Noctule: Knower Of The Unknown

From her creative talents to being fiercely open about the issues that surround us, Serena Cherry has become a powerhouse within the metal scene. Most known for being vocalist and guitarist in SVALBARD, Cherry first grew her roots in black metal. Now in 2021, she returns to her core with the release of her solo black metal project, NOCTULE. Inspired one night in the COVID-19 lockdown playing Skyrim, Cherry reflected on how the game and the concepts within it connect so well to the genre. Out of that spark in her mind, Wretched Abyss, the album themed around Skyrim was born. We sat with Cherry ahead of the album to discuss its main influences and how nobody thought a woman had composed an entire black metal album about a game all by herself.

“It was really nice to do something that’s just me. I know it sounds a bit weird but I often get referred to as the singer from SVALBARD and I feel like I don’t get given any musical credit. It’s nice to be able to showcase what I can do on my own musically. That sounds really self-indulgent but I think that was part of it, maybe a little bit about having something to prove,” Cherry states about making the album.

As Cherry continues to explain, there is nothing self-indulgent about her excitement at doing something where she has full credit. Even with the release of her music video, Wretched Abyss, she found herself once again, lacking the credit for the music. She explains about who gets it, exposing yet another crack in the support for women in music. “I have noticed already that I released one music video and I got all the prettiest boys I know with long hair to be in the video and play the song. They don’t play on the recording, they’re just miming along to my track and already I’m seeing people going on their social media and congratulating them on their song. I was with one of them the other day walking down the road because I live with them, and they stopped him and were all like ‘congratulations on your song’ and I was just there like, ‘I wrote it, he just turned up for the video’.”

Because of this, in a way Cherry is slightly regretting having chosen to have a full band set-up for her music video because there is a detraction from the fact that this album was written by her. Whilst she speaks about how it makes her sound a little arrogant, when you’re faced with people not giving you credit for your work, you do end up in a position where it becomes frustrating. How could a woman possibly write an entire black metal album themed around an RPG game?

“I don’t think that feeling of needing to prove myself as a metal musician is ever going to go away. I think you’re always going to be faced with the ‘really?’ or ‘does your band sound like EVANESCENCE?’ There’s always going to be that doubt and suspicion.”

In this situation for Cherry’s NOCTULE project, it doesn’t just tie into the music aspect, it falls into the gaming world. There’s a level of misogyny within the gaming community that isn’t unnoticed. The ‘girl gamer’ label has been a thing for as long as we remember, from sexist comments that girls can’t play Call of Duty as good as boys, or being preyed on by male gamers, some much older than they make out to be. There’s yet again, that frustration, but Cherry is hopeful in her voice that perhaps because the music and gaming community are often pretty closely interlinked, the conversations we’re having currently about the misogynistic issues will cross over and change will happen.

Just by sitting down and talking with Cherry about the album and the influences the game had on it showed that she did this for herself, it was something she enjoys and she wanted to do. There were no ulterior motives involved. It is possible, and not unrare that women can like and do the same things men do.

From her interest in Daedric princes, most notably Hermaeus Mora, which is who the album is titled after, to what she would like to see change in terms of mechanisms with Elder Scrolls VI, Cherry has created possibly one of the best themed albums we have been dreaming for. She has single-handedly, and in a quick time frame, crafted something that will hopefully be seen as a masterpiece by music and gaming lovers across the globe.

Aforementioned, doing this on her own was almost a way of proving herself, but she has gone above and beyond that. Women shouldn’t need to feel the need to prove themselves, or lack any recognition for the work they put into something. With what she’s pulled out of the bag, there’s no denying that Serena Cherry will teach some people a few lessons and set a path in the right direction for the future of women in music and gaming. “Power. You have it, as do all Dov. But power is inert without action and choice.” – Paarthurnax.

Wretched Abyss is out now via Church Road Records. 

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