Hailing from the Bratislava Region, the five-piece menace deemed Terrestrial Chaos crushes with sweltering cacophonies of experimental metal. Black metal, death metal, melodic textures, this nascent group exhibits multitudes of talent. Their latest EP, Pānoptikón, finds them pushing into sonic territories not fully explored on their debut; the song-writing is tighter, the experimentation a bit more varied. There is much to absorb within their onslaught of mayhem.
I came across Terrestrial Chaos about a month ago through Bandcamp and was enthralled by Pānoptikón from its opening minute to its last second. So, I pulled together a handful of questions for them and this is the result. It is a brief exchange, but an interesting and insightful one nonetheless.
How did you guys come together to form Terrestrial Chaos?
Random coincidences, everyone comes from different parts of the country. Booze, misery, and interpersonal chaos.
Though you only have two releases so far—a four-track promo from 2016 and your recent EP ‘Pānoptikón’—you span quite an amazing breadth of sounds, emotions, and brutality. “Colliding Harmony” is ethereal and gorgeous, whereas “Zlobri idu na Dedinu” is a death metal onslaught of head banging riffs. What of your musical backgrounds gives rise to this diverse palette of sounds and experimentation?
Interpersonal chaos and instant feelings that come to mind and give opportunity to have diverse tracks—musically as well as lyrically. Together with perpetual desire to break all boundaries.
How did the recording process of ‘Pānoptikón’ differ from that of your promo?
The current release Pānoptikón was recorded in a studio and also consists of the tracks we wrote earlier when the band was moreover just a project. The promo release was DIY by our drummer (the shitty mixing and mastering).
Your band name embodies the noise you can expect to hear on your releases quite well. Are there other sounds you have yet to experiment with or are there other sonic areas you want to explore going forward as a band?
Meaningfully chosen disharmonic ambient noises, more experimentation with vocals and disharmonic guitar riffs followed by other slow depressive ones. Also we would like to avoid such inconsistency between the songs themselves.
I can pick out some lines from your lyrics and partially surmise a song’s theme from the title, but what are your songs generally about? Is there a lyrical theme tying all the songs together on ‘Pānoptikón’?
Although Pānoptikón consists also of the songs written earlier, the lyrics were written by the vocalist and as such the lyrical theme is consistent enough. The only exception is “Zlobri idu na Dedinu” which was co-written by the former guitarist/vocalist and is moreover a parody on folk themes.
Who are some of your primary musical influences?
It differs from member to member. Basically, the deepest realms of unconsciousness affected by our human perception.
Beyond music, what influences your sound and style? For lyricism, where do you draw your inspiration?
Darker paths of our depths, reflections of surrounded phenomena. The lyrics were inspired by the current cultural situation, shallowness, politics, corporations, basically the criticism of the society as such.
What’s the music scene like out there in Bratislava? Are there particular genres that characterize its music landscape?
The scene is very diverse, however the styles that are most preferred nowadays are Gore/Grind and Thrash metal. They do not characterize the music landscape, so you can pretty much find awesome bands. The positive thing is the freedom that allows to follow any idea or movement. The consequence of this is that there is some kind of offer for any music subgenre.
Is there a story to that one guy falling asleep on the stage monitor when you were playing a set in June?
Nope, he was just drunk :). We believe that he is now deaf. He also was present the whole set which does not happen often ;P .
Although you just dropped ‘Pānoptikón’, are there plans for a full-length record?
Sure there are, we have just started writing new songs and lyrics, which will be much darker.
What do you want people to experience when they listen to your music?
To stop thinking about everything, focus on one problem and provide them with space to think about that.
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Thank you so much Terrestrial Chaos for the time and energy you spent on my questions. And thank you folks for reading and listening to Terrestrial Chaos’s work. They are contributing a track from Pānoptikón to the upcoming compilation. Be sure to support them at their Bandcamp and/or Facebook pages.
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