Exclusive Interview: Banished Realm talk “Impious Rumination”, Artwork and Album plans!

When you live on the edges of an uninhabitable landscape it seems to be the most inspiring thing on the planet. Death Doom Metal purveyors Banished Realm have the latest in a long line of bands to appear from Australia and after the Perth natives shared a two track debut EP in “Impious Rumination” back in the summer, we took some of their precious time to talk about the shape of punk to come…

What makes a group of seasoned musicians known for their prior convictions in Population Control and Unravel to name but a few want to dust off their instruments once more and start a new project in Banished Realm? “Both of the bands mentioned above played the same type of music in the vein of socio-politically charged grindcore with a touch of the Swedish Buzzsaw HM2 sound, so when both bands coincidentally called it a day within months of each other it may have been the case where the members who all played in said bands wanted to do something different naturally in addition to something more darker and more epic musically”+

You only formed in late 2022 but recorded your debut EP “Impious Rumination” in April 2023. How did you manage to get a couple of songs together so quickly (and nail them)? “All the members of the band have played and listened to all types of heavy music for decades now so when it came to doing a band like Banished Realm we feel we were all on the same page. As far as the writing went we actually felt it took ages to come together! But I suppose when you go from writing 30 second bursts of violent abrasiveness to 9 minute long depressing dirges that tends to happen haha!”

We always say that even in the digital age, the first bite is with the eye and it has to be said that the artwork from Sang Ho Moon of Vhan Artworks & Printing you have on the record is incredible! How did you go about choosing it and what do you feel it says about the project? “Thanks! With Vhan Artworks & Printing we came across him randomly when his work popped up on social media and we took notice of the detailed, dark imagery he depicts within his art. The cover artwork that features on ‘Impious Rumination’ portrays a mutilated celestial figure who appears to be falling, which actually comes from lyrics found on the song ‘Forsaken of the Empyrean’. We contacted Sang Ho Moon about creating artwork with this concept in mind and within 24 hours he supplied us with the artwork you see on the cover today”

If we’re the product of our genes and our influences, who are your influences and what are in your genes? “We listen to all kinds of music from death, doom, black, prog, traditional to hardcore, punk, dbeat, power violence, the list goes on… As far as Banished Realm goes our main influences include 90’s Finnish death metal, the Peaceville doom bands and even some Australian Funeral Doom bands thrown in for good measure. But as said above we’re influenced by everything under the sun”

What are your aspirations for the project? Would you like to release an album in 2024? Tour Europe? Play a major festival? Swipe an endorsement with Meinl for your cymbals? Get a signature model Ibanez? “We’re hoping to try and release a full length LP some time in 2024, as avid record collectors many of us haven’t had the luxury or experience of having our own bands’ vinyl to hold in our hands so that’s probably at the top of the list. Everything else mentioned above in the question would be sick to achieve eventually but at this stage we just want to put out solid music that we’d listen to as fans of this music, even if we weren’t playing it”

What’s next for Banished Realm? There is a live set online which includes a song called “Mangled upon Mountains”, do you have any plans to commit that one to tape? “That song will probably end up on the full length LP we mentioned in the previous question, but yeah as far as 2024 plans go, it’s basically playing shows wherever and whenever, writing and eventually recording”

“Impious Rumination” by Banished Realm was released on 28th July 2023 and is available over at bandcamp.