RIVERS OF NIHIL PREVIEW NEW ALBUM, TOUR

AB: The seasonal concept idea was put in place initially to mirror us as a band and where we go as we get older and we continue this journey. The first record was about spring and how this is a new kind of experience.There is a lot of mention of birth and planting seeds of ideas and optimism. Now with fall it’s about how we’ve been doing things for a while and it just kind of wanes as you go. Fall represents sort of a erosion of that principle. As a group we are getting a little older and sort of reflecting on our loss of youth in a way. So when we originally started this seasonal concept it was a sort of guideline as far as the emotion that everyone puts into it when writing.

RM: What is it like working with Dan Seagrave?

AB: On all of our full lengths we’ve been lucky enough to have Dan do the cover art. When I originally went to him he was really excited about doing the seasonal theme so we decided to stick with him for all four albums (hopefully as along as that all works out). When I talk to him I’ll give him as much as I can about what lyrics and demos and songs to listen to and stuff like that and then I give him a rough outline of what I am seeing as far as what the cover is going to look like. I try not to be too specific when I talk to him because he is an amazing artist and he knows what looks good and is visually appealing whereas that is not necessarily my forte. He’s awesome, he’ll give us a couple of sketches of a possible ideas and we will kind of whittle it down into what we think is going to work the best.

RM: You are known for balancing brutality with progressive music ideas. What can people expect from this album?

AB: We had something we thought people liked with our last album Monarchy and a sound that was our own and had its own trademarks. We were talking about what we wanted to do with this record and we just didn’t want to do a sequel of that. There is going to be plenty of familiar elements, heavier moments and atmospheric passages like on the last record, but there is a lot more going on in terms of supplemental instruments and different kind of vocal elements and experimentation. There’s spoken word passages on the record. There’s instruments we’ve never used before. A lot of different sounds happening that you’re not going to hear on the previous two records. We just tried to branch out.

RM: I am hearing more melody on the album so far, is that something people can expect?

Ab: To a degree, yeah. Brody is staring to really hone his way around those atmospheric passages that sort of lend themselves to that guitar line that you can follow and hum along to. He’s getting better and better and on top of that, instead of using atmospheric guitar we will supplement it with some keyboard or some mellotron or something like that

RM: Have their been any line up changes since your last album?

AB: We had a new guitar player and a new drummer for the first time on the last record. We have a different drummer now from the one on the last record. He only stuck around for a couple shows after we recorded the album and then decided he wanted to go his own way. Then we had a couple fill in dudes for a little while and then landed on this guy Jared Klein who did a few tours with us and he did a good job.

RM: What can fans expect from the upcoming tour with Dying Fetus? Can you tell me a funny tour story?

AB: These are always hard questions! A lot of it is boring or I can’t say anything without incriminating anything. We don’t have a lot of time on stage being one of the earlier bands in the package but we are going to go up there and kick your ass.

Check out Rivers of Nihil on one of the dates below!