XML FeedsKAT'S BAND OF THE WEEK: HESPER PAYNE
By Kat Genocide on Feb 21, 2011 | In Features, Features, Features | Send feedback »
KAT'S BAND OF THE WEEK 23 – HESPER PAYNE (UK)
Time for another UK band this week, and I have picked a quite unknown band from my native North East of England called Hesper Payne, who I only came across quite recently and who impressed the hell out of me with what is best described as Lovecraftian death/doom, full of eerie and sinister atmosphere, a very fitting tribute lyrically to the works of HP Lovecraft as well, a main source of lyrical inspiration to the band.
The band's debut full-length 'Unclean Rituals' (released in 2010 via Works Of Ein) is a 9-song affair, full of Celtic Frostian riffs and tempos swathed in keyboards mixed with some of Morbid Angel's slower moments and death metal complexity, and also the doomed-out, crawling heaviness of early Cathedral to create a very dark sinister atmosphere. The vocals of Brooke Johnson are like a mix of Tom G Warrior's more dramatic moments mixed with black/death growled/screamed vocals to normal-sung, doom-style vocals, which are quite quirky sounding at times with some eerily spoken word parts thrown in for good measure. His vocals are very diverse throughout and are a perfect compliment to the very eclectic music on offer here.
This album shifts tempos and you never quite know what to expect, which is a good thing, they keep you guessing as to what they are going to do next. There are a lot of very progressive sounding lead guitar parts throughout this recording as well, which pop up every so often and become the main focus of a section.
The opening track 'Hesper Payne' sets the pace for this musical journey into a Lovecraftian world filled with stories of gruesome, horrifying, bizarre-looking creatures, like the one which adorns the album cover. Second track 'Empty Emperor' continues the Frostian vibe, and is definitely one of the standout tracks for me on this recording personally, and one which immediately stood out for me when I saw them live very recently at a Grindhouse show I put on in Durham City. Some other standouts are 'The Maiden And The Mariner', which opens with a superb monstrous doom riff that brings to mind early Cathedral and this riff rears its ugly head throughout this song. The band pick up the tempo again with 'The Derelict Alert' before slowing the pace back down for 'Lord Of The Green Abyss' and 'Doomed
From The Cursed North' injecting some more gargantuan heavy doomed out riffs back into this mystical musical melting pot.
This album crawls and slithers its way through a myriad of musical styles, from Celtic Frost via the crushing doom of early Cathedral to death metal, continually keeping things interesting with some quite twisted discordant sounding parts. It really is hard to put these guys into any one genre as they transcend all boundaries, they really do have quite a unique vibe going on whilst still sounding familiar. The keyboards and Celtic Frostian tones and tempos remaining a present feature all the way through.
This very charismatic album is full of shape shifting darkly atmospheric moments from beginning to end and is an album that you really need to sit down and focus on to really get the most out of your Hesper Payne listening experience and to fully appreciate the musical diversity that is on display, it definitely is not something you should just put on as background music, it is an album that deserves your full undivided attention.
Before the full length the band released an EP titled 'Titans Of The North Sea', a 3-song affair that is more of a direct brutal in your face affair to my ears, compared to the more complex atmospheric songs on the debut full-length album. A demo titled 'Dreamer Of The Deep' preceded this release.
I recently sent some questions to mainman and guitarist/vocalist Brooke Johnson about the origins of Hesper Payne and the future plans of the band and he provided me with some great in depth informative answers which will give people more of an insight into the world of Hesper Payne.
I understand Hesper Payne has been in existence for quite a few years now but you have only recently became active live, why was that? Please give abit of background history on the band ,what bands influence you etc..
Brooke: "I wrote the original material that would be the first Hesper demo back in late 2003 but never really took it anywhere because I couldn’t get it to sound right. In 2004 I got my first seven string guitar and the shop set it up wrong so I could tune no higher than G, I hit the bottom string which went BWOOOAAAAAOOOOMMMM and made my guts rattle and realised that’s what the original doom riffs had been missing. So very quickly I wrote and recorded the 'Unspoken Kults' and 'The Black Witch' demo’s.
“I'm originally from Tee side which had a very small, very inbred and cliquey local scene at the time and I just could not find any one who wanted to form a band to play this kind of thing. Even people who really dug it preferred to play it safe and stay in bands playing music they did not like because they thought it had a better chance of achieving something than Hesper did. It was very disheartening but I enjoyed the material too much to let it go so sent out cdr's to anyone who asked and continued writing. Eventually I had the material for the 'Dreamer In The Deep' ep in 2006 and got Ian Fenwick and Dan Mullins from my other bands Axis of Perdition and Mine[thorn] to play bass and drums on it. Everything has always been home recorded but with this EP I felt my ability was good enough to call it an EP rather than a demo. This got some good responses and was even distributed by the phsychedoomelic label, toward the end of 2007 we briefly had a full line-up but for various reasons the others quit just before our first gig and I briefly folded the band, luckily Dan stepped in, learned the set in a day and we pulled off a killer set. After this I moved to Newcastle and started working on the 'Titans...' ep which again got a ton of great reactions but even in the larger city I could not find a live line up so I forged on with writing 'Unclean Rituals'. Then a mate in Manchester offered us a slot at T sponsored night last year so I said yes and the guys in the band I play bass in agreed to help me out and they have been since and I’ve known Alex for a few years and got her to play live after she played on the album, Hesper is her first band and performances outside classical recitals.
“Musically it was Cathedral, Celtic Frost and Morbid Angels slower stuff that influenced us but over time other bits have crept in mainly from Mastodon, Nevermore and Devin Townsend. I would say that the musical inspirations where minor to the lyrical ones, when I write music I’m not trying to sound like a certain band or style I'm trying to use the music to illustrate the concepts in the lyrics. So instead of saying ‘this riff will sound like early cathedral’ I will approach it as ‘this riff will sound like something ancient waking from slumber and heaving itself from the leafy soil’.”
Where did you get the band name from??, I know you are heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft lyrically, are most of your lyrics based on his works? who or what else inspires your lyrics?
Brooke: "Hesper Payne was a character mentioned in passing in a story by Lovecraft and later by one of his correspondents (I’m pretty sure it was Henry Kutner’s ‘The Salem Horror’). She was a witch and the subject of the song of the same name which was the first track written back before the band had its name. I’m not sure how it came to be the bands name, it just suddenly seemed to be the right choice so I went with it and now it seems like it could have been nothing else. HPL was the initial lyrical instigator and originally pretty much all of the lyrics where Mythos inspired. I’ve always had an interest in local folklore and mythology and have been an avid fossil nerd so from Titans onward that’s been the main inspiration. Having said that things still get retold with a lovecraftian slant, a whole lyrical world has grown from this alternate north-east and eventually I will get round to doing illustrations, paintings and maps to flesh it out.”
What can we expect from Hesper Payne in the future, what plans have you got right now?
Brooke: "Well we are currently working on a new EP and writing material for a second LP both due out... eventually but the EP should hopefully be this year. We also have a split with another awesome UK doom band planned but that is early stages at the moment so I cant say too much on it. We are always up for doing splits and contributing to compilations so get in touch if you are interested. Time permitting we would like to do more shows around the UK so again get in touch if you want us to bring some doom from the cursed north.”
You are also a long time member of experimental black metal band The Axis Of Perdition, what is happening with this band right now and is this band still your main musical focus?
Brooke: "TAOP is a unique entity in the way it functions so it and HP will always be able to co exist without any conflict of interest, additionally the creative elements I bring to both bands are very different so there’s no cross over. Currently I’m in the middle of mixing the 5th Axis album ‘Tenements (Of The Anointed Flesh)’, which is due out at the end of April on CODE666 records.”
Hesper Payne [who currently consist of the main recording line up of Brooke Johnson (Guitar/Vocals), Ian Fenwick (Bass), Richard Pickman( Drums), Alexandra Durning (Keyboards)] are a band clearly striving to stamp their own mark and identity on their music whilst drawing strong influences from different extreme musical backgrounds and other bands, a very interesting musical entity with a very adventurous approach to creating extreme metal. If you are looking for something just that little bit different then check out 'Unclean Rituals' and sit back and immerse yourself in the crushing dynamic dark atmosphere that will sweep over you like a north sea wave breaking against Redcar beach on a cold stormy night.
you can download the full album at
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