RUÏM: Spirits In The Dark Sky
It has to be said that Blasphemer aka Rune Eriksen has one hell of a musical CV. As guitarist of MAYHEM from 1985 until 2008 he played and wrote songs for the Norwegian black metal legends on the likes of Wolfs Lair Abyss and Grand Declaration Of War. As if that wasn’t enough, he has played in VLTIMAS (alongside David Vincent of MORBID ANGEL and Flo Mounier of CRYPTOPSY), Norwegian blackened thrashers AURA NOIR and much more. Adding to that impressive musical legacy, Blasphemer returns with his new project RUÏM which pairs the guitarist (and now vocalist) with drummer CSR to create brutal but brilliantly atmospheric pure black metal.
We, of course, begin by talking about Black Royal Spiritism – I.O Sino Da Igreja and how the album has been received so far and Blasphemer is extremely happy albeit a tad surprised with the reaction of the record thus far as he tells us enthusiastically. “Actually, the reviews have been literally amazing. It’s quite an extreme record as well, so I was kind of surprised that the reception would be at a level like this!”
It would seem that the reaction has paid off for Blasphemer as he also tells of putting his heart and soul into the creation of Black Royal Spiritism – I.O Sino Da Igreja. “I spent so much time and dedicated so much time and really been investing so much of my mental creativity and mental power and everything into this record, so it’s great to see that it finally pays off, I’m a happy camper at this point!”
Blasphemer continued by giving an insight about the dark nature of the album and what inspired it, although he was keen to state that he didn’t create the darkness of Black Royal Spiritism – I.O Sino Da Igreja to be simply formulaic. “I don’t do any music for the sake it. This is all natural but I guess the way that it turned out, this was partially because of the pandemic. The claustrophobic periods that I personally felt. So it was like some kind emotional undercurrent that also needed to get out and when I found the perfect vehicle for it, then it just went from there. It’s a long process, but it got very extreme.”
As the musical ideas of RUÏM grew, Blasphemer describes what the desire was in making the band move forward. “I was kind of determined that I needed to do guitars, bass and vocals by myself, and obviously music and lyrics, but I needed a drummer and I contacted some friends of mine in Paris and got César Vesvre (known as CSR) in on drums.”
The vocals by Blasphemer on the album are done in a mixture of Portuguese, Norwegian and English which he expands on the reasons for doing so. “The Norwegian singing was essentially a nod in the past, it’s also the same reason why I re-recorded the MAYHEM song Fall Of Seraphs which contains riffs from the first song I made for MAYHEM back in 1995. It was a great time in my past, and it is kind of making a full circle out of it and also, obviously, in my mother tongue, my native language. Regarding the English, I mean, it’s the go to language, that’s how we communicate, most of us and for the Portuguese part, I wanted to tie in with the lyrical aspect which is based on a kind of Spiritism that essentially came from Brazil.”
That spiritism is a nod to Blasphemer‘s current home of Portugal which he expands upon as he tells about and how it ties in with RUÏM, the name of which literally is named after Blasphemer‘s bastardised Portuguese translation of bad or evil, in keeping with the black metal that the band create. “I also felt like I needed to keep it clean in a way, I felt like I had a responsibility of singing about these things, towards certain energies and entities. I felt like I wanted to keep it as close to the original as possible, so some of these Portuguese lyrics are actually literal. I literally took them and kind of borrowed them from actual songs from from this specific spiritual movement. I wanted to keep it traditional and in respect of the tradition. I’ve been in Portugal for 18 years.”
With being involved in so many musical projects, Blasphemer tells us how he never sits still when it comes to making music and how that inspires him but also how he manages to fit it all in. “I constantly create but I think the biggest challenge for me is how to separate the music because if I’m on a roll with, let’s say RUÏM, and create a lot of stuff, and then suddenly I wake up one morning and create something a little bit softer, but it still has that kind of blackish element, it’s because I’m working on several albums all the time, so for me, the most challenging thing is actually to focus to put the energy on a focal point for the energy to each band.”
Blasphemer concluded our great chat with an update on what he is working on. “As well as the VLTIMAS album in the works, I am also working on my doom rock album with my Portuguese band AVA INFERI. So that is also pretty much done!”
Black Royal Spiritism – I – O Sino da Igreja is out now via Peaceville Records.
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