Strigoi: There is Only Hell
On the 23rd of October 1971, just 11 days after his 25th birthday, Ion Rîmaru was executed. He was dragged, kicking and screaming, to the post, fighting his captors and struggling against his restraints in futility, mad with rage. Once tied to the post, he grew more rabid, twisting his body around the wooden stake, gnashing at his clothes and screaming. Casting blame for his crimes on his father and pathetically begging for life, he spat vitriol at his executioners before the firing squad silenced him. And so ended the Strigoi of Bucharest and a short-lived Rîmaru dynasty of terror.Fast forward almost five decades, and the Strigoi of Bucharest serves as an influence for the new outfit from PARADISE LOST‘s guitarist Greg Mackintosh, STRIGOI, and their debut album, Abandon All Faith.
“The name comes from Romanian folklore… there’s lots of cool names there! This was just one I picked out and took to Chris [Casket], he liked it and started looking up other things about it. It does come from the folklore, and it does have an interesting meaning behind it, but mainly, it’s just a really cool name!” Explains Mackintosh, founding member of STRIGOI, on his new band’s moniker. “There’s a song on the album called Iniquitous Rage, which Chris wrote the lyrics to when he was researching the word ‘strigoi’, he found put about a serial killer called the Strigoi of Bucharest. After he died, they went back historically and found crimes that he couldn’t have committed because he was too young, and it turned it his father had done them. It was like a family business… we just thought that was interesting!”
Born in late 2018, STRIGOI formed after Mackintosh laid his previous outfit, VALLENFYRE, to rest. Where VALLENFYRE was a band with a purpose, allowing him to channel his grief over his father’s passing, STRIGOI brings a less sombre tone. “There is no longer any cathartic element to it, this is just something that I feel the need to do.” Mackintosh offers. “When I started doing VALLENFYRE, I reconnected with this underground scene that I hadn’t been a part of for 20 years that not only still exists, but is more vibrant than ever. Reconnecting with that was a big thing for me, and I wanted to continue to be a part of that.”
Where VALLENFYRE was a deeply personal, cathartic and painful experience, STRIGOI is thematically grand, dealing with the horrors of reality and religion on a larger scale. “I’d say the main theme of STRIGOI is anti-religion, in all forms. I’ve been an atheist for a long time, but the older I get the grumpier I get about it. I think I’m becoming more of a militant atheist, where religion is something to be fought rather than put up with… A lot of the band is centred around that. A lot of people have said the cover is a twisted Jesus Christ figure, but its really a twisted version, its a phantom and a parody of a crucifix.” Mackintosh explains on the overarching theme of STRIGOI as a band. “Even with our sigil, the upside down cross is obvious – that’s anti-Christian – there’s a moon without a star which is anti-Muslim, and spears which signify a fight. It’s something both Chris and I feel very strongly about… Even women’s rights, or animal rights. You wouldn’t dream of doing certain things to animals or to women, but if a religion does then that’s okay. I think that’s disgusting, and should be eradicated.”
With a fairly black metal theme driving STRIGOI forward, complete with the imagery and a blackened edge to the crusty, doomy death metal assault, what can be expected from STRIGOI when they hit the road in 2020? Are we going to see Mackintosh, Casket and co. decked out in armour and corpse paint? “To a degree… I have a horrendous cheese filter!” STRIGOI‘s main man comments drily. “With VALLENFYRE is was a very street-level, crusty, chaotic performance. With STRIGOI, we want to do something a bit different, carry on this theme running through the artwork and the videos. For want of a better word, [we want to be] more theatrical, do something a bit darker… But I’ve got to be very careful of that line, as I know when I watch bands there’s a fine line between being striking and being an absolute ball of cheese.”
For almost a decade, Mackintosh split his time between VALLENFYRE and doom heavyweights PARADISE LOST. With VALLENFYRE having run its natural course, there was a worry that the UK extreme metal scene was going to lose one of its strongest voices – fortunately, STRIGOI puts these worries to rest. Mackintosh is back swinging, having worked through his pain he is using the extremity of STRIGOI‘s blackened, doomy death metal to take the fight to the religious powers of the world. This is by no means breaking new ground for metal, but is a worthy fight none the less. And who better than Mackintosh, a tried and tested veteran of British extreme metal to lead the vanguard?
Abandon All Faith is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.
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