Last year, Polish bludgeoners Vidian thrust their second full-length upon us, and now they have found even more sludgy, posty heaviness to soundtrack our grittiest contemplations. A Piece of the End compiles four songs that coalesced unexpectedly during rehearsal, and Vidian have decided not to sit on them until the next album is ready, which is good, because sitting on anything this spiky-lumpy-grumpy would not be good for the posture. Check it all out right here, alongside thoughtful responses to our queries by guitarist Adam Borys.
This EP comes pretty quickly after full-length Transgressing the Horizon. Were these songs written around the same time as the album, or did they come later?
After releasing Transgressing the Horizon we were focused mostly on promoting the album, but at the same time, while jamming in the rehearsal room, some new songs came along. We were not planning to work on a new album yet, so we decided that releasing this music on an EP would be a good idea. It is a kind of an end of some musical era, as we want to create a new album from scratch.
What part of your musical vision or musical progress over the past few years are you most excited about or proud of?
We always try to make our new record a step forward. If you compare our first demo and our latest EP you will notice that it sounds totally different, you wouldn’t probably say that this is the same band, but if you also follow what was in between you should notice, that even if our sound and way of songwriting changed a lot, there is still the same element, it is hard to describe. I like to get surprised with the music we do and I know that a lot of people feel the same every time we record something new. I think that this is the thing I am proud of the most. That this is still Vidian, but we never recorded two things that are the same, that we constantly develop and try to search for new patches.
How do the personalities and interests of Vidian’s members blend to arrive at the band’s sound and approach to music?
You can say that in Vidian making music is some kind of a battle, as the band was never really focused on one particular style or sound. Every one of us has different preferences, a different vision of how our music should sound like. We meet somewhere in the middle. It is a compromise between our tastes in music, our approach, our personalities and every one of us has an impact on how our music sounds like. There is no certain philosophy in our approach to music. We just follow our intuition and finally we meet at the point where everyone is happy with what we did. The most important thing is to be honest to yourself, I believe. We all grew up from a metal music background, but now we listen to so many genres and artists… From extreme bands, grindcore, black and death metal, bands like Tool, Karnivool, through Massive Attack, Bjork to Nik Bartsch, Archive, Bon Iver, Elsiane. It is hard to say if all those bands are inspirations for us, but I believe that everything can be an inspiration from some point of view. Everything can make you feel the emotion that you want to turn into sound.
Is there an event or a person that you consider particularly important in your musical development?
If you are asking about people somehow connected with a band, then I can say that every person involved was important in their way. Every past member, every person we have recorded with, everyone that came to our show or supported as made us the way we are now. For me a band is like a living organism and we gather all our experiences, they build us, we learn from them. Of course there were few important moments – our first tour in 2011 with Blindead and Obscure Sphinx, releasing Transgressing the Horizon which was like a second debut, now signing with Arachnophobia Records – but every, even the smallest thing, made us the way we are, helped us to develop. If you are asking about musical inspiration – I don’t think that there is one that can be called “particularly important”.
Is there a driving theme behind the music on the EP?
We never plan to make any concept or a driving theme, but in the end it always seems very consistent. Our lyrics are not based on any particular topic, they are rather personal and in some way you can say that together they make a complete picture. It goes the same with the music. We never plan ahead, we just follow the sound and we decide on the way if all the elements are on their place.
What are your plans with Vidian for the rest of 2016?
Nothing suprising here. We want to promote A Piece of the End as much as we can, play live as much as we can. I believe that together with Arachnophobia we can go to places we have never been before. We are also starting to think about new music for a full album, but this part is still at the very, very beginning.
Get current with more Vidian knowledge at their Facebook and Bandcamp pages. Check out other Arachnophobia releases here.
