At the end of August, I had the pleasure of streaming Infuriate‘s debut album. The Texas-based brutal death crew made a solid splash with the album’s release, proving that they had a firm knowledge of death metal and the best methods for sonically bludgeoning the listener. Recently, I caught up with the band to ask them a few questions, which you can read below. They also shared their new video for “Engastration,” which could also serve as a visual masterclass for playing quality death metal.
Your demo came out in 2016 and your debut LP came out in 2018. Were you writing and recording throughout that entire two-year period?
Yes. We were meticulous in the writing, as well as our other bands schedules/writing taking some of that time. The demo was released to show people what we are about and to give out a taste. We played the occasional teaser show here and there during that period.
The album is pretty short, clocking in under 30 minutes. Was brevity a major factor you kept in mind while writing?
We wrote the songs how they felt they needed to be written. They are supposed to be straight to the point. Brutality and done. We clocked them after we felt they were finished and were actually surprised with how short they were. There is so much going on that it feels longer when we’re playing them. The lyrics just fit right on top of every one of them.
What artists do you cite as Infuriate’s main influences?
All of the golden-era bands. Deeds of Flesh, Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal, Severe Torture. We have always been really inspired by the stuff that Doug Cerrito wrote. We feel the world needed more of that kind of aggressive riffing. Albums like Conquering the Throne and Despise the Sun were really influential. But in all honesty, we just sat down and wrote riffs and blasted over ’em and didn’t really aim for trying to sound like anything. These were just the bands and albums that we started off talking about and being like “fuuuuuck yeaaah, those were the good ol’ days” and then jamming.
Infuriate hails from Austin, TX, which is often considered to have one of the best music scenes in the world. Would you agree with that? If so, has being around so much different music affected the direction of the band?
The Austin music scene is pretty good. Fests year round and 6th street definitely never let the party die. Being around so much music hasn’t really affected the direction of the band. Austin metal has definitely had some ups and downs but it seems like it is definitely pretty strong now that there’s a nice solid venue bringing in all the touring acts as well as some other venues holding it down with the more underground acts. Traffic is Infuriating though. Pun intended.
Tell us a little about the song and video we’re premiering today. Who directed it, where did the ideas come from?
“Engastration” is the song. It’s based on a human version of the American tradition of Turducken. Instead of a turkey, duck and chicken, the victims are an infant, teen and an elderly. Instead of even attempting to stuff humans inside of each other for the video, we decided to make a performance video to display the intensity of the music itself. It was directed by all of us, really. Our drummer did the editing and Erik Bredthauer of Necroblanca Photography helped with the effects and sequences. Jon Zig did all of the artwork featured in the video. The “Barbaric Gathering” piece at the beginning of the video is one of many pieces to be featured in our CD/tape/future vinyl releases.
Infuriate is out now; merch and physical copies available here.
