First of all, let me congratulate you for your latest album “Baptized In Blasphemy”, a very good Thrash – Death Metal EP.
Thanks so much, we are super proud of it and we definitely feel it is our best release to date and a sneak peak into what our future releases will sound like.

Please tell us the story of  your band, how it all starts?
The band started in 2017, in Stellenbosch, South Africa. All the members at that time where in high school and one of the bigger bars in town was hosting a battle of the bands. Obviously as high school kids we had absolutely no money, so when we saw that every band that entered would have a bar tab we decided to quickly form a thrash band because free booze sounded like a great idea. I’ve always been a massive thrash fan: Exodus, Testament, Slayer, Overkill, those were some of the main bands that I was listening to back then, so that’s exactly what I wanted to do. Anyway, long story short, we just wanted to show up and get drunk as a bunch of 17 year olds, then somehow we made it to the next round. So, we thought, great! That’s another night, another bar tab. We ended up going through again to the final, still with the thought of “yay more booze”. Then when we ended up winning the thing we thought, ‘hang on, we should probably keep this going’, and that’s just what we did.

Will you be so kind too described the concept of your album?
We had a line-up change going into this album. Our old bass guitarist, Joshua Barkley, returned to the band, with the bass guitarist at the time, Wian Bester, moving over to rhythm guitar. So this album was essentially written as a statement saying, ‘this is the new Halvar, and this is what we’ve got’. Every member in the band contributed their own song, with the other song being written by the band as a whole.

The last album has an interesting cover, what is the meaning of it?
The original title of the last album was ‘Scavenger of Flesh’, which is the opening track of the album. That’s where the cover art came from. Then we decided to change the album name to ‘Ancestral Communication’, basically because we liked the song more and because we’re from Africa, it gave it a more African vibe.

Also, what can u tell us about the meaning of lyrics?

As far as the EP is concerned, the lyrics are all about religion, basically asking the question of ‘is it a good thing?’. The lyrics ask the hard questions that people with faith don’t like to talk about. ‘Baptised in Blasphemy’ is all about children being brought up in a narrow minded religion, without ever being given the opportunity to question it. ‘Heretic Warfare (The Grave Of Humnakind)’ tells a story of people fighting over who is the true god, and ultimately resulting in the end of the world. ‘Through Pain – Till Death’ has the strongest lyrical content for me. It’s written from the perspective of a cruel pastor who puts gay men and woman through conversion therapy.

Did you have good time in the studio with the recording?
Yeah it was great, everyone was super prepared. From start to finish it probably only took a week to get everything recorded.

How was it for you the all Covid-19 situation?
We just miss playing shows more than anything. We had to cancel our album launch show for ‘Ancestral Communication’ because of Covid. Now it’s been over a year since we have played a show. That’s all we want back.

Where we can find your creations?
All the main streaming services.

The last words belong to you?
Watch out for us in Romania! We would love to try come play Rockstadt some time in the near future, if you are up for some thrash! Other than that, go listen to the EP! Grab some pizza and beer, mosh in your bedroom and be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram!

Interview by Ionutz Dimitriev
Answers by Daniel Louw (vocalist and leader guitar)

May 2021