Full Album Stream: Heretic Cult Redeemer

Check out all this sonic extremity that German label/distributor Iron Bonehead is trying to drill through your thick skull!  On Friday, we brought you a tasty helping of ugly old school death from Abyssous.  This morning (as some of us return to work from a sun-baked Labor Day weekend) we serve up an entire platter from Greek occult black metallers Heretic Cult Redeemer.  The band has existed for several years, but due to various difficulties they are only now releasing their self-titled debut album.  Including former and current members of such acts as Acrimonious, Necrovorous, and Embrace of Thorns, HCR grind out a dour 3/4-hour dose of simmering, atonal exploration of the inner cosmos.  The approach is neither too orthodox nor too obtuse – consider it the Goldilocks Zone of 21st century black metal.

Decibel infiltrated the Cult for a few questions, hoping to unlock some of their hermetic mysteries.  No luck on that, but here are the band’s answers anyway.  While you dissolve into a pixellated being of negative energy, find out what HCR have to say about… well, we’re not entirely sure.

The band’s ideology is very specific.  Does the style of music you play rise naturally from this ideology, or do you just happen to enjoy/connect with heavy music?

We try to compose dark and emotional music. Every genre can inspire us, if it [can] fulfill our way of expression. At this moment it’s heavy music.

You’ve mentioned that these songs were finished years ago.  Do you feel the songs carry the same messages now for you as they did when they were written, or have the developed new or additional meanings over the years?

Our songs have multiple meanings for us. Of course, through the years, we have infiltrated our experiences and moved forward. We create a path [in which] everyone makes his own images and emotions. All these through the conioum speach [sic] of Heretic Cult Redeemer.

How does the songwriting/recording process in HCR compare to the members’ work in other bands?  Any clearly different approaches to the music or to each other?

HCR is our first priority! We share the same vision and all these years we built a strong structure between us, so there’s nothing to stand in our way.

Does the band’s ideology include any routine personal practices to connect more fully to what’s around you?

Our world has many and different aspects of reality. All the material universe is a giant magnet that attracts phenomena. We [are] trying to receive that energy with any possible way.

What is inspiring you right now?

We are in [the] rehearsal room, ready for some live appearances and of course promoting our debut album. Some new material came to surface, but we are in the start of the proccess.  Our inspiration comes from different art forms that combine dark philosophy, occultism and gnosticism and filtered to [our] band’s direction. Of course our experiences are connected and affect HCR musical approach.

Have you had much interaction or support from other bands in your region?

We interact with the other bands here, but we have support from individual persons.

Where did the album art come from?  How much input did you have with it?

The whole idea of the album art is exclusively ours and it’s fully connected with the lyrical concept of the album. The artists that created from thin air our vision are Manster and Geo Arvaniti.