Sounds of Mexico

Can I introduce you to something a bit different? Mexican band Acrania mix metal and Latin music together. Can you take thrashing spiced up with salsa? You definitely need to get a taste of it, believe me! AM contacted the band after they provided us with their latest EP, 'In Peaceful Chaos', and the whole band shared their views on the questions.

A.M.: Hails from Finland! How is it down in Mexico? And could you introduce yourselves, please?

Acrania: Hi Lane, things OK, a lot of pollution and noise but I'm Chávez, drummer and percussionist.
- I'm Luis, main vocals and guitar.
- I'm Felix, guitar and backing vocals.
- I'm Beto, bass and backing vocals.

A.M.: Doing a thorough internet search indicates, that Acrania aren't a too well known band as yet. Can you shed some light over the history of Acrania, please?

Luis: The Band started 8 years ago under the name of Necrofilia, we were young and unexperienced and even some of us didn't know anything about music or playing an instrument, as the years passed by we started evolving and discovered that we wanted to play something new, innovative, powerful and seductor at the time that's when we started to experiment with this latin rythms and different instruments because Chavez and me wanted to integrate to death metal the music that we grew up, with salsa, Cuban son etc., and the others started to like the idea.

Chávez: It took us a long time to be able to integrate this elements and make a good fusion of things, around this time we decided to change our name to Acrania, we improved the old songs and decided to record this 'In Peaceful Chaos' EP around September 2007, as soon as we had it in our hands, we started promotion and seeking means to launch our first full length.

A.M.: What made you pick up musical instruments? What made you a musician, and what has the life of musican included from the start to this day?

Chávez: Well, in my case is the only thing that I can do.

Felix: It was as always, we felt the necessity to express what we have in our mind and we concentrate it in our instruments.

Luis: The life here in Mexico is some kind of a difficulty if you work as a musician. It's difficult to get some money by playing, it's very difficult to live playing metal, I can count with the fingers of one hand the Mexican bands that live playing metal and if you play Latin metal as we do, I think it's really impossible jaja :(

Beto: But living in this way, it has been great, we have good times and bad times as always happened, but we are satisfied and proud of what we do and what we are.

A.M.: You mix metal music with Mexican and Latin music influences. Can you describe your sound? Who and what are your main influences?

Luis: Our sound is based in elaborated riffs, aggressively vocals and fast and dynamic drums and we think that this doesn't negate the other side, our Latin side. We as humans feel a lot of emotions, not because your listen metal you can't feel the emotions that the Latin music can offer.

Beto: We have found a good combination that shows our metal side at the same time that shows our particular way of play metal in this side of the world, we try to understand our environment and understand our music to express it in a propositive form, not only coping the European and
American bands.

Chávez: We have a lot of influences, we like the sound of Death, Cynic, Atheisth, Arch Enemy, Nevermore and so many Latin rhythms as salsa, bossa nova, Cuban son etc.

A.M.: Sounding individual nowadays gets harder and harder all the time. How do you see Acrania doing in this department?

Luis: Well, music is really infinite as human race continue living, so I think is not really hard to get a new sound, the difficult thing is to be a person with our fears of what he ignore, if you really look for something new and you love your music you can get an individual sound just thinking and feeling a little.

Chávez: We pass through a lot of things to get this musical point of view, and I think Acrania is always looking for new things, you can hear an evolution from the EP to the songs of the LP to the new songs for the second album, and we always try to share something different to the metal and in that way we can transcend as a band that try to give a message of liberty with his music.

A.M.: What kind of subjects do Acrania's lyrics deal with?

Luis: Well we have different kinds of subjects.

Felix: But much of the lyrics talks about personal traumas and reflections that try to give message of mental and physical liberation.

A.M.: How is the Mexican metal scene doing nowadays? Is there a band or bands, that people around the world don't know yet, but who should be noticed, except for Acrania, hehe?!

Chávez: Mexican scene is not always good, there are great bands but there are crappie bands too.

Luis: I think it's because in Mexico there are not so many ways to live as a musician and less as a metal musician, we are a 3rd world country, most of the people are poor here and that's why we don't have the infrestructure to support a great metal scene.

Beto: Metal has never been as relevant in Mexican lives as it is in Europe or so.

Chávez: Even though there are some really good bands here such as Herenween, Arkhe, Strike Master, Voltax, Dagoth, just to give an example.

A.M.: You seem to do live gigs, so how is the Mexican metal audience?

Chávez: It depends, there are places where the audience is really into your music and some other not but we cannot speak of a big support, at least for Mexican bands.

A.M.: Can you tell us the latest news from Acrania camp? How are things with the debut full length album going on at the moment? And what can we expect from the album itself, if you want to give out anything about it as yet?

Chávez: We're about to enter the studio, and it's probable that it will be out in September, and we are looking for some label interested in the distribution of it.

Luis: You can expect an improvement regarding to production, composition, power and Latin flavour.

A.M.: Is there anything you'd still like to say, but didn't have chance to speak out?

Luis: Well we think it is always important for an artist to express his reality and his environment, so we try to share our metal point of view combining our Latin roots with metal that is a music that we really love, so I think our stuff is honest and try to propouse something new.

Chavéz: We would like to invite your audience to check out our music, if they're interested in hearing something new.

A.M.: Well folks, do it now! And thank you to the guys in Acrania for the answers. Good luck with your next endeavor!

Acrania (from left ot right): J.C. Chavez (drums & all percussion), Luis F. Oropeza (vocals & guitars), Félix Carreón Hdz. (guitars) and Alberto Morales (bass).

07/11/2008 18:50