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| Dutch Death/Doom band Confrontation have a fascination for WWII military events and technology - here Comrade Aleks talks to the instrumental half of the duo, Sven Post, about the machinery of warfare. |
"Netherlands-based duo Confrontation consists of instrumentalist Sven Post and vocalist Roy Grimreaper. Both guys also play in other bands, but we're here for some Doom, right? And Confrontation have plenty of it. Formed in 2014, they perform straight, in your face, Death/Doom without any sentiment or clean vocals. It's rusty and sharp as old war machinery - and, indeed, they dedicate their songs to WWII warfare, and particularly events which took place on the Eastern Front. They didn't hurry to finish second album 'The Six Battles Of Curland', so almost five years have passed since the debut full-length 'Aggregat 4', but this minimalistic and cold machine moves on..."
 Hi Sven! Thanks for your time, and let me start this interview in chronological order if you don't mind. I'd like to learn more about Confrontation's background. Confrontation was born in 2014 as a duo consisting of you and Roy. Did you see it as a studio project or were you searching for more members from the start? It was essentially just a studio project. Roy and I came together just as friends do, and we were checking out some of each-others music. Roy was impressed by some slower songs I wrote and suggested we should do a project about WWII with these songs, because it sounded so mechanical and evil. That was the beginning of Confrontation. Netherlands has its Death/Doom traditions, and we can suggest that the first Death/Doom bands appeared there, rather than the UK. Did you absorb any influences from early savage bands like Mourning, Delirium or Sempiternal Deathreign? To be honest, I am not really familiar with any of the bands you mentioned, so it's obvious that I am not inspired by these bands. Your debut work as Confrontation was the EP 'Fieseler Fi 103': how did you come to this concept of mixing Death/Doom with warfare-related lyrics? Roy has a really wide range of WWII knowledge and is always busy gathering information about this specific war. Because of the mechanical sound of the songs and the lo-fi recordings of the first EP, he made the link to WWII and the theme was set.  You and Roy also approach the technical aspect of war in your lyrics, why does this topic attract you? What's your occupation? We cannot imagine that people invent such weapons on such scales, just to destroy and occupy entire city's, just to kill on massive scale, so thats an interesting thing for sure. It has certainly nothing to do with our point of view in life and we are definitely no stupid right wing nazi enthusiastics or whatever. In Confrontation there are no politics involved. We are both aware of the fact it is on slippery ground to write about the war because when you are writing about Germany during WWII people can think you are supporting their ideologies. There is so much research done for every release, every release is almost a museum piece if you ask me. What was people's feedback on your lyrics? Do people give a damn what Roy growls about? I know a lot of people don't care. I don't really know and I don't really care either. For us it's important in that that way that we want to write about something that we are both interested in. The next album, 'Aggregat 4' (2015), continued the war theme with significant emphasis on events which took place on the Eastern Front during WWII. I used to think that this part of the war isn't well known in the West, though most of the crucial and key battles took place there. Why did you approach this topic? Like you said; it is fairly unknown so the fact there is so much research to do makes it interesting for us. Did your relatives take part in WWII? I think any of us have relatives who take part in WWII one way or another. What about the technical side of this album? What kind of sound did you want to reach and how did you come to that? I did the recordings in my own rehearsal space, which is an old bunker in the western part of the Netherlands so it fits well with the atmosphere of Confrontation. It was quite a strange way to record this album because I was just alone when recording and started with the drums with no guitars as a guideline and no clicktracks whatsoever. Just played the drums with the riffs in mind. For guitars I used the well known HM2 pedal into a old Marshall JCM 800 1959 with some 4x12's and I recorded the bass with just a old Peavey Musician amp with some 2x15 cabinets. All reamped for easiness. If I listen to it nowadays, I think it can be done way better, both playing and sound. I've never been really satisfied about the outcome of the record. I guess this recording session was quite brief as the album saw the light of day soon after the EP. However how much time did it take to write and record it? It was quite an easy ride for me. Sometimes you are in such a flow, it'll just go. We don't want to sell you bullshit, so the research had to be on point and that was the part which cost the most time I think. But still it was quite a fast process overall. What was people's reaction to your work? What kind of feedback did you receive in general? The reactions were quite good overall. We'd get a lot of good reviews and the tapes we had sold out very quick. Did you deal with promotional stuff on your own? How actively did you support the release? Because it is a project it doesn't have top priority. But it is still a important thing in our lives because it is sort of a bond between me and Roy. Every album marks our friendship and it is fun to release stuff together. What happened after 'Aggregat 4''s release? It looks like Confrontation was on hold. How did you spend these four years? Confrontation is just a project, so there is really no rush in it. Roy is still going strong with Funeral Whore and I am playing with Blood Diamond, The Flesh and Grim van Doom, which is already quite time consuming. It was said Confrontation's second full-length 'The Six Battles of Courland' was almost finished nearly a year ago. What's the status of this work now? We've just released the record on pro tape through FuneralHymnsRecords and online as a download via our bandcamp page Click HERE to discuss this interview on the doom-metal forum. Visit the Confrontation bandpage. |
