Interview with Grave Circles

Let’s talk about your album’s themes. There’s a lot of stuff about the end of the world. How do you think the world could end?
The cover of World Within the World depicts the severed head of a deer, infested with larvae. A fly injects several larvae into the deer’s nose, they gradually grow, devouring the soft tissues around the tongue, eventually starving the animal to death. This serves as a metaphor: just as the larvae slowly kill the animal, so do ideologies and religions injected by society destroy the individual. This concept runs like a red thread through all eight tracks of the album.

The universe is infinite, humanity is not. The song titled Mournful Will Be That Day of Doom is about the human tendency towards self-destruction. Whether by lack of pro-creation, war, degradation and self-replacement by primitive tribes guided by self-delusion of control and authority.

Is death something you also think about a lot? Do you portray it as scary because you enjoy writing about scary topics?
DK: I think that death is the dissolution of worldly chains and self-transcendence, but it is something I do not yet have the will to embody. Yuriy (Kosty) has been obsessed with death since school. When the war started he used to say that a quick death in the woods, on the front lines would be the best thing that could ever happen to him. One thing that really stuck in my mind… When we found out that LSK (Marianne) hung herself, Kosty said that this was the right move and that it beats the mundane existence in this world. He always talked about it in a calm and knowing way, as if he had knowledge that we do not yet possess.
On the whole the topic of death is very appealing and fascinating to us. It is covered in fog of the unknown and no one knows what hides behind this door.

Basically, do you think of Hell as something that awaits us after death, or as something that already exists on Earth?
DK: I am partial to the theory that we are already in perdition. Perhaps the Gnostic Cathars were right and hell is already here and now, controlled by some kind of malevolent Demiurge.
Or perhaps we are still in Sheol and the things which are happening around us are simply the fruits of our inflamed imaginations. Good and evil have already merged together becoming suffused according to the ubiquitous principles of dualism and the hadron collider we call earth will drown in its own insanity and self-destruct, ushering in the creation of new will and life in a new epoch.

Are magic and occultism other important themes for you?
That depends on what is considered to be magic. We believe in the existence of magic, but we see it in a different light, not the same way it is viewed in our society. Occult themes are undoubtedly fascinating. Our vocalist is interested in these issues, but more so from the perspective of culture, history, knowledge rather than direct participation or praxis. We use certain terms, but we use them as metaphors, “spiritual references”, if you will.

Let’s talk about your musical style. Would you say you’re making a sort of modern update of 90s black metal? Or maybe, that you are trying to replicate a certain sound or atmosphere rather than a precise subgenre?
It is difficult for us to define the style of Grave Circles. For example, the “World Within the World” album has many songs like Last of Us, Mournful Will Be That Day of Doom, One More Drop, lean towards a more classical black metal sound. While working on the new album (Tome III) we noticed that many songs are coming out fast, dissonant but also depressive which treads closer to our early works. This isn’t surprising, as some of these ideas were developed back in 2016. In other words, we are returning to our roots, back to the period of Tome I. After Yuri’s (Kosty) death this has become even more important for us, and I hope our joint creation will see the light of day. We have always thought and worked with the images that came to us in different states and used them to paint a canvas of sound without subjecting ourselves to some kind of restrictions based on genre or style. Having said that, black metal has certainly become foundational.

Whatever kind of music you’re making, is this what makes you feel things?
Without any doubt, music without feeling is dead and this is especially true as it pertains to Black Metal. Negativism, suffering, hatred for this world is excellent creative fuel for music. I think that if we changed the vector of our lives to a more secular one, started families, got regular 9 to 5 jobs and exercised our “demons” we would have nothing left to say.

Veksha and DK

https://gravecircles.bandcamp.com/album/world-within-the-world
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