Antediluvian
2024-08-14
by Niklas Göransson
With The Divine Punishment handed down, Haasiophis and Mars Sekhmet – founders of Canadian black metal band Antediluvian – reflect on the genesis of a sound forged in the shadow of fallen Watchers.
HAASIOPHIS: A lot of time and effort went into this project; almost a decade had passed since our last album, “LOGOS”. Writing and demonstrating material began in earnest around 2018, and I drew on many of the same inspirations as always. “The Divine Punishment” combines elements from the full range of ANTEDILUVIAN recordings – demos, albums, and the slightly more experimental EPs.
In September 2021, Texas-based underground label Nuclear War Now! Productions released ANTEDILUVIAN’s third album, “The Divine Punishment”.
HAASIOPHIS: I also considered the writing style of records where each song represents its own idea, as opposed to all tracks being variations of the same theme – like “Led Zeppelin IV”, “Master of Puppets” (METALLICA), and “Headless Cross” (BLACK SABBATH). Or, for more extreme examples, NOCTURNUS’ “The Key,” VARATHRON’s “His Majesty at the Swamp”, and “Drawing Down the Moon” by BEHERIT.
Both ANTEDILUVIAN’s 2011 debut, “Through the Cervix of Hawaah”, and “LOGOS (“λόγος”)” from 2013 were mixed by Steve Loree of Crabapple Downs Studio. Loree has collaborated extensively with fellow Alberta bands AXIS OF ADVANCE and REVENGE.
“The Divine Punishment” saw ANTEDILUVIAN working remotely, recording the album in three different studios separated by two continents. For mixing duties, they turned to Rolando Rodas at Cavern of Echoes Studio in Toronto, Ontario. Rodas, formerly guitarist and vocalist of DIRE OMEN, has worked on numerous Canadian underground metal titles, such as “Devil’s Paradise” by Haasiophis’ side-project BLACK DEATH CULT.
HAASIOPHIS: To give Roldy a sense of how I wanted the drums in the mix, I told him to study “Old Death’s Lair” by Poland’s THRONEUM. The production on that album is clear yet bizarre, reminiscent of deathrock bands like BAUHAUS but executed in total death metal. And listening to “Twisted Face” by SADUS reminded me of how a good snare should sound.
“Twisted Face” is a track from California thrashers SADUS’ 1988 debut “Illusions”. At the time of its release, drummer Jon Allen showcased some of the most impressive percussion work in extreme metal to date.
HAASIOPHIS: The snare should always be the drum kit’s loudest part, especially at fast tempos. That SADUS song also highlights one of the major pitfalls to avoid: a drummer doesn’t sound at all convincing if the snare quiets down as the tempo increases. The pummelling of its penetrative hammering force should lead the rest of the instruments through any barrier.
In extreme metal, the snare drum typically acts as a backbone of the percussive elements, providing a sharp beat that drives the intensity and rhythm.
HAASIOPHIS: We carefully chose our tempos and mix to emphasise this. I played my guitar aggressively, using down-stroking and tremolo picking to make the riffs sound edgier, punchier, and more intimidating. The South Americans mastered this technique, as seen in early HADEZ, GENOCIDIO, MYSTIFIER, et cetera. I also referenced “Legion” by DEICIDE as an example of good instrument separation.
Effective separation is crucial in dense, multi-layered genres like black and death metal, where numerous elements compete for attention. When the bass, drums, guitars, and vocals occupy their own distinct space within the audio spectrum, the mix achieves clarity and balance as each instrument can be distinguished.
HAASIOPHIS: I aimed for a cavernous sound without muddiness. As Bernard from LUST would say, ‘If you mix all the colours together, you just get brown.’ By giving each element its own space, they remain distinct, creating a clear and dynamic dialogue. We recorded four layers of rhythm guitar for each track, creating a dense and gnarly tone without encroaching on the low-end frequencies.
Bass and drums typically occupy the lower end of the sonic spectrum. The bass guitar often resides in the 40-200 Hz range, while the kick drum can overlap with the bass but usually sits between 50-100 Hz. Ensuring that the rhythm guitars do not suppress these frequencies helps maintain clarity and prevents the mix from becoming muddy.
HAASIOPHIS: DEICIDE also served as a reference for mixing the vocals; I wanted my voice prominent and upfront, with multiple layers of overdubs and effects to promote the kind of extra ambience that always accompanies our music. We also experimented with placing long samples, effects, and – in the case of “Guardians of the Liminal” – some violins over repetitive passages. These additions were designed to induce a ritualistic, hypnotic ascension during specific practices.
This effect is achieved flawlessly in tracks like “How the Watchers Granted the Humans Sex Magick in the Primordial Aeon”. Perhaps better heard than described, no other extreme metal band creates these moods and ambiences.
HAASIOPHIS: To further accentuate this, we used a combination of new samples and sounds from our archives, like those between “Tamasic Masturbation Ritual”, “Sadomaniacal Katabasis”, and “Temple Prostitute”, which were originally created for ANTEDILUVIAN’s first live ritual in 2009. Recording the album remotely allowed us more time to experiment, and to prepare and record extra layers such as acoustic guitars and the aforementioned violins.
ANTEDILUVIAN drummer Mars Sekhmet lives in Austria these days; she recorded her parts over there.
HAASIOPHIS: We were able to provide extensive feedback, make numerous edits, and maintain complete control over the final version. Consequently, “The Divine Punishment” comes closer to realising my exact vision than anything I’ve recorded in the past.
HAASIOPHIS: The best way I can sum up the ANTEDILUVIAN writing experience is that there are two main currents of music I enjoy and draw influence from as a composer. Firstly, I appreciate black metal done properly: both for its individuality and against-the-grain uniqueness. I also value its capacity for high aggression and boldness.
ANTEDILUVIAN’s black metal elements certainly possess both originality and the crude sense of enmity often found in Canadian underground bands. But the atmospheric aspects are decidedly more eccentric, with passages and layers that could be described as ambient but bear no resemblance to dungeon synth and such.
HAASIOPHIS: I’ve always kept a steady, or at least intermittent, diet of moody and distinctive non-metal sounds including rock, country, folk, roots, world music, and experimental genres. This has consistently pushed the envelope in terms of my playing style and preferences for production and presentation.
Haasiophis’ grew up in an austere, religious household. His father was an evangelical pastor and the head of a Pentecostal church – the kind with lively sermons, including congregators speaking in tongues.
Towards his late teens, following prolonged bouts of existential turmoil, Haasiophis broke free from the spiritual constraints imposed upon him and began exploring previously unavailable art, literature, and music – such as black metal.
HAASIOPHIS: After discovering and fully digesting the rather obvious Norse style pushed on me by the metal media and my peers, I gravitated towards harsher, darker, and more profound sounds. It seemed to me that the emerging ‘bestial’ strain of black metal genuinely pushed the vibe beyond what was considered extreme and edgy in the Scandinavian scene and its many imitators.
Many such acts are now categorised as ‘war metal’ – a label that, I’ve observed, is seldom embraced by the bands themselves.
HAASIOPHIS: I never liked the term ‘war metal’, but I realised that the harshest bands in existence were those with satanic, individualist, and elitist lyrics – and who also blended the heaviest elements of death, black, grind, and doom to a certain extent. Moreover, their work consistently had a type of unmatched percussive brutality. I caught on to this current in the early 2000s, right around the time REVENGE started out.
REVENGE is the successor to James Read’s early-90s death metal band CREMATION, which disbanded in 1995 when he relocated to Victoria, British Columbia, and formed CONQUEROR with Ryan Förster. Five years on, Read returned to Edmonton, Alberta, and started REVENGE.
HAASIOPHIS: I listened intensely to the forebears of this sound – bands like BEHERIT, BLASPHEMY, CONQUEROR, MYSTIFIER, GOATPENIS, and BESTIAL WARLUST, analysing each individual component that placed them in a distinct category. I was drawn to black metal that employed the most over-the-top, aggressive, and inventive tactics. Albums like “Fallen Angel of Doom….”, “War.Cult.Supremacy”, and “Wicca” were far more extreme than anything else released at their time.
Canadian black metal skinheads BLASPHEMY released their debut album, “Fallen Angel of Doom….”, in 1990. Two years later came “Wicca” by Brazil’s MYSTIFIER. CONQUEROR recorded “War.Cult.Supremacy” in ‘96, but it ended up shelved until 1999.
HAASIOPHIS: The same goes for “The Magus” by SADISTIK EXEKUTION – recorded in 1988 – and BATHORY’s “The Return……” (1985). True milestones, and that’s what one should aim for every time. But don’t get me wrong: I appreciate many conservative bands. Done right, some acts can solidify the legacy of their lodestars by picking up where they left off – and that’s perfectly fine. What I dislike are artists passing off someone else’s shtick as their own while pretending they didn’t even know it was already invented.
In the year 2000 – when Haasiophis was in his early twenties – he joined a black metal band from Kitchener, Ontario, named DEAD OF WINTER.
HAASIOPHIS: To this day, DEAD OF WINTER remains the most unabashedly polarising project I’ve ever been a part of. The drummer was unusually dedicated and extreme, and we focused on blast-oriented collages of contrapposto riffs and dissonant, unnerving chord formations – all set to nightmarishly fast drum patterns and melancholic lyrics.
Simultaneously, Haasiophis worked at a retail surplus store selling not just leftover military gear but also stereo equipment, speakers, amplifiers, and subwoofers for cars.
HAASIOPHIS: My co-worker and I had a literal wall-of-sound output that we utilised all day, every day, throughout our shifts. He was a musician – a drummer, to be precise – and very selective about his auditory diet. Our staple listening consisted of KING CRIMSON, RUSH, and Frank Zappa, interspersed with the occasional side of prog offshoots like John Zorn or FANTÔMAS.
KING CRIMSON and RUSH are foundational to progressive rock, known for their technical prowess, unconventional song structures, and creative use of odd time signatures. John Zorn and FANTÔMAS are experimental projects that drew from these progressive roots, incorporating a variety of musical influences to promote more avant-garde expressions.
HAASIOPHIS: This music somewhat blew by me initially. However, over time, the 80s to 2000s-era KING CRIMSON, RUSH, early GENESIS, and certain elements of the other material really grabbed me and ingrained themselves in my mind. I might not have developed an appreciation for such music if not for my colleague persistently acting as DJ, day after day, for roughly eighteen months.
Haasiophis’ fixation with unorthodox beats, temporal shifts, and so forth likely stems from the fact that his most formative music recommendations came from drummers.
HAASIOPHIS: In high school, a friend introduced me to METALLICA, SLAYER, and BLACK SABBATH, among others. He demonstrated precisely what made Dave Lombardo’s (SLAYER) playing so much cooler than Dave Grohl’s (NIRVANA). Embracing this, I developed an aggressive percussionist mentality, always focusing on rhythm, timing, and transitions. This made the shift into my current role as bass player for REVENGE easier; in my view, James Read is the most formidable and intense black metal drummer of our time.
Haasiophis was brought into the REVENGE fold in 2011, following the departure of previous bassist Pete Helmkamp.
HAASIOPHIS: I’ve always appreciated the various conversations that unfold not just between riffs, but also when there’s a shift in the instinctive counting pulse within a song. When time becomes a discernible and manipulable part of composition, it’s difficult to overlook such elements. I integrate these aspects in a simple, untechnical manner, but their use is crucial – it’s the cornerstone of what I consider ‘interdimensional songwriting’.
In extreme metal, deviating from conventional time signatures and beats – and thereby breaking the predictability of common rhythms – can transform a song into an intense and disorienting experience.
HAASIOPHIS: In fact, as someone who practises regularly with several different bands, rehearsing three to six days a week, I much prefer playing songs that don’t strictly adhere to ‘by the numbers’ structures – particularly those confined to common beats like 3/4 or 4/4. Venturing beyond such boundaries enables a deeper focus and attentiveness to the individual components which, in turn, enhances the performer’s engagement.
Following two demos and a single, Profound Lore Records released DEAD OF WINTER’s debut album, “At the Helm of the Abyss”, in March 2005. The band broke up soon after.
HAASIOPHIS: When DEAD OF WINTER disbanded, I’d been wanting to expand our sound with layered vocals and down-tuning to B standard – but due to extreme mental pressures, everything fell apart. Fortunately, by that time, Mars Sekhmet and I had just met; she was about to start playing drums and agreed to help me bring my vision to life.
Shortly thereafter, Haasiophis and Mars Sekhmet relocated from Toronto to Edmonton, Alberta – they moved in together and set up a rehearsal room in their house. This is when ANTEDILUVIAN evolved from a concept to reality.
HAASIOPHIS: At first, Mars’ drumming endurance restricted our workflow, which felt like a step back from DEAD OF WINTER. However, I was determined to drive the absurdity and intensity. We found a solution in composing with rapid chord transitions over basic yet compelling rhythm sections. This method is particularly evident in the first ANTEDILUVIAN demo, “Prehistorik Khaos” (2006).
Mars Sekhmet had previously studied piano, violin, and music theory but never received any formal tuition in percussion. Perhaps for the best, as I cannot imagine you’d get a classically trained drummer to play like this.
MARS SEKHMET: Part of what made it work was my lifelong fascination with rhythm. As a child, I could effortlessly identify the meter of any song. During lessons in piano and music theory, my focus would always be on the mathematics of rhythm. Typically, my piano playing was intense and pulsating rather than delicate and ornate.
The piano needs a nuanced touch and an emphasis on melody and harmony to capture the full range of emotions. In contrast, drumming is centred around beats and dynamics, allowing for a more physical and immediate expression of energy.
MARS: Due to my propensity for abstract numbers and concept analysis, no other subject than math really interested me at school. I also didn’t really understand the social world around me very well. When I started drumming at age twenty-one – after eight years of planning to do so but lacking the means – it clicked right away.
Did you have any experience with the kind of weird time signatures that Haasiophis wanted to explore?
MARS: No, but the challenge intrigued me. I’ve never been satisfied with just playing straightforward blast beats – I’m always looking to introduce additional complexity. I also use more toms, which suits the primal atmosphere of ANTEDILUVIAN. I sometimes annoy the others at practice by working out the ideal drum pattern for a riff we’re rehearsing for the first time. So, there’s that. Drums are a physical manifestation of how my math-oriented and logical brain works.
log in to keep reading
The second half of this article is reserved for subscribers of the Bardo Methodology online archive. To keep reading, sign up or log in below.
Related reading
