Hideous Divinity: Between Perfection & Decay

Italian death metal is on fire at the moment. Earlier this year, heavyweights FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE released a career-best with their incredible Veleno and veterans HOUR OF PENANCE absolutely smashed expectations with their Agonia Records debut, Misotheism, just last month. The final of the triumvirate of Italian death metal, HIDEOUS DIVINITY, are set to cement their rise to power with their Century Media Records debut, Simulacrum, to great critical success. Keeping the cult-movie concept running, this time around HIDEOUS DIVINITY took David Lynch‘s Lost Highway from the silver screen to the recording tape.

“We wanted to give it a different twist and have the plot, the idea and the concept of the movie fit the music and what we wanted to say.” Explains HIDEOUS DIVINITY and ABORTED bassist Stefano Franceschini on the choice of concept for Simulacrum. “I didn’t choose the movie, Enrico [di Lorenzo, vocals] did, like he always does. I think he tried to extract what you’re left with after watching any of David Lynch’s movies; a feeling of dread and anguish or confusion, and you just turn to the screen and ask ‘What the fuck did I just watch?’ There’s no redemption in his movies, most of the time, it’s very gloomy and dark. The nonsense, the meaningful meaninglessness in the movie, we wanted to take that and put it into the record combined with the other main concept of Simulacrum which is the philosophical thesis of Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition.  You take these two ideas, twist them, combine them together and have them fit the story in the album, and then you have Simulacrum.”

This theme of basing a concept album on a movie is not new for HIDEOUS DIVINITY. Rather, this is something that the outfit has been doing for their whole career, starting with their 2012 debut, Obeisance Rising, which took inspiration from John Carpenter’s They Live. Their 2014 follow up Cobra Verde was based on the movie of the same name. However, di Lorenzo advanced the band’s conceptual work with the critically acclaimed Adveniens, injecting philosophical concepts and ideas into the movie-theme, this time tackling David Cronenberg’s Videodrome.

“When Enrico writes music, he wants to have a strong connection with the story; he wants to let the music become one with the story and the concept of the movie. Of course, in the end, the movie is kind of an excuse because we’re still a death metal band. We’re not directors. But maybe one day it would be beautiful to write our own soundtrack to one of these movies!” Franceschini offers on the basis for HIDEOUS DIVINITY‘s long-running theme. “That’s probably the idea behind every record, imagining a personal, subjective soundtrack like to that movie. Rather than just following the scenes and what’s happening in the dialogue exactly, we’re taking the main concept and ideas of that specific movie, and then letting the music do the rest. I think it works as a very intriguing and also very stimulating gimmick to write music that also matches the message of that movie.”

In the future can we expect to see HIDEOUS DIVINITY writing their own stories and philosophical ponderings, almost creating a death metal screenplay, or will the band be sticking to their favourite cult classic movies as their thematic basis for the foreseeable future?

“That would be very, very challenging… But absolutely amazing to do!” Franceschini considers. “Enrico is the main songwriter in the band, and the concept guy, if he wanted to do something like that I’m pretty sure we’d all embrace that idea. I think it’s very complicated to write an album, let alone write an album and come up with an original story. But who knows, I’d definitely be glad to work on that!”

Back to Simulacrum, its clear that HIDEOUS DIVINITY struck onto a great thing with Adveniens, and wanted to keep the momentum rolling. The sonic parallels between the two records are clear, yet with Simulacrum we see the band advancing and maturing passed previous successes. “There’s definitely more space and atmosphere in Adveniens than in our previous albums, we wanted to have songs that tell a story rather than just be a sequence of riffs… We wanted to keep doing what we started there.” Franceschini offers, delving into the progression from Adveniens to Simulacrum. “The writing sessions were more like brainstorming about what we could do with the concept and how to reflect what’s been happening in death metal in the last few years. We wanted to say something with the music… Hopefully we managed to condense all of this into Simulacrum successfully, but I will let the fans have the last say!”

Conceptually unique, flawlessly executed and burning with passion, the Roman outfit have confidently topped their best work with Simulacrum, and are showing no signs of slowing down. Already at the top of the Italian scene alongside FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE and HOUR OF PENANCE, HIDEOUS DIVINITY are primed to take the European death metal scene by the horns and prove they are worthy of a place in the upper echelons. Woe betide those who stand in disagreement.

Simulacrum is out now via Century Media Records.

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