Asinhell: Full Of Hell

When you’re busy being the frontman of one of the biggest rockabilly bands on the planet, forming a death metal side project with your mates isn’t always top of your priorities. But when fate intervenes and the universe calls, you can’t help but listen to the signs. For VOLBEAT’s Michael Poulsen, finally forming death metal trio ASINHELL was a call from the grave, heard backstage in America with his guitar tech.

“Just as we were talking about L.G. Petrov, the song Full Of Hell by ENTOMBED started out of nowhere on my iPod!” Explains Poulsen, at home in Denmark for a rare day off. “I took that as a call from L.G., because some months before, very close to his passing, he did try to call me a couple of times where I didn’t have the opportunity to pick up my phone, so I was really bummed about that; he was probably reaching out to have a little talk before leaving.”

So when Full Of Hell flooded his iPod speakers, sparks flew in his mind like fireworks in the night sky, as Michael took it “as a spiritual call from my good friend L.G.”, which led him to become “so emotionally inspired that I started writing immediately when I came home, and I just couldn’t stop myself.”

Before long, batches of songs baked like fresh loaves of bread. Soon after, a death metal bakery named ASINHELL was born. Rounded out by ex-MORGOTH vocalist Marc Grewe and RAUNCHY drummer Morten Toft Hansen, the band fuse Michael’s otherworldly storytelling and infectious melodies with sinister slabs of old-school death metal, delivered with all the guts and gore you could ask for.

Like the birth of the band itself, their debut album Impii Hora grew from the wise words of another heavy metal legend: MOTÖRHEAD’s Lemmy Kilmister. “Before his passing, I was sitting down with Lemmy of MOTÖRHEAD, listening to one of the newer records they were about to release, just talking music, and he said ‘yeah Michael, it has to be fun, or else it’s not worth it’, and he was totally right,” remembers Michael fondly. “When it comes to music, and writing music, and sharing music, it has to be fun; so figuring out the linup was all about hooking up with some really good old friends I’ve been knowing for so many years, so it wouldn’t take much time to dial in and know what we’re doing.”

The fun didn’t stop by bringing old pals together, it only got the party started. Whilst the rest of us thanked God it’s Friday, Michael and Morten spent the last working day of the week, every week, taking it old school. “It was just me and Morten in his very small garage with his drums, and me with a very old amp I found in my basement and an old guitar and cranked it all up to 10!”

Soon enough, they had an album’s worth of songs and headed straight for super-producer Jacob Hansen’s [ARCH ENEMY, KATATONIA, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER] studio. Roping in THE ARCANE ORDER, and VOLBEAT’s current stand-in guitarist, Flemming C. Lund, it wasn’t long before it all came together.

“The first song I wrote when I came home from the US tour with VOLBEAT, when I was so inspired, was Pyromantic Scryer; that went very fast, I wrote that song within an hour and I got into the next song, Island Of Dead Men,” enthuses Michael, who was so fuelled by the death metal fire in his belly that “every Friday, I had a new song we could start on.” In fact, “it felt good, it’s like going back to the garage, finding that death metal bicycle, jumping onto it again, and riding it like yesterday – it came out naturally with a lot of passion, a lot of fun, and a lot of inspiration.”

Impii Hora, which is Latin for ‘the ungodly hour’, was an attempt to “try not to make it as complicated”, focusing on the simple things like how “everything’s gonna be in black and white, and we all want it to be dark, and there’s satanic stuff, and there’s things floating around with certain spiritual beliefs and certain actions done by human beings that you cannot in the Bible, so why not call it ‘the ungodly hour’ – it was all with a smile on our face, it just sounds so much better in Latin!”

Whilst it’s title might be a tongue-in-cheek take on satanic panic, there’s a seriousness to the cesspit of cannibalism, serial killers, and war that soaks up Impii Hora’s songs. “Marc wrote some of the lyrics with one of his good friends, Dr Frank, who has a professor degree in psychological stuff, dealing with people struggling with mental stuff,” Michael explains. “So we came up with a plan that we wanted lyrics that has to be very, very dark, but at the same time are sarcastic and ironic, but done very professionally and with respect for the subjects.”

Of course, there’s the serious stuff and there’s the silly stuff too, like Island Of Dead Men’s zombie love-in. It’s all the guts and gore old school death metal should bring to the table, and ASINHELL aren’t apologising for recycling the playbook. “At the same time, it has to be fun and there has to be cliches; when it’s metal, you cannot avoid those kind of cliches and I think its important those cliches are there, it makes it more lovable somehow.”

ASINHELL aren’t the only band of heavy metal heroes paying tribute to the music that made them. Whether it’s Max Cavalera’s warts-and-all, family-run GO AHEAD AND DIE, BOLT THROWER’s spiritual successor MEMORIAM, or Gregor Mackintosh’s death-soaked doom parade STRIGOI, it’s an itch so many of our idols are desperate to scratch.

“If you’re a musician, it’s always nice to dig into music history and how things were done in the past, you know, for the generation that I come from, that’s something we get very emotionally attached to that doesn’t seem to have the same kind of spirit and soul in these modern days,” explains Michael, before skirting back to defend the new school, too. “I’m not taking anything away from the new generation, they don’t know anything else, they were born with the internet and how to promote a band; we had to leave our home to go out and hang around vinyl shops, share contacts for underground magazines, and sitting down with a group of people to go through demo tapes.”

Impii Hora, and by extension, ASINHELL, is an attempt to rediscover death metal’s soul. “Everything’s just a click away, and it feels like the soul is not there, the spirit’s pretty much flying out the window, so for us from that certain time and generation, we connect with the old school metal in a different emotional way.”

In many ways, it circles back to the reason Michael fronts VOLBEAT too, it’s a way of keeping old school ideals alive today. “It’s keeping music alive, and respecting where it comes from. I’m still obsessed with a lot of 50s music; I love that I can still dig into 50’s music, and be totally in love with it, and share that love with my friends, so it doesn’t become a thing that was just a part of music history; I think it’s great that we can keep those old school genres alive no matter what.”

Keeping the spirit alive, whether it’s ASINHELL’s death metal or VOLBEAT’s rockabilly, is at the heart of all Michael does. And whilst the latter is out of action until 2025 as Michael goes under the knife for throat surgery later this year, 2024 will fly the flag for both musical loves. “We’re going to write a new VOLBEAT record next year, record it later in the year, and promote that in 2025, but at the same time, I’m finding time to go out with ASINHELL and have a good time playing old school death metal.”

ASINHELL and VOLBEAT, no matter how different in style, can coexist like angels and demons standing tall on his shoulders. It’s what’s fuelling Michael to keep making music as the years move on. “Between all that, I will still be promoting ASINHELL, and I will probably write a new ASINHELL album, so the whole idea is to keep both bands going; it’s just two different bubbles that I jump into and I’m looking forward to that, it’s gonna be a lot of great fun.”

Impii Hora is out now via Metal Blade Records.

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