Korn‘s Jonathan Davis was so excited by ORGY that he created his own record label …
Australian extreme metal acts have always been quite few and far between. With the lucky few making it big, it’s a genre that predominantly appeals to bohemian audiences with a preference for music on the more abrasive and shocking side, meaning it’s a genre that is very much still quite underrepresented by Australian metalheads.
MORE: BRING ME THE HORIZON: Damned If They Go Back // SUNK LOTO: No More Anxiety REVIEWS: THORNHILL: Heroine // ALEXISONFIRE: Otherness // GREY DAZE: The Phoenix // STAND ATLANTIC: F.E.A.R // DUNE RATS: Real Rare Whale // SCAPHIS: Dissected & Fermented
Although, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for bands to attain a cult-like status. Look at King Parrot, Mindsnare or Psycroptic for instance, all acts who haven’t received mainstream attention, but yet are revered and beloved for their hard-work grinding away at the underground circuit. This is where Scaphis ties in.
Having gigged relentlessly after the release of their first album Rituals of Tortue and Death, the Melbourne based death metal outfit established themselves an act that keep an eye on, with many fans around Melbourne regarding them one of the city’s best Independent metal outfits.
Making it no surprise that the release of their second full length Dissected & Fermented has been incredibly well received.
“It’s a huge relief,” admits the group’s guitarist Josh Ristrom.
“We’ve had the material for over two years now and because of everything that’s been going on around the world, it’s sort of been one delay after the other. Now that it’s finally out, it’s sort of surreal.”
Continuing on the constant delays that the band faced Ristrom stated, “Essentially, we started writing in the first lockdown when everything happened back in 2020. Since we had a bit of time, I was like, Oh, I’m going to use this and do a bit of writing and pretty much got the whole album structure down in those first two months or so. Then we just kept getting more and more restrictions which kept us from actually coming together and going into the recording studio. In the end we had to wait about a year.”
This album has a blend of general horror fiction, historic torture/execution, and real-world stuff
[ Spyke Jägerkrieg ]
With the group having over a year to flesh out the new material, Ristrom discussed the freedoms that they faced in experimenting with new styles and approaches to writing.
“We did try some new things with this album, we brought back the tempo a bit and used fewer riffs, instead focusing more on melody in the leads.”
“We wanted to really tell more of a story and add more layers in there, which we thought came out really well.”
A statement which is reaffirmed by the group’s powerhouse vocalist Spyke Jägerkrieg, who also set out to write more narrative based lyrics for this release.
“This album has a blend of general horror fiction, historic torture/execution, and real-world stuff,” she states.
“Flesh Prison was inspired by a real condition called Cotard’s Syndrome. All For You is an homage to Bloodbath’s classic track Eaten. Plague is a little different for us, as it stems from my own real personal feelings and frustration at the devastation mankind has inflicted on our mother earth.”
“We’re hoping to broaden our fan base with this one,” says Ristrom,
Purchase and stream here.
