Calin, congrats on the new Necrovile cd, Engorging the Devourmental Void, it destroys.  How has the reaction been fan wise as well as from the press?

Hey, Frank! Thanks for the nice words. We’re really happy about the way the album came out and it seems that the media appreciates it, judging from the positive reviews we have received so far. The feedback from the fans was pretty impressive for us, didn’t quite expected it, to be honest.

I thought your debut The Pungency of Carnage was a good starting point, but the new one really leaves it behind, in the dust, so to speak.  What went into creating the album and making the songs so damn catchy?

I feel that in a way, the second album is a natural continuation of the previous one, it gets the musical ideas from the first and takes them to a different level. We didn’t plan the songs to have a certain feeling, we just wrote them the way we felt best.

How did Kevin Foley come to be in the band?  His past work with bands like Mumakil, really help to make you guys more brutal, do you agree? I mean some of the gravity blast beats on tracks 8 and 9 on the new album are punishing!

We were searching for a drummer when we came across Kevin’s announcement  that he was available for recording and playing live with bands that were  interested. We knew Kevin from Disavowed and Benighted, seen him live with both bands and we were amazed by his abilities as a musician, so we talked to  him, asked him if he wants to record and play with Necrovile. He agreed, we sent him the guitar tracks, and after that he wrote the drum parts and recorded the  drums for the album in three days. The best thing when you are dealing with professional musicians is that you don’t need to give them any details about the songs, they know exactly how to play their parts so that the result exceeds any expectations. We were more than enthusiastic about Kevin’s work, I can tell you that.

The new album has a lot of vintage Cannibal Corpse sounds to it, Barnes era Corpse, do you agree and are you planning on playing live with Necrovile soon?

The Cannibal Corpse influences can’t be denied, although we try not to copy any band. Probably it comes from the fact that when we were kids we listened to the             first few Cannibal Corpse albums every day…

Regarding the future live activity, next week we’ll start playing live again, we have a lot of shows planned in the next months in Romania, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and others. We’re really looking forward to getting up on stage again and interact with the fans.

What is the deal with the gruesome cartoonish album cover-it’s pretty brutal?

The artwork is made by Costin Chioreanu, known for his works for many bands and it illustrates his view upon the concept behind the whole idea of the album. The story is that of a psychopath cannibal serial killer who begins to feel haunted by the memories of those whom he tortured, cut to pieces and eaten. These recollections of dead eaten beings emerge as scavengers upon his own conscience, torturing and devouring him repeatedly, until his whole world of emotions becomes nothing but an endless void. Anyway, at one point he decides to fight back and repress these malignant thoughts by mentally re-engorging the memories of him feasting upon the flesh of his victims. All this can be viewed through the perspective of a cyclic necrophagistic act, since he’s now basically consuming his own conscience. It’s a pretty mindfuck because in the end it all comes in cycles, the killer eats the victims but they come back as lucid nightmares and eat him, a sort of an Ouroboros, the self cannibal scenario that goes on and on for an eternity.

Explain to us how growing up in Romania has been and what are your winters like?  Don’t you guys get like 5 foot snow storms or something like that?

I don’t think that growing up in Romania is that much different than in other European country. It used to be bad under the Ceausescu regime, but now it’s a pretty   decent country to live in, I would say, with good and bad things, shitty politicians and all the package.

About the winters, it’s true that we’ve had 5 foot snow in some years, but it depends, this year, for example, it didn’t snow almost at all. We also have 38 Celsius degrees in the summer, and then we totally forget about the harsh winters.

Do you go skiing up north, since I hear the ski slopes are killer in Romania?

Yes, there are some excellent ski slopes in the mountains, but I’m not really into winter sports, I’d rather go swimming, hitch-hiking or the best sport of all, beer           drinking. Anyway, when I’m stuck with some of my ski loving friends in a  mountain resort, I usually take the shortest slope to the next bar, haha.

What happened with the drum sound on your debut album?  That snare sound really sounded almost like a tin can, I feel it detracted from some of the album, although the album is a good display of well played guttural death metal.

I’m not very happy with the drum sound from the first album, either, but back then it seemed like the only option we had. We’ve made some mistakes when it comes to logistics, at that time, mistakes that we tried to avoid on the second release, I mean, in order to make room for others that we’ll try to avoid on the third one and so on.

What and who are some of your influences and is it safe to say you don’t take the lyrics too seriously?

Some of the bands that we really love are Deeds of Flesh, Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Disavowed, Monstrosity to name just a few, but it’s rather difficult to enlist a number of bands, because what you subconsciously do, you know, after listening to all those great metal bands out there, is that you take all the riffs, ideas, rhythms and so on and try to come out with your own musical approach. We also have influences from the classical guitar. For example, the main theme from “Submit to Dehumanization” is somehow related to a passage from a classical guitar study by Heitor Villa-Lobos.

I wouldn’t say that we don’t take the lyrics seriously, because we’re very much involved in the process of writing them. It’s like a gruesome journey into the darkest spheres of the human mind. Of course, we don’t translate the lyrics into action, that would be a true horror movie.

You have been playing bass and guitar for some years now. What got you into wanting to play an instrument and how do you plan on improving further for a 3^rd Necrovile album? Any ideas for a 3^rd album?

Well, I started playing piano when I was six, and by the time I started listening to metal it came almost like a natural impulse to learn play the guitar. I tried to play “Raining Blood” on piano, sounded funny, so I had to pick up the guitar, you know.  That’s a decision I won’t regret because in the meantime I graduated from the Music Academy and now I work as a classical guitar teacher.

As far as the writing process for the next album goes, we’ve already got some ideas and so far things are looking pretty heavy, brutal and catchy, so stay tuned.

Are you into alot of Russian slam type guttural bands and what is your goal with Necrovile, other than world domination, of course?

I’m much more into American brutal death metal bands, but there are some really good Russian bands, the first ones that come in mind are Abominable Putridity, Katalepsy, Abnormity, Disfigurement of Flesh.

World domination!?! Good idea, thanks, never thought about this perspective, haha. Well, we’ll try to play live as much as possible, besides the following concerts I was telling you about, we plan on doing another European tour in Autumn and of course, write the songs for the next album. On the long term the goal remains the same, to write music without any compromise and above all, have a good time being on stage and among the people that share the same passion as we do.

How has Lacerated Enemy Records been treating you guys?  Your new album kinda helped jumpstart his label again?

The deal with Lacerated Enemy Records was really good, the label manager, Zdenek, is a very cool guy, and we’re more than satisfied with what he’s done for us. I don’t know if signing Necrovile helped him jumpstart the label again, all I can say is that meanwhile he signed many awesome bands, adding them to the already great roster. I think it’s a serious label that’s becoming more and more stronger and does the job for the bands the right way.

Any final thoughts/comments for us?

Thanks a lot for the interview! What else should I say, other than the classic “go to concerts, buy the albums that you like and support the scene”, because it’s the only way we can keep the underground extreme music alive. If you’re catching us live don’t hesitate to come to us after the show to talk and drink some beers together. Cheers!

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Necrovile from Romania is no different. There’s a distinct Cannibal Corpse flavour rendered brutal in its own primitive style and extreme vision – the speed is immense, there’s a sprinkling of chugs and it’s a thrill ride. At the same time it’s somewhat slick in its execution despite the dense production, reminiscent of early Prostitute Disfigurement and Severe Torture but not as technically proficient as either. It lies somewhere in between, where it’s doing its bit, its own style of Brutal Death Metal with evolved but not cutting-edge Cannibal Corpse emulation.

The band Necrovile most reminds me of is Gomorrha circa ‘Sexual Perversity by Autopsy’ although the blood-tainted cover is reminiscent of the one following it ‘Body (P)Art’, both accomplished in their own right. It’s simultaneous, the evolution of sound from Cannibal Corpse roots, attained by infusing elements and speed levels of own. What I like about Necrovile is it provides variations and isn’t over-the-top with the blasting despite intense moments and provides a distinct riff pattern that’s always catchy and coherent. There’s no sickness for the sake of it, neither are there any shitty samples. It’s about the music, done in an extreme manner but it’s clear and clean and music-oriented as far as possible.

It’s easy to like this and certainly favourable over Brutal Death Metal bands that are trying to do a copy-paste job or clone some band that doesn’t need cloning. That’s like taking a band and dumbing it down further. It works slightly differently here, taking an era of Cannibal Corpse that’s close to ‘Butchered at Birth’ and pushing it forward, like many have done however, but doing it with flair and utter class.