Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Born as a one man band in 2005 when I was at school, Bahal is a black/death metal act coming from Italy . Current line up is formed by Dario (vocals), Bahal (guitars), Andrea (guitars), Sidhe (bass and celtic harp) and Tafe (drums), who are mainly live members, since I write and often record all the instruments except some vocals. Since 2005 we've recorded four full lenght albums, whose names are "Striges" (released in 2009), "Ikelos" (2010), "Nostos" (2012) and our latest album "Shahat", to be released on the 26th of september, 2014.
 
How would you describe your style? Which bands influenced your music?
With our music we want to mix the fury of black metal with melodies and some progressive elements, without being too complicated and bizarre, and without sounding too plastic or patinated. When I got into black metal I was fascinated by the sound of swedish black metal bands, rather than the norwegian ones: Dissection, Naglfar, Unanimated and Vinterland managed to combine violence, dark and sinister atmospheres, and melody in an unique way. In the beginning I was also a shred-guitar lover. I thought some melodies played by people like Malmsteen or Jason Becker or even Alex Skolnick from Testament could fit very well in a more extreme metal genre, so in our first albums a lot of shred could be heard. Our drummer Tafe, who sometimes helps me with some ideas, is more into bands like Deathspell Omega and avantgarde music.
 
Why should a metalhead buy your demos/albums?
It's a difficult question to me. Musicians always tend to overestimate their creations because it's their "son"; they created it, only they know how much time and effort they spent in it. Plus, if you record a song probably you enjoy it, otherwise you would have not spent money and time in writing and recording it. A metalhead should buy our album because we try to put something new and fresh in our proposal. We are not an avantgarde act, but we try to play something different starting by a common point, that is classic black metal. Then, it's up to you to say if we manage or not in doing this.
 
What have you released so far and how were your releases received by the public/media?
We've released "Striges" in 2009, which was received very well by the public and the reviewers. "Ikelos", released in 2010, had a very enthusiastic feedback. Both albums were sold out (it was nothing special though, since we printed a few hundreds copies).
There are of course some who did not enjoy our music, which is an absolutely ordinary issue, but much people in Italy and also abroad appreciated it. With "Nostos", released in 2012, we had positive feedbacks too, so we are happy about how musicians, public and media received our music in the last years.
 
Do you play live as well? How's your live activity so far?
Yes, we've played live since 2011, when I managed to find musicians for a complete line up for live shows. We haven't got an intense activity, but we try to have from 5 to 10 gigs per year. In Italy it's not so easy to arrange good shows nowadays, but it's ok, we try to do our best anyway. We usually play in the north of Italy , where we live, but we also did some gigs abroad, and this is very good for an underground band like us.
 
What should labels/zines/promoters know about your band? Why should they be interested in it?
Difficult question. Of course music should speak for itself. I just can add that we're trying to do something different from other black metal bands. We give importance to atmospheres, concepts, rhythm and melodies rather than creating music for the sake of being brutal and evil.
 
What plans do you have for the near future as a band?
First of all, we'll have some gigs in Europe . We're going to play in Italy , Serbia and we're arranging some other shows in Hungary , France and Switzerland . Then we'll start composing new songs and thinking about the next album.
 
Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
Our latest album "Shahat" will be uploaded on spotify and other streaming services in october, while our previous album "Nostos" is already there. You can also check our reverbnation page www.reverbnation.com/bahal and our facebook page ( www.facebook.com/bahalmetal ). If you'd like to buy our albums, you can check our website www.bahal.it or you can write us to info@bahal.it or tyrfing@hotmail.it. Digital download is also possible via Itunes and many other websites like it.

October 2014