interview: Labyrinth Entrance

Labyrinth Entrance is the extreme metal solo project of the musician named Hunger (Norway/Poland). In 2018 LE has its debut recording published and it is called Monumental Bitterness and it is divided into six sections, each one called Canto. Find out more about LE in this interview and hear the complete recording at the link at the end of this interview.

Monumental Bitterness definitely lives up to its name! The official information says that Hunger plays all the music on the album. Can you help us here in the United States to learn more about Hunger? What motivated you, Hunger, to start Labyrinth Entrance? Did anyone help you to make the album?

It's Hunger here. Labyrinth Entrance is my own solo project created round two years ago in a quite natural way. For many years I spent playing the guitar I used to focus on the old school death metal and especially American one due to the simple fact that I had been brought up on this music. Before joining Stillborn as their bass player, I had recorded EP Horror of Naatu with the help of August (the drummer in Stillborn). Afterwards it appeared a rather difficult period in my personal life with lot of problems whirling around, and at that time the first sounds of Monumental Bitterness began to form in my mind. I literally closed myself in four walls for a couple of days and that's the way how the main skeleton of the album has been created. I managed to include in this album all the emotions dwelling inside me, but also the sounds and motifs that I couldn't fit into HON music but that have been going through my head for a long time. When I possessed a certain outline of the album, I came up in the studio at the other end of Poland and there, with the help of Darek G. during 4 days I recorded the instruments and after a few months I recorded the parts of the vocals.

Do you prefer to play drums or to program the drums on the album?

As far as the drums are concerned Monumental Bitterness used the drum application to create drums tracks. When I was young I played drums in my own death metal band but in this case what I wanted to achieve on my album in many moments required really high technical skills and I couldn't afford it for the time being. Generally, I wanted the drums to sound powerful and I believe I achieved the goal. I am very satisfied with them. In fact, what counts for me is the real sound flowing from speakers and not the amount of money spent for the arduous recording of drums. That's why I did not ask for the help of my friend drummers.

Do you prefer to work alone? Is it faster to do something by yourself than having meetings or discussions about how something should be done?

The fact that I create two separate metal projects on my own is not connected that e.g. I do not want to cooperate with other musicians. The prosaic reason is lack of the time and my actual family circumstances. I have 3 children and I work in Norway, which is connected with frequent travelling. I simply do not have enough time for traditional rehearsals with my friends. I play at Stillborn where I fulfill my music aspirations as a professional crew member in man-of-three metal "beast."

Here in the U.S. I have not read much about the musician named Hunger. Who is Hunger? What other bands or projects have you done? What is the situation for Hunger as a musician in Poland?

Regarding my position in the Polish "metal underground"- despite the fact that I have been a musician for a long time, I perform on stage for about 5 years. We play with Stillborn both in Poland and in Europe, we just released another EP. My separate solo projects remain just studio projects. Soon I will be recording the first full album with HON and next year I plan to release the second album LE. I am promoted by the GodzOvWar Prod. label in the media and it goes professionally both when it comes to LE and Stillborn.

Can you tell us about your vision with Monumental Bitterness? When you began the project, did you have a vision of a melancholic, doom and black metal album?

Concerning the leitmotif of MB, the whole album is my own concept presenting the hell on the basis of Dante's "Inferno". When I started composing the album, I did not have any lyrical vision, I only knew that I wanted to record a depressive and melancholic album because that exactly reflected my state of mind at that time. And after watching INFERNO, I was enchanted by the enormous amount of paintings and visions which Dante contained therein. Then I knew that this is the direction which I want to follow. I have read several studies on this outstanding work and all the lyrics based on them, I even used some complete fragments from the original.

Canto II is a very good melancholic, melodic track, but towards the end it goes into the speed of black metal. It is an instrumental song. What made you decide not to have lyrics on this song?

As for Canto II, it is an instrumental piece, because its structure and the emotions that I have included in it are complete, and from my point they do not require any text, what's more I think that there is even no place for that. Additionally, in fact the whole album originally was supposed to be instrumental, but Greg from GOW persuaded me to try to create and record some vocals parts and today I'm happy that I have agreed because I'm finally very satisfied with the whole. This is a very personal album for me.

On the other hand, Canto III is more of a headbanging heavy metal song, in particular extreme metal. How do the Latin lyrics fit into the overall picture of Canto III and Monumental Bitterness?

Canto III is probably the most outstanding form the whole album. This was confirmed also by the amount of opinions of people who listened to it. This song is probably the best one I've ever created. I like it very much. Latin fragments of text are the above-mentioned original fragments of Dante. My parts of the lyric express all the fears and frights about the death and what is after. This is my own Monumental Bitterness. The song consists of two parts, where the second one is a monotonous slow motif colored with keys, trumpets and strings that leads to the unknown.

Canto IV almost reads like a story about kings and struggles in context of the kings. And Canto V certainly increases the tension to the conflict of murderers, traitors and destruction. When you were thinking about the conclusion to the overall story of Monumental Bitterness, how did you imagine that it should end?

Despite the fact that each of the individual songs differs significantly from the others, when you listen to this CD you can have the impression that the whole album is something like a single piece divided into parts. The same applies to lyrics. They all merge into one whole and tell about the fall of a man, his vanity and powerlessness. About sins, guilt and punishment. That there is the Hell and everyone can get there.

Now the album is complete, where does Monumental Bitterness fit in with the future plans for your project?

As for my future plans, I already have about 50 minutes of material for the second LE album and it will be completely different from Monumental Bitterness, although it will not lose climate contained in the LE. This project allows me to compose music without any limits and when composing songs I do not care if any piece stylistically fits to another one, no matter it is death metal, black metal or any other kind of music. That's why I have heard many opinions that LE music cannot be pigeonholed, because all included genres interference with each other in a skillful way creating the coherent whole.

Do you think that you ever want to perform live with some session musicians?

Playing LE live would be quite difficult to perform, because I used a lot of effects while recording and would require a lot of efforts to reproduce it all live. Besides, I wouldn't like to hear the live version in a small club with a poor sound system. I think that the whole atmosphere of the album could disappear in such conditions. This CD has a very special sound and I would like it to be remembered as it is.

Finally, how can your fans support your music?

The album is available on the CD version on the GOW Prod. website and all information about the LE can be followed on the official Facebook page, although to be honest it is not rich with the content because I do not belong to effusive people. I encourage everyone to open their minds to go deeper into Monumental Bitterness and rethink their lives from scratch. Thank you for LE's interest and for an interesting interview.

Regards - Hunger

facebook.com/labyrinth.entrance

godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/monumental-bitterness