Interview FERETRO

Chilean death metal veterans FERETRO unleash their long-awaited debut The Mortuary Destiny of Flesh — a raw, old-school descent into death’s inevitability, blending classic ’90s brutality with morbid authenticity and underground spirit.

1. After years of demos, EPs, and a split, how does it feel to finally release your debut full-length The Mortuary Destiny of Flesh?
Well, it feels like we are still alive playing the music we have loved since we were teenagers and trying to be as close to that musical feeling as possible.

2. The album captures a strong late ’80s / early ’90s death metal atmosphere. What drew you to that specific era and sound, and how did you approach recreating it?
That’s the music we grew up listening to and since the very beginning of the band we wanted to play this kind of Death Metal, take some elements the whole genre has and use them without pretending to create a very clean or modern sound you know, and that is what we have been looking for since the early days, to sound just the way we play live and try not to do something we cannot recreate in real life, I mean, you can do a very produced album nowadays but when it is time to do a show there are some bands that are not even close to the sound they have in their albums, and that’s what we didn’t want to do.
On the other hand, all the process of recording, mixing and mastering was done by Mauricio, our guitar player, so he of course knew the way we wanted to sound in the album, trying to do it as close to the early 90’s as possible.

3. Chile has a rich underground extreme metal history. How do you see FERETRO’s place within that tradition?
Yes, we have a very strong underground scene down here and we are part of it since 2005, and although it all started 20 years ago, we are still a very underground band in our country, I mean, the band is well known in our area but it’s not so in the extremes of the country, it’s a very long country you know and we have a lot of very good bands all over it so it’s not so easy to be recognized by the bangers across the country since every region has their own bands to worship so to speak, and we are just another one if we speak about the whole country, but here in the central south of Chile we have been recognize as one of the most well-known and active bands when it comes to Death Metal, so we´ll keep on playing Death Metal in the old and classic way  to keep this tradition alive!

4.Can you walk us through the lyrical themes behind The Mortuary Destiny of Flesh? Are they inspired more by horror, existential dread, or social decay?
Well, our lyrics have always had some horror cause the main theme has always been Death in different aspects and with dark atmospheres, most of the time talking in a fantasy world, but this time we wrote about Death from a realistic point of view, so the lyrics of the album is the development of a concept which is the natural process of human death, so it started with “twilight of life” that represent the old age.

 “Towards Perishment” is the illness, where you want to stay alive but the body says another thing because it is so weak that the final process of life is inevitable.

“The Ancient Horror” talks about the fear of the unknow and the mental questioning of religious beliefs, the hope of eternal life for the majority of the unwary, and the lack of vision of reality when you already know you are going to die.

“In Agony” which is quite literal, it talks about the struggle you have within to try to keep alive fighting a battle that you already know you are going to lose.

“The hour of Death” tries to represent the moment between the agony and the last breath with those horrible voices of beings that represent the different faces of death that come for you.

“Time to Die” is the last breath and the beginning of a journey…

“Death´s Cycle” is a simple description of human death’s process which was divided into six parts: Death, Wake, Dead, Funeral Rite, Burial and Oblivion.

“Flesh for Worms” is just the destiny of flesh, the human body, you die, you rot and there is no resurrection, no reincarnation, no paradise, we are only flesh for worms!!!,  it is one of our first songs twenty years ago and it was recorded in our first demo, we decided to include it in the album because the lyric and concept of it fits with the concept of the album.

Epitaph´s lyrics are just like its name hahaha it’s the tombstone, the last song, the outro it was supposed to be, but the development of the song took us to do something more, and more ideas were coming so finally it isn’t an outro but one more song of the album. The lyrics are about what it is like to be inside the coffin for all eternity.

 

5. Old Death, Morgoth, early Pestilence, and South American legends are cited as influences. What do you take from each of these bands, and how do you make that influence your own?
I could name some other bands too hahaha, I guess we took a little bit of all the 80’s and 90’s bands we like and try to add our own way to mix it, I mean, when I write a song I use to try to tell a story with the music, so I need some fast, medium and slow tempos to pass from one point to another, for example, we can play an in crescendo with a slow tempo like the ones in “slowly we rot”, then continue with a mid-tempo like Morgoth’s “Cursed”, a fast tempo like Pestilence and finally a blast beat like Morbid Angel for example, you can also find most of these rhythms in Mortem which is one of my favorite south American Death Metal!. We grew up listening to those patterns, so I guess it comes naturally, but I also think that the feeling and interpretation of the music is what allows us to make all this references ours.

6. The track list flows almost like a morbid journey, from Twilight of Life to Epitaph. Was this sequencing intentional to tell a story?
Yes it was, as I said in question 4, the sequence is the natural process of human death.

7. The underground death metal scene values authenticity over polish. How did you approach production to keep that raw and morbid atmosphere intact?
We had the advantage of working with Mauricio, our guitar player who recorded, mixed and mastered the album, so we were talking about the sound we wanted to get in almost all the process, we took a lot of time working on it and Mauricio was so patient with the requirements of the band. We knew that we didn’t want something so clear and over produced, no triggers in drums, nothing…the most natural sound it is, the better for us.

8. Nihilistic Holocaust released the album with a limited 300-copy run. Why was this label and format the right fit for FERETRO?
Mainly because we have already worked with Gabriel before, we knew that Nihilistic Holocaust is a name that has been around for almost the same time than Feretro  and both continue to be and underground and active act in the Death Metal scene of  our countries, on the other hand it was a good opportunity for us to show our work far from our country and get to the European ears.

9. You’ve shared releases with bands like SILURE. How important are collaborations and splits in strengthening the underground network?

I think it’s always a good idea to release splits due to it’s good for the bands when they have just a couple of songs they want to show but it’s not enough material to release an e.p for example, on the other hand it’s also good for the listener cause you can know the work of two or more bands in just one tape or cd and it’s also cheaper. Sometimes the bands also know each other just because the split they get in touch so there is the strengthening you talk about, a relationship between bands that can lead to a tour or new future split, so it’s important to continue with this kind of formats that facilitates things not only for the bands but also for bangers.

10. With the album now out, what’s next for FERETRO—more live shows, future recordings, or spreading the album through the underground worldwide?

Now we are focus on promoting our album as much as possible, we already have a couple of dates to play in different cities of our country, and an upcoming release of the album in tape here in Chile. Hope this year we can start to work on new songs but right now we are just trying to spread the album as much as possible.

11. Finally, for someone discovering FERETRO for the first time through this release, what do you hope they take away after listening to The Mortuary Destiny of Flesh?

Hope they open their eyes and really realize that’s the way we go; to be a bunch of worms because death is waiting for us and there’s nothing we can do, so I hope they enjoy their fucking life and get thirsty of more Death Metal to bang their heads!

So, go and get the album before Death gets you!

Thanks for the space.

NIHILISTIC HOLOCAUST - Underground Death metal and old school metal webzine/ Distro

The mortuary destiny of flesh | FERETRO | NIHILISTIC HOLOCAUST Recs