Hi ! First of all, thank you for this itw, it's always a pleasure to talk about our stuff. Indeed, the album is out ! We're very excited and ready to perform our first gigs supporting it. We play it all live from start to finish, and it feels great to unleash it on stage.

I remember the brainstorming session for the band's name as being quite intense. We took a long time finding a good name for this project. We gathered with Sylvain (Gtr), Jordy (Vocals) and myself (Sylver, Gtr) at a bar and started throwing some ideas for the concept. In fact, Jordy and Sylvain have worked together in Exocrine for a long time and have always made concept albums. First was the idea of a forest, some shamanic stuff, magic, an avatar invocation, etc… So we came up with the name that way : gathering the several elements of the concept.

Myself (Sylver) and Sylvain became friend some time ago and have always wanted to make music together since. We were always busy with our own tech-death projects, but after the writing process of the 3rd Exocrine album, Sylvain was in the vibe for this new project and needed some variety. We aimed for less technical stuff, Sylvain wanted to take hands on the production and create something massive with the songs. Big projects like Exocrine require more discipline and doing stuff in advance (like 6-10 months before sometimes!), so a side project is a good thing to have if you want to keep yourself busy with music.

Ourselves, all the guys in the band, we were already friends and knew each other in the scene here in Bordeaux, France. Jordy (Vocals) had already play with our drummer PJ in a previous band. PJ wanted a more professional project, with attention to details in the song writing, good overall DIY management of the band, and he found that when joining the project last.

Sylvain was the main composer on this album. I brought him some riffs to broader the band's toolbox and he crafted entire songs with some of those and some of his own, achieving more richness with both styles of riffing. 6 months was a long time spent on writing + mixing/mastering, the later being Sylvain's own and quite daunting task. He choose to work that way, finishing the all writing and mixing in a long single-trait. It's a very dedicated way to work, but also effective when willing to maintain the full "vibe" of the album.

As a matter of fact, we don't always have the luxury to choose when we'll be available aside from our main projects. Release dates are often set for Exocrine future albums, and everything Empyreal Vault as to go in between. Nothing is decided yet as for the way we'll organize the next writing process. I guess we made the more informed decision we could with all the elements and resources available to us at the time.

Mmm, that's a tough one. This album was written in 2018 and we were listening to all kind of releases from that year, without them significantly influencing the writing for the most part. Our sound merges several influences from the Tech-death genre and the deathcore genre, prog-stuff also, and I don't think it can be summed-up as a single record from the outside world influencing us. That being said, we did LOVE the last Soreption album .

Personally, I've always being more of a 6-string guys, and I specifically bought a 7 string for this project. On the other-hand, Sylvain has been attracted to extended-range guitars for a long time. I can name the first "Animals as Leaders" album as an instant motivation for him to get an 8 string at the time.

Yes, exactly! As I've said before when talking about the band's name : we exposed the components of the lyrical concept to Bastien Jez, and he wonderfully represented the invocation of the avatar, with the forest-vibe and all of it. As a result, I think the artwork represents perfectly the album's ambience and vibe, but also the lyrical-concept.

When we started the project, we wanted to mutualize the writing process. Sylvain was already busy being the main composer in Exocrine, he didn't want the same load of work for this side project. So some of the songs use guitar ideas from both of us, as we gathered to search some stuff together, and that is the main difference with our other projects: the process was not being 100% alone in front of your DAW. it is very different, it's good to experience both in one's musical life.

Mmm, I was impressed by a lot of album in my life as a fan of death metal and tech-stuff. I'm often even more impressed when the songwriters were young AF when releasing it. Cosmogenesis from Obscura is a good example of that, very mature music with still young members. I guess others music is their own, maybe I wish a started music earlier and released some of my own stuff 10 years before, hehe.

Sylver : I loved Abyssal by Humanity's Last Breath
PJ : Alien by Northlane
Jordy : God Hand by Brand of Sacrifice and Hell by Tyr (I can't decide!)
Sylvain : Ashley O

Thank you ever so much for your time, and good luck with whatever comes next!