Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Ur Draugr is a studio-based project that was founded by myself in 2014. I was working on fragments of material for a few months before Dean Lockhart - an ex-bandmate and close friend of mine - started contributing his own take on the guitar and percussion parts that I'd written. Before long we had the makings of a short release, and had need of a drummer. I'd played in a progressive metal band (Morphica) with Dan Grainger before, and our common taste in music combined with his technical skill made him an ideal choice.
How would you describe your style? Which bands influenced your music?
Ur Draugr is firmly rooted in a blackened death metal aesthetic, though there are dalliances into the realms of folk and sludge. Between the three of us, the most obvious influences regarding this material are probably Behemoth, Opeth and Entombed, though we all have a wealth of other projects that branch between genres including death/black metal, ambient music, progressive metal, etc.
Why should a metalhead buy your demos/albums?
Though the music itself is blatantly aggressive, we have built it from the ground up to be harmonically inventive, texturally varied, and rhythmically diverse. Ur Draugr advocates a persuasion of extreme metal that is equally concerned with atmosphere and sheer brutality. Vocally speaking, for example, my tendency has always been towards the dirtier styles of old-school death and black metal, which I consider to have a certain degree of 'honesty' and, perhaps, a greater emotive quality than the more 'flawless' modern approach.
What have you released so far and how were your releases received by the public/media?
We've been lucky enough to have the first track from the EP -Unseen Golgotha - debuted by NoCleanSinging.com and the SupportBlackMetal 'zine, from which we've seen an outpouring of support and kind words (which was quite unexpected, but very appreciated, to say the least).
Do you play live as well? How's your live activity so far?
Ur Draugr is, at this stage, a dedicated studio project. All of the songs we've written were designed with live 'playability' in mind, but there are currently no plans to take these songs to the stage.
What should labels/zines/promoters know about your band? Why should they be interested in it?
Ur Draugr demonstrates what I consider to be innovation and originality without gimmickry, and I think that ethos of honesty comes through in the production and artwork as well as the material itself. Ultimately, though, this is a question that I hope any concerned party could comfortably answer for themselves, if they were to find themselves at all intrigued by this release.
What plans do you have for the near future as a band?
We have already begun work on a full-length, tentatively slated for a 2015 release.
Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
The Wretched Ascetic is available for streaming/download on bandcamp, spotify, googleplay, itunes and a vast number of other digital outlets.
January 2015