Much like the artwork of ‘Heavenly Down’ suggests, the new album by Sear Bliss is a grand return to its majestic sound of old. Yet, just like the band never was easy to catch under a single moniker, they are still an enigmatic and overall alluring entity. ‘Heavenly Down’ exists out of all the familiar building blocks of the classic albums from the mid 90’s and up to 2004’s ‘Glory And Perdition’, but Sear Bliss is also emphasising their progressiveness and tendency to do things just bit different. A new album, six years after ‘Letters From The Edge’, with such a return to the band’s distinctly recognizable signature was more than a good reason to ask composer András Nagy some questions…
Hi András, let’s just not waste time and get started. Something general to kick off with: just like in between the previous records, we needed to wait for six years for new Sear Bliss output. While it is by far a necessity to crank out a new album every year, I am just curious to know how your creative process and the regular life in Sear Bliss looks like. Are you writing new stuff all the time or is the band more or less on pause for the majority of the intervening time?
There are several reasons for the long gaps between these albums. The main one is that we have too many commitments besides the band. We are not teenagers anymore. We can’t spend as much time on the band as we want, plus we live far from each other. ‘Letters from the Edge’ was released in 2018. Then my second son was born in 2019 and third one in 2021. On top of that our guitar player left the band, even though we had almost a whole album already written. We had to reorganize everything and start from scratch. It took some time but I think it was worth the wait. Meanwhile we were active and played lots of shows. As a matter of fact, we have never stopped for a moment. As for the period between ‘Eternal Recurrence’ and ‘Letters from the Edge’, we had a full line up change, really difficult times. Plus I felt it’s the right time to write and focus on my solo release. It took a lot of time and energy. Always too much to do.
Before we get onto the new album, let’s take a few steps back in history. Sear Bliss has never been a band that walked the standard Black Metal paths, instead it sounded quite unorthodox for the most part. Has this been a very conscious decision from the very start? And how do you feel that this has developed itself throughout the band’s three decades of existence?
Our main intention from the beginning was to create something unusual. We use brass instruments from the very start. I believe we have managed to develop their role during the decades. Now we know much better how to incorporate them in our music.
If we take the subject of the previous question into the now with ‘Heavenly Down’ in our hands, how would you yourself describe the musical journey that has led you to this new album?
To me it’s both a new approach and a return to the roots. Kind of an essence of what Sear Bliss represents. We’ve come full circle with ‘Heavenly Down’. I’m pretty confident this is our most mature record by far. By now we know much better how to express our feelings with instruments and creating this album was a very exciting process.
While by no means bad – at all, the last two albums, 2012’s ‘Eternal Recurrence’ and ‘Letters From The Edge’ from 2018, were received with some mixed emotions. To me these albums needed a bit more time to fully sink in, and while being in the running up to the review of your new album and this interview I revisited these albums and I can more or less understand where that mixed reception is coming from. How do you look back at those two albums yourself?
I was thinking on this matter too actually and I came probably to the same conclusion. No wonder the reactions to those albums were mixed. Both records were written in a pretty chaotic period with lots of personal issues going on both in the band and real life. These albums were quite selfish in terms of self-expression and they were lacking the traditions we usually had on previous records and they are not an easy listening at all because of the difficulties surrounding while creating them. But it’s fine because true art should be honest and selfish in some ways, yet I understand why some people didn’t like them. To me they are footprints of certain moments in my own or the band’s life.
When listening to ‘Heavenly Down’, to me it feels like it strikes a near-perfect balance between what we could call the “classic” Sear Bliss sound and a slightly more modern approach as on display on your last two albums. This balance is evidenced by a more profound role for the warm sound of the trombone and the overall present-day production. Can you relate to such a statement?
Yes, I agree with you. Also, I think it has a strong 90’s vibe in a present day cloak. There is definitely a balance between the old and new world. To me this is the perfect representation of what Sear Bliss is about. It’s not only the atmosphere though. The album itself was recorded in a very old-school way, like back in the days. We tried to avoid modern things as much as possible while recording it. The result is a much more organic sound and a more complete and decent production.
When Kris Verwimp’s fantastic artwork was revealed, it sparked some nostalgia-based excitement in me. It is very reminiscent of the covers of some of the classic works in your discography. I assume that was the intention?
Yes, exactly. During the creation of this album we felt certain connections to the early works of the band in terms of atmosphere, thus the decision was evident to refer to that on the visual aspects as well, so we contact Kris and he was very enthusiastic too. It was exciting to go back to that era and now I see it was the perfect choice. I couldn’t imagine this artwork on the previous two records but it fits perfectly with ‘Heavenly Down’.
Still, ‘Heavenly Down’ is not merely a return to the old sound of Sear Bliss. Let’s take the song ‘The Winding Path’ as an example, it holds that previously mentioned warm sounding trombone but also great guitar leads, fiery blast beats, electronics and even some clean vocals. This song along more or less proves my previous statement, the album being both conservative and progressive at the very same time. Overall, this is quite a step up from your most recent recordings. Does this also require a different approach in song writing or overall adjusting?
The good thing is that nothing was intentional when we were writing these songs. As a matter of fact, we never really know what comes next when a song is building up. In the case of ‘The Winding Path’ the structure of the song was pretty unconscious. I enjoyed experimenting with ideas and it was great to see those different musical directions melting into each other.
The new album has been titled ‘Heavenly Down’. What are you aiming to say with that title and how does that message translate into the music on the album?
We liked the contrary between these two words. It very well represents the nature of our music and the atmosphere of this album. It’s uplifting yet melancholic at the same time. We referred to this opposition.
I remember seeing the band on stage almost half of my life ago. While you do play live shows, Sear Bliss is not the most active gigging band around – at least nowadays. Does this have to do with the current phase of your lives or do you simply prefer to keep it a bit more exclusive? Will this album be supported by some touring or live shows at all?
It’s a little bit of both. Like I said, we have a lot of commitments in our lives but we also want our shows to be a bit exclusive. These are the reasons we don’t play too often. However, we will have a couple of summer festival appearances in the coming days and weeks plus we will support our new album with a headliner European tour in October.
I would like to combine some of the previously discussed topics and talk about something that I find intriguing endlessly: time. If you’d look back with me to the earliest stages of the band, around the early to mid-90’s, what would you mention is the biggest difference between then and now when it comes to the band and to you as a person? How did time influence you as a musician?
It’s a truly valid thing you are bringing up, as originally the main concept behind the new album was the passing of time. As you grow older, time has a new meaning and we are in the afternoon of our lives, we look at things with different eyes. That kind of ‘grown-up’ feeling leaves a big mark on us personally and musically as well. Things become grey and the dynamics of your inner self change. The biggest difference between then and now? Well, the mystery of exploring and looking into the exciting world of the unknown. We have the same enthusiasm even today but all the experiences of decades change your senses. I miss that innocent and naïve attitude we had in our teenage years. The mid 90’s were magical anyway. So many great bands and albums at that time and they were all different. I’m happy that we were part of that scene and took part in that era. It will never come back. Of course, we did lots of mistakes but probably we have learnt from them. All in all, time influenced us greatly as a musician, not only as a factual thing but also on a deeply spiritual level. The best way to demonstrate it is the fact that we wouldn’t have been able to write this album at a young stage of our lives. It has all the experiences and maybe wisdom that comes with age.
And to broaden the scope from the previous question a little, if you take the same look back but project it onto the entire (extreme) metal scene, what do you see? What do you think are the biggest differences and do you think some things have remained the same over those three decades?
To be honest, I miss the rebellious nature of the mid 90’s black or extreme metal. Nowadays everything is too moderated. Even the most extreme musical styles. It’s ridiculous. Black metal is supposed to be dangerous. Of course, there are things that remained the same over the decades and I respect those bands that are still around. For me, perseverance is the main motivation and that is why we are still here, writing and releasing albums. That kind of eagerness haven’t changed a bit.
One more to close things off. While there are some good bands from Hungary, the country isn’t exactly known for its thriving metal scene. How do you think your origin influenced the way Sear Bliss sounds and how the band developed itself over its 30+ years career?
Our scene, especially in the early 90’s was very isolated but very exciting on the other hand, not long after the fall of the iron curtain. There was something in the air, lots of excitement and hope. We were probably more eager than others. I’m pretty sure our origin influenced our music. We remained outsiders. We always did our own thing and never became part of the mainstream. We are still living in the same small city and happy with everything we have achieved during these three decades.
Alright, that is it for now, I’d like to thank you for your sharing this interview with me. I’ll gladly leave the last, closing words to you…
Thank you very much for the interview. We appreciate your support!
Live picture by Vida Dani.
