Ultimate Darkness, the new Darkseed album, was a magnificent release and there was no chance I would miss the opportunity of an interview with them. Martin Motnik enlightened us on some questions we had and provided us some vital information concerning his band...

Hello, how are you?

Great, thanks! We are happy to see some daylight again after the weeks in the studio!

Congratulations on your new album. Are the reviews concerning Ultimate Darkness positive so far?

Thanks for your congratulations! We are very satisfied about the reviews, many international magazines and webzines have given us very positive feedback. But especially our fans rated Ultimate Darkness as the best Darkseed album up to now, which makes us very happy.

What was the commercial success of Astral Adventures and what are your expectations for your new album?

Astral Adventures was admittedly not the strongest Darkseed album, but it gave us the chance to take a look from a distance at the band. After Astral Adventures, Stefan left the band for a year and a totally new line-up has been formed up. Now we have a band with great musicians, Stefan is back as the singer and main songwriter, and so we are very optimistic for some great perspectives of the new album Ultimate Darkness.

Will you make a video for the new album?

We would love to make a video, but it is not planned yet. We are thinking about filming some live shows which we might put on a DVD.

Ultimate Darkness has got elements from all the previous albums Darkseed have created. Did you intend to do that in the first place? If yes, why so?

We did not have a plan to put a special style on Ultimate Darkness. Our goal was only to make the songs harder again, which was certainly a character of earlier Darkseed albums, but of course we added more electronics than in former albums, which is probably comparable with the sound of Astral Adventures. But we were curious of the result ourselves.

Moreover, what does ‘Ultimate Darkness’ as a title mean to you? You’ve released Diving Into Darkness in the past. Do you want to show that you’re returning to older days or is it just a title?

You've recognized that totally right! Diving into Darkness was probably the most accredited Darkseed album, and our fans seem to rate that in a similar way. We see Ultimate Darkness as the successor of Diving into Darkness. When it is about lyrics, Stefan wrote about darkness that might occur in the life of every single person, so it can be seen as 'ultimate' too, since it is real darkness and no mythological darkness.

What new elements to your sound do you think you’ve added this time?

The songs are faster and deeper, and we've added some more modern electronic elements. There have been intense developments especially for software synthesizers and plug ins which we used and implemented in the songs. Plus the musicians are much better than in earlier line-ups so the playing has a very high quality.

The vocals are really great on Ultimate Darkness. They are more natural that the industrial kind of ones you used in Astral Adventures. Do you think the mix of brutal with more natural vocals fits more in the style you’ve adopted?

Thanks, Stefan will be happy to hear that! The vocals swap from rough to normal to emphasize the lyrics and to diversify the music. Some of the vocals are hard to transfer live on stage, so my job besides playing the bass will be to support Stefan and take over some vocal parts.

About the album’s cover…don’t you think it’s too simple?

The cover shows a solar eclipse which represents the might of the sun and the dependency of the earth from the sun. Which darkness could be more ultimate than an eternal eclipse of the sun? Ultimate Darkness is for us the symbolization of a general loss of values which leads to human weaknesses, producing broken relationships, superficially, egoism, bigotry, destruction of the nature etc. The two snakes on the cover symbolize the temptation misleading to this loss of values. You see, the cover looks very clear and simple, but it holds a lot of symbolic in it.

I think there will be a bonus disc to the new album. Would you like to share some information about it with us?

Sure, our record company stepped up to us and asked us about the idea adding a bonus CD to our new release. It should hold a collection of songs which have not been released yet on previous CDs. The bonus CD holds 13 songs from the time between 1996 and 2004 which have been recorded during the different sessions.

About your first two albums (Romantic Tales Mini-CD and Midnight Solemnity Dance)…are they available at CD stores? The problem is that I haven’t found them yet.

We know it is hard to get the old releases since they are sold out and the record companies don't plan to reproduce them. You should check out ebay regularly. Sometimes somebody offers an old Darkseed CD there.

Which album would you suggest to someone who has never heard of Darkseed before to listen?

I think Ultimate Darkness is a very good introduction to Darkseed. It is a collection of multi-faceted songs and shows the strengths of the band very good. Furthermore the bonus CD shows a profile of the band during its progression. We have a special offer for our fans: on our website www.darkseed.com there is a link to our shop on ebay where we sell the new CD with original autographs of the band members. We even make the CD to your name!

As a band, you usually play in single shows instead of going on a tour. Why is that?

We have made only one tour by now which was after the release of Spellcraft. After that, we preferred single shows and playing on festivals. Since last year we have a big German booking agency as our partner and we are currently talking about planning a tour. But we don't know any details yet.

By the way, how many shows are booked so far? I hope you’ll do some touring and hopefully come to Greece.

Right now there are 3 confirmed dates in Germany. We all would love to make a tour through whole Europe, and Greece would be a great place to play! As soon as we make it there we will let you now!

That’s all, thank you very much! Is there any thing you would like to say to our readers and your fans?

Could we get your soccer coach back?

- Issue 37:: Review: Ultimate Darkness
- Issue 40:: Interview: with Martin Motnik (Bass)
- Issue 25:: Interview: with Tommy

- Back to Issue's 40 contents
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