The modern world. Various people have differing views of our planet;s current state of affairs. With various factions the world over garnering attention for all the wrong reasons, depending on your viewpoint you could argue that humanity itself never truly learns from their mistakes. Content with recreating the same actions, not thinking about how we might be able to better ourselves as humans but instead following blindly. I caught up with Hate frontman Adam “ATF Sinner” Buszko to chat about the band’s brand new album Crusade:Zero, the current state of affairs to the more trivial polish metal scene and with this being their twenty fifth year as a band, potential anniversary plans for later in the year…

 

THE METALIST  : Crusade Zero, what is it about? Are there any reccuring themes on the new record? Is it thematically similar to older material? Or are there new ideas implemented?

ATF SINNER : You’re talking about the ideas and not the music? Well the overall feel of the album is pretty nihilistic, I would say apocalyptic in a way. It holds a clear message about humanity on its road to self annihilation, you know. The overall message is not optimistic at all. It comes from the observation from the world around, what’s going on around us and how civilisation is doing right now. I truly believe that its coming to an end, at one point, at one point soon.

In terms of current affairs, things like that? Is that what you mean?

Well it is about actually humans inability to learn from past generations, making the same mistakes over and over again. It’s about this particular warman that we all have. We can barely live without war in each generation you know? So it looks like we will see some kind of big conflict soon in Europe too, I think its going to happen and its not a good thing at all.

As the album was recently released, 30th of January I believe, how have the fans been reacting to the new album so far? Has it been a good reaction so far on tour? Do you play many new songs from the new album?

We do, we play three, three of them. The reactions is just great, people show us a lot support and there’s like a growing interest in the band that I have been observing in the last two months. It’s very good, very good in this respect.  This tour also tells something I mean were here with Vader playing a quite a long tour, actually two tours one after another. Giving the proper support to the record. We have nineteen shows altogether with Vader then we start the second tour under the name of Hatefest, which I like, very much, you can imagine why… It’s going to be bigger with Six Feet Under headlining, Marduk also some other bands seven or eight bands all together. It’s like a travelling festival really.

 It’s like an all dayer kind of thing?

Exactly, I think its a great opportunity to promote the new record. I can’t wait for actually.

Flying the flag for polish death metal, how does it feel to be among the polish elite? Decapitated, Behemoth and Vader, how does it feel to be on the same page as those guys?

Well, I don’t think about it that much, it’s so natural to me because we have been around for twenty five years altogether. We have contributed to creating, so to speak polish death metal phenomenon. So it’s been a lot of work, its been a lot of input in this and so here we are. Actually I can say that I am really proud to be here and that I am really proud to be a apart of such a great thing as the polish metal scene.

You mentioned that this is your twenty fifth year as a band, have you got have any anniversary plans?

Oh yeah! Now we’re talking about making a new DVD. An official DVD, we just got an offer just a few weeks ago from a polish label Metal Mind productions and we’re talking about the details now. It would be a great thing to mark a twenty fifth anniversary, we would be covering the last say seven albums, with the best songs or the most important songs on them. So now we’re talking about the details. Also our label, Napalm Records is involved in it so I actually hope that we can make it happen this year, to have it released by the end of this year, say December maybe. That would be just great.

Oh yeah, it would be good to get it in the actual twenty fifth year! Metal Mind, although they are an established company are still relatively small so it’s good that you’ve got the availability through Napalm for distribution. You mentioned earlier that Crusade:Zero is a very pessimistic view, is that meant by the title?

Actually the title means, crusade. Crusade stands for all the human efforts made ever, like all that humanity has achieved so far and Zero is just the result of it. The outcome, its where it goes, where it leads to so the title is a kind of symbol. Also the artwork, what you can see on the cover of the album is actually the symbol of great nothingness in a cosmic scale. As well as great nothingness when it comes to the human spirit. Humanity and the spirit, it is again not optimistic at all but this is how we perceive the world. It is ruled by entropy, by slow decay and everything dies actually slower or faster but that’s how it looks like.

As you’ve said you’ve been a band for twenty five years now. Has it been hard to break into certain markets? Europe welcomes the more extreme bands with open arms, though America has a lot of American death metal I believe that Europe has got a little more…

Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean! Actually we were not as fortunate as our polish peers like Behemoth, Vader and Decapitated. Actually we, were in the obscurity of Polish underground for ten years for long ten years, before we managed to sign our first record deal outside of Poland and started releasing some stuff outside our homeland. It was like a long road out of hell actually, to start a real career outside our country but it was worth waiting, it absolutely was. I’m really happy to be here and I’m really satisfied with what we have achieved so far.

Hate has been around for a long time as you’ve said, though you have witnessed a change in the line up. With the addition of new drummer Pawel? Is it?

Well his name is “Pavulon” actually.

Ah ok, well how has that been working? Has the process been easy?

Well he joined us actually while we working on the songs for Crusade:Zero. He joined us then and I believe that he had quite a big influence on some arrangements as well as overall sounds of the album. He is a great drummer, with great experiences, he was the drummer of Vader, he was in Decapitated also. He was in Antigama, really experienced guy and a very determined person, fits really well in this band.

Having recorded a lot of your albums, its almost been ten years straight in the Hertz Studio. What’s it been like to work with the Wiesławscy brothers?

Well, they are really good, I may say they are great sound engineers, with great skills. The reason why we decided again to come to Hertz Studio to record this album. This studio actually completely changed the equipment as well as the room where you record the stuff. It’s a completely new studio, right before recording this album we were thinking about some another studio. We also had some options outside Poland like in Sweden and elsewhere, so we are considering that its really hard, but after visiting Hertz Studio again.

When you say that it was redone, what do you mean by that?

Completely, yeah, with great opportunities completely new sound and new recording technology so to speak. So we decided to do it again with them and it was a good decision I think, because were really satisfied with what we achieved on this album. Both as a production and generally the atmosphere and musicality.

There are some really good solo’s on the album, what kind of inspiration were they driven from? Anything in particular?

Well, our idea of solo parts was always like more adventurous melodic epic kind of solo’s. Those are the kind of solo’s that we like in the band, me and Destroyer , especially him, as a lead guitarist we were working on the solo parts for some time. We needed them to be as epic as possible. Matching the songs, underlying some themes that were there. That is also the aspect of the album that I am really satisfied with.

It’s quite progressive sounding, especially the first single that you released “Valley Of Darkness”, it kind of goes on for quite a long time and then you have the solo’s in the mid section.

It’s pretty dramatic, emotional, that’s how it was meant to be.

Definitely, we touched upon you being from poland but whats the polish scene like? Has it evolved into the twenty first century like everyone else? Or are they like all the other metal heads stuck in the past?

Haha, well its been evolving for sure, still the core of it the main part of it is this you know, ferocious blasphemous death metal. It’s still there, actually when I talk to someone who is not from Poland about the polish metal scene. People just know about the extreme polish metal, actually heavy metal or anything like metalcore, is non existent outside of Poland. Even though there are bands like that in Poland, quite a lot of them actually. It seems more and more bands are coming all the time, but the scene for some reason is well known for those few who are the extreme acts.

As you said there’s quite a big progressive ambience on the record. I noticed that particularly the opening tracks there are a lot of symphonic elements?  Are there any inspirations that you take for these epic introductions?

Not exactly, we just wanted to have a dramatic intro, a dramatic intro for a dramatic kind of music that is following it. I was thinking about it symphonical because actually we got some great new programs that we’re just asking to be used. With co producer Michał Staczkun we went through a few versions of it, I think that it matches the overall atmosphere of the album. It opens in a proper way.As you know there is another intro without vocals, a kind of instrumental with solo parts and then the proper album starts. So its a long introduction building up the atmosphere.

 I was meaning to ask, why did you decide to have two introductory tracks?

Mhmm, Thats why we just wanted to make it epic and dramatic, not just going right to the point, we wanted to build up the atmosphere for a bit, to follow the mood like this. As you’ve probably noticed the album is getting more and more dynamic and aggressive with each song.

So to finish up, what is an album that you yourself have been listening to over the past year?

Ah, over the last year?

Or this year!

There is not a single one I think, that I could pinpoint here, well, probably the latest Triptykon album is really intereesting it has some  dimensions i think, some atmosphere which allows you to come back to it again and again and again. Still you can find something more in it, something that takes you deeper into it. Also the latest album by Dead Can Dance, which is not this year but its a perfect work, I can listen to it all the time actually. The latest Judas Priest is not bad!

Redeemer of Souls?

Yeah, absolutely, I’m also into heavy metal quite much, because it is my roots in a way. When  started listening to heavy metal, it was heavy metal at that time in the middle of the eighties actually? What else? That would be it really!

Shortly after having spoken to the eloquent Sinner, supporting Vader on their Blitz! Europe In Fire 2015 tour, the grandiose introductions we had spoken about rung out in The Underworld signalling the pessimistic arrival of tonight’s act. Performing a fantastic set with varying material, you can clearly that though the world maybe a torrid place tonight the look of glee on the charismatic frontman’s face shows that it truly was worth “the long road out of hell” to get to where the band are at the moment. If Crusade:Zero is just a snapshot of the things to come from this most intriguing of bands, long may the crusade live!

Crusade:Zero is out now via Napalm Records.