Triagone releases its first EP.
Born in Belgium, the project counts on Lorena Moraes (vocals), Lou-Indigo Caspar (vocals/guitar), Lucas Lembert (guitar), Leonard Ivanciu (bass) and Lorenzo Vissol (drums) for the release of Sem Papyrvs.
The observation quickly comes with Novvs Ordo Seclorvm, the first track, the band perfectly masters its Death Metal! We have complex and fast patterns, a visceral violence characterized by a massive blast and overpowering screams, but also an abrasive melodic touch. The alliance of the two voices allows them to cover a quite large range, perfectly combining several languages with the unstoppable rhythmic which continues with Abyssvs Abyssvm Invocat, a jerky composition which lets once again all the band’s influences come together to create an as explosive as aggressive mixing in all circumstances. The video will help us to realize this track’s extreme speed which constantly hammers us but which still leaves room for piercing leads before Ad Mortem Sem Papyrvs comes to crush us with its massive groove. Only a vocal sample will manage to soothe the waves of violence surmounted by devastating vocal parts, which guides us to Nvlla Regvla Sine Exceptione and its more mysterious tones which lets absolutely all the strength the band ruthlessly spreads, just like inspired leads. Once again, the vocal alternation allows the band to keep us on out of breathe until the soothing final leads us to De Beata Vita, a very short composition which will highlight the rhythm section in a dissonant atmosphere before letting leads drive us to Imperivm In Imperio, the last composition, which skillfully combines technicality and pure violence on a high tempo supported by massive blast.
Triagone is one of those bands that know how to play fast and well, and they prove it to us at every second. It’s hard to believe that Sem Papyrvs is only this extremely promising project’s first EP, which will undoubtedly make itself heard very soon.
95/100
Few questions to Lou-Indigo « Loukele » Caspar, guitarist and singer of the band Triagone.
Hello and first of all thank you for your time ! Could you introduce yourself and the band Triagone, without using the usual Metal « labels » ?
Lou-Indigo « Loukele » Caspar (guitar/vocals): Hello, I’m Loukelele (Lou-Indigo Caspar) and I’d like to introduce you to the Brutal Tech Death band Triagone! We are a band emphasizing speed, brutality, melody/harmony and is inspired by Metal, Baroque Counterpoint, Mesopotamian music influences, as well as touches of Latin American music rhythms. The whole thing is sprinkled with a mixture of guttural male and female voices in several Latin, dead and alive, languages.
What is the link between the name of the band and the music you play?
Loukele: First of all I have to go back to the origins of the name of this band. It’s a hybrid word inspired by ancient Greek, which we came up with together with Lorenzo Vissol (drums). Lorenzo‘s first idea for the name of the band, which is philosophical, was about Agon. It is a term that designates a form of duel, whether intellectual, artistic or sporting. We can see it in a very synthetic way as a joust opposing 2 different visions which confront each other in a fight of ideas. In a second time I thought of Triagone, in direct reference to the Greek name Trigone which means three angles, that is to say the Triangle, in parallel with my inspiration of the links between mathematics and music, like certain demonstrations of trigonometric relations which one can find in the circle of the fifths, the demonstration of the scale of C major granted to Pythagoras and its demonstrations on the triangles etc… In the end it is a mix between these two concepts, giving a third way of reflection on the name of the group. Everyone can interpret it in his own way and develop the philosophical and/or mathematical side. The link that can be made with our music is obviously first of all technical: I use a lot of mathematics of music for the harmony, the melody and of course the arpeggios which are really my riffs and solos’ signature, and which form beautiful triangles on the scores. But we also have a very critical message towards the pyramid society, an analogy we like very much is that of the slave who builds the pyramid stone by stone to climb the ranks of society, in vain. In this pyramid structure the struggle is unequal and pits the oppressors against the oppressed.
Sem Papyrvs, your very first EP, is released at the beginning of the year. How do you feel about it? Have you already had any feedback?
Loukele: Indeed the release of our first EP represents for me a difficult but extremely satisfying birth. It’s a project that I started with Lorenzo several years ago and we had many unforeseen events along the way. First of all to find the right line up for us, and then Lorenzo and I had other opportunities in other bands and we took our time to finalize this project together in parallel with touring, recordings, and music lessons that we did on our own in our respective projects. We first learned together, then separately, then together again we worked on our musical identity and message. Once we found our permanent bass player (Leo) and lead singer (Lorena) we felt ready to finally record our first EP in late 2019, initially of 4 tracks, which was already fully written. We later found the last member, Lucas, who was taking regular guitar lessons with me. Then came the Covid period, so we postponed the release and during that time we produced 2 new tracks, recorded in 2021, so we have our 6 track Sem Papyrvs EP. As of today when I am answering the interview, we have only released 3 of the 6 tracks, and we have modest but very gratifying feedback. We also won a nice place at the Gullegem Metal Fest and a nice release party in Antwerp, so the future of Triagone looks promising. For the moment it’s still a bit early to evaluate the feedback because it always takes several months after the releases and the first gigs to see convincing results, but I can already say that I’m looking forward to the reactions for our latest single on the Imperivm In Imperio list. It is according to all of us our best track and of course we save it for the end.
How did you manage the composition process? How did you come up with the name and the artwork?
Loukele: As far as the composition process for this EP is concerned, first of all the songs are written by me and I model them in self-production with all the instruments, guitars/bass/vocals/drums programmed on computer. Then with Lorenzo we arrange a bit of structures, and Lorenzo writes completely other things for the drums according to his play and his ideas. We sometimes go back and forth between the guitar and the drums depending on how it evolves but it’s usually faithful to the first demos as far as the guitars are concerned, but for the drums it’s completely original and 100% signed Lorenzo Vissol. With Leo we analyze the bass parts, and Leo is a great bass technician. I usually write rudimentary tracks but with a precise and calculated harmonic function, then Leo shows me his tapping/slap/arping range techniques and we rewrite together so that it stays in harmony but is technically more complex bass lines, with a real bass player playing with fingers only. With Lorena we rework together the voices rhythms and textures and timbre. Usually I model everything with my voice and then we record everything again together with Lorena. As Lorena arrived late in the band she doesn’t have 100% of the vocal parts nor any written lyrics from her but it’s something I would like to change already for the live shows where she will also sing some of my lines and for the album where I aim for an 80% Lorena vocal ratio, against the current 50/50 split of lyrics time. This is already the case for our 6th song and I appreciate this proportion much more. Lucas being the last one to arrive and still very young, he didn’t participate yet in the writing of the songs, except on a counterpoint riff where he rearranged the line I had written for him, always on the 6th song. As for the title of the EP, we came up with it together with Lorena from a play on words between Latin and Portuguese. « Sem » means « without » and « Papyrvs » means « paper ». It refers to anyone who has a difficult or precarious situation. Not to be confused with « undocumented » (sensvm papyrvm) because our idea includes a broader set of people than illegal immigrants. Paper is what allowed many societies to build themselves, whether to make accounts, to materialize money in bills, diplomas, administrative documents, to write or even to draw one’s history and that of others, and so on… So anyone who would be in deficit of one or even of all these possible identities. A person without identity, without wealth, without history, without diploma, etc… For the artwork it’s an idea from Lorenzo who wanted to make a representation of the work of Saint Augustine, De Beata Vita, an essay that deals with the search for happiness, in an open and unfinished way. To represent this idea he had the idea of the journey that matters more than the destination, and therefore also that of the oarsman, the migrant on a boat, heading towards his new life. I then suggested to make it sail in the sand to accentuate the absurd and impossible side of this journey, to write in Sumerian the name of the boat and then cyberpunk and dystopian elements to suggest in fact a new post-apocalyptic prehistory in the future after an economic and climatic collapse of the current modern society. It’s even more interesting because we all chose an artist for this drawing who specializes in ancient/medieval/religious/renaissance drawings. At first glance one might think, because of the style of the pencil line and the way the body is drawn, that this is a scene from the past in antiquity (and see in it a reference to Kharon sailing on the River Styx for example).
What inspires you to create your music? Same questions for the lyrics, and their many languages.
Loukele: What inspires me to write my music is a lot of baroque music. I love the harpsichord as in the pieces of Pancrace-Royer or Padre Soler, violin as in the works of Paganini, and the church organ as in pieces from Bach. As far as my inspirations coming from Metal are concerned, my favorite album that represents for me the link between Death Metal and Classical music is the first album of Fleshgod Apocalypse, Oracles. But I really like Nile, Cannibal Corpse, First Fragment, Archspire, Morbid Angel, Vital Remains, Necrophagist, Behemoth, Belphegor… as far as Death Metal is concerned. These bands are my main inspirations for sure. I also like Black Metal a lot for its musicality but I moved away from this scene because of its politics. I also listen to a lot of Rap music, less for the music but mostly for the lyrics instant impact, which I don’t or rarely find in Metal with saturated voices. Apart from that I like music a lot, so it’s more about the band/artist than the genre, but they are not necessarily immediate inspirations. For the lyrics, I’m always inspired by the same emotion, the one of marginality in an individualistic society where you always have to think about yourself before thinking about others. It deeply bothers me. And the idea of having them in several languages comes from several things, a group that fascinated me for a long time is Anorexia Nervosa. You have French, German, English, Latin, and all that sometimes in the same song! And Behemoth for its lyrics in ancient Greek, Aramaic, English and Polish… Music is also a language that has several origins and versions depending on where and when you are in the World. I am fascinated by the diversity of ways to communicate with languages, and they all have their own unique charm. The travels I have made either for personal pleasure or for touring have greatly reinforced this feeling. I try to transcribe my emotions in the languages that correspond best to their respective musicality. Unfortunately I am limited to a few languages, if I could, I would like to speak all the languages of the world and put them all to music!
Even if Sem Papyrvs is only the band’s first EP, I felt a lot of maturity and an assumed violence, coupled with a great technicality. Which bands do you consider as your influences ?
Loukele: Indeed there is a certain musical maturity on our part on this first EP because we all had in this group experience with our different projects. So we did things in the most professional way possible and we invested a lot of time and thought for this EP. We are not particularly inspired by any particular band but mostly by classical music, hence the extreme side in technique and intensity of notes!
How did you decide to create a band together?
Loukele: Lorenzo and I are the first 2 members of the band and we were put in contact by his older brother Andrea Vissol, the bassist and singer of my old band Dehuman. I joined Dehuman years later but we were all in the same high school! We’ve known each other forever and I spent a lot of time with them in my teenage years, building our music dreams together. Lorenzo and I spent a lot of time trying out different members until we found our bass player Leo during a Dehuman concert in Brussels. We knew by reputation that he was very good technically and that was our first criteria. He was involved in several less technical but very professional bands (Exuviated for example). He immediately hooked up with us on the idea of playing more technical music. I met Lorena during a tour in Brazil with Dehuman. She was playing at the same festival as us with her local band from Goiânia (Suttura). Lorena moved to Belgium with me afterwards and we did some Cannibal Corpse covers together! I showed it to Lorenzo and Leo and they really loved Lorena‘s voice and presence. Lucas is the latest addition to the band and he is a former student of mine who took lessons with me for 2 hours a week for 2 years. He is very talented and a hard worker. He is younger than us but we chose to take him anyway because I never found a guitarist with a vision and a discipline as close to mine, and it was not a compromise we could make in order to have a second guitarist at any cost.
Do you already have plans for the future of the band? Whether it’s in terms of live performances, new compositions, or anything else.
Loukele: We have a lot of hope, and of course we are planning to make an LP by perfecting our formula. For the rest I can’t say anything yet.
What led you to the Metal world at that time ? What was your first extreme metal band?
Loukele: What got me into Metal was a concert I saw by chance in a very diverse music festival when I was 10 years old by a French band you might know called Artsonic. For reasons I won’t mention here, I was in a lot of pain because of a personal situation and it was the first time I felt this sense of catharsis through the sound of distorted guitars and screamed voices. It was sung in French and their first song was Revolution/Hacktion. I could understand the lyrics and the rebellion in this music in its message. It never left me. I don’t remember which was my first extreme metal band but I would probably say Behemoth or Vital Remains.
Are there any musicians or bands you would like to collaborate with? Whether it is for a track, an album…
Loukele: So I know this might sound surprising, but my dream featuring would be with King Ju from Stupeflip. He already did a featuring with Lofofora by the way which makes me think that it could still work with an even more extreme Metal. Otherwise with Phil Tougas from First Fragment, with whom I took my first music lessons last year, this guy is great and in my opinion he is probably the best guitarist of our century. One last person I think about is the former singer of Igorr/Corpo Mente, Laure Le Prunenec. Her voice pierces my sensitive little heart and makes me cry every time. She is the only person I would accept for a clear voice in Triagone because she knows how to do so many textures and she also knows how to sing saturated with her inimitable tone. I also admire her deeply for her virtuosity and the range of her octaves.
Last question, which bands would you like to tour with ? I’ll let you create a tour (or a single show) with Triagone as opening act, and three other bands!
Loukele: I would be super happy to do a Behemoth, Archspire, First Fragment, Nile and Triagone bill. Behemoth doesn’t fit into the Technical Death Metal style so much nowadays but I’ve seen this band at least 8 times and I would love to meet them.
That was my last question, I thank you for your time, and for your music, I leave you the last words!
Loukele: For the last words I would like to say that personally what matters most to me is the music in its most primordial essence. I am not looking for fame or fortune. I think there are artists who love the position that art gives them more than their art itself, and I hope I’m never one of them. I’m not a fan of doing concerts or tours, I find the whole business side of music detrimental to creativity that doesn’t seek to please or sell to the masses in order to boost the bottom line. I simply wish to spread my emotions and my vision through sound waves, to ease my mind. I am of course happy if it also provokes reactions for potential listeners, but I do it first for myself and share it for anyone who might also find comfort in it, as I have found in the music of others. Thank you very much for this interview.