Interview with ESPEROZA’s Zoya Belous and Dmitrii Prihodko

By Alex on December 7, 2015

Symphonic extreme metallers from the Moldova’s capital Chisinau, Esperoza are on the verge of releasing their sophomore studio album “Aum Corrupted.” The band that is one of the artists from the Prog Sphere PR‘s roster answered our questions about their work. Singer Zoya Belous and guitarist Dmitrii Prihodko talked with Prog Sphere.

Define the mission of Esperoza.

D: The mission would be mostly experimenting with music, pulling bits from different places and try to rearrange them in meaningful way. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t, but hey, it was an experiment after all, and most importantly we had fun doing it.

Tell me about the creative process that informed your new album “Aum Corrupted” and the themes it captures.

D: Life around us, and within ourselves was always getting darker and more twisted, and so as a solution, as a therapy for that, we decided to make a dark album, and through make personal peace (at least try to achieve it).

What is the message you are trying to give with “Aum Corrupted”?

Z: Life is hallow and meaningless, and so fucking harsh, but you constantly fighting for something, and all your life is an eternal struggle for countless useless things… It’s just a little touch of what has this album in it, at least on lyrical perspective.

How did you document the music while it was being formulated?

D: Well mostly it was done in one awful, but nonetheless popular, tablature software. But sometimes built in recorder in phone comes in handy. One song on this album was conceived and written in DAW project, it was a new and fun experience.

Is the dynamic flow of the pieces carefully architected or is it an organic outgrowth of performing them together?

Z: Yes, it’s more elaborated process, we don’t compose music together, Dmitrii writing all music, I after this making vocal lines, and Vadim can change some drum parts, and that’s all.

Describe the approach to recording the album. How long “Aum Corrupted” was in the making?

Z: It’s tough to say whether it was long or not. Because for example we have two songs written in 2007, when it wasn’t even in plans to have this project. Of course they were modified a lot, nevertheless the main structure remains the same. All remaining material was written already in 2015, precisely for this album.

Which bands or artists influenced your work on the release?

D: Well the first thought about this album arose in my mind listening to King Crimson’s “Red” album. I thought, for the time it was released, this was really dark and heavy stuff, and I thought how would this album sound if it was made today. And so, Esperoza took this noble mission. Along the way, influences coming from Meshuggah, Immolation and Celtic Frost’s “Monotheist” tagged along.

What is your view on technology in music? Do you see the band’s music as serving a purpose beyond music?

D: Obviously, since we tag ourselves symphonic, and we’re not that rich to hire an orchestra, we praise technologies for giving us this ability to express ourselves. As for the second part, yeah of course, besides the art itself, what we do helps us understand what we are and where we’re headed. It’s basically a snapshot of current things, and that is quite valuable, at least for us.

What are your plans for the future?

Z: Like any other bands we have in plans albums, tours, festivals, videos, nothing special But if we talking about nearest plans, that would be release of our second album, hopefully successful, filming other two videos, and of course organising second edition of our festival. This is it for now, we hope you will listen our new album when it will be released, and like the result of our hard work