Cirith Ungol: Back In Black…Forever!

If TOOL hadn’t released Fear Inoculum last year, but waited another sixteen before revealing it in 2035, the wait would have been considered ludicrous. Yet, that’s the scenario that CIRITH UNGOL have faced. Until this year, the latest album in their catalogue was 1991’s Paradise Lost, and so to have new material since METALLICA brought out The Black Album borders on the inconceivable. However, for founding member Robert Garven, it’s been a wonderful experience.

“It’s been amazing,” he gushes. “The biggest thing is that a lot of people are saying ‘Wow CIRITH UNGOL have brought out an album and we can’t believe it sounds like CIRITH UNGOL!’, but if THE BEATLES had got back together ten years after their split and released an album, I can’t imagine anyone being surprised that it sounded like them. We’re really excited and pumped up by the album though; we wanted to try and pick up right where we left off, because we never wanted to break up in the first place; we were almost forced to due to things happening in the music industry at the time.”

Formed way back in 1971, CIRITH UNGOL are, retrospectively, one of the godfathers of American heavy metal. The four albums they released the first time told stories of sorcery and fantasy, calls to arms to stand up against ‘false metal’ and darker, dystopian tunes that helped set the foundations for what would become doom metal. Never commercially successful, the band broke up after conflict between them and their label at the time, Restless Records, thus beginning a hiatus that would last for the next 23 years. However, after reconvening in 2015 and playing their first live show a year later, the band were pushing to find somewhere to call home. After they found it in 2017, things started moving quickly.

“As soon as we found a room to rehearse in – which wasn’t particularly easy – we started writing new material,” explains Robert. “If you’re a painter, for example, and you’re somewhere that doesn’t stock the equipment you require, you can’t paint, but you’ll pick it back up the minute you have it again and that’s what we did. Did we ever think it would become a new album? Probably not, and we weren’t really planning for it either. We were just writing music once again to entertain ourselves.”

The catalyst for what would become Forever Black, the band’s fifth studio album, came about via the band’s lead vocalist Tim Baker, and in rather unusual circumstances. “He came across a project online for an upcoming, full length-animated film called The Planet of Doom. Given that we have a song called Doom Planet it immediately interested us and we actually wrote a new song for the soundtrack. There’s no dialogue in the film, it’s entirely musical and there’s fifteen artists and bands who have contributed to it. I really feel that, when it’s released, it’ll be one of the highlights of our career; I joked with the producers that when we’re dead and gone this thing will still be on Netflix in twenty years! In any event, that song was Witch’s Game and we released it as a single, which garnered a really positive reaction. A lot of critics said ‘Wow, CIRITH UNGOL can still write music, this is really great! I hope there’s a new album somewhere down the line’ and that gave us the green light to work towards Forever Black.”

As mentioned before, Forever Black is a true, old school metal album, albeit with the added production value that technology allows nowadays. There are definite moments that evoke images of MAIDEN and MÖTÖRHEAD, but also SABBATH and CANDLEMASS. Importantly too, there’s a whole generation of metal fans who will now be introduced to the band. Is that something Robert hopes comes from this? “That’s definitely the hope, but we won’t hold our breath on it. We’ve always been out of step with what’s going on around us – either late to the party or before our time, even after our time. We’re a little bit older than we were before and we’re now trying to make our time on the stage worthwhile, so we now want to try and release as much material as we can in the hope it will find a new generation to carry on the torch of what we believe to be ‘true metal’.”

Does Robert ever wish CIRITH UNGOL had more success earlier on in their careers? “Honestly, given how things have turned out, even in hindsight we would say no. However, in the mid 80’s we received word that someone wanted to manage us, and having never had a good manager until that point we arranged a meeting. This was at the height and glam metal, and when we met up the first thing he asked was whether we were willing to go onstage in makeup and a different attire. We told him where to go and members of his record label told us that we had just blown our biggest chance. That guy went onto manage GUNS N’ ROSES and helped them explode into one of the biggest bands of all time. The joke now is that, as we all wish we could have made more money, all we need is someone to pass us the mascara!”

Forever Black is out now via Metal Blade Records. 

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