We have plenty of blasphemy left in us yet!

Ground Of Ruin hail from the isle of coastal mountains, Ireland. Hundreds of years ago, The Roman Catholic church came and destroyed the druid tradition, and now these four fellows are here to destroy the church. "Eye for an eye", huh?!
After two demos and an EP, the band recorded their sophomore EP 'Cloaked in Doctrine' in the summer of 2008. Archaic Metallurgy found the release promising indeed, and thought that they should give some of the webzine's very limited public eye for the band. So here we go with a e-mail interview, which was answered by guitarist Dom Brennan. Blaspheme or go home and grow!


AM: How have things been since the release of your latest EP, 'Cloaked in Doctrine'?

Dom Brennan: Things have been all over the place really. It's not been all smooth sailing but that always seems to be the way. As far as the response to the cd goes, it's been great. I'm really surprised at how good the reviews have been, I generally expected more mixed responses. We knew once we finished the cd that we were satisfied with it and that's the main thing but of course it's always good to hear from people who enjoyed it. Unfortunately we have not been able to do as much promotion for the cd as we would have liked. Our vocalist left the band shortly after the recording was finished so this meant we have been unable to play any gigs for quite a while. This has held us up a lot in getting the EP out there. It's frustrating having to turn down good gigging opportunities especially at our stage of the game but these things can't be helped. We have been mainly concentrating on solidifying the line up since then. We have been trying out many different things and we are now ready to get back out there, I have no doubt that we will be stronger than ever on our return.


AM: Can you shed some light on the band's history, please?

DB: We officially started under the name Ground Of Ruin in 2003 but many of the members had been playing together before this. I was not in the band at the time but I grew up in the same area so I was always aware of the band. Everyone was quite young when it started so it has been a case of everyone developing as musicians together. The material has not always been good but us all knowing each other for so long has definitely created a good bond between the members and meant we have all shaped the bands sound.
There was firstly a promo released in 2005, there wasn't many of them made but it was a stepping stone towards getting gigs. A year later the full line up of the band was completed and we began adding more influences to the overall sound. We
released the 'Visions of Obscenity' EP shortly after. We were not pleased with how this turned out but it definitely thought us some valuable lessons. We spent the next year or so trying to find the sound that felt right for the band, we felt ourselves that the music felt a bit disjointed. In 2007, we released a promo which was the first release that we we're all satisfied with, a good indicator for things to come.
In 2008, we recorded our current release 'Cloaked in Doctrine'. It was a difficult EP to write as we were still figuring a lot of things out, we knew that we couldn't drop the ball on this one. We threw out a lot of material in the making of this but at the end we came out with a blueprint for us to move forward, we know exactly where we are going now.


AM: 'Cloaked in Doctrine' is your fourth release to date. It's simplest to call Ground Of Ruin's metal dark; it is a mixture of black metal
and death metal with some other darkened influences. What are your influences? How does the music of Ground Of Ruin born?

DB: I agree with you in just calling it dark metal. That's essentially what we set out to create when the writing of 'Cloaked in Doctrine' started. We weren't necessarily trying to be either death, black or thrash metal, we just wanted to make music that was dark, atmospheric but also with plenty of aggression. We all have different musical tastes within the band, so it's hard to pinpoint exact influences. We all have our own and bring them to the table, and out of that comes the sound we have for Ground Of Ruin.
I can't speak for everyone but there are certainly some bands that are important to how our music has come about, Dissection, Deströyer 666, At The Gates, Carpathian Forest, Dismember, to name but a few! Thats just a some of the more obvious ones perhaps, we don't set out to emulate any band but I would never deny how important some bands have been over the years. There's also many less obvious influences in there, all of the music that we listen to and we have been playing over the years has shaped our playing and contributed to what we sound like now.


AM: How do you think the band have evolved since it was formed?

DB: There has been a huge transformation in sound since we started. We experimented with many different types of metal over the years, which possibly caused some confusion to outsiders as to what we were trying to achieve. Still this was essential as we were a young band and discovering new metal and new influences all the time. As well as that, in the early days we wouldn't have been able to play the music we do today, so an overall simpler approach was necessary. Aside from the music, we realised more and more that every aspect of how the band is presented is important. It's the little things that can make a massive difference, we now approach everything in a more professional manor and put a lot of emphasis on our live show. In the past we were perhaps a bit naive which caused us to make many mistakes but this is essential for the growth of the band. It's better to make these mistakes at the beginning, it may help avoid the many pitfalls along the way.
Musically we have gone from playing hardcore influenced trash, to death/trash to more straight up death metal and then finally to what we are today! Nowadays we are alot more aware of what we are trying to achieve musically and the writing is going more smoothly because of it. 'Cloaked in Doctrine' is most definitely the essential starting point for Ground Of Ruin!


AM: You attack the Roman Catholic Church, which has a strong foothold in your hometown Carlow, with your music, if I'm right? Is there other lyrical themes circling around, I mean Ireland's history never was very pleasant now was it?

DB: Yes we have very strong feelings against the church and all forms of religion. It's not necessarily just about the Roman Catholic Religion but that is the one that we can relate to and has unfortunately always been a part of our everyday lives growing up. All the major religions stem from the same place and they all have the same twisted moral high-ground. I don't like the attitude that it's only ok to attack the religion you come from. We stand against all religious institutions, not the people of the religion but the institutions themselves which are responsible for the indoctrination of people.
Ireland certainly has a dark history, and we are lucky now that we have the freedom to be able to be able to express our views. The catholic church has oppressed the people for long enough, more and more people are starting to see though their lies and to the betrayal of the peoples trust. The extent of the abuse and corruption in the church is being continuously exposed. It's amazing to think how much the church has lost it's influence, it's losing it's grip more and more with each generation. I still think there is far too much sympathy shown, we can't be worried to much about sparing anyone's feelings. All that bullshit should have been left behind where it belongs, in the dark ages. We will continue to be part of the opposition, we have plenty of blasphemy left in us yet!


AM: How has the Irish metal scene evolved lately? Primordial, Cruachan and Mourning Beloveth have toured a lot outside Ireland, but how is it with a smaller, younger bands?

DB: The scene has been growing at a steady rate over the years, it's getting harder to keep track of the newer bands all the time. The Irish scene is always going to be small, geographically it's just not possible for us to have huge gigs and festivals. The quality of the bands is definitely getting better, the bar has been raised very high.
It's very difficult for any band to get recognition outside of the country as we are not known for having a scene and are largely ignored. The bands you mentioned are doing great things for Irish metal and I'm sure that will help uncover some of the upcoming bands in the country. There has been plenty of bands getting signed here lately and bringing out albums, the new Alter Of Plagues for example is certainly making waves in the underground. There's also new albums coming out from Old Season and Abaddon Incarnate which will more than likely be essential listening! We have alot of pride in our metal scene and we want to play our part in putting Irish metal on the map.


AM: Can you reveal any future plans of Ground Of Ruin?
DB: We are still not too sure of our future plans yet ourselves! We have been out of action for a while so we haven't been able to plan too far
ahead. We are now ready to get back gigging so we will be working on getting some shows over the next while. We have been in talks with some people about getting some more shows in Germany near the end of the year too, so hopefully something will come of that. We have been continuously writing new music since we finished 'Cloaked in Doctrine' and have a lot of material written for our next release. We are planning to record our first full album next year. So we don't have many plans set in stone, for now we will be just concentrating on making new music.

AM: Thank you for your time! Any last comments you want to shout out?

DB: Cheers from all the band for taking an interest in Ground Of Ruin, and for taking the time to talk to us. Keep supporting the underground!

AM: Thanks for your time too. People, listen to the man and dive deeper!

06/25/2009 19:47