1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the band?
The band was born formally on 2011, but from the early years we knew that it would be unavoidable and it was only question of time. Turin and Pavia were the home towns of our own project, but what was fundamental is the common origin from Sicily. Our own music is a mixture of rotten Black Metal, Dubstep, DnB and a lot of Noise Industrial: not by chance our main sources of inspiration are bands like Aborym, Dodheimsgard, Diabolicum and MZ412. But what, for us, characterize al ard is the detailed research of extremism in an absolute sense and at all levels; generating a sound and emotive violence that overwhelms the listener, even if he/she does not appreciate it.
2.Recently you have released your first full length, what are some of the things you feel you have accomplished musically on the new album?
Our vision of black metal is first of all based on ramping up the experiments to see what happens in there. With our first full length we've been conscious that it is possible and we like the result. This is not the end of the story since our own music is itself our inspiration for moving forward. Nevertheless, the inspiration will come and dictate the way we'll go, so we could explain it as an unconscious revelation on our side not yet revealed.
3.On the album you also mix a lot of different genres, do you feel you are adding something new to the black metal genre?
What we would like to describe is the approach, came out from several influences and along last decade who led us to reach the violence, no matter what the music is. Black metal is the main matrix for us, a channel to spread the hate we have to spit, made both dynamically synthetic with drum'n'bass and coldly static with noise. For people who have a background of black metal, drum'n'bass and noise industrial, will be easy to understand our research through those 3 different music styles, because they surely have felt before the same crazy adrenaline.
For those who have never trespassed black metal, we would seriously suggest giving a listen to Al Ard and let us know if they feel betrayed or excited.
The main aspect for us is also to create a unique channel, being able to merge instruments, noise, electronic. We work a lot to meld them, that's the hard part. We hate when a song plays as parallel dimensions at the same time, it has no meaning. The new songs we're creating now reflect even more this concept.
4.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?
We could say Al Ard contains a long story and several topics. It could be defined in paragraphs. Each song, different stories, merging themselves during the album, to then disappear. The songs are born from instinct and scorn of a moment, more than being created for a specific, wide and unilateral concept. There's a lot of shit around to savor only one. To give you some examples, FOR A HINT OF DIVINITY is a manifesto against the self-commodification, what could a man do for a moment of glory... P.P.P tells about the christianity habits along the centuries, the morality and values collapsed under the evolution, the two STRANGE OLD PRACTICE go deeper into the real face of a war, the fear, the desolation, the disgust; in Strange Old Practice II, the mantra obsessively repeated during the song is Sicilian dialect and means "Deformed children are borning". The all is linked with the Sicilian culture, a fundamental inspiration for the entire album and place where we come from. Ultimately the recipe is filled with dreamlike statuses, real funerals stories, private deviations, southern Italy traditions, introspection and human's inhumanity of life.
5.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Al Ard'?
The name AL ARD is the arab for "The Land", referred to Sicily, named " al-arḍ al-kabīra " ("The Big Land") at the time of arab domination.
The main inspiration was to highlight the importance of our origin and how it influenced our own lives. Unlike the classic iconography of Scandinavian black metal that exalts the "coldness" of those places and their lifestyle, we aim at the clear contrast, not only geographically, trying to express the "darkness" that unsuspectedly distinguishes the tradition of the south.
6.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?
Also the artwork is a magnification of Sicilian tradition and cult of death.
The mummies on the cover (which represent our "dead" own person) are three of the several ones inside the Cappuccini's Catacombs in Palermo, which preserve their excellent status of conservation thanks to an ancient embalming technique.
7.What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and also how would you describe your stage performance?
Principally the hardest things to yield properly are the guitars: generally the rhythmics of each guitar have been merged trying to obtain the best stage result but in rare cases other guitars are played directly in background.
S.V.D. has got sufficent stuffs to play the huge quantity of fucking bases, synth and samples have to be spited out from the sound system...to COD the only task of screaming, singing, playing bass and destroying everything on stage like a fucking insane that goes wild against the crowds.
8.Do you have any touring or show plans for the new album?
We're working on it to be able to play live during the end of the year and in 2019. It's always hard to plan for live dates because we live far from each other, but not so far to erase the will of playing and planning for tours or single events. Turin and Sicily will be for sure a place where we'll organize something, but our scope is to plan for a tour in several places in Europe.
9.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of underground metal?
The reaction has been very good till now. For example, the Industrial band Preemptive strike from Greece asked for a featured song that will be available very soon. Basically the response for album has been very succesful from our side, however we think that the possibility to perfom live sessions in the next future will contribute to make our visibility to an higher lavel.
10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
We really hope to produce music that satisfies 100% of our needs, tastes and deviated desires. Basically, we want to improve the connection between our way of concepting black metal and our urge of playing experimental! Actually this is our objective since we realized the best results came from it. This is already happening with the new material we're on right now.
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?
Hard to say, each one has a different experience and idea, but for sure we all agree that bands like Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Megadeth were the trigger for a neverending research of the estreme. During the years this meant Death, Morbid Angel, Dissection to finally reach the black twilight with Emperor, Satyricon, Mayhem, Darkthrone, the entire avantgarde or industrial black metal scene. Then we can expand on what each member privately listens, reaching genres like pure noise and pop in the same hour on Spotify.
Nowadays we're going to different directions in terms of music listened, and that's a longevity secret for us.
12.Does Occultism play any role in your music?
There's no doubt we are fascinated, but we've never studied it. The concept of death and our personal visions of it represents a strong incipit of every moment of inspiration in music and lyrics.
We touch it in our creations, but we're not obsessed as an omni-lyrics or omni-themes band. There's so much to tell, to be disgusted by, to criticize, to hate.... to be wrapped only by one veil.
13.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Thank you for the interview and for the time spent. To all the readers searching for something new, we strongly suggest to listen to our album and let us know what they think. We're sure they will be not disapponted. Hail Al Ard
https://alard.bandcamp.com/
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