Metallers Scarred discuss third self-titled album!
Picture by Lugdivine Unfer Hello Scarred, thanks for your time. Would it be possible to introduce your band to our readers, as well as your roles in it? Hello! We’re Scarred and we have just released our third album this January, also named “Scarred” (self-titled) on Klonosphere / Season of Mist. We’re based in Luxembourg and are generally labelled as a Death Metal band, even though we tend to incorporate a lot of different influences in our music (progressive, psychedelic, thrash, atmospheric, symphonic….). There’s five of us, namely Yann on vocals, Diogo and Vincent on guitars, Bertrand on bass guitar and Laurent on drums. With a worldwide pandemic going on, how have you handled the management of your band over the past few months? We decided right away that we wouldn’t let the pandemic bring us down and have actually been more productive than ever as a band since 2020. With touring being off the table, we’ve focused on activities that we had not been focussing on as much before. We’ve produced a music video for every song of our new album, we’ve put out a cover of “Enjoy” by Björk. And an acoustic version of our song “Psychogenesis” from our last album “Gaia-Medea” (which you can find on YouTube). We are developing a new format of live show, promoting our new album, writing the next one. We have been and will be filming some live performances that will be released later this year... It has still been a very busy year for us, even though would much prefer to defend our new material on the road. Your new self-titled album is out since January 2021. How long have you worked on this release and how was the recording process? “Scarred” (self-titled) has been in the making for a little more than four years. We have never worked this long and this hard on album before! There have been some major line-up changes since our last album came out. We decided to make our music evolve outside the death metal niche with our new singer Yann. So there was a long songwriting and pre-production process before we took the songs to the studio. We also made the decision to produce as much of the album as we could ourselves. Meaning that we recorded all the guitars, the bass guitar and the additional instruments (keyboards, strings, samples…) in a home studio. Drums and vocals were recorded in Germany at the Tidalwave Studio with our friend Patrick Damiani, who also mixed the album. We are perfectionists (i.e. maniacs!) when it comes to our music. So the production process was long, intense and sometimes even downward crazy. It was exhausting but worth it! If you had to pick one song that, according to you, best reflects the spirit of your album. Which one would you pick and why? That’s a hard question because the album is built as a continuous experience and tells the story of our transformation as a band and as individuals over the last four years. Every song corresponds to a chapter of that story, which means they are all very different from one another. The keynote might be the song AHAIA. It is the longest song of the album and starts out as a brutal and dark death metal song before turning into a psychedelic shamanic ritual that kicks off the transformation we are talking about. But really, there is no good answer to that question, every song has its own mood, significance and vibe. Can we talk about the process of creating the artwork of your album and the overall idea behind this visual? The artwork was created by our friend Drazen Medakovic, who already took care of our last album “Gaia-Medea”. He’s an incredible artist (www.drazenillus.com) and it’s really easy to work with him. We just gave him the pre-production and the lyrics and talked about the events that inspired the songs and he managed to sum it all up in one picture on the first try. It just encompasses everything the album is about: the colours reflect the more progressive, psychedelic vibe... As well as the diversity of the songs while the character portrayed on the cover summarises the lyrical content and the production process of the album. We really did struggle a lot throughout the production of the album until we managed to let go and release those rainbows!
I’m sure you are, like a lot of people, missing live shows. Do you already have some dates planned for 2021? Tell me about it! So far most of the concerts we had planned for 2021 have been cancelled, but we are working to get a tour together later this year or at the beginning of next year. We might play a few concerts here and there but we can’t confirm anything just yet. For now it’s wait and see. The last words are for you. If you have a message to convey, here’s your chance! Thanks to you for giving us the opportunity to introduce ourselves and to your readers for their time and attention. Check out our new album, we have really left a big chunk of ourselves in there and are very proud of it. As for the general situation: relax! It’s not going to last forever!
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