OccultBlackMetalZine: Nefarious Ascendency

Friday, August 30, 2013

Nefarious Ascendency Interview

1.Can you tell us a little bit about the band for those that have never heard of you before?
First I would like to say thank you to OccultBlackMetalZine for their interest in our band! thank you for the great review! Nefarious Ascendency started out as an idea between guitarist BERITH, Vocalist SEMIAZAS, and our good friend Daryl Bunn. We had decided on the name of the band before we started writing music, and we knew we wanted the music to be black metal, with elements of doom. I remember early on Forgotten Tomb was a major inspiration. Nefarious Ascendency to the definition would mean 'evil'or 'villainous' and ASCENDENCY meaning Domination, a governing influence...meaning to us domination of evil, or however one would perceive that. We initally recorded track 4 from the 2008 demo, called "Dead Calm From The Desolation" and then "Summoning Of The Ancients" soon after. On our first demo, it was just daryl and i, i did all of the vocals and guitar tracks and he did the drum programming and synths. On Our 2nd release, "the entirety naught"(2009) was when Semiazas started as our full time vocalist. The recording session was abruptly stopped so we had to release what we had completed in demos. D.B. decided he no longer wanted to be a part of the band and parted ways. Semiazas and Berith set out to find new musicians in order to continue this project. We met keyboardist ISOKNELK late 2009/2010, and asked him if he would like to join N.A. as our keyboardist. on halloween 2010 at a local metal show, we met our drummer DODEN, asked him to join the band, and from that point we started rehearsing and writing material, essentially trying to get to know one another as musicians. We wrote 11 or 12 songs and over the years the songs have evolved in their own way. That is what this new cd on Exalted Woe, The "NEFARIOUS ASCENDENCY" self titled album is. These are most of the first songs written together as a live band. The songs have evolved and probably will continue to... but now that we have released this cd, our number one priority is to start writing new material. With every new song we write we are getting better both as individual musicians and as a band.

2.What are some of the best shows that the band has played so far and also do you have any touring plans for the album? Right now we have no plans of touring. Unfortunately as a young band getting started, we can barely afford to keep the band alive as is. We rehearse 2 times a week and pay for a rehearsal spot. There aren't all that many black metal shows going on in our area, so we do shows when we can. One or 2 a month, sometimes a month without one. We've played everywhere in FL that we can, that is: daytona beach, cocoa beach, Orlando, tampa, and jacksonville. We would tour if the opportunity arose but right now the band is just focusing writing the next album!

3.The new album came out on Exalted Woe, can you tell us a little bit more about this label? Zac from EXALTED WOE (Zac Dendinger) is a friend of ours here in FL. Exalted Woe are just getting started (like us). When zac offered to release NEFARIOUS ASCENDENCY's first full length, he really took on a giant task. He recorded the album, mixed it, and paid for it to be manufactured! It is a great honor that he is such an awesome person, going out on a limb for us! Hopefully it all works out great and maybe he will release our next album, which we assure you will be of much higher quality musically!

4.Can you tell us a little bit more about your song lyrics and also do you have an interest in the occult?
Semiazas our vocalist has been the sole lyricist. The songs address issues like suicide/depression, Plagues, Vampyrism, worldwide extinction of all life, misanthropy, and Death.We have not written anything specifically about occultism/satanism (yet) but everyone in the band are devout anti-christians. For the most part the band is religion free... but occultism, witchcraft, satanism, demonology are all things that peak our interests in our free time, although we do not necessarily have any type of official affiliation. We are constantly digging into new subjects to cover in our music.

5.What are some of the bands and musical styles that have influenced your music and also what are you listening to nowadays? We are heavily influenced by bands like Limbonic Art, Arcturus, Emperor, Forgotten Tomb and norweigian black metal like Darkthrone, Mayhem, gorgoroth, enslaved, immortal etc, swedish black metal like marduk and dark funeral. Our drummer DODEN is heavy into blast beat oriented black metal, and keeps it very fast so you can expect our music to stay fast and intense! other black metal bands we like would be Mutiilation, watain, Horna, Moonblood, Nyktalgia, Craft, Absu, Leviathan, Abigor, Akitsa, Judas Iscariot, Satanic Warmaster, Darkestrah,Forgotten Woods, Drudkh, Hate Forest, Lunar Aurora, Blut Aus Nord,make a change kill yourself,Thy Infernal, Pest,Sarcofago, ...etc (the list could go on forever, we do keep up with it all...) Members Of Nefarious Ascendency also enjoy listening to death metal and gore/grind, Doom, industrial on occasion and sometimes we might even listen to some other form of music not at all metal related. Jazz and freestyle improvisational music is interesting to some of us, although not all of it has any influence on NEFARIOUS ASCENDENCY's sound. N.A. writes black metal with some doom undertones. We are putting all of our emphasis on making the next album up to par with "in the nightside eclipse" as a focal point. Allow me to clarify that i mention that album as a career point for that band, and what we want our next release to stand up to.

6.Outside of music what are some of your interests? Most of the time we are listening to music, working, watching sick gore movies, drinking and smashing shit up, reading into things we find interest in, and studying/taking music theory lessons from ISOKNELK our keyboardist (hahah). When we are not in the band room practicing, we are doing that.

7.On a worldwide level, how has the feedback been to your music by fans of black metal?
As far as worldwide feedback, we have people from almost every country in the world on our facebook band page! It appears the rest of the world appreciates black metal more than our hometown does that is for sure! we definitely want to thank all of the blogspots that are helping to spread our cloak of evil to the hard to reach places!

8.Thanks for your time, any final words or thoughts before we wrap up this interview? Hails to OCCULTBLACKMETALZINE for carrying the torch and spreading the word! thanks for the support and for the interview!

Doden,Drummer.I handle alot of networking as well as Semiazas we try to find people from all parts of the country and the world.I have alot of inspiration from the bands i listen to on a daily basis Like Dark Funeral for instance.I like fast tear your face off black metal opposed to slow doomy depressive black metal Iam constantly trying to challenge myself to go faster and be more technical. These are just a few things off the top of my head Berith pretty much nailed everything else in the previous statements. just wanted to add my 2 cents lol

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Nefarious Ascendency/Self Titled/Exalted Woe/2013 Full Length Review

Nefarious Ascendency are a band from Florida that plays a very misanthropic and atmospheric form of black metal and this is a review of their self titled album which was released by Exalted Woe.

"The Entierty Naught" begins with some fast primitive black metal guitar riffs and blast beats which leads to some grim screams as well as the song heading into a more mid paced direction while also switching back to the fast parts at times and after awhile it starts going into a slower direction along with some powerful bass playing and melodic leads being utilize for a brief period and towards the end keyboards start kicking in the background while remaining heavy.

"Subliminal Self Extinction" begins with some slow black metal guitar riffs and drums before the bass playing and blast beats start speeding up things a but which leads to some melodies and screams and going into a faster direction as well as switching back and forth between slow and fast parts and as time moves on the music gets alot more diverse with the riffing and a small amount of keyboards are added towards the end.

"Summoning Of The Ancients" begins with some slow black metal guitar riffing which leads to some drums and screams and after a few minutes you can hear a small amount of keyboards which are mixed down really low in the mix to enhance the power of the guitars.

"Nuclear Winter" begins with some old school Norwegian style black metal which lead to some drums and screams before going into a faster direction along with some blast beats before slowing down again as well as switching back and forth between slow and fast along with some primitive elements.

"Insidious Ruin" begins with some soft acoustic guitars and serves as an acoustic instrumental.

"Estatic Depression" begins with some dark sounding guitar riffs which leads to some drums and screams as well as some powerful bass playing and after a few minutes guitar melodies kick in and take the song into a more fast and primitive direction along with some blast beats before returning to the slow sections and after awhile the riffing brings in some thrash style elements while remaining true to black metal and towards the end you can hear a small amount of keyboards.

"The Majestic Mark Of Blasphemy" begins with some samples before going into a fast and primitive direction with the guitars, blast beats and screams as well as mixing in some mid paced sections and also switching back and forth between fast and mid paced.

"From The Desolation" begins with slow guitar riffs, powerful bass, drums and scream and it stays in that direction till the end while also adding in a variety of many different guitar riffs.

"In The Blackest Of Nights" begins with some thrash style guitar riffs along with some drums which leads to some screams as well as the song going into a more fast and primitive black metal direction along with some blast beats as well as switching back and forth between the opening riff and fast parts, which lead to some slower riffing getting mixed in and towards the end you can hear a small amount of keyboards.

Song lyrics cover darkness, misanthropic and suicide themes, while the production has a very dark, heavy, raw and primitive sound while you can still hear all of the musical instruments that are present on the album.

In my opinion Nefarious Ascendency are a very great sounding misanthropic black metal band and if you are a fan of this musical genre, you should check out this album. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "The Entierty Naught" "Nuclear Winter" and "In The Blackest Of Nights". RECOMMENDED BUY.