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From Metal Maniacs

Not that 'Dust' is any slouch - actually, it's pretty fucking great! - but the new album (amazingly) is even better: more dynamic, confident, and most of all, *poignant*. Thus, what sort of development period did MB go through between the two albums? What differences (if any) would you say exist between the two records?

Dust was many years in the making, some of those songs were written in the very early days and in fact there are really only two new songs on that album, being Dust and All Hope is Pleading. I am not saying anything bad about this recording and I never will as it represents MB over the few years before this record. Perhaps it was good to record some of these songs on our first trip to a real recording studio with a real engineer/producer. We were confident with the songs on Dust as we knew them inside out and so the nerves were a little less due to this fact. The new album, The Sullen Sulcus, again recorded with Magz at Academy is just another step in the evolution of Mourning Beloveth. Like all good press releases I have to say that this is our best work to date and the fact that we all knew what to expect when entering the studio for the second time was a great help also. We had taken the previous year off from gigs and just concentrated on writing material for the new album, no distractions. When writing the material for TSS we always had in mind how it would sound in the studio and some of our writing was geared towards this. The main developments during rehearsals we found was that we stripped down each song to its bare essentials and pieced it together very slowly and deliberately so the songs on TSS have a flow and ebb to them, there are a lot of epic parts thrown together with the more brutal side of things. We had written 8 songs for this album but had to drop two due to time limitations, up until recently it cold take us a year to write three songs, we just hit a rich vein of misery (if that isn't a contradiction).

The heavy crunch of the guitars is something we have sought for along time. Also the vocals this time round both work very well together, franks plaintive, clear voice soars while my growling drags us to the depths of pain and the clear spoken passages are annunciated in my own "Irish" way instead of a goth tinged romantic way like on Dust.

Musically it is hard to describe the differences between the albums whereas Dust relied on almost the emptiness of the riffing to create and build atmospheres; TSS is riff heavy and attacks you from everywhere, which creates this feeling of suffocating. It is a more METAL album, if you will. There is a lot more going on throughout the songs, be it Franks choir like singing on the opening track to the death metal opening of The Insolent Caul. There is definitely a lot more anger on this album but this is counteracted by some of the strange time signatures and riffing and the depressingly slow guitars give the album an epic and tragic feel. Plus the fact that I have never written so many words for songs before, the words just seemed to pour, and this ensures that I will be kept busy when playing these songs live. The new LP has some different emotions than Dust. For me Dust was a very laid back album where most of my dreams and thoughts were tinged with a certain romantic air and the space created by the riffs helped this. The Sullen Sulcus is a lot more to do with the harsh reality of life and this comes across in the lyrics, music and images with a lot of suffocating, forceful atmospheres being created. These are countered by the quieter passages but there is always this suffocating sense of finality on TSS that Dust had hinted at.

There is a greater depth, and at the same time a broader and more confident approach to our newer songs, and our own abilities, each time we play live or go to record and I think this does come through in the music also. Also the fact that this is the same lineup for the last seven years, since we recorded Autumnal Fires, there is a certain familiarity between us that lends itself to the creative process .I remember for years the arguments in rehearsals about what the fuck someone was playing, they could hear it but we couldn't, if you know what I mean. The arguments have become less and less as the years have passed.

I'm sure you're sick of hearing this already, but it must be brought up: Obviously, MB's roots lay with the earliest works of My Dying Bride and Anathema. However, considering you guys have asserted your own identity while also channeling that evocative *feeling* those bands did, is it fair to say that MB (and the new LP, in particular) is a sterling example of *inspiration* superceding 'influence'?

We sure are sick of hearing it but I will be the first to admit that MB is highly influenced by the works of these great bands, don't forget early Paradise Lost. We grew up with these bands and so obviously we are going to be influenced by them, but I think we always had our own identity, I feel, as we always played from the heart. So many bands influence us and it is easy to lump us into the doom/death thing with MDB and Anathema cause they invented the style so it is hard to not mention them. Only recently Rhett from Morgion heard our albums and noticed an Iron Maiden influence, this was no surprise to us as Frank, Brian and Tim are HUGE Iron Maiden fans, noone ever cared to mention them in our reviews. We listen to such a wide variety of stuff from Iced Earth, WASP, Iron Maiden to MDB, Anathema, Candlemass, Black Sabbath to Nick Cave, Portishead,Devil Doll, Frank Sinatra (??) and shit like Opeth, Katatonia At The Gates, …blah blah…you get my point.

But the most important thing that we think to be influenced is by one self, the pain and torment each of us goes through-that is the main influence. This time round we looked within ourselves, at all the shit we put up with.

In the beginning Mourning Beloveth was an amalgamation of black/death/doom and after a couple of years playing in a cold miserable shed we emerged with the first two MB songs which appeared on our first demo, they turned out to be in the doom/death style and we took it from there. Over the years we have continued to carve our own path and with our second demo Autumnal Fires we brought a new aspect into the band, Franks clear vocals and they work so majestically on the song Autumns Fires…. we decided to keep them and began working on vocal arrangements together and we brought this aspect in to our first album. Also Tim's drums are a lot different than MDB in that they are very empty with only the occasional roll and Brian on guitar plays a lot of power chords. We always stayed away from the gothic side of the doom thing. I could go on all day about the miniscule differences but I won't.

I think you are right in asserting that the new album is a big step away from the MDB/Anathema tag. It is like this, if you think something is perfect, you will leave it but we always see ways of improving upon certain aspects of our music, just listening to what you have done objectively and take it from there. We just looked deep within ourselves and released everything through music as the outside influences are definitely becoming less and less, we look to ourselves to improve and progress, the doom way perhaps.

Some people would (erroneously) assert that classic UK doomdeath sound is 'old fashioned' - how would you counter such a claim? Is MB's music, in fact, *ageless*?

Good question, I think doom/death and metal in general is an ageless music, as it doesn't rely on trends or any shit involved with the music business to survive. As long as it is played with passion and conviction I think it will survive forever. Doom fans don't listen to doom cause it is trendy they listen to it cause they like it, no other reason. Therefore I hope that our music is ageless. I think any music with a deep sense of melody and passion will remain in the hearts and heads of the listener for a lot longer than your quick fix junk that is floating about today.
All you have to do is look at doom-metal.com to see how many great doom, doom/death, funeral, traditional doom bands there are, carrying the flag of doom.. All fans of doom metal gather here to speak of their favourite music. There is no elitism, no bullshit, just fans of doom metal. With bands such as Morgion, Skepticism, Shape of Despair, Worship (RIP), Mournful Congregation and Evoken, how is doom old fashioned? The perfect example is Candlemass, recently reformed for some shows and they found the response so overwhelming that they decided to continue and record an album, that is going to be amazing, I just fucking know it. Fuck the naysayers…doom is eternal.

Considering the usually slow tempos, doom is an especially difficult style to pull off *well*; basically, it all hinges upon *feeling* - if it isn't there, everything's just monotonous, and slow for slow's sake. MB, on the other hand, have a wealth of feeling; so that said, is finding this 'feeling' particularly difficult for you and consequently to elaborate upon? Also, are there ever any times where you ditch a song idea b/c it DOESN'T have feeling?

Feeling is the most important thing in our music, without it we are just another machine, we deal with emotions ranging from misery, pain suffering to hate and anger….all powerful and negative emotions and we channel them in to our songs. We play slow music as it allows us/the listener to breath in each riff and discover what it is about, just sit back and let the music wash over you and suffocate all thoughts. We have thrown out a lot of riffs cause they were just too bland, lacking in feeling. I don't think we have gone as far as to throw out a complete song….actually, we did. I remember a song some years back called Where the sun Sojourns and its mid section was a double melody thing that just went on and on and on, the rest of it was fairly shit too…the song just didn't mean anything to any of us and so it got fucked out. We sometimes play it at rehearsals to have a laugh at how terrible it was but recently we haven't gone as far as throw out songs, just riffs. I know that Frank and Brian work a lot together on the guitars and so there is new stuff coming all the time. I have noticed that Frank may come up with a riff and we will discard it, and a couple of months later it appears in a new form, all along it was mutating in his skull when we thought it was gone. The fact is there is always something for one to be miserable about. For me with vocals and lyrics, I let things build up inside me for a while and all of a sudden over the course of some sleepless nights write it all down on paper and over the next few days/months form it in to a song. We do go through our dry patches where we write nothing but as we get older and our lives more complicated it gives us more to write about.
We find we write some of our most miserable stuff after being out on the piss (and other things) for the weekend-all energy is gone and we just seem to pour ourselves into the music (?)

Doom metal often gets a reputation for being exceedingly depressing - fair 'nuff. However, I'm sure you guys aren't *all* manic depressive, so how do you go about channeling these particularly dark and (here it comes...) *mournful* feelings into song - like, is there an emotional reserve for doom metal within your minds and souls? By doing so, does this help you keep some sort of sanity?

Mourning Beloveth to us is definitely a cathartic vehicle to our deepest, darkest emotions. Obviously we do not go around miserable all the time. We like to party (a lot) and sometimes when we shouldn't, but it is all for fun. Just ask anybody who knows us; we know how to party.

We play Doom cause it helps us to release all of these demons that slowly build inside. I think without Mourning Beloveth each of us would have gone off the rails along time ago, we wouldn't even get out of bed in the morning probably. The music we create is just us pouring ourselves out onto guitar, paper and vocally. We feel there is no need to write about happy things as these can stay with us forever, but the negative emotions that eat away at the mind must be released somehow and this is how we do it. To me personally listening to our albums is an uplifting experience as I have vented a lot of negative stuff through the songs. When we record it is like we have just laid down another part of our lives at that time. All the shit we were going through when writing and recording the latest album is down on silver disc forever and so we put all of these feelings aside and move on. I definitely think, we keep all these "mournful" emotions to release through our music otherwise we would be dead, each rehearsal, each live performance, each new song we write is a way for us to release all these negative emotions

Likewise, you expertly shift between growls and clean vocals with poignant results - as a vocalist, is this a kind of emotional catharsis for you? And would you say that the new LP is even more emotional, at least from your perspective?

The clean vocals are actually Frank our guitarist. He has an amazing voice and it is in perfect contrast to my deep growling, the plaintive spoken passages are also me. I have explained above how this came about, almost by accident and we have worked on it since the demo days. With two vocalists it means we can do it live also. The lyrics and vocals are my catharsis, the deep tortured growls of a madman meld perfectly with the soaring, majestic voice of frank. It gives the songs more dynamics and helps us trawl through the range of emotions we wish to express through our songs. I can't really say if the new cd is more emotional than the original. Each album has its own thoughts and feelings and atmosphere. For the recording of Dust we were doing a lot of things we maybe shouldn't have been doing and we were all both physically and mentally drained while recording the album. I think it comes across in my voice in certain parts and it is where the guitars and drums have almost that tangible quality of a certain misery that can almost be touched. For TSS we were going through a lot of mental anguish dealing with the usual shit of loss and torturing ourselves with memories . We all go through shit in our lives, and we go through it together, we maybe never say it to each other but through the music and drinking etc we keep each other going, there is nothing else for us, and music helps us to release what negative feelings we have. We have had deaths, losses etc but we all pull through together and it is our way of putting the shit out of our brains and into our music
The new cd probably has a lot more going on, a lot more dynamics than the first album and maybe this is where you get the emotion from, I mean some parts are the most melodic we have done thus far and some parts are the most brutal. It mirrors our lives also I guess, we have a lot more shit to deal with now we are a bit older (well average age is 28).

With a title like 'The Sullen Sulcus', I can only assume there's a unifying theme or two on the record (just have a CDR right now) - thus, are there any lyrical themes you're focusing on here?

I guess you can say there is an overall theme on the album, but it is very loose, but then again I think most albums have a certain theme/atmosphere. For me when I listen to an album, that album is capturing a specific period in the bands life and it will never be recreated again. The songs deal with mental torture and anguish. They deal with the suffering and pain that we all go through at one time or another in our lives. The word Sulcus means a deep furrow in the brain, and sullen is rather obvious. I had an image in my head of how mental scars are left on a person's brain after years of (self) torture. These feelings of depression, loss and misery carve their own imprint on the brain, engraining them forever on the subconscious. The artwork on the album was done by the amazingly talented Paul McCarroll, an unknown artist from Ireland who should make a name for himself very soon.
The front cover art depicts two warped bodies in an apocalyptic pose with one body pulling apart the brain of the other. I think this image depicts what the songs are about, how one, after years of pain and suffering is left almost exposed to every form of pain there is, only to be truly torn apart when at their most vulnerable, at the time of death That is just my thoughts on the cover. We also have a lot of harsh images inside the inlay, which is strange for a doom/death band I think. As I have said already my lyrics have developed from using images of nature on the earlier releases to explain my thoughts to a harsher, stranger side of things. For example the song The Insolent Caul I had an image of a caul (a membrane type substance found on a child's head at birth, thought to bring good luck) being pulled over your whole body, and you had to live like this your entire life, cut off from anything "real", how you could create your own beautiful world away from pain and torment. The eternal struggle between happiness and loneliness.
The song My Sullen Sulcus is about one of those bad experiences when taking a trip inside your own brain and how you feel your whole life is ripped apart into tiny droplets of nothing in minutes.
Narcississtic Funeral combines two thoughts, one that we will all eventually die and how some may even look forward to it and the fact that maybe sometimes we look forward to it just a bit too much.

I had been reading a lot of Jung and Freud and their theories on how the mind develops different layers of thoughts, some always known, some only touched upon and how every experience one has throughout their lives shapes them in ways they may never know. This intrigued me and I decided to dissect some of my own thoughts to the smallest detail and then sever it into tiny pieces and follow these pieces to their logical end. It was a strange time indeed, and stranger are to come I am sure.

Despite there being a healthy Irish metal scene (according to a couple friends at 'Terrorizer'), most people really only know about (the fucking godly) Primordial, a band whose Irish heritage directly ties into their music. So, is there anything specifically Irish that factors into MB's sound - or at least your outlook on life and music?

Most bands who carve their own identity in Ireland have a certain melancholic sound, Primordial is a prime example of this. I can't think of too many bands that sound like Primordial. There are other bands such as Lunar Gate, Geasa, Waylander and a lot of up and coming bands. Stuck out here on the farthest tip of Europe also helps in that it gives our small scene a certain distance from the trends appearing in Europe and because of this we just play what we like to hear ourselves. Certain Irish bands have an almost organic feel to them, epic music, tinged with melancholy, a bit like the people and these feelings pour themselves into our music perfectly. We have an inherent Irishness, but not in the way most people think of Irish bands as all jigs and reels, dancing drunk around a campfire. It is more a certain spirituality, a certain earthy melancholy if you will.
Being Irish I definitely think that this affects our outlook on life and it has influenced our music, mostly subconsciously, but there is a fight inside the Irish and this fight keeps us alive. Ireland is a land of stark contrast and yet there is a common link between all the people. The Irish do everything with passion, perhaps due to the fact that we have been pushed into the dirt at every opportunity yet still come back fighting. Our bleak and sometimes beautiful landscapes are worn away by the continuous beating of the rain just as our lives, hopes and dreams are torn by the passage of time.
In the past few years the Irish scene has grown up a lot, while the amount of fans stay the same we now have a higher quality of band that was not in the Irish scene a few years back. Hopefully some labels will see this quality and this will be helped in no small way by Primordial, the Irish ambassadors for Metal. Abaddon Incarnate has also recently signed to xtreeme music (ex-relapse) and are touring the world.
Metalworks magazine is now on its third issue and features a lot of top acts interviewed beside Irish bands. This magazine was created by a few of us to promote the Irish scene here and abroad and we are slowly building a good name for quality (check www.metalworksmagazine.com)
Emerald promotions is involved in bringing foreign acts to these shore, without whom we would be left without live bands. Due to Emerald we have seen bands like MDB, Opeth, Katatonia, Kreator and many more and these bands go home, hopefully, and tell other people that actually, yeah people do listen to, and enjoy Metal in Ireland.

Looking into the future, how do you foresee MB musically and lyrically evolving? Will there ever come a time when you ditch the death-vox? Turn into Radiohead? Record an electronica record...

The new riffs are beginning to be released in rehearsals lately, but very slowly due to the tour. All I can say so far between discussions with Frank that there is going to be a huge contrast between songs on the new album, a lot more light and shade. The lyrics are slowly taking shape also and they will follow the threads of the music. One thing is for certain, we will not turn out like most of our peers have done in the last few years, we will not lose the death vocals, or else I will be out of a job (haha, a job pays right?), we will never record an electronic album. We write music that we want to listen to ourselves, it is no use creating an album and never listening to it. Our main appetite is METAL, we may wander off from time to time in our listening habits but we will always play METAL, there is no other way I can put it.

You have a UK tour coming up w/ the sadly unsung Morgion - any expectations? What else is on the slab for MB? Haavard tells me there's a chance your stuff might be licensed here in the States...?

It is going to be an amazing time, a learning experience for us all and something us in MB have dreamed about for many years, sure it will be hard driving from country to country with no room or space or proper food, but who gives a fuck, it is what we live for. Morgion is an amazing band, their album Solinari is one of the top doom albums from the last few years and hopefully the new album will get the band signed to a decent label and get it out to the publick who deserve to hear such great doom. It is also a chance for MB to raise the "hand of doom" across Europe and spread our name a bit more. This all came about when Heiko from the doom metal.com forum interviewed Adrian and myself in august last year, just after Wacken. He asked us what our plans were for the future and we said a tour. He mentioned Morgion was thinking of coming to Europe and it went from there. It is amazing to see such dedication for metal in the underground. The Prophecy from the UK will join us on tour and of course Heiko as our tour manager. This is people doing what they do for the love of music and nothing else and it still sends a shiver down my spine. It takes a lot of organizing but I think the effort will be worth every minute of it. We are talking of brining the domination of Europe to the US in the summer and have on the bill such bands as Novembers Doom and Evoken, it would be amazing…we will know more after the tour.
We are also about to release a split picture 7" with another Irish band, Lunar Gate, through Sentinel Records, Sentinel re-released Dust a couple of months ago with some extra tracks and this 7" will be out next month (March) We recorded the track in a studio with a hippy French guy who was really cool to work with, his recording place is called Cosmic recordings, and it sure was a cosmic experience (he he). The song is a strange song for MB as we were limited to 6.50 minutes so it came out rather strange. It is limited to 300 copies so it could be a bit of a collectors item some day (for me anyway).
Can't really say much about this at the moment but it looks very likely that a label that advertises in this magazine, and enjoys doom, will licence the album in the next week or so. We have also confirmed distribution in most major European countries and Japan so it looks like The Sullen Sulcus will be easy enough to find very soon.
Check out the web page for all the latest details.