Interview: Altered Shade

French death metallers from Altered Shade have debuted with The Path Of Souls , the album which was released later last year via WormHoleDeath records. More stuffs about the album and the band, below is an interview I had with 2 of the band members, Rudy (guitar) and Hed (drums).

Salutations to you guys! Make a short intro about Altered Shade.
Rudy : So, Altered Shade is a death/thrash metal band native from south west of France, born during spring 2009, but the effective line up is concretized only begining 2012. We did few concerts in our area and recorded two demos and then came our first album « The Path Of Souls ».

You’re active in the metal scene about 4 or 5 years if and I’m not wrong and 2016 was the year you’ve debuted with a full-lenght. Why took you this long to release an album since the begining of your existence?
Hed : Well we are at the base a garage band, it took long because, as we told you, it was hard to concretize the line up, (we changed the singer, the bass player, we hired the second guitarist) then it tooks  time to learn each other, to define the universe and the style, to make the first gigs, etc. So we couldn’t be able to release the album before, and we haven’t enough material for that.

You new release is entitled as “The Path Of Souls”, out via WormHoleDeath records. How is the experience with the label?
Hed : We were really stressed during our first meeting with our label manager (Carlo Bellotti), for us all this is a bit of a kid’s dream, we really wanted him to like our work. To be honest, we had rather the picture a bit cliché of the old fat guy very directive, sitting in his big chair a cigar to mouth (laugh) but it was all the contrary (for his physical appearance and behavior (laugh)), we have been immediately put at ease, he listened one by one to the songs of the album with a new look and very constructive! Then he exposed us all the steps following the recording and also introduced us all the people who will participate in the communication work around our album once it is finished! We then understood that we will evolve within a quality label.

Now let’s talk more about the album, what is the main musical direction you wen through “The Path Of Souls”?
Rudy : On this album, we don’t have the pretention of having a musical direction, we just wanted to be coherent with our style, we make death/thrash metal but with pieces of plenty different kind of metal (dark, brutal,heavy, etc.)
Hed :  « The Path Of Souls » it is a kind of picture of the evolution of the band since the real beginning to nowadays, within you have old and new compositions. And to keep the coherence, we have left aside some old compositions that, in our opinion, did not correspond to the others.

What are your lyrical themes based on?
Rudy : Well each track is a little scene, a story dealing about life, death, esoterism, horror, fantastic, psychology etc. And most of time these stories make the listener asking himself questions but we are just storytellers we don’t take side so every one can see what he wants to see. Some people will focus on the horror or fantastic aspect, others will want to see deeper.

Speaking about inspiration and influences, what are the main death metal bands you take as influence for Altered Shade?
Rudy : We have lots of different influences  per musician in plenty kind of metal, and it is often a subject of discord between us, for exemple when we talk about making a cover song it’s total war (laugh)! But if you want only death metal bands we would say mainly Carcass, Cannibal Corpse and Bloodbath.

Are you planning a tour aswell over Europe, promoting the new album?
Rudy : We would like to, for now we’re searching dates and a booker.

What other plans you have? Maybe shooting a video?
Hed : Yes we made a video clip of the song “The dark gift of life” released in march (by KB Productions), available on VEVO and YouTube it was a wonderful experience and a great result for us, hoping you will like it. For now we’re searching gigs, and we’ve started to compose new songs.

Would you like to end this interview with a message to the readers of the band supporters?
Rudy : Yes, thank you very much for your support, checked out our album “The Path of Souls” and our first video clip “The dark gift of life”,
Hed : Thanks guys, hope to come to see you all on concerts, keep supporting metal

Thank you for your time, was my pleasure. Rock on and hope to see you on the road soon!
Rudy : Thanks Carla, we hope to see you too on concert !
Hed : Thank you Carla, see you !

https://www.facebook.com/AlteredShade/