Interview by Miriam Cadoni
France’s melodic doom/death metal band Wintereve returns back with their second full-length called “October Dark”. And, a new signed deal with Horror Gore Pain Productions. Let’s discover more about this release and the band from the singer herself. Enjoy!
Hi Mary, welcome to Femme Metal Webzine. How are you and how life is treating you in these precarious days?
Hi, I’m good, thanks! Like everybody else I’m just waiting and hoping for a return to some sort of a normal situation at last.
For our readers that are not familiar with Wintereve, would you like to tell us how the band came together?
Sure. I started Wintereve back in 2013 together with the guitarist Armand where we played in a local band. Soon, we find out that we shared the same passion for gothic and doom metal. And, it wasn’t long before Wintereve came alive.
On 19th February, it was released Wintereve’s second album “October Dark”. What would you like to share about its general production? When did you start to collect the first ideas for it?
Well, the first songs we wrote for the album are the title track and the opening track “Olima”. They set the mood for the whole full-length. And, they were composed too long after the first album was released in 2017. We actually played and polished those songs live through 2018 and 2019 before the recording sessions started.
Actually, “October Dark” marks your collaboration with the US based label Horror Pain Gore Death Productions. How and when was your first approach with them and how is going so far?
It’s going very well, really. We’d originally self-released the album in April 2020 and sent to the label manager, Mike, a copy. Then, he quickly got in touch by saying that he loved the record and wanted to sign us.
As the first single ouf of “October Dark” is “Call of the Void”. Why the band opt for this song and what is about its lyric?
Actually, it was the choice of the label to choose this song. For us is fine because all the tracks on “October Dark” mean a lot to us. Lyrically the song is about suicide (“L’appel du vide” in French).
As the press release states, “October Dark” presents 8 tracks. These songs convey the innermost sense of artistic and poetic beauty through sorrow, darkness and depression”. How much difficult might be to express such emotions in a song? Related to this, would you like to introduce a little bit the songs present on this LP?
It is actually not that difficult if it comes from your heart and soul. You have just be ready to open up a little in your songs. It is like a therapy. That’s why in Wintereve we write about personal topics or things that affect us as human beings. Even though it is not exactly a concept album, “October Dark” revolve around the human being’s inclination towards destruction and self-destruction.
Actually, the album was recorded by Didier Ducouloux at Mastercut Studios. And, it was mastered by Dan Swanö at Unisound Studio. What were your expectations about the mastering and how do you think Swanö’s collaboration has helped to further improve the band’s musical palette?
As a matter of fact, we’ve been fans of Dan Swanö’s work for a long time. Both as a musician and a producer. When we asked him if he would accept to work on the new album, we knew exactly what to expect. We were just very pleased when he accepted our offer right away. He definitely knows how to get the best out of a recording. Also, he gave our songs the top notch sound quality that they deserved. So we’re very happy with the end result.
“October Dark” follows your début album “This Winter Will Never End” released in 2017. If you were to weigh the differences with these two full lengths, what you will find?
In truth, I love and I’m extremely proud of both albums. If I were to compare them, I’d say “October Dark” is simply the natural progression from “This Winter Will Never End”. They are both in terms of songwriting, atmosphere and production. As musicians, I think it is very important for us to improve with every new release. Of course the next album will be no exception.
What the future holds for Wintereve?
We’re almost finished with the writing process for our third album. The new material sounds really, really good and we’re quite excited to record those new songs and share them. Because of the COVID pandemic, we couldn’t properly promote “October Dark” as much as we’d liked to. So we really hope we’ll soon be able to hit the stage again and play the new material live.
So, Mary, we’re almost at the end. Please be free to say hi to your fans and your readers. Thank you so much for this interview.
Many thanks to you for this interview! I also would like to extend my gratitude to everyone who have shown interest and support. You are truly amazing! I hope we can meet you all on the road again soon! Until then, give “October Dark” a spin or two if you have the chance to and stay doom!