The Ritual speaks exclusively with Spider God

In the last couple of years, the UK metal underground has seen an explosion of black metal bands and releases that are not only exceptional in quality but also at expanding the horizons.

Spider God are one such band who exploded onto the scene in Halloween 2020 with their debut EP ‘Den Inre Borgen / The Interior Castle’. Nate from The Ritual here on TotalRock chats exclusively with Spider God about their debut EP, upcoming releases in 2021 and the meaning behind the music.

Nate – You burst onto the underground black metal scene on Halloween last year and your debut release has received great praise. Please can you tell me about the band and where the name of the band was conjured from?

G – I’ve been dabbling in black metal since about 2010 but it’s only recently that I’ve had the motivation to turn it into a formal band. I had a bunch of riffs and bits of songs that I’d intended for another (non-BM) project, and I found that refashioning them in a raw, aggressive context made for an interesting mixture of ‘sweet and sour’ that I was really drawn to, so I abandoned that project and transformed it into this one. The first EP took less than a week to write, record and mix, and I made the second one (which is yet to be released) straight afterwards. It was a productive couple of weeks!

The name Spider God comes from the 1960 Bergman film, Through a Glass Darkly. It’s about a schizophrenic girl’s descent into madness, thinking she hears voices behind the wallpaper and believing that God will appear to her through an open door. In the climax of the film she is confronted by this entity, only to discover that it has appeared in the form of a huge, menacing spider that crawls into her body. It’s an enigmatic and complex image of transcendent evil that somehow fit with the musical aesthetic I was going for.

Nate – On the EP I have noticed that both the title and track names are written in firstly Swedish and then in English. What was the reason behind this, seeing as though you are a UK black metal band?

G – The whole EP is based on Through a Glass Darkly, and the song titles are all references to that film, which is set in Sweden, so I thought it was appropriate to include the original language. Plus, as someone who doesn’t understand a word of Swedish, I like the fact that the songs become somewhat distanced and alien when they’re rendered in another language, and this detachment is a core theme in much of Bergman’s work.

Nate – The tracks on the EP seems to tell a story of a struggle. Is this accurate and if so/not can you expand on it what is the story behind it?

G – The story takes place on an idyllic island and each song is told from the perspective of a different character in the film. ‘Witness to Disintegration’ sees through the husband’s eyes as he contemplates the mental unravelling of his wife, ‘Still No Words’ tells of the Father’s selfish attempt to turn his daughter’s condition into a subject for one of his books, ‘Shipwreck’s Hull’ charts the inner turmoil of the girl’s brother and his implicitly incestuous impulses, and ‘Fight the Raging Storm’ tells the story from the girl’s perspective as she grapples with her fragile state of mind. The lyrics are totally integral to the listening experience, so I hope people will read along as they listen.

Nate – The EP was mastered at Dead Air Studios in the US. Why did you choose this Studio and what input did they bring on the release?

G – I come from a punk and hardcore background and loved the Level Plane scene from the late nineties, especially Saetia and Orchid. Will Killingsworth (guitarist of Orchid) worked on my friend’s project and I was introduced through him – Will’s a fantastic guy to work with, very accommodating and works for amazingly reasonable prices. Coming from that scene, he was able to bring out the aggressive, punky attitude I wanted to achieve with the project.

Nate – Death Kvlt Productions have announced that they are going to release your EP on vinyl in 2021 and you’re also doing a split with the incredible Greek band in Μνήμα. How did this come about and have you and Μνήμα worked with each other previously?

G – It’s a great privilege to be working with Death Kvlt – Dan is very easy to work with and his passion for black metal is obvious from the moment you first speak to him. He has real integrity for the scene that I admire and there are so many of his label’s releases that I love, so I’m obviously pleased that he took a chance on Spider God.

Μνήμα is one of those exciting projects on his roster, so I was flattered when I was contacted by the artist on Instagram and asked if I would like to do a split with him. His tracks were all ready to go, and I had a few off-cuts that wouldn’t fit onto any other release, but I had yet to find a lyrical theme for them. When he showed me his idea for the album art, featuring a photo of one of Jean-Martin Charcot’s ‘hysteria’ patients taken at Salpêtrière Hospital in the late 19th century, I was instantly inspired to delve into the back story and ended up basing the songs on the film Augustine, about the speculative love affair between Charcot and his most famous patient, Louise Augustine Gleizes.

Nate – What does the future hold for the band and can we expect a full-length release or even gigs when we are all allowed to do so?

G – 2021 will be a busy one. I have completed three demo EPs, each based on a different film from Bergman’s Faith Trilogy (The Interior Castle being the first one), and these will hopefully all be out before the end of 2021. Alongside the split with Μνήμα, I have just finished work on a four-way split with some of my favourite British and US black metal acts, and I have a couple more splits in the pipeline as well. In addition to all this, I have about six tracks demoed for the full-length and with any luck, I’ll be able to release that before the end of the year as well. There’s been a burst of creative energy since I started this project back in October, and I just want to keep making as much music as possible before it runs out!

As for gigs, I would welcome the chance to form a touring band, and I think these songs would translate well into a live setting, but it depends whether I can find musicians willing to join me on that adventure!

Nate – If someone has not heard your music before, how would you describe it to them?

G – A fun existential crisis.

You can pick up ‘Den Inre Borgen / The Interior Castle’ now via Phantom Lure on cassette, CD format via Repose Records, vinyl via Death Kvlt Productions in Q1 of 2021 and via Bandcamp here.