Embracing Perpetual Selection With FERDI From VANTA

Interview by Kris Peters
Perth based melodic death metal outfit VANTA returned with their debut full length album Perpetual Selection on March 13, a cinematic andconcept driven record that explores humanity’s darker instincts through the lens of cosmic horror, mythology and dystopian sci-fi.
Perpetual Selection is a sonic and visual journey inspired by Indonesian dark folklore and survival horror games to the brutal sci-fi landscapes of Dune and Warhammer 40K, transforming real world anxieties into symbolic narratives of monsters, collapse and rebirth. At its core, the album honours melodeath roots by fusing the aggression and heaviness of modern american death metal with the folkiness and melodic sway of early euro death metal.
The band literally ‘breaks down’ trauma, inner collapse and humanity’s obsession with forces it barely understands in songs like Stillwater and Sacred Light. VANTA’s creativity and experimentation in different extreme sub-genres can be heard throughout this album and is a bold statement that the pack are not afraid to push the boundaries and even make some of you...uncomfortable. As well as their sound, their art, lyrics and their symbolic music videos such as Kuyang, Empty Shells and Alchemy mirror the reality that is currently unfolding before us.
HEAVY spoke with drummer Ferdi to find out more, asking him to dive deeper into the musical side of the album.
"We want to explore the darker side of humanity and just where we're heading in general," he began. "Like you see all the things unfolding before our eyes and just around us. Compared to our Gravemind era, we sort of like touched on that more traditional Euro mellodeath sound. Like the Gothenburg riffs, the kind of early Children Of Bodum sound, and a mix with Dahlia nuance.
But with this album - because we wanted to explore more into the whole narrative about collapse and rebirth and just where the society is heading in general, we wanted something more extreme, more aggressive. And the three of us all love black metal very much. We love the early Dimmu Borgir gear, the Belphegor sort of sound, and the early Behemoth riffs. But all in all, the core sound is still MelloDeath and just blending it in more with modern influences, I would say."


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