The Black Dahlia Murder: Where The Slime Live

A variance in quality over the course of any given band’s discography is the natural order of things. Some releases are near perfect, some display a considerable fall from grace, some are simply just solid. And that’s what makes THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER so special – over the course of the last 20 years, they have released albums like clockwork with a level of consistency in their brilliance that most artists could only imagine achieving in their wildest dreams. Their ninth album, the diseased and filth covered Verminous, coming after the band’s longest gap between albums – though still only two-and-a-half-years – continues this trend of consistent excellence.

“It was really down to Nightbringers being so successful, it afforded us more opportunities to tour than prior albums had. It was definitely nice to have some time off before this album though, and have the chance to feel human again for a little while.” Frontman Trevor Strnad comments on the slightly longer gap between albums. “But we’ve really been waiting for this moment for a long time. I recorded vocals for Verminous last May, so by the time it comes out it will be almost a year old! We’ve been sitting on this for a bit longer than any other record, but it feels great to finally be getting all secrets out!”

One of THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER’s most prominent strengths lies in Strnad himself. An instantly recognisable and versatile vocalist, he is also one of the best lyricists in death metal, having near-mastered the art of storytelling in his lyrics. Verminous is no different, and sees Strnad delve once more into horror and literary darkness.

“It’s not a conceptual record but there are a couple of points where I touch on the underground, vermin-like aspect of the title and the cover, like the opening title track, obviously, and Sunless Empire where I talked about us living underground and try to bring the sewer world on the cover to life,” he explains. “The final song, Dawn of Rats, is also tied into the vermin aspect, obviously. It’s about a swarm of rats that live in the walls of a church and witness a series of molestations by the preacher. Eventually they stage an attack on the guy, and eat him alive.”

One of the highlight tracks from Verminous both in terms of lyrical storytelling and musical brilliance, however, comes in Removal of the Oaken Stake. Lyrically, the story of Removal of the Oaken Stake is a vampiric tale, told from the perspective of a vampire who has been staked into his coffin, and has rotten to little more than sentient bones. He painfully awaits the day the stake is removed when he will regenerate and rise from the grave and feast again.

“This has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. It was influenced by this roleplaying game called Rifts, and the Vampire Kingdoms expansion. There was a four panel drawing with the expansion that has a skeletal vampire, someone pulls the stake out, then the sinew, the muscles, everything starts to grow back over the bones, and he comes back to life.” Strnad offers, discussing his inspiration behind the concept of Removal of the Oaken Stake. “There’s a lot of roleplaying ties to the band. It was something that, along with horror, really influenced my love of the macabre and my love of fantasy, and that’s resonated through THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER.” Speaking of role playing games, the pre-order packages of Verminous had an option for one of the most unique pieces of merch in the game: a Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying expansion. Given the band’s ties to RPGs, it seems like a match made in heaven; but how did it come to be?

“It started as just a Dungeon Master’s screen – I thought the artwork would look really cool. We’ve flirted with doing something like that before, with a dice set,” Strnad explains. “Karim Peter, our main merch guy and advisor to the band, he suggested we do one better and make a one-shot adventure Dungeons and Dragons that’s themed around some of the lyrics and the artwork. We got in contact with Nerdgore, a dude who draws comic book style stuff, and Dungeon Punks, who wrote the adventure. It came out awesome!”

Although Dungeon Punks wrote the adventure, given his talent for storytelling, did Strnad play a role in the adventure’s creation? “I wasn’t really too involved. Dungeon Punks took the reins, and they did a really good job. It has some tongue-in-cheer classic metal references, some funny Easter eggs in there, it’s really cool… I feel guarded about putting another format of writing out there. I like the format of a short song, and telling a story in only a few minutes.”

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER seem to be going from strength to strength. Already one of the most respected bands in death metal, the quintet are only getting stronger with each album. The music is tighter, the stories more imaginative, the merch more mind-blowing. They may still feel underground, trapped with the rats and the roaches and where the slime lives, but it is only a matter of time before they jump to the very top of the death metal scene.

Verminous is out now via Metal Blade Records. 

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