In the late summer of last year, there suddenly was Wrahha, the musical successor to Lihhamon (Nuclear War Now! Productions/Ván Records), that was put to rest in 2023. In the wake of compatriots like Prehistoric Warcult and Dungeon Keeper, Wrahha is also doing its part to put Germany’s Extreme Metal scene on the map. I spoke with the band’s vocalist/guitarist and founder about their background and debut demo ‘Harbingers Of A Horrid Cleansing’.
Hi BRSRKR, great to have you on board here. Let’s start right away with some background checks. It is not a secret that Wrahha was spawned from the ashes of Lihhamon. What exactly made Lihhamon fold and how did that lead to the creation of Wrahha?
Lihhamon went on hiatus cause I traveled through eastern Europe (Ukraine, Russia, Romania etc.) for one year and after I came back things had changed. We disbanded Lihhamon and since I formed Wrahha with one of my closest friends. It was clear that I would continue the path of relentless violence. Since I did most of the songwriting and lyrics for Lihhamon and had many unused ideas it was obvious that Wrahha would be the spiritual successor of Lihhamon.
People familiar with Lihhamon will hear an obvious resemblance between that band and Wrahha. But I am quite sure that for you, as the involved musician, have a certain (musical) idea about how the two differ?
Like I said Wrahha is my continuation of Lihhamon and the idea to play harsh, uncompromising Black Metal was still on mind after Lihhamon split up. I would call Wrahha a bit more “mature”, since I already knew what I wanted to craft. When I formed Lihhamon with A. we never had in mind to do such fast and brutal music. We learned it by the ropes and grew without music. Wrahha arose with a complete concept.
In Wrahha you are playing with two different musicians compared to Lihhamon. Both of them bring in their experience from their other/former bands. How do you think that translates to the music of Wrahha? How does that affect you?
Mad Eye is a close friend to me, since around 15 years. We shared a chunk of our wild years together, so our way to communicate is very clear and direct, since there is no doubt about our loyalty to each other. Of course we share a similar musical taste, but he is also more in the grindcore side of music, whilst I am sometimes more for atmospheric drawn out black metal. This balances our compositions. F., our bassist has a long history in the Syrian metal scene, since he had a studio in Damascus and was involved in a lot of Black and Death Metal bands there as guitarist, singer and drummer (multitalent). He also did the recording, mixing and mastering of our demo. Working with him is a pleasure for us, since he is a very experienced musician.
In general, both Lihhamon and Wrahha bear quite unusual band names. What exactly is (was) the conceptual idea behind both of the bands? Is there something that ties them together?
Both names are old German words. Lihhamon means “corpse” and Wrahha means “revenge”. Since I wanted to continue what I started with Lihhamon it seemed just logical to use again an old German term as band name.
Something that is quite common when a band has a clear predecessor that was on a (good) label is to see the new band also surface through that same label. Yet, with Wrahha you’re doing it the old school way with starting with a demo tape instead of heading straight to a debut album. A deliberate choice?We are working currently on our first album, which will take a while but we wanted to have something to show to the crowd, a demonstration of our might. Before we released our demo I already had some offers from different labels for our first album, but we chose Sentient Ruin Laboratories and AbArt-Corruption since they both share a no-tolerance policy against fascists and other bullshit.
Perhaps you have seen that I am covering quite some bands out of your specific musical territory, and to be honest sometimes it is a little of a challenge to write something “new” and not repeating myself too often. How do you, as a musician, compose music within the range of the genre without sounding all too much as a repetition of what has been done 666 times before?
Actually that’s a difficult question, especially in this genre, which often sounds very repetitive. But we take our time for composing new songs and don’t limit ourselves to a specific way of writing. Sometimes it takes one year to complete a song and even then we discard it if it doesn’t fit our standards. One thing is, that we compose our music with vocals in mind and if we like the instrumental, then we start putting vocals on top. Also we try to cut away everything which is not necessary in our eyes. We try to boil down our songs down to their essence.
And, taking a step back, since the previous question might assume that I thought you follow certain fixed musical recipes, which is obviously not the case: how would you, as a whole, describe your music? As it blends almost equal parts of Black Metal and Death Metal it could be easiest to call it “Bestial Black Death Metal”. No?
The good thing about genres is, that you get an idea what a band would sound like. The bad thing is that people start endless debates if something fits in this or in that category. In the end I would say we compose angry, fast and relentless music with a good dose of atmosphere. The concept of this band is to trample and smite you. Wrahha is the aural manifestation of our berserk frenzy. A manifestation of our seething wrath cast into our musical pounding. No one shall escape our noisy mace, with which we flog our listeners.
With the same focus, but zooming out, as a whole the “Bestial” genre seems much more lively and vital (deliberately not calling it “booming”) than a few years before. Since you have been part of the scene for many years now, as previously with Lihhamon, how do you look at it from the inside? And how do you position Wrahha in this musical constellation?
Yes, I would agree that there are definitely more bands in this niche genre, but a lot of them sound very similar and not all of them bring something original to the table. But there are also bands like Heresiarch or Ch’ahom who try to refine this genre and do not limit themselves to only three riffs with two chords. And at the same time there are bands like Primitive Warfare who are as raw and rough as the name implies, but still are fantastic due to their sheer brutality and uncompromising music. If those two bands would be the opposite on the ends of one scale, I would position Wrahha somewhat between those two. We try to mix caveman riffs with atmospheric and more enhanced parts, to craft songs that are destructive but not redundant.
Even in Germany, some very interesting bands are emerging that have, more or less, taken a similar musical line. I am thinking of, among others, the amazing Misanthropic War and OmegaVortex, but also, for example, Prehistoric War Cult or the slightly less well-known Secret Tongues who are admittedly somewhat different ideologically. How do you see this development? Are there any contacts with those (local) bands and do you have any must-check recommendations?
We are in close contact with some of the bands from Osnabrück like Prehistoric War Cult, Secret Tongues or Dungeon Keeper etc. They are great musicians and all in all great people. Here in Leipzig together with the band Dolchstoß we founded a network of antifascist metal bands called “Leipziger Meuten”. The “Leipziger Meuten” were a youth organization of adolescents during the “Third Reich”, who refused to join the “Hitler Jugend” and started to build up a resistance against the Nazi regime. Most of them died in their fight for freedom of the Individual.
As a recommendation I would say, that you should check out Ch’ahom, Morbid Blood Kult, Bloody Vengeance, Gravehammer, Minenfeld, Morbyda or Maurda (just to name a few). They are all from Germany and have their own spin on the extreme Metal Genre. Not all of them are particular “Bestial War Whatsoever Black Metal” but they are all worth checking out.
Perhaps a somewhat routine question, but still one interesting enough to raise: judging by the song titles, a tentative estimate can already be made, but where do you guys get inspiration from on a non-musical level?
We are angry people in a rotting world. Look around, check some history, the fact that our society is declining, fascism is on the rise and people are still trying to get the most profit out of this misery, is a hell of an inspiration.
Also a lot of historic facts play a role in our music. Rise and fall, conquering and loosing are the things that keep the world turning and it plays a vital role in our lyrics and fuels the hate in our music. We want to be the aural mace, hammering onto the skull of humanity.
As already touched upon earlier, besides you there are two more musicians involved consequently making Wrahha a “power trio”. Something that always has a certain charm sound-wise. Beneficial side effect: it looks great too, just take Venom or Motörhead for instance. How do you translate your music to a live environment in this form and line-up?
All our music is written with playing live in mind. First we write the songs, play them live and then we record them and while recording, we don’t add a lot of extra guitar-tracks or other stuff. It is as simple as it sounds.
The demo tape has clearly been well received: the labels involved seem to have run out of copies. Besides the fact that this is obviously encouraging, it is also a loud cry for its follow-up… What can we expect and when?
Around 80% of songs are done for our first Album and the concept is already prepared. It will be around the topic of gaining and losing power and the album will be called “Impera”. Also we are preparing some releases with our friends from the “Leipziger Meuten” network, expect an endless barrage of imperious black metal. Last but not least our demo will be released on CD via Iconoclasm Conquest this year.
Speaking of that positive attention you guys are getting, did it surprise you that this is the case right after the release of this, relatively short, 3-track demo?
Actually without sounding arrogant, we weren’t surprised about the fact that people liked our music. We played some gigs before recording our music and the feedback was very positive. So we were a bit prepared. Also our labels did a good job in promoting our demo online.
Alright, that’s it for now. Thanks for sharing your time with me and contemplating your musical sins together. I would like to give you the task of closing the interview with some words of your own…
Sic Semper Tyrannis!
