Despite a career spanning a decade, several albums and connections to cult Finnish act Slugathor, doom-laden death metal entity Desecresy have never ascended from the murky depths of the deep death metal underground. With a new album, Towards Nebulae, being just around corner, we figured it’s a good time to find out a bit more about Desecresy’s dark and mysterious metal of death.

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Xtreem just released the first single for the upcoming album Towards Nebulae. What can we expect from the album?

You can expect a vortex of brutality and atmosphere. The new album has some faster parts compared to previous ones. The lead guitars utilize tapping more than before serving purpose as melodies establishing the atmosphere of each song. The technique is a bit different and more varied on the new album.

Since 2016, Desecresy has been a one-man operation with you responsible for both music and lyrics. How has that changed the nature of Desecresy, if at all?

The biggest difference is me doing the vocals, where in the first four albums they were done by Jarno Nurmi. He also wrote some of the lyrics, so that too is now solely done by myself. That enabled me to write longer thematic arches over the song lyrics: Towards Nebulae consists of one story through the album. The songwriting process is still the same since I always worked on the songs independently.

Apart from the line-up change, how has Desecresy changed throughout the years, and what has remained the same? Do you think Towards Nebulae represents an important change for Desecresy in some way?

Desecresy has become heavier and more downtuned with time. I think this is the most brutal album this far (I know bands like to say that but I genuinely think so). I’d like to think Desecresy has retained its recognizable overall mood if not even grown it thicker.

There are other new approaches in Towards Nebulae as I mentioned, so I’d say there is a new direction on this album. How important it will be remains to be seen in the future. I’m still too close to it to say, as it’s newly finished. I always feel conflicted at this point. On one hand I’m excited (and I am more excited about this album than the couple previous ones). On the other hand I feel like I just want to focus on new material already, since I have played and listened to these songs countless times during the recording and mixing.

In my opinion, each album sounds different from the others, but still has a distinct “Desecresy sound”. Has the evolution from album to album been conscious, or just natural evolution?

The evolution has been natural. There was no master plan on how the albums would differ from each other. If that was possible – and I suppose it could be – it would get boring and restricting just to follow a script laid down years before.

I never tied my self with restrictions like having to sound like specific era of death metal, or being “old school” for example (even if that is how some people hear Desecresy). That gives new ideas more breathing space, while I’m still not going to wander off to do completely unrelated style of music.

In addition to the music, you have also always been responsible for the artwork. How significant is the visual side for you; do you view Desecresy albums as audio-visual wholes? And what is the role of lyrics, how important are they to you?

From the beginning Desecresy albums have been audio-visual wholes, having booklet pages with artwork illustrating the lyrical themes. I’m looking to perhaps take this aspect even further in the future.

I have grown fond of the holistic approach to music where I’m responsible for everything.

The artwork interconnects with the musical and lyrical themes and they form a better unity, compared to all these elements being done by different people. The lyrics are an important part of the music as well. With ill-fitting lyrics the music would lose much of its effect.

In Towards Nebulae, the lyrics consists of a kind of a post-apocalyptic story divided into verses that form the lyrics of each song. All these elements, music, lyrics and artwork have to come together to form the entity.

Your sound has a pretty unique feel to it – very mystic, heavy and doom-laden; dark in a way unlike virtually any other death metal band I can think of. Is this sense of cosmic, oppressing darkness something you strive for? Is there some message, ideology or idea you want to convey with Desecresy?

Thanks. Desecresy’s idea has always been about trying to capture and convey a certain feeling (cosmic oppressing darkness is quite good wording of it). It’s something that can be experienced through music, art, surroundings or just obtaining right mental state, but I can’t really put my finger on it. I try to do it through Desecresy.

I don’t want – nor do I have anything – to teach or preach to anyone, so there is no message or ideology on Desecresys agenda. Music and art have the prospect of surpassing ideologies.

Death metal can mean so many things; from gore-drenched splatter movie fandom to devout satanism to a thousand other things. What is death metal to you, what does the “death” in Desecresy’s death metal mean?

Some conservative christian said “I know it when I see it” as a definition of porn.

I use the same definition for death metal. There are so many different bands that are rightfully called death metal, it would be impossible to have one definition including all of them. With thematics there is also a lot of variation as you described.

Desecresy has been described as Lovecraftian (the topic of cosmic oppressive darkness again. Well put!) which I think is correct, although it’s good to point out that there’s never anything from Cthulhu Mythos or such in Desecresy’s themes.

Desecresy portraits death in scenarios from the ancient and unknown, from distant times and places in past or future.

Death metal seems to be in an upswing these days, with lots of new bands, labels and even a healthy amount of festivals. What do you think of the current state of death metal?

I couldn’t complain about the lack of death metal these days. The only danger I see is it becoming a form of dad metal (if it isn’t already). Even the new bands I get to hear consist of middle aged guys. I don’t know if the younger generations will carry the torch of death metal. It seems they just usually take elements of it and combine it with some crap, resulting in some cringe-inducing obscenity (and not in a good way).

Maybe that’s just the cycle of time.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death metal may die?”

But to answer your question, I think the current state of death metal is good.

Thank you for doing this interview! Do you have any last words of advice or advertisement?

Well I’ll advise anyone interested to listen to Towards Nebulae when it’s out. Other than that I don’t have anything to add. Thanks for the interview!

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