Exclusive Interview: Tectonic Displacement talk “The Futility Of Man”!

Our journey through this Metal life has taken us to Kiruna, Sweden and Tectonic Displacement, a quartet who impressed us with their EP “The Futility Of Man“. The band create Melodic Death Metal with Progressive leanings which is something that everyone can enjoy while sinking a cup of Skull Crusher Coffee, a shot of Jägermeister or even simply a beer. And why not? We’re starting a campaign to get them to Newark Showgrounds for Tech-Fest in 2022, which is frankly where they belong.

You unveiled your debut EP in mid-January so how long have you been a band? How did you get together and how long have you been working on the material? “We have existed as this band since early 2018, and have been working on a lot of different songs since then. Pontus joined us in early 2020 and the rest of us were in a previous band together called Yxmord (Swedish for axe murder) which was more of an old school death metal band. The band ultimately fell apart, which left us without a band for a while until we decided to get together again and start playing different stuff.”

Your sound is one of Progressive Melodic Death Metal. How did you develop the sound from where you started out to the final product? “Hard to say really, all of us have been listening to a lot of progressive/technical death metal and prog rock/metal in general for a long time. It’s our favourite kind of music so I suppose it just came naturally that we wanted to try and do something similar. We weren’t really inspired playing old school death metal in the previous band which is a big reason why the band fell apart. Creative differences within I guess. Don’t get us wrong, we love old school death metal but that’s not what we wanted to play.“

Lyrically the EP is a bleak affair with a certain amount of anti-humanist feeling. Do you consider it to be a concept release? Do you have further ideas of concepts for future releases? “It’s not supposed to be a concept release, I suppose that’s just a general theme/outlook in the lyrics that comes across some times. A future concept release would be cool but we have no such plans at the moment.”

What was it like working with Johan Karlsson (Toxic Crypt, Reaper’s Mark, Long Road To Success) at JSK Audio on the EP? How did the decision to work with him come about? “Working with Johan was great. He’s an easy going, fun and knowledgeable guy to work with. We already knew him somewhat from previous encounters in the tiny metal scene in the very north of Sweden. We listened to some of his work with other artists and thought he’d do a good job, and he sure did. Also his studio isn’t that far from where we live so we could easily drive there.“

The artwork by Andreas Johansson for the EP is stunning. What was it like working with him? How important was getting the right artwork for the release? We’ve always felt that, like food, the first bite is with the eye so if you’ve never heard a band before, but the band name is interesting and the artwork is appealing then it’s enticing, even in the digital age. “Andreas is our friend so working with him was no issue. We had some pretty solid ideas of what kind of artwork we wanted to have for our EP and he nailed it. Cover art isn’t the be all end all but still pretty important, and the one we got does really catch the eye. Andreas played bass for a while in our previous band. He is also a vocalist in another local melodic death metal band called Chaos Within as well as having a solo project called Of The Cold, good stuff.“

There are no guests on “The Futility Of Man” but if you could bring a guest to appear on one of your future songs, who would you like to work with? “If we were to bring in a guest for a future release we would probably bring in someone from the local metal scene. We’re a pretty tight knit and small metal community in the general area where we live. Maybe we would ask Johan from Toxic Crypt, Jakob from Reaper’s Mark or Andreas from Chaos Within to do some guest vocals. If they would want to that is. They’re all great guys and vocalists. But then again, maybe we won’t do guest appearances either. We’ll see what the future has in store.“

What does the future hold for Tectonic Displacement? Are you looking forward to taking these songs into the live arena? “We’re super stoked to play our stuff live. We were ready to start playing live back in 2020 after Pontus joined the band but then covid-19 hit and ruined everything so we’re just stuck in limbo ever since. Who knows when things will be somewhat normal again and bands can start playing live again. We’ve got a fairly large amount of song material in store so more music will follow. We’ll probably release a single next, quite possibly in 2021“

“The Futility Of Man” by Tectonic Displacement is out now and available over at bandcamp.