Concrete Winds Interviews

Concrete Winds is a Finnish band that if you don't know where they come from, can give you the idea that the band comes from another musical background and that it is one of those bands and one of the very few in their country that truly present you with the concept of extreme chaos in every sense. The first two albums cannot be classified as just Death Metal, Grindcore, Black Metal, or whatever they consider extreme, because the band within these ideas has a violent, technical, brutal, and wild concept that speaks very well of the band and overflows with personality wherever you look, because there are not only classic instruments, but they mix everything. So, 3 years after their tremendous "Nerve Butcherer" (2021), their self-titled album released through Sepulchral Voice Records is now on the speakers.

Para leer la entrevista en español: Entrevista a Concrete Winds

Metallerium: Welcome guys to the pages of Metallerium, it is a tremendous pleasure to talk with you about Concrete Winds, this new album and many other things related to the metal world. We'll start by asking, how are you? How was the band in recent years? 

Concrete Winds:  Thank you and likewise. Recent years have been productive and intense but of course quite different due to most of the band’s short history taking place during 2020-22 and its conditions. 

Metallerium: Talking about this new album, when did you start writing songs for it? Are all the songs new or did you rescue any compositions that were left out of previous albums? 

Concrete Winds:  Almost exactly (even on the day) one year before entering recordings the first song of the album was written. The last touches on the final three(?) ones (not quite sure) were finished on the same day or a day before recording them. All new. Old ideas stay thrown away once they have been left out or thrown away the first time around with few exceptions. 

Metallerium: Are you always working on new music, or do you prefer to focus on it once you've finished touring? How do you decide when it's time to work on new songs and a new album? 

Concrete Winds: Always working in some way or another but definitely we enter periods of intense focus and obsession once we have decided on the end goal. We usually plan out everything quite meticulously and try to bend everything around that to fall in line when it comes to timetable of release and following tour/gig schedule. All the while letting madness take over during the process, with no boundaries.

Metallerium: Concrete Winds has always had a varied sound within the black metal genre. What sounds can we expect on this new album? Are there any new sonic elements? Has your way of composing and recording songs changed much over time? 

Concrete Winds: Our way of writing stays mostly the same. The two of us have done forms of what we do together since we were actual children around age 11. However what we do incorporate is a no limit/no rule (except for a few necessary ones to maintain complete brutality) outlook on creating which keeps our aim straight to achieve more devastation, nausea, and confusion with each release. 

Metallerium: Many bands and musicians see each album as a child, each one special in its own way. It's a bit of a cliché to say that each new release is the band's best, but do you consider this fourth album your best work to date? If so, what are the reasons that make this your best album? 

Concrete Winds: It is the third album. But on the subject of a fourth one, and to answer the question, each new one should be better than the previous one. Until that one is done, this one is our top one - this can also be cliché but holds a stern truth for us: what we put out latest should always be, in our ears and eyes, the best (or worse in terms of feeling), we have made. If we do not feel that way there is no point for us to continue. 

Metallerium: Speaking of promoting this new album, what are the band's promotional plans for this new album? Maybe some tours, some videos, or maybe you're working on a new album. Who knows? 

Concrete Winds:  Play shows and tour is our aim. New material in some way or format.

Metallerium: Being a band with a very varied sound, how do you see the issue of labels? Fans and the media always try to label bands and start playing with words like symphonic, black, death, thrash, progressive, metal, etc. So, how do you describe your sound yourselves? And are you still considered as a Death Metal band? Because from my perspective, you have a lot of styles or more.  

Concrete Winds: We aim to make disturbing and crushing (aggressive) noise torment and demote our previous material with whatever tools and force we can obtain. Firmly in what we would categorize as Death Metal we stand in our own opinion. 

Metallerium: One thing I noticed about the band since "Primitive Force" (2019), is that the songs are short in length and the band's albums are short in general, less than 30minutes. So, does this idea of making the songs short have something to do with the tendency of the new generations, who don't pay attention to long albums or songs? Or is it a natural process of doing things with Concrete Winds?

Concrete Winds: Instead of forcing a song into a lengthier piece we let the song itself command the process. We strive for a state of actual panic and displeasure with our structures. We perhaps forced and tended to dwell on parts and riffs for too long earlier, we do not have time for that anymore.

Metallerium: How do you feel the fan reception to the singles has been to promote the new album, such as "Infernal Repeater" or “Subterranean Persuasion”? How do you usually choose the singles for the new album considering that your sound is very diverse, and it would be difficult to have one song that encompasses all the music you put on each album?

Concrete Winds: From what we have heard it has been good though we don’t aim to please, some may enjoy and some may not for different reasons. Choosing singles did the work itself this time. We are a “complete/full-length album”- thinking people, and in the end, the full release stands for itself in its full form. But of course, one is able to present different introductions to the release as a whole depending on the choice of singles. Now it is all out in its entirety though so the ones interested may make their own interpretations. 

Metallerium: Speaking of the Finnish scene, it's curious that a band like Concrete Winds has a wilder sound in every sense, and even the album covers are abstract. Because from the 80s until today, the Finnish scene has had more stable interpreters of well-known things. How did the idea of forming a band like Concrete Winds come about? Because it feels like you have no limits to make the wild something more overwhelming. 

Concrete Winds: We needed to do this and cut everything loose in sense of rules and regulation. This serves as a manifestation of all that makes our blood boil with the madness of all things extreme in music and beyond spanning from a very young age up until now, a collection of influences and insanity up until now so to speak. We have always hunted for the worst and most disgusting we can come up with and this was the band to devote to it. 

Metallerium: One thing I noticed about Concrete Winds is that you don't have a very strong presence on social media, and you could even say that this band is aligned with extreme music fans. So, is this idea of having a small presence on social media intentional? And what do you think are the positive and negative aspects of these tools for an extreme metal band?

Concrete Winds: We don’t have an interest in social media except for the most basic “required” to get information out and likewise to gain information. Not big on it in our personal lives either so only for the band's sake do we do the least of the necessary. 

Metallerium: Well guys, we come to the sad moment of this interview, I hope you enjoyed this interview as I did and thank you very much for your time. "Concrete Winds" is a tremendous album from the band. Maybe you have something to add to your Latin fans and Metallerium followers. 

Concrete Winds: Thanks for the excellent questions, interest, and words on the band/album by yourself, regards and salutations! AGGRESSIVE NOISE TORMENT!