Florence, 5:40 pm.  A cold and wet afternoon is the background that awaits my encounter with this Tuscan band's guitar virtuoso, John Cordoni Kerioth. The new single "Chrysalis' Gold" has been published a few months ago and it's the pure quintessence of class and evill melancholy. But Necromass' reality begins long time ago, exactly in '92 when they debuted with a brutal Death Metal promo "Connected Body Pentagram". The band is eager of obscurity and esotericism and in '93 releases the 7 inch  "His Eyes", an  infernal Black Metal anthem, a music gender yet far from being a trend in our country. The full consecration of the band that guided the whole italian Black Metal scene  is in '94 with "Bhoma", second 7 inch now  a collectors item. Finally an important indipendant label of extreme music, Unisound, notices this Tuscan band and in the same year releases Necromass' first full lenght "Mysteria, Mystica Zotheriana",  a milestone of the whole international Black scene. But  they aren't satisfied yet and wont  sit and cradle themselves in fan's and critic's admirement; they push their musical research to the limit. The result is a new contract, this time with Dracma and a masterpiece album "Abyss Calls Life". The pure destructive violence is set aside and taken place by a lucid madness, by leaden atmospheres  sature of oppression; traks like "Unpure" and "A Serpent Is Screaming In The Abyss" become the new band's anthems. An italian mini-tour and an important line-up change follow. In September '96 the band sets to conqueer Europe with a 16 mega date tour in company of Dark Funeral. It's a success, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam .... On their come back in Italy, they're invited at the Italian Assault festival sharing the showcase with Sadist and Detestor, roaming from one part of the country to the other. The band suddenly sets aside Dracma and in fall '97 enters in studio writing new tracks. For now  the result is this promo CD untill they find a new conract for their third full length. Surely some tasteful surprises will be coming soon, let's see what I can get out from  J.C. Kerioth .....

(Evil S.): Two years after Abyss Calls Life release you devorced from your label Dracma; how come since that album sold pretty good  ?
(J.C.K): After Abyss' release Dracma did everything they could to promote us and they set us on a fantastic European tour that recieved a great response and a very professionally organized Italian tour; we were really happy on what the company had done for us reguarding our live acts, but this superb  promotion wasn't followed by an intelligent distribution of our CD in all Europe, besides Italy of course, so "Abyss ..." most of the time was really hard to find in record stores. Never the less our album had been Dracma's best selling set ever. Anyway, we kept on our musical journey (that was enriching itself with female backing vocals and the introduction of new factors such as keyboards and samples....) demanding a decent distribution in all Europe this time from our label and a little more time in studio for the "construction" of our new material.  Dracma's responce was that they couldn't asure us these two simple things so we had to look elsewhere.

(Evil S.): And where  ? Did you sign a new contract?
(J.C.K): We've recieved many proposals, but none of them so far seem to asure our demands.

(Evil S.): Let's talk about the new material, your single Chrysalis' Gold; once again your music has sensibly evolved since your previous album.           (J.C.K): Chrysalis' is characterized by a more instinctive and intense approach; it also reveals an important evolution after Abyss since we've changed our singer. Ain Soph Aour's voice (also the bands bassist, ndr), now at vocals too, is much more obscure and dark sounding so this was reflected in our songwriting and attitude blending in our music ethereal and esoteric sounds.

(Evil S.): How do you think your fans will accept the band's new musical attitude ?
(J.C.K): We've never worried too much on how our music could have been accepted by others. We started playing Black Metal not only when it wasn't a trend as it is since a few years ago, but back then many people didn't even know the meaning of what those words meant; then we started evolving our songwriting adding some mellifluous and introspective tunes because we realized that all of a sudden the music scene was getting crowded by a bunch of kids whose only intent was to look as much EVIL as possible smothering their face with greasepaint. Our next purpouse is to complete the construction of a new and inimitable music entity, tearing down all those fences and obsticles within obscure music proposals. We finally got rid of all those metal clichè's and restrictions that generally oppress bands of this genre, evolving the points of distinction in our music and increasing it's emotivity ending up with a much more direct and inner approach.

(Evil S.): The Abyss European tour reached 7 countries and 16 important cities of the old continent; which gigs do you mostly remember of  ?
(J.C.K): Surely our first one in Paris for two reasons, fisrt because it was our absolute debute outside Italy and second because the french kids had a great response towards our music even though our cd hadn't even reached the stores there yet. They liked our show so much that our merchandise stand had completely tilted. Anyway every gig had something special coming. As for example in Berlin they were eagerly waiting for the show and the whole act had been taped and played by one of the most important indipendant German tv channels.

(Evil S.): I had the possibility to hear all of your new songs in studio, besides the new single Chrysalis' Gold and I was impressed. You have become so versatile and enriched your sound with such a noir taste, that I think you have reached the most complete songwriting maturity ever. Waiting to hear the new gems on platter  is the single "Chrysalis' Gold" distributed throughout all the country ?
(J.C.K): Since it is self-produced  (in Sadist Tommy Talamanca's Nadir Studio, that plays keyboards on the single too) and since we are still evaluating some record companies proposals, we've decided tu distrubute it ourselves; anyway if the fans should have any trouble finding it in the shops they can order it directly from the band at : Necromass c.p. 18263 - 50142 Firenze.

Visit Necromass Home Page ( www.necromass.com )

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