Canadian blackened death dealers Tribe of Pazuzu—including Cryptopsy’s Flo Mounier on drums—are gearing up to release their new album, Blasphemous Prophecies, this Monday but they’ve got one more taste of the album before that happens: new track “The Trial and Prosecution of the Scorned Prophet,” which features guest vocals from Jorgen Sandstrom, who played bass on Entombed’s underrated ’90s and early aughts output, and a guest solo from Cryptopsy guitarist Christian Donaldson.
Tribe of Pazuzu find themselves on the more death metal end of blackened death metal, attacking the song in a mechanical way, nailing both grooves and swarm-of-bees riffing. You can check the tune out below and read an interview with bassist/vocalist Nick Sagias to learn more about the song, Blasphemous Prophecies and more.
Blasphemous Prophecies is your first full-length. Was it a smooth writing and recording process for you?
I had the main bodies of the songs ready about one year into the pandemic about January 2021, about one year after we released our second EP, King of All Demons. The songs weren’t finished or ready to record yet and the pandemic was in full swing with no end in sight, which to me was a factor because if we released our album during that time for sure there would be no touring at all so we wanted to wait a little bit, and I also didn’t want to rush the songwriting.
But it was inevitable and by the end of the year I added the needed parts and arrangements to finish the songs. By this time, the pandemic was into it about two years and finally restrictions were easing up so we set about to make plans to record the album. Once the songs were finished and I sent the demos out, the process was super smooth, working with Christian was awesome, and he really got the best out of us.
The album features a number of pretty cool guest spots but today’s premiere features Jorgen Sandstrom of Grave and Entombed. How did that collaboration come about and why did you decide that Jorgen was the right person to have on the song?
I met Jorgen way back when Grave was touring Canada in February ’92 and my band Soulstorm opened their Toronto show. I was already a Grave fan but they really blew us away that night, what a great performance, and all the Grave guys were really digging Soulstorm. We all traded shirts and CDs and tapes of our bands to each other.
We reconnected years later through Facebook and a few years after that he was working on some Torture Division recordings and asked me to add my vocals to one of their songs. I was pretty honored to do it of course, so I sent Jorgen my vocals for the song “The Reaping” and he added the pitch shifter on it… he had asked me to “add your Soulstorm vocals to this song.” I didn’t realize he meant the pitch shifted vocals, but he fixed it on his end to make a version of it.
I’m so honored and appreciative to have him on this recording. He has such strong, powerful death metal vocals, one of my fave death metal singers for sure. The stuff they did with Torture Division is so amazing, and it was definitely some sort of impetus for me to start Tribe of Pazuzu. Also, in retrospect, “The Trial and Prosecution…” has a bit of a Sewdish vibe, eh?
What’s “The Trial And Prosecution Of The Scorned Prophet” about?
Essentially it’s the story from Passion of the Christ, about the brutality and persecution of this “prophet”—how he was accused and tried without any way to defend himself, how his friends and others turned on him and how the resulting crucifixion and extermination of the prophet resulted in the unleashing of evil.
You drop Blasphemous Prophecies on Monday. What’s next for the band after that?
I would love to tour but the logistics of that seem like a very large uphill battle. Other than that, we released three new shirt designs all created with artwork from Santiago from Triple Seis Design. Working with Santiago and his manager Mark has been great, and it’s really bringing the visual style of the band into a clearer idea now.
