Photo by Christopher WaltonThe Northern English city of Durham lays claim to one of the finest Romanesque cathedrals in Europe, the head of St. Oswald of Northumbria, and black/death crust hellions Winds of Genocide. Fresh off a split with Japanese street metal warlords Abigail, the band is more than ready to break out of its industrial hometown (conveniently and fatefully located a stone’s throw away from Venom’s stomping grounds, Newcaste upon Tyne) with a ripping new record. Titled Usurping the Throne of Disease, it’s a death metal-meets-crust punk hellstorm of wolves and warfare that’s poised to leave a big fucking crater in the middle of the current metalpunk scene. Listen to the opening volley, “The Howling Wolves of Armageddon,” and check out our interview with vocalist Kat Gillham.Noisey: It’s interesting to see a band with such a quintessentially English backbone—crust punk—align itself with one of the UK's historically less impressive genres, black metal. Despite recent developments that hint towards a brighter future, post-Venom UKBM has suffered from a pretty shit reputation. Why do you think that is?
Kat Gillham: Our black metal influence has always mostly came from the more chaotic and raw side of things (rarly Mayhem, Impaled Nazarene, early Venom, Hellhammer, early Bathory) which is very punked-up anyway. I think the problem with UKMB has always been that it is too "nice," almost too polite; it lacks that ominous vibe, mystique, and chaotic attitude that made early Mayhem and Bathory seem so dangerous, raw and evil. Having Cradle of Filth as the flagship UKBM band for years didn't help things, either, when most people equated UKBM with their gothic dark romantic bullshit. The current UKBM scene seems to be full of too many black metal bands who lack in any real danger or chaos, both musically and aesthetically; it's more based on old English folk stories. Fuck that…war's no fucking romantic fairytale. Hail Satan and pure fucking armageddon! Only death and destruction is real!However, England's crust credentials are impeccable, and strains of classics like Antisect and Hellbastard are readily apparent in your sonic arsenal. There's a ton of choice Swedish influence, as well. What were you hoping to achieve by recording in Sweden? Was there a certain aura you were hoping to capture?
The whole album was supposed to be recorded in Stockholm, Sweden with Fred Estby, but at the very last minute, some problems arose, and we ended up doing the music tracking here in England. I still went over to Stockholm to do the vocal tracking and mixing with Fred, as we still wanted him to be a huge part of this album. He’s known for being able to get a powerful, organic sound, epecially his killer drum sound, which he brought into the final mix. Since he had also produced/mixed Disfear’s Everyday Slaughter and a lot of Dismember albums, which are firm favorites of the band, we hoped he'd be able to make our album sound just as ear-obliterating and powerful, but also raw and caustic at the same time. I think he really helped to achieve that. Also, this recording really has a huge old Swedish death metal/kängpunk vibe to it, and he was really able to bring out those elements of our sound.You've been involved in death metal and doom bands for a long time now, but Winds of Genocide marked your first recorded foray into punk. One thing I noticed whilst I was living in the UK—and it does seem to be changing, at least a little—was the divide between punks and metalheads. It's much more pronounced in the UK than it is in other places, and I'm interested to find out how you got into punk in the first place, and what motivated you to start a metal/punk band.
You do get a lot of narrow-minded punks and metalheads in the UK who just stick to their chosen side and don't cross over, but I have always been around both metal, hardcore, and punk since a very early age. I was already into Axegrinder and Deviated Instinct back then thanks to Peaceville Records, and my younger brother was actively involved in hardcore and crust punk bands back in the 90s. Hanging out with him and his bandmates introduced me to bands like Disrupt, Doom, Anti-Cimex, Dystopia, Amebix, Dropdead, Discharge, and Hellkrusher.The motivation behind starting Winds of Genocide was my desire to form a band that mixed crust/käng punk and death/black metal in equal measure and that would have a big crossover appeal both sonically and aesthetically. We seem to appeal just as much to the crust/punk crowd as we do to black/death metalheads so job done! We’ve all always loved both punk and metal in equal measure, and wanted to have that same crossover appeal as bands like Wolfpack/Wolfbrigade, Skitsystem, Martyrdöd, Disfear, Extinction Of Mankind, and Extreme Noise Terror.When is Winds of Genocide hitting the road?
We are not the most active live band, due to various reasons, but we will do gigs in support of the album; it just depends what we get offered! It would be cool to do a tour at some point, as well, and bring pure fucking aural armageddon to more unsuspecting people and ears out there, including across the Atlantic!!Usurping the Throne of Disease is out via Pulverised Records on 1/26.Kim Kelly is hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and doing nothing on Twitter.
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Kat Gillham: Our black metal influence has always mostly came from the more chaotic and raw side of things (rarly Mayhem, Impaled Nazarene, early Venom, Hellhammer, early Bathory) which is very punked-up anyway. I think the problem with UKMB has always been that it is too "nice," almost too polite; it lacks that ominous vibe, mystique, and chaotic attitude that made early Mayhem and Bathory seem so dangerous, raw and evil. Having Cradle of Filth as the flagship UKBM band for years didn't help things, either, when most people equated UKBM with their gothic dark romantic bullshit. The current UKBM scene seems to be full of too many black metal bands who lack in any real danger or chaos, both musically and aesthetically; it's more based on old English folk stories. Fuck that…war's no fucking romantic fairytale. Hail Satan and pure fucking armageddon! Only death and destruction is real!However, England's crust credentials are impeccable, and strains of classics like Antisect and Hellbastard are readily apparent in your sonic arsenal. There's a ton of choice Swedish influence, as well. What were you hoping to achieve by recording in Sweden? Was there a certain aura you were hoping to capture?
The whole album was supposed to be recorded in Stockholm, Sweden with Fred Estby, but at the very last minute, some problems arose, and we ended up doing the music tracking here in England. I still went over to Stockholm to do the vocal tracking and mixing with Fred, as we still wanted him to be a huge part of this album. He’s known for being able to get a powerful, organic sound, epecially his killer drum sound, which he brought into the final mix. Since he had also produced/mixed Disfear’s Everyday Slaughter and a lot of Dismember albums, which are firm favorites of the band, we hoped he'd be able to make our album sound just as ear-obliterating and powerful, but also raw and caustic at the same time. I think he really helped to achieve that. Also, this recording really has a huge old Swedish death metal/kängpunk vibe to it, and he was really able to bring out those elements of our sound.
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You do get a lot of narrow-minded punks and metalheads in the UK who just stick to their chosen side and don't cross over, but I have always been around both metal, hardcore, and punk since a very early age. I was already into Axegrinder and Deviated Instinct back then thanks to Peaceville Records, and my younger brother was actively involved in hardcore and crust punk bands back in the 90s. Hanging out with him and his bandmates introduced me to bands like Disrupt, Doom, Anti-Cimex, Dystopia, Amebix, Dropdead, Discharge, and Hellkrusher.The motivation behind starting Winds of Genocide was my desire to form a band that mixed crust/käng punk and death/black metal in equal measure and that would have a big crossover appeal both sonically and aesthetically. We seem to appeal just as much to the crust/punk crowd as we do to black/death metalheads so job done! We’ve all always loved both punk and metal in equal measure, and wanted to have that same crossover appeal as bands like Wolfpack/Wolfbrigade, Skitsystem, Martyrdöd, Disfear, Extinction Of Mankind, and Extreme Noise Terror.When is Winds of Genocide hitting the road?
We are not the most active live band, due to various reasons, but we will do gigs in support of the album; it just depends what we get offered! It would be cool to do a tour at some point, as well, and bring pure fucking aural armageddon to more unsuspecting people and ears out there, including across the Atlantic!!Usurping the Throne of Disease is out via Pulverised Records on 1/26.Kim Kelly is hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and doing nothing on Twitter.