History & Biography One decade Osmose Productions will not sign anything French (not even a restaurant bill), the other it cannot get enough French food on its plate. Arkhon Infaustus is for real though and has connections to Antaeus. An Infamously extreme death/black onslaught on record, and the added bonus of sexual content live, these men are certainly not your Emperor fan's idea of black metal. The In Sperma Infernum EP from 1998 featured four tracks, and Cyndi Lauper on the cover, and was released through Mordgrimm/Cacophonous. This was in fact the band's demo on CD.
After Hell Injection Hellblaster was replaced for live shows with Canadian drummer J. Read of Revenge. A. ZK6 joined in time for Filth Catalyst. This album's LP version featured Scatholic Beatitude as a bonus song.
Perdition Insanabilis, the band's third album, was issued in the summer of 2004. It was recorded at Berno Studio (Deranged, Seance, etc.) in Sweden. The album was licensed for America by Red Stream Records. A tour supporting Deicide in Europe followed.
The group’s long delayed and totally re-recorded album Orthodoxyn saw the light on May 28th, 2007. The 666 Torturer [Guillaume Warren], AZK.6 and Toxik H left in 2009. After a decade of silence Passing The Nekromanteion was an EP in 2017.
Sperma Infernum was re-issued by Impure Wedding Productions in 2021. The CD was originally issued by Mordgrimm in 1998. Osculum Infame was also seeing a re-release.
Reviews ARKHON INFAUSTUS - FILTH CATALYST - OSMOSE
Every honest death metal fanatic will admit the following fact: there are bands in the genre which are simply going through the motions and then there are the elite few who feel what they play. These have the power and fury running wild in their veins. Arkhon Infaustus is the real deal. The band lashes power violence at the listener without nary a though accorded words like mercy, pity or compromise. Then it backs up the power with quality riffs. Indeed if a riff were an animal, Arkhon Infaustus' would be a mammoth. The band takes its cues from Impaled Nazarene, Dissection, early Kataklysm, Illdisposed and Zyklon, adds the Arkhon Infaustus treatment to the mix and concocts a ravaging delivery sure to please the true death metal fanatic. Songs like Ravaging The Nine Pillars and Narcotic Angel's Terminal Apostasic Sin are lessons in blasting eruption. A song like The Fifth Inquisitor may be slower, but has chunky riffs reminiscent of the best of Boltthrower. The Frenchmen are also in the habit of inserting subtle elements to the songs which manage to add both variety and noise to the fray. Examples are the static noise on the aforementioned Ravaging The Nine Pillars or the Classically-inspired note picking running through The Fifth Inquisitor. The dual-vocals - one of which reminds me fondly of Deicide's debut - also help attack the listener. The album is topped off by a stimulating intro and outro. Filth Catalyst is the musical equivalent of looking fate in the face. - Ali "The Metallian"
ARKHON INFAUSTUS - ORTHODOXYN - OSMOSE
Trigarammaton starts slowly in the form of a deliberate, dragging Incantation song and when its tempo picks up the similarities remain, with perhaps more chunkiness in style and in its raw production. However, it spends too much time on the aforementioned slow trip. One thing that Orthodoxyn has many tempo changes or layers, When They Have Called further confirms this and although the mixture adds some elements of originality it is still true that the speedy death metal makes for a much more convincing effort than the other slower, heavier layers. Examples of the ineffectiveness can be heard on Magnificat Satanas and La Particule De Dieu where a few passages seem just to fill and lengthen the songs in the guise of adding ambience. Orthodoxyn goes to the depths of black metal, experiments with riffs, moods and music, the journey is worthwhile but it entails some disappointment. - Anna Tergel
Interviews Long known as a dormant country in the context of extreme metal, France is now storming the scene with a vengeance exporting bands like 7th Nemesis, Inhumate and Necroblaspheme. One of the better manifestations of this sound is Osmose Production's Arkhon Infaustus. With the release of Filth Catalyst, the follow-up to 2001's Hell Injection, they have delivered an album impressive enough to win the title of The Album Of The Month here at Metallian Towers. It is high time therefore, for Ali "The Metallian" to find out from bassist The 666 Torturer what all the fuss is about. - 25.03.2003
THE 666 TORTURER: Thank you for the chance to speak. We are gratified for the interest and also happy to see Filth Catalyst be Metallian's Album Of The Month. It shows that some people understand and feel what we do. One of the original aspects of Arkhon Infaustus comes from how we are not cheating people. We believe what we do and say. We feel therefore, that our work is not useless, and that we are really promoting His words and will.
METALLIAN: What are you referring to when you say that Arkhon Infaustus backs up its words with actions? Can you back this statement up?
THE 666 TORTURER: We speak about Satan, but this is not only theory. It affects our lives, our trips... same with violence. We really do enjoy violence. It is not only about being violent on stage and never being violent in life. We are violent on stage because this is how we really are. And more than all that... we are really sexually-perverted minds.
METALLIAN: What were you trying to achieve when composing your current album Filth Catalyst?
THE 666 TORTURER: Right from the beginning the main idea was to create a band whose music, lyrics and image were one-hundred percent ours. From the demo to Filth Catalyst, this is what we have done: exact snapshots of ourselves at that time. This is the evil that attracts all evil. These works are getting us deeper into our thoughts and music. On a personal scale we want to share it as an evanglising process. We need to play music to get all the violence, perversion and reflections out in a way that can be shared.
METALLIAN: Taking a cue from what you just said, what makes this album different from the previous one?
THE 666 TORTURER: There was the new lineup and the two years of work to start with. The band was previously mostly singer/guitarist Deviant and I, but now guitarist Toxik and drummer A. ZK6 have joined and added their visions to ours. Additionally we have had many new experiences such as the European tour. The final difference would be the fact that we have a new sound engineer who will be working with us hence forward. His name is David Decobert. He has been the sound engineer of many bands on tour including Immortal, Marduk and others. He now mostly works for Nile, No Return and Arkhon Infaustus. He can turn our ideas into sound as he now knows us very well.
METALLIAN: More particularly, what makes Arkhon Infaustus different from other bands? To begin with, is it necessary to be different?
THE 666 TORTURER: As I said, I believe that the first difference is the fact that nothing is fake. We are not raging a pseudo-war against Christianity. This is real Satanism, real sex, real violence. We have a deeper comprehension of evil than just being anti Christians. We have our own mix of theology and philosophy, yet we also act.
METALLIAN: Which bands are you contrasting your true nature from?
THE 666 TORTURER: I am not referring to names, but to an overall attitude. Let me give you an example however. We played with a band called Darkside and even though they screamed on stage about 'Satan' or '666,' they had nothing to do with Satanists. There were so much troubles between our bands.
Furthermore, the people who left during the extreme sexual performances of our shows, telling the organisers that it was far too much for them to bear, had no reason to be there. Yet, they wear inverted cross and black metal shirts, but what for?
METALLIAN: In tandem with your attitude, the album maintains a hard line on brutality, speed and heaviness. Having said that, you go out of your way to incorporate some variety into the fray.
THE 666 TORTURER: In fact, we just play and what comes out is always Arkhon Infaustus. We find ourselves in the brutal parts as well as the slow ritualistic parts. We are not rehearsing as if we are on a job or as if this is a hobby. It is so much more. We rehearse so much. It's a big part of our lives. We can play a riff so many times, slowly or fastly, before really using it. We are not trying to get technical or whatever. We are looking for pure feeling and ideology.
METALLIAN: Let us get a bit more specific about the different tracks. There is a heavy static on the song Ravaging The Nine Pillars.
THE 666 TORTURER: The break in the middle? Those are the guitar fucking up! We kept them in the song because we wanted to keep a live or rehearsal feeling. We have a split approach in our recording. We want to keep that live atmosphere and at the same time add a religious approach. Songs like Ravaging... will be played on our next European tour, but a song like Nox Microcosmica will not.
METALLIAN: Then there is the note picking on The Filth Inquisitor which happens to be reminiscent of the work of Kirk Hammett of Metallica. What was the idea there?
THE 666 TORTURER: We wanted to play something slow and heavy on guitars, but quite fast on the drums. We didn't think at all about Metallica on that song and it is the first time we are told anything like that.
METALLIAN: Then there is the fantastic outro to the album which fits the whole aura so well.
THE 666 TORTURER: That is Aleister Crowley speaking. The album starts with the statement from Damien and ends with a new vision of religions. If you take the first song on the album which deals with the old religions' visions of languages and holiness and the last song which is about the rats who will become lords you see the connection. Crowley's work has been more influential on us than many other so-called Satanists - even if the term is not exact in Crowley's case.
All ideas come from the band. The riffs, words or images all come under the chemical influence of Satan.
METALLIAN: Elsewhere there seems to be a bond between Arkhon Infaustus and the band Revenge. Can you elaborate?
THE 666 TORTURER: Well, we have been big Conqueror (the precursor to Revenge - ATM) addicts for a long time. We begun looking for a session drummer when we learnt that former drummer Hellblaster would not be able to tour with us . Once we heard about J. Read of Revenge being interested there was no choice anymore. He came and lived together with us for several months. Furthermore, something has been created in that meantime. A split-EP is somehow the perfect piece to solidify this union.
METALLIAN: Can you please give the readers more details on this split-release?
THE 666 TORTURER: This EP is very important for us. It is essentially the musical part of something that happened between J. Read and us. We shared violence for a few months and went throughout all of Europe together. Even the title of the EP was chosen specifically for this split. Our song is quite different from what we usually do. We felt that the subject of contemporary priesthood's pedophilia was to be treated with a certain atmosphere. This song was written very quickly because we wanted to have an almost instinctive feeling on it. That is, it was meant to be like the priest abusing children under the control of dark and immediate impulses.
METALLIAN: Before letting you go why don't you explain the meaning behind the band's name?
THE 666 TORTURER: Arkhon comes from the Greek language and means 'prince' and Infaustus comes from the Latin and means 'sinister,' 'dark' or 'sad.' The name is like anything else with Arkhon Infaustus. One can perceive it in the easiest way of understanding simply as Satan. Yet for those with higher understanding it refers to the Bible. When the god divided men by language in order for man to reach him directly, he thus created several languages from that primeval and single one. Arkhon Infaustus comes from different ancient languages and stands as the symbol of the reunification of the words meant to be spoken like those of the original sin so that we can strike again at the face of their god. Pure direct blasphemy and malignant evil are entwined in the band.
METALLIAN: I have said in several reviews that France is clearly The most underrated metal country in the world. Why is the country so undervalued?
THE 666 TORTURER: It used to be really hard for a French band to get exported. That is if we except bands like Massacra from ten years ago. Having said that, this fact also maintained our scene as an extreme and dedicated one. I do think that French bands are now getting out and successfully showing the brutal aspect of the French scene.
METALLIAN: Thank you for your time.
THE 666 TORTURER: Thank you for the interview.
Arkhon Infaustus' new album Filth Catalyst is available at all the usual metal outlets now. European fans can see the band live in May as openers for Vader and Deranged.
|