they’re all into jazz, or at least I think, I could be wrong. I’m just a creator who did whatever I had to make sure you could feast on whatever was in my head! So there….
If The Fire Brethren were to stand as the final Abominator record, would it feel like a fitting pyre? Or is there still unexploded ammunition buried deep in your arsenal? Thank you for your time!
It is a fitting pyre, even if it wasn’t supposed to be at first. What I mean by that is, a phoenix is rising from the ashes. You may then ask ‘the ashes of what? Did something burn down?’
Yes and no, the concept is still alive, but the band as we knew it may be changing, but to account for any potential overlap, I must stay quiet…… wait for the sign and see the resplendent black wings extending……. stay dialled!!!
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