Summon: How did the band get started?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: The project started in 2008, under my will (Lord Astaroth), the primary goal was to bring back Black Metal music to his originality sound and meaning, and it has not changed during these years, a choice that could be considered as unusual in a scene where a lot of bands tries to introduce even more experimentation’s and contamination’s, but that would be appreciated by the old school black metal fans.
Summon: What kind of music do you play?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: Kurgaall’s main characteristics are fast drumming, with an intense use of blast-beat; sharp and cold guitar sounds, melodic and aggressive at the same time, together with violent and steady screaming; we don’t like experimentation’s such as keyboards or female voices, we just want to play a fast and direct black metal, that could be associated to the nineties’ black metal scene.
Summon: Where did the band name come from?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: Kurgaall is the union of 2 words that i personally combined after depth studies about demonology and ancient satanism, i just wanted to recreate a mixed union between 2 powerful cults.
Summon: Introduce the band members and what they do in the band. Who writes the music? Lyrics?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: I am Lord Astaroth, the singer and writer of all the lyrics of our songs, that are composed together with the other members of the band, Nazgul is the bass player and the oldest one, that has been in the line-up since the first gigs, while the drummer Aamon and the guitarist Azagaroth arrived in 2012, playing their first show at the Dirty Black Summer Fest (headlined by Inquisition) and giving more speed and harmony in the compositive phases of our new songs, that will be recorded and released during this year.
Summon: And where do the lyric ideas come from?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: Kurgaall’s lyrics are satanic-themed both from a philosophical and a ritual perspective, I have ever been very interested by such topics, since i was a teenager, and I never stopped studying and appreciating satanism, that represents at its best the pure original black metal essence.
Summon: What is your view in Satanism and Occultism?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: I prefer to follow the satanic destructive way of Satanism rather than the black way of Satanism or the LaVeyan Satanism, in its most direct and devastating meaning, for me is an approach to the life and to the problems, and you have to pay the consequences for this, no doubts about it, but i don’t give a fuck.
Summon: How many albums/CD’s have you released?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: Up to now we have released a Demo titled “Death to the Infidels” in 2009, that has been reprinted and remastered last year by Coven Cult Records, with the insert of a cover as bonus track, which was not included in the first press; in 2011 we released our first full-length album “Summi Verbi Lucifer” for the Italian label Lo-Fi Creatures, and our last release is a split album with the Slovenian black metal band Bleeding Fist, titled “Black Metal Mafia” available starting from the 18th of May and released by Eternal Winter Records.
Summon: Tell me about some the songs on the latest CD?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: The new songs are strongly affected by the line-up changes, we increased the use of blast-beats, taking care to alternate fast and violent parts (that are still the prevailing moments) with more atmospherical passages, where sometimes the guitar plays alone, just to restart again with a furious and ruthless aggression; you can find all the typical elements of our first works, with faster rhythms and very sharp guitars.
Summon: Do you have any side projects?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: Yes, I (Lord Astaroth) have a side project with Azagaroth and Aamon, where plays even some legends of the Italian black metal scene, called Vatican Impaler. It is a Black Metal band with thrash influences, that was one of my first musical projects in the nineties, and now we decided to resume it, the band is in the roster of Coven Cult Records.
Summon: Who are some of your musical influences? Which current bands?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: Our style is mainly inspired by the early music of other black metal bands of the nineties, and by the Swedish black metal scene, we really appreciate bands such as Dark Funeral, Marduk and Setherial, nonetheless everyone of us got his personal preferences, obviously, due to their artistic experience during years of different musical studies and listenings.
Summon: What is the band like when you play live?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: During our live shows we want to give new life to the brutality of the black metal concerts of the nineties, a satanic ritual throwing our followers straight to evil atmospheres, with blood, fire and corpse painting in respect of the noble tradition of the genre.
Summon: Have you guys ever played in another country?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: Yes, we played in Slovenia, last September, as headliners in a black/death metal fest that took place in Skofja Loka, and soon we will perform more shows over the national borders, you can see every update following us on facebook or on our official website.
Summon: How big of crowd shows up at shows usually? How is the crowd response when you play?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: We have a high demand for playing live… and the response is remarkable, having played with big names of the international black metal scene (like Gorgoroth, Enthroned, Taake, Vader, Tsjuder and many others) that highly contributed to increase our followers, the audience is always very involved by the songs.
Summon: What do you think of the US Black Metal/Death Metal scene? What do you think of the Overseas scenes?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: the extreme metal scene in the USA is very good! It is growing quite well in Black Metal, a genre that is typically European but that you are exploring and spreading excellently, meanwhile your are very versed in death metal for several years yet…in south America instead there is a more thrash and war attitude, in fact many groups come out with this trade mark, the scene is valid and powerful in my opinion; we played with the Colombian black metal legends Inquisition last summer, and it was an awesome and blasphemous show!
Summon: What are some of new favorite black metal/death metal bands?
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: I mainly listen more black than death metal, obviously, and I really like those traditionalist bands without too many experiments and contamination’s, then you can easily understand which I like most, there are a lot of groups that i consider very well, it would be very hard to list all the bands that rocks.
Summon: When do you guys plan on writing any new material? What does the future hold for the band??
Azagaroth & Lord Astaroth: We started writing new material last year, with the wave of destruction wrought by the incoming of Aamon (drummer) and Azagaroth (guitarist) and we just performed some of the new songs during our latest shows, we planned to record our next album, which will be titled “Voluntas Luciferi”, by the end of the year, and we will surely promote it with an intense live activity: feeding the black flame and spreading destruction.
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Contact them at:
http://kurgaallsatanicblackmetal.weebly.com/
https://www.facebook.com/KURGAALL
http://www.reverbnation.com/kurgaall
http://www.myspace.com/566621160
