Exclusive Interview: Michel Anoia talk third album “Nervures”!

An astounding piece of Power Violence meets Avant-garde Black Metal history in “Nervures” from French trio Michel Anoia landed quite literally in our laps ahead of its release last month and once we’d heard it once, we were addicted as the band leap through rings of fire in Metal subgenre form with consummate ease. Once we’d scraped ourselves off of the floor as if kicked squarely in the face by the album, we spoke to the band who filled in the gaps in our memory…

Ahead of the albums release, how did you find the reaction to the music video for title track “Nervures” when it premiered at the beginning of August via The Circle Pit YouTube channel? “First of all, we would like to thank Austin Weber from Metal Injection, who follow us for more than 6 years now. Austin is a really good guide and helped us a lot to connect with people who might enjoy our music. The reaction were pretty amazing actually ! Since the beginning we used to have strong binary reaction, like rejection or attraction, regarding what we offer it’s pretty understandable ! But for now feedbacks are awesome, people give us very strong words to depict deep feelings they had, it’s so heart-warming and unexpected for us !“

We’ve made comparisons to Full of Hell, Imperial Triumphant and Dillinger Escape Plan in our review of the album but what would you say were your influences going into recording the album and why ? “We listened a lot of Black / Death albums with dark ambiances at this point, like Krallice and Ulcerate, which wasn’t completely in line with influences we gave for guidance to David Cook, the engineer on Nervures, such as ‘Obscura’ from Gorguts and ‘Skullgrid’ from Behold… The Arctopus ! There is something about orchestration in Ulcerate’s music, something very dense and wide, like you were surronded by it and we’ve been inspired by that, especially on the guitar’s track, with multiple layers, especially with complex chords. David Cook was also very active in the recording process and the idea we might have before going in studio changed a lot in the process. He always had some special idea or reverb or else to make us try, it really added something to the song at the end. Vocals were recording last and were composed in studio. It was is first time recording vocals and properly screaming on a full record (Arnaud from french grindcore band Haut&Court was the singer on Plethora). Charles tried to think them as an other instrument, and because he wasn’t fixed on a scream style, he experimented differents ways and left the door opened to what he wanted to hear. He was a lot inspired by Mikael Åkerfeldt’s and David Davidson’s vocal energy. By the way and about Full of Hell, the end of Rubedo is a nod to Chip King vocal style, from The Body, which Charles heard first from the amazing album Ascending a Mountain of Heavy Light from both bands“

Parting is such sweet sorrow; you’ve said that “Nervures” is your third and final album; was it always intended to be when you started writing it? Do you plan on playing any shows around the release or is the album intended to be a swan song for Michel Anoia? “‘Nervures’ was supposed to be the next chapter, a growing child from a mature trouple who finally going back to what they really wanted. Instead it tore us apart, we pushed ourselves in different directions, where you don’t come back. So no, there will be no concert around the release, but ‘Nervures’ isn’t intend to be our swan song neither ! We want to make him alive, we just don’t know how and when at this point, Michel Anoia will survive in one way or another!”

What will be your lasting memories from your time together? What have you loved about being in the band the most? If you could go back and do it again is there anything you’d change? “We can remember that Michel Anoia cannot make a full tour without a van breakdown ! More seriously, we loved playing together, we had this rare alchemy and common taste for our kind of music that guides us in an uncompromising direction of writing which always was a complete fulfilment of our needs. The past 10 years were crazy, and if we could go back, we’d change not much, maybe trying to be more efficient in non-musical aspects like booking, communication… we don’t like it much so we weren’t effective !”

Do you have any other musical projects in the pipe line? They say never say never, so do you think there is the possibility of a return for Michel Anoia at some point in the future? “The drummer Ugo is involved in other projects : LOVGUN and HORDUR, 2 grindcore/powerviolence bands in Lyon, FR. For the rest of us, Charles (Guitar & Vocals) and Simon (Bass), not really. As we said above, we keep this possibility in mind, we just don’t know how for the moment”

“Nervures” by Michel Anoia is out now and available over at bandcamp.