NWN Podcast Ep 3: Chuck Keller (Order From Chaos/Vulpecula/Ares Kingdom) Interview

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Күн бұрын

This is a detailed interview with one of the most important extreme metal musicians still remaining in the underground, Chuck Keller. We discuss his musical career from the formation of Order From Chaos in 1987 to the latest Ares Kingdom album and everything in between. We spend almost an hour discussing his long friendship with Quorthon (Bathory), which, in hindsight, could've been its own podcast! Maybe we'll do another one with Chuck and Prof. Black whenever the Bathory book is out. Please have patience because we had some technical issues at the beginning and the editing isn't perfect. This podcast is still a DIY thing that I'm doing between other work so it's not going to be polished for a while. However you'll be hard pressed to find a podcast that will provide this level of underground metal knowledge anywhere else!
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Available here: shop.nwnprod.com
Ares Kingdom "In Darkness at Last" LP
ANTI-GOTH 625
-First pressing of 500 copies on unlimited black vinyl and limited marble vinyl.
-Gatefold jacket with PMS gold printing.
-A2 poster.
-12"x12" booklet.
-First 100 orders will receive the limited yellow/gold marble vinyl.
(Description by J. Campbell)
Immediately after completing the recording of “By the Light of Their Destruction,” released in 2019, Chuck Keller, the brilliant guitarist and compositional mastermind behind Ares Kingdom, began writing material for another album. He spent the next year working on a body of songs that he intended as a companion to “By the Light of Their Destruction,” viewing the new material as an extension of the preceding work. Entitled “In Darkness at Last,” the band’s fifth full-length is inarguably their most aggressive recording to date.
Still operating as a trio consisting of Keller, drummer Mike Miller (Order From Chaos), and bassist/vocalist Alex Blume (Nepenthe, Blasphemic Cruelty, Perdition Temple), Ares Kingdom continue to refine, polish, and sharpen their sound-a caustic assault of precision deathrash. Every track on “In Darkness at Last” evokes the majesty of violence and the entropic preeminence of decay as Keller’s guitar rides triumphant upon the chariot of Miller’s drumming, drawn by the furious power of Blume’s bass. Indeed, there are few bands in the underground whose degree of musicianship rivals that of Ares Kingdom. One can hear the intuitive chemistry between the band members, crystalized from decades of playing and performing together.
Set against the feverish and visceral energy of the music, Keller’s lyrics are, as always, erudite and esoteric, transmitted via the belligerent roar of Blume’s vocals. Continuing with the thematic approach of the last album, Keller has recently redirected his gaze upward, toward the celestial light that predates our existence and the myths of ancient gods that once inhabited the heavens-thematic through lines of the last two albums. There are other points of contact between “In Darkness at Last” and its predecessor. Of course, the contrast between light and dark is the most obvious relationship between them. The cover art for the two albums is similarly dichotomous. The artwork for this album depicts the city of Pompeii with Vesuvius erupting above. A column-lined building stands atop the hill in the foreground. Though the two paintings are unrelated, the image on “By the Light of Their Destruction”-of a comet lighting the distant sky as seen through a series of Romanesque columns-is a view from within what could be the same building, inverting the vantage point and providing an inside-looking-out perspective.
Less apparent is the albums’ ontological link to Vulpecula, both having been inspired by Keller’s prior work in that band. And as with Vulpecula, the conceptual impetus of the first side of “In Darkness at Last” is predominantly astronomical. A more direct connection between the two albums is the continuation of the “Litany” song cycle. Begun on “By the Light of Their Destruction,” the series reemerges on this album with “Litany II: Apotheosis,” a five-song suite that consumes the entire second side of the LP. Such multi-part song cycles were a regular compositional feature of Order From Chaos but have not previously appeared in the Ares Kingdom catalog. Summoning a theme from an earlier work, the album’s penultimate track-and the centerpiece of “Litany II”-“A Wolf on the Fold,” is inspired by Lord Byron’s poem “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” which is also the title of an instrumental track on Ares Kingdom’s second album, “Incendiary.” In this way, “In Darkness at Last” is not only a companion to “By the Light of Their Destruction” and the culmination of Ares Kingdom’s recordings to date, it draws together the various threads of Keller’s entire body of work, presenting a unique and uncompromising vision of metal that remains unparalleled in both its breadth and quality.
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Пікірлер: 29

@paulus3317 11 ай бұрын

Thanks for these interviews. Really enjoyed this one and the R Förster one. It's probably unlikely but an interview with J Read or Helmkamp would be brilliant. If anyone can pull that off it would be you.

@DarknessovHezrou 2 ай бұрын

They are all top notch and also agree....

@into_the_storm_of_steel Жыл бұрын

More of these interviews please! Looking forward to seeing Ares Kingdom again

@zensei999 Жыл бұрын

I'm waitiing for Order From Chaos merch

@allegedschizophrenic7903 11 ай бұрын

A repress or just a shirt would be enough

@efrenjosephdepaz4672 11 ай бұрын

Patches would be killer too 😉

@GabAssbreaker Жыл бұрын

Chuck Keller is a great story teller, every interview i have read or listened from him is a blast, such a cool guy, not to mention his skills as a musician.

@user-oi6pv4tl6q Жыл бұрын

Great guy. Wrote to him as a 15 year old sending him a tape with some stuff. He sent me back a tape with Vulpecula and other stuff and a long letter. And the message for the Malaysian band I recorded on the tape with which they were really content as it was a guy who already was well known in underground metal at that point.

@karlhaikara1629 Жыл бұрын

Amazing interview! Really enjoyed hearing about Order From Chaos days and his progression as well as his relationship with Quorthon, you should definitely do a second one about Ares Kingdom more specifically. Keep it up!

@takeda780 Жыл бұрын

I love these interviews. Kudos. Looking forward for all the other episodes that will come.

@DarknessovHezrou 2 ай бұрын

This is a really good interview guys. Would love to scour that bookshelf 😂

@shalo6669 Жыл бұрын

Thank you for starting this podcast. Recently found your label. Really cool context here from OFC because I'm an Angel Corpse fan from the demo era. Cool to hear some of the Pete stories and the Bathory history. Plus Chris is an intellectual which is a great listen to hear him verbalize the history of such a barbaric musical scene. Thank you for what you do. SHALO666

@vince-j Жыл бұрын

Huge Order from Chaos and Ares Kingdom fan! Thank you Yosuke for this podcast, these conversations are gems! PS. Hope to meet you at Never Surrender later this year and also, is it useless to hope for Ares Kingdom as a late addition to the lineup? :)

@geraldbayley5781 8 ай бұрын

Thought it would be boring but was pretty fascinating. Good interview🎉

@necromanticproductions Жыл бұрын

Order From Chaos!!!!!

@BrotherhoodofSteel-zh7ty Жыл бұрын

Order From Chaos is Elite Black Metal for Elite people. One of the first USBM bands along with Profanatica. If I may ask how come the Stillbirth Machine reissue doesn't have the original Wild Rags album cover? That cover was badass and kinda reminds me of the Celtic Frost "To Mega Therion" album cover.

@schmoopen 11 ай бұрын

I'm pretty sure it was because Wild Rags didn't legally get permission to use that painting for the album cover, so labels that tried to do a reissue weren't able to use the original cover.

@nonserviam4813 11 ай бұрын

Order from Chaos is not Black Metal you poser