Décembre est le mois des bilans, on s'approche donc de ce moment fatidique, l'heure pour moi de ressortir un veille interview des excellents italiens SLOMOTION APOCALYPSE !

Let's start this interview with a basic question: How did you found your bandname? What is the meaning/idea behind ?
Our band name is taken from the title of an album I love. In the nineties there was this amazing band called Grotus. They released the ''Slow Motion Apocalypse'' album on Alternative Tentacles (the label of former Dead Kennedys' singer Yello Biafra). The apocalypse is always described like a kind of punishment humanity will see in some kind of future. But looking at the world nowadays I thought of describing it as something which is already slowly creeping among our. I'm obsessed by the fate and the responsibilities of mankind, that's why.

I have to admit that I discovered your band with the new release "Obsidian", what did I missed? Is there a big difference between the previous album and the new one?²
Before ''Obsidian'' we released only our debut album ''My Own Private Armageddon'', the first version on the USA label Tribunal Records in 2005 then the European version – with three more songs and a video – on Scarlet Records in 2006. Compared with ''Obsidian'' MOPA is faster and more Swedish oriented.

I found a lot of Hatesphere influence on your new release, Is Hatespere a huge influence for you?
We think Hatesphere are one of the best thrash-death bands of the moment. We love all their albums and I think they are developing their personal sound. We played live with them and saw them live many times. We like them a lot.

Which bands are your other influences?
We like to mix the Swedish sound with Iron Maiden, Destruction and also some recent stuff like Bleeding Through, Amon Amarth, Converge. We like a lot of different kinds of music.

You invited some guests for this new cd. Can youn tell us more about their contribution and the meetings with these people?
Yes, Tomas Lindberg (The Great Deceiver, ex-At The Gates) appears on ''The Blessing'' and we are very honoured to have such an icon in our album. Tommy (drums) and Nicolas (guitar) played with The Great Deceiver during a European tour with their previous band and they met him. When we wrote ''The Blessing'' we thought his voice would have fitted the song perfectly so we contacted him and he was totally into the thing. Gianluca Perotti is the Godfather of Italian metal. With Extrema he traced the path all Italian metal kids followed for years. He his such a talented singer and a very nice guy. He gave Be Quick Or Be Dead a kind of magic vibe. He his great! Claudio Ravinale is one of our favourite Italian screamers. He sings in Disarmonia Mundi and being in the studio with Disarmonia Mundi's main man Ettore Rigotti we had the chance to meet him and work with him. His vocal range is so great and he did a very good work.

Immediatly after the release of your new album, you toured in Europe with Mnemic and Nightrage. How was the tour, the relations with the other bands etc ? What are your best/worst memories regarding this tour?
The tour has been awesome. We had very good feeling among all of us and we enjoyed it. Mnemic and Nightrage are great bands. The best memory is the concert in Bratislava. The crowd was amazing and we had a very good time but also the night we spent drinking and having fun in Budapest was great, definitely. The worst memory belongs to Tommy (drums) and Nicolas (guitar) which stopped the tour-bus for a shit and then were abandoned in Budapest at 5 AM together with Tomas from Mnemic with a very cold wind blowing, only t-shirt, no money, no ID card, and no mobiles. Fortunately they find out how to get to the venue but it took three hours of walking in a cold morning.

I've just checked your video clip for "Fuel for my hatred" which is really exciting and funny with all this stagedive and crazy people. What was the idea behind this video, any story about it?
The video has been directed by Nocturnal Movies (www.myspace.com/nocturnalmovies). It's just about the lyrics. Being in a band means a lot to us and it's not just for fun, it's a weapon we can use to speak. Our fans feel that and the song is about being together in the pit, sweating and enjoying the fight for what you believe in. We just tried to translate that into images. We gathered all our friends in a real flat and we gave them a lot of beers before we started. The funny thing is that we made them wait outside in order to do some tweaking on the set and when they came upstairs they were totally drunk. They were really beating each other so bad, and they liked it! That was fun... and a lot of tits too.

Do you prefer working in studio or live performance?
I think the live performance is our natural environment.

How has the artwork been created? Did the artist based his work on the lyrics, on the whole album, or did he create it all by himself?
The artwork has been developed together with artist Nicola Lelli (www.designyourfate24.it). He red the lyrics and showed us some ideas. We really liked his proposal to work with subjects concerning war as a way to link to the topics of some songs. Then we had the idea to create the contrast between past and present and that's how we came to the final result.

As you are coming from Italy, I would take this opportunity to have some info about your scene. It seems the extreme metal scene is growing there, am I wrong?
It is actually. Especially in the North area were we live. Raintime just signed to Lifeforce Records, Dufresne just toured Europe with a good success and there are very good bands coming up. I hope in some years we will have something to talk about.

Did Lacuna Coil's success opened some doors for Italian bands?
I don't know. At least they made people realize there is metal in Italy too and not only power metal.

Could I have your opinion/comments on the following Italian bands and your opinion about their last release :
- Disarmonia Mundi: I love them and all their albums are great! We recorded the new album with their main man Ettore Rigotti and one of the reasons was the fact that we love his band and his productions.
- Ephel Duath: we know them very well, especially Davide. It's such a crazy band with great ideas and Pin Necessary To Know is an amazing album with an amazing production from Riccardo Pasini, one of Italy's best producers.
- Hyades: I don't know them. Sorry.
- Sadist: they are a piece of the history of Italian metal. We will play with them at Gods Of Metal but I haven't listened to their last release yet. I got to check them out before the concert.
- Node: a powerful band and a bunch of nice guys at the same time. I hope they will do some good work on their new label.
- Allhelluja: it's a good band and they have enjoyable songs. It's a pity they cannot have a live activity. Jacob is so busy with Hatesphere.

Do you know French bands?
I know Gojira, Pleymo and X-Vision. Also the French scene seems to be growing, right?

Thanx for answering our questions! Do you have something to say to our readers?
Thank you so much for reading all my bullshit. Buy our album and play it loud! They say it works with chicks.