Metal & Mike: Exploring Cosmic Destruction With OUTER HEAVEN
Michael Pementel
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Pennsylvania’s Outer Heaven deliver a brutal onslaught of grotesque death metal in their debut record, Realms Of Eternal Decay (out now via Relapse Records). And if the band name happens to ring a bell, well you might be thinking of a very popular video game series.
“The name is in fact pulled from the Metal Gear video game series,” vocalist Austin Haines shares. “At [the band’s] earliest point, we even briefly discussed just making the entire band Metal Gear themed. I even had a couple really good song titles / ideas… but that was all eventually scrapped when the songs ended up being really good. So from that point we decided to go the more serious route.”
And by serious route, Haines is speaking to the band’s horror / sci-fi apocalyptic subject matter. Lyrically, Haines was interested in exploring the concept of alien bacteria wiping away mankind, and conveying that destruction through death metal.
“We are all very much fans of horror/sci-fi in our personal lives,” Haines says, “so of course this would translate across into our music as well. The concept for our new album, ‘Realms Of Eternal Decay’, arose from a discussion on the Stoned Ape Theory [an “evolutionary catalyst philosophy]… just taken a step further. We thought to ourselves.. well what if cavemen had consumed/been consumed by a bacteria or slime mold? This consumption causing hallucinations/violence/physical abnormalities and behavioral degradation. All of this eventually escalating into the total destruction and decay of a planet.”
Realms Of Eternal Decay is a relentless experience of savage death metal. Instrumentally and vocally the band come together to emit a sincerely menacing aura. To work with the intensity of the story, Outer Heaven work relentlessly to present the right combination of all-out devastating instrumentation.
“The riff is crucial when it comes to Outer Heaven,” Haines shares. “It keeps us grounded when we stray a little too far from it, making the heaviness something that just comes from that mindset. I’m sure down tuning doesn’t hurt either! Keeping it simple while making it interesting for us to play is another key piece. There are riffs on Realms that are a few years old, some of them are even older than the band, but they really didn’t work until we were writing as a five-piece.”
“We want to be able to play what we record live so there’s more emphasis on harmony and weird lead stuff now. A song like “Sacrificial Evolution” would never have worked in the past, because it would sound completely empty live with just one guitar. Sounds from albums like ‘Human’ from Death and ‘Spheres’ from Pestilence started creeping in as well. When we recorded Realms there were no click or scratch tracks, so while it wasn’t done live it still has that feeling to it. The drums for ‘Bloodspire’ were recorded without any guitar whatsoever. Everything we’ve done as a band has been done on our own terms since the beginning, and it’s just starting to break through the surface…
Haines shares how he mapped out the lyrical component of the record, and specifically, how he adapted to a new form of writing. “The process of lyric writing for this record was a bit foreign to me at first. Typically in the past, the themes of our records were more religious or political in nature. These were themes that I felt touched me personally or that I really had something to speak on. With ‘Realms’, I had to form an overarching concept and lay out each song’s ideas to fit the narrative. Then, go in and expand on each object of the concept. In combination with the portrayal of the concepts through the artwork, I feel like we really pulled something unique together.”
If you haven’t heard of Outer Heaven until now do yourself a favor and check them out. Given how impressive and ferocious Realms Of Eternal Decay is, the band is only going to climb higher. You can listen to the track “Bloodspire” below, as well as order a copy of their record via Bandcamp or the Relapse Records website.
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