O programa radiofónico de metal Ritualis Metallum Infernalium teve oportunidade de fazer umas quantas perguntas ao fabuloso guitarrista da banda de brutal death metal italiana Hour of Penance acerca do álbum lançado há quase um ano e sobre a sua promoção. Em baixo fica a resposta a essas perguntas:

1 – Hails Giulio, thank you for accepting this short interview, it is wonderful to have the opportunity to make a few questions about you and your band. First of all, explain us how was Hour of Penance formed and what objectives do you have in mind for the band’s future.

G: Thanks a lot Pedro for giving us this chance. Hour of penance formed back in 1999 when Mauro ( the only one still in the band ) and Enrico started jamming together some death / black metal covers. Later soon they started working on the first promo of the band which was called Promo 2000. Thanks to the Promo who helped the band in moving the first steps Hour of Penance got a 2 albums deal with the spanish label Xtreemmusic which released Disturbance ( 2003 ) and Pageantry for Martyrs ( 2005 ) . Both albums received a good feedback from the worlwide press and Hour of Penance had the chance to play in several festivals and also touring with Krisiun in 2006. In late 2006 Enrico and Alex ( the past singer ) left the band and we started working on another Promo cd to find a new label since the deal with xtreemmusic was expired. When the promo was ready we had the luck to find our "new" singer Francesco who helped the band in getting a new "sound" , probably a better one. With Promo 2007 ( which contained 3 songs :Misconception , Slavery in a Deaf Decay and Hierarchy of the Fools - later re-recorded on The vile Conception ) we got a deal with the legendary Unique Leader Records which released the past 23 february our last album The Vile Conception. "The vile Conception"
is getting a lot of great reviews and thanks also to Unique Leader we managed to jump on a tour with Origin and Impaled last may and play in bigger festivals. So far we played almost 200 gigs in the last couple of years. I guess that's all eheh.. or at least what i recall. visit www. myspace. com/hourofpenance to read more if you want!

2 – Your third album, released early this year, is undoubtedly among the best brutal death metal albums I’ve heard. The way you mix crushing brutality with magnificent technique, shows a blend of modern death metal that proves to be refreshing, relentless and most of all, compelling at all times. Are your song structures carefully composed or just natural result of spontaneity, with some slight modifications in order to get the final product?

G: Thanks a lot Pedro ! That's correct. what you can hear on The vile Conception is the result of a spontaneus work.. we don't sit too much at the table talking about what to change and what not in a song.. although we are the first fans of our music so we want that everything sounds perfect. Generally i work alone at home , recording riffs with a drum machine and once i got the shape of a full song i jam it with Mauro and the other guys in our reharsal place. That's pretty much how our songwriting works.

3 – I must confess that I was pretty much blown away by the massive amount of light-speed fast and crushing riffs you played on the album. In fact, I would dare saying that I’ve heard some of the best death metal riffs of the recent times. How did you come up with such variety, was it all on the recording sessions or did you have most of them already in your head?

G: First , i listen a lot of music. Mostly death metal for obvious reasons , but also a lot of different music as long as it's well played and well composed. The way i wrote that riffs , as the way i wrote generally a h.o.p song , it's totally spontaneus . I play a lot my guitars , so most of the riffs comes up as improvvisation .. sometimes , as for Misconception , happens that i have an idea or a riff in my mind and then i'll try to transpose it on guitar. Then when i have 3 or 4 riffs that sounds good together i start recording tracks on the computer with a drum machine.

4 – Francesco, your actual vocalist, has a very powerful voice, which pleased my ears a lot, while listening to “The Vile Conception” and I enjoy very much his vocal performance throughout the album. He joined after Alex Manco left the band, in the wake of the release of “Pageantry for Martyrs”. How the hell did you discover Francesco?

G: Myspace did the magic! At the time Francesco was playing for another italian band , i came across their demo and we contacted him. He's certainly the best singer we had so far , he got the perfect balance of technic and power for a singer. His voice on the new album is probably one of the most important features.

5 – “The Vile Conception” has a lot of great songs, such as “Misconception”, “Drowned in the “Abyss of Ignorance”, “Hierarchy of the Fools” and much more. I think it is a very good album in general, but are you completely satisfied with it? What are your favourite songs from it?

G: Hmm i can't tell you which one is my favourite.. it's really hard to pick up one ..if i have to choose one i'll go for Liturgy of Deceivers. Although it's the most "gay" song on the album is the most powerful when we play it live.
Yeah i'm totally satisfied with the songs on the album , we discarded 4 or 5 songs before recording T.V.C because as i told you before we want that everything is perfect.


6 – I noticed some kind of orchestral sections, at least twice on the album, more precisely on “Drowned in the Abyss of Ignorance” and “From Hate to Suffering”, an unusual thing to presence on brutal death metal albums. Still, I think they fit the atmosphere of the album perfectly, since every song has rather epic atmosphere. Did you actually use an orchestra for those sections and from where came the idea?

G: Mauro did that orchestral thingie on his computer , with some plugins and synths. It's kinda cool to have that kind of orchestral intros between a song and another , it give a break to the listener ears and at the same time it give a continuity to the album. We also use some of them live.

7 – It has come to my attention that all 3 albums released by Hour of Penance have a thing in common: All of them have 10 tracks, which is very intriguing. Is this done intentionally or did is simply end up like that while doing the recording sessions?

G: eheh actually it was done not intentionally . We play a fast death metal and i guess 10 is the right number of songs , probably also the new album will have the same number of songs.

8 – This third album of yours was a great way to start the year and I believe it received a lot of praises from the press, all over the world. Italia has a lot of good bands, and Hour of Penance is certainly among those. I wanted to know if you have already a decent recognisement from your homeland or if most of the feedback and fan support comes from the outside?

G: We're finally getting the right response from the italian crowd and the right support from the promoters , but i must say that we're probably getting more outside italy for many reasons. First of all because here in italy the death metal "scene" started to grow at least 2 years ago so it's pretty much a little "scene" . At the shows you always meet the same people eheh , it's cool because it looks like a family but the italian scene deserves really more attention. Outside even the venues are better , they usually have the proper p.a the proper sound engineer and so on. We love to play outside this country , but i must say that the italian fans support helped us a lot to be where we are now.

9 – As every musician, you must have some artists and bands that you listened that should have influenced and helped you to grow, musically speaking. Would you please tell me what bands have marked you in a positive way and that you believe that its influences are reflected in your music and style of playing?

G: I started to listen to this music when i was 10 , so loads of bands influenced me a lot during these 13 years. As stated in our biography one album that helped me a lot in growing as musician was Bloodthirst from Cannibal Corpse. Althought it's pretty much criticized around , i think that it marked a fracture between the old school way of playing Dm and the newer one , which is characterized by a more tecnical approach to the music. Back in 1999 that album sounded fresh to my ears and it still does. Same for Conquering the throne of Hate eternal.
When i read a review of our albums , people always recall some nile and hate eternal influences in our music. I guess they're right although i think that from TVC our music started to have its own shape and "character".. we grew up a lot in the last years as musicians and we started developing our way of playing. That is something which will be probably noticed on the new album we're working at.

10 – I don’t know a lot of the Italian death metal underground, except for Corpsefucking Art, Cripple Bastards and some more, but I do know that there is a very strong black metal underground. How strong is the death metal scene in Italy? What bands from your country would you advise Portuguese people to pay attention and listen carefully?

G : Back in the day when we started , there was not a italian dm "scene" , today i have to say that we have a lot of good bands as Imposer , Septycal Gorge , Putridity , Blasphemer , Onirik , Fleshgod Apocalypse , and our label mates Vomit The Soul.

11 – One thing that grabbed my attention immediately when I first saw your album was its splendid cover painting. I’m pretty curious about that and I must ask you: Who drew the cover for “The Vile Conception”? It’s damn good!

G : That is a Par Olofsson paintings .. I love that artist ! He did covers also for Spawn of Possession , Odious Mortem , Deeds of Flesh, Severed Saviour .. pretty much all the best bands around eheh

12 – This year I had the opportunity to see you playing live at the SWR Barroselas Metal Fest in Portugal and I must say that you had an impressive performance, chaos was all over the crowd and there was even time for a stage moshpit, between the musicians. It was definitely one of the best gigs I’ve been so far. Will you attack Portugal any time soon? I’d love to see you live again…

G: I hope so man! We're actually planning to tour Europe again before this summer and then enter the studio to record a new album so i guess that there will be the chance to see us again , it would be really cool! Last time we played there at the SWR festival it was a fucking blast , one of the best festival we played at! and you portuguese guys are crazy!


13 – Actually, Hour of Penance possesses only one guitarist: you. Are you searching for another guy to get on the second guitar or will you continue to compose lines for both guitars and get a guy only for live gigs?

G: Let's see what will happen. Honestly we tried few guitarist right after the recordings of the last album but none of them was capable to play properly the songs and had the right experience. We need somebody who already had the experience of touring or at least being in a band that play gigs and so on to keep everything "balanced" in the band. You know me Mauro and Silvano play together for allmost 5 years now so we know well each others and there's the right feeling between us when we play.. Anyway i guess we will try again after the recordings of the new album since the songs are even more complex.

14 – Thank you for your time, Giulio. I hope that Hour of Penance’s career continues to go higher and higher. I’m anxious to hear your next album and I definitely will want one of those HoP t-shirts, they look fantastic. Do you want to say anything else to the Ritualis Metallum Infernalium readers?

G: thanks a lot Pedro for the interview and for your support to Hour of Penance! As for the readers , i hope we will meet once again in Portugal and that you'll keep supporting Hour of Penance. Obrigado!

PS: One last thing, I have this Italian friend that keeps saying “Porco Dio” all the time, but I still haven’t figured out what it means. Could you elucidate me?

G : ahah , that's a italian profanity. We have a lot of blasphemous sentences against God and all of his family. "porco dio" means "pig god".

LINKS:
MySpace
Review - The Vile Conception