Matteo De Mori

Delirium X Tremens

DELIRIUM X TREMENSis one of the strongest connections between man and nature, man and its surroundings, man and its local heritage. Through a rather special kind of Death Metal music, relaying on their past influences, a Folkish turn in the image of "Belo Dunum, Echoes From The Past" was forged. Steinmetal had a chance to talk to Matteo De Mori, the band's guitarist regarding the new album, the strong roots of the band and the future.
By Lior Stein
April 14, 2012
Matteo De Mori (Delirium X Tremens) interview
Hello Matteo, I am glad to have you for this interview for the Metal Temple magazine. How is everything going?

Hi Lior, I'm fine thank you, what about you? Thank you a lot for your review and the interview you grant us: it's very important for us to promote our musical proposal through websites like yours which really support the underground music!

Recently I had the pleasure on listening to your band's latest release via your local label of Punishment 18 Records, "Belo Dunum, Echoes From The Past". Can you please enlighten the readers on what exactly is it all about?

"Belo Dunum, Echoes From The Past"is our second full length album. It's exactly released by Punishment 18 Recordsand it's born after three years of a very hard work. Belo Dunumis the diary of an Alpine soldier, who died during the First World War in a trench in the Dolomiti Mountains. During the development of the album this soldier talks about the various legends his grandparents used to narrate him when he was young. He also speaks about some of the episodes he lived in first person both in life and as a dead spirit. All these legends and events are linked to the city of Belluno(our native city) and the surrounding area.

The album represents the evolution of our past work "CreHated From No_Thing"even if this time we include in our sound some popular music influences which come from our territory. We also introduced in "Belo Dunum, Echoes From The Past" some chorus, accordion, flutes, violins and other typical instruments of our own tradition in order to conform completely our music to the concept we wanted to treat.

The tracklist also mentioned the date October 9, 1963. What happened back then that inspired you to write music and lyrics about it?

The biggest tragedy of our territory just happened that day: an enormous heap of rock detached from mount Tocand fell down in the reservoir of the Vajontdam. This big fall caused an enormous wave which climbed over the dam, beating down on the town below, Longarone, whipping out everything, killing 2000 people just in a moment. Everything was caused by men: in fact during the construction of the dam, mount Tocshowed some signals of sinking, but no one paid attention to these warnings and the denunciations made by some people were suppressed because the energy company which was following the building works had an only fundamental aim: to erect the tallest dam in the world making big money.

While listening to the album I sensed the strong connection that you guys have with your deep Italian origins in the mountains. How do you explain that association?

We're all born in Belluno, beneath these mountains, surrounded by our majestic Dolomiti: imposing and hard mountains which put people to the test, shaping them forever. We're related to our territory, we're in love with our mountains and we couldn't live without them. It's a connection we've got inside from our birth and nobody can break it. It's almost impossible to explain and that's that!

Before I listened to the album I did a little light reading and there were several opinions, including one that I more or less agree with, regarding that you guys in your own way created another set in Death Metal. What do you think about that?

Well, first of all thank you for your opinion. It's a very difficult question and I honestly can't answer because I wrote Belo Dunum songs, after years of intense work, spitting blood to see the release of it and of course I'm not the most objective person in the world to judge this matter. It's a real pleasure for us to read comments like that, we're proud of our work: this kind of things urges us into following along this road. Our desire to create our own personal sound has always been the real driving force which constantly moved the band, so, it's certain that we're proud when we read these statements.

Can you please share how did you guys start musically? Did you have any intention on going forward with what seems to be like Folklore?

The band was born in 1998. We began our first step playing some covers of our favourite extreme bands, than we slowly started feeling the need to create something personal and that's where our first mini CD "CyberHuman"was born, released in 2003: a demo which moved on a typically Death Metal mid tempos territory. With "CreHated From No_Thing", in 2007, we started speeding up our times, becoming more extreme and mature from the point of view of our compositions. We constantly carried on with this process until the release of Belo Dunumand I can evenly say that you haven't heard the last of this! We're working on a new material, keeping on with the same wavelength, trying to thrust ourselves beyond, if possible, with the use of some typical instruments and particular musical parts.

When it came to sound, I felt that it tended towards the old school feel of the early 90s of Death Metal. What were the band's original preferences in terms of sound in the first place? Are you trying to find your own sound as a template?

DELIRIUM X TREMENSare all over 30 years old, we all grew with the American and European Death Metal of the early 90s.  In our CD player (not mp3!!!!!!!!!) You can still find the masterpieces of DEICIDE, MORBID ANGEL, MONSTROSITYand DISMEMBER. We're tied to these albums and, on the other hand, the modern Death Metal doesn't draw our attention because we use to consider it too technical and rapid. It doesn't hark back to feeling and pure wickedness. As I told you before, we're trying to create a different sound which could totally be our own sound: it must be immediately recognizable at first listening as for the best players. Surely it will be a long and hard road, but we're not afraid about that.

Have you started working on your next album by now? If so can you shed some light about the concept on which you will focus on?

We're already working on new material. We're following the same line as in Belo Dunum, both musically and in our texts. Bellunois full of stories, legends and episodes and we want to enlighten them, they deserve to be known. These issues stimulate us a lot.

Have started to promote the new album? Are there any large scale gigs planned?

We're trying to plan the biggest number of dates (you can find them on our site www.deliriumxtremens.com) but the situation (also financial) here in Italy is not the best and it is hard to find serious locations and organizers, but fortunately we're patiently making it. We would like to play as the support band of a big group in Europe and we're working to make it happens, but for the moment nothing is confirmed, even if we hope to leave as soon as possible.

Matteo I wish to thank you for this interview. Your new album opened another world to me in extreme music and it is always a pleasure to find. I wish you good luck on the road ahead!

Thank you very much for your words, it's an honour for us to read them, it's music for our ears! We will hang in there and keep on along the road we have began and our Dolomitiwill inspire us again with their majesty. If you want to know us better you can visit our official site or find us on Facebook, Myspace and Reverbnation. The wind of our Dolomiti mountains blows wild, let prepare to be swept away!

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