Once again I’ve been gratefully impressed by another Black Metal band from Italy. LAETITIA IN HOLOCAUST besides of have quite uncommon name, plays a renewed and twisted Black Metal, rooted in the “old school sound” but this duo, formed by N and S, play it from their personal point of view, with a wide range of influences, pretty “open minded” to play furious Black Metal… The result: “A Slow Apocalypse”, a travel through the final days of humanity… So if you are into the Apocalyptic Black Metal, pay attention to the following words…

BB: Thanks a lot for giving us this interview. And congratulations for “A slow apocalypse”. Can you tell us about the band’s beginnings?

N: Hi, N of Laetitia in Holocaust here... before talking about the story of our band i would like to thank you for this interview, for the nice words concerning our record and for the interest toward our music in general, thank you very much. L.I.H was born during 2001 when I and S were playing in a death metal band that a common friend was trying to form; this group disbanded after a few rehearsals but we decided to play as black metal duo, with the purpose of composing classic black metal tunes but at the same time innovative and not stereotyped. We appreciate very much the classic black metal sound but we have always preferred doing something a bit innovative and original, mixing raw guitars, drum machines, clean melodies, industrial samples, different kinds of vocals and so on... i hope that we reached this target.

BB: What are you doing nowadays?

N: In these days we are composing the drum tracks of our next demo cd, which  will be ready this autumn, i hope. We are using a new program for the drums, so we have to experiment with this program, to become more “confident” with it in order to have a good drum sound and patterns. We are also thinking about the artwork of the cd.

BB: Why you choose the name Laetitia in Holocaust? What does it mean?

N: “Laetitia in Holocaust” is the latin translation of “the joy in holocaust”; we choose this name to express the misanthropic feeling and themes of our music, somekind of hatred for humanity and life itself... however, our way of thinking has quite changed so L.I.H. has achieved a new, deeper meaning to us. I underline that this monicker has nothing to with the Nazi holocaust or the nazi ideology: we have nothing to do with nationalsocialism, communism or other political ideas.

BB: What about your names? N and S are pretty uncommon names… it is something about NS Black Metal? I ask you because is really tempter to associate the “N”, the “S”, the “Holocaust” and names like “Pazuzu in Auschwitz” with this movement…

N: As i said before, no, we have nothing to do with nationalsocialism or other political movements, we are interested in existentialist/philosophical themes; i know that politic is a part of the black metal culture but i’m not interested in it. However S and N are the first letters of our names (my name in Nicola): when we formed the band we decided not to use classical black metal “war names” so we decided just to use S and N. Nothing special as you can see J

BB: Talking about this song (“Pazuzu in Auschwitz”), can you tell us about it? It was one of the first things that take my attention in your demo, both the name and the music…

S: “Pazuzu…” is not easy to explain…Musically is unleashed crativity,unbound,almost unseen. When I composed it, I didn’t care about structures or other “limits”, so what came out is a sort of stream of consciousness, in a musical language very abstract and original, a dadaist opus. This track turns around a vision in which carnage is the same for catharsis, a bloody march towards the sun as exorcism of our pain and meaningles-  -sness; previously “Pazuzu…” was only a poem, but successively I turned it into music, and this is the result.

BB: You mentioned the Dadaism and the Surrealism as reference for your music. How this tendencies influence the sound of Laetitia in Holocaust?

S: Tristan Tzara and the other “artists” involved in Dada had a big influence on us at the beginning of LIH, and will be of enormous impact on the future releases. The destruction of “Art” is a result that black metal has only partially achieved: the black flame has been already crystallized into conventions and stone patterns, and we refuse that. We are looking for a rebirth of the primordial black metal iconoclasm, for a new form, for a new mean able to break and despise “Art” and submit her to our needs: we need something of unheard in order to spell better the sound of our souls. Dadaism is the fury that can bend and crush “Art”, Surrealism is what can make her corpse able to talk; our music is both the points.

BB: You said your music is conceptually connected with the Romanticism…What your lyrics talk about? (I’m sorry I don’t speak a word in Italian…)  What is the main concept behind those?

S: What a question! I think we hate and love to be romantic heroes. The Failure ,the contemplation of death, the bitterness of common/uncommon “comforts” for our existence: we despise all these things , but we cannot avoid them. So romantic are our visions, our sources of ispiration, our attitude towards life; the lyrics are witnesses of moments in which black feelings overcome, romantic or not, and we would like destiny slip away.

BB: Why you decide to write the lyrics in Italian and sing those in English?

N: the lyrics are extremely important to us, since they reflect our feelings and opinions about our life adn existence; i think that they are as important as music itself... in a certain way our lyrics are composed as poetry, so we thought that it would have been nice to have them in our mother tongue in the booklet, in their “natural form”.

BB: How was the composition process of “A slow apocalypse”? I understand you compose almost the whole music with an acoustic guitar… Why?

N: We composed the entire cd with acoustic guitars for a simple reason: we didn’t have an electric guitar, so we composed everything with our old acoustic guitars and we borrowed an electric one from a friend of us for the recording... as you can see it is a very underground attitude J . however nowadays we have an electric guitar but i prefer composing everything on the acoustic one.

BB: As I read in your info sheet, you have a lot of influences, but if you must choice the five best album of history, what would you choice?

N: ... difficult question, since i listen not only to extreme metal. I cannot name the five best albums in history, but i can tell you that these are (probably) my favourite albums of all time:

The Cure “Pornography” (my favourite album for sure)

Burzum “Det som engang var”

Death “Individual thought patterns“ (it has changed my way of thinking about music and especially bass playing; probably one of the most innovative anf original album ever, in my opinion)

Balletto di Bronzo “YS” (a great album from an italian progressive band from the seventies, very original, great atmospheres)

Nenia “ La casa del dolore” (the only album released by this genial italian dark-ambient band... togheter with the Cure’s “Pornography” is my favourite album, i would like to compose something as “emotive” as theese two records)

However i have to say that also “Satanic black devotion” from Sargeist is one of my favourite albums; in general i listen also to a lot of death metal (especially the american scene of the early nineties), brutaldeath/grind, progressive rock, fusion, dark-ebm and so on.

S: I’m more monotonous:

MayheM “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”

Dark Throne “Transilvanian hunger” (or “Under a funeral moon”, I can’t decide)

Emperor “ In the nightside eclipse”

Burzum “Burzum + Aske”

Joy Division “Closer“

BB: This year I was gratefully impressed by the Italian Black Metal scene, we have heard here many great Black Metal bands from your country. What do you think about this strong scene?

N: I don’t know if we have a strong scene and, to be honest, i don’t care that much. We are in contact with some bands but i’ve never been involved very much in tape trading and that kind of stuff. We like to trade our cds and exchange our opinions with other musicians but i can’t say that we are involved very much in the scene. However we are friends with people playing in Fornace, Orifice, Imposer and Screaming shadow ( S: and none of these plays black metal! Ah ah ah!)

BB: What are your favourites Italian bands?

N: in my opinion Psychofagist and Bastard saints are great bands.

S: I like very much Void Of Silence and Adversam, and something of Forgotten Tomb, Aborym and Spite extreme wing.

BB: When can we expect new material of Laetitia In Holocaust? Can we expect more Apocalyptic Black Metal in the vein of “A slow apocalypse”? 

S: The next release will be entitled “Lacra ebenei:13-17”, and will be more gloomy and black metal than “A slow apocalypse”. The lyrics will be more refined, also with music. In the first track we will give a taste of the future sound that will raise us in an unknown musical dimension, black metal played with clean guitars only.

BB: Have you planed to sign with some label in the near future?

S: No. Now we are promoting our last album, and trust in the next one.

BB: What do you think will be the future in Black Metal?

S: We are the future of black metal!J (BB note: That’s the spirit!!)

BB: Thanks again for your words. Is there anything else you want to add to this interview?

S: We thank you for the attention reserved to us, and for the support to the underground, the heart of extreme metal. Adiòs, and worship the apocalypse!