Naraka: Cursed By Gods Above And Under Us

It would be an understatement to say that the past two years have been hard on professional musicians. With touring completely out of the question, bands have had to rely on livestreams and merchandise sales to stay afloat and it’s been a challenge for even the most established acts to survive. So, it stands to reason that it would be even tougher for new bands to break through at this time and yet that is precisely what’s been happening with NARAKA.

Coming together in the blissfully unaware days of 2019, the French four piece had no sooner turned their amps on before the pandemic shut the world down. Two years later and they’ve managed to quietly build a following online and convince Logan Mader to produce In Tenebris, their upcoming debut. They’re on the verge of becoming a force to be reckoned with in the extreme metal sphere and all without ever playing a single live show.

Part of that is because they’ve got ex-DAGOBA drummer Franky Costanza in the band and he brought an existing fanbase with him. However, when it comes to building a following, you can’t understate how powerful social media can be. “We just shared all the posts, all the songs, everything about NARAKA, three or four times a day! I told everybody around me to share it, all my friends, family, everyone,” says singer Theodore Rondeau. “If I could give my past-self one piece of advice it would be ‘be prepared.’ We couldn’t be prepared for this pandemic, so be ready to promote on social media. It’s so important nowadays.”

Spamming Facebook like your life depends on it makes for a predictable newsfeed, but in NARAKA’s case it looks to be paying off. They have an impressive number of followers across the platforms and they’re attracting over three thousand listeners a month on Spotify. These aren’t arena-band figures, but it is a good foundation to build upon when In Tenebris hits. “In some ways we were lucky. We didn’t launch the album during the pandemic, we recorded it in 2020 in February, but we decided not to release it because I think in this case it would have been more difficult… We’ve waited and it’s been a long time, but I think it would have been too difficult to launch it when we couldn’t play.”

Formed by guitarist Jean-Phillipe Porteaux after the demise of his previous band, NARAKA could best be described as an extreme metal melting pot. They’ve taken pieces of death, thrash, black and symphonic metal and reassembled them into one crushingly heavy, Lovecraftian brute. “We absolutely love BEHEMOTH and HYPNO5E, SEPTICFLESH, METALLICA and OPETH. We have a lot of influences and I think you can hear it in our sound. We don’t want to just be a death metal band, or a thrash metal band. We want to be NARAKA and have our own sound.”

This is obvious when listening to the small amount of material they’ve released thus far. Three months ago they gave us Cursed, the first NARAKA single and it proved to be a straight-up brawler. It throttles along at a delirious pace, blast beats and guitar riffs hitting like haymakers while Theodore puts in a vocal performance so savage, it’s amazing he’s not vomiting blood by the end. There are lyrics about vast, inhuman creatures rising from the ocean depths to lay waste to the world with cruel indifference and it’s as darkly violent as you’d expect death metal to be.

But they followed it up with Mother Of Shadows, which takes on a different vibe. It’s still heavy, but the pace has dropped, there’s orchestral sequences and they wander a long way into symphonic metal territory. There’s also the added benefit of a guest vocal performance from Lindsay Schoolcraft, the ex-CRADLE OF FILTH keyboardist/backing singer outdoing herself in a spellbinding duet. Theodore’s particularly proud of this track: “I really loved this song. Most of the album is fast and this will offer something different, and the vocals by Lindsay will be a breath of fresh air. It’s still aggressive, still dark, but I love it. She plays harp at the end of the song and it’s absolutely perfect. We didn’t even ask her to do that, she did it on her own.”

Of course, the real test for the band will be when they get to transition from a studio-only project (albeit a reluctant one) into a full touring act. Things are looking positive though and they have a major support slot to look forward to. In March next year they’ll be opening for SEPTICFLESH and CARACH ANGREN for thirty-six dates across Europe. Theodore is optimistic about their future and is hungry to start working towards it. “We want it to be as great as we can and more, to build a bigger audience, to play our songs onstage and I can’t wait to do that. We want to be full time pros, that’s our main goal. We’re going to work hard to prepare this tour to be the best, especially as opening for SEPTICFLESH is an honour. But we want to be full time, we want to live with NARAKA as we have a lot to give.”

In Tenebris is out now via Blood Blast Distribution.

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