For the very first time, German atmospheric black metalers ULTHA visit Greece for a single show in Athens celebrating their 10-year anniversary.
Ultha is a well-known name in the underground atmospheric post-black metal scene, maintaining an impressive uniformity both in quality and sound, to all their releases so far.
Below you can read our interview with Ralph - founding member/guitar/vocals - who answers in detail our questions and expresses his enthousiasm for their first time in our country.
Get ready for a unique experience on Thursday, October 17 @ An Club, Athens.
TICKETS:
https://www.more.com/.../ultha-special-guests.../okwaho/
Hard copy : Scarecrow Records + Oldschool and through support acts Okwaho + Euphrosyne
Follow ULTHA: Official Site: Facebook: Instagram: Bandcamp
RockOverdose: It’s been almost two and a half years since “All That Has Never Been True” and we would like your thoughts on how this album has grown and what it means for you and your career in general so far.
ULTHA: Crazy how time flies, right? Yeah, it's been a while since we released it but still people find it and the love just keeps on growing. It's fair to say that we didn't expect it to be received that well and reignited something in us that for a while we thought we lost. There was a time where we weren't sure if and how long this band can continue – but with ATHNBT and everything that happened through it we are very much as alive as we've ever been.
RockOverdose: It’s your first return album on Vendetta Records, after the previous album “The Inextricable Wandering” was out on Century Media. How did you decide to return to Vendetta Records and what was the case with CM that didn’t last more?
ULTHA: We technically returned to Vendetta with the “Floors Of Heaven” and “Belong” E.P.s. It was nothing personal with Century Media, as they did a great job with the release of “The Inextricable Wandering” and were nothing but nice to us. But working with a major label has a lot of strings attached to it that make a release more difficult. We thought that a deal with a big label would spread our music more globally which didn't really happen – and this is primarily because Ultha is a niche within a niche genre of music, something that probably will never speak to more people than it does now. At least that was our feeling. So we spoke to CM and they understood what we mean, were cool with letting us go and we returned to Vendetta, where a free to do whatever and however we want. The contact to CM is still there and we're friendly.
RockOverdose: I love the cover which I guess connects with the album title, is it like wanting to say that if you show many faces, the truth can never be revealed and nothing can be true in the end?
ULTHA: You can certainly interpret it that way. It's not what I see in it, but what I see is also not what the others in the band see in the artwork. But that's the beautiful thing about music that is intriguing in it's sound and appeal, where the lyrics are open for interpretation and where the artwork does the same. To me that makes music almost four dimensional.
RockOverdose: I believe a key part in the band’s history was the transition between the first and second album, which defines your style from then on. While I love the debut of course, do you believe things started getting a little more serious with “Converging Sins”?
ULTHA: Not more serious, but it certainly picked up speed from there on. “Converging Sins” really put us on the map, as it was clear that we now know who we are and what we want. The first record was four guys coming together with all sorts of different influences and the approach “I want a riff like this band” or “Let's do a song like that band”, where as “Converging Sins” was us knowing where our key influences are, ceasing to give a fuck if any scene gatekeeper would hate us for non-black metal influences and just do whatever the fuck we think is necessary to get a feeling across, as for Ultha feeling and atmosphere is more important than individual songs.
RockOverdose: The EP’s you do between albums seem to fill the gaps in-between, do they serve as a purpose for the band to stay active, or is it mainly material that could stand on its own without being connected or not fittable for an album?
ULTHA: They are prefixes, infixes and suffixes to the narratives of the three full-length albums that make the trilogy of “Converging Sins”, “The Inextricable Wandering” and “All That Has Never Been True”. They help us try out sounds and play around with reinventing our style in an organic manner. And the stories of the songs are like chapters in the bigger book of things.
RockOverdose: The main aspect of Ultha’s music is of course the long songs you have. Are you in favor of letting a song grow as much as it expresses its essence in full? I mean, how can songs like “Dispel” or “Carrion” know where to end, being about half duration long compared to most stuff you have?
ULTHA: That was one of the aspects in growing our sound and approach for the last record and the future. We wanted to see if we can do shorter songs too. We did it on the “Floors Of Heaven” EP and it worked well. But again it all boils down to what an album needs and if we feel that riffs and ideas need more time to breath or if everything as been said in five minutes. So for future released we might have a three or a thirty minute song, everything is possible.
RockOverdose: Another key part are the vocal changes between your vocals and Chris, in such cases, how and where do you know one voice fits better than the other one, is it about expression or trying to break the common barriers and do the different thing to show what you’re made of?
ULTHA: Doing the two vocal thing was never a means to stand out from others, it was just a natural idea when we started. I sang in Planks before and knew what I can do with my voice, Chris never sang in a band before. He wanted to try and nailed that shrieking voice in the first try. I knew that his voice was the more suitable for what I wanted to do with Ultha feelingwise. So I took a step back and spok to Chris if he was comfortable singing my words. I always write the lyrics and have a feeling which voice makes more sense on what part, where we have to double vocals or where to be silent. Once the songs are done we try out if it works, which so far always worked well. Having to voices that can do various styles and arrangements really helped making this music more organic and heterogeneous.
RockOverdose: You are a part of the rise of the German scene the last 10-15 years, from Obscura to Sun Worship, from Sulphur Aeon to The Ruins Of Beverast and from Nagelfar to Ultha., there are countless bands emerging onwards. Which is the secret in your opinion, is metal music still strong as in the past in your country?
ULTHA: Germans sure do love their metal music, so this sound will always do well in this country and breed new acts. It's just crazy to see on what level of quality most bands operate. But that's a ting in different countries all over the world. You will always have a million bands ripping off the sound of the same three to four benchmark bands in a genre, but now for every 100th Mayhem epigone you get an outstanding act like Sun Worship or Unru. It's great to see there is a vital group of people in this scene that dares to be different and to flip off the standard bearers who think they are the be-all-end-all in this music.
RockOverdose: Speaking of German metal, we all got to know it with our old heroes, Kreator (still my fave European band), Sodom, Destruction, Helloween, Running Wild, Rage and countless others. It would be interesting to know your influences when you grew up, which bands caught your attention and which newer ones incorporated their meaning in Ultha’s music.
ULTHA: With the five of us in the band the evolutionary steps in coming to what Ultha is are so many and so different it would need a doctor's thesis to psychoanalyze all the particles ingrained in our sound. But we all had an encounter with black metal, death metal and grind early on, were part of the political diy hardcore/punk scene, listen to a million different acts and never refrained from doing so because it is not en vogue to like stuff. So just to name a few consensus bands we all like and influence what we do, both new and old are Emperor, Wovenhand, Neurosis, Turia, Yellow Eyes, Wu-Tang Clan, Depeche Mode, Fluisteraars, Carcass, Harm's Way, Type O Negative, His Hero Is Gone and Danzig.
RockOverdose: Last but not least, you are visiting Greece soon enough. Being your 10th anniversary as well, can we say it’s a celeberation period for the band? What should we await from you? Add anything you consider important and wasn’t mentioned already, best of luck for the future.
ULTHA: First off, thank you so much for being the first Greek interview we ever had. It's also crazy that we are actually going to play Athens in a few weeks. We can stress how incredibly honored we are that Aris and his crew put all this work in to make a small band like us feel like a million bucks, going places we never thought people would give a shit about us. We are soooo excited for this and fitting for our 10year anniversary. This band did a lot of stuff and we though we reached a ceiling – but going back to your question about the impact of “All That Has Never Been True”, this album made waves like no other album of ours before and it still opens these doors we never dreamed of.
So what you can the people of Greece from our first show ever? Well, a lot of red light, fog, blast beats and a band probably unlike and black metal band you have seen before. We urge everybody to come out and celebrate a memorable night for us, stick around after the show, chat us up and let us know how you found us! We appreciate every single person, be it in Greece or worldwide, who chooses to spend a few moments of their lifetime with our music given that there a millions of others you could spend your time with. From the bottom of our heart, thank you! And as always we will play for you as if our life depends on it. We'll see you on October, 17th at AN Club in Athens. Some exist for nothing – we exist for this.
On behalf of RockOverdose.gr
Aggelos Katsouras
