Death Metal will sound unique and extraordinary if a band wisely incorporates varied and different elements in the right place, has a high quality of creativity and puts it in a distinctive sound. This is what AVTOTHEISM, a brilliant band from Italy, has. Their debut full-length is absolutely heavy, angular, tense, yet manic. “The Sleeper Awakens” is an ambitious exploration into the mammoth darkness that waits beyond. A signal transmitted through dreams but is not a dream. - Interview by Atandistorted [May 12, 2023]
1: Hail! As has been informed, Avtotheism was established in Italy in 2016. Can you tell more about how this band was founded and who is in the present line-up? What is behind the bandname, Avtotheism?
Hail!
Yes, we formed in 2016 in a completely different shape. First of all, we are previously friends than band mates. We began as a 4 piece band, when L. (bass) asked us to the write some extreme music inspired by names like Cryptopsy and Deeds of Flesh. At the time we were just jamming some tunes and the idea was to tribute the old Sci-Fi movies era. We had a completely different name and approach. Then, we realized that we could take this thing to something different and more close to what we deeply love about extreme music.
The name Avtotheism came to describe both sacredness and iconoclasm, the elevation of the self beyond religion and divinity. Unfortunately the name “Autotheism” was already taken as an album title, so we decide to switch the “u” into a “v” to keep the band easily researchable. We had a line-up change past year and now we are a 3 piece band.
2: I learned that Avtotheism is a Death Metal band with sulphuric, atmospheric and dark ambient elements in their sound. Please describe further about this musical genre and also explain where you get your major influences from?
All of us have completely different type of musical backgrounds, that we try to blend together to get the most abyssous and cavernous soundscapes we can.
The idea is to find sulphur and atmosphere within sound research and not strictly into the riffs.
As I said previously, we have come across different styles and musical tastes.
For sure our main influences are Morbid Angel, Portal, Immolation, Ulcerate, Gorguts, Cult of Luna, Incantation, Abyssal, Lustmord, Atrium Carceri…
3: Something interesting considering your lyrical themes and the music deal with concepts, end-time scenarios and human annihilation. Elaborate more on this and why it has been your choice for Avtotheism?
We try to match the music that we make with something that could describe it as tight as possible. I think it is also cathartic for us to release our deep anguish and anger into music, there are flaws and frailties into the essence of being human that we want to unveil as they repulse and scare us, and probably this human race collapse scenarios are what combine the most all these elements together.
4: Now please share as many things as you can about your current full-length, “The Sleeper Awakens”, especially in terms of songwriting, recording sessions, also in relation to the production and distribution of the album? Have the end outputs reached the quality you guys expect?
“The Sleeper Awakens” has been a quite long process, due to the 2020 pandemic.
First of all, the album is a concept based on the movie Prince of Darkness, directed by John Carpenter. I (R.) always wanted to write music based on that movie.
Musically speaking, I think there’s a lot of sci-fi/soundscapes elements that make the record more cinematic than the previous material we wrote. It was one of a kind record because we tried to blend the music we play with the mood of the movie, and I think we are completely satisfied about the result.
We began write riff and chunks of music round 2017, but the most was written during summer 2018, in a very short term of time (basically in 10 days I wrote most of the songs), but we could not record it before summer 2019, in our past drummer N. rehearsal room.
As I said previously the pandemic slowed down the process, and we had to mix and master the record remotely, during long video and phone calls. Finally, by the end of 2020 we began searching for a Label that we actually found, but the deal went down after few months, so we lost other time researching someone else to promote the album.
Fortunately we found Eric from Life After Death, the right man at the right time.
The record was finally released in summer 2021.
I think we did not expected anything, for us the most important thing was to release a record that had 3 / 4 years gestation, but we are quite happy about the resulted output it reached, considering the time and energy we had spent at that times.
5: Compared to your previous works, especially referring to “Hives MMXVII” EP 2017, how do you interpret that Avtotheism has progressed and evolved more through “The Sleeper Awakens”? Do you see this process as just normal growth or do you feel that Avtotheism is still far from maturity?
I personally think both things, We are in the process of natural growth but still we are far from maturity. I always thought that the best record you craft is the most recent, so to me our growth and maturity are exponentials. Will be the next record more mature? Yes.
Will be the most mature? No. Music in general is research, and research never ends to me.
That said, “Hives MMXVII” was made strictly for fun, we do not have clear ideas of what we were doing and where we were going, we were just enjoying the process and having fun.
After it release, I realized we could and should take that thing to another level, that could express more our musical personalities.
6: Many thanks for responding. Last but not least, how do you predict the future of Avtotheism? Are you currently planning for new recordings and next releases? What can you promise for the listeners of Avtotheism music?
First of all, thank you for your time and space.
Yes, we are currently planning a new record. We began recording past year some material, but after few listens I personally wanted to go back and adjust things here and there, re-write songs and write some new tunes. I’m really obsessive when it comes to write music and I have to be 100% sure of what I hear, to be sure it represent us artistically in every part.
Surely it will be a more obscure and cavernous record, with less melody and more dissonance. We are also planning some guests for this record, one is confirmed and already recorded is part, that we are really grateful for and proud of.
For now this is all we can promise!
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Credits: P. and AVTOTHEISM
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