{"id":6286,"date":"2012-06-08T00:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T00:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=6286"},"modified":"2012-07-24T15:27:59","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T15:27:59","slug":"feature-mnemic-06-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-mnemic-06-12\/","title":{"rendered":"MNEMIC – Transcension (June 2012) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

MNEMIC – Transcension<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nJune 2012<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mnemic (l-r): Victor-Ray Salomonsen Ronander, Brian Larsen, Guillaume Bideau,
Simone Bertozzi and Mircea Gabriel Eftemie<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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Bassist Tomas \u2018Obeast\u2019 Koefod announced his departure from Danish metallers Mnemic on April 13th, 2011, citing musical differences. Tomas had supplied bass parts to Mnemic full-lengths two through to four, namely October 2004\u2019s The Audio Injected Soul<\/em>, January 2007\u2019s Passenger<\/em>, and January 2010\u2019s Sons Of The System<\/em>. Italian bassist Simone Bertozzi (Empyrious \/ Modern Age Slavery) was revealed to be the man\u2019s replacement.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been touring a lot,\u201d explains Guillaume Bideau, vocalist of Mnemic. \u201cHe had a kid in-between and everything, so he\u2019s had some changes in his life. The way he was seeing the music business these days and the way we were seeing it wasn\u2019t fitting together anymore. That\u2019s why he just decided to leave the band, and stay away from the music business for a little while. He\u2019s just decided to play with some bands again in Denmark. He\u2019s still a really good friend. We see each other as often as possible, but he just needed this break.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mnemic declared further line-up changes on October 29th, the exit of drummer Brian Rasmussen paving way for the addition of Brian Larsen (Vira). \u201cHe had some difficult problems, because his knees were fucked in a way,\u201d the singer discloses. \u201cIn the end he couldn\u2019t make more than three or four shows in a row, and that was a big problem. For example, a one-month tour or something like that would have been impossible. We had to switch to stand-in drummers and everything, so it was complicated. He wasn\u2019t that motivated anymore to go out on tour, so it just naturally came on the table that we just had to step away and look for somebody else. Still once again though, he\u2019s a really good friend. We meet as often as we can, and as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about it, because we had thought about it and thought it would be better for him to leave. It\u2019s always difficult to talk about something like that though with a band member which is a brother, because he was in the band for several years \u2013 it was a long time. It\u2019s always a really strange subject to talk about, but he was like \u2018Yeah, I totally understand.\u2019 I think it is way better for us. It was mutual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guitarist Rune Stigart departed as well, Brian Larsen\u2019s Vira bandmate in Victor-Ray Salomonsen fulfilling the resultant vacancy. \u201cIt was mainly because of the fact he isn\u2019t a fan of touring as well, and Mnemic is kind of a touring band,\u201d Guillaume feels. \u201cWe want to play as much as possible, and Rune didn\u2019t share this vision anymore. We wanted to tour a bit more, but at this time they all had to make some choices in their lives regarding their families, jobs, and everything. They weren\u2019t available for a lot of intensive touring. I was ready to tour a lot, but we couldn\u2019t tour that much. We played a lot of gigs here and there though, a small tour here, a small tour there. In the end it was maybe 50 gigs, but we didn\u2019t make a single real tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cRune wasn\u2019t really happy to go on tour in the end though, and regarding the music. We had some different visions in terms of where we wanted to go with the band. He wanted to go more into some kind of a heavy rock version, and Mircea (Gabriel Eftemie, guitars) wanted to be more like the old days \u2013 like the first two albums \u2013 and a mixture of what we all do together now. We went back to something more Mnemic in the end. We didn\u2019t want to be more rock. We had a different vision of the music than he had. We just talked about it with Rune like we did with Brian, and it appeared naturally that him leaving was the best thing to do for everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course when all these changes appeared, me and Mircea didn\u2019t really know what was going to happen. We were pretty happy because there was a lot of new blood in the band, and the guys were really motivated. On the other hand though, they were friends from before. Just Simone we met on tour, our new bass player. We knew the guys from before though, because they had replaced Brian or Rune on some tours or gigs. They\u2019re way younger than us \u2013 like 23, 24, 25 \u2013 so we didn\u2019t know how it was going to work. When we started to compose with them, everything fell into place. It appeared that it was pretty nice, and now we\u2019re really happy because those two guys are really motivated. It gives a new energy to the band, so I think it was the best thing that could happen to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

June 2012\u2019s Mnemesis<\/em><\/a> is the first Mnemic record to feature the outfit\u2019s overhauled line-up. \u201cWe composed everything once the new members joined the band,\u201d the frontman clarifies. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have any material from before they arrived. Usually I just fly to Denmark, and we have some writing sessions with the guys. We composed everything in the studio \u2013 we all have ProTools, and all this stuff. In rehearsals the guys were then just checking everything was alright, because some things you compose in the studio and then when it comes to rehearsing the songs sometimes it doesn\u2019t really work. So yeah, we just test the songs in rehearsals and check if everything is okay. It took a bit less than six months, or something like that. With Sons Of The System<\/em>, it took more than a whole year to compose the album. This time it was way shorter. We just worked on the first few songs, and we found a working rhythm somehow. We had to compose everything before setting a release date with Nuclear Blast, so we didn\u2019t have any real deadline. It just happened like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Guillaume Bideau<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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Mnemic\u2019s overhauled line-up hasn\u2019t greatly affected the assortment\u2019s musical style, however. \u201cI don\u2019t think it has,\u201d Guillaume reckons. \u201cWhen we sent the album to Nuclear Blast, the guys told us \u2018We\u2019re a little curious because with three new members. Maybe the sound will have changed or something.\u2019 They told us though \u2018No, it totally sounds like Mnemic,\u2019 so there wasn\u2019t really a sound change or anything. It\u2019s still very Mnemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

A form of word play, the title Mnemesis<\/em> was suggested by a follower of Mnemic\u2019s official Facebook page. \u201cIt\u2019s always hard to find an album name that everybody loves in the band, the right name that everybody likes more or less,\u201d the vocalist chuckles. \u201cThis guy just mentioned that, so we just had to put the M before Nemesis so that it became Mnemesis<\/em>. These days me and Mircea write the lyrics, and we weren\u2019t really enthusiastic regarding the world. This album is a way of punishing all the bad behaviour of the humans (laughs). <\/p>\n

\u201cThe lyrics talk about some really personal visions that we have regarding the world. It\u2019s kind of subjective, but it\u2019s pretty depressing actually (laughs). My girlfriend told me \u2019Wow, you have some really dark names for titles.\u2019 She just read the lyrics, and she was like \u2019Wow, you really don\u2019t like how the world is these days\u2019 (laughs). We\u2019re all pretty angry about the world these days, and that\u2019s reflected in the lyrics.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople in general are so selfish; they just do things for themselves, and they don\u2019t see the future. They\u2019re just getting more and more selfish, and don\u2019t think about others. It\u2019s not new, but we think that these days. It\u2019s worse than before. People are getting poorer and poorer, so the poorer you get the more selfish you become of course. People are getting richer and richer too, and the richer you get the more selfish you become as well. The more you have the more that you want, and the less you have the more you protect what you\u2019ve got. It\u2019s not political though; it\u2019s just a vision of the world that we have. We don\u2019t have any political messages.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve Been You\u2019, for example, is a way of stating that we aren\u2019t better than everybody else. \u201c\u2018I\u2019ve Been You\u2019 is just a way to say \u2018Yeah, I\u2019m criticising, but I\u2019ve been you so I\u2019m the same. I\u2019m not better than you,\u2019\u201d Guillaume divulges. \u201cWhen I write lyrics, it\u2019s pretty subjective. You have to just write them, pick out what you like in them, and amend them as you want. I don\u2019t really like to talk about the lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guitarist Mircea Gabriel Eftemie likened Mnemesis<\/em>\u2019 sound to the sound prevalent on September 2003\u2019s Mechanical Spin Phenomena<\/em> and October 2004\u2019s The Audio Injected Soul<\/em>, Mnemic\u2019s opening brace of full-lengths. \u201cIt was more or less a statement regarding the sound as well because on Passenger<\/em> and Sons Of The System<\/em>, there were a lot of low ends,\u201d the lyricist cautions. \u201cWe wanted to go back to the cold and mechanical sound on the first two ones, but in the end, what we wanted to do isn\u2019t really what we did. We\u2019re really happy about the album, but it doesn\u2019t sound like what we had in mind before we composed it. We would have forced ourselves otherwise, so it\u2019s a bit different. I think it\u2019s a nice mixture between the beginning of Mnemic and Sons Of The System<\/em>, but the sound isn\u2019t as cold as it is on the first two ones and it has way less low end than the last two albums. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they listen to the album, a lot of people say \u2018It\u2019s way more melodic and there are way more clean vocals.\u2019 I have no idea though because when I\u2019m in the studio in front of a microphone I just come into the studio with the lyrics, but sometimes not. When that happens I compose everything while recording the album, so it\u2019s really spontaneous. There\u2019s no plan. When I hit the studio I don\u2019t have a general idea \u2013 I just see what happens. I try to be as spontaneous as possible, and have a lot of fun (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n

Guillaume\u2019s feelings towards Mechanical Spin Phenomena<\/em> and The Audio Injected Soul<\/em> are positive. \u201cThe first time I listened to them, I was pretty impressed by the sound,\u201d he enthuses. \u201cI was on tour with one of my other bands, and one of the guitarists just played Mnemic in the car. I was like \u2018Yeah, fuck man. This song is pretty great.\u2019 I loved it. I don\u2019t like death metal, but the screams that Michael was doing combined with the addition of the music, the sound, and the choruses… At the same time it\u2019s catchy, it\u2019s heavy, it\u2019s melodic, and the sound is pretty powerful. I like those albums, but I don\u2019t listen to all of the songs. Some are too atmospheric and too weird for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mnemesis<\/em> has been touted as more melodic than recent efforts. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s more melodic, but that\u2019s what people say,\u201d the singer admits. \u201cAs I sang on the album, I don\u2019t have a wider view on it. It\u2019s still fresh for me, too new. I\u2019m too much in the band to have an overview on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atmosphere is also prevalent. \u201cWe have some nice atmospheres on the album on songs like \u2018Junkies On The Storm\u2019, and on \u2018There\u2019s No Tomorrow\u2019 there are a lot of ambiences as well,\u201d Guillaume adds. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty diverse.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mnemic (l-r): Brian Larsen, Simone Bertozzi, Guillaume Bideau, Victor-Ray
Salomonsen Ronander and Mircea Gabriel Eftemie<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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In cutting vocals for Mnemesis<\/em>, the frontman wanted to slightly tweak his high-pitched vocals. \u201cOn tour, I just noticed that sometimes my voice doesn\u2019t really work out this way,\u201d he confesses. \u201cI wanted to be able to make something really comfortable from when I wake up in the morning to when I go to bed dead drunk (laughs), something that I was able to reproduce all the time. The screaming voice I use on the album is my most natural voice, the one that I can always use on tour when I wake up or whatever. I just choose to use this one. I just go to the song, and the music tells me what to sing. Of course I use clean vocals on all of the choruses because I like catchy things, and that\u2019s what I like to listen to. I do that most of the time, use clean vocals for the choruses. Regarding the verses though, it just depends on the lyrics and the ambience. The music just tells me what to sing. I don\u2019t know. Once again, it\u2019s pretty spontaneous. I don\u2019t have a plan before I hit the studio. I just go there and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Touring commitments can take their toll upon the vocal chords. \u201cOn tour it\u2019s always difficult because you have to sing clean parts and dirty parts, and that\u2019s sometimes for a month,\u201d Guillaume shares. \u201cIt also depends on if you\u2019re doing a headlining tour. Every day you have to play 90 minutes, which is a long time. Of course your voice gets tired a lot towards the end, and with the buses you always have problems with the lack of air conditioning. Sometimes you get sick like that, and if you get sick on tour your voice gets even more tired. But yeah, with the vocals on Mnemesis<\/em> I know I can go with my natural voice. Even if I\u2019m sick I can do them anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mnemesis<\/em> has additionally been touted as less technical than recent efforts. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d the vocalist muses. \u201cMaybe (laughs). I still think it\u2019s technical, but maybe more… I know we had some songs on the previous albums where sometimes you hear the song, and then all of a sudden you have a technical part popping out of nowhere. Sometimes it was maybe copied and pasted just because this is Mnemic, and we have to be technical. Sometimes we just put a technical part in the middle of somewhere just to be technical. On this one, we didn\u2019t do that at all. Composition wise, it was just a pretty natural process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longtime associate Tue Madsen handled production duties on Mnemesis<\/em>. \u201cTue is a really good friend of ours,\u201d Guillaume beams. \u201cHe\u2019s been with Mnemic since the beginning, since before I was there. He even mixed and mastered one of One-Way Mirror\u2019s albums (July 2008\u2019s One-Way Mirror). He\u2019s a really nice producer, really laid back, and really cool. He works really professional, pretty fast, is pretty efficient, and listens to what you say. Some producers don\u2019t listen to what you say. They say \u2018Yeah, yeah, yeah… Whatever,\u2019 and they do their stuff (laughs). Tue is Danish, so of course he can speak fluently with the other guys. He is a nice guy, super professional, a fast worker, and understands where we want to go musically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Metastazis, meanwhile, designed its cover artwork. \u201cI don\u2019t care about artwork at all,\u201d the composer dismisses. \u201cThis is Mircea\u2019s and Simone\u2019s job because they\u2019re both graphic designers. I\u2019m totally focused on the music, so it\u2019s not something I really care about. I leave the people who care about it to take care of it (laughs). The cover is pretty nice, pretty simple. It\u2019s pretty much white, and we wanted this because I do a lot of pictures and I shoot videos as well. We made some promotional videos during recording, and then we had a photographer come to take pictures. We wanted something black and white. On the album it\u2019s not black and white but it has a lot of contrasts, so it goes together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of Mnemesis<\/em>\u2019 tracks, Guillaume cannot select a favourite. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve just finished recording an album of course you listen to it, and it appears that there are some tracks that you want to listen to more than others,\u201d he figures. \u201cWith Mnemesis<\/em> though, every time I just listen to the whole album I\u2019m really happy about all of the songs. If I had to choose three songs, it would be pretty hard because there are too many songs to choose from. There\u2019s \u2018Transcend\u2019… \u2018Valves\u2019 is really good as well because it has a pretty metal riff in the beginning, but that one is melodic so it\u2019s funny. No, there\u2019s not really a special song. I really love all the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mnemic aside, One-Way Mirror is another of the singer\u2019s musical endeavours. \u201cIt\u2019s something totally different,\u201d the singer critiques. \u201cCompared to Mnemic, it\u2019s a really different band which is good because I don\u2019t want to have two bands and do the same music. Mnemic is more progressive I would say, and One-Way Mirror is more pretty simple metal. We just compose the metal we want to listen to. When I\u2019m with the One-Way Mirror guys, we have an atmosphere and we party a lot. We\u2019re just a bunch of friends, so we compose the music that we want to listen to when we want to party. It\u2019s pretty simple, catchy metal rock. Yeah, it\u2019s something really different. It\u2019s a totally different approach than Mnemic, something way more simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mnemesis<\/em> was released on June 8th, 2012 in Europe and on the 19th in North America, all through Nuclear Blast Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in June 2012. All promotional photographs by Nuno Alexandre.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MNEMIC – Transcension Anthony Morgan June 2012 Mnemic (l-r): Victor-Ray Salomonsen Ronander, Brian Larsen, Guillaume Bideau, Simone Bertozzi and Mircea Gabriel Eftemie Bassist Tomas \u2018Obeast\u2019 Koefod announced his departure from Danish metallers Mnemic on April 13th, 2011, citing musical differences. Tomas had supplied bass parts to Mnemic full-lengths two through to four, namely October 2004\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[296],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mnemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6286"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6313,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions\/6313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}