INTERVIEW with NUCLEARHAMMER

THIS DARK AND VIOLENT BAND FROM TORONTO HAVE JUST RELEASED THEIR SECOND FULL LENGHT THROUGH NUCLEAR WAR NOW. "SERPENTINE HERMETIC LUCIFER" IS A MONUMENTAL EXPRESION OF HATEFUL MORBID MUSIC AND HYPNOTIC DARKNESS. REASONS ENOUGH TO CONTACT AXAAZAROTH TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS LUCIFERIAN HORDE NAMED...NUCLEARHAMMER 

Hails, how are you doing, anxious to see your second full-length “Serpentine Hermetic Lucifer” released? 

Yes quite anxious but now its out and so far very positive feedback.

What was the songwriting process like?

It was interesting, we have definitely gotten more advanced and mature as far as our writing process goes.

Serpentine Hermetic Lucifer,  why this title?

I was reading some Kenneth Grant and Aleister Crowley books, mainly Grant's The Magical Revival and I came across a quote that I felt fit exactly what we wanted to say with this record and specifically the artwork. Myself and Doomhammer came up with the actual title of "Serpentine Hermetic Lucifer" but it was inspired by this quote:
“‘The Devil’ is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes. This has led to so much confusion of thought that THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ — the solar-phallic-hermetic ‘Lucifer’ is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and ‘The Devil’ SATAN or HADIT of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade ‘Know Thyself!’ and taught Initiation. He is ‘the Devil’ of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection.” [emphasis added]-Magick in Theory & Practice, ch.21

I really dig the cover artwork, who was responsible for this concept and how do this concept relate to the album´s music?

The art was done by Krag, vocalist of Paroxsihzem. Myself and Doomhammer were behind the entire concept, there are many different aspects to it but I'll get into that later.

Back to the songwriting, there is an aura of darkness and violence in the music,  In your own words, how would you describe the sound and style?

Vicious and hateful violence with a very dark aura of entrancing hypnosis which is what we have always been going for but are getting more and more extreme with it on each new release, expect even more hypnotic and oppressive darkness on the next one!

An unusual and peculiar thing is the length of the songs, from 12minutes 13 seconds the longest to 8 seconds the shortest, the duration of the songs reflect the mood at the time of its creation?

Yes the length of tracks is something I knew would make a lot of peoples heads spin which was the point, no limits, rules or set laws on what we do, its all very sporadic and embodies the essence of universal chaos.

There are some songs that I define as “dark alien sound” used as interludes or nexus between the “metal” songs.  What inspired you to compose these dark ambient compositions?

The idea for the album was to have these crazy "dark alien" as you say interludes in between each song to signify a rite of passage, so listening to the whole album is like one long experience of different stages instead of a typical track by track kinda deal. I also do a few harsh noise/power electronics/dark ambient projects on the side in the style of Deathkey, Whorebutcher, Bizarre Uproar, Content Nullity, Deathpile, Survival Unit, Final Solution, however the stuff you hear on the album I tried to keep very different sounding from my full on noise/ambient projects and just keep things as ominous and sickening as possible.

Some song titles refer to “cells” [24-Cell (Octoplex), 120-Cell (Hyperdodecahedron) 600-Cell (Hexacosichoron) and other songs titles refers to “H3po4”] Can you explain the concept and meaning behind these titles?

The first half of the album focuses on multi-dimensional/hyper-dimensional geometry and the later half focuses on phosphorus chemicals, the first song on side A of the LP for example is "Multidimentional..." and the first song on side B is "Phosphorus Clouds...", thus the themes go along with both for the layout of songs.  

What philosophies, ideologies, or occult themes have contributed to the essence of the content of your lyrics?

Our lyrics always deal with a wide variety of subjects but at their very core they are Satanic and mostly deal with hatred, destruction and exposing of ones sworn enemies for who they really are, not who they "claim" to be. I strongly believe in the philosophy of eye for an eye and that's what you get with the lyrics on "Serpentine..." for the most part. However, the concepts around the album itself are Lucifer, Occultism, altered mind states, earthly matter, mathematics and the INFINITY of the UNIVERSE which also exist within these lyrics.

Would you say that this album is a major step ahead on NUCLEARHAMMER´s career? What would you say is the main difference compared to your debut full-length? How do you look back at Obliteration Ritual nowadays?

Yeah I'd say its a major step for sure, there's many differences compared to the first album, I sort of look at our releases since the first full-length as a trilogy of sorts, Obliteration Ritual was FIRE, Frozen Misery was ICE while Serpentine is TIME and SPACE. As far as how I look back on Obliteration Ritual, I still think it was a great record but there are some things I would of definitely liked to of changed musically but there's no point in dwelling on that now, we're only interested in moving forward into battle!

What bands have had the most profound influence on the sound of NUCLEARHAMMER? How would you say your style evolved since your demos and previous EPs and splits?

TOO MANY TO MENTION! I will just say that we're not really interested in having any tags, most people view us as "bestial black death", "war metal", "goat metal" etc and those are all fine because to me all those titles and tags represent are the FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS of first and second wave black and death metal inspired by Hellhammer/early Celtic Frost, Sarcofago, Holocausto, Blasphemy, (the true)Von, Beherit, Nuclear Death, Autopsy, Necrovore, Possessed etc etc. But I am not interested in a tag itself because it seems to go along with the whole stereotype that we only play and sound like this ONE thing, which is complete bullshit because even though we stick to our roots and what we know, we also incorporate other sounds and influences from other genres into what we do in a very cryptic manner and anyone who says we don't can fuck off and die because they're clearly NOT paying attention to whats going on. So the misguided and misinformed opinions of weaklings have no impact on me since I can usually see right through them like glass. I'd say our sound has evolved a great deal since the early days though.

Will you continue releasing splits and EPs or will you focus on your next full-length?

Next release will most likely be a split with Hell Paso Texas' own Satanic Warmongers NYOGTHAEBLISZ, all vermin will be crushed into dust when this atomic bomb of a release is dropped on human scum!

You have recorded many cover songs from bands such as Sarcófago, Blasphemy, Discharge, Slaughter…which of these covers is your favourite? Which band that you didn´t covered yet would you like to cover in the future?

I like all the covers we've done, don't really have a favorite, they were all done for a reason. I think in the future I'd like to properly cover Hellhammer's Messiah, also something by Naked Whipper, Angelcorpse and Bestial Warlust. We were working on an Incantation cover of Emaciated Holy Figure not too long ago, we might eventually finish that and release it on something, also I wanted to cover a Sacramentary Abolishment song off The Distracting Stone album years ago but we ended up slacking on doing covers and focused on writing our own songs more which definitely isn't a bad thing since most of the songs I mentioned here can NOT be recreated to match their original glory so unless you can fuck around with it and do something interesting, there's no point. But any cover we do will always be done our way and done as a TRIBUTE to the creators.

How is the current scene in Canada and particularly in Toronto? Are there any bands that you would recommend?

The scene in Canada is great depending where you go, there's always good and bad. The only bands to look out for in Toronto however are Malaria, Into Oblivion, Adversarial, Paroxsihzem, Sortilegia and Apokrypha as far as black/death goes and on the more traditional metal side of things Cromlech, Demontage and Desekratewhore who are all good comrades of ours. Theres no real scene in this city, its mostly trendy heavy metal fans, death/goregrind jocks in tapout shirts and norsecore wannabe bullshit which we have no interest in.

How many live shows have you performed so far? What is to be expected at an NUCLEARHAMMER show?

I couldn't tell you how many shows we've played since our existence but some of the best ones have been in the USA. As far as what to expect, lots of hostility, anger, hypnotic violence, possession, chaos and blood!

Same as Obliteration Ritual, serpentine will be released by Nuclear war now, are you satisfied with the attention you have received from  them?

Actually Obliteration Ritual was released by Morbid Moon not Nuclear War Now. Serpentine is the first album we are doing with NWN!  [yes, mea culpa! and I knew about it! I don´t do drugs so I have no excuse, what the fuck was I thinking...?!!! Ed]

Do you have any upcoming plans for tours?

We're playing Edmonton at the end of June and then we're playing Satan's Unholy Abomination Fest in Maryland in December with Blood Storm, Nyogthaeblisz, Hellvetron, Nexul, Martyrvore and a bunch of other wicked bands, but that's all I can say for now.

What is the strangest place and the most shocking one that you have been?

DETROIT! when we played there the next day we drove around some of the worst spots to see it in person before we left for Chicago and we went through Highland Park, John R and 7 Mile, West Robinwood Street and Hollywood Street plus a bunch of other places there and I can tell you its definitely the most BRUTAL and dangerous place to be in on the east coast. Toronto is only a 3 hour drive from Detroit and our bassist Abyssious has been there a couple dozen times so he knows the murder city quite well but yeah its just utter ruin, decay and lawlessness. We also went through Flint Michigan which was also pretty deadly, as well as the south side of Chicago on our way back to Canada, crazy shit! but most of us, myself especially, are no strangers to such areas, I don't care much for bands singing about their so called darkness, death and evil when they've never lived or been in any real evil and dangerous places before, even just for mere exploration! practice what you preach.

Thanks for your time, any last words to end this interview?

Thanks for the interview. ASCEND DO WE NOW INTO INFINITE ORDER!!! AMSG!!!