1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?
We are Imperatus, a black metal band from Hanoi, Vietnam. From the ruins of another project, I - Nattsvärd - has founded the band alongside Magane and Vaden - 2 new and promising talents of our local scene. I am in charge of vocal and guitar, but for the sake of this album I am also responsible for the writing of all music and lyrics. Magane is the bassist, while Vaden is the keyboardist.
2.You have your first full length coming out in March, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style that you went for on the recording?
“At the Mercy of the Wind” is heavily influenced by a Black Metal movement in the Nordic regions during the late 90s, trademarked by the sheer speed and brutality of the music. I myself was also a fan of the early Swedish Death Metal scene, which also had a huge impact on our music, especially tonal wise. Therefore what I tried to aim for on the recording is to recapture that atmosphere, that aggression, that embedded piece of history, while also adding something of our own.
What we aimed for is a product that can be enjoyed by both the “old school” listeners and the newer audience who are - by age - closer to us than you think.
3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band has explored so far with the music?
“Embrace the Darkness, Slay the Divine” is something of a slogan of our own, which also perfectly summed up our ideology behind the lyrics and theme of our album. In my perspective, I tried to write “At the Mercy of the Wind'' as a war between the mortal and the divine, thus fictional. So all the aggression from the war-soaked music and lyrics are towards “the divine”, even though the lyrics itself are influenced by the stories of historical wars I read during the writing process.
4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Imperatus'?
“Imperatus” is the perfect passive participle of “Imperō”, which is Latin for “to command, to rule, to govern”. So “Imperatus” would be “commanded”. From our point of view, our music is as “commanded” by something, or maybe.. somewhere. It’s a cold and dark place where I feel the blasphemy was passed down, went through us, but not from us.
5.Can you tell us about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?
We commissioned the album cover artwork from an artist who went by the alias “Terror Artwork” or “Blasart”. The idea behind the art is simply based on our idea behind the album’s overall theme, which we mentioned above.
6.Has the band done any live shows or are open to the idea?
We have never performed live under the name Imperatus, though members of the band did do some liveshows before since we all used to be in another black metal project from Hanoi. We would love to play live regularly, there is no doubt about that. Personally we are thinking of doing a local show to support the release of our album, but it is too soon to make any promises just yet.
7.On the new album you also had a couple of guests, can you tell us a little bit more about who they are and also their contributions to the recording?
On track 8 - Embers of Hatred - we featured members of Rêvasseur - a Melodic Death Metal band based in Hanoi, Vietnam, with Liam W. on vocal and Satoshi Fukuda on guitar. Satoshi also worked on the production process of our album in a co-mixing role. Satoshi also helped me out with the drumming process for the album. I recorded the drums at his home studio with his old e-drums kit, and later “manipulated” the recorded MIDI into what you hear in the recording. I personally am fairly proud of the drums on the recording, but trust me, I am no drummer.
H3GL Musik is a local music shop founded by 2 good friends of mine. They were more than supportive when they offered to help me out with the gears needed during the production process. Which includes the half stack I used to record the guitar tracks. All the recording, mixing and mastering actually happened in my home studio, which I dubbed Nattorm Studio. While the bass on the recording was actually a product of reamping, which I did at Guitar Plus Studio - a rehearsal studio in Hanoi.
8.Currently the band is unsigned, are you looking for a label or have received any interest?
As of this interview, I really cannot say much about the situation regarding the band and labels. Personally, I feel like it is best to announce when we have something to offer. Perhaps when a physical release is announced in the near future?
However, “At the Mercy of the Wind” will be digitally self-released, mostly..
9.On a worldwide level, how has the reaction been to your music by fans of black metal?
I was surprised that our album has received some interest from listeners overseas, given that the album or even the single is not out yet, by the time of this interview. I think it might be because I sent the demo to a few friends of mine abroad and they showed their friends and so on.. Personally I enjoyed this very much and even compared it to traditional mailing and tape trade culture, back in the day. I was not around that time, of course, but this is the closest I feel to that.
So, I think it is a good start! We would much appreciate more reviews and reactions on the record, but for now, only time will tell.
10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
It is too soon to tell, in my honest opinion, changes may definitely come as we grow. We may be working on a smaller release in the near future, a split would be great, which will perhaps be more “experimenting”. However, there are certain aspects in our music that are carved in our DNA, which we will not be giving up on just yet.
11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
Earlier when I mentioned the Black Metal movement in the late-90 Black Metal movement, I was talking about the notorious acts such as Marduk, Immortal, Dark Funeral, Nordjevel,.. They are among the main influences behind our music at this point. From a production standpoint, I really enjoyed the works of Peter Tägtgren. The Abyss really put out some of the most iconic Scandinavian extreme metal records, in my opinion.
At the moment, I tried to stray off the Black Metal spectrum for a while to look for inspiration from other forms of metal, and genres. I am still very much into Swedish Death Metal bands, some classics like Dismember’s Massive Killing Capacity, Entombed’s Left Hand Path, At the Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul,.. Dissection’s Reinkaos has been a “repeat” recently as well…
The New Wave of Old school Thrash Metal is something I really enjoyed as well, there were definitely some influences regarding riffs that can be heard in our album. Magane is really into thrash as well and that mutual interest is pretty much what initially brought us together.
12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Thank you for taking the time for this interview, we really appreciate it.
At the Mercy of the Wind will be out on all streaming services on March 15th, 2024, with more updates will be announced soon.
I hope you guys will enjoy our album, and if you do, I hope you will find other records from the Vietnamese metal scene interesting as well.
Shout out to dear friends from Rêvasseur and the label House of Ygra with their talented line up.
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