After nearly four hours of crushing sets, it was impossible to imagine the terrors death metal oddity Warp Chamber would bestow upon day one of this year’s Covenant Festival. The five young faces took to the stage as Covenant Circle cultists grinned in anticipation of the imminent sonic chaos to be unleashed upon the mostly unsuspecting crowd. As fast as you can say “eldritch horrors”, the pit split wide open as Warp Chamber’s frontman stalked the stage, his indecipherable vocals gurgling over devastating riffs delivered with Finnish precision. Going into day two, I could hear Warp Chamber’s name being passed around by Covenant devotees as they excitedly shared their favourite and most surprising sets of the fest so far.
Whether you were fortunate enough to attend the auspicious occasion or not, now is the time to catch a glimpse into transdimensional horrors unknown by way of Warp Chamber’s first, final, and only interview, as the band has now sworn itself to silence. Enter: the Warp Chamber.
I’d like to talk a bit about your debut album, Implements of Excruciation, which was released by the mighty Profound Lore in 2020. Firstly, the Lord Worm meets Antti Boman vocals are, complimentarily, indecipherable. It took the collaboration of a friend who happened to have a copy of the album for me to track down the lyrics. Without spoiling the premise too much, as far as I can tell the lyrics are an original sci-fi horror with a Lovecraftian bent. Would you be able to share the writing process of the album? Did this rather intricate story come before the music? It would seem that even the name Warp Chamber is taken from this very same fictional universe.
© Emberlit Ethos
We loosely discussed some general concepts as the music was being written and the lyrics were written around those conversations. We wrote that album while we were all living together in a fucked up rotting ass house in the woods of Western Washington. We would get electrocuted during rehearsal by the faulty power and there was a general ambient sickness floating around with all of the mold growing inside us. We would get uncomfortably high and watch horror movies and play video games and blast death metal. Throw a thing at a wall and if you slobber enough all over it, it might stick, do this like 50 times and we get a song. Really though we all like long rambling stories about weird shit.
As mentioned, the story itself is intricate; is it safe to assume the lyrics that are being sung are not exactly what can be found in the album’s liner notes?
Every syllable is accounted for, we assure you.
What I appreciate about Warp Chamber is while you have obvious Finnish influences (Demilich, Demigod, Adramelech), you also lean heavily into an old school New York death metal aggression that a lot of cosmic death doesn’t always achieve for me. There’s a lot of Incantation and even what I picked out to be a brutal Effigy of the Forgotten riff on the debut’s opener. Would you call this a conscious decision to meld those strains or is it a reflection of your individual influences?
We love those bands. Sometimes it’s conscious, sometimes the riffs just come out like that. We don’t really identify with the whole ‘cosmic death’ thing. To us, we’re just ripping off our favorite bands
© Emberlit Ethos
A lot of your riffs and melodies flirt with atonality. I’m curious if there’s music outside of the metal realm that influence Warp Chamber there.
Melody is hard, some of us spend a lot of time thinking about it. We listen to anything from anywhere if it goes hard, it doesn’t have to be extreme metal or whatever, just like rich in character or something. We all love Yellow Magic Orchestra deeply
The production on Implements of Excruciation balances an authentic old school grit with allowing each element to shine. Did you have any particular muses for the production that you shared with Earhammer and Resonance Sound Studios?
Greg is a wizard, where he tells us to unsuck, or to suck more, we listen to him and we have Greg to thank for being as “sucked” as we are today. Dan was just left with the trail of slime.
© Emberlit Ethos
What are some death metal bands that inspire you to keep pushing the envelope, especially in the current sea of OSDM revival?
Immolation’s later discography – Rob Vigna is a bonafide death metal guitar hero. Otherwise we fuck heavily with Mephitic Corpse, Necropsy Odor, Dipygus, Degraved, Deathgrave, Vorlust, Oxygen Destroyer and ManeateR
© Emberlit Ethos
Considering Implements of Excruciation was widely acclaimed, many readers would be eager to know what comes next for Warp Chamber. Can you share anything about plans for future releases? If so, would you continue to explore the universe that was built in the debut?
We recorded a track in the spring that will be used for a split 7″ with Benothing from Finland on Carbonized Records. A second record is in the works, but it’ll be awhile yet. And of course, we plan to continue our partnership with Profound Lore for all album releases. We will not be continuing to use any lyrical ideas from the first record. New concepts may deal with alien love, cyborg romance, an eldritch horror coming of age tale. Expect a lot more eroticism and graphic phallic imagery, so keep your eyes peeled and eye protection near!
© Emberlit Ethos
Do you have any final words you’d like to share with Covenant followers?
This is our final interview.
You heard it here, folks!
WARP CHAMBER HAS NO WEAK-ASS SOCIAL MEDIA
