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Interviews : “Sharing our music with fans new and old” – Interview with Joao Goncalves (Orpheus Omega)

By on April 2, 2019

Orpheus Omega has returned with new album Wear Your Sins and an ambitious Asian/Australian tour alongside Omnium Gatherum. I caught up with guitarist Joao Goncalves via email to discuss the album and the tour.

We began by discussing the new album, with Joao explaining to me: “The process has changed a bit over the years, but this is the first time we have gone into a writing process altogether and worked on songs, structures and individual aspects as a collective group. It took a long time to get everything perfect but it was a very organic and fluid process overall… we really wanted to build on what we had done previously with Partum.Vita.Mortem and so we really played to the strengths of that and what we have been doing over the last few years to just try to capture the mood and feel we all had.” I was also curious about the development of their sound, noting an increase in metal/deathcore influences in the clean vocals and grooves on some of the album’s tracks. It was explained that: With ‘Suffer’ for example we sought to write something that was heavy, groovy and unrelenting and those aspects inevitably are a focus in genres like deathcore, but I think we managed to walk the line between what we do and what may have influenced the vibe of the song nicely. As for the clean vocals we liked what we did on PVM and wanted to build on that to create catchy hooks on songs that we felt would benefit from that sort of layer.

Despite the new influences, I noticed that Orpheus Omega had developed a clear, personal musical identity on Wear Your Sins and I asked if this had been a conscious process. “No doubt, and I’m glad you can hear that. I think all bands have nods to their influences in what they do but having the ability to develop a sound that is inherently yours can be tricky. We’ve really been focusing on trying to build on what we have done in the past so that when one of our songs comes on people can say ‘Hey that’s Orpheus Omega’ and that’s a good feeling… Music is a strange beast in that it develops in very strange ways and some bands change very dramatically over time, which sometimes causes issues in their fan base, but the reality is you can’t decide what your creative process brings up so you just have to roll with it… I think at this stage we are very much focused in on what we believe is our sound and that’s a good feeling.

Turning to the tour, I asked what the band were most looking forward to sharing with their fans: “Just sharing our music with new fans in Japan and sharing it with old and new fans in Australia. We love to meet people and get out there, so we just can’t wait. It is never a dull moment on tour so that makes for very special memories… for us, the whole purpose of being in a band is to be on stage sharing what we feel we do best. We have developed a lot over the years and we have some cool new things in our live show to make it all the more exciting for people“. I was also curious what came to mind when he thought about Australian metal: “Hmm, maybe the Haley brothers (Psycroptic) eclipsing musicians the world over on every release… but seriously I think the amazing diversity of sounds we have here, there’s so many great bands that we have seen and played with over the years I’m never bored at a show.“

The new album Wear Your Sins, out now via EVP Recordings.

We closed things up by discussing the process of developing Orpheus Omega in the recent Australian scene up to the point of touring with big international acts: “It has been fun, stressful, tiring, hard, exciting and all the other adjectives you could add. But, above all things, [it]has been rewarding and humbling. We feel very lucky to be at this stage in our career and can’t thank our friends and fans in the scene enough for their ongoing support. At the end of the day, it’s having strong, positive networks that help you build up and grow and we are committed to always working towards that with all the people we meet… thank you to everyone involved on this new album, just get out to a show, buy some merch and keep supporting live music.“

Fans can catch Orpheus Omega on tour nationally across Australia this April thanks to Soundworks Direct. Tickets on sale now.

The new album Wear Your Sins is now available on limited edition vinyl and jewel case CD editions via Nerve Gas Australia. For more information, head to the band’s official Facebook page.

About

Ben is a metalhead originally from Sydney, who has now moved to Hobart to pursue a PhD in Australian extreme metal. When not studying, writing about or playing metal, he can be found playing video games, browsing Reddit, knitting, fending off his cat or helping out at his local church.