Summoning the Lich: The Lure of the Necromancer

The world of Arrias is one of magic and warfare, of swords and sorcery. Since time immemorial a secretive caste of druids have protected Arrias from the veil of chaos, their lives from birth devoted to keeping creatures of malevolence from the world of men, even as humanity turned its back on magic and put its trust in technology and machinery. Ageless, nameless and, approaching death, the druid who has spent his entire existence protecting the Kingdom of Rodor without thanks now seeks revenge of a kingdom that has turned its back on him. Through dark magic, he tears open the veil and summons an Army of Sin, binding his own soul to what is now his immortal walking corpse, and marches to wreak havoc and destruction of the Kingdom of Rodor, at the head of a host of chaos. This is the story of United In Chaos, the debut album from Missouri melodic death metallers SUMMONING THE LICH.

Concept album are not unique in heavy metal; the freedom and scope devoting an entire album to one topic, theme or story allows lands perfectly with the storytelling roots of the genre. But rarely do we see an album with a story so well fleshed out, world building of such literary proportions as SUMMONING THE LICH. Conceptually, United In Chaos is but the first of a series of albums based in the fantasy world of Arrias, a world of vocalist David Bruno‘s own creation.

“Early on we decided we wanted to have a fantasy concept within the lyrics. Initially we were going to focus on one-off stories, like the Grimm Fairy Tales; stories of witches and wizards and chaos – but I just couldn’t resist the chance to dive deeper into the world I was starting to create!” Explains Bruno on the early stages of SUMMONING THE LICH‘s creation process. “Eventually, it developed into a fully fleshed out story. I’ve now got three albums planned and solidified, and I’m ready to go further if everything works out for us – but at the moment we do have a trilogy that’s set in place, story wise. The story itself and all its characters are all unique to SUMMONING THE LICH and the world I’ve created, but I definitely take elements from some of the properties I love. There’s some homages here and there, I love putting in references to the properties I love because they’re what influenced my own writing.”

It’s important to remember right off the bat, though, that Easter eggs like these are no different than a thrash band throwing around a riff or two of SLAYER worship – it’s a nod of acknowledgement to where your inspirations lie. So what were Bruno‘s influences when penning the story of the fallen druid, and has quest to raze Rodor to the ground?

“I grew up with The Lord of the Rings – that was a huge part of my life growing up in the ’90s and going into the 2000s and seeing the movies after reading the books totally changed my life, and opened my eyes to fantasy in general. I played a lot of Warcraft 3, Magic: The Gathering, even Adventure Time – I love Adventure Time!” Bruno explains. “I happened upon it while I was doing a work from home job that was pretty slow, and I was just hooked from the first season with all the fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons references, and the story developed into something that ended up being ten seasons long… Even religious texts like the Apocrypha and the Key of Solomon which talks about Abrahamic demons, I like to draw from points like that too.”

As masterful as Bruno‘s lyrics are, though, there is only so much worldbuilding, character and plot development and narrative that can b put across over the span of a four minute song. And with the monumental effort he has put into this, leaving the story of United In Chaos as purely a lyrical work seems almost like a waste. It would be another monolithic effort, but what are the chances of SUMMONING THE LICH releasing a novelisation of the story – either album by album or as a collection at the end of the trilogy cycle? It’s rare, but not unheard of – INSOMNIUM did it with Winter’s Gate, BAEST have done it with Venenum and are looking into doing the same with Necro Sapiens. It can be done – and Bruno has had these thoughts as well, it seems.

“We’ve been discussing heavy what kind of medium we would do if we were to do this. It’s just deciding, do I want to novelise it, do I want to go for a graphic novel – which would be more intensive in terms of getting artists involved, but would bring a different element to the story – or do I want to split the different and go for a hybrid of the two and release it digitally? Regardless, I’m planning on releasing supplementary material aside from the album that will dive deeper into the worldbuilding, the stories of the album and stories from before and after the album.”

But what about the music itself? We could fill pages delving into the fantastical story behind United in Chaos, but as every metal fan would agree with the riffs are just as important. So from a sonic perspective, where do SUMMONING THE LICH draw their influences from?

“We all have pretty different music backgrounds. John [Flynn, bass] has always been more into the prog side, TJ [Chilton, drums] likes a lot of deathcore and MESHUGGAH style stuff while Ryan [Felps, guitars] grew up listening to METALLICA then went straight into death metal from there. I come from more of a hardcore background. But there’s stuff we all gravitate to, JOB FOR A COWBOY, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, obviously, CANNIBAL CORPSE, HOUR OF PENNANCE etc.” Bruno muses. “But in terms of the musical goal of SUMMONING THE LICH, we just want to write heavy, spooky, punishing death metal. We want to keep it aggressive, but have dynamics. We write what we write, we have no agenda in terms of keeping certain styles or riffs out as long it’s in service to the song. For the next album, we want to refine what we’ve been doing, lean more on the darker elements but try not to get too in our own heads, keep things natural.”

The importance of bands like SUMMONING THE LICH can’t be overstated. Sure, their music lacks the political awareness of CATTLE DECAPITATION, the real world brutality of CANNIBAL CORPSE or the horror of THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, and sure there might be an argument to be made that fantasy story the band have crafted here is nerdy – but let’s just remember heavy metal is a genre almost entirely built on nerdiness in one form or another. And with our world degenerating into a darker and darker place, there’s a lot to be said for the escapism United in Chaos offers. Just beware the lure of the necromancer.

United In Chaos is out now via Prosthetic Records. 

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