One of the longest-running and most consistent French Black Metal bands is undoubtedly Merrimack. The band’s founding dates back as far as 1994, so guitarist Perversifier has seen all the trends and hypes come and go but has always stayed true to his own vision of the genre. That stoic eye and determined attitude has earned the band several high-profile works, with ‘Of Grace And Gravity’ being the most mature-sounding and balanced record to date. About that latest album and about his perspective and thoughts on Black Metal in general, I spoke to Perversifier who I threw some pressing questions at…
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Hi Perversifier, welcome to The Whispering Darkness. And also thank you for dropping such a great record that is ‘Of Grace And Gravity’. With the album just being released, how do you look back at the creative process that went with shaping it?
Hi. Thank you for the interview.
Well, it took us 7 years and several lock-downs to create and release this record, that might sound quite long, but it was the time necessary to make a record that we are satisfied with. More than satisfied, should I say. We always try to reach what we consider to be perfection according to our standards, so that’s a long and sometimes painful process.
This process has not been different from what we did for the previous records, though. We have just all been busy with our respective private lives, and the lock downs have been the trigger, giving us much more free time than we usually have.
With a title like this, ‘Of Grace And Gravity’, it is inevitable that you are wondering what is the conceptual idea behind it. Can you tell me anything about the visions and ideas that comes with the album?
This is not a concept album, each song deal with a different topic, there is no common thread between them. “Of Grace and Gravity” was originally supposed to be the name of one of the songs. We had a hard time to find an album title that was summing up the whole album, and we suddenly thought that this song name would be perfect for this purpose. So we renamed this song to “Under the Aimless Spheres” and took “Of Grace and Gravity” as the album title.
This title comes from a book by the philosopher Simone Weil, “La Pesanteur et la Grace”. Note that this is the philosopher, not the French politician who legalized abortion (and whose name is spelled much the same). Simone Weil is a fascinating thinker: a Jew who converted to Catholicism, she was also a great reader of Plato, who notably considered the relationship between Platonism and the beginnings of Christianity. As such, she was often perceived as a “Gnostic” by Catholics, because she refused to abandon her Platonic vision of the world, which is profoundly dualistic – metaphysically opposed to Christian revelation, which is “monistic”. Simone Weil was also a great specialist in mathematics and epistemology and her dualism is inspired by them: for example, she cosmically opposes gravity and grace. Gravity being, as it were, the shadow cast by God across time… This is undoubtedly the greatest theological strength of her thought, which in this sense is inspired by Rhenish mysticism: that God created the world *by withdrawing from it.* That all creation is the fruit of abandonment.
As for the song’s lyrics, we don’t like to explain them. It’s like poetry. You never receive a text explanation by the writer when you buy a book of poetry. Every listener can have its own understanding and interpretations of our lyrics.
On a musical side of things, to me your new album feels like a logical continuation of its preceding works. Yet, there are some differences that the careful listener might be able to discern. To me it seems a little less dissonant and overall more balanced in terms of all the ingredients of trademark Merrimack. How would you describe the difference between ‘Of Grace And Gravity’ when comparing it to the other albums?
Many people told us that this album was quite different from its predecessors, I’m quite glad that you think it is not, as I agree with you, for me, it’s totally in the continuity of “Omegaphilia”, when it comes to song writing.
The production is quite different, and that is maybe what gives a different “colour” to this album.
We have decided to go with a totally different approach for this album compared to the previous ones. First, we didn’t use a metronome at all and we didn’t edit any drum part. Everything you hear on the record has been played “as is”. We had to play tracking guitars live for our drummer to record his parts, which makes the music less formatted, less artificial, much more genuine and natural.
Then, we didn’t double track our guitars. There is only one take for each of the guitars, which also adds to this feeling of authenticity. It’s not overproduced, it’s raw, aggressive, but yet modern.
Beside the production, as I said, I believe the song writing is not much different from what we usually do. We already started with “Omegaphilia” to simplify our structures. Even though the songs on this album are all around 7 minutes long, they are not too complicated in terms of architecture. We are still far from the rock standards of “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus”. We still have a lot of riffs, but all songs have a consistency, a leading wire and we play the same riffs more often in a song.
Our trademark is the mixing of very fast and aggressive parts with very slow and muddy arpeggios, tempo shifts, and overall, oppressive atmosphere. All these ingredients are perfectly mixed in this album.
Something that struck me on ‘Of Grace And Gravity’, is the increasing amount of dynamics when compared to previous albums. A song like ‘Starving Crows’ for instance has this strong slow and lingering riff that gives the album a very haunting and sinister ambiance. It is not something that is completely new to the musical mix of Merrimack, but it surely feels more evident on the new album. Can you relate to that?
It’s funny that you mention “Starving Crowns”, as it took me 17 versions before arriving to this final one. It has been a very difficult song to finalize. This song is going crescendo, from a very slow and almost doom first half, to a frenzy ending. It is like a “story”, a travel. It is difficult to put such songs in place, it’s easy to fall in the trap of making it boring or too long. But I think it doesn’t sound long, we are never bored while listening to it. But this kind of song are more “personal” ones. I composed this one alone, and some members were not very convinced by it, maybe because it’s a bit “different”. As I said, I had to do many versions to have it approved by everybody.
In my review for ‘Of Grace And Gravity’, I mentioned that the basis of Merrimack is more or less founded on the groundwork laid by bands like Ofermod. A dark and uncomfortable sound, in which dissonance and sinister melodies play a major role. A musical concept that you yourself have perfected over the years and given it your own twist. What would you name yourself as your main sources of inspiration?
We enjoy Ofermod quite a lot, as it is the kind of Black Metal that we like to listen to. We feel quite connected with their music, but also their ideology and imagery. We have been tagged by many media as “orthodox Black Metal”, and I guess this is what you are referring to. But to be honest, we don’t feel like we are inspired by these bands.
We all have different tastes when it comes to music, we all have our own influences, and Merrimack is the mix of the contribution of 5 members. We have never met and said to each other “we want to do an album in the vein of Ofermod”. It all comes naturally.
I personally almost don’t listen to Black Metal anymore. There is not a single album that has “moved” me in the past 10 years. So maybe I am nostalgic, and I play some kind of old school Black Metal that I used to love and that is nowadays almost dead.
The maturity of the music that is presented on ‘Of Grace And Gravity’ again makes me wondering why Merrimack, at least to me, never got the same level of attention and appreciation that a lot of your French peers seems to get. I never got the impression that this is something that bothered you, but how do you look to such a statement?
I honestly don’t know, and you are right, I honestly don’t care. I think France has been the homeland of many pioneers, in the sense that many bands have broken the boundaries and proposed very original kinds of Black Metal. Bands such as Deathspell Omega and Blut Aus Nord have really created something new and original. On our side, we are “traditionalists”. We play some classic Black Metal, with no real will to be innovative. That’s probably why we don’t get as much praise as the aforementioned bands. But their success is well deserved.
Picking up on the previous question, in a more general way, how would you, as an insider for many years, describe the current state of the French Black Metal scene? To me it seems that, although it has always had a healthy scene, the quality of the offered work has increased a lot in the last, say, ten years or so. What is your view on that?
I don’t really agree. I would say that the French Black Metal scene is at the image of the worldwide Black Metal scene: dying.
Some bands of course try to propose something new, but it doesn’t really work with me. I honestly can’t listen to bands such as Igorrr, Zeal & Ardour, Pensées Nocturnes, to name a few. All those blends, all these attempts to mix Black Metal with other genres, are failing to hit me. The search of originally just for the sake of it is not something that works with me.
As for the more traditional bands, they are often under the radar, there is nothing exceptional about them.
And, as a whole, if you look at the Black Metal scene of today, what would you see as the biggest difference from how you experienced it in your early days in the 90’s? And do you still feel part of a “scene” at all, if you like to call it that way anyway?
As I said before, I think Black Metal has been dying for a long time. EVERYTHING is different nowadays to what it was in the 90’s. There is almost nothing in common. The genre has been perverted by an overproduction of average, if not crappy, records. Internet has deeply changed the world we live in, and the Black Metal does not make any exception.
In 2024, the whole mentality of mankind has changed, and the world is becoming so woke that some Black Metal bands apologize when they do something controversial. That is the total opposite of what it was meant to be.
I don’t belong to any scene at all. I continue to go to few gigs and fests, but that’s all. There is no more “scene”. Because the “scene” nowadays is Instagram. It’s not anymore an underground circle of people, meeting, trading music, exchanging ideas, and living truly their passion.
Merrimack is band that performs live, but you are not an overly active band when it comes to playing live. I can imagine that, compared to many years ago, your regular life has changed a lot and that effects your live activity. But, is there any touring being planned to promote the new album?
You are right. We have all regular jobs, two members have had children for the first time in the past two years, some members play in other bands, etc… So we are definitely not a band that can or want to tour 200 days a year. We are satisfied with playing a few gigs/fests every year and to tour once every few years. This year, we will play several festivals and do a small tour this summer with Gevurah.
Although Merrimack has never been a band that spawned an album each year and for the most part doesn’t release any EP’s or splits in between, there was a substantial gap of seven years between ‘Omegaphilia’ and ‘Of Grace And Gravity’. What can we expect from the band in the upcoming time?
We have decided that we are going to try to not wait 7 years before releasing a new album. For now, we are focusing on the promotion of “Of Grace and Gravity”, and playing live, but I believe we are going to start composing again as early as beginning of next year. Hopefully, a new album will be released in the next 3 years.
Thanks a lot for the time you took in answering these questions, I’d like to give you the opportunity to round off this interview with your last words…
Thank for this interview. We hope you enjoy this last album and to meet you all during the few festivals we’ll play this year!
