Old
Corpse Road have carved their name into the UK black metal scene by producing
classic, yet unique British black metal based on the dark folklore of Britain.
The Darlington based 6 piece formed in 2007 and take their name from a coffin
road in the Lake District.
Dynamically
their music flows from fierce black metal through to powerful melodic passages
and onto serene yet haunting moments. The band incorporate a wide range of
vocals from traditional black metal shrieks, guttural lows, spoken word
passages and epic folk singing. Old Corpse Road bind these elements together to
produce a solid yet original take on the black metal sound.
After an
acclaimed demo and a split with The Meads of Asphodel they released their debut
album ‘Tis Witching Hour…As Spectres We Haunt this Kingdom’ in 2012, which
received critical acclaim from Metal Hammer, Zero Tolerance and Terrorizer as
well as topping the Best Newcomer category in the 2012 Terrorizer Readers'
Poll. After their recent split 7" with black metal band The Infernal Sea,
they are currently working on the anticipated full-length follow-up to their
debut album.
Throughout
this time Old Corpse Road have built up a reputation with their intense and
atmospheric live performances across the UK. The band have shared the stage
with the likes of Shining, Alcest, Hecate Enthroned, Svartsot, Skyforger, Winterfylleth
and Wodensthrone.
I know that you’re soon to appear on a Darkthrone tribute
album. What sort of bands influence your sound?
Yes, December will see the
release of ‘One Cold Night In Norway’ which is a digital tribute album. We will
contribute the song ‘Divided We Stand’ from ‘Hate Them’, perhaps a less obvious
choice of song!
A lot of the 90’s black metal bands influenced our sound. Cradle of Filth,
Emperor, Bal-Sagoth and Abigor to name a few. Aside from black metal though
plenty of doom (think My Dying Bride, early Paradise Lost and Celestial
Season), old school UK grind/death bands Carcass and Napalm Death and then classic
heavy metal such as Iron Maiden also plays a part.
Aside from the metal influences there’s folk music, dark ambient (Arcana/Raison
D’etre) as well as classical and film score music too. All these things
combined have in some way inspired us along the way.
And would it be fair to say that you’re more storytellers, than just a band playing
regular songs? Well that’s how I think of you.
Yes absolutely. Of course the heart of the songs is the music, but we deliver
that via the telling of these old tales. We use a multi vocal approach to tell
the story over the different textures of the music, so we will often shift from
aggressive black metal to choral folk chants and epic speech. It seems to work
really well in delivering the message of the songs.
You played Bloodstock in the summer, how was it for you?
Bloodstock was incredible and was
clearly our live highlight, albeit a very short one as our set was limited to
30 minutes. Regardless though we were overwhelmed by the crowd response. Not
just the superb turn out but the actual involvement of the audience with our
songs. It has to be said that playing the same day as one of our icons,
Emperor, was a massive boost. It’s one of those days that comes somewhere close
to perfect in my opinion and the memory will stay with me forever.
And you’ve recently played another special gig at Nemeton
Borealis - The Blackwood Gathering. How does such an intimate setting compare
to the likes of Bloodstock?
Nemeton Borealis – The
Blackwood Gathering was created by myself and another chap called Joe from
Bradford black metallers, Woes. It was hosted at a unique venue called Fell
Foot Wood in Cumbria. The venue itself is on a hill side which overlooks Lake
Windermere and is essentially a wooden barn type building. The area is such a
beautiful place and of course, being in the middle of the woods, is a perfect
setting for a black metal gig. We invited some of our friends bands to play and
we got a good mixture of black metal styles from across the UK.
The gig was a huge contrast to Bloodstock but in a different way was just as
special. The event was still very successful and there was a great turnout, but
unlike a summer festival, this was hosted at the turn of autumn and the whole
vibe of the evening was very different.
The whole gig was played by candlelight and the side of the venue opens
up to the outdoors, and of course, by 7pm it was dark so the atmosphere of the
night was amazing. We even played a short acoustic track outside in the middle
of the woods between the stage acts, lit by flaming torches.
We will be hosting the event again at a similar time next year so keep an eye
out for that one.
You did a 7” single earlier in the year, with The
Infernal Sea. Was it a rewarding experience doing a vinyl release and would
consider doing something similar again, or are albums more suited to your music?
The Infernal Sea are a superb
band and we were honoured to do the split with them and to finally have our
music released on vinyl. We’d definitely do similar things again. Whilst we
will always focus on albums we hope to release at least some sort of EP or
split in between each full length.
You’ve got to where you are by hard work and without the
backing of a label (and big fancy adverts in the press), so what advice would
you give to any band just starting out?
If you truly believe that your
band has something to offer the scene then you just have to put absolutely
everything into it. I can’t even begin to sum up the amount of time and money
we’ve put into Old Corpse Road over the years, but all it takes is one nice
comment from a fan, or a positive review and all of the hard work is completely
worth it. Add to which we are creating the music that we as listeners enjoy so
there is a lot of satisfaction in purely doing it for ourselves too.
Explore every avenue that you can for promotion, send promo material out to
everyone you can find, contact all zines, radio stations, gig promoters. Also
networking with other bands is key.
What’s next for Old Corpse Road? And what are your goals
for 2015?
The primary goal for the band
now is to complete and release our second album. I won’t go into a lot of
detail now, but we are very close indeed to being complete so expect big news
on that front very soon.
Deep Underground United Kingdom is available for just £2 from Bandcamp
