Cephalectomy pour l'album "An Epitaph To Tranquility"

Hi Corey. Only one year has passed since “The Dream Cycle Mythos” got reviewed on Thrashocore, and it's already time to have its successor featured here. It's funny to see that there is so little time between the two records and that at the same time so many things differentiate them (songs length, lyrics …). What's the reason for so much change in such a short timeframe?

Well, we just like to try and do something a bit different each release, it gets tiresome just trying to do the same thing all the time so we always try and keep "our sound" in tact but also change things up a bit to hopefully avoid becoming too stale. We knew after doing a 23 minute song that we wanted to hit the other extreme and do something we have never really done before and that was write a bunch of short songs.


One of the differences between the two last records that you have mentioned during our last interview is that song structure has become much simpler… After having paid special attention to that point, I must say that it is not blindingly obvious, given that you manage to keep your music sounding very close to what you offered on the previous releases … I mean your songs don't really sound any more simple or basic than before, far from that! Can you tell us more about what / how far things have been made simpler in Cephalectomy music?

I say the music is simpler because we went with less layers this time, usally i'd have more layers for guitar and vocals but I decided to keep it more simple this time to hopefully let the other instruments have some extra room to cut through, aside from that, the fact that the songs are short made them much easier to write and while they're not "standard structure", the structures to the songs on the new album are more standard for me and a lot of the songs share a very similar structure. The whole idea with this album was to just have fun with it and see what happened, this album came together very quickly.


I've heard bits of mathcore gimmicks this time (at 0:36 on « A Submergence Of Will », 1:19 on « The Accumulated Conscious » or 0:24 on « The Urchin Peel »), and I don't think I've ever witnessed this kind of parts in your former releases … Should I get back to them and listen more carefully, or is that true that you have let the door slightly open to this new musical influence?

I must admit, I don't really listen to mathcore so I find it hard to identify these sounds with that style, so that was certainly never the intent. We have done stuff like this before, there's a few instances on our split cd where we use sounds like these, like in "Sanity's Final Requiem", there's a part with pick scrapes and tapping, as well as Eclipsing The Dawn, there's "The Ghosts of Reprisal and Strife", which has some punches and tapping sounds. We just like to have fun with our music and try and add some silly parts, or weird sounding moments, or stuff that is different from what we've done before.


It's obvious that one of the main changes with this new LP is the length of the tracks … You were listening to punk, grind and crust while writing the new material, or is it just a urge to try a new approach?

After doing the 23 minute long song, The Dream Cycle Mythos, we just wanted to hit the other end of the spectrum. Some people didn't really like TDCM due to it's length so we thought it'd be interesting to see how people would feel about shorter songs. Not to mention, It's a lot easier to write a short song then one big long song and after doing TDCM we just wanted to do something that was a little more "fun" and not so much work.


« The Urchin Peel » features a really light metal'n'roll part at 1:27. I must admit that it works quite well … Is that a path you might walk a little bit further on future recordings?

Well, none of these things are really a conscious effort, it just seems to come out that way, I think mostly we just look for different stuff we can do to mix up the variety of riffs going on in songs, without compromising what the band has always been about. That said, you're never going to hear us "sing" on an album or jump on the next sub-genre trend that hits the scene, it's always been about us using our influences and making music that we like. We figure, if we like it, surely someone else will too. As for future recordings, it's really hard to say what will come of those, when we were working on "An Epitaph To Tranquility", we were pondering whether or not to keep going with the band or finally lay it to rest. We have an idea for a 3 song EP that will be quite different from anything we've done before should it see the light of day, but aside from that there's nothing planned for the future.


I have the CD and thanx to the booklet I have seen that some songs (« A Loathsome Ceremony », Freedom of the Enlightened » …) obviously deal with more down to earth subjects that what you did before. But the other songs stay more cryptic to me – a poor French guy with a so so level in English. For me and all the people that have downloaded the album, can we have a hint to what the new songs deal with?

Well there's definitely a mix of stuff going on, usually we tend to base our releases more around one subject, but that was one difference with this album. The album title we felt worked well given that there is no real order to this album, it's all over the place. To give some examples, "The Splintered Pupil" is about someone who has dreams of searching for truth in god only to find deceit and lies and loses his sanity while trying to rid his own life of it's influences and ends up killing himself. So a few songs deal with religion, Sons of Tellervo is based around Finnish mythology, "The Accumulated Conscious" is about the birth of a demon, "Architect of Abomination" is about the end of humanity, and so on, I don't want to give it all away, but that should help give a bit of an idea. Jason's writing style definitely doesn't always make things obvious but I think that's partially what makes it as good as it is.


“An Epitaph To Tranquility” is available for free from your website and you have only pressed a few copies for the most fetishist of your fans. You seem to go into a more and more un-commercial path aren't you? Have you abandoned all hope of getting signed by a big metal label and earn some money from your music? By the way do you still try to attract labels' attention?

Honestly, at one time, being on a big label seemed like a nice idea, but at this point, it's really all about fun for us, We're not in this for money, or to be cool, and we don't play live, so it all comes down to us just having fun and releasing some music. What better way to get it out there than to give it away for free? The internet is the biggest free distro in the world. However, we know some people like to collect cds and that's why we did the pre-order option, but we don't sell a lot of cds and we also like to be in control of the music so hunting for a bigger label just really isn't appealing for us at this point. That said, if we had not given the new album away and had just sold cds, the album wouldn't have reached nearly as many people as it has, so it just makes sense to give the music away. Most bands have to pay to make their albums (studio fees) and that's where sellings cds comes in handy, it's a way to hopefully make some of your investment back. Thanks to our home setup for recording we have very little expense for recording, so it keeps things easy and allows us to give away the music without suffering from any financial debt.


Peter Mestre is now a full time Cephalectomy member. Given that you don't tour, you don't really get any cash from your music and that Jason write the lyrics while you're doing the music, what's the actual difference for Peter compared to when he was only a guest (on “The Dream Cycle Mythos”). He has become a full time guest :)!? Or he now has to rehearse on a more regular basis? Or does that – building a solid and ever growing line up – means that you still think about touring and bring Cephalectomy a step further one day or another?

Well, when Peter did vocals for us on the Dream Cycle Mythos, I don't think he expected to be as big a part of it as he ended up being. I also pretty much just told him what to do, and where to put his vocals and such, with the newest album he actually put in a few of his own ideas and helped make suggestions for stuff, not to mention that being a member of the band means anytime a future recording might surface that he'll be part of that. So, while not a huge change from being a guest vocalist, it's a bit a of change nonetheless. You may also see my vocal participation decline and find more Pete in my place in the future, but we'll see what the future holds when it comes. As for the thought of touring and such, no, at this point there's no consideration for that, sorry folks.


On myspace, as a taster for the new album, you propose “A Submergence Of Will” as well as “Architect Of Abomination”, 2 tracks that I personally consider as the least solid tracks on the album, together with “Tide Of Substance” … According to you, is it just a matter of tastes (and mine are fucking bad! :) ) or maybe it means that you want that people first pay more attention to THIS side of Cephalectomy's music, while THAT other side(s) will come later, with the whole record (and in this case could you please explain what THIS and THAT mean here …)

Well really, there's not that much thought into it. "A Submergence Of Will" is actually one of my favorites so I naturally put that one up there, and Peter seemed to really enjoy "Architect Of Abomination" so I figured I'd throw that one up too. I really don't even pay that much attention to myspace, we put some blog updates up from time to time and accept friend requests and such, other then that we don't do much with it. At one time I use to try and push the band a lot but with so many bands out there now, it's that much harder to get noticed, and since most of the band members are busy with other stuff too (Peter has a full time band and has school, I'm now in another band and have school, Jason works a lot, Scott works a lot and is also in my other band) we just don't have the time/energy to push ourselves like we once did.


Do you know how many peoples have downloaded the album so far?

I'm not sure really, off our website, in the first month we had about 5000 downloads but that's all I know, I haven't paid a lot of attention and the album was posted on a ton of torrent/blog sites, so who knows really. It seems to have made it's way around a bit though which is nice. it's always nice to know some people have taken the time to check it out.


Thank you for having answered my questions Corey. I hope that Cephalectomy will go beyond the “cult” status to reach the “successful” line. As usual, your last words will give an end to this interview. Feel free to speak your mind freely!

You're welcome! Thanks for the interview, and to everyone who has taken the time to check out the new album and has supported us over the years. Be sure to visit our website : www.cephalectomy.com for updates on possible upcoming releases and merch. Cheers!!