UK experimental metallers Exist Immortal are set to unleash their debut album, ‘Darkness Of An Age’ next week and with it they bring a hybrid of progressive riffs, atmospheric elements and relentless melodies. The end result is one of the most promising UK metalcore releases in quite some time.
Having undergone the rigmarole task of changing members in their early days, the London quintet now have a settled line-up with Meyrick de la Fuente on vocals, bassist David Billote, and Fergus Gardiner on drums whilst Tom Montgomery and Kurt Valencia share guitar duties. Together they combine their wide-range of influences to create Exist Immortal’s technical yet “catchy” brand of metal.
The release of ‘Darkness Of An Age’ will be followed by a range of UK festival appearances, and despite only being together for a number of years, Exist Immortal have already gathered several air miles having toured Europe and Asia last year.
We recently talked to guitarist Tom Montgomery to discuss ‘Darkness Of An Age’ in detail, playing shows in Asia and more.
Already Heard: For the record can you tell us who you and your role in Exist Immortal?
T: Hi there, Tom here, I’m one of our two guitarists, and currently hold the very important role of “Chief Provider of Weird Shit to Listen to While we Drive to the Next Show.” Tough job but someone’s got to do it.
AH: For those who are unfamilair with the band, can you give us a brief history of the bands activity since forming in March 2011?
T: Originally ExIm formed as college project between Kurt (Valencia – guitar), David (Billote – bass) and another member who isn’t with us any more, who eventually got round to recruiting me on vocals for our first show. At the same time I brought Mez (Meyrick de la Fuente – vocals) in and we had the first prototype version of our lineup. A couple of tours later, we had a couple of major lineup changes and once all that settled and we replaced lost members we found ourselves with what is the definite Exist Immortal line-up, which brings us to just before the ‘Dream Sequence’ mini album came out. Since then we’ve been touring constantly, even going as far as India and playing festivals like UK Tech Metal Fest before going back to the studio to record our full length debut ‘Darkness of an Age’. It’s fair to say we’ve kept busy, which certainly won’t be changing in the near future.
AH: You’re finally set to release your debut LP, ‘Darkness Of An Age’ on May 12th. Why should new and old fans be listening to it?
T: ‘Darkness of an Age’ represents Exist Immortal as we believe it should sound – we wrote it together, and spent time really crafting what we believe to be our own sound. So old fans will be witnessing an evolution into the band we want to be, musically, while new fans will hopefully be getting into and seeing the most cohesive and complete picture of Exist Immortal that currently exists. It feels like a massive step up from ‘Dream Sequence’.
AH: How does it feel to finally have the album coming out?
T: It’s a combination of terrifying and exciting. On the one hand, we’ve got a product and a huge piece of music that we are hugely proud of, on the other hand we’re dying to know what peoples’ reaction to it will be to it. While we’re confident that people are going to love it, the wait for feedback is killing us.
AH: In terms of you style, who would you compare yourselves to?
T: At face value we’re in the same sort of boat as contemporaries of ours such as Heart of a Coward or Tesseract, but – as people have hopefully seen from the two dramatically different singles we’ve put out – there’s a huge amount of extra stuff being chucked in there. Imagine being serenaded by a siren while a Viking shreds upon a mountain top while 2 genius Phillipinos and a drummer lay down riffs groovy and filthy enough to make your grandmother tell you off. That’s pretty much Exist Immortal.
AH: Simarily what would you name your musical influences?
T: Our musical influences as a band are rediculously diverse. As you may have guessed from “Chief Provider of Weird Shit to Listen to While we Drive to the Next Show”, we listen to a whole bunch of different stuff; everything from doom and post rock to straight up gangsta rap to death and black metal with brief forays into the realms of madness occupied by Igorrr and the like, with the odd sprinkling of pop and rock and in there just to keep things fresh. Almost everything we listen to has something to offer us musically, be it the odd cadence or melody here or there, or a cleverly done piece of orchestration in a track that would be otherwise flat without it. Our individual music tastes influence the parts we create – a great deal of our riffs find their influence in hip hop and rap due to their inherent groove (I’m going to on record to say that a lot of rap is heavy as fuck – some of the beats are fucking savage), while our vocals lines tend to find their roots in straight up commercial pop or even power metal. A killer melody is a killer melody at the end of the day, regardless of what influenced it. On ‘DOAA’, we were more than happy to explore all these different musical flavours and at the very least try everything – if nothing is out of bounds, you will end up with a much richer sound overall. At least that’s the way we see it.
AH: You’ve already previewed two tracks from the album; ‘Edge Of Infinity’ and ’Legions’. How has the feedback been so far?
T: The feedback so far has been incredible, and overwhelmingly positive. It’s making the wait to put the album out all the more unbearable.
AH: You also recently finished a short run of UK shows. How did they go and how was it to road test the tracks from the album?
T: They were great! Our last run ended with what was probably our most important show to date where we headlined the Barfly in Camden which was absolutely insane. Probably the best show we’ve played to date, actually. The response in a live setting to our new material has been great, and on a slightly selfish level, it’s been amazingly refreshing to switch up our set a bit. We’d like to think it’s refreshing for the people that come to see us to; we’re excited to be playing the new material, they seem to be excited to hear the new material, so it’s a real win-win situation.
AH: Last year you also toured Europe and Asia. How do audiences in those areas differ to the UK?
T: Asian audiences are a particularly interesting thing to look at. The key difference between audiences there (Indian audiences, in our case) and audiences here is that here, music (specifically heavy music) is a commodity which we are absolutely saturated with. In cities like London especially, you can go to a gig on any night at almost any venue within an hour’s travel of where you live, so the impetus to go and see these shows when they’re on is several orders of magnitude lower than somewhere like India where a band like us playing is a rare thing. As a result, people out there that do make it to the shows are absolutely fucking batshit crazy, without fail. Indian audiences are intense to a level that is very rarely seen over here.
AH: Did the experiences of playing overseas influence the album in any shape or form?
T: Ultimately I’d say it didn’t – when we play overseas we’re there to deliver a fucking killer show and make some new friends and fans – to say that we’re trying to tailor the album for a global audience, for example, would be wrong – we wrote and honed it for what we hope is our audience, regardless of their global location. Which isn’t to say that playing overseas didn’t affect the band – the mere act of flying to the other side of the world or driving for 8 hours to the other end of Europe to put Exist Immortal in some new ears only served to strengthen us as a live unit and as a group of friends. Perhaps in that way our overseas experiences creeped into at least the way we made the album, but musically, I wouldn’t say playing overseas specifically changed the musical outcome of ‘DOAA’.
AH: Can we expect to see you back out on the road again soon?
T: We can’t announce anything just yet, tour wise, but there will be news on that front very shortly indeed! In the meantime, we’ve got a few one offs in the pipeline – we’re in Paris with Uneven Structure this weekend for Radiant Fest, we’re playing all 3 Tech Fest all day shows, the first of which was in Manchester this weekend just gone which was awesome, with Bristol and finally the London Tech Fests to follow. Finally, we’re headlining Massacre Fest in Gloucester which will be fantastic. But keep your eyes peeled for more tour!
AH: Do you have anything else you’d like to say to round off this interview?
T: I’d like to add my thanks to everyone who’s checked out Edge of Infinity and Legions so far. Keep sharing those around like the plague and remember to preorder ‘Darkness of an Age’ on Bandcamp! To keep up with us, you can get us on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks!
‘Darkness Of An Age’ by Exist Immortal is released on 12th May.
Exist Immortal links: Facebook|Twitter|Bandcamp
Words by Sean Reid (@SeanReid86)
