At the Hartford, CT stop of the “In the Minds of Evil North American” Tour, Ghost cult scribe Tim Ledin was able to sit down with Christos Antoniou, lead guitarist, songwriter, and composer of Septicflesh to chat about a great many things. This past June, Titan (Season of Mist) came out, and it is pretty much a titan, it’s a huge follow up to the last one, The Great Mass (also Season of Mist). Titan was highly anticipated in the press, and has landed on many 2014year-end lists, including a respectable spot in Ghost Cult’s Album of The Year Countdown. In this first installment of in this series, Tim asked about the critical and commercial buzz facing the band, as well as the response from fans about this crucial release in the bands long career.

“…It looks that it will be our most successful album. From the press, from our fans, all the feedback, all the responses is really enthusiastic! Up until now we have done four or five (magazine) covers in Norway, France and Belgium, even Album of the Month. As I said, it looks it is going to be our “Titanic” work, we are very proud about and it is our most mature work. It is a big challenge for us, for the next album that will be after Titan. But, you know, we said the same for Communion, how would we overpass Communion? But we did with The Great Mass. Then we had the same concerns with The Great Mass, but again, we did it. Because we are really focused when we write music. We want to create something with originality, something fresh. We are always searching for something fresh in the elements.”

As with any release from a top tier band, the hype machine goes into to overdrive at some labels. Season of Mist has a label of mainly veteran metal bands, and they know how to promote their roster creatively. We asked him about the possibility of a new promo video, since Septicflesh is such a theatrical, visually stunning, and creative act:

“We will be touring Europe in March. Before this, we will create for only the second time a video clip. I do not know which song yet, we have to discuss this when we have the time to decide which song. We have reached the time that we have to make a video clip.”

Although our chat was wide-ranging, and covered a lot of other topics, you could say Christos’ attitude, and the entire band, is one of gratitude at this stage of their career:

“I want to thank all of our American fans that have supported the band all of these years. Even in the years we split from 2000 to 2007. We will always be loyal to them. We will always try to create something with artistic color and create something fresh. This is our main target for Septicflesh.”

Septicflesh on Facebook

TIM LEDIN