Alternative progressive death doomers RIVER OF SOULS have released two full-length albums, and an EP, along with a single as well! They are currently at work on newer material, set to be made into an EP out next year sometime. For now though, the band just keeps on creating and releasing music and playing live shows whenever the chance comes to be. See what else the band talks about below.
1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
The band currently consists of Bart on vocals, Paul and Mathijs on guitars, and Koen on drums. Unfortunately, Benjamin, our bass player, decided to stop playing in bands a few months ago. River of Souls was founded around 2014 by Paul, Bart and Benjamin with the intention to write music that combines all sorts of metal, ranging from Death Metal to 70's Rock. It ended up in a sort of doom/death metal concoction we ourselves nowadays call “Doomed Heavy Death”. “Doomed” because we mostly use melancholic sounding minor scales. “Heavy” because of the way we compose tracks, which is based on NWOBHM (mainly 80's Iron Maiden and Metallica), and we tend to write heavy sounding riffs 😉. And “Death” because the Death Metal is very present in our sound. We have all played in Death Metal bands before we joined River of Souls. We could have added more styles to the description of our sound, but these three are the main ingredients at the moment.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
The subterranean river Styx, swarming with the souls of the dead. The river can take you across realms and dimensions like a portal. Very much like how music can work...
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
We're from The Netherlands. There are thousands of good bands coming from The Netherlands but if you narrow it down to our specific style, I think Laster, Into the Arcane, Officium Triste, Beyond Our Ruins, or Phlebotomized would make a nice package with River of Souls for a show. Laster's sound is based in Black Metal, but they do have a similar approach to combining styles.
4. How would you describe your style?
As said, Doomed Heavy Death would be our best genre description. Furthermore, our music is guitar oriented with a focus on the musical journey on which we combine styles if necessary. The vocals vary from low grunts to more clean but raw sounding vocals. Or as a reviewer once put it: “A fine flow of molten metal that solemnly waltzes forward on a dark stygian stream until it reaches its destination“.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
We have just released our second full length album “Usurper” in May. Before that we released our full-length debut album “The Well of Urd” in 2017, an EP in 2018 and a single in 2019. Both full-lengths are concept albums, meant to take you on a ride through places dark and light, existing deep within us as well as affecting us from the outside.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
We are working on a few new tracks and are thinking of releasing an EP sometime next year.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
We had a few shows planned in May to support the release of our album, but COVID-19 took a steaming dump on that one... So now we are back rehearsing the live set to come back and support our music with live shows as soon as it will be possible again.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
Keep on creating and releasing new music and doing live shows. Sound wise, regarding new music, it will become more of a group effort. All the music on the two previous albums was written by Paul, but Koen and Mathijs are currently also in the writing process for new tracks. Even though the main sound will remain the same, we expect a little shift in style. Paul tends to add more 70's Progressive Rock parts to the existing style, but Mathijs tends to add more brutal sounding Death Metal parts. It will probably simply result in a more expanded River of Souls sound. The main ingredients will stay the same.
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
Listen to us on Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube or other streaming platforms. And please follow us via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/riverofsoulsband and visit our shop at https://www.riverofsouls.nl/.
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
Well, each experience will be different, but we imagine the best way is to lie down and listen to the albums from front to end and hopefully it will pull some right strings so you will come back to enter the River of Souls again with us!
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