Bilocate pour l'album "Sudden Death Syndrome"

Hi guys and thank you very much for giving some time to answer my questions. First, can you present the band to our readers ? What's behind the name Bilocate ?

Waseem EsSayed: Thank you for conducting this interview, it's so much appreciated, Bilocate is a Dark Oriental Metal band from Jordan, consisting of six members - Ramzi EsSayed (Vocalist), Ahmed Kloub (Drummer), Rami Haikal (Guitarist), Baha Farah (Guitarist), Hani Al-Abadi (Bassist), and me (Keyboardist).

The naming of the band was suggested by my older brother at the early days as it reflects exactly what's behind the concept of the band's creations which's in my point of view (and might vary for each member) developing a direct connection between 2 sides of music (metal darkness and aggression/Middle Eastern stress, pressure, seriousness and melancholy) and we tend to feed each side a little bit from the other one, meaning that we can create Dark Oriental music without having it in metal flavor, it's like we are visiting 2 different places concurrently, referring to the literal definition of the term Bilocation - Being in 2 different places at the same time.


You guys come from Jordania. What's the metal scene condition and which are the most important bands in your country ?

Waseem EsSayed: The Jordanian metal scene has always suffered from lack of understanding by the authorities and press in all streams (security, social, religious), it's just that for them if you like this type of music then you must be a Satanist, you get treated differently, looked at differently, and you get to be questioned every now and then, we can't play live in our own country and recently it was made crystal clear that it's prohibited to even have a band, but we are still there trying our best and hoping that one day we would succeed to change this negative image drawn to people about metal music and bands and fans relating to it.

I'd like to mention Tyrant Throne as a highly recommended Technical Death Metal band from Jordan.


I know that many bands hate to categorize themselves but here, in thrashocore, we definitely love to put bands in boxes. So what genre are you affiliated ? Death metal ? Doom ? Black ? Glam rock with stupid clothes ?

Waseem EsSayed: We prefer to categorize Bilocate as “Dark Oriental Metal”, this is a conceptual categorization not a structural one, it's by which we define our music concept (Tones) not music structure (Riffing, speed, vocals … etc), and in fact we would appreciate it to be categorized in this genre.


When I listened to « Sudden Death Syndrome », I thought OPETH for the progressive structures, EDGE OF SANITY for the brutal content and the early SAMAEL/PARADISE LOST for the slow/symphonic parts ...

Waseem EsSayed: Yes, you're talking about structural aspects of music as indicating such like (progressive, brutal, slow, and symphonic); well… how many structures are there in metal music? I believe that music is melody + structure and we tend to direct our focus towards developing unique tones and then applying the best fit structure to them, so I recommend to go back and listen to “Sudden Death Syndrome” again with focus on the music rather than the structure and I'm sure you'll think Bilocate for that.

Ramzi EsSayed: So far we have received many reviews and comments about Sudden Death Syndrome and all were great, the fact that when you listen to the album you feel that it's a combination of many great bands gives Sudden Death Syndrome a unique atmosphere, the album is surly Bilocate and yes we are influenced by Opeth, Novembers Doom, Edge Of Sanity, My Dying Bride and many others but we have our own vision and creativity in music which you can hear throughout the album, that for sure gave Bilocate a unique sense of music and helped us in creating our own genre “Dark Oriental Metal”


The songs are very ambitious but never boring, and the alternation between acoustic guitars, piano and fast druming is very well balanced ...

Waseem EsSayed: Yes, the composing process in Bilocate is so precise to the smallest details, we try our best to deliver something with no weaknesses or flaws, and with time we always try to enhance our compositions.


The strong guttural voice gives « Sudden Death Syndrome » the necessary intensity for there aren't such brutal parts in the songs. Any clean voices to expect in the future?

Ramzi EsSayed: Bilocate music is about Anger, Sadness, and Depression, so what you feel when you listen to Sudden Death Syndrome is a reflection of our feelings, harmonic clean vocal will be there in some parts in the future but the growling vocals will be always the main tone in our releases, we take clean vocal as a passage to the story of the song to explain what will happen next.


I'm glad you didn't forget to include heavy parts in your compositions. There are great guitar solos and the bass guitar on « Blood Forest » reminds me « The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner » (yeah, the Maiden neverending song) ...

Ramzi EsSayed: Blooded Forest is a master piece which takes the listener from one mood to another, from anger to sadness, and from brutal atmosphere to darkness, the variations that you liked made the 17 mins track worth listening to and enjoying every sec of it, the feedback from everyone made us realize that our message was delivered the way we want it.


Like Dan Swanö or Dave Mustaine, is there a tyrant in your band that compose everything or do you write songs in a more democratic way ?

Waseem EsSayed: The music of Bilocate is the combination of thoughts from 6 members, there's no tyrant, and I only coordinate the work among the members and maintain the philosophy of our music.


What about the lyrics ? As I got a digital copy, I'm curious to know about it. Not the typical gore writings I think. Maybe something more subtile, like NILE or SEPTIC FLESH do ?

Ramzi EsSayed: You can always find the lyrics online in darklyrics.com, mainly I write the lyrics with the help of my brother Waseem in a track or two, lyrics are always about what we face here in our region, we take our feelings and thoughts and put them in words, so mainly its all about War, Death, and Sadness, the lyrics are about real things we live and have lived all our lives.


Can you tell us more about the instruments you used on the recording of « Sudden Death Syndrome » ?

Ramzi EsSayed: You would find the normal instruments used such as guitars, bass, drums and keyboards and we have also used Arabic instruments in this album like Oud and Tablah (percussion), using such oriental instruments with metal music surly will differ the sound from what you normally hear in metal, the use of oriental scales and sounds has given Sudden Death Syndrome its own mood and atmosphere.


I also liked very much the production of the album. It sounds very natural, very honest and when I listen to it, I get the feeling that I'm suddenly back in the 90's ...

Ramzi EsSayed: As you know the co-production and mastering have been done by Jens Bogren, a great producer with great professional experience and we are glad to have Sudden Death Syndrome co-produced by Jens, as he understood what we want and gave us amazing results, deep and epic but clear ambient.

Special thanks to Jens for his great work and support.


So what's next for the band in 2009 ? Any plans for touring ?

Hani Al–Abadi: 2009 started as a good year! Specially as being nominated for the best doom metal album category in metalstorm.ee, anyway we're planning to have a tour at the end of this year around October, and hopefully if things go well we will surly meet up in person!


What do you know about the french metal scene ? And please don't answer GOJIRA (just joking) ...

Hani Al–Abadi: Well, most of the scenes in Europe differ from the Middle Eastern in terms of acceptance to some extent; wither from the people or the government! My point of view is that the scene allows people to breathe; therefore, forming bands is much easier! For instance Bilocate's 1st live performance was after we release the EP and Dysphoria! So we couldn't perform live because of the situation and tension we faced from the society.

However, France gave birth to a lot of good bands! And you already have Hell-fest and other festivals, lately I got aware of Arkan (a band with Algerian roots) however, I'm sure we will get to know much more when we visit France! Looking forward to it!


Any album you 'd like to recommend to the thrashocore community ?

Hani Al–Abadi: Bilocate – Sudden Death Syndrome, all Opeth albums, actually for this question I'll need like 10 pages to answer it :), check our influences, and surly most of you know them already!


Well, thank you wery much for your time. The last words are for you.

Waseem EsSayed: Thank you, we appreciate this interview, looking forward to meet up with the French scene, keep it thoughtful!