Page 92 - RAGEBREED MAGAZINE - ISSUE 2 FLIPBOOK

Looking back towards the band’s all, we play what feels right to play, and that’s the end of it. And I suppose that might be the
early days, you started out as a raw Black answer to your question – if you actually take yourself to be trying to blend distinct things,
Metal act, and quickly morphed into the it’ll often turn out a bit crap because it’s not how you just naturally express yourself.
style that you are known for now. What Whereas if you do what feels right to you, then it’s irrelevant whether other people then go
prompted this musical shift, and what ‘oh that’s x mixed with y’.
were the initial bands and albums that
gave you the inspiration to change your Do you feel there are any difficulties or limitations when it comes to
style? writing music as a duo? Are there any people outside of the band that
you collaborate with when it comes to song-writing?
There weren’t any. We didn’t really change all that
much, and to the extent we did, we weren’t inspired No, we don’t collaborate with anyone on writing. We’re both very headstrong when it
to do so by other bands’ albums. We were called comes to what we want to do, and pretty much every time someone has told us what they
raw black metal by people, but we were never thought we should do, we’ve instantly dismissed it as a terrible idea. Plus there can be
Tsjuder. Not that there’s anything wrong with being numerous difficulties and limitations trying to write music with more people – keeping
Tsjuder – we actually like more traditional black everyone happy and trying to incorporate multiple points of view might work for some,
metal. But we were interested in making evil, harsh but for others, such as the two of us, it’d just get in the way of doing what we thought was
music that was memorable and had quirks and right. I just had an idea flash through my head of trying to explain it in terms of quantum
surprises mixed in that reflected who we were. And entanglement, but realised it’d probably come out sounding like a load of bollocks, haha!
that’d still basically what we see ourselves doing. But no, it doesn’t feel limited, it feels like the two of us doing this is what Anaal Nathrakh
But the evolution that’s happened within that has is. There wouldn’t necessarily be anything wrong with working with other people – we both
always been organic and a result of how we felt like have done that, many times and for many years, but it wouldn’t be Anaal Nathrakh.
doing things – we’ve never heard an album and felt
inspired to change anything about Anaal Nathrakh, You are one of many world class Extreme Metal acts to come from
not once that I can ever remember. the Midlands. Do you think there’s anything about the region, and
specifically Birmingham, that lends itself to producing great Death Metal
Other than yourselves, there are only a and Grindcore?

Handful of bands worldwide that have Hmm, I don’t know. I’ve certainly heard plenty of attempts to answer that question, or
Successfully blended Black Metal and/or related questions about heavy metal in general. But the answers have nearly always
Grind core with Industrial music. Why do struck me as rubbish, as if this was the only place in the world with concrete and working
you think that this style is hard to perfect, class people. A certain lyrical perspective, perhaps I can see that being influenced by this
and why don’t more bands attempt to play place, just like any other. But the musical style, nah. That’s just a product of the specific
individuals and bands that exist in a given area. So the mixture in and around Birmingham
in this style? is unique, as it is in any other large city, but there’s nothing about the place more generally

I’ve no idea. We’ve never thought of ourselves that lends itself to death metal or whatever any more than anywhere else. And Grindcore
as blending styles – that’s just a confection of was invented here, but it’s spread across the globe, so outside of the people who were part
journalists and so on trying to describe what we of inventing it, I can’t see how people who happen to live here can really claim any greater
do. Not unreasonably, perhaps, but still their game insight into it than, say, Wormrot or Brutal Truth, who are from thousands of miles away
rather than ours. We just don’t think about styles at in opposite directions.