After having missed the fact that the band released a 2-track EP in 2017, I was surprised to see Deviser returning with a new full-length album. Yet, it was not so much the sudden return of the band that really surprised me the most. After the band’s latest album, 2011’s ‘Seasons Of Darkness’, an album with a distinctly different sound from the early sound, I did not expect anything to sound quite like ‘Evil Summons Evil’. It can be celebrated as a “grand return” to the sound of the first two albums, which can be seen as the Deviser’s finest hour. In the fall of 2023 I reach out to the band and fired away some questions…
Hi there Matt and welcome to The Whispering Darkness. A year ago you have released your fifth installment, ‘Evil Summons Evil’ through Hammerheart Records, since we are just over twelve months after it saw the light of day and the initial buzz around it will have receded a bit by now, how do you look back on that album today?
A year has passed but the excitement that caused this album has not died down yet. Obviously the amazing reviews it received but also the amazing songs it contains, this dark galloping atmosphere combined with the majestic aesthetic that emanates from every note, was the reason why “Evil Summons Evil” is so strongly remembered even today. Some of the reviews it received were really impressive and it filled us with responsibility to ensure that the next album is on the same level. It has been a great reward for us how much positive feedback everyone has given to “Evil Summons Evil”, the grueling process of completing this album has been worth it.
It is always a little hard to surpass recordings that are surrounded by a certain amount of nostalgia or historical significance, but to me ‘Evil Summons Evil’ is by far the best album you have recorded in years. How do you yourself think the album measures up to the albums Deviser is most acclaimed for, ‘Unspeakable Cults’ (1996) and ‘Transmission To Chaos’ (1998)?
As then, almost three decades ago, so now the main composers, core of the band, are exclusively me and Nick. The same collaboration we had then is still present without third party opinions from other members. And this is how it will be from now on after we learned our lesson in the worst way. Honestly, I don’t think there has been another Deviser album since 2002. “Evil Summons Evil” came to fix that. Certainly our first album is considered today as unsurpassed, but we have set a goal to honor those years by releasing albums of equal quality full of passion, darkness and majestic songs that will haunt you all and will be remembered by everyone for many years.
Your previous album, ‘Seasons Of Darkness’ was released back in 2011, that means you took quite a lot of time to forge ‘Evil Summons Evil’. Because of that long hiatus, many may have thought Deviser had thrown in the towel. What caused us to have to be quite patient before we could indulge in this new album?
Long story, we really go back many years. Essentially “Seasons of Darkness” was an experiment, a work of our then guitarist Manos. We didn’t intend for it to be released as an album, it was a demo basically. It does not represent us as a band and should not have been mixed to be released. It was our mistake. At that time I remember that the gothic scene influenced our compositions, something far from what we were. This music direction as well as the disagreements we had, created frustration for me and forced me to stay out of it all (compose, mixdown process, lay out). The band went into hibernation, I had lost interest until Nick, many years later, pushed me to try again the two of us, like when we were working on our compositions together. The “Howling Flames” EP was a small sample of what we really wanted, the two new songs it contains were very close to what we wanted. The flame ignited again in us, we saw that the magic we both had was present again. We started right away almost putting together an album without a schedule, without a record contract. We just followed our instincts when listening to the first samples of the new songs that were very impressive. I was listening to Nick’s ideas, he was really in a composition orgasm, we knew that our new work worthy of our first two albums was being prepared.
Although there has always been a fair share of bombast or symphony in the music of Deviser, it by far gets its best shot with ‘Evil Summons Evil’. Is this something you just gave extra attention or has it finally turned out the way you always envisioned it?
All the new compositions came out spontaneously, I can say. The magic I had with Nick was there again. We listen to each other, there is chemistry like back then. I dare say it was what we both wanted from the start. “Evil Summons Evil” was supposed to be our fourth album. It contains who we really are, that’s how I’ve always imagined Deviser and that’s what we’ll continue to do from now on. Experimentation is a thing of the past, now we are back to create music that we like and represent us.
Something I have always found striking and refreshing in your music, when compared to other Greek bands from the same time and space, is the more obvious Death Metal basis of the Deviser sound. I can only think of SepticFlesh as a comparative band. How would you describe and explain that primary basis of the Deviser sound?
Probably because we are metal fans, we like to listen to everything and it is logical that some influences have passed into our compositions. I can’t say if it was done on purpose, it just happened. If we like something, an idea, we work on it, we keep it. Regarding the sound, the production of our albums, our debut sounds to me like a pure melodic black metal production. On our second album, “Transmission to Chaos” I wanted a more massive sound on the guitars. I remember that we experimented with the way we played the guitars and probably went into a death metal mentality to achieve a more spread out sound, a huge and pompous sound that I had in mind. A lot of time was spent in Praxis studio to get a little closer to what I had in mind, maybe this experiment didn’t work but at least I tried with Manos as much as we could. Because, after a certain point you get confused with all this and you no longer have a clear mind, ears, and perception of what is good and what is not. I wanted something different from a typical Greek production and sound. Not to remind another Scandinavian production full of treble nor the sound that most Greek bands had at that time. Close to what I wanted in terms of the rhythm guitars, their sound and huge volume but played in a black metal style, it‘s what was done in Morrisound studio (FL) in many releases until then.
Something else that stands out on listening to ‘Evil Summons Evil’ is the good and full sound. While the somewhat lacklustre sound on the first two albums does comprise part of their charm, it did prove to be a miss on the later albums. Psychon (SepticFlesh) signed up for the recording, mixing and mastering of this new album, I assume you’re quite content with this?
I can say that we are completely satisfied with the sound of “Evil Summons Evil”. It’s what we wanted and to make it happen and sound right we followed a plan. We followed Psychon’s suggestions and advice, we faithfully followed what he told us. We spent a lot of time making everything sound perfect. From our previous work there, the “Howling Flames” EP, we got an idea of what it’s like to work with him in his own studio ,which was maximized in the process of creating “Evil Summons Evil” there. I feel confident that our next album will be recorded there, we feel very comfortable working together with Psychon who knows Deviser very well, he has been a fan of our music since the time of our first album.
Whether you would refer to ‘Evil Summon Evil’ as a “comeback album” or just an album that marks the return to form for Deviser, releasing an unexpected and great album like this always invites some reflection and analysis. In my review, I drew a parallel with SepticFlesh who have gone through almost a similar musical evolution. In my review, I cited the following: “Raw and unpolished at first, but now deeply melodic, bombastic and grand in their majestic beauty, boosting a wide variety of different vocals, ranging all the way from a more standard Black Metal kind of vocal delivery to something almost grunt like and epic screaming“. Can you relate to such a comparison?
It’s something that comes naturally to me, without any special processing in the mix. I established this vocal style from our “Thy Blackest Love” demo, it developed and improved on our first two albums and I think it’s perfected now. I learned to use the screams properly without causing me trouble like before. In “Unspeakable Cults” I reached my limits and as a result my voice shut down for a few days. “Evil Summons Evil” was worked on for a long time before we entered the studio. Nick was a real fiend composing so eerily that he forced me to let him compose freely. Such amazing work was done in the compositions that you definitely need many listens to understand what is really going on. There are details that are not immediately noticeable. The majesty of this album slowly unfolds in front of you by taking the required time.
And while we are at it, it is not a secret that ‘Running Sore’ (2002) and ‘Seasons Of Darkness’ (2011) are generally greeted with somewhat less enthusiasm or at least with some reservation. With the latest already being over ten years old now and the other even two decades, how do you look back at those albums?
I definitely think “Running Sore” with a proper production and a different title would be a classic album. I firmly believe this. Unfortunately the budget was desperately small and we didn’t have a producer available to take off the amazing compositions of this album which I composed almost entirely. If you could turn me back in time, we would definitely record and mix it either in Sweden or Germany. The promotion and support was non-existent from the record label which was basically a big record shop as far as I remember. I don’t regret it, it was our choice. We thought that maybe they would grow as a label as it had happened with Osmose for example, but that never happened and our disappointment was very hard to overcome. At least they believed in us, they had a vision, we thank them for what they could and did for us. As for “Seasons of Darkness”, I don’t think of it as our album. It was an experiment, a work entirely by our then lead guitarist who does not represent me. I had two jobs at the time with little to no time available and I didn’t compose anything on this album so I let the others do that. It sounds like another band, honestly. I felt a lot of disappointment in this recording. It was the reason that the band actually broke up and I returned permanently to Crete.
When you wait a long stretch before releasing a new album, the time factor also comes into play; it means you’ve aged more than a decade yourselve as well. How did this affect the creative process around ‘Evil Summons Evil’? I assume you are seeing and listening very differently now than when you recorded ‘Unspeakable Cults’ back in the mid 90’s?
This naivety we had then and the lack of sense of danger, I believe is here again. We don’t care about anything other than that our songs now have to satisfy us to the maximum, if something doesn’t sound right it’s just thrown in the trash. I think we are now ready and confident to recover what we lost from wrong decisions and collaborations. We ‘ve worked so hard over the last few years that I think we ‘ll soon show a consistent and higher level as a band. Knowledge exists, so does experience. Now with the right producer, we feel incredibly confident that the best is yet to come. We feel completely confident and excited about what we are already preparing. With “Evil Summons Evil” we wanted to do what we did in the 90s, with ignorance of danger and inexhaustible passion as then. If the flame didn’t light up in us again, we certainly wouldn’t continue.
And, as a whole, you have started Deviser somewhere halfway your teens and lived through the 90’s, a time when extreme metal reinvented itself and when many bands released their first demo tapes and often best works. How do you look back on that time and can you compare it to today’s scene? And how is your role in this, do you still listen to new bands/music?
Everything was something new for us then, new music was created, extreme yes. All this gave breath and life to the metal scene which at the time had suffered a great blow from the grunge fashion that I hated. Those of us who were deep in the underground scene and knew from demo tapes bands like Mayhem, Samael, Rotting Christ, Obscurity, etc., were prepared and expected that metal would go to its extreme forms. Things looked like this then, it was very exciting to experience all this. You had to look for it, be informed by fanzines or connoisseurs. Back then, I knew everyone in the underground scene, tons of letters in my mailbox daily. I was really proud when many of those penfriends with their bands released their first album, I felt a thrill, a pride. We saw it all getting bigger. We, here in Greece, until then did not know what impact this sound we were creating without our knowledge, would have. Essentially, we were experimenting with the darkest and most diabolical things. Today, I listen to many different kinds of music, but I often think back to that era of the 80s and early 90s. Nowadays, very few new bands really impress me.
The Greek (Black) metal scene is widely praised, that is no secret. You have been a major part of that scene in its glory days, it is commonly know you have been a booking agent as well as a part of the famous Unisound Records. It’s very fashionable to publish your memoirs in book form these days, now I won’t ask you to do that, but still, how do you look back on those exciting 90’s and how do they compare to the current (Black) metal scene in your home country?
It was all so pure and new to us as I told you before. We felt that we were facing everyone, those who put obstacles in our way or those who did not believe in all this. We felt like a family among ourselves. We exchanged opinions and our concerns, we helped as much as possible to support each other’s music. Yes, I helped as much as I could so that the black metal scene in my country could grow and become stronger. In fact, I was the one who came up with the idea and plan to hold the first black metal festival in Greece. It was in 1993. Booking agent became my job in the next decade, then I got more serious about all this. Through my work at the record company Unisound and also as an employee in its record store, I experienced everything from the inside. I met many interesting people, fans who were thirsty to hear this genre. I could feel the pulse of the global black metal scene that was taking its first steps at the time. Now, everything here is more organized, new blood, ambitious professional people do everything more correctly. Sound engineers, concert organizers, distributors, etc. There are more venues to perform live, there are amazing musicians, the new bands I see are really trying to create great music.
I had touched on it earlier in this interview, we had to wait a long time for ‘Evil Summons Evil’, of course the natural question is whether we will soon have to wait another fat decade for a sequel to this album?
I see it everyday now. The band has now become a priority for us, just like back then in the 90s. We work every day and are committed to our vision. We have already started working on our next album, I am convinced that it will be an even more impressive album than “Evil Summons Evil”. I believe that in 2025 it will be completed to be released by Hammerheart.
To wrap up the interview in style, I would like to give you the last words, maybe I forgot to touch on something, so feel free and take the opportunity… But not before I thank you for your time and efforts, so thank you very much for giving us a glimpse into the Deviser camp!
The line-up of the band has now been completed and we have started the live shows again. Because we do not yet belong to a tour agency, we are planning a European tour by ourselves for the end of this year. We have never collaborated with a tour agency and this is the reason for our rare live appearances abroad. At this time we are in the pre-production stage of the new album, we are working hard until we ourselves feel completely satisfied with the new material. Thank you very much for the interesting questions and also for your patience. Your support is very important to us. We can’t wait to see you at a venue to meet you all in person. I promise we’ll keep the flame burning for a long time to come.
